Archive for April, 2016

Test

Tuesday, April 19th, 2016

Boston Marathon

Monday, April 18th, 2016

Test

Sunday, April 17th, 2016

Test

Saturday, April 16th, 2016

Test

Friday, April 15th, 2016

Earthquake in Japan

Thursday, April 14th, 2016

Resonance

Wednesday, April 13th, 2016

Yale University Shapes Its Investment Policy to Address Climate Change

Tuesday, April 12th, 2016

With climate change accounting for the increasing frequency and severity of weather-related disasters, climate mitigation and disaster risk reduction policies are coming under scrutiny. To underscore the importance of reducing our carbon footprint, many institutional fund managers are divesting their portfolios of fossil fuel stocks. Yale University took a more measured approach, performing a carbon audit on each energy firm in its portfolio. Today’s New York Times has a great article on this approach.

National Pet Day 2016

Monday, April 11th, 2016
Registered Trademark

Registered Trademark

Today is National Pet Day and as I read the lifestyle section of this morning’s newspaper, I came across  several articles quoting James Herriot as having said that “if having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” Reading those words brought back fond memories of reading Herriot’s books, including All Creatures Great and Small. James Herriot is the pen name of British veterinary surgeon Alf Wight, whose stories of caring for his animal patients exude joy in the everyday work of caring for his patients.

In caring for Coco and Henry, I am updating my mobile and cloud-based files for their most recent physical examinations and vaccinations. In the event a disaster caused us to leave home temporarily, I might be required to produce proof that the dogs’ vaccinations are up to date in order to bring them to a hotel with me. I keep all of that information on a mobile app, accessible on my smart phone. If your records are not up-to-date, National Pet Day is a timely reminder to attend to this task before the 2016 storm season begins. (And I include the graphic image in this blog post to announce the happy news that the Coco and Henry trademark is registered to Prisere LLC – perfect timing!)

Prescient Words

Sunday, April 10th, 2016
Mega Disasters

Mega Disasters

I had blogged about Mega Disasters: The Science of Predicting the Next Catastrophe, an engaging book by mathematician Florin Diacu. I was organizing my notes of the book before returning it to the library, when I came across the following passage (pages 84-85):

“It was New Orleans that was hit in 2005. It might be New York the next time. Nobody understands this danger better than the experts in hurricane prediction.” And then the author quotes a passage from hurricane forecasters that described what became known as Super Storm Sandy in all but name. The book was published in February 2010. The words resonated with me as I am working on a project to help small businesses that sustained significant losses as a result of Sandy. This passage was presented in the context of the difficult decisions emergency personnel have to make when deciding whether or not to order an evacuation. Given the time and logistical complexity required to evacuate a densely-populated city, prudence argues for ordering the evacuation. But should the storm veer off into the Atlantic, the evacuation, which is a major undertaking, would prove unnecessary. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough; the author’s writing style is engaging and the material remains timely.