Meryn Stol › Comments

Jacobson attributes both the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and probable future nuclear exchanges, to the "proliferation of nuclear energy facilities". We must ask why is this valid. It is certainly not because there is a demonstrated connection between the building of nuclear power facilities and the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Nor is there an overt connection between the building of nuclear energy facilities and nuclear weapons exchanges: there have been no nuclear exchanges despite the building of hundreds of nuclear energy facilities. Nor have we seen the use of nuclear weapons by terrorists, let alone a connection between the building of nuclear facilities and such use. Jacobson does not supply us with a theoretical argument for such a connection, and thus we must ask, how does he justify his far fetched contentions? - Meryn Stol

Unfortunately Professor Jacobson as committed so many errors in his review of issues associated with nuclear power, that the value of his entire assessment must be questioned. This study is simply a crock. For example the study assumed CO2 emissions appear to be based on old studies during the period when uranium was enriched with the gaseous diffusion process that consumed a large amount of electricity from coal fired power plants. Jacobson sites in his references a paper by the infamous B. K. Sovacool, Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey. I may offer a further review the Sovacool paper, since debunking Sovacool is one of my hobbies, but the use of the methodologically challenged and biased Sovacool as a source is a sure giveaway of an abandonment of critical standards for chosen source by Jacobson. - Meryn Stol

The public discussion of energy options tends to be emotional, polarized, mistrustful and destructive. I hope that focusing attention on the numbers may make it possible to develop honest and constructive conversations about energy. It's not going to be easy to make a energy plan that adds up, but it is possible. We need to get building. - Meryn Stol

If economic constraints and public objections are set aside, it would be possible for the average European energy consumption of 125kWh/d per person to be provided from these renewable sources. The two big contributors would be photo-voltaic panels, which, covering 5% or 10% of the country, would provide 50kWh/d per person; and offshore wind farms, which, filling a sea area twice the size of Wales, would provide another 50kWh/d per person on average. Such an immense panelling of the countryside and filling of British seas with wind farms (having a capacity five times greater than all the wind turbines in the world today) may be possible according to the laws of physics, but would the public accept and pay for such arrangements? - Meryn Stol

David MacKay, a professor in the Department of Physics at Cambridge, sets out to answer the question: “can we conceivably live sustainably?”, and to do so not by coming up with new data, new theories or new discoveries but by explaining what is known, in language that a 12-year-old would not find too taxing. That’s not to downplay the quality of the research involved - but from reading the first chapter alone we can say that the book’s sheer readability is really quite impressive. His enthusiasm is endearing - ‘Logarithmic graphs are great for understanding growth.’ MacKay seeks to avoid considering the ethical questions of what economic and social costs should be borne by whom in the pursuit of climate stability, and merely give the reader enough information to make their own decision. - Meryn Stol

Countries with power consumption per unit area of more than 1 watt per square meter, like Britain, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium and South Korea, would have to industrialize much of their countryside to live on their own renewables. Alternatively, their options are to radically reduce consumption, use nuclear power and buy additional renewable power from other, less densely populated, countries. - Meryn Stol

Since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, there have been 18 "significant precursors," or equipment failures, at U.S. nuclear plants that sharply raise the chance of a reactor core meltdown, says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There have been four since 1990. Since 1988, there have been 337 precursors that increase the risk of a meltdown more modestly. - Meryn Stol

THE government’s chief scientific adviser on climate change has proposed a quadrupling of Britain’s nuclear power generation to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. Professor David MacKay believes nuclear power could be the only way Britain can meet its soaring demand for electricity while keeping emissions under control. He has calculated that renewable energy sources such as wind and tidal power will never provide more than a fraction of Britain’s electricity needs. - Meryn Stol

This is odd; I thought we were going to control climate through taxation. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from iPod

Whatever mix of technologies we choose, decarbonising Britain’s energy system requires a lot of building. If we find dependence on Saharan sunshine unpalatable, or if we don’t like the idea of building 60 new nuclear power stations, we can revisit our attitude to big renewable facilities in Britain. For every nuclear power station we remove, we must find somewhere to put 2,000 wind turbines. We need a plan that adds up. - Meryn Stol

David MacKay, a professor at the famous Cavendish Laboratory, has been recruited by Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary. His appointment is due to be announced in a few weeks. MacKay has this year become an international star of the climate change debate, thanks to his book, Sustainable Energy — Without the Hot Air. Despite being available as a free download from his website, it has turned into a bestseller. - Meryn Stol

