The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2009-10-29 Reply Admin

AdT:
Global Warmer:
Years ago I remember something similar being said about cows.

And it's people who raise these cows even though the human metabolism works fine without beef or cow's milk.

Global Warmer:
To think, people actually pay someone else to not expel gases or to plant a tree to expel “counter-effect” gases so they can continue to live the way they want expelling all the gases they want.

Yes, some will be able to do just that (if they have the money), but not everyone as CO2 certificates will be made more scarce. You do realize that in a free market, prices increase if demand exceeds supply by a larger margin?

Global Warmer:
Seems to me, weather people can’t accurately tell the weather for tomorrow in my little town, let alone on a global scale, over decades or centuries.

There is nothing to predict, the temperatures are already rising. This is an evidenced fact.

There is also in the scientific community no serious controversy over the primary cause of this increase. I recently read an open letter by some born-again US Christian who claimed that the temperature increase was due to the "Sun burning out" marking the end of the world. However, scientific evidence from the internationally renowned observatory in Davos, Switzerland, does not support this interpretation. In fact, the Sun's intensity has decreased slightly over the course of the last 20 years, on average (there are always small fluctuations). Solar irradiation used to be closely correlated to global average temperature, but no longer - now temperatures are rising even though radiation immissions are stagnant or slightly recessing. The only explanation for this fact that has stood up to significant scientific scrutiny is the greenhouse hypothesis. This does not "prove" that it's true, of course (for one, no scientific theory is ever considered "proven"), but this makes it very clearly the preferred explanation of the phenomenon.

Global Warmer:
I think we should all do what we can to help the environment and conserve natural resources but not to the point of destroying our economy (actually I think the U.S. economy is the primary target of Kyoto)

We had (and to an extent still have) the same naysayers in Germany. As you may or may not know, Social Democrats and Greens won the 1998 election and formed the so-called red-green coalition. This coalition passed a number of laws including:

"100,000 roof program": Subsidies for the installation of photovoltaic panels on rooftops

"eco tax": increased taxation of fuel and electricity with the proceeds being used to help the pensions system

"energy injection law" (Energieeinspeisegesetz): this law forced the major power companies to buy electricity from owners of renewable sources of electricity at government-mandated minimum prices (which are designed to decline over time)

carbon certificates: The government mandated that certificates would be necessary to produce carbon dioxide on a large scale, for example in coal power plants, steel mills etc.

When these laws were passed, opposition parties claimed that they would have disastrous effects on the competitiveness of the German economy and cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

At the same time, the Bush government has blocked almost all attempts to reduce the US' consumption of fossil fuels or subsidy renewable energies.

Incidentally, however, the German economy grew faster than the US economy in 2006, something which did not happen often in the last 20 years. The number of unemployed, which had temporarily increased, has recessed at an historically unprecedented rate. At the same time, Germany has acquired the first rank in the booming industry of wind power plants and the second rank in the equally booming industry of photovoltaics (after Japan). There are now hundreds of thousands of jobs related to renewable energies. Despite some turbulences, German car manufacturers are doing well.

Even though most of these effects cannot be causally attributed to the eco-laws, it is now very clear that the economical disaster that some had foretold has simply not happened. In fact, the ideological opposition to CO2-reduction policies that used to be characteristic of the largest opposition party at the time (and now government party), the CDU (Conservatives) has waned to a degree that the CDU member and German chancellor Angela Merkel has actually set more ambitious CO2 reduction goals than even the predecessor government.

Let's look at other industries, for example the automobile industry. I can count the number of Chrysler or any other US automobile brand vehicles that I see in Stuttgart, Germany, over the course of one month, on one hand. Now one could assume that since Germany is famous for its large automobile industry, Germans would simply preferentially buy German cars for patriotic reasons. To an extent that may be true, but by and large, one would be mistaken. I see plenty of cars from Japanese, French, Italian and even Korean producers. How come?

