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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Liam Proven" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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04:35 pm
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One big social network
Back when I was with Heise, I signed up with Digg and Reddit which I'd only previously been reading, so that I could promote Heise stories there occasionally.
But recently, I noticed an interesting new feature on Digg: Facebook Connect. For a laugh, I enabled it, and as a result, it automatically populated my Digg profile with all the relevant bits of info from my FB one: name, photo, age, sex, location, stuff like that. This saved me a lot of work.
Over the years, I have got really tired of filling in all my contact info on multiple different websites. I must have put in my contact info approaching a thousand times. This is a distinct step in the right direction, I think. But still, I need lots of accounts.
I have accounts on things like Blogger which I created solely for commenting to others' posts; I don't keep a blog there and don't plan to. That itself is getting less necessary, though, because more and more blogs accept things like a LJ ID or a Google ID or an OpenID to let you comment as yourself.
(Although recently I had my first OpenID error - I tried to use my LJ, which has hitherto been my primary OpenID, and the site rejected it, saying it was a v1.0 ID and I needed a v2 one. Great. A return to the PITA that was RSS 1 vs. RSS 2 vs. Atom and all that nonsense.)
One of the last times I re-entered all my info was to create a Google Profile. Mine is here. To my disappointment, it doesn't seem to show up in Google results.
But now, there are mutterings that Google will make all Gmail/Google Docs accounts OpenIDs, meaning millions of new ones. I wonder if this will also include automatically populating profile info from your Google Profile?
This is quite exciting stuff. It could mean you could roam from any social networking type site to any other using a single profile which would follow you everywhere. If you are not one of the poor deluded types who thinks that calling yourself GreenSquirrel on Lj means you've hidden your identity, then this could be terrific. A massive timesaver and a step toward linking all the different sites and accounts in the world together. I love the idea.
I bet there are going to be screams and howls of protest, though...
Current Mood: pensive
Tags: geek, tech, writing
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02:00 am
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Marketing plans that transform into major Hollywood movies
Or, movies that transform your mind into mush. Or toys that transform children into customers.
So ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ednun took me to see Transformers 2 in Camden tonight. He wanted to go to a showing with audio description, which is fair enough, and as his helper, I got in for free, so that was cool. Thanks, man.
It was interesting to watch an audio-described film. I've never tried it before.
They don't broadcast the audio description; you wear headphones. These are big heavy battery-powered wireless ones that clamp over your ears, but quite deliberately don't have padding to block out the sound, because they don't carry the soundtrack. That you get from the cinema speakers.
They're a little odd. They have multiple controls - an on/off switch, another for people with hearing aids (we think), and not one but two volume wheels, one for each ear. The narration isn't in stereo, but this way, you can adjust the sound balance for yourself, in an odd slightly-clunky way, like trying to steer a tank in Battlezone with 2 joysticks.
I'd also like to know how the wireless transmission works. It's some kind of line-of-sight system; turning your head sideways, or holding hands over the 'phones, introduces static, and Ed tells me that when people walk in front of you, the signal is blocked. Infra-red headphones?
They just carry the extra narration. It's pretty detailed in places - they describe the animated production-company logos and things before the titles, for instance. In places, especially if not a lot is going on, they describe the character's expressions and small movements. Entertainingly, the description was very English, too, with words like "knackered" in it. This pleased me quite inordinately. It's not intrusive, but you do have to turn it up loud, because sometimes, he's talking right through very loud action. And oddly, in places, it's rather under-descriptive: when a hot student girl straddles our hero, mounting him as if to screw him, the voice merely says "she sits on him". That ain't what I call "sitting", my friend.
The thing about this film is, though, I am not a Transformers fan. I did not expect to hugely enjoy the film. And I didn't.
Ed, however, is. He's a massive fan. He even bought the book of the movie, scanned it page by freaking page, and then OCRed the whole thing so he could read it. That is dedication.
