My boss is concerned about global warming

[Kodiak]

This morning when I came in to work, I saw an e-mail from my boss, Boss McBosserson (names have been changed). Now, when I say "my Boss", this is not my manager, but the CEO of our global semiconductor company of over 3000 employees. I've worked here for about 8 months and I've gotten a total of 3 e-mails from Mr. McBosserson, (the other two being the Christmas e-mail and a 'who hit my car in the lot' e-mail), but I know that he's a good guy and a pretty level-headed fellow. The text of the e-mail said this

To all employees,

[Here's] a very good editorial that examines "causes of global warming". I encorage all of you to try to wade through it with yourselves and your children. Pass it on to ten of your friends as well. Government policy founded on faulty science will waste valuable economic resources. While I don't tell you what to believe, I want you to be informed and critical thinkers both at work and your activism in the community. It is a particularly good article to read with your children. Focusing on the environment is very important but let's make sure we are focusing on the right things within the environment..

Best Regards,
Boss

he then posted a link to a lengthy article on global warming, here, the first part I'll post to get the ball rolling:

Editor's Introductory Note: Our planet has been slowly warming since last emerging from the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, often associated with the Maunder Minimum. Before that came the "Medieval Warm Period", in which temperatures were about the same as they are today. Both of these climate phenomena are known to have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, but several hundred years prior to the present, the majority of the Southern Hemisphere was primarily populated by indigenous peoples, where science and scientific observation was limited to non-existent. Thus we can not say that these periods were necessarily "global".

However, "Global Warming" in recent historical times has been an indisputable fact, and no one can reasonably deny that.

But we're hearing far too often that the "science" is "settled", and that it is mankind's contribution to the natural CO2 in the atmosphere has been the principal cause of an increasing "Greenhouse Effect", which is the root "cause" of global warming. We're also hearing that "all the world's scientists now agree on this settled science", and it is now time to quickly and most radically alter our culture, and prevent a looming global catastrophe. And last, but not least, we're seeing a sort of mass hysteria sweeping our culture which is really quite disturbing. Historians ponder how the entire nation of Germany could possibly have goose-stepped into place in such a short time, and we have similar unrest. Have we become a nation of overnight loonies?

Sorry folks, but we're not exactly buying into the Global Hysteria just yet. We know a great deal about atmospheric physics, (bio) and from the onset, many of the claims were just plain fishy. The extreme haste with which seemingly the entire world immediately accepted the idea of Anthropogenic ( man-made ) Global Warming made us more than a little bit suspicious that no one had really taken a close look at the science. We also knew that the catch-all activity today known as "Climate Science" was in its infancy, and that atmospheric modeling did not and still does not exist which can predict changes in the weather or climate more than about a day or two in advance.

So the endless stream of dire predictions of what was going to happen years or decades from now if we did not drastically reduce our CO2 production by virtually shutting down the economies of the world appeared to be more the product of radical political and environmental activism rather than science. Thus, we embarked on a personal quest for more information, armed with a strong academic background in postgraduate physics and a good understanding of the advanced mathematics necessary in such a pursuit. This fundamental knowledge of the core principles of matter and its many exceptionally complex interactions allowed us to research and understand the foundations of many other sciences. In short, we read complex scientific articles in many other scientific disciplines with relative ease and good understanding - like most folks read comic books.

As our own knowledge of "climate science" grew, so grew our doubts over the "settled science". What we found was the science was far from "settled".. in fact it was barely underway.

It was for a while a somewhat lonely quest, what with "all the world's scientists" apparently having no doubt. Finally, in December 2007 we submitted an article to one of our local newspapers, the Addison Independent, thinking they would be delighted in having at minimum an alternative view of the issue. Alas, they chose not to publish it, but two weeks after our submission (by the strangest coincidence), published yet another "pro-global-warming" feature written by an individual whom, to the best we could determine, had no advanced training in any science at all, beyond self-taught it would appear. Still, the individual had published a number of popular books on popular environmental issues, was well-loved by those of similar political bent, and was held in high esteem among his peers. We had learned a valuable lesson: Popular Journalists trump coupled sets of 2nd-order partial differential equations every time. Serious science doesn't don't matter if you have the press in your pocket.

