Peter Gleick cleared of forging Heartland documents by an 'external review'

kokey · 2012-05-20T21:09:48.538406+00:00

First update I've seen on this story for a while - I'm not touching this with a stick until the dust settles. However, I believe I can predict: zero acceptance of any official result such as this by "skeptics" in favour of continuing to champion bogus "evidence" like the writing-style analyses that have so far been used to leap to the conclusion that Gleick authored the memo.

goofan · 2012-05-20T10:38:10.868739-07:00

Yes, in fact right now the EU PSN store is promoting their "Apocalyptic" sale.

Bizarrely, this includes a whole bunch of very, very tenuously apocalyptic-themed games, but excludes the most obvious candidate, Motorstorm Apocalypse - (check the comments). I swear, I'm the only one playing this damn game... :/

vmlobo · 2012-05-20T17:32:08.269388+00:00

If you need an FPS fix, remember Dust 514 will be free to play. On that basis, go Starhawk (although TBH, I didn't really enjoy the Starhawk beta, but hey).

AlyoshaV · 1 day

First thing I do with any new Windows is make it look as much like Win2k as possible.

kokey · 1 day

Yawn indeed.

kokey · 2 days

Martin "you're a big daft cock" Durkin once again shows that unreason begets unreason by continuing the smears against Rachel Carson.

sadz79 · 3 days

Seriously? TIL, thanks.

AlyssaMoore · 4 days

Hantemirov shows up in the comments at ClimateAudit:

Steve, I’m horrified by your slipshod work. You did not define what you compare, what dataset used in each case, how data were processed, and what was the reason for that, what limitation there are, what kind of additional information you need to know. Why didn’t you ask me for all the details? You even aren’t ashamed of using information from stolen letters. Do carelessness, grubbiness, dishonourableness are the necessary concomitants of your job? With disrespect…

[edited to add:]

McIntyre responds inline:

Steve: all graphics and results in these posts have been supported by turnkey code, showing the precise calculations for an interested reader (other than the calculation from your living data set which I showed the calculation method.) Some of the steps have been shown in recent or linked posts and the present post is not self-contained. But the steps are all shown

What is not obvious from this direct exchange is that the code was all attached to the post after Hantemirov's comment - you have to dig deeper into the comments to find that out, so a passing reader would miss that tidbit. Do you not think that it is somewhat misleading for McIntyre to comment in this fashion as if the code was always there and that Hantemirov is overreacting? Do you not think it would have been more polite to acknowledge this oversight here?

butch123 · 5 days

The Bore Hole has long been a favorite of mine.

Colour me surprised. Myself, I find boring, repetitive comments deserve their place in the borehole. Looking down that thread I see... boring, repetitive comments.

It's especially informative to open it in a seperate browser window

Unlike, say, WUWT, where censorship and revisionism are rampant and unaccountable, but everyone there pretends it doesn't happen.

randomb0y · 6 days

Your second example is still ad hominem, because it now just contains two insults in it, rather than just one, but no actual points relevant to the argument at hand.

As I said above about your SKS quote, aside from not being ad hom on its face (given that it actually contains the start of a substantive argument), the piece went on to expand upon that argument in detail. You cannot simply snip important context and claim ad hominem.

For example, if I say:

You are an idiot whose opinion is worthless. You've got the terms in your calculation the wrong way round, thus invalidating your results.

You can't then snip that to:

You are an idiot whose opinion is worthless.

...and claim ad hominem. That would actually be an argument made from selective reading.

A final example, to hopefully illustrate the difference. Here is how your original statement could be turned around so as not to be mere ad hominem:

That site only exists to spin everything in the most catastrophic way possible. In this instance they have [insert example of spinning from article here].

There's still an element of smear, but at least it is tied to a statement addressing the argument, not just the source.

As an aside, when I pointed out misuse at the Bishop Hill "skeptical" blgo a few years back, the response was flat denial of misuse, followed eventually by insistence that - because language changes - the new misuse was actually the correct use simply because they were doing it so much. Essentially refusing to accept reality, and insisting that the world change around them to match their preconceptions.

Quite telling, really.

randomb0y · 6 days

Context:

1st post: Here is a study which says that sensitivity is lower than thought

2nd post: Here is a description of the study that points out some potential problems and highlights why the focus on the supposedly "good" aspect may not be all that good after all

3rd post: "That site only exists to spin everything in the most catastrophic way possible."

No attempt to engage with the substance, no response on merit - just that site spins things for the worse, therefore the article itself is not worth reading.

Its the very definition of an ad hominem response. The argument is dismissed because of the source, not because of the argument itself.

