Hokie

Good half. Howard and the referee are keeping them in it. Was thinking Jos should have tried to clear the ball when he found himself in front of their goal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5x18vCdoNg (for however long they leave it up) As others have said, looks like both "no foul" and "no dive". He went to ground but wasn't selling a foul. I agree its likely he pulled his right foot away to avoid the tackle after he had played the ball, which caused him to fall. (If that was a dive Adam needs to take him aside and teach him how to jump and arch the back, then roll on the ground after.) On the other side, Villa was somewhat lucky to end the match with 11 men after the fouls on Ramirez and Yoshi.

I think actually there are 10 types of people in this word. Those that read binary and those that don't.

Of course, the running of most simulations does not imply sentience. (Although I could swear that some of my code not only has sentience, but actual malfeasance.) I think in the theory though, the definition of "advanced simulation" does require sentience. (If the ancestor simulation is not sentient, then the civilization is not advanced yet. Sentience is the (a?) lynchpin of advanced.) Can sentience be created artificially? I think, to some degree, it will be. Still an excellent point to attack the argument. Of course, then I would ask, where does our sentience come from? Is it organic, or metaphysical? The way, I think may be best to attack it? The writings of some of the proponents say that time scales don't matter, that "advanced" can be 50 years, or 5 billion into the future. Still, if the universe is 12-15 billion years old, perhaps there has not been time to develop sentience in simulations of this scale, or the space to perform them. They hypothesis assumes infinite time and space, which we do not seem to have. Of course, one could just read this as the simulated universe is that old, or even say our definition of sentience is held within this simulation. At the end of the day, if there's not a testable hypothesis, it is a just an intellectual plaything. I'm sticking to the belief its elephants all the way down.

Did anyone read the article? Logically, the premise is one of the three is true: 1) Our civilization goes extinct before it gains the ability to run very advanced and detailed large scale simulations to explore its origins, OR 2) The advanced civilization that we become (assuming by definition of advanced, has the ability to perform large scale simulations to explore its origins) doesn't want to do these simulations, OR 3) As there will be an advanced civilization that wants to perform these simulations, the probability is that our existence is one (I guess because you can run gobs of simulations to try to decipher what went on) rather than being in the one actual existence that began it all. Its a pretty tight argument, not sure exactly where I'd attack it off the top of my head. Depending on my mood, I may try it out down the pub, which is in many ways where it belongs.

Bert beat me to it! But ditto his reasoning.

What about Fox at LM? Yes, I am being serious.

I was fascinated by this, but it doesn't seem to have attracted any attention from the skeptics here. I've posted two other links to articles about this and have heard nothing back. Odd.

Lawson is interesting in bringing up the challenges (and costs) of actually dealing with global warming, but gives short shrift to the science saying 1) the earth is warming, 2) it is caused by man, and 3) it will have drastic effects on mankind. It is worth noting he is a politician, with no formal scientific training. (We can debate if economics is a science or not. I'd say its not in the sense that it would be helpful.) Singer was a scientist, but now is, and has been for years, a hired hack. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer and http://www.desmogblog.com/s-fred-singer , not just on climate, but smoking, asbestos, DDT, etc. Check out this internal memo from the ciggie companies: http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2023266534.html Seriously, Bobby, do you really recommend this guy? Not trying to put you down, but surely you have better. I've been working through this http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/ which seems quite authoritative. This pdf is a good summary http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/files/2012/06/19014_cvtx_R1.pdf

Interesting. You don't say where our numbers come from though. (I'd also caution you, as a scientist, not to gain accuracy as you calculate.) Here are some numbers, from scientists, of their estimates of the product of 1 and 2.

Enough popular press strawmen. Anyone check out this? "Perception of climate change", James Hansen, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy. PNAS Early Edition. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.full.pdf "An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (3σ) warmer than the climatology of the 1951–1980 base period. This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface during the base period, now typically covers about 10% of the land area. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small." "A warmer world is expected to have more extreme rainfall occurrences because the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere holds increases rapidly with temperature, a tendency confirmed by observations. Indeed, rainfall data reveal significant increases of heavy precipitation over much of Northern Hemisphere land and in the tropics (27) and attribution studies link this intensification of rainfall and floods to human-made global warming (28–30)." "... global warming caused by fossil fuel burning may be a unique threat because of the millennial time scale of anthropogenic carbon within surface carbon reservoirs. It has been argued that a scenario phasing out carbon emissions fast enough to stabilize climate this century, limiting further warming to a maximum of several tenths of a degree Celsius, is still possible, but it would require a rising price on carbon emissions sufficient to spur transition to a clean energy future without burning all fossil fuels (33)."

