A Doctor's Take on the AMA's Endorsement of PelosiCare...

Dr. Joy Bliss, posting at Maggie's Farm:

The AMA backs the PelosiCare monstrosity? Fine.

1. The membership was never consulted.
2. I quit. And I will not be alone.

You tell 'em, doc!

Time to get angry, folks...

Let Your Voice Be Heard...

One of the best messages I've read or heard on Obamacare.

Listen.

Write your Congresscritters.

Don't be afraid to show your frustration and anger.

Don't neglect to let them know that your vote, when they come up for re-election, depends on how they vote on this bill.

Jamul Casino Update...

All good news, if you oppose the Jamul Casino.  From the latest Lakes Entertainment quarterly report:

The net unrealized gains in the third quarter of 2009 consisted of $0.7 million related to the project with the Jamul Indian Village ("Jamul Tribe") near San Diego, California and $0.2 million related to the project with the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma due primarily to improvements in the credit markets. Lakes also recognized impairment losses of $0.6 million during the third quarter of 2009 due primarily to continued uncertainty surrounding the completion of the Jamul project. Unrealized gains in the prior year period related primarily to the notes receivable related to the Red Hawk Casino project due to the recognition of a gain associated with the continued progress toward a fourth quarter 2008 opening of the Red Hawk Casino, partially offset by unrealized losses associated with a decrease in probability of opening the casino project for the Jamul Tribe. 

...

The net unrealized gains in 2009 consisted of $2.8 million related to the project with the Jamul Indian Village and $0.4 million related to the project with the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma due primarily to improvements in the credit markets. Lakes also recognized an impairment on long-term assets in the amount of $2.9 million during the nine months ended September 27, 2009 due primarily to continued uncertainty surrounding the completion of the Jamul project. Unrealized gains in the prior year period related primarily to the notes receivable related to the Red Hawk Casino project with the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians near Sacramento, California due to the recognition of a gain associated with the continued progress toward a fourth quarter 2008 opening of the Red Hawk Casino, partially offset by unrealized losses associated with a decrease in probability of opening the casino project for the Jamul Tribe.

Lakes Entertainment is the financial backer of the Jamul Casino project.

Translated into plain English, the above essentially says that Lakes Entertainment is continuing to lose a significant amount of money on its investment in the Jamul Casino project.  At some point, they'll say “enough is enough” and pull the plug on the whole thing...

The Biggest Loser?

Michael Barone in the Wall Street Journal, making an interesting observation about yesterday's elections:

But you missed seeing the guy who may have been the biggest loser of all—a man who according to recently released White House logs has been a guest in the White House 22 times since Barack Obama became president, more than any other single individual.

That man is Andy Stern, who has boasted that the Service Employees International Union, which he heads, ponied up something like $60 million for Barack Obama and other Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Altogether, Mr. Stern and other labor union leaders reportedly gave Democrats some $400 million last year.

This was, to borrow a word from Mr. Obama, an audacious gamble. Unions these days represent only 8% of private-sector employees (and that's counting General Motors and Chrysler as private sector) and some unions went into debt to make these contributions. Public employee unions of course are financed by taxpayers, who pay the salaries from which dues are extracted, but even so their resources are ultimately limited.

What have the unions gotten in return? Some not insignificant things. The Obama administration bludgeoned General Motors and Chrysler bondholders, in what I called an episode of "gangster government," and effectively turned over the two auto companies to the United Auto Workers. The building trades got project labor agreements—i.e., plenty of dues money flowing to their coffers—in the $787 billion stimulus package.

A lot of that stimulus money went as well to state and local governments. The goal was to spare public employee union members from the vicissitudes of the recession to which the rest of us are subject—and to keep that dues money flowing in.

But the union leaders have been frustrated on their No. 1 goal, the card check bill that would effectively abolish the secret ballot in unionization elections. A couple of bulky guys in varsity jackets visit your home and, um, persuade you to sign a card, and later the union—with the help of a mandatory arbitration clause—impose contracts on employees and rake in the dues money.

With all the healthcare bill noise I'd completely forgotten about the damned “card check” (aka “union takeover plan”) bill...

Rationing Begins in the Healthcare Bill...

Does this sound like the hopey-changey stuff we were promised?

You're afraid your cancer is back, and a health insurance company just turned you down.
Under the health care bills in Congress, you could apply for coverage through a new high-risk pool that President Barack Obama promises would immediately start serving patients with pre-existing medical problems.

Wait a second. Read the fine print. You may have to be uninsured for six months to qualify.

"If you are a cancer patient and have cancer now, you can't wait six months to go into a plan because your condition can go from bad to death," said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. He called the waiting period in the Senate bill "unacceptable."

Advocates for people with serious health problems, as well as some insurance experts, are raising questions about one of the most important upfront benefits in the Democratic health care legislation: a high-risk pool for the medically uninsurable.

Socialist healthcare necessarily means rationed healthcare.  This is such a simple and unassailable fact, but so many people don't understand it, or don't want to believe it.

The reality is this: if all the people of this country were entitled (by law) to all healthcare services, there would be more demand for healthcare than there was supply.  Nobody is proposing changing that by radically increasing supply (depending on whose estimate you believe, increasing supply to meet unconstrained demand would require somewhere between a 175% and a 450% increase in healthcare capacity, most of which would be unused most of the time).  Human society has only ever come up with two fundamental ways to “manage” such a supply/demand mismatch.

One way is by government dictat, as socialized medicine would be.  In that sort of a system, political bureaucrats use the criteria important to them (e.g., getting re-elected) to decide how much supply there should be, and then those same bureaucrats decide how to ration the limited supply to meet the much larger demand.  That's Sarah Palin's death panels, the Senate bill's waiting period, etc., etc.

The other way is by market forces.  The amount of supply is determined by our collective willingness to pay.  What healthcare you have access to is determined by what you or your employer is willing to pay, which in turn depends on what kind of a job you have and how much society values your work.  Thus as a software engineer, I probably have access to better healthcare than the guy sweeping out the offices at our local retail nursery.  There may also be a “safety net” healthcare plan, as we have today in the U.S., that provides basic healthcare for everybody.

