Friday, October 3, 2014
“That's not 'armed', that's 'dressed', you island-dwelling herbivore!”
Interesting political ad...
What makes this most interesting is that it soberly makes a point that many conservatives have made: Democrats (like Mary Landrieu) take black votes for granted, because no matter how poorly the Democrats perform, blacks overwhelmingly vote for them. Guillory urges black voters to reconsider that reflexive support for Democrats.
Landrieu is currently lagging behind her Republican challenger in the polls. Black voters could make or break her, so this ad is well-targeted. It will be interesting to see if the ad appears to make any difference in the choices black voters make...
Travel bans and involuntary travelers' quarantines...
Travel bans and involuntary travelers' quarantines... Given the news and fear of Ebola recently, it's entirely predictable that there would be a rash of support for what seems like an “easy fix”, or at least, as sensible precaution: outright bans of travel to and from the three countries with significant Ebola outbreaks, and authority for the CDC to involuntarily quarantine travelers they suspect might be carriers. Articles like this one abound.
There are significant problems with these approaches though, starting with the fact that they are completely ineffective. “What?”, say ye – how can a ban on travel from, say, Liberia be ineffective?
Let's start with this little inconvenient fact: there is no direct air travel between Liberia and the United States. Anyone who wants to travel from Liberia to the United States must change planes (and usually airlines). Most frequently this change occurs in Europe (it was Brussels for Thomas Duncan), but it could also happen in South Africa, India, or a number of other countries. When a passenger arrives in the United States from (say) London, we don't know whether his travels originated in England, Germany, Russia, Liberia, Australia, or Japan. You can't tell, and there are no records, unless that traveler happened to use the same airline for all the legs of his trip – and you can't even tell that. The only travel ban that would actually work would be to close our borders to all travelers other than those explicitly tested for Ebola and found clear. Can you imagine the impact such a total travel ban would have on the country?
Well, then, ok – how about the involuntary quarantine bit? Surely that would help? Consider this: Thomas Duncan was asymptomatic when he entered the U.S. He would not have been quarantined unless it was by accident. Then consider this: the vast majority of people quarantined under such a regime would be false positives – that is, they would be quarantined because (say) they had a high temperature, but the vast majority would have a high temperature for some reason other than Ebola. They might have a cold, or the flu, or any one of hundreds of other illnesses – but not Ebola. The situation would be different if there was some quick test for Ebola that could be administered at the airport – but there is no such quick test. Millions of airline passengers would be greatly inconvenienced, and very few actual Ebola patients would be detected. Is that a good idea? I think not. It smacks of security theater.
Expending effort and attention to ineffective policies like this is a waste of time and money that could be much better spent on efforts that actually work – like those currently taking place in Texas to contain the potential outbreak resulting from Thomas Duncan's unfortunate choice to travel here knowing that he'd had contact with an Ebola victim...
There are significant problems with these approaches though, starting with the fact that they are completely ineffective. “What?”, say ye – how can a ban on travel from, say, Liberia be ineffective?
Let's start with this little inconvenient fact: there is no direct air travel between Liberia and the United States. Anyone who wants to travel from Liberia to the United States must change planes (and usually airlines). Most frequently this change occurs in Europe (it was Brussels for Thomas Duncan), but it could also happen in South Africa, India, or a number of other countries. When a passenger arrives in the United States from (say) London, we don't know whether his travels originated in England, Germany, Russia, Liberia, Australia, or Japan. You can't tell, and there are no records, unless that traveler happened to use the same airline for all the legs of his trip – and you can't even tell that. The only travel ban that would actually work would be to close our borders to all travelers other than those explicitly tested for Ebola and found clear. Can you imagine the impact such a total travel ban would have on the country?
Well, then, ok – how about the involuntary quarantine bit? Surely that would help? Consider this: Thomas Duncan was asymptomatic when he entered the U.S. He would not have been quarantined unless it was by accident. Then consider this: the vast majority of people quarantined under such a regime would be false positives – that is, they would be quarantined because (say) they had a high temperature, but the vast majority would have a high temperature for some reason other than Ebola. They might have a cold, or the flu, or any one of hundreds of other illnesses – but not Ebola. The situation would be different if there was some quick test for Ebola that could be administered at the airport – but there is no such quick test. Millions of airline passengers would be greatly inconvenienced, and very few actual Ebola patients would be detected. Is that a good idea? I think not. It smacks of security theater.
Expending effort and attention to ineffective policies like this is a waste of time and money that could be much better spent on efforts that actually work – like those currently taking place in Texas to contain the potential outbreak resulting from Thomas Duncan's unfortunate choice to travel here knowing that he'd had contact with an Ebola victim...
“What does it say about a great nation when its most reliable truth tellers are desperate people?”
We're all used to a certain amount of doublespeak and bureaucratese in government hearings. That's as old as forever. But in the past year of listening to testimony from government officials, there is something different about the boredom and indifference with which government testifiers skirt, dodge and withhold the truth. They don't seem furtive or defensive; they are not in the least afraid. They speak always with a certain carefulness — they are lawyered up — but they have no evident fear of looking evasive. They really don't care what you think of them. They're running the show and if you don't like it, too bad.Read the whole thing...
