On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 09:00:58 -0700, Mark Fergerson
wrote:



[1] Assuming we don't ever get around to moving planets etc. around for
our convenience.


That turns out to be quite feasible.

John

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
Central USA was once a tropical jungle, and it was once scoured by
glaciers, with no help from us.

I estimate that it takes about 63 Million years for a species to evolve
that invents the SUV. :

But really, things changing without our action doesn't prove that our
action doesn't cause change. If we can make the difference between
slightly bad times and bye-bye mankind, I think we should make a choice.

--
--
forging knowledge

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:03:47 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
Central USA was once a tropical jungle, and it was once scoured by
glaciers, with no help from us.

I estimate that it takes about 63 Million years for a species to evolve
that invents the SUV. :

But really, things changing without our action doesn't prove that our
action doesn't cause change. If we can make the difference between
slightly bad times and bye-bye mankind, I think we should make a choice.


But it's a wildly chaotic system. If I go outside and wash my car (an
unlikely event, admittedly) it's as likely to change the climate a
thousand years from now as building an extra hundred million SUVs.

And maybe all this CO2 is really staving off another ice age, or
feeding crops and plankton, or some other good thing.

John

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 20:42:32 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote:

But am I interpreting this correctly to mean that since about
1950-1960
we have been getting about .2 watt per square meter more sunlight than
we got in the late 1800's? That does not sound to me enough to account
for what global average surface temperature has done since then.

I saw an interesting article on edjamacational teevee yesterday or so -
it was about the ice caps melting.

Apparently, yes, they are melting, and it's a positive feedback function -
i.e., the more ice that melts, the more dirt and open water is exposed,
lowering Earth's albedo, which warms up the planet more, and so on.

The guy claimed to have core samples of Greenland glaciers that go
back 100,000 years, and rattled off a list of things that these cores
can tell them, and says that stuff like CO2 levels and surface
temperatures stayed pretty much the same, but then took a dramatic
upsurge in the last ~100 years.

Then he says, "Well, since it's already in progress, there's nothing
we can do about it - even if we stopped all burning of anything, it's
going to happen anyway." (or something very much like that).

So, my first thought is, "Well, we're "doomed" anyway, so eat, drink,
and be merry, right?"

My second thought is, What's so bad about warm weather? What's so bad
about CO2? Rain forests love it! Let's let the Earth turn into a tropical
paradise!


Then it hit me.

It's intentional.

The aliens that seeded Earth with life put us here on purpose. We are
the Terraformers.

The aliens wanted to expand, but Earth was all icy, so they put us here
to warm it up for them!

So, Enjoy it! Celebrate! We're fulfilling our life's purpose! We're
Creating The Garden of Eden on Earth!

Cheers!
Rich
--
Elect Me President in 2008! I will:
A. Fire the IRS, and abolish the income tax
B. Legalize drugs
C. Stand down all military actions by the US that don't involve actual
military aggression against US territory
D. Declare World Peace I.

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:10:16 -0800, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:22:13 +0000, Pooh Bear
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 17:01:58 -0800, John Larkin
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 20:42:32 +0000 (UTC), (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

Thanks - I had some wrong ideas on sunspot cycles. Although the article
appeared to me to largely supported the recent-decades increase on global
temperatures being mostly caused by greenhouse gases.

Or, possibly, the increase in greenhouse gasses being caused by global
warming.

John

Sounds plausible to me ;-)

If there were another plausible reason for global warming maybe.

How about the latest ice age being over? Now all we need is a
plausible explanation for ice ages.

We were intentionally placed here by the panspermia aliens, to Terraform
Earth, because they want to emigrate to a tropical paradise rather than an
ice planet. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich
--
Elect Me President in 2008! I will:
A. Fire the IRS, and abolish the income tax
B. Legalize drugs
C. Stand down all military actions by the US that don't involve actual
military aggression against US territory
D. Declare World Peace I.

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:12:02 -0800, John Larkin wrote:
(Ken Smith) wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
How about the latest ice age being over? Now all we need is a
plausible explanation for ice ages.

How about a lack of green house gasses. It sounds like we may have two 90
degree phase lags here.

