Did anyone find five dollars?

Pokey did, but he couldn't pick it up what with the swollen hand and all.

Did he have what looked like hives on his hands?

(because cold urticaria)

I get cold uticaria sometimes (and did more as a kid) and it does/did not always manifest as individual hives -- just itchy itchy swole up hands or feet.

|| Oh, thanks, UA, for unilaterally deciding that a ticket for a then-would-be 2yo, purchased and upgraded in October, should today be changed to a lap-style ticket and the once-assigned seat made available for purchase. Step the fuck off. [It's all fixed now, but that was some serious bullshit.] |>

6: That's ridiculous! I'm glad you got it straightened out.

Heebie, how did camping go otherwise? Was it difficult to prepare? Were the students appreciative?

Quick: what gross act is a "cold hand pokey"? Go!

9. Attempting to give a wedgie to somebody who, unbeknownst to you, is wearing no underwear.

9: Fisting with the hand of a corpse.

||

I am extremely nervous that I am going to permanently alienate a lovely woman I know from college. She posted some forward on FB about the "debt crisis" and I gave a simple argument that there is no such thing. One of her friends said "Wow- total failure to grasp basic economics - you've just seen it here folks!" and I am really, really tempted to tear him a new one. I've already posted a link to Jamelle Bouie on how debt reduction is hurting the economy and a generic rant on how "econ 101" is naked the self interest of the ruling class disguised as science. But I want to do more. I want to link to stories about the various fake-Nobel prize winners in economics involved with fraudulent Wall Street firms and the time Larry Summers did a 180 on his public stance on an important issue in exchange for cold hard cash. I want to link to most of Yves Smith's site.

But I am worried this venting will cost me a day of work and a FB friend, and not actually solve the widespread problem of people being wrong on the internet.

|>

||

Now he's talking about his "actual degree in economics."

|>

12: Go for it! This could be the tipping point!

13: Tell him that Paul Krugman is very impressed.

12: Ha! I saw that and thought "Gee, that's super wrong!" The person in question is smart and not-an-asshole and I guarantee you that she will not get angry. But now I want to say mean shit to her friend.

Sending one another to hell on a fine Tuesday morning, like you high and mighty Facebook aristocrats do nowadays, isn't my idea of arguing vital questions. Such muck-slinging wouldn't have been considered argument in the old days, when there were great deeds and glorious doings, and mighty men of famous valor walked the earth, men who challenged one another to single combat, or summoned their followers and fought in great armies until the corpses of the slain lay heaped higher than the tops of the hills.

(Seriously. Mr Actual Degree has made no arguments himself. Just told everyone to see some movie and said shitty stuff to Rob for posting a link to JB.)

13. Ask him what he thinks Mark Thoma got his degree in and send him here.

12/13/all my students/the world are why I hide out in math and on Unfogged. I cannot handle talking to people.

He didn't have hives, but cold urticaria is a better explanation than anything I was able to come up with.

oh hai and pause play my regressed generation. I have written an erotic Christian romance about a guitar playing man.

H-G you are so wonderfully silly I can't stand it.

I like 19 without the hyperlink, as in send him to this comment thread and we'll tear him a new one with you and then give him a Cold Hand Pokey.

You've seen it here folks

This is the problem. A fantasy of talking to an audience instead of to other individuals is an obstacle to communication.

In the cases where people do actually talk to each other about something substantive in front of others, there are conventions that govern scope and courtesy. The guy's imitating television or something.

Thanks, text. You're kind of surreal and performance arty at the moment.

sorry, I get that way.

A rock and roll star fights demons with the power of Jesus and has many erotic experiences

text -- am I guessing correctly that you decided to sell out and write something commercial, but you couldn't decide on a genre?

Sorry text, that story has already been told in movie form.

Rob is going to smack me. That is all.

In my experience, you can almost never convince anybody on the internet that they are wrong about something, especially through a crap medium like Facebook. When you argue aggressively on any given topic, people get defensive and it only strengthens their conviction.

I think a better approach is to introduce a simple, basic statement of fact, and then to just let it go. The idea is not to convince, but just to put the alternate view on someone's radar. You want to pop the bubble that makes someone think "this is so obvious and every reasonable person agrees."

If you instead present yourself as a reasonable person, with a reasonable argument, who does not agree, you can defy all the crazy stereotypes that the person has of the other side. This - the very act of existing and being regarded as a reasonable liberal - is undermining to the right-wing world view.

Heebie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilblain

That's what immediately springs to mind.

I've had my understanding of things changed by arguments on the internet, but never once they turn into name-calling. I think it's worth doing what Rob did because the audience may be swayed even if the immediate interlocutor is not.

28: I can't stop reading this as describing an ordinary rock 'n' roller fighting Jesus-powered demons, instead of the way it was clearly intended (with our hero weaponizing Jesus).

I think I sold out at age nine, if by sell-out you mean "blatantly seek attention." This is just the latest.

Arrogance is assuming your insight is not shared by many others, joy.

The main fact that keeps me from worrying about the debt level is that bond yields are really low. The points about structural problems (which are a separate concern) or particular finance people being greedy or weak don't address the claim.

