Playing a game of golf. Guess who’s going to win?

Anyway, in my last post, I said I was emailing the authors of the recent PNAS article about resolving the directions of cows from space.

They sent me to this location. You can resolve a human. I’m pretty sure this is from an airplane and not a satellite though.

Location: Golf course at Moffett Field.

New Scientist has reported on some new research supposedly going to be published in PNAS about seeing cows from space. Well… not only that, they claim to be able to see which direction they’re facing. Oook. A Scienceborger picked it up and ran with it too. So I thought I’d show some pictures of cattle farm (where we’re pretty much guaranteed to see some cows), although they aren’t in the wild, so maybe they won’t all face North/South like the borgers are telling us they do. Oh, they also claim to do this in Google Earth.

First, a typical scene in Google Earth of a spot no one wants to see. Hence, it’s got really crappy spatial resolution. Click for larger versions of all images.
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As I was browsing web pages of past instructors (Dr. Rabbit’s post got me all nostalgic), I came across a link to this interesting simulation of U.S. oil policy. It’s a bit old, 2005, but it still provides a decent method of estimating how specific policy initiatives might affect oil demand.

It provides a way to select specific policies, and dates for their onset that will affect oil demand in the United States. It then tells you if your specific policies will meet your goal for reducing oil imports. I’ve included below the specific policies that would be needed, according to this simulation, to reduce oil imports by 90% by 2025. The format for the input is in the form of a section of the State of the Union. The parts that could be changed I’ve highlighted. In his 2006 State of the Union, President Bush set the goal of reducing our oil imports by 75% by 2025.

Inset image credit: user jasonskinner on Flickr.
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The consumer gets screwed.

New Scientist reports that up to 1 in 4 fish sold in New York City is “mislabeled” as a more expensive variety. A little oversight goes a long ways.