tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-238846402024-03-18T04:32:31.057-07:00Engineering Ethics BlogComments on current events with an engineering ethics angleKaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.comBlogger941125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-11038647356306693072024-03-18T04:32:00.000-07:002024-03-18T04:32:00.133-07:00TikTok: Divest or Ban?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">The online platform TikTok is once again
in the news, this time the target of proposed U. S. legislation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most popular and innovative
social-media outlets, the Chinese-originated and Chinese-controlled app's
infinite-scrolling videos have been imitated by Facebook and YouTube, and 170
million Americans use it, many of them under 30.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So why is Congress once more considering legislation
that would either force ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, to divest itself
of the U. S. division of TikTok, or else face a total ban of the app?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">The ostensible reason is that despite
TikTok's public protestations to the contrary, it appears that user data
garnered by the U. S. division of TikTok can be accessed by its masters in China,
as I noted in a December 2022 blogpost here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether ByteDance actually exploits this capability is not clear, but adding
that to the fact that TikTok has engaged in a certain amount of censorship on
subjects sensitive to the Chinese Communist Party's sensibilities provides
enough rationale to consider legislative action.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">In a recent essay in <i>Time</i>, reporter
Scott Nover describes the bill that the U. S. House of Representatives passed
on March 13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If passed by the Senate and
signed by President Biden, it would present TikTok with a choice:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>either totally divest the U. S. division so
that it is completely independent of the rest of the Chinese-based
organization, or face a total ban on selling and using the app in the U.
S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the bill theoretically gives
the firm a choice, several sources say that the true intent is to enact a ban,
not just to force divestiture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">As the only major social-media app not
developed in the U. S., TikTok excites the envy of Facebook and YouTube, and U.
S.-based social-media firms would be more than happy to see a major competitor eat
the dust, so they could rush in with their replacement apps and fill the
void.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Never having used TikTok, I have only a
dim idea of how essential it must seem to some teenagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a clumsy attempt to prevent the bill's
passage, TikTok urged its users to phone their congressperson to protest the
bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Representatives were flooded with
phone calls, some of which carried the caller's intent to commit suicide if
TikTok were banned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the callers
were below voting age and presumably unable to vote against anyone who favors
the ban, but the campaign apparently backfired, as it demonstrated TikTok's
overwhelming influence with its users more than a principled regard for free
speech on their part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Nover, for his part, thinks that even if
the bill becomes law, it will quickly become entangled in court cases, and the
record for similar bans at the state level in the courts is not good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Former President Trump's attempt to ban
TikTok by executive action was thwarted by a court, which said there were other
ways to achieve the same ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So just
passing Federal legislation that would effectively ban TikTok won't necessarily
mean an uptick in teen suicides, although that possibility can't be discounted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">The U. S. government has decidedly mixed
motives in its move to ban TikTok, as it would be a big favor to U. S.-based
social media firms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To that extent, the
proposed law smells of crony capitalism, which uses government influence to
suppress competition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are those who
take the view that as long as users get better, cheaper services, it doesn't
matter whether those services come from a multitude of small firms or from one
giant firm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, bigness isn't
a sin, just incompetence or exploitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is an economic debate for another day, but it can't be ignored in
the mix of motives that gave rise to the proposed TikTok ban.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">It's still a theoretical possibility
that TikTok would actually divest itself of its U. S. division, but as I said
in previous blogs, such things can be mainly on paper rather than in
reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thinks of the breakup of Ma
Bell, which cut the nationwide giant phone company into regional Baby Bells.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a few years after the telecommunications
landscape opened up to competition, AT&T found few obstacles on its way to
reuniting itself, and continues to be a major player in that field today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Another problem with the proposed bill
is that we don't have a smoking gun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
one has come up with hard evidence that China is definitely exploiting its
ability to suck data on its U. S. users into Beijing for nefarious
purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Chinese are very skillful
at concealing their espionage activities and their consequences—that is what
good spies do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">To give a completely undocumented but
likely example I'm personally familiar with, a few years ago a student employee
of mine wanted to get a circuit board design he had developed turned into an
actual circuit board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is done by sending
a digital file to a circuit-board-fab company, which etches and drills the
board and sends it back to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
looked around to find various prices from different vendors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An outfit in Colorado wanted $50, another one
here in Texas wanted $40 or along there—and a place based in China offered
three-day turnaround for something ridiculously cheap, like $12.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I let him use the Chinese $12 vendor, but not
without wondering whether that firm and others like it were deeply subsidized
by the Chinese government for the purposes of obtaining the raw circuit-board
files from thousands of U. S. firms, all without sending a single spy to the U.
