PolySciFi Blog

Maybe I don't understand child labor laws

2009-04-30T22:02:00.003-04:00

There was an interesting labor on a package CRT received from Nu Horizons yesterday (a Xilinx JTAG cable).

If that's somehow not legible, it says, "Adult signature required for residential delivery only" That implied to me that adult signature is not required for delivery at an office (work). So it looks like kids aren't authorized to sign for packages at home, but they could at work.

Yahoo tourney pickem

2009-03-15T22:40:00.002-04:00

League: polyscifi (Group ID #100531)
PWD: polyscifi

You know what to do. Taunting (of me) to ensue beginning Thursday.

House Construction and Blog Irony

2009-03-13T08:08:00.003-04:00

One of the reasons I've been blogging less is I've been spending an hour or so every day out at the site where we're building a house. (The other is the business is still growing, but that's not important right now.)

So for that very small number interested in what's keeping me away from blogging, I started a .... blog. It's called "Jody and Preethi Make a House" and there's currently pics up spanning from initial lot clearing to the footers being poured (yesterday).

There won't be any new posts to that site over the weekend as it's supposed to rain the entire weekend (and is actually snowing now) which will hinder construction.

Sports Stadiums and the Stimulus Multiplier

2009-02-20T09:24:00.004-05:00

I'm not a fan of demand-side stimulus efforts (in my best case scenario, you get inflation which might help with sticky prices / wages) so you can imagine my dislike for the stimulus bill, which seems to be best summarized as "throw a lot of money at pet Democrat projects and see if it helps the economy" and I've been looking for the best angle to convince my liberal friends that this is a *really* bad idea.

So I was happy to see this connection from Russ Roberts (both sets of facts I was well aware of, but I had not made the connection) as the first point is something that I think most liberals acknowledge so maybe the rest of the steps will follow.

1) Spending on construction for the Olympics / sports stadiums are net money losers for a local economy. (The Knoxville World Fair of 1982 is a notable exception to this rule as it netted $64.00 to go along with its wigsphere). Sometimes they're justified as a luxury good for the city (like a park), but they're not certaintly not money makers.

2) Further, the actual # of net jobs created by these construction projects has been shown to be 0. (see the cafe hayek post for a summary or this paper). Once you grant that there's not a net positive economic impact from the government building a new stadium, that's pretty easy to see as the government is just shifting funds around (robbing Peter to pay Paul, as such) and that's what the empirical surveys have shown.

3) So clearly, not all government spending has an associated multiplier that is greater than 1. Personally, I would expect that new spending with a multiplier > 1 to be the exception rather than the rule. Government funded research projects that transition to the private sector (ala the Internet and some drug research) and some infrastructure such as the interstate system (its multiplier is actually decreasing with time due to increasing maintenance costs) are the examples I can think of. But their payback is not immediate, i.e., doesn't satisfy the timeliness goal of a stimulus package.

4) While some infrastructure has a positive RoI, clearly lots do not (such as the stadium, but see also the bridges to nowhere in Japan and almost in Alaska).

5) With the default position that most govt spending will not have a multiplier effect > 1 (which generally follows the rule 90% of all new ideas are crap, though my personal assessment of the ratio for govt plans is higher), what's the likelihood that a hastily slapped together plan patched together from things that had not independently demonstrated their value enough to otherwise receive funding will have a multipler > 1?

Random asides:
The Keynesian idea that government spending has a multiplier > 1 is motivated by the assumption that money flowing through the government has a greater velocity than money flowing the private sector (enough to offset the implicit inefficiency that comes from x spending y's money on something that y likely would not have bought). When people saved money in mattresses, this was true.

But since people now save their money in banks which can and do loan out multiples of every dollar saved (fractional reserves) and government treasuries are 1-to-1 (1 dollar borrowed / spent comes from 1 dollar invested) the velocity argument actually cuts against government spending, and even more sharply when you consider the long appropriation cycles now used by the government (case in point see the stimulus bill allocations out beyond 2011).

Further, if you buy the theory that the problem with the economy is insufficient credit availability, what will be the effect when the government soaks up $1 trillion in investment capital? Even if it's financed from overseas, that's still investment capital not invested elsewhere which decreases the (world wide) aggregate credit supply.

God Bless You, Elton John

2009-02-19T23:24:00.003-05:00

Coming soon to a theater near you - perhaps the most awesomely bad movie ever made...

Pride and Predator.

Elton John's Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends.

Will Clark is set to direct "Pride and Predator," which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

In what seems like related news to me, two iPhone app makers are in court arguing over who has the rights to the phrase "Pull my finger" to advertise their farting iPhone app. (link)

Also I hear that I may have to go to Chicago in June for some tea or some party or something. (I could tell you more, but I don't practice Santelli and I ain't got no crystal ball...)

How things change

2009-02-14T13:16:00.003-05:00

Those who knew me in undergrad as that guy who never came to class and played StarCraft all day (or Civ or WarCraft or one of several other games) might find this post surprising, but those who've interacted with me over the last several years (and /or seen the blogging rate drop off) won't be.

Me, I think I'll have to appropriate "work-a-holic force-of-nature" to my sig.

And for a little context to that post, on the day I met with Ashwin, I (in approximate order of completion):

finished up and delivered a 125 page report I had started Monday night (only about 40 pages were brand new as it drew heavily on intermediate reports though getting in all the required formatting was the most time-consuming part)
put together a 1 hour presentation (but cut down from a previous 2 hour presentation with about 15 minutes of new material)
reviewed that report and presentation with a sub for about 30 minutes (they didn't write any of it, but while they're a "sub", they're a much much bigger / experienced company and they were willing to give me feedback prior to submission based on an earlier draft).
had a 40 minute meeting with Ashwin to loosely scope out 3 different proposals,
had a telecon debrief for an hour with a project sponsor (and some subs)
met with my business partner for about 15 minutes
met with another guy at VT to discuss a different set of proposals and general interactions with a funding agency,
met with the PI on a project CRT is funding at VT to clear up some contracting paper work (more accurately VT is a sub to CRT on a project)
and got a quote from VTIP on officially licensing back some of my IP
then some other random phone calls while I was driving (e.g. setting up the schedule for a trip next week)

Of course, other stuff was also done (like dropping in on Thason, driving for 3 hours and shopping some). But that day started at 5:00 AM and finished by 8:00 PM, which is a bit lax as I could've gotten some more stuff done (patents to file, papers to write / review) before I went to sleep at 11:00.

Wherein I ruin your weekend productivity

2009-02-13T15:44:00.003-05:00

Behold, Desktop Tower Defense 1.9. (0.4 better than 1.5, plus with sequential missions, multiplayer and stuff!)

Tomorrow's News Today

2009-02-06T20:19:00.002-05:00

I was in a Subway today, and its owner told me that starting Monday the original $5 footlong deal would resume (i.e., all subs, not just the subset that happens to normally be less than or just over $5).

More plagiarism

2009-02-03T21:08:00.002-05:00

But not of me this time.

This time it's Indiana University that was plagiarized. By Southern Illinois University. Specifically, SIU plagiarized IU's ... plagiarism policy. (read more).

What Jody Sees When He Listens to Music

2009-02-01T13:50:00.004-05:00

Pretty much my whole life I've gotten my jollies out of reinterpreting lyrics to songs to tell a radically different story which then gets vividly played out in my mind everytime I hear the song.

For instance in 7th grade I used to go around and tell the other kids that "Yesterday" was actually Paul's lament about suddenly losing a testicle which drove away the woman he loved ("Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be..." "Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play...") though as Matt and Mike may be able to attest, I would also change "Oh, yesterday came suddenly" to "Oh, castration came suddenly" as I thought it added to the effect.

So now whenever I hear Yesterday on the radio, I flash on a younger Paul McCartney lying in a hospital bed (now half the man) breaking down in tears while a stunning brunette walks out the door.

To ruin more music for you, here's what I think about / see when I hear a few other songs.

You're a Woman, Izer
(link) Britney discovers her female friend nicknamed "Izer" on the dance floor and confronts her because Izer likes to dress up like a man, seduce women, and then spring the "surprise" on them back at Izer's place. Nonetheless, because of her latent bisexuality, Britney wonders if Izer and her could be a couple, but because of the world's homophobia, it could never be.

Dolores O'Riordan's Stinky Coma Boyfriend
(link) Dolores's boyfriend was in a near fatal car accident which left him blind and deaf, and completely paralyzed except for his anal sphincter and some sensation in his finger. She now communicates with her boyfriend via a form of Morse code where she tugs on his finger and he farts.

Yesterday, however, Dolores came into his room to see him communicating with his ex - a fact that disturbs her so greatly she confronts him (as best as someone can be confronted via finger pulling, farting Morse code). He, however, is confused about who he should be with (the age-old current versus ex dilemma holds even for coma-boy), so he somewhat passive-aggressively tries to drive Dolores away by letting them "linger".

The Chilli Peppers Come Out of the Closet
(link) Anthony Kiedis contemplates Flea's ultimatum that if they're going to continue to be together, Anthony is going to have to go beyond just backstage oral flings and move their relationship into the open and, ahem, "take it on the other side". More a bi-player than a gay homemaker, Anthony does not relish the envisioned side-splitting pain from anal or the potential lost female loves - the latter because he thinks that societal pressures will prevent him from effectively switching teams again. However, he does not want to give up Flea either. Confused, Anthony, repeatedly contemplates suicide.

=======
Sure they may not all work perfectly, but I think they work better than the Dark Side of Oz, which I imagine a lot of you paid money to see. And with my shlock, the images indelibly burned into your brain came for free.

Your government form verbiage of the day

2009-01-31T13:22:00.003-05:00

From W2 filing form for businesses provided online (link):

This form is provided for informational purposes only. Copy A appears in red, similar to the official IRS form. Do not file copy A with the SSA. The official printed version of this IRS form is scannable, but the online version of it, printed from this website, is not. A penalty of $50 per information return may be imposed for filing forms that cannot be scanned.
To order official IRS forms, call 1-800-TAX-FORM (1-800-829-3676) or
Order Information Returns and Employer Returns Online, and we’ll mail you the
scannable forms and other products.

Gee thanks. Wouldn't want to distribute forms in a way that minimizes costs, like just downloading them. And wouldn't want to create a situation that just begs for people to get fined by trying the obvious thing (like using the form provided online by the agency responsible for the forms).

The way that is set up for getting them the required information is to fill out documents online, which after they're submitted can be downloaded and printed. And any transcription (such as from quickbooks to an online, multi-page form) has the chance for error, which is easier to catch when you can view the forms all at once, printed out. But (at least last year) you can't print them until they're submitted, and once submitted, corrections are quite hard to make.

Fortunately, this weekend I'm buying payroll software for future . In theory, (I think) that shouldn't be necessary for a 2-3 person business, but I've gotten tired of the headaches so I've decided to start partaking of the government created market (tax software and professionals).

Perhaps I fly too much

2009-01-29T23:48:00.002-05:00

Preethi likes to brag that wherever she goes in Lynchburg, she knows someone. Right now I'm in the airport in San Diego where I've run into four people I know, only 1 of whom was at the event that brought me out to San Diego.

Related note 1, For the second year in a row, I'll be traveling during the Super Bowl.

Related note 2 (which is also related to Related note 1) [Gwar]We again need more minions.[/Gwar]. (CRT still has its original minion, but this trip has a very high probability of resulting in a need for at least 2-3 more minions) . So drop me a line if you want to work on some really cool stuff or just fetch me coffee, the latter of which is especially diabolical because I don't drink coffee.

