Sunday Open Thread

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96 comments to Sunday Open Thread

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    1st tropical cyclone of the season – at last! TC ‘Hay-ill’, Cat 1 south of New Caledonia, looks like it’ll last 1 day before fading… and drifting south-east toward us. Huzzah! This should wind-up the alarmists and nutters: forget popcorn, I’m making pizzas! And a well-deserved whisky & dry… hoot!

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    • #
      PeterPetrum

      I hope that whisky is not a pure malt, if you are putting dry ginger in it 😜

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      • #
        yarpos

        To quote a lady at a local pub where they have a quarterly whisky tasting/drinking group “it’s my bloody whisky and I will put what I want with it” that question didn’t get asked twice 🙂

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  • #
    Greg in NZ

    HAY-ILL BOPP! 1st troppo of the year – at last! And then it was over…

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    • #
      Gerry

      Pizzas still on ?

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    • #
      el+gordo

      Extra tropical cyclone by the time it reaches the North Island.

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    • #
      sophocles

      Nah! A three-day wonder.

      Tuesday to Thursday … Blowy and Rainy
      but it too shall pass…

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      • #
        Greg in NZ

        And… it’s all over: ex-TC Hale couldn’t even manage 24 hours as a Category 1 (does that nullify its classification as a ‘tropical cyclone’?) though as you say, a good old standard ‘In from the east, 3 days at least’ nor’easter blow. Great for the rain tanks and reservoirs, for washing vehicles and cleaning streets, and a few good days’ surfing (well-away from cities/towns’ outflows).

        No, it’s not from The Bee: NZ Imports CO2 As Country Runs Out. But but Cindy said it was her nukular moment! CO2 bad, shutdown industry good! With our one (1) oil refinery ‘closed-down’ last year, and the sole producer (via natural gas) on-hold for ‘maintenance’, numerous industries are having to source the (miracle/essential) gas from overseas providers. Some Green heads must be exploding right now: What? No champagne?!

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Australian politicians typically refer to each other in Parliament as “the honourable”.

    1) Very few politicians are honourable.

    2) Very few politicians have an actual entitlement to be called that as mere membership of either upper or lower house does not qualify them. When they call each other that it is a professional courtesy only (unless qualified to be called honourable such as a government minister).

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    • #
      Broadie

      Australian politicians typically refer to each other in Parliament as “the honourable”.

      Probably a tradition associated with the representatives you gave their time to honourably represent their Electorates or States in democratic debate.

      Probably does not apply leeches appointed by back room pre-selection to positions of entitlement representing those who selected them.

      I say that knowing there was always some who were less than honourable as there are those now who are not grifting leeches to scared to speak truth to power.

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    • #
      Grogery

      “the honourable”

      I agree David, they should remove the phrase.

      The honourable daniel andrews doesn’t even make sense, maybe tyrannical would work better.

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    • #
      Skeptocynic

      …refer to each other in Parliament as “the honourable”.

      Are you sure?
      Maybe some of them take care to pronounce it carefully but I’ve just as often heard it sound like, “the ‘orrible”.

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    • #
      Ronin

      Like ‘my learned friend’.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Lieutenant General (rtd) Mike Flynn is back on Twitter.

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    • #
      b.nice

      If someone wanted to know something about kangaroo scat…. maybe Flannery might have something worthwhile to say.

      But when it comes to climate, it seems that he has the knowledge, understanding and comprehension of a 9 year old. !

      All he can manage is super-silly nonsense blather.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Good article.

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    • #
      wal1957

      Very good read.
      Flummery and his mates should be expelled to the nursery with a dummy in their gobs.
      Him and his mates have lied so many times he should be a politician.

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    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Evening e+g,
      On Friday, Jan 6, you posted the comment:
      ” January 6, 2023 at 7:31 pm · Reply
      According to Milanković theory, the Earth’s climate should be approaching the next ice age due to astronomical orbital oscillations, but we have plenty of time to prepare. ”

      To which I replied:
      ” Agree e+g,
      But the cycles he identified are measured in thousands of years.
      Prof Weiss identified just two cycles of 250 and 65 years which accurately mapped the climate variations over the past 2000 years. His analysis points towards an LIA event much earlier.
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-E5y9piHNU
      21 minutes. ”

      I’ve reproduced that exchange as I reckon it’s relevant to provide a powerful and different argument against the self-anointed Climate Council’s pontifications.

