Test your powers of skepticism

by philg

Donald Trump recently lost $5 million to a plaintiff at a trial in which there was no physical evidence, but only some dramatic testimony from a plaintiff and her confederates (#BelieveWomen). Let’s see how good we are at detecting liars. First, an example from a patent trial where I recently testified. The plaintiff’s expert is trying to bolster the inventiveness of the invention, a patent on a way to deliver internet applications to phones other than the obvious HTML/CSS/JavaScript. The patent (U.S. 9,063,755) was filed in November 2008, 1.5 years after Apple released the iPhone and promised that HTML/CSS/JavaScript web sites designed for desktop computers would render just fine on Safari for the iPhone. The inventor will seem like more of a genius if the Internet is completely broken as of 2008, but can be saved by this invention.

Q. What was Internet technology like at that time [2008]?

A. It was pretty exciting. As that paper showed, it was really a time when new devices were coming into the Internet, and web pages were getting much more sophisticated in terms of the kinds of things that they could do. …

But as you get into kind of the time frame of the patents, you can now start to do — sell things, you could provide videos. Say, if you had a restaurant, you could have a map, so somebody could say, “Well, where’s your location?” If you had a mobile device, you could get directions, turn-by-turn directions with Google Maps, or at the time, it was MapQuest, right? So you could do turn-by-turn directions.

You could do add to cart, so now you could buy things directly online and have them shipped to you. We take that for granted today, but once upon a time, that was really very much a novel kind of feature or service.

Google Maps, of course, was more than 3 years old in November 2008 (an October 2005 NYT article on mash-ups with Google Maps and JavaScript on the browser). MapQuest was a 1996 sensation. Streaming video via Real Video was available in 1997. As for the inchoate nature of online shopping in 2008, Amazon was a public company and had $18 billion in revenue that year. But the other side’s expert sounded so credible, smart, and sure of himself that I believed him and I have no doubt that the jury did too! (the side that hired me eventually prevailed and did not have to pay the patent owner)

Here’s an exercise for readers: look at the video in “Mormon mom accused of poisoning husband with fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule is seen promoting her kids’ bereavement book a MONTH before she was arrested for his murder” (Daily Mail). The authoress, before being arrested for murder, talks about the “unexpected” death of the person whom, if the police are to be believed, she stuffed full of fentanyl (why did he die rather than simply moving to San Francisco?). Most people are, of course, somewhat nervous when being interviewed on television for the first time. Other than that baseline nervousness you’d expect, can you tell that the husband’s death was perhaps not unexpected for this author?

The book has been memory-holed by Amazon, but not yet by Google:

When we follow the link…

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PhD-level thinking in economics

by philg

“Fed researchers: $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis and St. Paul boosted pay — but cost jobs” (MinnPost.com):

The push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in both Minneapolis and St. Paul has successfully boosted the average worker’s hourly pay in both cities, but it has also led to sharp drops in the numbers of available jobs and hours worked, new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has found.

Note that this is consistent with what I learned from fast food restaurant owners in Maskachusetts. Workers aren’t stupid so they cut their hours to retain eligibility for free housing, free health care, free food, and free smartphone. (See Fast-food economics in Massachusetts: Higher minimum wage leads to a shorter work week, not fewer people on welfare)

Here’s my favorite part of the article:

“Somebody who loses their job because of a minimum wage increase is going to find another job,” said UC Berkeley economist Michael Reich. “Probably not right away, they’re going to work fewer weeks per year — but they’re not going to be permanently unemployed.”

Professor Dr. Jill Biden, PhD’s colleague Professor Dr. Reich, PhD posits the existence of someone who wasn’t worth $15/hr to Employer A. In the superstar academic’s opinion, this person will be, after a period of unemployment spent playing Xbox, drinking beer, and watching TV, worth more than $15/hr to Employer B. (The worker has to produce at least some amount over $15/hr in order to be worth hiring at $15/hr.) A combination of unemployment and increased age will make the worker more valuable.

These are the technocrats pulling the levers of the U.S. economy…

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Telescreen puck for behind friends’ wall-mounted TVs?

by philg

How about this idea for an Arduino project… a puck that can be quietly stuck to the back of a friend’s TV when you’re visiting. After a 72-hour delay, the puck begins emitting the dialog that Winston Smith heard from the telecreens in 1984. An example:

’Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. I am authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end.

