At a family wedding recently, a cousin-by-marriage, on hearing that we had moved from a State of Virtue (Massachusetts) to a State of Deplorability angrily responded that he hoped we enjoyed living in a “fascist state”. (He is a retired vice president of NPR who used a massive inheritance to settle in an all-white suburb of D.C.)
A younger guy from New Jersey, without expressing any strong personal political beliefs, simply wondered aloud “How did Florida become so Republican?”
Another relative’s experience may provide the answer. He’s a 60-year-old ob-gyn physician who has carefully followed every aspect of Democrat dogma since childhood. The idea of agreeing on any political point with a Republican fills him with horror and he has always chosen to live in Blue states. Yet now he finds himself excommunicated from the Church of Righteousness because he holds the heretical belief that teenagers should not be provided with gender reassignment surgery.
I think that “Dr. Blue”‘s experience might explain what is happening on a broader scale in Florida. The Democrats nationwide have evolved faster than the Floridians who used to vote for Democrats, thus leaving behind Floridians who continue to agree with the Dogma According to Bill Clinton as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Consider that Bill Clinton’s economic policy reads a lot like today’s Republican stated policy, including cutting taxes on small business (though Republicans in practice, of course, are happy to cooperate with Democrats on massive deficit spending). Bill Clinton never proposed that student loan debt for college graduates be transferred onto the backs of working class Americans who never went to college. Bill Clinton never used the phrase “Latinx”. Bill Clinton never tried to force Americans to accept injection with an experimental drug.
As with any NYT article, the above contains plenty of lies. The biggest lie is graphing the official government inflation data going back to 1965 without noting that the method of calculating the inflation rate has dramatically changed over time (to make it appear lower, e.g., by excluding the purchase price of houses and actual mortgage and property tax costs incurred). The next lie is that the current inflation rate is 9.1 percent. The actual current rate, according to the same government data release purportedly covered by the NYT, is 1.3 percent per month (CNBC), which works out to 16.7 percent per year (1.013 raised to the 12th power).
At the actual current rate of inflation, how long before $400,000 is the price of a Diet Coke? Let’s assume that we’re getting our refreshing sugar-free soda in a restaurant for $5 (including obligatory tip). Within one human’s COVID-19-shortened lifespan of 73 years, therefore, the $400,000 price of a house will become the price of a Diet Coke. From Wolfram Alpha:
NASA has released some beautiful images obtained with the fancy new space telescope. Here’s an example:
Since all of the images are captured in infrared and then presented in false color within the visible-to-humans spectrum (#FakeNews), it should be possible to find a corner of the universe that, with proper adjustments to the (inherently arbitrary) false color algorithm, would include symbology from the Rainbow Flag religion. This would help NASA atone for its past sins against the true faith (see “James Webb image reignites calls to rename telescope amid links to LGBT abuses” (Guardian)) and prove to the skeptics that God is a member of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.
Maybe we could find part of the universe that resembles the pregnant man emoji as well? That would help us push back against the current tide of hate in which “women” are falsely identified as the only victims of the latest Supreme Junta’s ruling regarding abortion care.
Note that I was against the “James Webb” name from the first time that I heard it. Not because of his/her/zir/their alleged animosity toward the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community, but because Mx. Webb was a bureaucrat rather than a scientist or engineer. (Contrast to the Hubble Space Telescope, named after an observational cosmologist.)
Readers: What would be a better name for the telescope? How about naming it after Jim Peebles? There are other NASA experiments named after living scientists. Or pick one of the technicians who built it and name the machine after a person who does honest work?
Shopping for tickets to take one old person, one very old person, and one young person to Longwood Gardens, a non-profit org near Wilmington, Delaware…
My ticket will be $25. If I had an EBT card (“food stamps”), it would be $2. Paying $60 rather than $6 for our little group won’t change my lifestyle, but I wonder how seeing stuff like this every day makes middle class taxpayers (“the chumps”) feel.
Note that, to prevent COVID-19 in the garden, an elaborate system of timed tickets is in place.
On the way back, we wanted to visit the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Adults are $25. The price for EBT cardholders…. Free.