And all this is a new bureaucratic style on the national level. During Watergate those hauled in and grilled by Congress were nervous. In Iran-Contra, Ollie North was in turn stoic, defiant and unafraid to make an appeal to the public. But commissioners and department heads now—they really think they're in charge. They don't bother to fake anxiety about public opinion. They care only about personal legal exposure. They do not fear public wrath.
All this became apparent in the past year's IRS hearings, and was pronounced in Tuesday's Secret Service hearings.
Julia Pierson, the director, did not seem at all preoccupied with what you thought of her. She was impassive, generally unresponsive and unforthcoming. She didn't bother to show spirit or fiery commitment. She was the lifeless expression of consultant-guided anti-truth.
No question was answered straight and simple. Everything was convoluted and involved extraneous data, so that listeners couldn't follow the answer and by the end couldn't remember the question. I am certain government witnesses do this deliberately — the rounded words, long sentences that collapse, the bureaucratic drone — so reporters will fall asleep and fail to file. An hour in Tuesday I expected the TV camera to slowly slide toward the ceiling, with the screen covered in a cameraman's drool...
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Time for a climate change change!
Time for a climate change change! If you're a climatologist, and your grant money depends on continued fear of global warming, then the now 18 year long “hiatus” in actual, measurable warning poses a bit of a grant application challenge for you. If there's no actual global warming, the money is going to dry up. What to do? Why, you change the problem, of course!
Out: measuring temperature to monitor global warming. In: measuring anything else that's still changing in a way that can be cast as scary as a proxy for the non-existent global warming!
Out: measuring temperature to monitor global warming. In: measuring anything else that's still changing in a way that can be cast as scary as a proxy for the non-existent global warming!
Things I never expected to read...
Things I never expected to read... I came across a link to a Facebook post by Chris Cox, the Chief Product Officer at Facebook. The post, which greatly surprised me, begins like this:
I want to apologize to the affected community of drag queens, drag kings, transgender, and extensive community of our friends, neighbors, and members of the LGBT community for the hardship that we've put you through in dealing with your Facebook accounts over the past few weeks.That's an official statement from a top-level executive of one of the world's most valuable companies. My surprise probably reflects nothing so much as my age. The world sure has changed a lot in this man's lifetime...
CP/M source code released...
CP/M source code released... I cut my systems programming (such as it was) teeth on CP/M, back in the '70s. In the late '70s I actually published a highly configurable CP/M BIOS as a freebie. You could say it was open source before anyone was calling it that. I also worked with CP/M's publisher (Digital Research, founded by Gary Kildall) on the multi-user sequel (MP/M), which was pretty much a flop in the market, though quite interesting technically.
To geeks of a certain age...
Except this isn't a photo of an ancient monitor. It's a screenshot from an app that emulates such a monitor.
One hardly knows what to say. Except, of course, that some people have way too much time on their hands...
ObamaCare's anti-innovation effect...
ObamaCare's anti-innovation effect... I've written about this several times, especially during the run-up to ObamaCare's approval. Now we're starting to see it actually happen, and this is awful news for the future of medicine...
How do we feel that something is wet?
How do we feel that something is wet? I always assumed that our skin had sensors of some sort that directly felt it, but that turns out to be wrong. Instead, we infer wetness from a variety of other sensors – and experience...
ISIS is caused by...
ISIS is caused by ... climate change! In a just world, this professor would be unemployed about 10 minutes after he said something like this. In our real world, he'll probably be promoted...
McIntyre is hitting a little harder recently...
McIntyre is hitting a little harder recently ... and in the process, he's providing fodder for Mark Steyn in his legal battle against Dr. FraudPants... See here, here, and here for some recent examples of this unfair fight: McIntyre vs. The Mann. If he wasn't such a putz, I'd almost feel sorry for Mann, as McIntyre is disproportionately armed, intellect-wise...
75 beautiful photos...
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Motivating frost...
Motivating frost... There's a chore I've been putting off for weeks that last night's frost motivated me to do this morning: getting the heater in our “water shed” going. The water shed is a small building (about 300 square feet) whose main purpose is to house our water pump and pressure tank. This pump pulls from an underground cistern just a few feet outside the water shed, and pushes into a 200 gallon pressure tank. The pressure tank and associated plumbing is all above ground, and therefore is susceptible to freezing. That's why there's a heater in there.
The heater is an old-fashioned standing pilot light model. The former owners were in the habit of shutting off the gas supply for the heater every spring. This saved them $5/month for the separate meter on the water shed. Then every fall they'd get the gas turned back on and relight the pilot. We bought the place after they'd shut off the gas already, so I had it turned back on last month. This morning I downloaded the manual for the heater and went out to light it off. That turned out to be more challenging than I expected, as the little sliding door that looks like a port to light the pilot is no such thing! Instead, as I discovered the hard way (it's not covered in the manual), you have to take off the bottom of the heater (many little sheet metal screws) to get to it. Even then it's a challenge to get a lighter up to the pilot. I finally managed to get it lit, and cycled the thermostat a few times to make sure it was all working correctly. Hopefully this will keep the pressure tank from freezing over the winter!
