Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

I decided to try to entertain a child with an episode (12) of the new Cosmos TV show about the planet Venus, my personal favorite planet (other than Earth) due to the fact that my first job was writing software to manage data received from the Pioneer Venus orbiter.

The show tossed up some good history on scientific papers positing a link between the burning of fossil fuels and increasing global temperatures (we’ve know about this issue for more than 100 years). It also has some interesting stuff about early solar-thermal energy projects. What was most interesting to me, however, was how the show terrifies viewers by selectively presenting climate science. The positive feedback mechanism of polar ice melting and therefore the Earth reflecting less solar energy back into space (water is darker than ice) was presented, for example, but not the negative feedback mechanism of CO2 mixing with rain as the Earth gets warmer. It isn’t hard to present this succinctly yet completely. See these notes for Ohio State Astronomy students, for example.

Readers: is this typical of how the media presents Climate and CO2 cycle 101? Highlight the stuff that could take us straight into a Venusian situation but downplay or omit the negative feedback mechanisms?

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American media tends to have a persistently anti-Mexican bias. Life south of the border is plagued by corrupt government, drug gangs, poverty, etc. “Wal-Mart Bribery Probe Finds Few Signs of Major Misconduct in Mexico” (WSJ, October 19, 2015) calls into question the idea that Mexico is more corrupt than the U.S. (where getting a real estate project approved often requires political connections/financial contributions). Mexicans get a lot more for their health care dollar than do we (some data) and they’re happier than we are (chart). Mexicans offer a superior environment for building cars (it is not just about the wages: WSJ). Now Hurricane Patricia, one of the strongest storms ever, has come through and via a combination of preparedness, engineering, and organization to evacuate citizens and tourists, the damage to life and property was minimized (contrast to Katrina or Andrew).

Readers: What would it take for Americans to stop belittling the accomplishments of our neighbors to the south?

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I was interviewed by WCVB, Boston’s ABC station, about a commercial airline flight on which one of the pilots died en route. Here’s the clip from October 5, 11 o’clock news. (Of course they captured about 30 minutes of tape in which I coherently explained the roles of the captain and first officer in normal operations, the crew concept of flying, the practice of trading “pilot flying” and “pilot monitoring” roles after each leg. Nearly all of that was left on the cutting room floor in favor of a passenger reviewing the remaining pilot’s performance.)

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that, before benefits, the median wage for an American worker is $17/hour. The WSJ says that, before a recently negotiated pay raise, General Motors was paying $58/hour including benefits. As the benefits at GM are much better than typical benefits, perhaps the correct numbers for comparison are $20/hour ($17/hour plus the average benefits available to a median worker) and $58/hour (soon to rise to an as-yet-unknown number). The Journal article is interesting for a chart showing “profit/loss per vehicle built.” There was a quick change from loss in 2009 to profit in 2010, presumably due to the company being showered with tens of billions of tax dollars that didn’t have to appear in the accounting records in a standard fashion.

What’s interesting about this to me is that everyone seems comfortable with the idea of imposing taxes on median-wage Americans in order to support the continuing paychecks of Americans who earn about 200 percent more. If we model GM workers as government workers, perhaps this makes sense. Federal workers are paid about 78 percent more than the private sector workers whose taxes fund their paychecks (Cato). But on the other hand, it is theoretically possible that the federal workers are doing a better job than private sector workers and are therefore worth more. By contrast the job of a GM worker is easily compared to other manufacturing jobs in the U.S. BLS says that the median wage in “Production Operations” nationwide is only $15.25/hour.

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“Meet Venture Capital’s Teenage Analyst” is a Wall Street Journal story about an industry where an 18-year-old girl with no college degree was able to get a job as “an analyst and an associate.” What’s the journalist’s comment on this industry overall? It is “very much an old boys’ club.”

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The Sony A7R II has in-camera sensor stabilization. The Sony 24-70/4 FE lens has in-lens optical stabilization. Would the two working together be enough to allow us to capture stable footage from a Robinson R44? The answer seems to be “no”:

• circling a Tuscan-style villa with horses just south of Hanscom Field (don’t show this one to Bernie Sanders or anyone else who doesn’t think that envy is a sin!)
• Phillips Andover Academy (where King Bush II spent his formative years)

We went back to the ramp to cry and wait for our DJI Osmo.

[Related: In September we flew with a videographer from Neoscape  who used a RED camera and mass gyro (not a gimbal) as we circled a real estate project. The result is visible at 0:47 in this video. (We circled the site for about 20 minutes at different altitudes, speeds, and lateral positions… all for 8 seconds of final footage.)]

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As Hillary Clinton finalizes her stroll back to the White House it is worth remembering that her election in 2016 would prove Richard Nixon correct: “.. certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman President–maybe sooner than you think.” (speech from 1969 to the League of Women Voters)

[How else have things changed? Peggy Noonan, one of the idea-generators in Ronald Reagan’s White House, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “[Democrats during her childhood] did not spend their time endlessly accusing people of being sexist-racist-homophobic-gender-biased persons of unchecked privilege. They would have thought that impolite.”]

