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LiveRail Lets iPhone Developers Put Commercials In Apps, Get Paid

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:35:41 +0000

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Since the launch of Apple’s App Store, developers have faced an ongoing dillema: “For Free, or Not For Free”? Putting a price on an application to generate some revenue obviously adds a significant barrier to entry, especially when there are so many free apps available. But it also adds a level of credibility - many people assume that because free apps aren’t earning money, the developers probably haven’t put much effort into them.
Today sees the launch of LiveRail for the iPhone, an advertising platform that could help change this paradigm entirely by allowing free applications to still monetize effectively. LiveRail allows iPhone application developers to embed brief video advertisements into their applications, which play immediately after launching an app (developers get paid on a CPM basis). CEO Mark Trefgame says that the platform is plug-and-play, allowing developers to implement it with a minimal amount of effort and only a few lines of code.
The technology behind the application is impressive - this isn’t just a single video that’s embedded into the application. Whenever you launch a supported app, LiveRail will attempt to contact its servers, and will stream a new ad at a bitrate dependent on your connection speed (if you’re on Edge it will download an especially small file that totals only around 60k). If LiveRail is unable to reach the server, it will just play the last ad to be cached. Developers can tag their applications to help target the ads. And in future releases the platform will support location services, so an ad could be displayed depending on what stores are nearby (imagine seeing an ad informing you that Chipotle is just down the street).
Initially, developers will likely be faced with annoyed reviews if they begin introducing these ads, but as users realize that they’re getting free apps that would have otherwise been sold at a premium, the outcry should settle down (though there would probably be serious backlash if someone tried to put ads in a paid app). And they’d better get used to it: LiveRail appears to be first to market with their video ads, but can expect competitors like AdMob to introduce similar ads in the near future.
We should also keep an eye on Apple’s response to these new ad platforms - Apple takes a cut of all premium applications sold through its store, but it absorbs the bandwidth and hosting costs for free applications, charging the developers nothing. If these ads make the one-time payment model obsolete and more applications switch to “Free”, Apple may wind up changing this structure (or even ban ‘intrusive’ advertising entirely).
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LiveRail Lets iPhone Developers Put Commercials In Apps, Get Paid

admin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:14:25 +0000

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Since the launch of Apple’s App Store, developers have faced an ongoing dillema: “For Free, or Not For Free”? Putting a price on an application to generate some revenue obviously adds a significant barrier to entry, especially when there are so many free apps available. But it also adds a level of credibility - many people assume that because free apps aren’t earning money, the developers probably haven’t put much effort into them.
Today sees the launch of LiveRail for the iPhone, an advertising platform that could help change this paradigm entirely by allowing free applications to still monetize effectively. LiveRail allows iPhone application developers to embed brief video advertisements into their applications, which play immediately after launching an app (developers get paid on a CPM basis). CEO Mark Trefgame says that the platform is plug-and-play, allowing developers to implement it with a minimal amount of effort and only a few lines of code.
The technology behind the application is impressive - this isn’t just a single video that’s embedded into the application. Whenever you launch a supported app, LiveRail will attempt to contact its servers, and will stream a new ad at a bitrate dependent on your connection speed (if you’re on Edge it will download an especially small file that totals only around 60k). If LiveRail is unable to reach the server, it will just play the last ad to be cached. Developers can tag their applications to help target the ads. And in future releases the platform will support location services, so an ad could be displayed depending on what stores are nearby (imagine seeing an ad informing you that Chipotle is just down the street).
Initially, developers will likely be faced with annoyed reviews if they begin introducing these ads, but as users realize that they’re getting free apps that would have otherwise been sold at a premium, the outcry should settle down (though there would probably be serious backlash if someone tried to put ads in a paid app). And they’d better get used to it: LiveRail appears to be first to market with their video ads, but can expect competitors like AdMob to introduce similar ads in the near future.
We should also keep an eye on Apple’s response to these new ad platforms - Apple takes a cut of all premium applications sold through its store, but it absorbs the bandwidth and hosting costs for free applications, charging the developers nothing. If these ads make the one-time payment model obsolete and more applications switch to “Free”, Apple may wind up changing this structure (or even ban ‘intrusive’ advertising entirely).
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Level 3 Shares Cheaper Than a Cup of Coffee

