Sunday, May 19, 2013

19 May 2013


Birthdays
Geraldine Somerville b. 1967
Peter Mayhew b. 1944

Ms. Somerville played Lilly Potter in the Harry Potter series and the standard rule of Picture Slot = Cute Girl should mean we'd be looking at her now, but I am going to invoke an older rule.

Let the wookie win.

Many happy returns to them both.

p.s. The other tall guy in the glasses is David Prowse, the man who wore Darth Vader's costume, though the voice is done by James Earl Jones.


Movies released
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith released, 2005
Shrek 2 released 2004
Star Wars: The One That Must Never Be Named Again released, 1999

Another good reason for the picture above is to remind us about when Star Wars movies were actually fun to watch.



Prediction: By 2017, the highest point in the village of Newtok, Alaska could be underwater.

Predictor: Army Corps of Engineers, quoted in this article in The Guardian.

Reality: Here's the thing. I don't know the reality of this and I'm not sure who does.

Here's what I do know based on math work I did myself from the data set provided by Berkeley Earth.  Climate change is real. On average, the Earth is getting warmer and in some places, it is warming at an alarming rate. While temperature and other climate data has massive variation, the level of carbon dioxide in the environment shows an increasing trend that easily overwhelms the minor natural fluctuations. If it continues, and in fact even the trend of how much increase we see in a year is increasing slightly, the general warming trend will increase as well.

But still, this is a specific statement about a specific village in Alaska that can be tested to be true or false in four years. This hypothesis is falsifiable and that's what you need to do science.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Back to the weekly schedule and this Monday it's time to see what Popular Mechanics thought the world would look like.

 
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

1 comment:

  1. My proof for man made climate change is simple, rockhard, twofold and irrefutable:
    1. Man has pumped 1.2 billion years of coal, oil and gas into the Atmosphere in just 200 years.
    2. Glaciers and South Pole land ice has melted 30%-50%, there's pictures and movies: Chasing Ice (2012).

    as to 1. : this the same as if we blew up a balloon for 2 minutes and then released the air in 0.001 seconds via pinprick. It's worse, actually

    ReplyDelete

Traveler! Have you news... FROM THE FUTURE?