Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to "w00t."
"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.
Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
"It shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It's a term that's arrived only because we're now communicating electronically with each other," Morse said.
Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what they call "l33t speak" — that's "leet" when spoken, short for "elite" to the rest of the world.
For technophobes, the word also is familiar from the 1990 movie "Pretty Woman," in which Julia Roberts startles her date's upper-crust friends with a hearty "Woot, woot, woot!" at a polo match.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Arctic ice melting faster than expected
An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer — a sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One scientist even speculated that summer sea ice could be gone in five years.
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years ago, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by the Associated Press (AP).
Just last year two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years ago, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by the Associated Press (AP).
Just last year two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Use the Web for Faxing
Use the Web for Faxing
By SHELLY BANJO
October 28, 2007
Email has replaced faxing for many purposes. But for those times when you still need to receive a fax or send a document to someone else's fax machine, a number of Internet faxing sites offer free or inexpensive help.
At eFax.com, you can sign up for a free phone number for receiving faxes by choosing eFaxFree (under "Products, click on "Learn More"). Faxes arrive as attachments in your email inbox. Other free sites for receiving faxes include FaxDigits.com and k7.net.
Additional features, such as toll-free numbers and a variety of fax-sending options, come with a monthly fee package through eFax, FaxDigits and other sites including MyFax.com and TrustFax.com. For instance, MyFax.com charges $10 a month and provides online fax storage, faxing via email-equipped mobile phones, sending to multiple recipients and scheduled delivery.
To send an occasional fax for free, meanwhile, you might try FaxZero.com. You type in information about yourself and the recipient. Then you either type your message or attach a .doc, .xls or .pdf file (subject to size limits) and click "Send Free Fax Now." To send longer faxes or more than two faxes a day through FaxZero.com, the fee is $1.99.
To compare almost a hundred faxing sites by price and features, check out FaxPrices.com.
Write to Shelly Banjo at shelly.banjo@wsj.com
By SHELLY BANJO
October 28, 2007
Email has replaced faxing for many purposes. But for those times when you still need to receive a fax or send a document to someone else's fax machine, a number of Internet faxing sites offer free or inexpensive help.
At eFax.com, you can sign up for a free phone number for receiving faxes by choosing eFaxFree (under "Products, click on "Learn More"). Faxes arrive as attachments in your email inbox. Other free sites for receiving faxes include FaxDigits.com and k7.net.
Additional features, such as toll-free numbers and a variety of fax-sending options, come with a monthly fee package through eFax, FaxDigits and other sites including MyFax.com and TrustFax.com. For instance, MyFax.com charges $10 a month and provides online fax storage, faxing via email-equipped mobile phones, sending to multiple recipients and scheduled delivery.
To send an occasional fax for free, meanwhile, you might try FaxZero.com. You type in information about yourself and the recipient. Then you either type your message or attach a .doc, .xls or .pdf file (subject to size limits) and click "Send Free Fax Now." To send longer faxes or more than two faxes a day through FaxZero.com, the fee is $1.99.
To compare almost a hundred faxing sites by price and features, check out FaxPrices.com.
Write to Shelly Banjo at shelly.banjo@wsj.com
Friday, November 09, 2007
Mona Lisa had eyebrows?
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - For centuries, the "Mona Lisa" has beguiled art buffs unable to resist speculating on its origins and meaning. Now a French inventor claims to have some answers, including the fate of the enigmatic subject's famously missing eyebrows and lashes.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Geni
by Allan Hoffman, Newhouse News Service
I've always wanted to work on a family tree, but I've never had the time for it. Now I've found the way: Other people will do it for me.
This may work for you too.
An online startup, Geni, is bringing the social networking craze - yes, as in youth-oriented spots like MySpace and Facebook - to the sometimes stodgy world of genealogy. By building a family tree online with Geni's free service, you can easily share your family tree with any relative who has an e-mail address. When your relatives add names and dates to their family tree on Geni, these new branches will be added to your tree, too. If you get enough relatives working on this, you can have a family tree with hundreds or thousands of relatives.
I've always wanted to work on a family tree, but I've never had the time for it. Now I've found the way: Other people will do it for me.
This may work for you too.
An online startup, Geni, is bringing the social networking craze - yes, as in youth-oriented spots like MySpace and Facebook - to the sometimes stodgy world of genealogy. By building a family tree online with Geni's free service, you can easily share your family tree with any relative who has an e-mail address. When your relatives add names and dates to their family tree on Geni, these new branches will be added to your tree, too. If you get enough relatives working on this, you can have a family tree with hundreds or thousands of relatives.
SpiralFrog
It has finally come to this: labels are simply giving their music away.
A new Web site named SpiralFrog.com allows visitors with label approval to download music free of charge. It launched Monday in the U.S. and Canada after a beta-testing period.
The fine site features more than 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos, and promises hundreds of thousands more soon. It makes money through advertising, rather than by the 99-cent downloads popularized by Apple's iTunes.
The service, founded by Joe Mohen, pays record companies part of its advertising revenue. Thus far, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, is the only major label to dip its tunes into SpiralFrog's pool.
Songs from several big acts can be found, including Maroon 5, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani, Weezer, Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. All the tracks from many albums are available (from the Who's "Who Sell Out" to Nirvana's "In Utero") so the content here is no small potatoes.
***
SpiralFrog, the pioneering ad-supported music service, quietly closed down on Thursday. SpiralFrog's site went dark at about 4 p.m. PDT.
A source close to the company told CNET News that SpiralFrog has ceased operations and assets have been surrendered to creditors. To keep operations going last year, the company issued secured notes in order to borrow at least $9 million from several hedge funds and others.
SpiralFrog representatives weren't immediately available for comment.
New York-based SpiralFrog made a splash in August 2006 by attempting to offer music free of charge to the public while supporting the site through ad sales. Media outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, and USA Today questioned whether the site might one day challenge Apple's iTunes.
Some argued that SpiralFrog's business model was the answer to illegal file sharing. But the model has yet to be proven. SpiralFrog is the second ad-supported service to shut down in 2009. Ruckus, which catered to college students, also shuttered operations.
A new Web site named SpiralFrog.com allows visitors with label approval to download music free of charge. It launched Monday in the U.S. and Canada after a beta-testing period.
The fine site features more than 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos, and promises hundreds of thousands more soon. It makes money through advertising, rather than by the 99-cent downloads popularized by Apple's iTunes.
The service, founded by Joe Mohen, pays record companies part of its advertising revenue. Thus far, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, is the only major label to dip its tunes into SpiralFrog's pool.
Songs from several big acts can be found, including Maroon 5, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani, Weezer, Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. All the tracks from many albums are available (from the Who's "Who Sell Out" to Nirvana's "In Utero") so the content here is no small potatoes.
***
SpiralFrog, the pioneering ad-supported music service, quietly closed down on Thursday. SpiralFrog's site went dark at about 4 p.m. PDT.
A source close to the company told CNET News that SpiralFrog has ceased operations and assets have been surrendered to creditors. To keep operations going last year, the company issued secured notes in order to borrow at least $9 million from several hedge funds and others.
SpiralFrog representatives weren't immediately available for comment.
New York-based SpiralFrog made a splash in August 2006 by attempting to offer music free of charge to the public while supporting the site through ad sales. Media outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, and USA Today questioned whether the site might one day challenge Apple's iTunes.
Some argued that SpiralFrog's business model was the answer to illegal file sharing. But the model has yet to be proven. SpiralFrog is the second ad-supported service to shut down in 2009. Ruckus, which catered to college students, also shuttered operations.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Increase your RAM - free of cost
Now this is called a tip of the year! While working with the Task Manager I observed the following. You can also try it out.
