The Atlantic reports These Amazing Injections Can Actually Repair Scarred Heart Tissue.
"Earlier this year, it was shown that some of the damage caused by a heart attack could be repaired by giving patients an injection of their own stem cells. Now, researchers from Duke University have done the same by injecting tiny molecules of RNA known as microRNAs."
"They then tested this combination on mice with damaged hearts and found that much of the scar tissue was converted into tissue that seems indistinguishable from normal heart muscle. The study did not test the ability of this change to restore heart function back to its pre-damage level."
Monday, June 18, 2012
Walter Lewin Lecture Series
I can't find a good page for this but starting next Monday, June 25, famed MIT physics professor Walter Lewin is giving a series of eight physics lectures, free and open to the public. They are Monday and Friday at 11am on MIT's campus. The topics are:
Gravity, Pendulums and the Conservation of Energy
Trajectories in Moving and Accelerated Reference Frames
The Wonders of Electricity and Magnetism
Super High-Voltage - Why is the Sky Blue, Why are the Clouds White and Why are Sunsets Red?
The Hidden Beauty of Rainbows
Resonance and the Sounds of Music
Quantization and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
The Birth and Death of Stars
Gravity, Pendulums and the Conservation of Energy
Trajectories in Moving and Accelerated Reference Frames
The Wonders of Electricity and Magnetism
Super High-Voltage - Why is the Sky Blue, Why are the Clouds White and Why are Sunsets Red?
The Hidden Beauty of Rainbows
Resonance and the Sounds of Music
Quantization and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
The Birth and Death of Stars
Friday, June 15, 2012
'Moneyball' Godfather Bill James Tackles Politics In Super PAC Age
'Moneyball' Godfather Bill James Tackles Politics In Super PAC Age is really interesting and long Huffington Post piece.
"A political candidate being dramatically outspent by his opponent has few options. He can pin his hopes on a strong debate performance, dig up dirt on the opposition, or cut a particularly buzz-worthy television ad. Or he can do what other industries, led by Major League Baseball, have done before: worship at the altar of Bill James."
""If you're outspent in a campaign, what you absolutely cannot do is start a pissing contest, pardon my French," James wrote in an email. "If you're outspent and you start talking about your opponent being corrupt and senile, you're in BIG trouble, because he's got a lot more guns than you have." Instead of going negative, he advised, a candidate should do the exact opposite. "Talk about your opponent in the nicest terms that you CAN, in order to take certain weapons away from him," James wrote. "If you're speaking well of your opponent and your opponent is savaging you, there is a chance he comes off looking like an ass and you can win the election." Beyond that, James suggested a candidate run on a platform distinct from either major party (anti-drug war, pro-gay rights). Or a candidate could obsess over an issue completely off the beaten path. As an example, he highlighted deer-related car crashes in his home state of Kansas. "No one talks about people hitting deer with their cars as a political issue, but in Kansas" it could work, he said."
I didn't know that Rick Perry ran a sabermetrics like run for governor that succeeded and then obviously he failed miserably running for president. There are a few back and forth examples and there simply isn't enough data on what works in campaigns to be sure of strategies (either old or new). But I have to agree with the end:
"When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you -- period," he added. "You can't ultimately dodge defeat by winning close elections."
Ed Kilgore disagrees:
"Given partisan polarization, the relatively low number of true “independents” and of true “undecided voters” at the moment, and the relatively even strength of the two parties, the 2012 election may well be the equivalent of a game tied in the eight inning in old Forbes Field at the height of the dead-ball era. It’s a context where a one-run strategy—or in politics, a heavy emphasis on GOTV [Get Out The Vote] and voter mobilization generally—may make perfect sense if the alternative is sacrificing the maximum “base” vote to a high-cost, high-risk effort to persuade a tiny segment of swing voters. And that’s particularly true if the number or “persuadable” swing voters is unusually low—as Alan Abramowitz has shown is the case this year—and the characteristics that “persuadable” swing voters are looking for—a clear message, a “mainstream” agenda, and resistance to the opposition’s extremism—are the same as those necessary to mobilize “the base.”"
Sure, an election every four years (or even two) is very different than a season with 162 games, but I think if every time you try to just eek out a win without persuading some then it gets harder each year. Or for Obama, by eeking out wins on policy positions without persuading those in the middle to move a little bit (or those in the public that are undecided) then you just refight the same battle over and over without gaining any support or ammunition for the next fight.
"A political candidate being dramatically outspent by his opponent has few options. He can pin his hopes on a strong debate performance, dig up dirt on the opposition, or cut a particularly buzz-worthy television ad. Or he can do what other industries, led by Major League Baseball, have done before: worship at the altar of Bill James."
""If you're outspent in a campaign, what you absolutely cannot do is start a pissing contest, pardon my French," James wrote in an email. "If you're outspent and you start talking about your opponent being corrupt and senile, you're in BIG trouble, because he's got a lot more guns than you have." Instead of going negative, he advised, a candidate should do the exact opposite. "Talk about your opponent in the nicest terms that you CAN, in order to take certain weapons away from him," James wrote. "If you're speaking well of your opponent and your opponent is savaging you, there is a chance he comes off looking like an ass and you can win the election." Beyond that, James suggested a candidate run on a platform distinct from either major party (anti-drug war, pro-gay rights). Or a candidate could obsess over an issue completely off the beaten path. As an example, he highlighted deer-related car crashes in his home state of Kansas. "No one talks about people hitting deer with their cars as a political issue, but in Kansas" it could work, he said."