New CRT logos (Update)

2009-01-18T17:57:00.004-05:00

I got a graphic artist to put together a more professional looking logo for CRT.

Since the idea of the logo is to convey "professional, credible looking wireless company" to the public and since the blog's readership counts as the public, I thought I would try you guys out as a real-cheap focus group. (Read as, I'm not paying you guys, but I'll get the first round next time I'm out drinking with anyone who comments before Tuesday)

Below, I've included copies of the 6 variations and the current design. Leave a comment saying which one you like and /or which elements you like and why.

Update

Thanks everyone. Looks like I owe beer to quite a few people.

We went with the one in the bottom right (or (3,2) as Mike wrote) with the variation that we used the waves of the top right (sharper, more dynamic roll-off). Admittedly, that was what I had in mind before the little study (you guys and about 15 other people via email and in person). But I had intentionally mixed around the elements to see if people would come to the same conclusions. (Not everyone, but more than half, which seems real positive)

Since others gave their rationale, here's mine (as to why a new logo and why that one). First and foremost, I wanted something that looked "professional," which really means "like what everyone else does". Looking at various large, successful companies' logos, what I saw were logos that used the company name and/or acronym with minimal additional clutter. For example, Walmart, McDonald's, Holiday Inn, or closer in industry, Cisco or Google or even GD. What I didn't want was something that tried to cram too much into the logo at once (like these guys - it's cute, but it's not "professional").

That basically meant 1) a distinctive font, 2) a single, simple design element and 3) a dominant color or color pattern (that could also help brand). We also had to spell out Cognitive Radio Technologies because it's not the first acronym expansion that comes to mind for "CRT", though we need to have "CRT" in the logo because "Cognitive Radio Technologies" is just too long of a phrase.

I had decided that the current wave (or more accurately, the compressed fade formed from a misshapen N) was the wrong way to go because outside of folks involved in wireless circles, no one really knew what that curve was on the original logo (and even in the right circles, not a lot of them). However, lots of people apparently have become accustomed to associating symbolic radio waves propagating from an antenna with "wireless" and in fact, when I showed this logo around, no one asked, "what's that supposed to be?" And sorta like the Cisco logo, it can be taken in several complementary ways (e.g., the Cisco logo is both a stylized FFT and a stylized representation of the Golden Gate bridge which combines "technical" with their SF location). Likewise, our little design element (in theory) conveys that we're a wireless company, but also looks like a repeated C (sorta like the Golden Arches is an M) and with the blue color, it kinda looks like ripples (making waves, making a splash...).

So simple, distinct, clean and most of all, professional.

So was it the most fun logo that we played with? Nope. (We pre-screened a lot.) But hopefully, by adopting elements of the "big boy" logos, it looks like the logo of a company that signs million dollar contracts. (No, we've not done that. Low 6 figures, yes. But it never hurts to put things in place early.)

A Poll Question

2009-01-16T18:33:00.002-05:00

I have not insignificant self-employment taxes to pay on the money left over at the end-of-the year in CRT. The fun of a small LLC is if you want to carry over money across calendar years to pay salaries (and say, you made all of your money right at the end), you have to pay personal taxes on it. I would very, very much prefer to use the money to float employees between contracts.

So, should I pull a Geithner?

If it influences your response, I've paid taxes on everything that came home as it came home.

Ricardo Montalban is Dead

2009-01-14T22:52:00.001-05:00

More information here.

An argument for the BCS?

2009-01-12T13:35:00.003-05:00

Florida versus Oklahoma compared to Arizona versus Baltimore.

The latter may not happen, but at this point, who would be surprised?

And how much better would you have felt about a NYG (or CAR) versus TN (or PIT) Superbowl? (parenthetical allowances for computer / voter variation)

Plagiarizing Whippersnappers

2009-01-07T21:15:00.002-05:00

2 days. 2 plagiarizers.

1) Yesterday, a coauthor of a previous paper and now a conference organizer was reviewing a paper for said conference when he noted that about half of a paper was ripped off from one of our papers. Turns out, the other half was taken from another one of mine. For bonus fun, a third coauthor on our paper (twas a gigantic cross-layer survey paper) also noted that he had in the last two months strenuously rejected the paper for plagiarism (hadn't told us though).

We only ended up informing the conference chairs. My normal M.O. (sadly, this has happened enough to have an M.O.) is to email the adviser. My next step, which I've never had to take, would be to the department chair.

2) Some time ago (about 2 months) this random chick emailed asking if I would be willing to post an article of hers on the CRT blog in exchange for linking back to her site with a byline. She had no background in cognitive radio and I assumed it was some sort of SEO trick. Nonetheless, I told her if she wrote an interesting article, I would be happy to post it with her byline. Today, she sent me her article. It ripped off virtually word-for-word a fairly well-known magazine article on the topic.

She got a nastygram rather than a post.

Kids these days.

My minion

2009-01-05T19:11:00.003-05:00

I have a minion starting tomorrow. You might think, Jody really means "employee", and you may be right, but in my mind it's going to play out more like this:

Jody and his minion work in the lab to create "Frankenradio"

I might even have another minion in the near future. Though probably not if they ever see this post. Unless they're down with immanetizing the radioschaton. Then game on man.

Bad instincts for Obama (Update)

2008-12-10T09:29:00.003-05:00

Assuming everyone knows the Blago details, here's my two cents:

1) It looks like Obama is squeaky clean on the corruption (if Blago is taped cursing you for not playing ball, it's pretty likely you didn't play ball). If there's a failure to report, that'll blow over.

2) What'll be a bad long term narrative (besides the associations, but everyone knew he had atrocious associations before he got elected) is his proclivity for unnecessary lies when there's the potential he'll look bad.

Case in point his assertion that he's had no contact with Blago since resigning. That's just BS (1, see Axelrod and 2, it doesn't seem plausible as he had proposed a replacement) and it's unneccessary BS since he didn't do anything wrong in this case.

Since he's lied badly when unbecoming things have come to light (Wright, Ayers, NAFTA / Goolsbee), I think it's reflexive for him.

It's not that Obama lies. All politicians lie. A good politican gives believable lies that aren't contradicted in a recorded medium. And since I don't think he's used to the scrutiny he gets now, I don't think he takes adequate care with his lies (when to and how to), so I think this is going to be a continuing problem for Obama.

Update
Example of how dumb the lie is:

Now that Barack Obama will be moving to the White House, his seat in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois will have to be filled.

That's one of Obama's first priorities today.

He's meeting with Governor Rod Blagojevich this afternoon in Chicago to discuss it.

CRT doing well

2008-12-09T17:39:00.003-05:00

We're likely winning another major contract or two (just started negotiations for one and were told last week that another has been awarded, but we're subs on that to some folks I don't know well so I'm taking that with a grain of salt for the moment).

This means I now have more work than I can handle on my own.

So if you're a US citizen (a hint on the contract vehicles), think you're a kick ass engineer / programmer, and have interest in working for the leading research company in cognitive radio, drop me a line.

Update
And just got another email that another proposal is likely going forward (completely unrelated other than most everything we do cognitive radio). However, it's an order-of-magnitude smaller as we're small-time subs on it. Would be a good night to celebrate, if I didn't have to stay up all night to finish up a deliverable for a customer.

An early New Year's Resolution

2008-12-08T13:13:00.002-05:00

If the Big 3 get bailed out, I won't be buying another car from them (new or used).

To date, I've driven a Chevy (Lumina) and a Ford (Escort) and I previously had the intention of continuing to drive "American" cars (and will sometimes privately tout the quality of Fords over the last 10 years) and will likely buy a new car next year. This means that the resolution nominally has some teeth.

Why do this?

Besides the fact that the bailout (and all of the bailouts) pisses me off¹, I figure the best way to prevent this from occuring again in the future is to hasten their demise and the only tool available to me is to not buy anything else from them.

A consistency check of sorts - I also do not bank with any of the bailed out banks, as I do all of my banking via local banks. However, this move preceded the bail out.

1. Besides the fact that it's a straight up wealth tranfer from productive uses to non-productive uses, this is a textbook Austrian recession (popping of speculative bubbles created by an extended periods of too easy credit) and treating it like a Keynesian recession (money irrationally sitting on the sidelines) is going to make things worse.

Rocky Top is little different from filtered noise?

2008-11-30T16:47:00.004-05:00

After a detailed study, I have revealed what many have suspected for years - that Rocky Top is little different from noise. See the figure below for the damning proof.

Background: I needed to create a randomly generated "audio" source for a project. Spectrally, audio can be loosely approximated as filtered white noise (well actually, the PSD of just about any signal can be be approximated as filtered white noise, though the filter complexity changes).

As I was putting together this routine during the UT - UK game last night, I decided to use a wav of rockytop to verify my filter design (a first order IIR with the output resampled from 8 kHz to 30 kHz). And then I was struck by how else the graph could be taken and decided to poke a little fun at myself.

Tech still controls its own destiny?!?

2008-11-22T14:32:00.006-05:00

With the Miami loss causing another bunching atop the Coastal (read as everyone but Duke is tied), I decided to check on the tiebreaker.

Excerpting the relevant parts:

Two-Team Tie
1. Head-to-head competition between the two tied teams
2. Records of the tied teams within the division.

Three (or More) Team Tie
(Once tie has been reduced to two teams, the two-team tiebreaker format is
used)
1. Combined head-to-head record among the tied teams
2. Records of the tied teams within the division.

Here's the current ACC records of the 5 (!?) currently tied teams:

Georgia Tech 5-3
Miami 4-3
North Carolina 3-3
Virginia Tech 3-3
Virginia 3-3

Georgia Tech is already done with ACC play, so they're assured a least a tie for first. However, they lost to VT head to head, so in a 2-team tie, VT wins.

Now here's the records within the division

Virginia Tech 3-1 (L=Miami)
Miami 3-2 (L = UNC, GT)
North Carolina 3-2 (L = VT, UVA)
Virginia 3-2 (L=Duke, Miami)
Georgia Tech 3-3 (L = VT, UVA, UNC)

So currently, if VT wins out (beating Duke and UVA for 5-1 in division), VT will have the best in-division record and will win the 2nd multi-team tie-breaker outright and holds the head-to-head if only GT and VT end up with 2 losses. But if VT loses, it's all over as GT is already done.

And if VT wins out, they could play MD, FSU, BC, or WF depending on how their last two games play out.

Parity / Mediocrity - it's FANtastic.

Update
UVA and UNC just lost. So it's now a 3-way circle of death between Miami, GT, and VT.

The Bismarck-Palin Connection (Updated)

2008-11-21T18:16:00.004-05:00

In the 19th century, Bismarck famously quipped: "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made."

For the 21st century, I think Palin would revise this to: "Laws are like Thanksgiving turkey, it is better not to televise them being made. And it's even better to not televise a discussion of law making while also 'making' a turkey."

See here for context.

In related news:

With Holder apparently as AG, it looks like an even better year to give shotguns for Christmas (fun for Dave). I don't think they make shotgun-sized stockings though.
And likely a shotgun for us as well, though that's mostly due to the need to potentially kill varmits (and / or bear) on the land we'll be building. Construction starts right after Thanksgiving.
I'm thinking of posting pictures of the process throughout. If you're curious, the plans are online here. We're doing Plan C.

