This evening I want to think about climate, covid and racism. Nothing too controversial then. In fact, let me generalise two and narrow the third. I wish to look at progress, real and perceived, in three key areas: environmentalism, public health and racial discrimination in the USA. My thesis is pretty simple. In 1 and … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
How Governments Think About Public Safety
The current COVID-19 crisis has focused many people’s attention on the question of risk and how governments go about ensuring public safety. I have no epidemiological experience that enables me to comment knowledgably upon the UK government’s strategies, and if I did claim to have any I am sure there would be someone out … Continue reading
LancetGate
The Lancet, like the British Medical Journal, has been publishing fake news for years about climate change. [They also published a fake article about deaths caused in the second Iraq war. That one interested me because my political opinions would have naturally led me to lend credence to their absurdly exaggerated figures, yet somehow I … Continue reading
Met Office Hadley Centre Celebrates 30 Years Of ‘Science Advocacy’
‘They think it’s all over; it is now’. After 30 long years of meticulous and dedicated research, the Met Office has kicked the doubters into the back of the net and proudly announces that: The first 30 yearsThe impacts of climate change are already evident both in the UK and worldwide, through rising temperatures, diminishing … Continue reading
When Code Goes Wong
Many people across the globe are currently interested in the quality of code and, even more, the quality of results that arise from code. In particular, in the UK, Neil Ferguson’s epidemiological code, that seemed to influence the government’s decision to impose a lockdown, and, on this blog at least, the code that makes up … Continue reading
Michigan Dams Collapse
Mid Michigan is suffering through some historic flooding after the Edenville and Sanford dams failed after heavy rains. Lake Sanford has been drained into downtown Midland causing the evacuation of thousands. Someone caught some video of one of the dams breaking. Here’s another video which nicely summarizes the situation. I live in Bay City which … Continue reading
Did HMG succeed in its assignment?
Here’s the thing. In our earlier busy thread, Jaime Jessop was thinking like a Haskell programmer and John Ridgway a Ruby one. Perhaps even more fascinating, what was the government thinking? References: Wikipedia : Assignment (computer science) Demystifying Haskell assignment Ruby – Operators Basic Programming – Operators What’s New In Python 3.8 – Assignment expressions … Continue reading
The Curious Avenues of Professorial Inquiry
Professor Petra Tschakert at the University of Western Australia is halfway through a project to “locate loss from climate change in everyday places”. These places include my very own Perth stamping ground of Willagee. Heavens, my parents moved to Willagee in late 1953, when it was raw sand. Willagee featured the Housing Commission’s half-finished jerry-built … Continue reading
From Janet Cooke to Chris Mooney
From Woodward and Bernstein’s cracking of Watergate to Janet Cooke’s fabricated 8 year old heroin addict and now with Chris Mooney — the Washington Post continues its long history with Pulitzer prizes. Is this a linear progression, a parabolic rebound or asymptotic degeneracy? Chris Mooney has just won a Pulitzer prize for a series of articles … Continue reading
Covid/climate open thread
Have at it! Continue reading