In fairness to the Addison Independent and its editors, our article was somewhat lengthy and technical, and presumably the average reader most likely could not follow or even be interested in an alternative viewpoint, since everyone knew by now that the global warming issue was "settled science". And we confess that we like the paper, subscribe to it, and know a number of folks who work there personally. They're all good folks, and they have every right to choose what does or doesn't go in their publication. They also have a right to spin the news any direction they choose, because that's what freedom of the press is all about. Seems everyone, both left and right, does it - and it's almost certain we will be accused of doing the same here. And we just may be, as hard as we may try to avoid it. We humans aren't all shaped by the same cookie cutter, and that's a blessing that has taken us as a species to the top of the food chain.

But by then we had been sharing our own independent research of the literature with others via email, and receiving a surprising amount of agreement back in return. (We're in contact with a large number of fellow scientists around the country, dating back to our college days in the 17th century when beer was a quarter a bottle). One local friend, in particular, kept pressing us to publish, and even offered to set up a "debate" with the Popular Journalist who had usurped our original article. This we politely declined, arguing that "debate" cannot prove or disprove science...science must stand on its own.

But then something unusual happened. On Dec. 13, 2007, 100 scientists jointly signed an Open Letter to Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, requesting they cease the man-made global warming hysteria and settle down to helping mankind better prepare for natural disasters. The final signature was from the President of the World Federation of Scientists.

At last, we were not alone...

(continued here)

The article brings about many interesting points regarding the quality of science that has been done regard GW research and all that, but I'm left wondering if this article is simply pointing out red herrings or actually has credibility regarding this highly charged topic. I know there are many here on SD more knowledgeable than I on this subject, so I post this to stimulate discussion of this article which calls into question the science of Global Warming.

[Surlethe]

atmospheric modeling did not and still does not exist which can predict changes in the weather or climate more than about a day or two in advance.

Red herring: the system's local behavior (i.e., weather) may be chaotic, but aggregate behavior (i.e., climate) is described by well-known laws. If they don't understand that basic distinction, why should I trust the rest of the article?

[Kodiak]

The make an interesting point further on indicating that the warming of the planet may be causing the increase in CO2 levels, rather than the opposite.

[D.Turtle]

If you want to know more about the real science related to global warming, I suggest you go to Realclimate.org.

From their "About" page:

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

On their page, click on the "Start here" button and follow the links on that page to get the basic information.

If you want some more detailed answers to some questions, click on the "Index" button, which will give you an overview of the articles that have been posted on their site.

For example, relating to the lagging of CO2 behind warming periods in the past they have at least two pages:
What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming?
The lag between temperature and CO2. (Gore’s got it right.)

I'll repeat again: This blog is written by real climate scientists, about their specific field of science. These people know what they are talking about.

Some of the Contributors:

Gavin A. Schmidt

Gavin Schmidt is a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and is interested in modeling past, present and future climate. He works on developing and improving coupled climate models and, in particular, is interested in how their results can be compared to paleoclimatic proxy data. He also works on assessing the climate response to multiple forcings, such as solar irradiance, atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, and greenhouse gases.

Michael E. Mann

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Penn State University faculty, holding joint positions in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (ESSI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

Caspar Ammann

Caspar Ammann is a climate scientist working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Dr. Ammann is interested in the reconstruction of natural climate forcings, natural climate variability, coupled modeling of natural and anthropogenic climate change, and data/model intercomparison. Dr. Ammann got his B.S. from Gymnasium Koeniz (Switzerland), his M.S. from the University of Bern (Switzerland), and a Ph.D. from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts.

If you want to know what real scientists, working in their field of specialty are saying, check Realclimate.org.