Update

My God! Have the politicians no shame? First Palin gives an interview while another man drains the blood from turkeys and now it turns out that Obama, blessed be his name, gave an interview in which he tore the flesh off the bone of another bird. With his own teeth, no less!

See here for the damning evidence.

While I'm thinking about it, does anyone else have a craving for turkey and chicken wings, or is it just me?

Obama wins

2008-11-04T21:58:00.003-05:00

With Ohio called, it looks like my basic model was right (e.g., VA is still not called), but my model still only gave McCain a 30% chance of a win.

That's all moot to the bet though (which is why I got 4-1 odds), so I'll be paying off Thason next time I'm in Blacksburg. [Do you want cash or a nice dinner?]

In related news, Dave called me up and said he wants a shotgun for Christmas.

Update
Noted in the comments but promoted up, as more results have come in my "basic model" looks less and less right. Outright wrong really. In fact the based on this RCP map, it looks like the aggregated poll model was right.

What got me really interested in following election returns

2008-11-04T08:33:00.002-05:00

Now this is election coverage!

Vote Silly Party!

The Election Returns Drinking Game!

2008-11-04T08:19:00.003-05:00

This is an incomplete framework based on input I got from students of mine. Not all of the ideas are original, and I welcome your contributions

Central Rules:

When a state is declared for your Presidential candidate: Drink!

When a state flips from its result in 2004: Everyone drinks! Pursuant to the previous rule, when a state flips to your candidate, you drink twice! (Sorry, McCain voters...)

If you're looking for volume, extend these rules to House and Senate returns, gubernatorial returns, town council and dog-catcher returns, and anything else that'll get you drunk. If that's what you want, I suggest you try Samuel Jackson beer. It'll get you drunk!

Other Suggested Rules:

Make a list of election coverage catchphrases and have everyone pick one at the start of your election returns party.

Whenever a pundit says your phrase: Drink!

Whenever a pundit of a political persuasion to yours says your phrase: Drink twice! (Try CNN for this. They'll have 85 million people doing their election coverage.)

I guess you could have everyone pick a commentator.

When you see your commentator on the television: Drink!

Know when to say when, people. Keep those ideas coming!

Voting Report - Christiansburg

2008-11-04T07:12:00.004-05:00

I've just returned home from voting. I arrived at my polling place (the Christiansburg Recreation Center) at about 6:05, and I stood in line for an hour. I estimate that there were about 200 people in line in front of me when I arrived. The end of the line was essentially in the same place for the entire time that I was there.

The weather was nice enough, so the people in line were polite and in pretty good spirits. I spent quite a bit of time talking with the people in line around me. While I stood in line, I also signed a petition to move the Christiansburg town elections from May to November.

The line moved reasonably, so the fact that there were only five machines on the premises surprised me vaguely.

I will be curious to see how the local turnout goes today. When I woke up this morning, I considered waiting until the afternoon, but I think I may have made the right decision.

Get out and vote!

Update from the Other Side

2008-11-03T15:44:00.002-05:00

I should make it known that I don't plan to offer odds to anyone else (scroll down to the update) on the outcome of tomorrow's little event - not unless they're really, really good wagers. I don't know if the other party still remembers - considering that he went into the hospital recently for appendix surgery - but I also have a even-odds lunch bet on the outcome of the election.

I felt the need to post this since I just finished what used to be the daily task of updating the spreadsheet containing my retirement holdings. I can almost say without a doubt that this will be the best return on investment that I get for anything this year. (knock on wood...)

On Polling

2008-11-03T09:14:00.003-05:00

Wow, I sparked a lot of comments in response to me saying that I don't trust most of the polls and that I think McCain has about a 30% chance to win. (For fun, I've taken to calling him "The Arizona DJ, Emcee Cain". I encourage others to do as well).

Since a quick comment did an apparently piss-poor job of it, here's a post so I can use some formatting to help me better convey my thoughts.

==============
Main points:

1) I do not trust radically new and untested weighting methodologies. If you like, view this as part and parcel of having a fundamentally conservative outlook.

2) I do not believe the youth vote will turn out in greater proportion than *ever* before. A massive youth vote has been asserted for every election I have experienced. It has never materialized.

3) I believe that white conservatives and white liberals are about equally energized so their turnouts should be approximately equal. I believe that blacks will turn out in greater proportion than ever before and harder for the Dem candidate, but this will only translate into an extra 2-3 pct bump for Obama (there's a reason blacks are called a minority population). I believe hispanics will end up about the same (there's a Dem wave in the media, but I think this will be offset because of hispanic / black mutual dislike - see Hillary).

4) I believe undecideds will break hard for McCain (see late Dem primary and that Obama has more than enough exposure for people to make up their mind and the election is fundamentally a referendum on Obama)

5) That lots of polls have adopted the same (to me unproven) methodology (and I believe wrong methodology because of points 2-4) does not give me confidence in the methdology.

More importantly, aggregating together many polls together only improves accuracy when the estimates are independent and unbiased. Because most every poll has adopted similar assumptions, it means that if you believe there is an error in the assumptions, averaging will not converge on the true mean; it will instead converge to a biased estimate. Running Monte-Carlo sims ala 538 do not fundamentally fix this if the MC model fundamentally conforms to the same assumptions / models.

Or in real short, averaging reduces variance, but only improves accuracy if there's no systematic bias (methodological, not political).

6) The poll which has not significantly changed their weightings is the IBD poll (which as they are fond of noting was the closest poll in 2004). Their methods largely conform with my implicit model in points 2), 3) and 4). Because their assumptions best agree with my assumptions, that's the poll I trust.

For the past month or so, they've had Obama generally up 2-4 (strictly 1-7 up) with 9-13 undecided.

7) For the sake of simplicity, assume uniform distributions on Obama's reported lead (over 2-4%) being the actual decided lead. Assume 10% undecideds. And assume the break of undecideds is uniformly distributed from 55-45 (+1 pt for McCain) to 75-25 (+5 pt for McCain). That actually yields a 50-50 split.

Now factor in a little humility (i.e., assume I have to be a little bit off because I'm disagreeing with almost everyone) and we'll bump McCain's odds down a bit and call it 30%.

Note that I effectively changed two modeling assumptions (weighting and undecided break) and got something radically different than the results of assuming a "transformational" election.

==============
On the yard signs anecdote, sweet mother guys. When someone prefaces a paragraph with "Also anecdotally," maybe, just maybe they mean it as an anecdote, not as a statistical argument. It's funny that an McCain sign was put in my yard because my neighbors think that *I* am an Obama supporter. It's weird that I live in neighborhood that's 40-0 in yard signs over 109 houses (I have a hard time figuring that out even in a conservative part of a conservative area though the blind squirrel effect may be in play.)

And I am baffled that folks who should know me well don't pick up on this being my normal M.O., i.e., I cannot help myself from making asides if some random connection amuses me (and I don't really care if it doesn't amuse the person I'm talking to under my Joe Pesci rules). When I write something for an actual publication, I have to spend about half of my writing time figuring out if I want to strke my asides or integrate them into the main flow.

=============
On Obama not valuing signs - that's nothing new and something that every national campaign has known for years (Rep and Dem).

And indeed, no vote is changed by a yard sign. However, people want signs (and bumper stickers) as a show of group solidarity and as such yard signage is a good proxy for intensity of support. Thason and I have had this discussion before, though I don't know if I've blogged it.

And since there's an apparent need to burst "the Obama / Axelrod has all sorts of new insights into what is and is not important to a campaign" bubble, take a look at McCain's site. Signs are sold. For money. Specifically, $35 for 5. Campaigns leverage the fact that people emotionally attach to them like a sports team and use campaign paraphenalia to help raise money. Again it's different for local elections where name recognition matters.

============
On state distributions, I am not impressed by the number of polls used to craft an average because I believe they share a methodological flaw.

However, in response to Thason's questions, here's my current beliefs for the states Thason listed assuming my weighting model for declared intentions: (Note - that's not a direct shifting down from the national polls and includes touchy-feely factors about how I feel about the politics / demographics of each state)

FL: McCain + 2
NC: McCain +4
VA: Obama + 2
OH: McCain + 3
CO: Obama + 4
NV: Obama + 2
MO: McCain + 1

Other relevant states
PA: Obama + 4
NH: Obama + 3
MI: Obama + 7
NM: Obama + 5
IA: Obama + 5

Of these, only MI do I put out of reach for McCain under my second assumption of a hard undecided break for McCain (listed for comparison purposes). A very small undecided break for McCain (55-45) and VA goes blue. A medium size break (66-33) and VA stays red. A huge break (75-25) and CO, PA and NH go McCain with NM and IA being really tight.

============
On the disingenuity of only focusing on the "reverse-Bradley" effect: a) only so much time in a day and b) no one expects the Spanish inquisition.

The Bradley effect is well known and discussed (heck, it was Kaus's Halloween costume this year). However, what I don't see discussed is that Obama can't pick up 1 point from the black shift between the last poll and the election that we normally see because he already has the entire black vote (for all intents and purposes). As my 30-50% estimate of a McCain win relies on a hard undecided break for McCain, this is important to note (since I apparently have to be explicit - I don't expect the normal break to be a countervailing force).

That folks may have reported for McCain or Obama with the intention of voting for the other I find unlikely. It's far easier to hide intentions by declaring as undecided. We have twice as many undecideds as 2004. That's where they're hiding, not in each others' declared numbers. Based on the slant of media coverage (*very* pro-Obama, to the point of embarrassing Dan Rather!), I also expect that hidden intentions run much more for McCain than for Obama.

============
On Liberty registering - it's an anecdote I find interesting. Never seen a school make such an explicit effort before.

And to conclude with another quasi-related aside, which tangentially demonstrates my awareness of other registration efforts, in Roanoke I signed a petition to help get McKinney on the ballot in VA this year. My friends (none of which are my neighbors) thought I was nuts, but I figured more choices were better.

Update
Thason and I are on: $25 (me), $100 (him) for 4-1 odds on a McCain victory.

I'm not taking any more bets (I don't have a lot of disposable income now and need to start squirreling away my money in my mattresses for the upcoming Obama administration), but thought we should let everyone else be aware of the bet for vicarious election night fun.

Larry Parks died

2008-11-03T09:12:00.001-05:00

His obit is here.

He was a good man.

A shout-out to our friends at the Weekly World News

2008-10-30T07:37:00.005-04:00

Oh well. So much for that speech last night. It looks like McCain has this thing sewn up. Might as well cancel the election.

(The pictures are priceless...)

People on Free Republic are insane

2008-10-28T19:39:00.003-04:00

Entertaining, but insane:

"A National Emergency

Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:38:07 PM by SwaggerStick

There is little doubt for those of us who have sound minds this election has migrated from dishonest and biased media coverage to outright corruption. There is little doubt voter fraud will extend well beyond the noise level to a significant enough level that will jeopardize the integrity of the election results. The results could be so corrupted the rightful winner may be deprived of his victory.

The President of these United States should declare A National Emergency and postpone the election for one year. There has been so much corruption and divisiveness the entire nomination process for both political parties should start anew."

So here's the recipe:

John McCain is really winning the election - it's just that all of the polls and all of the media are wrong.

Oh, and by the way, if Obama wins, it's because he stole the election.

I would call it cognitive dissonance, but somehow I doubt that the people here are neither believe that the ideas are contradictory, nor find them to be uncomfortable.

Does McCain want McCain to lose?