I didn't know that Rick Perry ran a sabermetrics like run for governor that succeeded and then obviously he failed miserably running for president. There are a few back and forth examples and there simply isn't enough data on what works in campaigns to be sure of strategies (either old or new). But I have to agree with the end:
"When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you -- period," he added. "You can't ultimately dodge defeat by winning close elections."
Ed Kilgore disagrees:
"Given partisan polarization, the relatively low number of true “independents” and of true “undecided voters” at the moment, and the relatively even strength of the two parties, the 2012 election may well be the equivalent of a game tied in the eight inning in old Forbes Field at the height of the dead-ball era. It’s a context where a one-run strategy—or in politics, a heavy emphasis on GOTV [Get Out The Vote] and voter mobilization generally—may make perfect sense if the alternative is sacrificing the maximum “base” vote to a high-cost, high-risk effort to persuade a tiny segment of swing voters. And that’s particularly true if the number or “persuadable” swing voters is unusually low—as Alan Abramowitz has shown is the case this year—and the characteristics that “persuadable” swing voters are looking for—a clear message, a “mainstream” agenda, and resistance to the opposition’s extremism—are the same as those necessary to mobilize “the base.”"
Sure, an election every four years (or even two) is very different than a season with 162 games, but I think if every time you try to just eek out a win without persuading some then it gets harder each year. Or for Obama, by eeking out wins on policy positions without persuading those in the middle to move a little bit (or those in the public that are undecided) then you just refight the same battle over and over without gaining any support or ammunition for the next fight.
The NY Times on Obama and Romney
So I thought the Remarks by the President on the Economy in Cleveland, OH the other day were pretty good. The New York Times didn't quite agree:
"President Obama sometimes forgets that an important speech does not have to be endless. On Thursday, appearing before supporters at a Cleveland community college, he spent 53 minutes on the stark contrast between his goals and the failed Bush-era policies that Mitt Romney is trying to resurrect. It’s hard to imagine that the speech, overgrown as it was with policy details, won the hearts of many independent voters yearning for a clear understanding of how much is at stake in November."
They went further and this is pretty remarkable for an editorial in a major paper to use this language:
"And it is there that Mr. Obama still has not made his case. Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites. The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.) The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.) Spending is out of control. (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents.) He says these kinds of things so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth. It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but-overlong speech."
They actually called out Romney for lying.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Times, Paul Krugman picked on a line that Romney said and then backed away from: We Don't Need No Education.
"In the remarks Mr. Romney later tried to deny, he derided President Obama: “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers.” Then he declared, “It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
You can see why I was ready to give points for honesty. For once, he actually admitted what he and his allies mean when they talk about shrinking government. Conservatives love to pretend that there are vast armies of government bureaucrats doing who knows what; in reality, a majority of government workers are employed providing either education (teachers) or public protection (police officers and firefighters)."
I thought the rest of piece was particularly good at providing some evidence based on our past and current European attempts to fix the economy.
"President Obama sometimes forgets that an important speech does not have to be endless. On Thursday, appearing before supporters at a Cleveland community college, he spent 53 minutes on the stark contrast between his goals and the failed Bush-era policies that Mitt Romney is trying to resurrect. It’s hard to imagine that the speech, overgrown as it was with policy details, won the hearts of many independent voters yearning for a clear understanding of how much is at stake in November."
They went further and this is pretty remarkable for an editorial in a major paper to use this language:
"And it is there that Mr. Obama still has not made his case. Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites. The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.) The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.) Spending is out of control. (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents.) He says these kinds of things so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth. It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but-overlong speech."
They actually called out Romney for lying.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Times, Paul Krugman picked on a line that Romney said and then backed away from: We Don't Need No Education.
"In the remarks Mr. Romney later tried to deny, he derided President Obama: “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers.” Then he declared, “It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
You can see why I was ready to give points for honesty. For once, he actually admitted what he and his allies mean when they talk about shrinking government. Conservatives love to pretend that there are vast armies of government bureaucrats doing who knows what; in reality, a majority of government workers are employed providing either education (teachers) or public protection (police officers and firefighters)."
I thought the rest of piece was particularly good at providing some evidence based on our past and current European attempts to fix the economy.
Doctors are using electronic records more - but liking them less
Sarah Kliff writes Doctors are using electronic records more - but liking them less. "The doctors in this survey thought that electronic health records interfere with patient care: When they spend more time looking at a computer they’re spending less time interacting with a patient. They have also become more skeptical that electronic record keeping will reduce errors or improve efficiency."
I'm not surprised. Based on the systems I've seen and heard friends talk about, they all suck. I once sat with my doctor trying to guess what a medical acronym stood for because the system she used only used the full name and not the commonly used abbreviation. Other systems look like old terminal interfaces or early Windows systems at best.
I'm not surprised. Based on the systems I've seen and heard friends talk about, they all suck. I once sat with my doctor trying to guess what a medical acronym stood for because the system she used only used the full name and not the commonly used abbreviation. Other systems look like old terminal interfaces or early Windows systems at best.
Do Nothing Congress
Ezra Klein wrote about The scariest sentence I’ve read today, ending with:
"Remember: The financial crisis also came a few months before a presidential election. In that case, the Obama campaign and congressional Democrats joined with the Bush administration to pass the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 and TARP. If similar cooperation is needed this year, is there any real chance that we'll get it?"
"Remember: The financial crisis also came a few months before a presidential election. In that case, the Obama campaign and congressional Democrats joined with the Bush administration to pass the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 and TARP. If similar cooperation is needed this year, is there any real chance that we'll get it?"
