Everyone I know who tried the first robot vacuum cleaners eventually gave up. They held so little debris that it was just as much work to empty them as it would have been to vacuum the room with an $80 Hoover. Walls got banged up from the robot’s clumsy attempts to map rooms and avoid furniture. Delicacy prevents me from going into details, but a family dog with a stomach bug and a robot vacuum cleaner turned out to be a toxic combination in many households. (Do a web search and you will find many stories!)
Friends in Maskachusetts have been been on a renewed buying spree lately driven by, I think, the following beliefs:
a battery-powered machine is always more effective at cleaning than a 114-Bidie plug-in Hoover with a 1440-watt motor
the latest and greatest robots have better sensors and software
their children have weak immune systems from 1.5 years of school closure and activity lockdowns and shutdowns and therefore the house must be cleaner than ever before
Although the market segment was pioneered by iRobot, an MIT spinoff, these guys have come to the consensus (“a Scientific consensus”) that the Chinese-engineered Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is the best machine and has the best software.
They’ve sent me pictures of this dock and robot in their $2-3 million COVID-safe suburban bunkers. They take up a lot of floor space and look completely out of place. Here’s what the naked machine looks like:
(Across the top you have dirty water (post-mopping), clean water (pre-mopping), and a wastebasket for the self-emptying dust bin within the robot. The company claims this allows 3-4 days of usage before the robot’s human servant must be summoned to change out the water or empty the bin. They base this on a small footprint of 1,070 square feet.)
You wouldn’t leave a regular vacuum cleaner out where family members, guests, etc. could see it, right? The vacuum cleaner is ugly and used intermittently so it lives in a closet. These robots aren’t smart enough to open doors, so my friends are putting them where they are often visible to people trying to enjoy the house. It’s New England and the robots can’t climb stairs so a house with three living levels will have three of these cluttering the space.
I’m wondering if houses and apartments should now be designed so that a robot vacuum with dock will stay mostly out of sight. Maybe it lives in an alcove under the stairs. Perhaps there is a curtain that it can drive under (it is mostly the dock that needs to be hidden). The companies that make these devices should get together and agree on a standard for the shape and size of the alcove. Obviously the alcove needs electricity. Maybe for rich people there should also be a fresh water supply plumbed in and a drain and perhaps robots could be made that tapped into these so that the only thing that the human servant of the robot ever had to do was empty the dust bin.
I know there’s a fine line between brilliant and stupid. Which side of the line is this idea on?
Friends who bought private jets and luxury waterfront property with their crypto profits were discussing the FTX meltdown and Sam Bankman-Fried‘s return to financial Earth.
One cited the Sequoia Capital investment memo regarding the vegan MIT graduate founder:
The FTX competitive advantage? Ethical behavior. SBF is a Peter Singer–inspired utilitarian in a sea of Robert Nozick–inspired libertarians. He’s an ethical maximalist in an industry that’s overwhelmingly populated with ethical minimalists. I’m a Nozick man myself, but I know who I’d rather trust my money with: SBF, hands-down. And if he does end up saving the world as a side effect of being my banker, all the better.
This is a purportedly hard-nosed Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Another chat participant cited a mixture of truth and fiction:
A comment from one of the participants:
Makes Madoff look like an amateur. He Played everyone. And I mean everyone. Absolutely insane. He was clearly insolvent in June and knew it. Then the real fraud began.
Good old fashioned segregation of funds issue.
Some tweets these guys liked:
Unlike Voyager, Celsius etc where their terms of service allowed them to onlend or rehypothecate your assets for yield, FTX's specifically states that title to assets remains with the customer.
Which means FTX was literally stealing customer funds. Clearest criminality so far…
“Andreessen Horowitz Went All In on Crypto at the Worst Possible Time” (WSJ, October 26, 2022): “a 50-year-old partner named Chris Dixon who was one of the earliest evangelists for how the blockchain technology powering cryptocurrencies could change business. His unit was one of the most-active crypto investors last year, and in May announced a $4.5 billion crypto fund, the largest ever for such investments.”
A friend is a mid-level manager at one of the FAANG companies that enforces religious orthodoxy here in the U.S., e.g., by deplatforming those who fail to respect the rainbow flag. She expressed dismay that her division was being trimmed by 20 percent in order to shore up profits. I asked “What percentage of the people you work with aren’t worth having around even at a $0 salary because they’re either unproductive, annoying, or both?” She thought for a few moments and then answered “About 20 percent.”
So maybe the slim-down in the tech industry won’t change much.
Readers: What percentage of folks would you get rid of at your company even if these people were available at no cost to the company?
Americans generally affirmed the idea that the country will be better with bigger government and higher taxes. Whether this is true or false, Florida’s prosperity primarily depends on the differential between Florida and other states, not the absolute quality of life in Florida. It is a bit like the ancient story of two non-binary campers:
Kendall and Arden are camping when a thin-looking brown bear approaches they/them and them/they, growling.
Kendall starts putting on their running shoes.
Arden says, “What are you doing? We don’t need to bring in Ketanji’s panel of biologists to know that, regardless of your pronouns, you can’t outrun a bear!”
Kendall says, “I don’t have to outrun the bear—I just have to outrun you!”
State governments became vastly more powerful in 2020, e.g., deciding whether residents of a state would be able to leave their homes, send children to school, work for a living, avoid the injection of their children with an experimental medicine designed to help 80-year-olds. An interstate move to switch overlords is therefore much more likely than when the state-to-state difference was a few dollars in tax.
Democrats kept control of New York State. Kathy Hochul would need to order a lockdown or two in order match what Florida Realtor of the Year 2020 Andrew Cuomo achieved, but her victory is an important precondition in keeping people who value liberty pointed south on Interstate 95 to their new homes in the Florida Free State (TM). I also appreciate her teaching young Puerto Ricans that rules established by elites may not apply to elites…
Two white women try to learn the native dances of an exotic tribe of diminutive masked humans. https://t.co/EqcbUvgJo0
Colorado moved away from its flat tax by limiting deductions for those earning more than $300,000 per year. That’s not a huge nudge toward Florida, but it is a nudge. San Francisco added a tax on condos owned by rich people who leave them vacant for 183 days per year or more (53/47 vote; a mystery that it could have been that close given that hardly any voters own a condo that would be subject to this tax).
The governor’s race in Texas was the biggest disappointment for realtors in Florida. A Beto victory carried with it the prospect of rich Californians choosing Florida rather than Texas as their escape-from-Newsom destination. The silver living is that Greg Abbott’s victory was only 55/44 (compare to 56/42 in 2018 and 59/39 in 2014). Given the propensity of today’s young people to support progressive politics and the overall national trend towards bigger government, it seems likely that Texas will eventually be governed by Democrats, a huge boost to Florida’s chances of capturing fleeing successful Californians. Maybe Texas is safe from California-style government today, but people who go to the effort of moving are also interested in what a state will be like in 10-20 years.
An exchange on Facebook with one of those successful Californias who praised a college that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of skin color:
I wish my own kids were brave, and principled, and original thinking enough to consider applying instead of conforming to conventional wisdom and stupid rankings. I’ll keep trying to teach them.
But your kids have watched you conform. California politicians took away your liberties one by one starting in March 2020 and you simply stayed in California, right? And, in fact, your kids watch you pay taxes to fund all of it.
I have 2 kids I can’t move away from [California family law gave his wife millions of reason to sue him…]. But in 2 years when #2 goes to college I’ll have a lot more altitude to go elsewhere. FL is too far away and TX is too close to purple. UT is the current front runner.
The guy believes that Texas is just a few young voters away from Following the Science into lockdowns, mask orders, vaccine papers checks, etc., and maybe a new personal income tax to pay for it all! (Beto promised to use Science to protect Texans from viral threats. In fairness, so did Abbott, but he interpreted Science’s whispers differently.)
There was great news in Michigan. Lockdown Democrat Gretchen Whitmer was reelected 54/44, a clear indication that nothing is going to change in Michigan. People who don’t love the government there should move away. Wisconsin (a paradise for child support profiteers) similar reelected a Democrat governor. Pennsylvania is a great source of new residents with money for Florida. A Democrat won there by a large margin (56/42). Again, people who don’t want to be ruled by Democrats have only one realistic option: move. And once the decision to move is made, Florida is there and ready with jobs, low taxes, all-year outdoor recreation, etc.
Maine and Kansas also reelected Democrats as governors.
A Democrat victory at the Federal level should drive additional moves to Florida. A person who wants his/her/zir/their state to resist new takeovers of power by Washington, D.C. will find that in Florida, the state in which Joe Biden’s order that travelers wear masks on airplanes was found unconstitutional. A person who wants to maintain his/her/zir/their spending power in the face of Federal income tax rate increases can probably do so by moving from a medium-to-high-tax state to a state with no personal income tax and some reasonable assurance that the electorate won’t amend the constitution to impose one. That’s Florida, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Tennessee? New Hampshire actually does have an income tax (not on wages, but on dividends and interest). Texas is at risk over time of having everything that California has (see above).
What about politics here in Florida? First, the election results were available on the timeline that taxpayers expected:
Just a reminder that Florida held an election, tabulated the votes in all 67 counties before the end of the day and prepared for an oncoming Hurricane; all at the same time.