Both of these ways provide a way to allocate scarce healthcare resources to a much larger demand.  I know which one I prefer.  How about you?

“Oh”!

From the one and only Michael Barone:

I cannot imagine that Congressmen Nye, Perriello, Connally and Boucher have not already accessed the websites which have shown the position of their constituents in a contest which, while like all governorship contests has its own specific features, was also in its contrast on issue positions reasonably congruent with those prevailing on national issues. And I can certainly respond with sympathy if any or all of these incumbents responded to these numbers with a two-word comment of which I will relay only the first word which is, “Oh.”

Read the whole thing.

I haven't felt this good about the political state-of-play for a couple years...

Every Day...

Via my lovely wife.  Click to enlarge, and read the fine print...

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!!!

The Republicans took the New Jersey governor's race.  That's kind of like a Southern Baptist minister running for pope, and winning.  The fix was in on this race, and the Republican (Christie) won anyway.

I'm going to guess that the usual New Jersey Democratic shenanigans were worth 5 to 10 points in the election.  Christie won over Corzine by 49% to 45% according to the official results – so I'd guess that if that election could somehow have been held fairly, the results would have been something between 52/43 and 54/40.  Those are big margins considering the context.  Corzine was an incumbent Democrat, well-supported by the DNC (not to mention personally by Obama and Biden), very wealthy and free with his own money in the campaign.  As of late October, the Corzine campaign had spent a whopping $28m.  On top of all that, Corzine had the full-throated support of New Jersey's legendary “machine” – from thugs to dirty tricks, all was available to him.  Christie, on the other hand, was a relative unknown.  He'd been a U.S. Attorney, a Freeholder (a local NJ political position), and a private lawyer.  He got modest backing from the RNC, no big-name personal visits, and as of late October his campaign had spent just over a quarter of what Corzine spent: about $8m.

But Christie won anyway.  Wow.

You can bet on this: every incumbent Democrat is looking at these results and is reconsidering their commitment to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi wing.  I'm not saying that every one of them is going to change their behavior – but I am saying that a lot of them will.  These results – not just in New Jersey, but in all the off-year elections yesterday – are just too clear to ignore.  Only the most ideologically driven politico will bull ahead without thinking this through.

By the way, the news wasn't all rosy from New Jersey.  I went through all the results, and except for the governor's race, it is all business-as-usual.  The Virginia races were quite different: the Republicans took virtually every contested seat there.  Every incumbent New Jerseyian who ran won their race, and no seat changed party affiliation.  So Christie is walking into a lion's den of rapacious machine politicians – most of whom have every reason to feel completely secure.

But still I have a smile on my face.  The voters, bless their pointed little heads, sent a message last night that I believe will have immediate impact.  Watch what happens with the healthcare bill this week.  Pelosi promised a vote on Thursday (tomorrow!).  My bet is that it gets delayed, probably until next year.  Reid is already signaling that the Senate bill will be delayed to January at the earliest.  After last night, Pelosi and Reid are going to have much more trouble getting votes for that beast from their own party, much less the Republicans...

Momentum and Messages...

Today's elections for governor (Virginia and New Jersey) and Congressman (in upstate New York) are going to be more important for the messages they send to policitians outside those districts than they will be to the people in those districts.

New Jersey's politics are so hopelessly screwed up that electing Mr. Incredible would probably have little effect.  Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I did grow up there...

Virginia's new governor will almost certainly be Republican, and will almost certainly be unable to make any radical changes there.  That's good, but not important in the long run.

The new Congressman from upstate New York will have no impact at all on a House that's overwhelmingly Democratic.

But...if two or three of these races go to the Republicans, that does indeed send a very clear message to the incumbent Democrats facing reelection next year. It says, loud and clear: tying yourself to Obama and his policies is not the way to win an election.  And there is nothing those Congresscritters care more about than their job-for-life.  They will hear and pay close attention to that message.  And their defensive, back-tracking reactions will build a conservative-leaning momentum that would be quite welcome right now, especially in fiscal terms.

So here's hoping that the voters in those districts take the opportunity to smack Obama upside the head.  Unless the polls are completely wacked out, Virginia is already decided for the Republican candidate.  New Jersey and New York are still too close to call, and could go either way.  Knowing New Jersey as I do, it's easy to predict that every shenanigan you've ever heard of, plus 14 you never heard of before, will be used to lie, cheat, and steal the way to a Democratic victory – and in the past, 99% of the time, those methods have worked just fine.  Probably will again.  In update New York, I have some hope that Acorn and it's ilk haven't yet incorporated themselves into the semi-rural society's fabric – so it's possible that something like a fair election might be held there.

Here's hoping for some Republican success at the polls today!

Huh? of the Day...

Our Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton, if you've forgotten) had this to say on her recent trip to Pakistan:

“Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know... As far as we know, they are in Pakistan,” Clinton told senior Pakistani newspaper editors in Lahore, AFP reported. “The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world... We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

What the heck is she saying?  That first sentence is, I believe, referring to Bin Laden and al Qaeda.  The rest of it is slamming the low tax rates in Pakistan.

First, you gotta love the frank admission of the Democratic strategy: tax it, whether it moves or not.  No wonder our wallets are getting lighter.

But then she seems to be implying that the reason Pakistan is suffering from terrorist attacks is the low tax rates there.  Is that really what she means?  If so, she's even wackier than I thought (and that takes some doin', if you know what I mean)!

Question of the Day...

From an editorial yesterday at Investor's Business Daily:

What are we to make of a White House visitors list that includes 22 swiftly scheduled appointments with a union boss at a time when Gen. Stanley McChrystal can't get face time with the commander in chief?

Indeed...

Looking Forward to that Recovery!

Via my mom...

Unexpected Joys...

Got this email from my mom today:

Dad and I had an errand today at Lowe's and on the way home on the back road near our house we saw something completely unexpected.  Just as we were getting ready to turn the car I spotted in front of us a man about 10 feet tall.  I knew immediately it was a teen on stilts and along side of him was walking a young lady.  I started to laugh and instead of turning onto our road, I continued on and came along side - laughing and telling him how great it was to see him and how much we were enjoying the view.  He told us he walks around at the football games (in this location I am assuming he meant the college games) and that today their church was having a trick or treat time for the children and he was going to walk there.  We kept smiling and had a nice chat with them until cars started to come then we let them get on their way.  Very neat this experience.   Just wanted to share a grin.

