Tag: Editor in Chief

Mother Knows Best

Though she denies it now, my mother once claimed she avoided all left turns. They are surely a pain in the butt, especially where my parents live. Left turns meaning crossing multiple lanes of oncoming traffic.

Now, as it turns out, she has company. UPS is streamlining their business by following my mom!

From ZDNet:

In a CIO Sessions interview, United Parcel Service CIO Dave Barnes tells ZDNet editor in chief Dan Farber that his company will save $600 million per year through package flow technologies that include preloading vehicles in the morning, routing drivers according to volume and favoring right-hand turns.

I suppose, when there are enough left turns involved, the savings can be substantial. But isn’t this what people mean when they talk about nit picking?

Global Warming Revisited

This is probably the only controversial subject I address on the blog – Global Warming. I think I’ve made it clear I’m a skeptic, and the others I know who forecast the weather are also mainly skeptics.

It’s not a small thing. If I’m wrong, I’m asking you to sit by and doom the planet. If the Global Warming proponents are wrong, they’ve asked that we cripple our industrial base, allow others to continue to spew ‘greenhouse gasses’… and all for naught.

Every time I feel my position is solid, I think of reading things like:

Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

That always gives me second thoughts.

Now there’s more… but it’s nothing I ever expected. It’s an eye opening article in the Telegraph from the UK. In case the link ‘expires,’ I will place the actual text at the bottom of this entry.

Here’s a little excerpt:

However, her (Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California) unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

I have often feared Global Warming is a politically and not scientifically motivated

campaign.

I’ll keep my ears open for more on this.

Continue reading “Global Warming Revisited”

Internet Users Under Pressure

I subscribe to a few email lists. One of them, a low traffic affair, is Sky and Telescope Magazine’s comet bulletins. When a new comet is discovered, they’re right there with information… often more than I want or can comprehend for comets too dim to be seen by anything I’ll ever get my hands on.

However, just seeing this stuff interests me, and from time-to-time gives me something extra to talk about on TV. Martha would say, “It’s a good thing.”

Somehow today, this list opened up and began spewing virus and mail bounce information. That was it. Before long dozens of people were sending messages which said, “unsubscribe” to the list, and those messages were getting forwarded to everyone.

There are instructions on how to unsubscribe, but that seemed too challenging. Within a few hours, out came the do-gooders, telling people that every message they sent was another that everyone got.

More unsubscribes based on that.

Then came the loudmouths who berated the unsubscribers.

More unsunscribe notes followed that.

Now, it’s a mix… but a larger quantity of email than I’ve gotten since the list began! In fact, I’ve now gotten over 200 emails from this mess-up. Here’s as typical message at this stage:

1. Thanks for ADDING to the mayhem aj. Smart.

—–Original Message—–

From: Kayla Folkins [mailto:kayla@investmentbuildersllc.com]

Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 11:48 AM

To: Aristotle Jones; Karban, James W.

Cc: comet-list@eridanus.skyandtelescope.com

Subject: Re: today’s foolishness

Actually, I’m finding the whole thing rather amusing…

—– Original Message —–

From: Aristotle Jones

To: Karban, James W.

Cc: comet-list@eridanus.skyandtelescope.com

Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 9:18 AM

Subject: Re: today’s foolishness

All Right, Everybody out of the Gene-Pool!

1. It is NEVER possible to unsubscribe by posting on the mailing list you

are subscribed to.

2. Complaining about the volume of messages during this incident only ADDS

to the volume.

3. This is a perfect example of the fundamental difference between a

democracy and a constitutional republic.

4. Maybe there should be an intellectual means test when subscribing.

5. The sad part is that most of you people are supposed to be educated.

<*>aj

—– Original Message —–

From: “Karban, James W.”

To:

Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 8:35 AM

> Unsubscribe

>

I’ve yet to see anyone from Sky and Telescope chime in, or shut it all off. It’s funny to watch, but a royal pain in the butt to deal with.

Blogger’s note: On May 3 I received an email explaining the whole affair. Read on for what actually happened.

Continue reading “Internet Users Under Pressure”