Up From Facebook

One of the metrics to emerge from the US invasion and military occupation of Iraq was the "Freidman Unit." One Friedman unit  is equal to six months, specifically the "next six months," a period repeatedly declared by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman  to be the most critical of the Iraq War, even though he repeated this prophecy at least 14 times over more than two and a half years. The term was coined by the blogger Duncan Black (Atrios/Eschaton). The prophecy of self-driving cars has proven every bit as absurd and groundless, as Duncan Black reminds us. We need a Friedman Unit for the self-driving car. GM: Rumors of self-driving vehicles by 2018 ... Ford: Truly self-driving vehicles by 2021 ... Honda: Self-driving on the highway by 2020 ... Toyota: Self-driving on the highway by 2020 ... Renault-Nissan: 2020 for autonomous cars in urban conditions, 2025 for truly driverless cars ... Volvo: Self-driving on the highway by 2021 ... Hyundai: High...

" In the end, I suppose the thing to do is compare 2010 to 2019. How did life change most drastically? Smartphones and social media are candidates, especially if you take a global view. Travel didn’t change much. Despite lots of hype, entertainment didn’t change much. War became noticeably less effective except against neighboring countries. CRISPR was probably the most important genuinely new invention. Racial justice gained a higher profile, but nobody did much about it. Religion continued to slowly decline, but that was the latest of a longtime trend. Wall Street mostly just regrouped after the Great Recession." https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/12/the-aughts-were-the-decade-of-the-smartphone/ CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats--aren't you sorry you asked?) refers to a bacterial genetic mechanism to defeat viral infections that has been hijacked for gene editing. And now it rates a mention by a blogger for Mother Jones. I hate t...

Here's a detailed summary of the (in)action to date on climate change. It is abundantly clear to me that, given the half-life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, no amount of conservation now will mitigate catastrophic warming in the decades our children and grandchildren will see. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lost-decade-climate-change-action-2020_n_5df7af92e4b0ae01a1e459d2 The catastrophe that this inaction will visit on the planet will be coastal flooding, desertification, and loss of fresh water and arable land. But the real near-term threat to humanity is not loss of habitat per se, it is resource wars. People who are denied living space, water and food due to global warming won't just sit and die. They will fight for the resources that remain. None of us wants to live in such a world, but nothing will be done until it is too late. I tremble for the future of humanity.

A commenter on a FB thread remarked that her daughter kept her "maiden" name because after all the work she put into getting her PhD, she didn't want to be known as "Dr. [husband's name]." My mom used her married name for publication, but she had already been married for 20 years and was comfortable using that last name. My wife and I started graduate school two weeks after we were married. We discussed names (both changing or keeping mine or changing or keeping hers) and she elected to use my last name. I've known female MDs and PhDs who done either one. The challenge historically has been if you change your name after you've already published; then some of your publications wouldn't show up on a simple search. Of course, you can do a boolean search on Pubmed, so I don't think this is an issue anymore. My daughter and her partner solved the name problem by creating a new last name that is a chimera of each of their "maiden" names...

Now I understand why I've been block twice on FB. It turns out that FB has compiled a comprehensive list of trigger words that they consider hate speech, and "illiterate" is one of those words. If you want to know whether your particular adjective is on the list, it's published here: https://m.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech Henceforth, I guess I'll need to screen my posts against the 100 naughty words your not allowed to post on Facebook (pace George Carlin).

Currently, I’m midway through my first year of phased retirement. I’ve dropped to 70% effort (and 70% of my previous compensation). I can stay there for 4.5 more years, or drop to 50% or 30% effort and salary in later years. Or I can retire fully before 1 July 2024. It is a great luxury to be able to phase into retirement instead of accepting a buy-out and quitting cold turkey. My dad retired at 62 or 63 from Martin-Marietta and Oak Ridge National Labs. But after moving to upstate NY, he continued to fabricate in his basement a device he’d patented, earning money for piecework for several more years before settling into retirement. My mom continued teaching correspondence courses online for several years after they moved. Even after retiring, my dad did volunteer work as the consulting engineer for the Covered Bridge Association of Washington County, and my mom volunteered as a child advocate for the state court in Bennington VT. My brother and his wife (seven and ten years youn...

Retired? Planning to retire soon? Expecting your nest egg to provide substantial income in retirement? If so, you should be keeping a wary eye on the economy in the next year. I'm a scientist, so data mean more to me that soothsayers. I default to blogs that provide data to substantiate their prophecies. "  In the short term, I remain on “recession watch,” but the base case going forward remains slowdown only. That’s because the risks are still elevated, at least for the next few months. Manufacturing remains in a slight contractionary trend, and there are a few hints, like in elevated jobless claims for 5 of the past 6 weeks, that the weakness may be spreading out into the wider economy. If this were 40 or 50 years ago, it would almost certainly mean a recession. But with less than 10% of all jobs in manufacturing now, the consumer side of the economy is relatively much more important. And the most usual driver of consumer contraction has been a spike in the price of gas. ...

