2018 March 27

"Here's what you need to know about the upcoming blue moon"

Citizenship estimates down to the block group level are currently available via the American Community Survey. They are used for compliance with the Voting Rights Act among many other purposes. Estimates if sampled correctly can be very accurate.

To calculate the Citizen Voting Age Population as required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they currently multiply the ACS citizenship percentage estimate of the block group against the total population in the block for redistricting purposes.

Does the current system work? Yes. It's not an exact science but in large groups, estimates are almost always more accurate than total counts. Total counts always miss some people - inaccuracy which compounds as sample size increases.

Total counts become even more inaccurate if you ask sensitive questions about citizenship or other topics people don't want to discuss. That's why total counts never ask about income or housing conditions - they don't want to discourage survey fillers. That data is available at the blockgroup level.

"His headstone reads “Life is tedious and brief.” But a year later, the impact of the late John B. McLemore, the colorful subject and star of NPR's record-breaking "S-Town" podcast, has had on Woodstock, Alabama, has been anything but brief."

If California and the states that follow California emissions like New York set tougher standards than the Trump administration I don't necessarily think it will be a big deal. It wasn't that long ago that some cars had California emissions and others did not. Many manufacturers had California emissions on most of their cars, but you could get a few more engine choices outside of California. Non California emissions states generally have fewer automobiles and therefore less pollution, so the two standards really doesn't make a big difference. That said, most pollution controls don't impact ordinary drivers, so keeping the recent harmonization of standards makes sense and will save consumers money by saving gas.

"This is not good"

"Do you read your news online? Enjoy takeout? Live in an apartment building? Canadians’ changing lifestyles have transformed what we put in the blue bin. And that’s led to big challenges — and ballooning costs — for municipal recycling programs."

This is really bad news. 😡

"A southern pine beetle, 🐞 which has killed thousands of pine trees on Long Island since it was discovered in 2014, was trapped in the Pine Bush, the northernmost location the invasive, destructive beetles have ever been found in this country."

"According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the single beetle was caught in a trap near Rapp Road. It is considered one of the most destructive forest pests in the U.S. and attacks several species of pine tree including pitch pine, a species that flourishes in the Pine Bush and other pine barrens throughout the state."

They've been building some really big flyover bridges in Pennsylvania.

To give you an idea of how truly large the 160-feet high flyover ramp they are building in Salinsgrove, PA, that ramp is nearly twice the height of the Dunn Memorial Flyover Ramp to the Empire Sate Plaza in Albany (85 feet high piers). Appalachian topography demands some massive bridges to keep expressways within the required maximum grades.

The new US 219 (Mason Dixon Highway) Flyerover bridges in Meyersdale are pretty massive too.

"Only a year ago, President Trump promised to eliminate the national debt in 8 years, but it has just hit a dizzying new historical high"

I think is a good proposal -- public policy should be made based on open data, not secretive science. It's not that hard to remove personally identifying data, especially in the era of computers -- and greater release of data will allow more in the public to scrutinize the data that is the basis of public policy.

I understand that a lot of scientists are old curmudgeons who don't want to adopt modern computing technology, but a lot of them are going to be retiring in next few years. Publicly funded studies are done at taxpayer expense, they should only use public data and release the data.