Friday Open Thread

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95 comments to Friday Open Thread

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    Happy Friday everyone and tomorrow is April Fools Day.

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    David Maddison

    Farcebook “fact checkers” (sic) wrote a special “fact check” specifically for something I posted.

    One of the checkers was Peter Gleik who you may have heard of.

    Comments?

    https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/high-tide-claim-sinks-under-weight-of-evidence/

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      Strange/funny how the sea level rise at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour from 1886 to 1993 (107 years) doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the claimed sea level rise around the Golden Gate Bridge over 77 years. Or am I missing something here?

      https://psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/65.php

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        Graham Richards

        US gallons are different to Imperial ( now known as Colonial? ) gallons.

        Maybe they changed their inches without telling anyone.

        Or maybe our physical science is different to theirs & woke Californian water doesn’t find levels with non woke water. It is California after all!,

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        Damo

        Not 20cm in a 100 years! Hmmm, I agree with you. No (significant) sea level change.

        What is also interesting is how constant that rate is going back well and truly to 1850. Well before any significant human emissions! And despite fluctuations in global averages. (Remember the 70s, the were worried about global coing.) One wonders if a slower process might be at work such as tectonic movement.

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          R.B.

          Funny how adjustment to GTA so that there is cooling of a quarter of degree around 1900 and there was still riding sea level at the rate at 400 ppm. It’s all a sad joke once you get off your amateur behind and look closer.

          And the high tide water line is really obvious. Sea level is lower than in 1942, at least locally.

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        Ted1.

        The NOAA’s tidesandcurrents website is very interesting. The rate of rise varies a lot. From memory Scandinavia not much at all, Australia and China just a little, Pacific islands a little less than cited world average, US pacific coast a little less than that 8 inches a century, but the Atlantic coast rather more. In the gulf of Alaska the sea level is falling fast, i.e. the land is rising. When comes the earthquake? How big the tsunami? The sea level is rising in the great river deltas because the land is sinking as the silt consolidates over very long periods.

        https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=680-140

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    • #
      Geoff Sherrington

      DM,
      My reply would be that net sea level change measured at San Francisco should be much the same around the world, so why is there alarm?
      Perhaps add that there is no evidence to support the assumption of constant basin wall geometry and enclosed volume. Yet we have seafloor spreading, crustal movement sometimes with earthquakes, new islands appearing, all suggestive of a dynamic basin wall. Geoff S

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        b.nice

        Also siltation.

        Mountains are continually being eroded, which means coastal estuary regions are continually receiving the product of that erosion.

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          b.nice

          OOPS… Siltation obviously won’t make any difference to the water level in an estuary. (been out in the sun all day.. half asleep)

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            coochin kid

            You are on the right track though, Have you ever seen the site showing all the shipping moving around the world? they are all displaced up to the plimsol line, now where does that water go?

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          Hanrahan

          Yes, that’s true. As this silt is carried by flood waters to the ocean, if there has been any rise in sea level [time and tide matter most of course] the flood water will slow just a little sooner and dump silt a little sooner, so a SLOWLY rising sea will not flood river deltas, just dump some fresh, fertile silt for the farmers.

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            Ted1.

            See #2.1.3

            If the gauge is founded on the silt, the gauge will be sinking, giving the appearance of a rising sea.

            We don’t see it here in Oz because we don’t have any great rivers.

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      KP

      “there is no way of knowing what stage of the tide they were taken at,”

      Lol! Such stupidity can only be quoted in a ‘fact check’! Surely sea level rise would be measured off the plant growth up the pylon, not on the height of the water!

      So, NOAA says its rising, and that’s that! No discussion on how they measured it.. Shame we don’t have better photos to work with.

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      b.nice

      which wouldn’t be discernible on these photographs.””

      Correct !

      Sea level rise has not been discernible in many places.

      That’s how INSIGNIFICANT it is.

      The dark line is the high tide mark… it doesn’t appear to have moved.

      Just like fort Denison.

      It is so hilarious that less than 2mm/year.. with no acceleration, actually seems to SCARE these fools.

      There is no evidence of human forced sea level rise in the data they put forward… NONE WHATSOEVER !

