{"id":13,"date":"2001-11-12T14:52:50","date_gmt":"2001-11-12T19:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/evans_sense_of_snow"},"modified":"2001-11-12T14:52:50","modified_gmt":"2001-11-12T19:52:50","slug":"evans_sense_of_snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2001\/11\/evans_sense_of_snow.html","title":{"rendered":"Evan&#8217;s Sense of Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nThe Florida vote count is in.  Looks like by any criteria you choose, Bush would<br \/>\nhave barely won, <em>unless<\/em> you hand-count the entire state, in which case Gore<br \/>\nedges him out.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nTwo conclusions that spring to mind:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>\nIf Bush had accepted Gore&#8217;s criteria (just count the four disputed<br \/>\nDemocratic counties), Bush would have emerged victorious.  On the other hand,<br \/>\nif Gore had not played it too-clever-by-half, and <em>instead<\/em><br \/>\ninsisted on counting the entire state, he would have won.  Conclusion:<br \/>\nboth men were chicken-shits.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\nThe election was decided by a margin of a few hundred votes.<br \/>\nThe total number of votes was on the order of a hundred million.<br \/>\nTo determine the results accurately, our measuring devices would have<br \/>\nhad to get the count right to better than one part in a million.<br \/>\nConclusion:  If you want accurate measurements, A) think carefully<br \/>\nabout the parameters of your experiment and B) be prepared to shell<br \/>\nout for some better hardware.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nAnyway.  It looks like I&#8217;ve managed to<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.marissalingen.com\/111101.html\" title=\"her 'Visiting Snow' entry\">annoy M&#8217;ris<\/a>.<br \/>\nI should have known better.  Marissa has been fighting the good fight,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.marissalingen.com\/110101.html\" title=\"I think it made her punchy\">defending the Midwest<\/a><br \/>\nagainst all snooty East Coast and West Coast comers&#8230; it was only a matter<br \/>\nof time before I got caught in the crossfire.  Just a flip comment about<br \/>\n&#8220;visiting snow&#8221;.  Damn.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAs far as I can tell, the reasoning goes something like this:\n<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Evan said he likes to visit snow, but afterwards, he likes to go home where there is no snow.<\/li>\n<li>The Midwest has snow.\n<li>Therefore, Evan&#8217;s opinion of the Midwest is, at best: &#8220;Nice place to visit, wouldn&#8217;t want to live there.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>\nWhich is actually not <em>that<\/em> far off from the truth, although I certainly don&#8217;t<br \/>\nsingle out the Midwest in that respect.  The Midwest absolutely seems like a fine place to live.<br \/>\nAs far as I can tell, there are plenty of interesting things to do and people to meet over<br \/>\nthere.  But right now, I&#8217;d rather not live there.  California suits me just fine.<br \/>\nOthers <a href=\"http:\/\/gunther.simplenet.com\/v\/data\/californ.htm\" title=\"lyrics to 'California Girls'\">have said this far<br \/>\nbetter<\/a>, really.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMarissa points out that when you&#8217;re used to snow, it changes your food, clothes, leisure<br \/>\nactivities, and thought processes.  Kewl.  So does living in a Mediterranean climate.<br \/>\nShe also mentions there&#8217;s a kind of &#8220;sharpening,&#8221; an &#8220;intensity to January&#8221; that<br \/>\nI am missing out on.  Yup!  Okay by me.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd <em>then<\/em>, out of nowhere, she gets it all wrong:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nVisiting snow is like saying, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ll spend the weekend in Atlanta, and then I&#8217;ll know<br \/>\nall about those wacky Southern families.&#8221;  It just doesn&#8217;t work that way.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nNo, no, no.  How to say this&#8230;?  I <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> visit the snow so I can<br \/>\ndraw uninformed conclusions about Midwestern culture. I visit the snow<br \/>\nto throw around a few snowballs.  Maybe ski a bit.  I don&#8217;t take snow seriously.<br \/>\nI can even go years without it.  For me, Snow is Just For Fun.  That&#8217;s all.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOn a related note, I did spend a few minutes scanning her text for a hint of the<br \/>\nold &#8220;weather wimp&#8221; argument. You know, the one that goes, &#8220;Pu-ny Californ-ian!<br \/>\nThat which does not kill you, makes you stronger!&#8221;  Usually punctuated with a<br \/>\nhearty &#8220;YEAARGH!!&#8221; and the waving of battleaxes.  However, though the needle<br \/>\non the detector moved a bit, the results were negative.  So she managed to<br \/>\nnarrowly avoid pushing one of <em>my<\/em> buttons.  Nimble as always.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, no, no. How to say this&#8230;? I don&#8217;t visit the snow so I can draw uninformed conclusions about Midwestern culture. I visit the snow to throw around a few snowballs. Maybe ski a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}