Posts by dan1980

My take . . .

@D.A.M.

The thought that popped into my mind was:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eg8-dii9Ma0#t=56

Apologies to anyone whose sensibilities are offended.

Re: The follow-up.

@Fluffy Bunny

Thanks for the reply (and sorry for the delay - big weekend).

"Quite simple - where on Earth do you get 0.5 degrees of warming?"

Equally simply, I get it - as I said in my original post - from this article; the one were commenting on.

To recap, as it's been a while, the article was about a chap who appeared to be thinking much the same way that you are: that the models are just crazy and he felt they were too high. His contribution was to rework the lot and come up with a significantly lower figure by analysing the assumptions that had been made (around aerosols and sensitivity, if I read correctly) and thereby coming out with a figure he felt was much more realistic and in keeping with the data.

I was pointing out that there was a follow-up question that was (to me) conspicuously absent: what effect will the predicted temperature rise have?

In asking that question, I am not saying that this guy must be correct - I am emphatically not "talk[ing] about 0.5 degree of warming as if it is an established fact". I am addressing what I see as an unfortunate omission in the scope of an article analysing what the authour (Mr Orlowski) believes to be ". . . the most important climate discovery in recent years . . .".

I would think an article discussing a "discovery" of such seminal importance would warrant at least a mention of effects.

My point is that if the report is valid, then one must look at the data that was fed in. In large part, this appears to be observational measurements of actual warming. The apparently more accurate measurements are used to revise the sensitivity numbers which are then used to make better (lower) predictions of future warming.

Given that to accept the report, one must accept that warming has, is and will continue to happen, I was wondering why there was no mention of what this effects this warming might have. The other option is to dismiss this report as based on a faulty model and conflicting data (as some people contend all of climate science is), but that hardly seems to be what is happening, given the supportive three-page treatment and interview.

Re: The follow-up.

Climate change articles are always volatile here and people down-vote simple because they disagree; it's always particularly amusing to bring up a question and be downvoted without an answer.

The question remains - is a 0.5c warming the kind of thing that will have noticeable repercussions? Down vote again if you want but, if so, why don't you at least explain why asking this questing warrants disapproval.

Re: I believe that a well-implemented cybercurrency would be a good thing...

@Roo

"The problem is not a lack of laws, too much freedom or too much privacy, the real problem is getting the authorities to actually make good use of the more than adequate tools they already have at their disposal."

Where's the fun in that? Enforcing laws/regulations is hard and requires civil servants to do actual work. Worse, if you go ahead and make the effort and find that it works then it becomes clear that a bunch of people have been doing a pretty poor job up to that point.

On the other hand, announcing 'tough new laws' makes it seem like you (as a politician) are 'cracking down on crime', or whatever alleged social ill the sensationalist tabloid-press are whipping up outrage about at the time.

Such new laws tend to be rather broad in scope and impact those not doing anything wrong in the first place but that is understandable because, again, creating laws that actually target the right people is, you know, hard.

A bit of a digression but yes, employ the tools you have first.

Re: Your numbers are gone

@Cliff

"Currency 'value' is based in confidence."

Absolutely - confidence that people will accept your fat wad of cash in exchange for their goods.

People hold a portion of their wealth as the currency 'of the realm' because they have confidence that they can exchange that currency for the food they need to avoid starving, the apartment they need to avoid the wolves and the alcohol they need to avoid the crushing realisation that they are spending their lives working just to provide food and shelter and when was the last time you took me somewhere nice anyway?

There is another, more 'economics 101' component required for a functioning fiat currency and this directly influences the confidence that people will give you beer for dollars/vodka for rubles. This is the confidence that the government will control inflation, ensuring that the value of the held currency (in wallets, bank accounts and under mattresses) will be much the same when you spend it as when you earned it and therefore people can be confident that they can meet their financial obligations.

This, in turn, gives people the confidence to spend their money and so allows the economy as a whole to tick along nicely. If people are not confident that the value of their held currency will keep a steady value from one day to the next then the normal functioning of a (capitalist) society can break down.

