Make a Difference

Day: January 24, 2009

Computer Games and the Real World

Ha ha.

Computer Games: Global warming is really bad for frogs because nasty UV rays get into their evaporated waterholes and cause mutations.

The Real World: Cold weather wipes out a whole generation of frogs.

OK, it’s not funny.

Another reason to cut it out with the fantasies and look at what’s really happening. The world is not getting warmer, and we are much more likely to be in trouble because of cooling than warming.

Via John Ray

Tragic

After the violent insurgent activity in Southern Thailand, it is hardly surprising that Thailand is not enthusiastic about welcoming Muslim refugees. Thailand has the right to protect its borders.

But the UN High Commissioner in Bangkok says they have had complaints that the Thai military is confiscating refugees’ boats and either dumping people on deserted islands or sending them back out to sea with no food or fuel. That would amount to murder. It sounds unlikely to me, but there is no love lost between the Thai military and muslims.

Some Rohingya were rescued by India after being turned away from Thailand, and it is clear from independent reports that they were not treated well by the Thais.

One of the interesting things about this is that complaints so far have been entirely directed at Thailand, which already bears most of the burden of feeding, housing and clothing the huge number of refugees from the North and East of Burma. The UN is largely useless there, as they seem to be everywhere else. The root cause of the problem is the Burmese regime’s ruthless repression of minority ethnic and religious groups, with many thousands killed and millions displaced. But this has not resulted in world-wide protests or all night sessions at the UN.

Most genuine practical help for the Burmese refugees has come from the Thai government, and from independent community or faith groups, many of them Christian. One is the Free Burma Rangers. I love their motto: ‘Love each other. Unite for freedom, justice and peace. Forgive and don’t hate each other. Pray with faith, act with courage. Never surrender.’

Please support them.

Hackers of the World, Untie!

President Obama will keep his Blackberry.

Wanting to have some privacy in communication with close friends and advisors sounds reasonable. But since it is a way to bypass the normal official communication channels, it will have to raise questions of access and openness. Perhaps more importantly, any kind of mobile device is vulnerable to hackers, who are not necesarily the most scrupulous persons when it comes to protecting the privacy and interests of others.

Well, There’s a Surprise, Part 2

Modellers remove evidence of cooling, and editors remove comments by warming sceptic.

You may have seen the recent headlines suggesting that, contrary to all previous meaurements, there is now evidence to show that the Antarctic is warming as quickly as the rest of the world (which means not at all in the real world, but very scarily in the fantasy world of computer climate modelling).

One of the ‘researchers’ on this study was Michael Mann, inventor of the infamous ‘hockey stick’ which used carefully cherry-picked evidence and dodgy statistical methods to white out the medieval warm period, and prove that the extremely mild and not at all unusual 20th Century warming (less than one degree), was instead unprecedented and very scary, so there.

 This latest effort seems to be built on simliar methodology.

Well, There’s a Surprise!

Palestinian deaths greatly exaggerated. Most of those dead Hamas activists.

I guess the real surprise is that it is a Palestinian doctor who says so, and that it is actually being reported (even though not widely).

Any deaths are regrettable, and there is still (and will be for some time) disagreement about the total casualties, but given Hamas’ predilection for hiding behind women and children, this seems to me to confirm just how careful the Israeli forces were to minimise harm to civilians.

Comments

I have had some requests to remove the registration requirement for would be commentors. The options for comments are:

No comments. I don’t like this idea, because in general the blogs that work best are the ones which develop a sense of community. Allowing readers to comment is an effective way of building this community.

Unbridled comments. Not possible, because in the end it is my website and I am responsible for what appears on it. Also there needs to be a way to guard against spam.

Moderated comments. In this system comments don’t appear until I have had a chance to read and approve them first. The problem with this is that I have a real world job that takes me away from the computer for extended periods. Blog comments work best when they appear immediately, and sometimes I might not be able to approve comments for several hours or even days.

Comments for registered users only. This guards against spam, and enables registered users to post comments immediately. I can still remove offensive or otherwise innappropriate comments, and if necesary ban a particular user. The registration process is quick and easy – you just need to put in your email address, a user name and password, and that’s it.

I understand the frustration of needing to register, but it seems to me this is the best way of allowing readers to comment, to have their comments appear immediately, and yet for me to have the minimal control necessary to prevent abuse.

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