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Tea break


Now that we’ve had a look at the raw numbers, let’s take a quick look at how the cards compare overall. Before we get into the “big picture” performance comparison, here’s a look at the major architectural details of the top two cards in both ATI and Nvidia’s lineups.

Radeon X1800 XTRadeon X1800 XLGeForce 7800 GTXGeForce 7800 GT
Pixel shader pipelines16162420
Vertex shader pipelines8888
Core clock speed630MHz500MHz430MHz400MHz
Memory clock speed1.5GHz 1.0GHz1.2GHz1.0GHz
Memory bandwidth (gigabytes/sec)483238.432
Fill rate (Gigatexels/sec)

By having a faster clock speed, ATI is able to match the theoretical fill rate of the pixel shader pipelines, even though the highest-end card has 8 fewer pipes and the next step down has 4 fewer. Memory bandwidth is identical to the 7800GT and X1800 XL, but the X1800 XT has a big 10GB/sec advantage in peak memory bandwidth. That’s 25% more raw memory bandwidth. Also note that the X1800 XT will be available in a 512MB version, while we’ve heard of no such beast for the 7800 GTX.

When we combine all our benchmarks by taking a geometric mean, we get the following performance comparison:

Single X1800 XTVs. X850 XTVs 7800 GTX
1280×102431% faster3% faster
1280×1024 4x8x53% faster15% faster
1600×120039% faster3% faster
1600×1200 4x8x56% faster16% faster

Single X1800 XLVs. X850 XTVs. 7800 GT
1280×10246% faster6% slower
1280×1024 4x8x15% fasterEven
1600×12008% faster7% slower
1600×1200 4x8x14% fasterEven

The X1800 XL is a reasonable demonstration of the improved efficiency of the new architecture. With the same number of pixel pipelines and two more vertex shader units, it manages to be 5% to 10% faster, on the whole, than the X850 XT. This is significant, because the X850 XT ran at a higher core clock speed and had 8% more memory bandwidth. With less theoretical fill rate and memory bandwidth, the X1800 XL has managed to outperform the previous architecture.

But, so what? The real competition for this part is the GeForce 7800 GT, and we can’t help but be disappointed in its relative performance. On the whole, it runs at the same speed with AA and AF applied, and a little bit slower without (no doubt due to the 4 additional pixel shader pipelines in the 7800 GT). Combine this with the fact that the price guidance we received from ATI places the X1800 XL at $449, while the 7800 GT sells for $370 to $400, and Nvidia’s card simply looks like the better buy. We should note that ATI has told us to expect actual street prices below $400 for the X1800 XL, but we can’t seriously consider what we can’t see first-hand. And while we’re at it, we should mention that the 7800 GT is sold overclocked all over the place, which results in a significant performance boost. Will vendors sell similarly overclocked X1800 XL cards? We certainly hope so.

The Radeon X1800 XT fares much better against the GeForce 7800 GTX. It is faster, on the whole, whether you apply AA and AF or not (though the difference is tiny without them). The only reason the 7800 GTX remains less than 20% behind is because of the dominance of Nvidia in Doom 3. Without that game, ATI pulls even further ahead.

With 8 fewer pixel pipelines, it’s impressive to see this difference in performance, even though the X1800 XT runs at a much higher clock speed. We question whether it can be attributed to all the improvements in the new architecture for the sake of per-pipeline efficiency, or if it has more to do with the 25% advantage in memory bandwidth.

Let’s quickly take a look at the performance penalty incurred when enabling antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. The following figure represents the performance lost when enabling 4xAA and 8xAF in all our benchmark games, on average:

Performance Penalty for adding 4xAA and 8xAF
Radeon X1800 XT24%31%
Radeon X1800 XL36%41%
GeForce 7800 GTX39%47%
GeForce 7800 GT42%47%
Radeon X850 XT49%49%

The improved cache structure, compression, and redesigned memory controller seem to have made a big impact on antialiasing and anisotropic filtering performance. ATI’s new cards suffer far less when you enable these features than its old architecture did, and significantly less than Nvidia’s new cards. Continued…


The Busy Beaver, the Placid Platypus and other Crazy Creatures

James Harland, School of Science (formerly CS&IT) RMIT

Background Terminology Observant Otter Zany Zoo Blue Bilby Ebony Elephant White Whale Demon Duck of Doom Dreadful Dragons Old version

Observant Otter results Zany Zoo results

The busy beaver problem is a well-known example of a non-computable function. There are many good references on it, including Heiner Marxen's web page. In a nutshell, the busy beaver problem is to find the largest number of non-blank characters that can be printed by a deterministic Turing machine of a given size.

You can read in this article my take on the status of this problem, which in a nutshell is that we need to revisit the foundations of it in order to be able to document the evidence for what we know about the busy beaver problem.

The name "busy beaver" sent me down a zoological and alliterative alley, which I have no intention of leaving! Hence rather than denoting the busy beaver function as the traditional Σ(n) and the number-of-transitions function as S(n), I have rather perversely denoted these as bb(n) and ff(n) respectively (for busy beaver and frantic frog). When it came to finding a name for the "inverse" busy beaver, the natural name seemed to be the placid platypusA platypus is an Australian monotreme, and hence is native to the southern hemisphere (as the beaver is to the north). The platypus is also known for its shy and retiring nature. Having gone this far, it was then only a small step to denote the corresponding number-of-transitions function as the weary wombat.

Hence, when naming things, alliterative animals tend to get used. In particular, we denote the search for beaver machines with 3, 4, and 5 states as the quest for the blue bilby, ebony elephant, and the white whale respectively. We refer to the search for 6 state machines as the quest for the demon duck of doom, a term used to describe an Australian Thunderbird from the megafauna era thousands of years ago.

