Our neighborhood, which has no “immigrants welcome” signs, is now home to at least two groups of Ukrainian refugees (mother-child in both cases). That’s out of a sample of about 200 houses and apartments. Our former neighborhood, in Lincoln, Massachusetts, has more than 2,000 ho … | Continue reading
I am back from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) in the Cirrus SR20. It took only 4 days to get from Wisconsin to South Florida by air, a trip that would have taken 22 hours by minivan. The route as mapped by SkyVector: With forecast winds, this should be 16 hours of flight time acco … | Continue reading
I am back from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) in the Cirrus SR20. It took only 4 days to get from Wisconsin to South Florida by air, a trip that would have taken 22 hours by minivan. The route as mapped by SkyVector: With forecast winds, this should be 16 hours of flight time acco … | Continue reading
March 2020… Why do we care about COVID-19 deaths more than driving-related deaths?: I point out that we aren’t doing anything about motor vehicle fatalities that are comparable in scale to the feared-at-the-time COVID deaths. I failed to adjust for life-years in this piece, so di … | Continue reading
March 2020… Why do we care about COVID-19 deaths more than driving-related deaths?: I point out that we aren’t doing anything about motor vehicle fatalities that are comparable in scale to the feared-at-the-time COVID deaths. I failed to adjust for life-years in this piece, so di … | Continue reading
“Crytopmining Capacity in U.S. Rivals Energy Use of Houston, Findings Show” (New York Times, July 15): the seven companies alone had set up to tap as much as 1,045 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power all the residences in a city the size of Houston, the nation’s f … | Continue reading
“Crytopmining Capacity in U.S. Rivals Energy Use of Houston, Findings Show” (New York Times, July 15): the seven companies alone had set up to tap as much as 1,045 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power all the residences in a city the size of Houston, the nation’s f … | Continue reading
In addition to six wall-mounted TVs, the previous owners of our house left with us a $2,000 Wine Enthusiast wine cooler (there is a compressor inside, not a Peltier cooler). Since this isn’t made by LG or Samsung, of course it quickly failed (it looks brand new, but is presumably … | Continue reading
In addition to six wall-mounted TVs, the previous owners of our house left with us a $2,000 Wine Enthusiast wine cooler (there is a compressor inside, not a Peltier cooler). Since this isn’t made by LG or Samsung, of course it quickly failed (it looks brand new, but is presumably … | Continue reading
I’ll be writing about EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) over the next few weeks, but today is the last day of the actual gathering. The true spirit of Oshkosh, I think, is best capture by this story from EAA: Ken Swain, EAA 102241, flew his VariEze, N4ZZ, into Oshkosh for the 45th year … | Continue reading
I’ll be writing about EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) over the next few weeks, but today is the last day of the actual gathering. The true spirit of Oshkosh, I think, is best capture by this story from EAA: Ken Swain, EAA 102241, flew his VariEze, N4ZZ, into Oshkosh for the 45th year … | Continue reading
There is a new book from some of America’s smartest people. First, the credentials… GREGG COLBURN is an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. … Gregg holds a PhD and an MSW from the University of Minnesota and an MBA … | Continue reading
There is a new book from some of America’s smartest people. First, the credentials… GREGG COLBURN is an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. … Gregg holds a PhD and an MSW from the University of Minnesota and an MBA … | Continue reading
From state-sponsored media… “Community unites after an LGBTQ+ senior housing project in Boston was defaced” (NPR, July 14, 2022): The road to building The Pryde, a Boston housing development aimed at LGBTQ+ seniors, has been surprisingly smooth. That’s what made last weekend’s h … | Continue reading
From state-sponsored media… “Community unites after an LGBTQ+ senior housing project in Boston was defaced” (NPR, July 14, 2022): The road to building The Pryde, a Boston housing development aimed at LGBTQ+ seniors, has been surprisingly smooth. That’s what made last weekend’s h … | Continue reading
Department of How I Became the World’s Most Boring Person by Buying a House… Our middle-class mansion in Abacoa came with a 3-year-old Bosch dishwasher. The bottom rack was constantly falling off the rails built into the interior. The KitchenAid repair guy said “I can’t help you … | Continue reading
