The man who repeatedly beats the weather scientists

Piers Corbyn not only predicted the current weather, but he believes things are going to get much worse …

Piers Corbyn works in an undistinguished office in Borough High Street. He has no telescope or supercomputer. Armed only with a laptop, huge quantities of publicly available data and a first-class degree in astrophysics, he gets it right again and again.

Back in November, when the Met Office was still doing its “mild winter” schtick, Corbyn said it would be the coldest for 100 years. Indeed, it was back in May that he first predicted a snowy December, and he put his own money on a white Christmas about a month before the Met Office made any such forecast. He said that the Met Office would be wrong about last year’s mythical “barbecue summer”, and he was vindicated. He was closer to the truth about last winter, too.

He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people – notably in farming – are starting to invest in his forecasts. In the eyes of many punters, he puts the taxpayer-funded Met Office to shame. How on earth does he do it? He studies the Sun.

He looks at the flow of particles from the Sun, and how they interact with the upper atmosphere, especially air currents such as the jet stream, and he looks at how the Moon and other factors influence those streaming particles.

He takes a snapshot of what the Sun is doing at any given moment, and then he looks back at the record to see when it last did something similar. Then he checks what the weather was like on Earth at the time – and he makes a prophecy.  … Of course he may be just a fluke-artist. It may be just luck that he has apparently predicted recent weather patterns more accurately than government-sponsored scientists. Nothing he says, to my mind, disproves the view of the overwhelming majority of scientists, that our species is putting so much extra CO2 into the atmosphere that we must expect global warming. The question is whether anthropogenic global warming is the exclusive or dominant fact that determines our climate, or whether Corbyn is also right to insist on the role of the Sun. Is it possible that everything we do is dwarfed by the moods of the star that gives life to the world? …

via The man who repeatedly beats the Met Office at its own game – Telegraph.

Nanotechnology Christmas card created by university

Nanotechnology experts have unveiled a Christmas card so small that more than 8000 of them could fit on a first-class stamp.

The card produced by the University of Glasgow, said to be the smallest in the world, is invisible to the naked eye.

The university’s school of engineering drew up the design to highlight its “world-leading” nanotechnology expertise.

Professor David Cumming and Dr Qin Chen etched the Christmas tree image on to a minute piece of glass.

Professor Cumming said: “Our nanotechnology is among the best in the world but sometimes explaining to the public what the technology is capable of can be a bit tricky.

“We decided that producing this Christmas card was a simple way to show just how accurate our technology is.

“The process to manufacture the card only took 30 minutes. It was very straightforward to produce as the process is highly repeatable – the design of the card took far longer than the production.

“The card is 200 micro-metres wide by 290 micro-metres tall. To put that into some sort of perspective, a micro-metre is a millionth of a metre; the width of a human hair is about 100 micro-metres.

“You could fit over half a million of them on to a standard A5 Christmas card …

via Nanotechnology Christmas card created by university | Scotland | STV News.

12 new fresh-water fish species discovered in Vietnam

The Wildlife at Risk (WAR) has announced the discovery of 12 species of fresh-water fish in Vietnam.

These new species were discovered in surveys in Phu Quoc Island conducted since late 2008.

“The discovery reveals that perhaps many species of fresh-water fish have not been discovered yet. The discovery also helps research the change of the fish community to have appropriate preservation strategies,” said WAR’s official Bui Huu Manh.

The latest report of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) shows that fresh-water fish species play very significant role in balancing the ecological system and being the sources of food and means of support for millions of people in the world.

However, in many countries in the world, the quantity of many species of fresh-water fish of low economic values is reducing due to pollution of their living environment.

via 12 new fresh-water fish species discovered in Vietnam.

iPhone Fix: “Cannot Get Mail – The connection to the server failed” with Exchange Activesync

It seems AT&T has to have your iPhone on the Microsoft Push (aka Enterprise Data) plan.

