Jump to content

Ash Lael

Member
  • Posts

    1,964
  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

About Ash Lael

  • Birthday 02/16/1985

Retained

  • E Equals MC What

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Ash Lael's Achievements

Well-Actually War Trall

Well-Actually War Trall (13/17)

  1. A reaction to the emails from Hans von Storch, who resigned as editor of Climate Research after a poor quality sceptical paper was published there: "Going through the files, which due to the sheer size I can do only in a sampling mode, the mails begin in the late 1990s and extend to about today. They are all mails to/from Phil Jones. There are a number of problematic statements, which will be discussed in the media and the blogosphere. I found the style of communication revealing, speaking about other people and their ideas, joining forces to "kill" papers, exchanges of "improving" presentations without explaining. Also mails from/to Eduardo Zorita and myself are included; also we have been subject of frequent mentioning, usually not in a flattering manner. Interesting exchanges, and evidences, are contained about efforts to destroy "Climate Research"; that we in the heydays of the hockeystick debate shared our ECHO-G data with our adversaries; and that Mike Mann was successful to exclude me from a review-type meeting on historical reconstructions in Wengen (demonstrating again his problematic but powerful role of acting as a gatekeeper.) I would assume that more interesting issues will be found in the files, and that a useful debate about the degree of politicization of climate science will emerge. A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or assessment activities like IPCC." I recommend searching for emails about Storch at the linked site.
  2. Originally Posted By: Poached Salmon This whole thread strikes me as rabble rousing to be honest. Nothing is more fulfilling to a skeptic than to toss a live grenade in a room of altruists and walk away. Ash might not check this "discussion" for a year or more. The direction it takes is pre-ordained, why bother? A little early to be declaring me gone, don't you think? Quick point for those calling BS: Please, follow the link I posted at the start of this thread. Look through the mountains of emails, mostly banal. You seriously think someone faked or even "carefully selected" them? Also, the CRU has confirmed that they're legit. Quote: You say you have a dog in this fight as a skeptic. No offense, but I still don't see how that makes you involved. If anything, it would make you uninterested and uninvolved. The world is a big place filled with lots of people. Why do you care so much what a bunch of folks are talking about? What is it about this particular issue that concerns you? My government is days away from potentially imposing a tax on the air, for a start. But never mind that, that's not really what gets me. What gets me angry is the deceit. My government is telling me that unless I accept their tax, the seas will rise six metres. They're telling me 97% of our agriculture will be wiped out. They're spending millions on the pipe dream of "clean coal". And the scientists who are supposed to be interested only in objective truth? Professor David Karoly, one of the two main "public faces" of climate science here in Australia recently claimed that there was not one scientific paper that seriously contradicted the claims of the IPCC. In fact, there are hundreds (despite the efforts of Wigley and others to shut sceptical scientists out). The other public face, Professor Will Steffen, asserted that there was no debate about the role of CO2 in the climate change research community. He said this as an excuse to avoid debating a member of the climate change research community on that very topic. What these emails show is that Karoly and Steffen are not the exception, but the rule. This debate is not the scientists vs the sceptics. It's the establishment vs the outsiders. The warm-mongers are trying desperately to cling to their supremacy in the climate research community, and are prepared to lie, hide, delete, and distort in order to do so. One of the things that really struck me reading the emails was how paranoid these guys are of sceptics. They're constantly worrying that someone or other may secretly be a sceptic, may no longer be "onside", or may not be "sound". They feel they are under siege. It's not about the science anymore for these guys. It's about their team vs the other guys. Of course, I should be fair, and point out this isn't the case for all. Keith Briffa in particular comes across quite well in the correspondence, and seems much more willing to admit uncertainty and consider the merits of McIntyre's critiques. He still hates sceptics, but he does at least seem like a good scientist. If there were more like him and less like Jones, I'd be much less passionate about this whole issue. Does that answer your question?