Department of How I Became the World’s Most Boring Person by Buying a House… Our middle-class mansion in Abacoa came with a 3-year-old Bosch dishwasher. The bottom rack was constantly falling off the rails built into the interior. The KitchenAid repair guy said “I can’t help you … | Continue reading
“Tesla, GM buyers would get EV tax credits again under Democrats’ climate bill” (CNN, yesterday): Under a new green energy bill agreed to by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin, automakers like Tesla and General Motors would regain the ability to offer federal tax cre … | Continue reading
“Tesla, GM buyers would get EV tax credits again under Democrats’ climate bill” (CNN, yesterday): Under a new green energy bill agreed to by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin, automakers like Tesla and General Motors would regain the ability to offer federal tax cre … | Continue reading
Department of How I Became the World’s Most Boring Person by Buying a House… A couple of the doors in our 20-year-old Spanish Colonial tract house were not framed precisely vertical. Therefore, they tend to fall closed, which is more annoying than you’d expect. Our team of Czech … | Continue reading
Department of How I Became the World’s Most Boring Person by Buying a House… A couple of the doors in our 20-year-old Spanish Colonial tract house were not framed precisely vertical. Therefore, they tend to fall closed, which is more annoying than you’d expect. Our team of Czech … | Continue reading
Although I don’t like to sort people by skin color, I have noticed that we interact much more frequently with Black and Latinx people here in Florida than we did in Massachusetts. Everyone who worked on our house in Massachusetts was white, for example, while folks in the service … | Continue reading
Although I don’t like to sort people by skin color, I have noticed that we interact much more frequently with Black and Latinx people here in Florida than we did in Massachusetts. Everyone who worked on our house in Massachusetts was white, for example, while folks in the service … | Continue reading
California has some of the worst-performing public schools in the nation. Pre-coronapanic data from the New York Times: California kids were nearly a year behind Texas kids, adjusted for demographics, even before California urban schools shut down for 1.5 years while Texas sch … | Continue reading
Captain Sully, the single-pilot hero of the Airbus A320 protagonist of the Miracle on the Hudson, may have to move over because no dog was saved during the river landing. By contrast, in the Miracle on the Quinnipiac, a Bonanza pilot did a beautiful water landing after an engine … | Continue reading
“The Hidden Costs of Containerization” (prospect.org,m February 2022) was recently emailed to me by a reader. It contains some fascinating numbers: According to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California, as of the first week of January, there were 105 container ships … | Continue reading
The grill that we bought from Walmart came with assembly and we later hired the brothers who put it together for $55 per hour to put together a ton of IKEA shelves. Their new rate for July 2022? $80 per hour, a 45-percent increase due to “general inflation.” | Continue reading
In between bouts of outrage regarding the death of Roe v. Wade (the suffering of the world’s poor and the Ukrainians under artillery attack are insignificant compared to what is experienced by a pregnant American who must travel in order to get abortion care at 28 weeks of pregna … | Continue reading
“What to know about Paxlovid, the COVID drug President Biden is using to speed recovery” (NPR) says that Joe Biden is sure to be back to his dynamic self soon. No possibility of “Long COVID” and associated “brain fog” is mentioned. Last month, also from NPR, “Vaccination Nation: … | Continue reading
I just ordered a COVID-fighting air filter for the Carrier Infinity system that soldiers on in the War against COVID-19 in Cambridge, Massachusetts while we live in blissful freedom from anyone complaining about Long COVID (“Karen’s Disease”?), Short COVID, or Other COVID here in … | Continue reading
Almost time for EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”), a safe space for pilots of light aircraft where nobody will say “That is a stupid hobby.” I’m giving two talks: introduction to helicopter aerodynamics and operations (targeted at those with some airplane flying experience), at 8:30 a … | Continue reading
We still own our condo in Harvard Square (rented out on AirBnB; will sell once coronapanic ends in Maskachusetts and people realize that living in the suburbs while working in the city is intolerable due to traffic (but maybe coronapanic will never end?)). It has a traditional HV … | Continue reading