- Start any application, say Word. Open some large documents.
- Now start the Task Manager processor tab and sort the list in descending order on Mem Usage. You will notice that Winword.exe will be somewhere at the top, using multiple MBs of memory. Note down the number.
- Now switch to Word and simply minimise it. (Do not use the Minimize All option of the task bar).
- Now go back to the Task Manager and see where Winword.exe is listed. Most probably you will not find it at the top. You will typically have to scroll to the bottom of the list to find Word. Now check out the amount of RAM it is using. Compare it with the original. Surprised? The memory utilisation has reduced by a huge amount.
- So where is the tip of the year? Simple — minimise each application that you are currently not working on by clicking on the Minimize button, and you can increase the amount of available RAM by a substantial margin. Depending upon the number and type of applications you use together, the difference can be as much as 50 percent of extra RAM—and all this is free of cost!
Friday, September 21, 2007
jatropha
When Suleiman Diarra Banani’s brother said that the poisonous black seeds dropping from the seemingly worthless weed that had grown around his family farm for decades could be used to run a generator, or even a car, Mr. Banani did not believe him. When he suggested that they intersperse the plant, until now used as a natural fence between rows of their regular crops — edible millet, peanuts, corn and beans — he thought his older brother, Dadjo, was crazy.
“I thought it was a plant for old ladies to make soap,” he said.
But now that a plant called jatropha is being hailed by scientists and policy makers as a potentially ideal source of biofuel, a plant that can grow in marginal soil or beside food crops, that does not require a lot of fertilizer and yields many times as much biofuel per acre planted as corn and many other potential biofuels. By planting a row of jatropha for every seven rows of regular crops, Mr. Banani could double his income on the field in the first year and lose none of his usual yield from his field.
“I thought it was a plant for old ladies to make soap,” he said.
But now that a plant called jatropha is being hailed by scientists and policy makers as a potentially ideal source of biofuel, a plant that can grow in marginal soil or beside food crops, that does not require a lot of fertilizer and yields many times as much biofuel per acre planted as corn and many other potential biofuels. By planting a row of jatropha for every seven rows of regular crops, Mr. Banani could double his income on the field in the first year and lose none of his usual yield from his field.
Friday, September 14, 2007
bye-bye batteries?
An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 805km roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without petrol.
By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 80,5km of petrol-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels.
Sceptics, though, fear the claims stretch the bounds of existing technology to the point of alchemy.
By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 80,5km of petrol-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels.
Sceptics, though, fear the claims stretch the bounds of existing technology to the point of alchemy.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Is your password safe?
We won't dwell on passwords today. But there is a way to test the one you use, to make sure it is secure. Go to this site - www.securitystats.com/tools/password.php - and enter a password. You'll be told just how secure that password is. If the bar turns red, the password is bad. If it's yellow, the password is weak. If it's in the green, so are you.
cleaning your LCD monitor
Q: Can you explain how to clean my new LCD monitor?
— Sarah Starr
A: Any of the commercial LCD screen cleaners sold at computer stores or online will work fine. You can also make your own cleaner. The best commercial cleaners contain a 50/50 mixture of water and isopropyl alcohol.
While there may be other ingredients listed, the alcohol/water mixture does the real work. It's better to spray it onto the screen rather than wipe it on. I use an old glass cleaner bottle that was thoroughly washed (using glass cleaner on an LCD screen is a bad idea). Use a soft, lint-free cloth and wipe from top to bottom, not in a circular motion. Never use a paper towel — it'll scratch the screen.
— Sarah Starr
A: Any of the commercial LCD screen cleaners sold at computer stores or online will work fine. You can also make your own cleaner. The best commercial cleaners contain a 50/50 mixture of water and isopropyl alcohol.
While there may be other ingredients listed, the alcohol/water mixture does the real work. It's better to spray it onto the screen rather than wipe it on. I use an old glass cleaner bottle that was thoroughly washed (using glass cleaner on an LCD screen is a bad idea). Use a soft, lint-free cloth and wipe from top to bottom, not in a circular motion. Never use a paper towel — it'll scratch the screen.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
How to tame the e-mail monster
E-MAIL, a blessing or curse? E-mail is one of the world's top communication tools. It is also our No. 1 annoyance.
Hoala Greevy, the creator of Hawaii-based PauSpam.com, reports that an average of 80 percent of all the e-mail we receive is either spam or viruses. What an incredible waste of time! Think how much more efficient we would be without the distraction of junk, spam, or advertising e-mails. Actually, e-mail that we do need to read is a distraction, too, and can become a virus in and of itself.
You can avoid these distractions by implementing a policy we've developed as to how to check e-mail. My coaching clients are gaining up to a full workday in free time by implementing this system which you can model to work best for you to maximize your time. But, be forewarned. This method challenges the e-mail addict.
First, check e-mail no more than three times a day, and do this at set times in your day.
When a new e-mail message comes through, don't stop what you're doing to attend to it. If you are guilty of checking your e-mail as soon as you hear the sound announcing that you have a new e-mail, you are not alone. It's almost like a trigger that reminds your brain, "Oh, a new e-mail just came in. I'd better check it. It could be important." Stop the temptation by turning off the e-mail announcement sound on your computer.
Install some type of spam-filtering software to combat that evil spam creature.
The next thing you want to do is to organize all your incoming e-mail.
» Folder No. 1: This is for clients. Your clients come first. They're the reason you're in business, and why they're in Folder No. 1.
» Folder No. 2 is for my partner's e-mail. Often, he asks questions that need to be acted on immediately. It could be about a client or a strategy that he wants support on. Other times, he's following up on e-mails that I have sent him. If you have a partner, or do business with someone in a strategic-partner manner, or with someone at that level whose e-mail needs to be responded to as soon as it comes in or within several hours, their e-mail would go in Folder No. 2.
» Folder No. 3: This is a low priority, read-later folder. Newsletters and e-zines that I subscribe to go into this folder. It's organized based on the particular title of the newsletter. This lets me get caught up with cutting-edge trends on my own time, without distracting me the minute it comes in.
Hoala Greevy, the creator of Hawaii-based PauSpam.com, reports that an average of 80 percent of all the e-mail we receive is either spam or viruses. What an incredible waste of time! Think how much more efficient we would be without the distraction of junk, spam, or advertising e-mails. Actually, e-mail that we do need to read is a distraction, too, and can become a virus in and of itself.
You can avoid these distractions by implementing a policy we've developed as to how to check e-mail. My coaching clients are gaining up to a full workday in free time by implementing this system which you can model to work best for you to maximize your time. But, be forewarned. This method challenges the e-mail addict.
First, check e-mail no more than three times a day, and do this at set times in your day.
When a new e-mail message comes through, don't stop what you're doing to attend to it. If you are guilty of checking your e-mail as soon as you hear the sound announcing that you have a new e-mail, you are not alone. It's almost like a trigger that reminds your brain, "Oh, a new e-mail just came in. I'd better check it. It could be important." Stop the temptation by turning off the e-mail announcement sound on your computer.
Install some type of spam-filtering software to combat that evil spam creature.
The next thing you want to do is to organize all your incoming e-mail.
» Folder No. 1: This is for clients. Your clients come first. They're the reason you're in business, and why they're in Folder No. 1.
» Folder No. 2 is for my partner's e-mail. Often, he asks questions that need to be acted on immediately. It could be about a client or a strategy that he wants support on. Other times, he's following up on e-mails that I have sent him. If you have a partner, or do business with someone in a strategic-partner manner, or with someone at that level whose e-mail needs to be responded to as soon as it comes in or within several hours, their e-mail would go in Folder No. 2.
