David Erik Nelson's Blog, page 34

UPDATE: Even When Bloggers Are Bad at Math, Global Climate Change Is Still a Reality

Late in 2012 we--along with most of the pinko-hippie blogosphere--posted a link to a blog entry over at Grist; here's ours: Poor Mojo's Newswire: Climate Collapse: If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month

In mid-January a dedicated--or at least attentive--reader in Australia wrote in to point out:

Dear Poor Mojo,

I have become aware that the statistic given in your article "Climate Collapse: If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month" concerning the 27 years of never colder-than-average months is incorrect.

From the original information source, the NCDC report: "The average monthly temperature across the United Kingdom was 1.3°C (2.3°F) below the 1981–2010 average, making this the coldest October since 2003. Regionally, Scotland had its seventh coolest October since records began in 1910 and coolest since 1993." Further, from BOM in the Annual Australian Climate Statement 2012 states, in the first sentence of this report "The first half of 2012 was cooler and wetter than average".

Therefore this statistic cannot be true. I know how the accurate reporting of information reflects upon an organisation's integrity and reputation, and I'm sure swift and appropriate action will be taken.

Thank you, I look forward to your response: ***********@*******.com

What caught my interest--and sparked some editorial discussion here at the Newswire--was that this reader had a point (sort of) even if it wasn't the point Reader thinks Reader has. Reader is 100% correct in saying that the Grist blogger's title--which most of us link-blogging this item blithely copy-pasted--is wrong: Plenty of humans younger than 27 have experienced colder-than-average local temps. Shit, just look at the graphic: anything blue shows a colder-than-average temp. I'll note that *little* of the world's human population lives in those blue zones, but obviously some folks do, including kids born after the theatrical release of BACK TO THE FUTURE. So, the title is inaccurate.

But just because the *title* is spurious, that doesn't make the *statistic* untrue. Again, look at the pic: it's likewise obvious that *most* of the world has seen warmer to much-warmer--and even *record high*--average temps in the last year.

So how did the Grist blogger arrive at this spurious title?

Just bad math; the blogger is basically claiming that if a "mean" average is greater than X, then all the components of that mean must also exceed X, which is clearly not the case (e.g., a four man crew can have an average salary of $15/hour, but that doesn't mean none of the dudes was paid *less* than $15/hr; the crew could be one dude making $57 per and the others making a buck an hour).

Just to step through:

Grist blogger says: "If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month"

But what he means is "in the last 27 years the average temperature across land and ocean surfaces has never been below it's year-to-year global comp"

Ergo, it would be correct to say "If you’re 27 or younger, then the *world* has never experienced a colder-than-average month in your lifetime," even though specific points on the map--and thus people--have experienced colder-than-average months during that period.

I don't want to be tedious, but I do believe that attempting to be both accurate and math-literate is important in this-thing-that's-replaced-journalism. E.g.,: I read a FOX article about the new biggest prime number which asserted--and I've simplified the numbers here--that "two multiplied by itself 10 times" equals "(2^10)-1"--which is so clearly false it makes my head hurt, and I barely scraped by in high school math. In the next sentence they said that large primes have no use in and of themselves, apart from being curiosities. That claim is simply mind-bogglingly ignorant.

Anyway, you no longer need math and news from NOAA to know the climate has shifted: It has fundamentally changed crops here, in Michigan. Talk to any farmer in the state: our growing season and hardiness zone have grossly shifted since the birth of my son, and he's a first-grader. Traditional crops (like apples, cherries, and berries) are now struggling while new crops are becoming viable, even profitable. This can be directly observed, regardless of how you vote or what you think of Al Gore--so, to my mind, denial is a non-starter. But still, these are *local* effects, and I'm in Michigan; as we all know, where Reader was in Australia, the first half of 2012 was both colder and wetter than usual--which is actually also probably a Bad Sign. Remember, it isn't global *warming* we're worried about; it's *climate collapse.*

In the end, this isn't about math, or even about politics; it's about humans working through the Kübler-Ross stages of grief. Our world has changed, and no semantic nit-pick can wind that back. In the last six months we felt hurricane winds from an Atlantic superstorm *in Michigan*. We saw lake effect snow stretch from Lake Michigan to Detroit, *crossing the entire state.* I can't find anyone with a living memory of storms like these here. Again, we don't have to look at a map from the federal government, or a picture from a satellite. These things happened in my yard, and they've done so since my last birthday.

Back on track: from a rhetoric standpoint, if we settle for sloppy math--even just in titles--then it makes it easier for deniers to just pretend the point as a whole is invalid, and there is tremendous motivation to do just that, because when you are grieving a loss, the first step is always to say: "No; this just isn't true. It can't be, because this being true hurts me too much."

