Posts by richard
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Perhaps someone should introduce Jim Hopkins to the clown who talked at Te Papa the other day? Sounds like they would get on...
Must admit though, the whole "hacked email" thing adds a certain amount of force to the old adage about not putting anything in a mail message you would not be happy seeing printed on the front page of the New York Times.
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I have following the emailgate debate with considerable interest... For my own part, I have certainly sent and received email making fun of other people in my field. Although I don't think I have ever admitted to being tempted to hit anyone. But nothing in these emails that I have seen (other than the FOIA related stuff, if that is in fact what is going on) is out of the ordinary for private communications between serious and ethical scientists.
In astrophysics and cosmology (my field), there is an increasing trend toward openness with data. My work is primarily theoretical, but I make fairly heavy use of "data products" provided online to anyone with an internet connection by NASA (distilled from large space-based surveys of the sky) and ground-based experiments.
This sort of openness with regard to climate data seems like an excellent idea. It WOULD lead to many more people writing crank and/or shoddy papers (this openness certainly makes it easier for people to write crap papers in astrophysics -- and I have rejected my share of them) but it would also force skeptics /deniers to produce their own analyses which could then be critiqued by the rest of the community. And I suspect that would be fun...
But I suppose the best way for global warming skeptics to establish their moral superiority in this matter would be simply publish their email archives, and expose to all and sundry the high-minded and ethical tone of all their own communications.
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I was thinking about this on my way home, and for the life of me I can't see why a tall building collapsing from the top down would be expected to do anything other than fall pretty much straight down.
For the top parts of the building to do anything else, they would either need to pivot away from the rest of the building, in which case it would be hard for the remaining parts of the tower to collapser), or be obviously and explosively destroyed, so that the debris was launched with a substantial horizontal velocity -- since all the subsequent acceleration (as it fell) would be straight down.
The essence of the swindle here seems to be when this clown says "just sayin', isn't it odd that the towers fell vertically" when in fact it would be substantially odder for them to fall in any other fashion, given the nature of the initial collisions.
(I am currently composing a final exam that will cover, among other things, Newton's laws, but it would be tasteless to set this as a problem).
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I was wondering how representative those photos were -- but are 9/11 was an inside job people taking the mickey, or absolutely serious.
The line between satire and serious is getting thinner each day.
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That's actually quite an interesting comparison. I'd never really thought what teabagging would look like Kiwi-style (unfortunate mental image most definitely not intended!) but it does appear it looks like a bunch of disgruntled but polite people with vague disaffections towards "politicians" and "bureaucrats" for the most part.
I googled this stuff this morning (I have spent the last dozen years outside NZ, but it is still home and the only place I can vote) and very quickly ran into a bunch of pure tinfoilhattery claiming that the repeal of S59 was mandated by the UN, and proof that New Zealand was run by some vague cabal...
Not sure what this proves, beyond that New Zealand has its share of nutters.
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For the purposes of the PBRF, research is original investigation undertaken in order to contribute to knowledge and understanding and, in the case of some disciplines, cultural innovation or aesthetic refinement.
It typically involves enquiry of an experimental or critical nature driven by hypotheses or intellectual positions capable of rigorous assessment by experts in a given discipline.It is an independent* creative, cumulative and often long-term activity conducted by people with specialist knowledge about the theories, methods and information concerning their field of enquiry. Its findings must be open to scrutiny and formal evaluation by others in the field, and this may be achieved through publication or public presentation.
In some disciplines, the investigation and its results may be embodied in the form of artistic works, designs or performances.[...]
I just looked up the PBRF definition of "research" - which shows up on Auckland's website, amusingly enough -and it explicitly includes artistic works. We cannot be sure, but it seems very likely that Ihimaera's creative output would be used by Auckland to justify its share of PBRF money.
Where I live, a university that was not seen to be very serious about any suggestion of academic impropriety by a publicly (by which I mean the US Federal government) funded researcher would be in very serious trouble -- and it further mystifies me that Auckland has taken such a cavalier approach to this matter.
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I have a PAS crowd-sourcing project in mind, too, but apparently it's quite hard to get one's hands on the book in question at the moment.
His back catalog, on the other hand...
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@Deborah I am even further from the Herald's home delivery region than you are, but it certainly seems like a good question to ask. You don't have to be Woodward and Bernstein to follow the money.
Maybe we could just crowdsource this piece of investigative reporting to PA System, and see what turns up ;-)
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Woah -- that is complete'ly back-asswards. This looks like it was designed to appeal to adults who can remember how powerless children can feel. And they are also hoping to appeal to adults who want to hit children.
Clearly the focus group these used for this one just showed up for the free coffee and a warm place to spend an afternoon. Oh, wait, they didn't have a focus group?
Still not sure what they DID spend their $450k on...
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And what gems they were.
Good heavens -- I can see from the production values that these would not come cheap :-)