YARDCG

Sadly, he got out a long time ago. Only spent 13 months behind the bars in total.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_...

Colorized still from a WWII footage of a Churchill tank column in Europe. Four tanks are visible, each with a squad of "tank riders" on top.

How "late Medieval" are we talking about? Especially given those developmental theories where a properly absolutist monarchy is not capable of such things. The main counterpoint is pre-WWI Russia and WWII Japan, but one could argue they (particularly the latter) shed too much absolutism to count.

According to a 2020 poll, a third of Americans STILL do not accept evolution. Moreover, it's a little higher in most other developed countries, but (with a few laudable exceptions), not meaningfully so. Let that sink in.

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As recently as two centuries ago, around 1 in 2 children died before reaching the end of puberty. Researchers made this observation across many societies, as you can see in the chart. Our ancestors were largely powerless against poverty, famine, and disease, and these calamities were especially devastating for children. Since then, child mortality has plummeted across the world. By 2020, the global average had declined to 4.3%. This dramatic decline has resulted from better nutrition, clean water, sanitation, neonatal healthcare, vaccinations, medicines, and reductions in poverty, conflicts, and famine. The chart also shows that in some wealthy countries – such as Iceland, Japan, and Norway – the share is 0.4%, ten times lower than the global average.

The years which saw this happen? Some (a lot) of species died; one (several) thrived.

A ★★ review of Dune: Part Two (2024) In hindsight, it was entirely predictable Dune: Part Two would emerge creatively bankrupt when Villeneuve publicly declared he "hates dialogue" and thinks writing it is something TV series have to do ...

I HATE what Villeneuve did to the book in the 2nd part especially. The "civilized" interiors are meant to have that glorious, kitsch, "Rome revived" splendor and instead everything is empty and dreadfully monochrome, and the Harkonnens are reduced to Temu Sith.

letterboxd.com/yardcg/film/...

AMOC shutdown is still FAR from guaranteed, and even then, it takes around a century to tip - closer to 2300 than 2100. The Labrador-Irminger Gyre is the one part of it that could well start to go around 2050, but the consequences of that are a lot more limited.

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"The Earth could be just 10 years from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius — a threshold beyond which even more serious and frequent fires, droughts, floods and cyclones are expected to wreak havoc on humanity. Key points: Global warming would likely increase to 1.5C by about 2030, the IPCC report says, based on our current trajectory The effects of rising temperatures include rising sea levels, longer fire seasons and worse droughts In 2015, as part of the Paris Agreement, all governments had agreed to try to stop warming at 1.5C That is one of the key conclusions of the most comprehensive climate report ever released — produced by the world's most authoritative body on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Globally, warming has now reached about 1.1C since industrialisation (1850-1900), according to the hundreds of scientists and governments that make up the IPCC. In Australia, warming has reached 1.4C. The new report was a "code red for humanity", United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres declared."

...I suppose your press sucks, then. Don't know what to tell you. Since you clearly did not look at the link above (from August 9, 2021), here is how it begins.

"A Russian monitor program was started as soon as news of the Battle of Hampton Roads reached Europe.[8] The Merrimack struck in the side not so much a corvette at anchor, but the bureaucratic administration of the Union States and England, that slumber under the protection of the wooden walls of their ships, and only built their nations' few iron vessels as goodies to pamper their children. Now, the question of timber ships is finally resolved in the most stupid and improvident minds. — Rear-Admiral G. Butakov, "Order number 4", May 30, 1862[5] Naval architect N. Artseulov was sent to America to join Russian naval attaché, Captain (later Rear Admiral) Stepan Stepanovich Lessovsky and to assess at first hand the advantages and disadvantages of John Ericsson's monitors.[1] He returned on 16 March 1863, with detailed drawings and specifications of the Passaic class.[1][2][8] On 11 March 1863 the Russian Admiralty approved a program to build ten armored vessels based on the Passaic design. The decision to use the American plans was based on the lack of time, money and experience in building armored vessels."

That fleet then predictably lost against the Franco-British steamships. So, here's another fun fact: 10 years later, as soon the Monitor defeated the Merrimack, Lincoln sold its design drawings to Russia, and 10 versions of it were built by the end of the Civil War!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uragan-...

"Result Russian victory France and Britain enter the Crimean War Belligerents Russia Russian Empire Ottoman Empire Egypt Eyalet Commanders and leaders Russian Empire Pavel Nakhimov Osman Pasha (POW) Adolphus Slade Strength 6 ships of the line, 2 frigates, 3 steamers[2] 7 frigates, 3 corvettes, 2 steamers[2] Casualties and losses 37 killed, 229 wounded[3] 3,000 killed[3] 1 frigate sunk, 1 steamer sunk, 6 frigates grounded, 3 corvettes grounded, ~2 shore batteries destroyed"

If you ignore all the events like that battle vs. the Ottomans with 1:100 KDR, then no, not really.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

"What if they just went to the left like Longstreet wanted?" - I wonder, not knowing there's a 20-page thread on this.

