Field Experiments

On the penultimate day of our stay in Mexico, we did a very uncharacteristic thing, nothing. My wife is very task oriented and wants to go, go, go, when we are on "vacation". I want to do things and have experiences too, but relaxation is one of those experiences.

After early morning activities, a run for me and work-out at the fitness center and/or spa treatment (I can't remember now), we had a late breakfast in our suite and then suited up for some pool-time. We secured lounge chairs, towels and umbrellas with the help of Hector the protector and then spent all day ordering drinks and food. In between the refreshments, there was swimming in the pool and playing in the waves of the ocean.

I have an active mind and there was plenty of time to just watch people and try to figure out their situation. My eyes were especially drawn to one particular lovely young woman and her companion. She had a radiant smile featuring bright white teeth and intelligence plus humor. Some of the humor could have been from the steady replenishment of whatever tropical concoction they were ordering--some white frozen-looking thing. The first thing I wondered was whether or not the companion was a brother or a romantic partner. They looked similar, but had they not shared the same ethnicity I would never have considered them siblings. They were not doing anything obvious like kissing or holding hands or hugging, but she seemed more focused on the guy than I remember seeing in brother-sister relations.

One thing I noticed, purely by accident is that auditory input can really be filtered: When I was reading a book on my Kindle, there was a constant din of voices but I could not isolate any one or tell what anyone was saying. But when I looked at the young woman and saw her mouth move, I could hear her voice! She was about 80 feet away. I couldn't make out what she was saying, but the occasional word came through. My mind must be able to filter sound using visual cues. I am pretty sure this is something known before now but I had no idea it was so pronounced.

Later, two of my daughters were wading around in the pool and the girl came over to them and the three of them had a long conversation.

This fits right in with my (other people too--it's not as if I invented the concept) belief that we live inside of a computer simulation. Anyway, they got--as they say, "the tea" on her. She is only 16 and her companion is her brother who is attending Tufts. They also indicated that she seemed pretty hammered. She came over to the girls to compliment their bathing suits.

Just in case...

Given the way things are in the world, I might get kicked-off of Facebook for this comment, so I'll just post it here too.

I think the Kennedy's should stay out of politics and stick to their core competencies of flying airplanes, piloting PT boats, driving cars over bridges and snow skiing.

Like A Proud Puppy

The Democrats have excreted a ... Report:

THE TRUMP-UKRAINE
IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY REPORT

It really calls for a full Fisking, but so much to Fisk, so little Fisking-time. How about by each of the charges of "misconduct"?

SECTION I. THE PRESIDENT’S MISCONDUCT

1. The President Forced Out the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.
The President can fire an ambassador at any time and for no reason.

2. The President Put Giuliani and the Three Amigos in Charge of Ukraine Issues.
Presidents often use informal channels. Also, there is no evidence that the so-called Three Amigos had any authority or were vetted, hired or known by Trump.

3. The President Froze Military Assistance to Ukraine.
The assistance was given by the deadline and Trump gave good reasons for the delay.

4. The President’s Meeting with the Ukrainian President Was Conditioned on An
Announcement of Investigations.
This is unprovable and even if true, so what? Presidents often make a visit to the White House conditional on some diplomatic victory.

5. The President Asked the Ukrainian President to Interfere in the 2020 U.S. Election by
Investigating the Bidens and 2016 Election Interference.
Trump asked for an investigation into Ukrainian interference into our election of 2016 and shady deals by the Bidens. The idea of interference into 2020 is pure speculation and fantasy by the committee.

6. The President Wanted Ukraine to Announce the Investigations Publicly.
So What? If anything this seems exonerating.

7. The President’s Conditioning of Military Assistance and a White House Meeting on
Announcement of Investigations Raised Alarm.
Is that a misdeed or just, you know, news/an opinion?

8. The President’s Scheme Was Exposed.
Is that a misdeed by the president? I only ask because this section of the report is called, "THE PRESIDENT’S MISCONDUCT". I feel like the final two points were put in this section because, who really reads the final two points in a list of eight? Am I right?

