UK's Climate Research Unit server Hacked -- Cat out of bag

[gnome]

Are we talking about Exxon funding lobbying groups, or actual research?

They're funding groups that promote anti-AGW science... so it depends on the groups, though the article notes that the results tend to appear in non-peer reviewed publications.

But what I'm disputing here is a key point the author of your link seems to want to make--that this recently-blemished organization received significantly more money to promote AGW than Exxon gave to deny it. Just isn't so.

[hammegk]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story? ... 021&page=1

Exxon-Mobile: $19 million to promote doubt on AGW

I call bullshit. They no doubt funded the groups, but not to "promote doubt on global warming". Big Oil will be here making tons of money, AGW, GW, or whatever is the truth.

Snowe and Rockefeller are lying politicians.

How many billions do you think IPCC, and the scientific community getting funds to promote OMG/AGW have received?

[Anaxagoras]

This video is by Peter Sinclair, one of a series that I found to be very educational. He explains it in a way that that's easy for a layperson to understand.

Fair enough, Anaxagoras. However, although I'm no scientist, I watch interviews with people who are, like this, read articles like this, and wonder who is correct.

Are you surprised that I'm sceptical given recent events?

Sorry, I kind of forgot about this thread for a while. I'll check those out.
I certainly do understand being skeptical. I'm skeptical about some aspects myself. I am satisfied that GW is real, but I don't really know how serious the consequences will be, or if the costs of cutting carbon emissions by however much they say we have to cut them will be worth it or successful.

ETA: Watching that interview, Professor Fred Singer, the skeptic, says that there hasn't been warming in the last 10 years. This is because 1998 is the hottest year on record. However, there was a major El Nino that year, and there hasn't been a comparable one since. And if you use decades as the unit rather than years, the 2000's have indeed been warmer than the 1990's, so there is warming on average. Just as the weather warms up in the spring, it doesn't mean that each day is always warmer than the previous day. April 1st might be colder than March 15th. It's less likely that the average temperature for the fortnight from March 15th would be warmer than the fortnight from April 1st, but not impossible.

Here's a video on 1998 by Sinclair

[manny]

@xoup

You obviously haven't been reading the multitude of AGW threads at TOP, or you'd have already known that most were fuckwits. :)

@robinson (although I think he has me on ignore)

Yup.

I'm not so sure about the latter. Certainly that's the view of the forum moderators but Randi, last I checked, was more openminded. He did a pro-AGW bit back before SWIFT went all bloggy, but after comments he seemed to indicate that he wanted to look at some stuff himself before opining further. That's my last recollection, though of course now I'll spend a little time in the JREF archives to see whether I'm correct.

History scmistory; Is Randi still cogent enough to have any thoughts?

And, what Randi might think and what his toadies allow in the forum ... never the twain shall meet. Plus isn't policy whatever the Stupidly Badass Astronomer decrees now?

Yeah, probably. I think I was wrong in any event -- I can't find any reference to AGW by Randi. Wagg is agnostic, but you're right that BA is a) a kool-aid drinker and b) in charge.

I'll be damned. The semi-official (official?) word is that the JREF does not take a stand on AGW. And this came while BA was still in charge.

[Bearguin]

@xoup

You obviously haven't been reading the multitude of AGW threads at TOP, or you'd have already known that most were fuckwits. :)

@robinson (although I think he has me on ignore)

Yup.

I'm not so sure about the latter. Certainly that's the view of the forum moderators but Randi, last I checked, was more openminded. He did a pro-AGW bit back before SWIFT went all bloggy, but after comments he seemed to indicate that he wanted to look at some stuff himself before opining further. That's my last recollection, though of course now I'll spend a little time in the JREF archives to see whether I'm correct.

History scmistory; Is Randi still cogent enough to have any thoughts?

And, what Randi might think and what his toadies allow in the forum ... never the twain shall meet. Plus isn't policy whatever the Stupidly Badass Astronomer decrees now?

Yeah, probably. I think I was wrong in any event -- I can't find any reference to AGW by Randi. Wagg is agnostic, but you're right that BA is a) a kool-aid drinker and b) in charge.