And sometimes, the thing we have to do for a grieving loved one is very cruel: We have to take him or her by the shoulders and very calmly say: "A very bad thing has happened, and now we need to deal with it."

RECOMMENDED READING: The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

The Last Policeman is a really enjoyable read, both as a literary novel and as a low-grade mystery/crime thriller. About 60% into the book you suddenly realize that the crime has been solved and all loose ends secured--which leaves one to wonder what the hell is going to occupy the remaining pages. At this point, though, the investigator tracks backward through his solved mystery (not temporally, just in terms if the relationships of cause and effect), and unwinds a whole second layer to it all. So, right there, it would be a great piece of mystery writing, wonderfully managing expectations and non-cheating reveals (a la the best of Christie or Doyle). Throughout, it's also great crime writing, showing the way that ordinary folks can resolve--without cognitive dissonance--the mismatches between their external and internal lives (I think of Price's Clockers as being the epitome at this aspect of crime fiction). This is all pinned against an almost classic SF backdrop: Impending meteor strike is gonna end the world on a known date. Everything that means for workaday humans--including this fair-and-square regular-joe cop who's found himself suddenly bumped up to detective--brings these "lowly" genre pieces up a notch. It's fine *craft* being used to explore the poignant humanity of Kobayashi Maru, which is basically the thing we mean when we say "art," right?

Takeway: Read this. It's a quick one and worth your time.

(DISCLOSURE: Those are indeed Amazon affiliate links to the book; if you click on them and buy it, I'll get some minuscule percentage. Also, the book itself was a gift from my mom; all of these factors may have swayed my opinion. I'm only human.)

New Thing to Worry About: Giant Robo-Dog What Throws the Cinder Blocks!

Unofficial Poor Mojo's Military Correspondent (and Constant Mojoketeer) Milt draws our attention to this devil's business:

Just in case anyone missed the first chapter in the coming robocalypse:

BigDog robot throws cinder blocks in viral video

As someone who knows a little about the military I say: Super. Creepy.

*thanks, milt, for repopulating my nightmares!*

On Guns and Control, Tools and Instruments

I'm back to writing a monthly column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. February's column kicks off a series on guns (and largely builds off thoughts I posted here back in January). If you have experiences of guns--your actual first-hand experiences--that you'd like to share, please feel free to hit me over Twitter or email.

The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In It For The Money: Guns And Control

A gun isn’t a tool – it’s not a hammer or a drill that you can pick up, use to solve a problem, and put away until you have the next problem you want to solve. It’s an instrument, like a guitar or piano. It requires constant care, it requires checking and tuning before each use, it requires an intimate relationship with its mechanisms, with its parameters, with what it can do and what it should do and what it is meant for. It requires care and feeding. And it requires practice, near constant practice for you to be any good at doing anything with it.

But most of all, it requires attention – all of your attention. You are exquisitely focused when you are holding a gun – and not just because the gun can hurt or kill anyone nearby, including you. (Our cars are far more likely to hurt and kill anyone nearby, and we zone out behind the wheel all the time.)

There is an essential quality to this instrument compared with others; its nature is to make us aware of how vital and powerful our attention is, in and of itself. I don’t look at my father when I’m holding my loaded shotgun. I don’t look at my son when I’m holding my loaded pistol. I look at the target – only at the target, because whatever I’m looking at is the target.

"Sticks and Stones" . . .

. . . is a load of bullshit. A broken bone was easily ten times better than being teased and bullied on the daily. Once a bone is broken, normal humans start to get a sense of what they're becoming and back off. But the words, they'll just pile up until they block out all the light in the Universe.

Pro tip: Don't ever tell a kid "sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you." Say, "Fuck them; that sucks that they're being assholes!" Say, "I love you."

To This Day: Watch video about bullying based on Shane Koyczan poem. (VIDEO)

I think this is maybe your longread for today: First-person account from the man who shot Osama bin Laden

This article begins "The man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden sat in a wicker chair in my backyard, wondering how he was going to feed his wife and kids or pay for their medical care" and ends "'Once you're on their list,' he says, 'you never get off.'" In the middle there's this:

The Shooter | Center for Investigative Reporting

I thought in that first instant how skinny he was, how tall and how short his beard was, all at once. He was wearing one of those white hats, but he had, like, an almost shaved head. Like a crew cut. I remember all that registering. I was amazed how tall he was, taller than all of us, and it didn't seem like he would be, because all those guys were always smaller than you think.

I'm just looking at him from right here [he moves his hand out from his face about ten inches]. He's got a gun on a shelf right there, the short AK he's famous for. And he's moving forward. I don't know if she's [PMjA Ed.: the woman ObL is pushing in front of himself] got a vest and she's being pushed to martyr them both. He's got a gun within reach. He's a threat. I need to get a head shot so he won't have a chance to clack himself off [blow himself up].

