I grew up in a touristy New England beach town, so my family never really went to the Cape, Vineyard, etc. I went for the first time this weekend with my friend Kate, hoping to meet up with our old friend Barry O. I didn’t find him, but I did get to enjoy some Barack-o-Guaco and a brutal 10-mile bike ride (rolling hills + fixed gear = sore legs).
The Guardian posted a bunch of data about IED explosions in Afghanistan from the WikiLeaks data that just came out. Drew Conway took a look at it and it looked pretty similar to the plots that I made the other day.
So here’s what I wanted to see: what percentage of the deaths/injuries reported were from friendly fire? It looks like we started off by killing ourselves a whole lot, and then the balance came back down a bit.
Of course, that could be either from less friendly fire or more enemy fire. It seems, unfortunately, to be the later. Here’s a breakdown of the friendly/enemy-caused deaths and injuries by date (each bar is 30 days) and unit type.
A coworker is doing some kind of sports research and needed some NHL data. I’m going to see what I can do with it as well.
Black = missed shots
Red = goals
Ice = imaginary
The other day my cat Olive (seen here preparing a drink) was chasing a fly around for about 1/2 hour, and when he finally caught it, he was panting like crazy. As I sit here now sweating in my living room I was wondering, naturally, if monkeys and other primates sweat or pant to cool themselves off. Being so closely related, I figure they must sweat, but that must be less effective since they’re covered in hair.
Anyway, I looked it up, and found this cool Infrared Zoo page at Cal Tech that says:
To stay cool, warm-blooded animals sweat or pant to loose heat by water evaporation. They can also cool off by moving into a shaded area or by getting wet. Only mammals can sweat. Primates, such as humans, apes and monkey, have sweat glands all over their bodies. Dogs and cats have sweat glands only on their feet. Whales are mammals who have no sweat glands, but then since they live in the water, they don’t really need them. Large mammals can have difficulty cooling down if they get overheated. This is why elephants, for example, have large, thin ears which loose heat quickly.
So I guess they do sweat. Now you know.
More interesting, they have tons of IR pictures of warm and cold blooded animals.
This man is truly incredible. I saw him talk recently and he was sharp, charming and modest.
Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an
expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast
collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health,
is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound
interest. Both my children and I won what I call the ovarian lottery. (For starters, the odds
against my 1930 birth taking place in the U.S. were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white
also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.)My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted
results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in an economy that rewards
someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with
thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with
sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather
gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness
nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on
the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep
all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us
down that course.
I wish I had this bad boy last weekend.
One of my favorite quotes ever starts at about 3:30.
Such a great song to cover. I can’t wait to see Deer Tick again.
And then, of course, there’s JTE’s version.
This is old news by now but I just came across this again and had a good chuckle.