I could talk about the film. I could talk about its bizarre disjointedness, about how it not only depends entirely on special effects but, oddly, in this one, of effects of military hardware and explosions almost more than giant battling alien robots. I could talk, for quite some time, with feeling, about Megan Fox. OK, so, in real life, she's a tattooed slapper, total trailer-trash, but in the movies, when they cover up all the tats with heavy-duty makeup, well, damn she is decorative. She couldn't act her way out of a wet cardboard box, but she doesn't need to.
Michael Bay is deranged for getting her to put on some extra weight for the film, but I am aware that my tastes in this regard are not the everyman's.
But still, after everything, even now I know the difference between an Autobot and a Decepticon, hypothetical gods help me, I still think the whole damned concept is a load of utter toss.
So it is something of a relief to know that I am not alone.
So I recommend, for the idly curious, The 10 Most Confusing Things in 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen', followed by the greatly more cynical and thus more amusing Bonus! Rob's Transformers 2 F.A.Q.s! from Topless Robot.
Example:
Can you explain Megan Fox's appeal?
Yes. She looks like a porn star and has the same acting talent as one, yet for some reason she makes mainstream movies. This tonal disconnect is what's so appealing about her.
... and...
Could you sum up the film in one line of its dialogue?
"I am standing directly beneath the enemy's scrotum."
Conclusion: skip the film, read the summaries. Some of the reviews are also recommended for amusement value. Metro's one, for instance, entitled "Just skip these robot wars": blank, wet-lipped super-hottie Megan Fox, who looks like she'd scoff LaBeouf for breakfast before spitting him out and moving on to Cheryl Cole". Excellent.
Tags: film, humour, writing
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06:54 pm
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15 Books
Incipient FB meme - this should propagate through to there, though. No idea if it's catching on on LJ, though. I'm very out of touch.
This, for me, is a rough list in order of most-reread-ness. If you took the position in reverse order, it's about how many times I've reread them, very roughly - so a good dozen-plus times for the top handful, down to at least once or twice at the bottom.
Destructions:
Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me. (To write a note, go to your profile page and click on Notes, then click on "Add a Note")
1. The Hitch-Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
2. The Dark Side of the Sun - Terry Pratchett
3. Strata - Terry Pratchett
4. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
5. Red/Green/Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
6. Life Before Man - Spinar & Burian
7. Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
8. The Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkien
9. Neuromancer – William Gibson
10. Eon – Greg Bear
11. Zodiac - Neal Stephenson
12. Dune – Frank Herbert
13. Gaia: a new look at life on Earth - James Lovelock
14. A Bike Ride - Anne Mustoe
15. Silent Spring - Rachel Carson
Tags: meme
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05:40 pm
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"It's my last shell and open season on Mormons starts tomorrow morning..."
Just had to dig this out for a mate of mine and thought I'd share it.
One of my favourite webcomics from what were (for me) the early days, around 2000-2002.
Flem Comics: the site that brought you the immortal Hank, The Dancing Abortion.
Specifically, Flem on Mormon-hunting:
(From http://www.flemcomics.com/d/20020108.html)
( Read more... )
Tags: blog, comics, humour
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11:21 am
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Quote of the Day
New York Times: Is it true that Buzz Lightyear, the cartoon astronaut, was named after you?
Buzz Aldrin: Apparently, but there’s no evidence in my bank account to substantiate that.
From Questions for Buzz Aldrin - The Man on the Moon - By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Current Location: diningroom datacentre
Current Mood: amused
Tags: blog, link, quote
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01:45 am
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Linkage of the blatant-self-plugging variety
These don't really count as writing - they're only a paragraph long each - but I've just discovered that not only did OSnews run a story I submitted to them a day or two ago, but that they ran the last one I submitted, too, and I just somehow missed it at the time. This sort of stuff isn't for money, I just thought the items were things that merited wider attention.
RMoX: a GPL, Parallel Research OS Written in occam-pi
An Insider's History of SMSQ/E
P.S. Oh, and in other news, after a rather long day in the Parkside Hospital in Wimbledon, I don't have bowel cancer. So that's good.
Current Location: diningroom datacentre
Current Mood: tired & wrung-out
Current Music: Vomiting cat
Tags: health, plug, writing
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04:51 am
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LJ question
Anyone know a way I can search my own journal for a word or phrase, or see a list of all my post titles ever?
TIA!