We ended up not being to get in at all because it was sold out on a Sunday, but an EBT cardholder would, presumably, have been able to go on an uncrowded weekday while all of the taxpayers funding SNAP/EBT were at work.
work versus welfare spending power (2013 analysis; does not include cash income that someone on welfare at an official income of $0 might earn via under-the-table jobs and does not reflect the fact that cultural attractions are discounted)
We’re in the middle of the South Florida season that is analogous to the Northeast’s winter, i.e., a period when it is often more pleasant to be inside rather than out. Thus, it seemed like a good time to try to duplicate, at tremendous expense, the convenient availability of the pool table that we received rolled into our old apartment lease via the landlord’s “clubhouse”. This post is to record what I learned.
First, it seems that there is no standard size for a pool table. There are tournaments in various parts of the country in which people play on 7-foot tables, but you can also find regions where 8-foot tables or 9-foot tables are conventional. Make sure that you have 58 inches from the table (rail edge, not playfield edge) to the walls on all sides so that the butt of the cue doesn’t hit. The cue should clear low furniture, e.g., another game table or a sofa, but you’ll want 50″ all around (from the outer dimension, i.e., the rail edge) to accommodate your posterior when crouched.
There are only a handful of billiards stores in South Florida, perhaps because so many sales of new tables have moved online. The waiting time for a new high-quality American-made table, which could be customized in various ways, was approximately 3 months. Prices would be $6,000-$15,000 depending on the elaborateness of the decoration. Delivery would be another $500. The favored in-production brands seem to be A.E. Schmidt, Connelly, and Olhausen. The most serious players like Diamond (a one-piece slate; super ugly; made in the U.S.) and Brunswick Gold Crown (also ugly; made in Brazil (the rest of the Brunswick line may be made in Indonesia)). Local dealers also sell used tables and it seems that pool tables are so cumbersome to move that the geographical price variations are enormous. A used pool table in South Florida is worth twice as much as one in the Midwest, just as a house in South Florida is worth twice as much. One dealer here quoted $3,500 for a pristine used “American Heritage” Camden table. Plus $500 for delivery and a month of waiting because all of the delivery crews were busy. Of course, “American Heritage” means “made in Malaysia” and the importer says that the list price on the table, brand new, was… $3,500 (the company shut down in mid-2020).
I described the shopping excursion to our next-door neighbor, a mechanical engineer who designs electric vehicle powertrains. “You can always get a pool table for free on Craigslist,” he said, “from someone who needs the space. I got mine from a lady who wanted to use the space for a dining table and she cut the price to $0 on condition that I get it out of there.”
Inspired by the smart neighbor, I found an Olhausen that was perhaps 20 years old in our neighborhood. The guy had sold his house and was moving to Europe so that his teenage son could get elite soccer training (he’s a little too old to play against the U.S. Women’s team). It was only about 10 days before the house needed to be cleared out and he was still asking $900 for the table below:
The Olhausen cushions are supposed to last forever and a good table is supposed to support 4 bounces off the cushions if you throw a ball with your arm on the short dimension, but there were only 3 bounces for this table. The owner had the contact info for Fred Bost, the guy who installed it 10 years previously (the table might have been 10 years old at that point). We called him up and he said that the rails (wood on the sides of the table) were likely loose after years of play and that slowed things down. If the felt and balls weren’t pristine that also slowed things down. The balls were old and yellow and the wisdom of the Web is that billiard balls need to be replaced every few years (example).
What about the damaged finish on the rails? Fred said that he could refinish the rails for about $1,000. The felt was a mess, but could be replaced for $350 at the time of a move and that good-condition felt could be put back on the slates. The cues were also shot on this Olhausen table, e.g., missing tips. Replacing the cues and balls would have cost $400. The owner offered to reduce the price to $600, but I wasn’t sure that the table was a great deal even at $0 given that it looked like it was sitting on Home Depot 8×8 posts.
(What if the slate is cracked? It is possible to get new slate for as little as $400. This makes me wonder why a new table can cost $8,000+ if all of the components are cheap-ish. Maybe the answer is that the exterior cabinet is where all of the cost is.)