» Folder No. 3: This is a low priority, read-later folder. Newsletters and e-zines that I subscribe to go into this folder. It's organized based on the particular title of the newsletter. This lets me get caught up with cutting-edge trends on my own time, without distracting me the minute it comes in.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Gates and Jobs old pals?
CARLSBAD - The words that come to mind when trying to describe tech titans Bill Gates and Steve Jobs don't usually include "nostalgic," "sentimental" or "soft."
Yet in a historic joint appearance at the D: All Things Digital Conference on Wednesday, the two were at times overcome about their history together. Indeed, by the end, both men seemed choked up by the emotion of the moment.
Gates in particular took special pride in his role as co-founder and chairman of Microsoft. Even after being praised for his recent philanthropic efforts, Gates talked more about what he did in the technology industry than what his charitable foundation is doing now.
"The most important work I got a chance to be involved in - no matter what I do - is the personal computer," Gates said. "That's my life's work."
It's been quite a life for the two of them, and they have been at the center of the action for most of their careers. Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of Apple, noted that when they started working together in the mid-1970s, he and Gates were often the youngest people in the room. Now, he said, he's often the oldest.
Paraphrasing a Beatles song, he added, "You and I have memories that are longer than the road that stretches out ahead."
To be sure, the appearance wasn't a love fest. Jobs at times, as he's wont to do, seemed to get under Gates' skin.
At one point he tried to convince Gates that Apple isn't trying to be mean by poking fun at the "PC guy," the lovable loser who stands in sharp contrast to Apple's cool "Mac guy" in a popular series of commercials.
"The art of those commercials ... is for those guys to like each other," Jobs said. "The PC guy is what makes it all work, actually. It's worth thinking about."
Needless to say, Gates didn't appear to be convinced. In an interview with Newsweek earlier this year, he'd even questioned the ads' veracity.
Still, the two did show their mutual respect for each other. Gates, for instance, praised Jobs' aesthetic sense, noting that it sharply differed from his own sensibility, which is to approach problems from an engineering perspective.
"I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste - in terms of intuitive taste for people and products," he said. "The way he does things, it's just different. It's magical."
Similarly, Jobs said that Apple could have learned a lot from Microsoft's penchant for partnering with other companies in the industry. Partnering simply wasn't in Apple's DNA, and the company didn't learn how to do it until decades after its founding, he said.
"The funny thing is Microsoft's one of the few companies we were able to partner with (where) that actually worked for both companies," he said.
The conversation was moderated by longtime technology journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who organized the event, and took place in front of such luminaries as movie director George Lucas, domestic diva Martha Stewart and former AOL Chairman Steve Case.
The event marked the first time Jobs and Gates have made a joint public appearance since the 1997 Boston Macworld event, when Gates joined Jobs via teleconference to announce a landmark deal between their two companies. The previous time the two appeared together at a public event was in the early 1980s.
Jobs' participation in the event capped a long day for him and the company. Earlier in the day, the iconic CEO participated in a separate conversation with Mossberg. During that event, he announced that the company's Apple TV set-top box would soon allow users to watch YouTube videos from the Internet.
Meanwhile, Apple announced early Wednesday morning that it has added unprotected digital songs from music label EMI to its iTunes music store as part of an agreement the companies announced in April. The company also announced that it was adding course lectures and other education materials for download from the iTunes store.
The two tech titans have long been known for their rivalry. What isn't as well understood is that they and their companies also have a history of cooperation. Microsoft has been one of the most important software developers for the Macintosh, and the company arguably helped save Apple in 1997 with a $150 million investment and a commitment to continue developing its Office suite for the Mac.
On a personal level, Jobs and Gates were good enough friends in the 1980s to double date occasionally and for Gates to leave friendly prank calls on Jobs' answering machine.
That said, Jobs is well known for taking pot-shots at his company's bigger rival. And he didn't disappoint on Wednesday. The company's iTunes software is one of the most popular programs on computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system, Jobs noted in his conversation earlier in the day with Mossberg. Indeed, he said, some users have written to tell Apple that it's their favorite Windows application, he said.
"It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell," he said.
By Troy Wolverton
Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/30/2007 11:14:18 PM PDT
Yet in a historic joint appearance at the D: All Things Digital Conference on Wednesday, the two were at times overcome about their history together. Indeed, by the end, both men seemed choked up by the emotion of the moment.
Gates in particular took special pride in his role as co-founder and chairman of Microsoft. Even after being praised for his recent philanthropic efforts, Gates talked more about what he did in the technology industry than what his charitable foundation is doing now.
"The most important work I got a chance to be involved in - no matter what I do - is the personal computer," Gates said. "That's my life's work."
It's been quite a life for the two of them, and they have been at the center of the action for most of their careers. Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of Apple, noted that when they started working together in the mid-1970s, he and Gates were often the youngest people in the room. Now, he said, he's often the oldest.
Paraphrasing a Beatles song, he added, "You and I have memories that are longer than the road that stretches out ahead."
To be sure, the appearance wasn't a love fest. Jobs at times, as he's wont to do, seemed to get under Gates' skin.
At one point he tried to convince Gates that Apple isn't trying to be mean by poking fun at the "PC guy," the lovable loser who stands in sharp contrast to Apple's cool "Mac guy" in a popular series of commercials.
"The art of those commercials ... is for those guys to like each other," Jobs said. "The PC guy is what makes it all work, actually. It's worth thinking about."
Needless to say, Gates didn't appear to be convinced. In an interview with Newsweek earlier this year, he'd even questioned the ads' veracity.
Still, the two did show their mutual respect for each other. Gates, for instance, praised Jobs' aesthetic sense, noting that it sharply differed from his own sensibility, which is to approach problems from an engineering perspective.
"I'd give a lot to have Steve's taste - in terms of intuitive taste for people and products," he said. "The way he does things, it's just different. It's magical."
Similarly, Jobs said that Apple could have learned a lot from Microsoft's penchant for partnering with other companies in the industry. Partnering simply wasn't in Apple's DNA, and the company didn't learn how to do it until decades after its founding, he said.
"The funny thing is Microsoft's one of the few companies we were able to partner with (where) that actually worked for both companies," he said.
The conversation was moderated by longtime technology journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who organized the event, and took place in front of such luminaries as movie director George Lucas, domestic diva Martha Stewart and former AOL Chairman Steve Case.
The event marked the first time Jobs and Gates have made a joint public appearance since the 1997 Boston Macworld event, when Gates joined Jobs via teleconference to announce a landmark deal between their two companies. The previous time the two appeared together at a public event was in the early 1980s.
Jobs' participation in the event capped a long day for him and the company. Earlier in the day, the iconic CEO participated in a separate conversation with Mossberg. During that event, he announced that the company's Apple TV set-top box would soon allow users to watch YouTube videos from the Internet.
Meanwhile, Apple announced early Wednesday morning that it has added unprotected digital songs from music label EMI to its iTunes music store as part of an agreement the companies announced in April. The company also announced that it was adding course lectures and other education materials for download from the iTunes store.
The two tech titans have long been known for their rivalry. What isn't as well understood is that they and their companies also have a history of cooperation. Microsoft has been one of the most important software developers for the Macintosh, and the company arguably helped save Apple in 1997 with a $150 million investment and a commitment to continue developing its Office suite for the Mac.
On a personal level, Jobs and Gates were good enough friends in the 1980s to double date occasionally and for Gates to leave friendly prank calls on Jobs' answering machine.
That said, Jobs is well known for taking pot-shots at his company's bigger rival. And he didn't disappoint on Wednesday. The company's iTunes software is one of the most popular programs on computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system, Jobs noted in his conversation earlier in the day with Mossberg. Indeed, he said, some users have written to tell Apple that it's their favorite Windows application, he said.
