Friday Funny

Josh from cartoonsbyjosh.com writes in with:

Here’s a thought…

The MET Office say they need a new computer to get their predictions right.

Er, why not just buy Pier’s Corbyn’s laptop – it seems to do the stuff, no?

 

Get notified when a new post is published.
Subscribe today!
0 0 votes
Article Rating
35 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Stephen Brown
January 14, 2011 2:13 pm

Ah, but once the contents of the lap-top have been homogenised, pasteurised, liquidised, sterilised and regularised all that will be proven is that the Met Office was nearly correct.
Right?
My confidence level in this prediction is robust.
/sarc

Lance
January 14, 2011 2:14 pm

Now that’s the truth!!

January 14, 2011 2:14 pm

Nothing funny about this, but when one considers: GI = GO
I’m inclinded to wonder if it really is the computers that need to be replaced.

lawrie
January 14, 2011 2:23 pm

The Queensland floods have shown once again that the geniuses at our version of the Met are just as fallible even with their computers. It would seem that their models are embued with such a warming bias that they can no longer be relied upon.

January 14, 2011 2:26 pm

Ummm…of course ’tis not the computer which makes the difference…but the touch of a Master’s hand.
To wit:
” ‘Twas battered and scarred and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But he held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good folk?” he cried.
“Who’ll start the bidding for me?
A dollar, a dollar … now two … only two …
Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice,
Going for three” … but no!
From the room far back a gray-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow.
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet,
As sweet as an angel sings.
The music ceased, and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said, “What am I bid for the old violin?”
As he held it up with the bow.
“A thousand dollars … and who’ll make it two?
Two…two thousand, and who’ll make it three?
Three thousand once and three thousand twice …
Three thousand and gone!” said he.
The people cheered, but some exclaimed
“We do not quite understand …
What changed it’s worth?” and the answer came:
” ‘Twas the touch of the master’s hand.” ”
– excerpt from a poem by Myra Brooks Welch

kwik
January 14, 2011 2:27 pm

That is funny! hehe!

DJ Meredith
January 14, 2011 2:28 pm

The MET probably gets their computer IT and tech support from here:
http://www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working.htm

January 14, 2011 2:32 pm

Brilliant, Josh. I like your use of colour too.

latitude
January 14, 2011 2:32 pm

I’m sorry, this will never work….
…a laptop just doesn’t have the power to fudge that much temperature data

Shevva
January 14, 2011 2:48 pm

Modern society at its height of power, an intelligent society would see the MET office employ Mr Corbyn (Don’t worry goverment departments spend billions a year on consultants, funny enough mostly media) to help improve there knowledge of the climate which is there public funded duty.
Instead because he is not on the inside chanting the mantra hes left to show up the 130 million pound funded high temple of cliamte change here in the south of England.

January 14, 2011 2:51 pm

“Er, why not just buy Pier’s Corbyn’s laptop – it seems to do the stuff, no?”

That’s awesome.

1DandyTroll
January 14, 2011 2:58 pm

A less than stellar calculator known as a an automatic abacus would most likely do a better job ‘an Met Office’s super climate computer. But as always it all depends on who’s driving the apparatus so to speak.

David Davidovics
January 14, 2011 3:05 pm

YOUCH! that’s gonna leave a mark.

Roy
January 14, 2011 3:28 pm

If Piers Corbyn is unwilling to part with his laptop I’m sure I have an old slide rule lying around somewhere that I could probably part with since I have not touched it for over 30 years. Also, it would be a lot more eco-friendly than their present computer because it does not use electicity and the number of calories used in moving the sliding part must be very small.
It would certainly reduce their carbon footprint.

Jimbo
January 14, 2011 3:56 pm

What an utter waste of UK taxpayer’s money. £1,000 will do nicely instead of the Met Office’s £33 million supercomputer which calculates warming predictions faster in a failed manner. When will the Met Office ever learn about Thermists’ GIGO???

January 14, 2011 3:58 pm

I agree with Roy but I doubt many at the Met know how to use a slide rule. As a filed geologist i still carry one with me for all those times the battery fails or I sit on the dam thing.

sHx
January 14, 2011 4:00 pm

Hey! That’s my hair!

It's always Marcia, Marcia
January 14, 2011 4:35 pm

I enjoy this. This is funny.
Thank you Josh, sir!

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
January 14, 2011 5:06 pm

Gee, I don’t know. The Met Office has experts who have been working on their models on mainframes for decades, building up the accumulated wisdom generated by hundreds of thousands of man-hours of intense programming and model runs.
They’d have to figure out where to insert the punched cards.

Baa Humbug
January 14, 2011 5:27 pm

(With apologies to Postman Pat)
Weather Man Piers,
Weather Man Piers.
He’s the one that the
Met Office Fears.
Piers gets it right,
The Met gets it wrong,
Piers says that’s because
Co2’s not strong.
“So give me an Invite,
I’ll give you the Insight”
But the Met Office stays,
Frozen with Fright.
Weather Man Piers,
Weather Man Piers.
He’s the one that the
Met Office Fears.

Marlene Anderson
January 14, 2011 5:28 pm

I worked in a large manufacturing plant with a great fellow who did the annual production forecasts one year in advance. It took into account all the factors impacting output – maintenance down-times, so many ‘disaster’ down-days, etc, etc. He had the biggest, most expensive computer in the entire plant. On his door he had written up the following: “You are entering the realm of precision guesswork.”

crosspatch
January 14, 2011 5:30 pm

I still feel that more important than TSI is the spectral distribution of the energy. Given the same TSI, a spectrum with more UV will warm the earth more because it will warm the oceans more than a spectrum with more of the energy in the visible spectrum. With more of the energy in the visible, it will heat the land and the very top of the ocean but that heat will be mostly lost to space that very night. UV heats the ocean at greater depth.
So if you combine the fact that TSI is actually lower than what we have always thought it has been combined with the fact that the spectrum has shifted recently more toward the visible from the UV, it changes a LOT.
TSI, in and of itself, doesn’t mean as much to me as does combining that with the energy distribution across the spectrum of output because different wavelengths have different impact on Earth temperatures.

North of 43 and south of 44
January 14, 2011 5:31 pm

latitude says:
January 14, 2011 at 2:32 pm
I’m sorry, this will never work….
…a laptop just doesn’t have the power to fudge that much temperature data
___________________________________________________________
Nope,
Even someone with paper and pencil can come up with the required forecasts.
BBQ time forever.

crosspatch
January 14, 2011 5:32 pm

Oops, I just responded in the wrong thread!
[‘Tis life. So, where should it go? Robt ]

Tim C
January 14, 2011 6:25 pm

Ah but it has been Pier reviewed.