What's the Best Web Host - and the Worst?
chris.pirillo.com - go.tagjag.com - What Web host have you been happy with, and which one have you been disgusted with?
Top global warming scientist “stepping down” over allegations he overstated ...
Source: Associated Press
BACKGROUNDER
Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident:
The Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, also known as Climategate, began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England, in the United Kingdom. An unknown individual stole and anonymously disseminated over a thousand e-mails and other documents. The university said that a “criminal breach” of their security systems took place.
Phil Jones, Director of the CRU, confirmed that all of the leaked emails that had provoked heated debate appeared to be genuine.
Authorities hunt leaker
Unidentified persons allegedly hacked a server used by the Climatic Research Unit, posting online copies of e-mails and documents that they found. The incident is being investigated by Norfolk police and involved the theft of more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 other documents, consisting of 160 MB of data in total.
Judging from the data posted, the hack was done either by an insider or by someone inside the climate community who was familiar with the debate, said Robert Graham, CEO with the consultancy Errata Security. Whenever this type of incident occurs, “80 percent of the time it’s an insider,” Graham said.
The breach was first discovered after someone hacked the server of the RealClimate website on 17 November and uploaded a copy of the stolen files. According to Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate, “At around 6.20am (EST) Nov 17th, somebody hacked into the RC server from an IP address associated with a computer somewhere in Turkey, disabled access from the legitimate users, and uploaded a file FOIA.zip to our server.” A link to the file on the RealClimate server was posted from a Russian IP address to the Climate Audit blog at 7.24 am (EST) with the comment “A miracle just happened”. The hack was discovered by Schmidt only a couple of minutes after it had occurred. He temporarily shut down the website and deleted the uploaded file. RealClimate notified the University of East Anglia of the incident.
On 19 November the files were uploaded to a Russian server before being copied to numerous locations across the Internet. An anonymous statement accompanying the e-mails defended the hacking, on the grounds that climate science is “too important to be kept under wraps” and describing the material as “a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.” The stolen material was first publicized on 19 November on The Air Vent, a climate-skeptic blog.
Career climate scientists react defensively
According to the University of East Anglia, the stolen documents and e-mails had been selected deliberately to cast doubt on the current consensus that human activity is affecting the world’s climate. The university said in a statement: “The selective publication of some stolen e-mails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way”.
The CRU’s researchers said in a statement that the e-mails had been taken out of context and merely reflected an honest exchange of ideas.
Phil Jones, the former Director of the Climatic Research Unit who has now been forced to resign over the incident, called the charges that the emails involve any “untoward” activity “ludicrous.”
Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, also under pres were “taking these words totally out of context to make something trivial appear nefarious”, and called the entire incident a careful, “high-level, orchestrated smear campaign to distract the public about the nature of the climate change problem.”
But like Jones, Mann is also on the defensive. One of his colleagues at the IPCC has called for Mann to be banned from contributing to future research, saying that he is “not credible any more” in the wake of the email revelations.
Kevin E. Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said that the theft may be aimed at undermining talks at the December, 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.
George Monbiot said he did see this as a “major blow” and that “emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging”. Moreover, Monbiot was concerned with attempts to conceal and even destroy data that was subject to a freedom of information request and collusion to prevent peer reviewed publication by climate skeptics.
Judith Curry, a climatologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, wrote that the e-mails reflect a problem with scientists lacking openness about their data and attacking those they disagree with: “[I]t is difficult to understand the continued circling of the wagons by some climate researchers with guns pointed at skeptical researchers by apparently trying to withhold data and other information of relevance to published research, thwart the peer review process, and keep papers out of assessment reports. Scientists are of course human, and short-term emotional responses to attacks and adversity are to be expected, but I am particularly concerned by this apparent systematic and continuing behavior from scientists that hold editorial positions, serve on important boards and committees and participate in the major assessment reports. It is these issues revealed in the HADCRU emails that concern me the most [...]”
Some people have asserted that the e-mails showed scientists had colluded to overstate the case for man-made global warming and manipulated the evidence. Criticism of the content of the e-mails tended to focus on ethical concerns related to the discrediting of skeptics and withholding of information.