Current Location: dining room datacentre
Current Mood:  sleepy
Current Music: washing machine on spin
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04:03 pm
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LJ Talk
I must confess, I almost never use it, but for some reason, Pidgin is today unable to connect to LJ's Jabber chat facility. Has it gone down, or been turned off or something? I see no mention on the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif) news feed...
Current Location: dining room datacentre
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03:56 pm
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New publisher, new danger
Another day, another outlet for my peerless prose. :¬)
Linutop 2 super small desktop PC: Linux lightweight – in more ways than one?
Liam appears on The Register for the first time. Comments very welcome, here or there.
Current Music: White & Nerdy, Weird Al
Tags: ego, plug, writing
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02:13 am
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Croydon pub meet
I omitted to plug this for the last couple of months, because I am new to this sort of thing and really a bit rubbish at it.
But anyway - on Tuesday, it's the monthly Croydon SF fan pub meet. It's at the Dog and Bull in Surrey Street, near the Church Street tram stop, from about 7:30pm. We're often to be found in the back bit of the pub if we get in the way of the pub quiz, or sometimes in the private function room upstairs. Just ask at the bar where the science-fiction people are. :¬)
Tue 12th May. Facebook types can find the event here.
Tags: ad, meet, plug
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08:21 pm
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There ain't no negatives here, none
How I Met My Wife
It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to rush it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory char- acter who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.
- Jack Winter, Shouts & Murmurs
A Very Descript Man
I am such a dolent man,
I eptly work each day;
My acts are all becilic,
I've just ane things to say.
My nerves are strung, my hair is kempt,
I'm gusting and I'm span:
I look with dain on everyone
And am a pudent man.
I travel cognito and make
A delible impression:
I overcome a slight chalance,
With gruntled self-possession.
My dignation would be great
If I should digent be:
I trust my vagance will bring
An astrous life for me.
- J H Parker
Both from the A Word A Day newsletter
Tags: blog, humour, language, writing
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01:54 am
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An unexpected visit
Had been planning to go to the Ton. But this afternoon, vanessaw texts me and tells me that she has a spare ticket to Razorlight at the O2, because the mate she was going with has had to drop out.
I've already been to the O2 once this year, to see Metallica with sparktastic, and it was one of the top 5 best gigs I've ever been to. It was my first time there and Sparky got great seats, very low down and near the front. Excellent view, although I always feel out of place sitting down at a rock gig. I am not sure if I wrote about the Metallica gig at the time, but it was great - and a forgotten pleasure. I've never seen them before. Back in October when she asked me, on the basis that none of her other gig-going mates knew of her secret vice of RAWK and would want to (so nice to be a last resort!), I could readily afford £40 for a gig. Even if it was the most I'd ever paid.
By April, when it came round, there was no way I could have. It was like a present from a former self. We also caught Machine Head, the second support act, who were pretty good, but Metallica owned the island stage like few bands I've ever seen before. The light show was very impressive, with huge floating coffin things descending from the mists of the distant ceiling, there were flames and pyrotechnics, there were thousand of black balloons of all sizes, there were no big screens or props like that... Excellent stuff.
It was an un-anticipated pleasure to be returning there so soon for another band, ones who, like Metallica, I'm signicantly fond but no albums of whose I own. I was listening to Razorlight on Spotify all day, by way of last-minute "revision".
The beer in there is awful, and it's also £4.30 a pint, so we snagged a half-decent one in one of the bars on the outer ring first. Duvel for me; at least you know where you are with a bottle of Duvel.
Then we went in for the first support act, Airborne Toxic Event. We didn't pay them nearly the attention they deserved, but they were rather good. I shall be seeking out some more.
Then came the Howling Bells, of whom I'd not heard before. It was hard to tell from our seats up in the gods, but the tiny distant figure of Juliana Stein looked rather cute and she sounded good. Vague echoes of the Cranes or the Sundays or some other ethereal girly-fronted band I can't quite put my finger on.