El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
Netflix : El Bulli: Cooking in Progress was one of my favorite films last year (I saw it at IFFBoston). It's now on Netflix streaming and DVD.
"Filmed over the course of one year, this appetizing documentary about the creation of Michelin-rated three-star cuisine shadows world-renowned chef Ferran Adrià as he plans and perfects a new menu from the privacy of his Barcelona cooking lab."
"Filmed over the course of one year, this appetizing documentary about the creation of Michelin-rated three-star cuisine shadows world-renowned chef Ferran Adrià as he plans and perfects a new menu from the privacy of his Barcelona cooking lab."
More Tantalizing Clues Oxytocin May Be an Effective Autism Treatment
More Tantalizing Clues Oxytocin May Be an Effective Autism Treatment "In the new study, the authors conducted a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, the gold standard of scientific research. The team gave half of a group of children aged 7-18 a single dose of a nasal spray containing oxytocin. The other half of the group received a placebo - a nasal spray with no active ingredient in it.
The brains of the children who had received the oxytocin showed that areas of the 'social brain,' were activated. These included the medial prefrontal cortex, the temporal parietal junction, the fusiform gyrus and the superior temporal sulcus, all areas involved in processing social information coming from sight, sounds, and cues from other people."
The brains of the children who had received the oxytocin showed that areas of the 'social brain,' were activated. These included the medial prefrontal cortex, the temporal parietal junction, the fusiform gyrus and the superior temporal sulcus, all areas involved in processing social information coming from sight, sounds, and cues from other people."
Ryan Lizza on a Second Term and Political Journalism
I haven't yet read Ryan Lizza's New Yorker piece What Would a Second Obama Term Bring?, but this interview with him was very good, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza: Twitter, Gaffe Obsession Creating ‘Crisis For Political Journalism’.
"So that’s the analogy that several people in the White House used. No, it’s not like conservatives are suddenly going to change their minds about anything. Since 2009, their strategy has been don’t cooperate, just defeat Obama in his reelection. Okay if that doesn’t work, what’s plan B? Plan B might be, because of this massive fiscal cliff, let’s get the best deal we can, Obama’s not going to get credit for it because he’s a lame duck now anyway. One person told me the optimal political circumstances are Obama is at the peak of his political powers and the Republicans knowing that, he would get the least political credit for a victory. You might have that if he wins. That’s the optimistic case. I think if you’re in the White House, you have to be somewhat optimistic. It’s not like they’re assuming that’s going to happen, that’s their sort of, you know, you’ve got to hope.
On the other side, conservatives may decide Romney was too moderate, the lesson of the election is he didn’t oppose Obama enough or he was too liberal. If you’re conservative, you can make the argument that Romney lost because he wasn’t conservative enough. And then you might think, all right, let’s stick to the same strategy we’ve been using the last few years."
Also...
"People genuinely do not think it is in their interest — both White House and campaign officials, both campaigns, it’s not a partisan thing at all, it’s Democrats and Republicans — they genuinely do not believe it’s in their interest to talk in an unguarded way. Because even if they trust you to get the context 100 percent right, it doesn’t matter, because they know that a liberal or conservative blog, or a campaign ad, will just grab something out of context and run with it and create some damaging meme. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and it’s worse now than it’s ever been. If you think about it from their perspective for a second, you can’t totally blame them. Lately I’ve realized it’s harder than it’s ever been, and these campaigns want to exercise complete and total message discipline."
"So that’s the analogy that several people in the White House used. No, it’s not like conservatives are suddenly going to change their minds about anything. Since 2009, their strategy has been don’t cooperate, just defeat Obama in his reelection. Okay if that doesn’t work, what’s plan B? Plan B might be, because of this massive fiscal cliff, let’s get the best deal we can, Obama’s not going to get credit for it because he’s a lame duck now anyway. One person told me the optimal political circumstances are Obama is at the peak of his political powers and the Republicans knowing that, he would get the least political credit for a victory. You might have that if he wins. That’s the optimistic case. I think if you’re in the White House, you have to be somewhat optimistic. It’s not like they’re assuming that’s going to happen, that’s their sort of, you know, you’ve got to hope.
On the other side, conservatives may decide Romney was too moderate, the lesson of the election is he didn’t oppose Obama enough or he was too liberal. If you’re conservative, you can make the argument that Romney lost because he wasn’t conservative enough. And then you might think, all right, let’s stick to the same strategy we’ve been using the last few years."
Also...
"People genuinely do not think it is in their interest — both White House and campaign officials, both campaigns, it’s not a partisan thing at all, it’s Democrats and Republicans — they genuinely do not believe it’s in their interest to talk in an unguarded way. Because even if they trust you to get the context 100 percent right, it doesn’t matter, because they know that a liberal or conservative blog, or a campaign ad, will just grab something out of context and run with it and create some damaging meme. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and it’s worse now than it’s ever been. If you think about it from their perspective for a second, you can’t totally blame them. Lately I’ve realized it’s harder than it’s ever been, and these campaigns want to exercise complete and total message discipline."
Thursday, June 14, 2012
A Theory on the Obama Campaign’s Messaging Problems
I found this very interesting A theory on the Obama campaign’s messaging problems. "The Obama campaign’s messaging might be what voters wanted to hear. In fact, given the campaign’s reliance on hard data, it’s almost surely what voters want to hear. But the Obama campaign wasn’t running experiments on how an elite backlash would change voter opinions . And now what voters are getting — at least if they’re tuned into political media — is an argument between the Obama campaign and those elites, which is not something they’re interested in hearing."