To find a particular name, please see the Zany Zoo's Glossary.

Observant Otter

As discussed in this paper, the observant otter heuristic seems to be a technique fundamental to solving the busy beaver problem. The detailed version of the results in the paper, together with all the code used, can be found here.

Zany Zoo

One of the key issues in solving the busy beaver and related problems is to generate the appropriate classes of machines. As the number of machines grows very quickly, it is vital to reduce the number of machine as much as possible whilst also ensuring that no potentially appropriate machines are omitted. Detailed discussion on this and other related issues can be found in this paper. The results reported in this paper, together with all the code used, can be found here.

Machine Classes

Blue Bilby This is my name for the class of machines of up to dimension 6, i.e. machines with 2 states and 2 symbols, 3 states and 2 symbols or 2 states and 3 symbols. The bilby is a small and cuddly animal, reflecting that this category does not contain any monster machines.
Ebony Elephant This is my name for the class of machines of dimension 8, i.e. machines with 4 states and 2 symbols, or 2 states and 4 symbols. The elephant is of course a creature larger than humans, but only poses danger under certain circumstances.
White Whale This is my name for the class of machines of dimension 9 or 10, i.e. machines with 3 states and 3 symbols, 5 states and 2 symbols or 2 states and 5 symbols. The whale is a creature which should not be approached by humans without caution and a significant level of technological sophistication.
Demon Duck of Doom This is my name for the class of machines of up to dimension 12, i.e. machines with 6 states and 2 symbols, 4 states and 3 symbols, 3 states and 4 symbols or 2 states and 6 symbols. The Demon Duck of Doom, or Thunderbird, stood over 2.5 metres tall and lived some 15 million years ago, reflecting that the machines in this category are largely unknown, are likely to contain complexities that we have never seen before and cannot really be approached at all at present.

Dreadful Dragons

This is my name for machines with very high productivities. These can be found on Heiner Marxen's website, or on the Observant Otter results page..

Old version

For backwards compatibility, an older version of this page can be found here.


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English version

memo in Business topic

From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmemomem‧o /ˈmeməʊ $ -moʊ/ noun (plural memos) [countable]  BLETTERa short official note to another person in the same company or organization I sent him a memo reminding him about the meeting.memo to/from a memo from the managing director to all heads of department
Examples from the Corpus
memoPeople expect these two strata to answer the phone, to draft a memo.Mr. Fitchel said he made the suggestion in a memo to his superiors.He noticed a memo from the chairman on Wilson's desk.The Managing Director sent out a memo to all employees saying there would be a meeting at 10 o'clock.I have sent out a memo to all staff, reminding them of the procedure for taking sick leave.A memo went around the office, reminding staff of the new dress code.But memos at the time suggest the government knew exactly what was bound to happen, and turned a blind eye.Propped up against his telephone was a fresh inter-departmental memo.The meeting's been cancelled. Didn't you get my memo?Unfortunately, my memos were not getting read, because they were not getting through.Parmenter was handling the actual production of the memo on a suitable typewriter and stationery.But some doctors say while the memo may have been withdrawn, the unfairness remains.I sent him a stiffly worded memo telling him exactly what I thought of that.I tell him about a paper cut I got Xeroxing memos at work.memo to/fromGlanville indicated in a memo to Kerr that he thought there were problems ahead.There is nothing worse than asking students to write a memo to Macbeth.Write a memo to the Head of your Department suggesting social and/or sports events which you think would improve college life.She writes a memo to and he just calls me in the office and wants to know what is going on.What's this, another memo from you, Lord? ` Don't try to conjure.And then Rudi went back to his desk and did something I never would have expected-he read his memo to Dean Fiellin.An internal memo from an official in Gov.Second page Keep your memo to one page if at all possible.


July 24, 2015

Pictures of several of China's large drone designs and some nearly have the wingspan of a 747

China is developing at least five models of large-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), reports Duowei News, a US-based Chinese political news outlet.

Based on Duowei's research, China is currently developing the "Sharp Sword" combat UAV, the "Soar Dragon" high altitude long endurance (HALE) UAV, the "Condor" drone series, the "Sky Wing 3" UAV and the "Long Eagle" HALE drone.

Condor - Shendiao drone

The Shendiao is a double-fuselage drone, developed by China, and will give the People’s Liberation Army long-range surveillance and strike capabilities. It is larger than the U.S Air Force’s Global Hawk long-range surveillance drone.

There is no information about the drone except in a book titled Going Straight Forward: Aircraft Design Specialist Li Ming, which mentions Li Ming vigorously promoting cooperation with foreigners related to a high altitude anti-stealth drone.

According to the book, China needed to develop small multifunctional cheap early warning aircraft that are connected to a network and easy to use, as China was lacking in this area.

The Shendiao, also called the Condor, is a HALE anti-stealth drone which is said to have a higher performance level and better operational capabilities than America's RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV. With a greater wingspan, the Condor can reportedly fly at a height of 25 km and a speed of Mach 0.8. Additionally, it has a takeoff load of 15-20 tons, meaning it can carry a radar that works at both X and UHF wavebands, offering both accurate fire control information and stealth detection.

The dual-hull drone Condor, with a length of 25 meters and wingspan of 50 meters, is said to have vastly boosted China's ability to strike US warships, airfields and other land-based targets with long-range weapons, and will make it difficult for the US to attack China with strategic bombers due to its anti-stealth capabilities.

747s had a 60 meter wingspan.

