Not the First Time--an Exception

Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to a piece of his on the development of nuclear missile subs, triggered by problems India is having. 

"In retrospect, the George Washington class SSBNs were a fabulous engineering success, entering service quickly, with few problems, and packing a huge punch. All of the NATO boats were relatively quiet and could threaten the USSR from long-range. On the other hand, it took the USSR nearly a decade to produce a meaningful deterrent boat. It has taken China nearly three decades, despite extensive experience in both countries in submarine construction and operation."

He omits the credit due one of the greatest bureaucrats we have ever produced: Admiral Hyman Rickover.   So an exception to my "Harshaw rule" (you never do things right the first time): "unless you're Hyman Rickover"

It Was a Different Century: 1998

"” It took three weeks of lobbying the top editors of the Washington Post to get me access to the internet."

Susan Glasser recalling the time when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal became public, as part of an interesting dialog with Isikoff, Baker, and Harris (if you don't recognize the reporters you weren't around in 1998.)

France and EU Farm Subsidies

It seems French farmers may be losing out according to this Politico piece,  The dynamics of the French farm programs are similar to the U.S:

With defense, security, migration and digital technology emerging as clear strategic priorities for Brussels, it is becoming increasingly difficult to defend the sacrosanct status afforded to farmers, particularly the bigger landowners. Under the current budget, a massive €58 billion a year, or some 40 percent of the EU budget, goes to CAP payments, but 80 percent of that money heads to only 20 percent of farms.

I Was Wrong About Trump's Wall

I would have sworn he promised to build a wall along the entire border, but from this NYTimes summary he's been pretty consistent in specifying 1,000 miles.

See "The Post"

Just saw The Post.  Having lived through  the time, living in downtown DC and as a regular reader of both the Washington Post and the NYTimes, the atmosphere was familiar.  The movie's well-written and well-acted, possibly set for Oscar nominations.

A point and a nit:  Kay Graham tells McNamara that her son, and all "their sons" (by which she means the sons of the people at her parties) went to Vietnam while he was lying about the policy.  I'd be curious about the percentage of military age sons of members of Congress served in Vietnam.  I'd also like to see a comparison with the same populations in this century.  I'd bet both percentages are less than in 1942-45.

The nit:  I swear I saw a sign "Fort Andrews" in the background of an early scene, a sign which should have been "Andrews AFB" (now "Joint Base Andrews").

Testing Trump--Modest Proposal

In his physical yesterday, President Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and passed with 30 out of 30.  Can't access the database so I can't see how I'd do on it.  I have enrolled in the brain health registry, which is researching the subject.  Took all the tests over a few days, and did a little better than I expected (mom had Alzheimers, although developing in her 80's, and dad seemed slower before his fatal strokes at 73 so I'm hyperconscious of anything which might indicate I'm following the same path).  One thing they do not do is give feedback, so I don't know whether I'm below average, above average, or average for men of my age and background.  

But President Trump might take a half-hour a day in the morning to, instead of watching Fox and Friends, participate in the registry.  Be good for him, as lacking as he is in self-confidence.

Is Innovation Outstripping Our Imaginations?

Kottke reproduces a list of desired innovations written by Robert Boyle in the 17th century (Boyle was a central figure in the development of British science and the Royal Society).  Turns out we've done many of what he wanted (i.e., flying and plastics).  I wonder, and doubt, whether any one person today could come up with a similar list of innovations which will be implemented in the next 300 years.

A Virtuous Circle?

Some interesting reports: teenage sex is down, employers are looking to ex-convicts to fill job vacancies, the gap between black and white unemployment rates is the narrowest it's been since the figures were available, crime is down so that black urban dwellings now have the same vulnerability to crime as white suburbanites did in 1990.

I've long believed in the vicious cycle of poverty/racism/social ills.  Bad things feed on each other.  But maybe I need to admit the possibility of virtuous cycles?

Why Is a Human in the Loop?

I'm referring to the false nuclear missile warning in Hawaii.  Apparently someone had a choice of two buttons on a screen to click on, one "test", one "real", and chose the wrong one.  I can sympathize--I fairly often click on something which I realize a minute later is the wrong choice.

But as a bureaucrat, I see no reason for a human to have that choice.  Presumably what is supposed to happen is that the military determines a missile strike is imminent and puts out messages to the appropriate people.  So the person in Hawaii gets the military's notification and says what?  She has no way of testing the military's conclusion, all she can do is click on the real button.  So, if the human is just relaying the message, the system should be designed to automatically trigger the alert system.

