Very nice video here that demonstrates mean surfaces temp across the Earth for the past 250 years
And there are still people who think the planet is warming...
Mind you most of them are in the GOP or Tory parties
Showing posts with label Its science jim but not as we know it.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label Its science jim but not as we know it.... Show all posts
16 November 2011
30 September 2010
05 August 2009
What do they do all day?
Very cool interactive graphic from the NY Times which shows what a "typical american" is doing at anytime during the day. Can also be investigated for different groups picking catagories in the top corner - cool in a nerdy kind of way that appeals to me. Click on the picture to go to the interactive site.
Some wierd stuff
Only 20% of 15-24 year olds seem to be in school during the day
Only 30% of people are watching TV at 8pm - thought it would have been way more
The whole thing looks like some basin modelling cross section, but that could just be because I am geology obsessed
From Gordon via facebook
Some wierd stuff
Only 20% of 15-24 year olds seem to be in school during the day
Only 30% of people are watching TV at 8pm - thought it would have been way more
The whole thing looks like some basin modelling cross section, but that could just be because I am geology obsessed
From Gordon via facebook
03 August 2009
22 June 2009
Alcohol and Latitude...
Through extensive travel and a lot of tough field work I have noticed an interesting link between three inter-related phenomena that I would like you to consider. These are
1. Latitude
2. The cost of alcohol
3. Social attitudes to being drunk
At lower latitudes, such as Spain or Italy alcohol is very cheap and lots of people drink but it’s not acceptable to be drunk – very uncool. A bit further north in France for example, the booze is still cheap, but to be a little tipsy is ok, but not encouraged. Into Germany, Holland and Belgium and the booze is getting more expensive and people drink more, not generally to get trashed, but they have their moments, mainly at parties and beer festivals.
Northwards in to the UK and the stuff is starting to get expensive and getting drunk becomes much more acceptable. On any Saturday night the local town centre is a war zone of trashed people, stumbling, vomiting, fighting and trying to get laid. Nobody seems to really care but there is still a bit of shame the next day.
As we move further north into Scandinavia getting trashed moves from something that is accepted to something that is a positive badge of honour. There is no shame to being wasted at pretty much any festive occasion. The booze is also getting pricey and people find creative ways to get trollied. On a Saturday evening the streets are full of smartly dressed young people with carrier bags of clinking bottles heading to a friends apartment for a forspeil (literally foreplay). They will drink a bottle of gin and then head out to town at midnight already totally trashed. The older generation tackle the expensive alcohol problem in a different way. They generally reserve their drinking for sponsored company events when somebody else is paying. Then the go wild and destroy the bar. The obvious disadvantage of this approach being that your boss, or worse your employees get to see you dancing half naked on a table at 2am. This has been tackled by the near total expectance of any drunken behaviour such that nobody is either judgemental or embarrassed.
Meanwhile in the far north, Finland, Russia etc, vodka is on the breakfast menu and the population is in a near permanent state if inebriation.
So the questions are
1. Why does an increase in latitude encourage increased consumption of alcohol?
2. Is the high price up north a failed attempt to stop people drinking more?
3. Does the high price make it more social acceptable to get drunk i.e. if you can afford to be that trashed you must be holding down a good job?
And now just to prove that it must be real science – a graph!
1. Latitude
2. The cost of alcohol
3. Social attitudes to being drunk
At lower latitudes, such as Spain or Italy alcohol is very cheap and lots of people drink but it’s not acceptable to be drunk – very uncool. A bit further north in France for example, the booze is still cheap, but to be a little tipsy is ok, but not encouraged. Into Germany, Holland and Belgium and the booze is getting more expensive and people drink more, not generally to get trashed, but they have their moments, mainly at parties and beer festivals.
Northwards in to the UK and the stuff is starting to get expensive and getting drunk becomes much more acceptable. On any Saturday night the local town centre is a war zone of trashed people, stumbling, vomiting, fighting and trying to get laid. Nobody seems to really care but there is still a bit of shame the next day.
As we move further north into Scandinavia getting trashed moves from something that is accepted to something that is a positive badge of honour. There is no shame to being wasted at pretty much any festive occasion. The booze is also getting pricey and people find creative ways to get trollied. On a Saturday evening the streets are full of smartly dressed young people with carrier bags of clinking bottles heading to a friends apartment for a forspeil (literally foreplay). They will drink a bottle of gin and then head out to town at midnight already totally trashed. The older generation tackle the expensive alcohol problem in a different way. They generally reserve their drinking for sponsored company events when somebody else is paying. Then the go wild and destroy the bar. The obvious disadvantage of this approach being that your boss, or worse your employees get to see you dancing half naked on a table at 2am. This has been tackled by the near total expectance of any drunken behaviour such that nobody is either judgemental or embarrassed.
