A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
Readers: Who has been to Cuba on one of the newly approved flights? If so, what is it like?
[I’d be more interested in going if the Central Planners in D.C. had decided to favor Boston, but apparently the Great Father in Washington thought that consumers should fly from other cities (see “Boston loses out on commercial flights to Havana”).]
Full post, including commentsMost articles on immigration talk about the number of people arriving in the U.S. “Thousands Eager to Vote Won’t Become Citizens in Time” (nytimes) instead looks at the number who are becoming citizens:
In the last year almost 940,000 legal immigrants applied to become citizens, a 23 percent surge over the previous year.
If we want to see what kind of politician will be successful in the U.S. ten years from now should we look at what kinds of politicians are successful today in the countries from which immigrants are arriving? Or are there specific things that American politicians can promise immigrants in order to gain their votes?
Full post, including commentsOne thing that Americans like to do is express outrage that leading Russian politicians and/or their friends are getting rich. How new is this? “Not very” is the answer from Peter the Great: His Life and World:
Bribery and embezzlement were traditional in Russian public life, and public service was routinely looked upon as a means of gaining private profit. This practice was so accepted that Russian officials were paid little or no salary; it was taken for granted that they would make their living by accepting bribes. In Peter’s time, only a handful of men in government were said to be honest and imbued with the idea of conscientious service to the state—Sheremetev, Repnin, Rumyantsov, Makarov, Osterman and Yaguzhinsky. The others were loyal to Peter personally, but regarded the state as a cow to be milked. As a result, the majority of administrators were motivated less by a sense of service to the state than by desire for private gain, mingled with the effort to escape detection and punishment. Thus, two powerful negative motives, greed and fear, became the predominant features of Peter’s bureaucrats.
Disappointment followed disappointment, not only at the highest levels. Once, Peter elevated an honest lawyer to a judgeship. In this new position, where his decision could become an object of bribery, the new judge became corrupt. When Peter found out, he not only absolved the judge, but doubled his salary to prevent further temptation. At the same time, however, the Tsar promised that if the judge ever again betrayed his trust, he would surely hang. The judge fervently promised that Peter’s faith was justified—and soon afterward accepted another bribe. Peter hanged him.
Peter, a man of simple tastes, was distressed and disgusted by the shameless rapacity of his lieutenants clutching at every opportunity to rob the state. On all sides, he saw bribery, embezzlement and extortion, and the Treasury’s money “flowing from everybody’s sleeves.” Once, after hearing a Senate report listing further corruption, he summoned Yaguzhinsky in a rage and ordered the immediate execution of any official who robbed the state of even enough to pay for a piece of rope. Yaguzhinsky, writing down Peter’s command, lifted his pen and asked, “Has Your Majesty reflected on the consequences of this decree?” “Go ahead and write,” said Peter furiously. “Does Your Majesty wish to live alone in the empire without any subjects?” persevered Yaguzhinsky. “For we all steal. Some take a little, some take a great deal, but all of us take something.” Peter laughed, shook his head sadly and went no further.
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Today is my birthday (39 again!). I think that I deserve an iPhone 7 Plus as a gift to myself.
The Chipworks teardown shows that the phone contains two Sony camera sensors.
Why no wireless charging, though? Especially given that the only way to use conventional headphones is via the Lightning connector, wouldn’t it have made sense to enable the phone to charge on a bedside pad?
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About 2.5 years ago I wrote about a talk by Charles Isbell, one of my grad school classmates who is now at Georgia Tech, describing an online Master’s in Computer Science program. Today’s New York Times has a story on the same subject. Could it be that a crack in the edifice of high-priced higher education is developing? I wonder if people will look back 50 years from now and say that it was Georgia Tech that brought everything down.
Full post, including commentsTwo friends and I watched the Trump debate from the Trump hotel in Chicago (one of the best hotels in the U.S.) while savoring the taste of Trump-brand Virginia wine (“pretty good” was the verdict). This was a violation of my normal policy to avoid watching politicians give speeches, but given our location it seemed worth making an exception.
