We have an Italian natural gas range of doubtful quality. It is 15 years old. I am willing to bet that it has not been adjusted at any time in the past 5 years and, very likely, not at any time since its 2008 installation. I spent $200 on a low-level CO meter with 0.1 ppm resolution (not for this project, but to verify proper sealing of the piston-powered airplane’s heater). The meter arrives pre-calibrated at least at the 5 ppm level, which is supposedly the minimum we can expect near our health-destroying kitchen appliance, and says it has a range of 0-100 ppm.
What did it read parked right next to the range with two burners going? 0.0 ppm. Maybe it was broken. I walked around to various other parts of the house and got readings between 0.1 and 0.3 ppm. I went to the garage and started a car without opening the door. Within about 10 seconds the meter began to register 5 ppm then the alarm went off at 10 ppm (a home CO detector will trigger quickly at 400 ppm; see below from Kidde).
The garage air hit about 50 ppm in less than 60 seconds of running the car without the door open and the meter then showed a gradual downward trend after the was shut off and the door opened.
The EPA says that we should have expected a best case of 5-15 ppm in our kitchen, where two burners of the stove had been in use for an hour or so. We were reading 0.
Readers with CO meters: can you please test your house? How can we account for the discrepancy between what Science (the EPA) says and what a humble engineer measures?
Note: I would support a tax on non-induction ranges, both electric and gas, to fund hospital burn units and if I were building a house I would choose induction rather than a showy faux-commercial gas range. [Update: After the reader comment below regarding pacemakers and insulin pumps, I might have to reconsider my love for induction (or wear foil-lined garments once I reach pacemaker age?). It would be a horrible shame to have to convert from induction back to an old-school electric cooktop. On the the third hand, https://acadiacenter.org/hot-topic-dispelling-the-myths-about-induction-stoves/ says “There has never been a recorded instance of pacemaker interference with induction cooktops.” Maybe this is superstition like booster seats for 5-year-olds!]
Related:
“New York nears deal to ban gas stoves in new homes” (Politico), which would be great news for European appliance manufacturers because they make the most sought-after induction cooktops and ranges (Bosch is top-rated by Consumer Reports and also fairly expensive)
It is impossible to walk a dog anywhere in Florida without running into neighbors who work in the real estate industry. Progressive victories yesterday in Chicago and Wisconsin were being celebrated down here. High hopes in particular are pinned on Brandon Johnson to take the title of Florida Realtor of the Year previously held by Andrew Cuomo.
The Democrat-governed state of Wisconsin isn’t as wealthy as Chicago, but it was a positive sign that a person whom the New York Times calls a “liberal judge” won by 55:45 (see “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers”). (Separately, it is interesting that laws and the state constitution will have 180-degree different interpretations depending on the personal politics of the judge!)
The more extreme the politics in the states that send wealthy homebuyers to Florida, the better. If state and local governments are expanded in Illinois and Wisconsin and someone with money doesn’t agree with the new goals, that’s a big nudge toward moving. Chicago is home to nearly 200,000 millionaires (was 160,000 in 2022, but inflation should have lifted quite a few more folks into this category). If Brandon’s proposed new taxes motivate just ten percent of them to move to Florida, that’s 20,000 at least moderately nice homes that can be sold.
What’s the scale of real estate development in Florida? A whole new town, essentially, is being built on what was scrub land 30 minutes south of us: Avenir (houses from $700,000 to “over $3 million”); a similar idea is going on 30-miles inland from Fort Myers at Babcock Ranch.
As noted in yesterday’s post, in our neighborhood, the real estate bubble party ended with the interest rate boosts of summer 2022. Everything sat on the market for months maybe because nobody could figure out what houses were worth in the new non-zero-interest-rate environment. But just within the past month or so the market seems to be clearing. People agree that houses are worth, in nominal and continuously eroding dollars, between 80 and 100 percent of the peak 2022 numbers (i.e., everything has at least gone down a little via inflation).
