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Scientists admit they did not model clouds accurately and that they need a supercomputer 1000 times more powerful to accurately do that.Scientists admit they did not model clouds accurately and that they need a supercomputer 1000 times more powerful to accurately do that...Climate Change Modeling Meets Limits of Science The Wall Street Journal reports Climate Scientists Encounter Limits of Computer Models, Bedeviling Policy.That is a non-paywalled, free-to-read link courtesy of the WSJ.It's lengthy but an excellent read. I encourage everyone to take a look.The dire predictions went out the window, seemingly unanimously. But there is plenty in the article for...

One girl from Spain is proving that anyone can make their dreams come true, even people like her who were born with Down syndrome. Marian Avila has made a successful career as a model, despite how difficult it can be for people with Down syndrome to find a job. She is leveraging the media attention she’s received to bring awareness to the chromosomal disorder and encourage people to pursue their dreams no matter what. As a child, Marian always dreamed of becoming a model. Not only was she born with Down syndrome, she is only 5-foot-3. Her height alone would...

Dr. Anthony Fauci recently called for a national mask mandate That, in addition to survey evidence showing that people are still not wearing masks in public places, led Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the last three decades, to advocate for a national mask mandate. Previously, Fauci has generally stopped short of saying that the American people should be required to wear masks under a mandate.The authors of the new University of Washington study arrived at their figures by using a model based on the following assumptions: Masks when worn properly offer a 40%...

Earlier this month, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health released projections from a revised coronavirus computer model that said deaths might double by Memorial Day. That didn’t happen. In fact, to a layman, it doesn’t even look close. Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm and a key official involved in the model both acknowledged Tuesday that the short-term death projections of the model are notably higher than the reality — but both defended the value of the model.

There hasn't been anything like the COVID-19 pandemic before. That's a problem for researchers. The disease is only a few months old, so there's scant data available for mathematical forecasts of the pandemic, according to Caroline Buckee, an epidemiologist at Harvard University. Until more data become available, it's difficult for scientists to understand how policies might affect the outbreak's severity. Get a daily rundown on what's happening locally with coronavirus: testing, treatments, economic impacts and Boston's road to recovery. Sign up now. “The reality is that we all want answers. How many hospital beds do I need? When can we...

“From a public health standpoint, any isolated, contained outbreak should not be taken into consideration when you’re formulating a broad-based plan,” John Wagner, Monroe County Public Health Department administrator, said of the county’s outbreak at Garden Place assisted living. “We do have to survive after this thing is done. Obviously life is more important than the economy, yes, except when we come out of this and we have all these people dying from no jobs, poverty, and homelessness.” For Wagner, Gov. Pritzker’s statewide stay-at-home order, which he extended last week through the end of May, means “going blanketly across the...

The decisions that are being made during this crisis are far too important and complex to be based on such imprecise data and with such unreliable results. There’s been a lot of armchair analysis about various models being used to predict outcomes of COVID-19. For those of us who have built spatial and statistical models, all of this discussion brings to mind George Box’s dictum, “All models are wrong, but some are useful”—or useless, as the case may be.The problem with data-driven models, especially when data is lacking, can be easily explained. First of all, in terms of helping decision...

Perhaps the best thing that could come out of this entire debacle and turning America into a police state — where people are arrested for going somewhere in their cars and never leaving their cars — should be a total disdain for and disbelief in computer models. The Imperial College of London model that terrified our largely scientifically illiterate politicos and therefore killed the world economy, like every other model that tries to model human behavior, assumed a spherical cow of uniform density in a frictionless vacuum. Computer modeling can be incredibly useful, particularly when you’re modeling physics: an object...

The SIR model attempts to explain both of these situations. Assume every individual is in one of three states: susceptible, infected, or resistant. In a simple world, patient zero is infected, everyone else is susceptible and nobody is resistant. With every step in time, some susceptible people become infected, some infected people recover to be resistant, and resistant people stay resistant.

What’s up with Dr. Brix’s modeling? Check this out https://t.co/kgg2gXB7fv— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) April 6, 2020 The IMHE model for the Wuhan coronavirus that the White House is relying on is garbage. It is using NY/NJ data and applying it to the rest of the U.S. It predicted that over 121,000 Americans would be hospitalized yesterday over the coronavirus. The actual number? 31,142. pic.twitter.com/vZCGXB5HLN— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 2, 2020

For me, it is now week three of self isolation. A bum immune system has kept me from leaving my house much, but luckily, I have an absurd array of inane solo hobbies to keep me occupied (plus, you know, writing these blogs), and I’m here to share one of my favorites with you all in these boring times. This is a 12" x 12" piece of plywood populated with model railroading supplies and $7 worth of Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars that I had sitting around. This is the ultimate sweet spot hobby of dollars spent/time invested, in that it is...