Drawing of the Condor drone

China drone chart and the evolution from manned planes

Sharp Sword

The Sharp Sword is a variation of the AVIC 601-S series being jointly developed by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, Shenyang Aerospace University and Hongdu Aviation Industry Group. The drone, which is powered by a Russian RD-93 turbofan engine has a wingspan of 14 meters, conducted a 20-minute maiden flight in southwestern China in November 2013.

The Sharp Sword is considered similar to the US X-47B UAV developed by Northrop Grumman in that it has strong stealth and combat capabilities. Made from tungsten and other composite materials, the Sharp Swords' main mission is long-range reconnaisance, but can also be deployed for combat, rescue and anti-piracy and anti-terrorism missions.

Soar Dragon

The Soar Dragon HALE UAV is designed by the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAIG) and constructed by Guizhou Aircraft Industry Corporation. Featuring an unusual joined, tandem wingplan, the drone has surveillance, reconnaisance and intelligence collection capabilities. It was first unveiled in June 2011 and has been undergoing radar cross section and other electromagnetic tests in anticipation of flight testing, which some believe may have already taken place.

The primary purpose of the Soar Dragon is expected to be aerial reconnaissance, though it is also expected to be fitted with sensors suitable for designating naval vessels for targeting by anti-ship ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. The drone has a length of 14.3 meters, a wingspan of 25 m, a height of 5.4 m and a takeoff weight of 7,500 kilograms. It is fitted with a Guizhou WP-13 turbojet engine, allowing for a cruise speed of 750 km per hour, a range of 7,000 km, endurance of 10 hours and a service ceiling of 18,000 m.

Sky Wing III

The Sky Wing III is part of a series of UAVs developed by CAIG and is regarded as a smaller version of the US General Atomics Avenger drone. CAIG recently revealed an upgraded version of the drone, which appears to have more powerful engines that have an estimated thrust of 1.6 tons to 2.0 tons. The dimensions of the UAV remain the same, with a length of 8.9 m, a wingspan of 19 m and a height of 3.5 m. The drone's maximum takeoff weight is nine tons.

With a stealthier airframe and more powerful engines, the new Sky Wing III is reportedly more survivable and may potentially carry more weapons than existing Chinese attack drones.

Long Eagle Hale Drone

The Long Eagle HALE drone is designed by the UAV Design and Research Institute of Beihang University. The program is said to have commenced in 2000, with a maiden flight conducted around 2004. However, the existence of the program was not officially confirmed by Chinese authorities until 2008. It is believed that the program completed around 2011 but very little information about the UAV have been revealed to the public due to alleged sensitivity surrounding its strategic capabilties.

China's largest ever UAV, the secretive Divine Eagle. Compared to other Chinese aviation projects like the J-20 stealth fighter and Y-20 heavy transport aircraft, the lack of publicly available photos of the Divine Eagle suggests that like the American RQ-180, this giant drone is a strategic and sensitive asset.

Divine eagle drone

SOURCES- Want China Times, Popular Science, Wikipedia, Pictures from around Internet, China Daily Mail

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The OECD vs. tax havens, Pt. 3: New concerns

The Law Office of Hale Stewart

Note: This is the third article in a five-part series. Be sure to read parts one and two, and watch for the final two articles in the coming weeks.

On July 13, the OECD issued a new paper titled, Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. The purpose of this paper was to outline the OECD's new round of concerns regarding tax havens and their use in international tax planning. It's first important to understand what is behind the issuing of this new report:

Over time, the current rules have also revealed weaknesses that create opportunities for BEPS. BEPS relates chiefly to instances where the interaction of different tax rules leads to double non-taxation or less than single taxation.

One of the central purposes of the OECD's original tax treaty was to divide taxing rights and privileges between the two sovereigns that sign a particular treaty. Essentially, each country can tax transactions which occur within their borders (hence the residence requirements of section one, the residency stipulations of section four and the permanent establishment/business profits interaction in sections five and seven of the OECD model treaty). However, through the interaction of two different tax systems, planners have come to exploit situations so no taxation occurs. Hence the issue of "double non-taxation."

In addition, less than single taxation is also possible. While this term may seem a misnomer, in fact it's not. One of the central ideas both of accounting and taxation is to effectively align income and expenses. For example, when a company produces a product, it is allowed under most tax and accounting systems to deduct expenses incurred in production of that product. This is sometimes referred to as the matching principal. Less than single taxation occurs when a company manipulates transfer pricing rules to drain money away from the location where the expense should occur to a lower tax jurisdiction. One of the most common examples is placing intellectual property in a low-tax jurisdiction and paying royalties to that jurisdiction for use of the property, even though the production of that IP occurred in the higher tax jurisdiction.

This point leads nicely into the third primary concern of the OECD:

Over the last six to nine months, the tax planning of Apple, Google, Amazon and Adobe have been publicized in a negative light. Because these companies all utilize IP, they are able to send their valuable assets to offshore low-tax jurisdictions and use these venues as "hubs" which collect vast sums of money in a low tax manner. The OECD is concerned that these structures remove money from higher tax jurisdictions in a manner that does not reasonably employ matching concepts. The OECD expresses their concern:
    It also relates to arrangements that achieve no or low taxation by shifting profits away from the jurisdictions where the activities creating those profits take place. No or low taxation is not per se a cause of concern, but it becomes so when it is associated with practices that artificially segregate taxable income from the activities that generate it. In other words, what creates tax policy concerns is that, due to gaps in the interaction of different tax systems, and in some cases because of the application of bilateral tax treaties, income from cross-border activities may go untaxed anywhere, or be only unduly lowly taxed.