I was in an Uber the other day here in Palm Beach County. It was a Kia Sorento, a small SUV that supposedly costs $30,885 new. The driver had recently purchased it, a 2019 model, for $28,000. It had 125,000 on the odometer when he agreed to pay $28,000. Plainly a new Sorento, un … | Continue reading
A friend and I just scheduled a romantic two-day getaway at the Ron Fellows Corvette-driving school (December 7-8 was the earliest they had available). Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas, as in most of the United States (see Where New York Times readers don’t want to follow Eur … | Continue reading
I’m still on the mailing list for City of Cambridge (Maskachusetts) updates. Every day they send out their dead pool data. From yesterday: Nobody died yesterday in Cambridge because everyone got the Sacrament of Fauci, right? The Harvard-educated Democrat-voting folks in Cambr … | Continue reading
“How Do We Get Rid of Our Teenage Daughter’s Gun Safe?” (New York Times): Our 15-year-old daughter is very headstrong. She’s never been in real trouble, but she bristles against rules and authority: curfews, homework, appropriate clothing — you name it! Recently, she exploded wh … | Continue reading
The Great Trek to Oshkosh begins on Sunday. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a natural stopping point. This is America’s most-visited national park so I’m hopeful that readers have some brilliant ideas for activities in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. To refresh your memo … | Continue reading
“Sri Lanka Imposes State of Emergency After President Flees Country” (WSJ): The coronavirus pandemic decimated Sri Lanka’s tourism earnings, … The news is not all bad. Thanks to a robust program of lockdowns and quarantine, “In April 2020, Sri Lanka’s response to the pandemic … | Continue reading
Everyone hates engineering and loves science. So let’s talk about the James Webb Space Telescope, which cost us about $10 billion (enough to fund the U.S. and Ukrainian militaries for 3 days?) so far. What are your favorite videos explaining the Science? Here’s one that I like: … | Continue reading
At a family wedding recently, a cousin-by-marriage, on hearing that we had moved from a State of Virtue (Massachusetts) to a State of Deplorability angrily responded that he hoped we enjoyed living in a “fascist state”. (He is a retired vice president of NPR who used a massive in … | Continue reading
The median sales price of a house is about $400,000 (WSJ) currently. We can check inflation in the New York Times: As with any NYT article, the above contains plenty of lies. The biggest lie is graphing the official government inflation data going back to 1965 without noting t … | Continue reading
NASA has released some beautiful images obtained with the fancy new space telescope. Here’s an example: Since all of the images are captured in infrared and then presented in false color within the visible-to-humans spectrum (#FakeNews), it should be possible to find a corner … | Continue reading
NASA has released some beautiful images obtained with the fancy new space telescope. Here’s an example: Since all of the images are captured in infrared and then presented in false color within the visible-to-humans spectrum (#FakeNews), it should be possible to find a corner … | Continue reading
Shopping for tickets to take one old person, one very old person, and one young person to Longwood Gardens, a non-profit org near Wilmington, Delaware… My ticket will be $25. If I had an EBT card (“food stamps”), it would be $2. Paying $60 rather than $6 for our little group w … | Continue reading
We’re in the middle of the South Florida season that is analogous to the Northeast’s winter, i.e., a period when it is often more pleasant to be inside rather than out. Thus, it seemed like a good time to try to duplicate, at tremendous expense, the convenient availability of the … | Continue reading
The May/June 2022 issue of MIT’s alumni magazine, Technology Review, asks “Is cash over?” and answers the question with an implicit “yes” via the issue title: The Dawn of New Money. When the enormous brainpower of all of MIT is harnessed, what do we learn? A new generation of … | Continue reading
Here’s the dumbest question of the year, I think…. if we believe Econ 101, prices are generally determined by supply and demand. Gasoline prices in 2019 averaged $2.60 (eia.gov). Right now it is about $4.50 per gallon (also eia.gov), though in San Diego last month it was $6.999: … | Continue reading
A young relative was pleased to find that bars in the U Street area of Washington, D.C. are vigilantly checking vaccine papers despite the fact that the government’s order for bars to check has expired. “I had to show photo ID and my vaccine card, which they checked carefully,” h … | Continue reading