The evidence is that the planet's climate has swung to extremes in the
past, with maybe some periodic inputs (orbit, solar output) and maybe
some random ones (vulcanism, cosmic gamma/cosmic ray flux, galactic
interactions.) We appear to be on a natural warming slope right now,
anyhow.

Central USA was once a tropical jungle, and it was once scoured by
glaciers, with no help from us.

I'll opt for the tropical jungle, as long as we can figure out a way
to control the mosquitoes. ;-P

Cheers!
Rich
--
Elect Me President in 2008! I will:
A. Fire the IRS, and abolish the income tax
B. Legalize drugs
C. Stand down all military actions by the US that don't involve actual
military aggression against US territory
D. Declare World Peace I.

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:03:47 +0000, Ken Smith wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
Central USA was once a tropical jungle, and it was once scoured by
glaciers, with no help from us.

I estimate that it takes about 63 Million years for a species to evolve
that invents the SUV. :

But really, things changing without our action doesn't prove that our
action doesn't cause change. If we can make the difference between
slightly bad times and bye-bye mankind, I think we should make a choice.


Whaddaya, got a turd in your pocket?

The solution is Free Will, just as it has always been. :-)

Good Luck!
Rich
--
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo Possum

And before that - the center of the US was ocean, the Applications were massive mountains
along with those towering in Chicago and Long Island... N.Y. The Western mountains
were ground level and thinking of rising. When the oceans retreated, the great
Redwood forest spread across this region - being feed by the moisture from the Pacific.

Once the mountains in the west rose, it cut off the moisture, killed the massive trees
and continued ice flows and pooling of water - created the Grand Canyon, petrified forest(Redwoods)
and Nevada and Az rock and sand - beautiful Utah and the like. Ugly badlands up north.

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 16:24:28 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:


In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]

How about the latest ice age being over? Now all we need is a
plausible explanation for ice ages.

How about a lack of green house gasses. It sounds like we may have two 90
degree phase lags here.



The evidence is that the planet's climate has swung to extremes in the
past, with maybe some periodic inputs (orbit, solar output) and maybe
some random ones (vulcanism, cosmic gamma/cosmic ray flux, galactic
interactions.) We appear to be on a natural warming slope right now,
anyhow.

Central USA was once a tropical jungle, and it was once scoured by
glaciers, with no help from us.

John



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"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
And before that - the center of the US was ocean, the Applications were
massive mountains

....damned spell chuckers...

--
Ed Huntress

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 23:28:33 -0500, the renowned "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
And before that - the center of the US was ocean, the Applications were
massive mountains

...damned spell chuckers...

Not a bad place to ski, no matter how you speel it.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
But it's a wildly chaotic system.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "wildly" part of that. Are you saying
that it is somehow more chaotic than, lets say, a "hit and miss
regulation" DC-DC converter.


If I go outside and wash my car (an
unlikely event, admittedly) it's as likely to change the climate a
thousand years from now as building an extra hundred million SUVs.

This is a mischaracterization of a chaotic situation. A small input such
as washing your car *may* result in a large output but the odds are much
less than if the input is large.

If you want to fool with a chaotic system and have a few minute to spare
in the lab:

Get a slowish silicon diode such as a 1N400X and a high Q inductor in the
100uH to 1mH range.

Connect the two parts in series and attach them to a signal generator.

Connect a scope to the middle point of the series pair.

Tune the generator arount the point where the system resonates while
adjusting the amplitude and perhaps the offset.

You will see a spot where some very strange things happen.



If you have a lot of time:

Make a "hit and miss" regulator and observe its operation. They pop in
and out of chaos in funny ways.


--
--
forging knowledge

In article ,
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
[....]
Whaddaya, got a turd in your pocket?

There is no need to get rude.


The solution is Free Will, just as it has always been. :-)

People can freely choose to work together. This seems to be something you
wish to over look.


--
--
forging knowledge

In article ,
Rich Grise wrote:
[...]
I'll opt for the tropical jungle, as long as we can figure out a way
to control the mosquitoes. ;-P

Who's this we? Got a mouse in your pocket?