Four Archetypes, Paperback

Four Archetypes Paperback

Part of the Routledge Classics series

The concept of the archetype is crucial to Jung's radical interpretation of the human mind.

Jung believed that every person partakes of a universal or collective unconscious that persists through generations.

The origins of the concept can be traced to his very first publication in 1902 and it remained central to his thought throughout his life.

As well as explaining the theoretical background behind the idea, in Four Archetypes Jung describes the four archetypes that he considers fundamental to the psychological make-up of every individual: mother, rebirth, spirit and trickster.

Exploring their role in myth, fairytale and scripture, Jung engages the reader in discoveries that challenge and enlighten the ways we perceive ourselves and others.

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Concept Art for Robert Rodriguez’s Fire and Ice

Robert Rodriguez announced at the San Diego Comic-Con that he's teamed with the estate of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta for a live-action take on Fire and Ice, inspired by the artist's legendary work and the previous 1983 animated version. You can now view the concept art he showed at the convention below.

Rodriguez told Entertainment Weekly that he wants "it to look like you just stepped into one of his paintings, where you get to see his world, and how he saw people, anatomy, and composition and color. It will feel like it's real, but not real. It'll be his reality. He saw things differently. He painted from his imagination. He didn't take a photograph and just paint it."

The film is described as follows:

From his stronghold in Ice Peak, the evil Nekron sends forth a wave of deadly glaciers, forcing humanity to retreat to Fire Keep, a kingdom ruled by a generous king. When King Jarol's daughter Teegra is kidnapped, young warrior Larn teams with the mysterious and legendary Dark Wolf, to rescue the princess and the realm from Nekron’s evil sorcery.


This Is a Certified Answer

The government’s involvement in economy serves what two purposes?FIRSTLY: to protect the public.
SECONDLY: to preserve private enterprises.

This too you may find useful: United States of America is a federal state in which the actors are states of the federation.


Tom Harris – hypocritical peddler of deceitful climate change editorials (corrected)

For the other posts in this series, click here.

[Update 2/21/2014: A word in one of Tom’s commentaries was confused by the author – “censure” was confused for “censor.” Since the entire section was based on this error, it has been struck from the post]

Continue reading

Taylor attacks a straw man

Taylor falsely claims government scientists are guilty by association

Taylor dishonestly distorts yet another survey

from Doran & Zimmerman 2010

from Doran & Zimmerman 2010

Taylor repeats his dishonest allegations about the Lefsrud and Meyer study

CATEGORY: EnvironmentNature

CATEGORY: PoliticsLawGovernment3

Climate disruption denial: a natural by-product of libertarian values

Decrease in amount of carbon 13 isotope due to the burning of fossil fuels.  Credit: CDIAC

Part Three of a series

Industrial climate disruption – the disruption of the global climate as a result of human activity, especially our industrial consumption of fossil fuels – is more or less settled scientific fact. In order for industrial climate disruption to be incorrect, over a century of well-established science would have to be overturned. Some of the established science that would need to be significantly wrong include the Stefan-Boltzmann Law (thermal radiation from a body in space), quantum mechanics, significant portions of chemistry, radioisotope dating and profiling, several laws relating to the behavior of gases, and innumerable measurements of the fundamental physical properties of materials. As an example, if quantum mechanics were significantly wrong, that would mean that microwave ovens, carbon dioxide industrial cutting lasers, and most of modern electronics and electronic imaging would all work differently from how quantum mechanics predicts.

The problem for libertarians is that accepting human responsibility for climate disruption creates a threat to their values. The Iyer et al paper detailed in Part One of this series found that libertarians are fundamentally driven by a single moral good, specifically the liberty to be left alone to do as they pleased. Industrial climate disruption challenges both the primacy of personal liberty and, as a result, libertarians are highly motivated to reject the reality of industrial climate disruption.

Cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and motivated reasoning

There’s always a reason when a person denies something. That reason may be based on fact and verifiable reality, such as someone rejecting a claim that the sky is a beautiful shade of paisley. But sometimes denial is based not on facts, but rather on belief, values, or personality. For example, there is no question that the earth is older than 6,000 years old, yet fundamentalist Christians known as “young-Earth creationists” deny that fact because it conflicts with their literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. When beliefs or values conflict with fact and verifiable reality, certain psychological effects either force us to change our beliefs or to deny both fact and reality.

When people learn new things, they can suffer from a psychological condition known as cognitive dissonance. Simply put, cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling you get when you are trying to simultaneously hold two conflicting ideas at the same time. What happens is the person feeling cognitive dissonance wants to eliminate their discomfort and quickly and as thoroughly as possible. In the example above, a young-Earth creationist who was also a paleontologist would have to either change his views about the age of the Earth or rationalize a reason for why God would want to deceive humanity into thinking the earth was 4.5 billion years old.

One way to alleviate cognitive dissonance is with another psychological effect known as confirmation bias. This is the process by which a person only seeks out or remembers only that information which confirms his or her existing beliefs while ignoring or forgetting information in conflict with those beliefs. Confirmation bias can also relate to the way in which a person interprets new information such that it supports his or her existing beliefs, whether the new information actually supports those beliefs or not.

Interpreting new information in a way that supports your own beliefs can reduce cognitive dissonance, but sometimes it’s more than that. Confirmation bias can also be part of what’s known as motivated reasoning. The modern concept of motivated reasoning began with a 1990 paper by Ziva Kunda, and he found that people let their personal motivations affect their reasoning. For example, if a person discovered that a coworker was behaving unethically at work, the person might be motivated to reject the information because he or she didn’t want to report the coworker to a superior for disciplinary action. Motivated reasoning is the process by which the facts are mentally adjusted in order to conform to a desired outcome instead of adjusting the outcome to conform with the facts.

