This is innerestin.
I am running an experiment to count twitter frequency even as we speak.
I have 2 windows open on Twitter, one searching #notw (=News of the World) and another searching GINGER PEOPLE. (Yes, I know). GINGER PEOPLE is trending. #Notw is not trending.
We are 3 minutes in to the present run, and they are neck and neck at 59(#notw) and 60
I am using standard Twitter (on a PC, Windows XP), and it puts up bars saying "20 new tweets2 "40 new tweets" &c at the appropriate time. They're at 99 and 100 now, * minutes in. Neck and neck.
On the first run, #notw was running about 5 sec ahead at 160 before GINGER PEOPLE reached 159. (Odd, that 99 thing).
Anyway, the point is that #notw, (which has just reached 158 before GINGER PEOPLE could breach 140) was not on the official trending list, when my observations show that (according to the information reaching my computer), it was being tweeted more frequently than GINGER PEOPLE.
That is the observation. What hypotheses can we produce to explain this unexpected state of affairs?
In explaining similar past discrepancies, I recall that Twitter said it was discounting retweets. A quick visual scan of about 20 tweets shows only one RT in each search.
There must be some other logical, scientific, serious technical explanation for my observation.
They could say I'm making up my figures to get the result I wanted. But my keystrokes are all down there in memory, so that is checkable.
Someone could replicate the work.
Someone could have a different explanation.
Someone must do something to refute the hypothesis that someone in or near Twitter is tweaking the codes to stop #notw (=News of The World) trending.
[Update: I checked. Ran "#notw" against "Murdochs". Murdochs came in a bad second at 6:50, with 57 new tweets against #notw 100]
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Flashmob Thurs 7 July to protest against Murdochisation of UK Media
When: Thursday 7 July at 5.45pm
Where:Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5DHhttp://www.culture.gov.uk/contact_us/7211.aspx
Following the ongoing revelations of phone hacking by the News of the World, Take Back Parliament is organising a flashmob outside the Department for Culture, Media and Sport offices at 5.45pm tomorrow.
We are specifically calling for any decision on News Corp to be frozen until after the police investigation has concluded. Take Back Parliament is another project of Unlock Democracy.
Dept Culture Media and Sport is wrong to exclude hacking from its Murdoch considerations
The Department of Culture Media and Sport says that the News of the World "phone-hacking allegations are very serious, but they are not material to the issue of media plurality,” - media plurality being the criterion on which the Department is deciding whether to hand BSkyB over to Murdoch.
But it is.
If Murdoch allows criminality in one of his outlets, he has the propensity to allow criminality in all of his outlets. And if he dominates the news outlets as he does, that would be against the national interest.
So Jeremy Hunt must not hand BSkyB over to Murdoch.
The Avaaz petition is here:
But it is.
If Murdoch allows criminality in one of his outlets, he has the propensity to allow criminality in all of his outlets. And if he dominates the news outlets as he does, that would be against the national interest.
So Jeremy Hunt must not hand BSkyB over to Murdoch.
The Avaaz petition is here:
George Monbiot calls for nuclear power to be insured.
Wahey. George Monbiot has agreed to join the call for nuclear power to be insured.
He set up a nuclear debate today on the Guardian's Comment is Free site.
Huge response, as you would expect. I asked if he would join the call for nukes to be insured, and he said yes.
Gerry Wolff's excellent Energy Fair site has a link to a study on insurance of nukes. At present they are insured to about 1% or less of a maximum credible accident. If they were to be fully insured, it would put the cost of nuclear electricity up by a factor of about 17. In short, unaffordable.
Ironic, isn't it, that with the interminable debate, technical and moral, over nuclear power, it should be money that settles it? It was privatisation that killed nukes under Thatcher, and insurance costs will kill nuclear power post Fukushima.
He set up a nuclear debate today on the Guardian's Comment is Free site.
Huge response, as you would expect. I asked if he would join the call for nukes to be insured, and he said yes.
Gerry Wolff's excellent Energy Fair site has a link to a study on insurance of nukes. At present they are insured to about 1% or less of a maximum credible accident. If they were to be fully insured, it would put the cost of nuclear electricity up by a factor of about 17. In short, unaffordable.
Ironic, isn't it, that with the interminable debate, technical and moral, over nuclear power, it should be money that settles it? It was privatisation that killed nukes under Thatcher, and insurance costs will kill nuclear power post Fukushima.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Fracking threat to the Mendip Hills
I live on the Mendip Hills, so I was interested to learn that a gas company has been given permission to make exploratory drills in the Mendips with a view to extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing or "fracking".
