How would you react to someone painting their miniatures as nazis or with confederate flags.

Thanks. It may take a week for people to get back to me, and then get the information back here.

[ edit ]: I do have one comment now. You seem to have the typically-European assumption that because the rules say something must happen that it actually gets done (say, for ground-checking the sites). Depending on how you update the metadata, I could easily see someone falsifying the reports because it was easier than going out in the field.

I mean, I found out that a medic was falsifying the damn radiation-exposure data on my sub, and that's not much work on his end of the program! Quite literally a matter of hitting print on a program and dumping the exposure data onto a 3.5" floppy disk. We court-martialed his ass.

 

It's true, we Europeans do love our regulations and assuming they get followed :)

I'm not aware of what level of validation goes into the system (I would presume some, although given the vast numbers of sensors spot checking is unlikely to yield any 'catches', and options beyond are infeasible to anything except an 10 year review or the like). Fortunately, we can trust the inherent unreliability of technology :D

As noted, an automated sensor needs recalibration every few months (the time varies depending on the actual conditions and the sensor), and it'll become quickly apparent to an automated system if one is erroneous (by checking against expected patterns and nearby obs stations). That'll then flag an automated request for maintenance with the engineers. If the sensor stays out of whack for too long, it gets raised until it reaches an urgent request, which starts involving supervisors, managers and directors. Given the sensors are, therefore, maintained every (say) 3 months, it now requires wilful negligence by the engineers to continue maintaining the sensors while simultaneously not monitoring position and suitability etc.

As you're probably familiar, once someone starts being wilfully neglegent, it's hard to catch, because the person is willing to put effort into both a) avoiding doing their job and b) avoiding discovery. Using teams of engineers sidesteps this to an extent (since you now need a team wide conspiracy), but beyond that I'm not aware of the steps taken. I know that a wind farm needed Met Office approval to build turbines in a certain area, but that was in radar range, not obs station range (turns out wind farms and radar dishes want the same area, who knew :D), and I doubt they'd have pull to get approval on any development within any council area (although it wouldn't surprise me if someone was keeping an eye on developments of >100 houses as a sanity check)

Ultimately, there reaches a level where trust is needed. Either you trust the data is good (albeit with some holes), and the 99% good data drowns out the noise of the 1% bad. Alternatively, you don't trust the data, since if one sensor can be faulty/tampered/out of place/etc. then they all can, and so the data is unusable. From there, the only option is to set up your own sensor network (with blackjack, and hookers), but that's not likely to ever happen given costs and permissions.

Somehow I feel he got off lightly with just a court marshal? Sailors have literally been hung for less (granted, centuries ago)

 

There are a limited number of things that carry the possibility of a death sentence in military law. I don't think gun-decking the rad-health reports rises to that level, but all I heard was that the Doc (ship's corpsman) got a court-martial over that. So I'm assuming a bad conduct discharge (federal felony conviction) at the very least.

Ironically, this was the same doc who had come up with the procedure for doing a mass dose estimate (like what you'd have to do to unfuck someone gundecking the rad-health reports in the first place!)

 

i dont think anyone can accuse @Section9 of being homophobic considered he chose to spend his navy career inside a big metal penis filled with seamen

 

People can (and will) accuse anyone of anything. Whether it can be proven in front of a court of laws or not does rarely cross their mind.
Especially given such a matter does rarely see a court, so they can easily wave away the problem of proving whatever they claim.

Also, a sad observation form my own experience, in front of the court what is important is not the truth, but the thing you can present proof for. And those are two, completely different, things.

...the fact I'm pretty drunk posting it (yeah, I know, never do post when drunk, sorry for that) doesn't really change that...

 

And getting fucked by it on a regular basis. Hell, the crew's joke about the Kentucky was that the USS K-Y was the boat that never used any.

(I know, if you gotta explain the joke, there is no joke. But I don't know if K-Y lube is sold under that brand name in other countries.)

@Errhile : Don't worry about the drunkposting, @Flipswitch does it all the time!



