Vancouver has successfully combined and implemented “green streets” and “complete streets” concepts, which somewhat obviously should be combined and implemented everywhere.
Author Archives: rdmyers75@hotmail.com
box plots!
One of my nerdy interests in box plots. And no, you can’t make great ones in Excel. Here is a blog about making fantastic ones in the R package ggplot2.
China’s population could “drop sharply”
According to this New York Times article, China’s working-age and child-bearing age population has already started to drop, and the population as a whole may follow. Considering that China represents 1/7th or so of humanity, this is supposedly bad for the economy. It could be good for the planet, but just a reminder that peak population does not necessarily peak ecological footprint if “living standards” (i.e. fossil fuel burning, private car driving, plastic consuming, meat eating, etc.) per person continues to rise.
DEFCON vs. voting machines
A hacker convention sets up voting machines each year and gives people a chance to try to hack them. The results are disturbing, although the article points out that the hackers are given full access to the machines for as long as they want which would never happen in the real world.
This weekend saw the 26th annual DEFCON gathering. It was the second time the convention had featured a Voting Village, where organizers set up decommissioned election equipment and watch hackers find creative and alarming ways to break in. Last year, conference attendees found new vulnerabilities for all five voting machines and a single e-poll book of registered voters over the course of the weekend, catching the attention of both senators introducing legislation and the general public. This year’s Voting Village was bigger in every way, with equipment ranging from voting machines to tabulators to smart card readers, all currently in use in the US.
In a room set aside for kid hackers, an 11-year-old girl hacked a replica of the Florida secretary of state’s website within 10 minutes — and changed the results.
vampire tick invades U.S.
Just in case you are looking for something new to worry about, there is a gross new tick in the U.S. that can carry disease, swarm onto baby animals and suck all their blood out.
alternatives to GDP
This article in The Conversation (which is a new publication to me) goes through some of the alternatives and potential augmentations for GDP.
One approach is to have a dashboard of indicators that are assessed on a regular basis. For instance, workers’ earnings, the share of the population with health insurance and life expectancy could be monitored closely, in addition to GDP…
Another approach is to use a composite index that combines data on a variety of aspects of progress into a single summary number. This single number could unfold into a detailed picture of the situation of a country if one zooms into each indicator, by demographic group or region.
One challenge is to select the dimensions that should be covered. Through an international consultative process, the commission led by Sen, Stiglitz and Fitoussi defined eight dimensions of individual well-being and social progress, including health; education; political voice and governance; social connections and relationships; and the environment.
They also mention the Better Life Index from the OECD and the Human Development Index from the UN.
new patent trading rules to boost productivity?
Here is one proposal to boost productivity growth from a professor at Columbia – basically tighter protections on patent use coupled with more flexible arrangements to share and lease them between parties. It sounds okay, but I have a couple questions.
First, the author sees this as an antidote to “forced technology transfer” from developed to developing companies. If I understand correctly, this is when a factory in a developing country (let’s say China) agrees to manufacture for a developed country firm, but insists they share the legal rights to the technology they are manufacturing, allowing them to possibly cut the inventor/designer out in the future. I get that this benefits the developing country, possibly at some expense to the incentive to come up with further inventions in the developed country. Maybe – but I’d like to see the evidence. Perhaps when the inventor is ready to trade his or her knowledge in exchange for cheap labor and lax regulation, he or she is ready to reap some rewards on the last invention and move on to the next one. I don’t know whether my theory or the author’s theory is more correct, but I have no evidence for either one right now so if I had any hand in policy making I would want to see the evidence for both.
Second, and this is related, the author equates technology with knowledge. That might make sense in certain industries, for example drugs and chemicals. In many other industries, as much or more knowledge exists in the minds of experienced human beings than exists in a written-down form. Many forms of engineering are an example, because engineering by definition is using existing knowledge and experience to solve new problems without completely obvious solutions. If it takes decades of education/training/experience to get an individual to this point, even with the available written-down knowledge, there is not a whole lot of risk if that written-down knowledge leaks out. There is probably also very little value in patenting or otherwise protecting it, and much to be gained by making it freely available.
Roman emperors were assassinated during droughts
This academic paper puts it pretty simply:
lower precipitation increases the probability that Roman troops, who relied on local food supplies, starve. This pushes soldiers to mutiny, hence weakening the emperor’s support, and increasing the probability he is assassinated.
The modern lesson might be that if ecological change starts to hurt your society, it might be better (for the ruler) to keep the military well funded and let everyone else suffer.
cyber-attack – nothing to fear but fear itself?
Another thing Axios is worried about is a “crippling cyber-attack”.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said this week that the U.S. is in “crisis mode,” comparing the danger of a massive attack to a Category 5 hurricane looming on the horizon. Intelligence chiefs from the last three administrations agree, and told Axios there is no graver threat to the United States.
the most dangerous country in the world?
Axios says it could be Pakistan, if the extremist elements the military has cultivated as weapons against neighbors India and Afghanistan ever gain control at home.
Pakistan has the world’s 5th largest population, 5th largest military and 6th largest nuclear arsenal. The danger begins, Morell says, with a dysfunctional economy and a rapidly growing population of young people without education or job prospects. Add to that a military that continues to call the shots as though war could break out at any moment.