I hope the local overnight Fridaynistas were channeling their inner pioneer last night. Lows were in the teens (-10 °C for the imperially-challenged) and I just finished shoveling six inches of fresh snow off the driveway and walk.
Should it be necessary, my two-year-old granddaughter and I will be peacekeepers. She has a strong "try to be the kind of person the two-year-old thinks you are" effect on everyone. Even my obnoxious brother-in-law.
There are jurisdictions where open carry of firearms is legal, but carrying a sword is not. Because a sword is threatening. But apparently a loaded shotgun is not.
When I read that sentence, my reaction was that some sort of collective "we" interested in making this work -- the refugees, local/state/federal government, private charities -- ought to hire some of those well-educated Somalis with good English skills to be problem solvers.
Not "Americans" unless they decide to pursue citizenship, but pretty much automatic permanent resident status ("green card") a year or two down the road if they stay out of trouble.
I don't disagree with the Pigou Club on a carbon tax on fossil fuels; I disagree with them on the things that follow. At this point in time, anything done about fossil fuel consumption is going to be a Pigovian tax in practice because the only option is to use less [1].
Where I disagree with them is that a tax on carbon-rich fuels and the resulting price increases in consumer energy are part of an enormously complicated system. The poor spend 16% of their household income on energy; the rich less than 6%; a straight increase in price falls much more heavily on the poor in terms of its effect on their household budget. Some of the Club want to cut other taxes to offset the carbon tax (which also offsets some but not all of the benefit), but are all over the place, and often with ideology on clear display in their proposals. Eg, cut payroll taxes, which does nothing for the unemployed.
[1] Eg, "we'll switch wholesale from coal to natural gas" has to be delayed while more wells are drilled, pipelines laid, power plants converted, etc. Years. When the sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade program went in the 1990s, there were multiple more immediate options: fuel switching, coal washing pre-combustion, multiple scrubber tech that acted on combustion gases, etc. The big winner, though, came out of left field: Wyoming increased low-sulfur coal production much faster than anyone thought possible, and the big railroads added shipping capacity much faster than anyone thought possible. So we have, for example, the Scherer plant in Georgia meeting its SO2 target by burning three trainloads per day of Wyoming coal.
Of the cartograms I've done over the last few years, this one of the Great Plains states is one of my favorites. Regular map projection on the left; cartogram on the right with counties resized based on population; states in various colors with boundaries in blue; white counties are official Great Plains. Not just because it illustrates just how empty states like the Dakotas get in the western parts, but because the Plains emptiness is so extreme it distorts the cartogram to the point where things are almost unrecognizable.
Nebraska is currently the Cornhuskers (adding an adjective would just be silly). For several years before that was adopted they were the Bugeaters, which is not as bad as it sounds, being derived from a slang term for the common nighthawk. The threat by the University of Missouri team to not play earlier this year prompted me to go back and look up something I thought I remembered. In 1892, the Bugeaters got an official 1-0 forfeit victory over U of M, when Missouri refused to take the field because one of the Nebraska players was a black med student.
Reasons I can think of for not having emergency doors at a theater alarmed in the sense of loud horns going off and the lights coming on:
It seems like an invitation for pranks. Sit near the emergency exit, than half-way through the movie open the door and run like hell away into the dark outside. A particularly nasty prank, since if people panic someone's likely to get trampled.
If triggered by accident, it will probably take several minutes to shut down. If I were at the performance, I'd demand a refund -- expensive if lots of people do it. This alone would seem to dictate that theater operators use "silent" alarms that simply turn on a light on a console somewhere, and an employee comes around to investigate quietly later -- maybe even after the movie ends.
Many theaters use the "emergency" exits as normal exits at the end of the movie. Adding complexity to the alarm system so that it is automatically disabled several times per day adds to the ways it can fail when you need it. Getting the timing right on that will be tricky given contemporary exit patterns: some patrons bolt as soon as the credits start to roll, some wait until the credits are done. (Marvel Films may be breaking people of the habit of leaving early with their little "Easter egg" vignettes embedded in the middle of the credits.)