  3. Originally Posted By: Thuryl Honestly, all of this seems like pretty standard academic politics that goes on in absolutely any field. There's nothing pointing to any kind of grand conspiracy. Oh, there's nothing grand about this conspiracy. No one's motivated by money or a desire to de-industrialise the world. From all I've read - and I've read a lot of these emails now - it seems very much to be about ego. The most telling quote: "IPCC, me and whoever will get accused of being political, whatever we do. As you know, I'm not political. If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences. This isn't being political, it is being selfish." - Phil Jones Basically, these guys have lost the scientific detachment from their own work, and have reacted to sceptics (particularly Steve McIntyre) poking holes in it by becoming very defensive. They don't admit flaws, they work to bar their critics entry to major journals, they hide their data. Yes, I'm sure that this happens in other fields and situations. But that doesn't make it benign. The effect has been that they've created the impression that their conclusions are a lot more definite than they really are. This impression is the basis of the political movement towards imposing carbon emission limits.
  4. So either a hacker or a disgruntled insider got a hold of 61MB of documents and emails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. For those who have no idea what that is, it's one of the main bases of climate research, and where many of the scientists work whose studies are the basis of the whole idea of climate change and global warming. These files were posted online about a day and a half ago, and blog sites all over the internet have gone crazy tearing through them. Climate sceptics are claiming that they show severe misconduct on the part of these scientists, including manipulating data to get the results they wanted, and then refusing to release the raw data when subjected to Freedom of Information Act requests. Now, for those who don't know, I have a horse in this race. I'm a climate sceptic. But I don't believe you need to be one to be disturbed by some of the things that these scientists have privately admitted to. I personally think that these emails call the whole basis of climate change policy into question. But feel free to read and interpret for yourself. You can search the database of emails at: http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=154 There's loads, most are benign, many are boring. But some raise big red flags for me. Here's a list of some of the quotes that concern me the most (bolding is mine). “The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.” – Kevin Trenberth “We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!” – Kevin Trenberth “If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” – Tom Wigley “The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well - frequently as I see it. I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” – Phil Jones “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” – Phil Jones “Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.” - Mick Kelly “Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip.” – Tom Wigley ”Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….” – Michael Mann “And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.” – Phil Jones “Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn't bother with that. Also ignored Francis' comment about all the other series looking similar to MBH. The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate ! Cheers Phil PS I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!” – Phil Jones ”Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise. I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!” – Phil Jones **** So what do you think? Internet overreaction or legitimate concern?
  5. But he's posting publicly. Everyone would have the keyword.
  6. Interesting game. A couple of points: Grouping people together knowing each other's identities has a serious drawback where one careless person can screw over their teammate as well as themselves. This lead to Marlenny virtually learning my identity before I did. I'm actually inclined to wonder if this isn't a minor factor in the poor performance of the Anama/DLs. The DLs need to be changed. They take way too long to find their friends. Domont is lame. Here's my suggestion for fixing them. Mage and Blademaster are unchanged. Domont now has the ability where he gets a dedicated account that he can use to post in the main thread to give the Blademaster and Mage orders and information publicly without any of them being aware of each other's identity. This would make Domont a very unique and interesting role to play, and add a lot of intrigue, I think.
  7. Omelette, you're friends with Ronaldo. I'm sending someone after you.
  8. Ronaldo exists. He's one of my targets. Thuryl is allied with him, I'm pretty sure. Come on, people. I killed goddamn Vahkos before he laid a hand on any of you. A little gratitude here?
  9. I'm poisoned, and need an antidote fast. I will offer any help of any kind I can if someone can provide it to me. I would also like the identity of Ronaldo, for obvious reasons.
