"A true cynic ought to hold his cynicism skeptically." -- The Last Human

Why is Morocco's abbreviation "MAR"? Because it comes from the country's French name, "Maroc." A large majority of abbreviations (technically ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes) make sense in English, but around 10% make more sense in French. Many overlap French and English.

These cute ceiling fan pull identifiers.

The following number 888 ... 333 is prime. In the image below, the 3's are red, the 1's are white, and the 8's are blue. There are four 9's in the image that are black.

America burned Japan's first gift of cherry trees. All 2,000 of them, on President Taft's direct order. The 1910 shipment arrived in DC crawling with insects and nematodes. Agriculture inspectors condemned the lot, Taft signed off on the bonfire, and the State Department braced for a diplomatic disaster. Tokyo's mayor, Yukio Ozaki, responded by sending 3,020 more, grafted from the famous grove along the Arakawa River. Those trees have spent a century paying the friendship back. Four days after Pearl Harbor, vandals chopped down four of them. Park officials renamed the survivors "Oriental" cherry trees for the rest of the war to protect them from axes. Then came the twist. By 1952 the original Arakawa grove in Tokyo, the parent stock, had nearly died from wartime neglect. Japan asked Washington for help. The Park Service shipped budwood from DC's trees back across the Pacific and restored the grove that created them. When a flood wiped out more Japanese trees in 1982, horticulturists took 800 fresh cuttings from the Tidal Basin. These 250 new trees solve a real problem too. The Tidal Basin is sinking, and a $133 million seawall rebuild forced crews to rip out roughly 150 trees. Japan offered replacements before anyone asked, timed to America's 250th birthday. So the genetics run in a loop. Tokyo's grove seeded Washington's. Washington's saved Tokyo's. The saplings going in this spring descend from both. 114 years of diplomacy, running on grafted branches.

Good Morning from the Mariscal Mine located deep in the interior of Big Bend National Park. The ruins are accessible via the Old River Road (high-clearance or 4WD required) and represent one of the best-preserved examples of early 20th-century mercury mining in the region. The ruins, including furnace remains, condensers, shafts, and building foundations offer insight into the boom-and-bust mining era of the last century. Visiting Notes: Stay on the trails, avoid entering structures or handling materials (due to mercury contamination), and respect this historic site. It's a long drive down the old river road in a 4x4 so bring plenty of water. Air down your truck tires significantly to avoid punctures on the very sharp rocks and NEVER attempt to "walk out" if you get a flat tire. A few years ago, I rescued a young couple that tried to walk the road the six miles to their camp site without water, proper hiking clothing (sun protection) and boots. They got almost a mile before collapsing in the 108F heat. They drank my entire three gallons of lukewarm emergency water during the two hour drive back to the emergency station in Terlingua and still needed medical attention for dehydration. The deep desert in Big Bend National Park is gorgeous to visit but we lose one or two people every year that underestimate the severity of the climate.

"Too many people worry about what AI will do to us. Too few worry about what Power will do with AI." — Zeynep Tufekci

From a bike ride this morning

"History is written by learned men, and so it is natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class supplies the basis of the movements of all humanity." -- Tolstoy, War and Peace

One day we will realize that this was a problem

The distinction between variables from parameters is often presented poorly. Here's how to present it well. johndcook.com/blog/2026/06/3…

If you like statistics, but you’d like dirtier data, more ad hoc modeling, and ethical complications, you might like biostatistics.

Silver Rectangles and the Ways of Kings johndcook.com/blog/2026/06/3…