Thursday, August 4, 2011

Hello lurkers!

I hope that there are lurkers, as there are currently no commenters. That's alright; I did not start this blog in order to accrue a following. But if readers would introduce themselves and their interests, I would be quite happy! I could turn my attention to your interests. Hopefully, I will manage to deter you.

I've been away for several days to help a friend move. My apologies. Thanks to a slight injury, I have further perfected the very-much-not-recommended art of self-surgery. I'm pretty proud of myself at the moment.

On the way to the new place, I decided to put my rationality skills to the test. Boredly approaching the Atlantic shoreline in the Carolinas, I made an estimate about the frequency of pine trees as one approaches the beach. I came up with the following estimate as derived from highway observations:

- Approx or above 50% pines, less than 50% deciduous within 150 miles
- Approx or about 75% pines, less than 25% deciduous within 50 miles

where this estimate completely fails close to riversides.

Now here is the question I sought to intuitively answer (and mostly failed to correctly intuit): Why is it that pines/needle-trees become increasingly common once one approaches the Southeast US coast? I recall seeing this before across the Carolinas, Florida, and etc.

Any ideas?

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