"It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell," he said.
By Troy Wolverton
Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/30/2007 11:14:18 PM PDT
eBay parties on, but not Google
SAN FRANCISCO, June 13 — It had all the appearances of a marketing stunt gone awry, the Internet industry’s version of a wily playground taunt that quickly escalated into a tense standoff, until the taunter — Google, in this case — blinked.
Here’s what happened. As thousands of eBay’s largest sellers prepared to gather in Boston for their annual eBay-sponsored convention and party this week, Google, the Internet search and advertising giant, decided it would be a good idea to invite those sellers to its own party. Not just any party, either, but one to promote Google Checkout, a payment system that competes with the eBay-owned PayPal and which eBay has banned from its auctions.
“Let Freedom Ring,” read the invitation on an official Google blog. And in classic Google style, it promised “free food, free drinks, free live music — even free massages.”
That did not sit well with eBay, and early Wednesday the IDG News Service reported that eBay had decided to drop all the ads it places on Google’s search engine. EBay is the largest buyer of Google search ads, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
“I won’t comment whether that was directly tied to Google’s plans to have that party,” said Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman. He said that eBay was simply running a test — something it does frequently — by shifting marketing dollars to determine the best way to attract users.
That’s not how some people interpreted eBay’s move. “I don’t think anyone believes that any more than we believe that eBay does not allow sellers to use Checkout because the service is unproven,” said Scot Wingo, the chief executive of ChannelAdvisor.com, a company that helps store owners sell on multiple online sites, including eBay.
Regardless, by late Wednesday, Google rescinded the invitation to eBay sellers and canceled the party. “EBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity,” the Google blog read. “After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference.”
A Google spokesman declined to comment further.
“We are pleased that they apparently have seen that the party was inappropriate,” Mr. Durzy said. “It is not the way one partner should act with another.” Besides being rivals, the companies have a deal for Google to sell ads on eBay sites overseas.
Analysts said eBay’s decision to withdraw its ads is not likely to hurt the search giant. EBay spends less than $25 million on Google a quarter, said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, or only a tiny fraction of Google’s nearly $3.7 billion in revenue in the latest quarter.
Will eBay bring its ads back to Google? “We have no firm date for how long the experiment will go,” Mr. Durzy said.
[via Russ]
Here’s what happened. As thousands of eBay’s largest sellers prepared to gather in Boston for their annual eBay-sponsored convention and party this week, Google, the Internet search and advertising giant, decided it would be a good idea to invite those sellers to its own party. Not just any party, either, but one to promote Google Checkout, a payment system that competes with the eBay-owned PayPal and which eBay has banned from its auctions.
“Let Freedom Ring,” read the invitation on an official Google blog. And in classic Google style, it promised “free food, free drinks, free live music — even free massages.”
That did not sit well with eBay, and early Wednesday the IDG News Service reported that eBay had decided to drop all the ads it places on Google’s search engine. EBay is the largest buyer of Google search ads, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
“I won’t comment whether that was directly tied to Google’s plans to have that party,” said Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman. He said that eBay was simply running a test — something it does frequently — by shifting marketing dollars to determine the best way to attract users.
That’s not how some people interpreted eBay’s move. “I don’t think anyone believes that any more than we believe that eBay does not allow sellers to use Checkout because the service is unproven,” said Scot Wingo, the chief executive of ChannelAdvisor.com, a company that helps store owners sell on multiple online sites, including eBay.
Regardless, by late Wednesday, Google rescinded the invitation to eBay sellers and canceled the party. “EBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity,” the Google blog read. “After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference.”
A Google spokesman declined to comment further.
“We are pleased that they apparently have seen that the party was inappropriate,” Mr. Durzy said. “It is not the way one partner should act with another.” Besides being rivals, the companies have a deal for Google to sell ads on eBay sites overseas.
Analysts said eBay’s decision to withdraw its ads is not likely to hurt the search giant. EBay spends less than $25 million on Google a quarter, said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, or only a tiny fraction of Google’s nearly $3.7 billion in revenue in the latest quarter.
Will eBay bring its ads back to Google? “We have no firm date for how long the experiment will go,” Mr. Durzy said.
[via Russ]
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
ethanol is not green
UNIVERSITY of California-Berkeley professor of civil engineering Tad W. Patzek has argued that the use of ethanol as a gas additive is a misguided public policy decision because it takes more fossil fuel to produce ethanol than the energy that comes from it.
David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, added that ethanol is not sustainable because its production from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced. The government spends more than $3 billion a year to subsidize ethanol production, but the vast majority of the subsidies go to large ethanol-producing corporations, not to farmers.
Worse yet, their analyses do not address the additional problem of wasting food for humans and animals by converting it to fuel.
Consumer Reports in October 2006 presented "The Ethanol Myth." The magazine tested identical large SUVs in gasoline and E85 versions. The overall mileage was 14 mpg for gasoline and 10 mpg for E85. The ethanol-powered vehicle required 40 percent more fuel!
Ethanol is not green: Civil engineering professor Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University modeled a scenario in which all U.S. vehicles ran on E85 by 2020, and found that because ethanol produces more hydrocarbon emissions than gasoline, it causes an accelerated ozone formation and a 4.2 percent increase in deaths due to ozone.
David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, added that ethanol is not sustainable because its production from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced. The government spends more than $3 billion a year to subsidize ethanol production, but the vast majority of the subsidies go to large ethanol-producing corporations, not to farmers.
Worse yet, their analyses do not address the additional problem of wasting food for humans and animals by converting it to fuel.
Consumer Reports in October 2006 presented "The Ethanol Myth." The magazine tested identical large SUVs in gasoline and E85 versions. The overall mileage was 14 mpg for gasoline and 10 mpg for E85. The ethanol-powered vehicle required 40 percent more fuel!
Ethanol is not green: Civil engineering professor Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University modeled a scenario in which all U.S. vehicles ran on E85 by 2020, and found that because ethanol produces more hydrocarbon emissions than gasoline, it causes an accelerated ozone formation and a 4.2 percent increase in deaths due to ozone.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Dark Energy
Scientists have long recognized that the universe has been growing larger since its origin 13.7 billion years ago in an extremely rapid expansion called the “Big Bang.” But we assumed that this expansion should be slowing down due to the pull of gravity. In 1998, however, two teams of astrophysicists discovered that the expansion is actually speeding up. They observed a mysterious form of “energy” that opposes gravity and is causing the galaxies throughout the universe to move apart faster and faster.
It’s as if you dropped this magazine and, instead of falling to the floor, it suddenly soared toward the ceiling. That would certainly signal the presence of an unexpected force of some kind. In the same way, the galaxies’ accelerated expansion signaled the presence of a previously unknown entity in the universe.
The discovery of “Dark Energy” is arguably the most important scientific breakthrough of the last 50 years. A full understanding of it eventually could have an effect on our daily lives.
It’s as if you dropped this magazine and, instead of falling to the floor, it suddenly soared toward the ceiling. That would certainly signal the presence of an unexpected force of some kind. In the same way, the galaxies’ accelerated expansion signaled the presence of a previously unknown entity in the universe.
The discovery of “Dark Energy” is arguably the most important scientific breakthrough of the last 50 years. A full understanding of it eventually could have an effect on our daily lives.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
cellulosic ethanol
[6/8/07] At a Brazilian ethanol conference June 4-5, Brazilian government-funded researchers said they have perfected a method of producing cellulosic ethanol that drastically reduces the cost of processing. At this point, the assertion -- and many other similarly optimistic claims made at the conference -- is unconfirmed. But should it prove true, the world could well be peeking over the horizon at a massive geopolitical, not to mention economic, shift.