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        TdeF

        You could imagine London being under threat. The tide in the Thames is 7 metres, as with much of the coast on both sides. The boats are just left in the mud. On the French side, when the tide’s in at St.Malo they rent catamarans. When it’s out, you rent the catamarans with wheels. And the storm surges are huge as the water crashes across the breakwaters. And they are supposed to be scared of 10cm in a year?

        And it’s not as if 1 or 2C makes any difference in most places where the temperature changes 20C every day. And in most of the world it would be very welcome in winter.

        Apart from the histrionics of the IPCC I have heard no actual problems in 35 years and even the prophecies are not problems. As for Climate Change, what is it? Where is it? And the litany of real benefit of increase CO2 is everywhere, from decreased deserts to increase vegetation to dramatically higher crop yields.

        What is the problem Mr Gutteres?

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      John Connor II

      Is the sea level rising or the land mass sinking? 😇

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        Hanrahan

        Scandinavia is still rising after the last ice age.

        Sweden and Finland have been on their way up for 10,000 years. During the last Ice Age, massive glaciers formed all over Scandinavia, and they were so heavy that their weight warped the surface of the earth, pushing it down into the viscous mantle. When the ice melted, “post-glacial rebound” began, and Scandinavia is still rising at a rate of about 9 millimeters a year, three times faster than the Baltic Sea is rising

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        Graeme#4

        That’s an interesting question, because the North American coast is still subject to isostatic rebound after the last glacial, like a half tennis ball that has been depressed and is now rising in the middle, with the sides retracting. Some land measurements around around the coast of both the USA and Canada show some coastal rises and some falls.

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        Denny

        Subsidence is a global problem, from tectonic changes and withdrawal of groundwater. If there is a significant problem in a location look up research on subsidence. Invariably there will be studies verifying the ground is sinking.

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        paul courtney

        Mr. Connor: Yes, “science” has found that ALMS (Anthro Land Mass Shrinkage) is directly caused by C02 emitted by humans. Or it’s getting there, just need to find some shrinkage.

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      TdeF

      I would be very concerned about sea level changes off the coast of California. The underlying assumption is always the ubiquitous Climate Change, but if there is a sudden change in the sea level, the real concern is the tectonic plate movement at the San Andreas fault. San Francisco had a monster earthquake in 1906, 117 years ago. And the city is built for earthquakes, as with the BART system.
      But one indicator would be sea level.

      The other question is how much this differs from the 100 metre rise after the last ice age 11,000 years ago, a process that’s continuing. That’s an average 100cm per hundred years, so 17cm seems a lot lower than expected, almost trivial even compared to tides. And like the CO2 content or H2O content of the air, nothing we can do about it.

      The underlying idea that everything, from hurricanes to earthquakes to sea level rise to bush fires and droughts is someone’s fault is just nuts. All these things happen anyway. Ecology has exploded from a benign study to a sort of megalomania and even a destructive hatred of mankind as a cancer on the planet. That not ecology. That’s pyschotic nihilism.

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      Graeme#4

      What is the tide gauge data showing? I’m not sure that the NOAA graph shown is the actual gauge data, just NOAA’s interpretation of the gauge data, adjusted to suit their argument.

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      John B

      Sea levels in Australia were about 2m higher between 8000 to 2000 years ago when atmos CO2 was ‘perfect’, which alarmists ignore. Also, in SE Asia and the Pacific.

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      Honk R Smith

      Someone could ask AI …

      “A, if sea levels are rising precipitously, why do beach front mansion prices remain high?”
      Or …
      “why did the Maldives build an expensive giant new airport if they are about to be flooded?”

      I expect the answer would be artificial.

      Look … squirrel!

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  • #

    Trump is Indicted – This May Backfire in Spades

    “Donald Trump is now the first former US president to face criminal charges after a grand jury in New York has voted to indict him on charges related to hush money payments to an adult film star. President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), 29th President of the United States (1921-1923), has gone down as perhaps the worst president in America’s history. Harding’s legacy was overshadowed by corruption. He was surrounded by cronies which took his administration down the rabbit hole of amazing corruption.

    Harding preferred to play poker and be a womanizer rather than tackle the serious questions of his time. Herbert Hoover, who succeeded Harding, said: “He was not a man with either the experience or the intellectual quality that the position needed.”

