Author: Serkadis

“President Barack Obama’s advisers plan to remove terms such as “Islamic radicalism” from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counter-terrorism officials say.

The change would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.” (source)

I understand that Barack Obama is holding out hope that involving Muslim countries in world affairs and discussing other issues besides their radicalized citizens will somehow endear them to us…or at least tone down their hatred of the West. Could he really have bought into the fallacy that they hate us because of Bush? I once said here that this gap in the President’s understanding of militant Islamics is the product of his own lack of faith. He can’t fathom a spiritual fanaticism because he’s an intellectual with no roots in faith. He doesn’t realize that they believe the Qu’ran tells them to do exactly what they’re doing –so no American President, even if his name is a Muslim name, is going to alter that belief.

“…If everyone became vegan and so ate only fruit and vegetables, then the reduction in greenhouse emissions for the whole of food consumption would be a mere 7%. The widespread adoption of vegetarianism would have even less impact, while organic food production actually leads to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Those are the conclusions of a research paper published in the journal Progress in Industrial Ecology…” (source)

Can you imagine the heartbreak this study is having on the high and lofty, judgmental environmentalists?!

The moral of the story? Man, in his infinite smallness and insignificance, has no cogent impact on the ebb and flow of the Earth’s climate. But, don’t throw your veggie pita wrappers on the ground, because what the Earth looks and smells like…YOU DO make a difference.

The search market numbers for March are starting to come in and Experian Hitwise is the first to deliver. The overall picture is hardly surprising, but there are quite a few interesting trends, to say the least. According to the report, Google lost market share, Bing’s slow growth stopped, this while Ask and Yahoo saw a rise in searches in the US.read more)

I am sure many are getting tired of this, but after being out of stock for a while the HD2 is back again for more. T-mobile restocked up on HD2’s late Monday and you can now get your self one online. I am not sure about in stores just yet, but I will be calling in to try and get myself on later today.

If you have been waiting for the HD2, here is your chance, but since I am upgrading, I have to go in store, so no new phone for me just yet.

Article Tags: Ross McKitrick

This is the story of how I spent 2 years trying to publish a paper that refutes an important claim in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The claim in question is not just wrong, but based on fabricated evidence. Showing that the claim is fabricated is easy: it suffices merely to quote the section of the report, since no supporting evidence is given. But unsupported guesses may turn out to be true.

Showing the IPCC claim is also false took some mundane statistical work, but the results were clear. Once the numbers were crunched and the paper was written up, I began sending it to science journals.

That is when the runaround began

Click to read (PDF) Circling the Bandwagons: My Adventures Correcting the IPCC by Ross McKitrick

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General Motors ha presentado la última edición de su deportivo que marcó un antes y un depués,  no es otro que el Viper. Esta versión se denomina Dodge Viper Final Edition y ha sido lanzada para despedirlo por todo lo alto.

Solo serán construidas 50 unidades de esta edición repartidas entre 20 Coupés, 18 Roadster y 12 ACR. Dodge ha dotado a este modelo de un tono gris que recubre toda la carrocería. En cuanto a la motorización, ninguna de las variantes recibirá cambios por lo que seguirá con el motor V10 y 600CV.

Una vez vendidas estas unidades, se espera que General Motors anuncie la nueva generación:

Related posts:

1. Fiat desarrollará un nuevo Dodge Viper
2. Dodge Journey Route 66, edición especial
3. Dodge Charger, nuevo teaser

Kleve, April – Some heat treatment furnaces are as big as a townhouse. The new Ipsen Titan furnace, on the other hand, fits in a garage and is especially user-friendly and energy-efficient.
When hardening metals – most often steel – their structure is altered by the application of heat followed by rapid cooling to increase their mechanical durability.

Ipsen, the heat treatment experts from Kleve in Germany, now offer a compelling solution: the new Titan vacuum furnace. Its simple, compact construction and simple operation make it make it ideal for a variety of applications and unusually mobile. This makes it the ideal tool for heat treatment service providers looking to expand their offering as well as for metal working operations in the automobile industry and its and component suppliers breaking new ground in in-house heat treatment.

Setting up a Titan furnace is extremely simple and can be completed in a single work day. It comes pre-mounted on a wheeled platform and can be rolled into position with a forklift. In manufacturing, Titan can be easily set up in the best position for any given production phase.

Peter Lankes, head of Ipsen International GmbH explains, “Anyone who can run a household washing machine shouldn’t have any problems setting up and operating our Titan furnaces. We consider this the biggest advance since the invention of the vacuum furnace itself.” Technical tidbit: heating steel components in an airless vacuum prevents their oxidizing or tarnishing during the heat treatment process.

The Titan’s terminal has a 17″ screen, a highly intuitive user interface, can be used in 21 languages and all standard systems of measurement. It comes preprogrammed with more than 1,000 standard industrial hardening processes, which can be directly monitored and documented.

The Titan’s octagonal heating chamber offers ample space (450 x 450 x 610 mm) and a maximum of flexibility for a variety of loading configurations. Ipsen’s clients also remain flexible in their costs: the Titan is available directly from Ipsen both for purchase at an affordable price and for lease.

