Category: Current Affairs

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Tour de France Stage 20: Time Trials

Eye-catching stat from today’s time trial: Tony Martin, the Stage 20 winner in a time of 55:33, won on the same course June 8, Stage 3 of the Dauphine Libere, in 55:27. For the civilian cyclist and for anyone who looks at the Tour racers as I do and assumes that the race takes a brutal toll on bodies, endurance, and psyches, it’s sort of a starling statistic. The guy dominated then, and he dominated today at the tail end of a race in which he’s been driven very hard to help his team’s sprinter (HTC Highroad, Mark Cavendish) and has had to go over all the big mountains with the rest of the pack.

I figured there were more interesting comparisons to be made between the Dauphine and Tour performances. Here’s another: Cadel Evans, who rode a very strong second today in 55:40, finished seventh on June 8 in 56:47. So there’s a guy who’s been driving very hard for three weeks–has been on the spot to cover all his rivals’ mountain moves and with his team’s help (BMC) has reliably kept himself out of trouble near the front of the pack–who made a major improvement in his performance in the space of six weeks. Thomas Voeckler, fresh off several harrowing days defending his overall race lead, improved by almost a minute.

One question it raises–no, not about doping–is what are the factors besides fatigue that might explain such an improvement. I’m not taking that on right now. Instead, here’s a side-by-side comparison of some of the other Dauphine/Tour performances on the Grenoble course used in both races (I haven’t done them–yet–all because my painstaking one-at-a-time method takes a little too long; I’m about to break out a spreadsheet to do the whole list):

Racer Dauphine time Tour time Change
Jean-Christophe Peraud 58:20 57:06 -1:14
Cadel Evans 56:47 55:40 -1:07
Thomas Voeckler 58:45 57:47 -:58
Lieuwe Westra 58:28 58:12 -:16
Kristjan Koren 58:10 58:09 -:01
Tony Martin 55:27 55:33 +:06
Sandy Casar 58:29 58:36 +:07
Rein Taaramae 57:23 57:36 +:13
Danny Pate 58:39 59:03 +:24
Adriano Malori 57:31 58:11 +:40
Vladimir Karpets 58:29 59:09 +:40
Nicky Sorenson 58:37 59:24 +:47
Jerome Coppel 57:35 58:24 +:49
Jeremy Roy 58:05 58:56 +:51
Christophe Riblon 57:04 58:12 +1:08
Maxime Bouet 58:22 59:32 +1:10
Gorka Verdugo 58:35 59:46 +1:11
Juan Antonio Flecha 58:42 59:53 +1:11
Robert Gesink 58:16 59:34 +1:18
Edvald Boasson Hagen 56:10 57:43 +1:33
Ramunas Navardauska 58:42 60:21 +1:39
Andriy Grivko 59:58 62:24 +2:26
Rui Alberto Fario da Costa 57:27 60:02 +2:35
David Moncoutie 58:29 61:58 +3:29
Joost Posthuma 58:36 62:09 +3:33
Geraint Thomas 57:03 60:48 +3:45
Rigoberto Uran 58:08 62:24 +4:16
Biel Kadri 58:10 63:03 +4:53
Brian Vandborg 58:20 64:00 +5:40
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Boat Ride

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We took a trip to Japan in 2008, and I was struck by how many people on trains seemed to be glued to the screens of their cellphones (smartphones or smart-enough phones). The adoption of smartphones was only just picking up in the United States, and while it wasn’t unusual to see people talking or texting, I don’t recall people becoming wholly engaged in their phone screens for extended periods the way they seemed to be in Tokyo. But that has all changed. Now it’s commonplace to see people walking down the street entranced by Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Groupon, some latter-day version of Pong, or the works of Voltaire (or all of the above in sequence, while listening to “Viva la Vida”).

I’ve never become comfortable plugging in earbuds and listening to music as I walk down the street; I immediately feel disconnected from my surroundings in a way I don’t quite trust–I don’t hear traffic as well, or other people, or my own footfalls. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary; I know plenty of people for whom this isn’t an issue, including folks who run long training distances and even endurance cyclists. Of course, when people are listening to music while training, they’re using it as part of the routine, to inspire and pace themselves (and I’ve always loved group indoor-cycling workouts for the music part of it; the music is part of the shared experience).

You don’t need a smartphone or iPad or anything electronic to put up a wall between you and your surroundings. A newspaper or book can achieve that effect quite nicely. On a noisy, crowded train after a demanding day at work. I think it’s natural to want to create your own little bubble and retreat into it. I remember the first time I did a daily commute, when I was 18, watching people diving into their paper for the hourlong ride (me, I used the time to catch up on my sleep, and still do when I take the rain to work).

But that’s one of the reasons I like to walk from work, across a hill or two, and over to the bay to catch the ferry every once in a while: to make contact with the world, to see it, to be part of it. And of course, offer my critique of the proceedings around and about. All of which leads to the two guys above, pictured on the ferry to Oakland from San Francisco yesterday. The one on the left never looked up; I assume he was reading a book or important memo on his device. The one on the right barely looked up. Me? Well, when I wasn’t checking on my fellow passengers and documenting their activities, I was standing at the aft end of the boat’s top deck, watching the sunlight on our wake.

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Friday Night Ferry Building (Again)

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The Ferry Building on a warm beginning to the Fourth of July weekend. And the camera doesn’t lie (much)–the light really was that warm and beautiful. (Why the flag is flying at half-staff: in honor of two San Francisco firefighters who died in early June in a house fire.)

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A Brief Tour of the Fireworks

In my other (paid, employed) life, I also sometimes blog. This morning, I was called upon to blog about which towns in the Bay Area are holding fireworks celebrations. I discovered that some other local media outlets had come up with good lists, so rather than invent the wheel with my limited time and resources, I simply linked to what had been done well elsewhere. Of course, that wasn’t enough for me, so I dressed up the post with a dash of Fourth of July fireworks history. Including part of this widely cited passage (note the mention of future celebrations) from a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

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A Brief Tour of the Fireworks

In my other (paid, employed) life, I also sometimes blog. This morning, I was called upon to blog about which towns in the Bay Area are holding fireworks celebrations. I discovered that some other local media outlets had come up with good lists, so rather than invent the wheel with my limited time and resources, I simply linked to what had been done well elsewhere. Of course, that wasn’t enough for me, so I dressed up the post with a dash of Fourth of July fireworks history. Including part of this widely cited passage (note the mention of future celebrations) from a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

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Journal of Rain-Driving Photography

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A picture made during our storm a couple days ago.

Side conversation: Is this picture illegal? Or maybe just unwise? California has laws against using cellphones while driving (unless you have a hands-free setup) and texting while driving (I never believed that people tried to text and drive until I saw them in action on adjacent freeway lanes. Amazing). But a non-exhaustive search of the state vehicle code (there are only so many hours in the day) does not turn up an outright prohibition on drivers using cameras and taking pictures while driving (the Department of Motor Vehicles admonishes us to avoid distractions, such as eating, doing personal grooming, reading the newspaper, working on Rubik’s cubes, etc., while we’re behind the wheel).

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Isotherm

The noon temperature in San Francisco is 59 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. Where else is it 59 right about now? According to the NWS, Weather Underground, and Environment Canada:

Gasquet, California
Lakeview, Oregon
Friday Harbor, Washington
Race Rocks, British Columbia
Portage, Alaska
Mayo, Yukon
Norman Wells, Northwest Territories
Isachsen, Nunavut
Maniwaki, Quebec
Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland
Quqortoq, Greenland
Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland
Valentia Island, Ireland
Edinburgh, Scotland
Brest, France
Bronnoysund, Norway
Vaestmarkum, Sweden
St. Petersburg, Russia
Yakutsk, Russia
Adelaide, Australia
Vryheid, South Africa
Kermadec Island, New Zealand
La Serena, Chile
Ezeiza, Argentina

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Your Illinois Governors: Felony Update (2011)

Update 12/7/2011: The judge has spoken: Blagojevich gets 14 years n prison.

With the news that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been convicted on 17 of 20 counts of corruption, it's time to freshen my list of recent Illinois governors whose legal trouble reached felony level. As I said back in 2003, when George Ryan, Blagojevich's predecessor, was indicted on federal corrupion charges, Prairie State governors have racked up quite a record over the past half-century:

William G. Stratton (in office 1953-61): Indicted (1964) for income-tax evasion (acquitted).
Otto Kerner (1961-68): Indicted (1971) and convicted (bribery and other charges).
Sam Shapiro (1968-69): Never charged with anything, but then he only had eight months in office.
Richard Ogilvie (1969-73): Clean, so far as we know. Probably why he only served one term.
Dan Walker (1973-77): Indicted (1987) in his post-politics career as an S&L thief. Pled guilty.
Jim Thompson (1977-91): His career was about indicting other people, for a change.
Jim Edgar (1991-99): No dirt so far.
George Ryan (1999-2003): Indicted (2003) and convicted on federal corruption charges.
Rod Blagojevich (2003-2009): Convicted for influence peddling, including an alleged conspiracy to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat. (For a glimpse at government at its very best, it's worth reading the press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. It's a 12-page PDF. Among the highlights: "In a conversation … on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but "they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them." The full 78-page complaint, in PDF form, is available here: United States of America v. Rod R. Blagojevich and John Harris.)

Score:
Nine governors. Five indicted. Four convicted. One acquitted.

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Road Blog: Chicago

Today, the road trip included zero time on the road. My sister and I did walk a few blocks up the street and back, though. And Eamon and Sakura arrived after their detour from Council Bluffs to Lamoni, Iowa, and Independence, Missouri. Their drive today brought them from Independence, Harry S Truman's hometown, through 100-degree temperatures in Missouri and severe thunderstorms near Bloomington, Illinois–family home of Adlai Stevenson, who failed to succeed Truman.

