Taxpayer-funded favoritism for one gender

by philg

There are approximately 58 gender IDs (NBC News story on Facebook). Yet government officials apparently feel comfortable saying that 1 out of these 58 is more important than the other 57.

Convicted (by NYT and Facebook) rapist and Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh: “I am proud that a majority of my law clerks have been women.” (NYT)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “Justice Kavanaugh made history by bringing on board an all-female law clerk crew. Thanks to his selections, the Court has this Term, for the first time ever, more women than men serving as law clerks.” (Washington Examiner)

Here are the items that were featured in July 2019 at the front of the American Art Museum (Smithsonian, which receives $1 billion/year in taxpayer funds) gift shop:

What else did they have at the museum, you might ask? A 19th century sculpture of sleeping children embracing:

… and they also have another sculpture of two humans embracing. Before you look, see if you can guess to which of the 58 above-referenced gender IDs they might belong…


Louise Nevelson, famous for (a) being a great artist, and (b) explicitly saying “I am not a feminist” (she refused alimony, for example, and one pillar of modern feminism is getting regular paychecks from male former sex partners), is parked in the “Feminism in American Art” section:

And some works that don’t relate to gender ID at all, e.g., Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway.

Circling back to the main topic… why is it okay to use taxpayer funds to promote one gender ID above the other 50+ gender IDs?

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Harvard Economics professor beats the sexual harassment rap

by philg

“Star Economist at Harvard Faces Sexual Harassment Complaints” (NYT, Dec 14, 2018):

Before he turned 40, Roland G. Fryer Jr. had earned tenure at Harvard, received a MacArthur “genius” grant and won the most prestigious award for young American economists. He stoked a national debate by concluding that police officers show no bias in the shootings of black men.

But his rapid ascent has taken a troubling turn as Harvard officials review a university investigator’s conclusion that Dr. Fryer fostered a work environment hostile to women, one filled with sexual talk and bullying.

The findings, reviewed by The New York Times, found that Dr. Fryer had engaged in “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” toward four women who worked in the Harvard-affiliated research lab he created. In one case, his “persistent and pervasive” conduct contributed to stress that resulted in the accuser’s taking disability leave, the investigator found.

I.e., things were so bad that someone had to be paid for not working.

Cash and sex go together in economics research…

Now 41, he is one of Harvard’s best-paid faculty members, earning more than $600,000, the university’s 2016 tax filing shows. He has brought at least $33.6 million in grants to the university, according to a résumé on his Harvard web page.

Dr. Fryer told a Harvard investigator that any sexual banter in his office was related to his research and “in the spirit of academic freedom.”

Seven months have gone by. Has the guy disappeared? The Harvard web site suggests he is still on the payroll. How is that possible? Nobel Prize winners have been disappeared for far less (e.g., Tim Hunt).

“Complainant Withdrew Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination Complaint Against Harvard Prof. Roland Fryer” (Harvard Crimson, April 23, 2019):

A Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination investigation into whether Economics Professor Roland G. Fryer, Jr. sexually harassed and retaliated against a former female employee concluded in February by agreement of the parties, according to documents obtained by The Crimson. … The MCAD closed its investigation after the complainant’s lawyer, Monica R. Shah, signed the withdrawal form on Feb. 4. On the form, Shah indicated that the complainant had reached a “satisfactory settlement” with Harvard, Fryer, and Allan.

I.e., cash was the magic solution for the professor in a discipline that says most problems can be fixed with cash…

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Bose Eyeglasses?

by philg

“That’s how you show that you’re a douchebag if you can’t afford a Tesla,” said a friend regarding Apple’s AirPods.

At Oshkosh, Bose was demonstrating its old aviation headsets and its new eyeglass frames, which can supposedly play Bluetooth music (or a lecture on tape) for “up to 3.5 hours”. One annoying issue is that they require a custom charging adapter, so it is one more thing to lose when traveling.

Comment from a customer on the Bose site:

Yesterday I was on a long conversation outside of the office tower I work at. I joked with who I was talking to, “I wonder if someone is going to think I’m just talking to myself.”

Well, 45 minutes later a police car pulls up and an officer approaches me. Very nicely he explains that someone called reporting that someone had been pacing around the building talking to themselves for a while. I showed him my glasses and we both got a good laugh. He tried them on and liked them too! He then went on his way.

Do they work for those of us who need prescription lenses? The company says yes and that Costco can put in custom lenses.

Has anyone tried these? We played around with them for a few minutes and were favorably impressed. They seem good for walking the dog while listening to Audible and simultaneously being able to hear important sounds in the ambient environment. Main concern: I hate the idea of being tasked with something additional to charge daily.

