nontoxic.org.uk

Over at JDC’s blog, a post entitled The Trouble with Skeptics detailing a list of ten pitfalls for the good skeptic to avoid has sparked a mini-debate about whether skeptics need to be atheists, or whether “religious skeptic” is a valid term. This is something that I’ve been wanting to write about since starting this blog, but haven’t found the appropriate time or emotional fortitude to do so. But since there seems to be a bit of a discussion of the topic floating around at the moment, and since it is coming up to a particularly important festival on the Christian calendar (as well as being an important time on the calendars of other religions), now seems as good an opportunity as any.

Read the rest of this entry

Today’s Daily Express, true to its anti-science traditions, proudly boasted that the European Foundation (whoever they may be) had compiled a dossier containing “100 reasons why global warming is natural“. Rather brilliantly, in the preface to the 100 reasons, some chap has, in the “Have your say” section, posted a blow-by-blow refutation to every single one.

I’m re-posting them here just in case some naughty internet gremlin gets into the works and accidentally removes them. I haven’t read the whole lot, but here they are, for posterity’s sake:

Each one of these 100 “reasons” can probably be disputed methodically.

Here’s a start:
1. Actually, there is significant scientific proof that climate change *is* happening and *is* man-made. Papers have been published on this issue since the late 1980s. It is only recently that the issue has become politicised, and there is growing evidence of issue-specific “think tanks” having been created and funded by big oil to create doubt amongst the non-scientific community. Dendroclimatology, paleoclimatology and atmospheric physics are well established, robustly reviewed disciplines and the scientific methodology is strictly adhered to before anything is published. Big oil uses the same disinformation campaigns as did big tobacco.

2. This is distraction arguing. It is not the percentage that is critical. It is the rapid increase in the saturation of CO2 (& other GHGs) that is critical. The rapid saturation of GHGs in a short-space of time is what is alarming people not some contrived percentage. The rapid saturation correlates very strongly with fossil fuel usage increases.

3. This is a partial truth. The point is not whether or not warmer periods occurred, because they did. What is critical is that at no point in geological history has the entire global temperature and top of atmosphere (TOA) readings been *uniformly* increasing. This differentiates between regional warming, such as the so-called Medieval Warming Period (MWP) which only impacted the northerly latitudes, not the whole globe, which is what is happening now.

4. Two points with this is that (a) with the amount of dust and debris arising from WWII, there is a strong chance that global cooling came about as a result of increased aerosols in the atmosphere and (b) there is usually a lag between the amount of CO2 released and what the natural carbon sinks can sequester before it ends up warming the atmosphere. This is why there is more warming in the “pipeline” due to this issue of inertia.

5. This is a distraction argument. Again, we need to focus on uniform or simultaneous global warming, not regional. CO2 historically could be readily absorbed by usual sinks. These sinks have reached saturation point and can no longer sequester the same amounts that historically they could. This is exacerbated by deforestation practices, the thermal expansion of oceans and increased acidification whichreduces sequestration capacity. There is therefore more atmospheric CO2 now than at previous points in history.

6. Distraction – the point is (again) global mean temperatures not regional variations. The second point is also the rapid increases in CO2 over the last 50 years and back to approx. 1750 or so.

7. Crap. It isn’t.

8. No, it’s not. The number of scientists involved in the IPCC report is quite extensive (as can be seen from even a casual glance at the AR4 and the TAR contributors).

9. Distraction argument. “Climategate” is a storm in a (contrarian’s) tea cup: the phrase in question refers to Mike’s trick to hide the decline, which refers to Mann’s algorithmic adjustment to account for mathematically the divergence in synchronicity between tree ring data and empirically validated climatic conditions since the 1960s (called a “decline” as in a decline in reliability of a straight one-to-one correspondence). You might want to read a paper on this by Briffa, et al in 1998. The “trick” is not a deception, because in his paper Mann is quite explicit about what he is doing and why. The only deceit is in the contrarians trying to make dubious capital on the backs of computer crime.

10. This I would love to see. In any event, climate research always states that there are a number of “forcings”, one of which may be solar activity, but considering that the sun has actually been cooling since the late 1990s it is difficult to sustain the argument that GW is due to solar activity.

11. Perhaps, but at very low amounts incrementally. The problem is not whether or not these have happened before; it is the rapidity with which these events are converging in a short geological period of time. Previous climatic changes and changes in sea level occurred over extended periods of time, not 50 or so years which is what is being witnessed now.