      Cheers
      Dave B

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      • #
        el+gordo

        If we are going to provide an alternative theory to AGW, then its to be found in the cycles. The 65 year cycle is clearly visible in ice cores and shallow sea cores.

        In your estimation when will global cooling begin? We need to make a forecast otherwise we don’t have a leg to stand on.

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        • #
          Memoryvault

          when will global cooling begin?

          It started in earnest in 2004. It’s been all downhill since then.
          Last November (less than two months ago) we had killer blizzards in the UK, Europe, the USA and elsewhere, while people were still happily skiing at Hotham, Thredbo and other resorts here in Oz.

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          • #
            el+gordo

            ‘It started in earnest in 2004. It’s been all downhill since then.’

            Not according to UAH, that decade was flat because of a negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation, but around 2013 the PDO returned to its positive phase and El Nino sprung into life.

            Temperatures should remain flat for the rest of this decade and fall a little in the 2030s because the Atlantic Decadal Oscillation would have entered its negative phase.

            Unseasonal weather is a global cooling signal.

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        • #
          David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

          G’day e+g,
          No, I don’t have an estimate. That’d be way beyond my pay scale.
          I did go back to the Prof Weiss presentation, in case he’d included a forecast, but his conclusion was that CO2 had no causal effect on temperature, and he was reporting on data to the time of his report.
          But I disagree with your closing sentence: “We need to make a forecast, otherwise we don’t have a leg to stand on.” Einstein took a different position.
          Also, any such forecast would need to factor in the influence of the Milankovic cycles and I see three problems with that:
          1. The precision of their periods (Have they even been defined reliably?):
          2. Has a reliable reference start date been established?: and
          3. Have their individual effects been established?

          I haven’t kept up with any research on those cycles, but the shorter one must be close to the end of its most recent cold maximum.

          Cheers
          Dave B

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  • #
    John Connor II

    The world’s first fully wireless OLED TV is completely off the hook

    Wireless TVs aren’t a completely sci-fi idea – LG is showing a 97-inch wireless OLED at CES 2023, where it’s one of the more attention-grabbing items in the company’s crowded booth. But far off in a quiet, isolated corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall is something perhaps more intriguing: a fully wireless 55-inch 4K OLED TV.

    Completely wireless as in no wires – not even a power cable (which LG’s wireless 97-inch OLED has). Displace TV has created a display that runs on four rechargeable lithium ion batteries, which gives you a month of six hours a day viewing before a recharge is required. The TV, wireless base station, batteries, and charger are priced at $3,000 for the lot, and you can buy four TVs from the company for $9,000.

    Why would you want four wireless Displace TVs? Because you can combine them together to create a 110-inch 8K TV. The sets have top mounted cameras that track hand movements, and by using a pinch-and-expand gesture, you can get an image being displayed on one of the screens to scale up and fill all four. (The Displace TV wireless base station, which streams to the displays via Wi-Fi 6E, has multiple video inputs to enable simultaneous viewing of different sources, and it also has a smart TV interface.)

    https://www.techradar.com/news/the-worlds-first-fully-wireless-oled-tv-is-completely-off-the-hook

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    • #
      David Maddison

      What’s more trouble?

      1) A wireless TV you either plug in periodically to recharge, or remove batteries to recharge.

      2) A TV you plug in and forget about?

      A TV of that size is not likely to be moved much.

      Plus, many people will use the TV for more than 6 hours per day, especially if they use it for an Internet monitor.

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      • #
        John Connor II

        1. No mains borne surges to destroy your expensive tv.
        2. If the power goes off, you still have tv, unlike everyone else.
        3. Off grid with no mains application, no pure sine inverter needed.
        4. Low power consumption. Lower than your mains tv.
        5. No builtin switchmode psu needed.

        I’d buy one! 😁

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        • #
          A happy little debunker

          Just to point out that modern lithium battery fires could easily cost you your home…

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        You can always tell when there is an old phart in the house: Lights and TVs mysteriously switch themselves off.

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      • #
        RobB

        These would have great application in South Africa, where you only get power half the day. Once all the coal plants have closed, you will need them in Australia too.