How cool is that?

eBay Listing of the Month...

This listing ends in two days, so you'll have to look quickly if you want to see the real deal.  Meanwhile, for the future amusement of us all, here's the complete text of the listing:

I have a reputation for not putting enough effort into describing items I sell on ebay, so this time I'm going to be very clear in describing the item.

The pictures above appear to be of some type of small child's motorbike, possibly a minibike, yes, that's what it looks like. However, this is one of those very rare Chinese made miniature motorcycles of which only about 56,785,920 were distributed world wide last year. The total lack of spare parts for these things has now convinced me that each child born in China was tasked with producing one of these; from a roll of aluminium foil and an empty ice cream container. That explains why each one is different. Not just different colours, but every single one is unique in its dimensions and spirit. Some have even been made inside-out.

Some of them have wheels which are almost round, mine doesn't. The frame appears to be made of bamboo, painted silver to make it look stronger. When they gave the Chinese made boats the name Junk, I can now see why. Surely, one of the five year old kids tasked with building these things could weld. Every weld on the frame of this thing looks like a passing sparrow has splattered semi metallic poo on it, badly. Every bolt is a different size and the fact that it doesn't change shape if left in the sunlight has amazed me.

I rode it once, that was enough. It was about as comfortable as pouring a cup full of leaf-cutting ants down my undies. Even though I'm so short that my feet are actually above my head, somehow riding this thing saw me wearing my ankles as earrings and trying to steer at the same time. Making things even worse was that it was like riding a chainsaw with wheels. The motor can rev like a cat with a clothes peg on its tail, making this little bike go faster than standing still - which is already a stretch of its safety envelope.

Before I took it for its one and only ride, I had to fill it up with fuel. I couldn't understand how such a small machine could need such a large fuel tank, but then fifteen minutes after I'd put the fire out, I worked out why. The fuel leak from the carby was that severe that by the time I'd travelled 12 metres with my feet behind my head, the grass behind me was on fire. The leaking fuel had some how caught alight and although I was hoping it was a trail of burning rubber from its tyre shredding power, it was merely a small fire, not unlike a burning pipeline in Iraq. Fortunately, the fuel leak was so bad that by the time the fire caught up to the bike, there was nothing left to burn.

The bodywork on the bike isn't even attached. I don't know how it ever could be. There must have been a fight at the child labour factory when this thing was made, obviously the stronger five year old stole the bits that allowed this bike's bodywork to be attached to its silver bamboo frame. So it just sits there making this thing even more ridiculous. You would expect that motorcycle bodywork would be made of plastic, true. But given the fact that this stuff a) didn't burn and b) is as flexible as a Viagra induced erection, tells me that it is something from another planet, possibly China. I suspect that it may be some super organic, self regenerating rice paper or something.

Starting this bike is about as easy as getting a table of six for Yum Cha at 12pm. Despite the fuel gushing from the poor excuse for a carby, this thing has a pull start which has a cord about as long as a primary school play lunch. With the amount of fuel flooding from the carby, it requires full throttle to start. The first time I got it going it rode off with only the ghost of Chopstick Creek at the controls. I later learned that the best way to start it was by holding it under your arm and acting out an ACDC guitar riff before putting it back down, placing your ankles behind your ears and hoping that the thing stayed upright long enough for someone to get a photo.

On the bright side, this thing would make a fantastic garden ornament, because it has a miraculous ability to convert itself to important soil nutrients, like iron oxide, very quickly. You will notice that one of the front fork stanchions is all rusty. I didn't do that in photoshop, it really is rooted. You will also notice that the steering is out of alignment, but what do you expect from child labour?

When the Trike of Death saw this little bike, it turned around in a very large circle and looked the other way. You have to feel sorry for this little machine, it's like a puppy in a pound. Surely someone out there must have a good home for it? Lets face it, you can now buy something that has trodden the same ground as the legendary Trike of Death for less than the cost of a Trike of Death T shirt. You may even be able to convert this little thing into a candle, a hearing aid, a belt buckle or something else useful.

This monstrosity needs to go. Even if you buy it just for something to kick your toe on it would be worth it. You could paint it black and leave it on some stairs one night. You could create an artificial reef out of it, for one small and selfish fish. Whatever you do with it is your own business, just don't tell anyone where it came from.

In response to some anticipated questions, here are the answers:

No, I don't have a buy it now price, but if you can convince ebay to refund my listing fee, you can have it.

No, it doesn't have a seat, the manufacturer didn't design it to last long enough for your arse to make it to the where the seat would normally be.

No, it ran out of warranty on the third day, which was when it was somewhere in the middle of the Sea of China, on its way to infest the world with a good dose of unquality control.

Yes, I will deliver it to Anaheim California, it will only cost a return airfare ex Sydney and a Disneyland pass.

No, the brakes don't work. It wasn't designed to make it that far.

Yes, it is crap.

True, it does look good. So too do most celebrities until you see them in the flesh.

No, it wouldn't be a nice gift for a six year old, or any other number between 1 and 1000.

No, there isn't any spare parts available for it. They were designed around the same concept as disposable razors and toilet paper, not much good after the first use.

Yes, you are welcome to take it for a test ride – after you buy it and then sell it to someone else who advertises it for sale and offers you a ride of it.

Quote of the Day...

From Scott Adams, in Dilbert.  This is the punchline to today's Dilbert strip.  Adams uses it in an entirely apolitical way, but it occurred to me that it must be how most Obamites are feeling right about now...

Computers Suck at Math...

Well, not really.  But they do make mistakes that surprise most people, including most professional programmers.  The basic problem is the way that computers usually represent numbers internally – with something called “binary floating point numbers”.  This article does a reasonably good job of explaining the problems in laymen's terms.

The most common place that errors in computer math show up is in financial calculations, where it's not unusual to need 15 or more digits of precision, and where calculations are often done repetitively (as in adding a large column of numbers).  Just to give a simple example, if the computer represents $0.01 as $0.0999934821, and you add enough of those pennies together, your result will be off by more than a penny.  Even though a computer did the math.