Colin Powell on Reagan
Colin Powell is making the rounds hawking his new book. He was on The Daily Show this week and this is the extended part of the interview (web only). Three stories about Reagan. I think I, like Jon, was not impressed.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
More Historic Photos From the NYC Municipal Archives
In Focus has More Historic Photos From the NYC Municipal Archives "One more look into the fascinating New York City Municipal Archives, and their recently-released database of over 870,000 photos throughout the 20th century, a follow-up to this earlier entry. Their subjects include daily life, construction, crime, city business, aerial photographs, and more. Today's selection from this remarkable collection includes numerous street scenes that are visible today through Google Maps Street Views, and links are provided to let you see the difference the years have made. [50 photos]"
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush
Bruce Bartlett: The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush puts the budget problems in perspective. It's a short piece that explains the major factors contributing to the deficit.
Monday, June 11, 2012
The Geography of Abortion
The Geography of Abortion does a great job with four maps. A single one would tell a simple story, but the four together reveal a narrative about a complex legal issue. Very well done.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Star Trails From the ISS
In addition to getting a shot of the transit of Venus from the International Space Station, astronaut Don Pettit has posted several amazing star trail photos. Here are just a few, the rest are in this flickr set.
Transit of Venus
Astronomy Pic of the Day found: " This dramatic telephoto view across the Black Sea on June 6 finds Venus rising with the Sun, the planet in silhouette against a ruddy and ragged solar disk. Of course, the reddened light is due to scattering in planet Earth's atmosphere and the rare transit of Venus didn't influence the strangely shaped and distorted Sun."
They also did a few others here and here.
The Big Picture has a great collection of photos:
As did In Focus:
And so did Universe Today:
And if you really can't get enough, there's a flickr pool, NASA Venus Transit Observing Challenge
NASA has a space telescope designed specifically to study the Sun and not surprisingly it had the most spectacular view and they made a video. This is the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit. "The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum. The red colored sun is the 304 angstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored sun is 171 angstrom, the magenta sun is 1700 angstrom, and the orange sun is filtered visible light. 304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum."
Astronaut Don Pettit watched the transit from the International Space Station.
Perhaps most amazing is that Thierry Legault not only photographed the transit of Venus but also a transit of the Hubble Space Telescope at the same time. The HST took 0.97 seconds to cross the sun and Legault got nine shots of it. The HST is circled in this composite image:
A friend of mine, the Honest Hypocrite brought a solarscope to Hawaii to watch the transit. He even made the paper.
They also did a few others here and here.
The Big Picture has a great collection of photos:
As did In Focus:
And so did Universe Today:
And if you really can't get enough, there's a flickr pool, NASA Venus Transit Observing Challenge
NASA has a space telescope designed specifically to study the Sun and not surprisingly it had the most spectacular view and they made a video. This is the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit. "The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum. The red colored sun is the 304 angstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored sun is 171 angstrom, the magenta sun is 1700 angstrom, and the orange sun is filtered visible light. 304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum."
Astronaut Don Pettit watched the transit from the International Space Station.
Perhaps most amazing is that Thierry Legault not only photographed the transit of Venus but also a transit of the Hubble Space Telescope at the same time. The HST took 0.97 seconds to cross the sun and Legault got nine shots of it. The HST is circled in this composite image:
A friend of mine, the Honest Hypocrite brought a solarscope to Hawaii to watch the transit. He even made the paper.
Friday, June 08, 2012
Obama Needs to Get a Message
I heard today how it wasn't a great week for Obama. The economy isn't doing well, Scott Walker won his recall election in Wisconsin, Romney raised more money than he did in May, Bill Clinton and Ed Rendell went off message and needed to apologize.
Whatever.
I think the problem is that so far, Obama has no message for this campaign. Now maybe it's not easy to come up with one, but that's the job. I know what the Republicans are for and to me it's crazy. They want to lower taxes, destroy all government programs except for the military, and revert progress on social issue 50 years. And they think this will help the economy but I'm sure it won't.
What's Obama's plan? Is he for more stimulus? I haven't heard that. He wants to extend the Bush tax cuts on those making under $250,000 or under $1 million, I'm not sure which, while letting them expire for those making more. That's fine, but it won't do much. I still can't figure out if Dodd-Frank actually regulates wall street or allows derivates to be regulated at all. I know that Obamacare will kick in any year now if the Supreme Court doesn't pull it at the end of the month. I also know he spends time in meetings figuring out which individuals on the side of the planet to kill, even if they're American citizens. And he's not mentioned the climate at all.
He needs to take a stand. He needs to say what's he for and explain how the Republicans are blocking things using unprecedented power grabs. I think he believes the problems with the economy are on the demand side and we need the government to be the spender of last resort, at least I hope so. And I wish he would be pursuing legislation to make that happen and pointing out when Republicans block that and not just spending time compromising all his positions and then taking the blame for the failures. Sure, compromise to get stuff passed, but ensure that what gets passed is what you want to take responsibility for.
Without that we get crap like this:
Obama Backs Away From ‘Fine’ Comment. He got pounced on for saying the private sector is fine. Well that's mostly true as most unemployment is from the public sector because we keep laying off teachers and police. Maybe we should stop that.
Bill Clinton apologizes for Bush tax cuts comments. Clinton said the Bush tax cuts should be extended and apparently Obama opposes that. I think we're now arguing about only on the wealthy, but why isn't this clear? We've only been debating this for a couple of years now.