It's quite simple, actually. In Germany, US cars have a reputation (exceptions notwithstanding, this reputation is generally well-deserved, I might add) as gas-guzzling road monsters. Of course, not all Germans fit your clichè of the frog-kissing tree hugger, so why would that cause such bad market acceptance? And again the answer is simple: Due to the high gas taxes, most people simply cannot or do not want to afford cars that barely manage 22 mpg or less (in German terms, that woulld be about 11l/100km or more). Those who do don't usually like Dodges etc. for other reasons, but that's a different story.

As is mentioned in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", a majority of existing US car models do not even meet the Chinese energy efficiency standards (nor EU standards). The EU is intent on making the existing standards more strict. Other countries in the developed and the developing world (with the notable exception of the US) have done the same or expressed an intent to do so. In fact, some US states have done the same because they do not accept the eco-oblivious attitudes of the Bush government and don't want to wait for legislation on a federal scale.

Sanctions for violations can include outright bans (not likely) and, much more likely and already practised, stiff taxation. As a matter of fact, the German government is currently working on legislation that will increase owner taxes for cars that emit a lot of carbon dioxide (which is for practical purposes equivalent to saying energy-inefficient cars).

What does this mean for US car producers? If they continue to maintain their Reality Distortion Field and insist that CO2 or gas mileage are of no particular concern to their business, then this means further loss of market share in foreign markets and further marginalization on an international scale. Actually, the big US car producers have lost market share even in domestic markets as conflicts in the Middle East such as the Iraq War have caused gas prices to soar. If this effect is still less pronounced than in other countries, it is mostly due to gas taxes which are still very low in the US compared to other developed countries.

Let's take a look at another country's automobile industry - that of Japan. Japan has some of the strictest automobile energy efficiency laws. Japanese producers have consequently taken energy efficiency much more important than US producers. One Japanese producer, Toyota, has recently come forth with the world's first industry series hybrid cars which use a supplementary electrical engine to increase gas mileage. One of the two current models, the Toyota Prius, does over 50 mpg. Toyota's market share is on the rise in all major markets. Moreover, while US producers are fledgling, Toyota is the most profitable car producer worldwide.

To cut a long story short, even if the US government does not pass more strict eco-laws, the global changes in policy that have happened, do happen and will happen will still have a profound effect on the competitive viability of US industries. Those companies who have understood this will stay in the business. Those that do not will perish or at least fade into irrelevancy. Even a superpower like the US cannot live off its domestic market alone - not while you still need other countries to accept $$$$$$ in return for oil, anyway. A trade deficit as huge as that of the US can be maintained for some time while foreigners are still keen on the USD, but in the longer term, if the US cannot support its currency production with exported goods, the US dollar will lose further value and you will get less and less oil or any other good from a foreign country for every dollar that you spend. Some US polticians, the Imperialists, say that if foreign countries will not sell their resources to the US in sufficient quantities, then the US, being a superpower, can just wage a war and take said resources by force. But the Iraq War has shown how well that works after all. And let's not forget what happened to other empires such as the Roman Empire and the British Empire.

Not passing eco-laws will not prevent these forces from acting upon the US economy. On the contrary. While in the short term this makes it easier for US producers to slow down their decline by counter-balancing losses in foreign markets with relative stability in the domestic market, in the longer term this will merely disincent them from adapting to the inevitable changes. It's not hard to predict for the strategical mind which I consider myself to be what kind of damage control the US goverment would actually exercise if it were worth its money: To issue laws that force US industries to adapt to the changes in international demand at a high rate but still sufficiently slow to prevent them from getting into deep financial trouble.

If the US government does not do this, then all wishful thinking aside, only those manufacturers who have wisened up on these issues and changed their long-term strategies (such as, for instance, Intel Corp. since Paul Otellini has taken over, and Apple Computers) will continue to prosper or even be able to effect a comeback. (And of course, those manufacturers whose business does not have much to do with ecological questions will not be affected much.)

