Andrew Revkin writes this morning about a paper in Nature Geoscience showing an expansion of barren desert-like regions of ocean.
NMSR Podcast
My homeys at New Mexicans for Science and Reason have a great radio show on Saturday afternoons (2 p.m., 1350 a.m. in Albuquerque). But the only place I have an am radio is in the car, and I’m almost never in my car at the right time.
Now, thanks to the magic of PodGoobers, you can listen any time you want: NMSR Podcast.
loading docks and commercial buildings
Inkstain Google search string of the day:
are loading docks required on new commercial buildings
(Here’s what they found. Hope it was useful.)
Breakfast of Champions
To the guy in the Wheaties jersey out on the bosque bike trail this morning: Dang that was fun!
I was out by myself, but (as often happens) I ended up amidst a train of like-minded riders. In this case, our like minds involved going fast. There are so many families with strollers and kids on trike and stuff on much of the trail that you can’t play go-fast games. But down in the south valley, south of the Bueno chile plant, things thin out and it’s easier to get things cranked up.
Since I got the book done in January, I’ve had the freedom to really crank up the miles, and I can feel my body changing. I can see it in the data, too. I’m a bit of a bike riding data freak, and I’ve got heart rate, speed, elevation, mileage, etc. About two weeks ago, I saw this big non-linear jump as my body all of a sudden clicked into bike riding mode.
South of the chile plant, there’s this sweet S-curve where the bike trail crosses a ditch. As we were approaching it I had the legs to jump out of the front of our little train so I could take it by myself. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had the legs to do that. Wheaties Shirt got back on my wheel pretty quickly. I’m still a slow old guy. But the rest of the way through the south valley, we were just flying.
The Creative Class and the Golden West
Having recently read Richard Florida’s “The Rise of the Creative Class“, and having heard a great deal of rhetoric locally about the importance of creative class economy issues to Albuquerque’s future, it occurs to me that it will be interesting to see how our community’s leadership responds to Thursday’s fire that destroyed the Golden West and caused extensive damage to the two music venues on either side of it.
At least one prominent local institution has taken up the discussions with fervor. Let’s hear it for the bottom-up nature of the creative class.
Don’t Blame the Sun
A lovely bit of amateur climate science from Tim Haab:
Follow the bouncing ball of logic. C02 concentrations and temperatures are correlated. Sunspot activity and temperatures are not and neither are CO2 concentrations and sunspot activity. Therefore, sunspots activities are not a causal factor in determining long-term temperature trends.
Don’t worry. His work is easily dismissed. He’s an economist.
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: plant sex edition
On the pollen count:
Unable to meet up in person, elm and juniper are among the many plants that have developed a decidedly unromantic reproductive strategy. They spew pollen into the air in search of a mate. A lot of pollen.
“The pollen is basically sperm,” explained University of New Mexico biologist Felisa Smith. “The pollen is basically out there cruising for eggs.”
Some plants tuck the eggs down inside pretty flowers, tricking insects to carry the pollen from plant to plant. But the sort of pollen that gives us itchy eyes and runny noses, the kind that keeps Gates busy, uses a brute-force approach.
Access to the Code
One of my old Gnome friends, Dave Mason, is in Rwanda working on a public health technology project. He told a great story today about what the Rwandans he is working with need from their software:
I was very directly asked if we would develop our software in open source. They asked because two other systems they have had to deal with are proprietary and they are tired of having to fly in “experts” to fix or change the code. Brilliant. Of course, I proudly said it would be free/open and that we’d also hire a local developer. Smiles all around.
My Darkest Secret
At the risk of tarnishing whatever green cred I might possess, a confession: I have always wanted a riding mower. I sit in them when I’m in the garden department at Home Depot, making brrmm brrmm noises under my breath. I imagine myself king of my domain as I ride the mower this way and that.
But really. Can I justify the environmental degradation that would accompany such a decadent, wasteful thing? Which is why I was so excited to learn of this remarkable invention:
EnviroGard’s “Low Polluting Lawn Mower” meets all current and future emission requirements by the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board. There is up to a 60% reduction in smog forming emissions and 80% reduction in toxic emissions compared with diesel and gasoline fuel.
Besides the huge advantages of lower emissions, Propane is on average 30% less expensive than gasoline or diesel fuels. The savings are increased with no spillage, theft, or contamination concerns that occur with other fuels. This is real savings in your pocket! The cost of a conversion utilizing our certified conversion kits will pay for itself in about 6–12 months.
Now all I need is a lawn.
Credit Where Credit is Due
Last week, USA Today’s Doyle Rice wrote a story about a research project in which I was involved. Rice did what journalists do. He got wind of a topic that interested him, tracked down and interviewed the lead researcher, got and read the paper, interviewed others for perspective, and wrote a story.
Four days later, David Roberts wrote a blog post on The Nation’s web site on the same study. Roberts did not ask for a copy of the paper, or interview the lead scientist. Instead, he cut and pasted from Rice’s piece into his own. Roberts tweaked the cutting and pasting with parenthetical insertion and paraphrase. Nowhere did he mention Doyle Rice, link to Rice’s original story or offer any credit or attribution to Rice.
The norms of journalism and blogging are different, with large gray areas as one melds into the other. It has never been clear to me which of those worlds Roberts inhabits. But by the norms of either community, using someone else’s words and work without attribution is wrong.
I wrote to David two days ago asking about this. I have received no response.
Click through for full excerpts: