Category Archives: Web Article Review

the stats on Uber and Lyft

A new report provides interesting data on ride sharing nationwide. We all knew they were shifting rides away from the traditional taxi industry, but they are also resulting in more traffic on the road for a few reasons. First, they are taking trips away from traditional public transportation and from walking in major, high-density cities. And second, people are taking trips they otherwise wouldn’t have taken. The evidence that they are putting downward pressure on car ownership rates does not appear to be strong, at least so far.

I have a few reactions. From a purist economic perspective, if people are choosing to take trips that were too expensive or too inconvenient before, that is a positive improvement in those people’s lives. If the traditional taxi and public transportation models are too slow, dirty, inconvenient and/or expensive to compete, they need to figure out how to step up their games. My sympathy is limited, but I would rather see traditional public transportation adapt than disappear. I have no love for taxi dispatch companies, but I do have sympathy for the small-time owner operators that borrowed large sums of money to invest in a regulated taxi medallion. Governments really ought to buy those medallions back at the market price before Uber and Lyft came on the scene (and then throw them away forever). Fewer walking and/or biking trips is not good for people’s health for both physical activity and air quality reasons, but there city governments need to step up their infrastructure and planning games if they want walking and biking to be truly safe and inviting ways to get around. A final note is that even if traffic does not go down in the near term, any decrease in parking demand will be a positive for dense cities.

Ride sharing has improved my life immeasurably. I choose to live in a dense city and choose not to own a car. Before ride sharing was available, I often had trouble getting a taxi home from certain neighborhoods when I needed it, got cheated by drivers who pretended not to understand where I was going or refused to give change for cash-only payments (which were the only option). Taxi service has improved a lot now that they have some competition. Buses and commuter trains too are slow, dirty, and unreliable, although they too have improved recently. So I think a lot of people’s lives are better and I think the public will continue to demand this technology.

body scanners from Total Recall are now a thing

The Los Angeles subway is installing the body scanners from Total Recall (the good 1990 version, not the garbage 2012 remake.)

The machines scan for metallic and non-metallic objects on a person’s body, can detect suspicious items from 30 feet (9 meters) away and have the capability of scanning more than 2,000 passengers per hour…

In addition to the Thruvision scanners, the agency is also planning to purchase other body scanners — which resemble white television cameras on tripods — that have the ability to move around and hone in on specific people and angles, Wiggins said.

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.

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.

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.

A well-executed cyberattack could knock out the electrical grid and shut off power to a huge swath of the country, or compromise vital government or financial data and leave us unsure what is real.

That last phrase is chilling to me. Even if a cyber-attack didn’t result in immediate loss of life, if it creates real fear that the systems of civilization are breaking down (such as transportation, communication, food and financial systems), it could lead to panic and severe consequences. Most of us do not have a stash of gold coins under our mattresses these days.

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.

“The main reason the military has a grip on decision-making is because of a long-held and now mistaken belief in Pakistan that India is an existential threat to Pakistan and that Islamabad must do everything it can to protect itself from that threat,” he says.