Posts by John Smith 19

@Pirate Peter

"on a number of occasions i have been on projects where i have had to image a number of dell machines, all the same model and spec, but bought at different times

on every occasion i ended up having to deploy a number of different images due to differences in chipset / motherboard"

Now *that* is a fascinating point. This suggests Dell buy bits on a *very* short term basis throughout the life of the product (months, weeks, days?)

It also suggests they are not really geared up for large scale deployment techniques like creating a standard build then doing a disk image copy, *unless* they create a range of product with *guaranteed* stable hardware internals.

Which also prompts the question why do *other* suppliers not do that (presumably Dell do it because the spec is equivalent but cheaper at that time)

Thanks for the info.

@Valiant

"“Government expects its outsourcing service provider to maintain the complexity rather than to simplify and standardise the work processes ... [which, with] people are moved to the provider in their existing state and are independently managed next to countless similar processes of other companies. Consequently, the cost and service benefits of standardisation and simplification are lost."

This is a vary good point. Possibly a key reason why all those *supposed* shared service benefits *never* seem to materialize.

Because the management process is not *being* shared and simplified.

Maybe HMG should find out what their per form process costs are relative to someone like the insurance industry (complex forms, not well paid staff, high volumes) .

Another organization with the "What we do is *totally* unique way and *must* be managed with a totally dedicated approach" BS.

As for a govt department's "Value proposition"

I'll take a stab at "Process as many forms as quickly as possible with the lowest number of errors and complaints possible with the lowest rising cost for increase in volume. "

Have I missed anything?

@Ally J

"In fairness, not all feminists are anti-porn. The trouble is that the ones who are then denounce the others as being traitors of some variety. Please don't tar all feminists with an abolitionist brush."

I think that is *exactly* one of the points the speakers at this event were trying to make.

Campaigning for equality of opportunity and freedom from being coerced into doing things they do not like is something Isaiah Berlin called negative liberty. What some (pretty much anything anti-) campaigner *refuse* to accept is that a minority of people might *choose* to do these things (which Berlin called "positive" liberty). I've met plenty of people who quit (or wanted to quit) smoking. I have only ever met *one* person who wanted to start. I'd try to dissuade them and point out the down sides (it's not like the health hazards are exactly secret) but *true* freedom is accepting people do stuff that may (or will in some cases will) harm them and that it is their *right* to do so.

In the porn context what some performers have done looks *very* painful. But if they choose to trade their pain for cash (or possibly because they like doing this sort of thing) in properly equipped surroundings whose business is it?

Kidnapping, imprisonment and rape are *crimes*.

Producing pornography between *consenting* adults is a *business*.

BTW I've not seen a table but I understand po()n is one of the few industries where women being paid more than men is the *norm* not a rare exception. No doubt something else that will outrage some people.

@DrBarnowl

"Britain needs a Public Key Infrastructure to enable email to be useful for trusted communications."

Sounds a good idea.

"If Estonia can do it, why can't we?"

IIRC Estonia has a population of about 2million with very limited original infrastructure to either make compatible or replace with new stuff.

A more critical question would be weather it *depends* on having an ID card system.Given how much trouble has been gone to *dump* the attempt to install the massively invasive UK ID card system, and its highly intrusive NIR database.

@Fraser

"High level science IS elitist, if you spend decades of your life studying something to PHd level, you can be pretty confident to suggest that you are in an elite."

True.

*However* this subject is a little different as pretty much *all* that has been published are conclusions and doomsday extrapolations of what those *conclusions* suggest *could* happen if the situation continues.

*No* raw data, *no* methodology describing in *detail* how those conclusions were arrived at. The Scientific Method does not require trust. It *does* require honesty, the inclusion of *all* data (*not* just stuff that happens to agree with your preferred conclusion) and a *full* description of your data analysis and reduction methods.

BTW Most of these issues come up in aerodynamic studies EG laminar to turbulent transition studies ( multiple different *possible* correlation equations). The people doing these are at *least* as qualified in their field but then manage to *publish* both their data sets (not necessarily *every* run but enough to give a picture, and definitely including any *anomalous* readings their theory did *not* predict ) *and* their full data reduction methodology.