Compact, affordable and flexible: the new Ipsen Titan.

Article Tags: Gary Novak

This is a newly designed web site for my global warming science.

I show some major science errors which are not being discussed elsewhere. An example is atmospheric equilibrium temperature.

The net, equivalent temperature of the atmosphere is defined by equilibrium requirements.

Alarmist scientists are contradiction the concept of equilibrium by claiming that there is a direct relationship between heat addition and temperature increase. With equilibrium, the temperature stays almost the same when heat is added.

Equilibrium is based on the fact that temperature determines the rate of radiation emission from matter.

Equilibrium is possible because heat escapes the atmosphere through radiation which goes around the greenhouse gasses rather than through them. If such equilibrium were not occurring, there would be an indefinable build-up of heat, which is not occurring.

Source: climatebasics.com

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Google is just one of the big proponents of QR codes, two-dimensional bar codes that come in quite handy on mobile devices, but the technology is still not very popular in the US, or anywhere outside of Japan, really. That isn’t stopping anyone, though, and Google has added a very neat trick to its URL-shortening service goo.gl, the ability t… (read more)

Another day, another story of a company no one’s heard of who seems to produce nothing but patents, filing a lawsuit against a ton of companies in East Texas (of course). This one, sent in by the Bored SysAdmin, involves a company called The Pacid Group, suing Asus, Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu, LG, Gigabyte, GBT, MSI, Motorola, Research in Motion, Nikon, Microsoft, Nintendo, HTC and Palm, claiming that they all violate two of its patents (5,963,646 and 6,049,612) on encryption. While it’s often difficult to find any information on the no name companies who big companies for patent infringement, at least The Pacid Group has a website, where it clearly shows the company’s only products: patents.

As we’ve seen in other similar lawsuits, the company appears to think that pretty much every bit of modern technology violates its patents. According to the lawsuit, all of the following types of products may violate these patents: laptops, mobile phones, printers, routers, digital cameras, Blu-ray disk players, gaming devices, wireless adapters and portable media players. Now, sure, you could make the claim that all of these companies found these patents from a company no one had heard of, and decided to “copy” the idea into their product. Or, the fact that this basic idea appears in so many places might lead you to conclude that the idea was the natural progression of the technology and obvious to those skilled in the art, and thus not deserving of a patent. But that would make sense.

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With all modern web browsers battling over JavaScript performance, there is a need for ways to reliably measure it. One benchmark that has proven very popular is SunSpider, created by the Webkit team. The benchmark is regularly used to compare various JavaScript engines, but, with things moving so fast in this area, it started bein… (read more)

The folks at The Organic Farm Store are celebrating Earth Day by announcing their brand new biodegradable packaging! Not only is their Close To Naturenow cat litter organic, now even the packaging is green.

This completely biodegradable natural litter is made from soybean meal and potato starch. It provides excellent odor control, low tracking, and superior clumping. Unlike clay litters — which are devastating to the environment and can cause horrible health problems in cats and kittens (read more here) — Close To Naturenow is a healthy, environmentally-friendly choice for cat litter.

PLEDGE TO GO GREEN AND ENTER TO WIN!

From biodiesel-fueled mobile clinics to facilities built using green design, there are lots of animal shelters worldwide that are going green! The Organic Farm Store has put together a list of some eco-friendly animal shelters in the US and Canada. Check it out, then come back here and leave a comment on this post with info about what your animal shelter is doing to go green, or let us know what you plan to do this year in honor of Earth Day (maybe it’s time to pledge to stop using that clay litter!)

Two winners will be selected in a random drawing on Earth Day, April 25. Each winner will receive an 18 lb. bag of Close To Naturenow Organic Cat Litter in the new biodegradable bag. One entry per person. This giveaway is open to addresses in the US and Canada.

Article Tags: Editorial

Science is undermined by scaremongers’ abuse of peer-review process

The prophets of global warming continue to lament as their carefully crafted yarn unravels before their eyes. Ross McKitrick, an intrepid economics professor from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, has tugged apart the thin mathematical threads that once held together the story of climate change.

Recent attempts to silence Mr. McKitrick illuminate the extent to which the alarmists have abandoned proper scientific method in their pursuit of political goals.

Mr. McKitrick has spent the past two years attempting to publish a scientific paper that documents a fundamental error in the 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. This U.N. document serves as the sole authority upon which the Environmental Protection Agency based its December “endangerment finding” that will allow unelected bureaucrats to impose cap-and-trade-style regulations without a vote of Congress. The cost to the public in higher gas and energy prices will run in the billions.

One might think that the scientific community would be extra diligent in double-checking the conclusions of a report carrying such weighty real-world consequences. In fact, the opposite happened. Seven scientific journals circled the wagons to block publication of Mr. McKitrick’s explosive findings.

Source: washingtontimes.com

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Rolex Learning Center
The EPLF (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
is the confederate university of the French-speaking
part of Switzerland. The “Rolex Learning Center” has
been being built right next to the present-day campus
over a three-year period. It will provide space for 700
students and teachers. In addition to a large library
covering the history of science, exhibitions and conferences
will take place. The complex also incorporates quiet
areas and contact zones and catering facilities. The latest
multimedia technology naturally has pride of place.

UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Two new articles on the research done by Willeke Wendrich and Hans Barnard at the Fayum Oasis in Egypt have been published in scientific journals.

The first article, in the current issue of Antiquity, “Identifying low-level food producers: detecting mobility from lithics” can be read here.

The second article, from the journal Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, “Dating stratified settlement sites at Kom K and Kom W: Fifth millennium BCE radiocarbon ages for the Fayum Neolithic,” is available here.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Talking Pyramids (Vincent Brown)

With diagrams.

Vincent has done an excellent summary and analysis of the recently reported attempts to discover the pyramid of Userkare at Saqqara.

The location of the lost pyramid of Userkare may have been found with a little help from Djoser and some clever aligning.

Professor of archaeoastronomy at Milan’s Polytechnic University, Giulio Magli has come up with a theory using new astronomical and topographical research to create a grid that connects up some of the major pyramids at Saqqara and South Saqqara.

Following on the heels of his announcement last year that the pyramids of Giza form a line aligned with Heliopolis, the professor is now tackling the search for the 4,300 tomb of the mysterious king Userkare.

You Tube

Dr Vasko (or Vassil) Dobrev explains his search for the tomb of Userkare – a Sixth Dynasty Pharaoh who ruled between the reign of Teti and Pepi I. In the video, Dr Dobrev explains that Egypt was in a power limbo after the assassination of Teti, until Userkare came to bring peace and restore order. He is excavating a site at Saqqara South where his team have so far covered a fifth of a hectare, out of a 15 hectare plateau. Dr Dobrev shows us in this video what he has found so far at the Tabbet al-Guech site, and some insight into the world of archaeology.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Supporters of stronger intellectual property laws in other countries ought to be careful what they ask for… they just might get it, and then discover they didn’t really want it after all. For example, for many, many years, US companies have been screaming loudly about how the US should pressure China to be more respectful of intellectual property. China, for example, regularly makes the “priority watch list” of the USTR’s “Special 301” report, which is effectively a catalog of what countries US companies are complaining most about. However, China has suddenly taken an interest in intellectual property in the last few years, and it doesn’t seem to be turning out quite like US companies expected.

First, a few years back, we wrote about a high profile counterfeit DVD bust in China, where the “culprit” was actually a rich American. Then, we noticed in 2008 that China was starting to talk about China cracking down on video game piracy, but only when it concerned others copying China’s video games. Finally, late last year, we noted that a French company had lost a patent lawsuit in China.

It turns out that was just the beginning. Joe Mullin points us to a story about how there have been a series of recent patent and trademark rulings in Chinese courts all of which appear to be going against large multinational companies and in favor of Chinese companies.

Of course, this isn’t a surprise at all. Various studies have shown that greater copyright, patent and trademark protections tend to follow a period of great innovation, when the companies that did that innovation look to protect their position from upstarts elsewhere. In other words, it acts in the exact opposite manner as it’s supposed to. It’s not an incentive to innovate, but a tool used to stop competition and innovation from others. The situation in China is playing out exactly according to that formula. The country is growing into a bigger believer in intellectual property laws — but only for the sake of using it to protect against foreigners — which, we assume, is not what US companies wanted, but which they should have expected if they ever bothered to look at the actual history of stronger intellectual property laws.

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I do believe, that after causing all manner of cable-news freak outs last night and much soiling of boxer-briefs amongst the easily frightened, we have discovered the nadir (or is it the height?) of international banality:

US air marshals subdued a Qatari diplomat on a flight to Denver in a bomb scare triggered after he reportedly smoked a cigarette and then joked he was trying to ignite his shoes, officials said…

This guy apparently is an honors graduate of the John Bolton School of International Diplomacy.

Frontline (R. Krishnakumar)

With maps.

One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other.

This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt and also by sea routes from the Indian Ocean regions. Cargoes unloaded at Berenike and other Egyptian Red Sea ports (such as Myos Hormos, now lost) used to be taken along the desert roads to the Nile and from there through the river to the Mediterranean Sea and across, to the Roman trade centres.

Exotic goods from Rome and Egypt flowed into Berenike along the same desert road before being loaded into large ships bound for the Indian Ocean.

By the end of the second century B.C., the Egyptians and the Romans finally learnt the skill of sailing with the monsoon winds across the Indian Ocean (“from the Arabs and other Easterners”). Voyages from Berenike for the riches of the Malabar coast therefore became “faster, cheaper, but not less dangerous”.

According to most accounts, one of the major centres in India that ships from Berenike travelled to, along with the monsoon winds, was the emporium of Muziris, on the Malabar coast.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Google’s mapping efforts are nothing but ambitious. It is working diligently to make Street View imagery for as many of the Earth’s cities as possible. It is also aiming to have them recreated in 3D in Google Earth. The satellite imagery of even the most remote places is becoming more detailed. Yet, most of its efforts focus on just 30 percent of the Earth’… (read more)