Author: philg

2020 Hyundai Sonata is as quiet as a Camry or Accord…

by philg

… at least as measured objectively.

The 2020 Hyundai Sonata is rolling out of the Alabama factory now (Korean brains and American brawn?).

A candid media presentation shows that “road noise” (unclear what speed) was 63.5 dBA for the new Sonata versus 63 for the Camry and 64 for the Accord. Hyundai has pulled out the same technical stops as Toyota and Honda, i.e., using windshield glass laminated with a sound-absorbing layer of plastic (“acoustic glass”). All but the lowest trim levels also get acoustic glass for the front side windows.

(Car and Driver did a comparison test in which the Sonata was rated 2 out of 5 and objectively measured 1 dBA noisier than the Accord (and 2 dBA noisier than the Camry). The authors noted that “A small tornado’s worth of wind noise makes its way into the cabin, which is surprising because the Sonata is the only car here with dual-pane glass in the front doors.”)

Hyundai is pushing hard with smartphone integration. Their “digital key” (Android-only, perhaps due to Apple restrictions on using near field communication?) lets people open, start, and drive the car without a key. At the SEL trim level and above, the car can be remote-started from an app that works on iPhone or Android.

Now that we live in a USB-C world, of course the car, like every other car, is crammed with USB-A charging ports.

Even the lowest trim level includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It looks like the next step up, SEL, is the minimum for the “Blue Link” remote start, heated seats, automatic temperature control, blind spot assistance, rear cross-traffic assistance, etc. This is priced at $25,500. It is an extra $1,200 to get the digital key and some other goodies via a “convenience” package. It looks as though the comparable Honda Accord is the EX, at $27,770. (But the proper way to compare car costs, I think, is to look at the monthly lease payment since that encapsulates the market’s belief regarding likely resale value. See this example with a Tesla 3.)

Readers: Since the prices are similar, maybe it comes down to looks and style? Here’s the Sonata, the Accord, and the Camry. Which one looks the best?

(In other car news: The much-anticipated 2020 Subaru Legacy turned out to be a flop, losing a Car and Driver comparison test to the Nissan Altima AWD version and coming in last in the 5-car test cited above.)

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Biden admits that Donald Trump has been tremendously successful in business

by philg

Thanks to my comments scolding Facebook posters on their failure to fully embrace socialism, LBTQIA+ rainbow flagism, etc., I am on Joe Biden’s email list. From November 16, 2019:

Subject: I never got a million dollar loan from my dad

My father taught me that a job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about being able to look your child in the eye and say everything is going to be ok.

Unlike Donald Trump, my father never loaned me millions. Everything I’ve gotten in my life I’ve worked for — and that’s the reality for most Americans.

For Donald Trump, his life was handed to him on a silver platter and he has never had the slightest inclination to pay it forward.

I’m going to lay out the case on Wednesday night at the debate why I’m the best candidate to take on and defeat Donald Trump next November. But I still need to raise another $500,000 from grassroots supporters before I take the stage in order to stay on track with our fundraising. Can you chip in $5 today to help me out today?

Since Donald Trump is now a multi-billionaire with a personal Boeing 757 in executive configuration, saying that he started with only $1 million (subject) or “millions” (body) is tantamount to admitting that the hated dictator (and almost lifelong Democrat!) has been tremendously successful in business, as measured by ROI. Does Biden not realize this or does he assume that readers of his email are not smart enough to recognize that turning $1 million into multiple billions is an unusual outcome?

[Also note the outdated description of a job from this outdated politician: “It’s about being able to look your child in the eye and say everything is going to be ok.” The welfare parent with the lifetime right to occupy public housing can do that. The employee-at-will holder of a non-government job can’t promise a child anything about the family’s future.]

What did I miss while I was in China? Are the geriatrics still leading among the Democrats? Or is Mayor Pete emerging as I predicted?

(Another politician with whom my Facebook postings apparently align is Tom Steyer. As with other Californians, I can’t figure out why he bothers with national politics. If there are services, such as housing for people currently living in tents, that he thinks government should provide, why doesn’t he organize it at the state or local level where Republicans can’t obstruct progress? Has anyone just straight up asked him why he doesn’t bring his religion to 40 million fellow Californians before trying to proselytize the entire nation?)

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Give thanks that we don’t live in the early PC age

by philg

Happy Thanksgiving! (Or National Day of Mourning, depending on your perspective/ethnicity.)

Here’s a friend’s nostalgia shelf:

I hope that we can all agree to give thanks that we’ve moved on from this phase of personal computing!

Separately, with no Thanksgiving to slow them down, China can concentrate fully on Christmas decoration weeks earlier than Americans. “There’s Snow Place Like Shanghai Disney Resort” shirts in a city where November high temps had fallen to around 70 degrees…

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Trump impeachment status?

by philg

Although the New York Times and CNN bravely spoke truth to power in China by covering the Trump impeachment intensively (not leaving any space in their respective China editions for coverage of unrest in Hong Kong, for example), the stories that they ran assumed that the reader already knew the crimes of which the hated dictator was guilty.

