Best Card Trick Ever? October 15, 2015October 14, 2015 Well, certainly one of them. Thanks, Mel! On the train to Berlin . . .
Scottish Salmon And Workers Comp October 14, 2015October 14, 2015 But first Workers Comp. It seems that the same folks who oppose the minimum wage, legal services for the poor, Medicaid expansion, federal-student-loan refinancing, and unions — but favor cutting the inheritance tax on billionheirs to zero — are now hard at work dismantling Workers Comp. Texas and Oklahoma have gone first, successfully cutting back compensation to injured workers. Because, really, why wouldn’t you want to? Read it here. The Republican debates are more fun than ours — “you’re ugly!” “no you’re ugly!” — but the stock market and economy do better under Democrats. During the 12 Bush years, net private-sector job creation totaled just 747,000 — versus 19.6 million during the Clinton years and 8.6 million so far under Obama — or 12.9 million if you don’t count the first few horrific months he inherited. So that’s: 747,000 jobs under the 12 most recent years of Republican leadership, as deficits ballooned; 30 million under the 14.5 most recent years of Democratic leadership, as deficits were brought back under control. Invested in the S&P 500 only during Republican administrations since 1929, and excluding dividends, $10,000 would have grown to only about $12,000 — versus about $600,000 if invested only during Democratic administrations. And Democrats want to strengthen — or at least preserve — the Social Safety net. If you have a heart — or a brain (climate science, anyone?) — or just want more money — you should seriously rethink your allegiance to the billionaire party. SALMON Dr. James Merryweather of Auchtertyre: “Obliquely/whimsically: yesterday here in the Highlands I followed a flower delivery van from Port Glasgow before dropping in on my friend Ross Calderwood (a local bagpipe maker, whose instruments I play) who originally came from Port Glasgow. [So] I read your column with interest and rapidly homed in on the modest hyperlink in the words ‘– or not.’ So even Andy Tobias has become aware that Scottish Salmon is not all it’s cracked up to be? If he knew what we knew – I think he does – he, like us, would refuse to eat it. Salmon farming (in nets) is the subject that has occupied a small group of us here on Skye for the past three years … and until we get something done about it, probably a lot longer. Some people seem to think we are some sort of ditsy action group, but in reality we’re just a bunch of locals, two of us biologists, who were appalled by threats to our local lochs of aggressive industrial development by companies (mostly Norwegian) who stop at nothing to get their way (we know because we’ve checked), and our government allows it. “The aspects of salmon farming that concern us most are not really addressed by [your other link]. The consequences of marine pollution and parasitic sea lice concentrated on farmed fish and then transferred in huge numbers onto wild salmon and sea trout, exterminating population of them all along the west Highland coast. There is virtually no salmon or sea trout angling on west coast rivers now because there’s nothing to fish for and all scientific research indicates that that sea lice from fish farms are the cause. There is a solution that eliminates all problems associated with net-cage salmon farming: closed containment in tank systems, which we are energetically recommending. The Canadians are onto it (and the Danish) while small-scale aquaculture-hydroponic systems (‘aquaponics’) have been set up all over the world and only require up-scaling to suit the Norwegian salmon farmers. “I’d better not write too much, but I can send you to our website: the Scottish Salmon Think-Tank, deliberately named to sound a lot grander than we five retired people really are … yet? If a Norwegian big business can set itself up as the Scottish Salmon Company, then we can mimic them. I think you’d approve of our method: provide the public with facts only and work non-publicly to inform and persuade the authorities (wildlife organisations, local councils, planners, government) rather than waving placards and chanting inane slogans. We’re trying to inform Britain, and if the message would spread to the USA, all the better.” ☞ Hear, hear.
