The Importance of Knowing What You Don't Know

One of the few lessons I learned at work is the importance of knowing what you don't know.  I remember assuring the state specialist for Arkansas of an answer, which I wasn't really sure of.  Naturally I was wrong, and the answer turned up in an OIG report.

Seems to me the same issue is cropping in with self-driving cars, as witness this Technology Review article on problems with the new Tesla software/hardware.  Apparently Google is trying to handle all situations, but the problem drivers are having with the Tesla is not knowing when the system is approaching the limit of its capability, i.e., not knowing what the Tesla doesn't know or isn't sure of.

It's All Downhill from Here: Pillminders

If I have any young readers, I hope by the time you're old someone will have innovated pillminders away.

Maybe a 3-D printer which can produce any known medicine, with the output passed through a permanently installed port in one's arm, with the timing under control of the embedded personal health minder (the great grandchild of the Apple Watch)?

The older readers will know what inspired this: first you have to take an aspirin a day. Not hard to remember, particularly when one's mind is at 98 percent capacity.  Then the doc adds a prescription pill for circulation problems.  By the time the third pill is added for blood pressure, one's mind is at 90 percent and going more quickly.  So it's time to invest in a pill-minder, perhaps a 7 day jobbie so you only have to fill it once a week.

The next step is a couple more pills, one of which has to be taken twice a day, not once. And now the mind is really losing it.

Maybe what I need is a blogminder--something to remind me what I was writing about when I started the post?

I Hate "Resources"

These days everyone talks "resources", as in we need to devote the resources to fixing the problem, we lack the resources to do this, I (the politician) will devote the resources.. ad infinitum.

What do we mean?

"resources" = men/workers/people + money

I suppose that the term is useful: often if you're adding workers to a project you need the money to pay them and sometimes the decision of whether to add money and contract out the job or add workers and keep it in-house has yet to be made.

But all in all, "resources" is too damn vague: if you mean money you're talking appropriations and taxes; if you mean people, you're talking hiring and training, or moving people from one assignment to another.

Farming Fraud

Via the Rural Blog, an article on a Michigan farmer sentenced to a year and a day for fraud ($500k+).

Drone Registration and Obama's Immigration Actions and Guns

Today's papers (I think, but I'm playing catchup with my reading after a short trip) say that the FAA is planning to implement a registration system for drones by the end of the year.   There's also a piece about the court battle over Obama's immigration actions.  Why do I link the two?

Because I think both cases involve a bureaucrat's favorite piece of legislation--the Administrative Procedure Act.

As I understand it, Obama is being sued by Texas because he didn't follow the public rulemaking provisions of the Act.  Texas argues that the state is harmed by Obama's actions, meaning that he (ICE actually) should have gone through proposed rulemaking, allowing the public to comment on the actions.  There's a prediction the court fight may drag out through the rest of Obama's term in office.  (If they had gone with proposed rulemaking, the administration's lawyers probably figured it would have taken a couple years to complete anyway.)

If the FAA actually gets their registration system, both software and system design and requirements, up and running by Christmas, in time to catch all the drones being given for Christmas, they will have done well.  But why aren't they required to go proposed rulemaking under APA?

My guess is the FAA's argument in fact, if not formally, is that no one will have the balls nor the legal basis for suing over APA procedure.  They might say that the registration system will be so easy and not burdensome that there's no adverse burden to the public.  What I suspect they'll really mean is that the drone industry wants certainty so they can forge ahead, so no company will sue.  The industry will do better by having known standards than a 2-year court fight over process.


Now from the private citizen's standpoint, I could argue that my freedom is impaired by any federal regulation of guns drones. I could even argue owning and operating a drone is vital to the citizen's oversight of the federal government and my rights will be violated by this hasty rush to regulation.

I could argue that, but I don't.  I wish the FAA good luck with their software project.

More Action on MIDAS

FSA has new information on MIDAS and new releases of software.  See here.

I'm getting ready for a trip over the weekend so haven't looked at the information.  Possibly the project has its own momentum and logic. 

You Never Do It Right the First Time

There's a corollary to this,  the hiding hand principle.Which says the actual outcome of a project is often very different from the projected outcome.  The original essay by Albert O. Hirschman looks at unexpectedly good results, the more recent study linked to here says they occur only in a minority of cases, mostly it's poorer results.

Nice Paragraph: Fargo II

"Maybe the FX series Fargo is so good because blood looks so beautiful on snow. Red splashes against white, soaking into it, marking something that was once pure with a sudden, swift reminder of violence."

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/13/9512365/fargo-season-2-premiere-recap

How To Change Peoples' Minds: Tax or Nag

Always interested in how people change their minds, if they do.  Two bits of evidence:

1. Taxes work.  From NYTimes, Mexico levied a tax assessed on bottlers of soft drinks. The higher price reduced consumption.
2. Nagging works. NY Times article on  how Californians nag each other about water consumption.

Are Federal Employees Properly Compensated

This piece answers: "no one knows".

I agree.