Old Tweet but still just as relevant

It's a point I've made since my very first campaign: Nobody in this country got rich on their own. They relied on infrastructure we all paid for, employees we all paid to educate. So if you're successful, good for you—now pay it forward so everyone has a chance at success. pic.twitter.com/FAuZhggAGk

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) November 29, 2019

1. "Nobody in this country got rich on their own. They relied on infrastructure we all paid for, employees we all paid to educate."

Okay, sure but so what? We all, rich and poor have access to exactly the same infrastructure.

2. "So if you're successful, good for you—now pay it forward so everyone has a chance at success."

--That's good advice, one should try to do some good in the world. She isn't really giving advice though, she is advocating for at least three things:

1. She is not giving advice to rich people, she is advocating the confiscation of their riches.

2. She is therefore not asking the rich to voluntarily donate their money.

3. Because if they did, it would be rich people deciding where it should be spent, instead of politicians like her.

Alert The Press: US Foreign Aid Comes With Strings Attached

Biden is on video bragging about how the Obama administration threatened to withhold aid unless the Ukrainians fired their chief prosecutor.



Trump apparently wanted Ukraine to investigate this possible corruption, implying that aid hung in the balance.

Let us just say from the start, that if a politician conditions anything he has official power over, on an entirely private gain, that would be impeachable corruption.

Given that Biden's son Hunter, was being paid $1 million per year by a crony capitalist company in Ukraine for what one would assume was influence peddling services and the Obama administration made aid conditional on the firing of a prosecutor, who says he was looking into that deal--It seems reasonable to think that this should be investigated.

Democrats want us to believe that Trump's only reason for asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is because Joe Biden is running for president. That might be part of what motivates Trump, maybe all of what Trump really cares about. But it isn't going to work.

Why? Because of the hypocrisy: The Democrats can't on one hand, claim that quid pro quo is de facto bad and pretend Biden is not on tape bragging about just that. They cannot move to the: What Biden did was in the US interest claim, without opening that same argument up to Republicans.

The fact is, that the Biden's deal has not been investigated through official channels and it is therefore of nebulous ethical quality. E.g. It is still a worthy subject for an official inquiry. And since many of the subjects are Ukrainian, it would help to have them on-board. The US, for all our power, cannot really subpoena people from other countries.

PC eventually gave up computing and joined the Army

When Economies Of Scale Meet Bureaucratic Bloat

I had an object lesson in economies of scale last night. I used about $2 in ingredients to make home made refried beans. I spent about an hour and turned those ingredients into what would have cost me $7 at the grocery store. This is a fairly poor rate of return on my time, but if it was scaled-up and automated, it could be a profitable business--as evident from the many brands vying for my attention on the grocery store shelves.

But there are things which ought to benefit from such economies of scale, but are not.

College Dorms:
Ask any student who has lived in a dorm and purchased a meal plan. They always report saving money by renting an apartment and cooking their own food. A dorm and cafeteria ought to be able to shelter and feed a student for less than the student could do on their own.

Public Schools:
They receive funding per student that is much higher than the average Catholic school and they are usually larger and yet they achieve consistently poorer results.

Electricity and other utilities:
We are getting rapidly to the point where it is less expensive to provide your own electricity and water than the local utilities can do. This will only get worse as people start to go off-grid. The cost of building and maintaining lines is shared by all the users, but when users start opting out, these costs are shared by fewer remaining customers. This gives further incentive to defectors and the system soon collapses.

Leaks

How all-over-the-place are Democrats on leaks in the impeachment hearings. This much:

My guess is the republicans don’t want to leak . Not good for Trump

— NGH (@NGH55786571) October 25, 2019

The Republicans are only not leaking because any leak would be damaging to the president.

It’s almost as if the leaks are a deliberate signal to the witnesses that they should tell the truth, because other witnesses are telling the truth. Pretty subversive shit right there.

— Reply Here (@ReplyHere1) October 24, 2019

Democrats are leaking, which is a good thing because it pressures everyone to be honest. I suppose you could just have the hearings be public, like the Republicans are asking for...

Gee I wonder if any Republicans in those depositions had heard anything that exonerated the president they would have leaked it?

— Randy Ott (@RandyOtt6) October 25, 2019

Republicans would leak if there was anything in their interest to leak, so they really aren't any better than the Democrats.