Ed Rendell: Obama ‘hurt by being a legislator only’ before presidency. Rendell said when Obama started he was a weak executive and regarding significant legislation “too much of it was left up to the Congress”. Now I'm sure no one is prepared when they first become president and I'm also sure that leaving things, particularly healthcare, up to the Congress was deliberate because they didn't want to repeat Hilary's mistake in the 90s. But fine, claim it already. Say he tried to work with Congress but they aren't cooperating, here's exactly what he wants to see happen and let them describe something different if they want.
Now we're seeing crap like this in the New York Times, Lobby E-Mails Show Depth of Obama Ties to Drug Industry. As if it's news that Obama conceded reimportation to get big pharma's support. But now Republican's are jumping on it and at least the times quote Robert Reich having to say: " “Republicans trumpeting these e-mails is like a fox complaining someone else raided the chicken coop,” said Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “Sad to say, it’s called politics in an era when big corporations have an effective veto over major legislation affecting them and when the G.O.P. is usually the beneficiary. In this instance, the G.O.P. was outfoxed. Who are they to complain?”"
Now I get emails from the Obama campaign that say, Romney raised more money than us, "If you just want to cut to the chase, you can donate to Barack Obama now." Seriously? You're not even going to pretend to stand for something?
Both Obama and the Democratic National Committee avoided the recall election. There had to be a petition to get the DNC to spend money on the recall. Obama apparently wanted to stay above the fray. And what a surprise big money won.
Robert Scheer wrote Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin.
"Of course [the GOP] argument is a red herring. The budget crises of state and municipal governments were not brought on by excessive pay to firemen, cops and other civil servants, but rather by a banking meltdown that has enriched those who engineered it. Housing values, and the local taxes dependent on them, are down because of financial shenanigans that wrapped mortgages into collateralized debt obligations, and that is the root cause of government red ink. But the job security and pensions of government employees make terribly convenient scapegoats at a time when so many Americans are lining up at food banks.
The electorate in Wisconsin, and San Diego and San Jose, Calif., that voted Tuesday against public employee unions were not expressing a rational response to the crisis, but rather a tantrum stoked by the lavishly financed demagogues of the right. The voters bought their story because the opportunism of the Democratic Party leadership has left progressives without a believable alternative to the tea party’s narrative. Indeed, job creation became a bigger issue than collective bargaining in the Wisconsin race, and the dismal national unemployment figures that came out just days before the election didn’t hurt the Republicans’ cause."
Now I know that June polls are pretty worthless, but Nate Silver has released his first model forecast on the election and Obama is winning by hair. "The first look at the 2012 FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast has Barack Obama as a very slight favorite to win re-election. But his advantage equates to only a two-point lead in the national popular vote, and the edge could easily swing to Mitt Romney on the basis of further bad economic news."
Seriously, it's easy to expect bad economic news in the next four months. Obama needs a clear message both he and his supporters can stick to and that voters can understand and decide on. It shouldn't be too hard and it's clear it shouldn't be about a new kind of politics in Washington. It should be about doing the right thing to fix a lot of different problems we have.
More on that later.
Whatever.
I think the problem is that so far, Obama has no message for this campaign. Now maybe it's not easy to come up with one, but that's the job. I know what the Republicans are for and to me it's crazy. They want to lower taxes, destroy all government programs except for the military, and revert progress on social issue 50 years. And they think this will help the economy but I'm sure it won't.
What's Obama's plan? Is he for more stimulus? I haven't heard that. He wants to extend the Bush tax cuts on those making under $250,000 or under $1 million, I'm not sure which, while letting them expire for those making more. That's fine, but it won't do much. I still can't figure out if Dodd-Frank actually regulates wall street or allows derivates to be regulated at all. I know that Obamacare will kick in any year now if the Supreme Court doesn't pull it at the end of the month. I also know he spends time in meetings figuring out which individuals on the side of the planet to kill, even if they're American citizens. And he's not mentioned the climate at all.
He needs to take a stand. He needs to say what's he for and explain how the Republicans are blocking things using unprecedented power grabs. I think he believes the problems with the economy are on the demand side and we need the government to be the spender of last resort, at least I hope so. And I wish he would be pursuing legislation to make that happen and pointing out when Republicans block that and not just spending time compromising all his positions and then taking the blame for the failures. Sure, compromise to get stuff passed, but ensure that what gets passed is what you want to take responsibility for.
Without that we get crap like this:
Obama Backs Away From ‘Fine’ Comment. He got pounced on for saying the private sector is fine. Well that's mostly true as most unemployment is from the public sector because we keep laying off teachers and police. Maybe we should stop that.
Bill Clinton apologizes for Bush tax cuts comments. Clinton said the Bush tax cuts should be extended and apparently Obama opposes that. I think we're now arguing about only on the wealthy, but why isn't this clear? We've only been debating this for a couple of years now.
Ed Rendell: Obama ‘hurt by being a legislator only’ before presidency. Rendell said when Obama started he was a weak executive and regarding significant legislation “too much of it was left up to the Congress”. Now I'm sure no one is prepared when they first become president and I'm also sure that leaving things, particularly healthcare, up to the Congress was deliberate because they didn't want to repeat Hilary's mistake in the 90s. But fine, claim it already. Say he tried to work with Congress but they aren't cooperating, here's exactly what he wants to see happen and let them describe something different if they want.
Now we're seeing crap like this in the New York Times, Lobby E-Mails Show Depth of Obama Ties to Drug Industry. As if it's news that Obama conceded reimportation to get big pharma's support. But now Republican's are jumping on it and at least the times quote Robert Reich having to say: " “Republicans trumpeting these e-mails is like a fox complaining someone else raided the chicken coop,” said Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “Sad to say, it’s called politics in an era when big corporations have an effective veto over major legislation affecting them and when the G.O.P. is usually the beneficiary. In this instance, the G.O.P. was outfoxed. Who are they to complain?”"