Which leads me to one last and personal point on this topic: I have heard others here in Germany advocate a boycott of US products as long as the US does not take steps to protect the climate. But I am the happy owner of a highly energy efficient PowerBook G4 and the soon-to-be very happy owner of a highly energy efficient Mac mini. My personal opinion is that if a company has learned its lessons, it makes no sense to punish it for what its government may or may not be doing. As far as Apple and post-Prescott-Intel are concerned, this is clearly the case. Both have been making fantastic and energy efficient products lately IMHO.

Global Warmer:
despite what you have been told, all scientists do not believe the whole global warming thing.

Which are about as plentiful as the number of geologists who think that the Earth was zapped into existence some 6000 years ago. (In addition to the fact that they all seem to have Big Contracts with Big Oil.)

Interesting, but the US conditions actually remind me of the German WWII cryptology conditions, as in Ratcliff's Delusions of Intelligence, except about sustainability.

2009-10-29 Reply Admin

Global Warmer:
Funny how most people that commented on my post about moose and cows are advocating that we all become vegetarians, as if that is going to solve the problem of cow and moose farts. So lets say we all do become vegetarians, do we wipe out the cows and moose, make them extinct? I think another group of tree huggers would have a problem with that (hint: PETA). Also noticed the hostilities towards the U.S., European arrogance is incredible, or is it jealousy? By the way, the United States used lots of oil long before George Bush came along. As I recall Al Gore even owned stock in oil (and may still).

So? No-one has said otherwise on this thread.

Global Warmer:
The person that left the dissertation on German economy and how the government solves all. I am not going to take the time to research all your so called facts but I am certain you are making it out to be far more rosy then it really is. Just for the record though, most Americans do not look to the government to solve all our problems. In fact we have found that the government can screw up a wet dream. Government is far more wasteful then any private industry and government regulation, or over regulation, more often then not leads to some other problem that needs to be fixed.

Really? Medicare's 2% overhead is greater than the 20+% overhead of private insurance? Also, many of the "problems" are not really problems: I can imagine some people saying during Reconstruction, "You're forcing us to desegregate?" "Yes, it is a violation of all that we hold dear as a nation." "Segregation is not a problem, we've had it for decades." "It is a problem and we will solve it, even if we must occupy the South in order to do it." "Segregation isn't a problem, the real problem is you violating our right to segregate." That is why the First Reconstruction, directly after the Civil War, failed and why the backlash from the second, from Brown v Board of Education through Nixon at least, sparked a massive backlash that ended the Great Society program and propelled Reagan to the White House: The problem the South perceived was not the injustice and terrorism caused and required by apartheid, it was that the good whitefolk who did the terrorism were the ones being blamed for it rather than the Blacks they were terrorising. For instance, consider the reason Ben "Beast" Butler was so reviled in the South: It was not that the ladies of New Orleans were insulting American troops because they were liberal (for the period and region at least) that was the perceived problem, it was the fact that they were held accountable for it on his orders.

Global Warmer:
You mentioned the U.S. auto industry, guess what, I live in Detroit and that industry is dying but not because the cars they produce suck down so much more gas then foreign competitors (that was a flat out lie on your part). They are faltering because of the ridiculous concessions they made to the liberal labor unions. I am not blaming the unions they did there job of getting their people as much as possible, it was the car companies fault for allowing it.

Really? Did UAW tell the companies to pay 20+% overhead on Health Insurance? Everyone in the industry including Toyota and Saab were quickly bailed out by their governments except for Ford, GM, and Chrysler, because people like Senator Vitter decided that it was a good time to do some union-busting. That was why the companies faltered, that and them not listening to UAW research saying that people might like to buy smaller and more efficient cars, and it could well be argued that UAW might have managed the three better than management did in those years.

Global Warmer:
I have a friend that owns a business in Germany, he imports games and distributes them. From what he tells me the U.S. automakers are in pretty much the same boat as German businesses and for the same reasons. Things going good, the business doesn’t mind making certain concessions without looking to how it will affect the future. Only in Germany’s case they signed the concessions into law so all businesses must suffer, large and small.