So, no proof. Republicans in the meetings listening to Republicans throw Trump and his admin under the bus, makes sense Dems would want to taint the investigation. 🙄

— T. Cann (@tweets4yomama) October 24, 2019

Only Republicans are leaking (10 dimensional chess here) damaging information about Trump, to discredit the process.

Chronicles of the Simulation, Part Helbender

I purchased 3 books a bit ago and saved the funnest one for last, Hellbender by Frank J. Fleming. It was kind of a fake-out, in that I thought the story was some supernatural thing (and it is, kinda), but the name is from a group of 4 friends.

After I started reading the book, I saw a picture of a Hellbender, which is a kind of giant North American Salamander, which looks like this: Bear in mind, I have lived for almost 57 years and never came upon a Hellbender Salamander till now.

Photo by: David Herasimtschuk

Then, a week later in the book, one of the people who are part of Hellbender indicated that the name was from the same amphibious source:

Delgado stared at the group with confusion. "Hellbender?" "It's a type of salamander." Doug explained. Delgado raised an eybrow. "A salamander?" "That's like a lizard...but wetter," Doug said. "I know what a salamander is!" Delgado shouted. "But why would you name yourself after one?" Doug looked confused, like maybe that was a trick question. "Because it has a really cool name."

Doug is right, it is a cool name. And we live in a simulation.

Simmering Hack

I am almost certainly not the first person to think of this and it is probably not efficient with energy but it really works:

If you have ever make a large batch of spaghetti sauce, chili or other thick fluid-type food, the problem is that you want to cook it a long time and reduce the water level until it is very thick. The problem is that as it thickens, even on the lowest stove setting, it can scorch.

My solution is that once you have mixed all the ingredients together on the stove top, put a cover on the pot and put the whole thing into the oven set to 212 F. This will be high enough to keep the sauce at the boiling point (which is as hot as it can get on the stove top) but it will be too cool to scorch.

If you need for there to be some water loss, you can simmer with the lid off on top of the stove until it gets thick enough for there to be a scorching danger, then do the oven from there.

Blackface in Red, Brownface in Blue

Funny and totally coincidental how the media is referring to Justin Trudeau's costume as brownface instead of the much more commonly used blackface terminology.

Two of the top ten news stories listed from a Google search use Blackface, the rest use Brownface or some other euphemism.

Link

How common are the terms relative to each other? Totally interchangeable, right?

This Has Got To Be On Purpose.

Oh we Don't Forgive Ignorance, Libby was #Indicted #Tried and #Convicted, altho exactly what the charges were I'm not going to waste my time looking up. And the #IllegitimatePresident Trump in 2018 #Pardoned Libby. So I think GreatGatsby8790 and I live in the real world.

— MandMKittyz PRES HRC is True PRES (@2HappyKittyz) September 10, 2019

1. Starts by decrying ignorance.

2. Admits she doesn't know what the charges are and wants to keep it that way.

3. Is nonetheless certain she lives in the "real world".

As intentional comedy, I have to admit that this is subtle and clever, even Titania McGrathesque. If it is not intentional it is both even more funny and really sad, but mostly really funny!

Update: The Washington Post rates Plame's claim, that Scooter Libby outed her, with three Pinocchios.

Need To Re-Think My Departures IS Always Better Than Arrivals Dogma

At an airport, all other things being equal, the departures area should be less crowded than the arrivals area. At departures, you are with your drop-off, so you don't need to find them. You are also at the same place at the same time, again unlike arrivals, where one of you will appear in the area before the other one does. An additional factor is that you can time-shift: Flights tend to come into an airport at different times than ones that are leaving, so you avoid a crowd by dropping off at arrivals and picking up at departures.

The real game-changer is that you don't do a pick-up or a drop-off, you use a ride app. The pick-up area for apps at Logan is really well thought-out: You order a ride, tell them where you are and go to the app area which has about 10 parking slots. The rides come very fast and there is no more than 5 minutes of waiting.

Surenna Moves To Santa Barbra

A Picture From Seattle Center

This was just a random digital picture but I thought it had a kind of Norman Rockwell look to it. From L to R: My oldest nephew, two women from Vancouver BC, my wife and youngest daughter, my oldest sister and some random member of the tour behind her.

