Wired has a long piece on precision agriculture. Divisions between automating current operations, like John Deere's version of their 14 ton tractor, and new paradigms, like small weed-pulling robots, between field crops and fruits and vegetables, and dairy.
Did you know legal marijuana is the fifth most valuable crop grown in the US?
Kevin Drum blames Fox for much of the partisanship of the last 20-30 years.
Jack Shafer at Politico believes the former guy is being abandoned by the network.
I mean...
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) July 22, 2022
What IS the response to this from good-faith liberals, btw? https://t.co/AvRtjYv7xb
Within this thread is the "gentrification"/"white flight" cartoon attacking liberals--that is, if the neighborhood changes by increasing the proportion of whites--it's bad because "gentrification"; if it changes by decreasing the proportion of whites--it's bad because "white flight".
I think it's a fair point. As a liberal I'm stuck, welcoming change from the "creative destruction" of capitalism/market economy, and opposing change by providing a "safety net".
The key, I think, is modulated change: change must occur but change that's too fast, too massive needs to be cushioned. That's my analysis and defense of farm programs--only a rigorous supply management system such as those we had for tobacco and peanuts has been halfway successful in maintaining successful farms. If we aren't willing to go that far, then the best farm programs can do is to cushion the changes.
As someone who lived through the 1960's, I sometimes get impatient with today's discussions of race and its problems. I remember how it used to be, at least as best a young white NY liberal could who viewed from afar, did not jump into the struggle.
I was struck by the data in the twitter thread below, covering the life expectancies by race and sex between 1960 and 2017. While there's still a gap in expected life span, the gap has indeed narrowed since 1960, narrowed signficantly and particularly in recent years.
here's how it looks to me: pic.twitter.com/bd6NHH0cP7
— blighter (@blightersort) July 21, 2022
Commentary on the missing Secret Service cellphone records has invoked the spector of the Federal Records Act, violation of which can lead to jail time.
We don't know what happened in the case, but I start with some cynicism. I don't think most bureaucrats in most agencies know much or care much about the FRA. The leader of all Federal bureaucrats for 4 years, the former guy, showed exactly what he thought of it when he tore up documents he'd read.
The Act lacks an enforcement mechanism; NARA has no real power.
I suspect, and predict, that the Secret Service has never taken the FRA seriously. This might mean they simply ignored the preservation of records in past years, and continued that mind set in dealing with Jan. 6 and the upgrading of their cellphones.
We may find out if I'm right.
Claes Oldenburg recently died. He was, I guess, a modern sculptor.
I don't have much experience with modern sculpture. "The Song of the Vowels" which was installed on my college's campus about the same time I arrived didn't do much for me, but apparently it's still considered good.
The National Gallery of Art has a sculpture garden which I've toured, with several of Oldenburg's sculptures. I do get a kick out of The Typewriter Erasor--Scale X. I remember using the real life erasor before the days of correction fluid. I'm sure these days few people could identify it.
I believe Russ Roberts was an economist before he became head of a college. Anyway, he's got a piece in the NYTimes on decision making in which he describes the process Darwin went through before marrying. When I read about it in a recent bio I didn't pick up everything he did.
Back when I joined ASCS I was sent to a Kepner-Tregoe training class. One of the things taught was the same sort of calculus Darwin went through--figuring out pros and cons of a decision, assigning weights to each, and deciding according to the balance.
I tried that approach in choosing the house I was going to buy in Reston. It was useful, but then, like Roberts, I threw away the calculations and went with my gut feeling--the house I chose didn't come out as the best choice. The process can only go so far, and whenever there are imponderables and unknowns, as in deciding whether to marry, it's limited.
I've commented before on the advantages of the Kaiser Permanente system, as opposed to the system of independent doctors, specialists, and testing labs found elsewhere.
Currently I'm gaining some (vicarious) experience with dentistry. While Kaiser includes some dental coverage, it's not in-house but run through a separate organization. It includes a directory of participating dentists, endodontists, and oral surgeons which are in-network. For a variety of reasons (not rational ones, but human ones), we're getting the work done outside the plan.
One difference between the medical side of our health system and the dental side is technology. The various dentist/specialists have a lot more technology in their office. Where doctors had to send you out for blood tests, dentists have x-rays in their office, while the endodontists and surgeons have even more equipment.
One similarity betwen the system is the referrals from dentist to endodontist and surgeons. It seems to an outsider there's likely an informal network in existence; whether the network is more than just mutual trust I don't know.
From the patient's standpoint there's still the frustration of repetitive forms: health histories and legal documents. Within the Kaiser organization, that's avoided for medical issues.
For any complex issue, there's a coordination issue. That's likely true within Kaiser for medical issues, especially when you involve a hospital.
My title is a bit of a troll--the younger generation is always losing skills and learning new skills.
What triggered this post is my buying Starbucks coffee today. I pay in cash, usually trying to pay provide $5.55 for a $3.55 coffee, meaning I can put $2 in the tip jar (a habit carried over from pandemic days). The veteran baristas know my habit and handle it; today a newbie was thrown by it, gave me changes for $5 and my $.55 in change back.
I suppose like using the stick shift and the correction fluid, the art of making change is gradually losing ground as we all switch to digital payments.
