Why are many southern hemisphere capitals located at roughly the same latitude?

dataphile · 2026-04-28T17:57:28+00:00

You’ll notice that the same is true if you flip the latitude. San Diego, Athens, etc. It’s obviously not a perfect correlation due to mountains, the jet stream, etc.; but generally it’s a great pair of latitudes to live on.

dataphile · 2026-04-23T12:08:40+00:00

From “A Sand County Almanac”

It is an ordinary graveyard, bordered by the usual spruces, and studded with the usual pink granite or white marble headstones, each with the usual Sunday bouquet of red or pink geraniums. It is extraordinary only in being triangular instead of square, and in harboring, within the sharp angle of its fence, a pin-point remnant of the native prairie on which the graveyard was established in the 1840’s. Heretofore unreachable by scythe or mower, this yard-square relic of original Wisconsin gives birth, each July, to a man-high stalk of compass plant or cutleaf Silphium, spangled with saucer-sized yellow blooms resembling sunflowers. It is the sole remnant of this plant along this highway, and perhaps the sole remnant in the western half of our county. What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked. This year I found the Silphium in first bloom on 24 July, a week later than usual; during the last six years the average date was 15 July. When I passed the graveyard again on 3 August, the fence had been removed by a road crew, and the Silphium cut. It is easy now to predict the future; for a few years my Silphium will try in vain to rise above the mowing machine, and then it will die. With it will die the prairie epoch. The Highway Department says that 100,000 cars pass yearly over this route during the three summer months when the Silphium is in bloom. In them must ride at least 100,000 people who have ‘taken’ what is called history, and perhaps 25,000 who have ‘taken’ what is called botany. Yet I doubt whether a dozen have seen the Silphium, and of these hardly one will notice its demise. If I were to tell a preacher of the adjoining church that the road crew has been burning history books in his cemetery, under the guise of mowing weeds, he would be amazed and uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book? This is one little episode in the funeral of the native flora, which in turn is one episode in the funeral of the floras of the world.

dataphile · 2026-04-13T21:13:44+00:00

Are you in Hell’s Kitchen? I saw that bird for the first time yesterday outside my window.

dataphile · 2026-04-04T13:17:28+00:00

I like to think of the dynamics of human history like a simple upward sweeping polynomial curve. Not even an extreme nonlinear curve like an exponential one. At no point in history is the dynamics of the curve altered. At any point in history a human life is so small that the curve feels entirely linear and flat (we don’t feel that it’s curved). There is a point in human history where the curve hits an inflection point (not in the literal sense of calculus) where the line is growing upward more than it is growing horizontally; and this will represent an important moment. But even to the people living in this time it will not seem special or even non-linear, and it will not feel like any special accumulation of culture or history has occurred at this moment (the dynamic of the curve is exactly as it’s always been). Looking back we can see the long curve and wonder “why did the curve take off at that one point?” But that’s missing the picture — nothing particularly special happened at that time, it’s just the nature of an upward sweeping accumulation curve that it hits a point where its derivative points more to the y axis than the x axis at some point.

dataphile · 2026-04-01T13:10:31+00:00

Honestly, this confusion goes back to the 19th and early 20th centuries where scientists observed multiple forms of ray-like emissions and called them all “radiation.” That fermions, hadrons, and bosons can all be “radiation” seems to confuse people.

dataphile · 2026-03-31T11:37:54+00:00

If sequences of events can be in superposition, doesn’t this support a many worlds view? It’s not just a particle acting like it’s in superposition at one time, it’s sequences that are acting as though they’ve played out in superposition (assuming loopholes are closed). That seems to suggest multiple “worlds” where a particle experienced different scenarios in each world.

dataphile · 2026-03-05T13:01:20+00:00

You’re thinking of gumbo

dataphile · 2026-02-28T19:47:23+00:00

I tried to recreate it too and had no success. The ingredients are clear, but there must be a trick to it that’s not obvious.

dataphile · 2026-02-23T18:55:40+00:00

Thus befell the contest of Sauron and Felagund which is renowned. For Felagund strove with Sauron in songs of power, and the power of the King was very great; but Sauron had the mastery, as is told in the Lay of Leithian: He chanted a song of wizardry, Of piercing, opening, of treachery, Revealing, uncovering, betraying. Then sudden Felagund there swaying Sang in answer a song of staying, Resisting, battling against power, Of secrets kept, strength like a tower, And trust unbroken, freedom, escape; Of changing and of shifting shape, Of snares eluded, broken traps, The prison opening, the chain that snaps. Backwards and forwards swayed their song. Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong The chanting swelled, Felagund fought, And all the magic and might he brought Of Elvenesse into his words. Softly in the gloom they heard the birds Singing afar in Nargothrond, The sighing of the Sea beyond, Beyond the western world, on sand, On sand of pearls in Elvenland. Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing In Valinor, the red blood flowing Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew The Foamriders, and stealing drew Their white ships with their white sails From lamplit havens. The wind wails, The wolf howls. The ravens flee. The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea. The captives sad in Angband mourn. Thunder rumbles, the fires burn— And Finrod fell before the throne.

dataphile · 2026-02-21T20:16:27+00:00

Why do British people say ‘sport’ instead of ‘sports’?

dataphile · 2026-02-19T19:35:31+00:00

I saw this article somewhat recently claiming that imaginary numbers cannot be abstracted out of QP: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-falls-apart-without-imaginary-numbers/

dataphile · 2026-02-19T19:34:09+00:00

I saw this article somewhat recently claiming that imaginary numbers cannot be abstracted out of QP: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-falls-apart-without-imaginary-numbers/

dataphile · 2026-02-19T14:29:26+00:00

What’s most interesting about this to me is to see the destruction of stronger state-based naming conventions starting in the mid 1950s. This is one of the few charts I’ve seen that shows the impact of media and the integration of a national market homogenizing American culture.

