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Welcome to Arts and Ideas, in the air, under the tent, and around Baltimore.
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Your daily podcast briefing of what the goings ons at Arts and Ideas Sudbury School.
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So today, I think for the first time this year, we've actually had rain during the day.
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It's more of a mizzle, as it is Monday, but we've had some good, a few good showers here and there.
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So, it's kind of exciting. The tent has been billowing and blowing away.
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I mean, it's still here. And it's just been kind of nice and cozy.
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A little bit cold. I have to say, not everyone who usually is out here is out here,
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but the young ones certainly gave it a good go for quite a number of hours out here.
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So, that's always good to see. And, let's see, we had mandatory announcements today.
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So, let's see, what did we talk about? Oh, on Wednesday, there will be the 8 to 11 check-in.
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So, if you're in that age bracket, you'll need to attend at noon on Wednesday, whether in person or online.
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We also have no school on Friday. So, Friday, don't come into school.
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Let's see, we've got, today we had the discussion in history class about the topic from last week.
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Kind of bikes in the Old West. And then this Wednesday, there will be a two-part thing.
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One will be on Woodrow Wilson's presidency. I believe that will be done by Tage.
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And racing bicycles done by Josh. So, that's all exciting.
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We still haven't quite decided on Article Club. It might be on Thursday.
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I'm pushing forward to just be delayed until next week. But, we shall see.
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What else we got going on? Oh, yes, we had Calvin A. is now enrolled.
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So, he is our third new student to join us this year.
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And we currently have a family of three visiting. And they seem to be having a great time so far.
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So, looking forward to that exit interview. It gets to be on Monday.
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Alrighty. So, that's kind of what's been going on around here. It's been a little bit wet and soggy.
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Oh, we also have a newly cut field. So, that's exciting.
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The rain has made all the little grass clippings stick to everybody's shoes.
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And since we had mandatory announcements under the tent, they certainly all tracked it to every corner of the building.
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So, that'll be fun. I get to clean that up kind of after this. So, that's exciting.
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Alright. So, anyway. It's Millions Monday.
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So, I thought, in honor of the rain, that I'd compute just how much water falls on Baltimore.
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So, think of Baltimore as just one big reservoir.
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And the water that falls is just collecting on the surface of some nicely lined thing spanning the whole area of Baltimore.
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So, how many gallons is that? And how does it compare to how much water people use?
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Well, so, I looked it up and yesterday we got half an inch of rain.
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So, that means, you know, in any particular location you could expect half an inch of water to be accumulated in this reservoir if it was all flat.
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Which it wouldn't be because Baltimore is hilly, which is useful.
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But, anyway. So, what is the area of Baltimore? Well, another Millions Monday. I did that computation.
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But, basically, it's 100 square miles. And there's 5,000 feet in a mile.
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So, that's 25 million square feet in a square mile.
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There's 100 square miles. So, that's, I guess, 2.5 billion square miles.
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Now, a half an inch is 1/24th of a foot. I'm going to say that's 1/25th.
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Alright. Why do I say that? Because 25 million square feet in a square mile times 1/25th of a foot gives me 1 million cubic feet over a square mile.
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And so 100 square miles gives me 100 million cubic feet of water.
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Okay. So, that's a lot. So, how much is that? Well, basically, how many gallons are in a cubic feet?
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Now, when I think about my foot in three dimensions, you know, kind of paste that out, what I see is something that could be like a gallon.
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I was wrong. I mean, it's still within a factor of 10, but it's apparently seven and a half gallons in one cubic foot.
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How this works out is beyond me. All I do know is that humans and volume measurements don't usually go well together.
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Certainly not this human. Anyway. So, we have seven, let's say, yeah, seven and a half gallons in a cubic foot.
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So, we had 100 million cubic feet. And so now we have 750 million gallons of water. Excellent.
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Now, how many gallons of water does a person use in a day?
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Well, basically, toilets and showers take up a lot. There's some doing dishes and, you know, hand washing and, of course, drinking some water, cooking in the water.
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So, it's really hard, again, to compute that volume. I would have gone with 20 gallons. Looking it up, it seems to be more like 80 gallons.
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Let's say 75 gallons. Why did I say 75? Well, because we had 750 million gallons.
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So, divided by that 75, you get 10 million gallons of water. Oh, sorry. 10 million gallons. No. What am I dividing by? I've got 10 million people's worth of water per day.
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Yeah, per day. So, if we had a population of about 500,000. Baltimore's, I think, about 600,000. I'll go with 500,000. Double that, you get a million.
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So, that's two days of people water. What did I say? 10 million. So, another 10. So, maybe 20 days of water usage fell on Baltimore yesterday at a half an inch.
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So, that's what I've come up with. So, that's pretty nice. It's not overwhelming. It's not underwhelming. Seems about right if a lot of that water can actually be captured for drinking water, at least over time.
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Reservoirs and aqueducts, aquifers? Aquifers. And all that good stuff. So, anyway, hope you appreciated all my simplifications.
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And that's it for millions Monday. Have a great rest of your day. Enjoy the rain and the cold. I certainly love it. It's so fun out here.
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And there's some people who joined me under the tent for a bit of lunch. Lunch under the tent in the rain. I can't think of anything better.
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Hope you all can join us at some point. Hope you're having a great day and see you all later.