S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe all this is a fantasy of mine,
but I don't think so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was all
perfectly legal and probably very effective for the Chinese too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">To my mind, the best outcome of the
anti-TikTok legislation would be divestiture rather than a total ban. If the
federal government shuts down a social-media app with 170 million U. S. users,
that is truly a heavy hand placed on First Amendment rights of ordinary
citizens to express their opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
even if the ban is attempted, the courts may well have something to say about
the matter, so we will just have to stay tuned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">I referred to the article
"The Grim Reality of Banning TikTok" on the <i>Time</i> website at<a href="https://time.com/6952889/tiktok-ban-freedom-of-speech-essay/ " target="_blank"> https://time.com/6952889/tiktok-ban-freedom-of-speech-essay/</a>
and an article in <i>National Review</i> at <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/the-weekend-jolt/what-it-took-for-republicans-to-break-with-trump/">https://www.nationalreview.com/the-weekend-jolt/what-it-took-for-republicans-to-break-with-trump/</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My previous blogs on TikTok are at <a href="https://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/time-is-running-out-on-tiktok-in-u-s.html">https://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/time-is-running-out-on-tiktok-in-u-s.html</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">and </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"><a href="https://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2022/09/tiktok-and-chinese-connection.html">https://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2022/09/tiktok-and-chinese-connection.html</a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-20093369327668741552024-03-11T04:30:00.000-07:002024-03-11T04:30:00.247-07:00Will Banning Minors from Social Media Break the Internet?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Charles C. W. Cooke seems to think
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cooke, a writer for <i>National
Review</i> whose opinions and style I have great respect for, opines in the April
2024 issue that using Federal power to keep minors off social media is a bad
idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">He concedes there is a real
problem:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bullying, pornography use, depression,
and suicide are all results of teenagers and even younger people accessing
social media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn't dispute that on
balance, the harm that can happen is probably not worth the benefits that the youngsters
gain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem is acute enough to
show up in strange places such as the comics page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The strip "Baldo" by Hector Cantu
and Carolos Castellanos portrays a nearly-nuclear Hispanic family that includes
a precocious young girl named Gracie., who appears to be about 8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recently, the writers chose to show Gracie taking
out a cigarette lighter, lighting up, taking a puff, and in the last frame she
had a mobile phone in her hand instead of a cigarette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The message, somewhat crudely but shockingly
expressed, is that if you hand your eight-year-old a mobile phone, you might as
well let her smoke too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">And the comparison between smoking and mobile-phone-mediated
social media is apt in another way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
social ostracism that many smokers now experience, at least in the U. S., came
about as the U. S. government adopted severe restrictions on cigarette
advertising and sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's somewhat of
a chicken-and-egg argument as to whether federal restrictions encouraged the change
in social attitude, or the social attitude made the government's job
easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as the hypocrisy of the
cigarette companies was exposed, revealing that they knew very well tobacco
killed their customers but went right on selling it as though nothing was wrong,
I think public opinion simply turned against them, especially among young
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the federal strictures helped
the process along.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Cooke's main concern is that allowing
the federal government to get its grubby, incompetent mitts on what is up to
now almost a perfect example of the unrestricted free market of the Internet
will ruin it for everybody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He thinks
that if we let the camel of government regulation of age for using the Internet
get its head under the tent, the rest of the smelly animal will come too, and
politicians will find some way to prevent their political opponents from
accessing voters under the age of 90 ,or something. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Now I'll agree that the ingenuity of
bureaucrats to expand their remits beyond all reasonable bounds is impressive
and worth being concerned about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
haven't noticed any huge federal bureaucracy springing up around the subject of
restricting tobacco use, unless you count the diversion of the huge pile of
money extracted from the tobacco companies as part of class-action lawsuits by
smokers toward uses that have nothing to do with smoking prevention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that was mainly the doing of states
rather than the federal government, if I recall correctly. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Cooke says if the federal laws proposed
go into action, you would have to send your private information over the
Internet every time you want to access YouTube or Facebook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I do that every time I buy something
online already—not only that, I send information that will allow a crook to
steal from me, and now and then it even happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the banks are vigilant enough to keep
credit-card fraud down to a level that seems to be tolerable enough for most
people, and we haven't had some giant federal bureaucracy arise because of it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">I agree that it may be premature to
enact a federal law in this area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
many states are currently experimenting with similar laws, and several have
already gained some experience with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some reports indicate that major porn outlets on the Internet are seeing
their income drop substantially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
report cited by the website of the Southern Baptist Convention says that as a
result of an age restriction passed in Louisiana, traffic to the site Pornhub
from that state has dropped by 80%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">That may seem like a drop in the bucket,
but one of the strengths of the federal system is that each state is a little
political-science lab of its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
another year or two, federal legislators, if they are so inclined, can take a
look at the many experiments in social-media regulation concerning minors that
are going on right now, and take the best ideas from the successful ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Then, it shouldn't be that hard to craft
a law that would not only restrict social-media companies from preying on
minors, but would also restrict the role of the federal government in the regulatory
process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sen. Josh Hawley's proposed bill,
nicknamed MATURE (for Making Age-Verification Technology Uniform, Robust, and
Effective), would have as its primary regulatory feature the power granted to
parents to sue Internet companies who don't comply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that aspect, it resembles the Texas
anti-abortion law which empowers private citizens to sue abortionists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No giant abortion-regulation bureaucracy
sprang up in Texas after that law was passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But a lot of abortion clinics shut down immediately, which was the
desired effect.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Cooke says that he is going to take the
steps available to a responsible parent, which he is, to ensure that his own
children don't get harmed by social media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And that is fine if you are a responsible parent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we have plenty of irresponsible parents
too, and we should have some concern for their children, who are even more vulnerable
to the harms that social media can cause than the offspring of parents who are
aware of the dangers and do something about them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Cooke seems to be motivated by a
libertarian impulse to leave the pristine unregulated nature of the Internet
alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as he points out, we have
already seen inappropriate involvement of the government in censoring free expression
on the Internet by means of the Twitter files released by Elon Musk's
intervention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And nobody passed any laws
to let that happen.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Granted that there is currently a
shortage of wisdom in Washington, we can still hope that a few public-spirited
Republicans and Democrats can cooperate (!) on a bill that would take into
account the successes and failures of various state laws in this area, make
