I get it. Albuquerque is not a wet place. With an average of 9.71 inches (24.7 cm) per year of precipitation at the PRISM pixel for my house, I live in a desert, a hair beneath the arbitrary 10 inch (25 cm) definitional cutoff. But this is f’ing ridiculous. With January done, I’ve received 0.44 …
Lotus 1-2-3, circa 1983
In today’s XKCD, Randall Munroe makes fun of the Wikipedia talk page for the new Star Trek into the Darkness movie: And then the Star Trek into the Darkness talk page people discuss whether to include a mention of the XKCD comic on the Star Trek into the Darkness page: I think this talk page …
from Dan Kahan: [W]hen positions on a fact that admits of scientific investigation (“is the earth heating up?”; “does the HPV vaccine promote unsafe sex among teenage girls?”) becomes entangled with the values and outlooks of diverse communities—and becomes, in effect, a symbol of one’s membership and loyalty in one or another group—then people in …
2013 has the potential here in New Mexico to be a great laboratory for exploring the question of specifically where and when water supply shortages actually play out during a drought year. I took a crack in this morning’s paper at setting up the problem, highlighting what I see as the four key New Meixco …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: where the water will run out’ »
As Kevin Anchukaitis put it, the Tree Rings’ Tale told by the olive tree is “Really really really really really really hard” to read. From Cherubini et al: Dendrochronological analyses of olive trees growing on the Aegean island Santorini (Greece) show that the determination of the number of tree-rings is impossible because of intra-annual wood density fluctuations, …
Continue reading ‘The Tree Rings’ Tale, as told by olives’ »
Lingering at my sister Lisa’s dining room table this evening after dinner, my eye drifted to this casserole on a shelf opposite. My memories of childhood are vague, and I often depend on Lisa for the sort of specifics I can’t quite grab hold of. But neither of us could remember the casserole’s story, other …
An earlier version of a caption with this obituary referred incorrectly to the attack that blinded Ms. Pugach. It involved lye, which is a caustic base, not acid. Linda Riss Pugach, Whose Life Was Ripped From Headlines, Dies at 75
I often don’t know what to make of California, despite it being the state of my birth and a source of endless study and fascination. Jerry Brown was the governor when I was a teenager, and I respect him as one of the nation’s great politicians. I mean something specific and respectful by the term …
With apologies to the regular audience, I’m talking to students tomorrow morning at Lobocamp, using this post to share some links with the students: Census Bureau Census Bureau: Economic Characteristics of New Mexico Counties St. Louis FRED St. Louis FRED: New Mexico construction St. Luis Fred: New Mexico and its neighbors’ construction employment Energy Information …