Oh, they also tend to run regression tests on new software (and new mathematical models) against common benchmark shapes (usually ones with *lots* of wind tunnel data about what *really* happened) to make sure they don't do something absolutely nonsensical.

"Case in point: Look at all the people shouting about the LHC causing black holes which will cause the universe to end. "

I think most people recognized this was nonsense from day one.

AC@10:56

"wow, the astro-turf is deep in here! → #"

As are the AC's.

"You are so right - ignore their conclusions and reality will go away"

But blindly trust a "conclusion" with *no* openly available evidence? No detailed description of the analysis methodology?

I believe that humans are having (and have had) a significant effect on climate. However that is *my* opinion*. From the ongoing details on their process this is not a *safe* conclusion.

.

@wilco 1

Para 1

Impartiality defense. Linking *stated* impartiality of investigations to *actual* impartiality of other scientists. Ignoring qualifications of scientific background of investigating panel. AFAIK no one on *any* of the panels had the relevant knowledge of statistical methods or atmospheric physics to comments on the soundness of the science.

Para 2

Justification of secrecy. Given the importance (literally *billions* of dollars over decades) the data should all be either public domain or every attempt made to make it so. Deeper searches seem to indicate in fact a lot of it was *never* proprietary in the first place. Able to turn the slightest trace of a temperature record into proof but not able to set up an FTP server? Then again given the state of the data how would they know *what* files should be there in the first place?

Para 3

Strawman. I've never said the software is incorrect. However calling it "code adjusting the axis of a graph" is *highly* misleading. the code base is *very* substantial and appears to include software to filter, interpolate and extrapolate in both linear and non linear ways, some of which are hard coded in the software itself. The specifics of what was used is critical to demonstrating an audit trail of deductions which lead to the result. You then contradict yourself by saying these have been excluded as the results were peer reviewed and published. However the internal evidence of the emails is that peer review was ineffective.

Para4

Various statement of belief that the people involved did nothing wrong.

Para 5

Oxburgh did not investigate the underlying science. The others were about misconduct and who leaked the information or who hacked the servers. There is still *plenty* to criticize.

Para 6

I respond badly to doom and gloom merchants. Then basically tend to find comfort in environmental failure as it confirms their view that humans are the scum of the universe and the planet would be better off without us. Population decline is a *huge * problem in the developed world. BTW in the East End of London a family of 10 children (5 of whom would die by the age of 5) was quite common. In 1 generation better housing, sewerage, birth control and a state safety net have dropped that birth rate to 2. Hopefully Obama will fund the UN's back subscriptions and the birth control approach of the relevant UN agency on this matter.

Para 7

Your post is long, highly subjective and uses a range of highly misleading logical and rhetorical tricks (including statements about the level of inquiry into the science which you should now *know* are untrue) to create an impression of certainty. This view that a a position is *so* important that *anything* is justified has little to do with the reputable defense of a scientific theory and a great deal more to do with the approach of a professional spin doctor.

I would suspect either an insider or someone whose job is fairly dependent on AGW existing.

Good science does not need *anyone* to trust a result. The design of the apparatus, the method of use, data analysis methods and data are *all* expected to be published. In this case what has been published is a *conclusion*, with *no* detailed description *anywhere* of key datasets, filtering equations and methodology to get there.

Any further posts which repeat statements and opinions you know to be false will get a down grading to troll.

@cartoonasaurus

"I'm not sharing with YOU - you're a JERK! "

And in fact they were *not* being asked to share, merely to make available a copy of the data.

But your point is *very* well made.

Transparency of both the data and the methods used to derive the hockey stick graph (remember as a *derived* product the procedure is *every* bit as important as the raw info)

@Wilco 1

"Now that 3 different independent reports conclude there was nothing wrong with the behaviour of the climate scientists"

Neither of those statements is correct. None of the investigations appears to have been "independent" in the sense most people would understand that term. The ICO report *was* critical of their behavior toward handling FOI requests.

"and their science (beyond a few minor things), it is of course a huge conspiracy and white wash!"

