Humans are defeating nanny tech in cars?

by philg

A typical new car has a lot of driver assistance features designed to make driving safer. Examples from Toyota:

(Blind Spot Monitor and Rear Cross-Traffic Alert are separate features, not on all trim levels.)

And the latest, for the 2021 Camry:

But insurance companies don’t cut rates for cars that have these features (source). Here are some possible explanations…

  • highway driving is already very safe and most of these magic features, e.g., blind spot monitor and lane-keeping, work only on the highway
  • humans aware of these electronic guard rails drive more carelessly to the point that the risk is the same
  • the insurance market is inefficient
  • the technology does not, in fact, work well in real-world conditions (our Honda Odyssey blind spot monitoring works great, though, which might be why this fine machine is the choice of Amy Coney Barrett!)

Readers: How do we explain the apparent contradiction?

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Why can’t people who’ve previously been infected with COVID-19 clean car interiors?

by philg

One of my favorite businesses here in the Boston area has been shut down since March as part of one of the 50+ orders from the Maskachusetts governor: full-service interior cleaning at the Allston Car Wash.

Most of the folks whom I’ve met working there over the years were native Spanish speakers, i.e., the very folks whom NPR tells us are most likely to have been infected with coronavirus:

MassINC’s survey of Latino results found the infection rates for essential workers is far from the only challenge Latino residents have faced. But it is a major one. Public health data, however incomplete, is clear about one thing: Latino residents have been much more likely to contract COVID-19 and to suffer serious health consequences from it. The poll also documented the devastating economic and health consequences many have felt and showed many Latinos to be among those who have been hit the hardest.

So they’ve very likely been exposed to coronavirus and now it is illegal for them to work because they live in the state that ranks #3 for most coronapanic-related restrictions. [The article didn’t talk about “Latinx” residents of Maskachusetts, so have only partial information.]

I previously asked why people who’d previously been hospitalized for COVID-19 and discharged months earlier couldn’t have enjoyed being spectators at the U.S. Open tennis match. Now the same question for working in these banned industries: Why can’t the car wash reopen for interior cleaning if they employ only those who’ve previously had a COVID-19 positive test result? Indulge in some mask theater as well if we want a “belt and suspenders” approach and have the cleaned cars sit for a couple of minutes with the windows open and the vent blowers turned up to max.

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Togo, the Disney sled dog movie

by philg

If there is a dispute in your household regarding whether a big furry dog is allowed to sleep in the bed… Togo is the movie for you! This is a fantastic (in all senses of the word) dramatization of the 1925 dog team relay that brought diphtheria antitoxin serum to Nome.

The best part, from my point of view, is that the growth of a character (and in every Hollywood movie, of course, someone has to grow!) is demonstrated by abandonment of a previous objection to a dog sleeping in the (humans’) bed.

Recommended if you’ve got a Disney+ subscription. (Does it qualify as “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life,” as Michelle Obama said of Hamilton? Maybe not, but it has Arctic dogs and, at least when presented on a TV, it holds the viewer’s attention much better than Hamilton.)

Related:

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Chris Christie’s foxhole conversion

by philg

“Chris Christie says he ‘was wrong’ not to wear face mask at White House” (The Hill):

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Thursday that he “was wrong” not to wear a face mask at the White House after testing positive for COVID-19 and spending a week in the hospital.

Christie told The New York Times that he thought he was in a “safe zone” when he attended the Sept. 26 event where President Trump officially nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Days later on Oct. 1, President Trump announced he and the first lady had tested positive for COVID-19.

The former governor announced his positive test on Oct. 3 and checked into the hospital after his doctor recommended he do so due to his asthma and weight. He spent days in the intensive care unit of Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey.

I wonder if this is a good illustration of the destructive power of faith in masks. A morbidly obese guy such as Chris Christie should be hiding in a bunker, not relying on a 2-cent surgical mask to keep coronavirus from finding its perfect host (his corpulence). Other than having gotten sick after not wearing a mask, what has Christie learned that would contradict this chart example:

Do we really want other morbidly obese guys pushing 60 to put their faith in masks because Christie thinks he would have had a different outcome if he’d used a bandana or similar for PPE?