One thing that confused me about the debate was Trump missing seemingly obvious responses to Hillary attacks. For example, Hillary said “you’ve taken business bankruptcy six times. There are a lot of great businesspeople that have never taken bankruptcy once.” Trump responded with “on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that are there. … I take advantage of the laws of the nation because I’m running a company. My obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies. And that’s what I do.”
“I take advantage of the laws” doesn’t seem to me like the best answer. Why not “I’ve done approximately 100 business projects over my lifetime and about 10 of them didn’t work out as I’d hoped. In fact, four of them went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, which saves jobs for employees at the expense of investors. So I’ve had a 90-percent success rate rather than the 100-percent success rate that you seem to be demanding. If you have had a 100-percent success rate in the projects that you’ve done over your lifetime then I congratulate you. If you don’t think businesses should be able to reorganize under Chapter 11, why didn’t you work to change the law when you were a senator?”
Similarly, when Hillary attacked Trump for not paying every contractor whatever amount the contractor had billed Trump could have said “I have built or renovated X million square feet of space. If you’ve ever owned a 2500-square-foot house you may have have a dispute with a contractor over what was the fair amount to pay for the work done. I wish that we had never had any disputes while building X million square feet, but that’s not realistic.”
Trump could also have pointed out that he wasn’t able to find a friendly commodities broker to stick another customer with losing trades (Hillary’s 100X return on investment). Nor could he get companies and countries seeking Washington access to pay him speaking fees or donate money to a foundation that he controlled. So he had no choice but to take risks in the marketplace. Yet the words “donation” and “foundation” don’t appear in the debate transcript.
He could stick in some jabs against Hillary and Obama, e.g., “It is easy to be successful 100 percent of the time when you are spending tax dollars and making up your own criteria. You spent $1 billion on a web site for Obamacare and now you call it a success. I’m sure the contractors were happy that you paid all of their bills for that project, but if a private business had spent $1 billion on a web site it would be bankrupt.”
[This is not to say that I think Trump is a better candidate than Hillary. As a Massachusetts resident whose ballot is primarily candidates running unopposed (and the races in which there are multiple choices are seldom in doubt), I haven’t educated myself on the relative merits of these two. The point of this posting is just to show that Trump could have done a lot better by practicing standard responses to a handful of predictable attacks.]
[Separately, a bunch of my Facebook friends have complained about me choosing to stay in the Trump hotel. I wonder if they are missing one of the good things about a market economy in terms of breaking down prejudices and barriers among groups. In a market economy you may choose to do business with people whom you wouldn’t ordinarily be friends with or socialize with. This can be the first step toward harmony among groups of disparate people.]
Full post, including commentsThe New York Times has endorsed Hillary Clinton: editorial. As my ballot here in Massachusetts consists primarily of candidates running unopposed this is not of any personal relevance. One item caught my eye, however:
She helped promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an important trade counterweight to China and a key component of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia. Her election-year reversal on that pact has confused some of her supporters, but her underlying commitment to bolstering trade along with workers’ rights is not in doubt.
How is it possible for a politician to “bolster trade” and simultaneously support “workers’ rights”? Does “workers’ rights” refer to the rights of workers in Vietnam to have full access to the U.S. market?
What do readers think? Is there a way to promote free trade and also shield Americans whom employers don’t value (see unemployed = 21st century draft horse?) from the fact that the world is now full of well-educated, hard-working, and sought-after employees? (or the fact that a company may be better off running leaner rather than bringing in less-qualified American workers) If the answer is “give cash handouts to Americans” I don’t think that qualifies as relating to “workers’ rights” because handouts are usually available to those who don’t work (see Book Review: The Redistribution Recession).