[David MacKay] blamed public opposition to new wind farms and nuclear power stations for the looming crisis which he said could force Britain to rely on buying in electricity from abroad. is admission throws fresh doubt on the Government's assertion that renewable energy sources will be able to make up the difference as old coal fired power stations are closed for environmental reasons and the number of nuclear plants also dwindles. - Meryn Stol

The discussion about energy options tends to be an intensely emotional, polarised, mistrustful, and destructive one. Every option is strongly opposed: the public seem to be anti-wind, anti-coal, anti-waste-to-energy, anti-tidal-barrages, anti-carbon-tax, and anti-nuclear. We can't be anti-everything – we need an energy plan that adds up. But there's a lack of numeracy in the public discussion of energy. Where people do use numbers, they select them to sound big and score points in arguments, rather than to aid thoughtful discussion. I would like to help people have honest and constructive conversations about energy. We need to understand how much energy our modern lifestyles use, decide how much energy we would like to use in the future and choose where we will get that energy from. - Meryn Stol

First published online last summer, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air has gathered fans and accolades from all corners of the energy and climate change debate - politicians, business leaders, environmentalists. Readers have warmed to the book's calm, authoritative voice which steers them, with the aid of wry humour and no-nonsense "back-of-the-envelope" calculations, through the options we have before us if we are ever to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. - Meryn Stol

I'd like to suggest a 1% rule for news articles about energy-saving gadgets or renewable energy systems. The rule says: "A gizmo may be discussed only if it could lead to energy savings of at least 1%." I suggest this rule not because minnow-sized savings are worthless, but because the public conversation about energy surely deserves to be focussed on bigger fish. - Meryn Stol

I have put together a process that will make Ruby 1.9 from source, and install the resulting binaries in the folder of your choice. The script downloads all the files and patches to /tmp. I also wrote a script that allows me to swap ruby 1.8 and 1.9 as I need. - Meryn Stol

Ruby mailing list archive is full of heated discussions on whether a Ruby hash should be an ordered hash: simplicity vs performance vs least surprise. And strictly speaking, the new Ruby Hash is slower, because deletion and insertion requires more pointer manipulation. However, value fetch has not changed, and traversal is now much faster (since we can just follow the pointers). - Meryn Stol

Writing need more unit tests and ETE testing. - Kevin Fox

"Swift's style is, in its line, perfect; the manner is a complete expression of the matter, the terms appropriate, and the artifice concealed. It is simplicity in the true sense of the word." (Samuel Coleridge, "Lecture on Style," 1818) - Sean McBride

Even if global temperatures rise slowly, climate change could slash the yields of some of the world's most important crops almost in half, according to a new study co-authored by an N.C. State University scientist. The study, recently published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at three frequently used scenarios for global warming. It found the average U.S. yields for corn, soybeans and cotton could plummet 30 percent to 46 percent by the end of the century under the slowest warming scenario, and 63 percent to 82 percent under the quickest. - Meryn Stol

Part of the problem are delayed effects that have already committed the planet to warming on the order of 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, regardless of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from today's levels. For example, as the ocean warms, it stores the heat and very slowly releases it to the atmosphere, creating a lag time in temperature equilibrium between the atmosphere and the ocean. Furthermore, due the ocean's great mass and heat capacity, it will take 1,000 years to reverse this century's warming and gradually reduce the heat already building up in the ocean, said Greene. Also, as pollution abatement strategies kick in this century, aerosols that now cool the atmosphere will decline, adding to warmth. - Meryn Stol

The goal of our research and education outreach program at Cornell is to provide decision makers, from policy-makers to farmers and gardeners, with information to take advantage of opportunities (e.g., new crops for longer growing seasons) and minimize risks associated with climate change. In this way we might adapt, or "manage the unavoidable," as a recent United Nations report phrased it. We also need to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions -- "avoid the unmanageable." - Meryn Stol

"Today's energy and emissions choices lead to starkly different pictures of what the future holds for our farms, gardens and natural landscapes in terms of climate change impacts," said Wolfe, Cornell professor of horticulture and lead author of the NECIA agriculture chapter. While a warmer climate will trigger a longer growing season and the opportunity to experiment with new crops, "it will also open the door to invasion by new and aggressive crop pests, damaging summer heat stress and serious challenges with water management," said Wolfe. "Adapting to change will add economic stress to family farms already stretched to the limit." - Meryn Stol

