Survival Saga of Shackleton the Explorers Antarctic Journey and Discovery of his Ship Endurance // Mar 11, 2022

Amazingly, Sir Ernest Shackleton ship Endurance has just been found in 10,000 feet of ice covered water in the Weddell Sea near the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship is so well preserved, it seems like it just sank yesterday. The extremely cold water lacks sea worms that eat wood, and the extremely clear water allowed two undersea drones (robots) to get crystal clear photographs of the ship. Identity of many sunken ships is very difficult, but the Endurance name and a 5 pointed star could be clearly seen on the stern of the ship, sitting upright on the ocean floor.

This story is especially meaningful to me, since I named my first cat Shackleton the Explorer.

I chat about the expedition to discovery the Endurance, about Shackleton’s expedition from 1914-1917, and about how the entire 28 person crew survived the absolutely incredible ordeal in the oceans and sea ice just off Antarctica without the loss of a single crewman.
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Everyone Loses in the Climate Casino, October 31, 2021 (link to rest of article, here)

The analogy of a “casino” to describe climate change related catastrophes has gained some recent traction, thanks mostly to Paul Beckwith’s frequent use of this terminology in his blog posts and YouTube videos. At first, the word “casino” seems to be an appropriate metaphor. “Casino” describes the apparently random way that fires, floods, droughts, heat waves and other climate-related catastrophes are striking apparently random locations with random intensities and consequences. Pick a location and give odds for what catastrophe is going to strike there next. Spoiler: the answer is 100%.

As someone whose career was focused for over a decade in the casino industry (my casino website is advancedadvantageplay and my YouTube channel is AdvancedAdvantagePlay), I am not comfortable with this analogy. One of my primary activities as a consultant in the industry was finding legal ways to beat casino games and writing about those methods. I also devoted considerable mathematical energy to analyzing “normal” outcomes for games and identifying issues with games based on a risk-analysis of historical outcomes. My understanding of the mathematical risks associated with climate change comes directly from my understanding of risks the player and house are taking in a casino setting.

What is true (and you may have an aunt or uncle who can testify to this) is that in casinos there are always long-term winners, just by chance. There are people who don’t know anything about the games they play who just by the grace of being that lucky statistical outlier (which must exist) end up beating the house for months or years or maybe their whole lives. Someone wins the lottery. Someone hits the slot jackpot. Casinos have winners.

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Just wanted to say hi and catch up a bit. It’s a veritable winter wonderland in Ottawa tonight, as we just had about 3 to 4 inches (7.5 to 10 cm) of very wet snow and it has stuck to all the tree branches, making them all look very spectacular.

Puppy Newton just loves the snow, so I filmed this while he was frolicking around, digging holes, running in circles, and taking in all the new sights, sounds, and smells — especially smells — as 9 week old puppies are supposed to do!!
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