@ my wits’ end

Colin James, in his column for the DomPost and ODT for 25th January 2010, wrote:

Key’s core test will be his response to the tax group’s recommendations, which leave him no excuse for timidity. If he decides to trust his antennae and instincts and use his huge political capital, wide acceptability and capacity to connect to build a genuine “world-class tax system”, he would likely carry the public (and nervy doubters in his cabinet) with him. Witness the lack of fuss over the Maori flag.

“The Key who took large, well-calculated risks after thorough due diligence to accumulate a sizable fortune might have been expected to replicate that in politics. That younger risk-taking Key might also have recognised that this year’s big decisions are not about today’s issues but tomorrow’s: the post-crunch, China-rising, new-communications, mass-migration and maybe greening world. Old ideas won’t do, just as they didn’t do in the 1980s.

Right on Colin.

What do you want John?

Govern for the next election?

• Perpetuate the same old tired poll-driven incompetence?
• Continue the short-term thinking which has seen us fall from the second richest country in the world to about 50th?
• To be Prime Minister for 2 or 3 terms and disappear into historical oblivion?
• To follow the polls into mediocrity?

Or govern for your grandchildren and mine?

• Get back onto the track you started on.
• Make good on your promises.
• Give us policies which benefit us all for decades to come, not just for the next election.
• Use your political capital to revolutionize New Zealand’s political and economic life. Convince the electorate that for some short term sacrifice we can have long term gain.
• You may fail, but you’ll have failed honorably. If you succeed you’ll be  justifiably seen as one of our few great leaders.

In the past New Zealand’s voters have shown the ability to see ahead more than one electoral term. Unfortunately, our politicians haven’t.

Everything depends upon improving our abysmal productivity, rewarding innovation and finding new opportunities. You are our last best hope to lead us on that journey.

What do you have to lose?

Laser fusion test results raise energy hopes

From the BBC:

“A major hurdle to producing fusion energy using lasers has been swept aside, results in a new report show.

The controlled fusion of atoms – creating conditions like those in our Sun – has long been touted as a possible revolutionary energy source.

However, there have been doubts about the use of powerful lasers for fusion energy because the “plasma” they create could interrupt the fusion.

An article in Science showed the plasma is far less of a problem than expected.

The report is based on the first experiments from the National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US that used all 192 of its laser beams.

Along the way, the experiments smashed the record for the highest energy from a laser – by a factor of 20….”

Read the full article here

Some hopeful news for a change:

Levitating magnet may yield new approach to clean energy.

There’s a difference between scepticism and denial. One is healthy, the other is often one-eyed, fanatical, or both. There are a number of things I don’t understand about the climate change denial industry:

Why do denialists have to be so obnoxious? They invariably use the same sarcastic, sneering tone that Richard Dawkins uses when reviling creationists in his best-selling books. Although I agree with Dawkins’ views on evolution, I suspect that his methods only serve to entrench the beliefs of those whom he belittles—he ends up preaching to the converted. The same argument applies with the denial industry. If they have faith in their beliefs, why not state their truth calmly and lucidly and let the facts sway the skeptical?

Ian Wishhart’s recent book Air Con is a case in point. Sneering is the most apt adjective for the tone of the whole book. I read the book in the hope of finding some insight into the denialist case. I was disappointed. After the first 3 or 4 chapters I’d had it with the half-truths, the interminable ramblings and the lies of omission; I gave up on it.

Where’s the problem?

As a denialist, is it not possible to accept that, even if you’re right, the actions promoted by anthropogenic climate change supporters would be good for the planet no matter what the global temperature graph looks like 20, 50 or 100 years on? Why not just get over it?

• What’s wrong with replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources?
• What’s wrong with denying the oil producers the wherewithal to continue to fund extremist Islam, anti-Western jihadist, and fanatical terrorist groups?
• What’s wrong with reducing atmospheric pollution?
• What’s to like about the coal industry?
• What’s wrong with creating new hi-tech technologies, new green industries, and new clean jobs?
• Who doesn’t want much more energy efficient cars which transfer the reduced amount of pollution they do generate from exhaust pipes to power plants far from choked city streets?

