Craigo,
You seriously quote Wiki? This isn’t about time. It’s about math. Neither ISO or Wiki can change that. 2+2=4 not 3. Now if you need a diapering service, a decade is ten years. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Opps that’s only nine. Let’s see what’s wrong here. Ohhh, I see. No ten. Ok 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. That’s better.
P.S. Don’t try this at home. You might hurt yourself
photon without a Higgs
January 2, 2010 6:23 pm
A decade is a 10 year period. If it starts at ’10 or ’11 doesn’t mean anything. It’s still a decade. A new decade will even start at ’12 and end at ’21.
You can do the math of this at home. Don’t worry, you won’t get hurt.
photon without a Higgs
January 2, 2010 6:32 pm
derek (11:19:40) : Looks like al gores income projections.
You may not be far from the truth. Hockey stick graphs are nothing new in business projections. Some businesses use them to try to convince people to invest in their company with the promise of profit projected in the hockey stick graph.
Etienne
January 2, 2010 8:07 pm
@Craigo: The link to the Wiki was interesting, thanks. However, I didn’t see anything on the ISO page defining terms such as “millenium”, “century” or even “decade”. On the contrary, they specifically said:
“ISO 8601 does not specify the exact meaning of its representations. […] Users of the standard must agree on a more exact interpretation of the representation if this is relevant.”
Yet quite frankly, I have to say I’m with JC on this… Given the context of WUWT, I find it amusing that Anthony recognizes the dilemna yet still opts for the “popular” side instead of the “technically correct” one. Maybe that’s what happens when you start displaying hockey sticks? 🙂
I personally tend to directly specify the decade I’m talking/writing about (e.g. “the 1995-2004 decade”), when I’m using the word “decade” in its very general form (i.e. meaning an arbitrary period of ten years). When using the technical term (with no specified range), I indeed expect it to go between xxx1 and yyy0.
In any case, I’m raising my glass to this new year and I wish WUWT plenty of new readers and lots of exposure!
REPLY: Thanks for the note. Perhaps it is, though this one really drives the point home. Note the Y axis is not linear.
[Graph: WUWT vs RC ]
The Climategate spike is evident in both, but WUWT has retained more readers than RC. – A
—…—…
If I am reading that graphic properly, it is displaying not the “numbers of readers” (of a web site) dsiplayed against time but rather the (log of the) relative ranking of the chosen web site displayed over time: That is, WUWT rose to (about) the world’s 12,000 most popular web site, and has remained at about that level,. Google is probably nbr one.
RC rose (briefly) up to the number 20,000 most popular site, then dropped rapidly down towards the number “100,000 most popular site” and continues to plummet.
RACookPE1978 (20:25:51) : RC rose (briefly) up to the number 20,000 most popular site, then dropped rapidly down towards the number “100,000 most popular site” and continues to plummet.
Another hockey stick they have to flip up.
photon without a Higgs
January 2, 2010 11:05 pm
RACookPE1978 (20:25:51) : WUWT rose to (about) the world’s 12,000 most popular web site, and has remained at about that level
I have a dream it will get in to the top 100.
JC
January 3, 2010 12:51 am
Etienne (20:07:40)
Exactly right, if you use the word without parameters then it is meaningless. Any year is the start of a new decade. In this context we are talking about the calendar and that defines the parameters. To me this argument is silly. If you want to call this year the start of a new decade, by all means go ahead you only display your ignorance. More surprising and disapointing to me is the response I got from our host. Seems his reaction was more appropriate to RC than what I am accustomed to at WUWT. I have always had great admiration for Anthony and have recommended WUWT to many who were in search of a forum that was both informative and fair but now I have to re-think.
Trevor
January 7, 2010 7:10 am
JC:
I agree with you on this. Unless you’re using the general (and therefore meaningless) definition of “decade”, a decade always ends on December 31 of a year ending with zero. The first year was 1 AD, not 0. And therefore the first decade ended at the end of 10 AD, and all subsequent decades ended an exact multiple of 10 years later.
(Of course, all of this is kinda ridiculous anyway, since it is now known that the guy who came up with the Gregorian calendar miscalculated the time of Jesus’s birth (the dividing line between BC and AD) by 4 years. So we are actually now in the first month of either 2006 or 2014 (I can’t remember which way the guy erred), nowhere near the end of a decade either way.)
Though you are correct on the “decade” issue, I think you went about this the wrong way. You see, I think Anthony 1) doesn’t get some types of humor very well, and 2) has very thin skin. So when you (even in jest) insult him, he gets bent out of shape and lashes out. I made the same mistake recently (see the comments on EcoSpy vs EcoSpy). But I will say this for Anthony – at least he allows the comments that are critical of him and the skeptic side of the AGW debate, which is more than we can say for RealClimate, or any other blog on the alarmist side.
And I’m not going to hold it against him that he was wrong on something like this, nor that he attacked someone for saying he was wrong on something that doesn’t really matter. Anthony Watts is a genius, and has done a great deal to help expose this global warming hoax. When everything is said and done, and AGW is completely discredited, if we were to erect a Mount-Rushmore-style monument to those who were the greatest heroes in skeptic triumph, Watts’s face would be right there, along with Monckton, McIntyre, and a big question mark for the unknown Hadley CRU hacker/whistleblower. (Please, I do not wish to discredit such great skeptic heroes as Spencer, Inhoffe, Avery, and many others, but my Mt. Rushmore analogy allowed for only four people.) So do what you must, JC, but I will continue to read WUWT (and try not to p!ss Anthony off again).