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Peter the Great: His Life and World talks about folks on the tails of the human height bell curve:
In Peter’s time, dwarfs and giants were much valued throughout Europe as exotic decorations in royal and noble households. King Frederick William of Prussia had collected most of the giants on the continent, although Peter kept Nicholas Bourgeois, the seven-foot-two-inch giant he had found in Calais. For years, Nicholas stood behind Peter’s table, and in 1720 the Tsar married him to a Finnish giantess in hopes of producing oversized offspring. Peter was disappointed; the couple remained childless. Dwarfs were more evenly distributed. Every Infanta of Spain was accompanied by a court dwarf to underscore whatever beauty she possessed. In Vienna, the Emperor Charles VI kept a famous Jewish dwarf, Jacob Ris, as a kind of ex-officio counselor at the Imperial court. More often, dwarfs were kept as human pets whose antics and droll appearance were even more amusing and diverting than talking parrots or dogs that could stand on their hind legs. In Russia, dwarfs were especially prized. Every great noble wanted a dwarf as a symbol of status or to please his wife, and competition among the nobility for their possession became intense. The birth of a dwarf was considered good luck and dwarfs born as serfs were often granted their freedom. To encourage the largest possible population of dwarfs, Russians took special care to marry them together in hopes that a dwarf couple would produce dwarf children.
It was a lavish gift when a dwarf or, even more, a pair of dwarfs was given away. In 1708, Prince Menshikov, a particularly keen collector of dwarfs, wrote to his wife: “I send you a present of two girls, one of whom is very small and can serve as a parrot. She is more talkative than is usual among such little people and can make you gayer than if she were a real parrot.” In 1716, Menshikov appealed to Peter: “Since one of my daughters possesses a dwarf girl and the other does not, therefore I beg you kindly to ask Her Majesty the Tsaritsa to allow me to take one of the dwarfs which were left after the death of the Tsaritsa Martha.”
More: read Peter the Great: His Life and World
Full post, including commentsThis is the last week for the Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Carmen. Six of us went on Sunday afternoon and were favorably impressed.
What is the point of a regional opera company? Grab a recording from the 1970s and you can hear better singers. For that matter, what is the point of a national opera company? Grab a video from the 1970s and the singing and sets will be just as good. Why pay $100+ per seat for something that can be streamed for pennies?
The Boston Lyric Opera’s current production, which will be performed a couple more times this week, actually adds a lot compared to what opera companies were doing in the 20th century.
The text of the opera is all about “love” and yet the characters are intimately involved with each other after only the briefest of acquaintances. The BLO asks, via the action on stage, “What if it is really about sex?”
The men on stage are constantly trying to get sex from the women. The women, even those just entering adolescence, are constantly trying to get cash from the men. When the men aren’t getting what they want they resort to physical force. When the women aren’t getting what they want they resort to lies, deception, and cunning.
The BLO reminds the audience that the opera has only two characters that might conceivably be considered virtuous. There is the on-stage Micaela, Don Jose’s fiancé from the village, and the off-stage sainted mother of Don Jose. Everyone else is corrupt, with the men willing to do almost anything for sex and the women willing to do almost anything for money.
Staging is kind of minimal and relies heavily on some classic Mercedes cars that are rolled around by the actors. This is an idea that I haven’t seen before. If you put old-style (non-radial) tires on a car it is quite easy to push, fills up a good portion of the stage, and lets the actors do a bunch of dramatic stuff. Compliments to the BLO and San Francisco Opera (it is a joint production) who thought of this expedient. Certainly the opera set designers of the 20th century were working way too hard.
See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen
Full post, including commentsWhile out at the Reno Air Races a pilot friend and I saw the movie Sully.
Spoiler alert: there is a plane crash in the film.
While watching the movie there were some things that made me curious…
Did they really land off-airport with only partial flaps extended? That would result in a higher impact ground speed and, given that energy goes up as the square of speed, much more impact energy for the airframe to absorb. The full transcript from the cockpit voice recorder indicates that Flaps 2 was indeed used. The NTSB report confirms this and has a section (page 90) titled “Decision to Use Flaps 2 for Ditching.” It was in fact probably a bad idea, especially given the tailwind that further increased ground speed, but the NTSB points out that nobody has done much experimentation landing Airbuses on the water.
