Earlier today, Minnesota Gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Otto released her energy transition plan. It an ambitious plan that puts together several elements widely considered necessary to make any such plan work, then puts them on steroids to make it work faster. To my knowledge, this is the first major plan to be proposed since the recent dual revelations that a) the world is going to have to act faster than we had previously assumed* and b) the US Federal government will not be helping. Here's the elevator speech version: Minnesota residents get around five thousand dollars cash (over…

As you already know, Hurricane Maria is a Category 5 storm menacing the Leewards, and heading, likely, for Puerto Rico. Please avoid making the mistakes that were made in talking about Irma. There will probably be no Category 5 storm hitting Puerto Rico. The storm will probably be a Category 4 before it hits. So, reporters will sloppily declare that "a category 5 storm is heading for Puerto Rico" then later Rush Limberger will say "Look there was never no such storm, see?" and so on. But, a Category 4 storm is still nothing to sneeze into, and Puerto Rico and the other island in this storm's…

A lot of people will object to the title of this post. I will be told to take the post down. I will be told to modify the title or to change what I say in the post. Nope. Ta-Nehisi Coates is correct, and his presentation is brilliant. Watch the following interview (in two parts) and read his book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Chris Hayes is correct to point out that the historical source of Coates title is critically important and deeply disturbing (this is something we've talked about here in the recent past). He is incorrect, as Coates points out near the end of…

I love the The Mathematics Calendar 2018. Math Calendar sample days It has an equation or other statement about math for every day, often linked to that day (like, the January 13th entry is "the sixth prime number"). Some entries are little mat quizzes for you to fugue out. Some are funny jokes, like the entry for Thanksgiving (any guesses as to what that might be? Hint: It is a formula.) The level of difficulty of understanding the reference or solving the problem ranges from suitable for a smart 7 year old (Huxley has figured some out) up through college level. Also, the picture that…

CheMystery authored by C. Al Preece is a graphic superhero novel, drawn by Josh Reynolds, that teaches -- wait for it -- Chemistry! A radiation accident transforms two youngsters into superheros, and simultaneously creates an evil villain for them to fight. The graphic novel covers that story and is indurated with frequent cleverly placed molecule size chemistry lessons. Teachers need to know that this book complies with Next Gen science standards and is very classroom friendly. Indeed, author Preece is a chemistry and physical science teacher (and a trained chemist). It is a great read, an…

You'll remember that Philando Castile was killed in cold blood by a St. Anthony cop, who was later acquitted with the defense that "he was a black guy, I wuz scared." A couple of days ago, tragically and sadly, a cop in a town near me was run over by a driver who was probably on drugs and drunk, who was told by the courts she was not allowed to drive because she is so dangerous but was driving anyway. That is very sad. That particular cop was said by others to be "one of the good ones" and I believe that. He had a boy Huxley's age, in the same school system (but a different building). The…

Telling people that they are doing statistics wrong is a cottage industry that I usually want nothing to do with, for various reasons including the fact that the naysayers are often blindly repeating stuff they heard but do not understand. But, Alex Reinhart, in Statistics Done Wrong: The Woefully Complete Guide, does not do that, and this is a book that is worth reading for anyone who either generates or needs to interpret statistics. Most of the 10 chapters that address specific technical problems with statistics, where they are misused or misinterpreted, are very helpful in guiding a…

The policy of the Republican Trump White House is that if a reporter or commenter says something that the White House strongly disagrees with, the reporter or commenter should be fired. It remains to be seen how the Trump White House will enforce this newly articulated policy. The policy was provided as a response to a question about an African American reporter identifying Trump and the White House as being aligned with white supremacy, which is a widely held and well documented truth. Cindy Boren at the Washington Post has more here.

Wildlife of Ecuador: A Photographic Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Reptiles, and Amphibians by naturalist Andrés Vásquez Noboa, witih photography byablo Cervantes Daza, covers mainland Ecuador (but by "mainland" we also mean ocean mammals). Focusing only on non-piscine verts, you will need to go elsewhere for your inverts and plants and such. But you get the point. This book covers most of what you are looking for when you are out in the wild looking for animals. This is not a comprehensive guide, but covers the most frequently seen animals, totaling to 350 distributed across over 400…

Some potentially interesting science related books cheap now in Kindle format: The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig We know it simply as "the pill," yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the…

Ya don't know, you just don't know. Note: I'm pretty sure that at the time Trump made those remarks, the Coast Guard was still hunkered down.