For farmers, the news is not all bad. A warmer climate means a longer growing season. For the vineyards in our region, this is good news because there will be less damage to grapevines. But, for apple farmers, it's bad news because the trees won't flower or fruit properly without enough "winter chill." For dairy farmers, the news is grim. Cows don't produce as much milk when it's hot. They need 40-degree to 60-degree weather for maximum milk production. This might add small dairy farms to the list of "endangered species." Wolfe also researched which plants would thrive in our region's higher carbon climate. Topping the list is poison ivy, which not only thrives in high carbon, but also becomes more potent in the allergens that make us itch. Also happier in high-carbon climates are invasive plants like kudzu and other weeds. Unhappier? Food plants — because carbon impairs their photosynthesis ability. - Meryn Stol

The agriculture and forestry industries are unique, Bento and Wolfe said, because land managers can do more than reduce their own emissions of such key greenhouse gases as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Bento and Wolfe said that they can adopt plant, soil and livestock management practices that will sequester additional carbon and/or replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources -- such as energy from biomass, manure and methane capture -- thus becoming part of the solution and providing carbon offsets for other sectors. However, there are significant challenges to agriculture and forestry entering the carbon marketplace. The cost of verification on a site-by-site basis -- like detailed soil sampling and analysis -- will lead to high transaction costs, and it is difficult to ensure the permanence of carbon sequestration for an individual small land holding. - Meryn Stol

The increase in climate skepticism is driven largely by a shift within the GOP. Since its peak 3 1/2 years ago, belief that climate change is happening is down sharply among Republicans -- 76 to 54 percent -- and independents -- 86 to 71 percent. It dipped more modestly among Democrats, from 92 to 86 percent. A majority of respondents still support legislation to cap emissions and trade pollution allowances, by 53 to 42 percent. - Meryn Stol

"From what I can see, the phone, which is called First Else (catchy!), looks like a Droid with a fan-shaped menu structure. Little advice on fan-shaped menus — been there, done that, and nobody likes them. Nor do people like learning a whole new way of doing everything. There’s a reason we use names like “Address Book” and “Calendar” and “Photo Album.” People want to pick up a new device and know how to use it. They want it to work like all the other stuff in their life. They don’t want some gadget that just fell from outer space. But hey, knock yourself out." - Meryn Stol from Bookmarklet

My take? Kids will run away with this thing. Not that they would be able to afford it, but let's just assume they could for now. I can so see an eight year old working with this device as if he never knew any different. And that's why this is significant. This might not become an instant hit, but we can be confident that kids will be willing to interact with computers in entirely new ways. Their parents can keep those iPhones for themselves. - Meryn Stol

Ambition is a framework for writing adapters. Adapters are RubyGems which depend on the ambition gem and are named something along the lines of ambitious-activerecord. They typically use Ambition to turn plain jane Ruby into some sort of domain specific query which can be executed. Anyone can write and release an adapter. This site describes how to write adapters using Ambition and also hosts a few. - Meryn Stol

This site serves as a supplement to the Rails for PHP Developers book published by The Pragmatic Programmers. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to add Rails as a tool to your development toolbox. If you’re proficient with PHP, you already have the essential skills needed to build web applications. This site will present an ongoing discussion of techniques for learning Rails and Ruby from a PHP perspective. - Meryn Stol

"Volunteers have been departing the project that bills itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" faster than new ones have been joining, and the net losses have accelerated over the past year. In the first three months of 2009, the English-language Wikipedia suffered a net loss of more than 49,000 editors, compared to a net loss of 4,900 during the same period a year earlier, according to Spanish researcher Felipe Ortega, who analyzed Wikipedia's data on the editing histories of its more than three million active contributors in 10 languages." - Meryn Stol from Bookmarklet

Packaging a Ruby application or library class into a Gem package is not a difficult task by any means. That said, finding straight forward documentation on it was. The Gem Spec Reference was a helpful read, but didn't really put all the pieces together to provide a gem. - Meryn Stol

Coming up with the right model could force economists to move away from the ideas of efficient markets and rational expectations on which much of their current work relies. "If that happens, that will be a change of enormous proportions," says Martin Eichenbaum, a professor of economics at Northwestern. Mr. Geanakoplos is convinced such a paradigm shift is under way. He hopes it will prove beneficial in protecting people from the excesses of the financial markets. To that end, he believes central bankers should collect and publish data on the amount of leverage in the system, and intervene if it gets out of line. - Meryn Stol