Noel Schutt: Blog

We had six days of skiable snow. In Indiana. In December. I was able to get eleven and a half hours of skiing in. Considering how little exercise I was able to get in November, that is pretty good. I am off from school for three weeks, so I was able to work at Fox Island this week. We were able to get several classes of fifth graders through. There were surprisingly few other skiers. I was given a decent pair of used skis. They are a little to small for me, so I hope to trade them for a pair my size. If all goes well, this will be the winter I can start skate skiing.

Snow! We don't usually get skiable snow this early. I've skied the past two days. The timing for the snow was great. I finished finals, then it snowed. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll be back to running in a couple days.

This is old in internet-time, but it is too funny to skip.

Last week, someone (the author is anonymous, but the site was owned by David Thorpe) created a fake scientific journal, the "Journal of Geoclimatic Studies." The lead paper was "Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory?" Reading the article, it is obviously a spoof. The equations are random latin and greek letters, the units don't make sense, several figures are pure sine waves, and the writing style sounds like an opinion piece instead of a scientific paper. There are a couple good posts about this on one of Nature's blogs: fake climate change paper and author of spoof paper speaks.

The best part is how many people thought it was real. Many bad-science bloggers fell for it. The best part is that Rush Limbaugh apparently spent a good bit of time talking about it on Thursday.

The spin by people who fell for it is great. One representative quote that has popped up in several places:

The global warming hoax is getting sophisticated enough to spawn subhoaxes intended to discredit the resistance. . . . Slick enough to temporarily trick even Rush Limbaugh, it claimed that global warming is caused by ocean bacteria. --moonbattery.com

Many of the posters quickly found their mistake:

I, along with a number of other bloggers, and even Rush Limbaugh, apparently, fell for what has turned out to be a complete hoax. A made up abstract published at the website of a fake science journal purports to explain global warming by monitoring bacteria emissions. As I stated in the post, I can't claim to understand the research which formed the basis of the argument in the paper, which is now obvious as it was totally made up. --peerreviewflorida.com

They could have at least checked the source and looked up some of the terms before posting. This is a good reminder to evaluate evidence before making a conclusion instead of afterwards. Not that many of the people who believed the paper care about evidence. I wonder how long it will be until I hear someone that didn't get the message that this was a spoof.

I ran the Taylor Homecoming 5k. Running 5k is no big deal, but this was. It was the first time I have been able to run 5k an pavement in several years. Running 5k on pavement feels like 9k on dirt. I also found out that Mounds State Park is a very good place to run. This Sunday is the annual Run the Mounds 5 mile race.

It's Leif Erikson Day.

Getting back into bicycling more frequently and for longer distances is going well. On Saturday, I did my first over forty mile ride since I started riding again. I rode about 130 miles last week. That isn't very impressive, but this year my typical ride has been fewer miles than I commuted last week.

On Sunday, I ran my first race in several years. Considering than it was on pavement and was a very hot day, I did pretty well.

Oh yeah . . . they are skiing in West Yellowstone.

Yesterday was my first 30 mile day since I started riding my bike again. I haven't ridden much the past couple years. I have been increasing my riding time over the past few weeks. I have probably tripled my weekly ride time from what it was a couple months ago.

I added some pictures to my photo gallery.

More flood news. When I started reading the story, I thought it was good news. The city is buying some of the worst flooding property in town, planting it and letting it absorb flood water. It is a good plan. Then I read the next sentence: "A bid will go out later this year for a levee to be erected behind where the homes once stood, and Joyner said he expects construction to begin this spring." More levees. They were so close to a good solution, then they added too much engineering. At least they are putting the levee at the back of the property.

What a bunch of idiots. You'd think they would have learned by now, but no. Bob Kennedy (Fort Wayne associate director of public works) is working hard to make sure Fort Wayne's floods are worse. He just presented the city's new 'flood control' plan for Woodhurst and Foster Park. The city is going to create over a mile of levees and concrete walls at Foster Park. There is no rational reason for creating new levees in Fort Wayne. This new project will do several things:

• Cost lots of money.
• Have a neutral effect on flooding in Woodhurst. (Minor floods won't be a problem, but big ones will be worse.)
• Cause worse flooding in the poor neighborhoods just down stream.
• Cause worse flooding downtown.
• Force the city to create more levees between Foster Park and downtown, wasting more money, causing worse flooding, &c.
• Destroy parts of one of my favorite running trails.

They could do something logical, like buy more land in the flood plane to plant trees on. But that would cost less and be more effective, so it won't happen.

I'm picky about the keyboards that I buy. I have always liked IBM's short travel keyboards. The keys give a good crisp click, but are almost silent. IBM's superior keyboards made a difference. I could type around fifteen percent faster on an IBM keyboard than on an inexpensive one. Because of the keyboards, my last four notebooks were ThinkPads. Among non-IBM computers, Apple Powerbooks had the second best keyboards, but they were even more expensive than ThinkPads. The G4 iBooks keyboards were almost Powerbook quality, but in much less expensive computers. The MacBook keyboards look like cheep calculator buttons, but feel like they belong on a ThinkPad. Today, Apple introduced two new external keyboards that are basically MacBook keyboards in thin aluminum cases. Finally. These keyboards are less expensive than IBM's old thin keyboards, and should be easier to find. Now they just need to produce the Bluetooth version with a built-in TrackPoint.

iWork is a good office suite, but without a spreadsheet program. I need a spreadsheet, so I still need Microsoft Excel. Until today. Today Apple introduced Numbers. As of 20:00 UTC today, there so no reason for Microsoft to exist.

I updated my Vitus page.

I just completed my first canoe marathon. I won. Well, not really. I entered the C-1 Cruiser class and finished eighth out of eight. I knew I was at a disadvantage because my canoe is a much older design than the other canoes in the C-1 Cruiser class. At the awards presentation, I found out that the officials decided my canoe was old enough to be in a its own class. I finished in about the time I thought I would. I made a few mistakes that cost me several minutes. I cut some turns I shouldn't have, and probably should have cut more in other places. I saw the boat in front of me go one way around an island and started to follow, then realized the other way would be faster. Switching from using a bike bottle to using a jug with a hose will let me keep paddling while I drink. I raced well for my first C-1 marathon. It was fun. I think that I will do much better next time.

Yesterday was the start of mosquito season. Yay.

It is amazing which TV shows run and which get canceled. The Simpsons have been on for years, which is good, because in is hilarious. American Idol just won't get canceled, even though it is complete garbage. Firefly was canceled before even half a season ran, and it was a great show. House keeps going and going, even though it is boring. Prison Break is a good show, but they are stretching it with filler episodes instead of wrapping it up. Drive looked like it was going to be good, but it was canceled after four episodes. These are just a few examples from Fox, the other networks are just as bad. At least I have more time for reading this way.