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:47:19 +0000

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Level 3 Communications this morning reported a narrower-than-expected third-quarter net loss and revenue that — at $1.07 billion — was in line with analysts’ expectations. But even that wasn’t enough to satisfy investors, who have now pushed the share price below $1 to as low as 60 cents. You can now have a double shot of espresso from Starbucks or buy three shares of Level 3.
Jokes aside, Level 3 was indeed very cautious in outlining the future of its business, noting that the broader slowdown in the economy was resulting in longer sales cycles. This lukewarm outlook is terrifying for investors already concerned with company’s high level of debt and its ability to navigate the current credit crunch.
The concerns about Level 3 stem from the fact that the company pays close to $130 million in interest every quarter — that works out to roughly 13% of total revenue. They have about $587 million in cash, and they are still not cash flow positive. They burn cash at about $57 million a quarter. By that metric, company would have $363 million due in the Q3 2009.
“The company remains confident that it has sufficient cash on hand to repay the remaining $305 million of September 2009 maturities,” the company noted in its news release. With debt hovering around $6.6 billion, the company would need to find a tight fiscal rope to make things work. When I spoke to the company recently, they said they weren’t worried about refinancing their debt. Level3 has been through tough times before, and if there is a silver lining on these dark clouds: company has the wherewithal to deal with any crisis.
Notalby, Level 3 made certain comments in its third-quarter results release that don’t bode too well for video and other online media-related startups:
The Content Markets Group has experienced a decrease in sales to certain media and entertainment companies who may be dependent on external financing sources.
On the flip side, the big companies seem to like Level3’s CDN model vs. those of its competitors. Since it owns its network infrastructure, it can play the low-price game better than its rivals.
At the same time, the company has seen increased sales activity among larger media, entertainment and sports enterprises who seek to make more content available online.
Image courtesy of BigCharts.com.
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LiveRail Lets iPhone Developers Put Commercials In Apps, Get Paid

admin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:28:53 +0000

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Since the launch of Apple’s App Store, developers have faced an ongoing dillema: “For Free, or Not For Free”? Putting a price on an application to generate some revenue obviously adds a significant barrier to entry, especially when there are so many free apps available. But it also adds a level of credibility - many people assume that because free apps aren’t earning money, the developers probably haven’t put much effort into them.
Today sees the launch of LiveRail for the iPhone, an advertising platform that could help change this paradigm entirely by allowing free applications to still monetize effectively. LiveRail allows iPhone application developers to embed brief video advertisements into their applications, which play immediately after launching an app (developers get paid on a CPM basis). CEO Mark Trefgame says that the platform is plug-and-play, allowing developers to implement it with a minimal amount of effort and only a few lines of code.
The technology behind the application is impressive - this isn’t just a single video that’s embedded into the application. Whenever you launch a supported app, LiveRail will attempt to contact its servers, and will stream a new ad at a bitrate dependent on your connection speed (if you’re on Edge it will download an especially small file that totals only around 60k). If LiveRail is unable to reach the server, it will just play the last ad to be cached. Developers can tag their applications to help target the ads. And in future releases the platform will support location services, so an ad could be displayed depending on what stores are nearby (imagine seeing an ad informing you that Chipotle is just down the street).
Initially, developers will likely be faced with annoyed reviews if they begin introducing these ads, but as users realize that they’re getting free apps that would have otherwise been sold at a premium, the outcry should settle down (though there would probably be serious backlash if someone tried to put ads in a paid app). And they’d better get used to it: LiveRail appears to be first to market with their video ads, but can expect competitors like AdMob to introduce similar ads in the near future.
We should also keep an eye on Apple’s response to these new ad platforms - Apple takes a cut of all premium applications sold through its store, but it absorbs the bandwidth and hosting costs for free applications, charging the developers nothing. If these ads make the one-time payment model obsolete and more applications switch to “Free”, Apple may wind up changing this structure (or even ban ‘intrusive’ advertising entirely).
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Resilience Test - Round I