(maybe update the above with reference to Ukraine instead)

Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!

Smith! 6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not trying. Lower, please! THAT’S better, comrade.

THERE, comrades! THAT’S how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I’m thirty-nine and I’ve had four children. Now look.

You see MY knees aren’t bent. You can all do it if you want to. Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don’t all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what THEY have to put up with. Now try again. That’s better, comrade, that’s MUCH better.

(update the last one to refer to Ukraine and replace “his toes” with “his/her/zir/their toes”?)

Now we can see you. Stand out in the middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch one another.

Smith! 6079 Smith W! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells.

Any other updates to Orwell’s 1949 text?

Separately, a few excerpts from the Wikipedia page regarding Orwell...

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Orwell’s wife Eileen started working in the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information in central London … Eileen went into hospital for a hysterectomy and died under anaesthetic on 29 March 1945 … [1984] was published in June 1949, less than a year before his death. … Sonia was a beauty, and her act of marrying a sick wealthy man, when his death was almost certain, has left many to doubt her intentions.

Orwell was also openly against homosexuality, at a time when such prejudice was common. Speaking at the 2003 George Orwell Centenary Conference, Daphne Patai said: “Of course he was homophobic. That has nothing to do with his relations with his homosexual friends. Certainly, he had a negative attitude and a certain kind of anxiety, a denigrating attitude towards homosexuality. That is definitely the case. I think his writing reflects that quite fully.”

Orwell used the homophobic epithets “nancy” and “pansy”, for example, in expressions of contempt for what he called the “pansy Left”, and “nancy poets”, i.e. left-wing homosexual or bisexual writers and intellectuals such as Stephen Spender and W. H. Auden.

Here’s a possibly useful building block:

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Your summer airfares, explained

by philg

I was chatting with a guy who manages private jets for a variety of billionaires. Is he hiring pilots who were first officers at regional airlines? “No,” he responded. “I hire 65-year-old airline captains because they won’t quit on me.” He can’t keep younger pilots because making $500,000 to $600,000 per year at a mainline airline is straightforward (see “American Airlines CEO tells pilots the carrier is prepared to increase pay to up to $590,000 a year” (NBC) for example). “Captains at United who know how to work the schedule are making over $1 million per year,” he said.

From CNBC:

Related:

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A Robinson R44 goes home to Boca Raton (from the Panhandle)

by philg

Day 4 of a Robinson R44’s life after release from the factory…

Due to low clouds, we didn’t rush to get out of Destin, Florida, a beach town developed with the same attention to aesthetics as Ocean City, Maryland.

I posted the above images to Facebook, which added a reminder from Science (TM):

It’s Monday morning, but there are quite a few planes parked (looking towards the beach and the area for smaller planes):

We saw beautiful fish and rays along the shoreline, as well as Truman Show location Seaside, Florida (a New Urbanism development that is less urban/practical than the MacArthur Foundation-planned development in which we live). It was a one-hour flight to Tallahassee where we were prepared to assist Ron DeSantis with advice, if requested.

The northwest coast of Florida has been mostly left in its natural condition, punctuated by occasional fishing towns or camps:

Cedar Key, Florida was once the terminus of a railroad from Florida’s northeast coast, but is now comparatively isolated from the essentials of human life (Walmart, hospitals, Home Depot, etc.). Here we are setting up for a heroic landing on the shortest public runway in Florida, 2300′ (and a displaced threshold!):

When you land at Cedar Key, you can take a golf cart that’s already at the airport into town and pay the Cedar Key Adventures folks for its use. Or you can call Judy at (352) 949-2127 and she’ll come fetch you in her minivan ($20 into town for two). Steamers is Judy’s favorite restaurant, so we ate local oysters (cooked, but still perhaps not wise to combine with flying?), shrimp, and salad there with a water view:

Whoever wins the Republican nomination for the 2024 Presidential election might not need to campaign here:

Some photos around town, including extreme golf cart decoration and what is plainly the best fishing enterprise:

The gallery with the Wall-E sculpture also had some interesting artwork based on underlying nautical charts from Gayle Miller.

Back at the airport, a sign reminds pilots to think before departing in the dark:

A last look at the town…

We stopped for fuel at Lakeland, Florida, which has a great year-old restaurant: Waco Kitchen (from Waco Aircraft). Then it was over Florida’s Massif Central

and around Lake Okeechobee

before landing at Boca Raton.

