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ht Nora
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
How Many People Saw the Rose Parade?
Two decades ago, while a young reporter for the Pasadena Star-News, I convincingly debunked the official claim that a million people show up in person to see the Rose Parade. It took about five minutes of simple arithmetic to show that it was impossible*, and my colleagues and I then attempted to estimate the real …
The Long Emergency, Postponed
Sooner or later the neo-Malthusians – those who grasp the fundamental difficulty posed by exponential population growth in collision with a fixed resource base – will turn out to be right. The problem is that, thus far, they have repeatedly turned out to be wrong. Today’s example comes (via Tyler Cowen) from a piece by …
Goodbye Blacklung!
Sunset Canyon
Sunset Canyon is quite possibly my favorite mile of cycling in Albuquerque: View Larger Map If you like to climb (as I do) and you’re stuck in town either because of time constraints, or because it’s winter, there are a series of short, steep, lovely climbs on the neighborhood streets that make up the Sandia …
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Desal and NM Population
Fishin’ for help in thinking about NM’s water-population future.
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Armageddon Edition
On the horrifying simplicity of the H-bomb, and the possible unmasking of “Perseus”: Reed and Stillman suggest that the Soviets, desperate to solve the riddle of the H-bomb, returned to Perseus for one last favor in 1954. However they got the idea, by late 1955 the Soviets had built and tested their own H-bomb. h/t …
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Who Is Eli Rabbett?
Today’s Inkstain Search of the Day: who is Eli Rabbett (sic) I’m happy to note that I’m in good company in misspelling the good Dr.’s “name”. But I’m hoping that with this post I’ll claim the number one Google ranking.
The Predictability of Oil Prices
Economist James Hamilton, in his recent NBER paper, argues for economists’ inherent inability to predict oil prices. Luckily, we have Ana Anaya: “Gas prices will definitely go up, I have to tell you,” she said. “I’m sorry to say.” (ht Somegye)
What I Learned Before the Sun Came Up This Morning
My Christmas toy is a Kill A Watt, a cool little goober that you plug into an outlet to see how much electricity something uses. Today’s calculation: the desktop computer, despite being off, is responsible for about 2 percent of my average household electricity consumption. Die, vampire! With my power strip that has an off …
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