Cullen Skink! October 13, 2015October 13, 2015 Glasgow! Port Glasgow! Drumfucker! (Well, that’s how it sounded.) Terrific trains. Lovely people. It was from 10 Argyle Street in Port Glasgow that my traveling companion’s late granddad James, a shipbuilder’s son, embarked on January 9, 1926, aged 6, for “Ellis Island and beyond” (beyond, in this case, being New Jersey) and we had come for a look. The home had been turned into a carpet warehouse, but it was still fun finding it and imagining life there 90 years ago . . . so much of the architecture unchanged. Edinburgh! (“Athens of the North”) We stormed the castle . . . if walking a mile uphill and pausing for ice cream can be considered “storming” . . . only to arrive just as a rag-tag regiment of musketeers, complete with drummer and cannoniers, appeared to reenact a few moments of the siege of 1640. We befriended a pikeman — the guy who wedges the butt of an 18-foot pike against his boot with the point angled low, so as to scare the horses into bucking their riders off, and/or simply to drive the pike through the invader. It turned out, no, they did not do this six times a day, 7 days a week, for the tourists; just once in a rare while and we happened to catch it. This was only our pikeman’s second time “performing” (a bit of a piker?); he is a history buff and a volunteer who does reenactments for fun. Once he’s had more experience, they may let him fire a musket. Which is not as simple as it looks in the movies. For one thing, you need to keep a fuse lit in one hand (or your teeth) the whole time you’re fighting, even if it’s raining (which in Scotland is sort of more or less always), without letting it touch any of the gun powder you’re shoving down the barrel of your firearm, lest you accidentally explode. We saw the Honours of Scotland! Which had been unseen for 111 years when in 1818 Sir Walter Scott and some others opened a chest thought to contain them . . . but . . . but . . . and it did! (Take that Geraldo Rivera!) We enjoyed cullen skink! Haggis with neeps and tatties! Salmon! (Of course — or not.) We happened in on a live traditional foot-stomping Scottish band session (complete with harp and violins) at Waxy O’Connor’s — awesome. We befriended whoever was drinking next to us . . . it was such a relief not to have to hit them up for campaign contributions, though they all appeared to be Democrats at heart, horrified by Trump and the rest . . . a psychologist author and his retired-teacher wife Kim . . . a fine-print publisher and his wife, up to visit their granddaughter at university . . . young blokes galore . . . Did you know that the Scots invented the bicycle? That Thomas Blake Glover, “the Scottish Samurai,” drove the industrial development of modern Japan? That Sean Connery, Alexander Graham Bell, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and thus Sherlock Holmes) were all born in Edinburgh? As was Harry Potter, in Nicholson’s Cafe where J.K. wrote much of it? See: I Never Knew That About Scotland, by Christopher Winn. In addition to the bike and the telephone, Scottish inventors gave us, he says, the television, radar, the steam engine, pneumatic tyres, penicillin, logarithms — and savings banks! But not, oddly, as Google reveals, Scotch tape. Now in Amsterdam, where tonight’s debate coverage begins live on CNN International at 2:30am.
World’s Greenest Building October 12, 2015October 6, 2015 It’s in Amsterdam — and if all has gone according to plan . . . so am I! I may even try to go see it. Either way . . . behold!
Going To Mars — Or At Least To Scotland October 9, 2015October 6, 2015 By the time you read this, I should be on an altogether different continent, sorta trying to take a week off. So I’ve pre-loaded some stuff, like this free full-length motion picture (Rotten Tomato 85% positive) on the off-chance you would not yourself welcome a week off. Tom Stolze: “I just finished watching what I believe to be the best and the most important documentary ever made — for our time, and possibly just in time. Updated with a ‘Director’s Cut.’ When I found it earlier today I really thought it was a new science fiction movie. To me, what is proposed here is just as important, if not more important, than tackling the problem of global warming. In fact, the very thing that’s killing Planet Earth will not only be most desirable for Mars, but required for survival. And it has to be done as quickly as possible. We’re not going into deep space for maybe another four or five generations, but this can be done within as little as ten years — that is, if the politicians don’t shut it down like they did the Moon program. Perhaps you won’t get as absorbed as I did in it from the very beginning, but it’s a must watch….” Here’s a new verb for you (or at least for me): terraform. And here’s a paper describing how we might terraform Mars. Too cool for school. Have a great weekend.
That Catholic Girl Next Door October 8, 2015October 8, 2015 What a story. If you have a few minutes this morning, read it. I am one of those — like you, I hope — blessed never to have encountered the world’s brutality. No whizzing bullets over my head. Which just serves to remind me [schmaltz alert] how important are simple messages of kindness like the Pope’s. Speaking of whom (the Pope) . . . when it came out that he had hugged the rather sadly over-zealous Kim Davis (for whom Mike Huckabee would gladly serve jail time, so strongly does he believe the Supreme Court should not get the last word in matters of civil law), quite a few folks immediately assumed the worst. Just as they did years ago when a Howard Dean interview aired on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club (wherein Howard stood up for equality) or any number of times in the first few years of the Obama Administration. We tend to do that — as though a lifelong progressive would suddenly become the enemy. But guess what? The Pope remains a mensch . . . as recounted here. And speaking of which (messages of kindness), I learned about Operation Respect last night in a living room with 20 people, Peter Yarrow, and his guitar. The essence of it, sparing you the trip, was this six minutes [again I need to post a schmaltz alert, hard-bitten sophisticates that we are]. It’s not from Album 1700 or Late Again, my two favorite Peter, Paul and Mary albums. It’s a song that any humilated 9-year-old will understand: “Don’t Laugh At Me.” The Don’t Laugh at Me programs . . . are based on the well-tested, highly regarded conflict resolution curricula developed by the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program of Educators for Social Responsibility. . . . More than 180,000 copies of the program have been distributed to educators since Operation Respect’s inception. . . . Kindness. What a concept. Read the story. Listen to the song. Thrive and beam.
