Descending

[tinyjo]

I think I'm coming down with a cold. This is not a good thing, oh no. Nice quiet night in for me tonight then.

I had a nice weekend though. I didn't get any gardening done (too cold), but I did make it to Oxfam, where I met a new volunteer; an education journalist, currently doing a PhD in education at Brookes who was completely and utterly ignorant of what roleplaying was (not necessarily surprising) and what a blog was (surprising). I can't believe that there are still people out there who don't know about this stuff. Particularly journalists!

Sunday was, of course my lunch with Niall, which came out very well and was a jolly good idea, in my opinion. Much sitting around chatting was done, the food came out very nicely, we had lovely desert, it was all good. I tried (but failed, again) to explain why I like Sex And The City to them. Maybe I should have a go on here some time. Am I the only person I know who likes the show?

I've been trying to write some tutorials for embedding, as per my goal, but I'm not getting anywhere. I'm finding it pretty hard to strike the right balance of information. I don't want to go into too much detail (partly because I don't want to give actual example code for every embedding method) but then I find myself thinking that anyone who can actually use the information I'm giving them and turn it into actual code would have been able to get to that point without my help. Perhaps I'll just go back to the S2 embedding stuff and leave the other bits to lie fallow for a while.

In other news, I may not have managed to get my Treo yet (March is the latest word...) but Alex spotted a VoIP phone for £30 on a site called FireBox so I'll be setting that up soon. It uses Skype, which I (as yet) know nothing about - anyone on my friends list connected to VoIP?

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Oops. Wrote this yesterday but forgot to post it. Did have a quiet night in and am feeling a bit better. Am also on Lemsip this morning.

Also, while cycling to roleplaying I ended up thinking about climate change in a rambly way which can be summarized thusly:

1) Climates change. All the time, and in response to all the organisms on the planet as well as random other stuff.
2) Given (1) we should be thinking about (a) how the climate is changing currently, (b) whether it will make life better or worse for us (n.b. things like bio-diversity are benefits to us in this type of broad, species wide calculation) and (c) how we can influence/change things to be better for us.

Comments

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Am I the only person I know who likes the show?

Well, I don't hate it. I find it watchable and funny ... as long as I don't stop and think about it. It's if I consider the possibility that those women and those men actually represent a significant part of society that I start to get a little depressed! And it's not that there aren't truthful things about relationships in the show, there are, I just find it can make me feel a bit, well, empty.

[diffrentcolours]

I use VoIP, but I use the Free GnomeMeeting which is AFAIK incompatiable with the propriatery Skype.

climate change

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

People, aka scientists [loonies, enthusiasts, ad nauseam amen], tend on the whole to think, based on lots of different kinds of data [ice cores, chemical measurements in different layers of the atmosphere, chemical composition of sediments and foraminifera, for example] that the earth is getting drier and warmer and that the rate of change appears to be more rapid than (a) we first thought and (b) may be at the 'catastrophic' end of the change scale rather than the 'evolutionarily gradual' end. This alarming view is, of course, debated, but at the moment, leaving aside the politicians and all their lot, it seems that the scientific community is more strongly inclined towards that POV. Hence, worries about the consequences of a 1-5 metre rise in sea levels (which would, for example, pretty well flood London).

Of greatest immediate concern are carbpn levels in seawater and the increasing acidifcation of the oceans; melting of polar ice gaps and glacial masses; desertification.

Of the what-can-we-do issues which arise, although Kyoto is seen by many of the liberal elite at The Answer, it doesn't rope in China, India, Brazil, of many of the African states. The global images of greenhouse emissions show some extremely alarming sources of oilfield burnoffs and widespread forest fire activities in countries who never did have any intention of getting involved in Kyoto.

Thinking globally and acting locally is certainly an important Thing We Can Do; for example, lobbying for decreased numbers of food miles in everything we eat, and lobbying for the cancellation, under strict conditions, of some of the Third World's debt burden, are two of them.
Don't eat fish mined from Ghanaian or Madagascar waters; don't eat tiger prawns (mined from mangrove swamps at the immeasurable cost of the coastal environment and the local farming population); don't buy chocolate which isn't Fair Trade (50% of the labour force in 'regular' cacao farming is slave or indentured child labour).

