Week 28
"Choose Wisely: Organic or Green?.. [A report] shows that milk and dairy production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). A litre of organic milk requires 80 per cent more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20 per cent greater global warming potential, releases 60 per cent more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70 per cent more to acid rain [..].
Organic potatoes use less energy in terms of fertiliser production, but need more fossil fuel for ploughing. A hectare of conventionally farmed land produces 2.5 times more potatoes than an organic one [..].
Food scares are always good news for the organic food industry. The Soil Association and other organic farming trade groups say conventional food must be unhealthy because farmers use pesticides. Actually, organic farmers also use pesticides. The difference is that "organic" pesticides are so dangerous that they have been "grandfathered" with current regulations and do not have to pass stringent modern safety tests [..].
The proponents of organic food – particularly celebrities, such as Gwyneth Paltrow, who have jumped on the organic bandwagon – say there is a "cocktail effect" of pesticides. Some point to an "epidemic of cancer". In fact, there is no epidemic of cancer. When age-standardised, cancer rates are falling dramatically and have been doing so for 50 years [..].
Hohenheim University [research states]: "[There are no] clear conclusions about the quality of organic food can be reached using the results of present literature and research results." What research there is does not support the claims made for organic food [..]"
Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?
Great segment from PBS - Policing the Police
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/policing-the-police/
And.. whenever I hear bad news about police matters, this song always plays in my head.. From the 90s reality TV show COPS. Interesting show to watch, but I wonder if it helped or hindered the discussion on policing. Did the public ponder what was being shown, or simply laugh at it, at this spectacle of an human affair?
Trump picks Pence as running mate.
Hah
So the initial combo is T.P.?... Seriously.
Comment
On police shootings, we need to side with cops.
That's not the point
This is.
Question
In Turkey politicians were subject to so many military coups. Should they not fight back?
Sure
But if politicians step outside the law, and into "state of emergency" territory, then what's the difference between them and a military junta? Even before the coup attempt Turkland president kept on meddling in "his" party's politics, a clear violation of the constitution (he is supposed to be impartial). At the same time people are jailed for "insulting" the president invoking a special article in the law that outlaws it.
So the law is used sometimes, not the other times... This type of utilitarian, short-termist attitude to law at the very top creates chaos. It has been creating chaos for a very long time now. This needs to stop.
Tom Friedman
Anyone who has been following Turkey closely knows that Erdogan has been mounting a silent, drip-by-drip coup of his own against Turkish democracy for years — jailing reporters, hounding rivals with giant tax bills, reviving an internal war against Turkish Kurds to stoke nationalist passions [..]
Yep
That last act right there was another utilitarian, ends-justify-the-means action.
News
Academics are banned from leaving the country in Turkey
....
Question
But what do we make of whistle-blowers then? Aren't they breaking laws?
The higher the office, the higher the need to follow the law
Law can be wrong, immoral - if regular participants see need for change, and whistle-blowing is the only action, it is done. But there are costs for that - and we can only applaud such people for taking those risks to cause change at legislative / bureaucratic level.
As one gets higher in office, government, the necessity to follow the law becomes more paramount, because wanton law-breaking at that level unhinges everything else - it'll set precedent, can invite backlash, and God knows what else.
TV Character
[from the show The Last Ship, after a group of sailors are kidnapped, blindfolded, and moved somewhere else, one of them goes] you can estimate where you are in the world by using the sun.
Yes you can
This is fascinating "survival math". How can I tell where I am without GPS? It might come in handy you know..
Latitude can be calculated using the sun. Longitude, through a clock. First latitude. The sun will fall at a certain angle e on the world depending on where we are depending on the equator. That's easy, either through shadows or through an inclinometer app on a smartphone (or sextant!) we can measure it. The only kicker is the season - earth tilts depending on it (well, seasons are the result of that tilt, but anyway), this "declination" can be approximated with,
where N is the n'th day of the year. Final formula \theta = 90 - e + d (for northern hemisphere).
Longitude, can be calculated trough ... tadaaa .. time zones! A clock is set to London time, we look at the local time - easiest local time lookup is when the sun is highest, noon, 12:00. The difference of that, and the London time is calculated, and each minute means 1/4 degrees in longitude. Presto!
It is January 10, Sun's angle is at 30 degrees.
def decl(month, day):
n = (month-1)*30. + day
return -23.44 * np.cos( np.radians(360/365. * (n+10.)) )
print decl(1,10)
e = 30; d = decl(1,10)
print 90 - e + d
Result is 38 in latitude. At noon I look at the clock I have with me, it says 5:06 in London.
print ((5*60)+6) * 0.25
76.5
The final coordinates are 38 N, 76.5 W.
Which City?
