Blog Archives
There have been some moves recently to fiddle with the special election and perhaps even cancel it.
The narrative from the left has shifted from the Republicans can’t or won’t do anything about Roy Moore to being aghast that they might have found a way to prevent him without actually losing the seat. Someone cynical might even say that the opposition to Moore had less to do with him being particular bad and more to do with him being a Republican, and maybe a belief on their part that Moore might actually be useful as an anchor around the party. if one were cynical. It has a fair amount of explanatory power, at any rate.
Actually, I believe 100% that is the case with some. With others, I am relatively certain it isn’t. But we’re all blinkered by our political and partisan desires to some degree or another. I would suggest that at least some of the outrage at the possibility that the election might be canceled (it won’t) is a hair-trigger for revulsion at anything the GOP does to its own advantage.
In 2002, New Jersey had a senator named Bob Torricelli. He was corrupt. Democrats were perfectly okay with that corruption – never putting up as much resistance to him as the GOP put up to Moore, for example – right up until it appeared that he was going to lose. Then they got him out of the race. The problem is that the deadline for changing the ballots had passed. So they went to court and demanded that the ballots be changed. Preventing a Democrat from appearing on the ballot was against democracy and by trying to prevent a new Democrat from being on the ballot – you know, enforcing the law – Republicans were actively trying to prevent democracy. The bastards! (Remember what I said about hair-triggers?). Democrats took it to court and won. Oddly enough, a few years later, Democrats actively sought to prevent Republicans from pulling the same trick in Texas, and succeeded.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts Democrats changed the procedure for replacing senators twice in order to prevent Mitt Romney from nominating a successor to John Kerry in 2004 (if he’d won) and enable Deval Patrick to do so for Kennedy later that decade.
The notion of canceling elections in Alabama has one major advantage over all of these things: It’s actually in accordance with existing law. Existing law gives the governor the ability to call elections or not. The ability to let the appointee serve out the balance of the term is legally at her discretion. They wouldn’t have to go to court. Others might go to court to overturn the law, but not to create new law as was the case in New Jersey (and was attempted in Texas). It is actually reminiscent of parliamentary systems, where elections are frequently called to the advantage of the incumbent party. They’re not explicitly canceled, but you hold an election now precisely so that you don’t have to hold it at a later date.
For what it’s worth, I am conflicted on the idea and actually lean against. I don’t like changing the rules in the middle of the game and Moore is awful but one senator in 100 doesn’t really justify it. I’m also not sure it’s worth the backlash in this case. If they do it, I won’t really raise a stink. I’ll just be glad that Moore isn’t in the senate.
I am relatively sure a lot of Democrats are approaching this from a standpoint of saving/losing a seat and all that. Indeed, ironies of ironies, they’re prepared to go to court to prevent a ballot change because changing a candidate after the filing deadline would be cheating! Huh. But anyway, this isn’t a matter of the election being canceled or the Democrat winning. It’s as likely as not a case of Senator Moore vs Senator Bogstandardrepublican. Even with all that’s going on, Roy Moore is hanging roughly even with Democrat Doug Jones. As the heat dissipates, it seems more likely than not Moore will recover. Democrats themselves were telling me this not a couple of days ago.
So if opposition to Moore is opposition to Moore, one would think that they might actually give the idea some consideration. If opposition to Moore is opposition to the GOP, it makes sense to reflexively cry bloody murder here and do everything you can do keep Moore on the ballot.
As for the Republicans… we’ll see. They have actually done more here than I expected them to do. After watching the Access Hollywood Carousel last year, I have taken all wiggle room to be deliberate and immediately pounced on the “if” of their statements (if he did it). But right now they’re doing everything I would expect of a party that is actually repulsed. Governor Ivey has declared that she won’t call a new election. Moore isn’t going to step aside. They’re either going to help Moore and more-or-less secure their senate majority in 2018, or they’re not and they’re going to imperil it. I suspect I know which path they’re going to take, though I’m open to being pleasantly surprised.
But the coaching business is booming, with affluent parents being the best customers. If the payoff is really so small, why has the market judged coaching to be so successful?
Most obviously, parents who pay for expensive coaching courses ignore the role of self-selection: the students who seem to profit from a coaching course tend to be those who, if the course had not been available, would have worked hard on their own to prepare for the test.
