Statistics reporting is hard
No, we have not wiped out 60% of all animals, FFS:Since Monday, news networks and social media have been abuzz with the claim that, as The Guardian among others tweeted, “humanity has wiped out 60...
View ArticleMonopsony effects on workers
This morning we in the US got the news that the employment rebound that started under President Obama has continued, giving us the best employment picture in 50 years. Yet at the same time, despite...
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Gravely researching climate change
It turns out, cemeteries provide really good observational data on climate change:[T]he value of this greenspace has only grown as the communities around them have densified and urbanized — leaving...
View ArticleLunchtime reading
I didn't have a moment to write any code from 9am until now, so my lunch will include doing the stuff I didn't do in all those meetings. At some point I'll get to these:Dana Milbank acknowledges the...
View ArticleSex!
Both The Atlantic and the New York Times have penetrating articles on the subject today. First, Kate Julian examines why young people are having less sex, despite the relaxation of taboos around...
View ArticleAu revoir au Grand K
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures voted earlier today to ditch the platinum-iridium prototype kilogram in favor of a value of mass based on Planck's constant. The Post explains:Since the...
View ArticleIn defense of puns
Longtime (and I mean, longtime) reader DB sent me James Geary's eloquent essay on the value of puns:There is no sharp boundary splitting the wit of the scientist, inventor, or improviser from that of...
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But where are the elephants?
Journalist Kelly Weill, writing for the Daily Beast, went to a flat-earth convention:Thousands of years after ancient Greeks began referencing Earth as a sphere in mathematical proofs, people who...
View ArticleQueued up for later
Some questions:Why did 16 members of my party threaten to make a Republican Speaker of the House?Why didn't the White House Staff Secretary prevent a ridiculous statement about the Khashoggi killing...
View ArticleYou say it's your birthday?
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' White Album:There’s something about The White Album that invites listeners to mess around with it. Joan Didion stole its title for her 1979 essay...
View ArticleSquirrel!
When I'm explaining software designs, I'll often say things like, "I don't care if the data comes from SQL, NOSQL, or a squirrel..." It turns out, Frontier Airlines cares very much:A passenger was...
View ArticlePas de Bourbon pour l'Europe
Craft distillers in the U.S., like home-town FEW Spirits, are getting creamed by the European Union's retaliatory tariffs:Following the European Union's June implementation of a 25 percent tariff on...
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A few old photos
Sometimes it's fun going through some stock shots and giving them another go with Lightroom.Here's a digital photo from July 2004 that needed minimal tweaking:This one needed lots of help, and...
View ArticleStuff to read later
Of note:Bruce Schneier discusses how propaganda is related to weakening trust in government.Former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson calls President Trump a "clownish caricature of Nixon."Paul...
View ArticleThis is why my reading list occupies two whole bookshelves
CityLab describes new Daily Parker bait:When a new rail or bus line gets built in the United States, its mere opening is often cause for celebration among transit advocates. That’s understandable,...
View ArticleOne measure of stiffening support for Trump
New research suggests that men insecure about their masculinity tend to support the president more. No, really:We found that support for Trump in the 2016 election was higher in areas that had more...
View ArticleGeorge H.W. Bush, 1924-2018
The 41st president of the United States died last night at the age of 94. President Bill Clinton, who succeeded Bush in 1993, remembers his friend:No words of mine or others can better reveal the heart...
View ArticleTwo Illinois anniversaries
First, today is the bicentennial of Illinois becoming a state, which involved a deal to steal Chicago from Wisconsin:If Illinoisans had played by the rules to get statehood, Chicagoans would be...
View ArticleDetecting Alzheimer's in a novel
Researchers used the Iris Murdoch's last novel to quantify how Alzheimer's first signs show up in language:As [neurologist Peter] Garrard explains, a patient’s vocabulary becomes restricted, and they...
View ArticleWhat's he doing?
Eddie Lampert's hedge fund proposes to buy Sears for $4.6 bn:The bid from Lampert’s ESL Investments includes about 500 Sears and Kmart stores, headquarters and distribution centers, and Sears brands...
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