Notes for Today

• So apparently there's a website called OKCupid. Dating site I guess? Anyway, the site's operators apparently like doing sciencey-type data analysis. This is interesting, but I'm not sure where this knowledge applies outside of online dating. I'm, essentially, thinking this is a courtship display that provides less knowledge to potential mates than virtually any other alternative.
• Humans: Really pretty clever. Artificial glaciers.
• In an AFP story reporting on NASA's finding that the last decade was the warmest ever recorded (so going back to 1880), the authors manage to bring up the completely irrelevant "climate-gate" story. Is that journalism I smell? Or is it bullshit? I'm honestly having a hard time telling.
• My Ph.D. co-advisor David Lodge is quoted in this largely downbeat article about the discovery of carp DNA in Lake Michigan. There have been millions of dollars spent trying to prevent the carp from getting into the Great Lakes (coming up the Mississippi/Illinois River). Although there seems to be some hope by some that this may not indicate live fish are present, David's quote seems telling: "I think there's not another plausible explanation for the presence of DNA that we've found other than that there are live fish in the vicinity." [I hope that sounded better in audio than in print]
• The goofy thing about the invasion of the Great Lakes through the Illinois/Mississippi River Pathway is that it is completely preventable. We maintain that connection for shipping. Sure, the shipping accounts for approximately $1.5 billion and potentially thousands of jobs (my intuition tells me these numbers are inflated, but...), but the sport fishery of the Great Lakes alone (not counting all the various watersheds that would also be subsequently invaded) is a $7 billion dollar industry (and even more jobs) that spans several states and two countries.