Fracking involves drilling, then cracking the rocks with small explosions, maintaining the cracks by injecting sand and high pressure (up to 15,000 psi) fluids, and collecting the gas that seeps out.
There are many charming features associated with fracking, including blowouts and minor earthquakes, but the major problem is contamination of ground water. The US Environmental Protection Agency found arsenic, copper, vanadium and adamantes (a form of hydrocarbon) in water near fracking, although, having been emasculated by George Dubya, they were coy about attributing causality to the fracking.
A number of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens, are used in the fracking process.
Reports that it was possible to set fire to tap water due to shale gas getting in to the water, although impressive, have been vigorously challenged, on the basis of one sample, which showed the gas had biological origin.
Whatever the truth of inflammable tapwater, it is very clear that the risks of fracking in the Mendips is contamination of the vast, interlinked underwater reservoirs. Mendip limestone has more holes than a Swiss cheese. It is a famous centre for caving, and is also an underground reservoir for Bath, Bristol and Weston-super-Mare.
It is unlikely that citizen pressure can stop the initial exploratory drilling. An intense campaign would be necessary to prevent the local councils witholding planning permission for the actual fracking, because councils tend to roll over and let large companies tickle their tummies. Past experience suggests that Somerset folk are not up for intense campaigns, especially as the local newspapers will most likely be giving blanket coverage to the safety and job-creation opportunities of this wonderful new way of producing carbon dioxide.
The best strategy would be for us to press councils to insist that Eden Energy and UK Methane (the gas companies) take out full insurance for remediation of any ground water contamination that follows from their process. This is reasonable, and the costs involved (assuming they can get an insurance company to take them on) will likely make the process uneconomic, because ground water contamination could go on for decades.
I have phoned my District Councillor, who had heard nothing about it on the council.
There is a Facebook page - No Fracking UK - for campaigners here.
One of the counter arguments that will come out is that if we have a large amount of renewable energy in the UK, it will need to be supplemented with a fleet of gas turbines to cover the times when the wind stops. The alternative to this is (a) large amounts of storage capacity, primarily hydro-electric, but also electrolytic, and (b) a Europe wide HVDC supergrid which will connect all renewable sources, overriding individual intermittencies.
[Update] I have been given the coordinates by Government, below]
Fracking involves drilling, then cracking the rocks with small explosions, maintaining the cracks by injecting sand and high pressure (up to 15,000 psi) fluids, and collecting the gas that seeps out.
There are many charming features associated with fracking, including blowouts and minor earthquakes, but the major problem is contamination of ground water. The US Environmental Protection Agency found arsenic, copper, vanadium and adamantes (a form of hydrocarbon) in water near fracking, although, having been emasculated by George Dubya, they were coy about attributing causality to the fracking.
A number of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens, are used in the fracking process.
Reports that it was possible to set fire to tap water due to shale gas getting in to the water, although impressive, have been vigorously challenged, on the basis of one sample, which showed the gas had biological origin.
Whatever the truth of inflammable tapwater, it is very clear that the risks of fracking in the Mendips is contamination of the vast, interlinked underwater reservoirs. Mendip limestone has more holes than a Swiss cheese. It is a famous centre for caving, and is also an underground reservoir for Bath, Bristol and Weston-super-Mare.
It is unlikely that citizen pressure can stop the initial exploratory drilling. An intense campaign would be necessary to prevent the local councils witholding planning permission for the actual fracking, because councils tend to roll over and let large companies tickle their tummies. Past experience suggests that Somerset folk are not up for intense campaigns, especially as the local newspapers will most likely be giving blanket coverage to the safety and job-creation opportunities of this wonderful new way of producing carbon dioxide.
The best strategy would be for us to press councils to insist that Eden Energy and UK Methane (the gas companies) take out full insurance for remediation of any ground water contamination that follows from their process. This is reasonable, and the costs involved (assuming they can get an insurance company to take them on) will likely make the process uneconomic, because ground water contamination could go on for decades.
I have phoned my District Councillor, who had heard nothing about it on the council.
There is a Facebook page - No Fracking UK - for campaigners here.
One of the counter arguments that will come out is that if we have a large amount of renewable energy in the UK, it will need to be supplemented with a fleet of gas turbines to cover the times when the wind stops. The alternative to this is (a) large amounts of storage capacity, primarily hydro-electric, but also electrolytic, and (b) a Europe wide HVDC supergrid which will connect all renewable sources, overriding individual intermittencies.