12. What would a “biogeologist” know about complex atmospheric physics? Hardly a compelling authority – it is like asking an anthropologist to do brain surgery – not a professional I would trust or rely on for that job. He is right, it is complex, but as all science proceeds on the basis of eliminating the least probable causes, uncertainty and complexity are natural aspects of scientific progress, so this is mere hand-waving.

13. Sorry – how is this a reason or evidence to support the claim that CC is “natural”? People are lied to by the media all of the time: look at the Iraq invasion, for example, and this current “story” from the DE.

14. While this is an interesting matter, it is entirely superfluous to this story.

15. Professor Pilmer has been well and truly dismissed as a serious or credentialled scientist in this matter and still refuses to use current science without deliberate obfuscation and excluding data that does not support his view. Check out the disputation of his claims at http://www.realclimate.org – this guy is not credible at all.

16. Soon should be embarrassed. He was found to have published a paper that drew on falsified data sets and tried to discredited peer reviewed science through submitting his paper to an editor at the EOS journal who he knew was sympathetic to his views, who in turn by-passed the peer review process and got Soon’s paper published. Again, this guy is just not credible.

17. Crap. The dynamics are well understood generally, and the specific forcing elements are pretty well established. What is currently *uncertain* is not the science, nor the principles, but the specifics of particular issues – such as the potential impact of increasing acidification of oceasn and their thermal expansions, what will happen to CO2 that cannot be sequestered any further, and impacts on the natural carbon cycle. Also, increased CH4 (methane) releases are throwing up some deeply troubling scenarios. Uncertainty is dealt with through the running through of key scenarios in which different data sets and relative influences are modelled to see what is likely to happen. Again, this is typical scientific practice.

18. Partially true. CO2 is a minor GHG only in comparison to the extensive quantities of water vapour and in terms of the forcing capacity of CH4 (which is some 23 times more potent than CO2). However, unlike CO2 water vapour is an aerosol and siperses through clouds and rainfall. CO2 doesn’t – it has to be absorbed and stored.

19. The Heidelberg Appeal (see the background of this: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heidelberg_Appeal ) holds no credibility because it was created as a PR exercise to counter the Rio summit and the work of the IPCC in 1992, and was part funded by Rev Sun Myung Moon. Hardly a compellingly robust set of credentials, don’t you think?

20. Not true – temperature records only exist since 1850, and over the last 100 years the increase has been 0.74oC and is spread across the globe although is higher at the northern latitudes.

21. This is a case of selective reporting. This site does a clean job of dismantling Jaworowski’s arguments http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7

22. This is spurious and selectively edited. The solar cycle is cooling and temperatures are increasing globally as are TOA readings. Colling is not considered viable, unless the THC is switched off (the sceanrio for the film, the “day after tomorrow”).

23. Again, only partially true – glaciers are receding and are doing so rapidly, with a thaw rate that exceeds anything that can be determined from the ice core records. In short, these are new developments, not historically supported.

24. Again, this is crap: the mean average temperature globally is increasing, and while there may be regional fluctuations, globally the last 11 years have been the hottest on record in terms of average global temps.

25. I’d like to see that research (I see that no reference or citation is given to prevent someone from following up on this). Keystone species are disappearing rapidly and ecosystems are deteriorating. There may be (temporary) fluctuations in some areas as previously cooler areas warm up, but the global picture is of increasing biodiversity impoverishment.

26. This is a non sequitur and also has no relevance to the contraian claim that climate change is natural.

27. Ditto – what research purports this? Not only is this directly opposed to peer reviewed climate science, it also flies in the face of reason: warming will result in melting. Unless for the contrarians, the ordinary laws of physics just don’t apply.

28. This is not only fallacious – it is also dangerous. There may be temporary improvements in some crops in some regions. However, by and large, huge swathes of the world will become virtually uninhabitable. How is this a benefit?

29. And so … ? Should we also go back to the Big Bang and suggest that that was also a big event and thus everything that happens thereafter is irrelevant? The problem with climate change is that it is happening at unprecedented speeds, which is strongly correlated (as well as backed up by isotopic evidence) with burning fossil fuels.

30. No it isn’t. Temperature records did not exist before 1850, so these long-term natural cycles are difficult to imagine really if there were no records. This is a spurious claim.