While possibly (probably?) effective against a deranged individual like the Aurora, CO theater shooting, much less so against even two organized better-armed terrorists. On a cell-phone signal, the person in the theater opens the door and the alarm goes off; within seconds, while the patrons are still figuring out what they should do, the outside person has stepped in and thrown the IED into the crowd.
I made the mistake(?) of loading the player in the car with Jesus Christ Superstar this week. Now I've got odd bits and pieces of that stuck in my head...
To be honest, until they give any indication that they realize there's more to the US than the northeast urban corridor, I'm pretty much unconcerned about my personal safety.
Is it worth pointing out that in the Aurora theater shooting, Holmes left the theater through an emergency exit and re-entered with his guns through the same door? And how difficult it would be to stop something similar, assuming it were well organized?
This. When I was learning Perl seriously, I used to go bug the local expert. "What," I would ask, "is the best way to express this generic programming concept in Perl?" At times, the mental model used by a programmer and the notational structure of a programming language conform closely, and amazing things can happen.
When I went to work for the legislature, I found the similarities and differences between programming and legislating fascinating. The programmers (legislators) do their best, but work in an environment where the execution platform (executive) may change without warning and the compiler (courts) may decide that an expression means something different starting today.
Oh dear Lord, I am old enough to have done all of those. OTOH, I can learn. When someone asked me once what I would possibly do with a billion ops per second, I told them, "Never, ever write casual code in a compiled language again."
Don't know if it was based on any of that research, but Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty involves an enormous cube-shaped building with easy access to the roof (parks and such), which makes it desirable for jumpers. The edge is protected, of course, but structured in such a way to lead jumpers to a gap in the fencing, which ends at... a diving board. In a largely throw-away piece of dialog, the building managers note that most jumpers who start out the board, which does the usual diving board bouncing, panic and abandon the effort.
These days, if I were just looking for some cheap CPU cycles to put to work running something, I'd be inclined to pop the $35 for a Raspberry Pi 2. 900 Mhz quad core ARM processor, a gig of RAM, a real GPU, four USB ports. Runs Linux, the standard SD image includes GCC, Perl, and Python. For @veronica-d , it appears GHC is available, but not GHCi, with the proviso that a gig isn't all that much memory.
Way back, in The Psychology of Computer Programming, when people still believed that there was a personality type that made people good programmers, the author describes an exchange between the outside contractor administering personality tests and one of the programmers.
Programmer: Which personality should we use when we take this test?
Contractor: We want you to answer the questions honestly.
Programmer: What kind of a fool do you think I am?
I understand about rescuing. In my last full-time technical gig, people would bring me old PCs, often with the question, "Can you find something useful for this to do?" If I said no, they looked at me like I'd just told them their puppy was going to die.
Re the robot: you'll need software. I can shuffle my little projects around and create some free time to help you with that. Please? Pretty please with sugar on top?
Not for many of the Arabs. France and Belgium have both made a practice of bottling many of their Arab immigrants up in particular neighborhoods and failing to find them any sort of meaningful work (unemployment typically in excess of 50%). I know it's old fashioned, but I believe that one of the necessary things a society needs to do is "tame" its males in their late teens and early twenties. Having them hang out in groups all day, every day, is a recipe for producing a violent minority.
I've occasionally wondered if the whole "mad engineer" meme that has been popular in fiction for the last 150 years is a recognition of that. And I say mad engineer instead of mad scientist because what made them dangerous was the engineering they did. Not, "I've discovered a new power source," but rather, "I've used my new power source to build an army of giant robots to conquer the world."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Stop the War on Thanksgiving”
I hope the local overnight Fridaynistas were channeling their inner pioneer last night. Lows were in the teens (-10 °C for the imperially-challenged) and I just finished shoveling six inches of fresh snow off the driveway and walk.
On “If You Need a Thanksgiving Conversation Guide…”
Should it be necessary, my two-year-old granddaughter and I will be peacekeepers. She has a strong "try to be the kind of person the two-year-old thinks you are" effect on everyone. Even my obnoxious brother-in-law.
