A question for the Mac buffs

[Deimos]

Mystery Tramp commented: "Finally, why waste energy on Apple? They are only the fourth worst offender in Greenpeace terms.  Why not start a campaign against Acer, the third worst? "

Mainly because those that are currently "worse" are trying to get better whilst Apple are getting worse. Apple has just rung several alarm bells (not just Greenpeace) because of increased levels of the toxins where as everybody else is reducing the levels !! (I said it before but you must have missed it). Do we in France or the UK ignore Global Warming because America is worse. Should be do nothing, maybe burn a bit more because we are not "the worse". Of course not - no sane person would suggest that course of action.

Mystery Tramp wrote: "Why, on a recent thread, where someone asked advice after buying an Acer computer, were they not admonished by the Green Taliban "

Did not see that thread. There was some talk about IBM and as I said above I was positive as it was before I was aware of or before the rankings were released. We can only act on info we have at the time. Maybe try reading what I wrote in the post before yours and you will see I mentioned this and why I previously was keen on IBM - are you reading what I wrote or just being critical because I don't worship Apple ? (truthfully now)

Mystery Tramp wrote: "Does anyone know where I can find a baby seal - after reading the tosh written by Deimos and looking again at the information provided by Greenpeace I feel the only sensible thing to do is to go out and club one to death

.....

Now, where is my culling club!!"

Dick Replied: "Sensible post, MT."

(Says it all). One thing though, Dick normally get really uptight when somebody posts using spoof names and when he does not know who they really are. And with a name like "Mystery Tramp" I would guess somebody is trying to keep who they really are secret - so come on Dick, shouldn't you be demanding to know who they are.

Ian

[Mystery tramp]

[quote user="Deimos"]Should be do nothing, maybe burn a bit more because we are not "the worse". Of course not - no sane person would suggest that course of action.[/quote]

Please don't try to imply I am sane.

[quote user="Deimos"]Mystery Tramp wrote: "Does anyone know where I can find a baby seal -

after reading the tosh written by Deimos and looking again at the

information provided by Greenpeace I feel the only sensible thing to do

is to go out and club one to death

.....

Now, where is my culling club!!" [/quote]

For the avoidance of doubt the above comment about killing seals was meant in a light hearted way.  I didn't intend for it to be taken seriously and I apologise if anyone reading this forum thought I was soliciting information on the location of seals so I could kill them.  Now kittens - they're another matter. (Sorry that was flippant - kittens are always safe in my company - hee hee!).

[quote user="Deimos"]One thing though, Dick normally get really uptight when

somebody posts using spoof names and when he does not know who they

really are. And with a name like "Mystery Tramp" I would guess somebody

is trying to keep who they really are secret - so come on Dick,

shouldn't you be demanding to know who they are.

Ian[/quote]

I am sure Dick knows more about me from my name than he would if my name was Ian or Dick or Harry.  I don't see what the problem is with my name anyway - I am mysterious and I am a tramp.  My surname might also be Tramp.  You don't know. I think things have descended to a low level when my name is insulted in this way.  You save the planet in your way and I'll destroy it in mine.  But at least, as we sink slowly into oblivion, I will be travelling in style and when I do decide to switch off my toxic computer I wont have to click on a button marked START.

[Quillan]

At the end of the day people buy things they want and to be honest most, even when aware for them, are not interested about toxic components in the thing they are buying. After all it’s only when the thing has to be destroyed does it become an issue. What they want is a bigger bang for their bucks that they can get.

Apple stuff, well you either love it or hate it. Apple users like Dick love their Apples and good luck to them and as a brand it does have a certain amount of loyal followers, I seem to remember Dick is on his second since being a forum member (it may be more). This is typical of Apple users and I know quite a few. It’s a shame so many other companies don’t have such a loyal client base as Apple, perhaps they could learn something from them. I personally prefer PC’s with Windows, OK not the best operating system in the world but it does what I want it do and upgrading it would appear by prices quoted in this thread a lot cheaper. I doubt very much if Dick looked for any information from say Greenpeace about these issues raised and if he did I doubt it would have changed his mind.

It’s a bit like cars, they give off pollution, the more pollution they give out the more tax they pay but people still buy them. 4X4’s are the same, in some countries you pay more tax when buying one but again it does not stop people from buying them.

