Thoughts from Charlie Martin.
It’s very clear that this wasn’t caused by overbooking per se, and all of the outraged economic ignorance about it would be astounding if I didn’t see so much economic ignorance in general.
AI In Medicine
Self-taught systems beat MDs at predicting heart attacks:
All four AI methods performed significantly better than the ACC/AHA guidelines. Using a statistic called AUC (in which a score of 1.0 signifies 100% accuracy), the ACC/AHA guidelines hit 0.728. The four new methods ranged from 0.745 to 0.764, Weng’s team reports this month in PLOS ONE. The best one—neural networks—correctly predicted 7.6% more events than the ACC/AHA method, and it raised 1.6% fewer false alarms. In the test sample of about 83,000 records, that amounts to 355 additional patients whose lives could have been saved. That’s because prediction often leads to prevention, Weng says, through cholesterol-lowering medication or changes in diet.
To be honest, while it’s statistically significant, I’d have expected a bigger improvement than that. And it’s not clear how useful it is if the recommendations aren’t science based, as prescribing cholesterol-reduction or diet change generally aren’t.
Terraforming Mars
“The rate of loss of gas today is very low — slow enough that it would take billions of years to remove the equivalent amount of gas that is in the atmosphere,” principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said in an email. There is some CO2 left in the polar ice and in carbon-bearing materials, he added, but not nearly enough to warm the temperature significantly if it somehow was put back in the atmosphere.
“There isn’t a source of CO2 that could replenish the atmosphere — even outgassing of CO2 from volcanoes has got to be incredibly slow today,” Jakosky added. “If we wanted to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise temperatures significantly, it would take something like 10 million kilometer-sized comets (if they were all made entirely of CO2). This is just not feasible.”
I think there are other possibilities (e.g., bombarding it with carbonaceous and other asteroids, and comets, and manufacturing the CO2 on the surface), but largely, I consider the obsession with Mars to be much more romantic than practical, at least as a new earth.
Trump To Democrats
“Negotiate on ObamaCare, or I’ll enforce the law“:
At stake are “cost sharing” payments that Obamacare backers say are supposed to be made to insurance companies to cover their losses from low-income customers.
A federal court has invalidated the payments, saying the Obama administration spent the money even though Congress specifically stripped the funds from its annual spending bills.
The government is still making the payments pending an appeal of the case, but Mr. Trump hinted last week that he would halt the payments himself, forcing Obamacare into a quick death unless Democrats agree to negotiate over major changes to the Affordable Care Act.
“If Congress doesn’t approve it, or if I don’t approve it, that would mean that Obamacare doesn’t have enough money, so it dies immediately as opposed to over a period of time,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
Live by the pen and phone, die by the pen and phone.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: What is Trump’s deal?
he confusion here is rooted in trying to figure out what Trump’s convictions are, what his foreign policy is. This inevitably goes astray, because Trump doesn’t actually have any firm convictions, at least along those lines. He can be in favor of and against gun control; be against the government being involved in healthcare and in favor of a government single-payer system; be opposed to bombing Syria and okay with Tomahawk cruise missiles striking Syrian airbases—because he doesn’t actually have any sort of coherent large-scale vision or any particular ideals about the human condition.
He’s a salesman. What he cares about is the Deal. He even says it outright: his autobiographical business book is called The Art of the Deal.
If you want to understand salesmen, the best start is to watch the famous “Always Be Closing” speech from Glengarry Glen Ross.
“Always Be Closing” is not David Mamet’s invention, it’s an observation. It was the advice given to salesmen back at least into the ’60s when I was reading sales training materials that my grandfather had for the salesmen that worked selling pianos and appliances in the family business. (Yes, I actually will read anything.) It’s the advice given to salespeople now.
“Always Be Closing” means everything you do should be in the service of getting the deal, getting a signature and a check.
Whatever else one may think of Trump, you have to admit that Trump is a master salesman. Look at the campaign, where he took various positions — expel Muslims, deport Mexicans, or well, maybe not all Muslims, and Mexicans are mostly wonderful people — one after another, clearly responding to the reaction. Always Be Closing: he made sure his positions got him closer to closing the deal on the presidency. Did it matter that he contradicted himself? No! Concerns about things like that weren’t helping him close the deal.
This has been clear to me from day one. Beyond his boorishness, his utter lack of principles or coherent worldview was the reason so many principled conservatives (and libertarians) opposed him. But I’m still glad she lost.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Trump’s choice: Populism or corporatism.