Added: You have to click onto the picture to see all of it.

Added: Is it just me or does the young woman next to my nephew look a bit like this: https://pecchia.blogspot.com/2015/05/ginevra-up-close-and-distant.html

A Good Day For Physical Activity

My bride of 27 years and I went paddling on the Concord River from near the N. Billerica commuter rail station to the bridge at River Street and back. We were happy when the clouds came out since we didn't think to bring water, or hats. On the way back, out thankfulness at the weather evaporated when the clouds opened up and drenched us with torrential rain. We also didn't bring anything to bail-out the Canoe.

After a bit of recuperation, I went to the basement weight room and did a set of 10 clean and jerks, followed by a 10.8 mile run.

Tired and gearing up to take my one remaining (at home) daughter to eat. Wife is out with her lady-friends.

Wimbledon By The Numbers

In the round of 16, the favorite has to be Federer. All of the top 3 won in straight sets but Federer only gave up 5 games, #1 Djokovic gave up 8 games and #3 Nadal gave up 6. In addition, only Federer played a ranked opponent, #17 Berrettini.


Update: Djokovic prevailed against Federer in a match that set a record for the longest championship match in Wimbledon history: 7-6 (7-5) 1-6 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 13-12 (7-3) in four hours and 57 minutes. The score shows how close it was and indeed, Federer had two championship points.

Frederica Wilson

Judge: How do you plead sir?

Me: Have you seen how she dresses?

Judge: Do you plead guilty or innocent to making fun of the Congressperson?

Me: I plead entrapment.

Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson (FL) says that people who are “making fun of members of Congress” online “should be prosecuted” pic.twitter.com/f69KwOeJ0n

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 2, 2019

The marketplace is 100% efficient In American 4X4 Pickup Trucks

The 2004 GMC Yukon XL was on its last legs, so I was browsing CarsDirect to see what the replacement landscape looked like. I felt a little bad about it, like if the wife was sharp with me and I started browsing Tinder...

Anyway, the Yukon is safe, for now: I put $2,200 into 100% new brakes--we are talking all new stainless steel brake lines and new calipers. So she darn-well better last a bit more. Though given the price of pickup trucks, she really only needs to last 4 months to earn back the payments on a new truck.

This brings me to pickup trucks. Why is a pickup a replacement for a large SUV? It can do two things I need: Haul bulky items and serve as transportation to work. What it can't do is haul 8 people. But the kids are older and largely scattered to the four winds, we will not be driving to NJ or PA with the tribe of kids plus in-laws, so a pickup makes more sense.

So, what was I saying about the market? I looked at two factors: Price (as found on CarsDirect) and payload (ibid). I ranked them from 1-5 on both factors. The least expensive gets a 1 and the highest payload also gets a 1. Here are the stats:

Ram: $28,541 (2) 1,580 lbs (4)
Chevy Colorado $26,778 (1) 1,404 lbs (5)
Chevy Silverado $32,280 (5) 2,130 lbs (1)
Ford Ranger $29,344 (3) 1,650 lbs (3)
Ford F-150 $31,976 (4) 1,730 lbs (2)

They all add up to 6!

A few things stick out besides the above stats: The Ram is the 2nd least expensive but has the most power. The full sized Chevy doesn't just have the most payload, it has substantially more and is the only PU with an 8 foot bed. The Ranger has a nice balance between being in the middle price-wise but in the same league as the others in terms of payload--besides the full size Chevy.

Latest AOC White Knight Unsaddled In Joust

Who knew that “never again” means we shouldn’t temporarily hold illegal migrants at the border before, by and large, releasing them into the country, often never to be seen again? https://t.co/6UOeaaQJ6P

— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) June 18, 2019

If anything it shows that conservative trolls have their outrage but that's it, they can't form up counter arguments against her anymore.

