Background: Aged on French oak for eight months.

Nose: Cherries and strawberries, earthy hints of mushroom.

Taste: Light red fruit, light hints of oak. Grapefruit pith on the finish.

Overall: Not great. The most disappointing wine I’ve had from St. Julian, particularly a disappointment since the Braganini Reserve are supposed to be their showcase wines. It’s light and drinkable, but lacks the spicy richness of a great Pinot Noir.

                                                             FADE IN:



               INT. CLOCK-MAKER'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT TIME

               The workshop looks like a Rebrandt painting.  Most of it is
               in shadow.  The workbench is lit by a gas lamp.  There are
               ordered tools on velvet rolls either side, but in the
               middle a jumble of tiny cogs and springs and screws.

               The CLOCK-MAKER, the sort of old man who makes people smile,
               reaches for a strange pair of spectacles.  They have lenses
               in front of the lenses which can flip up and down for close
               work.  He puts them on and then reaches for a miniature screwdriver.


                                   CLOCKMAKER (SINGING)
                         Silent Night
                         Holy Night
                         All is Calm
                         All is --


               There is sudden movement from the pile of cogs in front of
               him.  A mouse, about the size of the "tube mice" who live
               on the London Underground, runs out from under the pile,
               scattering the cogs everywhere.


                         Clockmaker (JUMPING) 
                         Oh goodness!

However, we do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics.

The emails help to shed light on some aspects of peer review that skeptics have suspected for years. It is increasingly clear that climate scientists in the monoculture have been using peer review to enforce the orthodoxy. Peer review panels are stacked with members of the club, and authors who challenge the orthodoxy are shut out of publication, while authors within the monoculture use peer review as a shield against future criticism. We see in the emails members of the monoculture actually working to force editors who have the temerity to publish work critical of the orthodoxy out of their jobs. We are now learning that when alarmist scientists claim that there is little peer-reviewed science on the skeptic’s side, this is like the Catholic Church enforcing a banned books list and then claiming that everything in print supports the Church’s position.
History teaches us that whenever we allow a monoculture – whether is be totalitarian one-party rule or enforcing a single state religion, corruption follows. Without scrutiny of their actions, actors in such monocultures have few checks and little accountability. Worse, those at the center of such monocultures can become convinced of their own righteousness, such that any action they take in support of the orthodoxy is by definition ethically justified.
This, I think, is exactly what we see at work in the Hadley emails.

All the manipulation, distortion and suppression revealed by these emails took place because it would seem these scientists knew their belief was not only correct but unchallengeable; and so when faced with evidence that showed it was false, they tried every which way to make the data fit the prior agenda. And those who questioned that agenda themselves had to be airbrushed out of the record, because to question it was simply impossible. Only AGW zealots get to decide, apparently, what science is. Truth is what fits their ideological agenda. Anything else is to be expunged.

To be completely clear, I don’t think that either ideological motivation or even intimidation tactics prove that these scientists’ views are wrong. Their research should be assessed on its own merits, irrespective of their motivations for conducting it. However, these things should affect the degree to which we defer to their conclusions merely based on their authority as disinterested experts.

If the argument isn’t going your way, close it down. This was ever the way of liberal-left. Criticize the European Socialist Superstate and you’re a “Little Englander”; object to wind farms spoiling your view and you’re a “NIMBY”; demand curbs on immigration and you’re “a racist”; desire better education for your kids and you’re “elitist”; question the current majority scientific view on AGW and you’re a “Denier” who deserves only to be scorned, vilified and preferably silenced.

Nothing about the revelations surprises me. I have maintained email correspondence with most of these scientists for many years, and I know several personally. I long ago realized that they were faking the whole exercise.
When you enter into a debate with any of them, they always stop cold when you ask an awkward question.

… Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Economist and Reserve Bank of Australia board member Warwick McKibbin warns the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is "fundamentally unstable", the price of permits will be "inherently volatile" and the Copenhagen agenda is in "total disarray". "The political fallout from this is going to lead to changes," he says.
For geographical and political reasons, Australia does not have the hydro or nuclear alternatives to replace coal-fired baseload electricity. That makes it more costly for us to cut emissions compared with the US, Europe and Japan. That increases the risk of "leakage" of our carbon-intensive industries offshore to developing economies, such as China, where emissions restrictions are less stringent.