So who wants to write a review? Can it be on the main page, H G? Neb?

I'm with 17. Arm up & get some 30 round mags, or take a nap. Arguing on Facebook is a total waste of time.

Increasingly I'm inclined to go with the 'call them an arsehole and leave it at that' approach.

The case for borrowing seems to assume that this is a temporary downturn that we need to smooth out to reduce misery and perhaps fight some hypothetical hysteresis effects. Is there any evidence it's temporary, rather than the latest manifestation of some decades-long economic trends?

Opinionated Bjartur has been making me happy all morning!

Also, I hate to discourage anyone from Larry Summers bashing, but I think he's on your side, rob.

Next, I will begin inviting you all to join Mafia Wars.

I was in an Emersonian "economists are whores" high dudgeon. It's not a very productive mind-frame. I'm better now.

I worry about the debt level, but I was worried about it 10 years ago, when the people screaming about it now were all talking about the importance of war and tax cuts.

Right now, I'm more concerned about unemployment, and I think the only realistic way to tackle the debt is a combination of growth and monetary debasement. Meanwhile, on the other side, the plan seams to be austerity and the gold standard.

There's a proxy battle afoot for control of the nation's only platinum mine.

I think I sold out at age nine, if by sell-out you mean "blatantly seek attention."

So, you were a quiet baby?

Is there any evidence it's temporary, rather than the latest manifestation of some decades-long economic trends?

I think Krug uses diffusion, general unemployment in many different sectors rather than just say construction, to show it is a demand-driven recession. Among other things.

Some Marxists claim a declining rate of profit over the last thirty plus years, accelerating in the last decade. I can link to data an analysis, even from yesterday, but I don't quite get it. This is in direct opposition to the demand Keynesians.

Thirdly, inequality. I am sometimes a Neo-Kaleckian, and believe growth is directly connected to wage share. This again is opposed to both the Keynesians and declining profit Marxians.

Here is Michael Roberts a leading rate of profit-decline guys, on Italy and the elections

And Another arguing against the Keynesians, helicopter money, and against public investment and gov't financed consumption. Not that such isn't nice, but Roberts says it won't work.

Pretty deep weeds, but he is an active blogger, so plenty of chances to learn.

I have his book still to read, but right now trying to make sense of emergence from genetic algorithms an neural-net simulations. Fuck me, but this will help me understand Chobits.

And lastly, I hate this debt shit myself.

Don't borrow from the rich fucks and pay them interest and give them power. That is for closet plutocrat capitalists like Krugman and DeLong. New Keynesians.

Take all their stuff.

||

I just lost a faculty committee election for which I was the only candidate who has been to *any* of the group's meetings this year (I have been to all of them), including the meeting at which the vote was taken. None of the other candidates even know they've been nominated, or even named as potential candidates. Congratulations, two new board members! I'm sure you'll do really hard work for this committee!

/wtf

|>

48: no, I was extremely subtle though.

Sorry, Prez Prof. That sounds incredibly frustrating.

The convening professor took me aside later to say that maybe they could make another spot on the board for an extra appointment, in case the elected people decide not to do the work and just put the title on their CVs. Oh good! So I'll get to do all their work without the elected title? Fantastic.

I am very quickly learning that all leadership positions go to those least likely to do the job.

52. Well, that's a shitty feeling. Open problems better than hidden ones?

A presidential professor is presumably Woodrow Wilson.

I suppose that the absentee candidates are endorsed either because they wield terrifying seniority that nobody dare defy or because they are supported by factions based on departments or suchlike which have a majority on the committee as presently constituted.

Either way, if the work of this body is remotely important, such outcomes exemplify the principle that small working groups should never be allowed to recruit their own members; they should be elected by a broader constituency that's less subject to these kinds of pressure.

Oliver Cromwell understood this.

I think I made the mistake recently of recommending a speaker who will be visiting, who would be great, and also free because she's visiting me, but is an internationally-desired speaker on her topic, which is really big for students here. The convening professor told me she'd love to invite this person to speak, but no one on the elected board will respond to her email about it, so I guess it's probably not going to happen. And now everyone on the board thinks I'm some sort of try-hard who needs to be put down because I actually care about hosting stimulating events.

I'm getting this out of my system before going to teach this afternoon. Sorry for bitching.

52: is there any chance that this just means less work for you? Is it an especially noble and important committee?

59: Sure, it's less work not to do it. I have the bizarre problem that I actually want more work. Please, please please give me some more work, and why not something that I think is important?

So much for pseudonymity, as it if were a mystery.

And now everyone on the board thinks I'm some sort of try-hard who needs to be put down because I actually care about hosting stimulating events.

Trying and caring! Truly, the unforgivable sins!

So, wait, this is a board that does nothing and avoids responsibility, but has a title?

If that's right, let them keep the title, and see if you can use the relevant money as a formal subprogram or something, but with a completely different title.

And now everyone on the board thinks I'm some sort of try-hard who needs to be put down because I actually care about hosting stimulating events.

Or you are newer and just have less name recognition? Or there is a general sense that the role/responsibility properly goes to more senior people?