31. This is nonsense, and doesn’t make any sense chemically either. Moreover the sentence doesn’t even make sense: “rising CO2 levels of some so-called greenhouse gases”? What does this even mean? CO2 *is* a GHG itself.

32. This is not true. TOA readings and satellite altimetry readings show rising temperatures consistently.

33. Maybe or maybe not. However, considering that life only can survive within a certain (narrow) band of optimised conditions, this is a distraction argument. At some point in the past, levels of cyanide and sulphur were presumably higher, but that does not mean that we want those levels to return because we could not survive that either.

34. This is written by someone who hasn’t grasped the issue involved. Water vapour is the most common GHG – however, it is a matter of radiative forcings, not a quantification issue. CO2 has high radiative forcing capacity which is of concern given its current proportion of atmospheric gases.

35. Ditto: the modelling scenarios are simulations run using the Monte Carlo approach, into which available data are fed and left to run to see what scenarios the mean results tend to converge around. The “predictions” are made from the scenarios, using publicly available data sets that can be replicated by anyone else; the scenarios are not made from predictions.

36. The argument is that there are greater probabilities for extreme weather events to occur. The IPCC is very transparent on the degrees of confidence it has in various scenarios, which is similar to the actuarial data insurance companies use to calculate your life and property insurance quotes: on the basis of confidence intervals.

37. Given the sheer volume of UN reports it is difficult to understand the context of this claim or even which report this claim refers to. More info is needed before a meaningful comment can be offered.

38. This is reversing the information: the IPCC predicted temperature increases between 0.15 and 0.3oC per decade from 1990 to 2005, whereas actual observed values are 0.2oC. See AR4 Synthesis Report Section 3.2).

39. These predictions are part of the SRES scenarios for the 21st Century, and are considered “likely” (i.e. greater than 66% chance of occurring).

40. This is true, especially for plant life, but will only be regional and will cause devasting effects for other life forms. Moreover, this is irrelevant to whether CC is anthropogenic or “natural”.

41. Well, duh! And again, this has nothing to do with the causes of CC.

42. This is a non sequitur and neither contributes nor detracts from this issue.

43. The first part is true the second part is not, and again is irrelevant to the origins of CC.

44. Again, this is irrelevant to the causes of CC. Moreover, this ignores the too much of a good thing argument, that too much CO2 will actually choke organisms.

45. Ditto.

46. Temperature increases do help, but not when it becomes too hot, or that disease vectors proliferate as a result of new environments the disease can occupy, or from extreme weather events and droughts. A spurious argument at best.

47. The Kyoto Protocol was a political agreement based on science – it wasn’t a scientific agreement.

48. See #9 above.

49. What does this have to do with anything. Governments have also increased taxes to cover for banker bail outs and warfare costs.

50. This has no bearing on the claims of 100 reasons why climate change is natural. These “reasons” are going from the ridiculous to the plainly absurd.

51. This is yet another irrelevant “reason”. I guess that by now the contrarians have run out of even their own half-baked, scarcely factual arguments that this list is populated with non-reasons now.

52. This is a restatement of #38, and the same disputation of this still stands.

53. CO2, calcium and water act as buffering agents against acidification of the oceans. Well, CO2 + Ca => calcium carbonate (CaCO3) which is found in lime and “hard water” and as an antacid. This was used to counteract acid rain in riparian ecosystems. What this reference lacks of course is recognition that with an increase in oceanic acidification, the oceans cease being carbon sinks, which is more of a problem. See this paper for the impacts of ocean acidification: http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/20_2/20.2_caldeira.pdf

54. This has been a death already in the popular press and blogosphere. However, just again for the record: However, Dr Evans must have been unaware that: (1) the hotspot was not a signature of the greenhouse effect – it is a signature of warming from any source, and (2) that the hotspot is not actually missing… (see http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/08/10/dr-david-evans-born-again-alarmist/ for a more in-depth treatment of this issue).

55. “The argument that climate change is a of result of global warming caused by human activity is the argument of flat Earthers” – does this even count as an argument far less a (compelling) reason to suggest CC is natural. This is patent nonsense.

56. This is about Obama, the Peace Prize prez who is also increasing warfare in Afghanistan, but has nothing to do with why CC is supposedly due to natural origins.