Then a long gap before the main event. This time, it was a more conventional layout with a stage opposite the main groundling's bar, and there were big flanking screens too - of which I was quite glad. I've never seen Razorlight before, but I fondly remember wading though a slick of tiny little spotty emo kids in Tottenham Court Road station on night a few years back. When I idly wondered aloud to my companion where and why Every Single Teenybopper In London had come from and why they were ALL in TCR station, one of them bravely volunteered that Razorlight had played the Astoria that night. And that it had been really good, actually.
I (slightly sheepishly, for I'd not really meant to be overheard, but being silent and inconspicuous is not a strength of mine) allowed that I quite liked them myself, despite my great age and everything.
So I was doubly chuffed to get to go and see them for myself.
As Spotify had reminded me, I actually know and like a lot of their stuff, but I've always been vaguely of the opinion that they were a good band but not nearly as good as they thought they were, if you see what I mean.
Well, I think I have to revise that, now.
Compared to their support acts, their confidence as they took to the stage spoke volumes. They didn't quite sell out the dome - the far end of the top tier of seats (the same tier as where we were) was empty, but there were a lot of people in there. At a wild guess, 10,000+. And the band did not look daunted.
The sound quality was excellent, for the size of venue; only in the quietest numbers was there any problem with echoes. The performance was good, slightly wild and edge in places, but with some good skilful guitar work in their anthemic instrumentals - more faithful than I've heard some old-time big stadium acts manage, without being slavish to their singles or album mixes. There was not only some good back-filling synth work, there was a proper upright piano on stage, used well, and a percussionist with kettle drums and marimba. The kettle drums provided some wonderful deep rhythm in a couple of numbers, but alas, the marimba was inaudible, at least to my aging ears.
It was a good, crowd-pleasing set - only about an hour, but packed with all the favourites, of which there's a surprising number, and only a modicum of new numbers and album tracks for the hardcore fans. All the stuff I'd been hoping for was in there and more, and its reception was very good. Hard to measure the mood of such a big crowd from up in the gods - certainly they were loving it in places, and the one singalong session was an epic - more of a colossal murmur than actual song, but hey, they all knew the words and they were belting it out, down there a mile or so below us.
The encore was a little bit of a pro forma - the crowd were expecting it and didn't make much of noise asking for it. And it was all new stuff, to me, and to many, judging from its reception.
But then, after a good third of the crowd had gone, Johnny Borrell came back on stage and did a rather good and moving solo piano song, the house where my father died. The remaining audience were agog. And after that, the rest of the band returned and did another three numbers - none I knew, but clearly many there did.
A really good solid gig, excellent fun, and a thousand thanks to 'Ness for taking me there. I feel sorry for her mate who missed out on it.
And that is about the closest thing to a rock journo gig review you're ever likely to see out of me.
Current Location: bed
Current Mood: tired and happy
Current Music: Somewhere Else, in my head
Tags: diary, gig, music, writing
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03:21 pm
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Anyone fancy a treadmill?
ednun is selling his treadmill. It's a good one. Just the thing to get fit without getting mugged or run over... :¬)
Current Location: Dining room PC
Current Music: Apollo 440 - Krupa
Tags: ad, plug, spam
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03:07 pm
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Anyone want a cheap ride to Eastercon?
I'm considering hiring a car. It'll cost me £150 for the weekend - I'm going tomorrow (Thursday 9th) morning and coming back after the Dead Dog party on Monday 14th. I have to be in hospital at 7:30am on Tuesday, unfortunately.
If I go 50:50 with ednun it will cost me about the same as a train ticket, but it's more for him, so I was wondering if anyone wanted to come with and split the cost? For 3 it'll be cheaper than the train and for 4 cheaper than a coach...
Give me a shout. Email or text me - oh seven nine three nine oh eighty-seven eighty-eight four.
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08:41 pm
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Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
Last weekend, I gave away an old Digital Audio Mac G4. Yesterday, after weeks of missing one another, a lady from Freecycle took away an old Gateway Pentium/150 which I'd done up. Another chap came round and collected an old AMD motherboard and an AthlonXP 2200+ CPU I had lying around, and I delivered jamesb's old PC, restored, refurbished and installed with Linux Mint to armchairanalyst. Which is all good.