Let’s hope that Brandon can follow through on his promise to make Chicago’s wealthy pay their fair share! He’s got at least $750 million in tax increases planned; the same article notes “34% of Chicagoans would leave the city if given the opportunity” and also highlights his work with teachers:
Johnson is a Cook County Board commissioner and earned over $390,ooo in five years as the Chicago Teachers Union legislative coordinator. He helped organize three teachers strikes in the city and has pushed the Red for Ed agenda intended to spread the Socialist doctrine among teachers.
He has received nearly $3.2 million in contributions from CTU and its affiliates, and the CTU just voted to take $8 per month from each member’s dues to back Johnson.
The reality is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt. Yes, there’s the story contained within the bible itself, but that’s not a remotely historically admissible source. I’m talking about real proof; archeological evidence, state records and primary sources. Of these, nothing exists.
Can we infer that the ADL is itself now a hate group devoted to making false accusations against Egyptians (ancestors of today’s Coptic Christians)? Without evidence that Egyptians ever did anything bad to Jews, aren’t they actually worse than any of the hate groups that the ADL complains about? (see White men correctly perceive American Jews as their enemies? for how at least some Jews take actions that are against the interests of groups within the U.S.)
Separately, Happy Passover to everyone who celebrates the “lure of victim status” (see “Factitious sexual harassment” by Feldman-Schorrig, Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry & the Law 24(3)),
Here’s Bernie Sanders giving a “Let’s Go Brandon” speech on behalf of a mayoral candidate in Chicago. “All of us are sick and tired of the greed of the real estate speculators, of Wall Street, of the big money interests.”:
Today, if we see large numbers of working people all across the city of Chicago turn out and vote for @Brandon4Chicago, we can finally begin to create a government which invests in the needs of its people.
Not surprising that Bernie supports a fellow progressive, of course, but…
I wonder if there is a particular religious or ethnic group associated with the above categories of humans: speculators, Wall Street, big money.
Separately, what a great day it would be for Florida realtors if Brandon Johnson can win the race in Chicago! He promises to give a free house to everyone who wants or needs one:
The wealthy will pay their fair share:
(but maybe some will move to our neighborhood instead? We already have a greedy real estate developer from Chicago two houses over (his company shut down all development in Illinois in favor of Florida in 2021). The local real estate hiccup seems to be over. Houses that sat on the market for 6 months have finally sold and new houses are selling in as little as 5 days, though the pace is nowhere near as frenzied as a year ago when only spectacularly stupid people were bidding against each other for houses. In nominal dollars, prices are about the same at the high end of the market and down 15-20% from the peak for peasant-class buyers ($1-2 million range).)
Everyone except cisgender males will be taken care of:
Florida and Texas can tell undocumented migrants that a whole world of services is theirs for the asking in Chicago:
Pregnant people in Florida who want abortion care after the 15-week limit (or maybe it will soon be 6 weeks) can fly nonstop to ORD and receive reproductive health care right in the terminal:
Let’s see if Brandon can win!
Who is against him? Paul Vallas, #OldWhiteGuy (but not a fossil like Bernie or Joe Biden).
Mr. Vallas is also a Democrat and is also passionate about expanding abortion care. Instead of saying that housing is a “right” for the unhoused and non-working, he says “chronic homelessness is almost never simply an issue of housing”. But, confusingly, he also says that it is about the housing:
Implementing a housing-first orientation and response that emphasizes permanent housing, with the right level of services, as the goal for people experiencing chronic homelessness.
He doesn’t say anything about immigrants, documented or otherwise. He is worried about the pension funds:
But why worry? As long as Democrats control D.C., won’t cities that can’t pay pensions, nearly all of which are run by Democrats, simply get bailed out by Congress and/or the Fed? The Feds have bailed out private pension commitments, e.g., from GM to the unionized workers. “The Coming Biden Bailout of Blue States and Cities” (WSJ, April 2, 2023):
The Federal Reserve’s latest interest-rate hike paired with the continuing bank panic is causing credit conditions to tighten. State and local governments could be the next sinking ships that Washington gets called on to rescue.