--
--
forging knowledge

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:48:58 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

[snip]

Get a slowish silicon diode such as a 1N400X and a high Q inductor in the
100uH to 1mH range.

Connect the two parts in series and attach them to a signal generator.

Connect a scope to the middle point of the series pair.

Tune the generator arount the point where the system resonates while
adjusting the amplitude and perhaps the offset.

You will see a spot where some very strange things happen.

[snip]

"Strange things" are only strange to non-engineers ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

In article ,
Rich Grise wrote:
[....]
We were intentionally placed here by the panspermia aliens, to Terraform
Earth, because they want to emigrate to a tropical paradise rather than an
ice planet. ;-)

No, we were put here to make CO2 to grow their redwood trees. They are
going to be upset when they come to harvest. They may have an advanced
pesticide technology. In which case we are going to be in trouble.

--
--
forging knowledge

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:48:58 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
But it's a wildly chaotic system.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "wildly" part of that. Are you saying
that it is somehow more chaotic than, lets say, a "hit and miss
regulation" DC-DC converter.


If I go outside and wash my car (an
unlikely event, admittedly) it's as likely to change the climate a
thousand years from now as building an extra hundred million SUVs.

This is a mischaracterization of a chaotic situation. A small input such
as washing your car *may* result in a large output but the odds are much
less than if the input is large.


Of course you can't determine what a small change does to a real-life
chaotic system, because there's nothing to use as a no-stimulus
reference. But you can simulate a chaotic system, with and again
without some stimulus, and compare the results. In a healthy chaotic
system, any, even the tiniest, change results in increasing effects;
if you wait long enough, any small disturbance grows to total,
grand-scale differences in system state. The longterm differences
between a small pertubation and a large one are indistinguishable;
*everything* looks different.

John

Ken Smith wrote:

In article ,
Rich Grise wrote:
[...]
I'll opt for the tropical jungle, as long as we can figure out a way
to control the mosquitoes. ;-P

Who's this we? Got a mouse in your pocket?

--
--
forging knowledge


He's talking about his other neuron.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Yep looks like it - well that was the East coast :-)

MS doesn't know so many words.

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Ed Huntress wrote:
"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...

And before that - the center of the US was ocean, the Applications were

massive mountains

...damned spell chuckers...

--
Ed Huntress



----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
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----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Just sold my house that was in 5 acres of Redwoods. Worlds largest weed.
Grows anywhere. The seeds float down at least three weeks in a row during
the rain - making high chance of planting a seed in every place possible.

My driveway of cement was brown. I used to blow it off with a blower -
wait for the second and third fall - then let them dry in the sun - slurp
them up with the shop vac to send to friends. Bordeaux France, Scotland,
Maine, Texas and a few secret places.

Martin

Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Ken Smith wrote:
In article ,
Rich Grise wrote:
[....]

We were intentionally placed here by the panspermia aliens, to Terraform
Earth, because they want to emigrate to a tropical paradise rather than an
ice planet. ;-)


No, we were put here to make CO2 to grow their redwood trees. They are
going to be upset when they come to harvest. They may have an advanced
pesticide technology. In which case we are going to be in trouble.


----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

"Martin H. Eastburn" wrote in message
...
Yep looks like it - well that was the East coast :-)

MS doesn't know so many words.

You have to teach it. Yesterday I taught it ethinyl estradiol. g

You can get some really funny results if you let it change things on its
own.

--
Ed Huntress

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
Of course you can't determine what a small change does to a real-life
chaotic system, because there's nothing to use as a no-stimulus
reference. But you can simulate a chaotic system, with and again
without some stimulus, and compare the results. In a healthy chaotic
system, any, even the tiniest, change results in increasing effects;
if you wait long enough, any small disturbance grows to total,
grand-scale differences in system state. The longterm differences
between a small pertubation and a large one are indistinguishable;
*everything* looks different.


When I lift my arm it appears to move smoothly upwards. The nerves and
muscles are in fact a chaotic system. If you look at one cell, for lift
to lift, the action of that cell can't be predicted. My arm, however,
still rises smoothly.

The "hit and miss" regulator's pattern of on and off is hugely different
when you make a small change in the load but the output voltage remains
near constant.