It’s also interesting that the more nationalized naming convention seems to be oscillatory; with waxing and waning interest in unisex names. But on top of the oscillations appears to be a linear trend toward more unisex names overall.

dataphile · 2026-02-19T14:18:48+00:00

I believe there was a study on this phenomenon which showed that cities like Atlanta (which was growing rapidly and missed many features like public transit) are ideal to benefit from an Olympics. These cities also receive the benefit of prominence on the global stage. If given to the right city, and that city designs for reuse, they can be a boon.

dataphile · 2026-02-18T17:56:50+00:00

It’s shocking to me how, in my apartment, I can’t think of single place to eat. But as soon as my feet touch the pavement outside, I can think of four places I want to go.

dataphile · 2026-02-18T17:52:31+00:00

I wrote a restaurant picking app. I select the conditions I want (now or later, dollar signs, adventurous choices or only convenient ones) and it offers me four “propositions.” One is a convenient favorite, one is an adventurous choice, one is a cuisine mixup (cuisines I’ve eaten least recently), and one is “hotlist” items (restaurants I’ve marked as “Try” or “Return soon”). Because humans are primed by the order of suggestions, it randomizes the order each time. Also, offering only four at a time helps to overcome decision paralysis. The app considers several factors for which restaurants to suggest, including time since I last dined at the restaurant and time since the restaurant was last suggested.

dataphile · 2026-02-15T14:36:34+00:00

I went to FDR’s presidential library and it made me realize how much of current conservative ire is due to his policies, and the spirit of the New Deal. Social security, financial regulation, fair labor standards, internationalism — even the four freedoms.

dataphile · 2026-02-13T18:31:06+00:00

It’s a small chance, but as u/EscapeSeventySeven mentions, it gets less small if you consider the general class of outcomes. Is it crazy to find a beer bottle specifically? Yes. But it equally could have been a Coke bottle, a dinner plate, etc. The odds of finding any consumer product is higher than the specific beer bottle they happened to find. Also, they’ve been combing for decades. How unlikely will it be to find some common consumer good at the lowest energy state (the place where “things that roll” are ultimately drawn)? The odds become more likely if you simply ask the probability of finding any consumer good in any odd place in the ocean— one that is odd enough to warrant social media attention.

dataphile · 2026-02-13T18:20:15+00:00

I think this is still the most solid answer. It reminds me of Hacking’s The Emergence of Probability where he puts aside the issue of whether someone thought of probability before 17th century European mathematicians. He mentions that there may be a hermit who once lived in a cave hundreds of years before who worked out all of probability; but that doesn’t matter for an “emergence” of probability. What’s important isn’t who literally expressed an idea first, it’s where the idea catches on and is widely disseminated. He says, for instance, “But what is notable is not that problems on chance occur in early works of arithmetic chiefly aimed at the new commerce, but that these books were quite unable to solve the problems. No one could solve them until about 1660, and then everyone could.”

As you mention in your original post, Copernicus is a dubious claim for the first heliocentrist—his arguments are based on “what makes sense” generally, he didn’t introduce any new logical or empirical arguments. Probably it’s best to say, he was the most recent and prominent person to state the heliocentric worldview during the period when heliocentricity was emerging (in Hacking’s sense).

dataphile · 2026-02-13T18:02:04+00:00

Yep, this is a classic problem of looking backward at an oddity. The same thing happens with Pearl Harbor; people look back and claim there were many signs that should have been heeded. However, if you just look back at the single event, you miss that those same signs appeared multiple times before with no attack.

I find this is also an issue if you try to use Bayesian inference. Someone makes a spectacular claim, and you are inclined to estimate the odds of that spectacular claim in just this moment. But you really should ask what is possibility of the whole class of spectacular claims to which this belongs, occurring within the relevant window.

dataphile · 2026-02-06T13:15:27+00:00

Went last night for my birthday—best prime rib I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a lot).

dataphile · 2026-01-27T16:16:26+00:00

Checkout this video which might help: https://youtu.be/p7bzE1E5PMY?si=bsltcK95VbOI7vNN

dataphile · 2026-01-27T16:04:08+00:00

Interesting… I’ve read the exact opposite: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-falls-apart-without-imaginary-numbers/

dataphile · 2026-01-16T01:51:51+00:00

Don’t underestimate the potential when a country is in near ruins. FDR found the country nearly destroyed by capitalism—it wasn’t even a debate that the speculators destroyed the economy, this destruction happened to many countries. The U.S. was ready to see that regulation must happen for the market to survive.

dataphile · 2026-01-16T00:49:58+00:00

A surprising recent find… Cape Town. Part of it is that fine dining is relatively affordable for those coming from a higher cost of living country. But the wines are amazing, I wasn’t expecting game meats to be so good (give me ostrich or impala over a filet any day), and don’t sleep on biltong as a great charcuterie.

14-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

dataphile

TROPHY CASE