Ok, I guess I should at least make some sort of proper page where I at least touch on the topic of global warming.  I'm what they'd call one of those global warming "deniers".  Well, that's not true either.  The Earth has warmed over the last few centuries as we've come out of the little ice age.  I even believe there's a component of what many would call "anthropogenic global warming" (human caused global warming).  HOWEVER, I do not see any evidence of unusual warming, unusually bad weather or other sorts of impending doom.

In order to properly explain the issue I decided I should just make a graph of known temperatures, temperature trends and of course, those crazy ass IPCC projections.

I found a nice page bringing together much of the information about climate that I've found myself.  Anyone that feels it's a certainty that humans have caused (substantial) global warming really needs to read this.  Our affects are tiny...and more likely than not...BENEFICIAL (screwed up as that may seem to some)

http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Climate_Change_Science.html

So I've been digging into the whole global "warming" thing (the earth has actually cooled somewhat for the last decade).  I was pointing out to someone the recovery of the sea ice (up 9% over the previous year's low in 2008 even though the ice SHOULD have melted since it was thinner)  and it suddenly stuck me...  HOLY CRAP, the environmental groups were right but in the wrong way.  We really did just cross an environmental "tipping point!"  All during the last 10 years the old warm mode feedbacks have been counteracting whatever force (probably solar activity) has been pushing world temperatures down. 

You know it just keeps bugging me that "global warming" has been on hold now for a decade.  Seriously an entire decade while everyone rambles on endlessly about how terrible the dangers are, how there's no question that CO2 emissions are driving up the temperatures...when the temperatures didn't go up.  In fact, they've DROPPED in the past few years.  Now of course...the guys that are getting all the media attention are blabbering on about it merely being a natural variation compensating for man's emissions.  Well...since the southern hemisphere had the coldest winter in a lifetime and since a lot of northern hemisphere temperatures are also showing signs of further drops, I think that's probably not the case.  I think the sun's behavior (dismissed as unimportant by the IPCC) is actually responsible for the bulk of the changes.  I think we're at a point when this is going to become obvious...and I think the halt to warming and the drop are probably the reason the fuckers found it necessary to FALSIFY THE DATA.  Seriously, look at their old chart (a rather inconvenient chart since temperatures were actually equally warm half a century ago)

Just something I thought I'd toss out there.  Everyone's blabbering on about wave power, wind power, photovoltaic plants and occasionally, solar-thermal power plants.  Let me explain the concept of "base load".  There's a certain amount of power that we need...and we need it CONSTANTLY.  This is (more or less) our "base load".  This is an amount of power that we NEED to use, or else people and businesses will start losing power.  Now no matter how freaking windy a place is...no matter how many waves there are...no matter how much the sun shines...when that shit STOPS you need to have a normal power plant standing by.

This creates a teeny, weeny little problem.  First off...traditional versions of these plants really don't deal very well with cycling up and down.  Second, you're talking about paying almost as much to maintain this gigantic power plant (which will sit there doing nothing much of the time) ON TOP OF the more expensive "alternative" energy plant.  Oh, of course you could also use storage systems...which also double up on your costs.

NASA seemed to take a cautious approach and not try to draw any conclusions.  They just pointed out that the current sunspot activity is withing the sun's normal behavior for the last 200 years...in other words back to the time of the Dalton minimum.BTW, I also just realized (heh, or remembered, depending on how you look at it) last night that part of the reason the arctic wice ouldn't have return to its previous extents as soon as the temperature dropped is that it didn't have enough ice cover to provide the additional cooling (from higher reflectivity)...but since the south pole just had a massive increase in sea ice, I'm guessing the north will see a similar increase.  Eventually it'll be so thick that melting a substantial portion would take a prolonged heat wave, again, due to the increased reflectivity...and of course the thermal mass.  Glaciers, permafrost areas, etc are probably having similar issues.

In the last couple months there has been essentially no sunspot activity.  Today we FINALLY have an obvious sunspot and it's the reversed polarity type that would signal sunspot cycle 24.  The problem is, there has been so little sunspot activity for so long, it's actually difficult to tell if this is the actual ramping up of the next sunspot cycle...or the normal first observed spot that signals the start of cycle 24's activity (the activities of both cycles kind of overlap)...in which case it would take another 12-20 months to ramp up.  Either way, there's a rather large amount of evidence that...(A) the next sunspot cycle will be a bit of a dud...like dalton minimum levels and (B) that such a minimum would mean a heck of a cold spell globally.

I was showing a friend a freeze cam shot from TF2 and he said I really needed to post it so...here we go.  Me having just been killed by a heavy, who was then killed by a spy...who was then killed by a pyro. (click to enlarge)

For the second time I've been pulled over for failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign...when I'm actually about the only person on the campus that DOES come to a complete stop.  He SAID he was watching, but I have to wonder, if he was watching, why didn't he go after that guy that was there 30 seconds before me...that went thru the intersection faster than the (absurdly low) speed limit?  "Thankfully" I got off with a warning like the first time, but I shouldn't have been stopped at all.  If it's because of some criminal activity in the area and they just want to stop me, I'd be FINE with them saying they just needed to stop people.  What crazy ass amount of time am I supposed to stop at these stop signs to not be pulled?  It's not like I ONLY wait until my car rebounds from breaking.  I wait several seconds (yes, I actually count since that last one) and this time I ironically stopped for another moment to ponder how annoying it would be if I got pulled again after that other guy flew through the intersection without stopping.  Sadly, I've now experienced how annoying it is.  Do I need to get one of those stupid little things to track my car's movements constantly???

I've had that song from grease "You're the one that I want" stuck in my head the past few days and the lyrics have morphed in my head into a song about a pyro needing a medic (in the game Team Fortress 2).  I should probably ask someone about making a video on that (what?  I'm lazy).  I guess it wouldn't be TOO difficult though, at least you don't need to be able to sing.  You only ever hear pyros mumble because of their face mask, so it'd have to use subtitles and mumbling.

I got kills...they're multiplyin' and I'm takin' control...but then I'm hit and I start dying...it's mortifying!I need someone... who can heal me fast, who can heal me on the run.  I need someone, I need das ubermensch... heal me with your medigun... give me your uber when it's done.

Uber me up...or we'll never last.  We'll take the sentry down this time.  Uber me up and we'll cap the point.  Or we'll kill their whole team tryin'...then we'll cap if we survive.