Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Something good for once: PLoS Biology. A free journal - I hope it suceeds. And is it worrying if a person actually misses MIMAS?
Also quite handy BioMed Central's list of their journals and availability.
Interesting approach from the PLoS - instead of charging to read and cite, charge the author to publish (only $1.5k per paper). At least it stops publishers from charging insane amounts for access to archives, which for research are nearly complusory (one can't do the job without it, so one pays whatever they ask). Unfortunately this means the early authors using the PLoS scheme will get hit twice, but I hope it can survive this stage. But it is a good idea, provided it can over come the momentum of the current system.
And for something completely different:
Any guesses for where the following came from? ...underlines the need to integrate our energy concerns into our foreign policy. Now if I said that that was written by Tony Blair (well it has his signature at the end), what would you think? A certain conflict anyone? You know - the one that was only about potential WMDs. Except it came from The Energy Review Februrary 2002, published by the PIU (now SU, hence the dodgy website).
Scavenged from elsewhere in the report: (iii) there is a strong likelihood that the UK will need to make very large carbon emission reductions over the next century. However, it would make no sense for the UK to incur large abatement costs, harming its international competitiveness, if other countries were not doing the same; - Don't all volunteer at once then. Yeah it's not our fault we're doing bad stuff - blame America. It's like someone driving 99mph, instead of 100mph - we're not speeding cos they're going faster [admittedly the police will go for the faster one]. Next the government will be saying "they started it".
It continues suggesting we should have strategies for reducing carbon emissions, but not implement then till every agrees on what to do. Manyara, manyara.
WTF! "clean coal". Go figure. Apparently if you plant trees (or claim large sections of the ocean as your own private sink) burning coal doesn't count (the joys of sequestering). Does that mean that Russia would get fined for letting tundra melt and thus release the immense amounts of carbon trapped in the scarcely decomposed soil?
Sorry my mistake - apparently in this context, seuqestration involves pumping carbon dioxide down old oil wells in the North Sea. Handily it can also be used to flush out oil from such cavities.
Also quite handy BioMed Central's list of their journals and availability.
Interesting approach from the PLoS - instead of charging to read and cite, charge the author to publish (only $1.5k per paper). At least it stops publishers from charging insane amounts for access to archives, which for research are nearly complusory (one can't do the job without it, so one pays whatever they ask). Unfortunately this means the early authors using the PLoS scheme will get hit twice, but I hope it can survive this stage. But it is a good idea, provided it can over come the momentum of the current system.
And for something completely different:
Any guesses for where the following came from? ...underlines the need to integrate our energy concerns into our foreign policy. Now if I said that that was written by Tony Blair (well it has his signature at the end), what would you think? A certain conflict anyone? You know - the one that was only about potential WMDs. Except it came from The Energy Review Februrary 2002, published by the PIU (now SU, hence the dodgy website).
Scavenged from elsewhere in the report: (iii) there is a strong likelihood that the UK will need to make very large carbon emission reductions over the next century. However, it would make no sense for the UK to incur large abatement costs, harming its international competitiveness, if other countries were not doing the same; - Don't all volunteer at once then. Yeah it's not our fault we're doing bad stuff - blame America. It's like someone driving 99mph, instead of 100mph - we're not speeding cos they're going faster [admittedly the police will go for the faster one]. Next the government will be saying "they started it".
It continues suggesting we should have strategies for reducing carbon emissions, but not implement then till every agrees on what to do. Manyara, manyara.
WTF! "clean coal". Go figure. Apparently if you plant trees (or claim large sections of the ocean as your own private sink) burning coal doesn't count (the joys of sequestering). Does that mean that Russia would get fined for letting tundra melt and thus release the immense amounts of carbon trapped in the scarcely decomposed soil?
Sorry my mistake - apparently in this context, seuqestration involves pumping carbon dioxide down old oil wells in the North Sea. Handily it can also be used to flush out oil from such cavities.
