Comments on: Abundance, scarcity, and blueberries

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:30:19 +0000

This reminds me of an activity I did in a class once, when I asked grad students in OR about how frequent rare/common events occur (in terms of probability). The estimates were all over the map. Most students were shocked when I said that a probable event could occur with probability 1e-6, if you are looking at very rare events. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Enjoy the blueberries.

By: John Venier

John Venier — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:05:40 +0000

I’d probably eat the 14 pounds of blueberries “as are” …

I’m growing blueberries in my backyard; they’re doing fine and producing, but the birds and squirrels nab the berries just as they get ripe. So far I’ve gotten two ripe berries and one I thought was ripe when I picked it. I’m OK with the wildlife eating them though. I planted them near a fence and had to block them off from my dogs; they’d trample the bushes in their enthusiasm for warding off intruders (mostly the squirrels). So far I have not tried to put a net over them — I’m hoping before long they’ll produce enough I can get some despite the critters.

I really like the blackberries they have in the north of the US; they grow like weeds (and are weeds, sometimes) producing lots of really tasty berries. It is easy to get buckets of them almost anywhere there is uncultivated land when they are in season. They only blackberry I’ve found which will grow here in Texas doesn’t taste nearly as good, although it is really proligfic. I’ve heard they are better in pies than fresh, but that isn’t saying much.

By: Thomas Guest

Thomas Guest — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:40:49 +0000

So what do you do with 14 pounds of blueberries? We often end up with surplus blueberries, thanks to “2 for 1″ deals from the supermarket.

I’ve heard it reported that pick-your-own deals are closing in the UK because people abused the system, eating far more than they pay for.