Both these are examples of systems that robustly chaotic and yet the
average results are easy to predict.

If you wash your car, you may indeed change where the thunderstorm
happens, however, you won't bring on a new ice age, or at least the oddds
are so low they aren't worth bothering with. If instead, you decreased
the output of the sun by 20%, a new ice age is going to happen.


--
--
forging knowledge

On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:17:04 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
Of course you can't determine what a small change does to a real-life
chaotic system, because there's nothing to use as a no-stimulus
reference. But you can simulate a chaotic system, with and again
without some stimulus, and compare the results. In a healthy chaotic
system, any, even the tiniest, change results in increasing effects;
if you wait long enough, any small disturbance grows to total,
grand-scale differences in system state. The longterm differences
between a small pertubation and a large one are indistinguishable;
*everything* looks different.


When I lift my arm it appears to move smoothly upwards. The nerves and
muscles are in fact a chaotic system. If you look at one cell, for lift
to lift, the action of that cell can't be predicted. My arm, however,
still rises smoothly.

The "hit and miss" regulator's pattern of on and off is hugely different
when you make a small change in the load but the output voltage remains
near constant.

The chaos here is restrained by a larger, slower, but more powerful
overall negative feedback system.


Both these are examples of systems that robustly chaotic and yet the
average results are easy to predict.

But now consider whether your arm will be "up" or "down" at exactly
noon of January 6, 2008. If I had washed my car, the result would
likely be different.


If you wash your car, you may indeed change where the thunderstorm
happens, however, you won't bring on a new ice age, or at least the oddds
are so low they aren't worth bothering with. If instead, you decreased
the output of the sun by 20%, a new ice age is going to happen.

There are many implications to washing my car. Other people who drive
by may slow down to avoid hitting me in the street, or just to admire
my form. That changes the timing of their lives, and of the timing of
the lives of everyone else they interact with. And those disturbances
spread around the world. A male makes something like a billion sperm a
day, and only one sperm gets to fertilize an egg. The slightest
disturbance, like taking the time to notice me washing my car, or even
to read this word stirs up your prostate enough that whatever kids
you might have had are now different kids. And they influence
thousands, millions of other people and change *their* kids. So my
washing my car (which, out of consideration for posterity, I didn't
do) would have entirely changed the population and the political
dynamics of the world a few hundred years from now, including all the
legislatures and UN committees and all the people who attend global
warming conferences.

The Earth oscillates, very noisily and aperiodically, between ice ages
and jungle ages. Whether we'll be hot or cold 200,000 years now could
be changed by the tiniest extra input to the system. Certainly a major
change in solar output would change climate, but the noisy swings
about the mean, the chaos component, are large and exquisitely
sensitive to input.

John

John Larkin wrote:

snip

The Earth oscillates, very noisily and aperiodically, between ice ages
and jungle ages. Whether we'll be hot or cold 200,000 years now could
be changed by the tiniest extra input to the system. Certainly a major
change in solar output would change climate, but the noisy swings
about the mean, the chaos component, are large and exquisitely
sensitive to input.

In chaos theory, "probabilities" pretty much translates to "attractors".

Some attractors are "fatter" than others (have greater probability),
and some are indeed strange...

With that in mind, re-examine the curves on the Wiki page I cited and
think about the energies involved in getting those curves from one
excursion to the other. It just doesn't seem reasonable _to me_ that
anything we can do will push their pseudoperiodicity far enough off
their mutual attractors (remember, they interact) to be worth worrying
about.

The climate is _not_ stable and never has been for any significant
period on the scales of those curves; we haven't even been taking data
long enough to know the current slope of the cumulative attractor it
rides with any reasonable degree of confidence much less know when it's
going to change next, and we certainly don't have the energy at our
disposal to change it or make the climate jump to another attractor. At
least not until we have a much larger energy budget to screw around with...

I concur with George Carlin; I see "Chicken Little"'s assertion that
our comparative butterfly-wing-flapping is driving global warming as
arrogance.