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:42:30 +0000

16 to 17 Jun. Back in Singapore, I had a sudden thought that Singapore is very beautiful as the Merc cab sped its way through the highways. Trees lined all around; I had not seen so much greenery in the past 5 months! Nothing much had changed it seems. It didn’t feel like I been away from home for so many months.T3 Arrival Hall wasn’t as nice as I expected. Ion is still building. Orchard Scotts has finally been torn down. Pacific Apartments are open. Nothing much has changed in the area I live, except my room. I was in utter shock when I looked into my room. There are foreign objects on my table, my earrings hung on sushi rattan net are no longer there, all my clothes are gone from my closet, folded and kept in the lower compartment and another closet. Nobody touches my clothes, not even my mum. How audacious my cousin was to remove my clothes from the hangers!I had so many things to do upon reaching so it was really annoying to have to search the whole closet for the belongings I need to bring along to Hong Kong. Singapore was so hot and humid (I forgot how the weather in Singapore felt like), so when I was dying to take a shower, I couldn’t find my usual towels and underwear.My usual pillows and comforter are no longer on my bed, and my room just looks like a storeroom now. I mean usually I’m not such a petty person, so I told myself to get on with life and forgive her for taking the initiative to attempt to neaten up my room which kinda failed. But when I lay in bed in the guest room (since there were no pillows, bedsheets and comforters on my bed), tears rolled down my cheeks as I sniffed at the pillow. I knew it mattered no matter how I told myself to forget about it since it was only going to be 2 days at home, after a long time away from home, sleeping on a bed without comforters in Germany for 4 months and not having a home or own bed to sleep in and constantly on the move for 1.5 months, and after looking forward to having my old room and bed for just 2 nights before heading off solo for my internship.My mum appeared to have aged a lot since 5 months ago, and I don’t know if it’s my imagination or if it’s true.18 Jun. God is indeed trying to test my resilience as my search for a printer in my area was in vain. The printer was spoilt, of all days! So I was looking forward to the flight with SIA on a 747-400, but turned out there was a technical problem, nopes, technical problems. The first technical problem was that the PA system was not working on my side of the plane so we could not hear any announcements at all, not a big problem unless there was a delay in the flight of maybe 2 hours due to a second technical problem, which I wasn’t sure was what. This meant that instead of reaching at 9plus I reached at 11plus and reached my apartment at 12plus in the night. Honestly my experience with Qatar was much better, despite it being such an awfully long 15-hour flight. The flight attendants were much more sincere, gentler and sweeter. The flights were smooth, with little turbulence, though it was on a smaller plane - Airbus 320. Flights to Europe are well-known to cause bad jet lags or turbulence, due to the odd time difference and bad weather conditions in Europe, but all turned out well for me. Even with 3 hours of sleep on the flight, I managed to stay up to do some packing till late at night.But the departure hall was pretty awesome.Waited from 1750h…till 1950h…And so I reached HK in the middle of the night, with no idea how to get to the apartment and I had a 25kg load to lug with me. The problem was that the cab driver was not very nice to me as I couldn’t even speak Canto in complete sentences or pronounce correctly, and kept asking me where Wo On Lane was. I could only tell him roughly where but not how to get there. So in the end he passed by Wo On Lane and instead of getting to the right location, he dropped me off somewhere down the hill on Wellington St which meant I had to backtrack, uphill, to get back to Wo On Lane, lugging the load behind me, and walking antitraffic-direction in the middle of the road. My area turned out to be in Lan Kwai Fong, so there was a lot of nightlife in the area, and much noise heard from my room too. I knew my room would be small, but it was really small! The shower area is the size of a toilet cubicle so I had to shower in front of the toilet bowl and leave my clothes and towel outside. Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to spend much time in my room when I start work.Small table and a comfortable bed.I’m pretty good with the closet size. Kitchenette was almost complete, but toilet was pretty small for my expectations.Just when I thought I could enjoy my internet after a warm shower and enjoy the aircon, the internet failed me! It really irked me because I specially mentioned that I need the internet urgently to finish up my work (which is in fact like 32 modules more to complete) and hoped that it would work well!All these was just a bad start to my experience in Hong Kong, which made me feel pretty miserable for a first day in a foreign place, alone. But I refuse to give in to these; to me, these are merely tests of my resilience, which I would need a lot to cope with the supposed long hours at the bank.19 Jun. The next day turned out to be slightly better, with the helper fixing my internet and thus saving my life. Took a tour around my area and was pretty satisfied with what I found - 5 min walk to my workplace, 3 min walk to MTR station, 2 min walk to H&M, Esprit and supermarket, Ben&Jerry’s, Haagen Daz, Pret A Manger, Sasa, 7-11, Delifrance, Pacific Coffee, Starbuck, all at my doorstep. Please feel what I want you to feel - jealous.What I see on my way home. 20 to 21 Jun. I had like 39 online modules to finish up, clothes to iron and a presentation to prepare for my training, so most of the time I spent indoors completing the online tests, which was kinda boring. Now that I’ve settled in pretty well, familiarised with the area, and making myself comfortable in my own apartment, life is good when you get to socialise over dinner or drinks, which I did with Thor, Mich and her mum, as well as the ML interns on another night.Hong Kong is fantastic! Words simply can’t explain the excitement I am feeling right now. So far so good. I have a lot of backlog for my blog, so I’ll be back backdating my blog entries whenever I have the time!