[Kodiak]

thanks for the site link

[Surlethe]

The make an interesting point further on indicating that the warming of the planet may be causing the increase in CO2 levels, rather than the opposite.

In the past, CO2 levels have risen because warming causes the capacity of CO2 sinks to decrease; the elevated CO2 levels then cause more warming. However, increased CO2 levels preceded the current warming trend and no other forcing is capable of accounting for the unprecedented warming we've seen since the 1970s.

[Darth Wong]

The make an interesting point further on indicating that the warming of the planet may be causing the increase in CO2 levels, rather than the opposite.

That argument presumes that only one or the other can be true, and not both at the same time. In fact, the model predicts that increasing temperatures could release extra CO2, and that upper-atmospheric CO2 would increase temperatures. So none of this contradicts the model, if he would bother learning how the model actually works.

Questions GW deniers cannot answer:

1) If mankind is not significantly affecting atmospheric CO2 levels, then why does carbon-dating of atmospheric CO2 reveal a significant proportion of so-called "fossil CO2", ie- CO2 which was produced by burning ancient underground carbon sources?

2) If atmospheric CO2 levels do not affect temperature, how do they explain the laboratory tests which confirm the greenhouse gas heating effect? Specifically, the tests which show that low-density upper-atmospheric CO2 will permit solar radiation to pass through while blocking the lower-frequency re-radiation coming back out from Earth?

The fact that there are many other co-factors complicates the issue, but they do not change the facts that we are affecting atmospheric CO2 levels, and that atmospheric CO2 levels will create a biased insulating effect with respect to radiation.

In other words, we can confirm that the ingredients are present, and that they will produce a one-way insulating effect. Everything else is a red-herring. Yes, there are other factors which can heat the planet. Yes, this heating effect will release more CO2, thus creating a feedback loop. Yes, there are other factors which might cool the planet. Yes, the temperature chart will not be a perfectly straight line, and there will be year-by-year fluctuation. And yes, there will also be regional fluctuations. But elementary thermodynamics tells us that if you add a one-way insulating layer onto an object which is at thermal equilibrium with its environment, it will get warmer than it would otherwise have been. None of the counter-arguments even ATTEMPT to address this fact.

Can your boss produce an answer for those two questions?

[Darth Wong]

I took a closer look at the article. Look at this tripe:

As we can see above, carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in only three narrow bands of frequencies, which correspond to wavelengths of 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM), respectively. The percentage absorption of all three lines combined is about 8% of the whole IR spectrum, which means that 92% of the "heat" passes right through without being absorbed by CO2. If the entire atmosphere were composed of nothing but CO2, it would still only be able to absorb no more than 8% of the heat radiating from the earth. This is assuming that every single CO2 molecule gets smacked squarely with a chunk of infrared radiation, called a photon. It turns out pretty much every one does in a pure carbon dioxide sample of any significant depth.

We know that carbon dioxide in the air absorbs to extinction at its 15µM peak in about ten meters. The absorption distance of the two smaller peaks of shorter wavelength have not yet been measured ( that we can find in the literature), but extrapolation suggests an absorption path length in the neighborhood of no more than 300 meters. This means that CO2 does whatever it's going to do in a relatively short distance. Twice as much pure CO2 would do the same thing in about 5m for the 15µM peak. There's no significant difference between 5m and 10m or 300m and 150m for global warming, because convectional currents mix the air in such short distances. The "greenhouse effect" as far as CO2 is concerned is actually more of a "blanket effect". This is straightforward physics, and no, it's not debatable.

But the entire atmosphere isn't composed of CO2. In fact the current concentration in the atmosphere is only about 380 parts per million. It's what we call a "trace gas". So how much heat can our trace amounts of CO2 actually absorb? The math is simple: 8% ( or .08 ) x 380 PPM ( .000380 ) = .0000304, or about thirty millionths of the radiated heat.