— 5 min conversation (@ehnottooxabi) June 18, 2019

One would think what she said, so absurd it wouldn't need a formal rebuttal, but for the obtuse, here goes: 1. The inmates of NAZI camps were never free to leave, except once the camps were liberated. Refugees can leave anytime they want, if they go home.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) June 18, 2019

2. Inhabitants of our detention camps were not rounded up from their homes, they came and crossed our border illegally. The NAZIs took legal residents and citizens prisoner from their own homes.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) June 18, 2019

3. At NAZI camps, those who could work, were required to do so. Once they became too weak to engage in slave labor, they were killed. Those who were too young, old or sick to work upon arrival were killed. Nobody in US detention is killed.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) June 18, 2019

-Claim that there are no arguments to support criticism of AOC's idiotic comparison of us detaining illegal aliens with NAZI concentration camps.
-Arguments are given.
-Admit there are differences, but somehow you are still wrong.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) June 18, 2019

View from the top

After 10 years (estimated) these shoes look pretty good:

But if you turn them over, let's just say they have some wear on them...

In case it isn't obvious, the new pair are on the right and the old ones on the left.

An Unfair Remedy -- To What Should Not Be A Problem

Harvard University, the most famous and selective institution of higher learning in the most powerful nation on the planet, had a golden opportunity for a teachable moment. And blew it.

One of the many amazing perks of going to Harvard are faculty deans:

Faculty Deans
Each Harvard House is under the leadership of Faculty Deans, living in residence. Among varied duties of the Faculty Deans, the role of academic officer in the residential college system is preeminent. In addition, Faculty Deans are responsible for all House staff, tutorial and Senior Common Room appointments. In short, Faculty Deans set the tone for the House in its activities and in its function as a close-knit community within the context of a larger college and university.

Recently, one such dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. was forced out because he was representing Harvey Weinstein who is accused of rape. You can catch up on the details here. If you havn't already heard of the professor, I invite you to look at his Wiki entry. This is not some junior faculty member paying his dues by living in a dorm.

The thesis seems to be that by representing a man accused of rape, this is support of something called "rape culture", as if anyone thinks rape is okay.

Remedy H. Ryan:

“I guess a lot of people told us at the beginning of the semester that this couldn’t be done, and that Ron Sullivan had too much power and was too good at using it,” Ryan said. “This is kind of proof that collective organizing against rape culture can do a lot.”

1. The first point that should be made is that Mr. Weinstein, has not been convicted yet and should be presumed innocent until then.

2. Even guilty people have a right to legal representation.

3. A lawyer who represents guilty people is not guilty of anything by doing so--it is literally their job.

These are lessons that any adult member of a liberal democracy should already have a handle on, that this is lost on students so elite that they can get in to Harvard is troubling.

Someday Remedy H. Ryan will be in charge of something involving other people. Maybe one of them will want her fired because she will not be fair. They will have a much better argument against her than she has against Sullivan.

Selections From A Twitter Thread

The science guy is not a scientist by any stretch and just showed his true colors.

— Joe Pollock (@PollockhjJoe) May 14, 2019

If I throw a molotov into a library I can't predict which books will burn first, but I can sure give you the gist of things. That "they can't predict it exactly" bullshit is just that.

— Garry Boldwater (@HankStormdrain) May 14, 2019

Okay Mr. Science, I am won over by this logical and completely on-point argument.
A closer analogy is a "scientist" claiming that if we turn up the thermostat in the library by 1 degree, a particular book in stack C will burst into flames by 5:00 PM next Friday.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) May 14, 2019

It is not that most people don't understand what a minor shift in global temperature will do, it is that nobody knows what it will do. But some people pretend to know. Others think they know, but that is only because they are stupid.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) May 14, 2019

Walking Observations/Thoughts

Just as I got onto the footpath that leads out of the office park, two ladies entered the path just ahead of me. My first instinct was that I would soon overtake and pass them. I am not a "power walker" and today, the only reason I didn't go for a run was that I felt too beat-up from yesterday's 12.5 mile run. as it turned out, my regular brisk pace just kept me even with them.

As we walked along, one of them pulled ahead of the other, by about 8-10 feet. All this time they carried out a conversation. It seemed a little weird that two people talking would 1. Get that far apart and 2. would arrange into single file. The path is wide enough for two to walk abreast and they had been walking that way for a while.

Later, I passed a hotel called Extended Stay America and I wondered at the logo:

It seemed a little bit like Holiday Inn. So I wondered: Are they trying to tie all the corporate brands together stylistically? Or are they a new company that is trying to leverage the brand equity of an older, trusted name?

