I’ve never really looked at the evidence supporting the anthropocentric theory of global warming, so I took a look around and found what I hope are a few unbiased sources:

Exploratorium’s Climate Change Page
Environmental Protection Agency

And a couple of clearly biased sources:
Fact, Hypothesis, or Myth
National Defence Research Council

My take away?

1) There is a definite warming trend in global surface measurements observable

over the last 100 years with a pronounced increase in the last 2 decades. Unfortunately, these time periods coincide with refinements in measurement tools, making comparison of measurements difficult, especially with a precision of ~1 C. Satellite data mesuring troposhere temperature fails to recapitulate the warming trend indicated by surface temperature measurements. Which measurement do you think is more sensitive? Accurate? Prone to bias?

2) There appears to be a rough correlation between CO2 and Temperature readings over the last 250 thousand years, however the causative factor is not clearly established. Increased CO2 may cause increased temperature, but it seems equally plausible that increased temperature enhances bioactivity, which may in turn produce increased CO2.

3) If you read enough forum discussions regarding global warming, you’ll find the Truth: Your Life as a Human Test Subject. And here I thought contrails were the consequence of condensation of water vapor exhaust from jet engines. Who knew?

All in all, the data supporting anthropocentric global warming are not terribly compelling to me. Of course, I may be guilty of selectively acknlowedging data that supports my underlying biases. Discuss…

Anyway, eBay is another medium that has changed the way the internet is being used. Most of the postings you see on eBay now are organized “Power Sellers” that run entire businesses off eBay, but a large number of posts are from your typical casual seller that just wants to auction something off. This post, as the title suggests is a post on eBay for an auction that closed on April 28, 2004 (so, I don’t know how long they are going to keep it up) for a wedding dress… Normally, I wouldn’t give it another look, but the pictures woke my appetite and the reading afterwards of the item description settled my appetite for a good laugh.

Enjoy: After the wedding…

* Front row seats to Game 6 of the Cubs – Marlins Series: $400
* Cubs baseball hat: $25
* 4 Beers: $24
* Reaching out to catch a flyball, causing Alou not to catch it and initiating the 8 run inning for the Marlins…then to have your picture on every sports website and name revealed…forever to be cursed by Cubs fans: priceless

Witness Protection Program: Anything less would be dangerous.

I was browsing trough the New York Times today when I came across an article that seemed consistent with recent events: “Onstage Attack Casts Pall Over Las Vegas Strip”. My morbid curiosity got the best of me, expecting to hear a tale of terroristic homicidal rage. Instead, I learned that Siegfried and Roy have been indefinitely shut down due to a tiger mauling during a performance. Epic.

In other news, did you know that Fight Club shares many parallels with the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? Read more.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

$15 a barrel on the first deployment with the production cost dropping to $10 in three to five years? Sam, do you call BS?

From a business perspective, it seems like they have some momentum – government support, investor support, protection of their intellectual assets, and a well-stocked pipeline.

As a total aside, maybe I’ll cancel that lunch order for a turkey sandwich ….

Good afternoon, fellow Cardinal,

Howdy, my name is Shannon Jones (C/o ‘98 – B.S. ChemE) and I wanted to share some information with the group assembled here about the work my company, Changing World Technologies (CWT), is doing. We’re a relatively small group of engineers, forward-thinkers, former government big-wigs, and investors, headquartered on Long Island, New York, who think that we have come up with “the
solution for energy independence”.

We’re currently featured in the May 2003 issue of Discover Magazine (full article at http://www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html) and are creating a buzz in the scientific and political community. From the tagline of this email, you can see how some people may be skeptical. Using our proprietary technology, thermal depolymerization (TDP), we can convert near about any carbon-rich waste stream (old tires, municipal sewage, plastics, dead turkey parts, agricultural
wastes, medical wastes, biological agents and pathogens like anthrax and mad cow disease, and simple things like paper) into valuable resources, namely, high-grade oil, fuel gas, minerals, fatty acids, and fine carbon particles like the kind you’d find in your HP printer.

Until now, the only thing waste processors could do with these streams was to incinerate them (oops, there goes the ozone layer!), landfill them (well, I don’t care about ground or tap water because I buy only bottled water anyway), or recycle the waste back into animal feed (here’s your ham sandwich, Miss Piggy).

