Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

smh.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 152 posts

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#141

Post by thr0awaz »

tonyarkles wrote: post #138
grecy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha, I'm away right now, but I live in Whitehorse, I've been to Rendezvous many, many times :) My first year it didn't get above -40... daytime high temps :)

Two Yukoners in the thread! I'm way further south in Regina, but it's good to see Canadians who aren't from Vancouver or Toronto! And as a crazy question, given that there's only a population of 25k in Whitehorse... what's the tech scene like? :)

I'm interested in the tech scene in Whitehorse for... reasons... as well

What are the job prospects like out there? Is it all mining and mining-related stuff like PLC?

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#142

Post by grecy »

tonyarkles wrote: post #138
grecy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha, I'm away right now, but I live in Whitehorse, I've been to Rendezvous many, many times :) My first year it didn't get above -40... daytime high temps :)

Two Yukoners in the thread! I'm way further south in Regina, but it's good to see Canadians who aren't from Vancouver or Toronto! And as a crazy question, given that there's only a population of 25k in Whitehorse... what's the tech scene like? :)

The tech scene is.. well.. interesting.

You can really only work for the big Telco (Northwestel, owned by Bell), or the Yukon Government, or the city. Each have an overall IT team of something nearing 100 people, with lots of hardware, software, BAs, PAs, etc. etc.

Each has their pros and cons, each is incestuous and everyone knows everyone. Tons of people have worked for all three and hop back and forth as the seasons change. Once you have been in town a couple of years everyone knows you.

There is also a couple of small development shops.

A few people have worked really hard to get a maker space going (Yukonstruct) and from all reports it's doing great. Lots of members, lots of workshops on programming, 3D printing, etc. etc.

The money in the North is decent, and I only pay ~20% income tax, so it's a great place to sock away savings.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#143

Post by bulatb »

loverofthings wrote: post #127
bulatb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eat your vegetables" is never the answer. In climate change, because of the coordination problems, "Eat your vegetables" is so emphatically not the answer that it shouldn't even be discussed as anything except a desperate, ineffective stopgap. People will keep eating candy. They will never eat their vegetables, unless they taste like candy. It's pointless to imagine worlds in which they eat their vegetables and ever…

Vegetables are expensive because subsidies are small. There's no free market in agriculture. I'm not exactly sure how candies are causing climate change.

Sorry, I don't follow. Are you extending the metaphor or answering literally? Candy is the fossil fuel-intensive lifestyle and eating vegetables is choosing to cut back.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#144

Post by thisacctforreal »

grecy wrote: post #142
tonyarkles wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two Yukoners in the thread! I'm way further south in Regina, but it's good to see Canadians who aren't from Vancouver or Toronto! And as a crazy question, given that there's only a population of 25k in Whitehorse... what's the tech scene like? :)

The tech scene is.. well.. interesting. You can really only work for the big Telco (Northwestel, owned by Bell), or the Yukon Government, or the city. Each have an overall IT team of something nearing 100 people, with lots of hardware, software, BAs, PAs, etc. etc. Each has their pros and cons, each is incestuous and everyone knows everyone. Tons of people have worked for all three and hop back and forth as the seaso…

I think there's ~50-200 software developers up here between freelancers and businesses? Of that maybe half of them are fulltime.

I know of a couple webshops that are mostly WordPress/Drupal-based, mostly running Mac+Linux.

I think Make IT is the most serious custom software vendor, they ship some Scala but I believe are mostly Windows-based. http://www.makeit.com/

FWIW NWTel is also Windows-based, but I'd wager that per capita the Yukon has more Linux users due to the more rugged/self-sufficient/off-grid appeal.

YuKonstruct also opened a co-working office on Strickland called (co)space, they offer desks and a few private offices, though those might be filled. https://cospacenorth.com/

I just got a small office down the street from them for $300/month, but I think most small office spaces go for $400-500.

Renting a house is $1,400+, but the vacancy rate is less than 2% for detached houses and townhouses, IIRC. Our gov't releases handy stat booklets, and has one for rentals, so maybe I'll get around to scanning it this week.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#145

Post by posterboy »

sinh wrote: post #139
briga wrote: post #4

Using events like this to illustrate that global warming is happening is about as scientifically significant as when Trump used the recent US cold snap to imply that global warming isn't happening. I'm not saying climate change doesn't exist--it certainly does--but outlying events like this aren't by themselves particularly unusual. "Normal", after all, is at the top of a bell curve, and deviations from normal should…

There is a qualitative difference which makes it beyond improbable that the changes we observe happen by chance. Let's say your assumption is that the things we observe happen by chance. Now, we have, say 100 years of temperature records. If only the last year just happens to be the warmest year of all observations, there would be an 1:100 probability that this was by chance. Now, Wikipedia says: "A 2013 article publ…

I think OP was implying that your kind of reasoning is desperately needed, not just isolated evidence (although, I didn't read the article yet). Alas, your comment is preaching to the choir, not the audience OP might have had in mind. Although, the article is on an academic site -- so much for the audience.

xkcd had a nice illustration: https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#146

Post by spiralx »

poster123 wrote: post #42

Doesn't warming of the coldest parts of the world mean there will be more usable land? I have read that global warming could have benefits for countries such as Russia.