Reviewers on Amazon are lukewarm (4 stars). Here’s a cruel, but presumably honest, one:

it looks like no effort was put into making them capable as a pair of sunglasses – the glare reflected on the inside makes them almost unusable. I’ve had $20 walmart fishing sunglasses outperform these.
But seriously, if you’re buying Bose sunglasses, you don’t care about the sunglasses part right? The styling alone is enough to drive away anyone who actually wants them as sunglasses. You want overpriced audio products that have poor bass, overdriven mids, and a logo that you can point out to all the lesser beings you meet. And these deliver on almost every one of those points.

But maybe still good enough for spoken word content from Audible? It seems that they’re not loud enough to be used in loud environments (like the coding pens of Silicon Valley?). And they’re not very high quality, but what would we expect for $200?

I love the idea of enhancing something that many of us are already required to wear, rather than adding more clutter to put on when leaving the house. I wonder if this is yet another example of something that would be awesome if battery technology were 10X better. Imagine if the entire frame were a 98 percent efficient solar cell charging a battery with gasoline-like power density.

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A tale of two T-shirts

by philg

What price virtue? An Obama t-shirt available at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for $45:

Across the street in a gift shop run by a Chinese woman with an accent… a $7 Trump T-shirt. Made in Honduras:

Separately, an attorney with whom I work (as a software expert witness, fortunately, not on legal questions!) silently protests the political groupthink at his big firm with a Donald J. Trump Signature Collection tie:

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Meet in Seattle next week?

by philg

I’m coming into Seattle for work on Monday, but starting Tuesday, August 6 I will be free. My only firm plan right now is a late morning Tuesday seaplane refresher flight at Kenmore Air. I depart for Boston on a Thursday night redeye and am staying at the Hyatt Regency near the convention center.

Update: we have picked Din Tai Fung, 600 Pine St (Pacific Place) at the unfashionable hour of 5:15 pm on Wednesday, August 7. (alternative is to wait in a long line)

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Spam from Joe Biden

by philg

I am an advocate for progressive causes on Facebook, e.g.., posting “Every month is Pride Month for Nantucket canines” over these photos from a dog boutique:

Perhaps for this reason, I am on Joe Biden’s email lists. Yet I hadn’t seen messages from Team Joe, Joe Biden HQ, Joe Biden, or Biden for President until recently.

Why not?

Gmail pushed them into the Spam bin!

What did I miss?

  • Four years of Donald Trump will be a dark, divisive time for our country. But to give him four more years — that would fundamentally change the fabric of our nation for decades to come.
  • Women’s rights and women’s health care are under assault in a way that seeks to roll back every step of progress we’ve made over the last 50 years. Providers like Planned Parenthood are under attack. … As President, Joe Biden will continue to fight to protect a woman’s right to make her own personal decisions about her health care.
  • Now that Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail, he’s going to spend even more time launching dishonest attacks against us.
  • I’m proud to be representing you, and millions of other Americans [but not all 330 million?], and our shared vision for the country. I hope I make you proud, too.
  • Right now we are seeing incredible abuses of power from this White House. I know it makes some of you feel like America’s best days are behind us. [With Obama gone, aren’t our best days, in fact, behind us?]
  • Two hundred and forty-three years ago, our founding fathers lit a torch. [no mention of the fact that some may have identified as “founding mothers”] In this country, we’re all bound together in this great experiment of equality and opportunity and decency. [The great experiment of equality entailed slavery for millions of people for multiple generations? What would an experiment in inequality have looked like?] Everyone, and I mean everyone, is in on the deal. … Happy Fourth of July. God Bless America, and may God protect our troops.
  • [promise to] unite the country to move beyond our current divisive, broken politics.

I.e., Biden accuses a popular-with-millions politician from the opposing party of “incredible abuses of power” and then says he will unite the country and not be “divisive”!

How could these righteous messages of Trump hatred, advocacy for victim groups, and promises of healing be blocked as spam?

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How many of the folks who say Trump is a racist would be willing to move into a free house in Baltimore?

by philg

Donald J. Trump, racist, is back in the news for some unkind comments about Baltimore (a city roughly as dangerous as the countries from which caravan members are coming and receiving asylum due to the high murder rate, e.g., in Guatemala).