I'll be damned. The semi-official (official?) word is that the JREF does not take a stand on AGW. And this came while BA was still in charge.

They do tend to shy away from religion.

[Anaxagoras]

Happy Holidays!

:)

[Anaxagoras]

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54# ... XesBhYwdRo

[robinson]

That clip gets so much mileage online. Genius I tell ya, it's genius.

[EvilYeti]

ETA: Watching that interview, Professor Fred Singer, the skeptic, says that there hasn't been warming in the last 10 years. This is because 1998 is the hottest year on record.

Uh, 2005 is the hottest year on record and January 2000 to December 2009 is the warmest decade on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade -- due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean -- 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years -- 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 -- as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/featur ... -2009.html

[Rob Lister]

ETA: Watching that interview, Professor Fred Singer, the skeptic, says that there hasn't been warming in the last 10 years. This is because 1998 is the hottest year on record.

Uh, 2005 is the hottest year on record and January 2000 to December 2009 is the warmest decade on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade -- due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean -- 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years -- 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 -- as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/featur ... -2009.html

are these charges true?

* "A clear bias was found towards removing higher elevation, higher latitude, and rural stations — the cooler stations — during this culling process, though that data was not also removed from the base periods from which “averages,” and then anomalies, were computed."
* "The data also suffers contamination by urbanization and other local factors, such as land-use/land-cover changes and improper siting."
* "NOAA announced that June 2009 was the second-warmest June. In sharp contrast to this, GISS and the UAH satellite assessments had June virtually at the long-term average (+0.001 C°, or the 15th coldest in 31 years). Remote Sensing Systems (RSS — the other satellite measurement database) had June at +0.075 C°, the 14th coldest in 31 years.
NOAA proclaimed June 2008 to be the eighth-warmest for the globe in 129 years. Meanwhile, NASA showed it was the 9th-coldest June in the 30 years of its record in 130 years, falling just short of 2005."


In other words, these agencies fudged the baseline, ignored heat island effects, and ignored satellite data.

[EvilYeti]

Missed this thread while on vacation.

Since we are posting links to videos, I'll repost this link to Dr Naomi Oreskes excellent talk, "The American Denial of Global Warming"



It explains, much better than I ever could, why there is a scientific consensus on AGW and special interests are intent on convincing you there isn't.

In fact, seeing this talk largely ended my interest in the topic, as there was little left to be said in my mind.

[EvilYeti]

are these charges true?

* "A clear bias was found towards removing higher elevation, higher latitude, and rural stations — the cooler stations — during this culling process, though that data was not also removed from the base periods from which “averages,” and then anomalies, were computed."
* "The data also suffers contamination by urbanization and other local factors, such as land-use/land-cover changes and improper siting."
* "NOAA announced that June 2009 was the second-warmest June. In sharp contrast to this, GISS and the UAH satellite assessments had June virtually at the long-term average (+0.001 C°, or the 15th coldest in 31 years). Remote Sensing Systems (RSS — the other satellite measurement database) had June at +0.075 C°, the 14th coldest in 31 years.
NOAA proclaimed June 2008 to be the eighth-warmest for the globe in 129 years. Meanwhile, NASA showed it was the 9th-coldest June in the 30 years of its record in 130 years, falling just short of 2005."


In other words, these agencies fudged the baseline, ignored heat island effects, and ignored satellite data.

Boggle. The NASA/GISS report is from publicly available data and specifically includes satellite data and Antarctic research stations. See the data details section:

Data Details

To conduct its analysis, GISS uses publicly available data from three sources: weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world; satellite observations of sea surface temperature; and Antarctic research station measurements. These three data sets are loaded into a computer program, which is available for public download from the GISS website. The program calculates trends in temperature anomalies -- not absolute temperatures — but changes relative to the average temperature for the same month during the period of 1951-1980.

Other research groups also track global temperature trends but use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre, based in the United Kingdom, uses similar input measurements as GISS, for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic, where monitoring stations are sparse.

