Sean Clark
25. February 2022
All through December we watched as the Russian army ferried more and more troops to their western border, the movements captured by local cell phones and dash cams with careless abandon. As the number of arriving wagons grew so too did the likelihood of war. Still, I remained confident in my earlier analysis that war was not likely to happen. In late December the betting markets put a Russian invasion probability at 40% and I felt that a pretty fair estimate. The volume and nature of the...
Outdoors · 14. June 2021
Gardiner Dam to Outlook on the South Saskatchewan River makes an excellent day trip, for even the novice paddler.
International Relations · 02. May 2021
This post models a potential Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine. Relying on open-source data current to April 2021, the model results in a forecast of a successful Russian march to the Dnieper in 26 days, but at a cost of 10,500 dead Russian service members and 19,000 Ukrainian.
Economics · 26. September 2020
COVID grinding supply chains to a halt was one of the more remarkable aspects of the global pandemic. Unfortunately, restarting production--and safeguarding it going forward--is going to take a far different prescription than many currently offer.
02. March 2020
I’ve said this elsewhere, but the The 5.11 bail-out bag is the best diaper bag around. Set aside the tactical stylishness; the bag is unbeatably practical. The fact it is a) small enough to constrain the amount of baby gear you can bring—but also large enough to bring all the thingsyou *need*, and b) builtfor clear organization and quick access (there’s similarity in the amount of urgency accompanying the need for magazines and a burp cloth) put it head-and-shoulders over anyof the...
06. February 2020
A two-page infographic illustrating the basic information every lane swimmer needs to know.
05. May 2018
With a swim meet coming up, I put together a list of some of the key things for new swimmers--both young and old--to think about. Racing isn't the most important thing for everyone, but I've never met an athlete who didn't want to perform their best once the whistle sounded. With a little bit of preparation, you can make the odds of that happening a lot more likely. The Swim Meet Prep Sheet covers the basic elements of an age group-level swim meet, and as such, is a useful primer for any young...
30. March 2018
In late January 2017 a new pool opened in my neighbourhood. This left me no excuse but to get back into the water after a six-year hiatus--the longest break since I started competitive swimming at age nine. During this lay-off I've been pretty good about making it to the gym for treadmill running and weights 3-or-so times a week. But I was in anything but water shape, so it was definitely time to go back. I also wanted to take advantage of the new fitness tracker technology. I used a FitBit for...
04. January 2018
ParseHub is an intuitive, graphics-based web scraper that allows you to pull in significant amounts of data with very little preparatory learning. I spent a bit of time over the Christmas holidays playing around with it, and collected a few of the main lessons below.
