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The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

climate.gov

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Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#201

Post by renewiltord »

acdha wrote: post #108
renewiltord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best things to come out of destroying environmentalism is that we can finally get working on renewable energy instead of being blocked by suicidal environmentalists who find wind farms too ugly.

Environmentalists have been pushing wind, solar, etc. for the last half century. There are a few shortsighted people who oppose wind farms but they represent a large, complex multinational movement in the same way that any one of us represents the tech industry, which is to say not at all. In many cases, if you look at the complainants it’s also reasonable to question whether they’re fully honest about their motivati…

Environmentalists push renewables the way homelessness activists push housing: It’s a great idea if it is near no one, hurts no one’s views, impacts zero birds, affects zero animals, and is not built for profit by the rich.

I suppose I could use their terminology, though: responsibly sited, balancing conservation priorities, and protecting local communities.

I recall, in my college years, being told how Real Communism hadn’t been tried yet. It seems that Real Communism never did get tried and no matter who tries Communism they never try the good Real variety. After years of watching top environmental organizations repeatedly oppose nuclear power as a whole and renewables often, I think I have to say: Real Environmentalism Hasn’t Been Tried Yet. No True Environmentalist Would Do What These Guys Do.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#202

Post by defrost »

y33t wrote: post #188
typewithrhythm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans cannot reliably determine the difference in one degree c, even though it's bigger... Fahrenheit is too fine grained, and has no interesting points relative to the things I interact with. I freeze an boil water often, however

The base units of the metric system are often not very ergonomic. Why is a meter so damn big? And why is a gram so damn small? I can barely detect a gram. And a meter is frickin huge, causing people to usually divide it into hundredths of a meter, which you can hardly picture in your mind unless you already know what it looks like, especially arbitrary counts of cm. Metric's only real advantage is that it shares the…

Using metric has never been an issue in trades or sciences in metric countries.

A metre is much the same as a yard or an adult arm span. Not a problem.

Pretty much all carpentry and cabinet making is done in mm alone, the width of a fat pencil mark.

1400mm is shy of a metre and a half (1500mm), cross piece spacing might be 300mm (about a foot).

No need to have feet, inches, quarters and thirds mixing up the page, just use mm everywhere.

A gram is fine for small mass measurements, a kilogram is a good unit for heavier masses - very human scale being the same as a litre of water and more or less a litre of milk.

It really comes down to familiarity, there's nothing intrinsically difficult about metric (and much that is more intuitive than odd imperialial units and the whacky intra unit conversion factors).

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#203

Post by alfiedotwtf »

__egb__ wrote: post #21
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has been touted around before, but what does the military do? I assume they are extremely aware of their supply chain and would not want to source weather from a commercial entity. Will NORAD start doing clandestine weather modelling to be able to plan troop/ship movements?

The Navy already does forecasting for the DoD. They have their own computing facility (called Fleet Numerical) in California and run their own models.

For how long? Like seriously, how long until that department/company/office is shut down

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#204

Post by aorloff »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #163
mempko wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And potentially organized human life collapses

Is that possible? Can you describe the chain of events that would lead to that? Seems vanishingly unlikely to me, on the face of it, but I admit I am not read up on all the possible doomsday scenarios.

it all started with the invention of Ice9

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#205

Post by Auracle »

weakfish wrote: post #154
zdragnar wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, there's only one meeting room at the Pentagon.

Should he be in _any_ pentagon meetings? I mean, the admin is trying to deny he has any official role beyond advisor, and he’s not US born.

So someone that was, say, hired to make a website for the Pentagon can’t go and have a meeting there? Especially if they’re foreign born?

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#206

Post by Auracle »

treyd wrote: post #117
epistasis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that a private company will take the results of government produced meteorology and then have full rights for distribution. At least, that's the plan of one of the current private companies that does this, they want to be the monopoly.

It's insane. I don't understand what could possibly be the justification there.

Seems pretty clear to me - Trump is trying to cut costs for our government. He sees we’re spending all that money on forecasting and data that everyone else uses for free, and gets paid for it. Therefore, that data is worth something and the government should get a piece of the pie.

I don’t necessarily agree but it’s somewhat logical.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#207

Post by jacobolus »

ericfr11 wrote: post #168
daveguy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have said the same about the postal system, but DeJoy has been fn around with it for years. If you doge it, you can sell a private version.

US science will go down big time. Big Corp (oil, pharma,.. ) will get richer

"Big corp" will be massively harmed in the medium term, like everyone else. The NIH is critical for the pharma industry, and the USGS is critical for natural resource extraction industries (etc.). Blowing up federal agencies might juice profits for a quarter or two, but even that is pretty questionable/risky. If the whole economy goes into recession, many basic resources obtained from overseas get taxed, retaliatory tariffs slam US exports, many Americans lose jobs and whole regions lose industries, etc., it's generally bad for companies selling things.

Biggest potential winners are anyone willing to directly pay the President a kickback for massive corrupt payments from the government, anyone facing severe legal liability for past illegal actions who can buy a get-out-of-jail card, and foreign autocrats who want the US to stop protecting its own interests.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#208

Post by genewitch »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #61
dataviz1000 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a private yacht chef for 6 years. I would always source weather from https://www.metoc.navy.mil/ and plan meals around it. I'm pretty good with a Japanese chef's knife in 8 foot seas.

His cuts on dry land: ~~~

Some Mel Brooks level humor here

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#209

Post by k_roy »

jltsiren wrote: post #195
bee_rider wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fahrenheit is sort of intuitive if you think of it as somehow, impossibly, a percentage scale. 0C/32F is still decently comfortable anyway. 0F is, like, not at all comfortable. 100C is dead. 100F is the most unbearably hot temperature that isn’t immediately deadly.

100°C is somewhat uncomfortable, and it usually indicates that someone is trying to show off. 80 to 90 is much better. (In a sauna.)

Just curious on what planet you exist where 100C is only “somewhat uncomfortable”

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#210

Post by k_roy »

NortySpock wrote: post #52
artursapek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celsius is useful if you're a beaker of water. Fahrenheit is useful if you're a human.

30 is hot. 20 is nice. 10 is cold. 0 is ice. Not hard to remember for converting Celsius to how humans typically perceive temperature.

Okay. Or, hear me out.

On a scale from 0-100, you have very cold and very hot.

Or you’ve got from 0-45. Where 0 is “meh” cold and 45 is incredibly warm.

So you’ve got a nice little 0-100 scale that all humans are going to experience just living that goes from very cold to very hot.

Or you’ve got a useless 0-100 scale that the bottom just means freezing, and ignores every pain point of being really cold below that, and anything really greater than 50C only has practical applications in cooking.

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