My dear old statistics teacher used to say that relying on any model, however good but founded on past data, was like driving by looking at the rearview mirror; fine as long as the future looked like the past. As governments struggle with their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the $64 trillion question is "which past does the future look like?"Science writes how models have become supremely important: Entire cities and countries have been locked down based on hastily done forecasts that often haven't been peer reviewed.  ... The Netherlands ... Prime Minister Mark Rutte rejected “working endlessly to contain...

For three decades, global warming alarmists have harassed society with stories of gloom and doom as a result of the carbon dioxide emitted into the air by the burning of fossil fuel. They are exercising precisely what prominent writer H.L. Mencken described as “the whole point of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”. In fact, the man-caused global warming or climate change panic may well be the best hobgoblin ever conceived. It has half the world clamoring...

My Review and Build of Trumpeter Kit #05309, 1/350 New Orleans Class Heavy Cruiser, USS Vincennes, CA-45 REVIEW & BUILD, Doolittle Raid Vessel Note: You can see all the pictures in highest resolution at My USS Vincennes, CA-44, Flickr Album, or you can cloick on any of the pictures here and get a higher resoultion image. New Orleans Class Heavy Cruisers The New Orleans-class cruisers were a class of seven heavy cruisers built for the United States Navy (USN) from 1933–36. All of them were put into commission bb 1938. They were succeeded by the Baltimore Class Heavy cruisers...but the...

...Microsoft researchers have devised a way to use historical data about voters to model a more statistically sound result...the raw results from about 1 million voters showed Trump ahead...The modeled results, show...Clinton support at 49 percent and Trump at 39 percent.

The Novena Heirloom is a limited edition custom enclosure system I built for use with the open-source Novena computer designed by Bunnie Huang and Sean Cross. It was crowd funded in cooperation with Portland, Oregon-based Crowd Supply. Several prototype concepts were developed for the campaign. After consulting with Huang, we decided to forgo an easel design in favor of a more traditional clam shell laptop. The requirement for user access to the internal components argued for a removable keypad and drove the final result. The thrust of the design concept is informed by, and hopefully serves as homage to, the...

Climate is complex.This is true both in the conventional “wow, this is hard to figure out!” sense, and in the technical sense that people mean when they talk about “complex systems theory.” It’s so sensitive to the initial assumptions that it’s never feasible to compute exactly how the system will behave. Sometimes this is called “sensitive dependence on initial conditions,” or SDIC.This is basically why we can’t predict if it will rain on Monday, yet we can confidently predict that it’ll be colder in Boulder in December than it was in July.The difference here is between what is exactly true,...

With Hari Nef signed to IMG and Andreja Pejic making make-up modeling history, it's been a good year for transpeople in the fashion industry -- and it's about to get even better because there's now a trans-exclusive modeling agency in the game, dubbed Apple Model Management. Originally founded in Thailand, Apple has just expanded to LA, where they've become the first modeling agency to launch a transgender division. "We see trans individuals as beautiful," agency director Cecilio Asuncion said. "But their full potential was never reached because of the stigma the community-at-large had towards the trans community. This has to...

Four U.S. states and the federal government have padded Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber's wallet to the tune of $5.9 million since 2000, including millions connected to his work on the Affordable Care Act. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist has been pilloried for collecting $392,600 from the Obama administration's Health and Human Services Department while the law was being written, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Gruber's consulting contracts give states and the feds access to a proprietary formula that can determine how changes in a health care system's structure will affect costs. The 'Gruber Microsimulation Model'...

Though he is currently behind bars facing 11 felon charges for crimes ranging from gun possession to parole violations, viral Internet sensation Jeremy Meeks is seeking to reap the benefits of his well-received face. He was recently offered a modeling contract with Los Angeles-based Blaze Models. According to TMZ, the 30-year-old criminal has his ex-porn star agent, Gina Rodriguez, to thank. Rodriguez, who is quite the experienced entertainment manager, oversees clients including "Octomom" Nadya Suleman, Farrah Abraham and, most recently, Donald Sterling's much talked about ex-girlfriend, V. Stiviano. While this certainly may serve as some positive news once he...