Why don’t people listen to Greenpeace, well I seem to remember they don’t like things like wind turbines because they are environmentally unfriendly. Apparently they kill birds. That’s something that makes some laugh, they don’t want us to use fossil fuels and pollute the atmosphere but when there is a ‘green’ alternative they complain about that as well. Sort of rather confusing to the average Joe Bloggs. They don’t like nuclear fuelled power stations yet France where 98% of the power is nuclear generate they have the lowest Co2 emissions. They also say they speak for everyone, well nobody from Greenpeace has ever asked me what I think and they certainly do not speak for me. Instead of knocking people perhaps I would respect them more if they spent their money investing in R&D to provide cheap alternative green products that we all can use. Seems to me that when you put the word green in to a sentence it’s like organic food it’s a licence to print money.

So to the original poster I hope you got your Mac sorted out and I am sure that you will be very pleased with it over the coming years just as the like of Dick has with his.

[Dick Smith]

Chris, you have it right. I am actually on my eleventh Mac right now, and all of them but two are still in working order (the hinge has broken on a 10-year old laptop, and I dropped one down a flight of stone stairs) as is an old 1981 Mac ][e I have in the loft. As they last so long, how does that affect their pollution footprint do you think?

Mystery T - give my regards to Miss Lonely. Anyone named after a character in the best rock song ever recorded is OK in my book - I think I know all I need to know about you from that alone.

[Quillan]

Probably not by much Dick if anything at all.

Somebody mentioned batteries I wonder how many people dispose of their old batteries in these box's you see in supermarkets etc? I know one or two who do but only if they are passing otherwise they throw them in the bin. I was thinking about them being thrown in land fills, rotting down and all those chemicals leaking out and polluting the ground. Perhaps the 'greens' could give us a handful of prepaid Jiffy bags and we can post them off to be disposed of properly.

Actually Dick I think you are really irresponsible storing all these old Apple computers, have you no conscience? How do you sleep at night? What a bad example you are to your to your students. I have this vision of men in white hazcem suits coming to take them away, the whole street being evacuated and big lorries turning up and all your neighbours complaining about living next to a man with an environment time bomb in his loft, never know you might even get on the ten o’clock news. Of course if asked we will all deny knowing you [:P] .

Good god how did we get from a guy rejoicing in his new Apple to this load of old dribble, I’m of to bed.

 

[Dick Smith]

I'm off to finish painting the dining room...

[Miki]

[quote]

Mystery T - give my regards to Miss Lonely. Anyone named

after a character in the best rock song ever recorded is OK in my book

- I think I know all I need to know about you from that alone.

[/quote]

And not forgetting dear old Napoleon....only saw this thread ( no

little about Macs, Pcs or whatever, my Acorn and QL still march on...

[:)] )as me sensitive Bobbiness alert went off....no need to say that I

totally agree that without doubt, it is the  best song ever

written and the final album in the trilogy ( MT) has secured

his place as numero uno. And to think, I was cycling to school when it

all started.....................................

Sorry to interrupt in mens techie things........

[Dick Smith]

Mens techie in corpore sano?

[Unknown]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Mens techie in corpore sano?
[/quote]

Eh?

[Dick Smith]

As in not mens sana in corpore sano because techies aren't mens sana.

[Unknown]

sorry, now I understand?

[Dick Smith]

Mens sana in corpore sano means a healthy mind in a healthy body, but Miki mentioned a mens techie so I wondered if a mens techie would lead to a mens sano or not. Mens techie in corpore insanitas?

[Dick Smith]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I thought this article on the BBC website was interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6040146.stm

[Quillan]

The ‘trick' I have discovered is to search (on the internet) for the original report that is quoted by people like Greenpeace, WWF etc and then read it. Only the worst parts of the findings are quoted, no notice is taken of the good parts or the conclusion, its selective quoting. If groups like Greenpeace did not keep us in a state of fear they wouldn’t exist. I don’t mean this as a general knock at Greenpeace and WWF as they do some very important work such as saving bears and stopping whale hunting.

A good example is the polar cap melting. The guy who is most quoted (and name escapes me for the moment) did show that it was but only on one side. He went on to explain that the volume has stayed the same (melted on one side grew on the other) and might even have grown in total volume by a miniscule amount. His conclusion (never quoted of course) basically said it was down to the way the earth orbited the sun, the moon orbiting the earth, other planets orbits, earth ‘wobble’ and that our solar system moved around the galaxy as well. It’s all part of what the earth does apparently.

Added - I just thought, why is it that every time they talk about this on TV they show the same bit of film of a lump of ice cliff falling in to the sea, if it's that bad they must have hours of film and clips to use.