Mark L. Fergerson

On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:32:54 -0700, Mark Fergerson
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

snip

The Earth oscillates, very noisily and aperiodically, between ice ages
and jungle ages. Whether we'll be hot or cold 200,000 years now could
be changed by the tiniest extra input to the system. Certainly a major
change in solar output would change climate, but the noisy swings
about the mean, the chaos component, are large and exquisitely
sensitive to input.

In chaos theory, "probabilities" pretty much translates to "attractors".

Some attractors are "fatter" than others (have greater probability),
and some are indeed strange...

With that in mind, re-examine the curves on the Wiki page I cited and
think about the energies involved in getting those curves from one
excursion to the other. It just doesn't seem reasonable _to me_ that
anything we can do will push their pseudoperiodicity far enough off
their mutual attractors (remember, they interact) to be worth worrying
about.

The climate is _not_ stable and never has been for any significant
period on the scales of those curves; we haven't even been taking data
long enough to know the current slope of the cumulative attractor it
rides with any reasonable degree of confidence much less know when it's
going to change next, and we certainly don't have the energy at our
disposal to change it or make the climate jump to another attractor. At
least not until we have a much larger energy budget to screw around with...

I concur with George Carlin; I see "Chicken Little"'s assertion that
our comparative butterfly-wing-flapping is driving global warming as
arrogance.


Mark L. Fergerson


You suggest that there's nothing we can do, including dumping gigatons
of CO2 into the atmosphere, to push climate away from a natural
equilibrium point, pressumable either a linear point of stability or a
chaotic attractor (which are sort of the same thing, longterm).

I suggest that weather and climate are so chaotic that anything we do,
big or small, changes the state of climate in totally random and
unpredictable ways.

So we agree that there's no point in getting neurotic about
human-influenced climate change.

John

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
The chaos here is restrained by a larger, slower, but more powerful
overall negative feedback system.

Both these are examples of systems that robustly chaotic and yet the
average results are easy to predict.

But now consider whether your arm will be "up" or "down" at exactly
noon of January 6, 2008. If I had washed my car, the result would
likely be different.

Whether I raise my hand or not is not an issue as large as an ice age.
It is like the details of the switching of the hit and miss circuit. It
may not matter in the larger picture.

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do. Washing the car
may (only may) result in other larger things happening. There is a
greater chance that the effect will die away.

[...]
The Earth oscillates, very noisily and aperiodically, between ice ages
and jungle ages.

"oscillate" is the worng word if this is chaos. With chaos, you can't be
sure that the system will repeat or recover from an extreme. Chances are
the system has a restoring action along the lines of:

Initially, the snow is white. Gradually after the water has been taken
out of the atmosphere, it darkens due to dust etc. When it gets darker it
starts to absorb a bit more sun light.

Whether we'll be hot or cold 200,000 years now could
be changed by the tiniest extra input to the system. Certainly a major
change in solar output would change climate, but the noisy swings
about the mean, the chaos component, are large and exquisitely
sensitive to input.

I agree, it could be changed by a small input. The point I'm amking is
that a larger input is more likely to make a change. Things like a change
in the solar constant are going to win over you washing your car almost
every time.

Now consider a short time frame. Our weather forcasts work fairly well
out to the next day or so. This means that local changes can be predicted
to some accuracy over that period. You can predict small things in the
short term because the things that effect the short term things change
slowly enough.

Consider a slightly longer time frame. We are right now seeing a
temperature increase. Lets assume that this increase is because there is
more CO2 than normal (ie: assume the solar constant is) We can predict
that this warming will continue for some time because the CO2 can't be
increased or decreased quickly.

Now imagine that we have some method by which we can apply feedback to the
system. If we apply a positive feedback that increases the CO2 when the
temperature is already rising, the rate of rise will, at least in the
short term be increased. If we apply a negative feedback that decreases
the CO2 when the temperature is rising, the rate of rise will be reduced.



--
--
forging knowledge

In article af1Lf.268$fL3.134@fed1read01,
Mark Fergerson wrote:
[...]
In chaos theory, "probabilities" pretty much translates to "attractors".

Unfortunately, "attractors" only appear when the data is displayed in a
form that allows you to see them. You need to plot two interdependant
variables as X and Y to see them. This makes them hard to demonstrate for
the climate issue.

