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Folks:

We’re celebrating (feebly) the 23rd anniversary of philip.greenspun.com. The site currently runs software that is nearly 20 years old, the ArsDigita Community System version 3.3 (docs). Although it pains me to admit this, it seems that there have been some improvements in web toolkits, especially for authoring without Emacs proficiency, since the mid-1990s.

I’m not quite ready to throw out everything that we built in the 1990s but for new content it would make life easier if I could author, and users could comment, via WordPress.

Has anyone tried bolting WordPress to a legacy web site that already has a username/password authentication system? I would also want people to be able to authenticate using Facebook. Any tips on how best to integrate WordPress with a legacy online community? It would not be acceptable to break any existing URLs. And I really don’t want to exert any manual effort to bring old hand-authored HTML into WordPress.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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Folks:

About 1.5 years ago I wrote “Why bother to read news about the 2016 presidential election?“:

The media seems to be gearing up to get excited about the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Pew Research, however, shows that 48 percent of Americans are Democrats and just 39 percent Republican. If we assume that those who aren’t affiliated are roughly equally likely to vote for either party, we should be able to predict the result of the 2016 election: 54 percent Democrat; 45 percent Republican; 1 percent Other. (For comparison, the 2012 election was 51/47/2.)

Learning about Republican candidates would seem to be completely pointless. If there were some serious primary challenger to Hillary Clinton perhaps that would be worth studying, but after the primaries the election should be essentially over.

If the above analysis is correct why do people bother watching TV or reading news articles on this subject?

Was this analysis correct? A CNN article on the latest polls says

In the NBC poll, Clinton has 48% support compared to 37% for Trump, 7% for Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2% for the Green Party’s Jill Stein. In a two-way race, Clinton leads 51% to 41%.

In other words, the needle does not seem to have been moved at all despite all of the energy expended by Americans on Facebook and elsewhere. Nor are things much changed from Mitt Romney’s 2012 prediction that a minimum of 47 percent of Americans wouldn’t find it in their interest to vote for a Republican candidate.

[Separately, note that CNN presents as fact its interpretation of Donald Trump’s recorded conversation: “The NBC poll shows Trump could have paid a steep price for the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape that showed him bragging about sexually assaulting women…”]

Related:

• “Citizens for a Planned Economy” (the natural conclusion regarding what Americans want based on listening to what successful politicians promise)
• Hugo Chavez: Great politician; poor administrator (our hemisphere’s most successful politician)

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As a suburban dog owner a lot of my casual conversations are with stay-at-home moms. On a recent morning walk two stay-at-home moms (and dog owners) commiserated about how their hectic lives and overstuffed schedules. Example: “I need at least three extra hours every day.” I asked one of them what she had planned for the day. She responded with “I have two doctors’ appointments for myself and then my personal trainer. Then I have to pick my [teenage] daughter up from school at 4 and drop her off again at 6:30 and then there is another pickup at 7:30 and somehow I have to find time to make dinner.” Her old daughter is at college and refusing to talk to her at all, which saves some time, but there is still the chauffeur job.

For a wage slave it wouldn’t seem that the self-driving car will usher in a new world. Roughly the same amount of time will still be spent on the road, perhaps listening to OPR (Obama Praise Radio). But for a stay-at-home mother who is currently spending a lot of time driving children to various enrichment activities, a car that can ferry the kids should open up close to the three hours extra per day that this mother said she needed.

Readers: What do you think? Whose lives will be most changed by the self-driving car? (Aside from the obvious: Uber drivers!)

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Here’s a Facebook posting that I made while out in California (I use Facebook for family stuff and throwaway ideas) that I though might be enjoyed by a broader audience:

It sounded okay when Hertz said that they didn’t have the Camry that I reserved but could give me a BMW sedan instead.

Related:

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta

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A passionate Hillary Clinton supporter posted “Female Trump Supporters Don’t Really Care About His Sexism” to his Facebook status with some re-posted additions from a like-minded friend. Here was some of the stuff that his friend had added and with which my friend was apparently agreeing:

Sandy: They are Evangelical Christians who do not believe that they are worth anything more than what a man tells them they are. Religion is why there are so many women who follow and not lead in church. They are indoctrinated into believing that a woman is never to lead a man.

Patsy: Speaking as someone raised in the South-They are used to a loud mouth bigot alpha male to run their families and thought process for them and so they respond very well to Trump….he is Tennessee Williams “Big Daddy” for many of the Trumpettes.

Denise: Until he walks the gauntlet next to them and personally deconstructs their looks….You’re too fat, You look too old, You’re not tall enough, You’re too flat-chested……then watch them change their minds when it becomes personal. For the dumb ones…that’s what it takes.