@qechua : Found a PDF report, but I'm not sure it's been cited anywhere. Because it would invalidate pretty much all the US's climate data for failure to comply with standards.

 

Bro...

The real danger in public discourse when it comes to scientific matters is that if I present an article saying 'A' and you present an article saying 'Not-A' the audience is going to assume the score is 1-1. People don't interrogate the quality or validity of sources anymore. See: Fake News.

Let's talk about this report of yours...

I've read it and I've read up on the author, as well as the counter-arguments placed against him.

I've numbered my points and have put in bold key words to help you respond to specific sections if you choose to respond.

So, Anthony Watts is the author, huh?

1. He's a TV weatherman, not a scientist. On top of that, he didn't even graduate from Perdue University. That said, Ad Hominem doesn't win arguments convincingly, so let's deconstruct Watts' argument:

2. Watts argues, as you've noted, that 90% of weather stations surveyed failed to meet standards for siting (too close to heat sources), not using the right heat-reflective paint (latex, white washing, etc etc), and record completeness (sites not producing complete records).

That said, the devices within were working correctly and measuring their (potentially artificially altered) temperatures correctly. So, if a device is measuring 0.3-0.8 F above the ambient temperature but is measuring it consistently, then you can treat the average increase in temperature over time as still indicative of a trend/change in temperature over time. For example, if the box is recording +0.5F compared to surroundings, then if it was recording 90.5 degrees Fahnrenheit (compared to an ambient 90F) on average at one time period and then 91.7 degrees a few decades later, you can still correct the data and demonstrate a 1.2F change in temperature over time. This is exactly what was reported by Richard A. Muller (founder of BEST, the Berkeley Earth Temperature project), as cited in this book.

You might argue that if the box isn't up to standard, then all readings from it should be discarded. However, you must remember that 10% of stations were confirmed as compliant. 10% of 'thousands' can still make up a statistically significant number. It was also reported that the mean change in temperature over time between all of the 'compliant' stations was the same as the mean change in time as the non-compliant stations. This reinforces the argument that all stations were measuring the change in temperature over time accurately, even if their raw results were off.

3. Watts argues that any change in overall temperature isn't anthropogenic (man-made) but is actually due to fluctuations in solar radiation. The scientific community agrees that solar radiation certainly influences surface temperature but it represents a much smaller factor than greenhouse gases(see: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html#table-2-11). Basically, solar radiation is pretty much the same today as it was in the 1950's (see: length of the solar cycle) but the temperature today is marked different from back then, so Watts' argument falls over here.

4. Watts approached BEST (see above) in 2011 when they were about to publish a paper and he said: "I will accept any findings they publish, even if they differ from my own.". Of course, when they did conclude that his findings were wrong, he reneged and declared that their methodology was off. This is almost Flat-Earth levels of self-denial, really. Watts rushed out a paper that challenged their findings but it was torn to shreds by independent reviewers (see here) and he was forced to confess that Satellite Temperature Readings (AKA UAH readings) matched those of BEST's findings and not his. His argument that the weather stations on Earth were reading temperatures wrong is invalid if the goddamned satellites are agreeing with them...It's worth noting that Watts actually references the very same data in his own blog (see here), so how he ignored that...I do not know...

5. Watts continues to attack the validity of findings/methodology and yet they are consistently successfully defended in public time and time again (see: Hansen and Cox). The problem is that Fake News grabs the attention more than reasoned debate. People see the antagonistic headline and then assume it's true. The cost in time and effort to provide a reasonable and convincing response to these allegations is often undone with the mass-media equivalent of: "No, you.". I doubt many people are going to actually read the report you linked and they sure as heck aren't going to check any of the links I provided above, they'll just see your statement 'Because it would invalidate pretty much all the US's climate data for failure to comply with standards.' read/skim my post and then just align themselves with which of us is advocating for their current opinion. There's no interrogation of the validity of your statement, just as I imagine there's no interrogation of mine, either. Even though I went to the effort of researching the matter and citing other sources to reinforce my argument, people will just assume it's 1 point for Climate-Change and 1 point for No-Climate-Change.

It's sad, really.

