Category: Miscellaneous

Change

There are a lot of areas where the trend oscillates between two states. “Cloud computing” is somewhat new and somewhat trendy, but the “computers are expensive, bandwidth is cheap … centralize everything” and “computers are cheap, bandwidth is expensive … distribute everything” states haven’t changed. A VAX with its terminals or a Citrix farm with its thin clients. Better graphics today, but conceptually the same thing. The difference is marketing — I don’t believe they pushed VT100’s for the home market. SaaS has personal targets as well as commercial.

With these changes, there were winners and losers. Mainframes lost market-share as companies deployed desktop PCs. And now desktop PC vendors are losing market-share as “cloud” services become prevalent. Sucks on an individual level — for, say, the people IBM laid off as their mainframe business contracted — but it wasn’t the driving force behind a political movement.

Manufacturing moved overseas. Energy production moved overseas. Some manufacturing (electronics, for instance) are harder to bring back — we simply lack the knowledge and equipment to pick up manufacturing electronics. Beyond that, though, it is hard to compete with someone who can continually undercut you on cost. You can slap import tariffs on everything you see, but the Chinese government can force employees to work for less. And who wants to start paying MORE for the same stuff? That’s the other side of import duties that people fail to talk about — sure we can jack up the price of ‘stuff’ that comes in from overseas so domestically produced items are competitive … but unless you’re getting a serious raise to go with it, that means items become less affordable. Apart from political change, some manufacturing is apt to move back to personal production (i.e. I’ll 3D print any cheap plastic junk we used to ship in from overseas). And that will negatively impact some of the BRIC economies. The move to personal production may benefit American companies — they design the products, license out the print file, and you make it (or use the 3D printer at your public library to print it, or go to the 3D document centre at Staples).

Until about 3AM today, I thought we’d be seeing a similar apolitical shift in energy markets. The renewable energy tax credits got extended in a Congress where even the trivial faced unimaginable opposition. Personal energy production makes electric vehicles a lot more enticing — paying 20$ a week to the petrol station or 20$ a week to the electric company … not much immediate, tangible benefit. But using the electricity that I’m producing v/s paying 20$ a week to the petrol station – that’s a whole different story.

That shift had worrying geo-political implications — the Middle East isn’t stable, but the area is useful and there’s incentive on both sides to maintain some semblance of order. As demand for oil shifts, incentives change. Odd, to me, that someone who wants to levy tariffs to make American products competitive doesn’t agree with leaving tax incentives in place to promote domestically manufactured clean energy solutions. “Clean” coal, sure … but don’t give ’em a tax incentive to buy solar panels manufactured out on the West coast.

 

 

Toddler Closet

I used a tension rod to create a toddler-accessible closet. I plan on raising the bar as she gets taller.

I got hangers that have clips for slacks/skirts, and each hanger holds an outfit. Her pajamas, daily clothes, and gymnastics outfits are all available. Anya *LOVES* having her clothes in her closet.

img_20161020_105423

Real People

When I was in college, I went out to a bar with some friends. They had a friend, who had graduated a year or two previously, visiting; this guy came out with us. This friend-of-a-friend and I were sitting at a table while everyone else was getting a drink, and the guy said he wanted to meet a beautiful girl like me … but he doesn’t know how to approach one. What, he asked me, would be the best “pick up line”? To which I quickly answered “Hi, I’m Eric”. Why is speaking to a cute girl different than talking to any other human being?

I subsequently learned that, indeed, young attractive women are treated a lot differently — the sort of things people assume are acceptable make the 2005 ‘grab them by the pussy’ recording … well, not surprising. My office at the University had been a photography darkroom. It had two separate rooms — an antechamber and the darkroom part. A friend of mine and I were in the darkroom part, and she was on the phone with someone. Glenn, one of my work-study students came in to speak with me. Not wanting to interrupt her conversation, I asked him to come into the antechamber. He proceeded to back me into a chair, physically restrain me by sitting on me, and kiss me on the mouth. My rather loud entreaty for my friend to come into the other room was met with an annoyed “I’m on the PHONE”. Luckily she finished her call before the student got beyond unwanted kissing, and he backed off when he heard her walking.

And to people who say “but no one reported it happening, so it didn’t happen”. I didn’t report the student either — there’s no evidence. There’s nothing beyond my say-so. And I’m sure he’s going to say it never happened. And that’s a scenario where I at least knew the person. Random guys at a club who take similar liberties — how would that work? Gently move his hand from my crotch to the table, then ask for his name and number? Remove yourself from the situation, and make sure a friend stays close to you at the club — that was my realistic solution.