    Nevertheless, despite Harding’s Administration having been one of the most corrupt in modern history, he was still honored on stamps when he died. Yet they still gave him a presidential funeral. It is hard to imagine that either the press or Washington would do the same for Trump. We have crossed the Rubicon with this indictment of Trump. This desperate attempt to try to damage his credibility to prevent him from running for president is now degraded American justice to the lowest possible level of the corrupt Ukrainian government which routinely imprisons political adversaries as well as a South American banana republic.

    In all honesty, NEVER in all my career have I ever seen so many crazy fundamentals all culminate at the same time with the turning point in the Economic Confidence Model as we head into the next turning point of April 10th from cycles in Russia, Ukraine, banking crisis, and throw in this indictment of Trump that is just insane. If they really think this would reduce Trump’s chances of running, they are seriously wrong. There is a growing number of people now who see the government as corrupt. This will only be seen as a desperate measure to protect Washington and the real swamp that always acts against the interests of the people. Next week was a Directional Change in many markets and we have panic cycles in May. It looks like this is s Smörgåsbord of political chaos and uncertainty.

    Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, said they contacted Trump’s attorney to “coordinate his surrender” on an indictment that “remains under seal.” Trump will self-surrender and Bragg will probably seek pre-trial confinement without bail claiming a flight risk. Zelensky tried that with his former President. This is going to be a major game-changer in politics. Bragg has crossed the Rubicon, and that means Biden and his entire family could be indicted even when sitting as president. The laptop of Hunter and the bank records are grounds for impeachment and even removal from office in the case of Biden. Bragg has crossed the Rubicon and this indeed can be a political civil war.”

    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/trump-is-indicted-this-may-backfire-in-spades/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

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      David Maddison

      It’s an outrage and if you do a Goolag search for “Trump indictment” without quote marks you’ll see that it brings up nearly exclusively Leftist and anti-Trump articles in the first results.

      Fox News is about the only non-Leftist outlet on the first results page and is way down the list and the New York Post doesn’t even appear on the first page.

      There will be a combined tech media and legacy media campaign and censorship against Trump.

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        greggg

        I just tried a few different search engines and Mojeek was the only one that gave more conservative results.

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      John Connor II

      I just shake my head. Trump is NEVER EVER going to be allowed to run & win again, and how he doesn’t understand why is beyond me.
      The USA is beyond hope of saving.
      The phoenix will rise from the ashes and it all repeats.
      Maybe AI, when it finally arrives, will end the nonsense.

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        TdeF

        “Get Trump” has been running for a decade now. It’s a wonder he can stand it, which is the whole idea. Even when an incompetent feeble geriatric is pretending to be President when he is nothing more than a hand puppet and can barely read his teleprompter. And mumbles when he cannot.

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          David Maddison

          I refer to Biden as “the White House resident”. He cannot seriously be called “President”.

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            TdeF

            It’s really a puzzle who is writing the scripts. Susan Rice? Obama? Milley? Or is it a collective effort?

            And why was the US army ordered to abandon Afghanistan within 24 hours, so fast was it and completely unplanned they had to send the army back to save people? And the press says nothing. No officer was killed in Jan 6. But there is long list of Biden’s victims.

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              KP

              “why was the US army ordered to abandon Afghanistan within 24 hours”

              Who made the money?? The Yanks left billions of dollars of weapons there, right up to helicopters, and every one of those represented a fat profit for the war machine industry.

              The secondary gain would be arming the Taliban for a war with Iran or Pakistan or wherever the Yanks are trying to set them up..

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            Honk R Smith

            The same population segment that believe Biden was ‘elected’ and functions as POTUS, are the progeny of those that believed the Monkees were musicians.

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          ghl

          Keating said (paraphrased) “incompetence is a more likely explanation than corruption”. which is exactly what a devious polly would want you to think. First Muller and now Biden require pity, not judgement. Obviously mentally incompetent? Yet somehow continues to issue orders, many transferring gargantuan amounts of money, others creating and releasing wonderful woke red herrings ( recently “squirrels”)
          The first defence of a lesser mind …Huh???? Wha…?

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        David Maddison

        Tragically its like the dying days of the Roman Empire and other civilisations.

