I like "The Daily"

The Daily is a daily download for iPad from media tycoon Rupert Murdock. It is a daily magazine with news, sports, gossip and entertainment. While I still love my Kindle, The Daily is what the iPad is made for. Interesting content refreshed everyday with big pictures. Plus it has stories that aren't just rehashes of what I get on Google News or USAToday.com.

The Daily is a little light on real news; I assume they think you are reading Google News on the side. It is mostly feature story news, which is why I say it is more of a daily magazine. There are an assortment of video stories inside, and The Daily opens with a video teaser for the rest of the issue.  

It does have a crossword and a Sudoku, so that is making it more of a newspaper. My Detroit Free Press on the Kindle has neither of these.

Of course, The Daily does not have the movie schedule and neither does the Kindle version of the Free Press.

I like it. After the two week free period I subscribed.

BP: Peak Oil is Here -- well almost.

Two great graphs from BP's latest annual report. At left is where the energy is coming from, and it is less and less from the OPEC nations. This means that OPEC will have less pricing power in the future. Why is their influence declining, because petroleum will have less and less dominance of the world's energy supply.

At left is the form that the energy comes in, and the black layer at the bottom is petroleum. Notice how it is barely increasing.

The time when the production of oil maxes out is called Peak Oil, and it has been predicted for years. The fact that a major oil company is predicting essentially flat oil production in the face of 40% growth in energy demands says something important about the state of the energy economy. It says that all the cheap oil has been found, and to get the remainder we are going to have to work for it.  Just how serious that is, is anyone's guess. I tend to think the peak will be very rounded, as oil companies look harder and harder for more oil. They will also tap more and more unconventional super-heavy crude.

Notice the light gray band at the top. That is wind and solar. Just under that is hydropower, which is a significant piece of the picture.

Civilian War Death Rate in Afghanistan LOWER than Murder Rate in Detroit

Afghan Civilian Deaths are Lower Than US Cities; photo

The Afghan civilian death rate due to the war in Afghanistan is low, 9.8 per hundred thousand. In 2010 there were 2777 civilians killed, and the population of Afghanistan is about 28.4 million.

By contrast the murder rate in Detroit is 34 per hundred thousand. As high as that is, it is down from 41 in 2009.

Let's think about that. It is three times more likely for a Detroit city resident to be killed, then for an Afghan civilian to be killed in the war.  308 homicides and 900,000 people.

This says two things, that the war in Afghanistan is a slow-motion conflict not affecting many areas, and that there are too many killings in Detroit.

It also shows the military is limiting civilian casualties.

Wine Protects Against Gamma Rays

In a sign there really is a God, the red wine chemical resivitrol has been proven to protect against gamma radiation. Resivitrol of course is the famous anti-oxidant found in RED WINE.

This shows that heavy drinking is not an irrational response to nuclear attack. Something many of us knew instinctually ;=)

In a nuclear explosion, all three forms of radiation are abundant, but the gamma radiation is hardest to shield against.  Oncologist Joel Greenberger of U of Pittsburgh speculated that chemicals that prevent oxidation would help, and they do.

The beneficial effect of wine and resivitrol in protecting against "nuclear fallout," hurts when radiation is given therapeutically to battle cancer tumors. This is because radiation tears up the body forming free radicals, and if oxygen gets to them quickly the free radicals become stable compounds. On the other hand, if the oxygen is absorbed by anti-oxidants, the damage may be repaired. Anti-oxidants help cancer patients feel better, but in doing so they reduce the beneficial effect of the drug on the tumor -- that is they help the tumor too.

Greg's Wine 

Cats Can't Taste Sugar

Kitty is showing her tongue, which does not have sweet

receptors.  

I learned today that the gene encoding the Sweetness receptor on the tongue is defective in cats. The gene is there, but the protein does not work. (More genetics here.)

Cats do have an ample number of umami receptors which would steer them to eat more meat, and obviously no sugary plants. Cats show no attraction or aversion to sweets -- completely oblivious.

Some people think that the 20% carbs that are in most catfoods is causing feline diabetes because cats lack the machinery to absorb sugars.

Tigers and cheetahs have exactly the same genetic defect as domestic cats. Chickens also lack a sweet gene. On the other hand, everyone knows dogs love sweets. Interestingly dogs cannot taste saccharine.