In contrast, the GISS analysis extrapolates data in those regions using information from the nearest available monitoring stations, and thus has more complete coverage of the polar areas. If GISS didn't extrapolate in this manner, the software that performs the analysis would assume that areas without monitoring stations warm at the same rate as the global mean, an assumption that doesn't line up with changes that satellites have observed in Arctic sea ice, Schmidt explained. Although the two methods produce slightly different results in the annual rankings, the decade-long trends in the two records are essentially identical.

"There's a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends," Hansen said. "In the last decade, global warming has not stopped."

Either the article you reference is referring to a different analysis or the authors are incompetent. I'm going with 'both'.

[EvilYeti]

It does indeed seem, well, wrong, doesn't it, though?

I will say that there are times when I would not release data without an NDA or something of the sort when commercial issues were at stake, but that's a different problem altogether.

Here is a more apropos description of what happened, jj.

Imagine someone asked you for data. You, being a nice guy, provided it.

This person then does a botched analysis of it, confuses degrees with radians in their stats package and substitutes zeroes for nulls.

Not surprisingly, they do not duplicate your results.

They then publish their work in the letters sections of a non-scientific journal, outside of your area of research, then make bombastic claims in the media to the effect of having demolished your research. Along with the fictitious claim of their work having passed 'rigorous' peer review.

Of course, you or someone like you soon points out their childish errors. Not that it matters one whit, though, as the incompetent amateurs have nothing to lose. One needs a career before one can make a career ending mistake, of course.

Now finally, imagine again if you will, this same person returns later with more requests for data.

What do you do?

I know you, jj. You would tell them to go fuck themselves. In fact, I'm reasonable certain you would probably use those exact words. Which is pretty much what Jones, etal did. They simply got fed up with dealing with incompetent/fraudulent cranks with an axe to grind.

This has all been hashed out in the past, I can provide references if you wish.

[xouper]

This has all been hashed out in the past, I can provide references if you wish.

Please do.

[EvilYeti]

So, I have a serious question. What's wrong with using proxy data for the last 20 or 30 years too? Trees still grow. Ice still forms. Sedimentation in bodies of water is still happening.

We have this crazy thing called the 'instrumentation record' (aka thermometers and other temperature sensors). We use it for the same reason scientists prefer atomic clocks to sundials. It's a more precise method for measuring a natural phenomenon.

We have a reasonable instrumentation record going back to about 1850 (I think, would have to verify that). We use that record to basically 'calibrate' proxy records, like tree trings. If they are good proxies, they will track the temperature record within an acceptable margin of error (which is always acknowledged).

Beyond that, we are forced to use proxies to reconstruct past temperatures as we simply have no other way to do it. There isn't a reliable instrumentation record until roughly the beginning of the industrial revolution and sadly time travel is still out of reach for modern science.

As Rob Lister mentioned, there is the 'divergence problem' with the tree ring data; which is a matter of public knowledge and has been discussed in the literature since the '90s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergence_problem

Of course, this could mean that there have been periods of divergence in the past. Which is why other proxies, like ice cores, are used as well. So far they are all reasonably well in alignment, for better or worse.

[EvilYeti]

This has all been hashed out in the past, I can provide references if you wish.

Please do.

First with the bombastic, Xouper-like claim:

After four years of one of the most rigorous peer reviews ever, Canadian Ross McKitrick and another of us (Michaels) published a paper searching for "economic" signals in the temperature record. ... The research showed that somewhere around one-half of the warming in the U.N. surface record was explained by economic factors, which can be changes in land use, quality of instrumentation, or upkeep of records.

And then once somebody competent looks at it :

If you do calculations and get degrees and radians mixed up, you get the wrong answer. Which is what McKitrick did. His analysis included a variable cosablat, which was supposed to be the cosine of absolute latitude. Trouble is, the software he used expects angles to be measured in radians, his data has latitude in degrees, and he didn't convert from degrees to radians. Consequently, every single number he calculates is wrong.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/08/mckitrick6.php

Next up we have what happens when you substitute missing temperature data with zeroes....

