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more dough

Posted in Books, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 24, 2025 by xi'an

In a recent thesis I reviewed, the author had included the following poem as a quote—in connection with the Klondike Gold Rush, when miners kept a live sourdough starter in a tin box—:

There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.

There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber, and rose.

There where the rapids churn and roar, and the ice-floes bellowing run;
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun…

The Heart of the Sourdough (1907)
by Robert W. Service

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and it got worse & worse & … [verbatim]

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 23, 2025 by xi'an


“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now (…) From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health-care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical-left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.” – DT, 10 Sept 2024

“I really think that there’s got to be a change of government in Britain. You can’t – we don’t have another four years, or whenever the next election is, it’s too long.” – Elon Musk, 12 Sept 2025

“There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the Constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.” – The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022

“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.” – The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 Jan 2024

“If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?” – The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 Jan 2024

“We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.” – The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024

“The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.” – The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024

“[The UK is] a totalitarian third world hellhole. It’s tragic. I don’t say that with glib, I don’t say that with delight. It is sad. It’s chilling and it’s depressing.” – The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 May 2025

“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy. They want men in women’s sports, they want transgender people, they want open borders. The worst thing that happened to this country.” – DT, 12 Sept 2025

“There’s so much violence on the left, with our friend Charlie Kirk getting murdered in cold blood this week and people on the left celebrating it openly. The left is the party of murder and celebrating murder.” – Elon Musk, 12 Sept 2025

“I really think that there’s got to be a change of government in Britain. You can’t – we don’t have another four years, or whenever the next election is, it’s too long.” – Elon Musk, 12 Sept 2025

“If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail [Paul Pelosi’s attacker] out.” – Charlie Kirk, 31 October 2022

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and it only gets worse & worse & …

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2025 by xi'an

“

“We’re going to get some back. We’re going to get some switched. There will be some swapping of territories, to the betterment of both [Ukraine and Russia]. You’re looking at territory that’s been fought over for three and a half years, a lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have died” – DT, 08 Aug

“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements [by Dmitry Medvedev] are more than just that.  Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.” – DT, 01 Aug

“[The 23 July Energy Department report] critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence — not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous presidential administrations. Unlike previous administrations, the Trump administration is committed to engaging in a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy.” – Ben Dietderich, DoE, 31 July

“Climate change is real, and it deserves attention. But it is not the greatest threat facing humanity. As someone who values data, I know that improving the human condition depends on expanding access to reliable, affordable energy. If we empower innovation rather than restrain it, America can lead the world in providing more abundant energy” Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy, 29 July

“Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them.” – DT, 31 July

“The Trump Administration dismantled American aid organisations in a politically-driven witch hunt for ‘waste, fraud, and abuse.’ Now, they are letting millions of dollars of lifesaving humanitarian aid go to waste. President Trump is preparing to let over $12 million worth of HIV-prevention supplies and contraceptives, which have already been purchased for use in developing countries, be destroyed, rather than let other countries or groups take control of and distribute the products. HIV is one of the deadliest diseases in the world. People will die because of this decision. Their lives are at risk because of President Trump.” – Senator Rosa DeLauro, 18 July

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Nature tidbits [06 Feb 2025]

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2025 by xi'an

Entries about the scary rise in H5N1 risks of a human transmission, compounded by Trump’s America leaving WHO, hence the US connection with global monitoring and its substantial funding of the organization. Advising against drinking raw milk as a primary precaution. Even camembert?!

A (naïve, imho) call by the presidente of the Union of Concerned Scientists to boost scientific integrity to protect (US) federal research despite the chainsaw massacre unfolding daily in (US) federal agencies. And the disregard of said massacrers for accountability and legal boundaries. And unions, definitely unions.

Also entries (and two Nature collections) on the one hundredth anniversary of the Taung Child fossil uncovering, as the first Australophitecus africanus  that opened the way for the theory that Africa was the birthplace of humanity, along with other extended books reviews. On quantum theory (it’s complicated!, according to Sean Carroll) and Kepler mission (by Jason Steffen). And a show at Cité des Sciences in La Villette about silence that I would love to attend.

A quick assessment of deepseek against its competitors. Mostly praising its open code. And another one on 23andMe losses and trouble,  reflecting the one-shot strategy of the company that cannot sell its analysis more than once (despite repeatedly trying, as I can confirm from their frequent emails). And opening concerns about their data or rather our data. Since there is very little protection in the US for this kind of data, considered out of healthcare.

New challenges of large carnivores in Western Europe, with a rise of wolverines, success story for the Iberian lynx, talks of reintroducing wolves to Scotland (to cull red deer like those who roam Buachaille Mor), degrading setting in France with looser rules for shooting wolves.

Microplastics in the brain, unsurprisingly increasing the chances of clots and surprisingly easily moving into blood vessels and the brain. And, speakiMicroplastics in the brainng of plastic, recycling, at last? Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) mentioned as evaluating the life-cycle analysis of a new approach with superheated water. Exposing the elephant in the room, namely that there is very little true recycling going on and that part of the recycled plastic ends up as fuel, hence contributing to pollution. Costs and impact of turning used products into new material are mentioned (and staggering albeit not compared with the initial costs and impact.

And I remain perplexed by the Two-Eyed Seeing Indigenous perspective for neuroscience article. As I do not see the scientific component, besides directions to work with local communities.

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a most unexpected citaXion!

Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2025 by xi'an

In a conversation between (Canadian) Christian Genest (whom I first met in 1986, in a dinner cruise of Lac Léman organised by the French Statistical Society for its national meeting in Lausanne) and David Bellhouse that recently appeared in the International Statistical Review of January 2025 figures the following bit that quotes my… review of Bellhouse’s  William Playfair!

Christian Genest: More recently, you produced some very original work on William Playfair (Bellhouse, 2023), who is generally regarded as the founder of graphical methods in statistics. What about it?

David Bellhouse: The best I can do here is to quote from Christian Robert’s review of my book in Chance (Robert, 2024).

‘The impressions I kept from reading this detailed account of a perfect unknown (as far as I am concerned) are of a rather unpleasant, unappealing, unsuccessful, fame-seeking, inefficient, short-sighted, self-aggrandizing, bigoted, dishonest character, a ‘rascal’ in Stieglerian terms, running away from his debtors for most of his life, with many jail episodes for bankruptcy, while trying to make a living from all sorts of doomed commercial projects, ill-conceived scams, short-lived blackmailing attempts, and mediocre books that did not sell to many’.

I am glad David enjoyed the quote (to which I may have invested more effort than usual to give it a sort of Dickensian flavour). Incidentally, I learned there that David was a French horn player (which would have been my first choice of musical instrument had I been given a choice when starting playing music!)

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