Beasts and Viruses in Your Brain

From the WNYC Show On the Media, there was a story about Stanford's Lera Boroditsky and Paul Thibodeau's research on how we think, and specifically that we think about complex issues in terms of simple metaphors.  This approach is called metaphorical framing, and it shows up in political and social ethics contexts. More on what metaphorical framing below.

In this experiment, an imaginary city was either described as having crime problem "like a beast," or " like a virus."  In addition groups we given loads of additional details that were the identical. Groups told crime was "like a beast" went for police and prisons. Groups told crime was "like a virus" went for education and after-school programs. This showed that people took the complex issue of crime, and thought about it like controlling wild animals or controlling disease, which are quite different. Further it showed people were open to the suggestion of what metaphor to use rather than developing their own thought devices or metaphors.

Lera Boroditsky

The effect of the beast/virus metaphor was stronger than the political party. 71% were affected by the metaphor. Political party only changed responses by 10%.

Once you know that simple introductory metaphors impact the whole way a problem is framed and then solved, the word choice becomes enormously more important. 

Metaphors are not mere flurrishes but rather are tools of thought:

"Metaphorical framing supposedly serves as the transmission belt for experience and position-making. In this manner, metaphors are not mere linguistic devices that illuminate or obscure the issue. Rather, they are tools of thought and social construction. Given similarities in the way the human mind works in relation to a similar environment, a stable and functional body of knowledge or truths may be shared within a group or community. These “shared truths” within a socio-cultural group shape the way problems are set or defined, and decisions or positions are taken."

Decision makers are trapped by their metaphor-based thought processes,  in stilted language:

"How does metaphorical framing translate into decision-making? According to William Flanik from the University of Toronto, decision-makers have cognitive and affective biases that bound or constrain the mental tasks of problem setting, option-formulation and option-evaluation. In this regard, metaphors influence the cognitive and affective importance of decision inputs."

Flanik says that the Nuclear Missile Defense project was characterized as a "shield" for use against "rogues," and that this was an integral part of people's understanding without being objectively true or false.


My conclusion is that our brains are not as logical and well organized as we think they are. We are too easily influenced by whatever.
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The Rich Are Getting Richer? Why?

In the last post I showed that the Rich are getting Richer, so why?  I want to get richer, what are the rich doing, and what can we plodders learn from that?

The graph at right shows INCOME GROWTH, not income. So if I make a million dollars a year, and I get a 1% raise, thats $10,000. If I make $10,000 a year, and I get a 1% raise, that is $100. This makes sense.  When I was young, and made $1.28/hr, and I got a 0.4% raise, and got an extra nickel an hour or $2 per week.

Top income earners get most of the income, and they get most of the absolute income growth.

The  percentage of national wealth controlled by the top sector has increased, but not dramatically.  This fraction has jumped up and down in the last 90 years.

So why are the wealthy making more, it seems that money is making more money. That is capital gains from current investments is the main difference. 

A person can only work 8 to 14 hours a day, but I can have an unlimited amount of money earning more money for me. Once I get some money invested, I just keep getting more -- as long as I don't spend it. I can have an almost infinite amount invested for me. Once you are wealthy, you keep getting wealthy because you are getting more interest or dividends for your money.

Although that makes sense, data on the recent trends in income disagree. They show that individuals in highly paid industries are making more and more. According to Damanick Dantes (which must be a pseudenym), compensation on Wall Street and for CEO's really took off in the 1980's.  Like Dantes I don't have a problem with rich people who work hard and are productive. Further, the people that earn a ton of money this year, are different from last years and next years -- that is there is churn in the top earners from year to year.

The richest people in America started with a wealthy background, but not enormously so. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet became enormously wealthy based on their merit, but had a strong headstart with good educations and access to the family money. In the top 10 richest people in America, six are industrialists who had a large hand in their fortune, and 4 are descendents of Sam Walton.

What seems to be happening is the computer technology is allowing better management and better efficiency creating better returns to entreprenuership. I'd say better returns to capital too, but interest rates are at record lows right now.

Will This Generation Have a Lower Standard of Living Than Its Parents

Will today's kids be better off then their parents?  This question has been buzzed about since polling data shows that today's adults think their kids won't be better off.