A little research indicated that the companies are entirely unaffiliated. I won't take a position on whether ESA is trying to seem like they are part of Holiday Inn. I would like to note that there is enough stylistic overlap that it isn't a stupid question.

GOT (It Was All A Dream) Plan

What they actually decide to do is send Arya Stark (who can look like anybody and infiltrate Kings Landing) to assassinate Cersei Lannister.

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) May 6, 2019

Testing Embedding Tweets

If you look carefully, you can see the photographer of this kerosene space heater. pic.twitter.com/BKdmUTAvfM

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) May 4, 2019

Looking through my digital camera and found this
grand festival de saucisse. pic.twitter.com/Qy1Wq6rnWD

— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) May 4, 2019

Ten Thousand and 7

First all the boilerplate: A mile is a pretty much arbitrary unit of distance and 10,000 only means something because Humans have 10 fingers and hence a decimal numbering system etc, etc, etc.

But

It is what we are used to and see some significance to it and I will be musing on this milestone.

First some kudos to RunningAHEAD. The 10k represents just the miles logged onto this FREE (you can donate) site. The last site I used, VOOMAXER conked out after a few thousand miles and I did lots of running in high school as well as various bouts between HS and really solidly making a habit of it in early 2002.

Okay, so 10,000 miles, what does it mean? I am pretty confident that I will not make it to another 10,000. This one took me about 7 years but at current rates, it will take me about 10 more years to reach 20k.

1. I have been really lucky so far in that the site has lasted this long--I doubt it will go another 10 years.
2. I doubt I will still be running at all, ten years from now. I had a golden few years of injury free running but lately I am very inury prone, with my heels being in pain for about 17 months. Other injuries have come and gone, but the heels will always be with me, or so it seems.

The whole running total is likely to be these 10k, 10k from HS up to 2002 and the VOOMAXER years were about 3,000 miles, so that brings the total to around 23,000 miles.

I Was Raised By My Genetic Parents

It was not obvious when I was a kid that this was true. My three siblings all looked comfortingly alike: Dark hair, in two cases it could fairly be called black, the other had chestnut colored hair. Mine was platinum blonde in pre-school and eventually darkened to a sandy brown later in life. They all had olive complexions and brown eyes, while I have pale green eyes and fair skin. It was noticeable enough that I was teased about being adopted. Which enraged me as a child, but now I could not say if I care or not.

I did a genetic test just for fun and I am related to people on both sides of my family in percentages consistent with my parents being, my parents.

All this thinking about genetics has made me notice just how unusual my dad was, from a phenotype standpoint:

He had red hair and freckles. Freckles often go with red hair, but the latter is still only about 6% of the northern and western parts of Europe.

He had brown eyes--most red-heads have blue or green eyes.

He was left-handed--not as rare as being a red-head, but less common than being right handed.

He was immune to being tickled. I can't easily find how rare this is but anecdotally, it may be the most rare thing in this list.

Packing the Supreme Court

This is the latest brainstorm by the progressive left and as usual, short-sighted.

Fake reason: The court needs to be expanded to handle the work-load.

Trump response: At the inevitable debate, he asks his opponent what size the court should be to handle the all the cases in a timely manner. The Democrat gives his pat answer (say it should go from 9 to 15 members). Trump, "Then will you support me appointing 6 more justices tomorrow"?

Real reason: Progressives want a liberal majority so they can have a free path to re-making the country.

So, the next time there is a Democratic president and Democratic majority in the Senate, they appoint whatever number of justices get them to a majority. Question: Wouldn't the Republicans, once they have the same situation, just do the same thing? Eventually, the court would have thousands of members. Does that seem like a stable situation?

Running Effort V. Sustain Time

There appears to be a linear relationship between effort in running, as measured by miles/hour and the natural log of how long this effort can be sustained.

The four data points are based on the actual times in races or workouts the author could attain as an 18 year-old track and cross country runner.

Data


Chart

I Am So Old, I Now Get Injured By...New Socks?

Strange, but true, though a bit of a chain-reaction.

