Let’s believe the ones who understand data

by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Arctic Sea Ice Reports: who to believe?
[Via Wott's Up With That?]

Anthony Watts implies “warmist” deception about Arctic sea ice extent because the Arctic ROOS and NSIDC graphs, based on different comparison periods and different methodologies, have slightly different ice extents. But that lazy accusation doesn’t even stand up to scrutiny of the data he provides himself.

[More]

An inability to understand the data as it is being presented usually helps determine who not to believe. Let’s see – there is a difference in the data because they use different methods.

One uses a baseline from from 1979-2000 while the other uses 1979-2006. Why would one expect the baselines to be exactly the same?

And, in fact, if you look at the error, the gray area, you can see that there may not be ANY statistical difference since they overlap. Oh, that’s right, Watts Up did not bother to show the error path in their figure. Here is the data, with the errors shown for NSDIC:

And the one from NANSEN:

So, I’ll overlap the relevant portions of each graph, and scale them, to get this figure:

Notice the overlap of the two gray areas. Just by an eyeball, it might be possible to state that there are no statistical difference between the two. I’d have to get some real numbers and do some calculations to be sure.

But both graphs show tsimilar curves. The distances between the means of each stays pretty much the same over the time period.

And examine the thick red line (NANSEN’s 2010 data) and the thin light blue one (NSDIC’s 2010 data). They also follow almost exactly the same course, within experimental error.

So, both sets of data show the same thing. Absolute numbers are not the important thing, it is the trend.

Why should this difference be a reason to disbelieve either? As with most climate work, it is the change in the trend, not the absolute number, that is critical.

Both graphs demonstrate a maximum extent within days of each other.

I love the attempt to smear one group because their director more actively engages with the media.

In addition, notice all the weasel words – may, might, perhaps.

And, as we revert to a long-term trend, this means that the denialists are right. From the Wott’s Up article:

2008 was an exceptionally bad year. Now the older ice has rebounded somewhat but only back to the place we would have expected it to be simply by continuing the line. Let’s see, 21% drop in 30 years. 7% per decade. That means that, if we just draw the line forward, we would get no old ice in 20 years.

While I certainly do not expect that the decline would continue to be straight over the next 20 years, there is nothing yet in the data to suggest that the line has been altered at all.

One of the things that will have to be modified as we move forward

by Wayne National Forest

Warming up to solar panels
[Via All Today's News - Sightline Daily]

Oregon homeowners turning to sustainable practices are replacing lawns with gardens, letting dryers sit idle in favor of clotheslines, letting grass turn brown in August and accepting a coexistence with insects. But some of these ideas run contrary to the extensive rules of the homeowners’ associations, which encourage consistency and conformity.

[More]

Lots of homeowner’s associations had covenants mandating cedar shake roofs until the effect on fire insurance premiums started to skyrocket. Now we may be seeing something similar with solar, particularly for covenants written decades ago.

Of course, state law supersedes these covenants. So, since it is against the law to prevent solar, the best way is to adapt and set reasonable guidelines. Lets hope the homeowner who worked through the process gets to put up his solar.

Adobe’s culpability as well as Apple’s

by Peter Kaminski

Louis Gerbarg on Apple, Adobe, Game Interpreters, and Section 3.3.1
[Via Daring Fireball]

Best piece I’ve read on the whole thing, by a long shot. Must-read.

[More]

I agree. It not presents a nice overview, it also presents Adobe’s possible culpability here. In essence, Adobe went all in with their software for creating iPhone apps while using other means than the ones Apple wanted developers to use.

Adobe was hoping that Apple would not want to piss off developers and would allow Adobe to continue with its plans – plans that could be harmful to Apple.

As this article states:

This is the only case where I feel an active user community was publicly jerked around like this in order for one side to try to gain leverage over the other. That is saying a lot, because I am not pleased with Apple’s actions either, but Adobe put Apple in a position where either Adobe got its way or Apple screwed developers.

Looks like Apple called their bluff. With HTML 5 appearing every day on new sites, Flash is leaking users. And it has yet to produce a version of Flash that can run on a lot of phones. So Adobe has some real work togo here. It has not shown itself to be the best company either for developers. It will have to do that now ti have much chance.

And the article brings up some points about runtime routines used in games. Many of these would break the new rules. So, unless Apple finds some way to relent, a lot of game developers will not be able to produce games for he iPhone, something Apple will not want.

Or it might just take some real lawyering to determine what is going on.

So, I wold not be surprised to see some modification of this part of the development agreements.

Realtime collaboration from multiple locations

Google turns up the heat on Office with collaboration tweaks
[Via Ars Technica]

Google is making a number of changes to its Google Docs offerings to make them even more attractive for those looking to make the switch from Microsoft’s Office. Google’s editors for documents, spreadsheets, and drawings are getting even more realtime collaboration attributes—including character-by-character editing by multiple users. Unfortunately, Google Docs is also losing a couple features, but Google believes these changes will help take it to the next level when it comes to challenging Microsoft.

Google Docs has always had easier-to-use collaboration features than much of what Microsoft has to offer. Docs has been particularly useful for individuals and small businesses who need to throw together a document quickly with geographically scattered users, but the newest additions allow users to see each others’ edits on a per-character basis. This means you can watch what your coworker is typing into a document in almost realtime, and up to 50 users can be connected to a document at a time

[More]

This is why I love reading Ars. I can get a relatively great explanation of something that is inherently geeky but very useful for everyone. Creating collaborative documents easily, with per-character edits in almost realtime opens up some real possibilities.

One of the first is taking really deep and rich notes at a meeting. Many people catch different things in translating the spoken word to print, meaning that the more people involved, the closer the notes come to what was actually spoken. And while some transcribe, others can make the document richer with photos, URLs and other data.

I have seen this done at large conferences and it is really useful. and people not present in the room can still follow the presentation by reading the text.

There have been other ways to accomplish this but none with the reach that Goggle Docs has. It will be interesting to see just what people make of this.

A phone for taking pictures of fat people?

by ilamont.com

Liveblog: Mobile Microsoft Event at 10am Pacific time (live)
[Via Ars Technica]

Microsoft is holding a mobile event this morning in downtown San Francisco at Mighty. The invitation includes the cryptic phrases “All In The…” and “It’s time to share.” Ars will be on the scene liveblogging the event, which is scheduled to begin at 10am Pacific time (click here to see it in your timezone).

It’s widely believed that Microsoft will announce some sort of mobile device or platform, including the long-rumored Pink project—which is supposed to deliver the successor to the Sidekick platform after Microsoft purchased Danger Hiptop in 2008.

[More]

In the live log, there was this paraphrase of the presentations, spoken by someone in the video shown, “Some guy says if he sees an awesome fat man eating a burrito at Chipotle, he wants to share that with the world.”

Microsoft calls it ‘lifecasting.’

Wow, a phone for the budding paparazzi of the young generation. Somehow, I do not think there is a large market for club-going, social butterflies who want to document the fat people they see.

But, I could be wrong.