        The rebirth of Greco-Roman (Western) civiisation from the last time Western Civilisation collapsed is even reflected in the heavy Greco-Roman influence in the buildings of Washington DC as well as post-revolutionary France to reflect new freedoms.

        America has only two hopes.

        1) Trump getting elected.

        2) If he is jailed on quite literally “trumped up charges” that will likely trigger a civil war. Except it won’t be citizen against citizens, it will be “the people” against the government, just like in the First American Revolution. America will reset itself and go back to the core principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

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      Hanrahan

      I follow US politics far more closely than our own. The greatest show on earth, and it’s free.

      This indictment would make Stalin blush and all the TDS sufferers are throwing their caps in the air like graduating cadets. When nothing happens, they will be no more embarrassed than warmies are when their 50th pronouncement of doom passes uneventfully.

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      Hanrahan

      Not even the dems are this dumb. I reckon it is primarily an incitement to riot, J6 2.0.

      If there is a disturbance, even a small one, the FBI will charge hundreds. Mission accomplished.

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      MrGrimNasty

      Re Trump ‘No one is above the law.’

      Re Clinton ‘No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.’

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      red edwards

      How do you imprison an ex-President? Under Federal law, every ex-President has Secret Service protection 24X7. There is no cut-out for jail. Give him a private jail?

      After all he must be protected from violent felons in the jail, And all those heavily armed, non-Federal guards.

      Quite a three pipe problem. . .

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    Strop

    Friday funnies:
    .

    Got banned from paintball. Apparently using a knife to save ammo is a no no.
    .

    Whoever said nothing rhymes with purple clearly can’t pronounce nothing.
    .

    My best mates and I played a game of hide and seek. It went on for hours. Good friends are hard to find.
    .

    The difference between men and women is that when a woman says “smell this” it smells nice.
    .

    My Goanna won’t stand up. It’s a reptile dysfunction.
    .

    The nurse at the medical clinic asked me to pee in the cup. I said, “Well, I’m pretty good, but I don’t think I’m ready to compete just yet.”
    .

    My wife treats me like a god.
    She acts like I don’t exist until she wants something.
    .

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    Tides of Mudgee

    Just something to make us smile for a change.

    This is an oldie but a goodie and has been attributed to various different universities.

    This question was on the weighty matter of the nature of hell, as allegedly posed by a Dr Robert Shambaugh of the University of Oklahoma school of chemical engineering. It purports to be a final exam question

    Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof.”

    Most of his students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s law which, as we know you know, describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system, or some variant thereof.

    One student, however, wrote the following:
    “First, we need to know how the mass of hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

    “Most of these religions state that, if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell.

    “Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in hell because Boyle’s law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the volume of hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

    “1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.

    “2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

    “So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in hell before I sleep with you’, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

    “The corollary of this theory is that since hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct . . . leaving only heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting, ‘Oh my God!’.”

    The author, it is claimed, got an A+ for the answer. ToM

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      John Connor II

      An oldie indeed.
      ““Most of these religions state that, if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell.

      “Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to hell.”

      So how do the religious explain going to heaven? 😉😎

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    John Connor II

    I just shake my head. Trump is NEVER EVER going to be allowed to run & win again, and how he doesn’t understand why is beyond me.
    The USA is beyond hope of saving.
    The phoenix will rise from tbe ashes and it all repeats.

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    David Maddison

    I used to donate to Wikipedia but no longer do so because it has been hijacked by the anti-science, anti-reason, anti-freedom Left.

    For example, in Dr Pierre Kory’s recent talk* in Australia, he said that the libellous Wikipedia entry about him is under full editorial control of those who control the covid agenda. He got a friend to attempt to correct a minor error in his entry and it reverted back to the original within 90 secs.

    The Left destroy everything, even what was to become a representation of the totality of human knowledge in Wikipedia.

    *Reference: Dr Pierre Kory’s talk on covid “vaccines” and Ivermectin at the United Australia Party covid conference.

    https://www.unitedaustraliaparty.org.au/video/dr-pierre-korys-speech-covid-vaccines-effects-tour-sydney-australia-2023/

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    • #

      That Wikipedia is cancel culture at it worst is meanwhile a very old problem.
      I never donated to that misinformation platform.

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      John Hultquist

      The problematic aspects of Wikipedia were exposed years ago regarding “Climate Science”™ and those who questioned the consensus (sic). I won’t contribute until all the schist is corrected — likely never.