2008-10-22T19:34:00.002-04:00

I'll do you one better. Let's go right to the top of the ticket:

You've really got to wait for the room to go quiet after the punch line, and then marvel at how well a septuagenarian can tap dance verbally...

Does Biden want Obama to lose?

2008-10-20T18:46:00.002-04:00

Says Biden:

Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Shorter Biden: The world thinks my running mate is unprepared which invites a crisis.

Biden is probably right, but politically this would've been better to bring up say, after the election. That way, if you believe your man is the right man for the job (which Biden believes, right?), you make certain he gets the job and then you prepare the public for the coming crisis as early as possible - likely with months to spare.

With a running mate like Biden, who needs an opponent?

Politics and Demographics in Knox County

2008-10-16T21:54:00.004-04:00

The MetroPulse has a really good article on the politics and demographics of Knox County. (h/t puppy blender). Mostly, it's noting a correlation we all know (positive correlation between urbanism and liberalism), but I liked the precinct-by-precinct map (I'm a sucker for maps).

From my experience, the same trends held in Raleigh, Blacksburg, and Lynchburg. For the curious, I lived in the district labeled with "Cedar Bluff Middle School" and Matt in the redder district just to the south.

My Post Election Bumper Sticker

2008-10-15T19:03:00.001-04:00

Regardless of who wins.

Fritz's first post

2008-10-08T18:37:00.003-04:00

Since the country is in the process of socializing our financial sector while choosing between a socialist and a Marxist for President (you can decide which is which - doesn't really matter to me) to lead the socialization efforts for the rest of the economy, I'm not in the best of blogging moods, so I've decided to turn over my blogging duties to Fritz der Hund Neel (our larger, younger Shepherd) for the time being.

Here's his first post.

Sausages. Sausages. Cat eating festival. Sausages. Sausages.

=Fritz

CRT Update

2008-10-07T08:29:00.002-04:00

Updating this earlier post (CRT is #1), we're still on the first page of google results (and will probably be the first hit behind wikipedia by the end of the year), but more importantly, as of yesterday, CRT officially achieved another goal (hint: it's not the patents), which means that after a few invoices, we should have the capital to start some prototyping work so that maybe by the end of 2009 we'll have real (Beta) products to go with our services.

McCain, the Bailout, and my disgust

2008-10-02T10:08:00.004-04:00

What little credibility / attractiveness as a candidate McCain had with me is now lost.

His major claims for what he'll do in office is 1) He'll fight earmarks (as a proxy for corruption), 2) He'll veto bad bills, with a particular eye toward vetoing spending bills. Fight fight fight, principles and all that.

Yesterday, he voted for what I believe to be a very bad plan, which was furthermore absolutely larded with earmarks.

Why?

Because he thought it was more important to pass a bill than fight the earmarks / spending.

So when the chips were down and McCain had claimed a leadership position on the issue, what did he do? He abandoned his principles. Which means I can't trust that he'll fight spending or earmarks.

The only differences I see between Obama and McCain is that while Obama promised to deliver me sh*t, McCain actually has experience delivering me sh*t.

Obama will be bad for free speech (see Missouri), but McCain wrote McCain-Feingold.

Obama wants to import an underclass to shift the US from an Anglosphere nation to a Latin country, but McCain wrote McCain-Kennedy.

Obama will move the Supreme Court to the left, but McCain led the Gang of 12.

Obama will trash what little Constitutional limits on the federal power are left, but yesterday, McCain voted for a spending bill that originated in the Senate that had the ostentatious purpose of mandating mental health coverage (commerce clause).

Obama may not know squat about the economy (see capital gains tax cut for small businesses), but McCain benched Graham.

Fred 08.

Bail out fails? Yay? (Updated)

2008-09-29T14:17:00.003-04:00

Looks like the bailout failed.

Now it's time to see if I was right that the market will right itself. Expect a few more lending institutions to fail, but the market was bloated and depositors will be ok. (I am ok with supplementing the FDIC as needed, just not with, well, lots of stuff in the Paulson / Dodd / Pelosi / Frank plan)

Update:
The "crash" of the stock market (smaller percentage wise than lots of other crashes) is being compared to size of the bailout to argue that we would've saved money by the bailout. For example, on Charlie Gibson I saw the 7.7% decline in the stock market listed as equivalent to a $1.1 trillion decrease in the stocks (which looks correct) followed by the statement that we just threw away $400 billion by not passing the bailout.

In a word, this is horsepuckey.

The money taken out of the stock market is still in the world economy. It's just doing something other than adding to the price of stocks, which means nothing has been lost, it's only been moved to different investments.

Interestingly, the movement from stocks to other investments will likely lessen any liquidity problems as some fraction will move into CDs, money markets, and savings accounts which would ... increase operating capital for lending - in theory, what the bail out is trying to do.

Throwing good money after good

2008-09-27T17:14:00.002-04:00

(Polyscifi - all bailout all the time!) Another bail plan I think is much better is this one by Arnold Kling (it's a little way down there):

The right policy response to a surge in demand for this "money" would seem
to be to exchange "money" for bonds, which in this case means issuing Treasuries
and buying private securities. If that's the right policy, then I would have the
government invest in bond mutual funds rather than mortgage securities. First,
that would give you diversification, instead of putting all your chips on house
prices. Second, it would allow you to undo the trade easily if market psychology
changes in favor of corporate bonds. Third, there would be nothing magic about
$700 billion. Maybe it takes a lot less to nudge corporate bond rates
down.

In short, if the problem is rising prices in the bond market for otherwise good companies / organizations, then we can lower the price by buying bonds. From my perspective, this has two major advantages over the current plans (though I can think of others):

You directly address the potential main street contagion problem (in theory, the argument is "We would let Wall Street burn, but doing so would hurt Main street).
You're not buying a pig-in-the-poke (what exactly are the distressed properties worth? Who knows, but some pretty bad adverse selection issues seem likely)

Simple drinking game for McCain Obama debate

2008-09-26T20:56:00.001-04:00

1 shot for every use of the word "change"

Cheers.

Wahoos and Russert

2008-09-25T11:23:00.003-04:00

(link)

[Luke] Russert, 23, said about [UVA]: "The smartest kids in the state go there so it is leaning a little bit toward Obama.

Dem be fightin' words. Intellectual pistols at daybreak to resolve this once and for all - round-robin quizbowl tournament between UVA, VT, WM, JMU, GMU, ODU, and LU. Cage match rules apply.

More seriously, I think it would be cool (and awesome publicity) if VTACO could set up the "Luke Russert 2008 Invitational Tournament" for the VA colleges perhaps for this weekend (before it gets stale and with the football team in Lincoln). Invite Russert to moderate, the Today Show to film, and see if NAQT will throw in some questions at the last minute.

A less bad bailout plan

2008-09-25T06:34:00.002-04:00

Is in this Andy McCarthy post:

Wouldn't it be better to make this taxpayer money available for loan, let the institutions buy them at whatever price the market will bear, and take back collateral as was done with AIG? I realize this will mean companies holding truly worthless paper will fail, but shouldn't they fail anyway?

And won't they eventually fail anyway (i.e., wouldn't propping them up just postpone the inevitable)?

NB: I didn't say "good", just "less bad." From my perspective, "Good" plans would be to prosecute what fraud there may have been (I think to a lesser extent than most folks, but it should be identified and prosecuted¹) and otherwise leave it alone or if *something* must be done, modify Fannie Mae regulations to do what the market is doing anyways, i.e., increase downpayment requirements, tick up interests rates to reflect more realistic default probabilities, and let the companies that screwed up take their knocks.

This is partly ideological (my priors are a disposition towards leaving the free exchanges of free people alone) and partly because I don't think there's a credit crunch.^2,3

So why link to the less bad plan if I think it's inferior to what I think should be done? Because my plan (the minimalist plan) has little to no chance of happening and "less bad" is preferable to bad.
Footnotes
1. I think this is a consensus position, though in what might not be consensus, I think that neither a borrower nor a lender should be free of investigation. (to spin Polonius's advice)

2. See, e.g., this MR post where Alex notes the currently growing retail loan markets which is inconsistent with a credit crunch.

"As Robert Higgs points out consumer loans are up, commercial and industrial loans are up, even real estate loans are up. Overall, total bank credit is up with just a slight sign of leveling off in recent weeks. So where is the credit crunch?

3. The argument that there will be a run on the banks is slightly more compelling, but only slightly. Because what is meant is not banks qau banks (i.e., what will impact "Main Street"), but money markets. But to me, this argues for providing the option of FDIC - like insurance for other deposits (moving forward), not a $700 billion bailout.

What the?

2008-09-24T18:54:00.002-04:00

McCain suspends campaign for the bailout.

Althouse and McQ seems to like it ok, but I think it makes McCain look unstable. Then again I'm almost as opposed to the bailout as one can be, so I might be a bit biased.¹

1. Only almost, because, honestly, Preethi makes me look like an opposition piker. Lots of yelling at the TV in the Neel household.

It's simply awesome that Biden gets so much exposure

2008-09-23T12:17:00.002-04:00

(link) Joe Biden:

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and
didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said,
'Look, here's what happened.'"

Jesse Walker:

"And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And
you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President
Hoover?'

Joe Biden: so wrong in oh so many ways, but oh so funny.

The enemy of my enemy is my ???

2008-09-23T00:13:00.004-04:00

I approve the main idea of VoteNoBailOut.org as I think the $700 billion bailout is a greased pole ride to full-blown socialism, but it seems counter-productive to protest the bail out via ANSWER who wants the country to be riding *their* greased pole ride to full-blown socialism.

Jennifer Government, meet Chad Ocho Cinco

2008-09-05T09:52:00.004-04:00

So, the reports are that the NFL has issued the new jersey. (This notwithstanding the fact that they haven't made the change on their website.) The Bengals home page has made the change on their official roster. So has Yahoo. So where could this possibly still be a controversy?

That's right - those nerds on Wiki...I mean, those Wikipedians. Note that for true and representative entertainment, I've linked to the Talk page and not the article.

Bonus:

This is for those of you who scratched your head at the title. Don't worry - I haven't read it either.

(No, it's not ironic that I grabbed a Wikipedia page to explain things. Move along, nothing to see here.)

UPDATE:

BALTIMORE (AP)—Chad Johnson has changed his name, but his jersey remained the same Sunday.

The Cincinnati Bengals receiver legally changed his name from Chad Johnson to Chad Ocho Cinco, but the NFL decided against allowing him to put his name on his jersey.

“While the NFL has recognized the legal name change of Chad Johnson to Chad Ocho Cinco, the league informed the Bengals today that certain issues remain to be resolved before Ocho Cinco will be permitted to wear his new surname on his jersey,” the league said in a statement.

“He will wear the name Johnson on his jersey today and will be referred to as Chad Johnson on the official play-by-play sheet,” the statement said. “Further questions should be directed to the league office.”

Contacted Sunday by The Associated Press, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said, “He has a financial obligation to Reebok, which produces the jerseys available to fans. That has to be resolved before the on-field jersey can be changed.

“The same obligation exists for any player that changes his number or name."

So there it is: money does make the world go 'round

Won a caption contest

2008-09-04T00:00:00.001-04:00

with my normal level of class. See here.

Top Underrated SciFi Movies

2008-08-31T10:33:00.002-04:00

There's a thread on the topic over at Marginal Revolution.

My contributions:
Cube. Very 50's B-movie sort of feel (that's a plus in my book).

