Global warming models – getting the data

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The end of the Lib-Dems?

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Problems with the afterlife.

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National Debt, Greece and the Euro.

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Iraq and Afghanistan revisited.

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Trying to make sense of the crunch and the depression.

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The Heat Island Effect

Temperatures in urban areas are higher than in nearby lowly populated locations because of the heat generated by man’s activities.
Temperature is measured in a Stephenson Screen, a slatted box of standard design at a standard height in surroundings that must fulfil certain requirements. Daily temperature is taken as the mean of maximum and minimum. [...]

The Megrahi affair

I find the furore over the release of Al Megrahi incomprehensible. Whether the decision by Kenny MacAskill the Scottish Justice Secretary was the right one or not is irrelevant. Whether the decision pleased the British Government or annoyed the Americans, both Government and public, is similarly beside the point.
The Libyans made it clear repeatedly [...]

My Problem with Painting

The visual arts – painting and sculpture – are the odd man out amongst the arts. In the visual arts each work is unique and essentially unreproduceable. But the thousandth copy of a book is no different from the first. A first edition may be collectable but that is another matter. Music must be performed [...]

Financial Models

Financiers and financial institutions – banks and the like – use mathematical models to guide them. I have mistrusted these on principle since they seem about as likely as perpetual motion. However, I assumed that they were so complex and so mathematically sophisticated that on the one hand the authors had ended by fooling themselves [...]