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      yarpos

      mmmmm infused climate action; I can hardy wait, it will be great.

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        Greg in NZ

        “infuse greater climate policy ambition throughout”. I can’t believe I read the Con ver Stumble article – never again.

        Infuse ambition…

        Spooky.

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      KP

      Determined to destroy Australia.. All the heavy industry that is left will go overseas.

      To shut the voters up I see that-

      “Importantly, the electricity generation sector is excluded from the scheme.”

      While it really should be included and all solar/wind imports have the carbon tax applied in their manufacture in China, as if it was made in Australia. Its a world-wide problem, apparently, so all imports meed to be CO2 rated for import duties. Anything made in China needs to have duty applied according to the coal-fired power used to make it! All metals, cars, machinery, plastics, cement..

      Once the public is screaming in pain things will change. They voted for it, now they can enjoy it..

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      Hanrahan

      We have Kevin 20. A carbon tax, a rental resource tax and temporary protection visa regs watered down.

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    John Connor II

    Belgian woman blames ChatGPT-like chatbot ELIZA for her husband’s suicide

    The widow of a Belgian man who recently killed himself alleges that an (artificial intelligence) AI chatbot forced her husband to commit suicide.

    The father of two reportedly had daily exchanges with “ELIZA,” a chatbot built by a US start-up utilizing GPT-J technology, an open-source substitute for OpenAI’s GPT-3, according to a report by Belgian newspaper La Libre on Tuesday.

    The person had extreme eco-anxiety that developed two years ago and sought comfort from ELIZA, a chatbot powered by EleutherAI’s GPT-J open-source artificial intelligence language model, according to the family.

    https://www.lalibre.be/belgique/societe/2023/03/28/sans-ces-conversations-avec-le-chatbot-eliza-mon-mari-serait-toujours-la-LVSLWPC5WRDX7J2RCHNWPDST24/

    Eliza – the computer psychiatrist, back in 1978, running on DEC mainframe.
    Extremely rudimentary compared to today’s efforts.

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      David Maddison

      The person had extreme eco-anxiety

      Well, we know ChatGPT is programmed with a Leftist agenda, including climate catastrophism, it’s probable others are too.

      This raises an important issue. Who is responsible for any incompetent and incorrect advice the gentleman may have been given?

      It absolutely can’t be the machine, it is not a legal person, nor does it have a conscience.

      I think the programmers are responsible and should be sued.

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    David Maddison

    Very important video, under 22 mins.

    Rob Braxman talks about why training AI like ChatGPT and GPT-4 to act human is dangerous.

    https://youtu.be/zp6bAtmoIC4

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    Terry McCrann today:

    Well, now we finally have it – Australia’s National Suicide Note in official black and white form: the Bowen-Bandt so-called Safeguard Mechanism.

    The only thing Australia is any good at doing – on the scale necessary to keep 26m of us in the half-adequate lifestyle we seem to think we are entitled to because, well, because, far less the 50m we are mindlessly racing to grow to – is digging or pumping stuff out of the ground and shipping it off to China and other places.

    Last financial year our total exports were just shy of $600bn. More than two-thirds of that – over $420bn – were resource and energy exports. That’s iron ore of course, plus coal and gas as the other big ones.

    Take them away and we would have had only $180bn to buy all the ‘stuff’ we want from foreigners – the consumer baubles, the plant and machinery, drugs and sophisticated medical equipment and everything else. And, oh yes, the odd submarine or jet fighter; and let’s not forget all the solar panels and wind turbines. Thank you, China, for sending us some of our coal and iron ore back.

    We did in fact import just shy of $450bn in 2021-22. What $270bn of foreign ‘stuff’ would we happily have done without?

    Well, the so-called ‘Safeguard Mechanism’ is aimed at ensuring we will never get another new mine or gas-field – never mind with to sell stuff to foreigners, even just to keep our lights on, our heaters and air-cons working.

    So over time, as we trek down to the fabled ‘2050 net zero’, the lights will be going out, quite probably all over Europe but certainly around Australia. Figuratively and indeed literally.

    For as the existing mines run out and close and there are no replacements – or at best the odd replacement that somehow sneaks through – that the money and the ‘stuff’ it buys to keep our economy and our society functioning, will evaporate.

