Oct 27, 2015
Probability at Scale and KIC 8462852
In all of the discussion around KIC 8462852, there's a bit of a statistically-flawed argument. Obviously, as I noted last week, a natural origin explanation is deemed far more likely than an…
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Archive page 46 of 73
Oct 26, 2015
Det är dags att fira
I had an unusually long train ride this evening, and I finished the last eleven lessons in the Swedish tree on Duolingo. Regular readers may recall I completed the Danish tree about…
Oct 25, 2015
Insuring against disaster
Howard Kunreuther of the Wharton School has a new whitepaper on insuring against natural disaster risk. One of the things he points out, though it's not new, is the how risk is…
Oct 21, 2015
I need matching ties
There's an image macro from Back to the Future Part II showing Griff's gang in the future. There's an odd helmet, some creepy face tattoos, and what looks like a necklace made…
Oct 20, 2015
One useless man posts on Facebook, two respond to it, and three or more become a flamewar
Facebook arguments are a great source of blogging material, so here we go. This weekend, someone posted the picture above showing a quote attributed to John Adams: In my many years I…
Oct 18, 2015
Interstate Love Song...of Confusion
Going northbound on U.S. Route 29, there are two three exits for Interstate 70. The first right-exit goes to eastbound I-70. The second right-exit goes through a cloverleaf to westbound I-70. Immediately…
Oct 17, 2015
Applying Bayes to KIC 8462852
There's been a lot of talk this week about the the strangeness of KIC 8462852. First, let's explain what's happening here. Astronomers use observations of light patterns coming from nearby stars to…
Oct 16, 2015
Illinois's Junk Bonds
The Illinois Lottery has stopped paying winners. As of this week, winning $600 or more gets you an IOU. Setting aside how bad it looks when the house refuses to pay up,…
Oct 15, 2015
Someone will draw the short straw on climate change
A couple of weeks ago, economist Matthew Kahn wrote about microlevel changes happening in New Jersey post-Sandy and how they anticipate a broader response to climate change. In general, Kahn writes: This…
Oct 14, 2015
Illinois Discovers Land Cover Increases Flooding
It's about a month old, but WUIS has a story about increased urban flooding in Illinois. There's a lot to chew on here, but the key point I see here is how…
Oct 11, 2015
1000-year storms in South Carolina
Homeland Security Watch has an excellent post on the recent claims that South Carolina has faced at 1000-year storm. Focusing on the annual exceedance probability (AEP), the story post throws a bit…