2025-12-10 02:59:06
When Zillow removed climate risk scores from property listings, many assumed the company acted out of political pressure. The main issue though was that the risk models behind the scores were not reliable enough. For Bloomberg, Eric Roston reports:
“You have to know something about the individual structure — its foundation, the presence of a basement, first-floor height,” says Howard Botts, chief scientist of Cotality.
Each assumption that a model makes, implicitly or explicitly, adds another layer: land slope, a building’s use, how many stories it has.
“‘Climate risk’ is much more than just the physical hazard,” agrees Adam Pollack. “The relationship of hazard and the built environment — and damage — is the actual risk.”
Most climate models are abstract and high level out of necessity. Assessing risk at the individual level is tricky, especially when there are so many variables to consider. Plus, in the case of individual homes, the value of each is especially relevant to both buyers and sellers. You can’t just give a sweeping aggregate.
2025-12-09 19:44:52
As hurricanes and wildfires grow more common in some areas, home values go down and insurance premiums go up. Claire Brown and Mira Rojanasakul report for the New York Times:
Since 2018, a financial shock in the home insurance market has meant that homes in the ZIP codes most exposed to hurricanes and wildfires would sell for an average of $43,900 less than they would otherwise, the research found. They include coastal towns in Louisiana and low-lying areas in Florida.
The Midwest seems to be hit hard by insurance premiums as well. I did not know hail was such an issue.
In parts of the hail-prone Midwestern states, insurance now eats up more than a fifth of the average homeowner’s total housing payments, which include mortgage costs and property taxes. In Orleans Parish, La., that number is nearly 30 percent.
Tags: climate change, home, insurance, New York Times
2025-12-08 18:38:05
The cost of streaming services keeps going up. There are plans with and without ads. Standard and premium options. For the Wall Street Journal, Melissa Korn, Elizaveta Galkina, and Stephanie Stamm charted the rise in prices across the major services and the companies’ shifted priorities from acquiring new customers to making a profit.
Years ago, I was reasoning my way out of cable television, which I did eventually. As streaming continues its convergence with cable, I’m figuring out when to get rid of streaming services, because it’s cheaper to just buy physical copies or check out DVDs from the library.
Tags: cost, streaming, Wall Street Journal
2025-12-05 18:45:18
The United States Geological Survey published composite maps and data for the country’s geological makeup.
The Earth’s Surface geology layer depicts geologic units exposed at the Earth’s surface in the conterminous United States, ranging in age from Quaternary glacial deposits and alluvium to Precambrian crystalline bedrock. In the U.S. West and Southeast, the map is a composite of 29 state geologic maps depicting geology at the Earth’s surface. In the glaciated region of the Midwest and Northeast, the map is a composite of 21 state geologic maps depicting pre-Quaternary rocks (“bedrock”), 8 state geologic maps depicting Quaternary deposits, and 18 USGS Quaternary Atlas Series maps depicting Quaternary deposits. The Quaternary Atlas maps were used where modern state geologic maps were not available.
You can download the data and other map layers through USGS. As per the title, the above only shows the surface. They have data that stretches back billions of years ago.
[via Beautiful Public Data]
2025-12-04 22:59:16
Reddit user ViKoToMo scraped Costco receipts from his account and made a dashboard that shows spending for the past two years.
This short script by Ankur Dave was used to access Costco receipts. I’m not sure how long that’s going to work, but there you go, in case you also would like to see how many thousands of dollars you spend on organic chicken thighs, bananas, and street tacos.
2025-12-04 22:06:42
Every month I collect visualization tools, datasets, and learning resources. This is the good stuff for November.
Become a member for access to this — plus tutorials, courses, and guides.