Chronicles of Riddick - A lot of fun, plus it's effectively the same story as most successful sci-fi franchises (e.g., Star Wars, Dune) - minor outworlder discovered as secret/reluctant savior who overthrows oppressive galatic empire, but with better action sequences.

2 Palin Questions

2008-08-30T07:48:00.007-04:00

Question 1: With Palin on the ticket, should the FEC consider 30-Rock an in-kind contribution from NBC?

Question 2: I got that Fey picture from this article: The 100 Hottest Women ... as voted by lesbians. (Fey was #7) Given the obvious visual similarities, will Palin open up the unexpected lesbian demographic for McCain?

Bad Barr

2008-08-18T17:12:00.002-04:00

Freedom of association is a libertarian principle. (Context)

If the Saddleback debate had been a government sanctioned / funded debate (and as neither McCain nor Obama are yet the official nominees for their repsective parties, I don't see how it could be), that would be somewhat understandable for Barr to sue for inclusion. But my understanding of the Saddleback debate was it was put on by the church, which makes it a whole 'nother ball of wax. And in fact attempting if Barr had been successful, it would've violated the First Amendment (no law respecting an establishment of religion).

I fear he's veering into Badnarik "Constitutional is whatever I think is good" land.

CRT is #1! (or from a different perspective, I'm a small small man)

2008-08-14T16:52:00.006-04:00

I find this cool and have no one in the office to tell about it, so I thought I would share here.

My little start up is now on the first page of Google search results for "cognitive radio". (both with and without the quotes, though oddly higher without). This was a specific goal for this year, and we satisfied it with 3.5 months to go. (FYI: we also had the goals of a) 6 patents applications - we're on pace with 4, b) winning the SBIR on cognitive radio - done, and c) lining up a 6 figure contract so I could hire some help - not done, but could happen)

To give you a feel for the magnitude of that result - cognitive radio is the dominant area of research in wireless communications; every wireless communications company and their brother are doing something with it - even non-comm companies like google and microsoft are interested.

There's some 446,000 hits for "cognitive radio" (without the quotes) and 139,000 hits for "cognitive radio" (with the quotes). And we're on the first page and are the first company listed (next is microsoft on the second page).

No search engine optimization. No tricks. Just a lot of content which a lot people read (like a really good blog just on cognitive and copies of all my public tutorials and papers) . It has been a lot of work, and it was apparently successful, so I'm quite pleased with myself.

And just in case we drop off the front page as suddenly as we rose up (CRT had been on page 2 of the results for about 4 months), here's a screen capture.

College Bowl Cool

2008-08-06T16:43:00.003-04:00

Via a sequence of links starting with the puppy blender comes this Dowd sentence:

For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages
to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his
bad-boy cool. [emphasis mine]

Who knew? There's cool College Bowl types. Why then weren't we getting more action?

I think VTACO needs to start an exploratory committee to rectify this shortcoming. (It's too late for me, but think of the children! And the children these children are not having!)

Knoxville Church Shooting

2008-07-27T12:25:00.002-04:00

No one I know (or my immediate family knew) went to the church (Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church on Kingston Pike - for the VTACO folks - that's the 7 miles of restaurants road.), but for the ex KnoxVegas expats, here's some relevant links:

News & Advance thread on the shooting
WBIR thread on the shooting

How I could support Obama

2008-07-22T18:30:00.002-04:00

Via a US News article on the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF):

According to an internal memo, a recent independent poll shows that members
rated Obama higher on "pocketbook" issues and, overall, believe that "Obama has
a better record or will be a better president when it comes to fire service,
labor, and IAFF issues," according to union president Harold Schaitberger. And
that includes, most importantly, he said, Obama's support for collective
bargaining "and his opposition to mandatory Social Security for our
members."

If Barack would make that same deal with me, he'll have my vote. Unfortunately, I don't think that offer is on the table.

What not to say to the fire extinguisher inspector

2008-07-14T12:33:00.002-04:00

"I don't know where the fire extinguishers are."

Said by the girl at the front of the Pizza Hut where Thason and I had lunch today when informed by the man with the clipboard that he was there to inspect the fire extinguishers.

Banking world turned upside down

2008-07-11T07:08:00.003-04:00

Here in Lynchburg about two blocks away from each other are the following offers from two different banks.

First Citizen's has a home equity line that has 1) an APR of prime - 1% (that's 4% right now), 2) no closing costs (for lines > $50,000), 3) no early termination fees, 4) generally no appraisal fees (they check recent sales and tax assements in the area). Together, that makes it virtually costless except for the interest.

First National Bank of Altavista has a rewards checking account that pays interest at an APR of 5.01%. There's some other requirements like use of a debit card, electronic statements, and direct deposit, but the most important restriction is they only pay 5.01% on the first $50,000 (1% after that). But if you're married, you can have 2 accounts - 1 in each spouse's name (I guess even more if you're FLDS).

So, you take out a home equity line in the range of 50-100k from First Citizens, write a check to yourself for the full line, walk a block and deposit it FNB Altavista. Voila, you're earning 1% on someone else's money. Note that you only earn that spread if the equity line is on your first/primary home as equity interest is tax deductible - otherwise, you lose money as you actually earn 60% of 5% = 3% (assuming 40% of income goes in taxes) and pay 4%. With the interest deduction, you make 0.6%.

Sure the prime rate can rise, but a) the money is in a checking account with no minimum balance, b) there's no fees for paying off the equity line early. So when the rates cross, you just cash out of the rewards checking account, pay off equity line, and pocket the difference.

Sure 0.6% isn't a huge margin, but that's after-tax income and it's someone else's money you're making the margin on (technically your collateral, though).

Why my job is so cool, Part 2

2008-07-03T14:37:00.004-04:00

I was just officially awarded a SBIR (scroll down to N08-099) to prototype an extension to my dissertation.¹ It's rare that you get to continue the work you started in your dissertation, and it's effectively every PhD's dream that their work would actually get used.

FYI, it's not a lot of money and a portion of it is going to a much larger DoD contractor whose radios I'll end use to make the prototype more relevant to the sponsor (Navy), but this'll be the first chance to see how close my algorithms in practice match my algorithms in theory / simulation.

1. I've effectively known it was coming since March when the first round of "selections for further consideration" were made. I think most every one who reads the blog knew of it. So this isn't something different than what you've heard from me before. But it's still cool.

Of course they support him

2008-07-01T18:30:00.003-04:00

Who else would they support? I'm just surprised that the Obama campaign website is actually hosting the "Marxists for Obama group"

An example of why my job is so cool

2008-06-30T15:09:00.002-04:00

I just submitted a report to DARPA (actually to the project prime who'll ship it on to DARPA) that showed via a derivation from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (specifically the energy-time formulation) that a secondary research objective of a multi-billion dollar military R&D program was impossible. Impossible by several orders of magnitude impossible, actually.

Getting paid to do work you find fun - there's nothing better. [insert crass prostitution joke]

If it becomes public domain, I'll post the report. (It's not classified, but it's now the prime's data, so it's their call.)

Easily the most disturbing thing I've seen

2008-06-20T19:54:00.002-04:00

It's work safe, but holy mother of God this video is disturbing. Makes the Britney episode of South Park quasi-believable.

CBI No More

2008-06-13T09:13:00.002-04:00

Thason was going to blog this and many of you who attended either Walt's or JP's wedding learned of it this weekend, but CBI is no more.

After 31 years of collaboration with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), the College Bowl Company is suspending the College Bowl campus program, effective immediately. College Bowl will no longer produce question packets for campus, regional, and national competitions.
While the program experienced periods of growth throughout its history, costs to maintain the program have increased. Although changes were made to offset the increasing expenses and avoid raising the price for campus participation, the program can no longer sustain itself.

As a generalist (read as a player who a) majored in a field from which virtually no questions were drawn other than Ohm's Law -wheee!!, b) didn't really want to study, but c) was pretty good at remembering what he heard before and d) was pretty quick on the buzzer) I always enjoyed the CBI format. Now I had my problems with game officials (which is not really something under CBI's control), but I liked the question styles and content. It seemed less ... trivial (it also had business trivia which I think is sorely lacking in other formats)

I even liked the variable-valued bonus as it made tossups (the part I found the most fun) that much more important. While I realize that "purists" didn't like that feature, you should realize that I am so unpure [ed - well at least you showered today] that I approve of steroids and other performance enhancers in sports [a) beyond rooting for my team, I watch sports for the spectactular almost superhuman plays and with fewer performance enhancers, there's fewer spectacular plays and b) if you know about my sugar and caffeine binges at quizbowl matches, it would be just a wee bit hypocritical of me to condemn performance enhancers in other competitions].

I also liked that CBI a) had a real intramural stage, b) was more inviting to smaller schools and c) made attempts at feeling like a professionally run tournament (particularly nationally). Now NAQT has tried to do something similar with two divisions, but I never played D2 so I don't know if that will work the same. (I also really like NAQT's power tossup innovation)

So, let's tip some 40s (10 + 30) to the passing of CBI.

Open Office Comment Revision

2008-06-09T16:37:00.004-04:00

Yesterday during JP's wedding reception (congratulations to JP and Laury and in the immortal words of Rob Schneider in the Waterboy, You can... well you get the idea) (also congrats to Walt and Kate who got married the day before - hectic weekend), I said that one of my issues with Open Office was that it doesn't do macros.

Well, today as part of doing a laptop recovery w/o handy CDs, I installed open office. Turns out it does have macros, but won't easily record my favorite macro (launching and formatting equations). I don't know if I overlooked this before or if it's a recent addition, but they're there now.

That's the upside. On the downside, it just crashed and won't restart. Had about 12 documents open (NSF proposals require a mad number of independent documents). We'll see if rebooting helps.

Celebrity blogging

2008-06-05T21:48:00.001-04:00

Don't normally do it but I couldn't pass up commenting on this:

Gwyneth Paltrow is going to get pregnant again - or else! The wife of Coldplay singer Chris Martin and mother of two had this to say in the latest issue of Harper's Bazaar: "I may force myself to do it one more time because the result is so worth it."

I'm not certain what Chris is doing, but I'm sure he's doing it wrong.

For he is the Kwisatch Haderach

2008-06-02T18:55:00.003-04:00

or the Messiah or something... From an interview with Obama...

GG:Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA:Yes.
GG:What is sin?
OBAMA:Being out of alignment with my values

Gold, frankincense and myrhh shall be His.

(Pic from reuters)

(FYI, I'm voting Barr / Root. Found out a write-in for Fred wasnn't likely be reported in any meaningful way.)

Libertarian Debate

2008-05-24T22:13:00.005-04:00

Going on right now on C-SPAN.

Quick thoughts -

I don't think I would vote for Gravel (he's implicitly told Libertarians the government is the answer a few times); Phillies voice will turn off voters; Jingozian speaks better, but amazingly looks dissheveled - seriously the man needs a haircut.

So I think the nominee will come from the pool of Ruwart, Kubby, Root and Barr.

I think I prefer Root.

10:29 - Gravel asserting positive liberties as critical (if you're hungry, you're not free). Another example of why I can't vote for him.

10:40 - DOMA is just a wee bit uncomfortable for Barr

Update
See Jacqueline Passey for an extensive link roundup.

Upcoming Bacchanalia in the Area

2008-05-19T21:25:00.002-04:00

This is perhaps only of interest to me (and is really just convenient bookmarking for me) but the following are opportunities to get your drink on in the Lynchburg area.

