.brian @brianpm@qoto.org
Climate scientist with extracurricular interest in wine, whisk(e)y, hifi audio, action figures, Apple, and other nerdery.
I never joined Twitter, and don't regret that decision.
Joined Nov 2022
.brian
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I was asked by a reporter to comment on Marjorie Taylor Greene's statement that humans control the weather. Here is what I said.
TROPICAL DEPRESSION FOURTEEN
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?start#contents This storm looks like it could be *very bad* for the west coast of Florida.
Interesting design choices in this cookies selection sheet (which I encountered while connecting to hotel wifi).
.brian
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The Earth's mean temperature has a seasonal cycle that generally peaks in July, during Northern Hemisphere summer.
June 2024 was so warm that it not only exceeded every previously measured June, but also exceeded every previous July except for July 2023.
https://berkeleyearth.org/june-2024-temperature-update/
#globalwarming #climatechange #climate #temperature #records
.brian
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Excellent LA Times article on #Project2025's call to dismantle #NOAA and privatize the National Weather Service. This will destroy the nation’s ability to track weather, combat #climatechange and protect the public from environmental hazards.
That part of Project 2025 was written by Thomas Gilman, a right-wing Trump appointee who comes from the auto, oil/gas/, mining industry -- threatened by climate change policies.
.brian
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Audiophile Modern Music to Attract Next Generation Listeners
I wonder if it says something that only half of the list of recommendations of “modern music” in this piece are from the past 5 years and 5 of them are more than 10 years old. 
https://www.audioholics.com/music-reviews/modern-music-to-the-audiophile-industry
Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center
AOC Says She'll File Articles Of Impeachment Amid SCOTUS 'Corruption Crisis' | HuffPost
Ever wonder why North America has so many more tornados than South America? Funing Li and co-authors (including me) think it has to do with the roughness of the surface upstream of the severe storm regions:
- PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2315425121
- preprint also available: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1886895/v1
Generating songs with tiny prompts… 🤯
I was trying to help colleagues figure out how to make their middle mouse button paste on their Macs (like they used to do on Linux), and I ran into a challenge. I connected a random USB mouse that I had laying around, and when I clicked the middle button it activated the Application Switcher (like cmd+tab). I scoured the System Settings, but could not find any way to change what that button was doing. Some searching eventually led me to believe that this was a vestigial setting from a long time ago when I used the Apple Mighty Mouse. I happen to still have that mouse, and once I found it and connected it, System Settings recognized it and provided me with a "Might Mouse Settings..." button in the Mouse settings. In there I was able to change the scroll wheel press to be "Button 3", and then the other USB mouse behaved as expected (i.e., middle button didn't do anything). If I hadn't had that mouse from like 15 years ago, I'd probably still be searching for some plist file deep down in MacOS. Once the mouse behaved as expected, I was able to make a Keyboard Maestro macro to paste when Button 3 is pressed, solving the original problem.
Google pauses Gemini’s ability to generate AI images of people after diversity errors - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24079876/google-gemini-ai-photos-people-pause This is a no-win situation for Google. These LLMs aren’t capable of differentiating between prompts asking for historically accurate depictions and generic modern “stock” images. This is one reason why I would not expect Apple to introduce LLM-based tools that are just plain prompt interfaces.
.brian
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Irritating the uber morons on Twitter with this plot that shows GLOBAL COOLING!
https://x.com/andrewdessler/status/1735388517625393432?s=46&t=Wvu1RXU7n40FTWiXhqBydw
.brian
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What a difference corrective optics make!
Two images taken by the Faint Object Camera (FOC), before and after COSTAR.
In the before image, the broad halo around the star is caused by scattered unfocused starlight.
In the after image, most of the starlight is concentrated into a 0.1 arc second circle, and the blurry "skirt" of light is completely gone.
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/1994/08/141-Image.html
#Hubble
16/n
.brian
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NEW: Sonos set to sell $400-$500 headphones next year and a TV set-top-box to rival Apple and Roku. It’s also planning a Roam 2, new high-end sound bar, an Era 100 for businesses, new amps, subs, updated voice control and more:
Good article in Eos about the Pattern Effect: https://eos.org/features/patterns-of-surface-warming-matter-for-climate-sensitivity
.brian
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Complex systems friends: wikipedia needs your help!
Most individuals I know who work in this area (from ecology to brain research)would not feel well represented by this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_Dynamic_Systems_Theory
Minimally, some cross referencing is in order here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
Learning a lot at the LEAP team meeting- an NSF Science & Technology Center bringing together climate science and machine learning. https://leap.columbia.edu
Discussion of "climate repair" or "climate intervention" or "geoengineering" is increasing, and becoming ever more serious. There are big risks with implementing such ideas, but as this talk states, there are also big risks in *not* doing something along these lines because we're already so far along the climate warming trajectory. I am skeptical that society can responsibly apply climate interventions, and I'm worried that some actor is going to go ahead and do it anyway.
Climate scientist with extracurricular interest in wine, whisk(e)y, hifi audio, action figures, Apple, and other nerdery.
I never joined Twitter, and don't regret that decision.
Joined Nov 2022
