Good Movies: The Spotlight

Just saw Spotlight, an account of the Boston Globe's investigation into pedophile priests and the cover-up. It's very good, so far and as best I can remember, my best movie of 2015. It's the story of getting the story, without being overly maudlin about the subject matter. For anyone who's worked in a bureaucracy, the beginning is a surefire hook (nerves in the office as a new editor arrives), but the movie is always good on the minutiae/

Other good movies which I expect to get Oscar nominations:

• The Martian.  
• Bridge of Spies

Our German Inheritance--Vampires

It seems that the concept of vampires was imported during the American Revolution by Hessian doctors serving with the Brits. They used vampires to explain tuberculosis, specifically the wasting away.  That's from Boston 1775

Racism and Rhetoric

Some ironies:

Some on the left talk of racism in ways which strongly imply whites are bad people. Some on the right talk of a culture of poverty in ways which strongly imply the poor (blacks) are bad people.  Neither focus on class or structural causes.

Some on the left dismiss talk of a "Ferguson effect", denying that verbal attacks on policy might lead to violent attacks. Some on the right dismiss the idea that rhetoric attacking Planned Parenthood might lead to violent attacks.  (To be honest, Peter Moskos at Cop in the Hood) this idea published first.

Why Didn't We Do a Joint Legacy Viewer

DOD and VA have had problems integrating their health care IT systems.  Now they've focused on a "Joint Legacy Viewer", which uses the principle of "write locally, read globally".

As is often the case, I think back to the 1990's (old geezers live in the past, you know) and the idea of integrating the USDA farmer  service agencies, at least in their IT.  At that time our (my) focus was always creating one database to serve the agencies.  In retrospect that was wrong. 

In 1992 we were demoing a mocked-up viewer of ASCS data.  Maybe we should have tried to build on that, rather than going for the big top-down solution.

Poor History

John McWhorter writes for the Wall Street Journal, being generally critical of campus activity on racism (hat tip: Althouse).

While it's okay, I want to challenge his history, specifically:

"What changed the game [to make civil right advances possible] in the Eisenhower era was a combination of television broadcasts of hideous images and the federal government’s publicity concerns during the Cold War."

I'd say what changed the game in the 50's was the culmination of the NAACP's litigation campaign establishing equal rights, which led to the activation of idealism among the political elite. As you move into the 60's civil disobedience and the violent reactions to it came to the forefront, 

Collective Action Problem: Who Will Bell the Don

The saying goes, " who will bell the cat", which turns out to be based on a fable from the Middle Ages. Dana Milbank wrote about the Republican problem with Donald Trump.  It would likely be to the benefit of all the other candidates if he lost support, but if only one candidate attacks him he or she might not attract Trump's former supporters.  For some reason I was reminded of this old saying.

CRISPR, I Knew It

This Technology Review article discusses the use of CRISPR to "engineer babies".

And another article says: "Gene drives are just the latest example of the fantastic power of CRISPR editing to alter the DNA of living things,..."  This is in the context of engineering mosquitoes which stop the transmission of the malaria parasite and ensuring they proliferate, raising the possibility of a victory against malaria. But it raises the ethics of changing the biosphere, permanently.

I first posted about CRISPR back in April, which was pretty good of me, though my post was more about the quandary it poses for opponents of genetic modification.  That quandary becomes more severe as we begin to see the potential uses of the technique.

[Updated: An Atlantic article on understanding our genes.--hat tip  Marginal Revolution.]

Fortran?? Really, Fortran

FCW has a post on supporting Fortran, by "accommodating the legacy code with an open-source Fortran compiler to help integrate the programming language into a larger pool of computer languages in supercomputers."

Fortran was old when I was learning COBOL back in the 70's.  And most of the people in the US have never heard of either, too young.

Appropriating a Cultural Image

Lots of debate over "appropriating" another culture (see Eugene Volokh on yoga).  So I was struck by the image here,
which is entitled "Liberty Triumphant or the Downfall of Oppression". (Image reached from this post at The Junto.) It's a political cartoon published shortly after the Boston Tea Party.  It shows British and Americans as opposing camps, with the Americans represented as Indians. Excerpts from the explanation/text in the cartoon:

12. America represented by a Woman is an Indian queen, with drawn bow about to loose an arrow at Lord North.
Behind her are six Indian warriors. They are:
13. The Sons of Liberty, represented by the Natives of America, in their savage garb. They emerge from the forest, armed with bows and spears, saying “We will secure our freedom, or die in the Attempt”: “ Lead us to Liberty  or Death”; “Lead on, Lead on.”  Above them the shores of America stretch out from Boston to the Delaware. Seated in comfort on these shores, holding a liberty cap on her staff, a tabby cat curled somewhat incongruously at her feet, is:
14. The Goddess of Liberty, addressing herself to Fame and pointing To her Sons, saying proudly “Behold the Ardor of my Sons and let not their brave Actions be buried in Oblivion.”

 Bottom line: much of our history is appropriated imagery.

Maintenance May Be China's Downfall Future Nightmare

Although China's economy has slowed a bit, it's still growing, after 35 years of impressive growth.  But it strikes me that China will face a big problem down the road.  Because their growth has been so rapid, much of their infrastructure is roughly the same age. That means it will be wearing out about the same time, requiring a lot of repairs or replacement.  China has profited by the ability to modernize their agriculture, freeing/driving workers to the cities.  Meanwhile the 1-child policy has meant fewer children to support, so the ratio of workers to dependents has been high, whereas in the future it will be low.