[6/22/06] Cellulosic ethanol has all the advantages of corn-based ethanol - there is no difference in the ethanol, only in the way it's produced.
But unlike corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol can be made from a variety of things that might otherwise be considered waste – sewage sludge, switchgrass, plant stalks, trees, even coal – virtually anything that contains carbon.
Ashworth said there are an estimated one billion tons of such material available in the U.S. every year, enough for 100 billion gallons of ethanol.
While it's not feasible to actually go out and collect every ounce of that one billion tons, he said it's not unreasonable to expect ethanol to replace 40 billion gallons of gasoline in the near future.
"There's a lot of venture capitol out there that's willing to invest in cellulosic ethanol," he said. "You're likely to see some plants built in the next 12 to 18 months."
[via InvestorGuide Daily]
[6/22/06] Cellulosic ethanol has all the advantages of corn-based ethanol - there is no difference in the ethanol, only in the way it's produced.
But unlike corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol can be made from a variety of things that might otherwise be considered waste – sewage sludge, switchgrass, plant stalks, trees, even coal – virtually anything that contains carbon.
Ashworth said there are an estimated one billion tons of such material available in the U.S. every year, enough for 100 billion gallons of ethanol.
While it's not feasible to actually go out and collect every ounce of that one billion tons, he said it's not unreasonable to expect ethanol to replace 40 billion gallons of gasoline in the near future.
"There's a lot of venture capitol out there that's willing to invest in cellulosic ethanol," he said. "You're likely to see some plants built in the next 12 to 18 months."
[via InvestorGuide Daily]
Monday, May 07, 2007
Severn Suzuki
Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been doing her best to save her planet from environmental catastrophe since she was knee-high to a grasshopper.
At age six when most girls would be playing with their Barbie dolls Cullis-Suzuki was selling her father's hardcover books at lawn sales for 25 cents each to raise money for native land claims in British Columbia.
By age 10 she had co-founded ECO, the Environmental Children's Organization, with a group of like-minded grade six girlfriends at Lord Tennyson Elementary School in Vancouver.
Their first project was to buy a water filter for natives in the Malaysian tropical rain forest whose water supply was threatened by over logging and the effluence of an ever-encroaching population.
In 1992, when she was only 12, she brought world leaders to tears with a speech at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in which she chastised them for failing to protect her and her friends from the looming environmental catastrophe.
"I'm afraid to go out in the sun now because of holes in the ozone. I'm afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it," Cullis-Suzuki said in a six-minute speech heard around the world. "I used to go fishing with my dad in Vancouver until just a few years ago. We found the fish full of cancers."
Then she read out a checklist of the things the adults had failed to do to protect and preserve the health of the planet and urged them to get on with the task of making it fit for 5 billion people, or get out of the way.
"I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions, but I want you to realize neither do you...if you don't now how to fix it then please stop breaking it," she pleaded with the delegates.
At age six when most girls would be playing with their Barbie dolls Cullis-Suzuki was selling her father's hardcover books at lawn sales for 25 cents each to raise money for native land claims in British Columbia.
By age 10 she had co-founded ECO, the Environmental Children's Organization, with a group of like-minded grade six girlfriends at Lord Tennyson Elementary School in Vancouver.
Their first project was to buy a water filter for natives in the Malaysian tropical rain forest whose water supply was threatened by over logging and the effluence of an ever-encroaching population.
In 1992, when she was only 12, she brought world leaders to tears with a speech at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in which she chastised them for failing to protect her and her friends from the looming environmental catastrophe.
"I'm afraid to go out in the sun now because of holes in the ozone. I'm afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it," Cullis-Suzuki said in a six-minute speech heard around the world. "I used to go fishing with my dad in Vancouver until just a few years ago. We found the fish full of cancers."
Then she read out a checklist of the things the adults had failed to do to protect and preserve the health of the planet and urged them to get on with the task of making it fit for 5 billion people, or get out of the way.
"I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions, but I want you to realize neither do you...if you don't now how to fix it then please stop breaking it," she pleaded with the delegates.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
learning Chinese
Anyone who has tried to learn Chinese can attest to how hard it is to master the tones required to speak and understand it. And anyone who has tried to learn to play the violin or other instruments can report similar challenges. Now researchers have found that people with musical training have an easier time learning Chinese.
Writing in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience, researchers from Northwestern University say that both skills draw on parts of the brain that help people detect changes in pitch.
One of the study's authors, Nina Kraus, said the findings suggested that studying music "actually tunes our sensory system."
This means that schools that want children to do well in languages should hesitate before cutting music programs, Dr. Kraus said. She said music training might also help children with language problems.
Mandarin speakers have been shown to have a more complex encoding of pitch patterns in their brains than English speakers do. This is presumably because in Mandarin and other Asian languages, pitch plays a central role. A single-syllable word can have several meanings depending on how it is intoned.
For this study, the researchers looked at 20 non-Chinese speaking volunteers, half with no musical background and half who had studied an instrument for at least six years.
As they were shown a movie, the volunteers also heard an audiotape of the Mandarin word "mi" in three of its meanings: squint, bewilder and rice. The researchers recorded activity in their brain stems to see how well they were processing the sounds.
Those with a music background showed much more brain activity in response to the Chinese sounds.
The lead author of the study, Patrick C. M. Wong, said it might work both ways. It appears that native speakers of tonal languages may do better at learning instruments, Dr. Wong said.
Writing in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience, researchers from Northwestern University say that both skills draw on parts of the brain that help people detect changes in pitch.
One of the study's authors, Nina Kraus, said the findings suggested that studying music "actually tunes our sensory system."
This means that schools that want children to do well in languages should hesitate before cutting music programs, Dr. Kraus said. She said music training might also help children with language problems.
Mandarin speakers have been shown to have a more complex encoding of pitch patterns in their brains than English speakers do. This is presumably because in Mandarin and other Asian languages, pitch plays a central role. A single-syllable word can have several meanings depending on how it is intoned.
For this study, the researchers looked at 20 non-Chinese speaking volunteers, half with no musical background and half who had studied an instrument for at least six years.
As they were shown a movie, the volunteers also heard an audiotape of the Mandarin word "mi" in three of its meanings: squint, bewilder and rice. The researchers recorded activity in their brain stems to see how well they were processing the sounds.
Those with a music background showed much more brain activity in response to the Chinese sounds.
The lead author of the study, Patrick C. M. Wong, said it might work both ways. It appears that native speakers of tonal languages may do better at learning instruments, Dr. Wong said.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Drunk on ethanol
By Matt Crenson, Associated Press
NEW YORK -- America is drunk on ethanol. Farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries that turn it into billions of gallons of fuel. Automakers in Detroit have already built millions of cars, trucks and SUVs that can run on it, and are committed to making millions more. In Washington, politicians have approved generous subsidies for companies that make ethanol.
And just this week, President Bush arranged with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for their countries to share ethanol production technology.
Even alternative fuel aficionados are surprised at the nation's sudden enthusiasm for grain alcohol.
"It's coming on dramatically; more rapidly than anyone had expected," said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You'd think that would be good news, but it actually worries a lot of people.
NEW YORK -- America is drunk on ethanol. Farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries that turn it into billions of gallons of fuel. Automakers in Detroit have already built millions of cars, trucks and SUVs that can run on it, and are committed to making millions more. In Washington, politicians have approved generous subsidies for companies that make ethanol.
And just this week, President Bush arranged with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for their countries to share ethanol production technology.
Even alternative fuel aficionados are surprised at the nation's sudden enthusiasm for grain alcohol.