June 14,15 Blue Ridge Tasting Tour

July 5,6 Wine Down the Music Trail

July 12, Horse & Hound Festival (Preethi's favorite)

August 2,3 Son of Blue Ridge Tasting Tour

August 9 MicroFestivus

October 11-12, Garlic Festival

Update on the Darth Mauling

2008-05-13T17:16:00.003-04:00

Following up on this post, Arwel Wynne (dressed as Darth Vader) avoided jail time for his assault on the founder of the Jedi Religion in the UK. I assume using his amazing mind powers.

Also of note from the article:

In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 people - 0.7 per cent of the
population - listed Jedi as their religion.

They are not alone - 20,000 Canadians also listed their religion as
Jedi in 2001.

Question: How many Flying Spaghetti Monster adherents in the US do you think there are? I've at least seen FSM "fish" on cars, but never any Jedi paraphenalia.

Payday Loans for Businesses

2008-05-10T12:21:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, I had a couple folks from a bank drop in for an unannounced visit.¹ They were partly there just for introductions, but were specifically interested in presenting a product of theirs where I could sell them my 30 or 45-day invoices to get cash sooner.

I instantly thought of the payday loan analogy (though said nothing along those lines) and found it interesting how successful products have a tendency of trying to seek out new markets.

1. Unannounced visits are always somewhat embarrassing as I'm not much of one for appearances when I'm working at my office. (think ratty t-shirt, even rattier jeans, and a 2-3 day beard) It saves me a little time every day, and I can get away with it because all of my customers are out-of-town.

Obama's secret imperialistic plans

2008-05-09T18:47:00.003-04:00

He let's the cat out of the bag - when Obama's President, there will be 57 states!

More than likely, he was just tired and meant to say 47 states. But I think this is the funniest campaign moment since the Huck-Chuck facts.

Update
1) I just found out that Chuck is in town tomorrow. (Liberty commencement speaker)

2) The jokes write themselves:
See, Obama, this is why you wear the flag on your lapel. If you're on the stump and forget how many states there are, just look down and count the stars.

No, there's not a unique flavor of ketchup for every state.

It turns out that it's not dead people voting that explains Cook county.

That's ok, Texas is really big. We can count it a few times.

After his most recent gaffe, Obama announced the newest member of his campaign - the Count.

Well Obama did say he was the candidate of change.

Silverman, Obama, Clinton mashup

2008-05-04T07:34:00.002-04:00

It may not be appropriate for work, but when has that stopped me from linking?

Free Comic Book Day

2008-05-03T09:22:00.002-04:00

is today. You can find your nearest participating store here.

I missed out on cone day (there's not a B&J in Lynchburg and even the Blacksburg store wasn't participating this year).

In Da Jeopardy pool

2008-04-27T16:44:00.003-04:00

I have nearly completed the academic competition hajj.¹ Today I got entered into the contestant pool for Jeopardy. Ken Jennings willing, I'll get selected for a taping sometime later this year, which I won't be able to tell anyone anything interesting about until 3 months after the taping (when it airs).

So if I get on, Polyscifi will be 2 for 4. Matt, Jeremy - come on slackers, you're holding down the blog average. ;)

A little background - Jeopardy held an open audition in Charlottesville as part of its "Brain Bus" tour yesterday from 5-7. Preethi heard about it on the radio on the way home from a doggy agility competition; told me at 3; we booked it up to Charlottesville. I passed the 10 question intro test yesterday, and then passed the 50 question test today and took part in the mock game (I think I won my group which is pretty good as I was matched up against a $500k winner from Millionaire and a Jeopardy contestant from before Trebek).

Random comments:

Can't say anything about the question content, so don't ask.
This was my first time to try out.
Contra what I've heard from others, I got the impression that getting all 50 right wouldn't hurt you (I think I missed 2).
I think the mock game peformance (particularly stage presence) was probably the most important aspect. I think I did well at that (I have lots of amusing stories, some of which actually don't involve alcohol).
Several folks showed up today in t-shirts and jeans when the instructions asked you to dress as you would for a taping. (typical Jeopardy attire is quasi-business formal) I mean, you're asking these guys to put you on TV for a chance to win 10's of thousands of dollars, the least you can do is put on the monkey suit for a couple hours.
A guy there (not a Jeopardy official) said there's typically about 1,000 in the pool and 400 play during the year. 400 sounds about right to me (that's about 40 weeks worth), so I think it's representative of my odds of appearing.

Footnote:

1. Do you think Alex would appreciate it if I circled him seven times, threw some rocks at Johnny Gilbert, all the while praising Ken Jennings? I'm not shaving my head afterwards though. I'll be bald soon enough and there's no need to hurry it along.

The conservative in me

2008-04-08T20:00:00.003-04:00

was just appalled to see a National Guard recruiting ad in all Spanish....

The libertarian in me says, you go where the market is....

I'm going to go eat some late-night Frosted Mini Wheats.

Academic Awesomeness

2008-04-08T19:52:00.001-04:00

I think this ranks up there with PhD Comics. (h/t mankiw)

Stronger from ticoneva on Vimeo.

Polyscifi Bracket Results

2008-04-08T10:27:00.002-04:00

First: Steven (Hungarian Horntail) 147 points (Kansas)
Second: David (Kelvin's 3-way winner) 133 points (Kansas)
Third: Nick (xthecritic) 91 points (UCLA)

I was ninth (out of 11) with 69 points - a score somehow appropriate for my entry name (Client #2). The maximum possible was 32x6 = 192.

On the phone with the IRS

2008-04-07T10:48:00.003-04:00

I knew I had a complicated tax question to answer (reason numero uno I would prefer a consumption tax to an income tax - a consumption tax is soooo much simpler), but I've now been kicked up the IRS response chain ~~two~~ three times when the representatives had no idea how to answer my question.

While complicated to answer, it's pretty easy question to state - I have a sole proprietership with a couple employees¹ from which I also paid myself wages. I filed W2s on all my employees (including me). Given that I have a W2 on my wages from my sole proprietership, should the wages paid to me be reported on the main 1040 form or on the Schedule C (business)?

What makes it complicated is as a sole-proprietership, I'm apparently not supposed to file a W2 on wages I pay to myself and that really screws up the IRS instructions.

*update*
Fourth person eventually (long phone call just to explain the issue) suggested I handle it exactly as I had done which is the following.

Report the W2 income on Line 7 of the 1040 (W2 income)
Report the wages paid to myself on line 26 of Sched C (business expense) and the company taxes paid on Sched C.

Darth Mauling

2008-04-04T20:30:00.002-04:00

If Star Wars had been set in the real world, this is what would've happened between Episodes III and IV.

Jedi Master Jonba Hehol - known to family and friends as Barney Jones, 36,
of Holyhead - was giving a TV interview in his back garden for a documentary
when a man, dressed in a black bin-bag and wearing Darth Vader's trademark shiny
black helmet, leapt over his garden fence.

Wielding a metal crutch - his lightsaber presumably being in for repairs -
the Sith Lord proceeded to lay about his opponent, whose Jedi powers proved
inadequate for the task of defending himself.

This is why bans on light sabers are so counter-productive. It disarms the innocent Jedi while the Sith arm themselves with crutches.

Why I'll be one the first up against the wall when the revolution comes

2008-04-03T10:09:00.003-04:00

I remember too much.

Like this earlier study from 2002 which "proved" exactly the same thing as this more recent study. Both claim that there's been no scientific study that recommends 8 glasses of water a day and no recommendation by any governmental body to that effect (that's how ABC read it last night).

Except while googling down the memory hole today (a problem with remembering things that everyone else seems to have forgotten is you're always wondering if you're going crazy), I stumbed across this (pdf).

For adults whose energy expenditure and environmental exposure are average, the
Food and Nutrition Board recommends 1 ml of water per kilocalorie expenditure
(or, at 237 ml per eight fluid ounces, 4.2 glasses per 1,000 kilocalories) as a
general guideline for total water consumption.

Hmmm. On a 2,000 kilocalorie diet, that's about 8 glasses of water per day.

(FYI, that's referenced to "2. National Research Council. 1989. Food and Nutrition Board. National Academy of Science, National Academy Press, Washington, DC.")

Bracket madness

2008-03-14T19:09:00.001-04:00

Yahoo info (you know what to do)

League ID# 62470
Group Name: Polyscifi
Password: polyscifi

Random business related news

2008-03-12T21:21:00.002-04:00

Got cold-emailed today by a Sandhill road VC firm (that's a wiki link explaining the significance, not a link to the actual firm) asking for a phone call. It's a bit before I was planning on traveling that circuit, but it never hurts to talk and it's cool that they sought me out as typically it's the company that contacts the VC.

I view this as the result of a) doing an insanely good job of establishing a web presence (free ice cream = links = top of google search results; FYI the company blog gets more real traffic than polyscifi did when we were blogging regularly), b) being a *very* early market entrant in the field that will dominate wireless R&D for the forseeable future (i.e., until the Singularity).

Perhaps a very useful stick for Obama to use

2008-03-11T15:25:00.002-04:00

If the following is true: "[Hillary] did not have a security clearance," then Obama (and the press) should beat her with it until she cries uncle. Without a clearance, there is no legal way she could've participated in the kinds of things she implies in the 3 AM phone call ad (national security deliberations, briefings).

If true and she persists in claiming to have greater experience than Obama by virtue of being a former First Lady, then by virtue of holding herself out as a potential Commander-in-Chief, she should have to disclose who illegally disclosed classified information to her so those people can a) be fired and b) have their clearances revoked, at the least.

In my mind, the only way this shouldn't end the Hillary campaign (which viz a viz Obama rests on a claim of greater national security experience) is if the claim that she had no clearance turns out to be false.

In which I agree with George McGovern

2008-03-07T09:57:00.004-05:00

In fact, every single word of this editorial.

It's basic theme is that protecting people from themselves is generally a bad idea for the feds because one-size-fits-all is inherently less efficient than what results when you let people choose for themselves and also be personally responsible for the outcomes that come from those choices.

Now I have to vote for McCain

2008-02-28T09:23:00.002-05:00

as a vote against Obama and I'm not happy about it. Certainly the patriotic corporations act had a role in that decision, but it's really a decision I made after seeing Obama lay out specifics on his national defense policy in this video.

Some quick notes.
1. Contra my prior assertion that Obama wasn't being very specific in his speeches, this is pretty specific. So maybe he's getting more specific as part of wrapping up the nomination, in response to general criticisms, or he's been specific all along and it just hasn't gotten play on the news. I'm leaning to the latter as this is a four-month old speech.

2. The reason I saw it today is apparently members of the Hillary camp are pushing it. Interesting angle.

3. The full speech is here and the excerpt is basically 80% of the full speech and just excludes an anti-not-our-side-special interests promise (this is basically what everyone means when they rail against special interests - interests they agree with, like Obama and unions, are not "special", they're representative of broader interests), so it's in context.

4. Contra Geraghty (where I saw this today), I'm pretty certain that Obama's reference to cutting back funding to "future combat systems" is actually in reference to "Future Combat Systems" - a major DoD initiative to integrate networked sensors and unmanned vehicles/robots into combat forces. There's already been cuts to FCS due to Iraq having a higher funding priority (though UAVs, UGVs and sensors have been critical in diminishing the effectiveness of IEDs - the most significant threat to our troops in Iraq). In light of Obama's stated plans to pull out of Iraq, I think this is not aimed at FCS as a specific program (JTRS would be a better program to scrap and retool [again]), but rather as part of the larger Obama plan to cut the size of the military and disarm in general.