57. Kininmonth’s citation of warmer temps 4000-8000 years ago refers to the Holocene Climate Optimum, which was the period of maximum warming resulting from combined Milankovitch orbital insolation forcing plus albedo and H2O + CO2 + CH4 greenhouse amplification feedbacks, and that global temps have actually been in slow decline ever since as orbital insolation forcing continues to decline–*until the last century*, that is. Natural levels of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 also should have declined in response, except that not only have they not, the increase has been steep and abrupt over the past century or so.

58. This has nothing to do with this front page Daily Express endorsed “story” and is hence irrelevant.

59. Ditto – not a reason, merely a superfluous anecdote.

60. In which case we should do something now before the price tage increases still further. Anyway, see #59.

61. Actually, look at the report – it *does* say 2035 NOT 2350. The error in a regional report and was missed by the authors of that report, and does not reflect the substantive report of the IPCC.

62. See #59

63. Actually, the IPCC (& climatologists) have never disputed that climate changes have happened throughout the history of the planet. What is the critical issue here is the amounts of change and CO2 atmospherics have been too much in too shorter a space of time.

64. The MWP is not in dispute. What *is* in dispute is exactly when it started or when it stopped; also remember that the MWP was regional or localised, not global. AGW is global not regional.

65. See #62

66. See #9

67. This is nonsense. 11 of the last 12 years are the hottest on record (since 1850) for global mean temperatures. The expression of a “travesty” was expressed by Kevin Trenberth in connection with the difficulties encountered measuring the net radiation balance at TOA to the level of precision necessary to account for the energy budget on shorter time-scales. This is yet another email quote taken out of context.

68. The anticipated changes are all consistent with hydrological cycles that have been impacted by increased mean temperatures. Over the last 50 years there have been a recorded increase in extreme weather events, droughts and defloliation, especially in areas like SE Asia and the Sahel.

69. Just because there are one or two cooler years does not mean that CC is not happening. One would expect fluctuations in regional temperatures; what counts in global mean temperatures which are still on the increase as a trend.

70. And again, how does this qualify as a “reason” for this list?

71. Ditto

72. Ditto. This is economics, not climate science and again is irrelevant to this list.

73. Ditto.

74. Ditto.

75. Ditto. I see that we’ve apparently run out of “reasons” allegedly demonstrating that climate change is natural – instead we fill out the list with irrelevancies about economics and politics not science.

76. Spencer & Christy’s paper created a significant credibility problem for them. They have admitted to a long-standing “algebra” error of major proportions which concerned a sign error in how the diurnal drift correction had been applied. This is the same Spencer who has recently latched onto defending creationism, so his credibility continues to be shakey at best.

77. This is a red herring. This should be a both-and not an either-or. We could ask the same question about our investment in the anti-terrorist superstate infrasturcture, the on-going war machine or even bailling out the bankers! AGW will impact and exacerbate all of these problems.

78. Dealt with previously: the issue is global mean temperatures and the rapidity of the changes.

79. This is advancing its own premise as its conclusion, and also suggests that CC is due to sun cycles! In short – this is barely even worth commenting on.

80. Depends on what a “substantial number” amounts to and also what these “concerns” are? I understood that they were concerned with how the diplomats are diluting the seriousness of the situation and politicising it.

81. Cited out of context, it should be pointed out that “The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data.” Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece

82. See #72: Ditto. This is economics, not climate science and again is irrelevant to this list.

83. Rubbish – this is not the case. Raw data is exactly that: “raw”. In any research, noise has to be eliminated and anomalies accounted for. This is standard practice in research, and is only seized upon by those who don’t understand the scientific process of data cleansing.

84. This was Mann and colleagues who protested about the subversion of the peer review process in the (otherwise reputable) journal Eos about the publication of a paper by Soon (discussed previously at #16 above).

85. This refers to the temperature lag issue: the warmings take about 5,000 years to be complete, and the lag is only approximately 800 years which suggests that only the first 800 years were warming that was not the result of CO2, although the remaining 4,200 years’ of warming may be attributed to CO2. It is even possible that other factors caused the Antarctic to warm, which pushed up CO2 levels, which then began to become the primary forcings, acting as an amplifier rather than as a strict causal agent.

86. This is confusing cause and effect. CO2 is an amplifier of radiant heat, not the cause per se. The temperature lag noted in #85 above already suggests that CO2 need not have caused initial warmings, but it does become a forcing agent by amplifying radiant heat and reflecting it back to the earth’s surface, for example.