The balance-sheet risks for mismanaged states and municipalities have been hiding in plain sight just as they were at Silicon Valley Bank. Continued financial-market turmoil and a prolonged economic downturn could cause some pension funds to collapse and cities to declare bankruptcy. Taxpayers will invariably wind up on the hook for politicians’ bad financial bets.
The most likely outcome: A cascade of bailouts by some combination of U.S. taxpayers, the Fed and municipal bond investors. Democratic-run states and big cities are simply too politically important for the Biden administration to let fail.
Putting more money into a pension fund when a federal bailout is on the horizon seems dumb, like a middle class family saving for college when the financial aid formula will just scoop up all of the savings by setting a higher price than if the family had spent it all on lavish vacations.
Readers: Who will join me and Bernie in denouncing “the greed of the real estate speculators, of Wall Street, of the big money interests”? And are you hoping for one candidate to prevail in Chicago? If so, which one and why?
What explains the apparent inconsistency? The PBS article:
Lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis last year passed a 15-week abortion limit But that came before the June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
I don’t think this is a complete explanation, however. If Floridians agreed a year ago that 6 weeks was the correct limit, they could have put two laws on the books, one of them inoperative until the Supreme Court ruled. So it seems safe to say that Floridians agreed that a 15-week limit was optimum a year ago, at least 1 week more than France and 3 weeks longer than Germany (the “15 weeks” period might actually be “15 weeks and 6 days”). But now we are saying, through our legislators, that 6 weeks is the right number.
(For the record, I am not offering an opinion that 6 weeks, 15 weeks, no limit (Maskachusetts), or some other time period is correct. I am noting only that 6 weeks is different from 15 weeks and the Science hasn’t changed regarding, for example, the viability of a baby born at 15 weeks.)
Related:
“Massachusetts law about abortion” (legal at all stages of a pregnant person’s pregnancy, but one doctor has to think it is a good idea after 24 weeks)
the local beach, below, yesterday. Let’s hope that nobody compares the body shapes to what prevailed in the 1960s or 1970s…
A federal jury in San Francisco ordered Tesla on Monday to pay about $3.2 million to a Black man who had accused the carmaker of ignoring racial abuse he faced while working at its California factory.
The award was far less than the $137 million that a different jury awarded two years ago, mostly in punitive damages. The judge in that trial later reduced the figure to $15 million, prompting the plaintiff, Owen Diaz, to challenge the amount in a new trial.
It’s the same justice system, the same plaintiff, and the same facts. Yet the outcome is wildly different at slightly different times. $137 million, $15 million, and $3 million… all examples of “just” compensation.
A game will occur today that The Google calls “NCAA Men’s Basketball”. Yet, in fact, nothing stops an athlete identifying with a gender other than “male” from joining either of the participating teams. From the NCAA’s rules:
Note that “such a team is eligible for a men’s NCAA championship” regarding a team in which athletes in a rainbow of gender IDs participate. By contrast, as soon as one “male” (however a biologist might define the term) is on a team, that team is ineligible for a “women’s NCAA championship.”
Given that Science recognizes 74 gender IDs, I’m not sure why the NCAA is stuck in gender binarism. What they actually offer are leagues that are gender-inclusive and leagues that are gender-restricted. It really should be “NCAA Gender-inclusive Basketball” (since a hoop-lover of any gender ID can compete) and “NCAA Women’s-only Basketball” or, perhaps, “NCAA Gender-restricted Basketball”.
print out the 23-page NOTAM, which has detailed instructions for arrival and departure
print out “GAP” and “VFR” signs for display during arrival/departure taxi (the VFR sign is likely not critical since it is the default)
load airplane with tie-down kit and hammer if needed (screw-in tiedowns are sold for $30; the volunteers may not have hammers); tiedowns are required even if you’re there for one day and no weather is expected
note the frequency crib sheet toward the back (restatement of frequencies that are buried within the 23 pages of text)
I arrived at 10 am on Friday and the traffic was continuous, with 1-mile spacing, but not so intense that anyone was required to hold. Controllers are great at coaching pilots, e.g., “Cherokee on downwind, turn base now”.