Our first plant (a joint venture with ConAgra Foods for processing turkey feathers, bones, blood, fats, guts, etc.) will come online in Carthage, Missouri this spring with ten more plants ‘in the pipeline’ for the next few years. After it turns the turkey waste into oil – as well as diesel fuel, fatty acids for use in cosmetics, fertilizer and carbon black – the only thing left over will be clean water. The plant mimics how oil is produced naturally by heat and pressure over eons underneath the Earth’s surface. The difference is the Carthage plant (and the others to follow) will do the same thing in hours by moving a slurry of wastes and water through a series of tanks that use a variety of heat and pressure combinations to break the organics down.

Real sci-fi stuff here but very practical applications. Globally, but most importantly for here in the United States, an alternate source of energy is needed to curtail the destruction to the planet and the endangerment of lives that comes with our dependence on foreign oil. The added benefits of our vision is that the fuel is renewable because there will always be some type of waste stream to be processed, unlike oil wells to be drilled; we have the opportunity to rid the environment of large piles of waste in landfills; and we can slow down global warming by keeping whatever carbon material is left in the ground there instead of accumulating it in our atmosphere.

I could talk days and days about the great virtues of my company but I am extremely biased. Also by this email, I, in no shape or form, expect you all to bow down at my company’s feet and think we’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’m just a young, excited chemical engineer that loves his job. Please look around and find out about us on your own. My friends are absolutely sick of me talking about this thing anyway!

Now, CWT is well-funded so I’m not asking for any of you to send money ASAP, we are NOT publically-traded, nor are we hiring right now (the three main questions we get asked daily) but anything is possible in the future. If you’re interested, please review our website at www.changingworldtech.com, pick up the Discover article, or perform a few online searches for “thermal depolymerization” or “changing world technologies” and see what we’re about. Also if you have any questions or comments, send them through the email address on the company webpage because I am just an engineer and have no say-so on how to invest, how to get hired, or how to teach our patented technology to your fourth grade class. I really can’t answer any particular questions anyway due to confidentiality agreements but I’m excited and I know you all will be as well
once you see what we are capable of.

Regards,
Shannon Jones
“Just another man trying to share the wealth through knowledge transfer”

Quick background; Yours truly was recently staffed for what looks like the better part of 5 weeks in Roseville (about 15 miles past Sacramento) in California and he is not too stoked about it…

So after the first week, I can now present to you the Top Ten List of things to do when you’re staffed in Roseville…

1. Work
2. Sleep
3. Eat
4. Shop
5. Work out
6. Climb the indoor wall at REI
7. Think about things to do
8. Play minigolf
9. Find bigger rims for your truck or a deal on new boobs
10. Go night skiing in Tahoe after work

Any suggestions to improve my list?

PS. The map is of California’s original “Gold Country” so I guess the 11th thing to do is dig for gold…

The NAS is awesome, but that’s a discussion for another forum. Having all of our CDs in high quality mp3 format, available to any computer on our network is great. Nearly 300 discs took 25 GB of space and a lot of cpu cycles on the two laptops I had running in parallel.

The real goal is to replace my old laptop serving as a music server with a stereo component that can play mp3 format music straight off the network over the stereo speakers. To achieve that, Turtle Beach has a product called the AudioTron that goes beyond similar attempts by Onkyo, Sony and that like because it doesn’t require any server side software to be running to serve the music files. The AudioTron can play music from any computer on your network that has shared mp3s, an important feature as the linux running NAS doesn’t allow for server software to be installed.

I’ve read about every review, forum, and mailing list post raving about the AudioTron. Some even compare it in value to their TiVo, but TiVo is still King in our house. As soon as Turtle Beach releases their already announced new versions, I’ll be snapping up an AudioTron and you’ll hear about it here. In the mean time, if you have any CDs I could borrow, I have another 40 GB of space to fill….

Is there any wonder why these are my favorite animals on the planet???

* The U.S. Navy will bring in trained dolphins this week to hunt for seaborne mines in the waters around Umm Qasr, Navy officials say.

Navy Sgt. Andrew Garrett watches a dolphin training near the USS Gunston Hall in the Persian Gulf. The coalition expects to use dolphins in looking for mines in the region.

[Editor's note: Picture has been resized and moved to the right]