87. This is economics, not climate science and again is irrelevant to this list – see #72 and #82.

88. Contrarians really do try to have it both ways don’t they? Actually, CO2 emissions have grown by 80% from 21 to 38 Gt between 1970 to 2004. Where do these contrarians get their “facts” from? I guess they just make them up.

89. This misses the point. CO2 acts as a radiant forcing agaent, and as it cannot be absorbed any longer by natural carbon sinks and is a long lasting GHG, and at certain levels it rapidly becomes a pollutant.

90. The sea level rising is again taken as a global average, estimated on the basis of anticipated glacial melt and thermal expansion of the oceans.

91. Crap. The AR4 Synthesis report notes that land-based warming has been greater than anywhere else and that 11 of the last 12 years (1995 – 2006) (p.30 of the report)

92. Crap again. See #91 above.

93. Politics and economics – not science. Come back to the “reasons”.

94. Ditto – see #93

95. Ditto – see #93

96. Ditto – see #93

97. Ditto – see #93

98. The Leipzig Declaration exists in 2 versions both written by the infamous Singer. As wikipedia clearly states “Since the sign[ing] of the declaration, data has refuted the point of this declaration.”

99. Since this petition was written the satellite record has been revised, and shows warming, which undermines the thrust of this petition.

100. The NIPCC was a conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute, which (as can be seen from both wikipedia and source watch) receives substantial funding from Exxon Mobil and several other Big Oil lobbyist groups. One would expect such a group with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and for not assuming their product is causing a problem to try to dismiss the anthropogenic part of global warming, wouldn’t one?

So, that’s it – 100 reasons that allegedly demonstrate that climate change is natural. Well, climate change – i.e. the greenhouse effect – is natural, but has been exacerbated dramatically and significantly by humans burning fossil fuels and loading the atmosphere with CO2.

The Daily Express should be deeply ashamed of itself for giving this nonsense front page coverage.

Ok, so there’s some referencing issues here and there, but they represent a good start. I’m sure they can be improved on. If you wrote these, then I hope you don’t mind me reposting them as I think it’s a wonderful effort.

You may have noticed that a fancy new operating system was released earlier this week. To much media fanfare, Microsoft’s latest Windows incarnation, Windows 7, was released. Microsoft even suggested that we throw parties to celebrate. Judging by their video of what they think a party should look like, I dread to think how awful the parties that Microsoft employees go to. (This one, however, looked much more interesting…)

To buy a new copy of Windows 7, you have to spend (based on my brief glance at Amazon.co.uk) around £100 for the “Home Premium” edition, around £150 for the “Professional” edition, and around £220 for the “Ultimate” edition. These prices are for standalone packages – upgrades from Vista or XP are slightly cheaper. Still, this means shelling out a not insignificant amount of money, even for a cut-down version of the full range of features offered in the top-of-the-tree Ultimate edition.

You may also be aware that another new version of a different operating system was released this afternoon, though you might not be aware of it if you rely solely on the BBC for your technology information. The BBCs coverage of the release of Ubuntu 9.10, nicknamed “Karmic Koala” was spartan compared with its coverage of Windows 7, to say the least. In places, it was downright patronising and dismissive.

One of the worries raised about Ubuntu by the BBC’s coverage which rather struck me as spurious was this notion that using Ubuntu requires you to learn lots of computer code and type it into the terminal to get anything working. This is patently nonsense, but to be fair, Ubuntu proponents are not very good at explaining why it’s nonsense. Most rebuttals seem to take the form of “oh, no, you don’t need to do that”. Which doesn’t really wash when a new user visits the ubuntu forums looking for help with a particular issue and is told to type some commands into the terminal.

I will try a different approach. The crux of the argument is that people have confused the idea that “you may use the terminal” with “you must use the terminal”.

The terminal is, to all intents and purposes, a good thing. It allows you to quickly get diagnostic information about your computer. It allows you to run the programs you’d run normally, having the program send diagnostic information to the terminal if it encounters an error. It is a very powerful tool.

Windows has a command-line interface as well. It’s called CMD and is based on MS-DOS, the standard text-based operating system used on PC’s in the 80’s and early 90’s. It does not have the same power in Windows as the Linux terminal has in Linux. This is arguably the main reason why you don’t use the command-line interface that much in Windows. Compared to the Linux one, it’s crippled.