With that in mind, re-examine the curves on the Wiki page I cited and
think about the energies involved in getting those curves from one
excursion to the other. It just doesn't seem reasonable _to me_ that
anything we can do will push their pseudoperiodicity far enough off
their mutual attractors (remember, they interact) to be worth worrying
about.

What units of measure do you put on "reasonable _to me_"? In the past,
"rocks don't fall from the sky" seemed reasonable to a lot of people
because they didn't think there were any rocks in the sky.

Mr. Larkin thinks that washing his car will cause an ice age. And you
think that the amount of CO2 man has added will have no effect. I think
it is safe to assume that at least one of you is wrong.

I therefor propose the Mr. Larkin not wash his car and the CO2 production
rate be reduced to the degree we easily can.


--
--
forging knowledge

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

In article ,
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

They put in perfectly good oil when they made it. Why should I have to
change it?

--
--
forging knowledge

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:20:13 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

They put in perfectly good oil when they made it. Why should I have to
change it?

--

I'm a nut case over oil, change oil and filter every 3000 miles, and I
use distilled water in the radiator ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:18:11 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)


How can a car get "too dirty"? The vibration knocks off the bigger
chunks before their weight has a serious effect on mileage.

John

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:26:53 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:20:13 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

They put in perfectly good oil when they made it. Why should I have to
change it?

--

I'm a nut case over oil, change oil and filter every 3000 miles, and I
use distilled water in the radiator ;-)


And I suppose you put anti-freeze in the battery?

John

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:26:53 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:20:13 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

They put in perfectly good oil when they made it. Why should I have to
change it?

--

I'm a nut case over oil, change oil and filter every 3000 miles, and I
use distilled water in the radiator ;-)

Distilled water mixed with antifreeze, right? AFAIUI distilled water
alone would lack corrosion inhibitors.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

Ken Smith wrote:

In article af1Lf.268$fL3.134@fed1read01,
Mark Fergerson wrote:
[...]

In chaos theory, "probabilities" pretty much translates to "attractors".

Unfortunately, "attractors" only appear when the data is displayed in a
form that allows you to see them. You need to plot two interdependant
variables as X and Y to see them. This makes them hard to demonstrate for
the climate issue.

X and Y plots are for 2 variables; the Wiki page shows _lots_ of
interdependent variables (FTM there are variables it doesn't even
mention). There's no rule against plotting multidimensional attractors;
the "classic" Lorenz strange attractor must be shown in 3D.

Do a Google Images search for strange +attractor and see.

In the case of modelling climate, you _have_ to include all of them
(at least in the interest of preserving intellectual honesty). Yes, it's
hard, but that's no excuse for going all Chicken Little when _one_ of
them shows a trend that some consider distressing, especially when it's
at least equally hard to demonstrate that we have any control over it.

With that in mind, re-examine the curves on the Wiki page I cited and
think about the energies involved in getting those curves from one
excursion to the other. It just doesn't seem reasonable _to me_ that
anything we can do will push their pseudoperiodicity far enough off
their mutual attractors (remember, they interact) to be worth worrying
about.

What units of measure do you put on "reasonable _to me_"? In the past,
"rocks don't fall from the sky" seemed reasonable to a lot of people
because they didn't think there were any rocks in the sky.

Energy content, especially in the case of the solar
irradiance-influenced variables. Then there's atmospheric
reflectance/absorbance; wanna do a BOTE for volcanic eruptions' effects?
How much did Krakatoa affect the data immediately following its
eruption? Why is the climate data from that period considered "baseline"?

We simply cannot wield energies on natural scales.

Mr. Larkin thinks that washing his car will cause an ice age.

I think he's being just the least bit sarcastic.

And you think that the amount of CO2 man has added will have no effect.

"Trivial" effect, no sarcasm intended.

I think it is safe to assume that at least one of you is wrong.

Well, what units of measure do you put on "safe to assume"?

I therefor propose the Mr. Larkin not wash his car and the CO2 production
rate be reduced to the degree we easily can.