sure that any Federal involvement in the matter is minimized, and still
accomplish the goal:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to keep children
and teenagers from suffering the very real psychic harm that social media
overuse and misuse can cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Charles C. W. Cooke's
somewhat mysteriously titled "Chesterton's Internet" (he mentions the
phrase twice but otherwise doesn't explain why he associates the Internet with
G. K. Chesterton, who died in 1935) appeared in the April 2024 issue of <i>National
Review</i>, pp. 34-36.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred
to an article on the website of the Southern Baptist Convention at <a href="https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/the-new-state-laws-effectively-curbing-online-porn/">https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/the-new-state-laws-effectively-curbing-online-porn/</a>.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-83643486828259486882024-03-04T04:23:00.000-08:002024-03-04T04:23:00.238-08:00Big Tech Tries to Have its First Amendment Cake and Eat It Too<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">While my headline lacks something in
concision, the topic for today is anything but simple:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whether internet-based enterprises such as
Amazon, Google, Tiktok, and X are free to do basically anything they want with
the input their users provide, or whether the states of Texas and Florida can
impose certain restrictions on content moderation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last week the U. S. Supreme Court heard
opening oral arguments in two related cases on this topic that the Court has
decided to hear together.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">NetChoice v. Paxton</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> pits the trade association NetChoice, which includes such
heavy hitters as Amazon, Google, and X, against the Texas state gadfly and attorney
general Ken Paxton, who attempted to enforce a bill that would prohibit social
media companies from censoring posts except in extreme cases such as obscenity
and libel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Moody v. NetChoice</i> concerns
a law that was passed in Florida at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis to prevent
social media firms from "de-platforming" a political candidate
actively running for office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
lawsuits arising from NetChoice's objections to what it sees as restrictions on
its members' First Amendments freedom of speech have percolated through the federal
courts and ended up at the Supreme Court last Monday.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">There are two extreme positions that
mark the boundaries of this debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
extreme is taken by the state legislatures, which is that large internet-based
firms, including but not limited to social-media outfits such as X and TikTok,
are used so universally that they should be considered as "common
carriers."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A common carrier, in
legal parlance, is a service that is so essential to modern life that it must
accept customers and their activities on a basis limited only by common-sense
rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The classic common carrier was
the old Ma Bell system back when all you could do with a phone was call Aunt
Maude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as you paid your monthly
bill, you could say absolutely anything you wanted to say, and Ma Bell wouldn't
stop you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And anybody who can muster up
the cash for a bus ticket can ride the bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Similarly, the state bills object to censorship, de-platforming, and
other ways that social media companies either emphasize or obscure certain
users depending on what they are saying, because the state laws tend to view
them as common carriers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">The other extreme is taken by NetChoice,
which views its members as valiant warriors protecting their own freedom of
speech as well as that of their users.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
classic analogy is the old-fashioned hot-type newspaper, back when all you
could do with the paper was line the bottom of the birdcage—after reading it,
of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody presumed to tell the
editorial-page editor what letters he could or could not include in the paper,
and so no state law should tell X which tweets to suppress or encourage, or
leave alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are private firms and
it's their business what they do with their content, not the states' business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">A report on the first day's arguments by
the Electronic Privacy Informatiion Center (EPIC) indicates that the Supreme
Court justices are not enthusiastic about either end of this spectrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, they seem to think that
NetChoice is being more than a little hypocritical because of how it has used a
law called Section 230.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Section 230 of the federal
Communications Decency Act gives NetChoice members immunity from prosecution
for libel for what any of their users say, in this sentence:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"No provider or user of an interactive
computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any
information provided by another information content provider."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word "publisher" echoes our
exemplary newspaper editor, and Section 230 lets X say, in effect, "Man,
we didn't write or publish or say that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our crazy user said that, and you can't blame us for what <i>he</i>
said."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Section 230 protection is
one of the carefully guarded legal jewels of the NetChoice empire, and flocks
of lawyers appear whenever anyone threatens it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">At least two Supreme Court justices
perceived that NetChoice is trying to have its free-speech cake by defeating
the state laws limiting their content-moderation actions, and eat it too by
claiming innocence when someone posts something objectionable and a NetChoice
member claims immunity under Section 230.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At one point, Justice Gorsuch asked, "So it's speech for the
purposes of the First Amendment, your speech, your editorial control, but when
we get to Section 230, your submission is that that isn't your speech?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at another point, Justice Alito said,
"It's your message when you want to escape state regulation, but it's not
your message when you want to escape liability under state tort law."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">It's anybody's guess what the Court will
decide in these cases, but indications are that neither NetChoice nor the
states will get everything they want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
own view is that social-media firms, by catering to the lower instincts of the
human mind and heart, have wrought incalculable damage to the political and
social structures of not only the U. S. but many other countries as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And especially when the government begins to
"assist" social-media firms in deciding what is free speech and
should be left alone or promoted, and what is "disinformation" and
should be de-emphasized or suppressed, we have traveled a good part of the way
down a slippery slope to something akin to the old Soviet Union, or the present
Peoples' Republic of China, where everything you say and do is monitored and
assessed and has consequences that can be quite dire if you go against what the
government wants you to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">The Texas and Florida laws are a first
step toward opposing this trend, and NetChoice's actions opposing them is
exactly what you would expect a bully to do if someone challenges his
dominance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, the federal
structure of our government is still functioning, although seriously damaged,
and I hope that the justices' decisions in these cases will clip the wings of
an industry which, Icarus-like, is flying way too close to the sun.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;">Sources:</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I referred to an
editorial by Jennifer Huddleston in the Mar. 1, 2024 edition of the <i>Austin
American-Statesman</i>, a blog post on the EPIC website at <a href="https://epic.org/four-key-takeaways-from-the-netchoice-v-moody-and-paxton-oral-arguments/">https://epic.org/four-key-takeaways-from-the-netchoice-v-moody-and-paxton-oral-arguments/</a>,
and the Wikipedia articles on NetChoice and Section 230.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-66610836513463335172024-02-26T04:25:00.000-08:002024-02-26T04:25:00.136-08:00A Tale of Two Companies: Information Unlimited and Edmund Optics<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">I'm going to address a branch of engineering or business
ethics that you don't see discussed very often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The question it answers is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what
obligation does a company founder have to see that the business continues after
his or her passing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To help us think about
this question, I'm going to give two examples at opposite extremes:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Information Unlimited and Edmund Optics.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In November of 2008, I ordered three high-voltage capacitors