Bear in mind, that's the maximum permissible absorption by all of the CO2 presently in our atmosphere. Man's percentage contribution is currently at about 3% of that. Now, let's see what the "man-made" contribution ( 3% of the total ) is. Again, multiply .0000304 x .03 = .000000912 . Let's round that up to the nearest single number and just say,

Man-made CO2 cannot physically absorb more than one-millionth
of the radiated heat (IR) passing upward through the atmosphere.

See what he's doing here? He's saying that the IR absorption profile of upper-atmospheric CO2 is only 8% of the entire IR spectrum, from which he concludes that it must be 8% of the IR radiation from Earth. Then he multiplies 8% by the atmospheric mass fraction of CO2, and multiplies the result by the estimated man-made fraction of that.

This methodology is almost cartoonish. We are told at the end that this man is an accomplished scientist: one whose credentials would tend to make you assume he knows what he's doing. But the same was said of the crackpot at BYU who was promoting those idiotic "thermite charge" 9/11 conspiracy theories. In both cases, they were saying things that flew in the face of all the respected scientific organizations studying the issue, while making many bizarre and curious errors of basic science that imply either incompetence or dishonesty.

The calculation shown above looks like something you might expect from a high school student, not a physicist. The likelihood of photon interaction with CO2 in the atmosphere is not calculated by simply dividing the mass of atmospheric CO2 by the mass of the entire atmosphere, nor is the light-blocking potential of CO2 calculated by simply dividing its IR absorption spectral lines by the width of the entire IR spectrum (this assumes that the IR radiation reaching the upper atmosphere has a square wave profile covering the entire IR spectrum: a truly preposterous assumption).

That article, much like the infamous BYU 9/11 article, may have been written by a scientist but it was clearly intended for the consumption of non-scientists, who would not see its glaring flaws and monumental dishonesty. The above calculation is so amateurish that it makes me cringe. It's almost as bad as the part earlier in the article where he tries to establish his superior knowledge by showing an equation but not defining any of the variables, and then saying that if you understood physics, you would know what it meant (when even a highly qualified person needs to know what the fuck the variables in an equation represent before he can tell what it means).

[ecofan]

As a Physics Professor who teaches at a major west-coast university (graduate level gas dynamics, among others) I happened on this site while some of my students were researching the author of the piece you are discussing.

In fact, I've been aware of the editorial for a couple of weeks now, it appears to be sweeping the globe in "viral" fashion. Because the editorial is now being quoted on everything from MSNBC to the London Daily Telegraph and the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. It's having a wide-spread effect and that always makes me a bit nervous

Since I always like to first know the credentials of folks who are opining on this highly controversial issue, I set a group of some of my most clever students out to find everything they could on the writer. I have some very clever students, including a few whose mastery of the internet would amaze you. Offering them some extra credit for the best research results set them to work like a beehive.

For example, we learned that "Kodiak" - who started this thread - has a 95% probability of being employed at a company whose name starts with "N" - and his CEO is a fellow named Hill, who actually has 3500 employees instead of the 3000 quoted. Don't worry, Kodiak - your secret is safe with us.

As to the author of the piece, we learned that he was originally a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh studying under Dr. Wade L. Fite, one of the giants in his field and a past Secretary of the International Union of Pure and Applied Scientists And indeed, the author's claim to have first published in the Journal of Chemical Physics ( the absolute top journal of its type on the planet ) was also true - which amazed us, because getting a first publication in that journal is like hitting a grand slam homer your first time up at bat. (See Farragher AL, Peden JA and Fite WL 1969. J. Chem. Phys. 50. 287-93) It's also true he was a co-recipient of the IR-100 ( given to the 100 most significant developments of the year) just one year out of school, another amazing accomplishment. We also learned that in addition to Physics, he was quite an accomplished mountaineer in his youth, having parachuted into the Arctic Circle with the noted explorer Dr. Ivan Lloyd Jirak, and in 1976 organized, trained, and led an expedition to climb and ski the highest active volcano in the world - El Cotopaxi, in Ecuador. He also holds a commercial pilots license with single and multiengine instrument ratings and held a flight instructor's certificate on top of it all, according to FAA records. I told you my boys were sharp... and I was generous in my extra credit to the student who dug all this up.

