jointpdf

I was going to add that consulting a nonprofit (like the Nature Conservancy) would be a good idea as well. But why either or? If I were undertaking a project as large as reforesting several hundred acres of land, I’d want to consult as many sources as possible. USDA has field offices in almost every county, not to mention loan (including easy-to-qualify-for microloans of <$50K) and payment programs to help with capital and expenses.

Genuine question—are “tightly-packed monocultures” that are recurrently harvested optimal (from a carbon removal perspective) under some conditions? Similarly, if you inherit a mature forest, is it optimal to harvest some portion of it so that new trees can absorb carbon?

The best option might be to get in touch with your local university forestry extension, for example: https://forestry.wsu.edu/

Another resource would be your local USDA office. The NRCS should be available to provide free site-specific technical assistance (e.g. for soil regeneration and conservation planning). There are also zillions of loan/grant/easement/conservation payment programs that the USDA runs: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/prog...

What about inorganic physical objects, like a shower head?

Mildly interesting fact: the USDA issues grants for broadband development (in the US, obviously): https://www.usda.gov/reconnect

It’s a simple probabilistic argument: P(other alien civilizations exist | we exist) > P(other alien civilizations exist | we do not exist). Our existence is statistical evidence in favor of other civilizations existing elsewhere.

Similarly, the fact that we observed planets in our solar system should have increased our belief that other planets exist elsewhere. Then again, Giordano Bruno (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno) was burned at the stake for pointing this out.

To be honest, the dominant source of nonsense around here is sneering comments that contribute absolutely nothing to thoughtful conversation.

You and I are evidence. We are part of an advanced (or at least, spacefaring) technological civilization, and we are alien to everything else in the universe. Therefore, we know other alien civilizations are possible. One is much greater than zero in this case.

Also, don’t miss Turing’s paper describing how to build a chess engine from scratch. The link to the .pdf is at the bottom of this contextual blurb:

https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3905

Possibilities:

- stress/anxiety/depression

- sleep deprivation/disruption

- high-speed internet access (—> overuse of porn)

My dad was pretty attached to his 1984 Macintosh when I accidentally destroyed it about 25 years ago. He instructed me to always put the dust cover on it when it was not in use. I interpreted that too literally, so this particular Mac suffocated in its own dust cover while I walked away to eat dinner. It was reportedly smoking when it was found by my sister. Its final act in life was to help me catalogue my rock collection in HyperCard.

Anyways...it is still sitting around in its original box, so I’ve always wondered what it would take to resurrect it. I’d be interested if anyone had an intuition for whether such a project is DIYable, a specialist-only job, or a lost cause?

Krugman was being sardonic here, along the lines of “assume a spherical cow”. The whole introduction is dripping with sarcasm. The paper was partially intended as a satire.

Remote = far to drive for essentially everyone (farther than Mammoth/Tahoe, even coming from Reno). Hitchhiking is not the best option to rely on. Once you’re in, you’re also the farther from help than anywhere else in the Sierra. Duck Pass and much of the Tahoe area has cell service.

Rugged = safety traversing passes can require an ice axe and/or crampons (plus the skills to use them properly), depending on the conditions. That region is at high elevation which becomes problematic for people. Lots of inexperienced backpackers get airlifted out of there because of acute altitude sickness. There is a lot of weather exposure (harder to get below treeline if a storm rolls in). Bigger stream crossings, which tend to be the most serious danger to hikers.

I don’t disagree that Bishop rules and the area is (extremely) beautiful, but it’s absolutely not the best recommendation for people who are trying to backpack for the first time. Doable? Yes. Advisable? Not really.

+1 on the Sierra recommendation generally, but a couple things:

- Bears: You still need to be disciplined about food/smellables. Bear canisters are required for most of the Sierra—not bringing one is a recipe for a fine or getting escorted out by a ranger. Also, other critters are a problem. I had a raccoon steal my unguarded shorts (they had a bag of weed in the pocket) while I was sleeping, and I had to walk back to town with no pants.

- Logistics: Bishop/Kearsarge passes are quite remote and rugged, and then you’re on the PCT/JMT superhighway which is increasingly over-stressed by people. You can enter via Duck Pass or Red’s Meadow from Mammoth Lakes via public transit. The friendliest place for beginners would probably be further north in the Lake Tahoe region (e.g. Tahoe Rim Trail). Vermillion Valley Resort is a (rugged) ~1 hour drive from Fresno, and is one of the most classic congregation spots for PCT/JMT hikers and would make a great entry point. Angeles National Forest / the PCT would be a good choice for the LA area.

- Lightning/weather: The weather doesn’t care if it intimidates you or not, so you need to be prepared for anything. I didn’t bring rain pants to the desert section of the PCT and got slammed by freezing rain and had to run to avoid hypothermia. Also, please don’t do something batshit insane like go over a pass in inclement weather (I see it all the time). Here’s a document on lightning safety: https://www.nols.edu/media/filer_public/fa/96/fa96d71d-df6b-...

- Leave no trace: The Sierra is heavily impacted, so please tread lightly! In particular, don’t camp <100ft of the trail or a body of water, use Bluetooth speakers, or leave toilet paper blooms (packing it out is recommended but has low compliance, so at least mash up the TP and waste with a stick and some water to make a soupy mixture—critters like to dig up the lightly used paper). Being a wilderness ninja is cool, so read more LNT guidelines here: https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/leave-no-trace.html

This is (roughly) the same course but the lectures are from 2018. The audio/video quality is quite a a bit better:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZBKeNJ-JE_eyJHZ...