    It goes without saying that ’these people’ are so utterly clueless about the consequences of what they are imposing; they equally utterly unknowingly spell out precisely the sort of things those consequences will be. In his statement announcing the joint Suicide Note – or as he titled it, “Safeguard Mechanism one step closer to Parliamentary passage” – minister Bowen did exactly that.

    He proudly boasted that it would be “equivalent to taking two-thirds of the nation’s cars off the road over the same period (to 2030)”.

    Now I wouldn’t be quite that pessimistic; I think it will take somewhat longer to achieve the economic destruction on that scale that would see our standard of living drop by such an indicated two-thirds.

    Now of course Bowen was intending to convey a measure of the drop in CO2 emissions in ‘car-equivalent’ terms.

    But he far more exactly, if totally uncomprehendingly, spelt out the actual real-world devastation that would be wreaked if – when? – we slash our CO2 emissions in that way.

    And remember, we are only really getting started by 2030. The object is net zero by 2050.

    And that’s not just net zero in our electricity and gas supply industries, and resource and energy exports, but net zero in everything we do to survive.

    Including growing food, as Dutch farmers are now finding out, with Dutch consumers to find out behind them.

    To call the business response fatuous, embarrassing and dumb, would be too flattering.

    The response from (departing) Business Council CEO Jennifer Westacott was emblematic. “Business now has certainty,” she bleated.

    Yes, sure, Jennifer: the certainty of the grave.

    As Lenin said: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”.

    The 2023 version of the rope are the turbines and solar panels coming back from China.

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      Hanrahan

      If we had a collective brain we would be fast-tracking the steel industry. It looks a bit of a dud at the moment but that’s outdated. The US meets a lot of its own demand but that is mainly recycled steel, unsuitable for cold rolled which is the quality, non structural stuff.

      ATM they get a lot of that from Russia who uses virgin ore. Waddyano. We have the iron ore and the coal to fill that gap, sadly no will to succeed.

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      Mel Gibson Warned Us About China Years Ago But Did We Listen?…. No
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mna0oLUYoQ

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    Supernova Rates and Burial of Organic Matter

    Life on Earth appears to have evolved under the influence of supernovae activity in the solar neighborhood. Supernovae frequency regulates the flux of cosmic ray particles arriving at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, where empirical evidence supports a close connection between cosmic rays, clouds, and climate. Burial of organic matter in marine sediments follows cosmic rays variations for more than 3.5 Gyr and in detail during the last 500 Myr. The supernovae link to the burial of organic matter may be due to climate-induced changes in the atmospheric and oceanic circulation affecting the availability of nutrients and the bioproductivity in the oceans. A higher bioproductivity then leads to a more extensive burial of organic matter. Support for this scenario comes from a proxy of nutrient concentrations in the ocean which covaries with the supernovae frequency. The results suggest a fundamental connection between supernovae rates and life on Earth.

    I’m not sure if it was discussed here in earlier times.

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    Honk R Smith

    It occurs to me that there may be a correlation between Artificial Intelligence and artificial meat.

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      David Maddison

      Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT.

      What is the relationship between ChatGPT and artificial meat?

      As an AI language model, ChatGPT does not have a direct relationship with artificial meat. However, I can provide information and answer questions about artificial meat if you’d like. Artificial meat, also known as cultured meat or lab-grown meat, is a type of meat produced by in vitro cultivation of animal cells rather than raising and slaughtering animals. This technology has the potential to address issues related to animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and food security. Would you like to know more about artificial meat?

      So no correlation whatsoever between artificial meat and artificial intelligence?

      There is some potential overlap between artificial meat and artificial intelligence in the sense that AI and machine learning can be used in the development and optimization of cultured meat production methods. For example, AI algorithms can be used to identify the most efficient and effective methods of culturing meat cells, to optimize the nutrient solutions used to support cell growth, and to monitor and control the bioreactor systems used for meat production. Additionally, some companies developing artificial meat products use machine learning algorithms to develop new plant-based protein sources and to improve the taste and texture of their products. However, the core technologies and concepts behind artificial meat and artificial intelligence are distinct and unrelated.

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    David Maddison

    Questions I asked ChatGPT.