hurricanes and the nation

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:54:39 +0000

LIFE THREATENING INUNDATION LIKELY!ALL NEIGHBORHOODS … AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES … WILL BE INUNDATED DURING THE PERIOD OF PEAK STORM TIDE. PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES MAY FACE CERTAIN DEATH. MANY RESIDENCES OF AVERAGE CONSTRUCTION DIRECTLY ON THE COAST WILL BE DESTROYED. WIDESPREAD AND DEVASTATING PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS LIKELY ELSEWHERE. VEHICLES LEFT BEHIND WILL LIKELY BE SWEPT AWAY. NUMEROUS ROADS WILL BE SWAMPED … SOME MAY BE WASHED AWAY BY THE WATER. ENTIRE FLOOD PRONE COASTAL COMMUNITIES WILL BE CUTOFF. WATER LEVELS MAY EXCEED 9 FEET FOR MORE THAN A MILE INLAND. COASTAL RESIDENTS IN MULTI-STORY FACILITIES RISK BEING CUTOFF. CONDITIONS WILL BE WORSENED BY BATTERING WAVES CLOSER TO THE COAST. SUCH WAVES WILL EXACERBATE PROPERTY DAMAGE … WITH MASSIVE DESTRUCTION OF HOMES … DAMAGE FROM BEACH EROSION COULD TAKE YEARS TO REPAIR.–National Weather Service Warning, 7:31 AM CDT, 12 September 2008(Associated Press)Again we turn our eyes to the South. This week, Hurricane Ike ripped across storm-battered Haiti, the Bahamas, and Cuba. There was horror and despair in Haiti. Hédi Annabi, UN Special Envoy to Haiti, described what she witnessed in Gonaïves, the nation’s fourth largest city, “What I saw in this city today is close to hell on earth.” While collecting clothes in the rumble of her home, Edith Pierre, a mother of six, concluded, “Now I have nothing.” Hurricane Ike also brought hope for those of us who dream of a world without oppressive nation states. Patrick Élie, a presidential adviser, safe and dry in the capital, reflected, “These storms have pointed out the weakness of the Haitian state.” If that’s the case, let more hurricanes batter the Caribbean, let more hurricanes batter the U.S., until all the nation states of the Americas are destroyed!Every nation state is concerned with maintaining its own questionable integrity to perpetuate its fragile existence. The United States will use this season’s hurricanes to leverage more influence over the tiny Caribbean nations to its South. It will offer money and advisers to “help” its southern neighbors. “Help” comes with strings enforced by economic hit men wearing pinstriped suits. Some Caribbean nations will accept the United States’ “help” and its strings. Other nations will accept U.S. “help” but attempt to evade the strings. Still, some nations, like Cuba, will reject the “help” altogether. The offering, accepting, or rejecting of U.S. “help” has nothing to do with the people affected by hurricanes. It has everything to do with providing various nation states with the moral integrity they need to exist and to prevent people from seeing the truth: the nation state they live in, and no nation state on Earth, gives a damn about them!