Why should that matter, though? Surely everyone wants to use a graphical interface these days? Well, for regular users, yes. But Linux has one of those as well. In fact it has several options for graphical desktop interfaces: GNOME and KDE are the big two, then there’s XFCE for older machines, and a whole host of others. The point is this: just because the terminal is there doesn’t mean you are forced to use it. It is, however, a fantastic tool to use to help you to diagnose and fix things when things go wrong.

Most importantly, though, it makes giving instructions over the internet for how to diagnose and fix things much much easier. Compare these:

…press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then click on the “Task Manager” button, then click on the “Processes” tab

and

…open a terminal and type “top”

and you can see how much less effort it is. Particularly if you’ve encountered a particularly nasty problem which would require opening a lot of windows and dialog boxes.

Let’s look at another example, this time taken from a guide to fixing audio problems. In part A of the guide, we instructions to type the following commands:

mkdir ~/pulse-backup && cp -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound* /etc/asound.conf /etc/pulse -t ~/pulse-backup/
rm -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound*
sudo rm /etc/asound.conf

Now, this may look like gibberish, but let’s see how those instructions would have looked if the terminal weren’t there:

Firstly, click on “Places”, then “Home Folder” to open the file manager. In the file manager, right-click on some empty space in the folder contents, select “New folder” and name the new folder “pulse-backup”. Now press Ctrl-H to reveal the hidden system files. Copy the folder named “.pulse” and any folder beginning with “.asound” to the folder you just created. Once you have done this, delete these folders from your Home Folder. Next, click on “File system” on the left-hand side of the file manager and navigate to the folder called “etc”. This folder contains various configuration files for your system. Copy the file “asound.conf” and the folder “pulse” and Paste them into your newly created backup folder. Finally, with administrative privileges, delete the file “asound.conf” from the “etc” folder.

Whew! That was some effort to explain – and even then I cut some corners: I didn’t explain how to get administrative privileges for example. Arguably this long-winded explanation could be seen as more “user-friendly” but if this were the effort required to produce one part of a guide, I very much doubt that the Ubuntu Forums would be quite so full of enthusiastic and altruistic volunteer tech supporters falling over themselves to help as they are currently.

A second problem with the verbose description is that it requires a particular configuration of Linux. It requires, for example, that your graphical interface is in English. It requires you to have the “Applications, Places, System” menu bar still on your screen as it was when you installed Ubuntu, and not replaced by a customised version. On the contrary, the terminal commands work the same regardless of language, and irrespective of whether your system is untouched from when you first installed it or heavily customised with all sorts of bells and whistles. Linux is a very customisable system, though it is reassuring to know that despite the infinite customisation possibilities afforded by the graphical interface, there is still a way of talking to the computer that remains the same regardless of what you do to its outward appearance.

So in conclusion then, the Linux terminal is not something that a user must learn how to use. Instead, it is something that may be used. It is particularly useful for giving written technical support over email or on a support forum. If you find yourself using the terminal for day-to-day tasks, then you’re doing it wrong (unless you’ve become so comfortable with using the terminal that it’s become second nature!) and criticising Linux for having a powerful command-line interface is like criticising a fruit seller for selling apples and oranges as well as pineapples and grapes.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that, unlike Windows 7, Ubuntu Karmic Koala does not cost anything. It’s free. In fact, I just downloaded myself a copy while writing this article. The unique selling points of Linux over Windows, such as its better security model, its price, its less prone-to-fragmenting file system and support community are not super-obvious right away, and don’t grab the headlines in the same way that a whizz-bang touchscreen interface does. But these are the things that matter – the long-term experience, not the flashy stuff that makes you go “ooh!” when you first see it.

$ mkdir ~/pulse-backup && cp -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound* /etc/asound.conf /etc/pulse -t ~/pulse-backup/
$ rm -r ~/.pulse ~/.asound*
$ sudo rm /etc/asound.conf

Updated Sunday 27th September 2009 with links to further analysis. Updated again Saturday 10th October 2009 with Science Magazine’s take on the study.