I would be interested to hear your response.

 

Yeah, he's a fruitloop on some (most) points.

You're right, any data collected after those stations got hot is usable.
The data before they got hot is usable, at least for tracking rate of increase. Assuming that the sensors don't have a percentage error (where the error gets bigger as the numbers get bigger), anyway.
The data while they were heating up is not usable, because nobody has a clue when that was or how fast they were heating up.

So, because nobody seems to have a clue when those sensors started to get hot, you have to ignore about a decade's worth of data from them, maybe more. Because people were fucking lazy. And that pisses me off to no end.

You also missed the big point I was getting at: That when a sensor goes from reporting accurate to reporting +0.5deg, you need to know when the hell that happened. Why? Because that point creates an artificially-fast rate of temperature increase. And that artificially-fast increase has been used to shut down any checking of the data, any scientific debate, and questioning of the narrative, because now it's a giant fucking panic attack that the temperatures increased as much as they did. Even though the rate of increase is less once we got out of the big volcanic events, and the total temperature increase is less than a quarter of what was predicted in the 1990s.

But that fucking Fake News still uses the fraudulent* hockey-stick graph every time Climate Change comes up. No matter how many times even the climate scientists say it's bad.

Hell yes, the climate changes.

You heard the complaints about how this was the hottest year ever, and the glaciers had retreated to uncover trenchworks from WW1? Uh, how the hell were there trenchworks under a glacier if the glacier has always been there because it was colder than this?

How about when the glaciers receded and uncovered the remains of a thousand-year-old forest, "because it was the hottest it's ever been?" Uh, forest, under a glacier? Must have been some crazy trees to exist under ice! [ /sarcasm ]

Finally, just how much warmer would it have to be to grow wine-grapes in Northern Germany? A thousand years ago, the planet was hot enough that grapes grew wild there.

* about that word "fraudulent". I don't use it lightly. That graph? If you feed completely random temperature readings into the program (but with the location data), it spits out that hockey stick, showing a rapidly growing temperature increase.

 

While I don't mind spirited debates (till they stay civil) that are the spirit of the Internet AT ITS BEST and NOT ITS WORST now I wonder what all this discussion about "Reliable Weather Forecastings and Annual Predictions" would have of meaningful about the O.P. Discussion about Tabletop Wargame Miniatures that COULD be painted to be similar ENOUGH to reviled "War Criminals". . .

As the Discussion, before total derailing about Fraudulent Data (and the occasional "OMO-PHOBE !!! And Maybe OMO-PHAGE TOO !!!!!" random accusation put to spice and pepper a little more the cooling posts), diverged just a little about Uniform Cosplay. . .

. . . . .

Could be that Weather Data and Morning Forecastings will be LESS (or MORE) accurate if the Weatherman could be dressed as General Robert Lee and, while whistling "Dixie's Heart", point out that the Gulf Of Mexico promise good weather for "The South That Will Rise Again" while WHO DAMN CARES if it is snowing icy hailstorms on the "Thrice Damned Blues". . .??

Or maybe a nice Weatherwoman clad as a S.S. Totenkopf Nazi-Dominatrix, with maybe a "Pour-Le-Mérit" Blue Max appointed on the Push-Up Corsage-Bust, will happily point (with a Dark Leather Bull-Whip, of course) that the European General Forecastings are not so good but that is "All quiet on the Western Front". . . . . . . . . .

 

Suddenly, I have a new fetish I didn't know about before.

 

I don't know if you're drunk or not but I don't care. This is amazing.

 

@Section9 It's really telling how the people who first said that climate change wasn't occurring, then said it wasn't anthropogenic... almost like, hmmm, they were working backwards from the conclusion of "It wouldn't be politically correct to admit that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, so what can I say against that?"

Climate change denial is just the political correctness of the American right.

 

Well, I haven't delved into the data recently, so I don't want to give a huge statement, I think a big issue is that we don't necessarily have good solutions on hand, and there is disagreement on the best way to get to those solutions. (Like, I think Fusion research needs a hella lot more funding, but I'm a nerd so whatever)

That seems to be the biggest issue in US politics at the moment, we all know there is climate change, we just don't know A: How much we caused, B: How much we can fix it, and C: How we can fix it.