If you then want to see what happens when environmentalists get hold of things have a look at Yellow Stone Park in the States, not exactly a shining example.

[Deimos]

I assume you are talking about the study of Canada's ice caps rather than the poles where indeed there was a slight thickening in some places (only a slight thickening, not any increase in coverage).  This thickening was probably due to increased rainfall and that overall the ice was melting.

Sea levels are rising (fact NOT scaremongering).  Ice shelf decline is a useful indicator of Global Warming but does not contribute to the sea level rising.  Only the loss of land based ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise.  However, loss of ice shelves will then tend to release ice sheets and will probably be irreversible.  Greenland and Antarctic have close on 75% of the world's fresh water.  If they both melted it would raise sea levels by 70m.  Greenland is warmer than the Antarctic and is likely to show melting effects sooner.  In terms of sea level rise, the Arctic ice caps will have no impact if they melt (as they are only ice sheets).  There is loads of research showing the effects in Greenland and the Antarctic that the interior, higher altitude land based areas are growing thicker whilst the lower peripheral ice is thinning and retreating.  If you watch these "scaremongering" news articles that show the same footage they are normally about the "ice retreating" - which they are and is significant.

Whilst the loss of the Arctic ice will not impact sea levels it will have a massive environmental impact.  US government data show that the perennial Arctic ice is being lost at a rate of 9% per decade (maybe GW is just scaremongering !!).

There is a net loss of ice (fact).

To start claiming that environmental organisations and news services are misleading and scaremongering about Global Warming and the impact on our climate all because one report was not quoted in full - and that the news uses the same library footage for these reports beggars believe.  If you are going to read about such things, then read extensively, not just reports that appear in the news !!!

Ian

[Quillan]

The truth of the matter is we know astonishingly very little about every aspect of the environment from its past history to the present date. Likewise we know very little on how to preserve it. In every debate, all sides overstate the extent of existing knowledge and its degree of certainty.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing and human activity is the probably cause. We are currently in the midst of a natural warming trend that began (being documented) back in the 1850’s, as we emerge from a 400 year cold spell. The relevance of these dates is that they can be proved as the earliest meteorological record dates back to the 1850’s and core samples taken from city/populated areas can only scientifically be proved accurate back around 400/450 years. This phenomenon is often referred to as the “Little Ice Age” L.I.A for short.

Nobody can say for absolute certain how much of the present warming trend MIGHT be a natural phenomenon or that it MIGHT be man-made. The predicted rise in temperature over the next century has been run through many computer simulations and results vary by as much as 400%. This only proves further that nobody really knows.

The surface temperature rise is probably more to do with human activity and land use than the burning of fossil fuels. Speaking of which we are already moving away from these fuels not so much because of their pollution but because they are inefficient (among other reasons). Given that in the next 100 to 200 years the population is expected to decrease they will consume more energy.

A phrase more commonly used amongst environmentalists is “precautionary principle” which if properly applied actually forbids the precautionary principle which is therefore self contradictory. So again yet another myth put out by environmentalists.

The research currently being carried out is by foundations and universities all paid for by grants from ‘interested’ bodies and corporations. It’s interesting to note that so many outspoken critics of global warming are retired professors no longer seeking grants and no longer have to face colleagues whose grant applications and career development may be jeopardised by their criticisms.

We are now in a situation “when the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.” (Alston Chase – Playing God in Yellowstone: the Destruction of Americas First National Park – ISBN 0-15-672036-1).

Now to a few specifics. There is no reduction in the size of the ice packs and this is confirmed by.: Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Columbia University),  Climate Research Unit (University of East Anglia), Global Climatology Network maintained by the National Climatic Data Centre and the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Centre (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Interestingly enough the American Government has never passed comment about their contradictory findings. I am not making any claims based on things I have seen on TV but on fact and having looked through my points of reference You will see that I have made no refrence to Canada. I can give you in excess of 100 names of eminent people in this field that say you are wrong. Many of whom have had their work misquoted or quoted completely out of context. A good starting point for your research however may be D.R. Easterling, T.R. Karl, E.H. Mason, P.Y. Hughs, D.P. Bowman, R.C Daniels and T.A. Boden and in particular any of their papers between 1996 and 2000. From these you can go on and find a lot more references from all over the world which will back my point further, it will take up to much room (and I can’t be bothered) to type them all here.

You may also find the following links of interest.:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/

[Deimos]

This is just daft.  Or course simulation models vary (and by a lot more than 400%).  It is in the nature of the computer simulation research methods and techniques.  But you need to understand the research methods to appreciate the reasons behind the variation (not just read published papers).

