flower

just received a really really good crank email. there's stuff about the lost continent of atlantis, the guy is keeping tracks of the literal tens of thousands of people he emails, it's amazing

couldn't remember how the segmentation algorithm was called so i said "waterslide" and "waterfall"

the new matplotlib update added "these numbers will feel sad if you don't look at them 🥺" above every figure

they need to invent a word that's like "bedrotting" but for when you're at work all the time

happy birthday!!!

the working hypothesis of COPE

whats the most canceled genre. probably black metal yeah but i don't think she has that in her. no wave/post punk has slightly more women and lots of canceled dudes so maybe thats a better fit

maybe ethel cain should have been making harsh noise all along instead of being an edgier phoebe bridgers if she didn't want to get cancelled by insane theyfabs

me when the gungalar is snoying

Figure 4 indicates that the humidity excessfollows the curve (fitted by eye) E= 1.(8c)-‘“[ 1+2Q3] (9) with somewhat less confidence than the curves fitted to temperature and vertical velocity observations becauseof greater scatter in the data.

this is what REAL science looks like. no faked p-value, no stupid r coefficient, just good vibes

During near-calm conditions (0 to N 1 m s-l) the gulls are seento perform a flight routine which strongly suggeststhat through group cooperative action, they produce a disturbance in the unstable surface boundary layer that is sufficient to induce thermals. For example, on 8 and 10 January, 1940, at latitude 41”40’N, longitude 66”3O’W, and while prevailing local weather was dominated by large high-pressure systems (see Northern Hemisphere Synoptic Weather Maps), I observed groups of soaring gulls. This is of course a common sight, except that in that instance the groups were very large (20 to an estimated 100 birds), and their preliminary flight procedure was unusual. Always before, the birds had seemedto search individually for thermals in the lower air, using wing-flapping. When one bird found a thermal and began to soar, nearby birds would converge on the area to take advantage of the lift. However, on these January days, with a positive AT of 4°C and winds of 0 to 1 m s-l (see closed circles on Figure lb), the gulls’ flight routine was as follows. The gulls gathered in a flock on the sea surface. Then they all took flight together, ascending in a large whirling white vortex, flapping their wings vigorously, to a height above the seasomewhat greater than that of our ship’s mainmast head (-45 m). There the birds circled for a minute or two, using continuous wing-flapping but gaining no altitude. Now first one gull, then another, and another, began to soar until the entire flock was spiraling upward. After ascending to heights and distances often requiring

binoculars to follow, the gulls detached themselvesfrom the thermal and descendedin long easy glides to the sea surface near the ship. After an interval of regrouping, the gulls repeated this flight pattern. For two days I observed these remarkable per- formances many times. 3. Discussion I have been unable to explain this type of group flight activity without assuming that the gulls were initiating a thermal by cooperatively disturbing an unstable boundary layer not far above the sea surface. Apparently no other seafarershave recorded ob- servations of such flight behavior by groups of birds over the ocean. However, the idea that birds may be able to create their own thermals is not an entirely new one. Huffakers (1897, pp. 191-193) made observations of the flight of buzzards over land and suggested that the buzzards were able to initiate thermals. Unfortunately, Huffakers gave little information about the temperature and wind conditions at the time of the flights.

even more impressive, groups of gulls can trigger thermals in calm conditions

Thermals over the sea and gull flight behavior, Alfred H. Woodcock The flight performance of Herring Gulls relative to specific atmosphere and ocean conditions over the western North Atlantic indicates that large groups of gulls are able, through cooperative flight maneuvers, to induce ascending convective flow (thermals) in which they make extended soaring flights. These group flights in gull-induced thermals are limited to winds of 0 to ~ 1 m s−1 and to sea-minus-air temperature differences (δT) of ~3 to 6‡C. As wind speed increases from ~ 2 to 5 m s−1, thermals are naturally induced, and the minimum δT required for soaring is inversely related to wind speed. At higher winds (~5 to 13 ms−1), the minimum positive δT and minimum wind speed required for thermal soaring are directly related, thus indicating an apparent maximum efficiency for the natural production of thermals at wind speeds of about 5 m s−1 and δT of 1 to 2 ‡C.

you can apparently observe gull flight behaviour to measure air motion over the sea. there's even a phase diagram of gull behaviour with air-sea temperature difference and wind!

In 1956 the Institute of Geophysics was divided into three parts and Obukhov was appointed director of the newly created Institute of Atmospheric Physics which now bears his name. That followed his long conversation with Leontovich which ended with the advice to “avoid administrative zeal” (Obukhov, 1990). In the Soviet Union, the Academy was a huge body that operated hundreds of scientific institutes with tens of thousands of researchers. Academic institutes worked under the strict Party control and a non-communist director was a rare bird. Obukhov flouted Party policy in another important respect: employing numerous Jewish scientists in his Institute. Since the late 1940s anti-Semitism as a Party policy was steadily gaining ground in Russian society and academia. Moscow University was particularly hostile: it was difficult for a Jew to be accepted as an undergraduate and next to impossible as a graduate student; this situation further deteriorated at the end of 1960s when undergraduate studies were closed as well (all the way to the 1970s when I avoided Moscow and went to Novosibirsk University). The mathematical

students of Kolmogorov were particularly affected. For example, Sinai was not accepted for graduate studies after the committee failed him in Marxist philosophy: Kolmogorov was present at the exam but did not interfere (Ya.G. Sinai, private communications, 2009–2010). Kolmogorov then negotiated for Sinai a second attempt which succeeded. Turbulence researchers had it easier thanks to the Institute of Geophysics and later to Obukhov’s Institute. Remarkably, that quite unusual director did not even fire refuseniks as was required by a direct Party order. Obukhov was universally admired by his co-workers despite his sometimes harsh style (its acceptance was softened by a common agreement that he was invariably the smartest person in the room, best equipped to “rule the Earth’s atmosphere”).

russian physics was really something else

i like how we don't even have the cute failwhale to distract us anymore

just realized what clearsky.app is and erm wtf how does it not violate GDPR

guys it's over math research is a waste of taxpayer money we're getting replaced by AI

it's real btw

meme with Pikachu waking up that says "when u realise 2019 is going to be exactly the same as 2018 because time is just an abstract concept created by humans and has no real bearing on the events that occur"

this one has aged really, really well

the experiments are pretty easy to do too for anyone with an electrodynamic shaker!

surely if people publish about shoelaces undoing themselves, someone has done that before

does anyone know why necklaces of similar chain thickness tend to tangle? i feel like that'd be a pretty interesting physics problem and i can't find anything in the literature, just practical online advice on how to avoid it.

je suis attachieuse

the python package import rules were invented by the CIA to make everyone waste a stupid fucking amount of time on trivial problems such as "how do i import this file which is in a different subfolder"

a boat called "präsident schaefer" next to a picture of hunter schafer

matplotlib and inkscape

stop using beamer
stop using tikz
plotting is art, not an automated matplotlib/seaborn routine
learn about color perception
use constrained layouts
learn what is the difference between bitmap and vector graphics
you can't reuse plots

should i open a blog so i can make a post "how to make nice scientific figures" because i see so many people making the same mistakes i did

we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death

europe could step up, grow a spine and offer a job to every researcher fired in the US, let its universities quadruple in size and lead the world in research output. unfortunately every EU leader is a weak-willed idiot dreaming of doing the same at home, so instead it's going to be barbarism

la vie devient tellement dure quand t'as 27 ans faut se préparer mentalement