Those are the questions we need to answer, and preferably we need to get C figured out in a way that won't bankrupt society or leave lots of people to die without the advantages of modern technology.

It's never easy.

 

That's not really the case, though. There's a segment on the right that works off of the idea that since any plan to reverse the effects of anthropogenic global warming would hurt the short-term profits of resource extraction companies (mining, logging, etc), and those companies pay for their campaigns, any attempt to ameliorate the effects of global warming or even acknowledge it's a problem must be fought.

 

@Lothlanathorian & @Musterkrux . . .

Spoiler: Personal Kink Infos; READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL. . .

I stopped drinking Alcohol more or less 20 Years ago and never had more than a "Perfunctory Sip" when Toasting with superstitious Europeans (a lot of French and Italians TRULY believe that "Cheer Toasting" with Non-Wine while ALL the other are drinking Wine will bring VERY BAD LUCK !!). . .

About the "Kink Fetish" have NOT You have ever seen some "Nazi Dominatrix Porn". . .??

There is even a very old vintage Kinky Movie ("Nazi Love Motel") that is citated in "The Gernsback Continuum" one of the more famous Alternate Dimension novels that featured Cyberpunk Writer & Father, William Gibson, in 1981. . .!!

My description is very accurate because My Ex-Fiancèè once has done the whole "Dark Clad Domme" thing for a Special Evening for Me; while She hate and despise the Nazis (and so NOTHING of S.S. Paraphernalia / Memorabilia), She is Austrian, loved TOTALLY B.D.S.M. and had the whole fetish shtick performed admirably with Dark Leather Bustier, Black Fishnet Stockings, Very High "Stiletto Heels" Sandals and OBVIOUSLY a Bull-Whip (that She employed with MUCH enthusiasm, even though She was much more a "Submissive" than a "Domme"). . .

Needless to say it was a memorable night intercourse for Me (and I believe She enjoyed it a lot too. . .!!). . . . .

 

No, it's the fact that all "acceptable" proposals to counteract climate change involve increased government control of our lives. And increased government control is politically incorrect to the vast majority of the American conservatives.

No argument about "save the planet so our children can enjoy it" from most people these days. Just arguments about how to get there. Example: do you know who funds most endangered-species protections in Africa? It's hunters. That dude who was damn near murdered in the streets for legally shooting a lion? He paid $50,000 for that hunting permit. All $50k went to conservation efforts to keep a huntable population of animals alive (which means enough big healthy animals that there's little-to-no risk of them going extinct).

Back to climate change: The facility carbon caps actively prevent the installation of newer equipment that would emit 1/10 or less of the greenhouse gasses. Because as soon as you start building in the new equipment, it counts against the facility's cap, even though it's not operational yet. But try to get the law changed so that you can install cleaner equipment and people scream bloody murder about how the evil powerplants are trying to repeal the Clean Air Act. Thank you very fucking much, but I like to be able to breathe!

Hell, some of the new scrubbing tech gives powerplants a whole slew of sellable chemicals that are in great demand from other people. The loudest of the lunatic fringe don't want those new scrubbers installed, they want the whole fucking powerplant shut down. With nothing to cover the lost generating capacity. "Just burn wood" they say, as if burning wood at home magically makes it not produce soot and carbon dioxide...

I think I've mentioned this before: I live in a place with stupidly-cheap electricity because it's all hydropower. There are times that the environmental laws make the dams flush so much water through that power is literally free. The power companies can't find anyone to buy it, they're making so much. This is at the tail end of the spring runoff, to flush the fish out to sea. So theres' not much heating demand, and there's almost no cooling demand. It's at the lowest overall electricity demand in the year. Unfortunately for us, the power companies are guaranteed to get whatever a kilowatt-hour, regardless of the wholesale price of electricity. Now, during the summertime, we get temps over 100degF(38degC), and we get such a huge demand from all the air conditioners that the power company has to spin up natural-gas fired turbines. Those are easily 10x the cost of our hydropower to run, so they only get started when the demand is extreme. That's good for the consumers right now, but the power company is trying really hard to go to demand metering, where they can charge a different price per kWh as demand increases.