Now that I’m back from China…. what is the status of the Trump impeachment? (now in its fourth year as measured by the time that my Facebook friends first began discussing the process as it applied to Donald Trump)

For voters whose interests Trump represents (i.e., the people who actually did vote for him), has anything been uncovered in this process that would give them a reason to prefer a Democrat as President?

[Separately, some business people in China told me that they thought Trump was pursuing the correct (for Americans) trade policy on China: “The tariffs were long overdue and China had it coming,” one said. They shared the perspective of the European multinational business executives we met on our Northwest Passage cruise, i.e., that China had been maintaining unfair trade barriers and policies for decades.]

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Is ingesting plastic actually fine for our health?

by philg

“Those fancy tea bags? Microplastics in them are macro offenders” (Guardian) says that excessively rich and/or pretentious people who drink tree from nylon bags are ingesting a lot of plastic (bonus: they’re also trashing the environment by consuming way more in energy and materials than folks who drink tea made from paper tea bags).

One local source for ingestible plastic is Tea Forté. Customers of this high-cost brand have been getting massive doses of plastic, far above what the turbine-powered helicopter moms fear kids might get from eating food cooked in a Teflon pan (example paranoia: “I do like to back up my points with scientific studies, but often it takes many years for a complete and acceptable study to make useful conclusions. With something like Teflon cookware, there are lots of vested interests so it could be a few more decades before valuable health information is known.” (i.e., we can predict Earth’s temperature 100 years from now, but 63 years of history with Teflon pans is not enough to say anything definitive; it is complicated by the fact that companies are getting insanely rich selling $10 pans at Target and using the profits to corrupt academic science)).

Have the drinkers of these fancy plastic-packaged teas done the required experiment for us? Their bodies might be half plastic by now and yet they aren’t dying off at an extraordinary rate.

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Who will buy the Tesla Cybertruck?

by philg

While I was in China, Tesla introduced its 6-seat Cybertruck. At $40,000 for the 2WD version, it does not seem overpriced (and the 4WD version at $50k with 16″ of ground clearance would have the potential for good off-road performance, right?). Operating cost here in Massachusetts (22 cents/kwh electricity) should be about the same as a gas-powered mid-sized car, maybe 7 cents per mile? Practicality with the locking bed cover (standard?) should be good, except for parking.

There is the image question. With today’s Teslas, one expects the driver to emerge and deliver a lecture on climate change, the merits of Elizabeth Warren, unions (except at Tesla itself), and a larger government, etc. What would the image be of someone who drives what looks like a high school kid’s first SolidWorks project?

How did they pick the name? This is for people who used to say “I’m using the Interweb”?

How are they going to deliver this car at $40-50k profitably? Isn’t stainless steel expensive?

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What are Asians at Harvard doing while whites and blacks sing Kumbaya?

by philg

Back in September, from the VP for Alumni Affairs and Development at Harvard:

As the academic year begins at Harvard, I wanted to share with you this welcome message that President Bacow sent to the campus community earlier today.

Underneath, a message from El Presidente Larry Bacow:

Some of my reading this summer took me deeper into Harvard’s history by way of personal anecdotes and recollections, and I wanted to share with you an observation about the role of the University made in 1957 by my predecessor Nathan Pusey… “it is possible to think of Harvard as a kind of island of light in a very widespread darkness…”

The guy with a free house in Harvard Square and a job that requires a Ph.D. then bravely advocates for open borders:

Since May, the obstacles facing individuals ensnared in the nation’s visa and immigration process have only grown. Various international students and scholars eager to establish lives here on our campus find themselves the subject of scrutiny and suspicion in the name of national security, … Although our nation to this day still struggles to make good on its founding ideals, countless people from different parts of the world have long looked to its shores with hope—for the chance to learn, for the chance to contribute, for the chance to live better and safer lives. My father and my mother were two of them, and they taught me that this country is great because it opens its doors wide to the world.

Not just as a university president, but as the son of refugees and as a citizen who deeply believes in the American dream, I am disheartened by aspects of the proposed new criteria for people seeking to enter our country. They privilege those who are already educated, who already speak English, and who already have demonstrable skills.

While sitting in his university-owned rent-free mansion and earning over $1 million per year running the non-profit organization, he’s not afraid to compete with Hondurans who lack education, the ability to speak English, and any demonstrable skills!

Now that we’re a little deeper into the semester, Dr. Bacow has pivoted. To alumni on November 21:

Today, I am pleased to announce the formation of a new university-wide initiative on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, which will build on the important work undertaken thus far, provide greater structure and cohesion to a wide array of university efforts, and give additional dimension to our understanding of the impact of slavery. This work will allow us to continue to understand and address the enduring legacy of slavery within our university community.

