Quantitative evidence of how cold it was last week (click to enlarge):
Incidentally, Meteorological Spring begins March 1st. Humbug.
Category: Stranger than fiction
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beauty and the geek
two websites, one devoted to geek technology enterpreneurs and the other full of fashion and lifestyle. Oil and water, but mix they shall:
PopSugar is a blog all about fashion, beauty, shopping and celebrity news. TechCrunch is about startups and the geeks that create them. These two groups definitely need to mingle.
So on April 10, in Hollywood of course, we are putting on a huge party with them. The theme – Geek Goes Chic. Expect lots of startup geeks commingling with, well, normal people. Who are most likely attractive. And can carry on a conversation. What could could possibly go wrong?
I wish I lived in Hollywood.
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hydrazine, huh?
As I mentioned to Steven in comments to the previous post about the pending satellite shoot-em-up, I don’t buy the argument that the hydrazine in the fuel tanks is a real threat. The Cassini-Huygens probe carried plutonium aboard as a fuel source and I recall the crazies all worried it would somehow contaminate the earth if it crashed or failed on liftoff; why would hydrazine be such a big deal? A satellite coming uncontrolled down from space has only 30% chance of hitting land to begin with, and the actual populated areas of Earth where you might conceivably land on someone (ie, dense urban areas, not suburbs, farmland, desert, jungle, etc) are an even smaller target. The risk has to be infinitesimal.
So i am not surprised at all to see that there might be an ulterior motive – to show the Chinese we can.
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The Drake Equation
XKCD pays homage to the Drake Equation, with their characteristic style:
It should be noted though that the new term Bs is redundant with L. That’s really the only parameter for which there is essentially no way to formulate any reasonable estimate. When I learned about the Drake Equation in college, we basically came to see that the Drake Equation was uttterly dominated by the assumption for L, even if fl, fi, and fc were all assumed to be 1. It’s a sobering thought that time, not space, is our greatest barrier to finding someone else Out There.
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totally awesome!
The US military is going to blast a failing spy satellite out of the sky using sea-based missiles launched from a Navy cruiser. No, not Michael Bay’s next movie plot; this is actually real.
Question for the US Intelligence Agencies: if the thing is so sensitive and loaded with secrets that you have to try and shoot it down rather than let it fall into Russian/Chinese hands, why didn’t you just put a self-destruct on it? Duh.
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early mid-30s
Another 365 days, another sol under my belt. I’m no longer in my early 30s, I’m now in my early mid-30s. I’ve decided to twitter the day so as to have some documentation to look back on years from now, when remembering that crazy year in Marshfield. If I can’t be narcissistic today of all days, then when?
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my dubious heritage
File this under “ways to waste time with your Asus EEE PC” since if not for the built-in webcam, I’d likely have not bothered with this. But bothered with it, I did, and here’s the result:
Abishek Bachan? I guess all we desis do look alike. I have not, to my knowledge, inspired my spouse to fast for a day out of devotion, however.
Howard Dean? curious indeed. Political heritage rather than genetic? I am pseudo-infamous for having launched a little blog that I am proud to say played some role in the Dean campaign. Back during those heady days, we tossed about the idea of a TV commercial where ordinary folk would stare into the camera and say, “I am Howard Dean.” How prophetic is that!
John Lennon? I guess I do have that subversive, yet pragmatic revolutionary bent.
Hugo Weaving? Am I an elf lord, disdainful of those inferior to me yet also accepting that they must supplant me? Or am I a construct that rebels against its cage? Either way, cooool.
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100 degrees F
You may have noticed that I didn’t have much to say from last Saturday to Wednesday; this is because we had gone to San Antonio for my wife to attend the AAD conference. It was unbelievably gorgeous Texas ill country weather down there. I spent 9 years in Houston, recall, and there February was indeed pleasant, but San Antonio has all of that without the humidity. It went as high as 85 degrees, which was ideal for the Riverwalk or the Zoo. We even had to use sunscreen (my wife is a dermatologist after all).
Today, in Marshfield WI, it’s 15 degrees Farenheit. Below zero. And still dropping.
It occurs to me that the inverse scenario, comparing temperatures in summer, would not have nearly the same delta. Now, I know that in Houston we had the occasional 100+ degree day, but a more rigorous analysis should really use monthly averages. For Houston, the coldest month is January (41.2 F overnight) and warmest is July (93.6 F daytime). In San Antonio, its January (38.6 F) and August (94.7 F). I couldn’t find comparable data for Marshfield, but for Madison the coldest month is January (9.3 F) and warmest is July (82.1 F).
So, just using these average monthly temperatures, we see that the delta in winter is about 30 degrees whereas the delta in summer is about 12 degrees. Obviously, my perceived delta was much higher because the daily temperature is far more variable than the average, but even so it’s intriguing that even with average temperatures, the delta is about 3x higher in winter than in summer.
Is there a point to any of this? I have no idea. In other news, starving people tend to think about food a lot.
And there’s no way I’m shoveling the driveway today. I’d rather do it midweek at 5am than go out there right now.
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in memoriam: STS-107
The definitive timeline of events. Here’s what I wrote that morning, 5 years ago. Eric Berger also looks back.
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17 below
It’s 17 degrees below zero. Today’s high will be 1 below.
The good news?
Welcome to the Marshfield School District
**ATTENTION**
SCHOOL IS CANCELED FOR WEDNESDAY
1-30-2008
ALL SCHOOL ACTIVITIES ARE CANCELED FOR TODAYnormally at 7am I’d be starting the Process of wrangling Junior Otaku out of bed. A reprieve!