I've been told in no uncertain terms to steer clear of all extradepartmental committee activity while untenured (because I am supposed to be concentrating on other stuff), so that's a factor too. There's a general sense that winning such elections is not exactly a win for the person in question.

Yeah, but I'm not tenure-track, so no one actually gives a shit about my career.

I think it's probably just that you're newer, less name recognition (been there a whole semester and a bit now?), and you're not t-t. Everywhere I've worked the non t-t typically don't get committee assignments, because the t-t need them for tenure.

Service is less portable than teaching, so to be honest, I wouldn't sweat it (no one will give a flying fart at your next job that you were on the committee vs. just organizing a prestigious talk), but also: fuck doing the work if you're not getting the recognition or the title. Protect your time!

The point is, it was an insulting conversation. I say I'm interested, I have several years of experience doing similar work, I enjoy it, and it's important to me. It would also (I didn't add) fill some dead time, help me make connections with other people around the school, make a nice line on my own CV for when I have to leave, etc.

They write my name up on the board, by itself, and then people start naming people who have never attended a single meeting of the group and saying, "Oh, let's elect him. I bet he'd do it, maybe. If not we'll have another election." "Wait, should we try to elect people who know what the group is?" "Nah, we do this all the time." Other names included other brand-new faculty who have never expressed any interest in our so-called interest group.

Honestly, I think it's just a culture of not-it-ism. If you volunteer or express actual interest in a task, you have just made yourself seem like the worst possible person to do it.

While the meeting in 67 does sound highly insulting, isn't it really quite plausible that committee slots would only go to t-t (or t) people?

67: That meeting reminds me of the time that I missed a meeting of the chess club, in high school, and the next day found out that I had been elected President.

I'm kind of surprised there's not an explicit policy saying only TT faculty go on the committee.

67: I think we know which meeting you need to miss next year if you want to be elected.

67: Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule --
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!

That meeting reminds me of the time that I nearly missed a meeting of the chess club the prom, in high school, and the next day when my friends and I showed up found out that I had been elected President King.

Silly Jesus, you can't be elected King. Either you were prom president or you murdered the previous prom royal family.

73: That really happened to you, Jesus?

74: Eggplant is unfamiliar with all non-internet traditions.

I am a creature born of the internet, true.
Think back, Jesus. Was there maybe an old man who ran you off the road? Was your date suspiciously older than you?

74: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite...

75: It did! I kept my scepter for years, but I think my mom threw it out.

It's true that non-tenure track people hardly ever do administrative work, even when they would like to, but this may be pernicious inegalitarianism rather then the way things ought to be.

I'm told there's droit de seigneurage with the Prom Royal Court, but maybe that's just a now-discredited Enlightenment attack on the middle ages.

78.2: You got a scepter? I only have a crummy plastic crown, which I think is up in the costume box for the girls.

78.2: Maybe you told us that before. Have we done a survey? Are you the only Prom King on Unfogged? Are there any other Chess Club Presidents?

Bear, sweetie, don't do any committee work for those schmucks. Don't try to make the school a better place. They are already exploiting you, and are likely to stab you in the back if you trust them at all. Focus on getting a t-t job. Any good deeds done by contingent faculty are sure to be punished one way or another.

I'm told there's droit de seigneurage with the Prom Royal Court

You can repay your debts to them in your own coinage? A moderately useful privilege, I suppose, especially if one of them gave you expensive drugs before the prom.

Damn it, and I also got the de/du wrong. I blame computers for making me stupid.

In nineteenth century, lots of French people believed that several immoral rights existed in France during the Ancien Régime, like the droit de cuissage (droit du seigneur), the droit de ravage (right of ravage; providing to the lord the right to devastate fields of his own domain) and the droit de prélassement (right of lounging; it was said that a lord had the right do disembowel his serfs to heat up his feet in).[citation needed]

Wait, you mean that my exercise of the droit de prélassement at the prom was historically unfounded? How embarrassing.

I suspect the hand thing is Raynaud's disease/syndrome. I self-diagnosed myself with it. Has happened to me (most recently today) when I exercise outdoors in winter without adequate hand insulation. Once my fingers swelled so much after getting wet in the snow that I couldn't even unzip my jacket.

the droit de prélassement (right of lounging; it was said that a lord had the right do disembowel his serfs to heat up his feet in

Ewwwww.

I hope someone snuck that onto the Wikipedia page.

No-one noticed the chilblain thing above?

I assumed you were right about chillblains. Raynaud's symptoms that I've had (mild, mostly just discoloration and loss of feeling) and my mother and her sisters have dealt with (more significant circulation loss) haven't included any swelling and I thought any Raynaud's-related swelling generally happened as the extremeties were thawing back to normal, not when they get cold and rigid at first. I could be very wrong, though.

90: Are TX winters humid? (I have no idea. But I'm thinking the wet is really important for chillblains.)