Here’s a suggestion for readers: When a righteous person on Facebook denounces Trump the Racist over this, offer to pay for a house or apartment in a median Baltimore neighborhood and see if he or she is willing to move in. (Baltimore itself may not have great jobs for the coastal elites who display maximum virtue on Facebook, but it is within practical commuting distance of high-paying work in the D.C. suburbs and therefore an inability to work is a not an excuse).

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Should state taxpayers subsidize state-run universities?

by philg

Federal taxpayers provide massive subsidies to all universities via the guaranteed student loan scam.

In addition to this river of cash, state taxpayers have traditionally paid to subsidize state-run universities via free land, tax exemptions, and direct cash from the general budget.

Alaska is trying to cut off the second stream of subsidy: “University Of Alaska Readies For Budget Slash: ‘We May Likely Never Recover'” (NPR).

A Facebook friend who gets a guaranteed (tenured) paycheck from a private university posted the following:

This is mind-boggling, almost inconceivable: the Alaska state government is essentially trying to shutter the state’s premier university by defunding it. Please sign the petition! It seems to be putting the pressure on! If this goes forward, 2,500 faculty and staff will be laid off, over 20,000 students will have their educational paths derailed, public libraries will be closed, ESL teachers let go, etc. etc. etc. And all this carnage to help a rightwing ideologue fulfill his campaign pledge to his base to raise the annual dividend by $1200.

She was seeking people to visit change.org and sign a petition (always safe for someone who lives in Manhattan or Boston to demand that folks in Alaska pay higher taxes!):

Shouldn’t folks who are against income inequality also be against taxpayer-subsidized university education (and therefore support this governor’s initiative)? A university graduate will earn more than the median taxpayer. From the perspective of someone passionate about equality, why does it make sense to tax median earners to subsidize people who are primarily above-median earners (either because they work for the university or will be getting a degree and getting the higher wages that college graduates earn)?

She responded with the kind of winning argument that keeps American academics at the forefront of worldwide intellectual debate:

You’re a troll Philip. It’s never worth engaging with you.

But now I am curious. If people are against inequality, how can they be in favor of this traditional welfare program for high earners? Since college students tend to be disproportionately children of college graduates, isn’t a university a means of perpetuating privilege?

Of course they could simply say “We have PhDs and want market-clearing salaries for PhD employees to be higher. We’d like to see above-median earners trimmed back, but not above-median earners who have PhDs.” But that is not typically the argument.

[Separately, folks who work for universities often say that they are “underpaid”. If so, why the hysteria over being potentially laid off? Why would it be bad to get a new job at a market-clearing wage if the university has been paying below market considering all of the pluses and minuses of the job?]

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Ryanair: airline that is not a hotel customer

by philg

Oshkosh is winding up today and that means a bunch of young people have been inspired to pursue aviation careers, which generally means airline flying. Americans generally assume that anyone who wants to fly airliners must sacrifice home life to become a hotel-based nomad for 10-22 days per month.

[And, like military personnel stationed overseas, be guaranteed losers in any state that comes a winner-take-all custody and child support system and awarding winner status to the parent who can claim to be the “historical primary caregiver.” See Real World Divorce for how this works.]

This is not how it works for everyone!

While in Ireland, I met a Ryanair captain who’d been with the airline for 8 years. He had spent only 2 nights in hotels during that time period. How is that possible? “All trips return to the home base in the evening,” he said. “You might have two out-and-backs or one long flight and a long return.” This is not to say that one can stay in one’s original city. There are Ryanair bases all over Europe and it is the pilot’s responsibility to move to the new base city, rent an apartment, pay for the apartment, etc. This guy had been moved to Rome at one point.

How does maintenance work if the planes are this dispersed? “They have three Learjets and if there is a tech problem the mechanics rush in to wherever the plane is.”

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Top of wishlist: integrated cameras in new aircraft

by philg

AirVenture is almost over and one thing that I haven’t seen is one of my old wishlist items; integrated cameras in new aircraft, e.g., built-in mounts for GoPro cameras (a long-lived mechanical standard, right?) with power supply from the ship. The buyer of a $1 million Cirrus should be able to share the scenic/fun/cool parts of his or her experience with the plane with minimal effort. Maybe this would draw more people into flying light aircraft too, e.g., if there were a “press a button to share an auto-generated video of this flight to Facebook” option.

(It shouldn’t be tough to make a watchable flying video automatically. Speed up taxi by 10X. Cut any portions where the aircraft is on the ground and not moving for more than 5 seconds. Do takeoff at 1X, gradually increasing to 10X as the aircraft climbs to cruising altitude, then slowing back down to 1X for landing. A one-hour start-to-shutdown trip to the beach thus turns into a 7-minute video.)

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