Related:

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Faith in the Church of Shutdown not shaken by weight gain

by philg

A Boston friend who is about 60 years old recently shared that the 50+ shutdown orders from the Maskachusetts governor had resulted in the loss of her fitness habits, a cessation in her gym visits, a substantial weight gain, and a general feeling of poor health. The shutdown that protected her from Covid-19, in other words, has rendered her far more vulnerable to Covid-19 than she ever was previously (see “Extra Pounds May Raise Risk of Severe Covid-19” (NYT, October 10, filed under “belaboring the obvious”).

Had this weakened her faith in the Church of Shutdown and made her think that we can’t prevent deaths, but only shift them from the elderly to the non-elderly? (see “The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life” for a partial calculation of how Americans will die prematurely over the coming years)

No!

She still believed in the religion for herself and others. I related to her the complaint of a 35-year-old helicopter instrument student that the shutdown was orchestrated by married people home in their big houses with their kids. “What about people like me,” he asked, “who still want to find someone to have children with? My social and dating lives were destroyed by the lockdown. Then, just as soon as things started to open a bit, I had to work 15 extra hours per week and go on the night shift because so many guys were home collecting their $600 per week and wouldn’t come back.” (I refrained from sharing that he might want to consider moving away from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts family law if his goal is to have children and remain part of their lives after the mom decided she needs to have sex with some new friends while hanging onto his paycheck.) Her response was simply to deny that the 35-year-old had suffered a loss. She imagined herself better situated to evaluate the impact of the shutdown on his life than he himself was.

She has some opportunities to observe high-school and college-age residents of the Boston area. As far as she can tell, they are not heeding directives to maintain social distance, wear masks when together, etc. As long as there is this substantial segment of the population ignoring most of the orders, doesn’t that mean that the plague will eventually spread widely, even if the orders could have worked in a more efficient police state? Apparently not!

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Who has watched Hamilton more than once on Disney+?

by philg

Michelle Obama on Hamilton: “it was simply, as I tell everybody, the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.” The proletariat seemed to agree with her, happily shelling out a month of income for a family night at the (sold-out-at-$1000+/seat) theater.

The musical has been out for months now on Disney+. Who has taken the trouble to press the “Play” button more than once? Or knows someone who has watched the musical more than once on Disney+?

I ultimately failed to persuade even a single friend to come over and watch this. Visiting a friend’s vacation house for roughly 7 nights this summer, I could not persuade anyone there to watch it with me.

[The same people were happy to gather, perhaps contrary to a subset of our governor’s 50+ orders, for other movies, shows, games, and activities.]

I am having difficulty understanding how something that was so valuable to people in the theater is essentially worthless on TV. Part of this, I guess, is that sticking a camera in the back of a theatrical production has seldom been a hugely successful technique for making a good movie. On the other hand, that’s what the Metropolitan Opera did before they were shut down for coronapanic and the results were successful with millions of viewers on PBS and at least hundreds of thousands in theaters.

Also, what’s our verdict on the show? Who agrees with Michelle Obama that this is better than any painting in the Metropolitan Museum, Louvre, or National Gallery (I think we can assume she has been to these places)? Who agrees with Michelle Obama that this is better than any work by Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, or Mozart? Who agrees with Michelle Obama that this is better than any work misattributed to Shakespeare?

Related:

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Maskachusetts must ban its own residents from Maskachusetts

by philg

One of our governor’s 50+ orders is banning likely-to-be-plagued visitors from other states from visiting Massachusetts (#3 among states ranked by Covid-19 death rate) unless these unclean individuals go through a 14-day ritual purification and/or receive the sacrament of false negatives (a PCR test on the asymptomatic).

As of yesterday, however, it seems that Massachusetts itself would be a “hot zone” state and visitors from Massachusetts would therefore have to be quarantined before mingling with the righteous locals… here in Massachusetts (Boston Herald).

Related:

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Do we need some more national parks?

by philg

A friend who has been suffering through shutdown on an oceanfront estate in Maine mentioned that Acadia National Park has experienced record-breaking visitor counts. For the first time in history, you need to make a reservation before driving into the park at all.

Our National Park system was set up in 1872, i.e., for a country with a population of roughly 40 million. Today there are 330 million residents of the U.S. (or 350 million maybe?). Mobility, even in coronashutdown, is greater than it was in 1872. This leads to what I would have previously called “Manhattan-style crowding” in some parks (but now Manhattan has been de-crowded!).