But today, with the wonderful transport assistance of my next-door neighbour Dave, a chap in Docklands took no less than ten old PCs off my hands. He's building a Linux cluster. I've pointed out to him that a cluster of 486s and Pentium 1s will have a lot less CPU performance than a single 5y old PC, let alone anything modern, but hey, it sounds like a fun project and I'm going to help him with it if I can. No idea what he wants to run on it, but I think I've just quadrupled the size of his cluster. He's happy, I'm happy.
I've also got my Birdy back from Bikefix, after nine months. They were having a hell of a time finding a new dynamo for it, but it seems there was just a communications breakdown. They couldn't find my bike at first, but then another engineer stepped in. Although the boss had heard nothing about it when I last spoke to him, they'd managed to "bodge" (their words) a new dynamo onto it and it's apparently been ready for ages - I'd just not got any of their messages.
Nice one, Bikefix, and thanks!
So my garage is moving back towards its rightful state of being full of bikes instead of old computers. There's still a pile of old Macs for me to do up & dispose of, though. Anyone fancy a classic 680x0-based Macintosh, kitted out, maxed out with upgrades & all ready to go?
The 1st one up for grabs is a Performa 630 with TV card. Lovely little machine. I've added 10base-T Ethernet & about 36MB RAM; it runs MacOS 8.1, Word 5.1 and a handful of other apps. All geared up with IE 4 and Netscape 4, the latest it can run. The last ever 68040 Mac, I believe. I can offer 14" or 17" monitors for it, and naturally it comes with a mouse and keyboard (your choice, curvy or boxy mouse, compact or Extended II keyboard).
It also comes with the Apple remote control, so you can use it as a remote-controlled TV set or CD player. Has MP3 playback software installed but it doesn't really have the horsepower to cope with MP3s, let alone digital video. You can surf the web at a somewhat... majestic pace, though.
Also comes with a StyleWriter 2500, and for the ambitious, if you want to go for the PowerPC uprade option that the LowEndMac page I link to above mentions, I can give throw in Performa 6200 as well... I might even be able to raise the DOS compatibility card from somewhere!
Current Location: sofa
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Neffie purring
Tags: diary, geek, tech
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01:43 pm
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"The way out of the credit and the climate crunch is the same - a Green New Deal"
The single most insightful news story on the current economic and climate crises I've yet seen: Johann Hari in the Independent...
The protesters are the ones we should listen to at this summit. The way out of the credit and the climate crunch is the same - a Green New Deal
(LJ commentable link here.)
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01:24 pm
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Technology and you
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in a moment of reasoned lucidity which is almost unique in its current tally of five million, nine hundred and seventy five thousand pages, says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that 'it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement that you get from getting them to work at all.
"'In other words -- and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded -- their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.'"
- Douglas Adams, So long, and thanks for all the fish
(As quoted in the FAQ for the Opera web browser, amongst many other places.)
EDIT: typo in source material fixed!
Tags: humour
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01:41 am
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Skeptics in the Pub
Reminder for those that way inclined: tomorrow night is the next Skeptics in the Pub.
Title:
Confessions of an Ex-Creationist
When:
16.03.2009 19.00 h
Where:
The Penderel's Oak - London
Matt Parker will be candidly discussing what Creationists believe, why some normal people are convinced by them and how he feels about all of this - specifically in the context of being a Maths and Science teacher.
Matt grew up in a conservative Christian family and attended a church where the Bible was taken as the literal word of God, even in the matters regarding the creation of the Universe. A series of events at school and university have since turned him into the jaded sceptic he is today but it has left him with a unique insight into Creationism culture.
Matt Parker is best described as a Stand-up Mathematician who does everything in his power to make more people excited about Mathematics.
When he’s not doing his Maths routine around the country, Matt finds time to be a ‘normal’ teacher in a London secondary school, educating young people in the way of Maths and Physics. His favourite number is currently 496.
Tags: diary
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12:28 am
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More climate doom & gloom
Couple of bits of particularly bad news that I have come across this week.
[1] M.I.T. joins climate realists, doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C
Well worth reading the piece and the links thence.