• 09:16 Have realised the plans I thought I had for today are in fact for next week. Um. #warcraft anyone? #
• 09:57 I just ousted Barbary L. as the mayor of Fairy goth mother's castle on @foursquare! bit.ly/6nf751 #
• 10:30 Hrm. I think instead it is time for city missions, is it too early to get Christmas nails? #
• 12:11 Problems goths have: Spending 30 secs at the bus stop trying to confirm your friend's identity when they're not in makeup #
• 12:33 I just became the mayor of Capitol Square Shopping Centre on @foursquare! bit.ly/5gHdEl #
• 13:58 This manicurist has odd methods but good results and copies of Nail Max I don't own. Also she leant me her phone charger #
• 16:29 I just unlocked the "Explorer" badge on @foursquare! bit.ly/6gvQ4E #
• 17:17 Aaah schadenfreude; mediaevalists in full period clothing melting at the bus stop makese feel better about my shiney sweaty face. #
• 19:45 Home with @RubyTuesdaySaid for nerd time and #warcraft dailybooth.com/u/14z4k #
• 19:59 I <3 my geeky father who rang me to tell me about an OzBargain listing for cheap iTunes credit and PayPal discount. digg.com/u1HCmx #
• 20:24 Pics of my manicure today. Now I can have ridiculous Japanese 3D nail art without leaving the country. digg.com/u1HCpm #
• 20:51 Fairy goth mother strikes again; babysitting very trashed friend who is currently sitting under my air con and watching the walls melt. #
• 21:03 Okay one's on LSD and the other just discovered WarCrack... do you think I can get my friends to the going away party I'm meant to be at? #
• 23:40 Ah Kelly's where everyone cheers at the glasses breaking #
• 00:53 Being told to go to Chrome in Canberra next week. Thoughts? Offers of lift? #

• UK Number 10 petition for marriage equality. Please sign and forward.

• The revenge of Cat Le-Huy.

• Not that this is me or anything.

• Searching with Bing will actually cost you money.

• NotN: Turnbull still stuck with Liberal leadership; "Going Rogue" sells 500,000 copies, some read; Jordan eats kangaroo's anus; Boris Johnson to become Sheriff of London.

This week I got a NEW CAMERA, had lunch with nyecamden (and got a video of the Russell Square fountain for Wikipedia — a picture of a fountain is nothing to watching it actually burbling away) and was very tired. And played with Freda a lot and got stuff done at work.

After spending some time earlier in the week hand-reconciling three VirtualHost httpd.conf files that were different not only to the checked-in version but to each other (for our biggest-earning site, so rather important to get right), I asked on Twitter/Facebook about how to do macro expansion in Apache httpd.conf. The answer is, of course, mod_macro. The catch is that there are no binaries readily available for anything but Leengux, so they have to be hand-compiled for Solaris. This is fine when your Apache was compiled with gcc, less so when your live servers (12 CPU/96 thread T5140 Niagara beast machines) are running Web Stack, a Solaris-optimised AMP compiled with Sun CC. The answer is to get out there and shave that yak: download a 493MB .tar.bz2 of the entirety of Sun Studio 12.1 (which I wasn't aware is now freeware), spend ten minutes uncompressing it to 530MB (why isn't pbzip2 used by everyone?), spend twenty installing it then compile the single 30KB mod_macro.c file. And it Just Works. *exhale*

(I thought gcc-compiled .so were meant to be able to link to Sun CC programs, at least in C if not C++. httpd appears to feel otherwise, however.)

TRANSLATION FOR NON-GEEKS: I have done (obscure technical trick) that required (going ridiculously out of my way to do what should have been a simple thing) but which worked brilliantly, and will save me having to do (ridiculous effort from a few days ago) and will save us (a twisty maze of configuration files, all different when they should all be the same). Computer roadieing, man. Everything is gaffer tape.

Today we are going shopping, then I am rebuilding the front room and bleaching my hair and going to Vagabonds with the NEW CAMERA and capturing your soul. Just as soon as I have yet more caffeine.

I tweeted the following, in a discussion with someone else:

@jeamland mr landeryou has some history on wikipedia. (i did the sockpuppet investigation.)

Mr Landeryou saw fit to send me a threat for this:

( full headers )

--0016364275f7efd07804795b1708
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

dgerard@gmail.com

Mr Gerard,

I am told you made reference to me in your musings on Twitter. I don't know
you, would rather not have to become familiar with who you are and what on
Earth possessed you to comment so freely about me or to edit Wikipedia to
say absurd things about me.

Your entitled to your opinion of me but I think it might be best for you to
discuss claims you make about me with me first. If you don't, I'll promise
to return the favour after an investigation into exactly what ails you. And
that really would be a waste of time for me and a very unpleasant outcome
for you, so I urge you to Twit more carefully in future.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Landeryou

I look forward to an exchange involving pie charts.

p.s.: if you don't want your months-long-running Wikipedia shenanigans remembered, it helps not to have done them. Oops, too late.