I questioned whether he, a persistently vocal male feminist, hadn’t just posted an article “asserting, essentially, that millions of American women are too stupid to perceive their self-interest.” The ensuing exchange:

Him: Not quite the way I would word it. I’d say that too many women are raised in a misogynistic culture that undermines their egos and their potential, and knowing nothing else, never have the opportunity to appreciate or grow into their best selves. I am absolutely NOT insulting their intelligence or their choices.

Me: Perhaps they need a man like yourself to guide them then? Show them how to think and vote?

His friend:I think you’re twisting the logic – [He] said it best – not growing up in an environment that allows them to achieve their full potential as people/citizens/workers. It’s blatantly obvious in countries with strict religious doctrines that subordinate women – just not as severe with evangelicals here.

Background on this Trump-hating Clinton supporter: he works for the federal government in a job that requires U.S. citizenship and a tech PhD, so his job is safe from both immigrants (no citizenship) and children of the next batch of immigrants (will not reach PhD age before he retires).

Related:

• the Feminism section within the Rationale chapter of Real World Divorce, with university professors explaining how a woman withdrawing from the labor market and living off child support profits is a recognizably “feminist” goal

 

 

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Americans still spend a lot of time fighting each other regarding aircraft (mostly airplane) noise near airports (e.g., see China building 66 airports in the next five years; Californians work to close a busy airport). I’m wondering if it will turn out that technology was making the fight irrelevant. The buzzing family airplanes and trainers could soon be replaced with quiet all-electric planes (see the Airbus E-Fan, for example, or the Pipistrel Alpha Electro). Larger jet-powered airplanes may become considerably quieter with technologies such as geared turbofans. (Economist). As the U.S. population grows (due to immigration and children of immigrants) perhaps there will be a combination of more air travel and more houses and apartments crammed close to airports. However, it seems as though this trend toward a larger population is more gradual than the trend toward electric light planes and quieter jets.

Readers: What do you think? Are these airport noise fights a bit like a circa 1900 fight about horse-drawn carriages?

Related:

• analysis of the extent to which noise complaints are made by a handful of neighbors (one household in northwest D.C. accounted for 78 percent of the noise complaints regarding KDCA (Reagan National))

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Donald Trump has what he calls a “child care plan” (in reality it is merely an “idea” since Trump is not a member of Congress and it is Congress that writes the tax laws). The crux of it seems to be that a family with N children can deduct N*(average cost of day care) each year from income.

At first glance this looks sort of reasonable. Businesses pay tax on their profits, not on their revenues. If you consider a parent’s W-2 job as revenue then the cost to park children in day care is a business expense and the appropriate thing to tax is the difference (profit).

But on the other hand, where does this stop? A person who decides not to work won’t have a daily commute and can get rid of the car. So shouldn’t the cost of one car per working adult in a household be deductible? A person who decides not to work will have time to cook meals from scratch using inexpensive ingredients such as lentils and potatoes. So shouldn’t the cost of 10 restaurant meals per week be deductible (5 individual lunches plus 5 family dinners that the working parent wouldn’t have had time to cook)?

Currently there are a lot of Americans who are in a greater-than-100-percent tax bracket due to (a) various programs, such as public housing, that are means-tested, and (b) the fact that many expenses associated with working are not deductible. (See Book Review: The Redistribution Recession for more on this subject.) The declining labor force participation rate suggests that quite a few Americans have figured out that it is not economically rational to work (check Singapore’s stats going back to 1990, especially for prime-age males, to see what happens under a system in which it does make sense for the average person to work).

Perhaps Trump’s idea actually makes some sense (this sentence alone would be enough to get me defriended on Facebook!).

When we dig deeper, though, it gets stranger. The web site says “Mr. Trump’s plan will ensure stay-at-home parents will receive the same tax deduction as working parents, offering compensation for the job they’re already doing, and allowing them to choose the child care scenario that’s in their best interest.” Thus this begins to look like a straight-up “pay people to have kids” plan. (See When and why did it become necessary to pay Americans to have children?) It is no longer about taxing people on net income rather than gross income.

As befits a person of, um, rather advanced years, Trump’s plan seems to reflect an obsolete view of American society. Pew says that only a minority of today’s American children live “in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage.” How does Trump’s plan interface with the American divorce, custody, and child support industry? Consider the Massachusetts resident who has obtained custody of three children with three different co-parents, each of whom earns $250,000 per year. The revenue yield from the three kids is a minimum of $40,000 per year under the child support guidelines plus payment of any actual kid-related expenses, such as day care. Congress enacts the new Trump idea. If consistent with current child-related federal tax deductions, the person who gets hold of the child can take the deductions even if all of the money is coming from someone else and the child is a cashflow-positive asset. Day care in Massachusetts is kind of expensive compared to the national average so perhaps the parent here gets $12,000 per year per child as a deduction? So in addition to the $120,000 per year in tax-free child support and any reimbursements for actual expenses, the successful child support plaintiff in Massachusetts now has an extra $36,000 per year in tax deductions. So this person can now earn perhaps $50,000 per year tax-free (total tax-free income now of $170,000 per year, equivalent to $350,000 per year in pre-tax income for a childless American under likely future tax rates)? If we add this to the existing American family law system under which it is more lucrative to have a one-night sexual encounter with a high-income person than a long-term marriage to a medium-income person, will this accelerate the trend away from two-parent households for children?