McKitrick kindly sent me a spreadsheet containing the data they used and I almost immediately saw where they had gone wrong. You see, some stations had missing values, months where no temperature had been recorded. When calculating the root mean square they treated the missing values as if they were measurements of 0 degrees. This is incorrect, since the temperature was not actually zero degrees. Because the overall average temperature was positive this meant that the root mean square was biased downwards when there were missing observations. And since there were more missing values in the second half of the time series, this produced a spurious cooling trend.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/05/mckitrick3.php

Important note, I'm not making the claim that Ross McKitrick is fraudulent or deliberately fudged the data (unlike the typical denialist claim). He wouldn't be so eager to cough up his methodology if he had. He is simply utterly, totally and completely incompetent. I wouldn't let this guy check my oil.

This is why nobody takes any of you nutballs seriously. Whatever shred of credibility you had was blown to pieces years ago by these kooks.

[EvilYeti]

The esteemed Mr. Tim Lambert has also reviewed the so called 'smoking gun' of the CRU hack.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12 ... g_code.php

Very interesting I think, especially to jj. In FORTRAN no less, jj's favorite language!

I'm going to have to investigate the claim that they did not have permission to redistribute the data in the FOIA request, as that was really the only thing I thought they were guilty of. As I said the first time this came around, in my experience most FOIA requests are not legitimate for any number of reasons.

More later.

Edit: I'm still looking for more info and have emailed Tim.

[xouper]

This has all been hashed out in the past, I can provide references if you wish.

Please do.

First with the bombastic, Xouper-like claim:

After four years of one of the most rigorous peer reviews ever, Canadian Ross McKitrick and another of us (Michaels) published a paper searching for "economic" signals in the temperature record. ... The research showed that somewhere around one-half of the warming in the U.N. surface record was explained by economic factors, which can be changes in land use, quality of instrumentation, or upkeep of records.

And then once somebody competent looks at it :

If you do calculations and get degrees and radians mixed up, you get the wrong answer. Which is what McKitrick did. His analysis included a variable cosablat, which was supposed to be the cosine of absolute latitude. Trouble is, the software he used expects angles to be measured in radians, his data has latitude in degrees, and he didn't convert from degrees to radians. Consequently, every single number he calculates is wrong.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/08/mckitrick6.php

Next up we have what happens when you substitute missing temperature data with zeroes....

McKitrick kindly sent me a spreadsheet containing the data they used and I almost immediately saw where they had gone wrong. You see, some stations had missing values, months where no temperature had been recorded. When calculating the root mean square they treated the missing values as if they were measurements of 0 degrees. This is incorrect, since the temperature was not actually zero degrees. Because the overall average temperature was positive this meant that the root mean square was biased downwards when there were missing observations. And since there were more missing values in the second half of the time series, this produced a spurious cooling trend.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/05/mckitrick3.php

Important note, I'm not making the claim that Ross McKitrick is fraudulent or deliberately fudged the data (unlike the typical denialist claim). He wouldn't be so eager to cough up his methodology if he had. He is simply utterly, totally and completely incompetent. I wouldn't let this guy check my oil.

This is why nobody takes any of you nutballs seriously. Whatever shred of credibility you had was blown to pieces years ago by these kooks.

That's all you got? From the way you were foaming at the mouth, it sounded like you had a real smoking gun or something. If this is all it takes to permanently discredit someone's scientific opinion, then you must permanently discredit Mann's as well, since Wegman et al demolished his hockey stick. To do any less is to be hypocritical.

There's a big difference between making mistakes and being incompetent. McKitrick et al have been right more often than they've been mistaken. Even NASA has redacted faulty data found by McKitrick. So unless you got something more damaging than the trivial shit you cited, we shall conclude you are simply showing your extreme prejudice.

By the way, this is yet another example where you have tried to sell your personal opinion on the matter, despite your repeated claim you have no opinion on this topic. You clearly take sides despite that you are not a climatologist and are not qualified to take sides in this debate.