It was about 33 hours of rotor-spinning time. We suffered from two squawks, unlike the previous flight that ended squawk-free. Robinson has a fancy new “cyclic guard” designed to keep folks in the front left seat from knocking into the central cyclic inadvertently. There is a somewhat complex mechanism to allow this to come down so that the seat can be flipped up to reveal the luggage compartment. The hardware came apart. We also had seepage from the tail rotor transmission sight glass window seal.

Final thoughts: Thank God we had air conditioning!

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Helicopter journey from Houston to the Florida Panhandle

by philg

Third post in a series…

We were sorry to leave the luxurious environment of Galaxy FBO at KCXO (north of Houston), but a massive multi-day system of thunderstorms was coming in so we flew through some rain and under low clouds to escape east. First stop was KCWF in Lake Charles, Louisiana. There must be a great restaurant nearby because Million Air CWF was hosting a broken F/A-18 and two broken T-38s.

(The “NJ” on the tail refers to a carrier air wing, not the Great State of Feminism.)

If you want to fly a helicopter over rice paddies without staging a mostly peaceful invasion of a Southeast Asian country, Louisiana is the place:

This was where I was glad to have brought the PLB and the iPhone 14:

Crossing the Mississippi at the Nottoway Plantation (White Castle(!), LA)… (let’s hope that Californians are going to tax themselves to pay each descendant of the builders of this amazing house $5 million)

Folks in New Orleans did a great job building their original airport terminal, now used for a café (sadly, we arrived after it was closed) and a helicopter tour counter (trusty R44!).

The gals at Flightline said “this neighborhood isn’t safe. Don’t get out of the crew car until you’re at least 15 minutes from here”. They made an exception for the former Dixie brewing restaurant, 7 minutes away, because it is surrounded by a fence. It’s now “Faubourg” and the food served is entirely free of poisonous vegetables:

We flew under/around some clouds and over some Tesla fuel in Mobile, Alabama:

Destin, Florida (KDTS) was reporting only scattered clouds, so we flew at 2,500′ in beautiful clear conditions over a broken layer (a little unnerving in a helicopter) and then descended over the beach to 500′ before landing at the airport.

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Robinson R44 helicopter ferry Day 2: riding through all of Hell and half of Texas

by philg

After we had finished registering voters in El Paso, we headed east along Interstate 10. Here we are parked on the “pad of shame” at Fort Stockton:

(As with self-checkout, self-service aircraft fueling is where I learn that there are no jobs with required skill levels lower than my own.) Nobody was around mid-day Saturday so we proceeded to Sonora, Texas (KSOA) where there was also nobody around, but we were able to take the crew car to some superb barbecue:

(Not worthy of inclusion in Austin and Lockhart, Texas: 10 barbecue restaurants in 72 hours, but still great compared to what’s available in 95 percent of the U.S.)

At T82 (Fredericksburg, Texas), which has an on-field restaurant and an on-field hotel, we discovered that Bidenflation has pinched the economy so badly that almost everyone was forced to drive a small two-seat imported car, some that were decades-old:

I was unwise enough to contact Austin Approach and the controller vectored us halfway to Mexico despite our low altitude. We did enjoy seeing the Radha Madhav Dham, however:

Radha Madhav Dham is one of the largest Hindu Temple and Ashram in the U.S. and is widely known for welcoming hundreds of visitors every day, regardless of their backgrounds, to its religious services, family festivals, and devotional retreats. Located in the rolling hills southwest of Austin, Radha Madhav Dham is an integral member of the local interfaith community, working with other faith-based institutions to provide charitable works and strengthen the common bonds between all religions.

In addition to the spiritual development of human souls, Radha Madhav Dham actively supports the charitable activities of its parent organization JKP Worldwide which is deeply involved in improving the material welfare of the underprivileged in society.

It would have been great to land the helicopter in the grass and see if they could explain the “common bonds” between Hinduism and Islam as interpreted by Jaish-e-Mohammed and also to ask for donations to help the material welfare of underprivileged followers of Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, we wanted to be on time for dinner at Casa Medina (“city of the Prophet”) near the Conroe, Texas airport (KCXO) and The Woodlands (see Atlas Shrugged in Houston (The Woodlands)). Conroe is also near where Mexican national Francisco Oropeza shot his Honduran neighbors. We’d previously flown over what looks like it might eventually be Mr. Oropeza’s taxpayer-funded home in the U.S.:

Despite our humble piston background, we were received like royalty at Galaxy FBO:

We returned for breakfast at the FBO’s upstairs restaurant and discovered a shocking scene of inequality:

Our emergency phone call to Elizabeth Warren was not returned.

