and while we're at it ...

We could use to manage responses from stakeholders to our Facebook Tern and Plover management game.

Visualizing future risk

Now this is way cool. I want to do this with my Tern and Plover predictions for the Platte and Missouri Rivers.

The anthropocene 1

The anthropocene 1, originally uploaded by atiretoo.

When I look at eastern Nebraska's landscapes, my dominant feeling is anguish - for the loss of what was, and the failure of what is to provide for the future.

A better oath

I tweaked the oath for ecological modelers. It doesn't matter if we're relevant as long as we're trying to move forward.

An oath to do no harm

I recently posted a checklist to prevent illicit use of quantitative tools. In the same spirit, I offer the following Hippocratic Oath for Ecological Modelers:

• I will remember that I didn't make the world and that it doesn't satisfy my equations.


• Though I will use models boldly to estimate value extinction risk, I will not be overly impressed by mathematics.


• I will never sacrifice reality for elegance without explaining why I have done so.
  


• Nor will I give the people who use my model false comfort about its accuracy. Instead, I will make explicit its assumptions and oversights.


• I understand that my work may have enormous trivial effects on society and the economy, many of them beyond my comprehension, but I will continue to try to be relevantbut I will continue to advance my science anyway.

This is adapted from Emmanuel Derman and Paul Wilmott’s oath for economic modelers. See if you can spot my modifications. I tried to be subtle.