Non-solutions

This post takes as a priori knowledge (i.e. not something I necessarily believe to be true based on my experience) that white flight is still a thing – that African Americans primarily live in urban centers – and that these urban centers are an absolute wreck of violent crime and disintegration.

I’ll admit to being advantaged by a lot of implicit bias — I’m a grown up white person. A female, though … and a female in science/technology fields … so it is something I’ve experienced occasionally. The first major company for which I worked, a top-level manager in the IT org hired in a lot of his at-the-time girlfriends. The new girl showing up was assumed to be incompetent, and it is a lot harder to convince someone of your competence if they start out knowing that you are only here because you are sleeping with the boss. Frustrating, but nowhere near the level of “the cops got called when I was standing at my front door trying to find my key”.

My specifics don’t give me a lot of understanding of minorities who suffer implicit bias, racial profiling, and outright discrimination … but I cannot fathom how “stop and frisk” is meant to solve either problem. Even if 25% of the people who live here are degenerate criminals, 75% of the people aren’t. Statistically you spend a lot of time hassling innocents — who may well not consider it a worthwhile trade-off to eliminate one burglar.

The nearest analogy in my life-experience is DUI and seat-belt check-points. I remember being late to work one morning because a seat-belt check-point was on my route. Slowed down traffic quite a bit, stopped on the queue waiting for my turn. Plus it took a couple of minutes for the check itself (they were doing about the nosiest check-point I’d ever seen — basically taking as much time as they could to peruse the plain-sight contents of your vehicle, asking questions, etc). There’s a sanctity of human life argument that says that the potential to save one life has more weight than a hundred people being delayed for twenty minutes that morning. Which, as a one-off … whatever. How many times, though, could I be detained before *I* don’t care all that much about the life of some goober who intentionally refused to fasten their seat belt.

And there’s a difference between reducing and relocating crime. New York City got very “tough on crime” and was able to reduce crime significantly. But Philadelphia saw a dramatic increase in crime — NY didn’t stop people from committing crime, they just stopped people from committing crimes *in NYC*. I don’t see stop-and-frisk having the slightest chance of reducing crime. Relocating, sure, but not reducing.

Geothermal Pricing

I’ll start out with an acknowledgement that what makes this comparison so shocking is the 30% federal tax credit. A straight comparison of a super high-end HVAC system with a geothermal system will be a completely different scenario if the tax credit expires.

Last year, we got the top of the line air-exchange heat pump. And we’ve had a lot of problems. Installation problems, air leakage problems, thermostat problems … all compounded by terrible difficulties getting service people out to sort the issues. And at the end of the day, the house isn’t comfortable. The “this is the only thermostat you can use” thermostat … well, first off all freezes up every now and again and the system is either ON or OFF at the time and stays there. But from a firmware / logic standpoint – there is nothing that looks at the relative humidity in our house and says “hey, we should drop the temperature set-point a degree or two to avoid living in a swamp”. Which wouldn’t be a problem if we could tie the thing into OpenHAB. But we cannot.

The system came with a 365 day 100% satisfaction guarantee … which, really, was the reason I was OK with installing it last year. Worst case, we ask for it to be removed & the entire contract price gets refunded. Well, we are not satisfied … but that means we’re back to shopping for an HVAC system.

I researched geothermal system manufacturers. Evidently there are only a few actual manufacturers whose product is sold under a lot of different labels. I contacted local installers to get a quote for each of the major systems I found. My expectation was that a geothermal system would be a couple thousand more than we paid for the air exchange heat pump once you take off the 30% tax credit money.

We got our first quote today — for 600$ less than the air exchange heat pump. It’ll be more to do vertical bores instead of horizontal bores, but that’s a decision to spend money for efficiency. I expect vertical bores will take us into the “couple grand more than we paid” territory. But I don’t see the point of high-end air exchange heat pump systems up North here — a two-stage geothermal system is going to be quite a bit more efficient, not engage the backup heating as often, and cost less than the top of the line variable speed air exchange systems.

The HVAC company that installed our current unit had horror stories of people having to rip out entire yards because of leaking tubes … but, thinking about it without needing to make a decision now … I suspect those are older installations. So, yeah, we have the possibility of leaking lines twenty years from now (lines are warrantied for 50 years, but you are still paying labor). And that would totally suck, but do I really expect the air-exchange heat pump sitting outside is going to be in service twenty years from now?