(TL;DR: Probably does not matter; slavers die anyway.)

civilwartalk.com/threads/long...

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Following that logic - wasn't the tail part of this comment right here "hypothetical", and not in line with the observations?

www.fao.org/worldfoodsit...

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And just in case - you might need to calibrate your expectations of the tipping points' timeline and power (data in the table is referenced to the paywalled Armstrong McKay paper.)

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Might have seen this already, but just in case - we now know for sure that the sinks have not "collapsed".

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Causal mechanisms of subpolar gyre variability in CMIP6 models Abstract. The subpolar gyre is at risk of crossing a tipping point under future climate change associated with the collapse of deep convection. As such, tipping can have significant climate impacts; i...

Finally, the recent finding that CESM2 is the ONLY CMIP6 model out of 47 which is good at simulating the northern SPG is interesting - in the "interesting times" sense. Even if that indicates the paleo compatible version of it is right - still not great long-term!

esd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...

LGM Paleoclimate Constraints Inform Cloud Parameterizations and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity in CESM2 Excessive Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) cooling and an ECS > 5°C in Community Earth System Model version 2 are attributed to cloud microphysical processes including ice nucleation A new configuratio...

Interested in seeing if KACE can simulate realistic paleoclimates - I suspect not at the current ECS. I.e. there's apparently a more paleoclimate-compatible CESM2 - with a sensitivity of ~4C. However, it was also tuned for different paleo conditions.

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

By far the best evidence that the hottest models CANNOT be right is paleoclimate - i.e. this for CESM2 (not even the hottest, as you well know!)

Though, Myhre et al. 2025 had an intriguing implication that the best match to CERES is an obscure Korean model with 4.8 ECS.

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Causal mechanisms of subpolar gyre variability in CMIP6 models Abstract. The subpolar gyre is at risk of crossing a tipping point under future climate change associated with the collapse of deep convection. As such, tipping can have significant climate impacts; i...

I did see recently that CESM2 was apparently by far the best model (of 47!) for simulating the Labrador-Irminger SPG. I wonder if that still holds once that paleoclimate fix you mentioned is applied to it? (Fin.)

esd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...

Looking at the Anglophone journals, at least, some of the Asian models (and to a lesser extent, some EU ones) really seem to barely get used? I.e. I'm now really interested in paleoclimate simulations with KACE - it's so obscure I struggle to believe it's always in use.

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Fair. So, was the Nanjing's model so much worse at the stratosphere, or did your colleagues decide to defer to your CESM2 experience? Did the question of using it (or Beijing's BCC - actually close to the IPCC central estimate but presumably has other flaws) even come up for a discussion? (Cont.

I am curious: if your colleagues were from the Chinese universities, would you not have had easy access to Chinese models? In particular, you said some were from Nanjing, which literally has the NESM here. It's probably still too hot, but less obviously so than CESM2.

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Great work!

Now, I have mentioned this before, but I would like to ask this again: why CESM2 specifically? I know you don't like "model horse races", but besides the ludicrously cool Russian models, I can think of few others with as large a black mark against them as this.

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"I won’t comment on that account, sorry ) :-) "

I understand. Though, I did do a thread engaging with some of that account's favoured graphs in detail recently, so I'm just sharing it in case you'll like it.

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While I'm here, might as well mention all the issues with Simons' collage again - excluding the recent observations with lower values (even misunderstanding one of them) or model estimates with higher values, or using a supplements graph over this one from the same paper.

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One of the most comprehensive climate reports ever was released last night. Here's what you may have missed The Earth could be just 10 years from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius since industrialisation — a global warming threshold beyond which even more serious and frequent fires, droughts, floods ...

Sorry, but you were literally not paying attention. "1.5 C by 2030" were the headlines in 2021!

And again, we have literally had ONE (1) year at 1.55C - 2023 was at 1.4C, and so is this year! Temps swing by 0.2 C in any year - true 1.5C warming would have 1.7C years!

www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08...

Sister republic - Wikipedia

Yeah. Even BEFORE Napoleon had seized power, the newly formed Republic had (briefly) managed to turn 29 (!) chunks of neighbouring countries into puppet states. Plus, that Napoleon-led, Directory-ordered invasion of Egypt is really aggressive if you think about it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_...

If it makes you feel any better, it might have been almost twice as large in the 1970s.

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As in, there might well be tens of thousands of older people living in America right now whose mom or dad thought it was a good idea to send a letter or a whole package of support to a guy who ordered the massacre of ~350-500 civilians.

Let that sink in. The moral arc of the universe is VERY long.