from a company I'd never heard of before:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Information Unlimited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
company's website had an edgy vibe and featured high-voltage equipment and
components that are hard to find in one place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whoever was running the site clearly had fun in their work:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>many of the items appealed to the
teenage-mad-scientist types and were more like semi-safe toys than serious
equipment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the years, I ordered hundreds of dollars' worth of
supplies and devices from their website, which was simply
www.amazing1.com.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most expensive
item I ever bought was a 40,000-volt DC power supply which cost about
$500.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main reason I favored
Information Unlimited over more orthodox suppliers was cost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can buy similar equipment at a number of
other places, but for that kind of unit you can't touch the standard suppliers
for under $3500 or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The expensive units mount in a standard relay rack and come
equipped with all kinds of aluminum enclosures and safety interlocks and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Information Unlimited unit was made out
of a piece of PVC pipe wired to a plastic box that you had to be pretty careful
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All high-voltage equipment can be
fatal if you're not careful, so the people at Information Unlimited just
assumed their users would be careful with their units.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I was, mostly, until one day I overloaded
it and it broke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mailed it back and
they fixed it for less than half of what I paid for it, and only in a couple of
weeks.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The other day, I wanted something from Information
Unlimited, but their website had vanished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It turns out that their "resident genius," <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as one chatroom called him, was Robert Iannini,
who had passed away just a few months before. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A <i>Wired </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>profile of him from 2012 described a teenager
so intent on experimenting with explosives that he blew off his left hand in
high school and never quite graduated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But he talked his way into Northeastern University, graduated with an
electrical engineering degree, and in the early 1960s invented the bug zappers
that you now see everywhere in restaurants and grocery stores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the $60,000 he got from that invention,
he founded Information Unlimited and sold blaster guns, Tesla coils and a
series of project books with titles like <i>Electronic Gadgets for the Evil
Genius</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And that's how Iannini made a living right up until he died
on April 3, 2023 at the age of 85.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometime between then and August, his company folded—the website
disappeared and no one on the Internet seems to know anything about what
happened to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever good talents
Iannini had for running a business, planning his succession was not one of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only hobbyists, but serious
scientists on a budget, plasma physicists, and educators around the world are
going to miss the products that only Information Unlimited carried.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Back in 1942, a man named Norman W. Edmund took out an ad in
<i>Popular Photography </i>for his company Edmund Salvage, which sold
factory-second lenses for amateur telescope makers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following the end of World War II, the market
was flooded with surplus military gear, including expensive-to-make but now dirt-cheap
optics, and Edmund capitalized on this availability and moved his operation to
Barrington, New Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout the
1950s and 1960s, the Edmund Scientific catalog was a kind of milder-mannered
pre-Internet version of Information Unlimited, offering scientific kits, toys,
and inexpensive surplus items for both hobbyists and professionals.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The firm turned a significant corner in 1970 when Norman
retired and his son Robert Edmund became CEO. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1984, the optics end of the business had
become so large that Robert made it a separate division, keeping Edmund Scientific
as an educational and hobby sales organization with a retail store in
Barrington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the next fifteen years,
Edmund Optics expanded globally, adding sales and manufacturing facilities in
Germany, China, Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1998, Marisa Edmund, a granddaughter of Norman, joined
the company, and she is now CEO of a worldwide original-equipment-manufacturer
supplier of state-of-the-art cutting-edge optics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is still privately held, and its market
share is miniscule, but it is a good example of an extremely specialized
niche-market firm which, while perhaps insignificant from an economic point of
view, is a key player in many specialty firms' supply chains.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Character is a hard thing to pin down, and anything I say
about Robert Iannini should be tempered by the goodwill I hold for his memory and
for the many useful and cost-effective items I bought from his firm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the kind of personality it takes to start a company is
often different than the personality or character needed to let it grow in ways
that will serve a wider public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact
that Information Unlimited was unable to outlive its founder by more than a few
months tells me that it was in some sense an extension of Iannini's
personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some leaders are unable to
change the way they do things to adapt to changing market conditions or the need
for competent staff who can run and even grow the business in your
absence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, this was something that Norman Edmund understood,
as he stepped aside in favor of his son Robert when Norman was only 55.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not every founder has offspring who are
interested in the family business, but Norman was fortunate in this regard, and
now the firm he began continues to serve thousands of customers around the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish I could say the same for
Information Unlimited, but Iannini's legacy will live on in the Tesla coils and
high-voltage power supplies he made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, I kind of wish I'd bought a blaster gun while I had the chance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
referred to the 2013 <i>Wired</i> profile of Robert Iannini at <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/01/information-unlimited/">https://www.wired.com/2013/01/information-unlimited/</a>,
Iannini's obituary at <span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; letter-spacing: .05pt;"><a href="https://www.smith-heald.com/obituaries/Robert-E-Iannini?obId=27660790">https://www.smith-heald.com/obituaries/Robert-E-Iannini?obId=27660790</a>,
a blog mentioning the end of Information Unlimited at <a href="https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/what-ever-happened-to-amazing1-com-(aka-information-unlimited)/">https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/what-ever-happened-to-amazing1-com-(aka-information-unlimited)/</a>,
Norman Edmund's obituary at <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/n-w-edmund-founder-of-iconic-south-jersey-scientifics-firm-dead-at-95/">https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/n-w-edmund-founder-of-iconic-south-jersey-scientifics-firm-dead-at-95/</a>,
and the Edmund Optics timeline at<a href=" https://www.edmundoptics.com/company/about-us/80years/"> https://www.edmundoptics.com/company/about-us/80years/</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal">Torrential rains had turned the normally placid Connecticut
River into a turbid brownish-yellow lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The sun was out and the water was calm now, but the edge of the water
where we stood watching our friend Dori was about thirty yards uphill from her
house, which was a former fishing cabin on the bank of the river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was all she could afford, and when she
bought it she knew the place was in a flood plain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house itself was on pilings and
undamaged, but she had left her cats behind in her haste, and now Dori was
wading out to rescue them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she got
back to shore with the felines, we asked her how the rescue went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said it was okay except when she got her
hands in the water, she could feel that the electricity was still turned
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A new discipline called "flood justice" seeks to
redress wrongs done to people like Dori who live in areas where flooding is
more likely than in more wealthy regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Last April, the first Flood Justice Symposium was held at the University
of Arizona.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geophysicists, ethicists,
