Month: January 2019

New York Times on the financial hardship of NASA employees

by philg

This is kind of interesting from a newspaper that prides itself on in-depth reporting… An article on furloughed NASA employees asserts without evidence that they could be making 2-3X more money in a private sector job:

No matter how vital high-skilled federal workers are to the functioning of government, there are usually companies willing to offer them much higher salaries — double or even triple in some cases — on top of the free lunches and stock options.

Are they doing any consulting work during their furlough? If they are valuable to private companies as employees, at least some should be worth $300 or $500/hour to consult, no?

The workers at Glenn are mostly waiting, drawing down savings, wondering about the state of their untended lab work, reading about Chinese spacecraft landing on the moon and pondering the appeal of the public good when a good chunk of the public seems to have little use for it.

They’re “mostly waiting” instead of doing consulting work for these private employers who are desperate for their services?

Yet more stranger (as we liked to say back in junior high): Drawing down savings.

A quick Google search reveals that NASA employees are eligible to borrow money at 0% from their own NASA Federal Credit Union:

Our special Furlough Relief Loan will allow you to access up to $10,000 for up to a 60-month term – interest free and payment free for 60 days.* This offer will be available through February 15, 2019.**

So these folks are geniuses who could get paid $400,000/year simply by walking into the HR department of a private employer, but they aren’t smart enough to go to the credit union web site and click “apply now” for their 0% loan?

How did the reporter and editors miss this? Neither the word “credit” nor “loan” appears in the article so they don’t address the question of how people who are able to borrow at 0% and whose entire annual salary is guaranteed to be paid (albeit with a delay for at least two paychecks) are being forced to deplete savings.

The unedited Web seems to be a lot more authoritative that the Paper of Record. Consider this 2014 exchange on bogleheads.org, “Any aerospace engineers? Pros v. cons of working for NASA v. private sector”:

This isn’t a NASA specific issue, but almost all federal employees are on the GS pay scale. That caps their pay at level IV of the executive schedule, which is now $164,200. … Most NASA employees are in the business of contract management. The real engineering gets outsourced to contractors. If he wants to do research and development, he should go work for a contractor. If he wants to become an expert in federal acquisition regulations, he should go work at NASA.

From a financial perspective, he will probably never make up the lost 4 years or so of income if he gets a PhD.

I worked at NASA for a while… NASA contains a huge amount of unmotivated government employees. They’re so expensive that they have to contract all the work out. Even then money is so badly mismanaged that there is no incentive to deliver a project on time. If you’re nearing retirement, it’s a great place to be as it’s virtually impossible to get fired. They’re just shift you from job to job.

I talked with a SpaceX recruiter. Was going to be a significant pay cut, and the recruiter kept mentioning long (70+) hour weeks. For the high cost of living area, it didn’t make much sense. It was clear they were banking on the “sexy” factor of SpaceX to make up for the hours and low pay.

I worked at Goddard Spaceflight Center… And while the raw salary was meaningfully lower than what the contractors were making at comparable position levels, the overall benefits package was WAAAAAAY better — much, much more paid time off, much better healthcare, and significantly better retirement benefits.

A message from the bogleheads exchange that STEM boosters probably won’t be sharing:

I have worked for a large aerospace company (think Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop) and currently work for a tier 1 aerospace supplier. All big companies are the same, with tons of bureaucracy, politics, mediocre raises, lots of old timers that are dead wood, etc, etc. Hopefully he is passionate about it because he probably will be living a normal middle class life and will make starting 75K/yr – 150K/yr (after 15-20+ years experience) throughout his career.

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Gillette versus Dorco Shaving Test 2

by philg

Continuing research in response to the controversy over Gillette’s recent “toxic masculinity” ad campaign … (see Test 1)

Test 2:

  • two days of growth
  • shaving in the shower
  • Edge shaving gel
  • Dorco Pace 7 on right side of face
  • latest and greatest Gillette Fusion 5 ProShield with Flexball on left side of face
  • second shave for each cartridge (first shave was Test 1)

Results: Indistinguishable feel and capability of the two blade cartridges. Equal resulting smoothness of face on both sides. No nicks from either system.

