Erdos, Lambert and Fleck
Re the degrees of separation game, Tim Lambert points out that he’s got an Erdos number of three: Lambert – Stanton – Stinson – Erdos. If you really bend the rules*, I’ve got an Erdos number of five: Erdos -> Peter Palfy->Jan Saxl->Pavel Etingof->Alexander Kirillov. Which means I’ve got a Lambert number of – what [...]
Go Brandon!
A comment worth pulling out onto the front page, about the latest success of New Mexico’s own Brandon Leslie (this is distance running for those not familiar with the jargon): Well it just keeps getting better for Brandon, He ran in the USA Mens X-C Championships on Feb 20 in the Bronx, NY, with bitter [...]
Daybook
weather: That storm, she’s a flirt, but it’s pretty clear she’s not going to put out. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but there’s a story somewhere in the crazy psychotic way the dry weather is making us feel. Two days of measurable precipitation in Albuquerque since Nov. 1. Two. music: The podGoober project’s gem of [...]
Eight Degrees of Separation
Steve McIntyre has been playing a fun sort of “degrees of separation” game, identifying members of climate science’s “hockey team” based on coauthorship of paleoclimate papers and using their team membership to disparage their work. I’ve not found it to be a particularly useful or persuasive argument, and Tim Lambert has pointed out the inconsistency [...]
Sunday Services
Sunday mornings are for riding, and I like to joke that the saddle’s my church. Moreso, it turns out, than I realized. In the Jan. 28 New Scientist, evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has an essay about the physiological dimensions of religion. She discusses the physical side, from singing and dancing to the intensity of serious [...]
Bowling Ball Larceny
Trying to delete a comment spam, I accidentally deleted the following, which was a favorite post, and which I therefore reprise now by reposting: Dec. 12, 2004 Wife Lissa, who is something of a goofball, installed a large post in the front yard – a 4×4 set in concrete – with a bowling ball as [...]
Christmas 1976
I’ve always liked relics. I don’t remember whose house we were at Dec. 11, 1976, but it was our ritual to gather to watch Saturday Night Live. I do remember the episode: the killer Christmas trees and the horrifyingly hilarious holiday carole: “Let’s Kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas.” And Santi-Wrap. It must stand as one [...]
Drought, Food, Africa
In keeping with Kevin Vranes’ dictum that “it’s up to the bloggers to highlight the papers that didn’t make Science, Nature, JAMA or NEJM” because those half-wits in the mainstream media won’t, here’s an interesting paper on climate variability and food in Africa. Leif Christian Stige of the University of Oslo and colleagues used crop [...]
Dry
Some stuff I wrote elsewhere on how dry it is (sub. req.): If we don’t get any rain in the next week— a good bet— the past four months will go into the record books as the driest winter in Albuquerque history. With 0.14 inches since Nov. 1, Albuquerque is on the verge of shattering [...]
Global Warming and Allergies
OK, if you smarty-pants scientists wanna do something useful with your time, here’s what I need to know. What effect will global warming have on my allergies?
keep looking »