I am not being exploited, and am extremely familiar with how college admin and service works. I've been doing this for over a decade in different roles. I have good reasons for wanting this position. I think it sucks that it's easier for them to consider nominating and voting for my colleague who started at exactly the same time, who has not only never attended a meeting of the interest group, but has also never attended a single faculty meeting at the college or division level. That's an appropriate leader for the direction of this group. I asked before I nominated myself if I was eligible, and was told that I was.

The chilblains thing sounds plausible to me.

It was actually very dry where we were, about two hours into the Hill country. Pokey got a nosebleed on the drive out there.

(Pokey: Mahnoosibeedin!
Jammies, driving: What?
Pokey: Mahnoosibeedin!
Jammies: [No idea what he's saying.]
A few minutes later: Oh shit! Your nose is bleeding!

Tons of blood everywhere. All weekend long: one bloody nostril, one snotty nostril. Grody kid.)

In general, east Texas stays humid all year round and west Texas stays dry all year round, and central Texas just reflects the eye of the beholder. I think it's dry here compared to Michigan and Florida. Jammies thinks it's humid here, compared to New Mexico.

Currently at work, lots of our staff aren't able to work properly as the humidity is too low. I think it was over 40% for the first time in a while today. Indoors, that is. Outside, it's not dropped below 50-something, I think, and the average will have been a lot higher than that.

Huh. I have no idea what levels of humidity correspond to ordinary feeling comfortable.

It appears that the driest parts of the US desert are in the 30%s, and I remember easily being in the 80-100%s growing up. So 40% sounds pretty unpleasant.

At the campgrounds, current conditions are 31% humidity and 40% predicted overnight.

Humidity must be flaky. According to weather.com, it's currently 22% in this town, but my lips aren't chapped or anything. I feel much less dried out than I did, camping.

I would also like to add that I don't appreciate being condescended to about this kind of stuff. I'm a fucking adult and a professional EVEN THOUGH I don't have a tenure-track job. And infinite advice about how I need to devote every moment of my life to fantasizing about my next job doesn't negate the fact that I live here and now, not three years in the future in some other place. It's hard enough living out of a suitcase through one's mid-30's without everyone acting like I'm a hostess at the restaurant who keeps volunteering to do our taxes.

I think if you're old paper, you're most comfortable with somewhere around 30-40% humidity and a cool temperature. I'm sure this is helpful information.

Huh. I have no idea what levels of humidity correspond to ordinary feeling comfortable.

I find the extremely low humidity one of the very worst things about air travel. It just makes everything feel gross.

Sorry AWB. On the internet it's even harder than it is in real life to resist responding to someone venting pointlessly by offering pointless advice.

101: Wasn't intending to condescend; just that my experience was that I threw myself into a great VAP (where everyone was genuinely very kind and supportive, and still are), treated it like a t-t job and was super-committed and well-liked... and the line went t-t, and... I got an expensive lesson about the actual value of service and collegiality when it's not explicitly part of your contract.

If I'd learned it earlier, I'd most likely have a better job.

formal subprogram

I read this as "formal subpogrom," and despite staring at it for several seconds couldn't make sense of that what such a thing would entail. A fall formal subpogrom? Does one wear a nice dress and wield torches and pitchforks while descending on the shtetl?

It's possible this book tour has gone on for too long.

As the name subpogrom suggests, a subpogrom behaves in much the same way as a cossack subpogrom that is used as one step in a larger ogrom or another subpogrom. A subpogrom is often coded so that it can be started (called) several times and/or from several places during one execution of the pogrom, including from other subpogroms, and then branch back (return) to the next instruction after the call once the subpogrom's task is done.

Brogomming is just about the worst of bro-ism.

The frats with the really inadequate dental care don't talk about Brogumming, but you know it happens.

Well, that explains that.

And now everyone on the board thinks I'm some sort of try-hard who needs to be put down because I actually care about hosting stimulating events am making the recent t-t faculty hires look bad.

I would also like to add that I don't appreciate being condescended to about this kind of stuff.

I was worried my tone was wrong (specifically saying "sweetie") and now I know it was wrong. I'm sorry about that.

Like Cala, I too was in a great VAP that I threw myself into. It was at a liberal arts school in a picturesque rural area that I didn't want to leave. Cala says that her colleagues were "kind and supportive, and still are." In my case they all seemed kind and supportive, but really it was a fucking nest of vipers.

In any case, I shouldn't have used that tone, and I shouldn't have projected my problems on to you.

In my case they all seemed kind and supportive, but really it was a fucking nest of vipers.

Oh good. Maybe the vipers I know will turn out to be kind and supportive people in disguise!

It was cold overnight - maybe upper 30s

When my plane landed in Nome this morning it was 25 below.

re: 96

I should have been clearer. They can't work because you can't have parchment, or leather, or vellum, or old paper in that environment. It's not because they personally feel uncomfortable. So people who normally work with old books are having to put that aside and concentrate on work they can do with newer paper books.

Silly Jesus, you can't be elected King. Either you were prom president or you murdered the previous prom royal family.

Of course you can be elected King! Look at the Holy Roman Empire - the Elector of Saxony and the Elector Palpatine and all that lot. Even today one can be elected Yang-Di Pertuan Agong of Malaya.

