The BLS will release official CPI data tomorrow. Last month, inflation was whipped, with the index only 3 percent higher than in June 2022. From state-sponsored PBS: (in other good news, the chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams per week?) Let’s look at the actual i … | Continue reading
Dangerous heat continues to afflict major portions of the U.S., including migrant-rich areas in Texas. Here’s the latest map from the New York Times of where 125-degree Fahrenheit conditions might be encountered: We’re able to keep our house at a furry golden retriever-approve … | Continue reading
What if we just gave each resident of the U.S. either a basic income or the necessities of life such as shelter, food, and clothing? Poverty wouldn’t be eliminated in the technical sense as defined by the poverty-industrial complex because people who did not work wouldn’t have an … | Continue reading
Scanning the headlines, I see the Mega Millions is up to $1.55 billion. That’s a fake number because it is pre-tax and adds up an annual payment without discounting? Let’s assume that it isn’t a fake number. The odds of winning are 1 in 302 million and a ticket costs $2. So we sh … | Continue reading
In response to a virus that killed at most 0.2% of the population in a country that did almost nothing by way of attempted prevention (Sweden; a computer system automatically tagged anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 as having been killed by COVID-19, so 0.2% is the upper bo … | Continue reading
At Oshkosh, Garmin showed off their retrofit panel for the ancient Cirrus SR2x aircraft (-G1 and -G2, made from 1999 through 2008). The G500TXi PFD and MFD screens are smallish (10 inches) and low resolution (1280×768; makes it tough to read an approach plate without pinching … | Continue reading
At least five of the folks with whom I chatted in the San Francisco Bay Area recently noted that the ocean water near Florida had been heated up to more than 100 degrees. When I asked them what part of the Florida shoreline was plagued with this scalding water, they couldn’t answ … | Continue reading
We are informed by the New York Times and CNN that Long COVID is (a) crippling, and (b) almost inevitable for those who reject Faucism. Sweden is renowned for letting SARS-CoV-2 rip through its younger-than-70 population while the elderly hid (excess mortality data by country). T … | Continue reading
We’re getting ready to run a natural gas line to where our gas grill is ($1500 is the new $700 for a half day of plumbing effort). We’ll need either to convert our basic propane grill, now 1.5 years old, or buy a fancy new grill. The space is tight and a grill wider than about 50 … | Continue reading
Attendance at “Oshkosh” (technically, EAA AirVenture) seemed lighter than in 2021 and 2022, possibly due to the weather being about 10 degrees F hotter and the first couple of days being marred by poor air quality courtesy of our Canadian neighbors. (EAA says that attendance was … | Continue reading
My favorite NYT headline of August 5, 2020 characterizes schools that are 100-percent closed as “open fully”: Supporting those in New York, Maskachusetts, Chicago, and California who now say that lockdowns and school closures never happened, this headline cannot be found eithe … | Continue reading
The young aviator dreams of having his/her/zir/their own plane. The old aviator dreams of living at the airport. One thing that I enjoy at Oshkosh is learning about new airparks. The one that seems to have the most promise for Florida residents is Big South Fork Airpark, which of … | Continue reading
Photos from a July 19, 2023 visit to the local (Palm Beach Gardens) PetSmart. The New York Times said that the temperature outside was up around 125 degrees (see Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels), but, thanks to Florida Power and Light and inventor Jennifer Carrier, we … | Continue reading
For us numbers nerds, here’s an interesting thread from Daniel Hadas, a medieval Latin professor in London who describes himself as a “Catholic humanist”… “Some remarks on Covid and Sweden.”: … what matters is that life in Sweden during Covid continued largely as normal. Lockd … | Continue reading
I’ve been trying to reengineer the air conditioning in our house to match the new(ish) reduced cooling load after a hurricane low-E glass window retrofit by the previous owner (see ChatGPT is almost as bad at home maintenance as I am). Before I downsized the system, however, I de … | Continue reading
From a recent trip to Mauritshuis, a house-turned-museum in The Hague. The curators say that the house was built with profits from slavery in Brazil, but apparently they refuse to give the house to Brazilians who are descended from slaves and then pay rent: A few additional ph … | Continue reading