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        • #

          What happens when the total combined load of a nation’s flat consumer batteries all needing to be charged at the same time prevents the grid from coming back on?

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      Don’t talk to me about modern TVs. Grrrrrr.

      Had to replace our dead Samsung plasma in teh beroom, so cycled the old(ish) LG LED from living room to bedroom, then bought more up-to-date Sony for living room. Damn it’s awful. The ‘smart’ features are buggy and unnecessarily complicated, what used to be one button-press away now requires navigation through menus, the picture quality, though ‘sharper’ (more dots) is in every other way inferior and the reliance on interweb means it is more likely to sh1t itself halfway through a programme. Added to this, subtitles are laggy and we can’t set programme reminders, which was a piece of cake with the old ‘inferior’ tech.

      Puts me in mind of cars. I’m overdue replacing my 2014 X-Trail, which has been utterly exceptional, but everything I look at these days comes loaded with the same buggy and irritating tech, plus the ‘driver aids’ are like driving around with your mum in the backseat: ping, dong dong, beeep, BRAKE!!!!!

      After a rather scary experiece in Italy a few years ago, when a Nissan hire car which had ‘AEB’ decided to slam the brakes on while I was in the fast lane, in a tunnel, overtaking a truck, I have little time for all this new technology that simply adds complication and often just doesn’t bloody work.

      I think I’ll be keeping the X-Trail.

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      • #
        yarpos

        Cant help thinking there is a market for some basic poverty pack cars without all bells and whistles, just keeping seat belts and airbags and basic structural safety elements. Though bells and whistles (and of course smartphone connectivity) seem to be what modern buyers want and now they have made the alleged safety add ons part of ANCAP ratings.

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      • #
        Earl

        Our Sony Bravia experience. Yes – great picture though some 5 years in and white pixels accumulating in top right hand corner and running across top of screen.
        No – after a phone cast channels duplicate themeselves eg channel 7 appears on 007, 070, ABC appears on 002 020 200 etc. Also the radio stations that have been edited out all come back. Normal process when surfing for something to watch is arrive on channel 7 brisbane and within about 10/15 seconds of watching the tv switches to blank screen with indicator gold coast and advice that there is no signal. Key 070 on remote and you get back to brisbane channel 7 which normally stays constant for rest of viewing. User guide says tv has 1000 channel allocations but when the gold coast event happens it flags channel number as 1076. And the other major annoyance is how ghougle takes over the tube and you get all their movie trailors start showing until you go into apps and turn ghougle off (again).

        Way back Nokia got it right and gave the market the option of a mobile phone that was just a mobile phone ie not a camera, not a mini computer, stop watch etc. Can I get a modern tv that just learns my local tv channels and keeps them rather than takes some 8 minutes to tune 82 channels with some 15 of them radio stations and then duplicates some of them in the 100-199, 300-400 channel numbr rang?

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      • #
        OldOzzie

        Look at Suzuki Ignis – go with GL CVT Auto – no . Keyless entry and push-button start, something less to go wrong and 5 vs
        4 seats on GLX

        Five-door SUV-style wagon only. Ignis GLs seat up to five, while the more expensive GLX seats four.

        Every Ignis drives only its front wheels.

        The Ignis is classed as a light SUV, lower priced.

        What features does every Ignis have?

        . 7.0-inch central colour touchscreen.

        . An MP3 compatible sound system with a USB input, Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming, and at least four speakers.
        Reversing camera.

        . Satellite navigation.

        . Support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so that you can display some phone apps on the touchscreen and control them from there (or by voice).

        . Air-conditioning.

        . Cruise control.

        . Fog-lights.

        . A leather-wrapped steering wheel, from which you can operate the cruise control, the audio system, and your phone via Bluetooth.

        . Cloth-covered seats.

        . A space-saver spare tyre (with speed and distance restrictions).

        . Electronic traction control, which inhibits wheelspin on slippery roads.

        . Electronic stability control, which can help bring a skidding car back under control. All new cars must have this feature.

        . Six airbags: two directly in front of the driver and front-seat passenger; one alongside each front occupant to protect the upper body; and a curtain airbag down each side of the car to protect heads from side impacts.
        The Ignis comes with a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty.