Regards,
Trevor
Craigo,
You seriously quote Wiki? This isn’t about time. It’s about math. Neither ISO or Wiki can change that. 2+2=4 not 3. Now if you need a diapering service, a decade is ten years. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Opps that’s only nine. Let’s see what’s wrong here. Ohhh, I see. No ten. Ok 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. That’s better.
P.S. Don’t try this at home. You might hurt yourself
A decade is a 10 year period. If it starts at ’10 or ’11 doesn’t mean anything. It’s still a decade. A new decade will even start at ’12 and end at ’21.
You can do the math of this at home. Don’t worry, you won’t get hurt.
derek (11:19:40) :
Looks like al gores income projections.
You may not be far from the truth. Hockey stick graphs are nothing new in business projections. Some businesses use them to try to convince people to invest in their company with the promise of profit projected in the hockey stick graph.
@Craigo: The link to the Wiki was interesting, thanks. However, I didn’t see anything on the ISO page defining terms such as “millenium”, “century” or even “decade”. On the contrary, they specifically said:
“ISO 8601 does not specify the exact meaning of its representations. […] Users of the standard must agree on a more exact interpretation of the representation if this is relevant.”
Yet quite frankly, I have to say I’m with JC on this… Given the context of WUWT, I find it amusing that Anthony recognizes the dilemna yet still opts for the “popular” side instead of the “technically correct” one. Maybe that’s what happens when you start displaying hockey sticks? 🙂
I personally tend to directly specify the decade I’m talking/writing about (e.g. “the 1995-2004 decade”), when I’m using the word “decade” in its very general form (i.e. meaning an arbitrary period of ten years). When using the technical term (with no specified range), I indeed expect it to go between xxx1 and yyy0.
In any case, I’m raising my glass to this new year and I wish WUWT plenty of new readers and lots of exposure!
REPLY: Thanks for the note. Perhaps it is, though this one really drives the point home. Note the Y axis is not linear.
[Graph: WUWT vs RC ]
The Climategate spike is evident in both, but WUWT has retained more readers than RC. – A
—…—…
If I am reading that graphic properly, it is displaying not the “numbers of readers” (of a web site) dsiplayed against time but rather the (log of the) relative ranking of the chosen web site displayed over time: That is, WUWT rose to (about) the world’s 12,000 most popular web site, and has remained at about that level,. Google is probably nbr one.
RC rose (briefly) up to the number 20,000 most popular site, then dropped rapidly down towards the number “100,000 most popular site” and continues to plummet.
Happy New Year – or Shanah Tovah, and Mazeltov.
May your HockeyStick continue to grow and give us all delight.
Here’s a harmless exercise we can all do at home: SciAm’s attempt 11/2009 to refute “climate contrarian nonsense” – compare and contrast hockey sticks 🙂
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
RACookPE1978 (20:25:51) :
RC rose (briefly) up to the number 20,000 most popular site, then dropped rapidly down towards the number “100,000 most popular site” and continues to plummet.
Another hockey stick they have to flip up.
RACookPE1978 (20:25:51) :
WUWT rose to (about) the world’s 12,000 most popular web site, and has remained at about that level
I have a dream it will get in to the top 100.
Etienne (20:07:40)
Exactly right, if you use the word without parameters then it is meaningless. Any year is the start of a new decade. In this context we are talking about the calendar and that defines the parameters. To me this argument is silly. If you want to call this year the start of a new decade, by all means go ahead you only display your ignorance. More surprising and disapointing to me is the response I got from our host. Seems his reaction was more appropriate to RC than what I am accustomed to at WUWT. I have always had great admiration for Anthony and have recommended WUWT to many who were in search of a forum that was both informative and fair but now I have to re-think.
JC:
I agree with you on this. Unless you’re using the general (and therefore meaningless) definition of “decade”, a decade always ends on December 31 of a year ending with zero. The first year was 1 AD, not 0. And therefore the first decade ended at the end of 10 AD, and all subsequent decades ended an exact multiple of 10 years later.
(Of course, all of this is kinda ridiculous anyway, since it is now known that the guy who came up with the Gregorian calendar miscalculated the time of Jesus’s birth (the dividing line between BC and AD) by 4 years. So we are actually now in the first month of either 2006 or 2014 (I can’t remember which way the guy erred), nowhere near the end of a decade either way.)
Though you are correct on the “decade” issue, I think you went about this the wrong way. You see, I think Anthony 1) doesn’t get some types of humor very well, and 2) has very thin skin. So when you (even in jest) insult him, he gets bent out of shape and lashes out. I made the same mistake recently (see the comments on EcoSpy vs EcoSpy). But I will say this for Anthony – at least he allows the comments that are critical of him and the skeptic side of the AGW debate, which is more than we can say for RealClimate, or any other blog on the alarmist side.
And I’m not going to hold it against him that he was wrong on something like this, nor that he attacked someone for saying he was wrong on something that doesn’t really matter. Anthony Watts is a genius, and has done a great deal to help expose this global warming hoax. When everything is said and done, and AGW is completely discredited, if we were to erect a Mount-Rushmore-style monument to those who were the greatest heroes in skeptic triumph, Watts’s face would be right there, along with Monckton, McIntyre, and a big question mark for the unknown Hadley CRU hacker/whistleblower. (Please, I do not wish to discredit such great skeptic heroes as Spencer, Inhoffe, Avery, and many others, but my Mt. Rushmore analogy allowed for only four people.) So do what you must, JC, but I will continue to read WUWT (and try not to p!ss Anthony off again).
Regards,
Trevor