Category Archives: Science/Engineering

Pray for global warming

Posted on August 7, 2011 | Comments Off on Pray for global warming

“If we fall into a Dalton, let alone a Maunder, we may again see those picturesque post cards of snow enshrouded Christmases.  So pray for global warming, friends.”

But before you assume the position (whichever one you favor), read it all.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Space, Weather/Climate

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Free-floating planets

Posted on July 30, 2011 | Comments Off on Free-floating planets

This is a recurring nightmare of mine, though not so vivid that it was easy to figure out at first. Sounds awful. Icy, for sure, and dark. Yet, if the populace was far-enough advanced to have developed their own renewable heat sources, they might continue to thrive underground. Or so I imagine.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Space, Weather/Climate

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Enjoy the weather, it’s the only weather you’ve got

Posted on July 23, 2011 | Comments Off on Enjoy the weather, it’s the only weather you’ve got

Somehow, in all my other distractions, I managed to miss Joe Bastardi’s February departure from Accuweather. Part of it was letting my Pro subscription lapse last summer when I had to get a new credit card and forgot to update my account. When they finally got around to asking for the update, I decided to let it go.

Bastardi was fun to read (and to listen to his brief video forecasts) but his focus wandered and I could have a hard time understanding him. I also got a little tired (despite agreeing with him) of his anti-AGW rants. But I always figured I could resume my sub if I got to missing him.

Then I got busy with the three (yes!) books I’m writing, and my spring trip to Israel. Only noticed the other day that old JB had gone missing because I always liked to hear his latest hurricane forecast and we’re coming up on the active part of that season right now.

Well, turns out he’s the new chief meteor of a start-up called Weatherbell, frequently appears on Fox, does guest shots on WUWT, and still Tweets (though how he can compress his natural verbosity into a Tweet is beyond me). My only question is does he still end his forecasts with the famous (and funny) line that’s the title of this post? Or does Accuweather claim to own it? I may have to subscribe to his new gig to find out.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Weather/Climate

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Little African-American cocktail dress

Posted on July 8, 2011 | Comments Off on Little African-American cocktail dress

A fellow recovering journalist has reminded me of a spell checker problem that once afflicted a newspaper we worked at. Some multicultural zealot among the editing caste had programmed the computer system’s spell checker to change every use of the word “black” to the more politically-correct “African American.”

Which, naturally enough, immediately resulted in a screwup. The phrase “little black cocktail dress” in a fashion article was changed to “little African-American cocktail dress.” Fortunately, it was caught and fixed before it got into print. Still makes me chuckle.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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Unsustainable is irrelevant

Posted on June 28, 2011 | Comments Off on Unsustainable is irrelevant

As usual, Obamalot and the greens have their heads up their posteriors.

“Instead of singlemindedly trying to force people to do without carbon-emitting fuels, we must recognize that we won’t make any real progress in cutting CO2 emissions until we can create affordable, efficient alternatives.

“We are far from that point today: much-hyped technologies such as wind and solar energy remain very expensive and inefficient compared with cheap fossil fuels. Globally, wind provides just 0.3 percent of our energy, and solar a minuscule 0.1 percent.

Read. It. All.

For my money, we should, uh, blow off wind, and put the solar panels in space and beam the energy down. But the greens would never stand for that.

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Posted in Obamalot, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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The dragon of Lake Travis

Posted on June 23, 2011 | Comments Off on The dragon of Lake Travis

Well, as you can see, this Texas dragon is obvious from space.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Back to Masada

Posted on June 17, 2011 | Comments Off on Back to Masada

It helps to have been to Masada near the Dead Sea before reading this new, up-to-date summary of the old and new archaeology of the ancient Jewish fortress. But it really isn’t necessary. Sharing in the discoveries can propel a journey all by itself.

The last few pages devoted to a defense of the honor and work of the deceased Israeli warrior-archaeologist Yigael Yadin is spirited and evidentiary and fully justified by the recent slanders against him and the Masada myth.

It is odd that so few remains of the suicided Zealots were found, but it’s probable that the Roman soldiers, whom author Amnon Ben-Tor shows systematically looted the place after conquering it, simply threw the bodies over the walls.

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Posted in Israel, Science/Engineering

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