Corn

Sometimes I can follow science, sometimes I can't. This post is interesting, as it deals with the evolution of corn, though I had a bit of trouble following the logic of "cryptic variation", meaning genes change but the trait doesn't. (Hat tip to Brad DeLong.)

The big news for me was a throwaway for the writer--they've been able to mate modern corn and teosinte and produce viable offspring--meaning they're the same species.

One implication I think is Richard Dawkins was wrong in "The Selfish Gene", because the trait, not the gene, is what is selected for.

Grade Inflation, Students and Bureaucrats

Harry at Crooked Timber has an interesting discussion of "grade inflation", which supposedly occurs at institutions of higher education. He argues that grade inflation may not be occurring, students may just be better these days. (There's some proof, and even a name for the effect, which I have now forgotten--senior moment--that IQ's are rising each generation, although he doesn't mention this. He does observe that legacy students like George W wouldn't have gotten into Yale today.)

It's interesting to me because the people who believe in grade inflation ascribe it to the same factors which I saw in government work when it came time for me to evaluate employees, or others to evaluate me. Namely, fuzzy standards, the desire to avoid conflict, fear of honest discussions, desire to keep everyone happy. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

IT: Don't Ever Do This (100 MPH in Suburbs)

Robert Thomson has a great little story in the Post, on two gray-haired speeders in Silver Spring, caught on camera going 100 mph on a winding road. They paid their $40 fine, as good citizens and guilty people should.

If I knew how to hide the rest of this, I would, because you really ought to read it.

But, I don't--the bottom line was the IT types screwed up. The camera system was set to diagnose itself if it had problems, and communicate the fact to humans by displaying either 100 mph or 0 mph as the speed.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Some lazy IT specialist saved herself a little bit of code by doing that (or some person who specified the user requirements was ignorant of good design). You should never use a piece of data (as in recorded speed) for another purpose (to communicate a message). Once the system knows there's a problem, it should display or print an error message (ideally one that's meaningful). To do otherwise is bad design.

Bad Night for Foodies, Via Mr. Bolt

So the new "world's fastest human" ran his record time based on a breakfast and lunch of nuggets.

Or maybe it was yams

So Much for Original Intent--Small Farms and ACRE

Keith Good passes on a report of conflicts between USDA and Congress over interpretation of two provisions of the farm bill: how to implement the prohibition on payments for bases less than 10 acres and how to implement the ACRE program with respect to past years market prices.

This is the sort of discussion you get after most farm bills, particularly when there's been little informed discussion before they're passed. The big shots in Congress may not be talking to the big shots in USDA, because of political differences or just policy differences. The big shots of whatever position may not be talking to the faceless bureaucrats who understand what's needed to implement and, hopefully, are able to visualize the questions and problems down the road. (Yes, I was one of those faceless bureaucrats, whose wisdom was often ignored.)

The whole experience makes me doubt the validity of originalism as a theory of interpretation for the Constitution.

Herndon and Immigrants Again

The Post reported yesterday the same old story. Day laborers, presumably most or all illegal immigrants, are out on the streets of Herndon, Virginia, some residents don't like it, so the town is planning to crack down, again. Of course, the town once had a center, where the laborers were off the street and registered, and not bothering people. But they closed that down, hoping to discourage the laborers, which hasn't worked sufficiently to please the good citizens.

So, they plan to escalate their fight. Reminds me of the drug war--as long as the demand (for cheap day laborers) is there, people will meet the demand.

Michael Phelps and Food

Everyone else is writing about Michael Phelps, so I might as well join the parade. He's gotten lots of publicity for his 12,000 calorie diet, including this webmd piece (which is skeptical).

It doesn't seem to include the right proportions of fruits and vegetables, but it may include the secret behind Mr. Pollan's "In Defense of Food" blurbs on behalf of traditional diets. A traditional diet, whether the all-meat diet of the Inuit or the cattle-blood diet of some cattle herding tribes, is usually matched by a traditional way of work. Michael Phelps' diet, and that of other athletes, is coordinated with the work they do. You can eat a traditional diet if you do the traditional work. If not, not.

CSA Trials

The Post has an article on CSA, part of a series. The writer is having to cook and juggle recipes to make use of vegetables she's not familiar with. Another problem is illustrated by a post on my local freecycle board (for those not familiar, freecycle is a neighbor swap meet on the Internet--you post what you want to give away or what you want and much of the time you can get a match, at least that's my experience. Google freecycle.org for more info.) The offeror apparently was going to be out of town so wanted to give away her weekly delivery.

Point being--there's tradeoffs for CSA customers--you get the freshest vegetables, but there's overhead and rigidity--you lose the flexibility of deciding on the spur of the moment to buy something from the local supermarket.

Flowing Info

Via Treehugger, this application is neat in concept. Use Google maps to locate your house, take advantage of knowing the N/S E/W orientation of the house from the map, then enable an app to calculate the size and cost of a rooftop solar power panel installation and match to local utility info to compute year savings. Unfortunately, they only cover CA as of now. But it's just an example of how the Internet enables the rapid flow of information. And the economists point out the problem of information costs, which the Internet is reducing to nil.

Weak Blogging

Not to pick on Megan McArdle, because everyone shares the problem, but this is weak (apropos of the Georgia/Russia situation):

"I think we should do something about it, not that I think we will. But we could certainly do more than we are, which is nothing."

Remember, electrons may not be precious but our time is. If you're going to comment, at least do a specific suggestion. I doubt there's anything to be done, unless someone can arrange cold showers for Putin and Saakashvili. So, if you have nothing to suggest, just snark someone else's post.