Is it suffering to have to treat the working class as people rather than as serfs? Losing money by not alienating workers from their rights is no more suffering in my view than losing money by not cheating on your taxes or by not refusing to serve minorities as a business. For an extreme analogy, one's right to keep and bear arms ends well before one murders police officers, simply because someone tells one the cops are planning to confiscate one's arms. Likewise, the right to run a business is conditional on respecting the rights of the employees, shareholders, customers, and others. As an Australian, I do not approve of US policies on unions unless they have changed since 2008, but what can I expect when a union that strikes for better safety measures (the ATC union, PATCO) is fired. If the ATCs had gone on strike in september 2001 to protest abysmal airport security, people would probably still not approve of it.

Global Warmer:
That brings me to the person that said something to the effect of “even if humans are only causing 20% of greenhouse gases...”. My point exactly, we don’t know what is causing the so-called “global warming” (I don’t think there really is any warming other then natural but for the sake of argument we will say there is.). If your car makes a faint but strange sound on occasion are you going to start replacing parts on it until you find the one that makes that sound go away? No, of course your not, that could get very expensive, time consuming, waste of resources and energy. I know the global warming nuts want to think that all scientists, except those being paid by “big oil” of course, believe man is causing global warming but that simply is not true. In fact I heard a report today that said of the scientists that believe global warming is occurring less then half believe man is causing it (that was on NPR which is VERY liberal).

Really? I have also heard NPR and its people say that Social Security was bankrupt or close to it, neither of which are true, and which are in fact not even conservative but outright reactionary myths* designed to provide cover for povatising the program. Overall, the impression I have of NPR is that it is mostly "moderate", in the vein of "if Dick Cheney is a treasonous war criminal" (very arguable) "it follows that the Democrats must also be". Also, Big Oil has bought the National Science Teachers and Educators (or whatever they are called). And, from Professor Steven Dutch of UWi/Green Bay comes the fact that Oil Company scientists have been systematically wrong prior to this, when the last gasps of opposition to the theory of Tectonic Plates came from the vaunted Applied Geologists, mostly petroleum geologists**, and that over an issue that did not affect the companies' bottom lines (in fact, if someone did develop an alternative to Oil (eg, fusion power stored in Dimethyl Furan) what would happen is that the oil companies would be able to sell their oil for much more per barrel, solely for use in petrochemicals, and have just as much chance as anyone of being at the top in DMF on the reasoning, "Who else has the experience in chemistry on the required scale?"). * The proper Conservative opinion would be "I don't like it but it has worked well for years and it is not in trouble, so let's keep it." A reactionary, on the other hand, might say "Social Security? SOCIAL Security? What is this, the Soviet Union?" or "In my day, we didn't waste money on these new-fangled communist programs like Social Security and Desegregation, and we got along fine," (during the Mississippi Burning search, the Governors of Mississippi and Alabama actually held a press conference to say that they believed the missing students were in Cuba, and Ronald Reagan advertised on Television his belief that Medicare, efficient health insurance for the elderly, was the vanguard of a communist dictatorship; Margaret Thatcher believed that society was a myth and that heedless self-interest was the best economics by default) or "Look, the rest of communism failed in '91, how can Soc Sec not be bankrupt yet" (perhaps the internet is a hotbed of ignorant morons). ** http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Can-Teach.HTM Full disclosure, I am neither an academic nor a practical scientist yet.

Global Warmer:
Finally, the person that compared extrapolation of climate and weather patterns to the statistical analysis of tossing a coin, are you serious? Do you honestly believe there are any similarities between the two?

There is more similarity between climate and statistical coin-tossing than between climate and weather. Climatology is like coin-tossing except with more like having several dice per day (max temp, min temp, precipitation et cetera) with loading that varies based on where one is, what the previous rolls are, et cetera, and you having to work out what the averages, totals, et cetera are for each of the dice for the season, year, et cetera. Weather, on the other hand, is like the dice being rolled once and having to call it.

2010-07-15 Reply Admin

Word Web thing is not a WTF. The True WTF is that there are people who actually are dumb enough to violate that licence... or who are 'confused' as was put here.

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