If you purchased an Unlimited data plan and your iPhone stops working, check that they didn’t slyly switch you to a different smaller data plan. You should be grandfathered in… at the same price. I may have to still argue with them about that. I think mine was $30 for unlimited, a few years ago.

Your Exchange Server may be set up correctly and others may be having now problems. You may be able to set up your account, and that works. After entering your Exchange server information on your iPhone, you see “Configuring Sync” and no error, but  still … you get the “Cannot Get Mail – The connection to the server failed” message.

• - Call AT&T at 611 from your phone and make sure you have the Enterprise Data plan.  This gives you unlimited email and web data access. Without it, you won’t be able to sync your mail and calendar with Exchange server.
• - Turn off WiFi.
• - Delete the Exchange account on your iPhone.
• - Make sure your cellular network is working, that your browser can connect to http://www.att.com/ttr  while WiFi is turned off.
• - Re-add your exchange server account. Be sure your username and password are  correct. You should see Configuring Sync, and no errors.
• - Reset your network settings under Settings | General | Reset | Reset Network Settings. Your phone will reboot.

You should now get email and your calendar items from your Exchange server. I have not seen this fix on the net, but this is what worked for me today.

Here are some links for your Exchange Server Admin if everyone is having problems:

• Configuring Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) in Exchange Server 2003
• Enterprise firewall configuration for Exchange ActiveSync Direct Push Technology
• Error Message: 403.6 – Forbidden: IP address rejected
• How to reset the default virtual directories that are required to provide Outlook Web Access, Exchange ActiveSync, and Outlook Mobile Access services in Exchange Server 2003
• Apple Support Forum: Topic : “Cannot Get Mail – The connection to the server failed”
• Direct Push does not work in Exchange Server 2003 SP2 after you create a secondary virtual directory
• Topic : My ActiveSync and OMA issues

Hints for Exchange server admins: Check the logs to see if your mobile users are getting in: (Default is C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1). In my case, my iPhone was showing up in the Exchange Server logs as making requests, and Exchange server was set up correctly, but I still could not get email due to my AT&T data plan!

I hope this saves someone hours, days, or even weeks of frustration and work.

Fox Slammed by L.A. Times — ‘Shouldn’t Call Itself a News Organization’

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times broke a taboo of sorts among mainstream news organizations by urging Fox News to “crack down on… partisanship in its news ranks” or ”stop pretending to be an objective news source.”

The editorial was prompted by the leak of an internal Fox News memo ordering its “reporters” to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.” The memo was sent by Bill Sammon, Fox News’ Washington managing editor, in 2009 and released by Media Matters last week.

The Times noted that “such data aren’t in serious dispute among climate scientists.”

The way the data are interpreted can vary; it’s legitimate for climate skeptics to reach conclusions that contradict mainstream theories. But only a crank would deny the underlying temperature data that show the Earth getting warmer — records compiled by independent stations around the world, combined with satellite measurements and confirmed by observations of rising sea levels, vanishing glaciers and other inputs — because to do so is to deny material and measurable facts.Instructing reporters to treat such facts as controversial is like telling them to question the laws of gravity when discussing plane crashes. The only reason for doing it is to further a partisan agenda, in this case an attempt to cast doubt on climate science in order to fend off government efforts to limit greenhouse gases. …

via Fox Slammed by L.A. Times — ‘Shouldn’t Call Itself a News Organization’ | Media | AlterNet.

Cool.  High time.

Bank of America Accused: Breaking Into Homes, Stealing Ashes?

When Mimi Ash arrived at her mountain chalet here for a weekend ski trip, she discovered that someone had broken into the home and changed the locks.

When she finally got into the house, it was empty. All of her possessions were gone: furniture, her son’s ski medals, winter clothes and family photos. Also missing was a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words “Together Forever,” that contained the ashes of her late husband, Robert.

The culprit, Ms. Ash soon learned, was not a burglar but her bank. According to a federal lawsuit filed in October by Ms. Ash, Bank of America had wrongfully foreclosed on her house and thrown out her belongings, without alerting Ms. Ash beforehand.