Usable land is not the same as arable land - the soil in these regions is not capable of supporting anything like modern agriculture, and wouldn't be for centuries. Soil is an incredibly complex mixture of stuff, and takes a long time to 'grow'.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#147

Post by api »

toasterlovin wrote: post #112
api wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you save that money instead it goes into a pool that is invested in things that then go and spend it elsewhere.

So your position is that personal consumption does not result in additional resource usage?

I'm not completely sure. I just know how modern economies work. If I don't use it, the economy optimizes so that someone else will.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#148

Post by erikpukinskis »

svskeptic wrote: post #109
tntn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I am religious. I'd like to gain some insight into exactly what kind of serious cherry picking I'm doing. Could you provide some examples of what you had in mind when you wrote your comment? I have a hard time understanding how someone can get a degree in religion without noticing how unfalsifiable most religions are. I'd also be interested to hear what great new evidence…

Lets start with why you think the particular religion you practice is the one? If you think, all are the same, then you are now moving towards existence of a superior being and possibly creationism.

Pretty much all major religions are compatible with each other. You can move towards a particular sect if you have specific needs. A polytheist Christian would tend towards Catholicism, etc.

I don’t think you need to adhere closely to one single tradition in order to be “religious” if that’s what you’re getting at.

To answer your question directly though, I was raised in a Christian church. I adhere to some basic form of that. Humility, forgiveness, we were made in Gods image, the original sin of the knowledge of good and evil, etc.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#149

Post by tonyarkles »

thisacctforreal wrote: post #144
grecy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech scene is.. well.. interesting. You can really only work for the big Telco (Northwestel, owned by Bell), or the Yukon Government, or the city. Each have an overall IT team of something nearing 100 people, with lots of hardware, software, BAs, PAs, etc. etc. Each has their pros and cons, each is incestuous and everyone knows everyone. Tons of people have worked for all three and hop back and forth as the seaso…

I think there's ~50-200 software developers up here between freelancers and businesses? Of that maybe half of them are fulltime. I know of a couple webshops that are mostly WordPress/Drupal-based, mostly running Mac+Linux. I think Make IT is the most serious custom software vendor, they ship some Scala but I believe are mostly Windows-based. http://www.makeit.com/ FWIW NWTel is also Windows-based, but I'd wager that…

I was just poking around the YuKonstruct site. This is incredible! I wouldn't have expected something that awesome in such a small town. It beats the pants off the Makerspace in Regina!

Thanks, you two, for the insight. I have idly looked at the Northwestel careers page off-and-on for a year or two, but I'm not sure I'd make a very good "company man".

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#150

Post by bleachedsleet »

tntn wrote: post #108
bleachedsleet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and flat earth theory also has a lot in common with religion. I'm sorry, but it is impossible to be a truly intelligent person that also believes in any religion without serious cherry picking or psychological compartmentalization. I say this as someone that loves studying religion (I have a degree in it), but I study it as an artform of human expression or an oddity that once was, not as a serious pursuit of self…

I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I am religious. I'd like to gain some insight into exactly what kind of serious cherry picking I'm doing. Could you provide some examples of what you had in mind when you wrote your comment? I have a hard time understanding how someone can get a degree in religion without noticing how unfalsifiable most religions are. I'd also be interested to hear what great new evidence…

I think your example of Maxwell makes my point. Let's assume Christianity for a moment, since Maxwell was a Christian. In order to accept the consensus of evolutionary theory while still maintaining one's faith, one must either cherry pick ("the Genesis account was wrong"), compartmentalize ("I accept evolution as true and ignore the conflict with my faith") or appeal to the problem of interpretation that all religions face ("Genesis was obviously not meant to be taken literally and is mere metaphor"). The last option tends to fall under cherry picking itself since it changes with time. Until evolution was accepted as fact, it was mostly taken for granted that the Genesis account was literal. Now days, unless you adhere to creationism, you must assume part of your theology to be metaphorical under no rational basis or risk being outed as a fool that believes in fairy tales. Thus, while Maxwell was a great scientist and definitely had smarts in that area, it would seem to me that he compartmentalized, accepting a philosophy as true that his own scientific pursuit would otherwise find false. A modern example would be William Lane Craig who I find to be a very eloquently formed speaker and obviously quite learned, but for some reason, ignores basic scientific truths in order to preserve his faith.
Post reply on HN