Second, the initiative will concentrate on connections, impact, and contributions that are specific to our Harvard community. Harvard has a unique role in the history of our country, and we have a distinct obligation to understand how our traditions and our culture here are shaped by our past and by our surroundings—from the ways the university benefitted from the Atlantic slave trade to the debates and advocacy for abolition on campus.

Can a single university live up to both the September and November letters simultaneously? Why does an immigrant from Asia, for example, care about what whites and blacks were doing in the U.S. back in the 1700s? (and what happened to concern for the Native Americans? Dr. Bacow’s mansion is sitting on land stolen from the Wampanoag. Didn’t the university benefit more by stealing from Native Americans than from enslaving Africans?)

Are the messages consistent? In “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers,” Harvard professor George Borjas concluded that the benefits of low-skill immigration to high-skill wealthy Americans such as Dr. Bacow come primarily at the expense of low-skill American workers, including “many blacks” who may be descended from slaves: “Somebody’s lower wage is always somebody else’s higher profit. In this case, immigration redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants—from the employee to the employer. … The total wealth redistribution from the native losers to the native winners is enormous, roughly a half-trillion dollars a year.” If Harvard is in the vanguard of institutions advocating for lower wages for African-Americans (by allowing employers to replace them with immigrants; the September email), how can it also be in the vanguard of institutions trying to “address the enduring legacy of slavery” as Dr. Bacow proposes in the November email?

More concretely, if white and black students at Harvard get together to sing “Kumbaya,” what do the Asians and Asian-Americans (who all look same) do?

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Possible explanation for media enthusiasm for middle class welfare

by philg

American newspapers are tireless advocates for what are essentially middle class welfare programs: affordable housing, Medicare for all, etc. These proposals won’t help the poor, all of whom are already eligible for taxpayer-funded housing, taxpayer-funded health care (Medicaid), taxpayer-funded food (SNAP), and a taxpayer-funded smartphone.

This union-authored study of pay at the Washington Post may provide some insight:

For the 290 salaried male newsroom employees working at The Post, the median salary is $116,065. For the 284 salaried female newsroom employees, it is $95,595.

(Separate question: if women are less expensive to employ and work just as effectively, why does a profit-oriented guy like Jeff Bezos hire any men at all?)

In other words, it turns out that the folks who author the news in D.C. are earning close to the income limit for affordable housing for a family of 4 in D.C. If they get a pay raise they end up in the slavery zone for an American: not rich enough to afford a decent apartment in a nice area, not poor enough to qualify for any subsidies. The result is an apartment in Rockville or a house in Frederick and 2-3 hours of daily commuting.

So it is possible that they advocate for a planned economy and lavish middle-class handouts for purely altruistic reasons, but this advocacy is also consistent with their personal situation.

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Liberal arts colleges running out of woke white men?

by philg

The financial struggles of New England liberal arts colleges have been in the news lately. “Marlboro planning to give campus and endowment to Emerson College” describes the end of 73 years of operation in Southern Vermont. “Can small liberal arts colleges survive the next decade?” (Christian Science Monitor)

A friend who has worked at the highest levels of college governance said that these bastions of righteousness in which white males are blamed for most things are having difficulty recruiting white males. Why does that matter? “Once the men stop attending,” he noted, “then women don’t want to enroll.”

Marlboro has a 56-percent female student population (US News), which is right at the national average (“Why Men Are the New College Minority” (Atlantic)). Hampshire College, whose stress is profiled in the CS Monitor, is at 62 percent female (collegefactual.com).

A teacher at Marlboro:

He brings an intersectional lens grounded in social justice praxis to the classroom and is passionate about racial, gender and LGBTQ justice and issues of representation in film. Brad believes that the Western film canon is essentially a survey of what bell hooks calls “the imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” Any creative work that we do must reckon with this history of oppression, extract from it what serves us, and dismantle and discard what does not.

Hampshire College’s Commitment to Diversity:

At Hampshire diversity encompasses multiple and intersecting identities including but not limited to race, class, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, religious expression, physical and mental abilities, military and veteran status, and political expression.

We aspire to foster an inclusive community of individuals who share a commitment to all forms of anti-oppression, social justice, respectful discourse, and engagement.

It doesn’t sound as though a white male wearing an MAGA hat would be considered welcome (“respectful”) diversity! Thus, these schools are fighting over the handful of young men who are (a) rich enough to pay tuition for a non-vocational degree, (b) sympathetic to the idea that they are perpetrating abuse of women, minorities, etc.

One could argue that a liberal arts college whose male-female ratio is right at the national average of 44-56 should be doing fine. However, consider the female customer. Why should she pay 3-4X the price of a state school if the gender ID ratio is no better (from her point of view) at the expensive liberal arts college?

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