Patrick J. Michaels, a global warming skeptic said some e-mails showed an effort to block the release of data for independent review. He said some messages discussed discrediting him by claiming he knew his research was wrong in his doctoral dissertation. “This shows these are people willing to bend rules and go after other people’s reputations in very serious ways.”
Myron Ebell, the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the e-mails showed that some climate scientists “are more dedicated to promoting the alarmist political agenda than in scientific research. Some of the e-mails that I have read are blatant displays of personal pettiness, unethical conniving, and twisting the science to support their political position.”
Climatologist Hans von Storch said that the University of East Anglia (UEA) had “violated a fundamental principle of science” by refusing to share data with other researchers. “They play science as a power game,” he said.
Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, an outspoken skeptic of human-caused global warming said “Ninety-five percent of the nails were in the coffin prior to this week. Now they are all in.”
During the annual Queen’s Speech debate in the House of Commons on 24th November 2009, the former Conservative Cabinet minister Peter Lilley challenged the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband over the e-mails. Miliband declined to comment on the content of the e-mails but commented: “We should be cautious about using partial emails that have been leaked to somehow cast doubt on the scientific consensus that there is. That is very dangerous and irresponsible because the scientific consensus is clear.”
Content of the documents
The leaked material comprised more than 1,000 e-mails, 2,000 documents, as well as commented Fortran source code, pertaining to climate change research covering a period from 1996 until 2009. Some of the emails purportedly included discussions of how to combat the arguments of climate change skeptics, unflattering comments about skeptics, queries from journalists, drafts of scientific papers, keeping scientists who have contrary views out of peer-review literature, and talk of destroying various files in order to prevent data being revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. In an interview with The Guardian, Phil Jones, Director of the UEA-CRU, confirmed that the contentious emails appeared to be genuine.
On November 24th the UEA-CRU (whose emails were leaked) issued a detailed explanation of the contents of the controversial e-mails.
Climate Research journal
In one e-mail, as a response to an email indicating that a paper in the scientific journal Climate Research had questioned assertions that the 20th century was abnormally warm, Michael Mann wrote “I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” Michael Mann said to the Wall Street Journal that he didn’t feel there was anything wrong in saying “we shouldn’t be publishing in a journal that’s activist.”
Half of the journal’s editorial board, including editor-in-chief Hans von Storch, resigned from the journal’s editorial board because they felt that publication of the paper in question represented a breakdown in the peer-review process. The publisher had refused to allow von Storch to publish an editorial on the topic, but later the president of the journal’s parent company stated that the paper’s major findings could not “be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper. [Climate Research] should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to publication.” Nevertheless, von Storch’s initial response to the revelations in the leaked emails was critical of Jones and Mann. After complaining that the emails made him a “subject of frequent mentioning, usually not in a flattering manner,” he conjectured that “Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC.”
Emails
An excerpt from one November 1999 email authored by the head of the CRU, Phil Jones, reads, “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The RealClimate website, in their response to the CRU hack, characterizes the excerpt as follows:
The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommended not using the post-1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.
Several websites of global-warming skeptics quoted a line written by Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, discussing gaps in understanding of recent temperature variations: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Trenberth wrote. However, Trenberth told the Associated Press that the phrase was actually used in an article he authored calling for improvement in measuring global warming to describe unusual data, such as rising sea surface temperatures. The word travesty refers to what Trenberth sees as an inadequate observing system that, were it more adequate, would be able to track the warming he believes is there.
Calls for inquiries
In the United Kingdom and United States, there were calls for official inquiries into issues raised by the documents, and calls for Jones’ firing or resignation. Climate change skeptic Lord Lawson, who in 2005 called for the IPCC to be shut down, said “The integrity of the scientific evidence… has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay”, and the climate skeptic, Senator Jim Inhofe also planned to demand an inquiry. Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said: “There needs to be an assurance that these email messages have not revealed inappropriate conduct in the preparation of journal articles and in dealing with requests from other researchers for access to data. This will probably require investigations both by the host institutions and by the relevant journals.” A government scientific agency could also conduct an inquiry, he said.