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End-of-Title-42 Robinson R44 trip from Los Angeles to the border

by philg

Today is the day that Donald Trump’s cruel Title 42 policy was supposed to end, enabling more than 7 billion humans to enter the U.S. and then live here for 10+ years as they await their first asylum court hearing. (CNN) (Trump’s immigration policy was intolerably racist, which is why the Biden administration has continued it for more than 2 years?) This post chronicles our May 2023 trip from Los Angeles to the border at El Paso, Texas.

A west-to-east trip along Interstate 10 began with a flight over the National Historic Landmark of Mar-a-Lago:

I could almost hear the questions of the children in Palm Beach who were pointing up:

  • “What’s JetBlue?”
  • “What’s a commercial airline?”
  • “You have to share your plane with other people?”

Our PBI-LAX route took us over the Florida Mountains, right next to Deming, New Mexico, where we would later stop:

(If no human is illegal, why does the Biden administration keep a balloon tethered near the border?)

Torrance, California is home to the Robinson Helicopter Company, which has zero Michelin stars, and Din Tai Fung, the proud bearer of one star (for the Hong Kong branch). We managed to catch a curbside Uber Black from LAX and thus avoid the dreaded one-hour wait for a regular Uber and arrived at Din Tai Fung just before closing. Angelenos on the airplane, in the restaurant, and working at the hotel were, by Florida standards, often masked. #COVIDisNotOver

The view from the DoubleTree reminds us that Californians are geniuses when it comes to sustainability and adapting to a dark climate future. When building apartments in an area famous for fires, make sure to use wood rather than concrete:

“Why America’s New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same” (Bloomberg 2019) explains how this is legal:

Los Angeles architect Tim Smith was sitting on a Hawaiian beach, reading through the latest building code, as one does, when he noticed that it classified wood treated with fire retardant as noncombustible. That made wood eligible, he realized, for a building category—originally known as “ordinary masonry construction” but long since amended to require only that outer walls be made entirely of noncombustible material—that allowed for five stories with sprinklers.

By putting five wood stories over a one-story concrete podium and covering more of the one-acre lot than a high-rise could fill, Smith figured out how to get the 100 apartments at 60 percent to 70 percent of the cost.

the buildings have proved highly flammable before the sprinklers and walls go in. Dozens of major fires have broken out at mid-rise construction sites over the past five years. Of the 13 U.S. blazes that resulted in damages of $20 million or more in 2017, according to the National Fire Protection Association, six were at wood-frame apartment buildings under construction.

Our machine is ready on Robinson’s ramp at 0800:

The inspectors had found a slightly messed up decal above a static port and that was being addressed while we did our preflight inspection. Helicopters come out of the factory with exactly 4 flight test hours and then a fresh oil change.

Mid-morning traffic on the east side of Los Angeles wasn’t too bad:

The state that was the most thoroughly locked down for coronapanic celebrates “200 years of freedom, 1776-1976”:

(Would Native Americans and Black Americans agree that “freedom” arrived in 1776?)

The sprawl of Los Angeles continues almost to the Banning Pass, which we were able to get through easily at 3,500′:

If you’re accustomed to high-end FBOs, Blythe, California is best avoided. There is no 100LL truck. The “courtesy” car comes with a stern warning to return with a gasoline receipt or pay $20 (admittedly gasoline in California is over $5 per gallon, but nobody would use the crew car for more than a 12-mile round-trip into town). Some photos of Blythe and the Colorado River, which separates it from the comparatively free state of Arizona:

I-10 then climbs into Phoenix, a true master class on sprawl:

If you want to start an airline, a midnight visit to Pinal, Arizona (KMZJ) with a start cart would save a lot of money (note the Dreamlifter, resting after lifting its last dream):

We refueled in Tucson then headed across southern New Mexico as the sun waned. We landed at Million Air in El Paso where if you’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell, $200,000 for a custom (street legal) motorcycle from B.A.D. Visions will fill that prescription. My favorite is the one devoted to Elvis Presley:

The gal behind the counter said that her favorite was the one with the “suicide stick” for shifting (note bullet casings):

For more protection from the elements:

“I drive a Honda minivan,” I explained to the young front desk worker. She responded, “I give you a lot of credit for having the courage to put that on the road.”

