morungos.bsky.social
Cognitive/social scientist and occasional coder. Purveyor of Jurassic Park memes. Writes on modernization, technology, and economic democracy. Consciously uncoupling from corporate shenanigans. Halifax, Nova Scotia
https://morungos.com/
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A significant proportion regard it as a waste of their time.
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I have one of the newer ones, an Ultra, which has fine temperature control and it’s invaluable for brewing, marmalades, and a bunch more. It’s wonderful. But I’m not buying from them again. Ever.
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I think it’s more that the US is now structurally risky. There is no return to normal. Best to hedge the risk by ramping up collaborations with more predictable partners. That is a permanent shift.
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Yup. Me too. That viva university demanded a scanned copy of my passport by email 🤣🤣
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Lyrically, the Prefab Sprout one that jumps out is Farmyard Cat, which is definitely on the silly side, but I still adore it. Even this:
“Two green eyes and a coat of silk
Scourge of mice with a saucer of milk
I've got nine lives and I rhyme with mat
I'm a farmyard cat”
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Meow!
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Also not a coincidence that proof of work has pivoted from mining to tech.
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Thanks for that, didn’t know about those — most of what they had were pretty small, but a few looked much too large for the rabbit tick, like over a quarter inch engorged. I suspect a few were the dog tick, which is rampant in that area.
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I have photos of the snowshoe hares from a few weeks back (I think it was the boys’ fighting day). The poor things are just covered in ticks. It’s very very sad.
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Absolutely it is — although it shouldn’t be. Randomization has captured all the credit, everything is now perceived through the aspirational standard of RCTs. It’s tragic, but I think it’s all part of the industrialization of science.
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If you think overlapping territories between Bigfoot sightings and black bears isn’t enough to stop believing, just check out photos like these.
Totally fascinating.
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Having worked for a large scale distance learning university, I don’t buy that we can’t modernize education. Problem is they don’t value *learning* as much as instruction, so they do it completely wrong.
From John Daniel’s 1997 keynote (when Open University VC) to the distance learning conference:
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The attention to detail is just incredible. Like, the chairs, cups, and saucers in the community hall are *exactly* what I remember for real. It’s damn near perfect, beautiful characters and beautifully written.
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I’ve cycle-commuted through central London, fairly often did Hyde Park Corner. Traffic was mostly smaller and mostly slower. SUVs scare the crap out of me, and the faster the roads, the worse they are.
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One day when I lived there, we had a humidex of 49. Actual was 39. It felt like sticking your head into a hot oven.
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Next time I’m gonna vote for a deer tick. At least you know where you stand with those.
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So that's it, really. The way I read their data, because it was based on a population diary study, it they found fewer work trips *and* non-work trips, but both types were longer trips because teleworking/home-work was over-represented in low density areas, hence the higher emissions.
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That, combined with the age of the data, which more or less ends 2017, I'd probably want a better assessment for today.
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They mainly argue that it's a rebound. i.e., if you WFH, you do more non-work trips. HOWEVER, they are open that their data isn't longitudinal, i.e., there's no assessment for jobs switching to/from WFH. That's the issue I thought they'd not evidenced.
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Digging in now, seems like the big factor appears to be "the high share of car use is directly related to their residential location, which is more often in low density areas"
In other words, it's not WFH directly, but density -- WFH allows low density to be more viable for some work options.
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I’m sure that’s true. My past neighbours clearly drove to the Tim Hortons every morning for a coffee at the drive thru, when they worked from home. I despair at humans, sometimes. But even with that I’m still skeptical the same job at WFH would involve more car use under typical circumstances.
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It’s worth digging in a bit. I’ll probably delve into the publication, maybe even the data if I can get it. UK data is very different in some ways — school buses, for example, really aren’t a big thing there.
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SEM is a good method and all, but my data spidey-sense is tingling that this is comparing apples and oranges.
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I’d be a little suspicious of that data. A lot of it is derived from pre-existing non-fixed-workplace data, including, eg., travel to clients. I’m not convinced the study design was right for comparing what would happen for *the same job* shifting to WFH. It doesn’t control the variables right.
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“Almost all traffic deaths are preventable, and we can make our streets and roads safer through design, data, and better maintenance” Quote by Andy Fillmore
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“Everyone deserves to have mobility options” Quote by Andy Fillmore