(Hurricane Nicole arrived on the SE coast roughly 24 hours after the polls closed.)
The stealth scheme to raise pay for the Praetorian Guard (see Florida comes up with a scheme for increasing taxes on private workers via a property tax exemption for government workers) was approved by a majority of voters, but not above the 60 percent threshold necessary to amend the Florida constitution. Voters here in majority-Democrat Palm Beach County approved $200 million in borrowing to fund “workforce housing”. Americans everywhere believe “when the market gives you an answer you don’t like, declare market failure”. There are approximately 1.5 million people in Palm Beach County. How $200 million, the price of a couple of teardown houses in Palm Beach itself, is going to change the affordability of housing for the average person here is unclear. It looks like it will at least make a huge difference for some government cronies. From a “quick summary”:
Some non-profit and government workers will get paid. Some favored developers will get rich off the spread between the market rate for interest and this slush fund.
If the typical unit holds 2 people, that’s 2,200 people who are being housed after 16 years of government and non-profit employees being paid. That’s roughly 0.15% of the people who live in Palm Beach County (1 out of every 700).
Which of the 1 in 700 people in Palm Beach County gets to live a subsidized life?
In other words, anyone whom the non-profit folks think is deserving!
Even in majority-Democrat Palm Beach County, the all-abortion-care-all-the-time Democrat running against the Tyrant of Tallahassee could not prevail. Ron DeSantis won by 51/48 here in the county (compare to 60/40 statewide).
On our way back from Paris, we checked in at JFK and the TWA Hotel to see how COVID-19 was doing in terms of living in the heads of New Yorkers. I was quickly rewarded with the trifecta: outdoors, bearded, masked.
The Lockheed-turned bar is a lot of fun. Note the official encouragement for the drunken business travelers to break out in song during the flight (how may police agencies would be summoned if that happened today?). Also the barf bag reminder about the canine member of the household. Take a look at all of the cylinders that the flight engineer had to monitor.
The pool deck is directly across from a two-level Emirates A380 gate:
Wearing a mask is optional for workers, but quite a few still rely on the non-N95 mask rather than switching to a job that does not entail contact with the infected public:
(The $32 omelet is served without toast; Senior Management’s $20+ eggs came with toast… one piece.)
On the one hand, the folks who run the hotel want to help SARS-CoV-2 thrive by bringing people together in close physical proximity. On the other hand, they also remind visitors to “Stay Safe” by avoiding other humans. In-elevator screen:
What about on the web sites of New York institutions? COVID-19 gets mentioned directly below the menubar on the Whitney’s home page:
If you don’t click the “x” to acknowledge, the message about masks will be present over every page that you visit.
What if you leave the city? Get your mask in the airport:
New York-based JetBlue reminds folks to “Keep a healthy distance” while deplaning. Note the Fall of Saigon-style conditions that were inevitable once the airline decided to sell 100 percent of the seats. In other words, COVID-19 is serious enough that a lot of warning should be displayed. But COVID-19 is not serious enough to refrain from cramming the airliners to the absolute maximum capacity.
That was the mid-October COVID mindshare situation in New York.
A leader introduces bold Bigger Government policies. The economy deteriorates. Violent crime rates rise. Inflation rages. Even for those with money, there are shortages. Voters express their undiminished love for the leader under whom they’ve become poorer affirmed his leadership at the polls.
If Hugo Chavez is the master, let’s check in regarding the apprentice. From the NYT:
“the best midterms of any president in 20 years” in what certainly is not the best economic environment or crime rate trend environment of the past 20 years. The article is also interesting because the purportedly neutral journalists characterize Biden’s borrow-and-spend schemes as “accomplishments”:
“I’m not going to change,” he said. While open to cooperation with Republicans, he defiantly said he would block any efforts by the opposition to unravel the accomplishments of his first two years. “I have a pen that can veto,” he said, making a signing motion with his hand.
Not “What he claims as his accomplishments” but verified-by-the-NYT accomplishments.
In observance of Veterans Day, let’s look at the territory that the Greatest Generation fought for in the 1940s…
In the old days there was a tradeoff between being an independent tourist and joining an organized tour. As an independent tourist perhaps you wouldn’t see as many things per day, but you could wander around a city and enter museums and other attractions as the whim struck you. Today, however, due to mass tourism combined with a touch of coronapanic, the headline tourist sites of Europe require booking advance reservations and organizing transportation to arrive on time for those reservations. In other words, the independent tourist now needs to do all of the stuff that a tour company ordinarily does. Three weeks in advance, for example, we tried booking a ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Everything was sold out (we eventually got onto a guided tour for 3X the price, but let’s not call it scalping!). The Louvre was sold out a week in advance. Some of this can be navigated around via memberships (Amis du Louvre) or a Paris Museum Pass. But I’m wondering if the best defense against mass tourism is to become a mass tourist (if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em). An organized tour of Paris could hit all of the major sites in a three days and the participants wouldn’t have to spend evenings pre-booking on the Web and then fretting about how to get from one reservation to another. If desired, spend a couple of extra days as independent tourists seeing the second- and third-tier sites.