In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he's going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place. That time I used my EOTech red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.

And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I've ever done, or the worst thing I've ever done? This is real and that's him. Holy shit.

Everybody wanted him dead, but nobody wanted to say, Hey, you're going to kill this guy. It was just sort of understood that's what we wanted to do.

His forehead was gruesome. It was split open in the shape of a V. I could see his brains spilling out over his face. The American public doesn't want to know what that looks like.

A Little Garfunkel-&-Oats-Shaped Gift from Mojonaut Milt

Our dear long-time co-conspirator Milt brought this video to our attention, and now we're bringing it to your attention. 'cause, you know, we love ukulele songs.

Fuck Me In The Ass Because I Love Jesus - YouTube

*thx milt!*

Maine, 1985: A teenaged LL Cool J teaches children about hip hop

This only has 11,694 views right now, which I find shocking. I just love this footage so damn much!

LL Cool J in 1985 at Colby College in Maine: watch amazing early concert. (VIDEO)

UPDATE: Your Calamari Is Almost Certainly *Not* a Pig's Rectum

Like many blogs, we linked last week to one of many posts about calimari and hog bung (here's ours: Poor Mojo's Newswire: Sometimes calamari is just a pig's asshole). I'd listened to--and enjoyed--the TAL segment in question and, although I don't have a beef (pun!) with eating squids or intestines (fact!), I found the claim that bung was regularly--or even occasionally--served in the US to be highly suspect. The major issues being this: Bung is regular in diameter and has no tentacles; I've eaten pound upon pound of fried squid in my life and *never* recieved a platter featuring naught but identical--or even similar-sized--rings. So, I was gratified when the piece closed by saying basically: "You've almost certainly *never* eaten bung being passed as calamari, but I'm rooting for bung slipping through, because bung is an underdog."

But that's not what many folks got from that piece. As near as I can tell, what they got--despite the TAL producer directly saying the contrary--was something like, "ALL CALAMARI IS LIPS AND ASSHOLES!!!1!"

So, in the interest of knowledge and erudition:

Calamari made of pig rectum? The This American Life rumor isn’t true, but it’s fascinating. - Slate Magazine

A friend told me the other day that she’d heard a horrifying report on public radio: You know those deep-fried, chewy rings of calamari? Sure. Well, they’re sometimes served in imitation form, made from slices of a pig’s rectum. Wait … what?! And so it happened second-hand, as these things almost always do: An urban legend hatched and spread its wings.

My friend had heard the story from radio producer Ben Calhoun, who put it in his segment for the Jan. 11 episode of This American Life. You should go listen: It’s not an expose but a charming, funny paean to the hog bung. (More on that in a bit.) Calhoun doesn’t really think that buttholes have surfed into our seafood—”If I had to bet money on whether it’s happening [in the U.S.], I would absolutely bet money that it’s not,” he told me earlier this week . . .

. . .

There were no eyewitnesses at all, in fact, and all the other evidence was circumstantial: A recent activist report found signs of modest seafood fraud—one kind of fish mislabeled as another—and a taste test showed that switching rectums for calamari might indeed go undetected. Calhoun did not try to hide the weakness of his case: “Just to repeat one last time,” he said at the close of his radio script, “I have no proof that anyone, anywhere, has ever tried to pass off pork bung as calamari in a restaurant … “

Does Safety Dictate Making Quiet Cars Loud?

NHTSA proposes sound standards to make quiet cars safer - Welcome to the FastLane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation

I was initially moderately annoyed by this; we have a Prius, really *like* that it adds so much less noise to our environs, and I'm frustrated that chronic headphone users and texters seem to be driving public policy (we live in a college town). Now that I've both read the actual rationale and heard some if the sounds, I'm coming around. I actually sorta dig the eerie Jetson's-hover-car sound of sample three. I'd like my future to start sounding a little more futuristic.

One lingering concern: I regularly get my bike going 18 to 20 mph; why isn't that a concern? My chain and tires are quieter than our Prius going 10mph, and I can't stop my bike nearly as quickly (or, at least I don't think I can. Guess I'll go do some trials once it thaws.)

Because hybrid and electric vehicles operate so quietly, particularly at low speeds, they are more difficult for pedestrians and cyclists to detect when a vehicle is coming. This problem is even bigger for the visually impaired who rely on sounds for guidance.

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act sought to fix that, and yesterday's proposal is the result of NHTSA enthusiastically taking up the challenge. The proposal is now open to public comment for the next 60 days, so stay tuned for an update later this year.

Under the new standards, vehicle sounds would need to be detectable under a wide range of street noises and other background sounds when a vehicle is traveling slower than 18 miles per hour. At that speed and above, vehicles make sufficient noise to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to detect them without added sound.