urban and regional planning experts, and other interested parties discussed how
floods often disrupt the lives of the poor much more than the higher
socioeconomic classes, and what can be done to alleviate this injustice.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I must admit that my first reaction to the phrase
"flood injustice" was "Huh?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How can floods be unjust or just?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The juxtaposition of a rain-related word and "injustice"
brought to mind the phrase from the Book of Matthew, where Jesus says, "he
makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and
on the unjust."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(5:45)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the context of this statement is that
Jesus is calling on his listeners not simply to love their neighbors and hate
their enemies, but to treat everyone fairly, just as God does in providing his
natural blessings of sun and rain for everyone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem addressed by the concept of flood justice is an
ancient one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some areas of land are more
likely to flood than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
free-market economy, the more flood-prone areas will be cheaper than average,
and people without much money can't afford anything better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some countries, flood plains are occupied
by so-called "informal housing" which is a polite name for squatters
who cobble together hovels with discarded lumber and cardboard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such places become instant scenes of misery
and death in a flood, as you might expect.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In an online article on the website of the American
Geophysical Union, organizers of the symposium described a long-established
policy method that tends to perpetuate flood injustice:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the cost-benefit analysis, or CBA for
short.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Engineers are familiar with the CBA,
which is based on the simple idea that when you face an array of choices that
can each provide some benefits, it is only good sense to figure out what each
choice will cost and pick the cheapest way to get what you want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the context of planning flood-prevention
civil-engineering improvements—dikes, spillways, drainage systems, etc.—this
means that the most valuable properties will play an outsize role compared to
flood-prone areas where land and improvements are cheaper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A CBA-guided improvement plan will naturally
spend a fixed amount of money to protect the most expensive property in the
region, because otherwise you would lose more value if the rich folks got
flooded out compared to what the poor folks would lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Put that way, it <i>does</i> sound injust, but CBA thinking
is deeply ingrained in engineer-dominated organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One way to widen the scope of planning is to
include more community input from the poorer sections of a region, and to
consider factors that are not as easily quantified as property values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The symposium organizers say that
"recognizing the wider socioeconomic, cultural, ecological, psychological,
and health effects of flooding is not enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We must also integrate these considerations intentionally and
responsibly into tools, metrics, and measures that inform flood risk management
policy."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another need that flood justice requires is better
data.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many maps of the so-called
100-year flood boundaries have coarse resolution, are based on outdated data,
and are deficient in other ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if
accurate data is available, real-estate developers have been known to conceal
the fact from customers that a given property is in a flood-prone area, and not
all U. S. states require that such information be provided to the buyer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Governments can be the problem more than the solution in
alleviating injustice with regard to floods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Floods don't respect boundaries, but local jurisdictions, especially in
highly populated areas, tend to be a hodge-podge of finely divided authorities
who are reluctant to share information with each other, let alone cooperate on
a regional planning effort that would require working with rival
jurisdictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a
government-policy matter, not engineering, strictly speaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But engineering has to take place in the real
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Working out political differences
and encouraging cooperation among different jurisdictions is part of the job,
or at least it should be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will admit that I was skeptical when I saw the headline
"Five Key Needs for Addressing Flood Injustice."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in fact, engineers as well as geophysical
scientists have a lot to contribute to making flood damage and casualties rarer
in the future, for the less fortunate as well as for the middle and upper
classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As more people crowd into urban
areas, the way those areas are engineered will have a lot to do with the fate
of the poorer classes, and whether they will lose everything in the next flood,
possibly including their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
friend Dori was philosophical about her losses, because she knew flooding was a
possibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as soon as she reasonably
could, she moved out of that fishing cabin into a house that was well away from
the nearest flood plain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not everybody can afford to do that, though, and everyone
who is involved in flood prediction, abatement, and management should consider
more factors than simply the market value of land and improvements when making
their next set of plans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
article excerpted above appeared on the website EOS, operated by the American
Geophysical Union, at <a href="https://eos.org/science-updates/five-key-needs-for-addressing-flood-injustice">https://eos.org/science-updates/five-key-needs-for-addressing-flood-injustice</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-63173063902030535852024-02-12T04:00:00.000-08:002024-02-12T04:00:00.159-08:00Alaska Airlines Plane Had Bolts Missing<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Last month, we blogged in this space about the Alaska Airlines
flight that lost a door plug and decompressed at 16,000 feet on January 5. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aircraft involved was a Boeing 737 Max 9,
and the door plug was recovered in the back yard of a Portland, Oregon resident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, no one was killed, although
several minor injuries resulted, and the plane landed safely.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On last Tuesday, the U. S. National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) announced that its investigators determined that the four bolts which
retain the door plug in place were missing before it blew out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Documents obtained from Boeing and its
supplier Spirit AeroSystems show a sequence of events that points to a serious
manufacturing problem, if preliminary indications are borne out by subsequent
investigations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point, here is
what we know, based on news reports and a preliminary report by the NTSB.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The 737 fuselages are manufactured at a Spirit facility in
Wichita, Kansas, which used to be owned by Boeing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2005, Boeing spun it off to an investment
firm, but it still makes fuselages and ships them via extra-long railcars to one
of the main Boeing assembly plants in Renton, Washington State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fuselage of the plane in question arrived
in Washington in August of 2023.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the Renton plant, it was found that five rivets near the
port-side door plug were damaged and had to be replaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To access the rivets, it was necessary to
remove the door plug.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except for the
fact that it has no handle and other fittings that would make it a usable door,
the door plug fits in the fuselage like a regular door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are twelve "stop pads" which
engage with fittings on the plug, but in order for it to move like a door, the
plug must be free to move away from these pads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A regular door has a separate locking mechanism to keep it attached to
the plane, but in the door plug, it appears that instead of a locking mechanism,
four bolts retain it in place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without
these bolts, the only thing keeping the door plug in place is the mechanical
integrity of the stop-pad pins and other machinery that is not designed to keep
it there, but to let it move when needed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the defective rivets were replaced by Spirit personnel
at the Boeing plant, a photo was taken of the completed work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the photo that shows three out of the