Becker and Posner do a nice job spelling out three factors:

1. Per capita income growth. Is the whole society richer?  Well yes, each year increasing productivity combined with infrastructure investments make per capita income grow -- except for recessions, but generally growth happens. See the graph below.

2. Income inequality If the society is wealthier on average, but it is only because there is one super-rich guy and lots of poor people -- then the majority of people are poor.  Income inequality is growing because labor, especially unskilled labor, is less valuable in the US than it used to be.  The richest 1% of the population, makes 35% of the income.

3.  Mobility from poor to rich. A lot of the people who are super-rich today were not born that way, and so there is churn in the ranks. One of the equalizers is education. Education helps people make up for an impoverished childhood. 




In summary, if young people get an education, then they will make more than average, and since the society is getting richer and richer, most of them will be wealthier than their parents when they reach their parents age. Of course, there will be exceptions -- this is statistics.

Poop at Midnight and HELP in the Morning

Hospital Adventures continued from the last posting:

On Sunday I got a new roommate because my alcoholic/drug addicted former roommate checked out, and I thought at least I'd be free of his snoring. The Nurse said the new guy was deaf, so I thought he'd be quiet anyway, and besides I could turn the TV volume up all night if I wanted.

At 11:00 PM on Sunday night my new roommate pooped his pants. OMG. The poor nurse and nurse's aid had to clean him up. I would absolutely hate to clean some 90 year old guys pants up. Oh and the smell. I wheeled my IV pump down the hall, and sat in a darkened waiting room -- with my beloved Kindle. The smell was still bad 90 minutes later when I came back.

In the morning, or near morning at about 4:45, suddenly a woman start yelling, "HELP, HELP." So I am tired, and I hear someone yelling "HELP," but I can't get up as I am attached to devices. My sleepy confused mind could not figure out what to do. Should I do something? What?

Then, for the next two hours, this poor person kept yelling "HELP, HELP" whenever the nursing staff tried to calm her down, and get her back to bed. Once again, I would hate to be a nurse if the patient yells like she is being raped every time someone tries to help her.

Finally Monday came, and I had my procedure, and got to go home.




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Greg on Hospital Life



Henry Ford Hospital in Wyandotte

 Everyone ends up in the hospital sooner or later. This weekend is my turn. I haven't been admitted to the hospital since I was a child, so this is a new experience.

 I am not really concerned about my health. I want to clear this problem and go home.  More than anything else I am really annoyed at wasting a weekend in this hospital room.

Observations on Hospital Life

1. Wild West - The emergency room had people coming and going. All kinds of people some with trains of hanger-on people with them. There were old and young and severely ill, and me too.

The staff seemed like they had seen it all, and let the people be their own weird selves. I expected a doctor's office experience with more structure -- instead it was the Wild West.

2. Hospital food -- I am at Henry Ford Hospital in Wyandotte. The day before I got here they redid their food service. Instead of regularly bringing identical meals up to each hospital ward, the kitchen waits for the patients to order off the menu. 

I am sure the patients like it better. The kitchen still batches the orders together and sends trays of food upstairs. It is must be more work with a custom system, but the old system probably had tons of special requests anyway.

The hospital menu is pretty fancy. You can get four kinds of eggs for breakfast, seven kinds of cereal, two kinds of yogurt, seven kinds of bread/muffins. For lunch there are four kinds of salad, four kinds of soup, about eighteen entrees and thirteen side-dishes.

I can endorse the Salmon Caesar wrap which left me thinking about how to make this at home -- that is my ultimate complement for restaurant food. Last night's tilapia was excellent too.

The kitchen's ordering department needs help- - maybe it is just opening weekend jitters, but I spent over five minutes on hold trying to get my dinner order placed. What this kitchen needs is a web-page to place the order.

The food in the emergency room was truly bad though: a microwaved hamburger and squished turkey sandwich.

3. TV  -- The free-TV is medical information videos and music channels. To get better TV (and local phone), you need to pay $7 which is charged to your telephone number -- not the hospital bill. Probably to keep the per/day fee down for the insurance company.

I spend the night watching the CARE Channel's nature scenes and sleepy music because of my roommates's ...

4. SNOORING -- My roommate snoores terribly. Eventually I found some earplugs in my bag from my last red-eye flight.  [Ouch he is snooring again.]

5. Hope --  Hope to get out of here soon.

More on hospital living on my next post.