A couple of news tidbits, then we get to something really awesome.
First, Microsoft is officially on my shit-list. First, I started to list the things I loathe about the latest Excel, but I stopped when I got to 700 and was still on opening a file. Microsoft didn’t fix anything that was wrong in Excel, but at least the made it slower. Then, Windows 10. The big one. So far, my real computer (not this crappy little laptop I use for emergencies and travel) has been in Microsoft ICU for 4 weeks now. The Windows 10 install broke my PC something fierce, but that only took about 4 days to fix. What’s taken the rest of the 3 weeks and change was the moron who tried to map my data drive by repartitioning it. For those of you not IT inclined. Repartioning a drive is like interior design by burning down the house. They spent 3 of those weeks rebuilding the data on the drive by scanning is bit by bit (literally). Now, as of today, we’re at the point we were 3+ weeks ago and they aren’t sure how to get Win10 to recognize that second drive.
Second, work has been kicking my ass, not in a “there’s so much work OMFG” kind of way, but in a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” kind of way. I still have a passion for this work, but I don’t do “that work” anymore. I spent most of this week creating about 90 spreadsheets. Woo Hoo. Hopefully, the current research project will generate some actual cool stuff.
Third, this is the warmest August recorded according to the Japanese (below) and NOAA and NASA says it is tied with 2014 as the warmest August.
And this year could see the strongest El Nino (sorry, accent mark not available) in recorded history. It’s not quite a big (yet) as the 97/98 one. Of course, the 1998 El Nino was so massive that 1998 is the only year on the top ten warmest years on record that is not in the 2ooos. There’s a 90% chance that this El Nino will continue through the winter and into 2016.
Finally, the cool thing.
This is the latest (draft) version of the Tree of Life (that link takes a while to load, be patient). It has roughly 2.3 million organisms listed. What’s really amazing is that this is still only a fraction of what is published.
A survey of more than 7,500 phylogenetic studies published between 2000 and 2012 in more than 100 journals found that only one out of six studies had deposited their data in a digital, downloadable format that the researchers could use.Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-tree-life-million-species.html#jCp