"It's coming on dramatically; more rapidly than anyone had expected," said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You'd think that would be good news, but it actually worries a lot of people.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Global Warming
[1/21/13] Travis Holum pens this article for the Motley Fool.
Like it or not, the evidence that the Earth's climate is changing is no longer up for debate in mainstream scientific communities. In less-scientific communities, it's also becoming harder to make the argument that some sort of climate change isn't present (no snow in Minnesota in January!).
As might be expected, lots of comments.
[8/16/12] Somehow a debate on global warming erupted over on chucks_angels.
There was a number of scientists who are skeptical of global warming and I was wondering what percentage of scientists believe in global warming.
According to wikipedia
Since 2001, 32 national science academies have come together to issue joint declarations confirming anthropogenic global warming, and urging the nations of the world to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The signatories of these statements have been the national science academies of 32 countries.
Since 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement,[105] no scientific body of national or international standing rejects the findings of human-induced effects on climate change.
In an October 2011 paper published in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, researchers from George Mason University analyzed the results of a survey of 489 scientists working in academia, government, and industry. The scientists polled were members of the American Geophysical Union or the American Meteorological Society and listed in the 23rd edition of American Men and Women of Science, a biographical reference work on leading American scientists. Of those surveyed, 97% agreed that that global temperatures have risen over the past century. Moreover, 84% agreed that "human-induced greenhouse warming" is now occurring. Only 5% disagreed with the idea that human activity is a significant cause of global warming.
This article (linked from the above wikipedia article) asserts that it's an American thing
As glaciers melt and island populations retreat from their coastlines to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the global research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S.
The frustration revealed itself during a handful of sessions at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, coming to a peak during a Friday session, "Science without Borders and Media Unbounded".
Near the forum’s conclusion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology climate scientist Kerry Emanuel asked a panel of journalists why the media continues to cover anthropogenic climate change as a controversy or debate, when in fact it is a consensus among such organizations as the American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association and the National Research Council, along with the national academies of more than two dozen countries.
And here's an article summarizing a recent debate.
First an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, No Need To Panic About Global Warning, by a group of 16 scientists.
Then a courageous response by a Professor of Economics (courageous in the sense that a Professor of Economics tackles a groups of scientists in a field out of his specialty).
Then a response to the response by three of the 16 scientists (and a response to the response to the response).
[Don't know if there was a response to the response to the response to the response.]
[7/16/10 Brill] Critics, mostly nonscientists, were quick to pick out errors and falsifications in the original 2007 IPCC report that brought climate to the global stage, calling it "ClimageGate" and alluding to a worldwide conspiracy to "convince the public either with no facts or falsely created ones," as one source put it.
It is puzzling that the sparsest evidence will sway people to believe that the moon landings were faked; yet the abundant and competent evidence for anthropogenic climate change is disdained and discredited.
The existing data on the climatic system suggests a high probability that we are affecting the climate. Anyone with data to the contrary, this is the time to speak up and not just criticize that which you don't understand.
Climate change is arguably the most significant and difficult problem ever faced by the human race, and we are treating it like a political campaign. Are we the frogs who won't jump out of the boiling water, or are we the intelligent beings we claim to be who will continue to monitor as we hope for the best and plan for the worst?
Do I believe in climate change? No, what I believe is that our meager science has not afforded us an adequate understanding of nature, and I'll take the worst verifiable knowledge over the best unfounded speculation whether it supports my beliefs or not.
[5/7/10 Brill] Climate change is an issue that is likely to remain unsettled for an indefinite period of time. The geosystem is too big for us to understand at present with our puny minds and primitive computers.
If we are experiencing a catastrophic climate change, there is little doubt that the last humans left alive on the planet will still be debating and denying it.
But suppose we did discover that global climate change is occurring and there is the likelihood of a catastrophic future. What would we do?
There are several lines of mediation that geoengineers are studying. One is reducing the sunlight that reaches Earth's surface by reflecting it from mirrors in space or on the ground, or by dispersing reflective particles in the atmosphere. Another is removing pollutants such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides or whatever is deemed to be a cause that can be efficaciously mediated. A third is to reduce emissions and pollutants so that natural processes can re-establish a cooler equilibrium.
The first two present technical problems but are doable. The third presents sociopolitical problems that are unlikely to be solved in the near future.
[7/17/09 Brill] It might seem that to determine whether carbon dioxide influences Earth's heat budget is merely a matter of taking Earth's temperature, measuring carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, then looking for a correlation.
The correlation is there. Earth's temperature is increasing in concert with greenhouse gases. Can we be sure which is cause and which is effect?
Confounding the problem are multiple variables (carbon dioxide plays multiple roles in geochemistry) and nonlinearity of the relationship (at higher temperatures the oceans release stored greenhouse gases resulting in positive feedback). Because of these and other confounding factors and bias, we cannot easily determine causality and thus cannot predict with certainty what the effects of mitigation might be.
All of this and more is wrapped up into this complex political, social, scientific quandary we call global climate change.
[who knew Brill was a right-winger?]
[11/17/08] If the Greenland icecap melts, the Sahara expands and the Siberian permafrost disappears, don't blame carbon-emitting SUVs or billowing smokestacks, says a group of scientists who claim their research on global warming has been repressed. The explanation, they argue, might be simpler: Mother Nature is just going through her natural cycles.
Researchers from around the world have begun to question the growing acceptance among the public, the media and the scientific community that labels human behavior as the primary cause of global warming.
The researchers who go against the scientific grain on the climate change issue know their ideas are unpopular. In fact, many claim their research is so disliked the rest of the scientific community is working to suppress it in spite of convincing scientific evidence.
[2/17/07] Richard Brill states:
There is a nearly 1-to-1 correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature only for the past 450,000 years during the extremes of the ice age, but the correlation is much weaker for other stretches of geologic time.
Furthermore, carbon dioxide is not the only factor that correlates with climate change, and it is not the sole determinant of Earth's temperature.
[8/11/07 via brknews] Freeman Dyson says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.
[4/3/07] You probably remember the Doug Hornig/Brent Cook debate about global warming in these pages. Now the movie world has caught up to the discussion: a recent UK documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle (1 hr. 16 min.) presents evidence that counters the content of Al Gore's box office hit. Not CO2, but the sun, the researchers say, is responsible for global warming. Click here to watch.
[2/2/07] PARIS, Feb. 2 — In a bleak and powerful assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate change scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is "unequivocal" and that human activity is the main driver, "very likely" causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.
They said the world is already committed to centuries of warming, shifting weather patterns and rising seas, resulting from the buildup of gases in the atmosphere that trap heat. But the warming can be substantially blunted by prompt action, the panel of scientists said in a report released here today.
The report summarized the fourth assessment since 1990 by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, sizing up the causes and consequences of climate change. But it is the first in which the group asserts with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950.
In its last report, in 2001, the panel, consisting of hundreds of scientists and reviewers, put the confidence level at between 66 and 90 percent. Both reports are online at http://www.ipcc.ch.
Many energy and environment experts see such a doubling as a foregone conclusion sometime after midcentury unless there is a prompt and sustained shift away from the 20th-century pattern of unfettered burning of coal and oil, the main sources of carbon dioxide, and an aggressive quest for expanded and improved nonpolluting energy options.
[2/2/07] PARIS - Scientists from 113 countries issued a landmark report Friday saying they have little doubt that recent global warming has been caused by man, and predicting that hotter temperatures and rises in sea level will “continue for centuries” no matter how much humans control their carbon emissions.
A top U.S. government scientist, Susan Solomon, said “there can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases are dominated by human activities.”