WeMe holds itself out as being a privacy-forward version of Facebook. I know of one FB friend who has a WeMe page and seems happy with it. But just like when I choose a book or film, I read the reviews, I've read the reviews on WeMe and they are, at best, mixed. So I'll hold off for now. I've deactivated by FB page, although I can still use messenger. I'll try to post more of the content here that I would normally have posted on FB.

I posted on FB that the fact that there has been an uptick in people cashing their mortgages is evidence of what I posted previously, that Americans are numerically illiterate. This time, I've been blocked for seven days by my FB bullies. There is no appeal. Here's what I posted: This is the sort of thing I was referring to when I posted that Americans are numerically illiterate; they don't understand how numbers, money and interest work. It got me blocked previously when I posted that fact, and the evidence in favor of my observations just continues to accumulate. When I post it, it is "hate speech." Others have posted the same language without being blocked. I set up a new FB account as "Joel Carter." Let's see how good facial recognition is.

I was raised Roman Catholic, which as much as any religious system can claim to be Christian. But ever since I was in high school, I disagreed with the RC teaching on abortion. To be Christian, it seems to me, is to claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus was silent on the topic of abortion. Accordingly, I felt the RCC teachings against abortion were outside the remit of the Church and felt free to dissent. While I understand why a Christian might oppose abortion, it is not a Christian belief, it is simply a personal belief. Same with homosexuality and gay marriage. Jesus was silent on those topics as well. To follow Jesus' example would mean being silent on the topics of abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage. I'm ruminating on this topic in the wake of the Christianity Today brouhaha, in which the outgoing editor called for Trump to be removed from office. While I agree with this editorial, my agreement isn't moored in evangelical Christianity, or Christian...

You can find versions of this on the intertubes. The tone is a little overwrought, but it makes a valuable point: I am fear. I am the menace that lurks in the paths of life, never visible to the eye but sharply felt in the heart. I am the father of despair, the brother of procrastination, the enemy of progress, the tool of tyranny. Born of ignorance and nursed on misguided thought, I have darkened more hopes, stifled more ambitions, shattered more ideals and prevented more accomplishments than history can record. Like the changing chameleon, I assume many disguises. I masquerade as caution. I am sometimes known as doubt or worry. But whatever I'm called, I am still fear, the obstacle of achievement. I know no master but one. Its name is understanding. I have no power but what the human mind gives me, and I vanish completely when the light of understanding reveals the facts as they are, for I am really nothing.

After age 50, adults lose 3% of their muscle strength every year, on average.  This has knock-on effects with loss of blood glucose control (diabetes), loss of balance (falls, bone breaks), frailty and shortened life expectancy. But it is possible to slow this decline by exercise. Exercise doesn’t just build and maintain muscle mass, it stimulates signals from the muscle (“myokines”) that reduce cell damage due to free radicals and improve energy production and efficiency of mitochondria, those little energy factories in your cells. If you don’t have a regular exercise program, start one. Find one you enjoy, so it is sustainable. There’s plenty of advice online (e.g., youtube), and stuff like walking, isometric exercises, push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups are free. Or join a health club or yoga class. You’ll be happier, have a longer healthspan and be able to spend more healthy years with your loved ones.

"But the polls were wrong about Trump!" some of my otherwise astute friends exclaim. No, the aggregate polling, as compiled by Nate Silver and Sam Wang both were completely consistent with the outcome of the 2016 election. Clinton won, by nearly 3 million votes. The electoral college appointed Trump because the outcomes in three states, which were polling within the margin of error, happened to all go marginally for Trump. Nothing wrong with the aggregate polls (although individual polls can and do skew). My point isn't to resurrect the 2016 election discussion. My point is that polling is based on statistics. We use statistics all the time as a guide to action. People pay lots of money to compile statistics to predict the future. Of course, statistics provide a probability, not metaphysical certitude. But my point isn't to validate the use of statistical analysis. The history of statistical analysis speaks for itself. My real point is "garbage in, garbage out....

I came of age at the advent of modern biotechnology: cloning, sequencing, genetic engineering. The promise of biotechnology was that it would mitigate human suffering. But sotto voce was "at a price." We are steadily moving from "can we do this" to "at what price?" Even well-established therapy like insulin has become an opportunity for price-gouging, and people are dying for lack of access. This is the latest egregious example. A lottery? Seriously? Feh. https://www.wsj.com/articles/novartis-to-offer-worlds-most-expensive-drug-for-free-via-lottery-11576767894

"Oddly, or not, I find myself thinking about death less than I used to. I thought that I might be kidding myself in my explorations of the subject while my life stretched ahead of me to an invisible horizon. But no. The thinking cut channels in which I now slip along. They involve acceptance. Why me? Why not me? In point of fact, me. Dying is my turn to survey life from its far—now near—shore. These extra months are a luxury that I hope to have put to good use. “To have put.” See? While here, not here. Like a camera situated nowhere and taking in every last detail of the pulsating world." While I've had a couple of brushes with death, I've never been diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. But in my 60s now, the future no longer appears endless. My FB friend (who I've never met in person) Greg Bailey pointed me to this New Yorker article. I'm really not at all like Peter Schjeldahl, except perhaps in sharing a compulsion to write. He isn't a particular...

