You've all heard of the famous terracotta army assembled by the Qin dynasty emperor Qin Shi Huang at his imperial capital in Xianyang. Well, this is the not-quite-as-famous terracotta rabbit army assembled by the Drum dynasty empress Marian in her imperial capital of Irvine. Someday these two armies will have it out. My money is ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
News from Ukraine: NEW: Russia has launched more than 300 sorties into Ukraine the last 24 hours: senior U.S. defense official. 🇷🇺 sorties are not "venturing very far and very long" into 🇺🇦 airspace, the official said. Russia still has more than 60 percent of fixed wing and rotary wing capability. — Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) ...continue reading "Russia has a little more than half its air force left"
What's the deal with all those loud allegations about biological laboratories in Ukraine? Do they exist? Are they making bioweapons? Are they dangerous? The answers are yes, no, and yes. The best short piece about them that I've read was in the Wall Street Journal yesterday: The allegations have shocked those who are most familiar ...continue reading "Ukraine has biolabs. Ukraine is not making bioweapons."
Here is 60 Minutes on housing: Nicely done @FairweatherPhD. Time to build! https://t.co/qw5zaNxdVK — Adam Ozimek (@ModeledBehavior) March 21, 2022 I don't get it. People keep saying stuff like this, but: There are housing shortages in California and in specific cities that are hot destinations right now, but overall the US has been building houses ...continue reading "We are still building lots of new housing"
Temperatures have soared wildly over Antarctica during the past week, with the eastern part of the continent experiencing temps about 70 degrees above normal (i.e., about 10°F instead of -60°F). That sounds pretty spectacular, but the technical description is even more spectacular: The warm conditions over Antarctica were spurred by an extreme atmospheric river [that] ...continue reading "Thanks to climate change, we now live in a five sigma world"
Wait. Is it now conventional wisdom on the Fox News right that masks just flat-out don't work? I know they've always hated masks and mask mandates—and think liberals are weenies for constantly wearing masks just to show off—but when did they decide masks had literally no value at all? What did I miss?
You remember Hunter Biden's laptop, don't you? Sure you do. What you may not remember is that a few weeks before the 2020 election a bunch of ex-intelligence folks wrote an open letter saying they suspected it was part of a Russian disinformation plot. That turned out not to be true—something the New York Times ...continue reading "The Biden laptop was real, but that hardly matters"
New COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Europe, but hospital admissions continue to fall in most countries. In the US, the trajectory for hospital admissions is straight down. If we continue at our present rate, we'll break our record low point by next weekend.
Here's a quasi-philosophical question for your weekend amusement that's probably been studied but is just obscure enough that I can't find anything relevant when I search for it. Most philosophical systems assume that a life is a life, all equally valuable. This makes sense for any moral system that has to be universal, but in ...continue reading "How much do you value life?"
Over at Vox, Siobhan McDonough has a lengthy piece about a guaranteed income experiment being done in Georgia. The headline calls it "revolutionary," but I can't say I'm floored by the idea that giving poor people an extra $10,000 per year will vastly improve their lives. Of course it will. The drawback is that it ...continue reading "Americans both love and hate affirmative action"
The New York Times ran an editorial on Friday about "America's free speech problem," and naturally this has Twitter all atwitter. I myself find the whole "cancel culture" controversy exhausting, mainly because of the absolutism on both sides. My side denies the problem exists at all, while the Fox News set insists it's rampant. For ...continue reading "Cancel culture: A brief little listicle"
Here is Hilbert as the setting sun shines through our front window, lighting up his eyes magnificently. Is he aware that Charlie is photobombing him? His alert expression suggests "maybe."
After yesterday's post about the types of vehicles that are most involved in crashing into pedestrians, a regular readers suggests it would be interesting to see the total level of pedestrian crashes as context. Here it is: Nothing much to see here. Overall crashes involving pedestrians have been rock steady over the past 15 years. ...continue reading "Raw data: Pedestrians and bicyclists involved in motor vehicle crashes"
A few days ago I tried to buy something with my main credit card and was turned down. I paid with another credit card, and the next day the main card was fine, so I forgot the whole thing. But then it happened again. And once again, the next day the card was fine. Then ...continue reading "My Week"
A couple of researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have released a study of pedestrian crashes by type of vehicle. They've done this both nationally and for North Carolina. I don't know why North Carolina rates a separate study, and they didn't explain it, but let's take a look anyway: Big vehicles are ...continue reading "What kind of vehicles crash into pedestrians the most?"
As I'm sure you all know by now, Texas is under fire for rejecting a large number of mail-in ballots in its primary election a few weeks ago: According to an Associated Press analysis, the news isn’t great. For the March 1 primary, the state rejected almost 23,000 mail-in ballots, or close to 13 percent ...continue reading "The Texas mail ballot law probably isn’t a big deal"
This is an oak tree silhouetted against a stormy sky a couple of weeks ago. As it happens, the stormy sky produced a few drizzles here and there but nothing more. We could use the water, so it was a missed chance.
A few years ago a friend of mine got cataract surgery. He had worn glasses since childhood, but after the surgery he had perfect 20/20 vision and great reading vision. That sounded awesome, and naturally I wanted this surgery too even though I didn't have cataracts. I grumbled a bit about that and then forgot ...continue reading "Health Update, High Tech Optics Edition"
I'm not sure why I've held onto this picture. It was taken in the town square in Tecate, Mexico, and this pigeon looks so awkward on takeoff that it tickles me. Do all birds look like this at the moment they're trying to get their first bit of lift? I don't think so. Just pigeons, ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
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