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A Holocene Impact Account

A cuneiform tablet has been deciphered giving an account of the flyover of a huge meteor that impacted on a specific (Julian) date: June 29th, 3123 B.C.

It's becoming clearer every day that the Earth has been battered by objects from space in recent history. There's even an international interdisciplinary working group looking at evidence from around the world.

This particular fireball went low over the Middle East, and grazed one mountain in Austria before making a direct hit on a second one. It created a landslide whose size has puzzled geologists for over a century.

The find is startling because it is a transcription of a first hand account. The tablet shows the positions of planets and stars on a night 2,400 years before the clay was fired. This suggests that the event was recorded contemporaneously, and important enough to be handed down and periodically revisited and transcribed.

For perspective, this wouldn't be much different than us transcribing an account from something as ancient as Plato. Of course, we do precisely that, so we shouldn't be surprised that the Assyrians of the first millennium before the modern era were doing the same thing.

Quote About Minorities

%20p%3EDavid Mamet%20s conversion to conservatism generated a lot of interesting %20a href=%20http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB120649438574664351.html%3Fmod=todays_us_page_one%20%3Eletters to the editor in %20em%3EThe Wall Street Journal%20/em%3E%20/a%3E.%20/p%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A%20p%3EFrom David Elmore I got this%3A%20/p%3E%20blockquote%3E%20p%3E..."%3BAutonomy."%3B This is a key word of enlightenment thought%2C a redirection%0D%0Atoward the personal responsibility and happiness of the individual %20the%0D%0Asmallest minority%20.%20/p%3E%20/blockquote%3E%20p%3EI like that%3A the smallest minority is an individual.%20/p%3E

R.I.P. Dad

My dad passed away early Sunday morning in Vero Beach, Florida.

He was 81 and had started declining more quickly about 6 weeks ago. He didn't put up a fight.

For old friends in Buffalo, and newer friends since I've moved on, he did not want a funeral or service.

He didn't want an obituary either, so I won't leave any more than this here.

New Orleans Isn't Coming Back

The Census Bureau reported that Orleans Parish (effectively, the city of New Orleans) led the nation in population growth in percentage terms in 2006-7.

The 14% growth sounds great. The raw number of 29K sounds good too ... but compared to what?

The report doesn't mention the tables on this page that you have to tunnel through links to get at. These show a drop in the population of the New Orleans metropolitan area of 286K since 2000.

Yes, some of that is coming from the surrounding parishes, but the bottom line is that from 10 to 22 months after Katrina (the time frame covered by the Census Bureau) only about 10% of the people who fled the storm moved back.

Non-statisticians may be inclined to extrapolate that and claim that in 10 years New Orleans we'll be back. Unfortunately, that isn't the way the growth works.

In order for growth to carry New Orleans population back to what it was before, it will have to follow an approach path that is asymptotic to (something like the) old population levels. That asymptotic behavior requires growth rates that start high and tale off towards zero. This means that next year the growth of Orleans Parish will probably be lower.

The size of that drop-off is the next big problem. If growth rates stay close to 10%, then New Orleans will recover quickly.

In fact if growth rates only decrease by a tenth every year, then it might recover the half of the population it lost to Katrina in about 12 years (assuming that growth rates bottom out at the replacement rate of 2%).

But, do we really expect growth rates to decline that slowly?

I'm speculating, but I think rates might drop more quickly.

The sad thing is because of the multiplicative aspects of the underlying math, it doesn't take much of a decline in growth rates in the 2nd year for New Orleans to never recover.

In terms of raw numbers, if population growth in New Orleans comes in a year from now at 25K, we're looking at 2 generations for New Orleans to recover. At 24K, a quarter of the people who left will never, ever, come back. At 22K it will be half.

Check back here in March 2009 for an update.

UNO Loses a Big Draw

My former employer, the University of New Orleans, has lost one of its biggest academicians, and one of my passing acquaintances.

Shea Penland was found dead in his home on Tuesday.

He was the expert on the decline of coastal wetlands in Louisiana. After Katrina, you almost certainly saw him on TV - I did.

UNO has struggled since Katrina. Penland had over 100 articles on this CV. This loss won't help UNO.

Al Copeland Has Died

Al Copeland, the creator of Popeye's Fried Chicken, has died.

Copeland was a big deal in New Orleans. After he left Popeye's, he started other good restaurants around town, including Copeland's and Straya. I spent a lot of time in those places in the mid-90's. I still talked about fried farfalle dip appetizer at the former.

The money he made went into high living. The vXboy's first exposure to a mega-Christmas light display was at Copeland's house in Metairie.

Word Tip # 2

Very cool. Very useful. Very hidden.

Didja' know that Word can add up numbers in your text?

This doesn't seem too useful ... so let me explain.

Bureaucrats require paragraphs like the following.

The Accounting department has 25 rooms, consisting of 18 offices, 2 graduate assistant offices, 1 computer room, 1 library/conference room, 1 break room, and 1 supply room. 

What if you need to either produce that total or check the math. You get out a calculator, or you do it in your head. Ugh ... so 20th century.

Wouldn't it be cool if Word could check this for you?

Guess what? It's been able to do it for a while ... you just never knew. Me neither.

And ... it's so simple!

This gets really cool if you notice that there is an addition mistake in that paragraph. If you follow the directions below you can check that math by highlighting this scrap of text "18 offices, 2 graduate assistant offices, 1 computer room, 1 library/conference room, 1 break room, and 1 supply" and clicking a button on your Word screen for the right answer.

The directions and lots of details are available at OfficeWatch.

GDP Grade for 2007 IV

The final report on real GDP growth in the 4th quarter of 2007 came in this morning at an unchanged 0.6%.

That works out to a D- on my preferred letter grade scale, and as a C- on a grading scale that college students would be comfortable with.

Ed Begley Jr. on Living Green

Fascinating interview with Ed Begley Jr. in the March 24 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

I tend to be unsympathetic about environmental concerns because the element of telling-other-people-what-to-do and forcing-others-to-do-what-you-want seems to trump the actual issues.

I liked this article because it wasn't like that. I'd even be tempted by Begley's book.

What I liked about the interview was the positive tone, and the idea that I did this, and you can too, but you don't have to follow a script:

You don't have to be shivering in a yurt in Topanga. You can have a very comfortable lifestyle. I have a fax machine. I've got a cellphone right here. I've got a computer. I have all these modern things, and I really contend that you can still have a cool beverage and a warm shower. We're just going to do it more efficiently.

My commute is under 4 minutes, and I like to bike and walk to work when my family can spare the time. How're you doin'?

And, I loved this quote:

...We have four times the amount of cars in L.A. since 1970, yet we have half the smog. We should all get a medal.

P.S. I can't believe I'm posting this - as an actor, Ed Begley Jr. has turned my stomach since St. Elsewhere.

Obama's Chances

The Iowa Electronic Market show that Obama's probability of being the nominee hasn't changed much in the wake of the Reverend Wright fiasco.

Yes, he did drop from 85 to 70 last week, but he's percolating back up towards 80 on their 100 point scale.