This was of course seen vividly in Zimbabwe and no amount of military might made a lick of difference in the end. The government failed to keep inflation steady and so the currency de-valued. Measures were implemented to control it but each of these failed in succession and people lost even more confidence. In the end the confidence of the people was so utterly destroyed that Zimbabwe now doesn't even print its own money anymore and people use various other foreign currencies instead.

To start with, the Zimbabwean government made the use of foreign currency illegal, of course, but the confidence in the ZWD was gone and a black market sprung up. Eventually they had to allow it as a functioning economy (no matter how dire) with a foreign currency is preferable to a non-functioning one with a local coin.

So, confidence is indeed the important thing, but it's confidence that the government will keep inflation in check and thus currency will maintain its value. This gives businesses the confidence to accept money and the confidence consumers to, well consume; to spend a sensible amount on what they need for the present and save for the future. It gives banks the confidence to lend money, safe in the assumption that the money repaid will cover the value of the money lent*.

This need for confidence in the value of held funds, coupled with the economic importance of having a single currency for easy trade fairly insists upon government control of a that currency. It doesn't always work, of course, and the main selling-point of Bitcoin from a monetary-policy sense (rather than libertarian/privacy sense) is that it is a limited resource and thus its value is not tied to any government decisions; a government can't deliberately devalue the Bitcoins through monetary policy, for example.

But even this is misguided; a government can effectively locally devalue a currency such as Bitcoin at a stroke by banning its use and accumulation, as occurred with gold.

But even without such heavy-handed tactics, there is no way for a currency such as Bitcoin to provide the stability required for true market confidence because there is no way to ensure a steady, predictable value. This makes borrowing and lending equally unwise in the long term and thus stifles the economy.

In the end, using Bitcoin as a 'real' currency is about as sound a policy as using Twitter shares; neither are backed by any real power and both are subject to market factors. The huge gains of Bitcoin, while undoubtedly excellent for those in the right place at the right time (and good on them) are, far from being an indication its strength as a currency, are near proof of its status as an investment instrument for the financially savvy alone. It is imperative that a 'real' currency carry VERY little risk as that gives people (again) confidence to accept that currency as payment and subsequently hold it in anticipation of future outgoings.

Anyone of us might, in the 20/20 vision of hindsight, have wished they converted all their savings to Bitcoin a year ago but few would exchange their conventional currency for Bitcoin now and any that did would do so with the hope that they would be able to exchange those purchased Bitcoins for a greater measure of regular currency at some later point. I.e. they are making an investment.

Short version? Bitcoin is a synthetic forex instrument and not a real currency.

Wow - that's a long post. I would apologise but . . .

* - If a bank lends $100,000 to someone who earns $1000 a month at a time when a cup of coffee costs $5 and the inflation goes all hyper-mental, a few months later that same borrower may be earning $1,000,000 a month and that coffee now costs $5,000. The value of the loan is now 20 cups of coffee. Extreme example but illustrative and not unheard of.

Re: Your numbers are gone

True in some intrinsic sense, but as a practical matter, not as much.

Any currency really only has a value in so far as it can be used as a method of exchange between parties. How 'legitimate' a currency is could be seen as a measure of how willing people are to accept it as payment. In other words, the more people who accept a currency as payment, the more legitimate that currency is.

By that measure Bitcoin is considerably less legitimate than conventional currencies.

You might say that some retailers are already accepting BTC and that more will follow but if you look closely, they don't actually accept Bitcoins in exchange for their goods. Take Overstock.com - probably the biggest retailer to claim to accept Bitcoins. They never even see a Bitcoin.

Instead, when a customer purchases a product, the USD (or whatever) price of that product is converted to the BTC equivalent at checkout. The customer transfers payment (in BTC) not to the retailer but to Coinbase, a third-party that accepts the Bitcoin payment and subsequently forwards the original USD price to Overstock.com.

In other words, Overstock.com (and others) place a value on their goods in USD and accept only USD in exchange. When you read their press releases, you will see that they have just now reached "$1 Million in Bitcoin Sales". Note that they don't say that they have reached "1100 BTC".