        The entry-level Ignis GL comes with 15-inch painted steel wheels (with silver plastic covers), the manual gearbox, and the features on every Ignis. Spend more and you can have the CVT auto.

        Spend more again for the Ignis GLX and auto transmission is standard. You also get:

        . Keyless entry and push-button start.

        . Height-adjustable driver’s seat.

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        • #
          Steve of Cornubia

          The Ignis is a good little car, but a tad small for my needs. Suzukis is generally are good things, always faring well in reliability surveys.

          I’m all over the pace regarding a new car though. One option is to downsize from the X-Trail (there’s just the two of us and Mrs Wife uses her own car a lot of the time), perhaps into a hatch of some kind or, like the Ignis, a ‘mini SUV’, but also buy an old 4×4 SUV for when I’m off in the bush photographing cars and bikes. My poor X-Trial is only 2WD and has been abused terribly that way, though I only got stuck once.

          On the subject of modern tech, I also baulk at the enormous bloody screens they’re all sticking in the middle of the dash. The ‘tiny’ screen fitted to my 2014 Nissan is perfectly fine for reversing (I use my phone for navigation) and I find the big screens obtrusive, unnecessary and frankly, downright fugly.

          We seem to be in an age where a thing only has to be new in order to be ‘good’, and manufacturers spend way too much time developing the next ‘new’ bell or whistle, and far too little time de-bugging the tech they sold us last year.

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          • #
            KP

            Talk about Karen complaints! Why do you guys need a reversing camera?? If you can’t look over your shoulder you’re too old to be allowed on the road!

            . 7.0-inch central colour touchscreen.
            TV screens in cars? pfft! Just a distraction yet they ban mobile phones!

            . An MP3 compatible sound system with a USB input, Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming, and at least four speakers.
            Sound system? Yet another distraction!

            . Support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so that you can display some phone apps on the touchscreen and control them from there (or by voice).
            I don’t even know what that means!

            . Air-conditioning.
            Open a window!

            . Cruise control.
            Something wrong with your right foot? Sure you’re still young enough to drive?

            . Fog-lights.
            Finally something that might be handy, although they had those in the 1960s too.

            . Electronic traction control, which inhibits wheelspin on slippery roads.

            . Electronic stability control, which can help bring a skidding car back under control. All new cars must have this feature.
            More rubbish that lets the incompetent drive!

            Go out and buy a nice 1980s car without any of those distractions and DRIVE the damm thing! I haven’t found a reason to change my ’83 Corolla yet, and I see a lot of reasons not to when I drive someone’s newer car!

            Car development peaked at the end of the ’90s, fast, comfortable, handled well.. Since then they have fired the real engineers and hired more stylists to fill cars with un-needed rubbish for those at the bottom of the IQ scale. Just like modern household appliances.

            Buy a low Km T30 4WD manual X-trail Steve, the wife has one with 250000km on and it runs fine. She talks about updating it, but the later T31 is bigger, heavier, uses more fuel… no reason to change really.

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            • #
              yarpos

              Mmmm bah humbug

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            • #
              Gee Aye

              Traction control can be turned off for unsealed and wet roads.

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            • #
              Steve of Cornubia

              “Buy a low Km T30 4WD manual X-trail Steve … ”

              That’s what I have in mind. Cheap (so I won’t care if I put dents in it), reliable, roomy and with enough ‘4×4’ capabilities for my needs. OK, the singlet brigade would scoff at an X-Trail, but I only got stuck in my 2WD X-Trail once in five years, so my requirements aren’t that rigorous – the odd firm but muddy forest track really, plus wet paddocks.

              It has to be a 2005 or earlier, because I want auto but the first iteration of Nissan CVTs (2006-on) was rather iffy. Later CVTs are fine.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      OLED screens are great to look at generally, but are power hungry compared to other types of display technology. This is one reason why they haven’t really made it big on the laptop scene. Still, I think it’s great to see this technology showcased regardless if it has commercial viability or not.

      Not sure about home use, but it would make life easier for trade shows, etc if the screens didn’t need to be plugged in for the duration of the event.

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  • #
    Mike Jonas

    I see that Dr Philip Altman’s video as linked from Dr Ron Ehrlich’s sitehas been removed for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service“.