In the morning, we fired up to check out the border.

Note that the Biden administration maintains roughly 700 miles of caring humanitarian “fence”, not to be confused with a hateful “wall”.

Our El Paso stop lasted 12 hours, so we were able to register only 732 new voters.

More about this trip in a follow-up post…

Readers: What are you doing to celebrate the end of Title 42? Who is changing the sheets in the guest bedroom so that the next 20 or 30 million migrants can be welcomed properly?

Related:

  • Pew Research 2015 demographic forecast: “… future immigrants and their descendants will be an even bigger source of population growth. Between 2015 and 2065, they are projected to account for 88% of the U.S. population increase, or 103 million people, as the nation grows to 441 million.”
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Public health experts: COVID-19 vaccines prevent transmission

by philg

Coronapanic revisionists have at least the following pillars of faith:

  • Florida was locked down
  • New York was never locked down (see the middle of this post)
  • No official ever promoted saliva-soaked cloth face rags to stop an aerosol virus; the peasants were always told to stay in the bunker or don an N95 respirator
  • Nobody ever said that COVID-19 vaccines prevented infection and transmission

Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, was not suspended by the Silicon Valley Righteous in August 2021 for saying that vaccines “do not reduce the spread of the virus” (Daily Mail).

America’s Ministry of Truth is not efficient, however. The New York City Covidcrats’ main web page still says “The best way to protect yourself and those around you from COVID-19 is to get vaccinated.” (The only way that the “and those around you” could be true is if the Pfizer and Moderna shots prevent transmission.

There is a link in which the public health experts recommend that 6-month-old babies get boosted ASAP (“The vaccines will help your child develop immunity and provide them with protection against severe illness and death from COVID-19.”)

Related:

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Lift the Wankel/battery powertrain from a Mazda to use in an airplane?

by philg

Piston-powered airplanes subject pilot and passengers to unpleasant vibration. Battery-electric airplanes have minimal range.

There have been some successful applications of Wankel rotary engines in aircraft. The homebuilt folks have had some success with Mazda RX-7/RX-8 engines. Here’s an article from EAA’s Sport Aviation in 2002:

While incredibly reliable in automotive use, car engines haven’t done well running at high power settings all day every day in airplanes. The aviation-specific rotary engines thus far, such as Diamond’s AE50R, are low power engines designed for self-launching gliders and UAVs.

What if the smooth rotary engine were used to generate electricity buffered through a battery pack? Then it wouldn’t matter if the engine failed more often than 1930s-style Continental and Lycoming piston engines. An engine failure would mean using a 20-minute battery reserve to land. Is there a mass-market low-cost battery+Wankel combination available? Yes! From “The Hybrid Wankel Rotary-Powered Mazda MX-30 R-EV Is Finally Here. Here’s How It Works” (Autopian, January 2023):

For starters, the engine doesn’t drive the wheels. It only serves as a generator connected to a motor/generator unit to send power to the battery pack. The battery pack then provides juice to an electric motor which powers the wheels. This means that despite burning gasoline, the MX-30 R-EV should theoretically have the seamless power delivery of an EV, and it should be able to keep the Wankel engine at its “sweet spot” for efficiency for a significant portion of its on-time.

As for deeper details on that rotary engine, there’s the presence of direct injection, something never attempted before on a production rotary engine. The side housings are aluminum and coated with plasma for low weight and friction management respectively, all while being just 80 mm wide. For the sake of longevity, the apex seals are 25 percent wider than the ones on an RX-8’s RENESIS engine, clocking in at 2.5 mm. The result is 73.7 horsepower from just 830 cc of displacement. Curiously, although rotary engines love to rev, Mazda claims that peak power hits at just 4,700 RPM. That might sound weird for a high-revving Wankel, but it should translate to very low noise.

At 214 pounds, it looks like this engine is fairly heavy for its horsepower (a little heavier than an 80 hp aluminum piston engine), but given the high efficiency of electric drive maybe this would still work out well for a 2-seater.

Readers: Where’s the flaw in this path toward aircraft powered by a mass-market powertrain?

Related:

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