The reason they don't accept BTC in exchange for goods is that they cannot pay their debts in BTC because their creditors do not accept BTC and so on in turn.

This is why things are not priced in BTC as to do so would be similar to a sandwich shop in the US setting its prices in JPY. Those prices would have to change frequently to match the exchange rate as otherwise the shop will be losing money whenever the yen drops against the dollar and losing customers whenever it rises.

USD has value because you can exchange it for a sandwich. By contrast, the sandwich-buying power of BTC is dependent (and reliant) upon conversion to and exchange for USD.

The value of the sandwich should be self-evident.

Re: So... the value of stealing a currency which then devalues?

@Gordon 10

I imagine many of the researchers and engineers at the Bushehr nuclear plant thought similarly prior to identifying the Stuxnet worm.

I don't, personally, believe that these thefts were the work of the US government but we know that they (along with other governments) have, through their intelligence arms like the NSA, FBI and CIA, worked to discredit individuals in the past. It is not so large a leap to imagine them using cryptographic and covert means to discredit and thereby discourage use of the bitcoin currency.

Again, I don't believe that this is actually the case but one of the big outcomes of all the 'leaks' is that we now know that the barriers we though wouldn't be crossed have been and are being crossed on a regular basis.

The (unfortunate) corollary is that all the foil-hat folks now feel justified in claiming every conspiracy they ever foamed about is proven.

Re: Not convinced

This, from the Flexcoin website, is all you really need to read to understand the situation:

"Legal Notice: We are not a true bank that accepts USD or any national currency, only bitcoins which by their nature are not regulated, we’re not FDIC insured or regulated by any government entity."

Given that governments (esp the US) would rather people use currencies and payment methods that can be tracked, I would guess that the compromise would be for governments to set up insurance and regulation schemes whereby bitcoin 'banks' could operate with more of the security that real banks have, on the condition that they adhere to certain regulations.

That would obviously entail confirming to certain security criteria and being certified as such but also people wishing to use the services of such a bank would be required to have their details registered and their earnings (e.g. when the value of the currency increases) taxed just like any investment.

I appreciate that many people would be against this but there is almost no way to enforce government control over the currency so it would be entirely optional. I suspect there would be enough people (and businesses) who would want such protections and don't value the anonymous nature of bitcoins, simply using them for convenience or the investment value.

Re: I believe that a well-implemented cybercurrency would be a good thing...

@Yet Another Anonymous coward

". . . these bitcoin banks are really either exchanges or safe deposit boxes."

Or, indeed just regular boxes it would seem. Cardboard by the looks of it.

Dan's usual process for filling in online forms is to aggressively click through* the options until I get to the 'comments' field. Then it's the keyboard's time to feel sorry for itself. I rule; the end.

* - I go through a lot of mouses/mice/yo mama [and footnotes (and parentheses)].

Re: Tricky to parse those first paragraphs.

@Don Jefe

"The investment group has become those pigs Jesus stuffs with demons and runs into the ocean. You know, fuck that. I'm not going to that beach."

What can I say? Love your work, mate.

Re: religion and politics

@Fluffy Bunny

Without coming down on one side or another and with respect to you, I think you present this simplistically.

'Evidence' is data used to support a particular theory or hypothesis. The crucial part you are missing is that a given observation/measurement/etc... may be interpreted in different ways and used as evidence for a position by one party and for a different position by a different party. These positions may even be opposed to each other.

The 'consensus' spoken of (whether it exists or not) is to mean that the majority of scientists are in agreement as to if the current observations, measurements, historical data support AGW or not.

My point is not to say that that consensus exists or does not, just to try and explain what I take the word 'consensus' to mean in this context.

The other way 'consensus' might be used is to say that data from multiple, separate fields and gathered by multiple researchers and through multiple experiments, all point strongly in a particular direction. I think that is not the intended meaning in this context but it's still a possibility.