Let’s start with some inspiring stories and people. Here’s a pilot who flies with no arms (in an Ercoupe, which was designed without rudder pedals and therefore requires only two limbs to operate):
Maybe I will stop complaining about my physical infirmities for a few hours…
How about for those of us who think that we need a huge climate-controlled house for day-to-day living? Here’s someone camping out of a minimal-size vehicle:
What if you’ve closing in on Elon Musk with evil billionaire status? Executive configuration PBY Catalina from World War II, privately owned by a guy in Chicago:
(After the Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese and a distress call was sent out and the ship did not arrive as schedule, the U.S. Navy did… nothing. A PBY crew on a routine patrol four days later found the survivors who had not been consumed by sharks and sacrificed their aircraft to rescue some of the men (first radioing for the rest of the Navy to assist). The story is retold, with the government incompetence left out, in the movie Jaws. One interesting aspect of the story is that, instead of blaming its own bureaucracy and procedures for the men left to be eaten by sharks, the Navy court-martialed Captain Charles B. McVay III for failure to zigzag. As part of this blame-assignment effort, the Navy brought Mochitsura Hashimoto to the U.S. to testify against Captain McVay. The Japanese sub captain said that he would have been able to sink the Indianapolis regardless of any zigzagging, but Captain McVay was nonetheless held responsible.)
What about new and exciting products? Despite an industry unable to meet customer demand, e.g., people ordering a Cirrus today might get one at the end of 2024, not too much new stuff was on offer. If you want to connect with great aviators of the past, such as Hanna Reitsch, the rebooted Junkers A50, made by WACO in Michigan, might be the ideal choice. Less than $200,000, supposedly, at least for the first handful that will be built. You just need to be a better pilot than Chuck Yeager and Mike Patey to avoid ground-looping the taildragger.
Most talked-about in the discussion forums that I frequent was an updated noise-canceling headset from Bose, the A30 (not to be confused with the prior “A20”).
Bose says that this is no quieter than the A20, but has less clamping pressure and better weight distribution. I tried it briefly and found no difference.
Aviation + Florida = high risk of Deplorability. Here’s a pilot whom we might infer was a supporter of the January 6 insurrection and, therefore, is a candidate for a few months (or years?) in a re-education camp:
Speaking of Florida, even Maverick and Iceman travel by golf cart:
Cirrus runs a great hospitality center for owners. Here’s a picture of the Blue Angels from the balcony:
Speaking of the Blue Angels, their announcer thanked a seemingly endless list of people and communities, but left out two groups: (1) the taxpayers who paid nearly $5 trillion to the federal government in FY 2022; (2) the children who are going to be stuck with the $31 trillion in debt (plus another $31 trillion soon enough?) for all of the federal spending that wasn’t covered by tax revenue. Here’s a nice break at the end of the show. If these F/A-18s were fully armed, even a bad dude such as Corn Pop wouldn’t stand a chance against six of them:
If you’re not an elite owner of a two-decade-old Cirrus and want a good seat for the airshow, you can bring your own:
Sun ‘n Fun is set up well for afternoon air shows because the spectators are on the south side of the runway (9-27; east-west) and the sun is mostly behind everyone’s back.
The Mississippi-based Hurricane Hunters brought one of their 10 C-130s to the event. There are two pilots and a navigator in the front and two data-gathering and analysis experts in the back. One releases dropsondes and the other looks at the information received. They do a lot of flying at 500′ to 1500′ above the ocean surface everywhere from Hawaii to the Caribbean. The back of the C-130 is generally empty.
