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| Mon Oct 12 21:10:41 2009 The 2009-2010 Winter Forecast |
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| Mon Oct 5 23:08:30 2009 My Charitable Giving |
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| Thu May 21 23:02:43 2009 Fighting Traffic |
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| Mon Oct 12 21:10:41 2009 The 2009-2010 Winter Forecast How much snow will be in the Cascades this winter? |
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| Should I buy a season pass to
Mt Baker this year?
Actually, I probably will. I haven't the past two years, and in each year it was almost worth buying one. I figure if I get a season's pass, I'll go a few more times, and then it will have paid for itself. But the bigger question is: is it stupid to buy a season's pass this year? After all, it is an El Nino winter, which typically means warmer, drier weather in the Pacific Northwest. And that means less snow. So for once, I decided to really research the 2009-2010 winter forecasts. What do the experts predict? Greg Simmon's forecast is dire: "a warmer and somewhat dry weather pattern is expected from the Pacific Northwest..." And he adds:
Well, shoot! I mean, I love hydro sources as much as the next guy, but we need snow! Then, Accuweather released a map of the expected precipitation (at left). Not good! The best resource is probably the National Weather Service, which has very detailed forecast temperature and precipitation maps for each month. The bottom line? We're screwed. Everyone predicts a dry winter. It might get better in April! So look for great spring skiing. Well, that's the prediction. How have they done the past few years? Here's the table I compiled. Mt Baker's average annual snowfall is 647 inches, according to their website. I figured a season was average if it was 600-700 inches of snowfall (which is a lot of snow, by the way...). Of course, as the Mt Baker ski area loves to tell you, they had the world record snowfall of 1140 inches in the 1998-1999 winter. That was the winter I learned to snowboard (not at Mt Baker, sadly), and I have to say: there was a crazy amount of snow that year.
So what does that say? It says that NOAA gets it right more often than a random guess (44% instead of 33%). But more scarily, the past two El Nino winters have been very dry. So, based on that, I'd guess this will be a very poor year, with less than 450 inches of snow! I say that because it has been incredibly dry so far this summer and fall. However, last year there was "only" 548 inches of snow, and I thought it was great. And hey: maybe this means that, during the 2009-2010 Winter Season at Mt Baker, every day will be like spring skiing! Comments |
Related: economics > environment < predictions Unrelated: books energy geopolitics lists mathematics science |
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| Mon Oct 5 23:08:30 2009 My Charitable Giving How I give... |
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| I was catching up on finances last night, and realized I was behind
schedule on my charitable giving (I promised myself to give every
month). Furthermore, I had lost track of who I was giving to so I
had to go back over the past year of donations and see what charity
I was supposed to give to next.
I'd been meaning to reorganize my charitable giving for a while, so now I went ahead and did it. Why reorganize? Because, with these economic times, I've seen more people out on the streets asking for money. You should never give money to pahhandlers, because many are scams, and even for those that aren't, if you give them money you are encouraging them to panhandle instead of working with local charities themselves to get themselves off the street. If you really think someone needs help, give them food instead (I tried that once and was rejected--the panhandler just wanted money!). But not giving money to panhandlers is only acceptable (to me) if I'm sure I am giving money to charities that will help people that really need it. But I realized that all of the charities I was giving to were political, so I wasn't actually giving a dime to charities that were helping people in need. So, as I said, it was time to reorganize. I went through and made sure I was giving to the organizations that I thought deserved or needed the most, and tried to make sure I had a good balance between political causes important to me and just generally helping people in need. When I was done I still felt like I was short-changing one charity, so I decided to give double in December. So here is my new allocation. There are 10 charities that I give to, three of them twice a year. It breaks down as:
How much do I give? Many years ago I started giving just $40 a month (I think that was it), and then every New Year one of my resolutions was to increase how much I was giving. Now I give enough that I watch who I'm giving to pretty carefully. But for a long time I didn't give anything, because I didn't think I could afford to. Now that I can, I feel like I should. I don't think how much is given matters that much--and donating time is usually better than donating money anyway! The important thing is to give. Comments |
Related: economics > environment < Unrelated: books energy geopolitics lists mathematics predictions science |
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| Thu May 21 23:02:43 2009 Fighting Traffic Why do cities persist with bad solutions? |
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| I often think about traffic. Usually because I'm stuck in it.
I have a short but sometimes brutal commute to and from work. Typically it is 20 minutes, but occasionally I'll get stuck in stop-and-go traffic on the Interstate. And on the weekend I sometimes have to drive long distances, and again I'll run into traffic jams. Traffic isn't exactly a recent phenomenon. Julius Caeasar once banned carts during daylight in Rome because of the severe traffic. Today we have other methods of attempting to control or reduce traffic. There are HOV lanes, express lanes, and other ideas such as stoplights at on-ramps, and road pricing. I've found HOV lanes the most frustrating. Of course, I'm usually driving alone, so I could just be jealous. But I find that they are underused when there is very little traffic, so that most of the time they just reduce road capacity without adding any benefit. And when traffic does pick up, the HOV lanes are usually just as clogged as any other lane. There may be times when the HOV lanes are moving and other lanes aren't, but I rarely see that. Which means that most of the time, HOV lanes are ineffectual, and maybe cause more congestion than they relieve. It's possible that relieving congestion isn't the point. Perhaps HOV lanes are known to cause additional congestion, but are meant to reward carpoolers? But then I don't understand the motivation. It seems like we should only care about two things:
Express lanes seem to actually work. They add capacity to the highway when needed. And they are reasonably efficient, since cities can build for asymmetric traffic (rush hour in the morning is usually a different direction than rush hour in the evening). Stoplights at onramps also seem to work. You end up with traffic flowing smoothly into the interstate, instead of getting surges of cars that can then cause backups on the Interstate. When driving long distances, I definitely notice that unmetered onramps can cause a larger interruption to other drivers. Best of all, in my opinion, is road pricing. With road pricing, people pay money when they are in a traffic jam. (Or, depending on the city, they pay money if they are likely to be in a traffic jam, given when and where they are driving). Especially in the next few years, as we get to cars that will be more aware of other traffic in the city, the ability to charge people that are in congested areas will do the most to motivate people to change their habits, or think a bit further ahead before driving into congested areas. I've seen some arguments that road pricing isn't fair because it charges everyone the same rate. But that's just a problem with the pricing, not road pricing in general. A city could always charge based on the price of the car, for instance. Beyond traffic flow, the best fix for congestion is urban planning. I think urban planning is a misunderstood art. Central planning at large scales doesn't work--just ask the former Communist states. But by using game theory and more general economic strategies, urban planners can influence a complex system such as a city so that it optimizes for less congestion and emissions, without planning every last road. Comments |
Related: economics energy > environment < Unrelated: books geopolitics lists mathematics predictions science |
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