I was meaning to have a new post up yesterday, but I've been experiencing some internet problems. Using a satellite uplink for internet is never ideal, and storms only make thins worse. That's not the reason for today's post though. Today's post is about something strange I've noticed over the last few days.

You see, I have a cell phone which I can use as an internet hotspot. The cost of data on it is high enough I don't like to use it that way too often, but it's a valuable backup. Most of the time. This week, it has been all but useless.

I normally set the hotspot up in my room in the same place because that's where my phone charger is plugged in. This week, my phone gets no internet service there. If I move the phone to the far side of the room, which is furthest from the nearest cell phone tower (I confirmed this via mapping), I get a connection. Sometimes. Depending on where I put it on the other side of the room, it can lose the internet connection anywhere from every 10 minutes to every 30 seconds.

I get many different factors play a role in signal strength, but I'm at a loss as to what factors are changing every 30 seconds. Even stranger, when the connection goes out in one spot, I can often move the phone to a different spot and get a connection yet not have a connection if I return it to the previous location.

I'm not sure what's going on, but it was a strange enough experience I thought I'd share. Hopefully I can resume normal posting over the weekend.

You guys may have noticed I've been a bit absent from this web site. You'd be wrong. I've been absent from this web page, but I've actually been quite active on the site itself. If you don't get the distinction, I'm just being pedantic. The point is I've been caught up with my birthday and some projects that didn't involve blogging. It was a nice break.

Unfortunately, this break was ruined by a man named Sander van der Linden. I was hoping to extend my break a little longer despite his interruption, but then I saw this tweet of his:

@STWorg was called out as "most brilliant" scholar at our recent Risk & Uncertainty Conference!

— SandervanderLinden (@Sander_vdLinden) June 30, 2017

The person he is referring to is Stephan Lewandowsky. I couldn't ignore that tweet so I responded:

Namely, @STWorg used the fact people who believe AGW is real don't believe in conspiracy theories as "proof" AGW skeptics believe in them.

— Brandon S? (@Corpus_no_Logos) July 1, 2017

Which is about as brief a summary as one could give of Lewandowsky's work. He asked one group of people what they thought about conspiracies, and when they laughed at those conspiracies, he took that as proving a different group embraced those conspiracies. It makes absolutely no sense as a methodology, and it was only possible because Lewandowsky misused basic mathematical analyses in an stupendously stupid way.

That doesn't really have anything to do with today's post. Today's post is about a talk Dr. Sander gave. I bring up the Lewandwosky issue for three reasons: 1) It annoys me a completely bogus methodology which can fabricate results from no data is happily embraced by the field of social psychology; 2) Dr. Sander is acquainted/associated with a number of the people who use this methodology; 3) Dr. Sander's talk is every bit as nonsensical as what Lewandowsky did.
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I'm going to leave this here, without comment.

We don't wait for known paedophiles to rape children before locking the pervs up. Why wait for known terror sympathizers to rape society?

— Maurizio Morabito (@omnologos) June 6, 2017

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I shave with a shavette. It's basically a straight edge razor that uses disposable blades. I like it. I find it gives a close shave much like that of a straight edge without having to deal with all the fuss of maintaining the sharp blade. I've loved using one since the first day I tried one, and I've never regretted switching to them. Until today.

I have a long history with wasps. I've had encounters where a wasp ignored other people walking by but attacked me the moment I came near. I don't know what it is, but it's been a source of amusement for my family since I was a kid. Combine that with bad reactions to wasps, and I am somewhat paranoid about them.

I'm usually not worried they'll kill me though. My throat doesn't close up when I'm stung or anything like that. The last time I got stung a wasp got me on my ankle. I couldn't walk for three days. Now I hear that dreaded buzzing sound and I... react poorly.

This isn't just some random, embarrassing thing I'm sharing. Today, a wasp was hiding in my bathroom. It waited until I was halfway done shaving to attack. I didn't see the thing until it was a few inches from my face. I was holding a razor blade to my throat.

I think I'm switching to disposable blades from here on. Can anyone recommend a good brand?

One feature I've been wanting to enable on this site for a while now is the ability for people to edit their comments for a short period of time after submitting them. I think this is useful so people can fix mistakes/add additional thoughts. I hadn't been able to find a plugin for this I like because the ones I tried had ugly icons or other problems like that.

I found one that might be alright though. This post is so people (including myself) can try it out and see what it's like. Feel free to post here and tell me what you think.

For today's post, I'd like to ask people a question. I've been thinking about this question for the last few days, and I can't come up with a good answer. The question is this. Suppose a group of people published a scientific paper in which they said:

Powell’s main criticism of C13 is that 66.4% of the abstracts examined were rated as “no
position” and excluded from the consensus calculation. To count as an endorsement, C13
required that the abstract text refer to modern global warming or climate change and state, either
implicitly or explicitly, that humans are the main cause. It is true that many authors of those “no
position” abstracts may hold views that endorse AGW, but if the texts of their abstracts did not
provide evidence for this, no guess was made about their opinions. The “no position” abstracts
were therefore not used to calculate the consensus percentage.

Even though they knew beyond any doubt papers (or rather, their abstracts) were routinely rated as endorsing the "consensus" without expressing any opinion on what contribution humans might have had on global warming. Given this supposition, what should an onlooker do?
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