Now I get emails from the Obama campaign that say, Romney raised more money than us, "If you just want to cut to the chase, you can donate to Barack Obama now." Seriously? You're not even going to pretend to stand for something?
Both Obama and the Democratic National Committee avoided the recall election. There had to be a petition to get the DNC to spend money on the recall. Obama apparently wanted to stay above the fray. And what a surprise big money won.
Robert Scheer wrote Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin.
"Of course [the GOP] argument is a red herring. The budget crises of state and municipal governments were not brought on by excessive pay to firemen, cops and other civil servants, but rather by a banking meltdown that has enriched those who engineered it. Housing values, and the local taxes dependent on them, are down because of financial shenanigans that wrapped mortgages into collateralized debt obligations, and that is the root cause of government red ink. But the job security and pensions of government employees make terribly convenient scapegoats at a time when so many Americans are lining up at food banks.
The electorate in Wisconsin, and San Diego and San Jose, Calif., that voted Tuesday against public employee unions were not expressing a rational response to the crisis, but rather a tantrum stoked by the lavishly financed demagogues of the right. The voters bought their story because the opportunism of the Democratic Party leadership has left progressives without a believable alternative to the tea party’s narrative. Indeed, job creation became a bigger issue than collective bargaining in the Wisconsin race, and the dismal national unemployment figures that came out just days before the election didn’t hurt the Republicans’ cause."
Now I know that June polls are pretty worthless, but Nate Silver has released his first model forecast on the election and Obama is winning by hair. "The first look at the 2012 FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast has Barack Obama as a very slight favorite to win re-election. But his advantage equates to only a two-point lead in the national popular vote, and the edge could easily swing to Mitt Romney on the basis of further bad economic news."
Seriously, it's easy to expect bad economic news in the next four months. Obama needs a clear message both he and his supporters can stick to and that voters can understand and decide on. It shouldn't be too hard and it's clear it shouldn't be about a new kind of politics in Washington. It should be about doing the right thing to fix a lot of different problems we have.
More on that later.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Full moon affects Large Hadron Collider operations
Ars explains. Full moon affects Large Hadron Collider operations.
"As the LHC's Pauline Gagnon describes at the Quantum Diaries, the changing force exerted by the Moon as it orbits—the same thing that drives the tides—creates subtle differences in the position of the hardware within the LHC. The differences are tiny for any individual piece of hardware, but they add up when it comes to something as big as the LHC, which has a circumference of nearly 27km. Plus, the LHC hardware is very, very sensitive to being out of alignment, given that it has to accurately direct bunches of protons that are moving at nearly the speed of light.
The net result is that the LHC's operators sporadically have to tweak the beam's alignments, leading to a temporary drop in the rate of collisions, seen as periodic dips in the plot above. According to Gagnon, the operators also have to make tweaks in response to everything from the level of water in nearby Lake Geneva to the passage of the French high-speed rail."
Crazy.
"As the LHC's Pauline Gagnon describes at the Quantum Diaries, the changing force exerted by the Moon as it orbits—the same thing that drives the tides—creates subtle differences in the position of the hardware within the LHC. The differences are tiny for any individual piece of hardware, but they add up when it comes to something as big as the LHC, which has a circumference of nearly 27km. Plus, the LHC hardware is very, very sensitive to being out of alignment, given that it has to accurately direct bunches of protons that are moving at nearly the speed of light.
The net result is that the LHC's operators sporadically have to tweak the beam's alignments, leading to a temporary drop in the rate of collisions, seen as periodic dips in the plot above. According to Gagnon, the operators also have to make tweaks in response to everything from the level of water in nearby Lake Geneva to the passage of the French high-speed rail."
Crazy.
America was bombed 1,000 times during World War II
I had no idea America was bombed 1,000 times during World War II. "School children in Japan were asked to make gigantic balloons, thirty-three feet in diameter. The first prototypes were made out of paper, but later ones were made from silk. The balloons, when filled with hydrogen gas, were buoyant enough to carry a thirty-three pound bomb, as well as a few incendiary bombs and thirty-six sandbags. When released they would shoot up to 35,000 feet. They'd leak gas, slowly dropping, until a barometer caused one of the sand bags to drop off into the sea, at which point they'd go up to 35,000 feet again. The balloons could travel on air currents at up to 120 miles per hour, and so, when the last sandbag fell, they descended onto North America. For navigatorless objects, drifting on the wind, a surprising amount of them made it over the sea.
Out of the nine thousand launched, about one thousand reached land, while the rest exploded in the sky or dropped into the ocean. The bombs went off as far east as Kansas and Texas. Some drifted down to Mexico, and some up to Canada. Although the bombs caused a few fires, American officials asked people not to talk widely about them. The bombs didn't cause any actual casualties until 1945. Six people, five of them children, were killed at a church picnic, when they saw a deflated balloon and touched the bomb, not knowing what it was."
Out of the nine thousand launched, about one thousand reached land, while the rest exploded in the sky or dropped into the ocean. The bombs went off as far east as Kansas and Texas. Some drifted down to Mexico, and some up to Canada. Although the bombs caused a few fires, American officials asked people not to talk widely about them. The bombs didn't cause any actual casualties until 1945. Six people, five of them children, were killed at a church picnic, when they saw a deflated balloon and touched the bomb, not knowing what it was."