The first is a lot easier to accomplish but demonstrating the
usefulness of either (climate-change-wise) is still difficult. Again,
especially when trying to demonstrate that we can affect atmospheric CO2
to the degree a mere volcanic belch can, much less a full blown
eruption. BTW, you _do_ remember the recent eruptions in the Pacific
northwest and Mexico (to mention just two) and are aware that at least
one Alaskan volcano is "restless"?

Look, the engineer in me wants to find the knobs as badly as anyone
else. I just don't think we have enough leverage to do anything worthwhile.

Also, I'm extremely suspicious of proposals involving getting the
"First World" to decrease its CO2 production while ignoring the
emissions from the rest of the world. That's politics, not science.


Mark L. Fergerson

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 11:23:58 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:26:53 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:20:13 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

They put in perfectly good oil when they made it. Why should I have to
change it?

--

I'm a nut case over oil, change oil and filter every 3000 miles, and I
use distilled water in the radiator ;-)

Distilled water mixed with antifreeze, right? AFAIUI distilled water
alone would lack corrosion inhibitors.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

WITH antifreeze. It's a habit acquired from owning cars with aluminum
blocks with sleeve-style cylinders.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

"Ken Smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 02:40:16 +0000 (UTC),
(Ken Smith) wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[...]
[snip]

There are many implications to washing my car.

The biggest one is that it always rains after you do.
[snip]

Aha! That's what's causing it... 129 days without rain here in AZ.

I usually just trade them in when they get too dirty ;-)

They put in perfectly good oil when they made it. Why should I have to
change it?

The first car I owned I never changed the oil. I just put in a half-quart
every time I filled the gas tank.

"Mark Fergerson" wrote in message
news:eIlLf.421$fL3.193@fed1read01...
Ken Smith wrote:

And you think that the amount of CO2 man has added will have no effect.

"Trivial" effect, no sarcasm intended.

What degree of CO2 increase would you consider to be non-trivial?

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:49:28 -0700, Mark Fergerson
wrote:


We simply cannot wield energies on natural scales.

Mr. Larkin thinks that washing his car will cause an ice age.

I think he's being just the least bit sarcastic.


No, I think that, if climate is a chaotic system, the tiniest
disturbance will propagate to complete changes of state.

It's interesting that the "climate change" crowd (formerly known as
the "global warming" crowd) now warn us of a "tipping point" where
added CO2 will trip a positive feedback mechanism and cause either
intense warming, or an ice age, I'm not sure which.

John

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:17:53 -0800, "Richard Henry"
wrote:



The first car I owned I never changed the oil. I just put in a half-quart
every time I filled the gas tank.



Yeah, I had a British car too.

John

Richard Henry wrote:

"Mark Fergerson" wrote in message
news:eIlLf.421$fL3.193@fed1read01...

Ken Smith wrote:

And you think that the amount of CO2 man has added will have no effect.

"Trivial" effect, no sarcasm intended.

What degree of CO2 increase would you consider to be non-trivial?

Something on the order of what natural sources regularly (and
irregularly) produce. The irregular events I consider more worrisome as
the overall environment has a better chance of coping with relatively
slower changes; we ramp up our CO2 production over decades, the
biosphere adjusts to utilize it. A volcano blows off ten times as much
in one hour and there's no immediate place for it to go. Homeostasis (in
this case meaning staying on the "natural" attractor that determines our
climate) is a lot easier to maintain when the individual elements of the
system have adequate time to react to changes by sequestering excesses
of any resource, and Earth's biosphere has gotten very good at that.

Actually I worry less about rapid volcanic CO2 releases than things
like deep-ocean methane ice blowoffs. A seaquake releases a few cubic
kilometers of that in say an hour upwind of a populated coast and the
population is non-trivially screwed. This is not alarmist fantasy, it's
actually happened in large, deep inland lakes, killing every
air-breather for kilometers around. That was estimated to be from on the
order of a few cubic _meters_ of methane ice.


Mark L. Fergerson

Pooh Bear wrote:
John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:17:53 -0800, "Richard Henry"
wrote:

The first car I owned I never changed the oil. I just put in a half-quart
every time I filled the gas tank.

Yeah, I had a British car too.

Yawn...........

Very tired joke indeed.

Hey, it could have been a Harley-Davidson...


Mark L. Fergerson