Democrats for the FairTax

2008-02-25T08:55:00.002-05:00

Here - it's argued along the lines of soak the rich (wealth, not income) / help the poor (eliminate payroll taxes), which is unfortunate from my perspective (don't like the group-oriented mindset as opposed to the individual / institution mindset), but I've long thought the FairTax was a no-brainer for Democrats (eliminate payroll taxes + tax wealth) and Republicans (improve economic efficiency).

Side note - if you think you'll get a lot of tax avoidance under the FairTax because of its high rate (23 or 30% depending on your perspective), consider a self-employed person who pays income taxes at 35 (fed income) + ~7.65 (ss + med) + 5 (state income) = 47.65%. Not naming names, but they just might now make as many things as possible a business expense and be actively looking for as many ways as possible to shelter income (see the SEP, for instance - up to $45,000 annual tax free contribution - yeah, tax free savings / Red Stripe, boo inefficient lock-in effects).

That hypothetical person might currently be legally avoiding maybe half of his taxes and thus would likely pay more under the FairTax, but recognizes that under an income tax his decisions are being made horribly inefficiently (ceteris paribus, but approximately optimal given the tax structure), that he's losing an insane amount of time on adminitrivia¹, and doesn't like the massive privacy invasion inherent to an income tax.

Footnote
1. For a practical example of adminitrivia time, my company had 7 "sales" last year (engineering services go for a smidge higher than retail), but 500ish billable expenses. I have to keep track of both expenses and sales under the current tax system, but only sales under the FairTax. Which do you think takes more time? (Hint, I lose a 1-2 hours a week accounting for expenses, but lost maybe 3.5 hours all year accounting for sales). Add in my tax compliance cost inherent to interfacing with an intruisive government, and a *lot* of time gets lost (one of the reasons I blog less than I used to, and have a bad habit of leaving posts unfinished).

Note that even companies which have more sales than expenses are not made worse off time-wise, and most of those kinds of companies are retailers who are already implementing sales taxes.

2. Contra-Boortz I don't expect the reduction in embedded taxes to be enough of an offset to fully compensate those living off of their wealth - e.g., seniors. But I think that can be best handled in other ways, like modifying the SS payout.

Collectivism and fascism/Fascism

2008-02-19T08:27:00.002-05:00

*Warning post in progress*
I'm posting this half completed because a) I have work to do, b) I think this could turn into a nice little essay and feedback in progress could be useful, c) it really forces me to eventually finish writing this, d) I can. Concepts likely won't change, but formatting and wording definitely will.

In the comments to a post below, Matt wonders if I really mean Collectivism when I speak of fascism and gives his definition of fascism (what I would term Fascism).

I think they're all similar and highly related, and because I think it's an interesting distinction, I'm writing a post on it. (What else is blogging but intellectual onanism after all?¹)

Let's begin with definitions.

Collectivism: the theory and practice that makes some sort of group rather than the individual the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern.

A later definition on that same page says

collectivism ... treats society as if it were a super-organism existing over and
above its individual members, and which takes the collective in some form (e.g.,
tribe, race, or state) to be the primary unit of reality and standard of value

Matt cites a workable wiki checklist definition of Fascism (recall I'm using Fascism to refer to the system of government and fascism to the philosophy)

Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: patriotism, nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, corporatism, populism, collectivism, autocracy and opposition to political and economic liberalism.

Previously I defined fascism as

the belief that the individual is subordinate to the interests of the collective.

in contrast with Fascism as

an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state, party or society as a whole.

Individualism, definition 1 (differentiate from classical liberalism???)

the theory and practice that makes *the individual* the fundamental unit of
political, social, and economic concern

Individualism, definition 2

the interests of the individual should trump the interests of the collective

collectivism vs individualism
The key concept to collectivism is that the only entities endowed with "agency" in a meaningful sense are groups, not individuals. The opposite end of the spectrum would be individualism (def 1) wherein the only entities endowed with agency are individuals.

In practice the world is a mix of collectives and individuals. Examples of collectives include firms, voting blocs, alliances, and cartels. Because collectives are comprised of individuals, they tend to break down over time as individual interests diverge.

collectivism vs fascism

(Or fascism: group > individual; collectivism: individuals don't exist in the calculus)
or collectivism is the envisioned end state of fascism

fascism vs Fascism
Fascism is fascism where the collective is the nation-state. Matt's / wiki's list of nationalism, patriotism, statism/totalitarianism, and opposition to political / economic liberalism all directly flow from making the prioritized collective the nation-state (with statism and totalitarianism just affecting the # of spheres for which the nation-state is prioritized over the individual). National collectivism is of course the goal of Fascism. Populism (fascism where the group is "the people") comes from the nation part of nation-state, though is strictly not necessary for Fascism (but very useful for reasonably homogeneous states).

The link between Corporatism (fascism where the groups are corporations) and Fascism is an accident of history not central to the concept of Fascism. Likewise for anti-communism and autocracy - see Oceania² for an example of a Fascist state that is neither anti-communist nor autocratic nor corporatist (and I guess it wasn't really populist either).

individualism vs Liberalism
Liberalism is a system of government/set of institutions which promotes individualism (def 2). However, by creating these institutions, liberalism creates a society where individualism (def 1) doesn't hold (as the institutions must retain some agency to be effective).

Footnotes
1. Ok blogging is lots of things for lots of people, but I'm all about the onanism, baby!

2. I know that 1984 is really a warning about Communism (fascism where the group is the Proletariat), but as presented in 1984, Oceania cleaves³ more closely to my definition of Fascism (fascism where the group is the nation-state) than to Communism. Of course that Communism could morph into Fascism (see Stalin) shouldn't be a surprise to anyone working from my definitions of Communism, Fascism, and fascism.

3. Don't you love words like "cleave" which mean opposite things depending on the context?

Futility Vote

2008-02-12T13:31:00.000-05:00

Just voted for Fred. In related news, spitting in the ocean was recently found to have a negligible effect on sea levels.

Update
But when you spit on the sidewalk, it's really easy to see. I was one of two voters for Fred in my precinct (scroll down to precinct 402 - TJ elementary went FT 2, JM 115, MH 244, MR 3, RP 11, RG 2). Preethi thinks my neighbor was the other one. I'll ask her next time I see her.

Update 2
Nope. She didn't. Almost did though. It'll remain a mystery.

Obama, fascist Everyman

2008-02-08T09:42:00.000-05:00

Ilya has a post up on Volokh wondering why Obama's appeal to unity is resonating so well.

One of Barack Obama's major campaign themes is the promise that he will "unite" America. Obama is an incredibly skillfull campaigner, so I must assume that he wouldn't be pushing this trope unless there were good reason to believe that it works. Of course, Obama is far from the only politician to promise unity. Remember when George W. Bush promised that he would be a "uniter, not a divider"? That was a fairly successful campaign theme too.

This emphasis on unity for its own sake seems misplaced. After all, unity is really valuable only if we are united in doing the right thing. Being united in doing the wrong thing is surely worse than being divided, if only because division reduces the
likelihood of the harmful policies being enacted. And even if the policies proposed by the would-be "uniter" really are beneficial, it's not clear why broad unity in support of them is preferable to just having enough votes to get them passed.

He seems to come close to saying it, but then backs away. So I will.

I think it works because most people have a fascist streak. (I actually believe "people have a fascist streak"; "most" is just a weasel word. If you're insistent on claiming that you have no fascist impulses, feel free to exclude yourself from the rest of society, you enemy of the state.)

Before we go any further, let's carefully define fascism. Wikipedia defines Fascism as:

an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state, party or society as a whole.

As a more general definition (so we can move beyond the purely political spheres), I'll define fascism (note change in capitalization) as

the belief that the individual is subordinate to the interests of the collective.

I think you can see how wiki's definition of Fascism is just my defintion of fascism applied to the political sphere.

Even though I'm a libertarian, I can conceive of situations where the collective should trump the individual, actions during the heat of battle being the most prominent example with any situation which is significantly complex and dependent on coordinated action potentially being an attractive candidate for fascism.

Even though individualism (which I'll define as the opposite of fascism - the interests of the individual should trump the interests of the collective) is a core value of the US (and people in general), so is fascism. The notion that the individual is subordinate to the collective has occured throughout US history even at our inception (see "United we stand, divided we fall." which was a fascist argument applied to the states) and obviously occuring during times of war. This also occurs in boardrooms where great value is placed on "reaching a consensus" and a lot in our every day life (see team sports and family activities). And of course it occurs in the political realm as well ("We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" or the various implied sentiments of if you don't do X you're not a patriot/the terrorists will win). While those last two examples may not be indicative of the value of fascism, there are so many situations where the fascist belief is beneficial because coordinated action is actually preferable to individual action that I think it's reasonable to assume that a predisposition towards fascism has been bred into us from fascist tribes outbreeding / killing off individualistic tribes.

So what's the deal with fascism then? Why is it such a loaded word that I'm certain Godwin's law will hold in the comments? In my mind, fascism only works when its degree and implementation are properly tailored to the spheres in which it is being applied/considered and when this isn't done, really bad things happen.

To consider when fascism might make sense, I think one should address the following issues:

How much more is consensus valued over individualism (valuing the individual over the collective)? There's benefits and costs associated with both.
To what spheres of life should this principle apply?
What to do with those who oppose consensus?
At what level of consensus does unity become more valuable than individualism?

On implementation/degree issues with fascisms, consider various past mechanisms for dealing with those who oppose consensus. Execution is certainly used, but is almost always excessive (I think that execution can make sense on a battlefield when it's literally a matter of life or death) as well as ostracism (which was more severe when actual ostraka were used). I'm a big believer in the value of shame (or "churching" to a Baptist) so I at least think there are situations and mechanisms acceptable for enforcing community over individual. Of course there's excessive situations and mechanisms as well (think pogroms or most cliqueish behavior). So a key problem of fascism is that enforcement mechanisms need to be carefully tailored so the value of unity is not outweighed by the costs incurred by punishing those who deviate from the community.

Imperfect information is also a problem. By this I'm generally referring to situations where it is difficult to assess if the person being punished actually worked against the collective will. Imperfect information strongly impacts the efficacy of enforcement as erroneously assigning punishments can outweigh the fascist benefits and can even break down the entire collective if done erroneously enough (oddly enough, this was a topic in my dissertation, but as applied to punishment schemes to get individual radios to act in the interests of the network). Imperfect information is a key reason why we discourage vigilantism. As the world is always a noisy imperfect place, it is important to ensure that punishment is appropriately matched to the scenario (e.g., battlefield versus wearing the right clothes to school) and to the level of certainty.

Likewise there are certain spheres where it's just impossible to apply fascist enforcement mechanisms in a way that don't outweigh the benefits and spheres where consensus holds no intrinsic value. For instance, I think the fascist calculus is impossible in the economic sphere as people's utility functions are time-varying and not well known to themselves and there's just way to many interactions to manage and too much highly localized information. This is why collective decisions about the economy inevitably underperform individual decisions - the sphere simply does not have enough quality information to make intelligent decisions that the entire populace should conform to.

An example of a sphere where consensus holds no intrinsic value is science where what should matter is what models/theories make verifiably correct predictions, not how many people believe X to be true. (This is why I'm am completely unpersuaded by "consensus" in the AGW debate. FYI, we've come down from having much more sea ice than normal and have about leveled out at the average line for the last few weeks. Also note that there's no particular value to individualism either in science.) You can quickly conceive of numerous other places where unity holds little to no particular value (e.g., dress, sexual mores) where the default position should be one of individualism (actually I think the default position should always be individualism barring a very compelling case for fascism, but then again, I'm a libertarian).

