Toadfish Monastery

Yarr,

Oi doan no, Oi carnt be 'avin enni more o these namby-pamby friendly games, 'ow a bout we orgernize an unfriendly game?

Oi aheared that Ivan the Terrible be puttin tergetha a team o' historrickle tierants, diktaters an th' loike, the Terrible Wanderers.  Why don't we challenge 'em to a little hard-ball football Pirate style, eh mateys?

Cap'n Bluenose

You have will be marooned on a desert island for a year with ample shelter, food and water, a CD player (with excellent speakers, amp etc) a fully autonomous powersupply with sufficent capacity to last the full year, but you can only take three CDs with you.  Double CDs count as one, but compilations are not allowed.

Which one's do you take?

I'll kick it off with my choices:

1. Pink Floyd - Wish Your Were Here

2. Eva Cassidy - Songbird

3. Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene

Sibling Bluenose

Dear Brian,

Thank ye fer th' new pipe, it arrived in th' mail this mornin.  Oi ave fitted it accordin ter yer instruckshuns and now it be actin as a foine kondensa.  Oi'm a bit unsure abowt the chewin gum holdin it ter the pot, but it seems ter be doin the business fer now.

Now that Oi've fixed up that part of the systum, Oi be wantin ter noe iffen ye have ani eye-dears abowt how Oi can control the rate of kombustchen in the fire pot.  Wot dyer think?

Cap'n Bluenose

Well, now I'm blushing.

I have been involved in the escalating argument thing myself, elsewhere.  I found that I ended up saying things that I really did not mean and ended up in a position that was not even close to how I really thought about the subject.

In case you were wondering this was on an Australian fishing related site where I usually promote the native fish line and I found myself arguing with those ostensibly pushing the trout line, but in retrospect I think some of them were only trying to make an argument.  In the end I found myself alienating a lot of people with whom I might well have had a lot in common.  I have made a concerted effort over the last year or so to build a few bridges and have been involved in a number of initiatives to try and get the two factions working together.  Yes we still have our differences, but we are trying to work them through by showing mutual respect to each other.

Hmmm...  sounds familiar, doesn't it? 

In this thread I hope that I may help to sow a seed.  It can take a long time to re-build trust once it has been destroyed (I can assure you, I know from personal experience) but it is worth the effort.  The first thing you have to do is admit that you do not know everything and that other people are entitled to have a different view to yourself.  Then assume good will and always try to look at things in a positive light.  The other guy just might NOT be out to get you!

Finally when you just know you're right and the other guy is wrong, stop and ask yourself are you really right?  How can you tell?  Generally I reckon it's a good idea to assume that if you just know you're right, you're not.

Sibling Bluenose

OTOH, if you're the cook, marry someone who likes your cooking!  I did, and it seems to work...

Sibling Bluenose

I'll never die until I...


...do.   

Sibling Bluenose

US$1,000,000?

Hmm, that's about 1.4 million in Aussie dollars.  All figures below in AUD

$200,000 - Pay off the mortgage
$50,000 - New car
$20,000 - New boat
$20,000 - Camper trailer.
$10,000 - Sundries - new camping equipment, fishing tackle etc

Balance $1,100,000

$200,000 - $100,000 each into my kids superannuation funds (I know that technically this is investing, but I will never be able to benefit from it, so I think that makes it OK - please don't hit me Chatty!)
$200,000 - $100,000 to my parents and $100,000 to my wife's mum
$200,000 - Donation to Diabetes Australia
$200,000 - Donation to Native Fish Australia to help fund their conservation work
$200,000 - Find some local charity that strikes my fancy and give them a lift up
$100,000 - Donate to my local CFA (Country Fire Authority) branch to buy some new equipment

It would be fun!

Sibling Bluenose

I like the Karma system.  Personally I only award positive karma, and I try to remember to give out at least one one positive stroke everytime I log on.  I do not always remember, but when I do, its not too hard to find something that someone has said that's worth a "pat on the back".

I suppose if someone said something that really P**d me off, I might think about the smite option, but frankly I would probably simply take the argument up in a pointed reply, or more likely go away for a few hours and look again to see if I really feel the same way after I have cooled down a bit.