Most of all, how can you be so certain? Scratch the most prominent denialists and you’ll find that they’re doing very nicely out of it – like Bjørn Lomborg (a political scientist) with his money-making books and lecture circuit, or they’re like David Evans (a mathematician) who pads his résumé, or they’re working for big oil, or they’re just plain out-there, like the physicist at Auckland University who seemed to claim that the sun must be driving the change because it’s very big!

I’m not a climate scientist, I’m a retired engineer. My income has depended upon my success in monitoring processes in thermodynamic systems and I can spot a trend as well as anybody.

When the denial industry tell me that the planet’s been cooling since 1998 I know that they’re either mistaken, can’t read a graph, ignorant, or lying. One El Niño induced anomalous year notwithstanding. That tired argument is particularly mystifying when one considers that the last decade is the warmest on record even though we’ve been in a low period of solar forcing for the latter part of it.

When they tell me that Arctic ice cover is increasing while they confuse extent with volume my eyes glaze over.

When the realities of Milankovitch Cycles are ignored and they equate cooling of Pluto with Earth’s climate I smell a very dead and decomposing rat.

For me there’s no choice

Most of all I ask the denialists, “What if you’re wrong?” What will you tell your grand-children? If you’re right, it won’t matter too much, we’ll have made some overdue changes to the way things are done and my grandchildren will benefit.

If you’re wrong, and you succeed in sowing enough doubt, you could doom millions, maybe billions, to a far more apocalyptic outcome than would otherwise be the case.

Antivirus for home use

There are three very good antivirus programs which are free for home use and for home use only: AVG, Avira  and Avast! free versions.

I check the AV comparison tests regularly and of the free versions Avast! and Avira are currently the champs – they even stacks up quite well against the current commercial top contenders: G-Data, Norton, NOD32 and BitDefender. The paid version of Avast! is much cheaper than those two alternatives so if you’re a budget-challenged business user it’s still worth considering.

Institutions (even non-commercial ones) are not allowed to use avast! Home Edition. However, ALWIL Software provides the full line of avast! antivirus products at special discount prices for non-profit, charity, educational and government institutions.

Registration required

One minor hassle: with Avast! you need to register initially (and once a year thereafter) to obtain a registration code. Trust me, it’s worth it. Avast! also requires a little bit of work to figure out how to run it properly. Just hover your cursor over the various buttons shown in the image below to see what they’re for.

You need to check the boxes for the drive, or drives, you want protected – initiate this task by clicking the “Folder Selection” button at bottom right. If all else fails, read the instructions! Press F1 or click on the ? button.

As with many programs, it may be set up by default to run at a time when your PC is usually switched off.  Click on the arrow button at top left and choose “Settings…” from the drop-down menu to change this setting.

There’s a better way

Anti-malware programs are a necessity with Windows. Nevertheless, they’re never 100% effective. If you wish to make yourself really safe against infection or any other disaster, you need imaging software. See here on my website. I have images of all 3 of my computers, if anything goes seriously wrong I can restore a machine back to the way it was a week or a month ago in under half an hour.

Priceless.

Find out more about viruses, other malware, how to deal with them and the best reviews and products right here on my website.

The tiny tool of the year

If you’re even slightly addicted to news and information on the web you need Readability.

It’s a javascript “bookmarklet” which takes a cluttered page like this:

and with one click turns it into this supremely readable text:

It takes about 10 seconds to set up, it works on most pages containing articles and on any operating system. Compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. All you need to do is select your text preferences on this page at arc90 Laboratory then drag the Readability link button from their page into your Favorites or Bookmarks, preferably on the toolbar.

If you wish to return to the previous cluttered version, just refresh your browser page » Ctrl+R in Firefox, F5 in Internet Explorer.

Get it here

See the 1 minute tutorial here: Shhh, I’m Trying To Read!