On “Neither Here Nor There”
There are jurisdictions where open carry of firearms is legal, but carrying a sword is not. Because a sword is threatening. But apparently a loaded shotgun is not.
On “Christie, Obama, and the Refugee Debate”
When I read that sentence, my reaction was that some sort of collective "we" interested in making this work -- the refugees, local/state/federal government, private charities -- ought to hire some of those well-educated Somalis with good English skills to be problem solvers.
"
Here's an interesting story from a few years back about Somali refugees settling in a small town in Colorado.
"
Not "Americans" unless they decide to pursue citizenship, but pretty much automatic permanent resident status ("green card") a year or two down the road if they stay out of trouble.
On “Market Failure 2: Externalities (Coase and Effect)”
I don't disagree with the Pigou Club on a carbon tax on fossil fuels; I disagree with them on the things that follow. At this point in time, anything done about fossil fuel consumption is going to be a Pigovian tax in practice because the only option is to use less [1].
Where I disagree with them is that a tax on carbon-rich fuels and the resulting price increases in consumer energy are part of an enormously complicated system. The poor spend 16% of their household income on energy; the rich less than 6%; a straight increase in price falls much more heavily on the poor in terms of its effect on their household budget. Some of the Club want to cut other taxes to offset the carbon tax (which also offsets some but not all of the benefit), but are all over the place, and often with ideology on clear display in their proposals. Eg, cut payroll taxes, which does nothing for the unemployed.
[1] Eg, "we'll switch wholesale from coal to natural gas" has to be delayed while more wells are drilled, pipelines laid, power plants converted, etc. Years. When the sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade program went in the 1990s, there were multiple more immediate options: fuel switching, coal washing pre-combustion, multiple scrubber tech that acted on combustion gases, etc. The big winner, though, came out of left field: Wyoming increased low-sulfur coal production much faster than anyone thought possible, and the big railroads added shipping capacity much faster than anyone thought possible. So we have, for example, the Scherer plant in Georgia meeting its SO2 target by burning three trainloads per day of Wyoming coal.
On “North Dakota Fighting Null”
Relocating the Badlands from South Dakota?
"
Of the cartograms I've done over the last few years, this one of the Great Plains states is one of my favorites. Regular map projection on the left; cartogram on the right with counties resized based on population; states in various colors with boundaries in blue; white counties are official Great Plains. Not just because it illustrates just how empty states like the Dakotas get in the western parts, but because the Plains emptiness is so extreme it distorts the cartogram to the point where things are almost unrecognizable.
"
Nebraska is currently the Cornhuskers (adding an adjective would just be silly). For several years before that was adopted they were the Bugeaters, which is not as bad as it sounds, being derived from a slang term for the common nighthawk. The threat by the University of Missouri team to not play earlier this year prompted me to go back and look up something I thought I remembered. In 1892, the Bugeaters got an official 1-0 forfeit victory over U of M, when Missouri refused to take the field because one of the Nebraska players was a black med student.
On “Rumors of (Star) Wars”
Reasons I can think of for not having emergency doors at a theater alarmed in the sense of loud horns going off and the lights coming on:
It seems like an invitation for pranks. Sit near the emergency exit, than half-way through the movie open the door and run like hell away into the dark outside. A particularly nasty prank, since if people panic someone's likely to get trampled.
If triggered by accident, it will probably take several minutes to shut down. If I were at the performance, I'd demand a refund -- expensive if lots of people do it. This alone would seem to dictate that theater operators use "silent" alarms that simply turn on a light on a console somewhere, and an employee comes around to investigate quietly later -- maybe even after the movie ends.
Many theaters use the "emergency" exits as normal exits at the end of the movie. Adding complexity to the alarm system so that it is automatically disabled several times per day adds to the ways it can fail when you need it. Getting the timing right on that will be tricky given contemporary exit patterns: some patrons bolt as soon as the credits start to roll, some wait until the credits are done. (Marvel Films may be breaking people of the habit of leaving early with their little "Easter egg" vignettes embedded in the middle of the credits.)