Then parents confuse the effects of coaching with the effect of the basic preparation that students can do on their own. No student should walk into the SAT cold. It makes sense for students to practice some sample items, easily available from school guidance offices and online, and to review their algebra textbook if it has been a few years since they have taken algebra. But once a few hours have been spent on these routine steps, most of the juice has been squeezed out of preparation for the SAT. Combine self-selection artifacts with the role of basic preparation, and you have the reason that independent studies using control groups show such small average gains from formal coaching.
Source: Abolish the SAT, Charles Murray
Most months, we don’t really run low on our data plan. We’ve had maybe two months or the last twelve where I’ve had to say “We need to cool it” for the final week.
It’s going to take something Herculean this month to avoid going over, because everything converged into a single billing period.
The first thing that happened was a stupid error on my part. I was downloading Wikipedia when I left to drop Lain off at preschool. The result was that on the very first day of the plan, we lost 20% of our usage for the month. Last month – one of the two where we had to cool it – we ended at 9%. So right off the bat, there were going to need to be some adjustments. The second thing is that we had a storm and it took out our Internet, and made it more unreliable than usual. Actually, for about 48 hours it was deader than dead. Then it was extremely unreliable to where I could do emails and Twitter but that was about it. Now, a good portion of our data usage in general is compensating for our unreliable home connection. So when we need to “cool it” we usually just accept the unreliability. But you can’t do that when it’s out entirely, or nearly so. Oh, and Monday was Procrastinators’ Tax Day, and we procrastinated. The Internet should be working again at the end of the week, but then the last one is that I agreed to help Decision Desk HQ with vote totals in a nearby county for the Virginia gubernatorial race. And, of course, I’ll be using my own data. That’s on 11/7, which is the second to last day of the billing period.
All of this is screaming for us to go with an Unlimited Plan, but money is kind of tight right now and we just can’t justify the price hop. We’re on the highest data plan otherwise.
The phone companies are working on the rollout of 5G. I’d rather they work on the bandwidth of existing networks so that using data is less expensive.
Netflix is raising its prices:
Netflix is raising two of its pricing tiers for US subscribers beginning next month, Mashable reports. The standard tier, which allows subscribers to watch on two screens at once, will be bumped up from $9.99 to $10.99 per month. The premium tier, which is available in Ultra HD and allows users to watch on up to four screens, will go up from $11.99 to $13.99. The Basic $7.99 per month plan will remain the same.
“From time to time, Netflix plans and pricing are adjusted as we add more exclusive TV shows and movies, introduce new product features and improve the overall Netflix experience to help members find something great to watch even faster,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge.
It’s a little awkward that they’re doing this right as they’ve dropped a couple of popular shows (30 Rock and… something, can’t remember what, but I’ve heard complaints), but they’re often losing (and adding) shows. And they’re slated to lose Disney Stuff soon, so there is probably no best time to pull off this bandaid. Might as well get it over with.
It’s still a pretty good deal, though, all things considered. The standard level price is still cheaper than Hulu, the other main streaming-network-shows service. It’s also cheaper than HBO, the biggest original-programming streaming service rival. (It is more expensive than Showtime-Starz-Cinemax, however.) Netflix right now is straddling the line between being a general content vault (Hulu’s domain) and an original programming service (like HBO) and seems to be in the general process of a transition from the former to the latter once it has ramped up production of enough original content. My advice to people who want to see familiar or better yet nostalgic programming is to go with Hulu, and original programming to go with Netflix. That’s where things are.
But if you’ve Cut the Cord, it’s all pretty much worth it. Even if you’re using a slim cable service, it’s probably something you want to do. You can get Sling/Vue/etc and Netflix and Hulu and other service and still save a whole bunch of money even with this modest price hike.
I’m not sure at what point that ceases to be the case. If they went up another three or four dollars I would probably go from Netflix+Hulu to Netflix or Hulu, doing one six months of the year and the other for the other six months. That’s one of the liabilities with Netflix’s model: You can get it for a few months, get caught up on everything, then cancel. Hulu is in a slightly better spot because it’s more of the go-to if your mind says “Hey, I remember that TV show Silk Stalkings, I should catch an episode!” which is more likely to happen sporadically and makes it nice to have Hulu twelve months of the year. This will become a bigger issue from Netflix if they do become more of an HBO and less of a Hulu.
It turns out that if you are using Google Chrome, you CANNOT block Google properties. Rather than using the DNS your computer specifies, Chrome routes around your DNS for Google properties. Rather than checking the local hosts file first, it checks its own properties first, and ignores the hosts. Parental controls are overridden by Google, and Chrome will take you directly to their sites regardless of how you try to block them.