*None* of the investigations has considered the science underpinning the software (and there seems to be a *lot* of software, developed in a *very* slipshod fashion. I'd guess *any* Reg reader who was paid to develop software and delivered it to CRU "Standards" would not last a month before being fired) which they used to create their conclusion graph. That alone makes their methodology *very* suspect. If challenged to produce the data *real* scientists do so.

"Show me some actual science that proves the ice caps are not melting,"

That should read *net* melting, as ice caps recede and *expand* annually. I had failed to factor in that the Artic and Antartic ice caps have different seasons at the *same* time. I'm not sure if some climate change scientists didn't either.

" that glaciers are not retreating faster than ever before,"

Depends if they are sliding over a rubble strewn land mass or sliding over water does it not?

" that the average temperatures are not increasing (with actual sattelite and weather station data), that sea level is not rising, and then people might actually take you guys seriously."

Both seem in part to be matters of interpretation..

I actually believe that AGW *is* happening. However the way this "research" has been conducted (and the software used to process the raw data and hence *generate* the conclusions) has more in common with the development of various systems using "secret" encryption systems. The *unstated* but pretty arrogant assumptions of "Trust us, we are *experts*. We can't show you the data or what software we used to process to get this result but *trust* us, its pretty bad for the human race.

*Real* science does not *need* trust. This issue is *too* big to be steered by a *very* small group who seem to owe their influence over their control of the raw data and their interpretation of it.

BTW I once did a rough calculation of the energy in a hurricane. UK generating capacity is about 50GW. A hurricane releases roughly 1000 GW. The energy is often distributed but the Moon and the Sun inject a *lot* of power into the Earth's weather machine.

However if you would like to lighten the environmental load on the planet in a useful way please feel free to end your life ASAP and arrange for your remains to be anaerobically digested, thus lowering the energy burden of the rest of us.

The rest of us will continue to look at other ways to deal with the situation.

@Swarthy

As others have pointed out climate <>weather.

However with current weather forecasts dropping below random guesses within 5 days a 10 day (You did not provide units for your ">10" item) would be a *major* improvement on the state of the art, implying an increase in sensor density (and/or better placement) and (I suspect) a *much* tighter regression analysis of current models to identify *systematic* errors in ranges and accuracy of variables currently being measured and the possible identification of variables which have *never* been measured.

I would love to seen some "Clean room" general circulation models built which recognise we live on an oblately spheroidal Earth preferably with triangular area elements (so things don't get silly at the poles)and the best available data, chemistry and physics models but *not* built by some group with a funding interest in "proving" it takes place and benchmarked against say the last 5-10 years.

Weather and climate modeling is tricky. The sensor net is *grossly* distorted and in some cases the readings seem to have been averaged *across* sites. 1 sensor for 1000s of sq. miles of the US? I don't think so.

@hugh

People have predicted the end of disk storage since at *least* the late 70s. Magnetic bubble Memories wer 50% *bigger* than state of the art 64kb chips of the time, faster than HDD, zero static power more compact etc.

Of course almost no one could grow the GGG substrate defect free and the lithography of the permalloy was *right* at the edge of the state of the art (mutterings that X-ray lithography would solve that problem)

Didn't happen.

Find out how *many* layers need to be aligned to deposit a recording layer on a disk.

Then do the same for your favorite SSD fabrication process.

*When* you can deliver a solid state storage device with the same or *close* to the same number of layers as a magnetic disk, with *reasonably close performance to one, *then* you might have a chance.

@Adam Salisbury

"When the merkification is complete we'll just have useless, overpriced, imported crap instead."

Only problem with this.

Merkins reckon BaE is French, hence *very* skeptical stuff passed to them won't end up in the "wrong" hands.

AC@14:54

"goatse!!!"

Nasty.

@Christoph

"So there was lots of evidence that people really, really wanted those ID cards was there?"

Well there seems *lots* of evidence that Tony Blair wanted them. And he's a person.*

*And it would seem still the only one whose opinion Ms Hillier cares about.

@stu 4

Watched video.

Part terrifying, part awesome. Such a light and compact rig as well.