A really cool and powerful tool for creating flow diagrams. I particularly like the layout organising algorithms, really nifty. Anyway, it's installed on the smart board computer now and maybe you'd all like it on your computers too.
To Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, and Review Editors for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
"I would also like to emphasize that enhanced media interest in the work of the IPCC would
probably subject you to queries about your work and the IPCC. My sincere advice would be that
you keep a distance from the media and should any questions be asked about the Working Group
with which you are associated, please direct such media questions to the Co-chairs of your
Working Group and for any questions regarding the IPCC to the secretariat of the IPCC."
and an amusing related memo on how to deal with reporters if you can't avoid them. I particularly enjoyed the list of words that mean one thing to scientists and something else to other people.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B88iFXWgVKt-NDc2N2FiM2QtYzQzYS00MWMxLWE4MGEtZjUwZDlmNzc3MTcz&hl=en
i agree. however, (and perhaps it would have been useful to post my source which didn't seem so interesting at the time) the contents of this particular memo seems to have been interpreted as a more or less direct consequence of "ClimateGate" rather than standard practice.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-climate-change/
On the other hand, I'd suggest that talking to the press is not necessarily a great way of educating the public, there being some truth i think to the contents of the memo.
well compare to ESA it's sure it doesn't seem weird. Imagine one second a journal article about climate change: "We contacted Dr. X of the IPCC, who refused to answer to our questions..."
this is not what the memo recommends ... it just says speak only about what you can confidently speak about and refer to others for other questions ...
WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?
"What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?"
That's the question John Brockman, editor of the Web site edge.org, posed to about 160 cutting-edge minds in his 11th annual Edge Question. As in years past, they responded with bold, often thrilling, sometimes chilling, answers.
An ingenious new tool triggers a cascade of new insights. In this
special section, Science's news reporters and editors mark the end of the current decade by stepping back from weekly reporting to take a broader
look at 10 insights that have changed science since the dawn of the new millennium.
interesting guy indeed ...
"Forget today's green technologies like electric cars, wind turbines, solar cells and smart grids, in other words. None meets what Mr Khosla calls the "Chindia price"-the price at which people in China and India will buy them without a subsidy. "Everything's a toy until it reaches that point," he says.
I also like this one since its a bit like ACT topic selection:
""I am only interested in technologies that have a 90% chance of failure but, if they do succeed, would change the infrastructure of society in some radical way," he says."
should we propose SPS to him ? :-)
one more:
""I never compute returns. If you start forecasting cash flows, you lose innovation, you lose instinct. You average yourself down to mediocrity."
"I've had many more failures than successes in my life," admits Mr Khosla. "My willingness to fail gives me the ability to succeed."
indeed. puts me in mind of the often reinvented private ACT idea.
actually there's a bunch of interesting looking articles on his website. http://www.khoslaventures.com/khosla/papers.html . No sps in the solar one as far as i can tell :)
found this bit intriguing too in that, albeit presumably out of context, it doesn't make sense
""The solution to our energy problems is almost the exact opposite of what Khosla says," declares Joseph Romm, who is the editor of Climate Progress, an influential climate blog, and a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress Action Fund, a think-tank. "Technology breakthroughs are unlikely to be the answer. Accelerated deployment of existing technologies will get you down the cost curve much more rapidly than a breakthrough.""
found this seemingly not very well considered piece (to be fair a blog post) by the guy http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/02/is-anyone-more-incoherent-than-vinod-khosla/ . maybe he's written some more convincing stuff in this vein somewhere.
"Mr Khosla (...) is investing over $1 billion of his clients' money in black swans"
Well, with his own money his approach might be a little different :-)