The software she was looking at should show a status screen, which would show any incoming message and the fact it's been relayed on, and allow for initiating a test alert.

Kindle

As of this writing, the Kindle Store lists 5,902,458 different titles. 

If Amazon wanted to, it could with a single act bring a new form of book into being. That's because Amazon has more or less vertically integrated the entire book industry within its walls, building a complete reading universe of its own making. Lots of authors now write books especially for Amazon, which readers find on Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading, read on their phone and tablet, listen to through Audible or your Echo, and then talk about on Goodreads. Amazon has tools that help you write your book, format the manuscript, design the cover, file the right metadata, publish to the right places, and get paid the right amount. Want to make a comic book, a kids' book, or a textbook instead? Amazon can help there too.

https://www.wired.com/story/can-amazon-change-books/

Everyman his own historian.  (by Carl Becker)

A Hurdle for Self-Driving Cars

I've been big on self-driving cars in the past, but I just saw a hurdle they'll have difficulty overcoming.

The background: in the DC area we've had snow.  Before the snow VDOT/Fairfax put down brine on the roadways.  So we get our epic 1" snowfall and the conditions of the road (frozen from a long period of freezing temps), the brine and the traffic result in the roads essentially turning white--no way to see lane markings.  Oops.  Presumably they'll give the software enough smarts to identify conditions in which the software can't work.  I hope.

The Dutch and Modernity

Visited the National Gallery of Arts Vermeer exhibition  

"Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry This landmark exhibition examines the artistic exchanges among Johannes Vermeer and his contemporaries from the mid-1650s to around 1680, when they reached the height of their technical ability and mastery of genre painting, or depictions of daily life. The introduction of quiet scenes unfolding in private household spaces and featuring elegant ladies and gentlemen was among the most striking innovations of Dutch painting of the Golden Age, a time of unparalleled innovation and prosperity."

Quite crowded, since it leaves after next week.  I was struck by what it showed of Dutch society of the period: very modern.  Pictures of women writing,  lots of silk and parrots, reflecting the globalization of the time, cleanliness--people washing, tile floors and  brooms and mops to clean them, globes and maps. 

Of course, Simon Schama wrote a book which I think covered this aspect of Dutch painting--from wikipedia:

 In 1980 Schama took up a chair at Harvard University. His next book, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987), again focused on Dutch history.^[6] In it, Schama interpreted the ambivalences that informed the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, held in balance between the conflicting imperatives, to live richly and with power, or to live a godly life. The iconographic evidence that Schama draws upon, in 317 illustrations, of emblems and propaganda that defined Dutch character, prefigured his expansion in the 1990s as a commentator on art and visual culture.^[7]

 

STC Members

Saw this announcement on the NASCOE site: the appointees to the state committees of FSA.  I wasn't aware they were one-year appointments--I always thought it was a 4-year term, although the Secretary could fire a member.  That's beside the point.  I wanted to note that the appointees included a "lot" of women (meaning I didn't count the number and don't know how it compares to prior years, but it's impressive compared to 30 years ago when you'd have just a handful in the country.  (My guess is maybe 30 percent women?)

A Position on GMO's

Tamar Haspel expressed her agreement with a Mark Lynas speech, which he summarizes here:

So that’s my peace plan. To recap:

1. Environmentalists accept the science of GMO safety, and scientists in return need to accept that politics matter in how scientific innovations are deployed.
2. We drop national GMO bans and instead allow fully informed choices to be made by consumers in the marketplace via rigorous labelling and full traceability.
3. We all get over the Monsanto obsession but make a much more serious effort to start getting off the chemical treadmill and moving farming onto more sound ecological principles.
4. We agree to support public sector and non-corporate uses of genetic engineering where these can clearly contribute to environmental sustainability and the public interest.
5. We support all forms of agriculture that aim to find ways towards greater sustainability. Let a hundred flowers bloom.
6. We stop the name-calling. Let’s avoid using the term anti-science in particular. Anti-GMO activists are not opposing the scientific method in general, they are opposing a particular technological innovation.
7. Let’s make ethical objections to genetic engineering explicit and in the process recognise real-world tradeoffs about where we do and don’t use this technology.