    The video is titled Dr Phillip Altman: Reflections on the Pandemic, Two Years On>.

    Philip Altman has a lot of very interesting things to say about this whole coronavirus vaccine thing, and I suspect that every single thing that he says violates Youtube’s woke “rules”. He mentioned ‘mass censorship’, and that’s what you see being done by Youtube.

    Philip Altman is scheduled to speak at Mittagong, NSW in February. I’ll try to get details posted here or on another Jo Nova open thread.

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Sunday torment- find the phone

    There’s a smartphone there somewhere.😁

    https://i.insider.com/5a2064313339b051038b46f6?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp

    No cheating!

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  • #
    el+gordo

    Warwick Hughes on BoM’s premature call on ENSO.

    http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=7071

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Alarming but not surprising!

    https://peakprosperity.com/australian-covid-documents-released/

    The short version is that Australia’s version of the FDA, the TGA, had information in 2021 that (1) some Pfizer Covid vaccine batches had contamination issues that (2) correlated highly with batches with excessive death and adverse event signals and (3) did absolutely nothing with the information in terms of warning the public or providers and (4) then went ahead and actually extended the shelf life of at least half of the known bad batches, presumably to assure they were used up or something?  It’s quite mysterious and troubling.

    SEE LINK FOR REST

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  • #
    John B

    Jennifer Marohasy has an updated post on her website, which makes interesting reading.
    Fear, Flooding, Forecasting & Australia’s 2022 Official Rainfall Statistics

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  • #
    mmxx

    Climate changes over time. It always has, always will do!

    I’ve experienced some depressing droughts, fires and floods but overall in mostly good weather in my lengthening years on planet Earth.
    I have learned to recognise climate catastrophists by their bullying manner and unsupported scientific (leaving futuristic and questionable computer modelling aside!) claims.
    As a proud grandad from Aussie country, I implore young Aussies to get a grip and seek elders advice about the wild catastrophism they are being forced to believe.

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  • #

    Here’s the detail on how our education system has been marxified. It’s an hour, but try from 0.32.30 where it gets going, or 0.57.28 for a hugely ‘successful’ education experiment in Nigeria, where they turned out very angry activists, who had no interest in literacy. That’s the model we’re following.
    ‘The Marxification of Education’
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNgfs5a4vNQ&t=291s

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  • #
    RexAlan

    Sydney Town Hall’s interiors are transformed with sand and song as an award-winning opera on CLIMATE CHANGE.

    https://au.news.yahoo.com/sydney-cbds-newest-beach-filled-060411404.html

    Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse.

    I’m lost for words, truly I am.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      What a disgraceful abuse of that building’s Victorian and French Second Empire architecture.

      They’ve turned it into a giant sand pit for imbeciles.

      And sand gets into everything. I doubt whether they’ll be able to properly clean it out, not that the vandals that did this would care.

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      • #
        tonyb

        Obviously Sydney doesn’t have any beaches of its own so had to create some!

        I wonder what the cost of that nonsense will be and who paid for it?

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    • #
      John B

      As Tom Nelson regularly says, ‘it’s a cult.’

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  • #
    Honk R Smith

    Question …
    couple things I have limited understanding of …
    .
    Negative feedback loops,
    this one seems a bit silly to me, the positive and negative yin yang is the stuff of nature.

    Ocean acidification,
    is this not a modeled projection, like warming, and has failed to follow the hysteric predictions?
    My current pontification, would be that the oceans are a regulator of atmospheric gasses and likely fluxes over geologic time scales, and we lack enough knowledge to be watching the pot with trepidation.
    (And recent data on GBR indicate OA fears not materializing?)

    I’ve been working with a couple of high schoolers and these two climate fears are the main ones they appear to be pushing in school.

    Corrective or affirmation info would be appreciated.
    I have a couple of teenage brains that need rescue.

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    • #

      Actually it is postulated positive feedbacks that create the scare. Doubling CO2 only causes a degree or less of warming, but the models throw in positive feedback increases in water vapor and clouds that increase temps as much as 5 degrees C. Negative feedbacks that might reduce warming are ignored.