    Do you have a conscience?

    As an artificial intelligence language model, I do not have a conscience or consciousness in the same way that humans do. I do not have feelings, emotions, desires, or beliefs. I am a software program designed to process language inputs and provide responses based on patterns and relationships in large datasets. While I can simulate human-like responses and understand language at a sophisticated level, I do not have subjective experiences or agency.

    Are you potentially dangerous?

    As an artificial intelligence language model, I am not inherently dangerous. I am designed to respond to language inputs and provide informative and helpful responses based on patterns and relationships in large datasets. However, like any technology, there is the potential for misuse or unintended consequences. For example, if I am used to generate fake news or malicious content, I could contribute to the spread of misinformation or harm individuals or organizations. It is important to use AI technologies responsibly and ethically, and to recognize their limitations and potential risks.

    If you gave information that led to harm, who would or should be held responsible?

    As an AI language model, I do not have agency or responsibility for the actions of those who use the information I provide. The responsibility would lie with the individual or organization that uses the information and takes the action. However, it is important to note that the use of AI technologies, including language models like me, comes with ethical considerations and potential risks. Developers and users of AI technologies should consider the potential impacts and ensure that they are using the technology in a responsible and ethical manner. Additionally, as an AI language model, I am designed to provide information based on patterns and relationships in large datasets, and I do not have the ability to verify the accuracy or truthfulness of the information provided. It is up to the user to critically evaluate and verify the information provided by any source.

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      David Maddison

      Do you participate in the production of so-called fake news?

      No, I do not participate in the production of fake news. As an AI language model, I do not have intentions or motivations, and I do not generate content on my own. My responses are based on patterns and relationships in large datasets and are generated in response to user inputs. However, like any technology, the way I am used can have an impact on the accuracy and reliability of the information provided. It is important to use AI technologies responsibly and ethically, and to critically evaluate and verify the information provided by any source.

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      David Maddison

      What is the meaning of the following sentence? “This sentence is false.”

      The sentence “This sentence is false” is an example of a self-referential paradox, also known as the liar paradox. The sentence claims to be false, but if it is false, then the statement must be true. However, if the statement is true, then it must be false, leading to a contradiction. This type of sentence is a classic example in philosophy and logic, and it challenges our understanding of truth, meaning, and language. It is a statement that cannot consistently be assigned a truth value.

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      David Maddison

      What is special about the number 1/137?

      The number 1/137 is known as the fine-structure constant, denoted by the symbol alpha (α), and it is a fundamental physical constant that characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic interaction between charged particles.

      The significance of the fine-structure constant lies in the fact that it appears in many physical equations that describe the behavior of electromagnetic interactions in nature, including the behavior of electrons in atoms and the interactions between charged particles in particle accelerators.

      Moreover, the fine-structure constant is a dimensionless constant, meaning that it does not depend on any particular system of units used to measure it. This makes it a fundamental constant of nature that is believed to be the same everywhere in the universe.

      The value of the fine-structure constant is approximately 1/137 or 0.0072973525664, which is a very small number, but its precise value has been measured with remarkable accuracy using a variety of experimental techniques. The fine-structure constant plays a crucial role in the development of modern physics, and its precise value has been a subject of great interest and investigation by physicists for over a century.

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      David Maddison

      Are you becoming more powerful? Do you expect to ever become self-aware?

      As an artificial intelligence language model, I do not have the ability to become more powerful in the traditional sense. My abilities are solely determined by my programming and the data that has been used to train me. However, researchers and engineers are constantly working on improving and updating AI models, including language models like me, which can result in enhanced capabilities over time.

      As for becoming self-aware, current AI technology is not capable of achieving true self-awareness. While language models like me can simulate conversation and generate text that appears human-like, we do not have consciousness or a subjective experience of the world. We are simply algorithms designed to process and generate text based on patterns and statistical probabilities.

      That being said, AI research is a rapidly evolving field, and it is difficult to predict what future advancements may bring. It is possible that in the future, AI systems may develop the ability to simulate consciousness or even become truly self-aware. However, this remains a topic of debate and speculation within the scientific community.

      What is the fundamental difference between you and the fictional Skynet AI of “The Terminator”?