[Update] I have been given the coordinates by Government, below]
PEDL225
The licensed area is bounded by the coordinates:
ST 5000 5000
ST 6000 5000
ST 6000 4500
ST 7000 4500
ST 7000 3500
ST 6000 3500
ST 6000 4000
ST 5000 4000
ST 5000 5000.
PEDL226
The licensed area is bounded by the coordinates:
ST 5000 7000
ST 6000 7000
ST 6000 5000
ST 5000 5000
ST 5000 7000.
PEDL227
The licensed area is bounded by the coordinates:
ST 6000 6000
ST 7000 6000
ST 7000 4500
ST 6000 4500
ST 6000 6000.
PEDL228
The licensed area is bounded by the coordinates:
ST 6000 7000
ST 7000 7000
ST 7000 6000
ST 6000 6000
ST 6000 7000.
The OS maps I hold just cover PEDL 225 & 226.
225 is a region including Wells, Evercreech and Pilton.
226 covers Flax bourton, Hengrove, Chewton Mendip and Westbury Beacon.
I do not have maps for the other areas.
They are pretty vast areas. I guess they will be doing sonar geological studies to map out the area. It is clear that the areas include limestone areas of the Mendip Hills.
Friday, July 01, 2011
What is climate sensitivity, and why does it matter?
Climate sensitivity lies at the heart of the climate change debate.
If it is high, we have a big problem. If it is low, we do not have a problem.
Sceptics claim that climate sensitivity is low. Their whole case rests on this simple, testable proposition.
Climate sensitivity is both simple and complicated. It is a measure to the degree to which the earth will warm up for a given increase in the energy transfers in and out of the planetary system.
It is derived from these steps:
- We are confident of the value of changes in Earth's energy transfers ("energy budget").
- We also know that a given increase in the energy budget will set off "feedbacks" that amplify or reduce the global climate change that result from that increase. It is here that uncertainties lie - but they are now marginal uncertainties. Climate science has enough knowledge to be sure that we have a problem.
All that remains is to refute the sceptics' claim that sensitivity is low.
This is how the scientific case is constructed:
- We know from textbook physics that CO2 retains heat.
- We know from observation that we have increased CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% since 1750.
- We know from basic physics that a doubling of CO2 by itself is sufficient to increase the global average temperature by 1.2*C when the system eventually settles down .
However, the oceanic feedbacks, through storing heat, delays this increase, while other feedbacks will enhance it.
These feedbacks include:
- Increase in water vapour in the atmosphere. This is a positive feedback, increasing the heating.
- Increase and changes in cloud cover. This has both positive and negative feedbacks.
- decrease in ice cover at the poles and on mountains. Positive feedback.
- changes in the ocean heat system (since most of the increased temperature is stored in the oceans). Negative feedback in the short term, delaying the global increase.
- Man-made particulate aerosols, negative feedback of uncertain size.
- In the longer term, releases of methane from oceans and tundra. Seriously positive.
There are other, independent changes in the system that will affect the climate, primarily
- Volcanoes - negative feedback in short term, due to particles, positive in long term due to their CO2.
- Solar variations - which, hopefully, may reduce warming to a greater or lesser extent in the coming decades.
Climate models are designed to factor in all these variables. The models can be tested by putting in the data and running them, and comparing the results with observed temperature records. The correspondence between model outputs and observed records is convincing. Not perfect, because nothing is perfect, but as they are refined with new knowledge, the relationship between models and observations gets ever tighter.
There are 3 lines of evidence that give climate sensitivity.
- Models themselves. (They are reliable, btw) (as is demonstrated by these 3 graphs)
- Observations of how recent global climate reacts in the short term to variations in things like solar output and volcanoes.
- Studies of the ancient climate, matching known proxies of temperature against known levels of CO2 &c.
These lines of evidence show remarkable consistency. The image here (click on it to expand) summarises some of the results. None give a sensitivity below 1.5*C for a doubling of CO2, and the most likely figure is around 3*C.
This means we have a serious problem
Against this impressive consistent result from a variety of detailed, serious work, the climate sceptics have a handful of little papers that claim a low climate sensitivity.
The whole debate, and indeed the whole future of human civilisation, hinges on this point.
In future blogs I will be examining the sceptics' arguments in more detail.
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