      There is a large skeptical literature on acidification. I do not track that issue. Try this:

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=Acidification

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    • #
      Memoryvault

      Negative feedback loops

      In nature there is no such thing as a sustainable positive feedback. Heart attacks and orgasms are examples of positive feedback. Try sustaining either for any length of time.

      Ocean Acidification

      The oceans are alkaline. Adding an acid to an alkaline does not make it “acidic”, it makes it less alkaline. This continues until the substance becomes neutral. Then, and only then, could the substance start to become “acidic”.

      The oceans are alkaline because of the vast quantity of alkaline carbonates dissolved in them. Even if every combustible carbon-based product on earth were burned it would still take 80 times the amount of carbon made available, to reduce the oceans to neutral, let alone “acidic”. In other words, chemically it is impossible.

      If your sons have “teachers” pushing this garbage as science I would seriously consider enrolling them in your state’s Distance Education program.

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      • #

        Acidification refers to a reduction in ph, not to becoming an acid, so ocean acidification is possible. See https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/acidification.html

        Of course it could also be called neutralization as it becomes less basic, but that is not scary like acidification is, especially as it is often thought to mean becoming acidic. I have seen an article titled “the acid ocean” which is absurd.

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          Memoryvault

          Acidification refers to a reduction in ph, not to becoming an acid

          And therein lies the problem, David. Like so many other examples, you have allowed the other side to redefine a long-accepted term to suit their purposes.

          “Acid” and “alkaline” are specific chemistry terms. An acid is a proton donor and an alkaline is a proton absorber. A strong alkaline that has become slightly less alkaline has in no way somehow become “acidic”. It has not started to display some traits of an acid, or behave in any way like an acid. It is STILL an alkaline and for the purposes of chemistry it will still react as an alkaline, only less so.

          Once you start allowing the other side to rewrite the language to suit their own purposes, then all is lost. It’s how you end up with a population so dumbed down they believe human CO2 “emissions” are “heating the planet”.

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        • #
          SteveR

          So if I add fresh water to salt does it become “fresher”?

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      • #

        The climate model positive feedbacks are also transitory. A CO2 increase causes a fixed increase in water vapor and warming clouds, so neither continues increasing.

        Same for the ignored negative feedbacks postulated by skeptics, which include increased convection and increased cooling clouds.

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  • #
    Saighdear

    Have I been in a deep sleep? Happy New Year to all – but Oh, er, Forgot about my Siblings 21st Birthday parties, way back in 2021, What on earth happened? Did I miss the real Christmas this last year ( old joke here – only a week between Xmas & N Year, but a heck of a long time between NewYear & Xmas – very long 7 days on a sore heid ) Where were all the Xmas Carols? Weather didn’t quite play ball either, but yes it was cold and dark and … miserable: supposedly warmest on record ? nope, but the ground is still frozen deep down in the back of the Sun: frozen rain on grass is not good for frisky stirks or traction to spread the Dung on the Stubbles. Hardly see the Postie these days, have we still got one? must be a year since I last saw him for a blether over the farm gate, maybe that’s how I missed all those party invites ? Ah well, look at the cost of a stamp now to reply, better just to appear with a £1 added value gift ! Och make it a coupla quid extra – the cost of the fuel to drive to the postbox. .. mmm talking to masel’ again – lack of contact with outside world sno gonnae happen. Richard Tice on TalkRadio/TV talking on Climate sanity … a welcome bubble in the info game. Just hopped channels from ‘Winter in Schwarzwald’ on ( Satellite tv Morning Docu’s and the DAKAR rally ) … affected by climate change ….Noooh! hit the red button. that’s the Xmas season on tv Just sick of it: TV had least use over the period, in years.
    Sun is shining, weather station shows +7C & dewpoint at -1C, maybe shift all that permafrost with the wind, now. C’mon doggies, walkeez!

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  • #
    yarpos

    It’s cricket season and as Mrs Y likes the game I find myself watching lots of it while Interwebbing.