Europeans who love Americana seem to be more passionate about their hobbies than we are. The Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam confirms this general observation. I asked Gerard van de Sanden, the founder and collector, why he closed at 6 pm. “All of the American pinball collectio … | Continue reading
Every day this summer, the New York Times offers a climate panic story. “Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.” is updated daily and Phoenix is always a dangerous place to be (folks in Atlanta can get away with “Extreme Caution”; South Florida is literally toast): The same newsp … | Continue reading
For the old and nostalgic, or the merely old at heart, Fotohandel Delfshaven in the Netherlands (they’ve moved to downtown Delft, actually) is a great destination. There’s a gallery/showroom downstairs and a team of guys upstairs who try to get everything back to working conditio … | Continue reading
In Danish happiness: bicycle infrastructure I described the Danish system of road/curb/bike path/curb/sidewalk. What if a significant percentage of a society used bicycles for transportation, but nobody bothered to build infrastructure? That’s the Netherlands! I recently visited … | Continue reading
Hiding from the heat at the EAA Aviation Museum this week, we noticed an exhibit about a guy who designed and built a small plane then flew it nonstop across the U.S. at a takeoff weight of less than 500 kg. The punchline? Arnold Egneter was 82 years old on the day of the flight. … | Continue reading
Although the profit opportunity from child support, e.g., from a one-night unmarried encounter, was limited in Florida, the state was a paradise for alimony plaintiffs, especially those married or 7 years or more who could seek “permanent alimony”. The successful plaintiff could … | Continue reading
Climate change has had a dramatic effect on EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”). High temperature today was 90 degrees, 12.5% higher (using God’s preferred temperature units) than last year’s 80 degrees. How about prices? We parked a car at the seaplane base this morning. It’s $25 to par … | Continue reading
Like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal has worked tirelessly to spread the Good News about the Miracle of Low-Skill Migration. An example from 2015… “Migrants Offer Hope for Aging German Workforce”: By some estimates, Britain is on course to eclipse Germany as Europe’ … | Continue reading
Here’s an intersection where a real estate developer could make enormous profits if white Democrats were sincere. Imagine the prestige of being able to tell people “I live at the corner of President Barack Obama Highway and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.” (Note that Preside … | Continue reading
Loyal readers may remember the Bloomberg Abortion Care Bus. This post explores the question of whether it would make sense to transport almost-new tents from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) to San Francisco. When perhaps 50,000 overnight visitors converge on a town with a population … | Continue reading
May 2023, Manhattan, American Eagle shop windows: July 2023, Rotterdam (different city), American Eagle (same retailer): Despite the fact that rainbow flags are almost non-existent in this region, and therefore are sorely needed, American Eagle doesn’t roll out its 2S … | Continue reading
The New York Times regularly runs stories about Floridians suffering from “fascism”, “tyranny”, and “authoritarianism”, the most accurate descriptions of being governed by Ron DeSantis. What else is true about Florida, according to the newspaper of record? “36 hours: Florida Panh … | Continue reading
The New York Times published a thoughtful obituary for Ed Fredkin, an early MIT computer scientist. I met Ed when I was an undergraduate at MIT (during the last Ice Age). He is quoted in the NYT as optimistic about artificial intelligence: “It requires a combination of enginee … | Continue reading
Who’s going to Oshkosh (EAA AirVenture) and would like to meet up? Email philg@mit.edu if you want to get together. Perhaps Tuesday at Chick-fil-A around 11 am? Or we can pick a talk that we all want to attend. I haven’t researched the presentations yet. Folks who have suggestion … | Continue reading
Every office should have a pinball machine. Here’s one that I found today that would be perfect for the folks at CMT (Country Music Television): Pinside users rank Dirty Harry, a 1995 game from Williams, #114. Separately, since the movie Dirty Harry is set in … | Continue reading
Unless they’re complete hypocrites, taxpayers in California and some other states will soon be paying reparations to descendants of slaves, i.e., people whose ancestors were mistreated ($5 million per victim is the fair price, according to San Francisco’s experts). Why not extend … | Continue reading