Winner: Gillette by a hair(!), due to the Flexball (introduced 2014), which seems to reduce workload slightly.

[Bizarre: in their zeal to be the wokest of U.S. consumer goods companies, Gillette has neglected to be orthographically consistent with their only potential advantage over Dorco. Parts of their web site use “FlexBall” while other pages include “Flexball”.]

Related:

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The going rate for sex with the boss

by philg

The New York Post reports a lot of stuff that would never make it into the New York Times. Within “Sarma Melngailis had a steamy affair with her married lawyer”:

“The past year I’ve gotten three insanely high settlements for consensual sex as sexual harassment,” he texted on May 4, 2017. “I think I may be some kind of savant. I get a case. And then I ask a set of lawyers who only do this kind of work what is the best settlement I could hope for. And then I triple it.”

“I made $2.9 million for a 24 year old girl who had a consensual sexual relationship with her boss,” he boasted the next day.

Assuming that the “sexual relationship” occurred in New York, the state’s child support formula would yield $2.9 million over a 21-year period if the boss earned at least $800,000 per year. If, in fact, the $2.9 million is triple the typical amount, the boss would have to earn roughly $270,000 per year to make collecting child support as lucrative as a sexual harassment lawsuit. If the lawyers are taking 40 percent, collecting child support becomes more lucrative when the boss earns at least $162,000 per year. On the third hand, there is nothing to stop a plaintiff from collecting a sexual harassment settlement on top of child support. If we assume that the boss earns $400,000 per year and the sexual harassment settlement is $1 million tax-free, revenue from sex at work would be approximately $2.4 million, completely tax-free. At New York City tax rates, a plaintiff would have to earn nearly $4.8 million pre-tax to have this kind of spending power, or $228,500 per year for 21 years.

Separately, the story shows the value of having good legal representation:

On May 10, 2017, she pleaded guilty to charges of grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and a scheme to defraud and was sentenced to only four months in prison.

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Why aren’t the payday loan companies getting rich off the shutdown?

by philg

There is turmoil in our land:

Where there is turmoil, however, there is often opportunity. Neither article includes the word “loan”. Yet the U.S. is packed with payday loan companies. Federal workers have been guaranteed to receive back pay, even for weeks or months in which they did no work, as soon as the government reopens (“Trump signs law guaranteeing back pay for federal workers”).

How much credit risk could there be in lending money to someone whose paycheck is guaranteed by an entity with a printing press for dollars?

Readers: What do you think? Shouldn’t it be possible to lend money to furloughed or working-but-not-yet-paid workers at a 1% per month interest rate (12%/year) and make a substantial profit? One-month LIBOR is roughly 0.2% (2.5%/year). That’s a slightly thinner profit margin than a bank gets on a typical credit card, I think, but federal workers should be a better-than-average risk, no?

Is the problem competition from existing credit unions to which federal workers belong? This credit union offers 0% interest for 60 days to furloughed workers. Tough to compete with 0%!

Related:

  • NASA employee credit union: “Our special Furlough Relief Loan will allow you to access up to $10,000 for up to a 60-month term – interest free and payment free for 60 days.”
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The art of victimhood

by philg

From the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: Rich American actors take on-camera speaking jobs from poor refugees.

Around the corner, Nan Goldin, who “immersed herself in urban subcultures and the LGBTQIA community” and is “a survivor of opioid addiction”:

On the other hand, the museum will save whales from victimhood via straw-denial:

(They’ve chosen to be “part of the solution” in this liquid context, so they can’t be accused of being part of the precipitate!)

How do things look down near the southern end of the East Coast? A few images from the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville:

How about in the center of our Great Nation (TM)? Our hotel in Arkansas featured a “Future is Female” art exhibit (T-shirt available for $38). The signs below discuss “the affirmation of the self” and the use of “Equal,” “Powerful,” and “Feminist” as “positive language” that will redefine viewers’ reflections by subverting the “typical narrative”.