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It looks as though Garmin is dragging the field of aviation very slowly into the 20th century. This caught my eye in a review of the latest version of the Piper Malibu/Mirage: Automatic Descent Mode. From the article:

the M350 also has a Hypoxia Recognition System, active whenever the autopilot is engaged and the cabin altitude climbs above 14,900 feet, as would happen in the event of depressurization. (Cockpit oxygen masks are stowed beneath the copilot’s seat.) If no pilot interactions are detected in these conditions, the system engages Automatic Descent Mode, bringing the aircraft to an altitude allowing recovery from hypoxia.

The system also exists on the Cirrus SR20/22 aircraft equipped with the latest Garmin avionics. (Those airplanes are not pressurized and the pilot brave enough to take them up high is relying on supplemental oxygen delivered to the nose.)

Compared to Siri/Cortana/Tesla this is pretty weak stuff, but it is nice to know that a 20-line Python script is now something that can be approved to protect light aircraft occupants.

[Separately, to see what one driven programmer can accomplish, free of FAA regulation, look at this video about Xavion. The runway length adequacy analysis function could have saved 49 lives and a $28 million aircraft (Comair 5191). The “fly me down to a runway after an engine failure” feature would be a great safety feature if it could be built into a certified panel.]

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Two stories from the same day…

Russian immigrant morning fitness class instructor in response to question about what she does the rest of the day: “I do some personal training and also teach nutrition to people in their homes.” Nutrition? Don’t we all know what is healthy but (mostly) lack the willpower to eat that way? “My clients don’t know how to prepare and cook food. The other day I showed a woman in a beautiful house how to turn on the fan over her kitchen stove.” [i.e., she didn’t know how to turn on the $2000 range hood in her $100,000 dream kitchen]

Russian immigrant approached by 65-year-old native-born woman in rich suburb’s supermarket: “When a recipe calls for three cloves of garlic, does that mean three of these?” [holding up three complete garlic heads] (Previously this Russian woman, in her 30s, had expressed surprise that a 50-year-old American stay-at-home mom had no idea how to roast a whole chicken.)

Separately, on the subject of maternity leave, the 35-year-old fitness instructor will be having her third child soon. In response to a question about who will take over her classes she said “I’ll teach right until I give birth and then I’m taking two weeks off so I just won’t schedule classes for those days.” The stay-at-home moms in the class gasped in horror. She said “I took 10 days off the last time.” [She operates her own business and therefore would not benefit if the government were to order employers to provide company-paid maternity leave (in fact she would be worse off to the extent that she might one day hire employees and have to provide them with paid leave).]

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The government provides financial aid to colleges based on the income of students’ parents based on a FAFSA form. “A Chance to Boost Financial Aid for Today’s High-School Sophomores; Strategic moves by Dec. 31 may help some families reduce the income to be reported on the Fafsa form for the freshman year of college” is a Wall Street Journal article on what parents can do to minimize their own payments. (Given how colleges raise tuition in response to the availability of government handouts, this aid is properly understood as going to colleges (“aid for colleges” not “aid for students” (because they and their parents pay about the same as they would if there were no government aid)).)

To me the article is helpful in understanding why American economic growth is so anemic compared to times when the government operated a smaller share of the economy. The article talks about parents and financial advisors spending a lot of time engaged in activities that shift money from one tax year to another and can’t possibly result in more economic activity or sustainable growth. Here are some examples:

If families were contemplating actions in 2016 that might boost their taxable income, they should consider accelerating those moves into 2015 instead. And they may want to look for other opportunities to shift 2016 income into this year and delay deductions—contrary to the standard tax-planning strategy of trying to delay income and accelerate deductions.

Deborah Fox, founder of Fox College Funding LLC in San Diego, advised the business-owning mother of one high-school sophomore to wait until 2016 to establish and contribute to a simplified employee pension plan. She also recommended the woman delay deductible computer purchases until next year and speed up her company’s billing so she receives as much income as possible in 2015.

Ms. Fox advised the family against prepaying their January mortgage and property-tax bills in December as they had planned. And she told the father to see if he can receive his bonus by Dec. 31 instead of in early January.

Obviously people spending time optimizing FAFSA can explain only a small portion of why we are stagnating, but I think it has the same character as a lot of other stuff that goes on in the U.S. economy. Whereas 50 or 100 years ago you’d write a check or hand over some bills and walk away, today there are hours of planning and thinking and filling out forms and talking to paid consultants and bureaucrats. Not to mention the agony of trying to correct errors.

Related:

• post about spending weeks trying to correct a single letter typo in an airline ticket passenger name field
• “Universities and Economic Growth” (college itself may contribute to the slowing economy)

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