Facebook Open Sources its Server Software

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:21:32 +0000

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Facebook has decided to share some details about its system architecture and make public the source code that powers it. In a note posted by one of the company’s engineers, Facebook describes how it went about choosing its technology stack and ultimately arrived at the decision to build its own server – called Scribe – to make sure Facebook could scale to hundreds of millions of users.
Scribe is available as a project on SourceForge, where developers can track updates, request features, and submit bug reports. Facebook has a number of other open source projects in the works, including Facebook Open Platform, which offers up much of the Facebook code and enables other social networks – like Friendster – to let developers easily migrate their Facebook applications over.
Unlike other social networks like Friendster, MySpace, and Twitter – all of whom have run into serious scalability issues at different points during their growth - Facebook has been mostly reliable throughout its rise. So, if you have the bravado to think your Web app may someday handle “a few billion messages a day” (as Facebook says in their note), you may want to give Scribe a look.
—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:
Facebook Brings on New CFO: YouTube’s Gideon Yu
Facebook JavaScript Now Live
Facebook Exporter for iPhoto Launches
Stupid Rumor: Microsoft Buying Facebook for $6 Billion
Facebook’s Advertising Rate Cards Unveiled!
Facebook Planning More New Features (Not Microsoft Related!)
Zuckerberg Refutes Facebook IPO Rumors

The Invisible/Virtual Tunnel - Now Even More Invisible?

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:21:27 +0000

If you’re following my series of posts recommending immediate implementation of a “virtual tunnel” between the Farragut stations (1st post, 2nd post), you will be dismayed by this piece of news I read in the Washington Post yesterday: SmarTrip Upgrades Pushed to 2010.
As mentioned in my last post, in a conversation with a Metro employee, I was informed that the upgrades to the SmarTrip cards would include the capability to provide for many improved features, including these kinds of transfers (BTW - another potential tunnel that has been studied is between Metro Center and Gallery Place, which would also be a candidate for a virtual tunnel).
According to the Post, the software vendor, Cubic Transportation Systems, has missed deadlines and run over budgets and basically screwed this whole process up pretty badly.
Evidently, Cubic has been WMATA’s fare technology vendor for the entire history of the agency (and apparently has gotten fat and happy and stopped worrying about satisfying their client). Might be time to inject some competition.
Back to the point of these posts, though. Given this new delay (and who knows if deadlines will be missed again), I could probably dig the tunnel myself with a shovel and a pick before the software upgrades are completed. I’m of the understanding that the current SmarTrip cards and farecards can accommodate the minor software change to allow for the virtual tunnel to be implemented now. Why not ask Cubic to make this simple change as a small concession for their inability to deliver the other upgrades on time and on budget? I think Metro could and should request it. What do you say, Mr. Catoe? Or maybe the new SmarTrip card director, Cyndi Zieman, can take the initiative to get it done herself.
Stay tuned! I tested the transfer personally and will relate my experience in my next post.=======================Steve Offutt lives in Arlington and owns a pick and shovel(Shout out to Greater Greater Washington for picking up on my posts)

Out of State $ and Ideologues Pushing Washington Death Initiative I-1000

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:19:50 +0000

The International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide has studied the millions flowing into WA to legalize assisted suicide. Most of the bounty is from out of state euthanasia groups or rich ideologues like former Governor Booth Gardner. From the report: As of 10/10/08, the “Yes on 1000″ committee reported receipts of $3,274,877. This is the fourth highest all time record for money raised in support of any initiative campaign in Washington State. Of that amount, assisted-suicide advocacy groups and spokesperson, former Governor Booth Gardner, his family and his “Legacy Committee” have given cash donations of $2,032,164. That is more than double the total receipts of $874,646 reported over the same time period by the “Coalition against Assisted Suicide.” Make no mistake, this is not a grassroots political campaign arising out of great urgency from the people. Rather, it is a carefully planned political move originating from out-of-state assisted suicide advocates looking for a ripe plum to pick:Initiative 1000, the proposal to legalize assisted suicide in Washington State, did not spring from any desire of Washington residents to transform the crime of assisted suicide into a “medical treatment.” Rather, it was spawned by the Oregon-based Death with Dignity National Center, shown by the following quotations from that organization’s 2007 report. “We have spent the last year actively researching and collecting data to determine the state which is most likely to adopt a Death with Dignity law. Through these efforts we have identified Washington as the state most likely…. We, at the Death with Dignity National Center, are proud to provide our political experience and expertise to these talented and committed people of Washington.”[ Death with Dignity National Center 2007 Report, p. 3]The mantra of the assisted suicide forces is “Oregon plus One,” believing that if one more state falls, the wind will again be at their backs. If you wish to thwart their desires, contact the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide and give them a hand.