This is what 200 tons of sardine carcasses look like
This is what 200 tons of sardine carcasses look like "Yes, you read that correctly — 200 TONS worth of dead sardines. That's how many fish are believed to have washed ashore in Japan's Isumi City since June 3rd. Even more disconcerting? Nobody's really sure what's causing the massive die-off."
To make that even less fun, We’re breaking our planet once and for all, warn scientists.
"A report just published in Nature by a group of 22 international scientists warns that human activity is quickly pushing the planet to a tipping point, after which time the Earth's ecosystem will suffer a rapid and irreversible collapse. What's worse: They suggest we're nearly there.
By using recent scientific theories, ecosystem modeling, and paleontological evidence, the scientists have concluded that the Earth's ecosystem is poised for a "state-shift", after which time the ecosystem is poised for an imminent collapse that would happen in the "blink of an eye." The report, titled "Approaching a State Shift in Earth's Biosphere," warns that localized ecosystems will shift abruptly and enter into a new state of equilibrium.
Not only would these transitions be irreversible, they warn — they'd likely be catastrophic to all life on the planet."
More here.
To make that even less fun, We’re breaking our planet once and for all, warn scientists.
"A report just published in Nature by a group of 22 international scientists warns that human activity is quickly pushing the planet to a tipping point, after which time the Earth's ecosystem will suffer a rapid and irreversible collapse. What's worse: They suggest we're nearly there.
By using recent scientific theories, ecosystem modeling, and paleontological evidence, the scientists have concluded that the Earth's ecosystem is poised for a "state-shift", after which time the ecosystem is poised for an imminent collapse that would happen in the "blink of an eye." The report, titled "Approaching a State Shift in Earth's Biosphere," warns that localized ecosystems will shift abruptly and enter into a new state of equilibrium.
Not only would these transitions be irreversible, they warn — they'd likely be catastrophic to all life on the planet."
More here.
Web Passwords
So I was only reasonably good at managing my web passwords. Given What Happened to LinkedIn I spent the day making a few changes. As James Fallows said, The One Step You Must Take Today is "Make sure that any account that matters to you has its own password."
Here are some notes that might help some people and I welcome some comments.
The passwords to my hardware were all unique. That is my account on my computer and my home networks and my ISP. I've never used those passwords anywhere else.
Any online financial sites (and I haven't been doing online banking very long) have unique and strong passwords. I believe that I've only used them from home, so they haven't been stored on some public computer or gone over a public network (like at starbucks) and I always use an encrypted connection (the URL begins with "https"). That should prevent anyone from sniffing them over a connection. Yes, this means I've never accessed my bank account from my phone over a public wifi network. Using https should make that secure enough, but I've never done it.
My main social accounts (email, facebook, twitter) and a couple of other very heavily used accounts have unique strong passwords. In November James Fallows wrote about his wife's gmail getting hacked. Google's new 2-step verification is a good thing to setup. In addition to using a password, they text a number to your cell phone that you enter, so any thief would need not just your password but your physical phone as well (so don't lose your phone). I've been meaning to set that up for a few months now.
Unfortunately for a lot of other web accounts I used the same moderately strong password. I never wrote it down anywhere so I fooled myself thinking that helped a little bit. There are just too many sites to keep track of and I told myself that they didn't really contain much useful information if they were broken into. So I tried Evernote but never really used it so I didn't care if that was broken into. Unfortunately that's not the only problem. I wasn't always good at changing the password of a site that I started to use heavily and there's still the problem of if a site I didn't care about was broken, that password worked at many other sites, some of which I cared about.
So I spent today changing web passwords. Another reason I used the same password was I find it hard to create new ones and of course remember them. There are a few techniques for this, I used the following. I came up with a strong mix of characters that I memorized. There are no words and there are numbers and punctuation marks (and I didn't just change O to zero or I to one, that's too common). I combined it with a few characters from the URL to make the password unique for each site. Pick some standard rule like the last two characters before the .com are inserted at the beginning of the password or something like that. Then you just have to remember the one password and the rule. Don't just use the site's name as that's easy to guess, you just want enough to make it unique (one or two letters) but not enough to make it guessable. Update: Other good tricks include separating the letters you pick from the domain name in your fixed string, including the length of the domain name or say inserting a 1 as the fifth character if the domain name is alphabetically below M or a 5 if it's above.
For sites I use regularly I will use the Remember Me button that keeps a cookie in my browser so I don't have to login all the time. I obviously won't do that at another computer (but I rarely if ever use a computer other than my own). I also use the Keychain on the Mac to remember various web passwords. it keeps them stored in it's own encrypted database which is tied to my account password and Safari knows how to use it to enter passwords for me.
I have a couple of friends that swear by 1Password. This is a product that is similar to the Keychain. It securely stores the passwords and if you want other info like credit card numbers and makes it easy to enter in the browser. There are versions for iOS as well and they can share the data. It's easy if you use more than one computer. 1Password can also generate random passwords for sites, since it's going to remember them they can more complex. Still, while I'm sure I'm missing something wonderful about it, I don't see the need to spend $50+ for something that KeyChain basically does for me.
Another problem was remembering all the sites I wanted to change. I did an ok job at remembering the big ones but then I looked through KeyChain's list and found a bunch more. I also looked through apps on my iPhone and iPad and found more I remembered. I made a list so I could keep track of what I changed. I changed them all on the Mac, and then logged in again so they would be stored in KeyChain.
A few sites had rules that meant my password wasn't good. Netflix allows a max of 10 characters. The NY Times only supports three punctuation marks [._-]. The Financial Times only allows letters and numbers. Morons. I kept notes in my list about their rules (but not the password I used) and tried to do the logical thing with my password for their site. I also made sure the passwords were saved correctly in KeyChain (which encrypts them).
