I haven't been active on this blog for a long time, but now I just felt that I had to write a post about something that really upsets me. For years I was a subscriber to National Geographic and most of the time I thought they had some interesting pieces, and I really regarded National Geographic as serious publication that didn't doctor data. But that has all come to an end now.
There is only one problem with the map - it's bogus. The map simply doesn't show the real ice coverage. Not only doesn't the map show the real ice coverage, but there are also some false statements made in the article by National Geographic Geographer Juan José Valdés who says - "After the publication of the atlas in September 2014, the ice has melted even further". This is simply not true.
The Arctic melt season ends in August, and if we compare the National Geographic map to the real situation today as published by NSIDC we see a very big discrepancy.
Comparison between National Geographic's 2014 map and the ice coverage in July 2015
So, according to National Geographic Geographer Juan José Valdés - "the ice has melted even further" after the 2014 publication. This statement is simply not true, because the melt season in Arctic ends in August.
Another disturbing fact about the National Geographic map, is that it only shows multiyear ice or older according to National Geographic's senior GIS cartographer Rosemary Wardle. This fact is commented in the article by Walt Meier, a research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Cryospheric Sciences Lab who is also concerned that the map leaves out some important details that might mislead the public.
Meier says: "Personally, my thought is that it would be best to show the entire end-of-summer ice cover in white—which is how it generally would appear in a photo from above [without clouds]—with the multiyear area outlines or maybe offset in a different shade to highlight it. At the least, I think it would be good to put a clear line [to] denote the minimum extent. Ultimately, it is an editorial decision as to what to show and how."
"An editorial decision as to what to show and how" - really! To justify the left out information Rosemary Wardley says: "We do not show the minimum extent simply because there is only so much information we can put on the map before it becomes confusing to the user". Really!
What Wardley "forgets" to tell, is that after the September 2014 publication, the ice that was not shown on the map became multiyear ice and the ice coverage was in fact much larger already in 2014 than the map shows.
Some times you are just flabbergasted by the total absence of learning from history or from previous mistakes.
What's wrong with persons who keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
I've just witnessed a company repeating the same mistake that was made not to many years ago. Embarking on an ERP project without a proper due diligence and a requirement specification worth the name.
Déjà vu all over again and it's so painful to witness.
Dr. T tried to get some fresh air. He had just had a close encounter of the third kind experience. Close encounters of the third kind are the worst, they result in severe burns and can sometimes, in worst case be fatal. But Dr. T was lucky, this time too, but he felt that he needed something stimulating and strengthening at the same time. He sent out a signal into space and got an answer. What he needed now was a strong cup of coffee and someone decent to talk to. He was lucky; the help was not far away.
Still steaming from sweat, like after a heavy weight match in boxing, he parked his wheels alongside the road and paid the necessary tribute to do so. On his way to the waiting relief, he was engaged for a short moment by a member of the local A-team on his way to replenish. The man expressed his appreciation for Dr. T’s head attribute, a genuine Boursalino, tilted in the right angle. Dr. T returned the mans compliment and hurried on in the sunshine. He needed to sip a cup of Java, and that really soon.
Close encounters are defined on a scale from one to three. Where one is a slight rouge on the cheek, two feels a little bit more, and three are real burns. This wasn’t the first time that Dr. T had encountered a close encounter of the third kind. He had met Generalissimo El Pollo Loco before, but in another disguise. This was in fact some time ago and Dr. T had almost forgotten how dangerous this was and that it required that you had all your senses on alert, a world class reaction ability, and both oxygen equipment and IV at hand. –That was close, he thought. –Very close...
Dr. T had just delivered the results of an analysis that he had performed on some of the hens in El Pollo Loco’s yard. Dr. T had taken some x-ray pictures and listened with his stethoscope, and based on these observations prescribed a cure for the hens recover. El Pollo Loco didn’t understand everything that was written in Dr T’s journal, he had just had time to read it ”across” as he expressed it. Exactly what he meant by that wasn’t really clear to Dr. T. It was quite obvious that El Pollo Loco hadn’t read the summary and he had probably only read one sentence on every third page. Considering that the journal consisted of more than twenty-five pages, there was obviously some waste along the way. This is normally not a problem for El Pollo Loco. This comes with the territory when the rooster is on the go and the hens are in heat, seems to be his reasoning.
Dr. T had among other things come to the conclusion that one of the hens had coronary heart disease and severe problems with the hearing apparatus. El Pollo Loco didn’t like to hear the latter, as he had planned to buy a stereo of the latest model, and therefore Dr. T just couldn’t say that the hen was deaf. –You are speaking with a forked tongue he said, and managed to fire away a shot at the same time as he was wavering his gun. Dr. T tried to explain that it didn’t matter how much you increased the volume, as long as the hen was deaf. But this didn’t seam to really convince El Pollo Loco. –A deaf hen is a peace of a cake and then you just have to increase the volume. –My, my, Dr. T thought, as usual El Pollo Loco didn’t really understand what it really meant and how long the recuperation would be. But Dr. T didn’t feel like going in to a clinch, but rather that this was surely something that could be solved within the family.
Dr. T also understood that El Pollo Loco himself suffered from both speed blindness and jet lag. From El Pollo Loco’s point of view, a hen was a hen was a hen. He had no idea that there was a difference between a chaffinch and goose. –They look just the same, when you get them from the grill at Safeway he seamed to think. –I don’t understand the meaning of stochastic variances he said. El Pollo Loco had an exam from the prestigious college in El Stockholmo, but it seams like he had dropped out of the statistics class. -Well, stochastic variances started Dr. T, at the same as he drew a number of normal distribution curves on a piece of paper. –Because the normal distribution among the delivered chickens varies depending on the supplier, what the chickens have been eating, at what time of year it is, and so on. You have to perform a thorough analysis of what it looks like and how it effects planning, production, and inventory before you decide i.e. what the production and product formulas should look like. El Pollo Loco looked like a living question mark, he didn’t understand a word.
Dr. T wiped his forehead. He had just delivered a Rolls Royce but only charged for a Vespa, and El Pollo Loco didn’t understand this. For a moment Dr. T was thinking about drawing a curve that describes the relation between expectation and outcome, but he refrained and thought that it is better to flee than to get into a fight. Dr. T knew that El Pollo Loco suffered from both selective hearing and tunnel vision, and he could go on until the cows come home, without ever succeeding. So he took his hat, excused him self and rushed away, thanking his lucky star that he had ”only” suffered minor burns. -Sigh, he thought. –I really understand how Agda the hen felt when she was plucked one feather at the time. –It must have been El Pollo Loco that was behind that stunt as well, he thought.
Some call me Mr T, some call me Doctor T, and some just call me IT Boss. I will share with you some stories from real life, my thoughts about leadership, IT, and some other interesting subjects.
I'm a seasoned veteran within the fields of IT and I've seen it all.C Shores is a pun that relates to both sea shores and the life at the shores of the C-level executives, and I hope you'll enjoy.