Re: The BBC quote is exactly

My take-away from this is that an in-depth study has shown that over a relatively long period (as compared to recent memory appealed to in sensationalist news stories), the evidence suggests that storms have not actually increased.

To me, that fact says nothing about the validity of climate change or the specific hypothesis of man-made climate change and should be seen as neither a blow to 'warmists', nor a vindication of 'skeptics'.

Re: religion and politics

@cap'n

I have never met, nor spoken to the author but I don't believe he is a 'religious or political nut'.

What I do see, however, when looking through his past articles on climate change, is a common thread of presenting reports/quotes/stories/studies/criticisms that are clearly aimed at casting doubt.

FUD without the 'F', I suppose

This can bee seen in areas such as ice sheets:

• Antarctic glacier 'melted JUST as fast LONG before human carbon emissions'
• Hello Warsaw: Greenland ice loss will be OK 'even under extreme scenarios'
• Steady Antarctic ice growth 'limits confidence in climate predictions'
• Greenland ice SIMPLY WOULD NOT MELT in baking +8°C era 120k years ago
• Ice sheets may stabilise for centuries, regardless of warming

So, is the take-away that the ice is melting or that it isn't? Neither. Lewis' goal seems to be to throw as much contradictory information as he can and thereby cast uncertainty on those scientists who support the AGW line.

Similar is his reporting on sea levels: sea levels aren't rising; sea levels are rising but this is normal; sea levels are dropping; sea levels are rising but this is a good thing, etc... Likewise warming: the planet isn't warming; the plant is warming but it's due to solar cycles; actually, the planet is cooling; the planet is warming but it's a good thing (it'll help us avoid that looming ice age). And so on.

Again, I don't know Lewis and I can't speak intelligently about his mind or motives, but looking at his articles on this subject, the common thread is that he appears to support and promote any scientist or study or result (however narrow or minor) that contradicts or throws doubt onto the proposition that climate change is (at least partly) man-made and that such climate change is a bad thing.

To be fair, in many of his pieces he does at least attempt some degree of balance, but equally often he uses loaded language (such as calling AGW proponents 'alarmists') and 'poisons the well'. For example, in his article: SpaceShipOne man, Nobel boffins: DON'T PANIC on global warming, he felt compelled to inform readers that one of the dissenting 'warmist' scientists, Peter Gleick, proclaims bottled water as 'evil' but didn't see it as relevant that one of the 'eminent scientists' who contributed to the letter had previously claimed that two objects with different weights, sizes and aerodynamic properties (a petanque/boule/bocce ball and a tennis ball) would, if dropped from a tower, fall at the same speed and reach the ground at the same time*.

Sorry for the length and to Lewis, I don't mean any disrespect to you but I find your articles on military and related matters, such as your article about shooting down drones far more interesting and informative than your articles on climate change.

* - Any even half-way educated person knows that the critical condition for this to work is that the objects must be dropped in a vacuum, but, despite being corrected repeatedly, he stuck to his erroneous and demonstrably false statement.

Re: Yes we know you...

@Salts

Right on.

Moreover, as such actions do not, in any sense, fall under the jurisdiction of National Security Letters and suchlike, a hosting provider in Luxembourg (for example), is fully within its legal rights to communicate any such breaches to its customers and the world at large.

Data being moved from US-controlled servers changes the game from "grab what we want, under full protection of the law and with little chance of exposure" to "make a conscious decision to breach foreign owned and run servers, risking discovery and public condemnation".

Of course they are clearly doing this already so it's not something they are adverse to but there is a big difference between lawfully requesting/receiving data from a company compelled to secrecy and silence and clandestinely breaking into foreign-controlled servers.

Re: ...cannot possibly have any “causal contact” in the last 14 billion years.

Ashton & Paul

I think Richard's response seems sensible - if there is some kind of entanglement between the two quasars that biases the result then that entanglement itself is a quantum (and thus non-classical) effect and would therefore presumably count 1 for QM.

I'm no physicist (or really much of anything) but that does seem logical. That said, if a scientific proposition seems logical to me then that would suggest I probably have misunderstood it.