The Tradeoffs: Estonia

I've blogged several times about the advantages of the Estonian e-government.  I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the downsides.  Estonia may well have great security, but India, which has its own similar innovative e-government initiative going, has run into problems with its Aadhaar database, according to this report from Marginal Revolution.

The bottom line is that by using a centralized data system you increase the incentives for hackers to try to access it and the potential damage from such access. 

There's no free lunch.

Are High Tax Cities Doomed?

Conservatives and libertarians like to point to migration away from high tax locations like California and the Northeast to lower tax locations like Texas and the Sunbelt.  The implication is that high taxes in the long run doom a location/city to decline and doom.   In light of that I found this excerpt from an interesting  Jstor daily piece on the invention of street lighting by a Dutch painter to be interesting:

By 1670 Amsterdam boasted 1,800 street lamps, and by 1681 2,400 lamps. Adding all these lights was a colossal and expensive undertaking, and taxes in Amsterdam rose to pay for it. But seventeenth-century Amsterdam was already famous for its high municipal taxes. This new lighting system was so popular that cities across Holland, Europe, and eventually Japan, began to implement the same.

When I Was a Boy

Neon lights were the thing.  Neon was the trademark, the signifier of life, of modernity, of jazz.  

Here's George Benson singing the song.

And here's a picture, hat tip James Fallows, which shows just how overboard we went with neon.

11 Million Americans

Never realized this--from James Fallows:

"It was because of this open secret that nearly 11 million more Americans voted against Trump last year than for him, including the three million more who voted for Hillary Clinton. (The rest were for Gary Johnson, who got nearly 4.5 million; Jill Stein, with nearly 1.5 million; Evan McMullin, with about 700,000; and a million-plus write-ins.) I

How Have My Predictions Done II

Not so well on the 2016 election--like most I expected and hoped for Clinton to win and thought the Dems would take the Senate. I did do okay noting the sort of events which could change the complexion of the Senate, although I missed Trump picking a Senator for his cabinet and the subsequent special election. (On Presidential politics I'm 0 for 2--predicting Romney in 2012 and Clinton in 2016.)

As for deficits, I thought the 2010 commission would go for a percentage cut like the old Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. I didn't see they wouldn't come to an agreement.  However, I do claim a little credit--the backup to the commission was provision for sequestration (here's the Democrats explanation).

Me and Warren Agree: ETF's, Not Hedges

We do have some money to invest, and over the years we've moved from mutual funds to ETF's and Dogs of the Dow in a balanced portfolio.  We don't have enough that hedge funds were ever an option, but I consider our investment strategy to be similar to what Warren Buffett pushes, passive investment.  From a AEI piece on his $1 million bet:

"Specifically, Buffett offered to bet that over a ten-year period from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2017, the S&P 500 index would outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs, and all expenses.As I reported last September, Buffett’s now-famous bet was actually settled early and ahead of schedule, because the outcome was so one-sided in favor of the S&P 500 index over hedge funds:"

The Paperless Office

I'm sure I've mentioned before that IBM sold ASCS the System/36 partially on the basis that county offices would become paperless.  That was a common meme in the 80's.

Via Vox's Significant Digits:

"Despite some of the mightiest headwinds on the planet, the paper business actually saw consumption grow 50 percent between 1980 and 2011. That’s in many ways because no industry really ever went paperless. They just ended up using paper in different ways. [The Guardian]"

How Have My Predictions Done--I

New Year is time for pundits to review their past work and confess to error.  I'm not a real pundit and don't have the energy to review my past posts.  I have labeled a few of my posts as "predictions" so let's see how they turned out:

Too early to tell whether I'm right that the U.S. will be "white" for ever.

I'm probably right that "farming" jobs are growing (due to the food movement and small farms) but I'm too lazy to update figures past 2013.

A Nov. 4, 2008 prediction looks okay:

• concern about "peak oil" will fade as oil prices drop. They're now about $130 a barrel, I predict them to fall to $80 by January 1. (Of course, I would have made a similar prediction last year--a big drop in prices.)
• Obama will win the Presidency in a squeaker.

A discussion of probable terrorist attacks from last year--Nate Silver was, I think, wrong. Certainly Trump jumped on every terrorist attack (except those where the terrorist was on the right), but IIRC didn't expand his powers.

Democrats didn't control Senate in 2016 elections

Gave up forecasting crop prices, but they're down from 2013..

That's enough for today.