  10. Originally Posted By: *i Plot is the obvious reason and violates one of the requirements. There's no reason the character needs to be named "Shanker", then. Or, as I mentioned before, the character's function within the game could be handed off to another role, if Shanker's mage status is going to be problematic. Originally Posted By: *i I could restructure the Anama to take Shanker out of their target list, but I'm not sure of the idea of any role having absolutely no enemies whatsoever. ... Playing the game should have some risk for every role, even if that risk is only hypothetical. You wouldn't think it from the games that have been played so far, but dying isn't the only way to lose, and Shanker has a large risk of losing. This game can get pretty bloodthirsty, and trying to stem that tide for five days is a big ask. Does she need the extra challenge of having to deal with enemies after her? What does that add to the game? Originally Posted By: *i The more palatable way from a plot point of view is to make killing her not worth the trouble. Right now, only two people even have a chance of taking her down: Ronaldo and Micklebur. Both would have a very hard time of doing it. I'm skeptical that "It might not work" will be a good enough reason to dissuade the Micklebur. I have a hunch that most players, while playing Shanker, will agree. Originally Posted By: *i Also, whoever plays this role is going to have to make some sacrifices. Some players are, by design, dedicated killers. At best, Shanker can help to keep them confused about who their targets are. Nonetheless, this is unsustainable from the long view. Information will inevitably get out. The question is how long is the long view. Shanker's job is to stretch it past 5 days. Anyway, I've said my piece. Agree or not, adjust or not, it's your game. But if you choose to keep Shanker on Micklebur's hit list, and the next game is just as nasty, brutish, and short as previous ones, I reserve the right to say "I told you so." Also, the Channeler seriously needs to be brought in in some form. That's the coolest idea in this thread.
  11. Originally Posted By: *i Your point is all well and good, but comes without a solution that preserves balance of the Anama and keeps the storyline. Well, I'm just trying to get some consensus on the problem before I start suggesting solutions that you may or may not like. You've got a tendency to make changes without explaining why, which doesn't bother me, but it does mean that coming up with productive suggestions takes a little more discussion. The thing is that for the Shanker to work as an alliance-forming role (which she needs to in order to have any hope of slowing down alternate routes), she needs to pretty public about her role. The Anama may well be able to win by leaving her alone, but why would they? If she hopes to win, she's going to need to be out and proud, and that's the equivalent of painting a bullseye on her forehead. It doesn't matter that they need an item to bring her down, they'll find it, or an ally who can do it. Safety for a role does not come through immunities or protections in this game, it comes from a lack of enemies. And as for feeding the Anama alternative targets - not exactly in keeping with the purpose of the role, is it? She's supposed to STOP people from dying. There are ways to get around this, depending on what else you hold sacred. For example, there's no reason that the Shanker has to be a mage, which seems the most obvious solution to me. Or if you are committed to keeping the Shanker as a mage, the peacekeeping role could be taken on by another character - maybe even Oliver?
  12. I like most of the changes, but I'm not sure about the Shanker still being a target of the Micklebur. I don't necessarily mind that Shanker has enemies, but Micklebur is a powerful role, a guaranteed role, and starts with one ally. He does need some kind of item to take Shanker down (unless the Priest's ability works on immunities?), but it's still enough to scare most players into hiding their role - which is going to make the role pretty ineffective at slowing the game down. If the Shanker needs an enemy, make it a non-guaranteed role or a less powerful role, I think. EDIT: I'm not sure why Dionicio needed changing, either. He seems like he's been one of the more successful roles.
  13. Also, regarding Craftmaster Strine: I see no situation in which he would make a rod or a box in preference to a wand. You might as well just take them out of the list. EDIT: Also, note that the Nephil Activist still needs the Shanker dead. I think this is manageable, but I'm not sure if it's intentional.
  14. The thing to keep in mind with Oliver is that alliances win in this game. The best winning strategy for him is to trade items to his allies for cheap to help them win, and then they buy overpriced items at the end with all the loot they've acquired to help him win. If you want the role to operate outside of alliances and trade with everyone, this cannot be a viable strategy. One way is to make it so coins are not recovered from dead players - they are simply lost. Thus, if the coin requirement is high enough, Oliver cannot simply stick with the same team of five who pool their resources. Nor can he wait to trade, because people will start dying. He has to go out and hustle. I also think that the moderator shop probably shouldn't be introduced for now. See if we can get Oliver to work as a trader properly before we start giving him competition.
  15. Rowen: It was touch and go. If PGLB hadn't screwed up, you would have been gone.
×
×
  • Create New...