A $2,000 Connelly 30 minutes away seemed to have some potential. My main concern was that it had been living in a garage for 4 years. Fred told me not to worry about that and, in fact, that pool tables in semi-outdoor spaces were common in Florida and the heat and humidity did not damage the tables. The owner ran a pizza restaurant with his middle-school sweetheart-turned-wife. They were young and fit and doing well financially because they’d been showered with Federal funds for their restaurant that hadn’t been closed even for one day by the Florida version of coronapanic. The pool table, however, had to go because it wasn’t getting enough use and the wife wanted a gym in the garage. The owner explained to me that he kept the balls in their original Aramith box because leaving them in the pockets causes the leather to sag (a new set of pockets is under $300, but these ones stamped “Connelly” cannot be purchased separate from a new table). He had everyone play with special gloves so that they didn’t need to use “hand chalk” to make the cue slide on the bridge hand. He would put an extra piece of felt down before breaking because the acceleration of the cue ball during a break can leave a burn mark on the felt (Fred Bost later explained that this was true only for some high-end Simonis fabrics (made in Belgium) and not for the less expensive Teflon-coated Championship fabrics (from Mexico) that he prefers; he uses Invitational with Teflon for his customers).
The one-piece “house cues” were in good condition and the balls were only about a year old. It was easy to get 4 bounces out of a hand-launched ball and the table played noticeably well. The owner accepted $1800. Fred Bost had a cancelation the next morning and the table was in our house less than 24 hours after purchase (compare to 3-4 months if we’d bought at retail; this Connelly table seems to list for $9,000 and sells for $7,000 new). Moving cost $500 plus I tipped 100 Bidies for Fred and Freddie’s lunch.
Installation is an impressive operation. Heavy straight edges and levels are used and shims the thickness of a business card may be employed. Connelly is unusual for having four bolts to secure each rail rather than the industry-standard three. It may thus be possible to have longer intervals between tightening.
Here is Fred and his assistant (Freddie!) re-covering the 1.25″ slate with the old felt:
“I’ve installed exactly 1.5 brown felts in 30 years,” Fred said. What was the 0.5? “I was halfway through putting the brown felt on a guy’s table when the wife came out and shook her head.” Fred explained how to rough up the leather cue tips with sandpaper.
I’m glad that we didn’t wait 4 months to spend $8,000 for a pool table. All of the experienced players who have tried this table out say that it is great. I’m also glad that we didn’t get an imported table, much as I love the idea of everything being made in an economically efficient manner. Fred says that the imported tables can be set up to play well, but he doesn’t like any of them.
Our next step was to visit the Professional Billiard Instructors Association web site and find a teacher. Ed Kiess came over and tried to correct decades of bad habits. From him we learned that one of the world’s leading pool cue makers is in Wellington, Florida: Dennis Searing. The average cue sold by Searing is $5,000, but it is possible to go glitzy and spend $40,000. It is a 12-year wait for a Searing cue! Ed was horrified at the idea of using sandpaper to rough up the tips. A specialized tool with pins and a scuffer is the correct device. Every year or so, one should pay $20 to get new tips put on the cues (Triangle is the preferred brand for house cues; Searing’s own multi-layer tip is the best). Ed is a huge fan of Simonis 860 cloth (Belgian), which is supposedly super fast. Fred likes Championship Invitational Teflon (made in Mexico; less expensive).
Perhaps because of an introduction from Ed, we had the honor of getting our crummy house cues tuned up and re-tipped by Dennis Searing himself!
We learned that it takes at least 10 months for Searing to make a cue, mostly because the wood has to age. This is not so that the wood can dry out but so that the “stress” can come out of the wood. Searing is not disdainful of the ignorant and incompetent, as you might expect, but generous about sharing his knowledge and love of craftsmanship. Searing explained to us that if you happened to find a big piece of wood without flaws you could make an excellent one-piece cue. An expert pool player thus might be able to get a very good cue by trying out 25 house cues and picking the best one that just happened to be fabricated from a great piece of wood. The two-piece cues that Searing makes offer some additional options for balance and are easier to transport, but Searing didn’t tell us to throw out the Nick Varner house cues that had come with our table.
August 16, 2022 update: Proving my neighbor correct, Facebook alerts me to a Peter Vitalie pool table that would cost $15,000 new (if the company were still in business). $500 to the person who can arrange same-day removal!
The May/June 2022 issue of MIT’s alumni magazine, Technology Review, asks “Is cash over?” and answers the question with an implicit “yes” via the issue title: The Dawn of New Money.
