An awesome graph

[Magi]

Enjoy!

This could mean that:

- Pirates have low heat tolerance

- Pirates are what keeps the earth's temperature low

Discuss!

[Klep]

It means that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is punishing us for allowing the number of pirates in the world to decrease.  He is upset and we are feeling His wrath.

[Anusien]

Eris is sunbathing, instead of using pirates to sow discord.

[dandan]

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/climate/GCremote3.html

Looking at this graph of world temperatures (scroll down) we can clearly see that around 120-130 000 years ago there must have been shedloads of pirates. That is a more credible explanation than the peak back then being caused by industrialisation. After all, how could there have been industrialisation back then with so many pirates around?

Not that this means in any shape or form that you Yanks are not behaving like %$%$%^$ in not signing up to Kyoto and driving around in SUVs. Just that a lot of the 'proof' for global watming is from people who clearly don't know the difference between climate and weather.

[Bram]

Note how the graph is way misleading. For one thing, the scale on the X-axis is variable (not even logarithmic). Also, it is not in any sort of order. It goes from 35,000 to 45,000 and then back down again.

In the absence of Dr. Pip, I've ran this stuff through a halfway decent statistical analysis package. It turns out that Pearson's r is 0.5149. This indicates the (a) the relationship is negative (more pirates = less tempeartue) and (b) not very strong indeed (r is a measure of correlation between -1 for verty strong negative and 1 for very strong positive).The r² value is 0.2651 (the square of the correlation coefficient), indicating that 26.5% of the variation in one variable may be explained by the other. That is not a lot.

There is undeniably some connection between the two variables. The graph you posted hints at a possible explanation: one (probably more) intervening variables. The most important of these will be 'time'. Since later in time means (for different reasons) less pirates as well as higher temperature, a spurious connection appears between the above two categories.

Did I kill the joke already? School's out for now ;-)

Still, in the interest of scientific curiousity, we can't completely disregard the possibility that increasing the #pirates might help in reducing the effects of global heating. It's the best argument for software piracy I've heard so far. Copy software to save the environment!

[EDIT]  confusing typo fixed.

[Jacob Orlove]

This not only ignores the software pirates Bram mentioned (which probably would show that pirates cause Global Warming), but also seems to be suggesting that we have ~17 pirates currently. That's very far from the truth. There are areas of the world where piracy is rampant, although it tends to be in the form of high tech boats and AK-47s, rather than sailing ships and cannons and swords.

[Matt]

Bram: here in the USA we call the pirate axis the X-axis. Was this a typo or do you really have it the other way round from us?

[Bram]

Heheh. Yeah, that is indeed a typo. I know where it comes from, too. In order to do the necessary calculations, I had entered the data in an excel sheet of my own, and had plotted them the other way around.

But I do think I'll refer to it as the 'pirate axis' from now on, just to be sure! My old math teachers are just gonna love that.

[dandan]

There were a lot of pirates in Mercadian Masques. Was there a significant temperature drop around that time? (obviously there was a power level drop)

If I remember those pirates they caused the loss of significant numbers of Forests, Swamps and Islands which could explain the global warming connection. Many of them were Blue too, which also adds strength to the idea that more pirates=cold.

Note that the US, more than any other nation, is clamping down on (software) pirates and in doing so is contributing to the global warming problem. When will the US finally start acting responsibly?

[Matt]

There were a lot of pirates in Mercadian Masques. Was there a significant temperature drop around that time? (obviously there was a power level drop)

Well, it was just after combo winter.

[dandan]

The most useful thing I ever did at school was study Statistics. A large part of the course was use of statistics and a typical question would be to use one set of data and present it in different ways in order to make your point. For example 30% growth looks more impressive if you use 3D pictures of your product which grow by 30% in each dimension giving you a 120% increase in icon size. Chosing non-zero starting points of X and Y axis or log scales are also good 'cheats'. Finally grouping 'undecideds' with your preferred choice is good. Yes 35% Don't know 35% No 30% = 65% don't agree.

Even presentation of numbers works - the number of times I've heard '20% of people are against government proposals...'.
Shouldn't that be only 20%?

We have to be very careful about such graphs, as it would be all to easy to think that we need to do nothing about piracy as global warming will take care of the problem. Unless global warming kills us all, that is a very irresponsible approach. The fewer people there are in the world, the more will will want our shipping lanes to be safe, especially as we will have to ship our goods further (for example over Holland rather than merely to it)

I am horrified that such a serious problem as piracy should be dragged down to the level of a joke by comparing it to global warming.

[Matt]

Wouldn't global warming increase the tropical zones, thereby establishing more places for pirates to lay their treasure chests?

[Bram]

Heheh.

You said 'chest'.

[Pyromaniac]

Wouldn't global warming increase the tropical zones, thereby establishing more places for pirates to lay their treasure chests?

Well no, because rising temperatures means the sea level goes up, and small coral islands start disappearing as a result, which consequently means that there are fewer 'remote isles' to use.

[Matt]

But mountains would become new islands to replace those.

[Bram]

But mountains would become new islands to replace those.

Breaking News: TMD Moderator Declares Mountains Are The New Islands! Does This Spell Doom For Vintage Gifts?

[Pyromaniac]

But mountains would become new islands to replace those.

Breaking News: TMD Moderator Declares Mountains Are The New Islands! Does This Spell Doom For Vintage Gifts?

We'd probably need more Hawaiian style islands (and accompanying shirts: Where's Dr. Sylvan when you need him?) then.

On a sidenote: this would make DanDan and Island Fish Jasconius REALLY good

Second sidenote: we'd FINALLY have a blue Sligh deck then, just like Magic was meant to be

[Komatteru]

Breaking News: TMD Moderator Declares Mountains Are The New Islands! Does This Spell Doom For Vintage Gifts?

Well, I never did see a deck called "The Islands Win Again."

[Bram]

Yes you did.

[dandan]

On a sidenote: this would make DanDan and Island Fish Jasconius REALLY good

Dandan is already really good

[Dr. Sylvan]

Terrifyingly, with possible world-shaking consequences, I am in the process of decommissioning the hawaiian shirt fleet. I think that this may actually cause global cooling, as the weather has spent the last seven years trying to make Illinois more like a tropical island to conform to my attire. This process may be accelerated by the fact that some of my new shirts have long sleeves, so the weather will be thinking it's colder.

Yes, this theory does make me something of a weather god. If you commune with the internet enough, these kinds of things just happen.