A classic example of motivated of motivated reasoning goes something like this: it’s difficult to convince someone to accept something when their job depends on not accepting it. In this case, the outcome motivating the denial is the desire to stay employed. Many libertarians use motivated reasoning to reject the reality of industrial climate disruption because it is more than a mere threat to their jobs – industridal climate disruption is a threat to their most deeply held libertarian values.

Industrial climate disruption threatens libertarian values

According to Iyer et al, libertarians essentially have a single moral good – liberty. Specifically, they value the idea of “negative” liberty, which is defined as the right to do with your life and possessions whatever you please so long as you don’t infringe upon the right of others to do the same. Iyer et al also found that libertarians very strongly valued self-direction (the right of individuals to make their own choices in life) and achievement, more so than either conservatives or liberals.

The problem is that these values conflict with the strategies that have been proposed to adapt to and mitigate the effects of industrial climate disruption. As a result, libertarians have strong motivations to deny that industrial climate disruption is a problem.

By its very nature, industrial climate disruption is a global problem, and so the most effective responses to it will also be global in nature. Strategies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (the dominant cause of industrial climate disruption) will necessarily require cooperation among nations, communities, and individuals. Similarly, strategies to adapt to those effects that cannot be mitigated, such as increased incidence of river flooding and higher coastal storm surges, will greatly affect individuals as well as communities.

From a libertarian’s perspective, if industrial climate disruption is real, then his property rights are likely to be limited “for the greater good.” But there is no such thing as a “greater good” to a libertarian than individual rights, so right away this entire approach would be unacceptable to a libertarians. Furthermore, reducing greenhouse gas emissions could very well mean that more land needs to be cleared and easements across private property purchased for power lines to carry renewable energy from wherever it’s generated to the communities and industries that consume it. Or maybe some land would need to be seized by the government via eminent domain to build a wind turbine to generate electricity for someone else. Or maybe the property is located near sea level where models project the ocean will make the land unsuitable for habitation in 50 years. In these cases the libertarian would be motivated to reject any science that results in outcomes that are so contrary to his values.

But it goes beyond just property rights. According to Iyer et al, libertarians generally value altruism much lower than either conservatives or liberals, and they value egalitarianism lowest of all. Multiple analyses have demonstrated that the effects of industrial climate disruption will disproportionately affect the poor, and so one of the adaptation strategies planned is to provide additional aid to the poor. One example is the government helping to pay any increase in energy bills due to pricing greenhouse gases. But libertarians reject these kinds of aid (along with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) because they interfere with the right of the wealthy to spend their wealth however they see fit. If industrial climate disruption means limiting economic liberty, then that provides yet another motivation for libertarians to deny industrial climate disruption.

In addition, both of the prior examples would require a strong national government in order to push through the kinds of changes needed to effectively address industrial climate disruption. A strong national government means a government that has the power to restrict individual liberties, and libertarians simply cannot accept that.

An example: values-motivated arguments regarding climate sensitivity

As shown above, industrial climate disruption is clearly a threat to the liberties that libertarians value the most. This means that there is tremendous motivation for libertarians to rationalize away the threat. Iyer et al found that libertarians are more systemizing than empathizing, meaning that they are more interested in systems with equations and variables to be fiddled with than they are interested in people’s emotions. This focus on rational systems makes libertarians particularly good at motivated reasoning – they’ll go hunting for data, process that data in a way that is subject to their confirmation biases against industrial climate disruption, and then create a superficially reasonable rationale for why the science is wrong.

We can illustrate this process in one of the many arguments that libertarians make against various aspects of climate science, specifically the argument that climate scientists have miscalculated how much the global temperature will increase as a result of a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, aka the “climate sensitivity.” Deniers of industrial climate disruption often refer to the work of Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, both of whom claim that climate sensitivity is well below the generally accepted range of 3.6 to 8.1 °F (2.0 to 4.5 °C). Lindzen proposed a hypothesis in 2001 that climate sensitivity was much lower because there was an “iris” in the tropics that would result in more efficient radiation of heat from the tropics into space. But that hypothesis was rapidly challenged, and other scientists have repeatedly shown errors in Lindzen’s work that cast significant doubt on the “iris effect.”

Roy Spencer has an alternate, but also cloud-related, hypothesis that not only suggests that climate sensitivity is low, but that nearly every other climate scientist on the planet is wrong about the feedback mechanism between tropical clouds and the El Nino/Southern Oscillation. Spencer’s latest version of the hypothesis was thoroughly refuted by at two independent scientific papers and the problems found with the paper were so severe that the editor of the journal that published the paper resigned as a way to restore the journal’s credibility.

There are dozens of papers that are based on multiple different lines of evidence (bottom-up climate models, directly measured temperatures, ice cores, even the measured response of the Earth’s climate to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo) that contradict both Lindzen and Spencer and that calculate climate sensitivity to be approximately in the accepted range – some are somewhat higher or lower, depending on the exact calculation methodology and data used. Yet libertarians regularly refer to one or the other of the two men as having the best estimates of climate sensitivity that is strictly based on observations instead of models. That both men use simplified models of their own devising (and that those models have been regularly found to be too simple for the purpose of estimating climate sensitivity) seems to be forgotten or justified in the service of reasoning away the reality of industrial climate disruption.

Another factor that is probably in play in libertarian arguments against high climate sensitivity is how libertarians process arguments. According to Iyer et al, libertarians focus on data and logic over “intangibles” like appearance or perceived credibility. This generally a good thing, but it can be taken too far, especially with respect to perceived credibility.