So I decide I will uninstall Chrome and force him to use Safari. BUT!!!, says I, he knows how to install Chrome, so he would just go put it back. So I add Google.com to the hosts file figuring he can use Bing for search if he needs to.
EXCEPT, Google has inserted itself into NEARLY EVERY GODDAMN SCHOOL DISTRICT with Google Classroom, and you cannot block google.com if you want your kid to be able to access their f**king homework!!!
Amazon Takes Over the World (Wall Street Journal)
Amazon’s strategy of break-even operations also means that it has virtually no profits to tax. Since 2008, Wal-Mart has paid $64 billion in federal income taxes, while Amazon has paid just $1.4 billion. Yet, while paying low taxes, Amazon has added $220 billion in value to the stock held by its shareholders over the past 24 months—equivalent to the entire market capitalization of Wal-Mart.
Something is deeply amiss when a company can ascend to almost a half trillion dollars in market value—becoming the fifth most valuable firm in the world—without paying any meaningful income tax. Does Amazon really owe so little to support public revenue and public needs? If a giant firm pays less than the average 24% in income taxes that the companies of the S&P 500 pay, it logically means that less-successful firms pay more. In this way, Amazon further adds to the winner-take-all tendencies plaguing our economy.
The following is an explanation I gave for why it would be so hard for a US state to do single-payer even though comparably sized countries elsewhere can do it:
I am pulling these numbers out of air, just to give an idea of the flows I am talking about.
Let’s say we have a hypothetical state (“Bannack”) that gets back roughly what it sends to Washington. Bannack’s citizenry pays $7b a year in taxes, $2b to state and local governments, and $b to the federal government. The federal government turns around and spends $2.5b on health care in health care in Bannack, while Bannack is spending $.5b. Health care in the state in a given year costs $3b. They simply can’t do that with a $2b budget. They can’t raise taxes by $2.5b because the people just won’t pay it because that would be on top of all that money they’re sending to Washington. They’ll get some money by taxing businesses the money they’re no longer spending on health care, but anything more would be a tax hike and the same problems apply.
The best they can do is ask the federal government to say “We want that $2.5b in cash.” I think if they could get that, they could make it work. But the $2.5b is for one year and is going to fluctuate. And some states send in a lot more than they get out of Washington, and vice-versa. So it’s a real hornet’s nest of headaches. You can come up with a block grant formula, but that’s going to be difficult and going to be political. It’s much easier for DC to say “We’ll pay for this and we’ll pay for that. We’ll give you block grants for Medicaid but no way for Medicare and of course the VA system is different.”
Now, if Bannack were a country, it would be a lot simpler and they could do it even if they are not an especially large nation. They’re risk pool would still be a lot larger than many insurance companies’.
I didn’t put enough focus on how much other programs, like Medicare and the VA, complicate things. If you can’t fold them into your single-payer, you’re losing a lot of potential bargaining leverage.
This is why you need to hire a professional translator and not rely on Google Translate. https://t.co/9eZDiEE6lf
— Avi Woolf, Elitist🌍 (@AviWoolf) September 11, 2017
The truth is that the translators have gotten ridiculously better than they used to be. I used to actually rely on them being kind of bad, and I’m not sure if I can anymore. We’re going to find out at the end of this post.
When I was in college, my roommate Dennis started a simulated wrestling league, with the WWF wrestling game on the N64. Everybody got two and eventually three wrestlers, though I would eventually take over for other people and then I’d have more until I had eight or so. Three of them were non-Americans. My premier wrestler was a guy from an undisclosed country. Nobody understood what he was saying so his manager made stuff up. One was a Best Buy security guy who immigrated from Germany, who spoke in Ahnold-speak. The last was a middle-eastern guy who spoke in broken English.
How did I produce the broken English? Through translations of course. What I would do is I would take what he had to say, run it through Russian (I think) and then back to English. The result was English words that sort of made sense but something had obviously gotten lost in the translation. Bounty Hunter got re-translated to “Hunter of the Cousin.” Words with dual meaning plus syntax and it really worked out pretty well. I want to say that I used Russian because Spanish didn’t shake things up enough and other languages weren’t available.
So today we’re going to find out if that would even work by running this post through three languages. Spanish, because obviously, Russian because that’s what I think it used, and Arabic because that’s what I would use today:
Spanish
When I was in college, my roommate Dennis started a simulated wrestling league, with the WWF wrestling game on the N64. Everyone had two and eventually three fighters, although they would eventually take control of other people and then have more until they had eight or more. Three of them were not Americans. My first fighter was a guy from an undisclosed country. No one understood what he was saying, so his manager did things. One was a Best Buy security guy who emigrated from Germany, who spoke in Ahnold-speak. The last one was a Middle Eastern guy who spoke in broken English.