A final question is why this makes sense for older children. Consider a 17-year-old who is in a public high school and working an after-school job sufficient to pay for clothing, entertainment, etc. The “child” is not costing the parent or parents any money yet is generating a tax deduction the same as a 4-year-old who needs to be in day care? Trump doesn’t say anything about reducing the deduction when children enter public school and are cared for 7 hours per day at taxpayer expense.

Readers: What do you think? Does this plan make any economic sense or it is just a way to pander to voters with children?

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I wrote a “nice but not $100,000+ nice” review of the Tesla X. Back in 2003 I wondered why cars weren’t smart enough to prevent the death of a child or dog locked in on a hot day:

In an age where we spend infinite money and effort on high-tech cures that save a few lives it is a shame to see kids dying for want of a few lines of software and a $50 802.11 base station.

It seems that, 13 years later, Tesla has written the software. “Tesla cars have a new feature that could save your dog’s life” says

With it’s just-released 8.0 software update, Tesla has brought an innovation to the auto industry that enables just that. It’s called “Cabin Overheat Protection.” … “In an industry-first safety measure, we’re also introducing Cabin Overheat Protect, focused on child (and pet) safety,” Tesla said in a statement. “This feature keeps the car at a safe temperature for hours, even when the car is off. This feature is only made possible by an electric vehicle with Tesla’s uniquely large battery packs.”

I guess it is easy to be “industry-first” when your peers can’t or won’t write the most obvious computer programs. So maybe by the time the rest of the automakers pile into the all-electric market it will in fact be too late.

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“Inside corporate America’s stand against transgender discrimination” (Guardian) says that the one thing nearly all American companies can agree on, aside from wishing that they’d chosen Ireland, Estonia, or Singapore as a corporate home, is that it makes sense to take a break from manufacturing widgets to talk about bathroom and locker room choice in North Carolina.

Politically incorrect commenters (a.k.a. “haters”) sometimes complain that, given the small percentage of the population that is transgender, too much attention is devoted to this topic. I’m wondering if they’ve got this exactly backwards. Perhaps the vogue for transgender rights advocacy can be directly attributed to the small percentage of transgender individuals.

Suppose that a company loudly advocates for the rights of black Americans to earn, on average, the same pay as white Americans. Now all of a sudden people can ask “well, what percentage of your own employees are black and how much do they earn?” (or write articles such as “Guy with a “Whites Only” sign in his conference room tells others not to discriminate“) People can go to Wikipedia and learn that roughly 13 percent of Americans are identified as black by the U.S. Census Bureau. Conveniently “the United States Census Bureau and other keepers of official records do not ask about gender identity” (nytimes). So a company can’t be attacked for not having a representative population of employees with respect to transgenderism.

This may be true for individuals. A Massachusetts resident who claims to love and advocate for black Americans could be asked “Census data show that 8.4 percent of your neighbors are black; are 8.4 percent of your friends black?” (Aviation community member response: “Some of my best friends are extremely rich black people.”) Yet a person who signals virtue by claiming to care about the transgendered need not try to find a specific number of transgender friends.

Readers: What do you think? Will it be simpler, especially for a company, to advocate for the rights of a group for which no data exist?

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One thing that investors could agree on back in the 1990s was that grocery shopping would be mostly online by now. Who would want to go to the effort of driving to the store and lugging bags into the house if it could all be done in a browser? (And that was before they charged you 5 or 10 cents for each bag!)

Except for perhaps Donald Trump’s hypothetical 400 lb. computer expert, online grocery shopping turned out not to be a lifestyle-changer (two percent U.S. market share in 2016). I’m wondering if this is because it is actually easier to browse amongst the shelves of a physical store than to choose via menus. If you don’t know exactly what you want for dinner it turns out to be easier to go to the store.

Could practical virtual reality systems change this? Run through the aisles virtually. Grab virtual stuff off the shelves effortlessly. Have the physical counterparts show up a few hours later.

Readers: What do you think?

[Separately, a shift to online grocery shopping would add some challenge to what lawyers told us was a standard procedure used by child support plaintiffs in Massachusetts. To bolster an argument for above-guidelines child support profits, a plaintiff will get either a gift card (to be stockpiled for post-trial use) or cashback during every visit to a physical grocery store. The bank statements then show an extra $100 or $200 per week in spending. This can be helpful when trying to obtain more than $40,000 per year (the post-tax guideline amount corresponding to a pre-tax income of $250,000) and/or when trying to get a judge to use discretion to award a larger-than-guideline fraction of a defendant’s income.]

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