There are other ways that computer math can go horribly wrong, too.  All of these are well-known and covered by extensive literature, yet programmers keep making the same mistakes over and over again.  The basic error is to choose binary floating point to represent money (or other critical values).  Other representations exist.

So why do programmers keep doing this?  I've asked that question of programmers working for me on numerous occasions.  The most common response, by far, is something along the lines of “These errors only show up because the incorrect rounding was used, and I'm using the correct rounding.”  That's just plain wrong, though most programmers appear to be unaware of this.  But probably the most important reason programmers keep using binary floating point numbers is because it's easy, and often the problems with that choice don't show up until after a software system has been in use for a while.

The fact is that binary floating point numbers cannot represent all real world numbers with sufficient accuracy for all uses.  It's not a rounding problem, it can't be “worked around” – they're simply not up to the job.  There are many alternative ways to represent numbers in a computer that do not have any of the problems of binary floating point.  These methods are a teensy bit harder to use in most programming languages, and not at all harder in some.  There is, in most cases, a small performance penalty – irrelevant in all but the most compute-intensive algorithms.

So be careful with those binary floating point numbers, y'all...

I Don't Know How I Missed This One...

...but I did.

This summer our Sacremento-based criminal class approved a so-called “balanced budget”, along with a slew of sleazy, shaky accounting tricks to support it.

One of them, it turns out, is direct theft from the taxpayers: without raising the income tax rates (which determine the actual amount you will owe, come April), they increased the tax withholding (the amount actually withheld from your paycheck) by 10%.  This is exactly the same thing as the state holding a gun to my head, stealing money equal to 10% of my withholdings, and then promising to give it back on April 15 (without interest, of course).

I only see three solutions to this.  The first solution involves 51% of the voters acting in unison to throw the Sacremento criminal class out of office, replacing them with law-abiding citizens.  The second is a Constitutional Convention that make it impossible for the corruptocrats to continue making victims of the citizenry.  The third involves a much smaller number of people and a few hundred pieces of high-velocity lead.

Which sounds most feasible to you?

Hydrogen Barackside...

Fun Times in Cleveland...

I'll Never Understand...

This woman won a $60,000 prize for her art ... which is the rock behind her.

The other winners are nearly as wacky to me...

Quote of the Day III...

This time from Escort81, posting at TigerHawk, and talking about the latest failure of talks with Tehran to accomplish anything at all:

This is turning into a high-stakes real-life version of the movie Groundhog Day, except I don't think anyone gets to sleep with Andie MacDowell at the end.

Then there's the old joke, "Why do you keep hitting yourself in the head with a hammer like that?"

"Because it feels so good when I stop."

The difference being, I am not sure talks ever stop, even (or especially) after Iran tests its first nuclear weapon.

Sober up, “diplomats”, will ya?

Quote of the Day II...

From Neo-Neocon, while she was pondering the way European officials have begun to be critical of Obama:

One can almost smell the whiff of fear across the Atlantic at the dawning realization that Obama is exactly what the despised Right said he was: an empty suit, whose flowery and uplifting rhetoric consisted of mere empty words to match it. Europeans are finding that, although they chafed at the previous leadership (much as children do towards firm parents), now that they are leaderless they’re feeling more than a bit nostalgic for those olden days (Dad wasn’t so bad after all, now that he’s gone and you’re on your own).


A rudderless free world might not remain free for very long.

Word.

Stopped Clock...

This morning I noticed that the clock in our laundry room (at right) had stopped.  The second hand was wiggling once per second as the clock tried to advance, but failed.  Clearly the battery needs to be changed.

But this brought to mind a question I asked myself some years ago, and figured out: Why do most battery-powered clocks seem to stop at a particular time (generally either around  8:45:45 or 7:45:45)?

The answer lies in the unbalanced hands, especially the second hand and the minute hand.  By “unbalanced” I mean that if those hands were free to rotate they'd rotate so that the heaviest portion was pointing straight down.  Some clocks are made with balanced hands (this was particularly common on old-fashioned wind-up or weight-driven clocks) – either by making the short side of the hand wider, or by putting added weight on the short side.

When the hand is unbalanced, as in our laundry room clock, the tiny electric motor in the clock has to work harder while the hands are on the left side of the clock than it does when they're on the right – it's fighting gravity in one case, and gravity is helping in the other.  This effect is most pronounced for the second hand, which takes about 60 times as much force to move as does the minute hand.  The hour hand takes about 60 times less than the minute hand, or 3600 times less than the second hand.

The force required to move the second hand is at it's absolute highest when it's pointing directly to the left.  When it's pointing in this direction, the force of gravity has the most leverage with respect to the shaft that the motor must turn.  So...as the battery gradually discharges, the motor can produce less and less force.  As the second hand sweeps around the clock from the 12 o'clock position, at first little force is required (because gravity is helping).  As it passes the 6 o'clock position, more and more force is required (because the motor is lifting the hand and gravity is making it harder).  So as the battery discharges, the force required to move the hand is most likely to exceed what the motor can provide when the second hand moves to the 9 o'clock position.

Mathematically, the additional force required to move an unbalanced clock hand imposed by gravity can be described as:

-k sin(θ)

where k is determined by the degree to which the hand is out-of-balance, and θ is the angle of the hand (where 0 is the 12 o'clock position).  At 45 seconds after the minute, the second hand is at 270°.  One second before that, it's at 264°.  The sines for those angles are -1 and -0.99452, so there's about a half-percent more force required to move the second hand between the 45th and 46th second than between the 44th and 45th – and that little bit of extra force is why cheap battery-powered clocks stop at around the same time...

On thinking about this from an engineering perspective, it occurred to me that there are two very simple ways to extend the battery life of these clocks:

1. Balance the hands.
2. Remove the second hand.

Of course, the batteries last for years any way, so it probably makes no practical difference...

Over Thirty Congresscritters are Under Investigation for Ethics Breaches...

Every one of them belongs to a single party: the Democrats.

We only know about this because the Washington Post obtained an internal committee document accidentally exposed on a file-sharing system.

Pelosi is leading Congress out of the swamp, all right.  Leading us to someplace even worse, that is...

