Posts by Greasemonkey

Too Simplistic

I think your conclusion is based on a too-simplistic view of how Amazon operates their retail business (the cloud is a wholly different pan of eels).

Whilst the customers order is taken on the web (just what country is that in? ), the order is delivered from a gigantic warehouse in the UK - it takes 5 minutes to drive past their warehouse outside Glasgow ON THE MOTORWAY. So the revenue is declared at the website operation, but most of the cost is incurred in Blighty. I daresay that sufficient revenue is assigned to the UK to cover operating costs, CAPEX depreciation etc., but not enough above that to incur corporation tax.

So the key here is how the revenue is assigned. If it were assigned to different centres in proportion to their (genuine!) costs, no taxman could complain; however it isn't.

Perhaps the real problem is that megacorp s.a./ltd/inc. can do this, but Bloggs the plumber (or indeed I.T. contractor or employee) isn't allowed to.

Consensus & Modelling

Examples of "scientific consensus" from history:

1. The Earth is flat and you'll fall off if you go too far.

2. The Earth is at the centre of the universe, and everything else revolves around it.

And my favourite:

3. Nothing heavier than air can possibly fly (there was probably a bird floating by in a balloon at the time).

The current condition of the climate change issue seems to me to be strikingly similar to number 2 above at the time of Gallileo: The "consensus" view is rigidly supported by dogmatists (religious back then) who subject unbelievers to legal and bodily sanctions - being burnt at the stake. Meanwhile, genuine science was progressed with difficulty, as observations were progressively refined, until the new theory eventually became orthodox. Here's hoping that proper climate science can also progress in the teeth of "religious" dogma.

I've spent my career (o.k., in the oil industry) running, and supervising others running, computer models of physical systems. Just because a computer says down is up, it aint necessarily so. The idiot machine can be wrong in so many ways - and this is on much simpler systems than an entire planet's climate!

Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO)

Convergence errors (one oil co. I know nearly built an offshore platform far too small, because the convergence criteria were too relaxed. Many others had units which had to be replaced or removed after startup. This is always a good one).

Just because the computer is precise - to 16 digits- doesn't mean its accurate.

and many more. Lets not even look at the problems with equations of state...

So from experience, models are ALWAYS wrong. You just try to get them as close to right as is possible. For climate models, after a mere 20 years or so of development, they will not be very good; and development is hampered by the surrounding religious fervour. Computer models are an ENGINEERING tool, not a SCIENTIFIC one. Human interpretation is still required

That gives wriggle room for bureaucrats to demand stupidly simple conclusions that allow them a wonderful excuse to regulate a whole area of human activity they had hitherto been prevented from interfering with.

Discuss.