Environmental campaigners urged the United States and other industrial nations to significantly cut their emissions of greenhouse gases in response to the long-awaited report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“It is critical that we look at this report ... as a moment where the focus of attention will shift from whether climate change is linked to human activity, whether the science is sufficient, to what on earth are we going to do about it,” said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.
“The public should not sit back and say ‘There’s nothing we can do’,” Steiner said. “Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible.”
Pressure on world leaders
The scientists wrapped up the various chapters of the report Friday, and then released a 21-page executive summary for policymakers. The full report will be published in May.
The report represents the most authoritative science on global warming as the panel comprises hundreds of scientists and representatives. It only addresses how and why the planet is warming, not what to do about it. Another report by the panel later this year will address the most effective measures for slowing global warming.
One of the authors, Kevin Trenberth, said scientists are worried that world leaders will take the message in the wrong way and throw up their hands. Instead, world leaders should to reduce emissions and adapt to a warmer world with wilder weather, he said.
“This is just not something you can stop. We’re just going to have to live with it,” said Trenberth, the director of climate analysis for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “We’re creating a different planet. If you were to come up back in 100 years time, we’ll have a different climate.”
The scientists said global warming was “very likely” caused by human activity, a phrase that translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that it is caused by man’s burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame.
It also said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue on for centuries.
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level,” the scientists said.
Hotter nights, killer heat waves
The report blamed man-made emissions of greenhouse gases for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts, and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sharon Hays, associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, welcomed the strong language of the report.
“It’s a significant report. It will be valuable to policy makers,” she told The Associated Press in an interview in Paris
* * *
[1/31/07] In response to Doug Hornig’s article, longtime friend Brent Cook, a seasoned geologist, has prepared comprehensive and well-thought-out arguments. We’d like to share them with you here, in the interest of fostering information not based on pseudo-science or exaggerated threats, but scientific data of merit.
[1/15/07] Al Gore and others, including most of the media, have been telling us there now exists a "consensus" viewpoint on man-made (anthropogenic) global warming (or AGW). For purposes of economy, let's call them the alarmist faction. Furthermore, we're told that the faction questioning the majority view--we'll call them the skeptics--consists of only a tiny handful of shills for the oil industry.
Not so. (My note: be ready for a deluge of letters to the editor)
[7/16/06] Tom Brokaw reports on global warming on the Discovery Channel
[7/16/06] As we learned last year in New Orleans, weather can be a weapon of mass destruction. With the 2006 hurricane season now upon us, scientists say the climate is changing in ways that could produce many more superhurricanes, as well as extreme floods, droughts and heat waves that could threaten our way of life.
Still, it’s easy to ignore the signs of global warming because we’ve always had crazy weather. Unfortunately, many of the predicted changes have begun, and they already affect our health and pocketbooks. We ignore them at our peril.
[7/7/06] "An Inconvenient Truth," Davis Guggenheim's new documentary about the dangers of climate change, is a film that should never have been made. It is, after all, the job of political leaders and policymakers to protect against possible future calamities, to respond to the findings of science and to persuade the public that action must be taken to protect the common interest.
But when this does not happen — and it is hardly a partisan statement to observe that, in the case of global warming, it hasn't — others must take up the responsibility: filmmakers, activists, scientists, even retired politicians. That "An Inconvenient Truth" should not have to exist is a reason to be grateful that it does.
Like it or not, the evidence that the Earth's climate is changing is no longer up for debate in mainstream scientific communities. In less-scientific communities, it's also becoming harder to make the argument that some sort of climate change isn't present (no snow in Minnesota in January!).
As might be expected, lots of comments.
[8/16/12] Somehow a debate on global warming erupted over on chucks_angels.
There was a number of scientists who are skeptical of global warming and I was wondering what percentage of scientists believe in global warming.
According to wikipedia
Since 2001, 32 national science academies have come together to issue joint declarations confirming anthropogenic global warming, and urging the nations of the world to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The signatories of these statements have been the national science academies of 32 countries.
Since 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement,[105] no scientific body of national or international standing rejects the findings of human-induced effects on climate change.
In an October 2011 paper published in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, researchers from George Mason University analyzed the results of a survey of 489 scientists working in academia, government, and industry. The scientists polled were members of the American Geophysical Union or the American Meteorological Society and listed in the 23rd edition of American Men and Women of Science, a biographical reference work on leading American scientists. Of those surveyed, 97% agreed that that global temperatures have risen over the past century. Moreover, 84% agreed that "human-induced greenhouse warming" is now occurring. Only 5% disagreed with the idea that human activity is a significant cause of global warming.
This article (linked from the above wikipedia article) asserts that it's an American thing
As glaciers melt and island populations retreat from their coastlines to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the global research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S.
The frustration revealed itself during a handful of sessions at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, coming to a peak during a Friday session, "Science without Borders and Media Unbounded".
Near the forum’s conclusion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology climate scientist Kerry Emanuel asked a panel of journalists why the media continues to cover anthropogenic climate change as a controversy or debate, when in fact it is a consensus among such organizations as the American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association and the National Research Council, along with the national academies of more than two dozen countries.
And here's an article summarizing a recent debate.
First an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, No Need To Panic About Global Warning, by a group of 16 scientists.
Then a courageous response by a Professor of Economics (courageous in the sense that a Professor of Economics tackles a groups of scientists in a field out of his specialty).
Then a response to the response by three of the 16 scientists (and a response to the response to the response).
[Don't know if there was a response to the response to the response to the response.]
[7/16/10 Brill] Critics, mostly nonscientists, were quick to pick out errors and falsifications in the original 2007 IPCC report that brought climate to the global stage, calling it "ClimageGate" and alluding to a worldwide conspiracy to "convince the public either with no facts or falsely created ones," as one source put it.
It is puzzling that the sparsest evidence will sway people to believe that the moon landings were faked; yet the abundant and competent evidence for anthropogenic climate change is disdained and discredited.
The existing data on the climatic system suggests a high probability that we are affecting the climate. Anyone with data to the contrary, this is the time to speak up and not just criticize that which you don't understand.
Climate change is arguably the most significant and difficult problem ever faced by the human race, and we are treating it like a political campaign. Are we the frogs who won't jump out of the boiling water, or are we the intelligent beings we claim to be who will continue to monitor as we hope for the best and plan for the worst?
Do I believe in climate change? No, what I believe is that our meager science has not afforded us an adequate understanding of nature, and I'll take the worst verifiable knowledge over the best unfounded speculation whether it supports my beliefs or not.
[5/7/10 Brill] Climate change is an issue that is likely to remain unsettled for an indefinite period of time. The geosystem is too big for us to understand at present with our puny minds and primitive computers.
If we are experiencing a catastrophic climate change, there is little doubt that the last humans left alive on the planet will still be debating and denying it.
But suppose we did discover that global climate change is occurring and there is the likelihood of a catastrophic future. What would we do?
There are several lines of mediation that geoengineers are studying. One is reducing the sunlight that reaches Earth's surface by reflecting it from mirrors in space or on the ground, or by dispersing reflective particles in the atmosphere. Another is removing pollutants such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides or whatever is deemed to be a cause that can be efficaciously mediated. A third is to reduce emissions and pollutants so that natural processes can re-establish a cooler equilibrium.
The first two present technical problems but are doable. The third presents sociopolitical problems that are unlikely to be solved in the near future.
[7/17/09 Brill] It might seem that to determine whether carbon dioxide influences Earth's heat budget is merely a matter of taking Earth's temperature, measuring carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, then looking for a correlation.
The correlation is there. Earth's temperature is increasing in concert with greenhouse gases. Can we be sure which is cause and which is effect?