Meanwhile in the far north, Finland, Russia etc, vodka is on the breakfast menu and the population is in a near permanent state if inebriation.
So the questions are
1. Why does an increase in latitude encourage increased consumption of alcohol?
2. Is the high price up north a failed attempt to stop people drinking more?
3. Does the high price make it more social acceptable to get drunk i.e. if you can afford to be that trashed you must be holding down a good job?
And now just to prove that it must be real science – a graph!
07 April 2009
Cars and Bikes - things to do in 15 minutes when its raining out
Following on from the previous post I put the data on the cost of my cars and bikes through the ages into excel and made some interesting discoveries.
First of all you can see the cummulative spend on cars, bikes and both through time.
Then I plotted the spend per year on all three. Note that to be able to see anything in the early days on the money axis (y) it was necassary to use a logrithmic scale.
Finally I plotted the spend through time on both bikes and cars and added an exponential trend line. 
Note that the money scale is again logrithmic so the exponential is straight.
Both cases (bikes and cars) conform very well with an exponential curve (R2 = 0.93 and 0.83) implying that my spending on vehicles increases expotentially through time and that by 2020 I will probably be blowing a million quid on cars!
a
I think this tells me two things:
1. I need to start saving and...
2. I probably need to get out more!
a
Off to Sunmøre for easter. Have a good one!
21 November 2008
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Fantastic open letter to the Kansas School Board requesting that the theory that the World was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster should be taught alonside Creationism and Intellegent Design. The Kansas school board are the group that insisted that ID is taught alongside Creationism in science classes.
I agree totally and would like to point out that science is mearly an opinion and there are many potentially correct theories, all of which should be given even weight, not just those two.
See http://www.venganza.org/
I agree totally and would like to point out that science is mearly an opinion and there are many potentially correct theories, all of which should be given even weight, not just those two.
See http://www.venganza.org/
20 November 2008
Republicans are fat...
Following on from the previous post, I cross plotted the obesity map against the recent electon results - the results are shown below.
The obesity map showed a range of c. 19 to 32% obesity and there is an obvious correlation between the states with the higher obesity values and those that voted republican (red on the map above). To explore this further, Itook the approximate mid-point in the obesity range (26%) and looked at which fall above and which below. All but 4 of the Republican states have above 26% obesity (red with blue dots) and all but 5 Democrat states are below the mid point in the obesity range (blue with red dots). So the theory that republican states have a higher tendency to obesity is supported but 41 out of 50 states (82%).
The obesity map showed a range of c. 19 to 32% obesity and there is an obvious correlation between the states with the higher obesity values and those that voted republican (red on the map above). To explore this further, Itook the approximate mid-point in the obesity range (26%) and looked at which fall above and which below. All but 4 of the Republican states have above 26% obesity (red with blue dots) and all but 5 Democrat states are below the mid point in the obesity range (blue with red dots). So the theory that republican states have a higher tendency to obesity is supported but 41 out of 50 states (82%).So the simple conclusion is that the republicans ate all the pies!
25 September 2008
Scotsmen
A brief thought experiment:
Now according to the BBC, the slowest mammal on Earth is the three toed sloth which does....
You guessed it... 0.1 mph
From that I think we can safely conclude that
Scotsman are sloths wrapped in tartan travel blankets, but they are cheaper to run than a Ford Focus
Thanks to Dan for the initial data
- A recent study conducted by Aberdeen University found that the average Scotsman walks about 900 miles a year
- Another study by the Scottish Medical Association found that Scotsmen drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.
- This means, on average, Scotsmen get about 41 mpg (miles per gallon). 41 mpg is 6.9 liters per 100 km for all you metric europeans.
Pretty efficient, especially when you consider the they will operate on all sorts of really cheap shitte (e.g. buckfast).
Interesting, but it gets better- There are approximately 8760 hours in a year
- Therefore the average speed of a Scotsman is 900/8760 = 0.1 mph
Now according to the BBC, the slowest mammal on Earth is the three toed sloth which does....
You guessed it... 0.1 mph
From that I think we can safely conclude that
Scotsman are sloths wrapped in tartan travel blankets, but they are cheaper to run than a Ford Focus
Thanks to Dan for the initial data
24 September 2008
Norwegian Girls are blonde – it’s scientifically proven
A couple of years ago I agreed to do the “skål for damen” (literally toast for the ladies) at the faculty Christmas party. I said yes to this without really knowing what I was letting myself in for, so when I started asked people for advice they just looked at me with a mixture of pity and concern. The more constructive ones suggested that it was a bit of a minefield, you had to be funny, but not offensive. Not offensive but not patronising. Not patronising but not pathetic. I was starting to worry. Now it was obvious why I got the task, nobody else was dumb enough to volunteer. I worked this over and hit upon a plan. I am a scientist, this is a University, I’ll hide behind some research…
So I emailed all the guys I knew and asked them to return 5 adjectives that came to mind when they heard the phrase “Norwegian Girl”. I then collated the results and subdivided them into 3 groups: guys who had never been to Norway or maybe just visited once; ex-pats who lived in Norway and, Norwegians. The results were very interesting and formed the basis for the speech where I introduce the concept and then returned the results by group:
Foreigners (mainly Brits) who had never lived in Norway
Blonde! Was the most common adjective, followed by beautiful, sexy, pretty, sporty etc , coupled with available, free and promiscuous. The overall perception was universally positive, an image of beautiful, liberal mind, Valkerie maidens.