On the humidity subthread, it's worth noting that humidity is a relative measure and how it actually feels depends on the temperature. Humidity alone doesn't tell you much.

I love the Elector Palpatine.

117: The most relevant "confounding" factor being that the maximum water vapor partial pressure* roughly doubles with every 20°F increase in temperature--so a big range over commonly experienced outdoor temperatures. Explains why it is so dry inside in winter in cold climate regardless of method of heating, why 90°F 90% humidity almost never happens despite popular belief, and why the relative humidity is frequently close to 100% in the morning even in arid places..

*I'm trying to avoid saying "how much water the air *holds*" which is technically inaccurate and a favorite nit of the little bitches of meteorology.

"The Little Bitches of Meteorology" doesn't strike me as a great band name, but it should be something. A parable?

On a maybe not-so-different note, rob, do you have any advice about getting over an unexpected nest of vipers in the workplace? I'm not asking for myself, since mine is more a nest of prairie dogs or something, but it's a big conversation at home these days.

"The Little Bitches of Meteorology" doesn't strike me as a great band name, but it should be something.

A Greek myth. As written for consumption by sensitive Victorian children.

do you have any advice about getting over an unexpected nest of vipers in the workplace?

Getting out is standard advice, but not always practical for everyone's situation. I'm not really any better than this than anyone else.

why 90°F 90% humidity almost never happens despite popular belief

I seem to recall being informed by "the weather" of this happening frequently in Athens.

And maybe even Chicago!

So you're confirming the popular belief part of this.

an unexpected nest of vipers in the workplace

CALL ME.

why 90°F 90% humidity almost never happens despite popular belief,

Pwned by Nosflow, but let me introduce you to the swamp in which I grew up.

When my plane landed in Nome this morning it was 25 below.

And did you sleep outside?

90-90 would be a dewpoint 0f 86.7°. Dewpoints that high do occur, but very, very rarely in the United States (and when it does, it is more likely to be 100° 70% than 90/90). Some "favored" coastal areas of the Middle East will see values that high routinely, but it is exceptionally exceptional in the US.

Last summer (2010), Newton, Iowa recorded an 88° dew point on July 14th. Chicago, Illinois's highest dew point was 83° at 8 a.m. on July 30, 1999 as was Milwaukee, Wisconsin's with an 82° the same day. But it was during the July heat wave of 1995 that the highest dew point of all was measured in the Upper Midwest: 90° at Appleton, Wisconsin at 5 p.m. on July 13th of that summer. The air temperature stood at 101° in Appleton at that time leading to a heat index reading of 148°, perhaps the highest such reading ever measured in the United States. ... In general, it may be assumed that the highest dew points on record for most places east of the Great Plains would be in the 77°-85° range.

127: Lies, all lies. Look, it is uncomfortable as shit anytime the dewpoint gets above 70°--and basically all of Florida averages above that from June to September--but that does not mean one needs to countenance the understandable but self-serving hyperbole of the sufferers.

I never knew exactly what the dew point was, to be honest. I thought it had something to do with what time in the wee hours of the morning that the dew condensed on the grass.

Despite playing the little bitch on the 90-90 thing, I was thinking about the "air holding water" thing, and for want of a better construction* plus the ambiguity around the way people use "air"**, I have concluded that the little bitches are wrong and I will continue to use the technically incorrect but superior folk expression.

*But I'd be interested if people have more felicitous alternatives.

**The bitchery point is that "air" is a mixture of gases*** which generally behaves much like an ideal gas, so at normal atmospheric pressures a given volume of space with "air" in it would hold the same amount of water vapor as it would if water vapor were the only gas in it (dewpoint/humidity it is a property of water, not the air). However, I believe "air" is often used in this sense does not always simply refer to the mixture of gases, but also to the "empty" space around us which the mix of gases usually occupies. "Atmosphere" is similarly somewhat ambiguous, and has the further disadvantage of connoting the expanse of "air" around the Earth any specific bit of air such as that inside a house.

***The fraught nature of discussing water in air is shown by the fact that there is a concept of "dry air" which is the usual mix of gases minus the omnipresent water vapor. It is a useful concept because the amount of water vapor varies much more widely and rapidly as part of standard atmospheric processes than other standard constituents.

115: I forgot that parchment and related stuff needs a bit higher humidity. I suspect I'll never work with most of that kind of material (as long as I'm in the US). Places have it, but not many.

114: Speaking of documents, I got to see an organization's homemade "cold storage" unit a few years ago - a walk-in freezer modified to serve preservation purposes - and a guy in my class who'd been living in the Yukon pointed out that it was warmer in the freezer than it had been during parts of his last winter in the north.

So you're confirming the popular belief part of this.

If the reports of meteorologists constitute popular belief, sure.

131:It does sort of. It is the temperature where water condense out of the air (see 132 for defense of this usage). Dew forms when the generally lowering temperature overnight gets below the saturation point. It generally (but not always) effectively puts an effective lower limit on the overnight temperature as the heat of condensation released by the water vapor transitioning to liquid (on the grass* or in fog) works to limit further drop in temperature.

