Day: June 24, 2022💾

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Fewer trips planned this summer ⛺

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Fewer trips planned this summer ⛺

This summer I have significantly fewer trips planned for several reasons:

  • Gas prices and inflation make traveling a lot more expensive with my Big Jacked Up Truck – to say nothing of rising food and beer prices.
  • I’m trying to cut expenses and put away more money, especially with the stock market down, so I have more ability to grow my savings and buy land eventually.
  • Work demands, as a Deputy Director means I’m a lot more busy and need to be available especially as we head into the busy fall season.
  • I do too much hard drinking, eating unhealthy foods and laying around in the sun when camping and it’s much healthier to stay home and walk out to Five Rivers.
  • I’m trying to save miles on Big Red so I can get a few more years out of him.

I didn’t get out of town at all in May and only one trip in April. Burnt Rossman and the Mine Kill State Park pool and other Schoharie attractions aren’t that far but with gas prices these days even that ain’t cheap.

But here is what I’m thinking summer/autumn will look like for me:

  • Mid July – Piseco-Powley and the Potholers when actually hot out
  • Late July / Early August – Finger Lakes National Forest and state parks but maybe not every day on vacation due to gas prices and inflation
  • Late August – Piseco Powley, some hiking. Unless I have to remote work on that vacation, then maybe Spectulator – Mason Lake or Old Route 8B if repaired
  • September – not sure if I will get away
  • October – Stoney Pond, Cazenovia
  • November – Maybe an autumn trip after Election Day but probably not with gas prices. Maybe something shorter close to home. Not sure if I’ll hunt this fall

Camp

Why the Father of Modern Statistics Didn’t Believe Smoking Caused Cancer – Priceonomics

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Why the Father of Modern Statistics Didn’t Believe Smoking Caused Cancer – Priceonomics

In the summer of 1957, Ronald Fisher, one of the fathers of modern statistics, sat down to write a strongly worded letter in defense of tobacco.

The letter was addressed to the British Medical Journal, which, just a few weeks earlier, had taken the editorial position that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer. According to the journal’s editorial board, the time for amassing evidence and analyzing data was over. Now, they wrote, “all the modern devices of publicity” should be used to inform the public about the perils of tobacco.

According to Fisher, this was nothing short of statistically illiterate fear mongering. Surely the danger posed to the smoking masses was “not the mild and soothing weed,” he wrote, “but the organized creation of states of frantic alarm.”

Fisher was a well-known hothead (and an inveterate pipe smoker), but the letter and the resulting debate, which lasted until his death in 1962, was taken as a serious critique by the scientific community. After all, Ronald A. Fisher had spent much of his career devising ways to mathematically evaluate causal claims—claims exactly like the one that the British Medical Journal was making about smoking and cancer. Along the way, he had revolutionized the way that biological scientists conduct experiments and analyze data.

And yet we know how this debate ends. On one of the most significant public health questions of the 20th century, Fisher got it wrong.
Thematic Map: Troy vs Manhattan - A Size Comparison

Cortland, Broome counties watching water sources after tractor spills contents on Route 81 | WSTM

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Cortland, Broome counties watching water sources after tractor spills contents on Route 81 | WSTM

CORTLAND COUNTY, N.Y. — The Cortland County Health Department, Broome County, and Village of Marathon were all notified Thursday to monitor their water sources after an overturned tractor-trailer on the Route 81 Northbound overpass spilled its contents into the roadway and into Tioughnioga River Wednesday night.

When Cortland Fire crews arrived on the scene near Yaman Park around 7:30 p.m., they found that three containers had been thrown from the wreckage into the Tioughnioga River.

Crews say they began to identify and contain the cargo while the driver was evaluated for his injuries and his dog was rescued from the wreckage.

The substances spilled by the tractor-trailer were found to be oil-based herbicides and a surfactant, which is used to help the herbicides spread and stick to surfaces.