Interesting Links for 21-7-2011

[andrewducker]

• Emma Watson has a sense of humour. (Or nobody told her who she was standing next to)
  (tags: harrypotter EmmaWatson porn gay funny)
• Shale gas is cheap and effective
  (tags: energy environment gas)
• Happiness linked to a gene that comes in long and short versions
  (tags: Happiness psychology genetics)
• Wired interviews Grant Morrison about Supergods and Superhero Myths
  (tags: grantmorrison superheroes superman comics myth religion)
• Every Major Credit Agency Prepares to Downgrade the USA.
  (tags: usa debt finance economics)
• Everything available always - life in a world where all media is available to everyone
  (tags: movies music media culture)
• Performance has little to do with pay it bureaucracy, everything to do with autonomy and calculated risk.
  (tags: management work psychology)
• Popular TV shows teach children fame is the most important value
  (tags: Fame tv usa society)

Comments

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

with the TV show article I got as far as ...
"The study assessed the values of characters in popular television shows in each decade from 1967 to 2007, with two shows per decade evaluated"

Then didn't bother reading any forther.

How can you even begin to fairly assess the TV of a decade based on 2 shows?

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Right?

What if the two shows from one year were "Real Sex" and "Taxi Cab Confessions" and then the next year they picked "The Sopranos" and "Friends."

Considerably different results.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

"Dexter" and "Sons of anarchy" Vs "The Cosby Show" and Hill Street Blues"

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

"Game Of Thrones" and "The Gorgias" vs "MASH and All In The Family."

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Shale gas -- WTF?

How the hell is that carbon reduction, as claimed in the article's subheadline? Even further down, they say:

> Shale gas is still a "fossil fuel", but it's much cleaner than coal

and again, WTF? So what if it's cleaner the coal? It's still digging up more carbon from where it's buried even deeper and chucking it into the atmosphere.

The Register really is a POS lately.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

"The report, written by science writer Matt Ridley, was commissioned by the Global Warming Policy Foundation; Dyson sits on the Board."

Guess what the GWPF believe. That's right, no man-made global warming.

To be fair the article is just stating what Freeman Dyson thinks without saying "this is bullshit". Should they be saying it's bullshit? Do they give counterpoints when they print "Global warming is real" stories?

I honestly don't know. I certainly believe man-made global warming is real.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I skimmed the original report and their argument is that it produces less CO2 per unit of electricity than oil or coal and is cheaper than renewables and nuclear, although the conclusion does concede that improved & cheaper nuclear or solar power would be even better.

I'm particularly amused that they claim Matt Ridley's connection to oil and coal production means he has the opposite of a vested interest, when the whole report is a justification for continuing to invest in fossil fuels over renewables... *sigh*

(And depressed by the eejit who used a dodgy methodology to overestimate the impact of methane emissions from it, nicely playing into the whole 'environmentalist conspiracy' nonsense.)

[andrewducker]

There aren't many alternatives to digging up carbon at the moment apart from nuclear power, which people seem to be against right now, for reasons that escape me.

Eventually, with a fair number of technical advances, we may be able to get by without either of them. But not this week.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> for reasons that escape me.

You noticed that nuclear plant in Japan, right?

Nuclear power is basically digging up *another* type of dangerous shit and having it and its consequences hang around where they cause harm.

[andrewducker]

That was sarcasm...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Really wasn't.

[andrewducker]

I was not being _even slightly_ serious when I said "for reasons that escape me".

But if you cross out nuclear, then you have two options:
1) burn hydrocarbons
2) not have enough energy

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Ah sorry -- I totally misunderstood your comment just then; I thought you were remarking on my comment rather than clarifying yours.

Then 2, logically.

[andrewducker]

I don't see you giving up your technology...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I switch mine off, which is more than a hell of a lot of people do. And I haven't been in a plane for about 5 years.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Or kill people in other countries before they use fossil fuels in the way 'we' do?

[andrewducker]

:->

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

CO2 is being talked about like it's the only thing that matters in some places.

Water cost is also incredibly important and going to get much more so, unless you want your energy to come from very specific countries. Energy generation with a low cost in water would be a good thing to have.

Shale gas is cheap and effective

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

. . . if you don't mind your drinking water being flammable. But only until it's exhausted because of global warming,

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

Guardian had a decent article on why Shale gas is around as dirty as coal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/13/shale-gas-green-message

[andrewducker]

Interesting discussion in the comments.

I'm sceptical :->

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

Good spotting, I had not looked through them. Some of the comments are interesting, but a lot of them seem to be more ideological than factual. And some of the factual ones seem to miss the point a bit. I did find what *looks* like a decent wikipedia entry on the environmental impact. I haven't tried to verify it yet, but it seems to be in line with what I have read elsewhere. It seems to agree about the C02 costs of shale gas being roughly the same as coal and raises an intersting point about the impact of the amount of water needed and the needing of lowering surrounding water levels that can have a local impact on forest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_oil_shale_industry