You may have noticed in the news recently, some triumphant headlines concerning the “success” of an HIV vaccination trial which took place in Thailand over the last seven years. Vaccine heralds new dawn in the fight against Aids, proclaims the Independent, beginning the article with the words: “The scientific naysayers who claimed a vaccine against HIV would never be possible have received their comeuppance.” Aids vaccine found to cut risk of infection declared the Times. HIV breakthrough as scientists discover new vaccine to prevent infection exclaimed the Guardian. The Sun also weighed in with their typical measured and timid approach. First vaccine for AIDS developed, they unambiguously declared.

Out in Morocco (my current location), the news was relayed to me on my hotel room TV by Al-Jazeera, TV5, and DW-TV. So do we really have such a massive breakthrough? Do the claims stack up?

Read the rest of this entry

Ok, so a while ago I mentioned that I was going to try using a new way of working on my thesis using Subversion (a version control system predominantly used by computer programmers) and LyX (a document processor that uses LaTeX in an almost-WYSIWYG style to allow the author to focus on content alone rather than having to constantly worry about typesetting issues). And the result of the experiment? It’s been a resounding success. In this article I’m going to explain how to set up a working system so that you can work seamlessly across several computers, or collaborate with other authors without having to resort to fiddling around with USB disks or emailing yourself latest versions of documents. All using completely free software! How’s that?

Read the rest of this entry

A few days ago, I mentioned that I was starting a project to manage my thesis using the Subversion (SVN) version control system. This was motivated by a) getting confused as to which version of a document I was working on at a given time, b) faffing about with USB disks or emailing myself copies of files to work on using a different computer, and c) having used a version controlling content management system for a publishing project at a previous job.

What I didn’t realise about SVN was the way it was set up to work by default. I’d thought it was one way; the way it is set up, however, is a bajillion times better.

Read the rest of this entry

I was particularly disappointed with the presentation of the brand new Football League Show on BBC One. It is super-cheesy. The fake red-brick and garish clashing blueish purple glass set, the smarmy presenters in smart casual, the segment where the camera fast-pans to a pretty girl sitting in some kind of faux futuristic control room to read out some fan emails and texts… all the fun of the fair. The icing on the cake was when Manish Bhasin got up awkwardly from his trendy bar stool, sauntered uneasily towards the camera and woodenly presented the league tables as though they were some kind of weather forecast.

What I was also particularly disappointed with on the show was the biased presentation of referees, and the ongoingly mind-numbing campaign in favour of the introduction of “goal-line technology” as though it were the only way of solving a particular problem. It is not.

Read the rest of this entry

Writing a thesis is a particularly difficult job. Writing a PhD thesis in Microsoft Word, particularly, is a difficult job. Writing a thesis in Microsoft Word, across several computers, running forms of Windows, Mac OS and Linux is an excruciatingly difficult job.

For one thing, standards vary across all platforms. Linux, for example, doesn’t have a native version of Microsoft Word – ok, so it is possible to get it to run, but it’s a) so bonkily unstable and b) if you’ve made the plunge and chosen to use Linux, you’ve probably done so with a long-term view to completely freeing yourself of Microsoft software so trying to run it defeats the object of installing Linux in the first place. Different platforms also have different fonts – how many presentations have you seen where some poor sod has prepared their Powerpoint presentation using the gorgeous looking Helveticus Roman Sans Grotesque font, only to discover that the font doesn’t exist on the projector computer, and the replacement font is some awful blocky thing resembling Ceefax that’s far larger than the original, pushing all the text either off the edge of the screen or over the top of a painstakingly created graph? Thought that might ring some bells.

Read the rest of this entry

In solidarity with a number of other blogs in support of Sense about Science’s Keep Libel Laws Out of Science campaign, I am reposting Simon Singh’s article, with a number of edits made to the sections that are the subject of the current court proceedings (i.e. the ones that the BCA have objected to), so as to avoid being in contempt. The tone and the overall meaning of the article is still unchanged – it is still highly critical of chiropractic and asks probing questions of its evidence base.

Please read the article, and then click the button below to find out more about the campaign and add your name to the list of signatories in support of the campaign statement.

Keep Libel Laws Out of Science

Read the rest of this entry

Richard Halvorsen, who runs a private clinic in central London offering single-shot measles and rubella vaccinations at a cost of £95 a pop, and has written a book entitled The Truth About Vaccines, which, judging by the blurb, casts doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, despite their vital role in the complete eradication of smallpox and near-eradication of polio, has written an article in The Times casting doubt on current efforts to develop and roll out a vaccination against swine flu.

Read the rest of this entry