I also set another group loose critiquing the article itself - and these are some talented fellows when it comes to physics of the upper atmosphere. They went over the editorial with a fine-tooth comb, and concluded that the simplified science was not only a perfect simplification for the average layman to digest, but obviously a "worst case" analysis - and a brilliant application of the principle of Occam's Razor. By first proving the "worst case" scenario ( using a square wave spectrum instead of a gaussian distribution, including the two lesser peaks which are insignificant, and ignoring the energy distribution of the black body spectrum itself ) he gives every opportunity to err on the high side and subsequently support the warming panic. He's a generous fellow who, in the end, banged another bases loaded homer right out of the box, and thus doesn't have to do anything more complex than what he did.

It appears that most of the commenters above didn't read the article very closely, or perhaps just weren't clever enough to pick up on the subtle details . "Darth Wong" complains that it looks like it was written by a High School student, completely missing the point that it was written for students. My researchers learned a lot about Mr. Darth, as well - he's a Canadian engineer with a less than distinguished career and serious anger management issues - but we'll keep the details secret on that, as well.

The new bastion of the Global Warming Hoaxters is "Climate Modeling". Models can be created to produce any desired result, and "modeling" in this particular issue is so primitive it is currently classified as "Junk Science" at least in the field of atmospheric physics. We found it interesting that "D. Turtle" immediately steered you to http://www.realclimate.org and quoted Michael Mann, Caspar Ammann, and Gavin Schmidt as pillars of the community. Mann was the guy who's mathematically botched PCA program started the whole panic, and Ammann and Schmidt are climate "modelers" who couldn't make an accurate model to predict their next lunch even if they had eaten baloney sandwiches every day their whole life. Turtle has managed to steer you all to some of the most unreliable "science" in the whole spectrum.

So gather around, students, here's your grades:

"Kodiak" gets an A+ for starting the thread and even coming back with a personal observation based on a more careful reading. His boss, Mr. Hill, would be proud of him.

"D. Turtle" gets an F for even suggesting you'll find anything other than religious hysteria at "Real Climate"

"Darth Wong" gets a C because he still can't sort the wheat from the chaff but at least he has some seemingly original thought and admits that there are still a ton of unanswered questions out there.

And all my students who put an enormous amount of work into researching both the science and authorship of the editorial all get 10 extra credit points. ( Which they really don't need, since virtually all of them were former honors students in undergraduate school anyway ) Special thanks to Matt who wrote most of the above summary stuff for me so I didn't have to spend so much time on the keyboard. Hey, surf's up on the California coast, I have another life too....

[Darth Wong]

As a Physics Professor who teaches at a major west-coast university (graduate level gas dynamics, among others) I happened on this site while some of my students were researching the author of the piece you are discussing.

What's your name and university?

I also set another group loose critiquing the article itself - and these are some talented fellows when it comes to physics of the upper atmosphere. They went over the editorial with a fine-tooth comb, and concluded that the simplified science was not only a perfect simplification for the average layman to digest, but obviously a "worst case" analysis - and a brilliant application of the principle of Occam's Razor. By first proving the "worst case" scenario ( using a square wave spectrum instead of a gaussian distribution, including the two lesser peaks which are insignificant, and ignoring the energy distribution of the black body spectrum itself ) he gives every opportunity to err on the high side and subsequently support the warming panic. He's a generous fellow who, in the end, banged another bases loaded homer right out of the box, and thus doesn't have to do anything more complex than what he did.

