Newmark's Door

I thought when I heard the outrage from some of the usual suspects that the California fires are the direct result of climate change that there might be some teeny, tiny doubt about that. This piece from KQED Public Television, San Francisco, doesn't settle the matter but it does certainly introduce that doubt.

Link via "Trump's Greatest Political Sin," also good.

And related: "Climate Change Is Not To Blame For California".

Not existing is one way to solve a mystery.

Information I hope you never need, but which, if you do, could be important.

Doesn't California have enough problems?

Prediction: if the Liberals have their way and do away with standardized tests, in about a year or two, they'll discover that admissions are still, or even more, "unfair," and they are not any happier.

"A window on science, mathematics, and philosophy communities on Twitter and YouTube".

"As these examples show, many of the irrational forces that conspire against us today—including xenophobia, a self-conscious obsession with beauty, and toxic celebrity culture—have rational roots in our evolutionary past."

LiDAR sounds cool.

Another way is which I'm apparently becoming a decrepit old fogey: I don't find inexpensive dependability at all boring.

Maybe it won't be for you, but this was news to me.

My casual reading of the global warming literature is that a substantial part of the disagreement--even before assessing the accuracy of the climate models--is a hot dispute over what data to use. So I certainly agree with this piece that more and better data would be . . . better.

I seem to remember 20+ years ago when Deep Blue beat Kasparov, a number of folks predicted that almost no one would want to play chess anymore. Oops. Is this a metaphor for the much-feared AI takeover of society?

Usually good for a laugh. (If you're an academic.) This is a recent entry:

 The result does improve the state-of-the-art, but it is not strong enough for acceptance.

It can only take a couple of decades to ruin a country.

Related: "Need to Flee Venezuela? Pay Huge Bribe or Stand in Line Forever."

This was news to me.

Another reason--not that another one is needed--to increase the teeth to tail ratio in academia.

Intrigued by this phenomenon, I recently surveyed a nationally representative sample of roughly 900 “student-facing” administrators — those whose work concerns the quality and character of a student’s experience on campus. I found that liberal staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-one. Only 6 percent of campus administrators identified as conservative to some degree, while 71 percent classified themselves as liberal or very liberal.

Related: "Good luck, Professor Abrams".

The first three minutes of this video present the questions. I agree, they are a lot of fun to present Liberals with. (Some of the last twelve minutes discusses the origins of the Great Recession--and Barney Frank's underemphasized role--and is also interesting.)

When the money starts to run out, sooner or later, good sense will prevail.

Only three cities are evaluated. New York and Chicago get "F" grades, while Los Angeles gets a "D".

Conclusion of the abstract:

Conditional on seniority, which dictates choice sets, the weekly earnings gap can be explained entirely by differences in operator choices of hours, schedules, and routes.

Link via Marginal Revolution.

Mark Steyn quotes liberally from his columns to recap the hilarious and awful ballot problems in Broward and Palm Beach counties 18 years ago. 

Apparently, nothing significant has changed.

I hope they're savoring this in Beantown.

From Selena Zito, a nice story.

Yes, indeed. Just watch him and I'll think you'll agree.

Related: "Steph Curry Is Cookin’ Like It’s 2016".

In the NFL: "Inside the NFL’s offensive explosion".

In the NBA: "You Can’t Stop NBA Offenses—and Now, You Can’t Even Hope to Contain Them".

Gorgeously sung by Joan Baez.

It's still good for an occasional listen.

#1--and maybe the GOAT--Carlsen versus #2 Caruana, now playing for the USA. Starts today at 9 a.m. Central.