When you say "big disagreement" by the experts, I'd suggest that the disagreement is not as large as indicated in much of the press--whether denier, skeptical, or mainstream (mainstream journalists are taught to seek out multiple opinions creating a false equity of arguments.) Another source I like is PNAS: "97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), July 31, 2012, 109 (31). http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107 ) Saint Bobby, I find your 6th question outstanding: "Given that the UK accounts for 1% of the world's population and, I think, about 2% of greenhouse emissions, to what extent are we confident that it is wise to lead by example?" But, if you spend all the time trying to debate 1-3 (i.e. Are we warming?, Is it caused by Humans?, and Will it matter?) which while not "proven" are believed by 80-98% of scientists in this area (not 30%) then question #6 gets little attention. So, do you conceed 1-3 are likely, so we can move onto #6? (Your #4 and #5, I consider 3b and c) I'll give you that #6 is the tough nut, and will require huge effort. But there is no sense in debating it if you really doubt 1-3. BTW, is there really no comment on David Muller's recent work and statements? Does it give any skeptics here pause? Anyone? This I found interesting, from the conservative (but rational?) US News and World Report http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/07/30/have-the-koch-brothers-changed-their-mind-about-climate-change

Thanks for the link, but its written by Austrian school economists rather than scientists (ouch?), which for me, as a hard scientist (and a neo-Keynesian in my spare time) doesn't work to well to bring me to your side. And honestly, by the time the one essay was referring to the DDT ban as a bad thing and acid rain as a hoax, I had checked out. I'd imagine I couldn't convince a denier with a Greenpeace statement either, so that's a deadlock. Have you seen any skeptical links from scientific society consensus statements? Those I find more convincing than the Al Gore film. For example, the American Physical Society statement. http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm Perhaps we can discuss if the 2010 statement was a walkback, or just proper care? I was really hoping I'd get a reaction from the skeptics or deniers on Richard Muller switching teams. Here's a different summary than the one I posted last week (in case being in the Guardian discouraged anyone) http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112666023/richard-muller-climate-change-skeptic-converts/

I've been reading this thread but inserting "wife" for "children" in the discussion. Makes it interesting test of ideas.

I'll see your James Delingpole, and raise with a consensus summary by the Royal Society. I'll leave it to you to decide who has more authority. "There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century. This warming trend is expected to continue as are changes in precipitation over the long term in many regions. Further and more rapid increases in sea level are likely which will have profound implications for coastal communities and ecosystems." from Climate Change: A summary of the Science, The Royal Society, September 2010. http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2010/4294972962.pdf I believe this helps address #1-4 of the well-posed standard Saint Bobby has set, as well.

Just wondering if this study done by climate skeptics under Koch funding is catching the eye of any of the doubters? http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/29/climate-change-sceptics-change-mind

If I read it correctly, Pompey have 3 on the bench and 2 are keepers. WTF??

Have a number of registered users who only lurk and never post!

No, I've never sat on one of your balls. HTH

I'll give that a go, too

Other than saving the club, cancelling the debt, buying new players, renovating the training ground, and bringing in a premiership-calibre manager, what have NC and ML ever done for us. (Someone had to say it)

Enter Sandman - Metallica

Am I the only one who wondered which players he was saying goodbye to? Pulis? Molyneax? etc.

While we are on the subject of BBC reports, what about the penalty he scored in the win up at Tranmere?

Debating to enter in on this, but the first post has to happen sooner or later... Another way of looking at it the way Whitey does, you project to the end of the season, based on points per game. Of course, Saints are deducted 10 by the end of the season. (You may all decide for yourselves when exactly that occurs, but we all must agree that its there at the end, right?) Based on that, Saints are 11th. Team GP GD Pts PPG Est Final pts Leeds United 19 27 46 2.42 111 Charlton 20 18 42 2.10 97 Norwich 20 18 38 1.90 87 Colchester 20 15 36 1.80 83 Swindon 18 2 31 1.72 79 Huddersfield 20 19 32 1.60 74 Bristol Rovers 20 -3 31 1.55 71 Walsall 20 4 30 1.50 69 MK Dons 20 -2 30 1.50 69 Millwall 20 6 29 1.45 67 Southampton 20 10 22 1.60 64 Hartlepool 20 1 26 1.30 60 Carlisle 20 -3 24 1.20 55 Yeovil 20 -4 23 1.15 53 Southend 20 -4 23 1.15 53 Gillingham 20 -5 22 1.10 51 Exeter 20 -6 22 1.10 51 Brentford 20 -6 22 1.10 51 Leyton Orient 20 -11 22 1.10 51 Oldham 20 -10 21 1.05 48 Brighton 20 -14 20 1.00 46 Wycombe 20 -13 17 0.85 39 Tranmere 20 -21 17 0.85 39 Stockport 19 -18 14 0.74 34 Worth noting the Saints gained 0.9 ppg in the first 10, but 2.3 ppg the last 10.