The horrible thing you never knew about ducks

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The horrible thing you never knew about ducks

On the Venn diagram of strange animal mating behaviors — from lobster golden showers to garter-snake orgies — duck sex is on the border between cartoonish and sadistic.

That’s right, our beloved mallards engage in some seriously disturbing mating behavior. The “dark side” of duck mating has its own chapter in the new book “The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us” by Yale ornithology professor Richard O. Prum. It’s a controversial subject, earning notoriety in 2013 after news leaked that the federal government contributed $400,000 to study the mating habits of ducks — dubbed “duckpenisgate” by Mother Jones.

Bog River dam is out, but paddling opportunities remain

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Bog River dam is out, but paddling opportunities remain

Paddlers will find a popular stretch of the Bog River significantly changed this summer, though it shouldn’t interfere with enjoyment of the wild waterway.

The water level of the Bog from Lows Lower Dam to Hitchins Pond has been lowered temporarily to enable the state to repair a leak in the 250-foot-long concrete dam.

The 3-mile trip to Hitchins Pond is one of the best half-day paddles in the Adirondacks. It also is the first leg of longer trips to Lows Lake, a popular camping destination.

Why Millions of Workers Are Quitting Their Jobs : NPR

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The Great Resignation: Why Millions of Workers Are Quitting Their Jobs : NPR

The great migration to remote work in the pandemic has also had a profound impact on how people think about when and where they want to work.

"We have changed. Work has changed. The way we think about time and space has changed," says Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding From Anywhere. Workers now crave the flexibility given to them in the pandemic — which had previously been unattainable, she says. Working In Sweatpants May Be Over As Companies Contemplate The Great Office Return The Coronavirus Crisis Working In Sweatpants May Be Over As Companies Contemplate The Great Office Return

Alyssa Casey, a researcher for the federal government, had often thought about leaving Washington, D.C., for Illinois, to be close to her parents and siblings. But she liked her job and her life in the city, going to concerts, restaurants and happy hours with friends.

 

June 24, 2021 Morning

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Good morning! Happy Strawberry Moon! 🍓 🌕 It pretty brilliant last night. I had strawberries on my pancakes this morning to celebrate. 🥞 I wonder if I can find wild strawberries in the fields. They are so good too. Next Thursday is July 🏊🏿. Mine Kill pool opens then. Sunny and 55 degrees out walking past the Bethlehem Central High School. 🌞 Calm wind. The dew point is 49 degrees. A bit warmer then yesterday, although not much.

Out for my morning walk 🚶🏻 and it’s a nice one with the sun ☀ warming things up quickly. Running a few minutes late as I was a bit tardy getting out of bed 🛏 looking at blog stuff and Tiktok, rather than getting out of bed and walking 🚶🏻. But the coffee is brewing now ☕ and I am throwing together a quick lunch. 🚿 I will shower shortly after my pancakes 🥞 are done. Seeing how tight I can run my morning and still make the bus in time for work. 🚌 Still limited service in the morning and rush hour, no express buses.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 79 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around June 15th. Maximum dew point of 52 at 10am. Light south wind increasing to 5 to 9 mph in the morning. Should be a nice summer day. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 85 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1943.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:59 pm with sun having an altitude of 70.8° from the due south horizon (-0° vs. 6/21). The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:55 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (297°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (304°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:38 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 28 seconds with dusk around 9:12 pm, which is 7 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the southeast (127°) at an altitude of 1° from the horizon, 228,908 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:58 pm. At sunset, look for clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 71 degrees. The dew point will be 51 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 12 seconds over yesterday.

My neighbors have this gas fire pit 🔥 that they have on the deck which somehow worries me but I guess being gas it’s relatively safe as there isn’t firebrands or sparks coming off it. ✨ But while I’m a fire bug 🐛 I am so careful with fire and would never have anything like that near my house.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 51 degrees at 3am. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 26th. Maximum dew point of 51 at 8pm. South wind 3 to 7 mph. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 45 occurred back in 1982.

The weekend looks like a summer weekend. 🏖 Saturday, a slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 84. South wind 8 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Maximum dew point of 67 at 11am. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 88. Maximum dew point of 69 at 8am. It will be muggy for sure but fairly seasonable. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

Looking forward to the weekend and catching the Nature Bus 🐦 up to Thacher Park. While I could certainly drive there, it’s just kind of more of an adventure to take bus 🚍 plus then you can enjoy the scenery and not have to worry about parking 🅿 and speed traps. Pack a lunch 🥪, water 💦, bathing suit if I walk to Thompsons Lake, 🏊🏻‍♂️ book to read 📖 and an extra battery 🔋 for the phone. Maybe binoculars and the camera too. 📸

As previously noted, next Thursday is July 🏊🏿 when the sun will be setting at 8:37 pm with dusk at 9:11 pm. On that day in 2020, we had partly sunny, shallow fog and temperatures between 83 and 64 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 83 degrees. We hit a record high of 99 back in 1913.

Untitled [Expires October 21 2024]

With Guests Daniel Kahneman, James Hutchinson & G.M. Pucilowski

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Judge the Judges: With Guests Daniel Kahneman, James Hutchinson & G.M. Pucilowski

5/24/21 by James Hutchinson, Katy Milkman, Daniel Kahneman, G.M. “Pooch” Pucilowski

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/123491755
Episode: https://chtbl.com/track/224G4/https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cdn.simplecast.com/audio/46d9ff78-39b5-4502-a5e9-0df217e1b3a7/episodes/8cce412e-4918-47a3-8e58-7a4a3272f16f/audio/497c4f93-391e-4116-9107-b5fda47cfd00/default_tc.mp3?aid=rss_feed&feed=66QlUXEg

Many episodes of this podcast deal with cognitive biases that can hinder our decision-making abilities. In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman, we look at a different kind of error: how completely irrelevant information can negatively influence our judgments, making them varied and unpredictable. This variability of human judgment—or noise—is the topic of a new book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman, with Cass Sunstein and Olivier Sibony. You’ll hear an interview with Kahneman later in the episode where he explains his preoccupation with the substantial and expensive effects of noise. He proposes ways to reduce the problem of noise for industries, businesses, and individuals who need to make more objective judgements. But first, we’ll dive into the world of wine judging. G.M. “Pooch” Pucilowski will take you on a guided tour of the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition. You’ll hear about the criteria for judging different varietals—and the accompanying challenges that wine judges face as they swirl, sniff, and sip through dozens and sometimes hundreds of different wines. After years of coordinating and observing the judges, Pooch noticed a large amount of variability in the results. This may not be surprising, since taste is subjective. But after some tweaks to the process, he even began to notice that judges were inconsistent with themselves! Enter vintner and retired oceanographer Robert Hodgson. Pooch teamed up with Hodgson to devise a way to study and improve the consistency of wine judging and push for a more objective competition. The results were promising, but not without controversy. You can read Robert Hodgson’s research paper on wine judging here. G.M. “Pooch” Pucilowski is a speaker, writer, wine judge, and educator. He runs wine appreciation classes through his University of Wine. You’ll also hear about the potential role of chemical analysis and artificial intelligence in improving the results of wine judging from James Hutchinson, formerly of the Royal Society of Chemistry and currently CEO of KiwiNet. And finally, Katy explores the potential of leveraging noise to produce better decisions by employing the wisdom of crowds—and even “the crowd within.”