Blog Post #867

I finished going through my old posts and adding index labels to them.

So now it shall be easy-peasy for you to browse every post I ever did write, sorted by topic.

If you so desire.

There's some good stuff in there. (So says present me speaking highly of past me.) You should read it again.

How old is that, really?

Today's the 5078th birthday of Methuselah, the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Adam, the first human. Or, at least, as near as I can figure it, using the time-honored traditions of biblical teachings and random-number generators.

Methuselah has been dead now for 4109 years, but that's no reason not to honor the old guy. He lived a really, really long time. He out-lived his son, Lamech, by five years and died the year of the Great Flood. The Bible doesn't say, but I've always wondered if Methuselah drowned or if he died of natural causes before God killed most everybody. Can you picture Noah saying, "Sorry, Gramps, but the Great Almighty didn't say anything about bringing you aboard. Bye!"

Actually, the fact that Methuselah out-lived his son isn't as impressive as the tale that he had a son when aged 187!

I should move to Pasco.

Franklin County is the only place in the state where the majority voted the same as I did on all the statewide votes. Yakima and Benton counties voted the same as me on all but the Owens/Johnson judicial race, so maybe I could live there, too.

But definitely Tri-Cities or Yakima.

We're all gonna die!!

Does anybody remember all those hurricanes we had this year? I know the season officially doesn't end till November 30 and last year we had storms form in December, but let's take a look at the comparison between predictions and reality.

From Wikipedia:

Average # of named storms: 9.6
Average # of hurricanes: 5.9
Average # of major hurricanes: 2.3

Predicted # of named storms: 17
Predicted # of hurricanes: 9
Predicted # of major hurricanes: 5

Actual # of named storms: 9
Actual # of hurricanes: 5
Actual # of major hurricanes: 2

So, um. . . Back to the average. The world is not ending.

Global Warming Data

Here's why I don't trust scientists: They're human and have agendas and are willing to bend the truth to fit their agenda.

There's an article in the Sunday Telegraph describing just how the scientists and bureaucrats of the UN massacred the global warming data to create a global panic.

You probably are familiar with the hockey-stick graph of worldwide temperatures, where the temperature goes up and down, more or less level, then abruptly shoots up in the twentieth century.



The top graph is from the UN's report of 2001. The bottom graph is from the UN's report of 1996. Notice anything different? Well, here's how they got from one to the other:

• They gave one technique for reconstructing pre-thermometer temperature 390 times more weight than any other (but didn't say so).

• The technique they overweighted was one which the UN's 1996 report had said was unsafe: measurement of tree-rings from bristlecone pines. Tree-rings are wider in warmer years, but pine-rings are also wider when there's more carbon dioxide in the air: it's plant food. This carbon dioxide fertilisation distorts the calculations.

• They said they had included 24 data sets going back to 1400. Without saying so, they left out the set showing the medieval warm period, tucking it into a folder marked "Censored Data".

• They used a computer model to draw the graph from the data, but scientists later found that the model almost always drew hockey-sticks even if they fed in random, electronic "red noise".

That all sounds scientifically honest, now doesn't it?

There's more. The sun heats and cools in cycles. It's currently in a very hot period. I won't bore you with the numbers (they're in the link), but here's a summation: "The entire 20th-century warming from all sources was below 2 watts. The sun could have caused just about all of it."

And they've also messed with the laws of thermodynamics. Has anyone heard of the Stefan-Boltzmann law? Well, apparently there's a little lambda in that equation that equals hc/ukT. A simple version of the equation is E=(sigma)T^4. The lambda is partially in the sigma, I guess. In any case, T is temperature. If you know the temperature and size of a body, you know how much it's radiating, and lambda to boot.

(In case you cared, Boltzmann is the Austrian who committed suicide because nobody believed him when he said that atoms existed.)

So the centuries-old method of calculating lambda gives you 0.2-0.3 deg C/watt. Guess what the UN's computer models use? 1.0 deg C/watt. Why? Because it fits their agenda better. Some "scientists" have used 1.9 deg C/watt just to scare you better.

And here are the concluding lines from the article, just because I can't say them better:

Removing the UN's solecisms, and using reasonable data and assumptions, a simple global model shows that temperature will rise by just 0.1 to 1.4C in the coming century, with a best estimate of 0.6C, well within the medieval temperature range and only a fifth of the UN's new, central projection.

Why haven't air or sea temperatures turned out as the UN's models predicted? Because the science is bad, the "consensus" is wrong, and Herr Professor Ludwig Boltzmann, FRS, was as right about energy-to-temperature as he was about atoms.

And no matter how much power we give to the UN and how much we destroy our economy with crippling regulations, we are not going to reverse the trends of nature.

Fortune Cookies

Fortune cookies only give actual fortune predictions half the time. The rest of the time, it's just sayings or instructions. In any case, here are some that I've collected over the past year:

Your confidence will
lead you to success.

There will always be
delightful mysteries
in your life.

A tantalizing new prospect
will come your way.

An unexpected windfall
will be yours.

Put up with small
annoyances to gain
great results.

Make those special talents
you have work like a charm.

Be innovative. Take
charge of new ideas.

Learn to broaden
your horizons, day by day.

D'ja vote?

I voted this morning. More people than usual, even for a November election. Maybe they don't trust mail-in voting anymore. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

Vote Tomorrow!

And go to the polls. Don't do the vote-by-mail thing. You want to be sure your vote is counted, don't you?

In case you're too lazy to decide how to vote on every race and issue, here are links to how I'll be voting tomorrow morning:

Washington
Seattle

I've never thought that ballots should be secret. If you don't have the strength of your convictions to speak your mind, maybe you shouldn't be voting.

Eat Something!

Hey, y'all! Having a good weekend?

Just stopping by to remind you to eat something. 'Tis the Holy Day of Nokí, after all!

Mangi! Mangi!

Butterfly Leaves

Leaves outside my window, dancing on the breeze. Like butterflies, they swoop and swirl. Small, orange, alive yet dead. One last chaotic motion by the symbols of the coming winter. The only color in a world of gray.

And now they're gone.

That'sh Jusht the Way It Izh

Shometimezh I wonder. . .

My name izh Shotoshoroto!

Nothing to shee here. Move along, move along.

Shorry! We have a shortage of witty shayingsh thish afternoon. . .

I'm feeling a bit shilly.

Some Photos from My Past

My dad sent me some hiking photos of me, through the years.

So I'll post them for all to see.

Most of them, at least.




The first two are from my second backpacking trip, when I was almost six years old. The trail to Annette Lake has been much improved since then.


A few years later, another backpacking trip. This time to Big Heart Lake. This photo is at Copper Lake, though, on the way to Big Heart.


Don't ask.


I don't remember my backpack being that big. . .


I'm fifteen in this picture. I'm an old hand at backpacking by now. This is the Seven Lakes Basin in the Olympics.


Skip a few years and I'm suddenly quite a bit older. This is atop Mt St Helens. I should climb it again to get a look at the new lava dome.


This is just old Mt Si, but I still found a little cliff to perch upon. I like perching on high places.

Chocolate

70% cocoa is the best, I say. 80% cocoa is too bitter. Hershey's Special Dark is probably only 55% or something like that, and that's not good enough.

But I can heartily recommend Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate. Thanks, Chunlin! Yum yum!