So when Obama makes calls for unity, it is not surprising that it resonates with people because at its heart its a call for fascism (unity over division; collective over individual) and we're all fascists and there's lots of situations where fascism makes sense. Conservatives are fascists; liberals are fascists; and to a certain extent so are libertarians. Pretty much only anarcho-capitalists are not fascists - but even them I'm not so certain as the ones I've met have seemed at the least cliqueish. So we all exhibit certain fascist sympathies though the spheres of application and mechanisms for implementation vary from person to person.

However, as Ilya points out, Obama is not unusual in his calls for unity, so why has he been so successful in his calls for unity? In my opinion, Obama's relative success, is due in part (he's also a hell of a speaker) to his lack of specifics (at least on the stump). By avoiding specifics, each person assumes that the unity being called for is the specific unity they crave in the sphere in which they hold fascist tendencies and that this unity will be enforced via the mechanisms they think are appropriate. Because of this, Obama is a fascist Everyman while the remaining candidates are just fascists.

How I hate the govt part N

2008-01-25T11:19:00.001-05:00

Just spent 40 minutes on hold to register my business with the Social Security registration so I could file my annual W2s. Turns out that the registration webpage is wrong and I should not register first over the phone. It should all be done online, so there's an hour lost.

After about a week, I can expect to get an ID mailed to my home address (?!?!? why not business address???) at which point I can actually file my company's W2 information. At least when I got a Federal Tax Payer ID, they read off my assigned number to me over the phone (an official form showed up a week later).

Quick summary - if you think filing a 1040 is a gigantic time suck (which I still have to do, cept this year it'll be more complicated), keep in mind I've lost at least a couple weeks in 2007 filing my business's state/federal taxes between all the registrations (one for Fed unemployment, one for Federal withholding, one for federal deposit online, one for a federal ID, one for Fed W2 statements, one for a state ID, one for a state unemployment ID, one for online state payments) and payments (about 1/2 day each month for calculating deposits - each employee has different rules because of Fed classifications - and I don't just mean different formulas), and a 1/2 day every quarter to file reports. That's not counting the time lost to read the hundreds of pages of tax regulations which apply and the day I lost to city taxes (had to go downtown). Sure next year should be shorter, so maybe I'll only lose 1.5 weeks.

Update
I'm still trying to send in the fax as the number I was given by the website appears to be inoperable. Back on hold with SS. Wheee.... A half day already gone just trying to register so I can give the government the information it requires me to by force.

Update2
Got ahold of a different lady who listened to me complain about taking all day to try and register. 2 minutes later - I was signed up, which is how long I thought it should've taken. Now I just have an hour of accounting work ahead of me to actually fill out the reports....

In the local paper from a planning meeting

2008-01-24T07:58:00.000-05:00

I'm "quoted" in today's News and Advance (that's the Lynchburg paper) lead article.

My actual points for which I'm being "quoted" (Among other things, I said "vetted" not "imbedded"; embedded doesn't even make sense in the context.) were responses to the argument that the townhouses would make the neighborhood unsafe because of the planned occupants (H2B workers) and their proximity to local schools by saying this didn't make sense because:

These same tenants are already living in townhouses closer to schools (like my townhouse development) and the commission had approved a larger townhouse complex in the same vicinity (perhaps closer to the schools) just minutes before where these same tenants would likely be located if this development were not approved and nary a peep on the subject of safety (with regard to tenants) was raised.
Unlike typical tenants, they've had background checks performed on them as part of the H2B process which means, ceteris paribus, they're safer than a typical tenant and certainly far preferable to illegal immigrants (on whom no check is performed) with whom I felt the tenants were erroneously conflated.

I had a few other points (and Preethi commented too) and I found the experience interesting, so I'll post more on last night's planning commission meeting later tonight.

Also for the record, while the meeting took on a very racial undercurrent, I thought the complaints were primarily borne out of NIMBYism and not racism.

Sitemeter amusement

2008-01-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

A little bit ago there was a visitor to my company's website from menloventures. I read this as

men love ntures

and thought "hmmm... must've been a robot from a gay porn nature website... I knew the blog got those, but didn't think the main site did too..."

Then the light went on...

South Carolina Fall Out (Updated)

2008-01-20T14:05:00.001-05:00

Based on his speech last night, it looks like Fred is going to be out soon. I don't see much difference between the remaining candidates (I'm still discounting Paul) and the Democrat candidates. So I don't know who I'll end up supporting. Maybe this guy.

Update
I've changed my mind (in a very short period). If I'm voting for someone who has no chance to win, I might as well vote for my first choice.

So F it. I'm still voting for Fred.

Voter ID Amusement

2008-01-10T09:03:00.000-05:00

Via QandO comes this story. In brief, Indiana has a voter ID law. It's being challenged by the usual suspects and the US Supreme Court has is hearing the case.

To challenge a law in the court system, you generally need an aggrieved party (someone who claims they've been wronged) and in this case it's Faye Buis-Ewing a 72-yr old woman who showed up to vote in Indiana in 2006, but was not allowed to vote because she did not have proper ID (though under the law she did get to vote provisionally). Here's the nut graphs from the article.

On the eve of a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Indiana Voter ID law has become a story with a twist: One of the individuals used by opponents to the law as an example of how the law hurts older Hoosiers is registered to vote in two states.
Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year
resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also claimed two states
as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property
taxes in both states.

Monday night from her Florida home, Ewing said she and her husband Kenneth
“winter in Florida and summer in Indiana.” She admitted to registering to vote
in both states, but stressed that she¹s never voted in Florida. She also has a
Florida driver’s license, but when she tried to use it as her photo ID in the
Indiana elections in November 2006, poll workers wouldn’t accept it.
...
According to Ewing and Ann Nucatola, public information director for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Ewing surrendered her Indiana driver's license in 2000, when she moved to Florida and obtained her Florida license. Nucatola said that a driver must have a Florida address to obtain a Florida driver's license.
Ewing confirmed that she is registered in both states to vote, but at first said the Florida registration came automatically with her driver’s license. She repeatedly denied signing the oath on the Florida application. She also said Indiana mailed her an absentee ballot, but she didn’t use it or vote that year.
However, Heather Maddox, co-director of election registration in Tippecanoe County, said Ewing voted in Indiana in 2002, 2003 and 2004, before the Indiana ID law took effect in 2005. When informed that the Florida voter office said she’d registered personally in 2002 for a Florida voter card, and that this newspaper had a copy of her application, Ewing said, “Well, why did I do that? I'm confused. I can’t recall.” She reiterated that, even though she’s registered in two states, she only votes in Indiana, adding that she does have a car plated in Florida.
...
A check with Charlotte County, Fla.’s online property tax records shows that Ewing owns property there. One requirement in Florida to claim homestead [ed - this gives residents a break on property taxes] is to show a valid voter ID or sign an affidavit of residency – which she did when she applied for her voter card there. She claimed a homestead exemption on the Florida property in 2003 – the same time she was claiming a homestead exemption on property she owned in Indiana, according to Tippecanoe deputy auditor Heather Satler. Satler said that Ewing’s Indiana exemption began in 1994 and ended in 2004, when the exemption was removed because the state discovered she wasn't living there.

So in short, by requiring proper ID to vote, it was discovered that Faye was engaging in voter fraud (by simultaneously registering in two states) and tax fraud (by claiming to locations as her primary residence to receive tax benefits for two properties). I can't imagine a less sympathetic plaintiff and I can't believe the legal team didn't exclude her because she obliterates the argument that there's no compelling state interest for the law.

Making the Boston media

2008-01-04T12:52:00.000-05:00

h/t to Big Jeremy, who runs Jeremy's Status Message. Surf on over and check it out - it's a good read.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/01/state_house_aid.html

Speaking personally, Dan's a good guy and a good champion. He'll do well come Tournament of Champions time.

Thason will be on TV

2007-12-28T09:04:00.000-05:00

For those interested in seeing polyscifi co-blogger Thason in action, he'll be on Jeopardy next week starting on the 3rd (for longer than just the 3rd? Who knows? Tune in to find out.) Check your local listings for show times, cause I'm not checking them for you unless you live in Lynchburg. And for the VT alums in the Lynchburg area, don't worry, Jeopardy (7:30-8:00 on CBS) ends before the Orange Bowl begins.

Hopefully, you'll be able to quickly figure out who Thason is on the show as "Thason Jweatt" is a (really bad) pseudonym. If you want a little help, his hometown howdy is here (link is only good for this week)

It must be global cooling

2007-12-28T07:59:00.000-05:00

A little bit ago when I tangentially commented¹ that I think global warming catastrophism is a Marxist scam, commentors pointed to the shrinking ice caps². For those who belief in global warming is strongly influenced by the media's sensationalist coverage of the northern ice melt, let me point out a little fact (an inconvenient truth?).

Right now, we have significantly more global sea ice than is normal for this time of year. Globally, we're a full 1 million square km of sea ice above where we should typically be this time of year.

Here's the complete satellite trend (from 1979). (both graphics originally from here)

It's not the all-time highest deviation above normal for global sea ice. But it is the largest positive deviation from the daily norm since 2003 and completely undoes the preceding (and much-hyped) negative trend. Sure it's just a temporary fluctuation and we'll likely be back down to normal levels in a few months, but if global sea ice can rebound so far so fast, it seems to me that the large negative deviation earlier this year wasn't such a big deal.

Who wants to bet on this year's relative peak in the global sea ice anomaly getting similar coverage in the nightly news media as this year's relative trough?

Footnotes:
1. The main points of that post was how undeserving of a subject matter global warming was for a Nobel Peace Prize (not that I hold the award in that high of esteem) and how undeserving Gore was in particular.
2. As I noted at the time, the Southern ice cap was significantly larger than normal while the Northern ice cap was indeed much smaller. Thus saying "polar" ice caps were at an all time low was misleading.

Another reason for me to vote libertarian next year

2007-12-12T12:46:00.001-05:00

At the moment it looks like Chuck-Norris approved Mike Huckabee will be the Republican nominee. While I like the FairTax, there's too much else wrong with Huckabee for me to vote for him regardless of the Democrat candidate. Here's today's gaffe...

I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption
and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in
this country within a decade, bold as that is.

With Bush's malaprops, I generally knew what he meant, but... wow... entropy economy here we come.

Something got lost in the poll

2007-11-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

So I took this quiz which has been bouncing around the net, and it says Mitt's my man with Ron Paul in second (see below), which I guess does a decent first-order job of reflecting my views except that Mitt's signature governing accomplishment is RomneyCare which I think is an abomination. But where's Fred? or Richardson? or Biden? or Huckabee? Did they pop up for anyone else taking the test?

I think leaving off Huck is a big mistake. I mean just wait until Chuck Norris and Ric Flair get wind of this. Wooooo.

Ultimate 2008 Presidential Candidate Matcher Your Result: Mitt Romney Mitt Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, where he was known as a centrist. He reformed the state healthcare system, and would pursue reforms at the national level as well. Romney supports oil drilling in Alaska, but also alternative energy sources. He claims to be conservative on issues like abortion and gay civil unions, and he supports the Iraq war. Romney supports fair trade, as well as a greater focus on math and science in our schools.
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