Still kind of sloppy on the bike trail yesterday riding home, some people were pushing their bikes through the ice and slop but I rode through it as I’m experienced dealing with this crap. Still I will be glad once all the snow and ice is gone off the bike trail, hopefully today but if not the rain expected tomorrow should help.
I think we are are beyond the worse of winter now. ☀️ Heading up to a very nice 73 degrees by afternoon which should help burn off the rest of the ice on the bike trail. 🚲 And then easy commutes from here on out, though who knows we could get more snow but it’s unlikely to last for long at this point. 🌨️ More blueberry pancakes 🥞 this morning, got more whole-wheat flour, milk, eggs and shaving cream for a rediculous amount of money at Hannaford. Hello inflation.
Yesterdaywas a good day, 💰 got a small COLA adjustment at work, though with inflation it’s not much. Certainly not SuperDuty money! Barely even noticed it on my paycheck, I had to compare it to last check to see if it was real. Stock market losses cost me far more on paper yesterday. It will be interesting to see how much gas will cost this summer, ⛽ I could see inflation eating up that boost in take home pay. I am watching in horror how oil prices are raising the price of everything. Having definate second thoughts about that Michigan trip this year with the certain high cost of gas this summer and just the work load. Maybe I don’t need to get a truck after all. Stay home, stay wealthy. It’s so much more fun to calculate your net worth when the market is up, and when market is down, just not look and be like it’s only on paper.
I was on fence about the Holstein Godzilla 🐲 and watching gas prices sky rocket, ⛽ I decided today I’ll let the dealer know I am probably not interested in it. I really started having second thoughts about the white paint scheme and especially light gray interior seating will show stains quickly, noting how dirty I get my truck, and that FX4 package really isn’t worth it for the puney skid plates. How much are you going to off-road an expensive, ginamorous SuperDuty with a solid front axle anywhere around here? I’ve become less sold on the benefits of the Godzilla if you’re not planning on doing a lot of heavy towing. 🛻 I wanted to close down the deal before the hoards of spring auto shopper eat up auto lots, but I don’t see people racing to buy gasser HD trucks these days with fuel prices and so much rotting inventory out there. 🤷♂️ People say, why is so hard to find a car? Well with passenger cars you have like two trim levels and three colors, but with SuperDuty trucks, the sky, I mean your bank account or finance officer, is the limit. 💰 The gray SuperDuty color is also a no-up charge option, black too but those black trucks are popular, hot in summer, and usually get a premium price.
It’s going to be a great ride in but I hate how the snow and ice is so punishing on the bike. 🚲 After work, I’ll probably ride straight out to Five Rivers 🐸 and read until dusk or do a bit of a hike. You know the Fisher Boulevard part of the preserve, right off the Rail Trail. Then head home and have dinner. Been enjoying all those pinto beans, rice, and veggies for a bit of a change. The pinto beans I cooked up the other day with a bit chewy, so I ended up just putting more water in the pot and boiling them another half hour and making them good and soft. Then it’s on to another day. I got to start calling dealers again and getting prices, though without a car, it’s going to have to be an internet deal, 🤝 though I wish I could kind of see the truck before I buy it, but it’s silly as I test drove a SuperDuty and any long-bed supercab will be pretty similar. But who knows with gas prices what they are likely to be soon, if it is going to be little more then an expensive driveway ornament. But don’t you just want a plastic house in suburbs and 25-year old Honda Civic?
New research has found that scientists studying sea-level rise have been using methods that underestimate how high the water already is. One result is that hundreds of millions more people worldwide are already living dangerously close to the rising ocean than Western scientists had previously estimated.
The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, has found that the vast majority of scientific studies have made this mistake. Coastal sea levels are, on average, eight inches to a foot higher than many maps and models of the world’s coastlines indicate, the research found.
R remains my favorite program language. It also is a favorite of many programmers, especially in the data-analysis and processing and academia. It remains a highly popular programming language for data science, statistics, and visualization, experiencing a resurgence in 2025 by returning to the TIOBE index top 10. It also is number four now on PYPL. It thrives in academia and research-driven industries, with strong adoption in bioinformatics, finance, and data analytics, despite facing competition from Python.