Expats living in Norway
For this group blonde was once again top of the list! They also agreed that these women were pretty, beautiful, sexy and so forth but a few negative terms crept in. Some used phrases like strong-minded and independent (arguable not negative traits) while others resorted to the more definatly negetive stroppy, stubborn, bitchy etc. The promiscuity of the group was also brought in to question by some respondents, who presumably had more experience on the matter than their overseas cousins and replied with cold, cock-teasing and frigid.
Norwegian Men
Blonde was once again the number one response. This is odd because, while it is true for eastern Norway, on the west coast the Scandinavian gene pool has long be diluted by the dark eyes and dark hair of the Iberic sailors and traders of the middle ages, to the extent that only about half the population is now actually blonde. But regardless of the facts, Blonde was their observation. They also agreed, broadly speaking that Norwegain girls are pretty and beautiful but beyond that they split into two very clear groups. The first group were the patriotic Norwegian males who unashamedly believed their women were the best in the world – strong, athletic, independent, sexy, intelligent etc. The second group came with some unexpected responses and extremely negetive phrases including shallow, manipulative, bitchy, frigid, childish etc. That was a bit shocking, especially since I know these people!
So the conclusion of the research was
1. All Norwegians girls are blonde!
2. Everyone thinks they are beautiful
3. They look better from a distance, the further away the group, the less negetive the response
4. They have a strong independent streak which is valued differently by different groups. Some (expats) see it as a negative trait – stroppy, while others (Norwegian males) see it as a positive thing. This is probably because they have been beaten into thinking that way by strong women ;-)
4. Some Norwegian men are very bitter
5. If Norwegian girls want to be fully appreciated they should move to England
And that was the basis for the talk and I made it out of the hall alive and in one piece so maybe they are not that scary after all…
So I emailed all the guys I knew and asked them to return 5 adjectives that came to mind when they heard the phrase “Norwegian Girl”. I then collated the results and subdivided them into 3 groups: guys who had never been to Norway or maybe just visited once; ex-pats who lived in Norway and, Norwegians. The results were very interesting and formed the basis for the speech where I introduce the concept and then returned the results by group:
Foreigners (mainly Brits) who had never lived in Norway
Blonde! Was the most common adjective, followed by beautiful, sexy, pretty, sporty etc , coupled with available, free and promiscuous. The overall perception was universally positive, an image of beautiful, liberal mind, Valkerie maidens.
Expats living in Norway
For this group blonde was once again top of the list! They also agreed that these women were pretty, beautiful, sexy and so forth but a few negative terms crept in. Some used phrases like strong-minded and independent (arguable not negative traits) while others resorted to the more definatly negetive stroppy, stubborn, bitchy etc. The promiscuity of the group was also brought in to question by some respondents, who presumably had more experience on the matter than their overseas cousins and replied with cold, cock-teasing and frigid.
Norwegian Men
Blonde was once again the number one response. This is odd because, while it is true for eastern Norway, on the west coast the Scandinavian gene pool has long be diluted by the dark eyes and dark hair of the Iberic sailors and traders of the middle ages, to the extent that only about half the population is now actually blonde. But regardless of the facts, Blonde was their observation. They also agreed, broadly speaking that Norwegain girls are pretty and beautiful but beyond that they split into two very clear groups. The first group were the patriotic Norwegian males who unashamedly believed their women were the best in the world – strong, athletic, independent, sexy, intelligent etc. The second group came with some unexpected responses and extremely negetive phrases including shallow, manipulative, bitchy, frigid, childish etc. That was a bit shocking, especially since I know these people!
So the conclusion of the research was
1. All Norwegians girls are blonde!
2. Everyone thinks they are beautiful
3. They look better from a distance, the further away the group, the less negetive the response
4. They have a strong independent streak which is valued differently by different groups. Some (expats) see it as a negative trait – stroppy, while others (Norwegian males) see it as a positive thing. This is probably because they have been beaten into thinking that way by strong women ;-)
4. Some Norwegian men are very bitter
5. If Norwegian girls want to be fully appreciated they should move to England
And that was the basis for the talk and I made it out of the hall alive and in one piece so maybe they are not that scary after all…
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