The Case for Global Warming Skepticism

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:19:26 +0000

One of the hot-button environmental issues is Global Warming. While some people argue we must be more specific and refer to “anthropogenic Global Warming,” I do not do so. Not because I think humans are not affecting the environment in any way, but because I think it is scientifically impossible to accurately measure the temperature and compare it to historical trends in the first place. And if it is scientifically impossible to do so, then all Global Warming (anthropogenic or natural) is unscientific.
In order to demonstrate the scientific problems with Global Warming, we must first understand a bit of how scientific experiments work. The two key concepts will be our understanding of precision and accuracy. Without these two ideas firmly in place, we cannot even begin to weigh the evidence presented for Global Warming.
While precision and accuracy are often thought of as being identical concepts, in science there is a specific difference between the two. Precision refers to the level of certainty an instrument gives us. For example, if we measure time using an analogue clock with no second-hand, the clock is precise to the minute. That is, we can tell that it is 10:58. But we do not know if it is 10:58:03 or 10:58:57. On the other hand, we could have a clock with a second hand that would be more precise because it would illustrate the seconds. Furthermore, we could have a digital clock that would be able to give us fractions of a second as well.
However, at some point the precision ends. We might be able to use a stopwatch to calculate that something took 10.874 seconds, but we wouldn’t know if it was 10.8744 or 10.8740 or (possibly, depending on the specs of the stopwatch) if it was 10.8739 and rounded.
To tell how precise an instrument is we need to know how many decimal points the measurement goes to. The more numbers after a decimal point, the more precise the measurement is. As a result, 10 seconds is not as precise as 10.0 seconds (since 10 seconds could be rounded from 10.3 or 9.7, etc. while 10.0 could only be rounded from, say 10.03) and 10.000 would be even more precise.
In addition to precision, however, we must take into account the accuracy of the instrument. A stopwatch might give us a precise measurement down to the eighth decimal point (for example), but if the stopwatch is inaccurate then that precision is illusionary. For example, if two stopwatches measure the same amount of time and one says 10.000 seconds passed while another says 9.989 seconds passed, we would know that one (or both) are inaccurate instruments. There is, however, basic general agreement between the two instruments. We would be safe to say they were approximately similar, but we would need to give an error range in order to remain scientific. (And it should be noted that any scientific experiment that does not give you its error range is worthless.)
In addition to instrument accuracy we have to deal with human error. Sometimes, people misread instruments or write down the wrong number. Further, as we again use the stopwatch illustration, we have to deal with the lag between when the event being measured starts and when the experiment observer presses the button to begin the clock. This reaction delay must be figured into the experiments as well.
All that is fine and well, but what does it have to do with Global Warming? Well, first of all we know that Global Warming claims a specific temperature change over the course of the last century. For example, global temperatures are said to have risen about 0.6 degree Celsius since 1900. The problem with this is that our thermometers are far more precise today than they were in 1900 as the advancement of technology continues. Beyond that, we do not know how accurate the experimenters in 1900 were per say, or where exactly their thermometers were placed, or a host of other possible important factors to the experiment.
This is important for the simple fact that 0.6 degrees Celsius is a very small number. In fact, when you consider that most historical weather reports give temperatures in whole numbers (i.e., “On April 4, 1907, the high temperature was 68 degrees F”) this means the recorded temperature is not very precise at all.
This immediately brings us back to an important rule of precision. An experiment is only as precise as the least precise measurement used. For example, suppose you were trying to determine the volume of a cube. We know that volume is length x width x height. If we measure the length as 10.0 meters, the width as 5 meters, and the height as 14.973 meters, we multiply those numbers together to get 748.65 meters cubed. However, since the width is a whole number variable, the precision of the experiment can only be a whole number! We cannot have any decimal portion at all, so the true, scientific volume of the cube is 749 cubic meters. Due to this, the extra precision that we got measuring the height is irrelevant to the final answer. It can only be as precise as the least precise measurement.
Which means that if temperatures at any point in the data are in only whole number increments, we cannot have a temperature change of 0.6 degrees. The precision of the answer is more precise than the data given; it is invalid.