[edited to make 3rd post a direct quote]

randomb0y · 6 days

This is an ad hominem:

Your opinion of Schmittner et al is worthless because you are a denier

This is not an ad hominem:

You are a denier that has focused solely on the supposedly "good" aspects of this paper without considering the potentially negative ramifications

Your quote above is merely insulting, not an ad hominem - indeed, the piece itself goes on at length as to why a strictly positive reading of this research is probably misguided. So the article makes the case that a strictly positive reading of his paper is wrong on its merits not simply because this is an opinion that "deniers" hold. Claiming this as an ad hominem is, frankly, bizarre. Hence my supposition that you do not actually understand the term.

vilemoo17 · 6 days

I don't see why that is a given, and again it comes back to a more creative approach to pricing. iPhone gets away with all digital/no resale because of the low price point and a captive audience with no expectation of an alternative. The price point there is too low to support AAA game development with a console audience, so slavishly copying appstores isn't going to be effective in the long run, its just a race to the bottom. Valve has been really effective with sales and gifting, as well as in-game hat monetisation. I'd like to see Sony do that sort of thing - dynamic pricing, partial/piecemeal purchases, digital trade-ins to drive sales on new titles etc. No hats, though.

randomb0y · 6 days

I can only assume you don't actually know what ad hominem means.

vilemoo17 · 6 days

Quantic Dream were complaining about the same thing as me - in store preferential resales - and Heavy Rain is exactly the sort of game most affected by that. Protecting a gem like that is why I was complaining.

randomb0y · 6 days

Nice ad hom.

vilemoo17 · 6 days

As a gamedev, I profoundly disagree. In fact, nothing is more likely to make me abandon any future platform as much as anti-consumer measures like that.

The problem from this end is not used sales per se - we're all gamers too, we've all sold our games as well to raise cash for new ones. Rather, it is outlets preferentially selling used copies (and even the disgusting "pre-order pre-owned") for an entirely nominal discount during crucial sales periods and passing none of those earnings on. Private sales between individuals? Go for it. Our main sales avenue stabbing us in the back? Fuck you.

From my point of view, the best thing that Sony could do would be to engage in much more creative and dynamic digital pricing, following Steam's example.

randomb0y · 6 days

The commentary here is useful

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Schmittner-climate-sensitivity-goood-bad-ugly.html

randomb0y · 6 days

Phones man, Tucker phones and their Tucker autocorrect.

blueowlfeathers · 7 days

"Watching Dark Shadows is rather like making love to a beautiful woman..."

ch33zy · 7 days

Another thought on the Avengers.

One of the reasons it works so very, very well is that it is an origin story.

Superhero origin stories are generally the best (in film/TV anyway). We get to see the proh-tah-goh-nist develop from humble beginnings, encounter problems they're not sure they can match, and then gain some level of mastery of their powers in time for a grand finale. It is a structure that works well, and sequels tend to suffer for it in comparison as ideas for where to go next dry up. Obviously, comic books do this next stage well, and there is plenty of character development over long, multi-issue arcs, but these are harder to translate into film because it requires the audience to have invested in the previous installments - thus it is a riskier proposition, and more difficult to fit into the confines of a standalone movie.

(TV has the opportunity to handle this, but has failed to do so thus far, outside of animated series.)

The Avengers takes a bunch of already established superheroes, at the height of their powers (more or less) as individuals, and fashions an origin story around them coming together as a team. So, we get that oh-so-effective hero's journey, multiplied several times, and get some nice superpowered throwdowns before we get to the big finale. We see character development beyond the straightfoward superhero origin, but told in a nice palatable origin-story wrapper.

Note that The Incredibles is another superhero movie that tells a different story, while also telling an origin story. The Incredibles is IMO still the best superhero movie ever made, but The Avengers comes close indeed.

My 2c.

ch33zy · 8 days

Agreed, the remake completely craps all over the original, most notably by removing the entire reason for sacrificing the policeman in the first place.

Also - what the hell was with that scene at the end with James Franco?

ch33zy · 8 days

Wicker man really was shit. I cheered when they hobbled him.

Did you watch Avengers in 3d? I thought the action was very well choreographed, but that 3d made it hard to follow and a second viewing in 2d was better.

Also, I agree. The number of times I laughed out loud from sheer excitement of what I was seeing... such a good film.

[edit:typo - damn phone]

publius_lxxii · 9 days

I didn't accuse anyone of lying.

publius_lxxii · 9 days

Which bits are lies and what is your evidence that they are lies?

Note: McIntyre/Montford/Watts said so is not evidence.

mooli

TROPHY CASE

mooli

TROPHY CASE

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