Lindzen and Spencer are both reasonably well-respected scientists. Lindzen is a professor at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences because of his contributions to atmospheric physics. Spencer, along with his University of Alabama-Huntsville colleague John Christy, developed a methodology by which satellites could measure the Earth’s temperature at multiple altitudes using microwaves. But Lindzen and Spencer also have some credibility problems that should raise red flags about their objectivity on the issue of industrial climate disruption for anyone who’s reasoning is motivated by accuracy instead of ideology.

First, Lindzen has a decades-long history of proposing hypotheses about how the Earth’s climate works that have mostly turned out to be wrong. For a rundown of this by climate scientist Ray Pierrehumbert during his American Geophysical Union Tyndall lecture, skip ahead to about 33 minutes in the following video:

While Lindzen is often wrong, his questions and alternate hypotheses have largely improved the state of climate science and he’s mostly backed down from his ideas when they were thoroughly refuted. The same cannot necessarily be said for Spencer. Spencer and Christy have had to make at multiple significant corrections to their satellite temperature dataset, nearly all of which they had to make after others found problems with the satellites (annual variation in calibration targets, satellite orbital drift and decay, et al).

In addition, in 2012, Spencer manipulated the editor of the journal Remote Sensing into publishing a paper that purported to demonstrate that climate sensitivity was low. However, Spencer had provided a list of friendly reviewers to the editor and so the fundamentally flawed paper sailed through palpeer review with little to no oversight. Once the editor discovered he’d been used, he offered Spencer’s critics the opportunity to respond to Spencer in the journal and resigned as editor to restore the journal’s scientific credibility.

Finally, Spencer is a member of industrial climate disruption-denying, dominionist evangelical group the Cornwall Alliance. He wrote the science section of the Alliance’s white paper titled “A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor,” a document that is filled with misinformation and denial. This is perhaps not a surprise given Spencer’s history and his evangelical faith. But the same document’s “Theology” section justifies denying predictions of sea level rise by saying that God swore he’d never send another flood (p15), and elsewhere on the same page the document says that the last ice age was a direct result of Noah’s Flood. These claims are in direct conflict with scientific theories and data about ice ages and ice sheet formation. While Spencer himself did not write the theology section, his association with a group that is more interested in making data fit their theology than looking clearly at what the data raises serious questions about Spencer’s scientific credibility on the subject of industrial climate disruption.

Iyer et al found that libertarians need to examine things, to feel rational, before they make decisions. This strong need to be and feel rational does nothing to protect a libertarian from cognitive dissonance or to insulate them from confirmation bias. And it does nothing to immunize libertarians from rationalizing away inconvenient data or conclusions that threaten their values. If anything, the libertarian need to feel rational makes libertarians more prone to motivated reasoning, not less – the more you know about a subject, the more susceptible to motivated reasoning you become.

No-one, of any ideology, is fundamentally immune to motivated reasoning. But libertarians tend to be highly motivated by industrial climate disruption because it threatens their core values. High motivation plus easily available misinformation equals lots of opportunity for confirmation bias to manipulate reasoning.

Given all these facts it’s no wonder that there are so many libertarians among the ranks of industrial climate disruption deniers.

In Part Four we’ll look closer at why engineers deny climate disruption.

Marc Morano abets emailed threats of violence

Third in a series.

Latest hearing shows GOP is the Ministry of Magic to climate disruption's Death Eaters

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry, Dumbledore, and the Order of the Phoenix have to work against Voldmort’s Death Eaters in secret while the Ministry of Magic blinds itself to the needs of the wizarding world. Worse than simply doing nothing, however, the Ministry spreads anti-Potter propaganda in the newspapers, manipulates the law to target Potter and Dumbledore (who know Voldmort has returned), and in their refusal to acknowledge the problem, makes it just that much easier for Voldmort to secretly gain strength.

On March 31, the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing on the topic of climate change. It’s clear from the hearing charter, the list of witnesses, and the large number of climate myths uttered that the GOP has become the Ministry of Magic to the Death Eaters of human-caused climate disruption. Continue reading

Climate scientists still besieged

Nota Bene #107: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

“I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” Who said it? Continue reading

Gingrich lies to Congress about climate legislation

newtS&R has been following Newt Gingrich’s lies about energy and climate since last year when he pushed the “Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.” lie in response to last summer’s oil price woes. On Friday, Gingrich appeared as a minority witness, on a panel all by himself, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee – Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment hearings on the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). S&R has reviewed Gingrich’s prepared remarks for today’s hearing and has determined that Gingrich is still up to his old tricks of lying to Congress and the American people. Continue reading

The Weekly Carboholic: California report recommends changes to adapt to rising sea level

Limit development in low-lying coastal areas. Consider abandoning existing development in coastal areas likely to be affected by sea level rise. Require structures built along the coast to be able to adapt to higher sea levels. Discontinue federally subsidized flood insurance for existing property in low-lying coastal areas. Those are some of the recommendations made last week in the first report by California’s Climate Action Team and reported by the LA Times. Continue reading

The Weekly Carboholic: new data reveals human-caused warming at both poles

According to a new paper published in Nature Geoscience and available online here, scientists from the UK, US, and Australia have detected anthropogenic influence on the climate of both the Arctic and Antarctica. Ana according to a Scientific American article on the paper, one of the paper’s reviewers, Andrew Monaghan of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, believes that the paper may be understating the effect of anthropogenic carbon emissions on Antarctica. Monaghan’s reason? The new paper gives equal weight to cooling in the interior of Antarctica as to heating on the periphery, while interior cooling is suspected to be a result of the CFC-caused ozone hole. Continue reading

The Weekly Carboholic: David Evans' climate facts hardly factual

Google and MIT tackle global heating

What do you do when your government does nothing to incentivize clean energy and is attached at the hip to coal and oil companies? You go your own way and start developing your own clean energy. And what do you do if you’re a NYTimes commentator who has been frustrated over the lack of government action on global heating? You give the aforementioned groups much needed free press in your Sunday commentary.