How does this affect climate change? Large families may be a form of "insurance", but only because so many children die young; women who have lots of kids tend to be fuel-poor and their fuel poverty contributes to deforestation which contributes in a number of ways to climate change. Families with kids in school tend to have better-nourished children who live and are healthy; the number of children per adult falls; resources are better distributed; and the women, who are the motors of many TW economies, have time and health to enage with better cooking technologies and indeed income-earning projects; their fuelwood consumption goes down.

That's just for starters...

but I'm a geographer so I could go on. I'll get my coat.

roleplaying

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

Can you amplify sometime what you like and understand about it? My sole exposure to it was from a thoroughly mixed up and unpleasant housemate ten years ago; it seemed to me to be about essentially very nasty characters doing underhanded, devious, and/or unpleasant things involving the abuse of power to one another.

Now, I am very sure this can't be what roleplaying really is about. Or at least, I hope very much that I am quite, quite, quite wrong. But I wouldn't know what roleplaying IS about, either :-).

Is there Xian roleplaying or is it all secular SF, btw?

thanks in advance...

Climate Change - my studied subject!

[applez.livejournal.com]

Well, vinaigrettegirl covered most of it, but my comments...

1) Yes, climate do change, and as a result of everything from solar radiation, terrestrial radiation, rotation, revolution, tilt, geomorphology (i.e. Mount Everest is high, it shapes the direction of the winds & weather), and as you said, all the biology. One of the classic examples I remember well is the fact that our planet would be an iceball if it there wasn't an ecosystem influencing the atmosphere with a greenhouse effect.

2) Better or worse - well, for most people in the rich 1st World, we'll be quite well insulated from most effects. We might have hurricanes, floods, and crop failures ... but we have satellite warning, insurance, large public works projects capacity, and the ability to buy food from others.

So, where the worst impacts will be paid for in lives amongst the poor, the biggest impact for the rich will be in livelihoods. Example: though crops can be replanted in new places, even under the most benign conditions (assuming none of the extreme limitations like 'the Canadian shield' of biotically-poor rock beneath the Arctic timberline; or the need for specific conditions by some crops, like peanuts), it will take 5 years to establish in the new location and return to similar productivity. If that happens too suddenly, in too great a volume, that is a severe agricultural dislocation that will be felt across the wider economy.

Then again, given the kind of professional concern economists in rich countries have over 0.1 growth factors, and relative labour employment statistics, it is worth considering what may happen if the cost of energy stays at a high level and continuously goes higher (say, a 'climate change' premium charged by producers to keep their insurance...a new cost of business). A crash program of nuclear plant construction? Even that will take at least 5+ years, assuming all codes and environmental impact assessment concerns are waived. $5+ candy bar (which today would sell for a third that or less)?

Benefits - well, in some cases, in some places, there should be a growth of some forms of biological life. It may not be productive crops or fuelwood, and it may well escalate rates of species loss (& extinction) already being recorded.

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Ultimately, the matter of concern isn't so much climate change, but a narrow band of climate conditions that we (and our service species) are completely dependent upon for both our survival, and our civilization. We can re-engineer, re-locate, and otherwise adapt, but Kyoto or no Kyoto, this is really our only real option. Given how crowded our planet is, this challenge strikes at the very heart of all manner of fundamental beliefs and understandings that underpin the system as it exists now (what is life? is it wrong to go GMO? Political borders & laws, can we realistically afford to continue to respect those in the none-too-distant future? What human 'rights' will have to be permanently modified, abrogated?).

The current situation of change on these big matters may be fueled by economic or political (i.e. 'terrorist') concerns now, but I see them as entirely relevant to an unhealthful climate future.

Booklist...

[applez.livejournal.com]

For better or for worse.

http://www.grinningplanet.com/6001/environmental-books.htm

I also suggest you check out the latest New Scientist, including Jeremy Leggett's panning of Michael Crichton's latest book.