four door-plug bolts were definitely missing (a fourth location was concealed
by insulation, but that one was probably missing too, based on evidence from
the recovered door plug).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These events took place in September of 2003.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aircraft was delivered to Alaska Airlines
on Halloween of 2023, the end of October.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somehow the door plug managed to stay in place for a number of flights
through November and December, but by January 5, the stop pads and associated
parts had fatigued with repeated pressurizations enough to fail at 16,000
feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the plane had been at a
cruising altitude of 35,000 feet when the plug blew, the depressurization could
have sucked many passengers out and possibly crashed the plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this incident was an extremely close call.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a teacher, I am continually impressed with the need for
an ability that is unique to humans:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
ability to pay attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I impress this
need upon my students, but every time I grade exams, I discover what happens
when attention is not properly directed, or directed on the wrong things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boeing and Spirit obviously have extensive
procedures in place to manufacture, assemble, and inspect aircraft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And nearly all the time, these procedures
work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But every procedure is useless if
the human minds carrying them out do not perform them according to the
rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, it was someone's duty to document with a photograph
the rework of the five damaged rivets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
it is so easy to see how someone, even an inspector whose main job was to
certify the correctnesss of a repair, would have his or her attention focused
on the rivets, and not on the door plug only a few feet to the rear of the
rivets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The NTSB inspectors, focused as
they were on the door plug, saw immediately from that photo that someone had
forgotten to install the retaining bolts before the insulation and interior
finish materials were installed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
probably the first time the bolts were put in, before the rework procedure,
somebody checked to make sure they were there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But this time, because things were slightly out of the ordinary during
the rivet rework, that small but critical act of looking to see if the bolts were
in place was omitted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And once
everything was buttoned up, nobody could tell from outside that the bolts were
missing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This raises a question that occurs to a person who has disassembled
and reassembled many pieces of equipment over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a technician removed the bolts to take
out the door plug and gain access to the rivets, where did those bolts go?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a workbench?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a pile of similar bolts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems like if they were just sitting
around after the job was done, that would get somebody thinking about where
they belonged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the kind of seemingly
unimportant detail that suddenly becomes significant, and I'm sure that some
NTSB personnel are asking similar questions of the people involved in the
rework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would not want to be one of
the technicians who get grilled.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Modern technological means of documenting manufacturing
processes have made it easier to trace actions such as the ones the NTSB is
investigating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the old
pre-digital-camera and pre-email days, investigators would have had to rely only
on recollections of mechanics, and it's very unlikely anyone would have taken
pictures at every step of the process or produced documents with as much detail
as electronic data can include these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Still, it's not robots who assemble airplanes, it's
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And people (and robots) can make
mistakes, especially when they are doing something out of the ordinary such as
rework, where it is impossible to write procedures for every contingency and
people are trusted simply to do the common-sense good thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only problem here is, that wasn't quite
good enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, the
consequences were a lot more benign than they could have been, and the accident
can serve as a warning, or encouragement if you like, that no matter how
trivial an inspector's work may seem, it can save lives—or lose them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources: </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
referred to an Associated Press report on the NTSB findings which appeared Feb.
6 at <a href="https://apnews.com/article/boeing-emergency-landing-report-alaska-airlines-8543c90b68b4d932a700cf57ff8f1b8e">https://apnews.com/article/boeing-emergency-landing-report-alaska-airlines-8543c90b68b4d932a700cf57ff8f1b8e</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The preliminary NTSB report itself is at https://<a href="http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MA063%20Preliminary%20report.pdf">www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MA063%20Preliminary%20report.pdf</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to the Wikipedia article on
Spirit AeroSystems.</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-71535027543984055052024-02-05T04:14:00.000-08:002024-02-05T04:14:00.140-08:00Will Apple's Vision Pro Be the Next iPhone?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Back in June of 2023, Apple announced its Vision Pro, which
the Wikipedia article about it calls a "mixed reality" headset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This week, in some parts of the world you can
now buy your own Vision Pro—for $3,500.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While this will not be an obstacle for wealthy early adopters, the rest
of us will probably wait until the beta-version bugs are worked out and the price
comes down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime, we can
think about what this means for the future of humanity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That sounds either presumptuous or silly, but there is no
question that the advent of the smartphone has changed the course of world
history, especially cultural, social, and political history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Combined with the AI-fueled algorithms that maximize
profits for Facebook, X, and their ilk at the expense of rational political
discourse, we have seen the smartphone severely damage democracy in the U. S.
and other places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, there are
advantages to smartphones as well, but a serious debate over whether having
them is a net gain or loss to society is one that we will probably never have,
because they are here to stay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That is not yet the case for the Vision Pro, so let's spend
a little thought on imagining what life would be like if Vision Pro headsets or
their upgraded equivalents become as common as smartphones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My speculations are aided by my watching an
8-minute video made by Joanna Stern of the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, who went
to a cabin at a ski resort with some video producers and wore a Vision Pro for
most of 24 hours.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When you wear a Vision Pro, your entire visual field is
mediated, in a literal sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can't
see anything directly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All you see is a
projection of two high-resolution video screens that go directly to your
eyeballs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to see anything,
including the ordinary world around you, you have to use the multiple cameras
mounted on the Vision Pro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything
you see goes into the cameras, through Apple's proprietary software and some of
the 600 apps now available for the device, and only then do you get to see
anything.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And it works the other way too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Physically, the Vision Pro looks like a pair
of unusually bulky ski goggles, with a headstrap to keep it on and a
fanny-mounted battery pack that has to be recharged every two or three
hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The outer surface of the goggles
is also a video screen, and in order to present something other than a blank
shiny surface to someone the wearer is talking with in person, the screen
presents video images of the wearer's eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is after the wearer has taken a photograph of her or his entire
face, so the system knows how to present a somewhat reasonable facsimile of the
wearer's visage.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Videoconferencing is one of the big intended uses of Vision
Pro, but you can't just point a camera at a roomful of people wearing bulky
headsets that cover their faces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apple