While possibly (probably?) effective against a deranged individual like the Aurora, CO theater shooting, much less so against even two organized better-armed terrorists. On a cell-phone signal, the person in the theater opens the door and the alarm goes off; within seconds, while the patrons are still figuring out what they should do, the outside person has stepped in and thrown the IED into the crowd.
On “Sunday!”
I don't care for the story, but I'll sit and watch the cinematography and listen to the soundtrack music all day.
"
I can see where that might happen to an analog medium like tape. How about digital content loaded on an old iPod nano?
"
I made the mistake(?) of loading the player in the car with Jesus Christ Superstar this week. Now I've got odd bits and pieces of that stuck in my head...
On “Rumors of (Star) Wars”
To be honest, until they give any indication that they realize there's more to the US than the northeast urban corridor, I'm pretty much unconcerned about my personal safety.
"
Is it worth pointing out that in the Aurora theater shooting, Holmes left the theater through an emergency exit and re-entered with his guns through the same door? And how difficult it would be to stop something similar, assuming it were well organized?
On “Weekend!”
For certain values of "awesome"... sigh.
On “Linky Friday #141: God, Family, Terror”
This. When I was learning Perl seriously, I used to go bug the local expert. "What," I would ask, "is the best way to express this generic programming concept in Perl?" At times, the mental model used by a programmer and the notational structure of a programming language conform closely, and amazing things can happen.
When I went to work for the legislature, I found the similarities and differences between programming and legislating fascinating. The programmers (legislators) do their best, but work in an environment where the execution platform (executive) may change without warning and the compiler (courts) may decide that an expression means something different starting today.
"
Oh dear Lord, I am old enough to have done all of those. OTOH, I can learn. When someone asked me once what I would possibly do with a billion ops per second, I told them, "Never, ever write casual code in a compiled language again."
"
Don't know if it was based on any of that research, but Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty involves an enormous cube-shaped building with easy access to the roof (parks and such), which makes it desirable for jumpers. The edge is protected, of course, but structured in such a way to lead jumpers to a gap in the fencing, which ends at... a diving board. In a largely throw-away piece of dialog, the building managers note that most jumpers who start out the board, which does the usual diving board bouncing, panic and abandon the effort.
"
These days, if I were just looking for some cheap CPU cycles to put to work running something, I'd be inclined to pop the $35 for a Raspberry Pi 2. 900 Mhz quad core ARM processor, a gig of RAM, a real GPU, four USB ports. Runs Linux, the standard SD image includes GCC, Perl, and Python. For @veronica-d , it appears GHC is available, but not GHCi, with the proviso that a gig isn't all that much memory.
"
Way back, in The Psychology of Computer Programming, when people still believed that there was a personality type that made people good programmers, the author describes an exchange between the outside contractor administering personality tests and one of the programmers.
Programmer: Which personality should we use when we take this test?
Contractor: We want you to answer the questions honestly.
Programmer: What kind of a fool do you think I am?
"
I understand about rescuing. In my last full-time technical gig, people would bring me old PCs, often with the question, "Can you find something useful for this to do?" If I said no, they looked at me like I'd just told them their puppy was going to die.
Re the robot: you'll need software. I can shuffle my little projects around and create some free time to help you with that. Please? Pretty please with sugar on top?
"
Not for many of the Arabs. France and Belgium have both made a practice of bottling many of their Arab immigrants up in particular neighborhoods and failing to find them any sort of meaningful work (unemployment typically in excess of 50%). I know it's old fashioned, but I believe that one of the necessary things a society needs to do is "tame" its males in their late teens and early twenties. Having them hang out in groups all day, every day, is a recipe for producing a violent minority.
"
I've occasionally wondered if the whole "mad engineer" meme that has been popular in fiction for the last 150 years is a recognition of that. And I say mad engineer instead of mad scientist because what made them dangerous was the engineering they did. Not, "I've discovered a new power source," but rather, "I've used my new power source to build an army of giant robots to conquer the world."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.