Green Gabbro

How Gay Marriage Causes Earthquakes

Tue, 26 May 2009 07:37:37 -0500

This morning, the California Supreme Court will announce its decision on whether or not a slim 50% majority can amend the state constitution in order to specifically deny a previously-recognized constitutional right. It will also determine the fate of the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed last year, between the state Supreme Court's decision that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right in California, and the passage of Proposition 8. The New York Times quotes one man whose marriage is currently in legal limbo:

“The 18,000 marriages will be evidence that California is not going to fall apart if gay people get married,” Mr. Lok said. “It’s not like there’s not going to be an earthquake.”

Oh ho ho, won't Mr. Lok and his husband be chuckling at that one when San Francisco falls into the ocean! In fact, the potential link between same-sex marriage and earthquakes is one of the strongest arguments I've ever seen in favor of preserving the traditional-except-for-all-the-ways-we've-changed-it-in-the-past institution of opposite-sex-only marriage.

While the observation that same-sex marriage might be followed by earthquakes has been made before - notably by Israeli parliamentarian Shlomo Benizri and American preacher Pat Robertson - science has advanced beyond the simple "God does it" explanations most commonly proposed by nutcase conservative public figures. Below the fold, I will tell you how we actually think this process works.

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Field Vehicle Amenities

Thu, 21 May 2009 18:31:00 -0500

Following on Short Geologist's list of things you do and don't need at a field hotel, and fresh from the field (where by "field" I mean "three days of driving around the mountains looking for stuff", and by "fresh" I mean I'm still at the airport), I thought I'd do a list of amenities that I want in a field vehicle.

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But I'm Not Dead Yet!

Sun, 17 May 2009 14:19:14 -0500

Huh, I suppose it's been a while, hasn't it?

1: I was really surprised by how many of you fell for my April Fools joke.

2: I do have a real job now. I'm an environmental consultant, and I can't be much more specific than that - not because I am trying to keep the details a secret, but because I work for a tiny, multidisciplinary company, which is rapidly expanding my collection of professional hats. Last week I was primarily a technical writer, this week I'll be out in the field doing preliminary ground work for a survey of natural resource use, and in the near future they've promised me hydrodynamic modeling, ecological risk assessments, GIS work, and some other stuff that depends on the outcome of the several proposals we've all been working on. I've been enjoying it so far.

This is not a promise to get back to a regular blogging schedule. It's not the job that's the problem, though - it's the cat I finally felt responsible enough to adopt. Apparently the time and brainspace I had previously devoted to blogging is the exact same time and brainspace required to dangle a string from the end of a stick. Who knew?

This is also not a shut-down notice. Blogging has been a rewarding hobby for the past 8 years and I am not going to quit entirely, though I'm thinking about if/how I want to scale back and/or change venues.

What this is, is a reminder that if you are interested in following my sporadic updates - including any announcements about a new URL - you can set up an email subscription to alert you of new entries. The sign-up is at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar.

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Employed at Last

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:31:16 -0500

Update, April 2: I hope you all had a wonderful April Fools Day, unmarred by water shortages, supervolcanoes, and threats to your world view. This was a fake, but I should have a real job announcement to make soon - and it won't involve any quack apologetics.

After months of searching in a desperate economy, I am incredibly relieved to have been offered a permanent position. Not just relieved, but tremendously excited - I've managed to find an incredibly exciting, challenging, and meaningful job. As of today, I am the newest adjunct fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture!

My role will be to expand the Institute's existing "Teach the Controversy" campaign to include other scientific debates. Eventually this will encompass everything from protecting linguistics professors who discuss the number of words that Eskimos have for snow, to advocating for free market policy solutions in the design of the next big particle accelerator (to ensure that any wormholes created only lead to awesome alternate universes), to making sure that the broab is included as part of an alternate functional diagram in neuroanatomy textbooks. For now, though, I'll be getting my feet wet sticking close to my field of expertise: the Expanding Earth hypothesis.

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Are Geophysicists Geologists? Part II

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:31:12 -0500

The question of whether or not I am a geologist is not just an amusing exercise in academic politics. In Washington, as in most U.S. states, geology is a regulated profession; guidelines for who can and cannot call themselves a geologist in a professional context are laid out in the administrative code and enforced by the Geologist Licensing Board.