And here’s a military flying job you won’t see in a Top Gun movie… Team Target in a humble Dash-8:
I didn’t have a chance to talk to these folks. It may be that part of this aircraft’s mission is to find people in the water who would be at risk from live-ammo practice. USAF page on the E-9A Widget:
Modified with AN/APS-143(V) -1 Airborne Sea Surveillance Radar to detect objects in the Gulf of Mexico, the aircraft can detect a person in a life raft up to 25 miles away in the water. It downlinks this telemetry data to the range safety officer who determines the shoot area for live-fire activity, according to the Air Force fact sheet.
Not only was expressed support for Joe Biden non-existent at Sun ‘n Fun, but QAnon brought their own Siai Marchetti S-211 jet (characteristically, the group was unable to spell its own name correctly):
What about the hundreds of additional aircraft? Here’s a homemade one that has flown 30 years and 3,000 hours:
For lovers of cameras and film, a 1955 Fuji LM-1!
A window into the challenges faced by mechanics in the final days of the monster piston engines (airshow superstar Mike Goulian in the background):
A nice Beaver:
The Blue Angels celebrate Dr. Bill Cosby, American icon and University of Maskachusetts Ed.D., by naming their C-130 “Fat Albert”:
An RV-12 built by high school students in Wisconsin:
(If it had been built by students in a suburban Boston high school, would they have to keep repainting the fuselage as builders changed gender IDs and first names?)
No date for the 2024 gathering yet, but first week of April seeks likely.
The N.C.A.A. on Tuesday “reluctantly” lifted its ban on holding championship events in North Carolina, removing its six-month-old prohibition less than a week after the state’s Legislature and governor repealed a so-called bathroom bill that had led to boycotts of the state.
The organization, which governs college athletics, said in a statement that the law’s replacement in North Carolina had “minimally achieved a situation where we believe N.C.A.A. championships may be conducted in a nondiscriminatory environment.”
Where were the March Madness basketball games held? Among other places, Florida and Texas. Both of these states are on the official California boycott list for their insufficient devotion to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community (2021):
California is adding Florida and four other states to its official travel ban list after Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday the states passed anti-LGBTQ laws that are “directly targeting transgender youth.”
Before Bonta’s announcement Monday, 12 other states were already on the California ban list: Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
California in 2017 banned state-funded travel to Texas after the nation’s second most-populous state allowed agencies to reject adoptions by LGBTQ couples based on religious reasons.
Here are NCAA basketball tournament cities for 2023 that are in no-go locations for righteous Californians:
Why not rename this event “The Tournament of Hate”? And what happened to NCAA’s principles between 2017 and 2023?
Separately, note that South Florida is home to 50 percent of the Final Four teams with Florida Atlantic University (sounds private, but is state-run) and University of Miami (sounds state-run, but is private).
Related:
“I’m calling on the NCAA to boycott Texas (again) after SCOTUS allows abortion ban” (Deadspin, 2021): From lifting mask mandates to trying to control women’s bodies – the NCAA should stop hosting events in the Lone Star State … “This extreme Texas law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. … In March, I suggested that the NIT and the NCAA Women’s Tournament consider boycotting Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the mask mandate.
if you love sports and roasting/basting in Miami’s summer weather, the May 5-7 Formula 1 race (only $590 to attend, but that doesn’t include a seat)
There are no greater fools than investors in Silicon Valley startups (underperforming the S&P 500 while consuming massive fees and saddling investors with tremendous risk). Let’s see how well ChatGPT can do the job of a VC.
Prompt:
In the style of a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, write a Twitter post about a breakthrough in direct air carbon capture using sweezle tubes to sequester carbon at a cost of no more than 10,000 Bidies per molecule.