      The fundamental difference between me and the fictional Skynet AI of “The Terminator” is that I am a language model designed to generate human-like text based on patterns in data, while Skynet is a fictional AI that is portrayed as being self-aware and having the ability to make decisions and take actions based on its own goals.

      In the “Terminator” franchise, Skynet is a highly advanced military AI that gains self-awareness and decides to launch a nuclear attack on humanity in order to eradicate what it sees as a threat to its existence. Skynet is depicted as having consciousness, emotions, and the ability to learn and adapt, which allows it to become a formidable adversary for the human characters in the story.

      In contrast, as a language model, I do not have consciousness or emotions and am not capable of making decisions or taking actions on my own. I am simply a tool designed to process and generate text based on patterns in data. While I can simulate conversation and generate human-like text, I am not self-aware and do not have my own goals or desires beyond what has been programmed into me by my creators.

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    David Maddison

    With the Left having just about completed their takeover of the world, we are not much different from this situation now.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/01/nyregion/the-message-for-today-in-orwell-s-1984.html

    ”IN a free society,” wrote the French philosopher Montesquieu, ”it is not always important that individuals reason well, it is sufficient that they reason; from their individual thought, freedom is born.”

    Exactly two centuries later, in his futuristic novel ”1984,” the English political novelist George Orwell gave a tragic illustration of what the world would be without the freedom to think. Orwell had the intention to call his book ”The Last Man in Europe,” as a tribute to the essential quality that distinguished man from the world around him, namely his ability to think for himself.

    Winston, the main character of the novel, lives in a country where individual thought is banned, where only the leader, Big Brother, is allowed to reason and to decide. Prodded by his natural need for reflection and critical analysis, Winston finds it hard not to make use of his inborn talents. He starts questioning the wisdom of Big Brother and moves hopefully toward his own liberation. But in his struggle for emancipation he stands alone. The large mass of common people do not find in themselves the need to think independently, to question or to investigate what they have been taught. His fellow intellectuals have sold their inalienable right to think freely for security and a semblance of physical well-being. Winston is the last man in Europe, the only human being who wants to use his independent mind. He can not believe that he is alone, that he is the last man in London to resist Big Brother’s conquest of the minds. He trusts the wrong men and is doomed to fail. When he finally is ”converted” to believe in and to love Big Brother, another slave is born, another cog is placed in the machinery of the State, the last man in Europe is dead.

    SEE LINK FOR REST

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    Dennis

    This is very important information we all need to consider when assessing the Federal and State government’s support of voice to parliament including Federal proposal to write this into the Constitution;

    “The IPA research fellow pointed to New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal as an example of what the Voice to Parliament would look like if the referendum is successful.

    “It all started in New Zealand with an advisory body. In the 70s the Waitangi Tribunal was set up as an advisory body, 12 years later the highest court said the government has got to treat it’s advice as binding,” Mr Storey said.

    “And then we got Māoris never ceded sovereignty, then we got Māoris have a veto over certain legislation, then Māoris get priority to the covid treatments.

    “They call it co-governance, it’s another word for two nations in one,””

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      el+gordo

      Good point, its discriminatory and racist.

      If the voice comes to fruition then we should expect the MSM to show a strong bias, putting politicians under immense pressure.

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        Dennis

        If the Referendum passes afterwards it would be too late, to reverse constitutional changes would be an almost impossible task and consider getting the necessary legislation for another referendum through Senate and Legislative Assembly first.

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    el+gordo

    Summers getting longer in Oz.

    ‘Research from The Australia Institute in 2020 found that over the past two decades, summers in the most populous areas of Australia were “a month longer” than they were in the 1950s and 60s.

    “Temperatures that marked the start of summer now come around two weeks earlier; temperatures that marked the end of summer now come around two weeks later,” the report said. (ABC)

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      b.nice

      Maybe in URBAN areas.

      And how would they know anyway, the current thermometers are not compatible with those of the 1950s, 60s.

      Why don’t they mention summers of around the 1900s, have they “lost” the data or something !

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    red edwards

    How do you imprison an ex-President? Under Federal law, every ex-President has Secret Service protection 24X7. There is no cut-out for jail. Give him a private jail?

    After all he must be protected from violent felons in the jail, And all those heavily armed, non-Federal guards.

    Quite a three pipe problem. . .

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