A spokesman for the Met Office, a government agency which works with the Climate Research Unit in providing global-temperature information, said there was no need for an inquiry. “The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it. We have every confidence in the science and the various datasets we use. The peer-review process is as robust as it could possibly be.”
The University of East Anglia announced it would conduct an independent review to “address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed”.
source credit
bottomline web hosting review - Bookshelf
|
144 pages |
InfoWorld HOW WE REVIEW Focus on l-Commerce reviews examine new products, .... Unfortunately, there is no central repository listing Web hosting prices and plans ... |
|
About this book InfoWorld is targeted to Senior IT professionals. Content is segmented into Channels and Topic Centers. InfoWorld also celebrates people, companies, and projects. |
|
|
122 pages |
InfoWorld Web server THE BOTTOM LINE Java Web Server 1.0 By David Strom JAVA IS EVERYWHERE ... On the other hand, it's not a good choice for production Web hosting, ... |
|
About this book InfoWorld is targeted to Senior IT professionals. Content is segmented into Channels and Topic Centers. InfoWorld also celebrates people, companies, and projects. |
|
|
384 pages |
How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Web Site Design Business Paul is a regular columnist for the Web Host Industry Review, the foremost trade publication for the Web hosting industry and is the resident Web design and ... |
|
About this book According to a 2007 survey by Netcraft, there are more than 108 million Web sites worldwide. Every Web site needs to be designed. The Pricing & Ethical Guidelines Handbook published by the Graphic Arts Guild reports that the average cost of designing a Web site for a small corporation can range from $7,750 to $15,000. It is incredibly easy to see the enormous profit potential. Web design businesses can be run part- or full-time and can easily be started in your own home. As such, they are one of the fastest growing segments of the Internet economy. This book will teach you all you need to know about getting your own Web site design business started in the minimum amount of time. Here is the manual you need to cash in on this highly profitable segment of the industry. This book is a comprehensive and detailed study of the business side of Web site design. It should be studied by anyone investigating the opportunities of opening a Web design business and will arm you with everything you need,... |
|
|
138 pages |
InfoWorld Ean Houts, Review Board THE BOTTOM LINE ... DB is that Alpha has begun a Web- hosting service with the product. In effect, you can rent space on one of the ... |
|
About this book InfoWorld is targeted to Senior IT professionals. Content is segmented into Channels and Topic Centers. InfoWorld also celebrates people, companies, and projects. |
|
|
344 pages |
Bottom Line year book, 2002 Self-defense: Carefully review your Web hosting bill as soon as it comes in, looking for charges for services you haven't ordered or authorized. ... |
bottomline web hosting review - News
Nine -- Film Review
Bottom Line: "Nine" marks the number of terrific acting and singing talents poorly used in this flat rendition and more »
|
|
WWE RAW ROUNDTABLE REVIEWS 11/30: Caldwell, McKinley, Parks rate and review Bottom line is Orton looked strong to set up Kofi for a comeback. Raw was just not a groovy scene, baby. The only good part about Mini Me Verne Troyer as and more » |
Invictus -- Film Review
Bottom Line: A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa. and more »
|
|
Review: Expect campy fun - but not alot of shirts - from "New Moon" Review: Expect campy fun - but not alot of shirts - from "New Moon"Bottom line: if you're a “Twilight” fan or related to one, you'll go see the movie and you'll enjoy it. It doesn't claim to be anything it isn't, and, heck, and more » |
|
Top global warming scientist “stepping down” over allegations he overstated ... “The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it. We have every confidence in the science and the various datasets and more » |
web hosting Directory
Web Hosting Reviews Of BottomLine Web Hosting. Find customer ...
Web Hosting Reviews Of BottomLine Web Hosting. This Web Hosting Company Provides Legitimate Services To It's Clients, Money Back Guarantee, Up-T0 ...
Bottomline Web Hosting Premier Web Hosting and Registrar ...
Review of top 10 web hosting providers. Top web hosting reviews, best web hosting awards, web host rating, web hosting articles and more. ...
BottomLine Links
Click here to get custom links to BottomLine's review page on our site. ... BottomLine Links. Select your web host to generate custom links to our site: - Select Web ...