If you arrived here by chance, you deserve a word or two of explanations. This is the blog of a real-world person. Like all real world people I am sometimes Serious and sometimes Not so serious, and sometimes too I just let my mind wander and speculate on various subjects.
Latest posts
Be my guest: save the Planet! (1/25/2023) Posted in: Vaguely philosophical Almost 13 years ago I published a post with the title Projects that will (perhaps) save the planet. This was a random collection of ideas1 that could contribute to countering climatic change. The post was then updated at regular intervals with new planet-saving projects as I became aware of them. The fact is we have […]
L’ extraordinaire durabilité du béton romain (1/7/2023) Posted in: Vaguely philosophical Le béton romain (Opus caementicium) et l’ opus reticulatum m’ ont toujours frappé par leur omniprésence à Rome, Ostia antica, Pompei… On cite le Panthéon1 comme exemple de résistance au temps2, mais il y a bien d’ autre structures: les égoûts de Rome, les aqueducs et les insulae d’ Ostia antica, immeubles de plusieurs étages. […]
How many cranes flew over Budapest airport on 4 November 2022 ? (11/15/2022) Posted in: Vaguely philosophical By Marton Bussay (MB) and Wergosum Cranes and their migrations have been around forever. They are associated in our memories with cold and short fall days, but they also bring up thoughts about freedom and the comforting side of cyclic natural phenomena: the Cranes are free birds living their free lives but they are dependable, […]
Was ist los in Oberkail? (11/10/2022) Posted in: Not so serious Un village sans histores de l' Eifel n' est pas si tranquille que ça...
Korneshütte (11/9/2022) Posted in: Serious Nos gyrovagations sur internet ressemblent souvent aux cheminements de la pensée; on sait ce qu’on cherche, mais notre curiosité est mise à rude épreuve lors de notre progression dans la forêt des bifurcations, trifurcations et, osons le mot, multifurcations. Il faut une détermination de fer pour maintenir le cap et se contenter du maigre butin […]
Du nouveau du côté de l’intelligence artificielle et de la multiplication des matrices (10/14/2022) Posted in: Vaguely philosophical Nature, une des journaux Scientifiques les plus consultés, vient de publier un article intéressantissime: grâce à une technique qui est du domaine de l' intelligence artificielle (AI) 13 chercheurs d'un institut de recherche anglais affilié à Google ont trouvé une nouvelle méthode pour multiplier deux matrices.
Wine: who makes it and who drinks it (10/4/2022) Posted in: Serious This post was triggered by a recent visit I made to a posh winery in the posh wine producing region of Barolo, in Piedmont (NW Italy). We were told that most of Barolo wines are exported to the United Sates and that this eventually led producers to tune their Barolo to the American taste, il […]
Refugees (3/24/2021) Posted in: Serious An analysis published by FAO at mid September 20191 lists dry weather and protracted conflicts as the main factors behind the external food assistance required by 41 countries. 31 among them are situated in Africa, mostly north of the Equator, and many contribute to a major flux of climatic and economic migrants and refugees, who […]
Disasters: sources of information and trends (5/4/2019) Posted in: Serious This post gives a list of web-based sources that publish disaster information suitable for monitoring. This implies that the information is provided near real-time, often unverified and mostly very redundant between sources. Some sources also publish analyses and well-documented post factum quantitative analyses. The second half of the post presents some recent summary documents showing […]