In summary, if very serious action is not taken - big league stuff, not fooling around with pointless nonsense like off-setting and biofuels - then we're on line for a warming of up to seven centigrade by the end of the century. One of the problems with these reports, as one of the linked articles discusses, is that [a] people don't understand probability and [b] climate scientists cannot believe how very stupid people are, so the scientists phrase their reports in their normal cautious language: "temperatures may increase, maybe by this much but more likely by only this much, if emissions are not reduced..." Partly because they can't credit that nobody will do anything.
Personally, I'm a cynic; I don't believe anyone will do anything significant.
Reasons the figures are being adjusted are, for instance, that the oceans are not absorbing much CO2 any more - because they've been doing it as fast as they can for a couple of centuries already and now they are near saturated, so much so that large areas are now largely dead and devoid of multicellular life.
Also, whereas the report does address discoveries such as the failing rates of uptake by the biosphere, it does not consider major new threats, such as massive methane (and carbon dioxide) release from thawing permafrost (did you know that a quarter the Northern hemisphere is permafrost?) and melting seabed methane clathrates.
And these are all synergies - they reinforce one another. In other words, the MIT report is far too cautious in its predictions.
[2] Meanwhile, in Central Asia, Lake Balhkash is in imminent danger of drying up. Now that the Aral Sea is effectively gone - the biggest single man-made environmental disaster in the world, certainly in the 20th Century and possibly, arguably, of the industrial revolution so far, and I bet most people have never even heard of it - Balkhash is the largest body of water in Central Asia after the Caspian. However, unlike the seas, it's shallow: only 5m to 25m deep. But now, it's getting polluted and also starved of water - it's just not showing that much yet, because it's getting topped-up by all the melting glaciers.
OK, so, it's far away and won't impact Britain much, but that, in my book, is no reason to not care. These are the early-stage big obvious signs of the looming catastrophe.
[3] Japan's boffins: Global warming isn't man-made; Climate science is 'ancient astrology', claims report
Several leading Japanese scientists have spoken out against anthropogenic climate change. This is terrifying stuff - while Japan is a highly insular culture, it is also an influential one. And one with a terrible record in terms of environmental responsibility, from whaling to massive timber use. I cannot help but wonder who has bought these guys off.
This will give more fuel to the global-warming deniers, and so long as they are around and voting, they will doom us all, and our children and our childrens' children. After that, well, at this rate, all bets are off. Plastic-laminated picture books on how to chip stone tools, make bows and arrows and effective ways to hunt, prepare and eat rats and cockroaches might be the best gift for the great-grandkids, I reckon.
Not A Rhetorical Question: what would make people believe, short of actually seeing it themselves? Because by the time the figures are in, it will be too late to change anything significant.
My bet: we are on course for an ice-free world within a century or two. Synergistic effects will accelerate massively, the polar caps and glaciers all melt, sea levels rise by 70m (200') and the inundated coasts, melting permafrost and clathrates and CO2 saturation of the oceans kills off most marine species leaving huge dead zones. There will be rapid mass human die-offs on land, due to agricultural collapse and scarcity of fresh water. Rivers will dry up as the snows and glaciers feeding them disappear and the tree cover on high watersheds is cut down and burned, leading to flooding, soil loss and rapid desertification. There will be epic water wars. All this long before the fossil fuels run out.
It is almost funny. We are all in a bus, careening down a steep mountain road at ever-increasing speed, completely out of control, but lots of passengers think this is normal and are saying they're looking forward to getting to the bottom and the drivers are still arguing whether to brake or not.
I wonder when people will notice? I wonder if I will live to see it? I hope to make it to 2050 or so. By then, I reckon, we will have made only token efforts and it will be irreversible.
Current Mood: foreboding
Tags: blog, science
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12:44 pm
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More eBay pimping
The attempted clearance of my office to rent it out continues so more stuff is going...
· Connectix DoubleTalk for Mac
· Nokia 7710 mobile phone - spares or repair (LCD intact)
· Nokia 6310i mobile phone
· 2 x 256MB PC133 SDRAM SODIMMs
· USB2 Sony Memory Stick card reader/writer
Current Music: VNV Nation - Cold
Tags: plug
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