I entered the new passwords on apps on my mac that use these services like iTunes, IM and my twitter client and others. I then had to go through and relogin to many things on both my iPhone and iPad which was a bit of a pain. Some apparently tried to login and failed and prompted for the new password, others apparently stayed logged in. For some of those I tried to log out and back in though it wasn't always clear how to do that. While I think iOS apps are usually a better interface than a web page, it seems many don't let you do account management from the app and make you go to the web page.
It took most of the day to do all this. Most worked, though several sites had some issues and a couple are still broken (I can't login at all). Several sites send you email if you want to change your password to verify you are who you say you are (or at least have access to the account's email). Oddly I found gmail's spam filter mistakenly marked many of these as spam. So if you're waiting for them to arrive, check your spam filter. There are still a bunch of sites I haven't changed but I haven't logged into them in a long time and I don't really care about the stuff there :)
Here are some notes that might help some people and I welcome some comments.
The passwords to my hardware were all unique. That is my account on my computer and my home networks and my ISP. I've never used those passwords anywhere else.
Any online financial sites (and I haven't been doing online banking very long) have unique and strong passwords. I believe that I've only used them from home, so they haven't been stored on some public computer or gone over a public network (like at starbucks) and I always use an encrypted connection (the URL begins with "https"). That should prevent anyone from sniffing them over a connection. Yes, this means I've never accessed my bank account from my phone over a public wifi network. Using https should make that secure enough, but I've never done it.
My main social accounts (email, facebook, twitter) and a couple of other very heavily used accounts have unique strong passwords. In November James Fallows wrote about his wife's gmail getting hacked. Google's new 2-step verification is a good thing to setup. In addition to using a password, they text a number to your cell phone that you enter, so any thief would need not just your password but your physical phone as well (so don't lose your phone). I've been meaning to set that up for a few months now.
Unfortunately for a lot of other web accounts I used the same moderately strong password. I never wrote it down anywhere so I fooled myself thinking that helped a little bit. There are just too many sites to keep track of and I told myself that they didn't really contain much useful information if they were broken into. So I tried Evernote but never really used it so I didn't care if that was broken into. Unfortunately that's not the only problem. I wasn't always good at changing the password of a site that I started to use heavily and there's still the problem of if a site I didn't care about was broken, that password worked at many other sites, some of which I cared about.
So I spent today changing web passwords. Another reason I used the same password was I find it hard to create new ones and of course remember them. There are a few techniques for this, I used the following. I came up with a strong mix of characters that I memorized. There are no words and there are numbers and punctuation marks (and I didn't just change O to zero or I to one, that's too common). I combined it with a few characters from the URL to make the password unique for each site. Pick some standard rule like the last two characters before the .com are inserted at the beginning of the password or something like that. Then you just have to remember the one password and the rule. Don't just use the site's name as that's easy to guess, you just want enough to make it unique (one or two letters) but not enough to make it guessable. Update: Other good tricks include separating the letters you pick from the domain name in your fixed string, including the length of the domain name or say inserting a 1 as the fifth character if the domain name is alphabetically below M or a 5 if it's above.
For sites I use regularly I will use the Remember Me button that keeps a cookie in my browser so I don't have to login all the time. I obviously won't do that at another computer (but I rarely if ever use a computer other than my own). I also use the Keychain on the Mac to remember various web passwords. it keeps them stored in it's own encrypted database which is tied to my account password and Safari knows how to use it to enter passwords for me.
I have a couple of friends that swear by 1Password. This is a product that is similar to the Keychain. It securely stores the passwords and if you want other info like credit card numbers and makes it easy to enter in the browser. There are versions for iOS as well and they can share the data. It's easy if you use more than one computer. 1Password can also generate random passwords for sites, since it's going to remember them they can more complex. Still, while I'm sure I'm missing something wonderful about it, I don't see the need to spend $50+ for something that KeyChain basically does for me.
Another problem was remembering all the sites I wanted to change. I did an ok job at remembering the big ones but then I looked through KeyChain's list and found a bunch more. I also looked through apps on my iPhone and iPad and found more I remembered. I made a list so I could keep track of what I changed. I changed them all on the Mac, and then logged in again so they would be stored in KeyChain.
A few sites had rules that meant my password wasn't good. Netflix allows a max of 10 characters. The NY Times only supports three punctuation marks [._-]. The Financial Times only allows letters and numbers. Morons. I kept notes in my list about their rules (but not the password I used) and tried to do the logical thing with my password for their site. I also made sure the passwords were saved correctly in KeyChain (which encrypts them).
I entered the new passwords on apps on my mac that use these services like iTunes, IM and my twitter client and others. I then had to go through and relogin to many things on both my iPhone and iPad which was a bit of a pain. Some apparently tried to login and failed and prompted for the new password, others apparently stayed logged in. For some of those I tried to log out and back in though it wasn't always clear how to do that. While I think iOS apps are usually a better interface than a web page, it seems many don't let you do account management from the app and make you go to the web page.
It took most of the day to do all this. Most worked, though several sites had some issues and a couple are still broken (I can't login at all). Several sites send you email if you want to change your password to verify you are who you say you are (or at least have access to the account's email). Oddly I found gmail's spam filter mistakenly marked many of these as spam. So if you're waiting for them to arrive, check your spam filter. There are still a bunch of sites I haven't changed but I haven't logged into them in a long time and I don't really care about the stuff there :)
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