This is a preface to the preface to a piece I wrote in 2011. I have only this to add: First as an aside, I suspected Trump could win the presidency, most people simply said it was impossible. But nonetheless, I was just as shocked as anyone else. Here's the thing. American culture reacted to 9/11 in ways that are mostly harmful. Various aspects of culture tend to reside in specific, though often vaguely defined, entities, such as classes taught in schools, crap kids say to each other on playgrounds, religious ceremony, TV shows, etc. Sometimes parts of culture tend to hold, brew, evolve…

This is not my favorite book, because I think the subtitle should be "No, it doesn't Steve" ... but How the Mind Works is not without merit, and Steve Pinker is a great writer. Anyway, I thought you's like to know that it is now available on Kindle for two bucks.

Before discussing What Happened by Hillary Clinton, the nature of the political conversation demands that I preface this review with some context. First, about me. I supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election because I did not want Donald Trump to be president. During the primary, which was not the 2016 election, I seriously had a hard time deciding between the various candidates (Clinton and Sanders). On an issue by issue basis, I preferred Sanders' position over Clinton. However, on the issues about which I have an informed view (climate change and energy related, and…

I know a lot of you are interested in local elections. There are three special elections coming up Tuesday that you might want to know about, and possibly lend some support to, or at least, watch. The candidates are shown above. They are: Charlie St. Clair Kathryn Rehner Jacob Rosekrants

It has been a long time since I've written any machine or assembler code, and it is a rare day that I hand construct a logic circuit using transistors. But it is comforting to know that these skills and the knowledge associated with them still reside in some form or another in the world of microprocessors. The Manga Guides published by No Starch Press and written by a wide range of authors manga-based graphic novels on diverse topics in science, math, statistics, and technology. I've reviewed several here (see this post for a partial list of some of the other guides). And the newest entry…

Tenergy is a company that you know well even if you don't know them. They make a lot of the replacement batteries for everything, external power supplies, other electronic items. But recently they've added a few items to their line of products that reach out in an entirely different direction. Tenergy Odev Tomo 2-in-1 Transformable DIY STEM Education Programmable Robot Kit is a robot kit that can be configured as a tricycle with two large wheels, or as a two-wheeled "bicycle" which operates like a Segway. Which is pretty amazing. So far Tomo is my favorite out of the box Robot Build, and I…

I usually write my annual back to school post earlier than this, but I was distracted by various events. There are three themes here. 1) You are a science teacher and I have some stuff for you. 2) You have a student in a school and you want to support the school's science teacher. 3) You have a student-offspring or elsewise and are looking for a cool back to school gift. First, for themes 1 and 2, a mixture of traditional back to school blog posts and some items that may be useful and happen to be on sale at the moment so now's your chance. My For Teachers Page has posts providing some…

I'll just put this item from UCS here for your interest: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Study Finds Top Fossil Fuel Producers’ Emissions Responsible for as Much as Half of Global Surface Temperature Increase, Roughly 30 Percent of Global Sea Level Rise Findings Provide New Data to Hold Companies Responsible for Climate Change WASHINGTON (September 7, 2017)—A first-of-its-kind study published today in the scientific journal Climatic Change links global climate changes to the product-related emissions of specific fossil fuel producers, including ExxonMobil and Chevron. Focusing on the largest gas, oil…

It is very rare that I find myself yelling at the TV when Rachel Maddow is on. She is very good at historically contextualized nuanced well informed analyses. But when I watched a segment of last night's show (on the Internet, I have no cable) I was shocked to see that she missed something really important. If, that is, it is real. In the segment below, she makes the point that there are two "clear through lines" in the whole Trump thing. One is the love of Russia and Putin by Trump, his unwavering stance that Russia and Putin can do no wrong. The other is the consistent "vehement antipathy…