Bullshit. By assuming a perfect square-wave, he diminishes the relative magnitude of any particular spectral line in that area. Even a high-school student should be able to figure that out. Make a square-wave and calculate the relative size of a few peaks within it, and then make any other shape and calculate the relative size of a few peaks within it. No matter what other shape you chose, the use of a square wave as the denominator will always produce the SMALLEST possible relative size for the peaks, not the largest. And what about his idiotic assumption that you can calculate the likelihood of an individual photon interacting with a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere by simply dividing the mass of CO2 by the mass of the atmosphere? That's not an "oversimplification"; it is a massive falsehood, created by ignoring the fact that the atmosphere has actual depth rather than being a one molecule-thick barrier around the planet.

It appears that most of the commenters above didn't read the article very closely, or perhaps just weren't clever enough to pick up on the subtle details . "Darth Wong" complains that it looks like it was written by a High School student, completely missing the point that it was written for students.

Articles written for students may oversimplify things, but they do not state outright falsehoods, which is what the author does when he produces his childish calculations.

For example, we learned that "Kodiak" - who started this thread - has a 95% probability of being employed at a company whose name starts with "N" - and his CEO is a fellow named Hill, who actually has 3500 employees instead of the 3000 quoted. Don't worry, Kodiak - your secret is safe with us.
...
My researchers learned a lot about Mr. Darth, as well - he's a Canadian engineer with a less than distinguished career and serious anger management issues - but we'll keep the details secret on that, as well.

OOooh, you're such a smart investigator, you must be an International Man of Mystery! Your goal of intimidating us with your cloak and dagger has worked perfectly, and was not at all transparent or obvious to anyone.

I had my doubts, but your vague and mysterious claims of superior expertise and an entire team of "researchers" dedicated to studying a web article and a BBS thread have me totally convinced of your accusations against the "global warming hoaxters". I guess you'd better E-mail those imbeciles at the American Institute of Physics and tell them how stupid they are for buying into this obvious lie, eh?

[Anguirus]

Wow, I almost bought this guy as a professor (or, at the very least, a professional) until he got really smarmy, started throwing around shadowy accusations, and started "grading" people. If you are a professor, you're doing a hell of a job convincing me that you're a retard.

I mean, seriously, if someone who didn't know a damn thing about Wong wanted to try and damage his credibility, he might well say that he's a Canadian engineer to try and convince us of his "research skillz" (only problem: everyone who's read his homepage/spent five minutes on the board knows that) and then make a veiled allusion to "anger management problems" (cuz he is mean to peoples on the internets! Oh noes!). The problem, of course, it's that it's blatantly obvious that you don't necessarily know a damn thing about Wong to produce that statement, and more importantly, it doesn't invalidate anything he has said so far in this thread.

I look forward to his continued dismantling of you with great anticipation.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oooh! I've also got a secret detail on Darth Wong!

He likes anal sex.

And pornography.

Can I get extra ten credit points and learn to argue by citing how some dude climbed a mountain with a parachute and how I got students who shave their sharp boys with Occam's Razor?

[BountyHunterSAx]

I've got an exam in three hours, so I'm going to get some last-minute studying in, but this was too much to just ignore.

ecofan, before you respond, please go to the main stardestroyer.net page, go to the hate mail section, and read about Stewart Davies (Stewart at SDI). That's your target, you have to be MORE FUNNY than him; consider it a challenge.

-AHMAD

[Darth Wong]

Can I get extra ten credit points and learn to argue by citing how some dude climbed a mountain with a parachute and how I got students who shave their sharp boys with Occam's Razor?

I particularly enjoyed the part where he said he gave "extra credit" to the student who researched the author's life story. Because anyone who's ever taken a real physics course will know that it's often difficult to tell the difference between Physics and the Biography Channel

[brianeyci]

No matter what other shape you chose, the use of a square wave as the denominator will always produce the SMALLEST possible relative size for the peaks, not the largest.

Wow. I'm not entirely convinced he isn't a physics professor yet, because there's some pretty crazy professors out there. But if his mistake boils down to not understanding 1/n+1 < 1/n (n positive) then it's a fundamental problem.