The presumably well-meaning folks at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art demoted one of my personal favorites Louise Nevelson from “great artist” to “great female artist” by putting one of her sculptures into a female artist ghetto room placarded with a history timeline beginning in 1963. Nevelson was recognized with solo shows beginning in 1941 and was featured on the cover of Life in 1958; a 1971 NYT article describes her as a great sculptor, without limitation to her gender ID (also, that she divorced her husband and “refused any alimony, however, on the ground that to accept it would be immoral”). Right next to Nevelson, who was considered by NYT readers, at least, to be a “great artist” as of 1971, the curators have a sign in which Linda Nochlin, a non-artist academic, asks “Why have there been no great women artists?” (also from 1971)

The museum features a photo exhibit in which, to demonstrate their autonomy, women must comply with the photographer’s instruction to pick a book by a female author (but did anyone verify that the authors of all 70ish chosen books continue to identify as “female”?).

Note that Jean-Paul Sartre’s pet name for Simone de Beauvoir was “Beaver” (Guardian).

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Follow our ground school at MIT via the miracle of streaming video

by philg

If you’re not happy with the latest from Netflix and Amazon you’ll love our MIT Ground School course, streaming in real time and on-demand:

Experienced pilots: Start with “Day 1-PM” from the on-demand menu and then scroll to 2:13 for a lecture on F-22 flight controls.

Today was the end of Day 1. We’re also running tomorrow and Thursday.

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Bike infrastructure doesn’t make Americans happy…

by philg

…. or at least it doesn’t motivate them to use their bicycles.

My 2013 post: “Danish happiness: bicycle infrastructure”

From USA Today: “Fewer Americans bike to work despite new trails, lanes and bicycle share programs”

Uber and Lyft are blamed for part of the three-year decline. I wonder if it is the absurdly high price (compared to in China) of electric-assist bikes that is also limiting the popularity of this modality. The article notes that “electric scooters” have cut into bike commuting. If we could get a decent electric-boost bike for $300, would we still buy scooters? This industry report from 2014 says “By utilizing lead-acid batteries, the cost of e-bicycles in China averages about $167. In comparison, e-bikes in North America cost on average $815 and those in Western Europe average $1,546, reflecting the different choice in battery chemistry, according to Pike Research.”

Considering Americans’ propensity for thievery (how long does a bike last in San Francisco?), $167 is a more reasonable price to pay than $815!

The map in the USA Today article shows the sharpest declines in the hilly cities where an electric bike would be the most helpful.

Can we say that bike infrastructure, like socialism, hasn’t truly been given a fair chance in the U.S.? Our capital investments in bike lanes would pay off if e-bikes were available at Chinese prices?

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Gillette ad shows the changing standards for being a male hero?

by philg

I recounted my Costco conversation (see yesterday’s post) about the Gillette ad on Facebook. A cousin in her 20s responded

As someone with a daughter you should be happy about this. The whole purpose of this ad is to show men they can be kind and loving. Which I know you want for Greta. It’s shedding the awful stigmas that have been pushed onto men.

To me the ad was absurd. The situations in which the men found themselves entailed no personal risk and no consequences for action versus inaction. One young man says “not cool” to a same-age friend who is considering pursuing an attractive young woman on the street (maybe “it might be expensive” would be more effective?). A full-sized adult male separates two young boys who are wrestling/fighting on the grass. Shoveling the front walk after the weekend’s snowstorm is more challenging than what any of the guys in the video are doing.

What kind of conduct was valorized when I was this cousin’s age? Roger Olian and Lenny Skutnik were warm and dry prior to deciding to dive into the icy Potomac River to save people from Air Florida 90. They took a huge risk that was in no way related to their jobs or responsibilities. Nobody would have criticized Olian from staying in his warm truck or Skutnik for staying in his warm coat and boots on the shore. That’s not “the best a man can be” anymore, though!

The Thai cave rescue presented a similar situation in 2018. The “over 100 divers” (were they all men?) who went in would not have been criticized for staying home, right? Saman Kunan, a former Thai Navy SEAL who died, was “working in security at the Suvarnabhumi Airport when he volunteered to assist the cave rescue.” Surely at least one of those 100+ divers identifies as a man and is (or “identifies as”?) a Gillette customer. Yet to resonate with young consumers, Gillette decided that men dealing with children on grass was more powerful than men leaving their cozy homes, flying to Thailand, and pulling children out of miles of flooded cave.

