Tipping, An Old Tradition

My newspaper delivery person(s) send Christmas cards with envelopes with their return address, as a gentle plea for a tip.  ("Person(s) because I get two papers, though in one delivery, but apparently the Times and Post have separate people, who've made a side deal to save gas by handling me in one visit.) 

That's an old tradition, though maybe I should hold out for a poem, as they did in 1766, according to this Boston 1775 post.

The Problem of Consciousness in Self Driving Cars

Technology Review has an article on why self-driving cars must be programmed to kill, which is one of their best of 2015, which attracted a whole lot of comments.    The starting point is the old philosophical dilemma: in a choice between killing one and killing many, which is the right choice?  Do you push the fat man onto the railroad tracks to derail a train bearing down on a stopped school bus, or whatever? Does a self-driving car go off the road and over the cliff to avoid killing people in the road, if it kills the driver?

It strikes me as a problem only for the self-driving car which is conscious.  What do I mean? A computer processes one bit of information at a time, it's sequential.  The philosophical dilemma is one of consciousness: because humans are conscious we know, or think we know, things simultaneously: both the fat man and the school bus and the possible different courses of action.

But how would a computer know those things?  Say its driving a car which rounds the curve on the mountain road.  Maybe it knows there's no shoulder on the side, just guard rails which it will try to avoid. At some point it starts to see something in the road. It starts braking immediately.  It doesn't take the time to distinguish between live people and dead rocks, it just does its best to stop, perhaps being willing to hit the guard rail a glancing blow.   Presumably its best is a hell of a lot better than a human's: its perception is sharper, its decision making quicker, its initial speed perhaps slower.  I suspect the end result will be better than either of the alternatives posed in the philosophy class.  

The self-driving car is going to be optimized for its capacities, which don't include consciousness.

"A Deal Deal"

One of my favorite movies is a minor Clint Eastwood film: Kelly's Heroes.  It's a weird combination of war escapade and satire, mocking both the military and the counter-culture, Westerns, and movies..   Eastwood leads a motley crew through German lines into a town to rob a bank of German gold.  However a squad of German tanks has also learned of the gold, so the good guys and bad guys face off in the town, eventually reaching an impasse.  That's the moment at which Don Rickles, playing a corrupt supply sergeant, persuades Telly Savalas that it's time to do a deal with the Germans to split the gold; as he describes it, a "deal deal".

 That's what Speaker Ryan did in the closing days of Congress, a deal deal.  That's what some Republicans, particularly Paul Hinderaker at Powerline, don't understand--politics as the art of the deal deal.

An End to Innovation: 3-D Printed Rocket Parts

Government Executive reports on NASA's development of 3-D printed rocket parts.

Discrimination in USDA

NYTimes has a piece on discrimination against Hispanics by USDA agencies.  Forest Service is mentioned.  It ends with this paragraph:

"The department’s Office of Advocacy and Outreach signed an agreement with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities in early December to fund 180 paid internships at the agency. The association represents more than 470 schools."

Farm Houses Better Than Hospitals

Benjamin Rush writes to George Washington, from Brad DeLong's blogging of the Revolution, describing the problems of his hospitals, which are more dangerous than Valley Forge.  He pleads:

Before any material change can be made in our System it will be in your Excellency’s power to stop in some measure the ravages our hospitals are making upon the army by ordering the Surgeons immediately to billet such of the sick as are able to help themselves in farm houses. The air and diet of a farmer’s kitchen are the best physic in the world for a Soldier worne down with the fatigues of a campaign.

More on Genetic Modification

Nathanael Johnson's piece at Grist on the complexity of defining GMO's. 

Bottom line: if you can't define it you have difficulty labeling it.

Cotton Humor from Chris Clayton

You have to know the background but this is from Chris Clayton's (tongue in cheek) 2016 Policy Outlook:

Cotton planting increases from 8.5 million acres to 16 million acres thanks to commodity certificates and USDA designating cottonseed as an oilseed eligible for PLC payments. The U.S. also files its annual report assuring the World Trade Organization that none of its commodity programs are market-distorting.

When Did the "East" Become the "North"

Brad DeLong blogs the American Revolution.  Today 
he quotes Washington's letter to the Continental Congress, his second in two days, on the dire situation of his army, now camping for the winter at Valley Forge:

We have, by a field return this day made no less than 2898 Men now in Camp unfit for duty because they are bare foot and otherwise naked and by the same return it appears that our whole strength in continental Troops (Including the Eastern Brigades which have joined us since the surrender of Genl. Burgoyne)....

You should read the whole thing if you're interested in history, but what catches my interest is the reference to the "Eastern Brigades".  The context makes it apparent that he's referring to men from NY and New England, people whom we today would call "Northerners" or "Yankess".  A glance at the map shows why the reference: New England does lie to the (north)east of the mid-Atlantic states.  (Maine is still known as "downeast".)

So why and when did the "North" become the "North", rather than the "East"?  I suppose the change in terminology would be associated with the rise of sections in the new nation, perhaps even accentuating sectional tensions.

Ag Policy and Crop Insurance

An Agpolicy piece on crop insurance, somewhat stale, discussing moves to have payment limitation on insurance and cut insurance subsidies.