Quotes

Tons of grapes are stolen during France’s wine harvest

Thieves making away with grapes is not a new phenomenon but it has surged this year apparently because of a disastrous yield.

“There’s a great temptation to help oneself from [the vineyard] next door,” an industry expert told AFP on condition of anonymity.

France faces its poorest wine harvest since 1945 after an unusually mild March and frosty April, experts said last month, although a hot summer promises to deliver top vintages.

The Agriculture Ministry said output was expected to total 37.2 million hectoliters (983 million US gallons), 18 percent less than 2016 and 17 percent below the average over the past five years.

The 2016 harvest was already one of the poorest in 30 years.

This year, bitter cold struck twice within a week in April, ravaging the fragile shoots and buds that had emerged prematurely following mild temperatures in March.

To combat the frost, nervous Bordeaux winemakers set fires in oil drums, then positioned them carefully between the rows of budding grapevines. Giant fans were also deployed to battle the cold, damp air settling on the plants.

Source: Tons of grapes are stolen during France’s wine harvest

A new study tracks the ancient Roman economy using the city’s early lead plumbing

In their study, the researchers examined soil cores from Ostia, Rome’s earliest harbor, where the city’s water runoff drained. Layers of lead in the soil “corresponded to periods in the Roman Empire when there was a lot of economic growth,” Newitz says. “And so the more lead they saw, the more pipes they speculated were in use during that period of time, and they saw a lot of really interesting patterns.”

“Basically, as the pipe system expanded, what it meant was that the Empire was spreading,” she says, explaining that Romans sourced their lead from European colonies, making the city’s water infrastructure hugely expensive to build and maintain.

Source: A new study tracks the ancient Roman economy using the city’s early lead plumbing | Public Radio International

Mapa en Relieve (Relief Map) – Guatemala, Guatemala

The Mapa en Relieve (Relief Map) in Guatemala City is a large, impressively accurate 3D replica of the country’s remarkable terrain. It depicts in intricate detail the major cities, towns, volcanoes, rivers, lakes, plateaus, and valleys blanketing the landscape, at a scale of 1:10,000 kilometers. This is all the more impressive considering the map was made more than 100 years ago, without the help of satellites and modern technology.

Source: Mapa en Relieve (Relief Map) – Guatemala, Guatemala – Atlas Obscura

The (Very) Long Tail Of Hurricane Recovery

On Sept. 8, someone in New York City dialed 311, the city’s non-emergency hotline, and asked for information about a Hurricane Sandy disaster relief program. This was not a fluke. It’s been nearly five years since the storm devastated the mid-Atlantic, causing 43 deaths in the city and $19 billion in damage. But still, nearly 1,800 days later, the calls continue — there have already been 142 this year.

Source: The (Very) Long Tail Of Hurricane Recovery [538]

Making Algorithms Fair: An Interview With Cynthia Dwork

Privacy and ethics are two questions with their roots in philosophy. These days, they require a solution in computer science. Over the past five years, Dwork, who is currently at Microsoft Research but will be joining the faculty at Harvard University in January, has been working to create a new field of research on algorithmic fairness. Earlier this month she helped organize a workshop at Harvard that brought together computer scientists, law professors and philosophers.

Source: Making Algorithms Fair: An Interview With Cynthia Dwork | Quanta Magazine

America’s restaurants have evolved with American culture

[Yale historian Paul] Freedman says restaurants reflect American society. Delmonico’s, the first American restaurant that we would recognize as a “fine-dining” establishment, coincided with the rise of railroads, industrialization and an American aristocracy not based on nobility, but on money. And restaurants like Delmonico’s reflected the particular mores of American society, as well. In the 19th century, for example, women were allowed into restaurants only in the presence of men.

Source: America’s restaurants have evolved with American culture

‘Wages and wives’ are a big reason the rich are getting richer

If high-earning women were marrying low-earning men, the effect of increased female labor-force participation on income inequality might be positive. But that’s not happening. Instead, well-educated, well-paid women marry well-educated, well-paid men, a process sociologists have given the stunningly unromantic label of “assortative mating.” This means that the growing gaps we see in earnings are magnified in terms of household income. My colleague Gary Burtless estimates that between 10 and 16% of income inequality in the US is caused by the “growing correlation of earned incomes received by husbands and wives.”

Source: ‘Wages and wives’ are a big reason the rich are getting richer

Von Kármán vortices

In 1912, physicist Theodore von Kármán first described a process that makes long, spiraling cloud patterns in the sky. These so-called “von Kármán vortices” arise when winds are diverted around a blunt, high-profile area, often an island rising from the ocean. The alternating direction of rotation in the air forms swirls in the clouds.

Source: NASA LANDSAT

Why Everyone Is Hating on IBM Watson—Including the People Who Helped Make It

AI isn’t a thing. Machine learning – statistics writ large – is a thing.

\You’ve probably seen the Watson commercials, where what looks like a sentient box interacts with celebrities like Bob Dylan, Carrie Fisher, and Serena Williams; or doctors; or a young cancer survivor. Maybe you caught the IBM artificial intelligence technology’s appearance in H&R Block’s Super Bowl commercial starring Jon Hamm. “It is one of the most powerful tools our species has created. It helps doctors fight disease,” Hamm says. “It can predict global weather patterns. It improves education for children everywhere. And now we unleash it on your taxes.”

Source: Why Everyone Is Hating on IBM Watson—Including the People Who Helped Make It

How Ideologues And Opportunists Built A Massive New Universe Of Partisan News

At its root, the analysis of 667 websites and 452 associated Facebook pages reveals the extent to which American online political discourse is powered by a mix of money and outrage.

The result is hundreds of partisan news websites being run not only by dedicated American conservatives and liberals, but also by the now-famous Macedonian teens, by internet marketers, and by others who saw a business opportunity. As an example, BuzzFeed News’ analysis found that a conservative Facebook page being run by a 20-year-old Macedonian frequently outperforms some of the larger conservative pages operated by Americans.

Source: How Ideologues And Opportunists Built A Massive New Universe Of Partisan News – Buzzfeed