*I have not been able to find an adequate discussion of why dew almost always starts forming on grass before the ambient temperature falls below the dewpoint (and also dew a lot more frequent than fog). I think it is in part due to the ground frequently being moist so there is a more humid layer within inches of the ground. The ground is also colder than the air during warm periods. This brings up the uncomfortable fact that although temperature has a very precise meaning, and the rules for measuring ambient air temperature methodologically are well-defined, the result of the latter may differ significantly from the former for any little micro piece of the atmosphere you happen to be dealing with**.

**Other than the bit that is directly being measured by your instrument(s).

I remember vividly in school that the desks often had a thin sheen of water on them, first thing in the morning, from the air conditioning, and if you didn't wipe your desk off, your papers would get wet.

I don't remember any such thing ever from my house or anywhere else, so I have it filed under "public schools are crappy!" in my head. The more I turn this memory over, the less it makes sense, but I swear it happened not-infrequently.

What's the dew point if I just had a flea jump on me, in February, in my office?

Oh wait, I know this one!

The flea is his brother!

135: I was going to snark back, but there was that one extremely bad heat wave in Athens. I'd do some research but I'm here at work, man.

136. Also, temperature is only defined in thermodynamic equilibrium.

What about convection? Warmer air is abruptly cooled as a consequence of convection. Would there still be dew absent convection?

Also, how does saturation vapor pressure fit in-- humidity doesn't affect the boiling point, and yet it seems that if the air is already full of water as opposed to being full of nitrogen, the rates of absorption and emission at the liquid-vapor interface should be affected. What's wrong with this picture?

137.1: Dampness is often a sign of a building being "over" air-conditioned (or just poor design at the AC cooling coils) or having areas with bad air circulation. The temperature gets lowered without the enough moisture getting removed so it condenses. In your case I suspect they had a big honking AC which they turned off overnight and then started blasting in the AM.

I never knew exactly what the clew point was, to be honest.
You could just ask her.

Darn, that doesn't look as good in italics.

re: 133

Yeah, it's a bit of a running joke at our place that other places, especially outside Europe, boast of the size of their manuscript collection, when they have fifty or even a hundred things. Whereas we have a lot. Tens of thousands? More? I'm not sure if I know. There's nearly 40,000 entries in one catalogue of Western manuscripts acquired before 1915. Plus stuff acquired since, and all the non-Western manuscripts.

acquired before 1915

Presumably in some cases acquired quite a long time before 1915.

re: 146

Late 1440s in some cases, yeah. Although most of the collection would have been acquired later.

131- Are you telling me you've never had the joy of using a sling psychrometer? Back in 8th grade earth science they were still mercury thermometers so there was always the chance of whacking your classmates with a highly toxic substance!

141.last: Not sure--I humidity has some kind of impact on the process, but presumably not a large one.

141.2: Not sure I understand the counterfactual being proposed. Radiational cooling* drives the overall cooling process but I'm not actually sure of all the interactions or relative sizes of affects. (Also rarely get dew if there is even a moderate wind.)

*And is part of the answer why dew before fog--grass is noticeably warmer (and ultimately less dewy) under trees than open areas on clear nights.

Well, shit, I was hoping to learn something about the kinetics of this particular interface. Is the N2 concentration profile of the ocean similar to the O2 profile, or is there relevant chemistry?

149.2 I was thinking of perfectly still air. Huh, the parenthetical is interesting-- radaiation is a pretty ineffectual means of energy transfer compared to convection. Do you know the Rayleigh number of typical predawn air for the 10cm above grass?

144: I'm leaning over to one side to help, though.

145: The collection where I'll be working is legitimately huge, but I think it's mostly modern and in any case it sounds like I'll be working with 20th century stuff.
There's another place not far away that does actively seek out pre- (and post of course) 18th century materials.

Late 1440s in some cases, yeah. Although most of the collection would have been acquired later.

So, do the original card catalogs/whatever other inventory there was for the collection have to be preserved as historically important manuscripts in themselves?

I look forward the day when this thread (all the threads!) will be preserved as a historically important "manuscript."

I'd start a sub-thread on predicting how long Unfogged posts and comment threads will be preserved and/or accessible but I fear that neb would predict "until this weekend" and then blow them all away in order to win.

So far as I know, this site has a robots.txt file that prevents automated caching and web archiving. ogged posted or commented about it a long time ago.

There's some talk among web archivers about whether they can claim a higher purpose and ignore robots directives. I'm not really comfortable with that.

How much would it cost to print out The Archives on some nice acid-free hemp paper (or whatever) and ship a couple of copies off to that seed bank on Spitsbergen? Let's start a subscription drive!

155.last: People who insist that all information must be preserved forever are assholes. They interfere with free communication between people. Knowing that you may at any time be asked to account for some throwaway comment or exploratory thought expressed years ago has a chilling effect.

print out The Archives on some nice acid-free hemp paper

Unfogged: The First Decade. I like the ring of that.

re: 157

I feel the same way about Google much of the time. Wonderful though it is as a resource, the experience I've had a few times of finding things I wrote when I was 17 or so [under a different pseud, admittedly] is a bit odd.