It’s a shame that neither are particularly principled. The Founders would weep.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Corporate America’s support for the Paris agreement is why Trump should get us out of it.
Well, it’s not the only reason, but yeah.
The Latest Berkeley Riots
Yes, putting on a black mask and violently attacking people with sticks is always my go-to for protesting fascism.
Climate
The good, the bad, and the null hypothesis.
The New Air Force Launch Procurement
Some thoughts from “Main Engine Cut Off.”
I’m glad to see that Congress isn’t pushing the AR1 as hard as it’s been. This looks, ultimately, like bad news for AJR. They’re going to have to become more competitive if they want to maintain their business. They’re trying to do it with printing engine parts, but I don’t know if it will be enough. They’re going to have to really slice overhead, I think.
The National Debt
The budget cuts don’t go deep enough:
The chart is brutally bipartisan. Debt increased under Republican presidents and Democratic presidents. It increased under Democratic congresses and Republican congresses. In war and in peace, in boom times and in busts, after tax hikes and tax cuts, the Potomac flowed ever deeper with red ink.
Our leaders like to talk about sustainability. Forget sustainable — how is this sane?
Yet when any politician hesitates before increasing spending, he’s portrayed as a madman. When Paul Ryan, R–Wis., offered a thoughtful plan to reduce the debt over decades, he was pushing grannies into the Grand Canyon and pantsing park rangers on the way out.
One of the many cons of Trump is that his budget cuts are going to solve the problem, when they don’t even scratch the surface. I’m not opposed to them, in general, mostly because I think they’re funding things that aren’t a federal responsibility, but it’s ludicrous to think they’ll have any significant fiscal effect. As long as he refuses to touch entitlements, we’re fiscally doomed.
Planes, Trains And Automobiles
We took the day off from our renovation projects (hopefully we’ll be through most of it by next week) to drive up to Mojave for the experimental fly-in (the “Plane Crazy” event held on the third Saturday of each month). It was beautiful weather, and a lot of interesting aircraft on display, including a Yak that someone had restored, and an old Chinese trainer based out of Santa Monica. After lunch with Doug and Ann Jones at the Voyager Cafe, we headed up to Tehachapi, because Patricia had never been on 58 between Mojave and Bakersfield. It was still pretty green up there from the winter rains.
I’ve driven by the sign for the Tehachapi Loop many times, but had never actually seen it. Neither had she, though she’s in the rail business. We actually took the old road from Tehachapi to Keene, and it was tightly winding and gorgeous. About three miles from the end, we found the overlook and marker for the loop. We didn’t see a train go through, but it turned out that if we’d waited a few minutes, we would have.
We had originally planned on going back from Mojave through Lancaster and over to the Poppy Preserve, to catch the tail end of the spring flower bloom. But since we were now quite a ways west, per Doug’s lunchtime suggestion, we continued west on 58 to 223, then down the hill to Arvin, where he said it had been very good. Unfortunately, though, we were too late. The mountain above us was still green from the rains, but the flowers were pretty much done along that route.
So we got to the 99, and headed back south to LA on the 5, but then cut back east over 138 to Lancaster, and took a road south to Lancaster Road, which goes right past the preserve. We saw quite a few poppies still in bloom approaching and departing the preserve, but a lot of the other flowers had faded, but there are a lot of cars parked along the road and in the (paid) preserve parking lot. It was about 4:30, and somewhat windy, so the poppies were mostly closed, though it was still sunny.
Rather than fight the crowds or pay, we decided to just head back to LA, via a new route. Normally, we go south to Elizabeth Lake, then out to Castaic via Lake Hughes Road, which is a beautiful drive, with great views of Lake Hughes and the Valencia/Santa Clarita area from above. But this time, we made a left on Elizabeth Lake road, and went down San Francisquito Canyon, then down Spunky Canyon, then Bouquet Canyon, and finally down Vasquez Canyon to Sierra Highway, all roads (other than the latter) we’d never been on before, and all beautiful, with many spectacular views, including a nicely full reservoir.
I never fail to be amazed at how much California there is to be explored, and this was an area that I’ve driven around for decades, but never through, and it’s right in our back yard.
Our Three-Day Weekend
We were wondering this morning why Good Friday was two days before Easter, when it was supposed to be three days until the resurrection. I figured they must have just wanted to make it a three-day weekend, like government holidays. Anyway, I did a search, and here’s the story.