2024-07-20
A fantastic piece by Paul Kedrosky on how California's Atmospheric River is changing and the implications of these changes.
Lots of great stuff in it, but this was totally new to me:
A predator-prey model is a mathematical representation of the interactions between two species: a predator and prey. It is often modeled as wolves, sheep, and grass. The most common model is the Lotka-Volterra, which consists of two differential equations. There are two stable equilibria: one with predator and prey in approximate balance, and one with both extinct
2024-03-27
From my friends at Duolingo:
The people that affectionately call their Prince William "Wills" and £5 and £10 notes ~"fivers" and "tenners"~ are responsible for shortening "Association Football" to just "Assoc."—which, when written, looks like it might be pronounced "Assock." (This "Association Football" name is the same as the French Football Association in FIFA!) In late 1800s England, at Oxford, there was also a fad of adding -er to some words. And thus, "soccer" was born.
In England. 🏴
2024-03-25
Found via Dynomight:
Quality over quantity. I often worry that I write too much on this blog. After all, the world has a lot of text. Does it need more? Shouldn’t I pick some small number of essays and really perfect them?
Arguably, no. You’ve perhaps heard of the pottery class where students graded on quantity produced more quality than those graded on quality. (It was actually a photography class.) For scientists, the best predictor of having a highly cited paper is just writing lots of papers. As I write these words, I have no idea if any of this is good and I try not to think about it.
I hadn’t heard this before, but I do find it to be true. Creativity is a habit. The way to quality is through quantity.
2024-03-11
From D Magazine:
The standardization of the jalapeño was rapidly accelerated by the debut, about 20 years ago, of the TAM II jalapeño line, a reliably big, shiny, fleshy pepper that can grow up to six inches long—with little to no heat. TAM II peppers have become some of the most popular in the processing business.
The driver of the change was the desire for processors to have predictable levels of spiciness.
Hat tip to Mark for sharing this.