to the rescue—the 3-D photos of the wearer stored in the system are used to
create "avatar" faces to present to the other people in the videoconference.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From all the reactions to Stern's avatar that she
accumulated in her video calls using the Vision Pro, there was one unanimous
opinion:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>her avatar looked
terrible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Apple has not yet
overcome the "uncanny valley" effect in trying to use computing to
simulate the human visage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to
the uncanny valley hypothesis, unless a human simulation is <i>extremely</i>
authentic (the good side of the valley), people will sense that something is
off and have a negative reaction to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the other side of the valley, a cruder image is seen as merely
cartoonish and not uncanny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Apple
should have gone that route, as most people would prefer to see an obviously
artistic caricature of a friend, rather than an image that is like something
that an undertaker might manage to do with a corpse.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That was probably the worst experience Stern had with the
device.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Apple doesn't recommend
cooking while wearing the Vision Pro, Stern went right ahead and chopped
onions, and was delighted to find that the airtight seal around her eyes
prevented her eyes from watering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Chopping
onions in a pan of water, I am told, is just as effective, and $3,500
cheaper.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the 3-D movies available
from some (not all) streaming services were impressive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You can record your own 3-D videos with either the Vision
Pro or the latest iPhone (15, I believe), and Stern tried this feature out
while skiing, another activity that Apple doesn't recommend for Vision Pro
wearers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But nothing bad happened on her
bunny-run venture down the slopes, and the overall impression Stern left with
her viewers is that this is still a prototype, but if they work out some bugs
and get the battery life up and the power consumption down, along with the
price, Apple may have finally found what Google tried to find with Google Glass
and failed to do back in 2015:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a mass
market for what most people still call virtual-reality or augmented-reality
headsets.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Apple avoids both of those terms and insists that what the
Vision Pro allows is something they call "spatial computing."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To my ears, this is a singularly unfortunate
phrase, because it implies that the computer uses space somehow to calculate
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, every computer that takes
up space does that, so it's just going to be a label for the 3-D techniques
that the Vision Pro allows you to use for setting up your workspace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Wearing a Vision Pro really cuts you off from ordinary
reality in a much more radical way than using a smartphone does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything that you see passes first through
the guts of the machine, rendering your entire visual field subject to the
whims of the Vision Pro designers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps
that sounds benign now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But put this
device in the hands of criminals, or even well-intentioned entertainers who
simply want to thrill people, and it may open entirely new fields of
horrors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's too early to tell, but
there will be downsides, especially if the Vision Pro proves as popular as
Apple hopes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let's just hope the
downsides aren't too low.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>I
referred to an Associated Press article on the commercial introduction of the
Vision Pro at <a href="https://apnews.com/article/apple-vision-pro-spatial-computing-augmented-reality-7ec545a42403cf12e799200864e47d94">https://apnews.com/article/apple-vision-pro-spatial-computing-augmented-reality-7ec545a42403cf12e799200864e47d94</a>,
Joanna Stern's video report on it at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xI10SFgzQ8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xI10SFgzQ8</a>,
and the Wikipedia article "Apple Vision Pro."</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-75511648932001662502024-01-29T04:18:00.000-08:002024-01-29T04:18:00.149-08:00The Ethics of Disposable Earbuds<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Over the Christmas holidays, we stayed at a nice Texas motel
that had an exercise room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I usually take
a daily bike ride for exercise, but as I didn't bring my bicycle with me, I did
the next best thing and used a stationary bike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The bike had a video screen connected to the cable-TV system of the
motel, and for the convenience of exercisers, the motel provided free
disposable earbuds, so if you wanted to watch Metallica music videos, you
wouldn't disturb the lady next to you who was tuned to PBS. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The earbuds worked fine, but I had never come across an
establishment which provided them free of charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It got me to thinking about how a thing which
was once a high-tech piece of specialized and uncommon equipment has become a
commodity so inexpensive that motels can afford to give them away.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first device that transformed electrical impulses into
audible speech was Bell's telephone receiver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You have probably seen old movies in which characters use the
"candlestick" phone, consisting of a vertical stand with a
transmitter that the user spoke into, and a "potato-masher" receiver
that was held to the ear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason the
potato-masher was as long as it was—several inches—wasn't for convenience in
handling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All electromagnetic
transducers (the technical term for a device that converts electric waves into
sound waves) need a magnetic field, and producing a strong enough magnetic
field to make the device work efficiently has always been one of the defining
challenges of making receivers, headphones, and earphones.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the 1890s, the best magnetic materials were lousy by
today's standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took a U-shaped
piece of iron about three or four inches long to make a strong enough magnetic
field to work well as a telephone receiver, and so that was why the potato-masher
was as long as it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By the early 1900s, materials had improved to the extent
that the magnet was small enough to fit into a round can, and thus the
headphone came to be developed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1930,
you could buy a good pair of radio-quality headphones, the kind that fit over your
head with a spring strap, for $1.09.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have an Allied Radio catalog published in Chicago which describes them as
"[u]nusually sensitive headphones carefully designed with aluminum shells
and genuine moulded caps."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's not
clear why an <i>imitation</i> moulded cap would be a problem, but a certain
amount of vivid writing was expected by the catalog reader of the day.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 2024 dollars, those phones would cost $19.43, so how does
a motel get by with giving their modern-day equivalent away?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Advances in manufacturing, of course, and the
most significant advance has been in the technology of magnetic materials.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Around 1990, it became possible to make what are called
neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets, which produce the same magnetic field
intensity as previous types but with a small fraction of the weight and size.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magnets made of NdFeB are why we can have
excellent sound quality in tiny packages, and also why we can have small
battery-powered drones (one of the reasons, anyway—lithium batteries are the
other).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And China, which bought the
NdFeB technology from General Motors in the 1990s and ran with it, according to
the economics website MacroPolo, makes the vast majority of all NdFeB magnetic
materials today, although Japan and Germany still have toeholds in the high-end
parts of the market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U. S. is no
longer a significant player in the technology, although we are one of the largest
consumers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The reason why the motel didn't provide a single public set
of earbuds, the way nineteenth-century railroads used to provide a single public
brush and comb chained to the washroom wall, is sanitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven't seen any actual statistics on
diseases known to be transmitted by reusing somebody else's earbuds, but I
suppose it could happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there's the
yuck factor of just thinking that somebody else's earwax is getting into your
ear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if the motel provided more expensive
non-ear-penetrating headphones with padding, there would still be skin-to-pad