Why Do People Seem to Hate Math and Science So Much?

Interesting comment by “grumblebee” on an interesting MetaFilter thread:

I don't think the main cause has anything to do with Math or Science per se. Someone upthread said that there's a profound anti-intellectual trend in America. I agree, but I think it specifically takes the form of A DISDAIN FOR PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS IN ACADEMIC SUBJECTS. This is just as true when it comes to Shakespeare as when it comes to Math.

The life-goal in America seems to be to get a well-paying job in which you don't need to think very much. I doubt this is a conscious goal, and it sounds so insulting that I doubt most people would admit to pursuing it. But in my experience, it is what people pursue -- and our education system trains people for it.

I became very aware of this when I started teaching computer classes. I was teaching applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. Most of my students were upper-middle-class, educated, "smart" people. The majority were middle-aged.

Over and over, I heard people say, "I can't do this stuff. I'm just not a computer person." Now to some extent, this is true. These people were born before the Internet and the PC revolution, and their fear of the technology WAS a stumbling block. But the bigger stumbling block seemed to be that these folks couldn't handle basic problem solving.

The apps I taught mostly didn't hold your hand. For instance, if you want to make a photo look a certain way in Photoshop, there generally isn't a button to press. You have to think through the various tools and figure out how to combine them to create the look you want. That said, it's far from rocket science. I found that the moment I stopped giving people a formula that they could learn by rote, their brains turned off. It soon became clear to me that the problem wasn't new technology; the problem was that I was expecting people to use their brains in a way that no one else expected of them.

I started thinking about what these people did all day at their jobs. Gently, I asked some of them about what they did in their jobs. Many of them hand distinguished careers. How could they perform well at work without problem-solving skills? Answer: they don't need problem-solving skills.

It's not always obvious that these people don't solve problems (or puzzles), because many of these people are experts -- meaning that their brains are crammed with obscure facts. Our schools do very well at training people to learn facts*. At least when I went to school, memorization was pushed as a major intellectual virtue. We memorized the multiplication tables; we memorized the periodic tables; we memorized speeches form Shakespeare... Cultural literacy was pushed, too, though not as hard as memorization. No one was expected to really get into Shakespeare, but you were expected to know who he was and to have read one or two of his plays.

(*true, in America shocking number of people can't tell you the name of their congressman or the capital of North Carolina. But these people DO know the facts needed to get their specific jobs done.)

Pop-culture values reinforce fact-based intellectualism. A couple of years ago, if you'd asked people who was the smartest man in America, many would have said "the guy who won all that money on 'Jeopardy.'" (When I was a kid, there were many game shows on that actually required some problem-solving skills. These are almost non-existent. The shows are all about trivia now.) A "smart person" on a drama or sitcom is usually a guy who knows a huge number of facts.

I grew up around (humanities) academics, supposedly the ultimate smart-set. In my experience, they were coasting on memorized facts just as much as people in the corporate world. A professor would read every major German novel written in the 19th Century and all the critical writing about 19th-century German literature. Then he would spend his career passing on facts to his students. His "intellectual" work mostly involved keeping up with academic journals (learning new facts).

(From what I can tell, most G.P. doctors and most lawyers don't have to do much problem solving either. I do know that my doctor seems to be able to make a good living by doing the same formulaic tests over and over.)

Let me be clear that I'm not anti fact or memorization. Facts and rote learning are important. Facts are the building blocks you need. The are the tools you use when you problem solve. Problem solving is the next step. But it's a next step that most people don't take and don't need to take.

I don't think it's laziness. One can get by in our culture without problem-solving, so why bother with it? By get by, I mean that one can make a good living, have a big house, kids, etc. without having to solve intellectual problems.

And -- most important -- one can be a "smart person" (as our culture defines it) without solving problems. Most people want to be smart. They want to be seen as smart by others. Our culture sends a really strong message to them, which is "memorize a lot of facts and you'll be smart." My guess is most people think they ARE doing rigorous problem solving when they see something that needs to be done and have to search through their mental database to find the right fact or the right formula. I guess this IS a kind of problem solving, but it's the easiest kind. It's similar to solving a problem by searching on google until you find the answer.

When I was a kid, there was almost no problem solving in school. How often did the teacher just present us with a puzzle and say, "Here are some tools. Solve the puzzle!"? Almost never. One would think that MOST of education should be about solving puzzles, but in my experience, almost none of it is.

The exceptions (to a point) were Math and Science. But unless you're going into specific fields, you can quit taking Math and Science pretty early on in life. The other courses are easier and it's pretty clear you won't need Math and Science to get by in life. So why waste your time on it?

Meanwhile, the few people who stay in problem-solving fields move further and further from the intellectual norm: I program computers for a living. Which means I solve puzzles eight hours a day. I constantly have to create something from nothing, and I constantly have to learn new skills. Sometimes, I am so mentally exhausted that I can't do my job.

It was when I started discussing this with friends that I realized how different my career was from most of theirs. Sure, they often are exhausted at work. But they CAN get their work done. They say things like, "I was SO sick of filing today" or "Uh. If I have to grade ONE more paper!" But they don't say, "My brain just shut down and I was unable to figure out..."

I know this sounds snobbish. But I am not trying to diss other people or their jobs. My doctor may not do much problem solving, but I am grateful for his help. I am just saying that most jobs involve little or no problem solving. Mathematicians are from Mars.

I have been talking mostly about corporate and academic jobs. In reality, I think there's a lot of problem solving going on in America. It's just outside of the intellectual world. And it follows a long tradition. In America, our main problem solvers are farmers, football players, carpenters, etc. People who build things and who play games MUST solve problems or they fail. It's really weird, because most such people can't talk the intellectual talk. They don't know Shakespeare from Euler. So we don't consider them smart, and they aren't smart in the limited way we tend to define the world.

Meanwhile, the "intellectuals" are barely using their intellects.

I think there's a lot of truth in there.  Unfortunately...

The Sizes of Little Things...

Very nice interactive graphic (slide the little bar under the picture) from the University of Utah...

The Jewish Service Heard Round the World...