I am not a geologist, nor will I become one any time soon. To comply with Washington law, I would need to complete coursework in the core subjects of geology (as specified in WAC 308-15-040: structural geology, mineralogy, petrology and sedimentary geology/stratigraphy) and then my professional clock would start ticking - experience gained prior to completing these educational requirements doesn't count towards the necessary 5 years. So, assuming I have understood the requirements correctly (always a gamble!), it would take a minimum of 6 years to become a Washington professional geologist. Even if there is a way to appeal for a shortcut, man, what an annoying hurdle.

On the other hand, if I got a job in California I could be a geologist in a few months. In fact, as far as I can tell, Washington is almost uniquely strict about this - only Nebraska has an equivalently rigid licensing requirement.

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Are Geophysicists Geologists?

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:07:36 -0500

Or, less generally, am I a geologist?

I have a B.S. in geophysics and an M.S. in earth and planetary science with a funky geophysics/geohydrology emphasis. I took some intro physical geology and earth history as a sophomore, but I have never taken formal courses in mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, sedimentology, or stratigraphy. However, I've picked up the basics of these fields from older kids on the street corner and make use of them in my work.

Please assume while you are answering the poll that my work involves using my knowledge of the Earth's history, processes, and constituent materials for the benefit of humanity, and not just creating ugly abstract art. My work does not, however, require that I identify any minerals trickier than feldspar, or touch a Brunton with a ten-foot pole - to which I say phew, because I'm not very good at either of those things.

I'll have a post up tomorrow with my answer.

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Are the Tonga Earthquake and Eruption Related?

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:24:57 -0500

On Monday, airline passengers were the first to observe the eruption of the just-barely-above-the-water volcano that forms the islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai, in Tonga. Three days later, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred on the Tonga trench.

Was the timing of these two events just coincidence?

Yes.

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The Parable of the Messy Map

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:59:56 -0500

My job, for most of the past six weeks, has been to align cryptic old maps with existing digital data, so that points labeled in small, blurry fonts can be entered into a database. I am not going to show actual screenshots of my work - even if I gave away no useful information to the opposing legal team, it would be bad luck - but here is an artist's impression:

Extracting information from this pathetic excuse for a usable map is, in fact, a learned skill. I only realized this a couple of weeks ago, when I sat down with the company's graphic designer to show her how to do what I was doing. She was impressed at my ability to rapidly find relevant landmarks in the Pollockian heap of worms and pink spaghetti on my screen.

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"Temblor"

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:13:07 -0500

A friend of mine IMed me this weekend, very excited about a minor earthquake. She used the word "temblor" and was very excited about that, too - how often do you get a chance to say "temblor"? She felt impressive and sciencey.

I have been hanging around with seismologists for some time now, and I don't think I have ever heard anyone use the word "temblor" in either ordinary or technical speech. I have only ever seen it in news reports, where it seems to fulfill a need to (a) limit the number of times a single word is repeated in a short space, and/or (b) use short words in headlines to satisfy layout constraints.

Am I alone here?

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Blackberry Meringue Pie with Orange Bitters and Almond Crust

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:34:53 -0500

I don't have a lemon tree in the backyard, and springtime has only just reached the frigid northlands, but I do have a bit of Seattle summer tucked away in the back of my freezer.

Pick some slightly underripe blackberries for this one, so it's as tart as a good lemon meringue.

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Beer Meringue Pie

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:23:56 -0500

I have had many terrible ideas for pie in my life - durian pie, anyone? And I expected this to be one of the worst. Then again, I've also had some Guinness ice cream that was absolutely fantastic; it should be possible to replicate that experience in a pie.

American food shies away from bitterness in any form, and especially in dessert form. Dark chocolate is starting to weaken that taboo, though. Once you have decided that nibbling on eleventypercent cacao is an acceptable after-dinner activity, there is really no reason not to open the floodgates to all manner of bittersweet delights.

Turns out that the bitterness of hops and the complexity of a finished stout can anchor a cloud of sweet meringue. This pie sounds strange, but is actually fantastic.