Now someone could argue that it doesn’t matter because the 0.6 degrees is in Celsius rather than in Fahrenheit, which is what virtually all of at least the earliest American data was measured in. However, this brings up another matter. The Fahrenheit scale is inherently more precise than the Celsius scale because the degrees are finer. That is, between freezing and boiling there are only 100 degrees on the Celsius scale, but there are 180 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. This means that measuring in degrees F is 1.8x more precise than measuring in C. To show why this is a problem, both 87 and 88 degrees F round to 31 C. In fact, assuming infinite precision, 87F = 30.555…C and 88F = 31.111…C, a difference of 0.555…. Or, to put it another way, about 0.6 degrees C.
This means that virtually all of the touted Global Warming temperature difference could possibly be nothing more than just the imprecision of conversion between C and F.
But there is another problem with the methodology used to calculate Global Warming. It’s based on average data. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see a report that indicates how the averages are determined. I’ve even emailed specific people who have written on the topic and gotten no response. Granted, I am pretty much unknown; still, this information is necessary for us to be able to make an informed decision as to the veracity of Global Warming.
Let me give an example of what that is the case. If the average is simply the average between the highest temperature of the day and the lowest temperature of the day, two radically different days can give the same average result. For instance, if the high was 80 degrees and the low was 40 degrees, the average would be 60. But the average would also be 60 degrees if the high was 120 and the low was 0. Granted, that is a rather extreme (and unlikely) example; but more realistically, 82H and 38L also average out to 60.
But beyond that, there are even more problems. Two days with identical highs and lows can themselves be radically different once you factor in the temperatures throughout the day. For example, suppose the high and the low occur within a 6 hour range and the two days look like this.
Day 1: hour temperatures from 6 – noon = 40, 50, 55, 60, 70, 80
Day 2: hour temperatures from 6 – noon = 40, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80
(The second day had cloud cover that kept the cooler temperatures in the morning, but once the clouds burned off the heat increased.)
The average (keeping the precision of the “experiment” above) of all the numbers for Day 1 = 59 degrees. The average for Day 2 = 57 degrees. That’s 2 degrees F different, more than 1 whole degree C too…and neither of those matches the 60 degree average between the high and the low alone.
While those numbers are arbitrary, they are not unlikely numbers at all. Indeed, it is very probable that the cloud cover effect could happen in the morning while the afternoon temperatures remain similar.
It is therefore critically important that we know how the averages are calculated. Indeed, another possible way that averages are collected is by simply taking the high temperature for the date and averaging it out for every other year for that same date. I.e., saying “The average high temperature on June 7 is 87 degrees.” In addition to not accurately representing how hot a day actually is (given the above, since two days with the same high can have radically different average temperatures when you break the day down hour-by-hour), we are also left with the fact that averaging on a daily basis ignores an important calendar phenomenon.
Leap year.
Yup, that pesky leap year thing throws off our precision because comparing June 7 of this year to June 7 of last year is not a precise comparison. The Earth is not in exactly the same place as it was that time last year (of course this also ignores the rotation of the solar system, etc. which probably would affect temperature well below the precision our instruments can detect anyway). In fact, it is possible that June 7 of this year is more likely correlated to June 6 of three years ago than June 7 of last year. As a result, “record highs for this date” are also pretty much pointless. They’re okay for giving a general idea of the weather, but they play havoc with trying to maintain any kind of precision on temperatures.
Unfortunately, I do not know which method scientists actually use to try to determine the average temperatures and to come up with their number of 0.6 degrees C. As I stated earlier, no one that I’ve e-mailed about this topic has ever bothered to answer my question. In order to make an informed decision, we must know this.
But even not knowing the actual method used, the methods I’ve shown above would be unable to provide any precise data for the past 100 years. And I do not see how any other method of determining this number could work. As a result, I have no reason to believe in Global Warming at all, let alone anthropogenic Global Warming. Scientists must provide the details of their experiments, the details of how they determined these averages, the error bars for the temperatures collected at the beginning of the 20th Century, etc. before we can even hope to accept it as a theory. Anything less than this disclosure renders Global Warming as unscientific.