Having the Federal government run stuff is not ideal, as evidenced by the filthy and decrepit bathrooms that are provided for visitors to Acadia. On the other hand, of all U.S. government functions, the National Park system seems like the best value for the dollar.

Why not see if we can create some additional National Parks or at least National Forests with much better visitor facilities and cut out the logging?Demolish some ugly condo buildings before climate change can get them and create additional National Seashores?

If so, where should the new parks be? My semi-local ideas…

  • Lake Champlain (Vermont/New York)
  • Chappaquiddick Island (“The Ted Kennedy National Seashore”)
  • Baxter State Park (take it over from Maine, expand it, and make it more accessible with some awesome roads; call it “End of the Appalachian Trail Park”)
  • Moosehead Lake (Maine; buy up some land to connect with what is now Baxter State Park)

A few photos from Acadia, September 2020:

And, right next to the park, a guide to healing our nation (“Vote Democrat; Wach MSNBC & CNN News”):

Related:

  • Park Drive photo above by Tony Cammarata of Aerial Boston (I was flying the Robinson R44 helicopter)
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Testing will end coronaplague, but quarantine anyway…

by philg

From the local K-8 school…

I am writing to inform you that a student … has tested positive for COVID-19. All families with students in the impacted cohort have been notified and their children were picked up from school immediately. Our first responsibility is to keep our students and staff safe.

(In case you thought their first responsibility was education!)

We have been planning for this scenario during our reopening planning process and have a comprehensive plan in place to sanitize the school, inform families whose students were at risk of exposure or in close contact, and support the affected family as they navigate this stressful experience.

Our student body and staff have been closely adhering to the safety protocols including mask wearing, hand washing, and physical distancing.

(But we don’t believe that any of this stuff actually works, which is why what might be a false positive test leads us to shut down a “cohort” of the school?)

We are grateful to our families for their continued efforts to keep students home at the first sign of symptoms. These measures, taken in combination, greatly reduce the risk of additional transmission.
Though we cannot provide specific information about our school community member who tested positive, your child was not a close contact (defined as being within 6 feet of the person for at least 15 minutes) of the affected school member. Please continue to monitor your child for symptoms, and keep your child home if he/she/they shows any symptoms or is not feeling well.

Parents of students who were in close contact with the community member have been notified separately. All close contacts should be tested but must self-quarantine for 14 days after the last exposure to the person who tested positive, regardless of test result.

(Testing is critical for prevailing in the war that we’ve declared on this virus, but we are going to throw out the test results and quarantine everyone regardless.)

Some good news for Chlorox:

To further prevent transmission of the virus to other staff and students, we have disinfected the school with a focus on those areas frequented by the community member that tested positive. We will continue to be vigilant in adhering to all of the protocols that have been put in place in an effort to continue in person learning.

But they close the school every afternoon at 1:45 pm, a shortened school day compared to the old 2:50 pm. I had thought this was so that school employees, who can’t be expected to work past 3 pm, would have time to douse everything with Chlorox. If everything is already disinfected daily, what is this going to be? Double secret disinfection?

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Silicon Valley Shutdown Karens move into bigger houses

by philg

My rich friends in the Bay Area are tireless Facebook advocates for more shutdown. Most of them live in spacious homes worth $2-3 million or more. Consistent with Your lockdown may vary, here’s “Bay Area home prices soar with suburban boom” (Mercury News, October 7):

Coronavirus drives demand for space, single-family homes

With millions out of work, and restaurants, shops and retailers closing, one spot in the economy shines for thriving and affluent professionals — Bay Area real estate.

As if the devastating pandemic had passed over the tech campuses, Spanish-tiled roofs and Tesla-filled garages of Silicon Valley, luxury home sales exploded in August and drove median prices up 16 percent from the previous year to levels approaching the market peak in 2018.

The median sale price for an existing single family home in August in the Bay Area was $975,000, according to DQNews data. The gains were driven by a limited supply of properties for sale and a greater portion of high-end homes selling, agents and economists said.

“We’ve never seen such high price appreciation in a recession,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist with real estate data firm CoreLogic. “The recession hasn’t hit everyone the same way.”

Bay Area agents say demand is driven by techies and professionals looking for more space for family and home office Zoom-rooms.

If these are the folks making decisions on when to end shutdown, I’m not predicting an early exit from cower-in-place!

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