One of my favorite talks at an MIT computer science event last month was by Raluca Ada Popa, a proponent of keeping everything encrypted on servers even during computation. Then it doesn’t matter if the bad people (formerly “bad guys”) break in. How is that possible? Homomorphic … | Continue reading
“Stanford president to resign following findings of manipulation in academic research” (CNN): Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said on Wednesday he would resign from his post after a review by a panel of scientists concluded that research papers he contributed … | Continue reading
From Governor French Laundry, 2022: “In California, we recognize that our incredible diversity is the foundation for our state’s strength, growth and success – and that confronting inequality is not just a moral imperative, but an economic one,” said Governor Newsom. It’s a m … | Continue reading
Loyal readers know how passionate I am about Pride Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Latinx Heritage Month, etc. Given how some of these victimhood designations have had to share/overlap, I’m surprised to find that July hasn’t been claimed by any victimh … | Continue reading
Following up on Ireland in the European heat wave… the latest map from the New York Times shows that Palm Beach County is suffering from 125-degree heat: If it gets even 1 degree hotter, we might be into the “Extreme Danger” zone: Due to a toilet trip lever failure (everyth … | Continue reading
Below, a photo from last week in Ireland (ferry near Carlingford). Due to the brutal European heatwave, this family had already brought out their summer parkas. European readers: How are you doing in this record-setting climate change-caused event? After a multicultural tram r … | Continue reading
Last year, I purchased a TP-Link Omada multi-point network because everything from the leading brand, Unifi, was sold out. Out of curiosity, I checked recently and everything that I would have purchased from Unifi, including a Dream Machine Pro router and their wall plate access … | Continue reading
From the Journal of Popular Studies… “Lionel Messi Spotted Grocery Shopping at Florida Publix Before Making MLS Debut with Inter Miami”: Just days after the Argentinian soccer star arrived in the United States to join his new team, Inter Miami, Messi was spotted shopping at a l … | Continue reading
Here’s a report on a crossing from Belfast, Ireland to Canada in July 2023 in a Cirrus Vision Jet (my review). The machine: one engine, one parachute, 31,000′ service ceiling, cruise speed of about 310 knots, range of about 900 nautical miles. It lacks almost everything that the … | Continue reading
“Should You Still Wear a Mask?” (NYT, April 2022): Experts weigh in on where, and when, you can safely take one off. If you have compromised immunity, for example, or live with someone who does, it’s a good idea to continue wearing a mask “A Positive Covid Milestone” (NYT, t … | Continue reading
One of the most interesting talks at a recent anniversary celebration for computer science at MIT was by Michael Stonebraker, a fake MITer (he is best known for Ingres and Postgres, UC Berkeley implementations of IBM’s relational database management system concept). For the past … | Continue reading
We were just at the Kennedy Space Center and learned that discrimination by race and gender ID is something to be proud of. NASA crows that the Artemis crew has been selected to include a person who identifies as a “woman” and another person who identifies as “of color”. From the … | Continue reading
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” is a purported 1943 quote from Thomas Watson, IBM’s CEO just before the dawn of the Von Neumann architecture on which all modern computers rely. Suppose that he actually did say this. Is it fair to say that events in cl … | Continue reading
Happy Bastille Day to our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in France! Wikipedia says this day is also for “the Fête de la Fédération that celebrated the unity of the French people.” What’s the situation in France right now with “the unity of the French people”? Are the mo … | Continue reading
Here’s a tweet from one of our most lavishly funded federal agencies: In other words, the agency treated a patient with suicidal ideation by giving him/her/zir/them access to a full range of military-grade weapons. The theory is that it worked for Private Pyle in Full Metal Ja … | Continue reading
Econ nerds at University of California, Davis did a huge study across hundreds of years of history and came to the conclusion that success was heritable, just as intelligence and conscientiousness tend to be genetically determined (see “The heritability of conscientiousness facet … | Continue reading