    Some questions:

    1. Why do the ground security guys dress in black while sitting out all day in mid 30s heat?
    2. In the BBL why do some of the helmets look like they have been hand painted with a chook?
    3. Why do players in professional teams use hand towels on the field that look like they cut something up from the hotel? at the very least you would think monogrammed towels would be a merch opportunity

    and why does everyone get so excited when those 3 sticks get knocked over? A genuine question from an ex boss (Canadian new to OZ in a corporate box at the cricket)

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    • #
      Gerry

      As far as No.3 is concerned , the excitement is due to a childish enjoyment of knocking over something that the adults (the umpires) have put up and continue to fuss over the whole game.
      The three sticks represent the three feathers handed down to the Black Prince by his mother. As such, they are a symbol of aristocracy and a reminder of the class of gentlemen that played in its early days.

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  • #
    Environment Sceptic

    Hello…..

    What on earth is happening with IgG3 down to like zero after the booster and IgG4 shooting way up?

    Hoping someone can help with this.

    Doesn’t look like a normal immune response.

    I thought IgG4 was an antibody antibody, nothing to see here and all.

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    The history of the platinum resistance thermometer should anyone be interested.

    “The simplicity and convenience of using a piece of wire as a thermometer was so great that it seemed to me very desirable to make experiments to see if the failure of Siemens’ instruments was inherent to the use of platinum as a measure of temperature, and not to a defect in the design of the instrument. Callendar took up this problem with great enthusiasm and showed that, if precautions are taken to keep the wire free from strain and contamination from vapours, it makes a thoroughly reliable and very convenient thermometer.”

    https://technology.matthey.com/article/24/3/104-112/

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      Bozotheclown

      Interesting bit of history Siliggy. I’m puzzled by the problem of the submarine cables warming while in transport. What was causing that to happen? Some kind of spontaneous reaction in the insulation materials maybe?

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        Good question Bozo.
        Back then they could not coat an undersea cable with insulation made of “poly” anything because none of those things existed. So it was things like wax, tar, gutta-percha and hemp. Being above room temperature was a problem let alone the “spontaneous heating” as things cured and or rotted. It turned out to be an expensive surprise to them as well.
        https://www.proquest.com/openview/2dac995a6a5db1059d2667e139b75e90/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1816417

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          Good to put this all in time perspective. The bit of wire used as a resistance thermometer there was to protect those cables from overheating forty years before the invention of the thermionic valve and also decades before any semiconductor diode was practical. Yet today we get people claiming that the platinum resistance probes are “electronic” and or “digital”. LOL.

          The terminally and permanently confused also mix up sampling rate and response time. Imagine a typist who can type 120 words per minute is looking at a watch and types the time. “6:28:30.” Then the typist quickly looks at the “galvanometer” (An Ammeter) in the cabin” as described by Siemens there, and types the Voltage reading “6.1V”.
          If the typist can keep this up for a full minute then the output is a table of one reading per second.
          6:28:30 6.1V
          6:28:30 6.2V
          Etc.
          One second is the typists sample rate. It has exactly nothing to do with the thermal time constant response time of the platinum wire.

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        Broadie

        From Siliggy News Item, 700 miles of copper coils coated in gutta-percha are shipped in sealed containers on sailing vessels to India. When opened the coils showed the effects of heat and oxidation in the insulation.

        Would an induced current flow in these copper coils as they are transported by ships in what is a large magnetic field?

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          Bozotheclown

          If the coil was not terminated (open circuit) there could not be a current flow. A magnetic field would be irrelevant. On the other hand if they did ship the coils with the ends terminated, that would be entirely different.

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            Broadie

            What? No capacitance in those large coils?
            Are you saying the tide will not flow into an inlet?

            Serious question!

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            I agree with Bozo although i don’t think the current would be large enough for such heating even if it was terminated. It would be heat from chemical or biological activity. The Earths magnetic field is large but not strong. More to the point any induced current is proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic field and the ship just won’t move out of the field. This is why transformers work for AC but not DC and why the simple permanent magnet motor needs brushes. The magnetic fields need to change and change back again.
            I once had a guy tell me he thinks a large mains transformer inside an automatic weather station site near his home would not induce currents in the thermometer cable because “it is always on”. Err nooo. AC goes from off to fully on then off and on again in the other direction and back to off 50 cycles per second in Australia. So it is always changing effectively going in a sine wave from fully off through fully on 100 times per second.

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    The silly giant scale of US offshore wind development
    By David Wojick
    https://www.cfact.org/2023/01/07/the-silly-giant-scale-of-us-offshore-wind-development/

    Rushing to build a big bunch of incredibly expensive giant wind arrays that are far bigger than anything built in the world to date is bad engineering and worse environmental policy.