Tom Friedman wrote about Google’s recent “RE<C” clean energy initiative and MIT’s open-source plug-in hybrid project in his commentary on this past Sunday. And while I felt Mr. Friedman spent a little too much time quoting some of The Onion’s recent satire, his basic premise is nonetheless a good one – when the government fails to lead, its up to the people to do so, and on global heating, the people are doing so.

Fortunately, the two initiatives that Mr. Friedman talked about are not the only ones out there – they’re but a small sampling of the actual initiatives. Continue reading


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Why We Are Losing the Cyber War

Steve King,

U.S. ill-prepared to defend and engage in new world of asymmetrical cyber threats.

The lack of symmetry plays out on a variety of separate fronts. Economic asymmetry pits a simple malware exploit kit available for $50 on the dark web and a self-taught teenage assailant with a PC and an Internet connection against a bank with a $250 million annual cybersecurity budget, and the teenager wins.

Informational asymmetry sets our siloed and segmented defenses up against masquerading attackers about whom we have almost no information who require very little of their own to be successful. A brute force attack is simple and easy to launch, turns almost all connected devices into an army of network bots and can result in the complete takedown of Internet access across much of the US for an extended period as we saw in the DDoS attack on October 21st, 2016.

Cyber-Security_small-2 Why We Are Losing the Cyber War Cyber Security

Informational asymmetry results in our continuing failure to identify the exploitation of legitimacy or ability to correctly attribute the source or nature of our attackers. We are never sure whether Russia or Iran or China or young Harry White living in his Mom’s basement down on B Street is the actual attacker and it of course dramatically affects our ability to respond or even develop a policy for response protocols.

Resource asymmetry stacks up our small contingent of trained defenders protecting millions of applications and systems located in fixed positions against tens of thousands of unknown global cyber attackers examining tens of millions of dispersed targets. In terms of military tactics, state armies like ours generally fight in an orderly framework while non-state and individual terrorist organizations successfully use guerrilla cyber-methods designed to overcome the disparities in power.

Since we don’t know who we are fighting and we must defend fixed positions without specific rules of engagement, it makes it quite difficult to successfully engage.

Infrastructural asymmetry highlights the actual nexus of our physical vulnerability as the imbalance offers our attackers fixed and aging targets upon which all of us depend for the most basic of functions like heat, light, communication and power and water, food, health and transportation. Assuming we actually have technological superiority, it will be quickly cancelled by the destruction of the electric grid, roads, ports, food and water supply systems in highly populated areas, which will dramatically impact the economy and affect our national morale, while our attackers neither require nor depend on any infrastructure beyond the Internet and the dark web.

The last time this happened, we lost a brutal war in a little country called Vietnam.

If asymmetric warfare doesn’t give us enough to worry about, we are also surging ahead with IoT (Internet of Things) device integration in all aspects of our daily lives. We are adopting increasingly complex mobilized access via our smartphones, our clothing is now connected, and we will soon be adopting driverless vehicles.

All of this technological advancement creates scads of new attack surfaces that we are not sufficiently addressing as we rush new products out the door. With the billions of objects that are expected to be networked within the next few years, issues of identity and trust, data protection, access control, and device control should all be areas of grave concern, not just for business, but for public sector agencies and personal safely as well.

Our failure rate in combating ransomware is a small example of how poorly we have been coping with the onslaught thus far. Imagine the terrifying convergence of ransomware and the expanding IoT raising questions like how much you would be willing to pay to regain access to your TV programming, or your refrigerator, you baby monitor, your car, or your defibrillator?

Today, over 75 percent of hospital network traffic goes unmonitored, putting connected devices with access to sensitive patient information at risk. Think about that number the next time you are being wheeled into surgery.

Do you think the future of cybersecurity defense will be [a] harder or [b] easier? And, given that in spite of increased spending of 15 percent per year on cybersecurity to the tune of $85 billion in 2016, our current success rate diminishes steadily year over year (16% more successful breaches in 2016 than in 2015), do you think we will be [a] more successful in the future, or [b] less successful?

So much is at stake now that if the incoming Trump administration does not make cybersecurity its number one priority, and fails to create a shared-vision, Cybersecurity-Moonshot to immediately address the gathering storm, I fear the only momentum we will gain will continue to be in the direction we are now headed.

Steve King is the COO and CTO of Netswitch Technology Management.


How to Research Bankruptcy Filings

how to find bankruptcy filings

Perhaps you're wondering why your co-worker filed for bankruptcy, or maybe someone who filed bankruptcy owes you money and you want to find out what's going on with his case. No matter what the reason, you can view the records of any bankruptcy case filed in the United States. By reading and reviewing the case documents, you will get a sense of why someone filed for bankruptcy and how the case will affect you.

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Contents of Bankruptcy Records

Bankruptcy filings, or records, consist of all the documents that are filed in a particular case. This includes everything from the bankruptcy petition, which initiates the case, to the bankruptcy schedules that list the property owned by the debtor filing the case. The bankruptcy filings also reflect any motions filed in the case, which are formal written requests to the bankruptcy court. Some important motions for which you should watch are motions to dismiss the case or motions to convert to another type of bankruptcy proceeding. These motions reflect a possible failure on the part of the debtor to follow bankruptcy rules and may affect your rights if the debtor owes you money.