I wonder if the debate about the Gillette ad is actually a debate between generations. My young cousin had a completely different impression than I did. So Gillette wasn’t clueless. They just don’t care about older customers who are stuck with a 1970s/1980s concept of achievement.

Related:

  • Dorco Pace 7, the Korean-made shaving system for the non-woke and/or elderly
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Labadee port guide

by philg

If you have do-gooder friends that like to share their tales of helping the world’s woe-plagued, including their voluntourism trips to Haiti, you’ll get a lot of value from any cruise that stops in Labadee, Haiti. Imagine the thrill at cocktail parties of saying how concerned you were about the inequality that you saw in Haiti:

Sign in front of the private luxury subsection within Labadee.

This lease, which runs through 2050, was a stroke of genius by Royal Caribbean. It is only a few steps from the dock to the beach and, for folks who have trouble with steps, the beach is wonderfully accessible to the wheelchair-bound. There are concrete paths along the beach and balloon-tire wheelchairs and boat shuttles from the dock to the farther beaches.

Here are a couple of overview drone photos, one from the top of the insane zipline, that the manager of the resort shared with me:

  • DCIM\100MEDIA\DJI_0431.JPG

The nearby town of Labadie had a population of about 1,200 when Royal Caribbean showed up in 1986. Due to migration from other parts of Haiti, the population is up to 5,000. There is a carefully circumscribed tour to a corner of this town that is kind of interesting. The locals are grateful to the company for the electricity and clean running water that has been arranged. One worker in the resort had been born in 1981 in Labadie. He was enthusiastic about the Royal Caribbean presence: “The money that my father earned building this place was used to send me to college and learn English.”

Labadie is atypical, despite not being part of the Royal Caribbean lease, because there are no roads connecting this town with the rest of the country. People who want to shop or see friends take a two-minute water taxi to a dock next to the Royal Caribbean area and then a 30-minute 8-mile $5 minivan taxi to Cap-Haïtien.

A big part of the tour was on the topic of medicinal plants, of which dozens are used for specific ailments and for which specific preparations are required. I explained to our guide that medicine in the U.S. is more advanced, especially in Massachusetts. We have found a single plant that is said to cure all ailments: medical marijuana.

There is a Trump-style border wall between Labadee and the rest of Haiti:

Big question: If a pregnant woman scales the wall and gives birth on the Royal Caribbean side, is the resulting infant entitled to a birthright Seapass and lifetime membership in the Crown and Anchor Society?

When a small ship such as the Empress of the Seas is the only ship in port, the beach is wonderfully uncrowded. The beach barbecue is basic, but the chicken was perfect. You can tell do-gooder friends about how you weren’t afraid to eat any of the food offered in Haiti and how everyone there was enjoying at least 6,000 calories per day (note: everything that you might consume in Labadee was loaded onto the ship in Miami). Prices for excursions are reasonable. One couple we talked to did a 45-minute jetski tour for less than $100 and raved about it.

This was the last stop on our tour and it was a little sad to be sailing away…

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Gillette versus Dorco Shaving Test 1

by philg

The controversy over Gillette’s recent “toxic masculinity” ad campaign got me curious about the state of the art in razor blades.

Test 1:

  • three days of growth
  • no shower beforehand
  • warm water applied with cloth
  • Edge shaving gel
  • Dorco Pace 7 on right side of face
  • latest and greatest Gillette Fusion 5 ProShield with FlexBall on left side of face
  • brand new cartridges in both handles

Results:

  • Dorco: slight pulling/grabbing sensation at times, no trouble shaving under nose despite lack of single blade in the back, no nicks
  • Gillette: less resistance, one nick

Winner: Draw. Equal smoothness of face on both sides.

[Separately, from Friday:

Costco cashier assistant (looking at roses in cart): “What’d you do?”

Me: “If you’ve seen the Gillette ads, then you know that simply existing as a man is reason enough for apologizing.”

Assistant (in her 60s): “Aw. That’s not true. We need men.”

Cashier (in her 30s): “I’m doing fine without. The only thing that I miss is the dual income.”

]

Readers: How much better could Dorco do in the U.S. if they didn’t market their flagship under the name “Dorco”?

See also: Test 2 (in-shower shaving).

Related:

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