Sixty four years ago, the first Jewish service was broadcast from Germany since Hitler's ascent.  I first came across this event (which happened before I was born) referred to in one of Stephen Ambrose's books.  Since then I've read about it elsewhere as well.  All sources agree: at the time it was a famous, widely-known event that moved a great many people.  Sixty-four years later, very few people seem to know it ever happened.  There's relatively little material about it on the Internet, even.

To place this in just a bit of context: this service took place less than a week after the bitter, bloody Battle of Aachen.  Watch the video:

One-Tier Health Care in Action...

Saskatchewan, Canada has North America's showplace “public option” health care system.  It's the system that both Pelosi and Reid have repeatedly offered up as the model for their bills. 

Today I read this little piece (by a frustrated Canadian) about one effect of Saskatchewan's health care system: the delivery of the flu vaccine.  A little googling brought much more detail.

It seems that the politicians and bureaucrats that run Saskatchewan's health care system have chosen “fairness” as their ultimate measure of success (not health, recovery, wellness, survival, or anything pedestrian like that).  So for the flu vaccine, they've decided that fairness can only be achieved by having everyone receive the vaccine at the same time.  What is explicitly not allowed is having doctors or pharmacies delivering vaccinations, as that would be unfair – some people would be vaccinated before others, simply because they chose (gasp!) a different doctor or pharmacy.  Can't have that!

So, for example, in the city of Saskatoon, if you want the flu vaccine you'll have to join the crowd at Prairieland Park.  In that crowd will be those who are already infected, those who are infectious, and those who are about to be infected.  But it will be fair!

Quote of the Day...

Our congresscritters, apparently not having enough to do, pass hundreds of “ceremonial statements” every year.  Each of these requires a vote, and usually it's an automatic “yes” vote for these essentially meaningless exercises.  Presumably the congresscritters believe it gathers votes for them, else I'm sure they wouldn't bother either.

On the 28th (this past Wednesday), Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona's 6th district voted “No” on a ceremonial statement honoring the 2560th birthday of Confucius.  If I were in his shoes, my no vote would be explained by something like “I will not waste my time on such utter trivialities when there are lots of things I should be doing for my constituents!”.  Congressman Flake explained his vote this way, in our quote of the day:

“He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out of time to read healthcare bill.”

Awesome!

Political Perspective...

Via my mom:

Are you a liberal, a conservative, or a redneck?  Here is a little test that will help you decide:  

You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, an Islamic terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you.  You are carrying a Glock 40, and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family.

What do you do?

Liberal's answer:

Well, that's not enough information to answer the question! Does the man look poor! Or oppressed? Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack? Could we run away? What does my wife think? What about the kids?Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand? What does the law say about this situation? Does the Glock have appropriate safety built into it? Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children? Is it possible he'd be happy with just killing me? Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me? If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me? Should I call 9-1-1? Why is this street so deserted?  We need to raise taxes, have a paint and weed day and make this a happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior. This is all so confusing! I need to discuss with some friends over a latte and try to come to a consensus.

Conservative's answer:

BANG!

Redneck's answer:

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Click.....(sounds of reloading) BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! click

Daughter: 'Nice grouping, Daddy!  Were those the Winchester  Silver Tips or Hollow Points?'

Wife: 'You are not taking that to the taxidermist!'

Don't Read This...

Can you believe this?  My own mother tortures me with an absolutely awful Halloween-themed pun:

A man is walking home   alone late one foggy Halloween night,  when behind him he hears:

BUMP...BUMP...BUMP...

Walking  faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an  upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward  him...

BUMP...BUMP...BUMP...

Terrified, the man begins  to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind  him.

FASTER...FASTER...BUMP...BUMP...BUMP....

He runs up to  his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and  locks the door behind him.. However, the casket crashes through his door,  with the lid of the casket clapping.

clappity-BUMP...clappity-BUMP....clappity-BUMP...

on his heels, as the  terrified man runs.

Rushing upstairs to the bathroom,  he locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.

With a loud CRASH the  casket breaks down the door.

Bumping and  clapping toward him.

The man screams  and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!  Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...

and the coffin stops.

Repair California...

The folks at Repair California issued a press release yesterday.  It starts:

Today, Repair California, a group of everyday Californians, reformers and advocacy groups turned in ballot language to call the first Constitutional Convention in California in more than 130 years.  Citing a broken system of governance, the measures would call a limited Constitutional Convention to reform four areas of the constitution: the budget process; the election and initiative process; restoring the balance of power between the state and local governments; and, creating new systems to improve government effectiveness.  The Convention is specifically prohibited from proposing tax increases or from considering changes to social issues such as marriage, abortion, gambling, affirmative action, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, immigration, or the death penalty.  Voters will decide on calling the Convention on the November 2010 ballot, the Convention would be held in 2011 and its proposed reforms would require voter approval in one of the three scheduled statewide elections in 2012.

I'm intrigued by this.  I've no idea what the probabilities are that a Constitutional Convention could actually be pulled off, and that it could make substantive and useful changes – but it's the only idea I've heard that could even plausibly fix the things that are so badly broken in California.  Most especially, it's the only idea I've heard that could break the iron grip of incumbency in Sacremento.

Besides, it sounds like a huge amount of fun – with one action, we can irk and irritate every parasitical special interest, every public sector union, and (best of all!) every insincere, posturing politician in Sacremento.

Woo hoo!

Cool!

Oh, lovely, lovely cool weather!

But it won't be with us for long, says the forecast.

Not that the forecast is actually reliable or anything...

When Grandma Went to Court...

Via my lovely wife:

Lawyers should never ask a Mississippi grandma a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly, woman, to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?'

She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?' She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said, 'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair.'

The Laryngospasms...

I really don't know what I can add to that!

Paul Lutus...

Here's a story about (and by) Paul Lutus, a famous programmer – the guy who wrote Apple Writer.  The lede:

You may have heard about me. In the computer business I'm known as the Oregon Hermit. According to rumor, I write personal computer programs in solitude, shunning food and sleep in endless fugues of work. I hang up on important callers in order to keep the next few programming ideas from evaporating, and I live on the end of a dirt road in the wilderness. I'm here to tell you these vicious rumors are true.

Those of you who know me well will probably be unsurprised that some of what Lutus has to say resonates strongly with me.  I can easily imagine being a “programming hermit”...

