My daughter, Nora, notes by way of metaphor the story line in the sixth season of Buffy when Buffy realizes she can’t support herself saving people from vampires. “Her younger sister and one of her friends suggest that she start charging people for saving them,” Nora said. Me: I’m guessing that didn’t work out well? …
Continue reading ‘Elephant Diaries: The Superhero Metaphor’ »
The search for a solar-climate link continues. James Annan reports: [T]he field basically consists of little more than people data-mining for correlations that usually fail to hold when tested on out of sample data, and for which there is no real evidence or even plausible modelling to support the hypothesis that there may be a …
On being careful to distinguish what you know from what you don’t: Carl Caves (no one calls him “Carlton”) is the smartest person I know. My wife laughs when I say that, pointing out that I often describe someone as “the smartest person I know.” She is right. As the Journal’s science writer, I have …
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One model being discussed in the journalism world as an alternative to the faltering for-profit newspaper model for the production of local news is what we call “the NPR model” – not-for-profit, supported by philanthropies. That is how I would describe the Independent, for example. My aforementioned smart old pal Chuck, one of the founders …
Standing outside the Kwik-E-Mart this morning while on a cycling break, my mates and I had occasion to converse with a homeless guy, who made several important points: Lance Armstrong has been wrongly accused of doping. He is clean. The microwave in the Kwik-E-Mart is broken. (It was cold and our homeless friend was apparently …
From Staci Matlock: A well-known Taos attorney’s proposal to develop a wind farm has angered some residents near the site, including people in the Cielito Lindo subdivision, where homes rely primarily on solar energy.
Today, the other shoe drops in the Journal’s coverage of Albuquerque’s new drinking water system: You will begin drinking, showering and watering your lawn with water from the Rio Grande soon, and there will be less water in the river as a result. What effect that will have on the Rio Grande, the ecosystem surrounding …
The name of this blog means a lot to me. I am an ink-stained wretch. I have largely avoided blogging about the fate of my beloved industry, because I frankly dread the well-meaning thread of comments from ‘Net people who are happy to explain that if newspapers only would do “X”, things would improve. Please, …
This week’s episode of coal-to-liquids watch involves Shell and Anglo American Plc., which were planning a coal-to-liquids plant in Australia, incorporating carbon capture. Now? Not so much, says Bloomberg: Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Anglo American Plc have delayed plans to develop a A$5 billion ($3.2 billion) project in Australia to convert coal into clean …