How did I produce broken English? Through course translations. What I would do is take what I had to say, run it through Russian (I think) and then go back to English. The result was English words that made sense but something was obviously lost in the translation. Bounty Hunter returned to translate to “Hunter of the Cousin”. Dual meaning words plus syntax and really worked pretty well.
Russian
When I was in college, my roommate Dennis started a pretended wrestling league, where the WWF wrestling game on N64. All got two and, ultimately, three wrestlers, although I will eventually take on other people, and then I will have more until I have eight or so. Three of them were non-Americans. My main fighter was a guy from an undisclosed country. Nobody understood what he was saying, so his manager earned. One of them was a guy from Best Buy, who immigrated from Germany, who spoke in Ahnold-talk. The last was a middle-aged guy who spoke broken English.
How did I make broken English? Of course, translations. What would I do, I would take what I had to say, run it through Russian (I think), and then return to English. As a result, there were English words that made sense, but something clearly lost in translation. The Bounty Hunter was transferred to the “Cousin Hunter”. Words with a double value plus syntax, and it really turned out pretty well.
Arabic:
When I was in college, my friend Denis started to simulate the league wrestling, with the Wrestling Wrestling game on the N64. Everyone got two eventually three wrestlers, although I would eventually take over to other people, and then I would have even more had me eight or so. Three of them non-Americans. The premier wrestler was a man from an undisclosed country. No one understood what he was saying so that his manager made things. One of the best security man was to buy Hagar from Germany, who spoke in Arnold’s speech. He was the last man in the Middle East who spoke in broken English.
How did English produced a break? Through the translation of course. What I will do is that I will take what he had to say, run it through Russian (I think) and then return to English. The result was English words that were sensitive but something had obviously lost in the translation. Hunter’s reward got re-translated into “hunter cousin”. Words with double meaning plus syntax and they really worked very well.
Verdict:
Well, Spanish works too well to work, but that was the case back then, too. Russian worked well enough at the time, but now wouldn’t work. But Arabic would work! There is work to do there, apparently. The sign in question above was in Hebrew, which would probably (?) have some of the same liabilities.
So last week, we had an eye appointment to check up on Lain’s intermittent lazy eye. Coincidentally, the day of the appointment, Lain started getting some redness and puffiness around the eyes. Not “she’s been crying” redness/puffiness. More like an allergic reaction or some sort. One thing about Lain is that she doesn’t talk much. We have made some progress there, but it’s still a struggle. It can be easy to think that because she doesn’t she can’t hear or understand. But she understands. And she understood her mother and I were talking about some sort of problem with her eyes. And then talking about more problems with her eyes.
After we got there, Lain got an eye test. Before that happened, the tech asked what the concern was with her eyes. Lain, usually the quiet one, spoke up in defiance, “It’s only bad when I don’t blink. When I blink it’s okay” blink blink. So, evidently, she had been dealing with some dry eyes? That might have helped explain the redness. In any event, she seemed to do okay with the eye test and identifying the little images. We were lead to a waiting room where we waited for quite a while.
The next round was with the doctor himself. She got her eyes dilated, which we were not really expecting. He checked her eyes and discovered that the bow-eye really had returned, except (a) it was not nearly as bad as before and (b) this time it was both eyes. That second part is actually better than one eye because they sort of play off one another. I started to notice something in her demeanor, however. She started looking… guilty. Like she had done something wrong. Or she was bad. I can’t quite say how I picked up on those signals, but I did.
The dilation made her vision blurry and uncomfortable. As we were driving home she said “Closing my eyes doesn’t work anymore!”
To recap:
- She overheard us talking about problems with her eyes. On some level, took it as criticism.
- Had eyes that didn’t feel especially well.
- Took an eye exam which involved being asked to identify things she couldn’t identify (Because, of course, they keep going until you can’t get them anymore.)
- She gets these things put into her eyes. Further information about her eyes having a problem.
- She can’t see anymore.
Needless to say, it ended up being a pretty traumatic evening. I really can’t recall if they’d told me that they were going to dilate her eyes. I wasn’t even sure that was what happened until afterwards, because they never gave her the famous sunglasses you wear after. In any event, she hadn’t really been prepared for anything except the implication of not being able to see. Then, of course, she couldn’t.
So, not my best day.