Confounding the problem are multiple variables (carbon dioxide plays multiple roles in geochemistry) and nonlinearity of the relationship (at higher temperatures the oceans release stored greenhouse gases resulting in positive feedback). Because of these and other confounding factors and bias, we cannot easily determine causality and thus cannot predict with certainty what the effects of mitigation might be.
All of this and more is wrapped up into this complex political, social, scientific quandary we call global climate change.
[who knew Brill was a right-winger?]
[11/17/08] If the Greenland icecap melts, the Sahara expands and the Siberian permafrost disappears, don't blame carbon-emitting SUVs or billowing smokestacks, says a group of scientists who claim their research on global warming has been repressed. The explanation, they argue, might be simpler: Mother Nature is just going through her natural cycles.
Researchers from around the world have begun to question the growing acceptance among the public, the media and the scientific community that labels human behavior as the primary cause of global warming.
The researchers who go against the scientific grain on the climate change issue know their ideas are unpopular. In fact, many claim their research is so disliked the rest of the scientific community is working to suppress it in spite of convincing scientific evidence.
[2/17/07] Richard Brill states:
There is a nearly 1-to-1 correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature only for the past 450,000 years during the extremes of the ice age, but the correlation is much weaker for other stretches of geologic time.
Furthermore, carbon dioxide is not the only factor that correlates with climate change, and it is not the sole determinant of Earth's temperature.
[8/11/07 via brknews] Freeman Dyson says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.
[4/3/07] You probably remember the Doug Hornig/Brent Cook debate about global warming in these pages. Now the movie world has caught up to the discussion: a recent UK documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle (1 hr. 16 min.) presents evidence that counters the content of Al Gore's box office hit. Not CO2, but the sun, the researchers say, is responsible for global warming. Click here to watch.
[2/2/07] PARIS, Feb. 2 — In a bleak and powerful assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate change scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is "unequivocal" and that human activity is the main driver, "very likely" causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.
They said the world is already committed to centuries of warming, shifting weather patterns and rising seas, resulting from the buildup of gases in the atmosphere that trap heat. But the warming can be substantially blunted by prompt action, the panel of scientists said in a report released here today.
The report summarized the fourth assessment since 1990 by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, sizing up the causes and consequences of climate change. But it is the first in which the group asserts with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950.
In its last report, in 2001, the panel, consisting of hundreds of scientists and reviewers, put the confidence level at between 66 and 90 percent. Both reports are online at http://www.ipcc.ch.
Many energy and environment experts see such a doubling as a foregone conclusion sometime after midcentury unless there is a prompt and sustained shift away from the 20th-century pattern of unfettered burning of coal and oil, the main sources of carbon dioxide, and an aggressive quest for expanded and improved nonpolluting energy options.
[2/2/07] PARIS - Scientists from 113 countries issued a landmark report Friday saying they have little doubt that recent global warming has been caused by man, and predicting that hotter temperatures and rises in sea level will “continue for centuries” no matter how much humans control their carbon emissions.
A top U.S. government scientist, Susan Solomon, said “there can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases are dominated by human activities.”
Environmental campaigners urged the United States and other industrial nations to significantly cut their emissions of greenhouse gases in response to the long-awaited report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“It is critical that we look at this report ... as a moment where the focus of attention will shift from whether climate change is linked to human activity, whether the science is sufficient, to what on earth are we going to do about it,” said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.
“The public should not sit back and say ‘There’s nothing we can do’,” Steiner said. “Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible.”
Pressure on world leaders
The scientists wrapped up the various chapters of the report Friday, and then released a 21-page executive summary for policymakers. The full report will be published in May.
The report represents the most authoritative science on global warming as the panel comprises hundreds of scientists and representatives. It only addresses how and why the planet is warming, not what to do about it. Another report by the panel later this year will address the most effective measures for slowing global warming.
One of the authors, Kevin Trenberth, said scientists are worried that world leaders will take the message in the wrong way and throw up their hands. Instead, world leaders should to reduce emissions and adapt to a warmer world with wilder weather, he said.
“This is just not something you can stop. We’re just going to have to live with it,” said Trenberth, the director of climate analysis for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “We’re creating a different planet. If you were to come up back in 100 years time, we’ll have a different climate.”
The scientists said global warming was “very likely” caused by human activity, a phrase that translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that it is caused by man’s burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame.
It also said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue on for centuries.
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level,” the scientists said.
Hotter nights, killer heat waves
The report blamed man-made emissions of greenhouse gases for fewer cold days, hotter nights, killer heat waves, floods and heavy rains, devastating droughts, and an increase in hurricane and tropical storm strength — particularly in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sharon Hays, associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, welcomed the strong language of the report.
“It’s a significant report. It will be valuable to policy makers,” she told The Associated Press in an interview in Paris
* * *
[1/31/07] In response to Doug Hornig’s article, longtime friend Brent Cook, a seasoned geologist, has prepared comprehensive and well-thought-out arguments. We’d like to share them with you here, in the interest of fostering information not based on pseudo-science or exaggerated threats, but scientific data of merit.
[1/15/07] Al Gore and others, including most of the media, have been telling us there now exists a "consensus" viewpoint on man-made (anthropogenic) global warming (or AGW). For purposes of economy, let's call them the alarmist faction. Furthermore, we're told that the faction questioning the majority view--we'll call them the skeptics--consists of only a tiny handful of shills for the oil industry.
Not so. (My note: be ready for a deluge of letters to the editor)
[7/16/06] Tom Brokaw reports on global warming on the Discovery Channel
[7/16/06] As we learned last year in New Orleans, weather can be a weapon of mass destruction. With the 2006 hurricane season now upon us, scientists say the climate is changing in ways that could produce many more superhurricanes, as well as extreme floods, droughts and heat waves that could threaten our way of life.
Still, it’s easy to ignore the signs of global warming because we’ve always had crazy weather. Unfortunately, many of the predicted changes have begun, and they already affect our health and pocketbooks. We ignore them at our peril.
[7/7/06] "An Inconvenient Truth," Davis Guggenheim's new documentary about the dangers of climate change, is a film that should never have been made. It is, after all, the job of political leaders and policymakers to protect against possible future calamities, to respond to the findings of science and to persuade the public that action must be taken to protect the common interest.
But when this does not happen — and it is hardly a partisan statement to observe that, in the case of global warming, it hasn't — others must take up the responsibility: filmmakers, activists, scientists, even retired politicians. That "An Inconvenient Truth" should not have to exist is a reason to be grateful that it does.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Intel's new generation chip
Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, has overhauled the basic building block of the information age, paving the way for a new generation of faster and more energy-efficient processors.
Company researchers said the advance represented the most significant change in the materials used to manufacture silicon chips since Intel pioneered the modern integrated-circuit transistor more than four decades ago.
The microprocessor chips, which Intel plans to begin making in the second half of this year, are designed for computers but they could also have applications in consumer devices. Their combination of processing power and energy efficiency could make it possible, for example, for cellphones to play video at length — a demanding digital task — with less battery drain.
Company researchers said the advance represented the most significant change in the materials used to manufacture silicon chips since Intel pioneered the modern integrated-circuit transistor more than four decades ago.
The microprocessor chips, which Intel plans to begin making in the second half of this year, are designed for computers but they could also have applications in consumer devices. Their combination of processing power and energy efficiency could make it possible, for example, for cellphones to play video at length — a demanding digital task — with less battery drain.
Doomsday Clock moves to 11:55
LONDON, England (AP) -- The world has nudged closer to a nuclear apocalypse and environmental disaster, a trans-Atlantic group of prominent scientists warned Wednesday, pushing the hand of its symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight.
It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55, amid fears over what the scientists are describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.
But the organization added that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."
It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55, amid fears over what the scientists are describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.
But the organization added that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."
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