You are using vague non-specific terms which make it totally impossible to discuss anything (vagueness for "convenience" ?).  For example, you say there is no change in the size of the ice packs.  What ice packs.  This is very significant.  Are you talking about area of volume of ice ? (again very significant).  Do you include Canada ? (which you did not before).  Are you talking about (including) Antarctica ?  For example, your Goddard Space Flight Centre reports that the edges of the Greenland Ice Pack are thinning by nearly 1m per years (in their words "troubling").  Given that Greenland is warmer than the Antarctic, then changes are expected to be observed there before e.g. the Antarctic.  They estimate a net loss of 50 cubic km per year from Greenland - yet you claim there is no loss of the ice packs (or you cite others mis-quoting then).  For example, Krabiill, Abdalati, Frederick et al, 2000 were the first to include the bedrock movements to estimates to Greenland ice pack thickening above 2000 m and found that bedrock rising actually cancelled out the thickening effects to virtually nothing.  However, then look at the lower level ice losses and you have a Satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice area are showing a reduction of 350000 sq Km per decade.  Again Goddard and again, not quite what you were claiming.

Measured Fact:  Sea levels are rising by around 2 cm per decade.  A quarter of this rise is accounted for by thermal expansion of the water is the sea (as it warms-up).  Another quarter is accounted for by the melting of small glaciers around the world.  Which leaves the ice packs.  and we have measurements showing losses there (see Greenland above).

However, the issue of Global Warming makes thing actually worse.  One of the commonly expected effects of Global Warming is increased precipitation of the main ice caps.  Thus, whilst the environmental changes are causing increased summer melting, this is being offset (partially) by increased winter precipitation , thus limiting changes to the mass balance.  Thus, slight mass balance losses become very significant in terns of environmental changes.

I am not prepared to discuss points where there is such selective quoting going on.  I suggest you chat to GW - you can both agree with each other that there is no need for us to stop polluting and destroying our planet.  He is looking for a friend on this matter (as everybody else seems to disagree with him).  As, in your opinion we cannot prove we are destroying it there is clearly no reason why we should stop polluting it (despite the evidence which you refuse to recognise).  Don't know what sort of proof you will require but for me, waiting until something can be proven is too late - bye bye planet (at least in its current form).

End of (my) story

Ian

[Mystery tramp]

By the way, what do you think of your new computer, bigjimbishop?  After all this I imagine you feel like the man who didn't know it was loaded!

[bigjimbishop]

[quote user="Mystery tramp"]By the way, what do you think of your new computer, bigjimbishop?  After all this I imagine you feel like the man who didn't know it was loaded!

[/quote]

Well the Mac Pro is very fast and smooth but sadly Steinberg have yet to update Nuendo, the pro software I use to UB so I have not really been able to kick asss yet.

However I did load Win XP through Bootcamp onto an IDE drive in line with the DVD drive and it worked quite well but not the greatest performance from my expensive Raptor Sata drives.

Generally I feel quite future proof for the next five years with this machine.

However watchout for industrial diamond terrabyte storage devices being developed by GE it's superfast low energy 3d optical storage, no moving parts. This will see off the hard disk for good.

[Renaud]

A great thing thing about Apple in the late 80s and the 90s was that the folks there produced great innovative computers but behaved like a cartoon version of 'how not to run a corporation'. Then back came Steve Jobs and somehow all those buffoon CEO have become somehow hard to remember. He has aligned the corporation with the products, improved the products and produced alternative income streams like the iPod.

What I blame Jobs for is that MacUser is no longer interesting to read - all anorack reviews of piffling gagets and no bitching about corporate bloopers.

Dick, where is 'Miss Lonely' in Van Morrison's Take it where you find it? Or Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone?

[Dick Smith]

In school?

[SaligoBay]

What a thread! 

Shakespearian title ("Lay on, Macbuff", obviously from The Scottish Play).

And His Bobness too! 

The baby seals were the icing on the gateau.

Or maybe the real icing was Mr Smith saying "Oh please...", that may even have been cuter than the baby seal.

What were YOUR favourite bits from this thread?  [:D]

 

[Miki]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]In school?[/quote]

No Dick, in the Finest school [:)]

Not sure what my fav bit was SB, and I have just gone to have a gander and saw just how much I would have to read again....so................I have called it a draw.

Do you think one gets a sore derrière if you sit on the fence for too long ? [;-)]