Using a CSV of major cities in the world,
import pandas as pd
import math
def distance(lat1, long1, lat2, long2):
degrees_to_radians = math.pi/180.0
phi1 = (90.0 - lat1)*degrees_to_radians
phi2 = (90.0 - lat2)*degrees_to_radians
theta1 = long1*degrees_to_radians
theta2 = long2*degrees_to_radians
cos = (math.sin(phi1)*math.sin(phi2)*math.cos(theta1 - theta2) + \
math.cos(phi1)*math.cos(phi2))
arc = math.acos( cos )
return arc
def find_city(lat,lon):
dist = df.apply(lambda x: distance(lat,lon,x['lat'],x['lng']), axis=1)
return dist.argmin()
df = pd.read_csv('world_cities.csv',index_col=['city','country','province'])
print find_city(38.0, -76.5)
Result
('St. Charles', 'United States of America', 'Maryland')
Sheeeeeet
The code, with the necessary libraries, an inclinometer, the data file can be packed in a small device; an Arduino or Rasberry Pi based device IMO; and it would tell the geo location, the closest city automagically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ircLt-qvl3M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Position_of_the_Sun
Book (1421)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-China-Discovered-World/dp/0553815229
On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China [..] The Chinese [..] reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook...
Unlikely
Even if they did, it doesn't mean anything if ships are unaware of their location. You can sorta blunder into a location, but if it's not mapped properly, they can't come back to it, and can't trade with that location. And none of that that was possible until longitude was cracked which was way past Galileo's time, well into Newton's. There is a lot of this non-sense coming from "emerging countries" to rewrite their past, in order to create some bullshit nationalist narrative.
The West had to innovate on exploration, for trading purposes, and on clocks so they could be used for longitude calculation. A lot of people died, were lost, perished in the sea until that happened. The British crown actually created a prize (some say it is the first modern scientific grant), for a portable clock that would not go bad in a voyage, and could be used for longitude. Fella named John Harrison invented one, then a flurry of innovation followed around clocks that would put today's Silicon Valley to shame. Fascinating story (more can be found in the aptly named book Longitude).
Here is just a sampling of the products, apps and services that have come across my radar in the last few weeks:
A service that sends a valet on a scooter to you, wherever you are, to park your car.
A service that will pack your suitcase — virtually [..]
[T]he bulk of the above list targets a very specific (and tiny!) slice of the population. As one colleague in tech explained it to me recently, for most people working on such projects, the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do [..].
When everything is characterized as “world-changing,” is anything?
True
Services above are all luxury. Some people find all of the above "great tech", and they'll pooh-pooh finance - something that is 10 times more essential to people's lives.
Anonymous
Say something nice about the Iraq War and W. Bush.
Okay.. I'll Try
9/11 attack was a Sunni driven attack, so in order to provide some balance to the region, the neo-cons, in their great wisdom, aimed to re-integrate Iran back into the world. They knew if they "liberated" Iraq a Shite majority country ruled by a Sunni, next door neighbour Iran would be emboldened which is exactly what happened. Iran played some power games in the area too of course, which only sped up their reintegration. Bama administration did not have to pursue this integration, but they did, and that's where we are now. There is no need to flog Tony Blair endlessly, he simply wanted Britain to play a larger role in the world, and followed W to Iraq.
The only issue with that argument is "was it worth it?". Worse neo-cons fooled Dubya into pursuing this action (the goal was Iran, they told him WMD), the man came up looking like a jackass in the end, a major chink in the armor of the presidency. An entire institution has been tainted because of this. After trillions spent, hundreds of thousands dead - was it worth it?
Note: The part on Blair stands though; there's no need to flog the man endlessly.
News
Dallas Mayor [..] dropped an extremely uncomfortable reality check: Open Carry, the movement pushed with near-fanatical obsession by Texas Republicans, not only did nothing to help stop the mass shooting of police officers in Dallas, but it actually made the situation far worse. Open Carry had an opportunity to justify its existence – and it failed on every conceivable level.
For Rawlings, examining the aftermath of the shooting made it clear that having dozens of scared civilians clinging to assault-style weapons during a mass shooting was a recipe for disaster. The “good guys with guns” didn’t suddenly become action heroes bravely stopping a heavily-armed lunatic. They acted like any of us would: When the shooting started, they scattered in every direction in terror of their lives. Only unlike others, these fleeing victims were strapped with weapons that sowed confusion. Any of them could have been a shooter attempting to blend in [..]
Yep
Question
Who will Trump pick as his VP?
Some suggestions
Here is a list. It is even sorted from best to worst. #1 is great of course, but you could go with Veers or even Haako as exotic picks.
The Justice Department is formally closing the case against Hillary Clinton's private email server with no charges, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Wednesday evening.
Good to hear
I was beginning to think: "I am sick of hearing about this shit".
Some Republicans
[.. a]ttack FBI over decision on Hillary Clinton emails
Oh Yeah?
News
The GOP bill would bar many gun sales to terror suspects, but only if federal prosecutors could prove within three days that a terrorist act was afoot. The government would have to cover legal costs for people for whom it unsuccessfully tried to deny firearms.
That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard
Reps, couldn't you offer some working solutions for this gun issue, instead of worrying about bunch of emails?
wellsaid
Rest In Piece
Alvin Toffler - 1928-2016
#23Ways