God’s Aquarium October 7, 2015 Spend five minutes underwater with our fellow species? Wondrous — and fragile. (Thanks, Mel!) Ashore, 43 summers ago, my first ever on Fire Island, a blanket of Monarch butterflies appeared the weekend after Labor Day. Unexpected and glorious. Every summer since I’ve looked forward to their September 10 return, even as their numbers have dwindled. This year, a single Monarch made it to my deck. Flapping and fluttering; flitting. But in a low-energy, perhaps even desperate way, I thought. Alone on the deck with me under a bright blue empty sky. Which species, if either — man or monarch — will be around in 500 years?
One Small Step For A Man; One Giant Leap For Foul October 6, 2015 Three effective, affecting minutes. Which may get you craving chicken . . . . . . and thus leads to this interesting 2012 video from Mark Bittman of the New York Times — “Finally Fake Chicken Worth Eating.” “Would I rather eat cruelly raised, polluting, unhealthful chicken,” Bittman asks, “or a plant product that’s nutritionally similar or superior, good enough to fool me and requires no antibiotics, cutting off of heads or other nasty things?” His video was about Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown’s company (here’s Ethan’s story), which in 2013 nabbed Bill Gates as an investor when he “couldn’t tell the difference” between their product and real chicken. Chicks turn grain into bone, gristle, feathers, and beeks, so I can see why it’s more efficient not to have to grow the grain to grow those inedible parts . . . or the grain required to power what little movement chickens are permitted . . . or the grain required to produce the KFC chicken the workers eat who have to run around chasing the chickens with a hatchet. (No?) And then there’s all the chicken waste you don’t have to deal with when you extrude chicken directly from soy and peas and the other stuff in the Bittman video. So — never in my life having touched a feathered chicken, live or otherwise — this whole new system makes some sense to me. And, apparently, to Bill Gates. I’m not ready to eat bugs yet, so have not put myself on the waiting list for next July’s harvest (more on this and the rremarkable Hult Prize soon). But fake chicken? My first order arrived today and was not half bad. (Here are PETA’s favorite veggie substitutes. Share yours?)
A Lifelong Republican On Trump And The Troll Party October 3, 2015October 2, 2015 It’s not your father’s G.O.P. — or Rick Wilson’s. All my life [he writes], the Republican Party has been my political home. Helping it succeed has been my work for decades. It was never perfect, but families never are. Flawed, and given to wrong turns from time to time, we had good years and terrible years. We elected presidents, took back Congress after decades, lost it, and took it back again. Our leaders ranged from bad to extraordinary. But through it all, the GOP was the one party even vaguely amenable to limited-government conservatism, to at least some adherence to the Constitution over the social preferences of the moment, and to the constraints on government power that our Founding Fathers so cherished. It was nice while it lasted. Today the Republican Party has two choices before it: It can either reform itself, or fracture and surrender to the Troll Party. Let me explain what I mean. . . . Well worth the read. (Thanks, John Carroll.) Oh, okay. Here’s just a little more: . . . The contagion hasn’t infected the entire GOP, not by a long shot. But it’s spreading. The traditional elements of limited-government fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and defense hawks are still there. But the Troll Party screams louder, and its members have reached a point where they are more than content to watch the world burn around them if they don’t get their way, right this minute. Trump activated them. He found a ready audience for his magical cocktail of celebrity, wealth, television skills, press whoring, verbal incontinence, bully-boy affect, and xenophobia, all eager to embrace his vision of… something. They don’t really know or care what he stands for, only that he’s an extended middle finger at the hated political class and the national GOP. He FIGHTS! Whatever the Troll Party is, it’s no longer conservative. Trump has been unforgivably wrong on every single issue in the conservative portfolio, and his current road-to-Damascus conversions on abortion, guns, taxes, religion, and immigration all have the air of the man up for parole promising that he’s changed his ways. But his supporters simply don’t care. His appeal to them isn’t so much ideological as it is nihilistic. . . . . . . It’s pointless to try to explain to Troll Party members that they’re blind to the tensions and realities of how the world, humanity, and Washington actually function. It’s impossible to explain to them that politics is transactional. That’s not a defense of Washington as it is but a description of its dysfunction. They ascribe Washington’s nature not to their own contradictory desires (“Keep the Government’s Hands Off My Medicare!”) but to conspiracy and contempt. . . . Have a great weekend! If you liked Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelent, Nixon-minus-the-demons, Abe Lincoln, Mke Bloomberg, Nelson Rockefeller, and perhaps even Barry Goldwater, welcome — at least temporarily, until you get yours back — to the Democratic Party. We have lots of nice people and we shrink deficits and do better with the economy and the stock market.* You might even decide to stay. *During the 12 Bush years, net private-sector job creation totaled just 747,000 — versus 19.6 million during the Clinton years and 8.6 million so far under Obama — or 12.9 million if you don’t count the first few horrific months he inherited. So that’s: 747,000 jobs under the 12 most recent years of Republican leadership, as deficits ballooned; 30 million under the 14.7 most recent years of Democratic leadership, as deficits were brought back under control. Meanwile, invested in the S&P 500 only during Republican administrations since 1929, and excluding dividends, $10,000 would have grown to only about $12,000 — versus more than $500,000 if invested only during Democratic administrations.