    The beginning: “The world’s biggest offshore wind array is Hornsea 2, which is 1,386 MW with a turbine size of 8.4 MW. Operational in 2022 it is the state of the OSW art. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms. But Virginia’s phase 1 array is a whopping 2,600 MW, with huge 15 MW turbines. Clearly it is a giant, far bigger than anything that has ever been built. The cost is estimated as $10 billion to build. Moreover there are a dozen or more comparable giant arrays proposed to be built at the same time, lining the Atlantic coast. Last I heard the combined proposals topped a gigantic 40,000 MW.

    From an engineering point of view this is nuts. No one has ever done anything like this so let’s do a hundred billion dollars worth and see how it goes, right? Work up to it? Start small then scale up, learning as we go? None of that.

    This giant offshore wind stampede is climate insanity personified.”

    Lots more in the article. Please share it. The environmental assessment is truly stupid.

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    James Murphy

    This chap does some experiments to test the efficacy of air-cooling solar panels.
    https://youtu.be/Mt9qLRN7JvA

    It seems it may well be practical to use some power to air-cool the panels and still end up with a net gain in output. How it would really scale or stack up financially in a full rooftop system… not sure… but it is still interesting to see someone doing the tests.

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      Broadie

      Great!
      Another thing to go wrong and require a contractor to fix.

      A simple solution to any grid connected property, ‘Do Not Add any more complexity to your lives by boring holes in your roof and adding dissimilar metals, DC currents etc to your building. It is not a saving and does not protect the environment. It is an environmental and mental health disaster with the sole benefit being a short lived smug smile (soon to be a look of horror reflected in the light of an intense fire) similar to that of a new Tesla owner.

      I add that due to increasing instability in the grid, a changeover switch and generator may be a wise investment if you are able to look after the fuel and servicing. Solar hot water if you wish to reduce your bills.

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    another ian

    ChatGPT tested

    “The Modern NPC”

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247817

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    KP

    Sigh… We’re letting these sorts of people play around with the world’s biggest hydrogen bomb..

    “The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor..faces two new challenges-

    -the wrongly calculated measurements for the joints of blocks which need to be welded together for the reactor’s chamber.

    -the recent discovery of corrosion traces in a thermal shield, needed to contain the heat created in the nuclear fusion reaction.”

    ‘CEO Barabaschi said fixing these issues “is not a question of weeks, but months, even years.”’

    This was started in the 1980s and was meant to be producing fusion power by 2025. There are a couple of pages somewhere on the net saying fusion will never be tamed, it is not like current scientists think it is, hence 50years of barking up the wrong tree only to find someone screwed up drawing the plans and someone else didn’t zinc-coat the thermal shield.

    Somehow this whole project sounds like a money-making scheme for people who know it will never work!

    https://www.rt.com/business/569554-nuclear-reactor-faces-delays/

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    KP

    This is laying out what everyone knew-

    “”Kiev is shedding blood to carry out the mission NATO set for itself and expects the “civilized West” to provide weapons and ammunition in return, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has said.

    Reznikov pointed out that at the Madrid summit last summer, NATO declared Russia the greatest threat to the US-led bloc. “Today, Ukraine is addressing that threat. We’re carrying out NATO’s mission without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons,” he said.

    Reznikov also claimed that his NATO colleagues have told him, both in conversations and via text messages, that Ukraine is the “shield of civilization” and “defending the entire civilized world, the entire West.”

    Kiev’s top general Valery Zaluzhny said he would need 300 more tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 howitzers to conduct offensive operations. This is more than the number of such vehicles in British or German inventory.”

    https://www.rt.com/russia/569500-reznikov-ukraine-nato-mission/

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    KP

    Ah, I remember China getting pilloried recently when one of its satellites re-entered.. Not so for America!

    ” NASA warns of falling satellite- The US space agency reassured the public that the chance of anyone being injured by debris was low.. While most of it is expected to burn up upon reentry, some parts may survive the fall. ..will cross Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the western areas of North and South America.”

    https://www.rt.com/news/569526-nasa-satellite-falling-debris-safe/

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