 

No it's not. Just government control they disagree with. The abortion issue proves that.

>No argument about "save the planet so our children can enjoy it" from most people these days.

Yes there is. You earlier were talking about solar cycles and volcanoes and so on, pushing the idea that we *shouldn't* do anything about the climate. The real reason for that is that you've been fed a lot of specious science that, in the end, is pushed by companies who stand to lose if these sorts of environmental controls are enacted. And, again, it's a tribal thing - conservatives (both the anti-authoritarian and the authoritarian kind) view it as a tenet of their tribe to deny that taking action to preserve the environment is a good thing.

If it's the dude I'm thinking of, the dentist, the problem was that he lured the lion off of protected land. I have nothing against hunting, and used properly hunting can be a great conservation tool. In fact, hunting of invasive species that can fuck up an ecosystem (i.e. pigs in North America) is laudable, from a conservation point of view. Plus it's enjoyable.

>Hell, some of the new scrubbing tech gives powerplants a whole slew of sellable chemicals that are in great demand from other people. The loudest of the lunatic fringe don't want those new scrubbers installed, they want the whole fucking powerplant shut down. With nothing to cover the lost generating capacity. "Just burn wood" they say, as if burning wood at home magically makes it not produce soot and carbon dioxide...

These are coal or natural gas plants, right? Yeah, you won't get agreement from me on that; I'm generally a proponent of nuclear power.

 

Not quite sure what you're arguing here, though I admit I've had a bit to drink so my thinking might not be as clear as it usually is.

Not that I want to start this particular argument, but if you believed that abortion was murder, would you not want it banned? [ edit ]: Personally, I want abortion legal, so we can prosecute the monsters and not the women. I cannot imagine what would cause a woman to want to end the life inside her. I'm not sure I want to be able to imagine that. But I know I want to be able to arrest the monsters, and not the women.

WRONG.

It is a tenet of the tribe that anything that increase government control of individual action is bad.

You really need to look at who supports initiatives that reward leaving lands for the animals instead of farming.

If he had lured Cecil the lion off protected land, then he would have been guilty of poaching. The Zimbabwe government found that he and his guides did not lure Cecil out of the park, Cecil was bow-hunted over bait in part of his normal range.

Let me repeat that: Cecil normally roamed the area where he was killed, which was outside the National Park.

 

Maybe, but I'd also work to minimize it. And not promote policies that seem to create a higher need for abortions (lack of access to birth control and proper sex education, among other things). Taken together, though, the common thread is not a respect for human life, but a fundamentally sex-negative attitude.

You are completely, fundamentally, deluded in your own self-righteousness. Look at Jeff Sessions - he's salivating at the idea of imprisoning and punishing people for smoking weed. And he's as conservative as they come. The issue is not that you support more freedom from government interference - it's that you consider people who don't hold the same ideological viewpoints as you to not be worthy of living their lives unmolested. Conveniently, any viewpoint that isn't exactly the one you hold crosses a line where force can be justified. But conservatives are for "small government"? My ass. They certainly love overcrowded prisons that drain tax dollars from a polity.

This is something that's always so hypocritical about American conservatives... they claim to be for small government when it involves them making money or being free to live their life or to evade taxes or whatever, but then as soon as it's someone who's not part of the tribe... fuck 'em, let's have some police overreach and violate a few amendments. The tenets of the tribe has nothing to do with the size of government; it's about cultural identifiers. That's just something that conservatives tell themselves so they can pretend they have principles.

I looked it up, there's debate as to whether or not Cecil was killed with a bow or a rifle, and whether it was more than 40 hours after his initial wounding. What you stated is what the Zimbabwean government said, and if that's true, than he didn't break any laws... but who knows.

 

Dude, you really need to take a look in a mirror. You are more self-confident than any DnD Paladin I've ever seen.