When the enormous brainpower of all of MIT is harnessed, what do we learn?
A new generation of cryptocurrencies is emerging that promises to fix many of Bitcoin’s flaws. Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies whose stable value comes from being backed by reserves of US dollars or other reputable fiat currencies, are proliferating. Stablecoins are billed as reliable, easily accessible digital payment systems that will make both domestic and international payments cheaper and quicker. However, unlike Bitcoin, which is fully decentralized, they require transactions to be validated by the issuing institution—which could be a bank, a corporation, or just an online entity. This means users must trust that institution to validate only legitimate transactions and hold adequate reserves, and regulators currently do not require independent verification of either of those actions. Thus, despite their laudable goal of meeting the demand for better payment systems, stablecoins have raised a raft of concerns.
What happened with crypto while the issue was going through editing, printing, and mailing?
The recent collapse in the value of stablecoins shows they are ill-suited as a form of money and that their attempt to piggyback on money issued by central banks does not give them the stability their name suggests, according to the Asia-Pacific head of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS).
The implosion of several stablecoins, including TerraUSD which saw its value reduced to almost nothing in May from being the third-largest with a US$18.7 billion market capitalisation at its peak, has revealed the pitfalls of cryptocurrencies, said Siddharth Tiwari, chief representative of the BIS Asian office.
What about the #1 cryptocurrency? Bitcoin was at $38,000 on May 1. It finished out June (this is the May/June issue) at around $19,000 (i.e., half the value was lost during the on-the-newsstand time for the issue celebrating crypto).
Here’s the dumbest question of the year, I think…. if we believe Econ 101, prices are generally determined by supply and demand.
Gasoline prices in 2019 averaged $2.60 (eia.gov). Right now it is about $4.50 per gallon (also eia.gov), though in San Diego last month it was $6.999:
The supply of dinosaur blood doesn’t change all that much from year to year. Demand should actually be lower right now compared to 2022 due to (a) some Americans working from home, cowering in place, etc., and (b) airline staff shortages reducing the number of planes flying. Statista says that worldwide oil demand is slightly lower right now than it was in 2019.
If both supply and demand are roughly the same as in 2019, why is the market-clearing price different?
A young relative was pleased to find that bars in the U Street area of Washington, D.C. are vigilantly checking vaccine papers despite the fact that the government’s order for bars to check has expired. “I had to show photo ID and my vaccine card, which they checked carefully,” he explained, “but they run out of energy before they get to the birthdate field so I was able to get in and order whatever I wanted.”
(He’s fully vaccinated not because of #FaithInFauci, but because he was forced to get stuck with an experimental medicine, designed to prevent death among people who are 60 years older than he is, as a condition of continued enrollment at a university.)
James Caan has died. I’m wondering if we should watch some of his lesser-known movies to celebrate his achievements. From Wikipedia:
In 1977, Caan rated several of his movies out of ten – The Godfather (10), Freebie and the Bean (4), Cinderella Liberty (8), The Gambler (8), Funny Lady (9), Rollerball (8), The Killer Elite (5), Harry and Walter Go to New York (0), Slither (4), A Bridge Too Far (7), and Another Man Another Chance (10).
Should we try to see that last one, a French Western(!)? It is available streaming on Amazon “ScreenPix”.
And, of course, we can’t mention anything related to The Godfather without reminding ourselves “A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns.” (from the book, not the movies?)
A post-1977 film that seems like a good candidate is Misery, about a strong independent woman. For me, the movie is tainted by its association with Stephen King (I’m not a fan of the horror genre to begin with), but it features Kathy Bates and she won an Oscar for her performance.
What other James Caan movies are essential (like marijuana in California and Massachusetts)?
Our new house has a fancy ADT alarm system that will shout out, if you want it to, when anyone opens a door. Presumably before this went in, the house also was equipped with an elaborate door alarm system for all of the doors leading to the back yard and pool. This would alert people in the house that, for example, a toddler was in danger of falling into the pool.
I’m not sure that the door sensors work anymore and, given that we have the elaborate ADT system, I don’t know why we would ever need these door/pool alarms.
We have four of these cluttering the walls of the house. Does anyone have a brilliant idea for what to do with a network of 1-gang boxes that are fed with 12V? There is no CAT 5 wire to the boxes.