The price of an egg

Pricing can be amusing – I always thought the 6$ roasted chicken at markets is 3$ chicken with today as a sell-by date. Toss it and you lose money, cook it and you charge more for it.

We recently stopped at McDonald’s during a marathon shopping excursion (and hungry/cranky tiny people are *not* good shopping partners). Don’t know the menu, so we went inside to take our time ordering. Sausage McMuffin = 1.29$. Sausage McMuffin With Egg = 3.29$. Umm, an egg costs 2$? An entire *dozen* eggs doesn’t cost that unless you want the “free range” “organic” ones from a major chain grocery store. A dozen from the guy down the street (fully free-ranged hens, but not certified organic) only costs 2$!

I know that pricing is determined by perceived value and demand. And the cheap sausage/cheese/English muffin option is included in the tiny ‘value menu’ section while the expensive sausage/egg/cheese/English muffin option is a huge menu tile in full color with a picture so a lot of customers (especially those in the drive-through who may not feel comfortable parking long enough to read the entire menu) may not even know the other option exists. But where else does a single egg cost 2$?!

The Time Travel “Bad Guy”

I saw a commercial for a television show called “Timeless”, the premise for which is apparently that some malevolent person has stolen a time machine and is trying to use it to change history and destroy the country. So the protagonists are “saving” the country by undoing whatever changes are made. But what if the change initiator has no ill intent. They are going to stop the Hindenburg from crashing, or get a ticket on the Titanic to keep watch for iceburgs, or introduce the germ theory of disease centuries earlier all to save lives and help people. But to maintain temporal continuity, the “time police” have to prevent (or undo) these changes. A philosophical anti-hero doing the ‘right thing’, but would people still consider them to be a “good guy”?

Modest swimming costumes

I read an article on BBC News last night that asked a question I’ve often wondered why people ask: Why do some people find the burkini offensive? I remember news stories in the 1980’s and 1990’s about the scandalous thong bikinis showing up on beaches near you with all the near-nakedness and permanent mental scarring. Communities banned these strings with a few patches of cloth amid debate about the offense such attire engendered. Cannot say I was personally offended by any near-nakedness … but I understand that there is a social convention that failing to sufficiently cover oneself is undesirable. Rarely is the convention reversed — apart from compulsory nude beaches, and to me that’s more of a “you are not wearing the proper uniform” than “ack, CLOTHING!” thing.

Ostensibly, the offense some people seem to find in a “burkini” — which is about as far away from a thong bikini as one can get – is perplexing. When I was in Egypt, people at the beach in Alexandria had everything from thongs to long sleeved shirts, long slacks, and hijabs. Not wanting to embarrass my host, I wore fairly modest surfing apparel – a long sleeved rash-guard and neoprene leggings. It’s comfortable. You don’t have to worry about reapplying sunscreen all over your person. You don’t get sand in places you would much rather not have sand.

The whole “offense” discussion is a red herring. I doubt anyone is actually being offended by not seeing enough skin at the beach. Otherwise surfers out in SoCal would have been harangued to stop wearing exactly what I purchased to swim in Egypt. The real offense, such as it is, is that (1) someone is displaying anything that identifies them as Muslim and (2) people do not want to admit their own prejudices. Like don’t-ask-don’t-tell, they’d be comfortable with a Muslim at their beach as long as they couldn’t identify the person as such.

Now the legal justification is secularism … which is at least reasonable sounding. The potential disproof of that notion reminds me of the short-lived school prayer initiative in my senior year at High School. Instead of the legal battles that went on in other districts, I simply asked the Superintendent how many subversive teenagers he thought I could find to sign up to read prayers from non-traditional religions – and, sure, you could get a bunch of kids to read Christian prayers … but it’s a sign-up to read one thing, and we’ll get in queue too. How long will parents support having their kids exposed to Pagan, Wiccan, Satanic … there sure are a lot of religions out there to which people take offense, and as soon as you tell me *my* religion cannot have a prayer read but yours can, we’re out of the murky free speech realm and into clear separation of Church and State territory. We had exactly zero prayers read in our morning announcements. I would love to see a line of beachwear reproducing the stations of the cross, Star of David prints, Buddha prints. Oh, a different outfit for each of the Hindu Gods. How many people wearing those would get fined? And how many people would support the ban after people start getting fined for their religious iconry.