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Guinness Lamb Pie

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:50:59 -0500

This one's for Wilkins; it's a Pi Day / St. Patrick's Day twofer.

Ingredients

1 lb. stew lamb
1 onion
A few tbsp diced tomatoes (whatever was left in the can you used for pasta the other night)
1 clove garlic
6-8 ice cubes of broth - I make broth from whatever bones and scraps I have left over after other cooking, and freeze it in ice cube trays for easy use later. Fortuitously, my most recent batch was mostly lamb ribs and onion butts.
~1/2 pint Guinness
Salt, pepper, and MSG to taste

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
8 tbps (1 stick) butter
2 1/2 tbsp vegetable shortening, and when I realized that we were out of shortening, I added some lard, too.
Small amount of ice water

Heat a skillet with a small amount of oil over medium-high heat. Brown the lamb meat for a few minutes - not to cook it through, just to get those delicious Maillard reactions happening on the surface. Put it in a crock pot with the rest of the stew ingredients on low overnight.

Cut the fat into the flour. Add the ice water a little bit at a time, mixing it in with a folding motion, until the fatty flour turns into dough. Form it into a couple of patties and chill overnight. Or, just use a premade savory pie crust, or some canned biscuit dough or something.

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Ternary Phase Diagram for Cracker-Crumb Crusts

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:24:25 -0500

As Lab Lemming pointed out, the graham cracker crust I made for my pie last weekend cannot be represented on the ternary phase diagram for traditional pie crust. But that doesn't mean it is somehow illegitimate or unsciencey! See, look at all this science:

In addition to being simpler to prepare, the graham cracker crust is delicious over a much larger range of compositions than a traditional pie crust.

I will have another pie posted later this week, but the rate-limiting ingredient is still equilibrating with ethelyene gas in a bag on my kitchen table.

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Fruitilinear Perturbation Methods for Layered Meringue Spaces

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:51:35 -0500

Flavor factor analyses of nutmeg distributions show systematic deviations from Poisson behavior despite homogeneous squash. We recorded spice-triggered covariance profiles from the filling layer at sites along inferior lateral and medial custard horizons (Rombauer areas 14 and 25). Each covariance matrix showed 6 to 8 significant eigenslices. To investigate this behavior, we solved the Child equations for flavor propagation in homogeneous layered meringue-custard spaces. By introducing slight fruitilinear perturbations to the model, we show that there exists a critical value of the dimensionless Lemon number that determines the onset of flavor convection. We synthesize piesmograms for several important endmember systems. The synthetic piesmograms display soft peaks that stiffen when perturbed past the critical Lemon number, and significant waveform piefurcation at mid-custard reflectors.

CR Categories: 1.4.2 [Piesmology]: Statistical Piesmology
Keywords: egg media; citrus covariance; flavor factor analysis

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Delicious Internet Noms

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:02:09 -0500

Thoughts on Tuli v. Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Inc., et al. « Feminist Law Professors -- On the rewards of a sexual harassment lawsuit: "So, the bonus payoff here is, she gets to work in an environment where she is ostracized, despised, feared, and hated - barred from any leadership position - and will never be taken seriously as a decision-maker or policy-maker - for the rest of her professional life. And that’s because she WON!"
The Open Laboratory 2008 is here! -- Woot, I'm an author! Also, OpenLab 2009 submissions are now open. Quick, nominate all the fantastic science posts you've read in the past couple months before you forget them!
Stop Wasting Time Formatting Your Resumes -- Make sure there are no typos, then send it. No one cares about the font. Casual science says so!
Honeybells are for eating -- Using oranges to measure stream flow.
Water Cycle, Meet Media Cycle -- Events transpire -> Media reports condense -> Coverage precipitates thinking -> Ideas infiltrate society
The Onion: San Francisco Historians Condemn 1906 Earthquake Deniers -- via NOVA Geoblog
Thus Spake Zuska : It's Difficult To Talk About Diversity When You Feel Ignorant And Are Afraid To Give Offense -- Do it anyway, otherwise you will never learn.

Carnivals, and a suggestion for a 2-minute women in science Internet activism task, below the fold.

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