In an era when millions of homes have received foreclosure notices nationwide, lawsuits detailing bank break-ins like the one at Ms. Ash’s house keep surfacing. And in the wake of the scandal involving shoddy, sometimes illegal paperwork that has buffeted the nation’s biggest banks in recent months, critics say these situations reinforce their claims that the foreclosure process is fundamentally flawed. …

Banks and their contractors insist that the number of mistakes is minuscule given the hundreds of thousands of new foreclosure cases filed each month. Bank of America, for instance, says it works with third-party contractors to inspect and maintain more than one million properties each month and has enhanced its controls in the last year to prevent mistakes. …

via Banks Accused of Illegally Breaking Into Homes – NYTimes.com.

Mimi’s husband was stabbed to death in a road rage incident a few years earlier.  I hope things start to get better for her.

Biologist: Sasquatch legend true

YouTube – Sasquatch legend true.

The whole basis of the reality of the Bigfoot legend rests largely on the hundreds of footprint casts that have been made and collected. It would be foolish to assume that every footprint is genuine as the Bigfoot mystery is contaminated more than any other, by hoaxers. However it would be equally foolish to assume that every footprint is a hoax. As John Napia puts it, the hoax argument would require “the existence of a conspiracy of mafia like ramifications with cells in practically every major township from San francisco to Vancouver.”

Although sightings of Large manlike creatures in North America pre-date the arrival of Europeans, reports of footprints however are more recent and there is a mention of large tracks in the early 19th Century. An early settler by the name of David Thompson, crossed the rockies near the present site of Jasper, Alberta in the winter of 1811. He mentions coming across the tracks of a large animal. The entry in his journal reads..

“Continuing our journey in the afternoon we came on the track of a large animal, the snow about six inches deep on the ice; I measured it; four large toes of four inches in length to each a short claw; the ball of the foot sunk three inches lower than the toes, the hinder part of the foot did not mark well, the length fourteen inches, by eight inches in breadth, walking from north to south, and having passed about six hours. We were in no humour to follow him…. its great size was not that of a bear.”

via Bigfoot-lives.com

Here is some interesting evidence, again from bigfoot-lives.com:

In 1982, a us forrestry serviceman saw a Sasquatch on a logging spur road. Footprints were found and a closer inspection of the footprint casts, produced a remarkable discovery. They contained whats known as Dermal Ridges – The foots equivalant of finger prints.Various specialists including experts from the smithsonian Institute, Scotland Yard and even the top fingerprinting guy from a Texas Police Department analysed the casts and the majority of them concluded that the prints were not the results of a hoax.

Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream scientists refused to give it any serious attention. As Grover Krantz commented that when he showed the cast to his scientific collegues, “they were very eager to pass it back to him as if the cast was infected with some contagious disease”

The fingerprint expert mentioned above is Jimmy Chilcutt, a latent fingerprint examiner from the Conroe Police Department. He watched Jeff Muldrum on television discussing a footprint cast he had which showed dermal ridges. Jimmy Chilcutt was a Bigfoot sceptic and felt that his fingerprint experience could be utilised to show the cast was a hoax.He contacted meldrum who duly agreed for chilcutt to examine the cast. The cast in question was made by Deputy James P. Akin of the Pike County Sheriff’s Office Pike County, Georgia in 1997 from an impression found in the Elkins Creek flood plain. The cast was 17.5″ long and 8.5″ wide. Known as the Elkins Creek casting, chilcott examined it for several months and in particular, the areas where dermal ridges appeared.

He concluded his examination saying that that the dermal ridges are that of a non human primate. This conclusion he says is based on the fact that humans have creases running perpendicular to the lateral ridges on the first joint of the toes where the toe meets the foot.

In the Elkin Creek cast the dermal ridges flow lengthwise along the side of the foot. This deos not occurr in the Human or the known non-human primate.¹¹

Chilcutt quickly turned from a sceptic to a believer and says that the 1967 blue creek mountain road cast and the 1984 Walla Walla, Table spring cast also show this type of ridge pattern.