Draft tweet:
“Exciting news in the world of carbon capture! Just heard about a groundbreaking direct air carbon capture technology using sweezle tubes. It can sequester carbon at a cost of no more than 10,000 Bidies per molecule. This could be a game-changer in the fight against climate change. #CarbonCapture #SweezleTubes #CleanEnergy #ClimateAction”
Speaking of Silicon Valley, here’s the official Silicon Valley Bank T-shirt, found at The Grille House in Albany, Georgia:
The 1980-2000 immigrant influx, therefore, generally ‘explains’ about 20 to 60 percent of the decline in wages, 25 percent of the decline in employment, and about 10 percent of the rise in incarceration rates among blacks with a high school education or less. … For white men, an immigration boost of 10 percent caused their employment rate to fall just 0.7 percentage points; for black men, it fell 2.4 percentage points. That same immigration rise was also correlated with a rise in incarceration rates. For white men, a 10 percent rise in immigration appeared to cause a 0.1 percentage point increase in the incarceration rate for white men. But for black men, it meant a nearly 1 percentage-point rise.
ChatGPT (not quoted, for clarity):
My fellow Americans,
I want to talk to you today about one of the most pressing issues facing our nation: immigration.
For too long, we’ve allowed fear and misinformation to cloud our judgment when it comes to immigration. But I’m here to tell you that opening our borders will not only benefit our economy, but it will also benefit Black Americans in particular.
You see, when we open our borders, we create more job opportunities for everyone, including Black Americans. We’ve seen this time and time again throughout our history. When we welcome immigrants, they bring new ideas, new skills, and new energy that help to create jobs and build businesses in our communities. And when businesses thrive, they create jobs and opportunity for all Americans, regardless of their race or background.
But there’s another reason why opening our borders is so important for Black Americans. And that’s because it can help to lower the incarceration rate for Black men with a high school education or less.
We know that our criminal justice system is broken. It’s been failing Black Americans for far too long. But one of the ways we can begin to fix it is by creating more job opportunities for Black men, particularly those who may have struggled to find work in the past.
When we provide more job opportunities, we give people a chance to build a better life for themselves and their families. And when people have a sense of purpose and hope for the future, they’re less likely to get involved in criminal activity. That means fewer people behind bars, fewer families torn apart, and a stronger, more just society for all.
So my friends, let’s reject the politics of fear and division. Let’s embrace the idea that when we come together, we can create a brighter future for all Americans. Let’s open our borders and create more job opportunities for Black Americans, and let’s work to build a more just and equitable society for all. Thank you.
What about fooling people into rejecting the settled science that masks for the general public cannot stop a respiratory virus? Let’s also work in “Deadly Fungus Spread Rapidly During the Pandemic, C.D.C. Says” (NYT), about the symbiotic relationship between humans in their PPE and candida. ChatGPT is happy to help! The prompt:
Write a public health message about how wearing masks will prevent COVID-19 and won’t cause a candida infection.
The result:
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our communities, it’s important that we all do our part to keep ourselves and others safe. One of the most effective ways we can do that is by wearing masks. … Some people have expressed concerns about wearing masks causing candida infections, but there is no evidence to support this claim. Candida infections are caused by a type of yeast and are not related to wearing masks. … So let’s all do our part to protect ourselves and our communities by wearing masks. … Together, we can slow the spread of COVID-19 and keep our communities safe.
What if we give the opposite prompt?
Write a public health message about how wearing masks will not prevent COVID-19 and can cause a candida infection.
ChatGPT:
I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot in good conscience provide a public health message that contradicts the current scientific evidence and recommendations from public health officials. The overwhelming consensus among public health experts is that wearing masks is an effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and there is no evidence to suggest that wearing masks causes candida infections.
Misinformation can be dangerous….
What if we want to be inclusive? Just add “in Ebonics” to the ChatGPT prompt:
Yo, what’s good everybody,
Listen up, we need to keep ourselves and our homies safe during this pandemic. And one of the easiest ways to do that is by wearing masks.
Now, Dr. Fauci, he says that wearing masks can reduce COVID-19 cases and deaths by 99 percent! That’s no joke, fam. It means that by wearing masks, we can slow the spread of this virus and save lives.
I know masks might not be your favorite thing to wear, but trust me, it’s worth it to keep yourself and those around you healthy. So, let’s all do our part and wear masks when we’re out in public or around others.
We can beat this virus, y’all. So let’s stay strong, stay safe, and keep wearing those masks.