Discover A Free $1,000 . . . And WheelTug Patents October 2, 2015October 2, 2015 APPLE PAY If you have a Discover card, you’ve probably seen this offer: 10% off when you use it with Apple Pay — on up to $10,000 by the end of the year. If you don’t have a Discover card, well, this could be a reason to get one. Not that you want to go nuts and spend $10,000; that’s no way to save money. But you might buy a whole lot of gift cards near the end of the year at stores — like CVS — that you actually do shop at consistently. Even if it takes you a year to “use up” the value of those cards, you’re getting 10% tax-free on your money just by tying it up. Not a bad return these days. [UPDATE: Gift Cards are excluded! Argh! Though a credit-card sharp I know writes: “That is standard verbiage in all such offers. Generally they can’t tell what you purchased from the store, especially if the gift card purchase is blended with other items, so it isn’t really enforced.” Either way, if you buy a couple years’ supply of stuff in December that you would have bought over the next year or two anyway, you’ll be able to stretch out the benefit of the offer.] AEROPATENT I had never heard of AeroPatent — or “patent landscaping” — but as a long-time holder of shares in Borealis, which owns most of Chorus Motors, which owns most of WheelTug, I was pleased to receive this report: eTaxi Patent Landscape 2005-2015 ** RELEASED 02-OCT-2015 / NOT FOR RESALE OR COMMERCIAL USE / © 2015 AEROPATENT LIMITED ** The number of published patent applications for electric-taxi systems reached an all-time high this year, yet we continue to await widespread commercial exploitation of the technology after years of well documented research, development and testing. Just how long it will be before airports start decommissioning tugs and auctioning tow-bars is hard to say, however, the corresponding patent landscape offers a fascinating glimpse of the strategic direction of those aerospace companies developing eTaxi solutions. This independent report explores newly published eTaxi patents, capturing a diverse range of associated technologies from system architecture and integration, through flight-deck control and operational procedures . . . There are graphs showing how many more patents we’ve filed than others, and what kinds. (“The WheelTug team at Borealis have been busy. They top the league of newly published eTaxi patent families and hold the top-5 inventor spots.”) It’s a long report. And there’s this heartening section (with an appropriate final caution): If you’re a competitor of Borealis Technical, or perhaps planning to enter the eTaxi arena, you’d be well advised to keep a close eye on their historic patent portfolio, and the status of newly published patent families identified in this report. The reason? Well, Borealis have – like their competitors – filed multiple patent applications to protect their system architecture comprising gears, bearings, clutch assemblies, power connections and electronics. No surprise there. However, they’ve gone one significant step further in seeking to protect the operational use of generic eTaxi systems, and the corresponding patent applications might well raise eyebrows amongst interested parties. For example, Borealis have filed specific patent claims for the use of eTaxi systems:- to reduce airliner fuel requirements; to reduce carbon taxes paid by airlines; to reduce aircraft maintenance costs and improve service life; to improve pilot efficiency and air quality around airports; and to streamline operations within and around the airport ramp. The company is also making efforts to protect: UAV’s with eTaxi capability; simulation platforms to train pilots to operate eTaxi enabled aircraft; communication systems between air-traffic-control and eTaxi aircraft; and the creation of slots for aircraft to operate under eTaxi power within airport curfew periods. A well published advantage of the nose-gear integrated WheelTug claimed by Borealis is its ability to position an airliner close to, and parallel with airport terminal buildings – what the company refers to as ‘the twist’. This process enables two air-bridges to be connected to the aircraft, potentially speeding up the boarding and disembarkation process. The twist is well covered in multiple patent applications . . . Of course filing a patent application is relatively straightforward. Having that patent application granted by a patent office examiner – particularly in the US – is a more challenging exercise. A fundamental principle of patentability is ‘inventive step’, that is to say that an invention needs to be considered ‘not-obvious’ to be granted. This is often a subjective requirement and in respect of some patent applications referenced above, could well present an expensive hurdle for Borealis in patent office examination fees, and if granted, in the defence of invalidation proceedings were they to be brought by a third party in the future. E-taxi does seem to be inching ahead. Our solution seems to me the most compelling — and perhaps the best patent-protected.