[EvilYeti]

That's all you got? From the way you were foaming at the mouth, it sounded like you had a real smoking gun or something. If this is all it takes to permanently discredit someone's scientific opinion, then you must permanently discredit Mann's as well, since Wegman et al demolished his hockey stick. To do any less is to be hypocritical.

Oh in your *dreams*, pinhead.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/07 ... _stick.php

Unfortunately, WSS stop there and do not address the question of what difference this makes to the reconstruction (which is not the same as PC1). The NRC panel did address this question and found that it made little difference.

More here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... n-hearing/

The hockey stick *is* the reconstruction, which Wegman never analyzed. As usual you just parrot the idiot denialist blogs instead of actually bothering to try and understand what really happened yourself. Which is why its so trivially easy for me to do the online equivalent of kicking sand in the nerds face.

Oh, and Wegmans report had errors in and of itself:

Wegman, Scott and Said are statisticians, not climatologists and this has lead to some errors in their interpretation of the literature. For example, the temperature graph in the first IPCC report is schematic and not quantitative, but they interpret it as if it was quantitative.

There's a big difference between making mistakes and being incompetent. McKitrick et al have been right more often than they've been mistaken. Even NASA has redacted faulty data found by McKitrick. So unless you got something more damaging than the trivial shit you cited, we shall conclude you are simply showing your extreme prejudice.

In your dreams, pinhead.

There is a big difference between making trivial mistakes that ultimately don't effect your final result in any meaningful way, as the NRC report on Mann's work reported...

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/06 ... ck_rel.php

...and making blunders the scope of which would embarrass a high school student. If you can't understand how stupendously flawed it is to conflate degrees with radians or zeroes with nulls (and how it would completely invalidate your results and conclusions) then there is truly no hope for you.

But go ahead and glom onto them if you want. Just don't be surprised if you end up being embarrassed, again, along with them. Misery truly loves company.

By the way, this is yet another example where you have tried to sell your personal opinion on the matter, despite your repeated claim you have no opinion on this topic. You clearly take sides despite that you are not a climatologist and are not qualified to take sides in this debate.

I do not have an opinion or belief regarding AGW itself, just as I do not have an opinion on earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, El Nino, solar flares or any other natural phenomena of which there is an overwhelming body of scientific evidence. I simply accept it as a reality of the natural world.

This is the difference between you and I, Xoup. To you AGW is nothing more than a belief system. Hence not only are you wrong; you are not even capable of ever being right as this isn't a matter of faith.

[xouper]

That's all you got? From the way you were foaming at the mouth, it sounded like you had a real smoking gun or something. If this is all it takes to permanently discredit someone's scientific opinion, then you must permanently discredit Mann's as well, since Wegman et al demolished his hockey stick. To do any less is to be hypocritical.

Oh in your *dreams*, pinhead.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/07 ... _stick.php

Unfortunately, WSS stop there and do not address the question of what difference this makes to the reconstruction (which is not the same as PC1). The NRC panel did address this question and found that it made little difference.

More here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... n-hearing/

The hockey stick *is* the reconstruction, which Wegman never analyzed. As usual you just parrot the idiot denialist blogs instead of actually bothering to try and understand what really happened yourself. Which is why its so trivially easy for me to do the online equivalent of kicking sand in the nerds face.

Oh, and Wegmans report had errors in and of itself:

Wegman, Scott and Said are statisticians, not climatologists and this has lead to some errors in their interpretation of the literature. For example, the temperature graph in the first IPCC report is schematic and not quantitative, but they interpret it as if it was quantitative.

There's a big difference between making mistakes and being incompetent. McKitrick et al have been right more often than they've been mistaken. Even NASA has redacted faulty data found by McKitrick. So unless you got something more damaging than the trivial shit you cited, we shall conclude you are simply showing your extreme prejudice.

In your dreams, pinhead.

There is a big difference between making trivial mistakes that ultimately don't effect your final result in any meaningful way, as the NRC report on Mann's work reported...

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/06 ... ck_rel.php

...and making blunders the scope of which would embarrass a high school student. If you can't understand how stupendously flawed it is to conflate degrees with radians or zeroes with nulls (and how it would completely invalidate your results and conclusions) then there is truly no hope for you.