Men With Red Eyes: Creepy Encounters in Chile, U.S., and U.K.

If you were walking down the street and encountered a man with ‘glowing red eyes’ what would you do? Start to dial 911 then imagine the response from the operator before you punch in the numbers. An operator who will ask if you’re under psychiatric care? Or, a man with glowing red eyes floating down a street? Luckily for the villagers in Chile who witnessed the man, parapsychologists were called in to investigate extremely unusual poltergeist activity occurring at one of the villager’s home. The woman in the U.K. who saw the man with glowing red eyes walking down the street was ‘so shocked she couldn’t talk’. She decided she couldn’t tell anyone for fear of being labeled ‘insane’. A third encounter, an ‘evil’ shadow man with bright blood red eyes who appeared in a 12-yr-old boy’s room. The boy, when he was 18, posted online what occurred.

via Men With Red Eyes: Creepy Encounters in Chile, U.S., and U.K. | DBKP – Death By 1000 Papercuts – DBKP.

This caught my attention because I once had a dream that I was on the Star ship Enterprise and there were crewmen walking around who had glowing red eyes. It was very startling. Here is a related ATS thread.

Vaginal steam bath finds a place among Southern California spa options

Pungent steam rises from a boiling pot of a mugwort tea blended with wormwood and a variety of other herbs. Above it sits a nude woman on an open-seated stool, partaking in a centuries-old Korean remedy that is gaining a toehold in the West.

Vaginal steam baths, called chai-yok, are said to reduce stress, fight infections, clear hemorrhoids, regulate menstrual cycles and aid infertility, among many other health benefits. In Korea, many women steam regularly after their monthly periods.

There is folk wisdom — and even some logic — to support the idea that the carefully targeted steam may provide some physiological benefits for women. But there are no studies to document its effectiveness, and few American doctors have even heard of it.

“It sounds like voodoo medicine that sometimes works,” said Dr. Vicken Sahakian, medical director of Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles.

Niki Han Schwarz believes it worked for her. After five steams, she found she had fewer body aches and more energy. She also became pregnant eight months ago at the age of 45 after attempting to conceive for three years.

Han Schwarz and her husband, orthopedic surgeon Charles Schwarz, are determined to introduce vaginal steam baths to Southern California women. Their Santa Monica spa, Tikkun Holistic Spa, offers a 30-minute V-Steam treatment for $50. (The identical treatment is available for men, to steam the perineal area.)

At Daengki Spa in Koreatown, a 45-minute V-Herbal Therapy treatment can be had for $20 a squat. The steam includes a mixture of 14 herbs imported from Korea by spa manager Jin Young. The spa’s website claims the treatment will “rid the body of toxins” and help women with menstrual cramps, bladder infections, kidney problems and fertility issues. “It is a traditional Korean health remedy,” according to the website. …

via Vaginal steam bath finds a place among Southern California spa options – Los Angeles Times.

Skype apologises for losing half of daily call traffic

Millions of people around the globe have been hit by an outage at the popular internet phone service Skype.

Users as far afield as Japan, Europe and the US have all reported problems.

The company which prides itself on providing relatively reliable service last suffered a major outage in 2007.

“We take outages like this really seriously and apologise for the inconvenience users are having,” Tony Bates, Skype chief executive officer told BBC News.

“Right now it looks like clients are coming on and offline and sometimes they are crashing in the middle of calls. We are deep in the middle of investigating the cause of the problem and have teams working hard to remedy the situation,” Mr Bates said. … On Skype’s Twitter account, the company said their “engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal”. …

Mr Bates did not rule in or rule out the possibility of a malicious attack and said “all avenues” were being explored.

He estimated that as a result of the outage, Skype has lost around 10 million calls.

Mr Bates told the BBC that normal call volume for the time of day would be 20m. …

via BBC News – Skype apologises for losing half of daily call traffic.