The Nerd Option

摘要

I HAD WONDERED what shape my midlife crisis would take. I don't drive, so a convertible was out. I don't want to learn the guitar or collect vintage tube amps. When I asked my wife whether I should have an affair, she just looked at the ceiling and then went back to helping me get my prescriptions refilled. That left the obsessive-nerd option: getting really, really into climate change. It started with climate modeling. What the climate modelers do is use software to divide the atmosphere and oceans into imaginary cubes, then define what happens inside each of the cubes over time. Then they make the cubes talk to each other. It's like a less enjoyable Minecraft. I don't understand most of it.