At work we have a program that takes people's PCs and archives them in a 'dark' archive. So authors and politicians and the like have their entire hard drive imaged, and forensic analysis done on it, and we stash it away for posterity. I can see how scholars in a century might find it absolutely amazing to have that resource, but it's also a whole order of magnitude more invasive than any ordinary archive.

Currently at work, lots of our staff aren't able to work properly as the humidity is too low.

That sort of thing would never happen in this country, thanks to our constitutional guarantees of dew process.

160: bravo!

And did you sleep outside?

No, and that only barely scratches the surface of how the two situations aren't remotely comparable.

It wasn't your hand that got all swollen up and red?

Well, you know, there are a lot of Eskimos up there.

teo, you should find you a nice Hmong girl.

Why?

More of a challenge.

Less problems with Hmephedrone.

I am sure 168 is not true, and also it is of course terrible. Sorry, very nice and rather put-upon Hmong people!

Huh. Or maybe not so challenging.

170: I was going to say.

Watch me learn in real time.

I even once saw a Hmong bible at my local used book store.

If only you'd bought it in time.

It might still be there; I haven't checked.

"Single Jewish man from the desert southwest seeks fun Alaskan Hmong woman for companionship, Bible study."

Now we're talking.

||

Obligatory Unfoggedecahedron field trip destination.

|>

Hey, I drove by there recently!

176: No Irish need apply Never mind.

I think I'm going to see how things go with Boss Niece before reaching out to the Hmong community.

"Boss Niece" is a really wonderful title, and I hope that things go so swimmingly between you two that she begins commenting here under that name.

It also reminds me of the Oxes tune "Boss Kitty".

The Lady You Reprobates Call Boss Niece just doesn't have quite the right ring to it. Maybe we should call her "Niecey."

("Bossy" just seems rude. Or at least presumptuous at this stage.)

The Boss Niece What Rescued Teo From The Ill-Considered Beej

184: She didn't, though.

Except Only Kind Of And Maybe Just Metaphorically

So TBNWRTFTICBEOKOAMJM

I suggest we just call her "60s sitcom plot device".

I suppose discussing her here has shifted attention back to my handling of ordinary romantic situations and away from my poor handling of a bizarre and improbable situation. So there's that.

Rondi?

I'm sticking with "Niecey". Have you discussed her beliefs? Is there a Niecene Creed?

neb's totally right about "Boss Niece," btw, and I don't know why people are trying to come up with other nicknames.

Because we're Very Serious People.

In that case you should be worrying about deficits and inflation instead.

Have you discussed her beliefs?

Not really, no. The Niecene Creed remains mysterious for now.

boss niece is good because it implies teo's made it to the boss fight of this level.

195: You mean the Neice-ene Creed?

I just wanted to pop in here and say that I'm not mad at anyone; I'm just in a pissy teenagery mood this week. My friends here don't believe that I'm in a bad mood because I'm being really funny and crude, and it's somewhat lonely-making that no one believes that I'm kind of unhappy.

Boss Niece

Forty years in the making! The epic sequel to the classic Fred Williamson movie! The film Tarantino was born to make!

198: Now there's some sad things known to man
But ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a clown, when there's no one around

I believe you, AWB.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and the world laughs at you.

Boss Niece is almost the best name. Hoping for Boss Niece's Hoss.

I'm Boss niece
Arctic beast
Rest in peace,
You try to get up in my fleece
You want to step, you puttin' sweet words into my ear
I'll kill you slow like a limey-pronounced glacier
Hot bod
Iditiarod
Catch you like a chinook and hold tight onto your fishing rod
No ho
Not gonna blow
Not gonna be a moral quandary
Unc's in charge, so you best respect the policy

Man, you were doing so well til you got to the last line.

I'll kill you slow like a limey-pronounced glacier

If anything were ever worthy of the full protection of our intellectually property laws...

150.2: Do you know the Rayleigh number of typical predawn air for the 10cm above grass?

Not off the top of my head. Nor after googling. Nor did it ever occur to me to think about it, but I think it is certainly lower (in the open on clear, windless nights) than at any other time or place in the atmosphere.

Anyway that led me to a bit of looking about, and the big "d'oh" for me is that of course it is the radiation from the ground/horizontal surfaces* that is the big factor in dew formation. (And nighttime cooling in general--links to a discussion related to a computer model,a basic discussion and a schematic. ). The grass/ground/surface can become "overcooled" so that dew forms as it does on a glass of ice water in the summer when measured air temps (generally measured a few feet above the ground) are still a good bit above the dewpoint. But per this model (nice summary graph pg.9), wind does significantly reduce the probability of dew formation.

*And lack of downward radiation from clouds, tree canopies (dew in forests generally forms on the tops of the leaves) etc.

Dew/radiational cooling tidbits I stumbled upon.

1) Apparently there are practices of making ice on clear, cold (but not freezing) nights by putting out a well-insulated shallow pan of water. Also another way black ice can develop even though ambient air temperature is above freezing.