[Darth Wong]

Indeed. But the BYU 9/11-Truth guy was a real professor, and he idiotically claimed that without thermite charges, there was no explanation in physics for all of the residual energy in the collapsed WTC wreckage, as if an astronomy prof wouldn't know what gravitational potential energy is. Sometimes, profs just seem to lose their marbles.

[Aaron]

Indeed. But the BYU 9/11-Truth guy was a real professor, and he idiotically claimed that without thermite charges, there was no explanation in physics for all of the residual energy in the collapsed WTC wreckage, as if an astronomy prof wouldn't know what gravitational potential energy is. Sometimes, profs just seem to lose their marbles.

Considering this guy has his students combing through SDN for dirt on the owner, it seems like he's lost his marbles too.*

*Assuming he is for real. I fully expect a post and run.

[Darth Wong]

BTW, this is somewhat amusing ...

Hey, surf's up on the California coast, I have another life too....

Interestingly enough, your IP address is 208.65.161.97, which is registered to the Shoreham Telephone Company ISP, at Shoreham.Net. And according to ip2location, that is in New York.

I guess you've got quite a long drive ahead if you want to surf on the California beach today.

[Shroom Man 777]

Whatever it is, if it's even remotely true... then it's fucking creepy.

I wonder how I'd react if one of my college teachers proposed giving me extra credits to dig dirt up on some dude over the internet. Well, at least it's better than those other "extra credit" scenarios which involves the professor sticking his finger in me. In the name of science. Still, weird.

Sure, it could just be another dude posing in the internet. But that post didn't give me the impression of some internet-douchefag. No, it just gave me the willies.

*shivers*

[brianeyci]

Yeah it's like One Hour Photo plus Truman Show creepy.

Maybe he read Da Vinci Code too many times where a Stephen Hawking wannabe got his whole research team to dig through the Internet to find someone's info on the Internet and thinks that's reality. It shouldn't be impressive to anyone that you can find address, phone number and all the personal details of someone who's been active on the Internet for a few years. If he was trying to impress it is an utter failure, so more likely he was trying to scare. But people aren't really scared of being "outed" like he seems to suggest -- they're just creeped out that someone wants to stalk them.

[brianeyci]

ghetto edit: By the way anybody remember that surfer physics grad student who had a paper about the Theory of Everything? That was in the MSM recently.

Maybe he thought mentioning he was a surfer would give himself more credibility. After all, all smart physics professors surf.

[Darth Wong]

I don't see why it's "creepy", at least not yet. He posted a guess about Kodiak's place of employment, probably because there aren't that many semiconductor companies with a CEO who is so gung-ho about this little web article that he would make all his employees read it. And what he posted about me didn't indicate any research at all.

He posted from a New York ISP, claiming to be a professor from California, and then he did a truly terrible job of impersonating a professor, with his laughable story about a crack team of investigators. That sounds like a bog-standard Internet bluffer to me.

[Kodiak]

I don't see why it's "creepy", at least not yet. He posted a guess about Kodiak's place of employment, probably because there aren't that many semiconductor companies with a CEO who is so gung-ho about this little web article that he would make all his employees read it. And what he posted about me didn't indicate any research at all.

He posted from a New York ISP, claiming to be a professor from California, and then he did a truly terrible job of impersonating a professor, with his laughable story about a crack team of investigators. That sounds like a bog-standard Internet bluffer to me.

It wouldn't be hard at all to deduce where I work. I've stated on this forum:

1. That I live/work in San Jose
2. That I work for a semiconductor company as a mechanical engineer
3. The company has over 3000 employees.

There are 3 such companies in the area, and only one has nearly 3000 employees, so I guess he gets a B- for deductive reasoning.

[Rye]

I'm wondering what fucking course includes researching the authors of internet articles. What a damn odd thing to claim.

[Darth Wong]

I'm wondering what fucking course includes researching the authors of internet articles. What a damn odd thing to claim.

It would be odd for a real professor. But not for the International Man of Mystery!