I purchased a bale of new socks at Costco and being new, they are a bit more fluffy and thick than old ones. I went for a run on a cold day and figured I would just leave my street socks on because they would be a little warmer. It was fine, but my shoes were a little tight and the tops of my feet got sore. These new shoes had round laces, which combined with the snug fit, cut into my feet. I tried switching over to flat laces and it helped but it was too late, my feet were already sore and so even the new laces hurt. Finally, I just took out the in-soles that came with the new shoes. Quit the alarm bells! I have wide feet and this is a really common shoe hack for me and has never given me a problem. Till now. Two miles in, I had a pain in my right hip and I don't normally have hip issues. By the end of 8 miles, it was pretty agonizing. How agonizing? Over the next few days, I got a cantaloupe-sized bruise on that hip. No. I didn't fall down, I got a giant bruise from just running.

What A Splendid Time To Be Alive

The "Democracy dies in darkness" newspaper spent millions on a Superbowl ad, which casts reporters as heroes.

Meanwhile: This:

"Learn to code" was tweeted at me by a sketchy account. I reported it as abusive behavior as part of targeted harassment. Twitter suspended the account within 20 minutes.

Journalists if they tweet "learn to code" at you don't stay silent, take a moment to report it. https://t.co/RXgqqV2ptw

— Ben Popken (@bpopken) February 1, 2019

Oh Brave Hero and defender of...censorship? Well, he made a...comment which may have slightly bruised my ego...so he HAD to be denied a platform of communication.

I replied:

01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100001 0001010

He will have to (kind of) learn to code to figure out what it means. Will he have grounds to complain that I advised him to learn to code, when he will have already figured out how to code to know what I said?

No!

Because my message means, Don't learn to code!

Ha! He learned to code for nothing.

Business Plan for 23andMe Or Similar Operations

Often there are tiered services: The basic heritage report for $x and then more health data for some further charge or upgrade.

What I propose is a barter: The service would give the upgrade in trade for phenotype data. Specifically, an image of the customer's face as well as scans of fingerprints and footprints. AI had made it possible to use facial recognition software as a screening tool for genetic abnormalities and it has been known since before I took medical genetics over 30 years ago, that similar inferences can be made by dermatoglyphics.

It is really a classic win-win. Neither side has to spend much time or effort on their side but gets valuable data for themselves in return.

If any of you service organizations want to do this, toss a bit of money my way first. It will be better than waiting until you have made a billion dollar business out of it and then I come by with a blog post dated from two years before you launched the idea.

Ocasio-Cortez And Palin, Similarities And Differences

Similarities:

Both are women who are unusually likable*, charismatic, attractive and came to national attention via politics.

Both gained their highest office by challenging a member of their own party. Ocasio-Cortez challenged the incumbent in the primary and won--the district has not had a Republican in 25 years, so the Democratic primary is effectively the election. Palin had a more traditional start, being a city council member, then mayor before challenging the incumbent Republican Governor in the primary. Alaska was not nearly as Republican as New York's 14th congressional district is Democratic, but in both cases, the primary win was the larger hurdle.

Both Ocasio-Cortez and Palin are relatively extreme--Palin to the right of the Republican party and Ocasio-Cortez to the left of the Democratic party. In a way, this is both a similarity and a difference.

Both are (even though they each have some elite characteristics) working class in their outlook and upbringing.

Both inspire emotional appeal and repulsion.


*Yes, I know. Lots of people hate one or the other (rarely both) of these women, but be honest--you know you would like them if politics was not involved.

Running in 2018

I've been using the same Running Ahead app for 7 years now and have a total of 9,625 miles. So my total for 2018 does not look great at 866 miles, when the average per year is 1,375. Unless I decide to train for a marathon again, I will not be likely to hit that average again. The most I ran last year was in December, 113 miles. Even this was an outlier, most months were low 70 to low 90. The first two months were 16 and 30 respectively.

What had happened is that my Achilles on both sides, but especially the left, were tender and sore. I tried to be very gentle for healing last Jan and Feb, but they didn't improve. With running, they have improved but are still not anywhere close to 100%.

My goal for 2019 is to average 90-100 miles/month and try to get some speed back. The girls got me a Garmin for Christmas and this might help, since it keeps track of highest speeds at different distances within a work-out. I think my best mile time (7:57/mile) since I got the watch was in an 8 mile run.