Thunderstorms passed through the Chicago area, too. It's an unusual enough occurrence for me, living in the mostly thunder-free Bay Area, that I went out into Ann and Dan's backyard and recorded some of the storm as it passed. The storm and recording were less than Wagnerian in its dramatic dimension, but was plenty atmospheric. Here's an MP3 snippet:

Chicagostorm060411

Back on the other end of this trip, the endless rainy season of 2010-11 continues in the Bay Area and Northern California. To define "endless rainy season," we refer to the National Weather Service record report from earlier today, which runs down a few locations that saw their rainiest June 4th ever. An earlier forecast discussion raised the possibility that some locations might exceed their monthly records for the entire month of June today (a surprising possibility, but not an amazing one: we don't get a lot of rain on average in June; the June record for San Francisco, recorded in 1884, is about two and a half inches. One earlier report ran down rainfall totals over the region through late Saturday morning. Noteworthy: the 2-inch-plus totals in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the 3-inch plus amounts in the Santa Lucia Range in Monterey County.

It's more than I want to get into in detail at this late hour, but: water. One impression driving across the northern Rockies and Plains is how wet and green everything looks (but no, we didn't see any honest-to-goodness flooding in Montana or South Dakota) In California, you think of water supply when you see all the rain (and in the mountains, snow) we've been getting as the wet season continues. The state's daily report on its largest reservoirs shows storage is more than 110 percent of average for this date and the biggest lakes are close to capacity. In the mountains, the snowpack is still at 97 percent of its April 1 average–April 1 being the date when the snowpack is at its maximum. We're two months past that now, and the snowpack is at 343 percent of normal for the beginning of June (in a regional breakdown, the snowpack for the Northern Sierra and far northern mountains is at 559 percent of normal for this date (see California Department of Water Resources/California Data Exchange Center: Snow Water Equivalents).

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Road Blog: Deer vs. Cars–the Numbers

When you tell people you hit a deer while driving, you find out everyone has their own story. One of my brothers hit a deer he never saw while driving a truck in western New York State (he was checking a mirror when the animal ventured onto the roadway; his passenger explained what the loud bang had been). My other brother was driving behind a pickup that hit a large buck; the animal smashed into the truck’s windshield and the antlers penetrated the glass. My sister’s best friend hit a deer. A coworker of my daughter-in-law hit one on a Bay Area freeway, and the deer came clear through the windshield.

A 1995 study for The Wildlife Society crunched some numbers from earlier studies and came up with an annual estimate of as many as 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions nationwide. Since then, researchers have even come up with a shorthand term for this phenomenon: DVC. The study was titled “Review of human injuries, illnesses, and economic losses caused by wildlife in the United States,” and the deer-vehicle issue was just part of the overall picture. The study considered everything from Lyme disease to bird-aircraft strikes to wildlife damage to farming and ranching and tried to tote up the cost.

For deer-vehicle collisions, the estimated cost was huge: About 200 deaths, 29.000 injuries, and more than $1 billion in vehicle damage. The study also notes: “Being hit by a vehicle is fatal to deer about 92 percent of the time. These deaths can represent economic loss that we could not estimate.” (A current estimate of overall wildlife-vehicle collisions–crashes involving “large mammals”–puts the annual number at 1 million to 2 million and direct economic losses at $6 billion to $12 billion a year.)

That 1995 report and similar studies prompted researchers at several universities to try to undertake a more systematic way of assessing the million or more crashes happening on the highways every year. One result is the Deer-Vehicle Collision Information and Research Center (you can find it at deercrash.org), which has put some harder numbers to some aspects of the issue. For instance, the DVCIR Center breaks down the number of (human) fatalities in animal-vehicle collisions from 1994 through 2007. The highest death toll was in 2007, with 223 people killed nationwide (second place was 2006, with 222 deaths). The total killed nationwide in that 14-year period: 2,398. Texas led the country in motorist fatalities in animal-vehicle collisions in 12 of those 14 years.

The collision research has also led to testing of a Roadkill Observation Collection System (ROCS), a networked handheld device with GPS that would allow road crews and others to document locations and circumstances of carcasses found on roads and ditches and upload their reports to a centralized database.

And that brings me back to the ditch along that twilight section of Nebraska Route 12 we were traveling last night when we struck a deer. Nebraska recorded 41,028 deer-vehcile collisions from 1998 through 2008 (Dixon County, where we were last night, recorded 215 of those incidents). The Deer-Vehicle Collision Information and Research Center puts the number of Nebraska fatalities at 20 from 1998 through 2007 (and 29 from ’94-’07).

Last: Here’s an unsentimental (and unendorsed) view of all this from Reason magazine, that bastion of libertarianism: North America’s Most Dangerous Mammal.