Holy Falling Revenues, Batman!

If you've ever had even the slightest thing to do with running a business, here's a graph that would send chills up and down your spine.  And start you thinking about your next career.  Click to see the full horror.

What you're seeing on this graph are the weekly circulation numbers for some of the major U.S. newspapers.  For a newspaper, circulation is a good proxy for revenue – not just because of subscription revenue, but because their ad revenue is mainly determined by their circulation (and, of course, by demographics).

Looking at this chart, two things reach up and slap you in the face.  First, the Wall Street Journal seems to be the only U.S. newspaper that's figured out how to attract readers in the modern era.  Second, every other newspaper looks like it's in a death spiral – it can't be too much longer until they close their doors.  Of these newspapers, I'm most familiar with the New York Times (I used to be a daily reader) and the Los Angeles Times (more by proximity than for any other reason).  As a picky consumer of news and commentary source, I am unsurprised that they are shedding readers – they're publishing junk today compared to what they did as recently as ten years ago.

I would hate to be an executive on one of those newspapers right about now...

Warrior Song...

Quote of the Day...

TJIC commenting on the low quantities and late availability of the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine:

Man, it’s a good thing that the flu vaccine isn’t being left in the hands of the free market – we might have the same horrible production and distribution bottlenecks that we run into with Coke, pizza, books, and pajamas – you can’t find those things anywhere.

And, hey, on the bright side, socialized medicine is coming!

What he said...

Some Sunday Four-Wheeling...

This past Sunday, Debbie and I took a little four-wheeling trip to a nearby place that we've never been before: to the top of Otay Mountain.  This was a trip more interesting than it was pleasant, as we traveled through areas mainly comprised of low, dry chaparral (not that attractive in the first place) that burned just two years ago.  The views to the south and southeast on the way up were very pretty – the morning mists in the low valleys in the southern U.S. and northern Mexico.

On the other hand, both the geology and the plant life were interesting and different than our home, which is only about 10 miles away in a straight line.  We saw a few familiar things (particularly some oaks), but a great many of the plants were unknown to us.  A large shrub or small tree was particularly common, but appears to be completely wiped out after the fire – we saw skeletons of these plants, with the remains of very odd seed structures (at least, we think that's what they were) all over the place.  When they were present, those must have made this drive a much more attractive one.

The view from the top (at about 2,500 feet altitude) was the best part of the journey.  To the west was an unobstructed view of the ocean and coastal plains, as Otay is the westernmost peak of the coast mountain range at this latitude.  To the east was the bulk of the coastal mountain range, including Lyons Peak, Lawson Peak, and Gaskill Peak – the heights ranged around our home.  We've never seen them from this angle before, and it took a while to get our bearings.

On the way home we stopped at a locally famous place to have lunch: the Dulzura Cafe.  I've only been here once before, some 30 years ago, and all I could remember was that I had a good hamburger there.  Debbie ordered machaca and eggs; I ordered a hamburger and fries.  Most of the meal was mediocre at best, but the hamburger was very good.  The one-woman service crew was completely overwhelmed by the lunch crowd, so the service was naturally spotty.  We greatly enjoyed the collection of antiques scattered all over the restaurant – particularly the collection of a couple hundred license plates tacked to the walls, and of old-fashioned egg beaters arrayed overhead.  One item made us think of our German friend Franz M. (who has helped me a great deal with my slide rule collection): an old, very beat-up Remington typewriter, of exactly the era that Franz collects.

Some more photos from the trip. The third photo is of one of the many radio and television transmission facilities that are on all the peaks of Otay Mountain. The last two are mostly of interest to locals: they show the western flanks of the coastal range, with Cuyamaca Peak prominent in the background:

    

Amazing Grace...

Some beautiful music...

Dorothy and the...

Via Marsha Y., this punny perversion of Baum's iconic phrase:

So, there's this yellow toad wandering around in the forest kinda pissed off because he doesn't want to be yellow. Life would be easier if he were brown like the other toads.. He'd sure be less visible to predators for one thing.
 
Anyway... this yellow toad bumps into a fairy godmother. He begs her: "Fairy godmother, please make me brown like the other toads. I am tired of being so visible to predators and such."
 
The fairy godmother whips out her magic wand and says "Abracapokus!  You're brown!"
 
The toad looks down and sees that he is brown except for his package, which is still yellow. He says to the fairy godmother: "Wait a minute! My pecker's still yellow!"
 
To this the fairy godmother replies: "I don't do johnsons. You will have to go see The Wizard of Oz for that."
 
The toad thanks her and hops off on his way.
 
There is also a purple bear wandering about the very same woods. As luck would have it, he encounters the very same fairy godmother. He implores her: "Fairy godmother, please make me brown like the other bears. None of the lady bears want to be seen with me on account of the hunters can spot me from a mile off."
 
She, being a nice fairy godmother, takes out her magic wand and says: "Pokuscadabra! You're brown!" The bear looks down and sees that he is, in fact, brown with the exception of the ole twig and berries, they remain purple. He says: "My wang is still purple!"
 
She says: "I don't do units, you will have to go see The Wizard of Oz for that."
 
To this the bear replies: "Well that's just dandy, but how the hell do I find The Wizard of Oz?"
 
The fairy godmother answers: "That's easy... just follow the yellow dick Toad!"

This pun's for you, pater...

Very Cute...

Italian Bread...

Via my mom:

Two old guys, one 80 and one 87, were sitting on their usual park bench one morning.

The 87 year old had just finished his morning jog and wasn't even short of breath.

The 80 year old was amazed at his friend's stamina and asked him what he did to have so much energy.

The 87 year old said, "Well, I eat Italian bread every day.  It keeps your energy level high and you'll have great stamina with the ladies."

So, on the way home, the 80 year old stops at the bakery.  As he was looking around, the lady asked if he needed any help.

He said, "Do you have any Italian bread?"

She said, "Yes,  there's a whole shelf of it. Would you like some?"

He said, "I want 5 loaves."

She said, "My goodness, 5 loaves .... by the time you get to the 5th loaf, it'll be hard."

He replied, "I can't believe it, everybody knows about this shit but me."

Dribbling Teapots: Solved...