But go ahead and glom onto them if you want. Just don't be surprised if you end up being embarrassed, again, along with them. Misery truly loves company.

By the way, this is yet another example where you have tried to sell your personal opinion on the matter, despite your repeated claim you have no opinion on this topic. You clearly take sides despite that you are not a climatologist and are not qualified to take sides in this debate.

I do not have an opinion or belief regarding AGW itself, just as I do not have an opinion on earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, El Nino, solar flares or any other natural phenomena of which there is an overwhelming body of scientific evidence. I simply accept it as a reality of the natural world.

This is the difference between you and I, Xoup. To you AGW is nothing more than a belief system. Hence not only are you wrong; you are not even capable of ever being right as this isn't a matter of faith.

Same old shit. When are you gonna post something that has some actual merit.

[EvilYeti]

Same old shit. When are you gonna post something that has some actual merit.

I finally shut you up.

About time, I might add.

[xouper]

Same old shit. When are you gonna post something that has some actual merit.

I finally shut you up.

About time, I might add.

:roll: Grow up, Yeti.

[EvilYeti]

:roll: Grow up, Yeti.

Says the middle-aged, full-time student?

[xouper]

:roll: Grow up, Yeti.

Says the middle-aged, full-time student?

Is that supposed to be an insult?

[EvilYeti]

:roll: Grow up, Yeti.

Says the middle-aged, full-time student?

Is that supposed to be an insult?

As I work at a research university, yes, yes it is.

The only thing worse than a career grad-student is a middle-aged career grad student. I can't imagine why you would even volunteer that info.

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Going to start your career when you are 60? Who the hell do you think is going to hire you?

[xouper]

As I work at a research university, yes, yes it is.

The only thing worse than a career grad-student is a middle-aged career grad student. I can't imagine why you would even volunteer that info.

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Going to start your career when you are 60? Who the hell do you think is going to hire you?

Wait, you want to crack wise about people's jobs (or lack thereof)? Didn't you try to make like you were some kind elite unix guy because you know how to configure Squid?

That's the one. Pretty funny how Yeti got totally pants in that thread.

Yeti is clearly just a wannabe troll and gets his kicks trying to insult others. If he was any good at it, it might actually be entertaining, but in reality Yeti is one of the lamest trolls on the forum.

[EvilYeti]

Wait, you want to crack wise about people's jobs (or lack thereof)? Didn't you try to make like you were some kind elite unix guy because you know how to configure Squid?

I'm an elite Unix guy because I'm an elite Unix guy. And as I've mentioned before, I'm not proud as it only takes a few years of real solid Unix hacking to achieve elite status. I frequently meet undergrads that have effectively mastered it while still in high school.

(and seriously have you ever written a squid ACL? Its pure mind rot)

You are the one that made some bizarre claim that a redundant tool that isn't part of any standard distribution (xapply) somehow confers guru status. Despite the fact that I demonstrated that all modern shells cover the vast majority of the use cases. And even that I implemented something almost identical in bash over a decade ago.

And, for the record, you still haven't pointed me to where I can get the damn tarball or answered whether its implemented via posix-style threading or forking. I really want to add it to my forensic box and try benchmarking multi-threaded string searches (our current bottleneck).

RE: Xouper and the other AGW science critics, I'm legitimately curious what is behind the denier mindset.

Dr. Oreskes thinks its market fundamentalism (is Xouper a Libertarian?). I agree with that assessment in the general case, but also suspect there is some professional jealousy at play by the less accomplished. Somebody that is in their 40's and still a full time student is just the sort of pathetic non-entity that would be vulnerable to conspiracy theories.

You are an odd sort as everything you have posted indicates you are a market fundamentalist yet you seem to accept the reality of AGW. I would be interested to get more details of your position.

[EvilYeti]

That's the one. Pretty funny how Yeti got totally pants in that thread.

Yeti is clearly just a wannabe troll and gets his kicks trying to insult others. If he was any good at it, it might actually be entertaining, but in reality Yeti is one of the lamest trolls on the forum.