"A cold-blooded dedication to stopping climate change means having the willingness to step away from our comfortable shibboleths, accept the criticism that comes with that, and place ourselves squarely behind a plan that has a chance of working. Building out renewable energy will get us part of the way there, but we’ve got more to do and not much time to do it. This isn’t a rosy-hued proposal. You can find plenty of naysayers for every project I propose funding. Solar presents problems of geography. Wind presents land-use problems. Carbon sequestration requires mammoth infrastructure. Nuclear produces radioactive waste. Biofuels have been unable to overcome technical problems even after decades of effort. Fusion power has always been 30 years in the future and still is. Geoengineering is just scary as hell. Ultimately, massive R&D might fail. But unlike current plans, it has one powerful benefit: At least it’s not guaranteed to fail." Kevin Drum has a long piece on ...

We’re used to the idea of animals communicating by odors. For instance, dogs and mice. But humans? The idea isn’t a new one. Many years ago, there was a study claiming that college women in dormitories had synchronized menstrual cycles, and that the scent of one woman’s perspiration could re-program another’s cycle. I since read that that study couldn’t be replicated. The present paper is new, and involves a relatively small study population, so time will tell if it holds up. They took perspiration from the same individual after sky-diving (fear sweat) and after a routine workout (control). Cortisol was significantly higher in the skydiving group, indicating successful fear induction. 30 males study participants rated fear sweat as less pleasant, more intense and denoting higher fear than control sweat. In preliminary studies, they worked out conditions where a “volatile bouquet” of sweat, below the level of perception, could elicit a pronounced autonomic response to the u...

I'm a scientist. Accordingly, I bring a reflexive skepticism to sweeping claims ostensibly deriving from "science." Science doesn't deal in proof, it deals in evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. With that in mind, the phenomenon of autism has fascinated me since I was in junior high. It came to my attention as I read books assigned to my mom in her abnormal psychology class. Back then, autism was believed to be due to "refrigerator moms." Today, the consensus is that autism has an organic basis: a complex genetic trait with environmental inputs. Twin pair studies point to significant heritability. But what, exactly is being inherited. Which brings me to the topic of the link below. It begins with the notion that an "extreme male brain" is the real explanation for autism, but then critically examines that ideas of "male brains" and "female brains" and the bias that pervaded the foundational work. http:/...

"Clearly, I wasn't a fan of his campaign, right?" Graham said Saturday. "But here's the way it has to work. When you lose, accept it. The American people didn't believe that. They made him their president." Uh, no. Trump wasn't elected by the American people. He is not a democratically elected president. Nearly 3 million more Americans voted for HRC than voted for Trump. Trump was appointed by the electoral college. We don't democratically elect presidents. We never have. Trump is the constitutionally appointed president, appointed in a highly undemocratic process. Impeachment is also constitutional, and the House Democrats are following the Constitution. They aren't trying to overturn Trump's election. Trump wasn't elected president anyway. And where was the GOP outrage against the impeachment of Bill Clinton, who actually did receive more votes than any of his opponents? Heh.

From the comment thread of a favorite blog: " I don't know whether a term like "centrist types" has much actual meaning in the current climate. If you're a progressive, you're very probably to the left of where you were just a couple of years ago. As a group, our presidential candidates certainly are. Individually, people like Biden and Warren have moved left. In the current climate, is Medicare for all who want it centrist? Free college for families whose annual income falls below a certain threshold — is that centrist? The top marginal rate on income proposed by Sanders is 52% — does that make him a centrist, since it's to the right of Dwight Eisenhower? Is every capitalist a centrist? Is Warren a centrist because she's not Sanders?  These labels seem dumb. And counterproductive. They don't capture the dynamic I see, the meaningful one, which is that there are two old men in the race with fervent supporters who want to tear stuff down. Take-no-...

According to the WaPo, FB has adopted policies that are more "transparent." Like all big organizations, the policies are only as good as the people tasked with administering them. In the case of FB, the New Yorker had an article a while back saying that moderators spent an average of less than five seconds on each case. And there is nothing preventing a moderator from pursuing a personal vendetta, as there is no review of individual posts. Feh. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/24/facebook-finally-explains-why-it-bans-some-content-in-27-pages/?outputType=amp

I've been blocked on Facebook four times in the last 12 months, but two of those times were in the past week. As I write this, I'm blocked for another two days for posting the following: "Because Americans mistakenly believe we have the best health care in the world. We don't. And it costs twice as much per capita as any other industrialized nation. Americans are numerically illiterate." This was flagged by a FB moderator as hate speech. This and all the other cases involved a political statement that could be viewed as critical of the GOP, a GOP troll on a comment thread, or a policy favored by the GOP. There are plenty of comments on FB that are far more hate-filled than my posts that go unaffected. I have concluded that I'm being bullied by a FB stalker. I've enjoyed the ten years or so on FB and would have stayed if I weren't being harassed. So I'm moving up from facebook with this blog.