So, in this thread what I see is Duke and Qwerty being overly antagonistic toward each other.  Guys, you have both made valid points, but going over the same thing again and again simply creates more heat than light.

I suggest you agree that you do not have the same opinion as each other and let it stop at that.  There is no "right" opinion here, indeed one of the key points of this place is that we can disagree with each other without losing mutual respect.

When we express disagreement I have found (and it did not come naturally) that the best thing is to write exactly what you want to say, damn the torpedoes, get it all off your chest, and then delete what you've written and start again.  This time think about what you have written especially from the other person's point of view.  Ask yourself, can what I am saying be misinterpreted?  Remember that written words always seem more critical and more hurtful than you think.  When we write we have that little voice in our head, we hear the emphasis that we intend, that would work if we were speaking.  But when we write, we lose all that.  Try changing the emphasis of what you said (in your head), you might be surprised at how it sounds to the other side.  Use smilies, especially when using humour, 'coz what seems an obvious joke to you , might be received as being something deliberately and offensively rude.

Enough from me for now. 

Humbly (ie with respect),

Sibling Bluenose

Rainbows are so hard to capture in a photo.  Great shot Vita!

I was having a look in my garden this evening and found this plant in flower for the first time.  what a lovely and fascinating thing!



Here is a close up showing the fine detail



Sibling Bluenose

1. What is your favorite flavor (of anything, your choice)?

Chilli

2. What would you do with $3,000 'free money'--with the proviso that you can't pay bills, all use must qualify as frivolous.

Charter a yacht in the Whitsunday Passage for a week or two (or however long US$3,000 would last.

3. Which forum member (Sibling or OWL or Pirate) would you most want to meet?

Hmm, hard question.  There are quite a few, but you ask me to narrow it down to one, so the answer is Sibling Chatty.

++++++++++++++++++++++

1. What are you most proud of?

2. Who has had the greatest influence on your personal philosophy?

3. What person, living or dead, would you most like to be able to have dinner with?

Picking up on where I left off before I went away.

First, thank you Swato for you simple explanation of the importance of CO₂ in the greenhouse effect, plus the points you and Goat Starer made about overstating the effects of global warming.  This latter is a point I have made here and elsewhere, but alas, what
passes for public debate generally misses the point.

I would like to discuss my thoughts about global warming here by referring to what is usually known as chaos theory.  Unfortunately in the media this is usually "explained" by using the "butterfly effect" example in which a butterfly flapping its wings in Outer Mongolia "causes" a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico or some such proposition.  The problem with this is that it does nothing to explain the important points about chaotic systems, that is non-linear systems, which includes a great many systems including classical ones like the orbits of the planets.

To explain my point, and at the risk of boring those who are already familiar with chaos theory, I would like to repeat a different example that illustrates what I am getting at.  Then i will bring it back to the climate and discuss the implications of that I am talking about for global warming.

Lets us conduct an experiment in which we know all the starting parameters and see how well we can predict its behaviour.

We start with two spherical fairly strong magnets mounted on non-magnetic stands above a flat surface marked out in a grid.  One magnet is painted blue and the other red.  Directly above the mid point between the magnets we suspend on a long string a steel ball bearing.  In our experiment we can conduct it in a vacuum, so wind resistance is not a factor and we can assume a perfect, frictionless string, since we can run the experiment in a computer if we want to.  The point is, we can describe all the forces in action and the positions of all components to within the boundaries of quantum uncertainty, and this experiment yields the same results.

To start we move the ball bearing to a point directly over the middle of one of the squares on the flat surface and let it go.  The ball bearing will describe a path around one or both of the magnets, perhaps a figure of eight course or whatever and when it comes to rest we paint the starting square with the colour of the magnet that the ball bearing comes to rest against.

Now what would you suppose would be the likelihood that if the first square ends up blue, that adjacent squares would also be blue?  Certainly you would think that there are likely to be more blue than red.  However, what actually happens is that there is no predictive power in what colour nearby squares may be for any square in question.  The pattern is completely random, and the kicker is, it is random at any scale!  We can go down right to the quantum level and still not achieve predictability.  Oh, we can predict with reasonable accuracy the first few movements of the ball bearing.  For example, if the previous one described a path around one magnet and then swung around the second and then back round the first and then orbited the second a few times before stopping next to it, a ball released from an adjacent position is likely to follow more or less the same path for the first movement or two, or even three, but then it is likely to depart from the previous course, and even if it ends up against the same magnet, it may well not follow the same course eventually to get there.