The heater is an old-fashioned standing pilot light model. The former owners were in the habit of shutting off the gas supply for the heater every spring. This saved them $5/month for the separate meter on the water shed. Then every fall they'd get the gas turned back on and relight the pilot. We bought the place after they'd shut off the gas already, so I had it turned back on last month. This morning I downloaded the manual for the heater and went out to light it off. That turned out to be more challenging than I expected, as the little sliding door that looks like a port to light the pilot is no such thing! Instead, as I discovered the hard way (it's not covered in the manual), you have to take off the bottom of the heater (many little sheet metal screws) to get to it. Even then it's a challenge to get a lighter up to the pilot. I finally managed to get it lit, and cycled the thermostat a few times to make sure it was all working correctly. Hopefully this will keep the pressure tank from freezing over the winter!
Frosty morning!
Frosty morning! When the sun came up and I could see my yard, what do you suppose I saw? A thick coating of white frost! Oh my!!
Ten paradoxes...
Ten paradoxes... Well, they're not really all paradoxes, but they are all interesting things to scratch your brain with...
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Congratulations, MOM!
Weather, and road trip...
Weather, and road trip... Our forecast for today had a “chance of rain” – and we won the lottery. So far today my rain gauge is showing two tenths of an inch, and there's a line of intense squalls bearing down on us – maybe ten minutes away – as I write this. The rain was enough to put the kibosh on both the driveway paving work and the barn building work. Dang!
On the other hand, another craftsman showed up today. This was in response to my reporting a problem with our shower grout on Friday. The fellow who did the tile work showed up, took one look at the problem I reported, and immediately went to work to repair it – no push back, no guff, no debate: just “Yup, that sure does need to be fixed!”
I've had enough experience with this sort of thing up here in Paradise now that I've come to expect that workers of all types will unhesitatingly take responsibility for any problem that arises. I've recently seen this with the two guys (Terry and Jerry) who did the grading work on our driveway here. The care that they took to get the slopes correctly is way beyond what I'd expect. One of them even drove out here after he saw a rain squall pass over Paradise, so he could see how the rain water drained off the road base – that's better even than their instrumentation. A few decades of experience in California led me not to expect this kind of care in contracted work, and it's taking a while to undo that.
This morning I took a trip up to Blackfoot, Idaho, to see the vendor of reclaimed wood there. These are the same folks (Trestlewood) that supplied our mantel, and we're so happy with it that we decided to get another piece of reclaimed wood from them. This piece will fit up against our kitchen's ceiling, and the lights for the island will hang from it. I went up there this morning to walk around their (enormous) yard full of wood to choose a piece. I found an oddly-shaped hand-hewn piece of wood that I just loved. The folks at Trestlewood aren't sure what the species is, but they suspect it's a species of birch, or possibly even a lighter-than-usual cherry. Whatever it is, it's a (very) hard wood, and the chunk we're getting is about 6' long, 2' wide, and 8" thick. I'm guessing it weighs about 140 pounds, but it's wet at the moment; it will lighten up a bit after it's dried and finished. The ax and adze marks left on it are quite pronounced; this piece was used as a timber and was never finished in any way. As with our mantle, the folks at Trestlewood are going to do the finishing for us. I can hardly wait to see the result!
On the other hand, another craftsman showed up today. This was in response to my reporting a problem with our shower grout on Friday. The fellow who did the tile work showed up, took one look at the problem I reported, and immediately went to work to repair it – no push back, no guff, no debate: just “Yup, that sure does need to be fixed!”
I've had enough experience with this sort of thing up here in Paradise now that I've come to expect that workers of all types will unhesitatingly take responsibility for any problem that arises. I've recently seen this with the two guys (Terry and Jerry) who did the grading work on our driveway here. The care that they took to get the slopes correctly is way beyond what I'd expect. One of them even drove out here after he saw a rain squall pass over Paradise, so he could see how the rain water drained off the road base – that's better even than their instrumentation. A few decades of experience in California led me not to expect this kind of care in contracted work, and it's taking a while to undo that.
This morning I took a trip up to Blackfoot, Idaho, to see the vendor of reclaimed wood there. These are the same folks (Trestlewood) that supplied our mantel, and we're so happy with it that we decided to get another piece of reclaimed wood from them. This piece will fit up against our kitchen's ceiling, and the lights for the island will hang from it. I went up there this morning to walk around their (enormous) yard full of wood to choose a piece. I found an oddly-shaped hand-hewn piece of wood that I just loved. The folks at Trestlewood aren't sure what the species is, but they suspect it's a species of birch, or possibly even a lighter-than-usual cherry. Whatever it is, it's a (very) hard wood, and the chunk we're getting is about 6' long, 2' wide, and 8" thick. I'm guessing it weighs about 140 pounds, but it's wet at the moment; it will lighten up a bit after it's dried and finished. The ax and adze marks left on it are quite pronounced; this piece was used as a timber and was never finished in any way. As with our mantle, the folks at Trestlewood are going to do the finishing for us. I can hardly wait to see the result!
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