2) One Wikipedia article claims the affect of radiational cooling can be directly felt on your skin. Interested in testing this* at the first opportunity, I've certainly felt cold on my face when looking up during meteor showers but I'm sure I attributed it to breeze and /or just it being generally cold.

*Maybe hold one hand palm up and the other hand palm down.

3) Estimates of total "dewfall" in some areas in England were ~1.0 inch/year.

150.1: Well, shit, I was hoping to learn something about the kinetics of this particular interface.

Not something you could learn from me, but I am pretty certain that given that the maximum vapour pressure of water at 100°C is ~100 kPa, the difference between boiling in humid air (say 3 kPa) and dry (say 1.5 kPa) is minimal. Although I do think the difference between boiling in saturated and dry air that is already close to water's boiling point would be significant. Not exactly sure how it would work, but presumably in the nearly-saturated air there would be a condensation offsetting the "boiling."

Is the N2 concentration profile of the ocean similar to the O2 profile, or is there relevant chemistry?

Presumably you meant "atmosphere" rather than "ocean" unless you were waxing poetic with "ocean of air" (which I doubt).

Rayleigh numbers are dimensionless.

206: I read about Canadian students doing an experiment in winter. Made a nicely insulated thermos-type thing, measured the temp inside when it was open on a clear still night and got a *really* low temp.

Links in 205 look super intersting, thanks!

No, I meant the ocean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_minimum_zone

There's something about the equilibrium concentration of gas in liquid that I don't understand, not sure how to proceed. I haven't thought about it for a while, I'll need to review, although now that I say it, maybe looking into how gills work would be a place to start.

208. I was upside-down about this, thinking about convection, possibly induced by a temperature gradient, rather than radiation. The link in 205 exp0lains in detail why convection suppresses rather than effects dew formation.

ALso, 207: vapour wtf?

211.2: If it is the spelling you are questioning, I was using the table here to pull the values from and my accent spelling slipped.

Yeah, sure, the only way to be sure is to get the suspect to say "glacier" after drinking or sodium pentothal or something.

Nighttime temperature research tends to be one that climate skeptics prowl around looking for results to take out of context. There is a solidly documented trend showing that most locations have experienced increasing minimum temperatures. And this is what you would expect from increased cloud cover and greenhouse gas concentrations (which radiate more downward thermal radiation than O₂ and N₂). But there is of course a lot more going on in the details, and that gives the climateers something to go after. In looking up this stuff I came across them trumpeting not only the standard "more measuring locations now influenced by UHI (urban heat islands)," but second-order things like UHI causing more nocturnal convection and reducing cooling, jets increasingly mixing the air at airports where measuring stations tend to be located, and corn increasing the humidity near Midwestern measuring stations. There is something to each of these (for instance wind "machines" have been used in citrus groves to reduce killing frosts) but they most definitely do not show that global temperature trends are just artifacts of these effects.

I kind of love those micro-climate things. Growing up in Albuquerque, I always had to walk to the school-bus stop very early in the morning, and in the winter there were all those big sheets of ice where they had frozen and the water underneath was maybe evaporated, so you could crunch down on them with your tennis shoes with a very satisfying crunch. There were just huge yards and yards of these things. Then recently I read an article by some poor NorthEastern person who thought this phenomenon was like a rare jewel, which relatively it is where I live now. The trade-off in ABQ was you had to go to school when it was 20 degrees (a.k.a. very fucking cold) and then it would be like 50 during the day and you not only had to stash your coat somewhere but you had worn a sweater like some kind of nerd and it was a problem.

I think the phenomenon that formed mine must've been different, but I also remember getting a whole lot of pleasure from crunching the right sort of ice underfoot!

(It occurs to me only now that I presumably see it less in adulthood because I'm rarely up at or near dawn, and not necessarily because it's much rarer.)

The Crunchy Puddle Puzzle.

I always liked the cross country practice route that sometimes took us above the fog just around sunrise. Not much ice on the ground in the Bay Area. There were a couple of freezes when I was a kid, but it was usually clear and dry when that happened.

Speaking of ice, big New England industry of the 19th century: Exporting ice overseas.

The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. . . . The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.

-- Thoreau

203 gets it exactly right.

217 indicates that I was overcautious in thinking that crunchy ice in my hometown - a suburb of another prominent old city starting with A-L-B! - had a different proximate cause from Bave's, just because our general climates were different. It's good to know what the common cause is!

219's link rewarded the dirty-minded teenager in me by teaching me that once there was a steamship called Le Frigorifique.

I just invited Boss Niece to go see the start of the Iditarod.

Begun, the Beguine has!

215: Slightly different phenomena, but if you like that kind of thing, I highly recommend The Nature of Light and Colour in the Open Air. Overcomes its lack of color pictures with excellent descriptions and explanations of everyday effects stuff you're liable to see.

Possibly relevant:

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2003.11.006

How plant functional-type, weather, seasonal drought, and soil physical properties alter water and energy fluxes of an oak-grass savanna and an annual grassland; Baldocchi, Xu, Kiang, 2004.

Is comparing the two ecosystems using eddy flux covariance, among other things, very interested in boundary layer just above the vegetation.