This is an important point about chaotic system, the lack of predictability beyond the immediate future.  The weather has now for some time been recognised as a non-linear (chaotic) system.  This is why weather predictions work OK for a few days, but once they get about a week out or so their accuracy is much less than perfect.  As we know more about the weather we will improve our ability to predict it by a small factor, but in the end there is a limit to just how far into the future predictions can be made with much more than random accuracy.

So considering the climate system, it seems to me that many of the people clamouring about climate change and the anthropogenic cause of it, seem to "forget" (if they know to start with) that making predictions about how a non-linear system will behave beyond the immediate future is an invalid exercise.  We don't even know all the factors involved sand as I have shown even if we did, our predictions are nothing more than wishful thinking if we expect reality to reflect those results.  The mathematical models that are all being used are similar to those that sometimes get used to predict the positions of the planets in the distant past or future.  Certainly the models yield results.  Its just that the real system is extremely unlikely to give the same results.

So what does this all mean for global warming?  Well IMO, we need to do a lot more basic science.  the more we know about how the system works, the better we can make predictions and the longer the predictive window will be.

We can use the limited predictive window as a guide to what we should do.  Certainly it seems likely that human induced increases in the level of CO₂ could be a factor.  It makes sense to look at ways of reducing that output.  Of, course, reducing carbon output will also have other beneficial effects such as reducing outputs of pollutants and so on, so it is a good idea anyway.

However, it is a big mistake to assume we have more than a very tenuous grasp on what is going on in the climate.  We should remember that the planet has been significantly glaciated over the last two or three million years and that glaciation over the long term seems related to continental drift.  When the continents are lumped together we have little glaciation, when they are spread apart as they are now the tendency is for glaciation.  We are currently in an interglacial period and based on the history of thelast few million nears we are nearing the end of it.  Just what effect our little input into the climate may have is not clear.  The common consensus is that we might trigger a "thermal runaway" and increased greenhouse effect as per all the doomsayers.  However, I urge caution, because we might have few years in the sun and then plunge into another ice age.

Finally, we do not even know for sure that the observed warming is in fact caused by humans.  Until we do better understand the climate we are being very brave, and perhaps a little arrogant, to claim it is all down to humans.  The system could be getting warm all on itsown and what we do make not the slightest jot of difference.  I say instead of getting all excited about hurricanes or hundred year droughts (or even thousand year droughts) we really should be doing as much as possible to understand just what is going on.  In the end, though, we would be wise to remember that even if we ever understand everything about the climate, we will still not be able to predict its behaviour in the long term.

Sibling Bluenose

Dear Big Ron,

Oi be 'avin a bot er trubbel wiv me still.  It seems that everytime Oi gets it up ter presher it springs a leek an Oi have ter stick a Band-Aid on it ter keep all the jibbers in.  Me still be more Band-Aid than metal now, and Oi was wonderin iffen ye could give me sum noice tips on 'ow ter go abowt makin a new wun.

This be very urgent as Oi 'av jess applied fer the position of Distillery Master at the Portsmouth Pirate Public School an' oi needs ter be ready fer the new term.

Cap'n Bluenose

From: Cap'n Bluenose
To: Capn Bill 'Dirk-in-the-ribs'Cullinane

Re: Distillery Master

Deer Cap'n Cullinane,

Oi wish ter apply fer the position o Distillery Master at Portsmouth Pirate Public School wot woz advertized inner Portsmouth Aaaarrggghhhus yesterdee.

Oi be a pirate o' long hexperients wiv makin the fine spirits an Oi reckon Oi can impart this essenshul skill to yer pupils in the highest tradishuns o' the Pirate Board o' Educashumen.

Oi 'ave included a sample demi-john o' me latest fine olde reserve (aged two weeks) fer yer considerahun and ter show me bone-a-fidos.

Your obedient and snivelling servent,

Cap'n Bluenose

Yarrr!

Wot abowt that all toime faveritte "Willie Winkle and the Rum Factory"?

Bags payin the king of the Oompaloompahs!

Cap'n Bluenose

Dear Cap'n cough,

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