• 11:00 Awkward pointed blush worthy questions in the kitchen in front of all my management. Thanks @vikb there will be vengeance *fist shakey* #
• 11:06 I just ousted Sebastian as the mayor of Optus on @foursquare! bit.ly/7S7zge #
• 11:09 Ahahahaha that's hilarious, I just ousted our social media officer as the Mayor of my office on @foursquare #
• 13:01 Schedule review cancelled, Middleware presentation revised, being amused by the names everyone is giving their houses on @foursquare #
• 13:03 For the other Malks Moogle (@halfabeard) and @Kirubanzai have joined Twitter finally. All of you are on twitter.com/illdrinn/malks #
• 13:21 Just added myself to the wefollow.com twitter directory under: #sydney_australia #goth #tech #geek #corporate #gamer #
• 13:57 The best thing I have done for my sanity in a long long time is to add a weekly 3 hour "desk time" task to my calendar every Friday. #
• 13:59 It feels like we're slowly dragging all the #midweekgeek crew to #shtbox funsies for all! Who's coming or are you all dead after #stub? #
• 17:15 Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them. digg.com/u1H9D0 Ready for drinks tiem nao plz. #
• 19:22 I just ousted Sebastian as the mayor of Queen Victoria Building on @foursquare! bit.ly/6feHVk #

Background: When I saw this on sale, I thought to myself, “Self, that kind of makes sense. Mayonnaise is just an emulsion of oil and water with egg, and if you use bacon grease as part of your oil that could be tasty.” Upon arriving home and reading the label more closely, I became a bit apprehensive. This product is both vegetarian and kosher, which are not words normally associated with bacon. Evidently, smoke flavour and a colouring agent are enough to make this “bacon flavoured”. A bit of a letdown, but time to soldier on and actually taste some.

Smells somewhat bacony, but more like those bacon-ish cardboard bits on the salad bar than a panful of sizzling pig. Colour is orange-ish, with unidentified black bits sprinkled througout. Very salty. Main flavour is liquid smoke, with a bit of soybean oil. Nice and creamy.

The acid test for any mayonnaise-like product is, of course, the tuna salad sandwich. Baconnaise performs okay here, since smoke and fish are a good combination-though it’s still a bit on the salty side and the smoke flavour turns slightly acrid in the finish.

Overall: Disappointing. While I wouldn’t kick it out of bed in the morning, it’s not what I was expecting when I purchased it.

• 20:58 The best movie review EVAR: bit.ly/8NfD8P (spoilers for New Moon. Lots of them :D ) #
• 09:57 Tucker Max talks about how HARD it is to NOT abuse and murder 'ugly' women, Echidne looks at his fans: bit.ly/5bH4ml #feminism #
• 10:04 To help me recover from the horrific previous link - absolutely lovely desert house design: bit.ly/8DGiFv #

• 10:22 There are gaps in my calendar today and a departmental Trivia game this afternoon. This is my happy corp.goth face ^.^ #
• 10:42 Learn someone else's middleware design, analyse the gaps and present to the product mgr by tomorrow? Why not apparently I'm super engineer. #
• 11:31 Bing finally has a purpose (but only because my Xbox is out of action). All of Season 3 of @theguild digg.com/u1H59U via @wilw #
• 11:33 Oh god. Have just realised my father is flying into Sydney to have dinner for my Birthday on the day of the Office Xmas Party. #
• 13:16 I appreciate your enthusiasm Mister New Vendor Rep but a 50 page implementation plan is possibly overkill for a 2 line database change. #
• 14:05 Middleware gap analysis surprisingly painless; mostly due to miraculous cornering of 2 senior architects for half an hour. #
• 14:07 Time for Trivia! Hoorays! I will try and ignore the nagging part of my brain staring at 4 implementation plans that require update. #
• 16:27 Despite having booked and given to #STUB/Tweetsgiving I seem to be triple booked tonight so unlikely to turn up #
• 16:35 Project Lead of Vendor Transition program surprised when I told him how long I'd worked at my company said I "talked like an old timer" O.o #
• 17:12 *cry* Why is it everyone good on this program leaves me? Losing my killer Manila DEV lead too now. #
• 17:20 \o/ RT @crikey_news: And he's gone. Abbott has resigned from the front bench. #
• 19:31 Loud possibly drunk customer service reps on the company bus annoy the hell out of me. #
• 19:37 I just unlocked the "Bender" badge on @foursquare! bit.ly/5usCxV #
• 19:37 I just ousted @deewang as the mayor of Queen Victoria Building on @foursquare! bit.ly/6feHVk #
• 20:35 No night where a martini is your chaser can end well. #

Hot in the city, hot and wet. Heat roils off the wet tarmac in waves.

Mass cancelations on a line on the same side of the city has turned the Werribee line trains into sardine tins.

The office was still in darkness when I left, the irony of our building losing power to a lightning strike was not lost to our staff who didn't have laptops. Even utilities companies don't deploy UPS's on general office floors.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

• 18:34 Back in the hospital. Hopefully its just bruising. Keith's face has gone a tad wonky #
• 19:43 Still in hospital. May be here for hours. #
• 20:47 @psykitty We're not sure, it looks like the blood is pooling behind his eyelids, making his face droop. Alas, not emergency so we wait! #
• 20:49 Well, so far, this week has officially sucked. A lot. #