Lets at Unix to the "List of things which Xouper will never Understand".

Beyond that I would only be trolling if I was a denier as well, and I don't think you'll find anyone whom thinks that is the case.

[EvilYeti]

You are an odd sort as everything you have posted indicates you are a market fundamentalist yet you seem to accept the reality of AGW. I would be interested to get more details of your position.

If I park my car on a sunny day, the temperature inside the car gets warmer than outside. If I increase the amount of water vapor inside the car with a humidifier, it increases this effect.

That is my position.

I guess you are a realist, like myself. You are just a little older, ergo more bitter. Hence the crankiness.

[xouper]

Lets at Unix to the "List of things which Xouper will never Understand".

Is that supposed to be another insult?

Unlike you, I am not a poser who claims to be a unix expert.

[xouper]

No way. He keeps you responding constantly.

Ah, well then, there's a trophy worth showing his grandchildren. I'm sure they'll be so proud of him.

[EvilYeti]

Is that supposed to be another insult?

Unlike you, I am not a poser who claims to be a unix expert.

How on earth could you ever be fit to judge who is?

Corpsy is a crusty old fart and his skillz are as stale as the smell of his underwear. We still likes him, tho!

[xouper]

Is that supposed to be another insult?

Unlike you, I am not a poser who claims to be a unix expert.

How on earth could you ever be fit to judge who is?

I don't have to be a unix expert to see that in your own weasel way, you inadvertently conceded he was right.

[asthmatic camel]

:roll: Grow up, Yeti.

Says the middle-aged, full-time student?

Is that supposed to be an insult?

As I work at a research university, yes, yes it is.

The only thing worse than a career grad-student is a middle-aged career grad student. I can't imagine why you would even volunteer that info.

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Going to start your career when you are 60? Who the hell do you think is going to hire you?

I really don't get this. What on earth is wrong with gaining qualifications at any age? I'd say it's admirable.

[robinson]

That's funny. EY sounds just like a loser who lives in his Mom's basement.

I mean, last night he was going on and on. Maybe he didn't realize it was Saturday night?

[asthmatic camel]

Are you sure about this, Abdul?

I gained a business studies qualification studying at night-school while holding down two jobs. Is that worthless?

[asthmatic camel]

Are you sure about this, Abdul?

I gained a business studies qualification studying at night-school while holding down two jobs. Is that worthless?

Of course not. Re-read what I wrote. The first bit is just my exposition of what the other guy was implying.

What you said seemed to denigrate those who attempt to better themselves. Maybe I took your comment the wrong way.

[robinson]

FWIW I understood you clearly.

[EvilYeti]

Is that supposed to be another insult?

Unlike you, I am not a poser who claims to be a unix expert.

How on earth could you ever be fit to judge who is?

I don't have to be a unix expert to see that in your own weasel way, you inadvertently conceded he was right.

We can add 'lack of English comprehension' to your litany of personal failings.

He got partial credit, for sure, but if I was interviewing him I would have made him use the standard tool set, as that's often all that is available. And he lost points for not being able to answer how it was implemented.

This is no different than your incompetence re: climate science. You are so incompetent you can't even tell the difference between competent professionals and incompetent amateurs. Hence your chronic and repeated displays of stupidity on this and other topics.

[EvilYeti]

I really don't get this. What on earth is wrong with gaining qualifications at any age? I'd say it's admirable.

If you are a professional or otherwise successful, sure. Go for it.

Peter Weller (of RoboCop fame) and Brian May (of Queen) spring to mind, both of whom I admire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Weller#Personal_life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May# ... ophysicist

Xouper is the exact opposite. He's never left school, likely never will and spends his days taking cheap shots at real scientists while hiding behind a picture of one; which I personally find grotesque.

The 'permanent student' is the worst of the worst in academia and far and away the most unpleasant and childish customer for me to deal with. Imagine trying to work with a 15 year old in a 45 year old body and you will have an inkling of what its like.

Thankfully, working for a top-ranked research institution, we have barriers in place to keep rubbish like this out.