Scientists have solved the pressing problem of dribbling teapots.

French scientists.

Just sayin'...

Saturn at Equinox...

A spectacular photo collection, taken by Cassini in the Saturn system.

There's more science in this web page than in the entire history of the International Space Station.

For less than 1% of the cost...

Strange Factoid of the Day...

I can't even come up with a theory about this one.

The chart at right shows the average credit score for people with email addresses at various Internet domains.  For instance, if your email address is crazy_pecan@aol.com, then you'd be counted in the AOL domain.

Someone at CreditKarma came up with this study.  Why they would look at this correlation is just as interesting a question as the results of it.

Why on earth should people with a Yahoo email address have a (much) lower credit score than those with a BellSouth email address?  I have no idea.

Anyone got a theory?

Update:

My friend Doug W. (a clear thinker who is mathematically inclined) says, in effect, “Move along, there's nothing to see here!”  His explanation, which makes sense to me, though I certainly didn't catch it at first:

I’m not convinced there’s anything real here. My first gut feeling is that it’s a distribution to be expected, but there just isn’t enough info to draw any conclusions. For example, what is the standard deviation of credit scores? The range here is not that large, and they don’t say how many samples there are from each domain. Let’s take a simple model, which is probably wrong but illustrative nonetheless. There are 7 domains listed, and a total of 20,000 credit scores, so suppose that there are ~3000 per domain (certainly it isn’t evenly distributed, but the results wouldn’t chance much). The expected standard deviation given N samples is about sqrt(N), or 1/sqrt(N) as a fraction. So, for 3000 samples, you’d expect about 1/54 ~= 2% as a std deviation. So you’d expect 95% of samples to be within ~4% of the mean. If the mean is 665, and the std deviation is 15, then everything is exactly as you’d expect.

Vote Carefully...

Another via my mom:

John was in the fertilized egg business in Alabama. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster, Ol' Bama, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed Ol' Bama's bell hadn't rung at all!

When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover. To John's amazement, Ol' Bama had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.

He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of Ol' Bama, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded Ol' Bama the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pullet Surprise as well.

Clearly Ol' Bama was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully next year, the bells are not always audible.

The Cash Cow...

Via my mom:

Lemon Picker...

Via my lovely wife:

A woman applying for a job in a Florida lemon grove seemed to be far too qualified for the job.

The foreman frowned and said, "I have to ask you this; "Have you ever had any actual experience in picking lemons?"
 
"Well, as a matter of fact, I have!" she replied. "I've been divorced three times and I voted for Obama."

Let's not do it a fourth time...

If It Looks Like a Duck...

How's that Hopey-Changey Thing Going?

Not so well, apparently.  Gallup reports that Obama's approval ratings have slipped by nine percentage points.

Oh, well.  Just nine points.  Not so bad, really.

Except that it's the biggest slip in Presidential ratings that Gallup has ever measured...

Business Failure Fail...

So you start a little espresso shop of your own, in a town that has Tim Horton and McDonald's locations.  Those chains capture most of the trade, and eventually your little business falters and dies.  Your shop closes, the signs come down, and you're looking for work.  But wait – your web site is still there.

So you leave a little message for your customers...

What a maroon!

Fast Inverse Square Root...

If you're not a geeky math type, there's nothing to see here.  Move along.

Wikipedia has a very readable article on the fast inverse square root algorithm that I first heard about in Doom's graphics engine.  Turns out its roots go back a bit further than I'd thought.

This is a great example of a phenomenon that has largely disappeared: clever, small algorithms that found very fast ways to make difficult (and ordinarily, time-consuming) computations.  The need for these algorithms has faded away with the development of ever more powerful computing platforms.  The inverse square root is now a single clock cycle computation on gigahertz graphics CPUs, with pipelined multiple cores reducing the effective cost even further. 

The need for these clever algorithms hasn't completely disappeared – you'll still find them in things like cryptographic systems, compression, etc.  But these are far more complex algorithms than something like an inverse square root.

In my earliest days as an engineer, in the late '70s or early '80s (I forget which!), I remember working with a company here in San Diego that had a product needing 16 bit pseudo-random numbers.  One of the principal engineers there had developed a teensy little algorithm – just a few lines of assembly language – that did the job for them.  Nobody there knew how or why this algorithm worked (despite its simplicity!).  All they really knew was that (a) it passed all their testing, and (b) it was very, very fast.  This made it quite valuable to them.

Today one can find many off-the-shelf pseudo-random number generators, some of them well-understood and documented.  They're all vastly faster than the one that firm was so proud of, and fast enough (on modern hardware) for all but the most unusual, demanding applications.

That story has been repeated many times, and one consequence of it is that these days it's actually a little unusual to find a software engineer (especially a younger one) who spends much time thinking about algorithmic efficiency at all.  Most of the time, this makes no difference at all – in fact, I suspect it makes these engineers produce better code in less time (optimization is a notorious complexity adder). 

But I can't help but pine (a little bit) for the days when even the most pedestrian accounting application could be made visibly more responsive through the work of a clever software engineer who could squeeze more computational power out of the slow computers of the day...

Listen...

Dedicated to my parents and my mother-in-law:

Ad for a Tea Party...

It does the best job I've seen yet of capturing the emotional state of those people motivated to participate.  Artifacts like this give me some hope for a ballot box revolution in 2010.  Via my mom:

My Kind of AARP...

Via my mom:

California, the Nanny State...

Looks like California is about to mandate low-transmissivity glass in cars.  This glass lets much less of the sun's energy through the windows, resulting in less heating of the car, thus resulting in less need for the fuel-hungry air conditioner.

Sounds good, right?

Well, this is the government at work – you should know better!  There are two major problems with the bill (which Schwarzenegger has already said he'd sign):

1. The glass is mandated for all automobiles under 10,000 pounds.  Not just cars with air conditioning.  It even applies to vehicles like jeeps with roll-up windows.
2. The low-transmissivity glass also impedes high-frequency radio waves, such as those used by cell phones, satellite radios, garage door openers, and electronic toll tokens.

Top-down central planning is fraught with such problems; this is just one more example of how such planning works very poorly.  But here we are, doing it again.

In 2010, these neo-socialists must go...