I knew that sim pilots had been able to land the plane back at LaGuardia but had they really been able also to make it to Teterboro? And did ATC suggest 1 at KTEB rather than 19 or 24? I.e., suggest that pilots without engine power fly a leisurely downwind leg before turning around to head north on Runway 01 (runway numbers are shorthand for magnetic heading so 19 is approximately a 190 magnetic heading and 01 is approximately a 010 (north) heading)? The transcript confirms this seemingly bad suggestion. The NTSB report, page 50, says that Airbus simulated attempts to land on Runway 19 at KTEB and that it was successful only once out of two tries given an immediate reaction to the engine failure.
The movie shows New York City’s finest not hanging out in a donut shop discussing what to do after a retirement with full pension at age 40. Instead, the police are hanging out in a building right next to a continuously spinning Huey helicopter. Thus they are able to make it to the accident site and a rescue swimmer jumps into the frigid Hudson to heroically save a female passenger who had become separated from the herd. This heroic validation of the rescue helicopter and NYPD is absent from the NTSB report, which instead credits the New Jersey ferry boat sailors. (See Government versus private industry helicopter operating costs for what happens with your tax dollars and helicopters in the NYC area.)
The jet type rating training that I’ve had stresses using the autopilot’s Indicated Airspeed mode following a dual engine failure. This way the plane is guaranteed to be at the best glide speed (also close to the minimum sink airspeed; planes need more power to overcome drag when flying close to the stall and therefore if there is no engine power a slowly-flown airplane will sink like a rock) even if the pilots are distracted by running checklists. The movie shows Captain Sully heroically taking the controls and hand-flying the airplane. This seems to be historically accurate but the airspeeds chosen by Sully were slower than optimum and ultimately slower than safe (see below). His co-pilot was head-down in the checklists trying to get an engine restarted so couldn’t be expected to monitor carefully. Fortunately the Airbus software wouldn’t let the plane stall.
My big take-away from the movie is the lack of credit given to the engineers of that Airbus A320. The plane was presumably designed to withstand being ditched (a) into the wind, (b) with full flaps, and (c) at a minimum sink rate airspeed. Instead it was slammed down with a high vertical speed and roughly twice as much forward energy. Yet the plane did not break up and sink. Also the engineers protected the pilots from stalling. Like a panicked student pilot, Sully had the yoke way too far back fro the last 150′ of the flight, but the Airbus envelope protection software kept the plane from stalling (page 97-98). Of course it might be that Sully knew that the Airbus programmers wouldn’t let the plane stall and therefore this was a feature rather than a bug. On the third hand, Sully said that he was trying to maintain the Airbus-recommended “green dot” Vls speed from the airspeed tape (page 56), not hover right above a stall. See page 120: “The captain’s difficulty maintaining his intended airspeed during the final approach resulted in high angles-of-attack, which contributed to the difficulties in flaring the airplane, the high descent rate at touchdown, and the fuselage damage.”
What about the idea that it is reasonable for pilots to ponder the checklists for 35 seconds before taking action? That is definitely consistent with the airline culture (see below for a link to an accident in which 35 seconds stretched to an hour and the airplane ran out of gas). On the other hand, Julia Link was flying a recently overhauled Robinson R-22 helicopter when the engine quit. If she hadn’t reacted within about 1.5 seconds she and her passenger would have been dead. Instead she lowered the collective, entered an autorotation, and landed on a Honolulu street (NTSB report; TV news). Her photographer passenger got away with a scratch.
The movie features Captain Sully as a psychologically tortured man, kind of like Owen Wilson’s pitch to female guests in The Wedding Crashers. Yet one of our local instructors experienced an engine failure in a Cirrus SR-22 (I prefer the SR-20 partly for this reason; the lower the power of a piston engine the less likely it is to fail), deployed the parachute, and walked away (WCVB news). I saw her the next day going out with a student in a Cirrus SR-22 (not the same one!). She never complained to any of us about psychological torment. (On the fourth hand, she has five kids so presumably she had to get out of the habit of complaining about anything…)
[I wasn’t curious about the fact that the NTSB investigators were hostile and that everyone on the FAA payroll turned out in some big public hearing because I already knew that the NTSB stuff in the movie was fiction.]
Readers: What did you think of the movie?
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