I personally have a similar problem with the Spotify generated playlists, but I have persnickety preferences in electronic music so it often whiffs. But on the spectrum of recommendation engines it is on the side of honest effort (whereas Netflix is not). And for most users and musical palates I think it works great. Just yesterday my mom complimented me on my Christmas music DJ skills, but it was just the generated continuation of her own playlist.

Nothing really beats the recommendations of a human curator with exquisite taste, and just listening to new music nonstop and plucking out the gems as you go.

It’s not a home run for me, but I think Spotify recommendations are quite good. They clearly use some form of content based recommendation (extracting features from the music itself) blended with other methods. It seems to make an honest attempt at serendipity (songs/artists you may like but would otherwise be unlikely to discover).

I still think recommender engines should always enable some form of user tuning. If it doesn’t, then the recommender is a tool for services to control your behavior rather than the other way around.

If you’ve never seen the prints of Ernst Haeckel, they are highly worth perusing (personally I think they are masterpieces):

https://archive.org/details/KunstformenDerNaturErnstHaeckel/...

Good points, #1 can become especially loopy for me (my fight or flight response is jacked up to 11) to the point of being bothersome. When I notice it veering into unhealthy territory, I try to use mindfulness techniques to reel it in. Still, it's "normal" in that it's not indicative of mental illness other than maybe social anxiety.

But I disagree slightly on #3. My frame of reference is thru-hiking and/or intense solo missions where I'm alone in the backcountry hiking for 10-14 hours a day for days on end. In that setting, I find it impossible to stay mindful continuously. Also, without news/email/social media/etc. as input, I just find that my mind gravitates towards internal dialogues about the same big picture life issues. In that state, I'm actually listening to my body and mind more, not less. Personally, it can be frustrating to worry about whether I'm "in the moment" enough (the quintessential frustration with mindfulness, I know).

That said, I do try to mix it up between fully immersing myself in the wonderment of the wilderness, letting my mind chew on ideas, listening to podcasts/music, and sometimes attempting actual meditation sessions.

Yes, what you described is normal. I do it quite a lot myself, especially if I am...

- replaying some sort of argument/confrontation or other high-stakes conversation from earlier in the day (simulating ways the conversation could have gone better--the best zingers are the ones you come up with in bed at night).

- preparing for an important presentation or meeting the next day (informal rehearsal).

- out hiking alone (especially longer solo backpacking trips). Without fresh content bombarding my brain, I tend to dwell on the same ideas/conversations.

- reading a particularly engrossing book, and get into a character from their point of view.

- studying something new, then I imagine myself tutoring someone else on the subject (my go-to learning technique).

Now if you find yourself having conversations that you were convinced are real at the time, but it later dawns on you that it never actually happened, then that might be something to talk (for real) to someone about.

And one more that addresses broad research funding priorities rather than specific opportunities. Get used reading these sorts of dry documents if you get involved in this space:

https://www.arl.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/arl-baa-...

Have at it:

https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities

Imagine that this were a time series graph of your body temperature over the last week. With the Y-axis set at (min_temp, max_temp) or similar, the graph would clearly show a mean of about 98.6F and consistent trends based on the hour of the day. If you had a fever (>100F), it would be readily apparent in the graph.

A zero baseline for this chat is meaningless and would render the plot useless, unless the purpose of the graph was to show what happens to your body temperature as you turn into a White Walker.

Similarly, the axis chosen for the mortality chart is effective since it shows the typical range of values (and thus does convey the scale effectively), the consistent seasonal trends, and the anomaly (which is very significant in terms of standard deviations above the mean). Setting a zero y-axis would squeeze the graph into 1/3 of the vertical space, leaving 2/3 as useless white space for no benefit at all.

Y-axis starting at zero is essential for bar charts, but not necessarily time series / line charts. Insisting on a zero axis can crunch the data and obscure the trends and is unnatural for some data sets (e.g. the mortality time series—if that trend line ever goes to 0...something has gone awry).

Quote from Tufte on the subject:

> ” In general, in a time-series, use a baseline that shows the data not the zero point. If the zero point reasonably occurs in plotting the data, fine. But don't spend a lot of empty vertical space trying to reach down to the zero point at the cost of hiding what is going on in the data line itself.”

https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=...

Nice try, squid robot from The Matrix. "Harvesting" humans (or human ingredients) is for dystopias.

2019: "This millenial is a baby."

2020: This baby is a millenial.

Yes, this. I can feel a nice cloud of moisture coming off runners that pass too close on the trails.

I think the key difference with the outdoors is that aerosols don’t accumulate easily, not that you couldn’t infect someone by blasting them with your breath.

How about rockwool? It seems like it has a lot of advantages: soundproofing, termite resistance, hydrophobic, fire resistance, recycled content, inexpensive. What am I missing?

Ah, so we’re a 6.5 for 7 match on those (I guess all of our visas to the universe are temporary).

I would add Earth/nature/life, music/art/knowledge, and consciousness/existence to the list. These are almost universally appreciated things, regardless of material situation.

What are some things you do have that you appreciate?

Maybe he thinks, “I wish this large baby would speak my language.”?

Data science, which I think makes this harder for me because a) things move so fast that you’re out of date within months and b) there is so much surface area of knowledge (math, stats, programming, visualization, ...) that impostor syndrome is an inevitability.