Researching Filings in Person

Each state has one or more federal districts, each with its own bankruptcy court. You can search the bankruptcy records in person at the relevant bankruptcy court clerk's office. You can locate the court you need on the United States Courts website. Each bankruptcy court has a clerk's office, which provides the administrative support for that court. You can review and research bankruptcy filings by visiting the court clerk's office and requesting to view all the files for a particular bankruptcy case. To do this, you will either need to know the case number of the proceeding or the name

of the person or business that filed the bankruptcy petition.

Researching Filings Online

The easiest method to research bankruptcy cases is through "PACER," an electronic public access service of United States federal court documents. After registering with the PACER website and logging in, you are able to research bankruptcy filings by case name or case number. If a debtor owes you money, the bankruptcy court will mail you the case number. If you do not have the case number, search by the debtor's name. When you enter the name, PACER provides a list of all the cases that match that particular name. For example, if the debtor has a common name, such as John Smith, many cases will show. However, if you search by the case number, PACER will bring up that particular case. PACER charges a small, per-page fee for each document you download.

How to Review Bankruptcy Filings

Whether you are reviewing bankruptcy filings electronically or in person at the courthouse, you review the records in the same way. Each bankruptcy case has what is known as a "docket." A docket is an index of all the documents filed in a particular case. This allows you to quickly review all filings in a bankruptcy case and choose which specific documents you need. For example, if you are looking for the schedule of property filed by a debtor, visually search for the word "schedule" in the docket. If you are looking for a motion to dismiss, visually scan the docket for the word "dismiss." If you are reviewing the docket on a computer, you can use the computer's search function to quickly find these words. You can download a document from PACER, or if you are searching in person, you can request the particular document from the clerk.

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HEPR fluids are synthetic hydrocarbons manufactured by the polymerization of alpha olefins to produce polyalphaolefins (PAO). Only the low viscosity PAOs are considered environmentally friendly.

A key advantage of HEPR fluids is that they offer excellent oxidation stability and good corrosion protection. They also have good lubricity, aging characteristics, and have a long service life. Offering a very good viscosity/temperature performance, they have a pour point of –20° to –40°C and operating temperature range of –30° to 100°C.

However, like most green fluids, they have a high cost. They are also incompatible with many seal and gasket materials and have a high density compared to mineral oil.

What to know before switching
1. Seal Compatibility
Traditional nitrile seals will fail quickly when used with many environmentally friendly hydraulic fluids. In general, the best results will be achieved with fluorocarbon seal materials.

HEPG and HEPR fluids may require special seal materials formulated specifically to work with these more aggressive products.

In any case, the fluid supplier, equipment manufacturer, and seal supplier all should be consulted before converting any system to an environmentally friendly fluid. The same is true for gaskets used in the system.

2. System flushing
Although traditional petroleum based fluids will mix readily with environmentally friendly fluids, this should be avoided because the petroleum contamination will nullify the biodegradability and toxicity benefits of the green product. Very thorough system flushing is necessary, and it is often advisable to perform multiple flushes to ensure the system is perfectly clean before adding the environmentally friendly fluid.

Note, especially, that engine oil additives are not compatible with environmentally friendly fluids. Equipment that has been operated with engine oil as a hydraulic fluid requires an exceptionally thorough cleaning before the environmentally friendly fluid is installed.

Furthermore, virtually all hydraulic components are tested with petroleum-based fluids. Any new component being installed on a system using environmentally friendly fluids must be thoroughly flushed prior to installation to avoid contamination.

3. Maintenance
Filtration requirements are generally the same for petroleum based and environmentally friendly fluids in terms of particle sizes. Filter change intervals may be different, however, particularly with HETG fluids that have shorter service lives and a tendency to produce varnish and other contaminants. Size filters generously.

Note also that most environmentally friendly fluids have a higher specific gravity than traditional petroleum based fluids. This may require adjusting inlet conditions to maintain adequate suction and avoid cavitation.

4. Disposal practices
As noted at the beginning of this article, the terms “biodegradable” and “non-toxic” do not mean that fluids labeled as such are harmless to the environment. They must be disposed of properly.

Spills of “environmentally friendly” fluids are still reportable incidents, but many environmental regulatory agencies are required to treat them differently from spills of petroleum-based fluids. Because environmentally friendly fluids are less toxic and more biodegradable, cleanup and reclamation costs may be lower. For example, the affected soil often does not have to be dug up and autoclaved, as is the case in most petroleum based spills. And operations are frequently allowed to continue during the cleanup.

Caution and prevention key
In summary, environmentally friendly hydraulic fluids are not a substitute for regular maintenance and good operating practices. Prevention is still much more cost effective than remediation when it comes to the environmental impact of your operations.

What they offer is a less toxic alternative to petroleum-based fluids that is more easily assimilated by the environment when properly disposed off, and causes less damage when introduced by accident. The price for the additional safety they offer is often measured in higher initial cost, shorter service life, reduced efficiency, and increased maintenance requirements.

Each of the potential negative impacts can be minimized through careful planning to select the fluid that best matches your application requirements. It’s probably a good idea to get started down that path soon, because the time is rapidly approaching when you may no longer have a choice.

Contact Thelma Marougy at (248) 226-6985 or ThelmaEMarougy@Eaton.com.

For more on environmentally friendly fluids, visit the following links, which contain technical articles, more on the basics and fundamentals of green and bio-based fluids, and new products in the marketplace: