Posts by interested observer

Quote from Mark U

I.O., it's a bunch of smaller reasons that, to me, point to one direction. Reasons like : his drive to accomplishment, his tenacity, his capacity for learning, his strong philosophical bent, his seriousness, his humour and playfulness, the company of collaborators he keeps through the years, and more. Even his recent distancing from the LENR terminology I take as a hint that he is intent on bringing a working product to market.

Amazing. As is the case for every aspect of the Rossi circus, there is zero evidence for any of the qualities you ascribe to Rossi. It is all in your head. But I guess that should have been obvious. I keep expecting one of the faithful to point to something real as their reason for believing Rossi. But alas, it is all delusion.

@MarkU: Sam12 has never been willing to explain. Maybe you will. What possible reason could you have for believing Rossi is not a co man with nothing of any value? It would be fascinating to know.

Year after year I continue to be astounded that the remaining souls who still think Rossi is anything other than a total fraud have no problem with the fact that his global operations leave no trace in real or virtual space. Rossiplanet is the most secret operation in human history in an era when nothing can be hidden from the prying eyes of the world. Compared to Rossi, his partners, and his customers, the Manhattan Project was a public spectacle.

“Are these people truly this gullible or greedy, or do they just want so badly to believe it is true, that they ignore all the obvious telltale signs of a con”.

One or all of the above, no doubt.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Sorry, I couldn't get the context - would you mind to quote post, which you're replying by now? Thank You.

You couldn’t get the context because I inadvertently addressed the comment to you instead of Bob#2, to whom it was actually intended. Sorry about that.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

"Renewables" need oversized grid, because they must be balanced with fossils at massive scale, but 50% green tax for already high electricity price is simply way too much.

As usual, what you say is simply false.

It is a common mistake to think of a car as an investment. It is nothing of the kind. Economically, it just a depreciating asset. That being said, if the only consideration is utilitarian, then a cheap car and probably a used one at that makes the most sense. If you are someone who enjoys driving a certain sort of car for whatever reasons those might be, then it is a matter of where you want to spend your money. There are no one-size-fits-all answers in the world of cars.

Quote from Dr Richard

Sorry @Jed Rothwell I didn't realize you are such an expert on this. Of course electric cars are much more efficient and easier to maintain..But where can I find a cheap one?

Out of curiosity, if you decide to get a new car, will you buy a Chevy Versa or a Nissan Spark for $15,000? I doubt it. Those are among the cheapest cars you could buy but most people don’t buy the cheapest cars. In the US, they now spend an average of $37,000. There are several electric cars at or below that price point; even the Tesla 3 starts at $38k. It is really not a matter of price for most people. It is a matter of perceived value. People who happily pop for $50,000, $60,000 or more for luxurious interiors, “fine German engineering”, or other desired attributes aren’t stopped by price. If you consider an electric drive train to be a valuable asset, then electric cars are already price competitive with many other cars offering different upscale features at the same price point But many people demand that electrification should come for free. The good news is that as a result of the evolution of battery technology and manufacturing improvements, it soon will.

“You are in love with fantasy versions of thermodynamics, economics and engineering. They seem to be inspired by the kind of ignorant, right-wing nonsense Trump spouts about coal versus wind energy. You distort the facts, and you ignore them, and you are unwilling to do simple analyses that anyone familiar with heat engines and electricity can do in high school. As far as I am concerned, this discussion is at an end. Go ahead and pile on more nonsense and distortion if you feel like it. You make yourself look like a fool.”

Sums up Zephir quite accurately. Another denizen of the fact-free zone.

Quote from Dr Richard

Sorry to be boring but we have to simply lose our cars, ride around on electric motorcycles and throw away or at least recycle all our jet planes. The silly factors of using electric cars is that you are still using the same amount of energy to recharge them by burning fossil fuels. Makes no difference but reduces only local pollution in cities. Sorry Elon Musk but your tesla is an anachronism, outdated tech at least and far far too expensive for the average budget. Maybe you should launch the rest of them into outer space, along with all the nuclear weapons that threaten the human race.

Once again, a polemic of demonstrably false claims. The subject of the emissions associated with the manufacturing and operation of electric cars has been extensively researched and reported on and your statement that they use the same amount of fossil fuels as ICE vehicles is flat out false and by a considerable margin. To be technically accurate, it may almost be true in Poland, where virtually all electricity is generated by coal.

Constant conjunction is often hard to find in the real world. In many instances, we are stuck with probabilities. B usually or even almost always follows A, but there are exceptions. We generally don’t then conclude that the causality is no longer correct. Instead, we assume there are factors we are unaware of that make the cases different. It is all empirical, not logical. On the other hand, if there is truly constant conjunction with no exceptions, it is pretty hard to avoid declaring causality. One can head down the Humean rabbit hole exploring these things and people make a career of it. Practically speaking, most of us (apart from our Zephir) can tell the difference between observable causal relationships and random correlations.

Neither I, David Hume, or pretty much anyone else would disagree. What’s your point?

Jed, I'm not sure what it is you are arguing about. Hume had lots of profound ideas about causality back there in the 18th century. What we call correlation he referred to as "constant conjunction" and he would have had no problem with Tyler Vigen's nonsense because he thought causation required contiguity in space and time. He wasn't into the idea of action at a distance. But indeed, it is not really possible to prove causation in the physical world. All we have are observations that whenever A happens, B ensues. If it doesn't always work that way, then probabilities come into the picture. But Hume would say that constant conjunction implies causation until and unless a different cause is identified by further observation. This is pretty much the essence of the scientific method.

But again, I don't know what you are arguing about. You can have correlation without a causal relationship (see Vigen) so therefore correlation does not necessarily equate to causation or imply it. As Hume would agree, if two things obviously and clearly have nothing to do with one another, then one surely doesn't cause the other. Recognizing that fact has absolutely nothing to do with your various examples and does not represent a challenge either to Louis Pasteur or to whatever cold fusion experiments you are up in arms about.

So what is it we are disagreeing about again???

“ I don't see those 4 power sources doing that, but I would love to be proved wrong.“

Glad to hear it. Unfortunately, there appear to be some people who are more interested in being right.

Correlation neither equals nor implies causation. Nor does it preclude causation, of course. Correlation is most assuredly quite often associated with causation. But as the wonderful Tyler Vigen site amply demonstrates, it takes more than correlation - even striking correlation - to establish causation.

Quote from JedRothwell

Most Chinese consider this repugnant as well. It is not morally sanctioned. It is not legal. People do it because they want sons, but they are not supposed to.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27784533?seq=1

People in all countries do things that are condemned by society and against the law.

Jed, the quote you attributed to me was from Bob#2. Not to be outdone, my comment to him above was inadvertently addressed to Zephir. Apparently none of us can keep track of who said what.

Zephir clearly learned his craft from this site:

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Zephir’s theme song:

I don’t know why we continue to argue with Zephir. He is not remotely interested in facts. He has a twisted vendetta against renewable energy sources and seems to think that any random data he cites supports his position. Obviously, nothing will change that. When shown that his “evidence” is meaningless, he moves on to more irrelevant information or just makes patently false assertions. Perhaps we should simply let him babble on and remain frustrated that he is the only person in the world who sees the truth. Fortunately for the world, it really doesn’t matter what Zephir thinks.

Efficiency is a nearly worthless metric for any generator whose fuel is free and virtually unlimited.