PyPL March 2026
Rank
Change
Language
Share
1-year trend
1
Python
34.87 %
+4.4 %
2
C/C++
13.66 %
+6.6 %
3
Java
9.82 %
-5.4 %
4
R
6.49 %
+1.9 %
5
JavaScript
4.9 %
-3.2 %
6
Swift
3.5 %
+1.1 %
7
Rust
3.08 %
-0.0 %
8
C#
3.03 %
-3.1 %
9
PHP
2.9 %
-0.8 %
10
Ada
2.66 %
+1.3 %
TIOBE Index March 2026
Mar 2026
Mar 2025
Change
Programming Language
Ratings
Change
1
1
Python
21.25%
-2.59%
2
4
C
11.55%
+2.02%
3
2
C++
8.18%
-2.90%
4
3
Java
7.99%
-2.37%
5
5
C#
6.36%
+1.49%
6
6
JavaScript
3.45%
-0.01%
7
9
Visual Basic
2.50%
-0.02%
8
8
SQL
2.00%
-0.57%
9
16
R
1.88%
+0.94%
10
10
Delphi/Object Pascal
1.80%
-0.36%
Key Popularity Trends (2025-2026):
Rankings: As of late 2025, R has returned to the top 10 in the TIOBE Index, which measures popularity based on search engine results.
Use Cases: R is widely considered a leading language for advanced statistical analysis, data visualization, and research, often favored for its specialized, comprehensive packages (e.g., Tidyverse, Shiny).
Industry Niche: It is highly popular in data-intensive fields like bioinformatics, genomics, and financial technology (FinTech) for risk management.
Vs. Python: While Python is generally more popular for large-scale production, R is often preferred for exploratory data analysis (EDA) and rapid, specialized analysis.
Community: R has a strong, dedicated user base in academia, though it is sometimes criticized by traditional software engineers for limited scalability.
R’s resurgence suggests it remains an indispensable, powerful tool for domain experts in data-driven fields.
With gas prices going up, I’ve been thinking more about the fuel costs of a big ol’ SuperDuty gasser truck. It seems like the internet consensus is you’ll get around 15½ miles per gallon, though much lower if idle, off-road or drive in the city a lot, as big block pushrod engines guzzle gas doing all of those things due to pumping loses in the engine. Highway driving, moderately gets you maybe 17 or maybe up 19 miles per gallon depending on terrain and how easy you are on the gas pedal.
As the slogan goes, “Smiles Per Gallon, Not Miles Per Gallon” as I saw on one of SuperDuty groups I’m part of on Facebook which either reminds me of every single problem that can go wrong on a big Ford and how truly bad gas millage some people are getting. Plus some people who actually love their trucks. Driving an ginormous SuperDuty ain’t going to be much fun in the city, with parking and getting through traffic with the blind spots, but I mostly plan to use it on trips out on the open road.
Americans with their EPA-style fuel economy comparison unit, the miles per gallon, doesn’t tell you much. You bought ten gallons of fuel. You can go 155 miles. But nobody plans their lives around how far they can go on 10 gallons or even one gallon of fuel. They want to know how much fuel their truck is going to use for their 100 mile trip. At 15½ MPG that works out to be 6.5 gallons of fuel per 100 miles.
If gas costs …
$3 a gallon, then it’s $19.50 per hundred miles
$4 a gallon, then it’s $26 per hundred miles
$5 a gallon, then it’s $32.50 per hundred miles
$6 a gallon, then it’s $43 per hundred miles
If you’re focusing on smiles per gallon, namely how much it costs to drive an hour at 45 mph …
$3 a gallon, its $8.78 per hour
$4 a gallon, its $11.70 per hour
$5 a gallon, it’s $14.75 per hour
$6 a gallon, it’s a $17.70 per hour
Obviously, $6 a gallon gas is twice as expensive as $3 gallon. For a recreational trip, by definition, the trip is optional, so it’s pretty easy to calculate the likely fuel cost of any trip. So you have a set cost, and you can fit it into your budget, or not take the trip. Paying for gas for recreational driving isn’t mandatory if you don’t take trip.
Maybe these days that I make good money and are pretty frugal in most parts of my life, I am less concerned about the cost of gas. Or when i break down the cost per hundred miles of intentional driving to a recreational destination it shows what a trifling number it is. Obviously, if I was planning to drive 10,000 miles a year, it does add up at $6 gallon – a fairly steep $4,300 – but I don’t plan to do that many miles anytime soon, using my bike and city bus mostly around town. I think last year I barely put 6,000 miles on Big Red. I also doubt such high gas prices are sustainable for long, as people, myself included refrain from driving.
I know I am making excuses in my own mind for the ginormous truck that gets bad gas mileage as gas prices soar as the Middle East blows up. Still, numbers seems more reasonable when I keep it in context.