Here’s our Eiffel Tower experience. Because we had to book it weeks in advance, it fell on the only rainy day of our trip:
I guess we shouldn’t complain about the lines. If not for the combat veterans of World War II and the desk veterans who kept them supplied, we might have needed to learn German to visit the Eiffel Tower.
I’m leaving this here as a reminder to my future self.
One month before any trip to the Louvre: join Amis du Louvre (Adhérent) to get a membership for however many adults are in your household (kids are free). The cards will be mailed out and then you can skip the lines at the Pyramid and other places. You might be able to talk your way in from the Passage Richelieu or Carrousel (underground mall) entrance if you say that you’re going to buy a membership. With the membership, you don’t need to get a timed ticket and then wait in line for 30 minutes to use that time slot.
Once in the Pyramid, skip the Nintendo-based audioguides, which are complex and confusing (and the commentary is limited to a handful of works and isn’t very interesting).
Enter via Richelieu and the French sculptures, especially the Barye animal fights.
Upstairs to Napoleon III’s lavish crib.
Upstairs again to the two Vermeers (one was in Abu Dhabi; one here). Here’s how much demand there was at 1 pm on a weekday to see a painting not called “Mona Lisa”:
Then the huge Rubens salon and walk through French painting to see if the battle scenes catch their eye.
Finally to the Mona Lisa room, which should be revisited on a Friday night around 9 pm if anyone actually wants to see the painting. Note the surgical mask as protection against aerosol viruses in the most crowded room of the world’s most visited art museum (at least 15,000 visitors per day). Fortunately, the ventilation system was upgraded in the 50s… the 1850s.
A mostly-European crowd in which we see reliance on masks, typically mere surgical or cloth ones:
In other kid news, ours enjoyed this stinky cheese from the supermarket:
People in Maskachusetts say that they’re “progressive”. Very few earn more than $1 million per year. Why, then, did more than 1.1 million people vote “no” on a constitutional amendment that would allow the state to ding the rich (more than $1 million/year in income) at a 9% rate instead of the 5% flat rate that prevails for the peasantry?
“Massachusetts passes Ballot Question 1 (Millionaire’s tax), AP says” (MassLive):
We are informed that it is only Republicans and married white women who are so stupid that they vote against their own interests. There are hardly any Republicans in Maskachusetts and a lot of the married white women have taken advantage of the state’s no-fault divorce system to head for a profitable exit. This ballot measure should have passed by at least a 30-point margin, not a 4-point margin.
How can we explain the race being close? How could so many peasants be against rich people getting closer to paying their fair share? (which actually should be at least 13.3% because that’s what rich people in California pay for state income tax)
It can’t be because people were concerned that inflation would lift them from the old 5% bracket into the new 9% one. The text of the ballot question explains that there will be annual inflation adjustments.
Separately, this was a great outcome for the luxury real estate industry in Florida! Rich bastards will need to pull up stakes in MA before the end of December 2022 if they object to paying their fair share. (See Relocation to Florida for a family with school-age children )
Finally, the tax bump won’t be great for alimony defendants. “New Guidance on the Intersection of Alimony and Child Support” (Burns Levinson law firm, August 2022), quotes the law: “the amount of alimony should be determined with reference to the recipient spouse’s need for support to allow the spouse to maintain the lifestyle enjoyed prior to the termination of the parties’ marriage.” Alimony is now tax-free to the plaintiff and not deductible for the defendant. since most couples spend close to 100 percent of their income, the only way for a divorce plaintiff to enjoy the marital lifestyle is to collect close to 100 percent of the defendant’s income). So in setting the order, the judge has to make some assumptions about what tax rate the defendant will pay in order to figure out what the after-tax income is and make sure not to order the defendant to pay more than 100 percent of income. A high-income defendant in Massachusetts will have less after-tax income, but the court order to pay based on the old tax scheme can’t be changed without the defendant starting a “modification” lawsuit that could take years and cost $millions in fees to resolve.
Related:
Colorado FF, a proposition to hit those earning more than $300,000 per year with a stealth higher tax rate by reducing the deductions they can claim (it passed because lots of folks earning less than $300,000 per year voted for it!)
There have been plenty of “lesbian” state governors in the past, apparently, but this is the first time a “lesbian woman” has prevailed in a race: (NYT):