contact around the ear area, and so the easiest out is just to supply cheap disposable
earbuds.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what is the harm, if any, in using some inexpensive
earbuds once and throwing them away?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For one thing, that decision adds to the stream of waste
electronics flooding our landfills daily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As pollutants go, a pair of earbuds isn't that big a deal, but they are
yet another example of the disposable society that is one of the driving themes
of modernity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magnets aren't exactly
biodegradable, but it turns out that one of the more significant growth
industries in the U. S. is the enterprise of picking through garbage to find NdFeB
magnet material to recycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An economic
report by MacroPolo tells me that in the next few years, there may be a crunch
in the NdFeB magnet supply chain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>China
can't make the best ones, Japan and Germany are maxed out, and the demand for magnets
to go in everything from electric cars and wind turbines to drones and earbuds
is increasing rapidly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So magnet
material may become recycling gold if new sources of supply aren't found soon.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The libertarian economists among us would say, "Hey, if
earbuds are cheap enough to throw away, don't worry about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it gets to be a problem, the price will go
up and we'll do something else, maybe rent them and sterilize them."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they would have a point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just because something is cheap doesn't
mean that it's fine to throw it away after one or a few uses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turns out that I kept my earbuds after we
left the hotel, and now I have my own private set in my shaving kit if I ever come
across another motel which isn't as generous with earbuds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if the coming NdFeB magnet crunch comes
to pass, I may be glad I kept mine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>I
referred to a report "The Impermanence of Permanent Magnets:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Case Study on Industry, Chinese Production,
and Supply Constraints" at <a href="https://macropolo.org/analysis/permanent-magnets-case-study-industry-chinese-production-supply/">https://macropolo.org/analysis/permanent-magnets-case-study-industry-chinese-production-supply/</a>,
and an original Allied Radio catalog for 1930 in my collection of antique
catalogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-35968477026488344322024-01-22T04:48:00.000-08:002024-01-22T04:48:00.131-08:00Does Diversty Make United Less Safe?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Steve Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, drew a lot of flak this
past week for two things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of them
raises serious questions about the tradeoff between so-called diversity hiring
practices and safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other concerns
one of Kirby's hobbies and can probably be dismissed as irrelevant, although it
contributed to the overall attention level he's been receiving lately.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some videos alleged to be showing Kirby—a 56-year-old married
father of seven—performing as a drag queen went viral, amassing 2.7 million
views in only a few days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I have no
means of knowing whether these videos are authentic or when they were made, and
I can't find any evidence that either confirms or denies their provenance, I
fall back on a policy I once read which the manager of an ice-manufacturing
plant told his employees in the 1920s:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"As long as you do your work well during the day, I don't care what
you do at night."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the CEO of
a major multinational corporation may regret a time years ago when he dressed
up in drag, I see no reason to draw any far-reaching conclusions from that
fact, if indeed it is a fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Its chief use by certain media organizations has been to
serve as eye candy for the related story, which <i>should</i> be considered
seriously:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whether United Airlines' stated
diversity-hiring intents are so extreme as to cause their passengers unnecessary
safety risks.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While I have not been able to locate the original June 2021
interview that is the basis of this charge, the closest I can find to a direct
quote from Kirby is from something called "The Patriot Oasis" on X:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"We decided that 50% of the aviation
academy students would be women or people of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, women and people of color make up only
19% of our pilots."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The issue here is whether a prestigious and demanding
profession—that of airline pilot in this case—should be allowed to compose and
propagate itself according to criteria that are strictly professional-merit-based,
or whether one should also consider what for the lack of another phrase I will
call identity-based factors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Questions
like this are made clearer by extreme cases, so I will use an example to show
what I mean.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1960, less than 5% of lawyers in the U. S. were
female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many law firms would hire women
only as secretaries and legal assistants, and many law schools either had a
policy of not admitting women at all, or making it very difficult for a woman
to obtain a law degree. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But things
changed, and today, 38% of U. S. lawyers are women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Similar things can be said about the professions of medicine
and engineering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a variety of
reasons both historical and political, barring women from entering professions
simply because they were women became something that was both frowned upon, and
eventually made illegal by Federal and state laws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What once seemed part of the nature of things
now seems highly prejudicial and arbitrary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In retrospect, the custom of banning women from the professions of law,
medicine, and engineering seems to have few if any redeeming features, and
undoubtedly lost the talents of many otherwise qualified women.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lifting bans is one thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But setting numerical goals for percentages of various identity groups
is a different thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it justifiable to
arrange selection and admission processes to shift the percentage of various
identity groups (women, ethnic and racial minorities, social classes, etc.) in
directions that appear to be desirable, not for the intrinsic good of the
profession itself, but for an extrinsic good such as distributing the benefits
of highly-paid prestigious professions among identity groups who have
previously not enjoyed them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If Steve Kirby's stated goal of his "aviation
academy" students being 50% women or people of color is achieved, what are
the consequences for the distribution of pilot quality among the graduates?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Qualitatively speaking, if the total number
of slots in the academy is fixed, and the selection rules are changed so that the
fraction of women and people of color rises from whatever it is under strictly professional-merit-based
criteria (presumably less than 50%) to the stated goal, some people who would
have otherwise been admitted can't get in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have no idea how hard it is to get into United Airlines' aviation
academy, or what criteria one must meet in order to be admitted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presumably, it includes a track record of flying
experience and education, and perhaps some tests of professional ability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The critical question is, does United Airlines maintain
their professional-merit-based standards of admission and graduation and hiring
while also managing to admit more women and people of color?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To answer this question in detail would
require months or perhaps years of research and access to information which is
probably proprietary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the answer is
critical to our query.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If United raises their fraction of discriminated-against
minorities by admitting and hiring them with lower professional criteria than
those applied to other applicants, it is clear that quality is being
compromised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if they achieve their
diversity goals only by extensive and intensified recruitment efforts, for
example, and maintain the standards they held before the diversity initiative started,
then there is nothing to worry about safety-wise.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There really is no other way to answer this question that I
can see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And of all the various places
I've seen or heard this topic discussed, no one seems to have carried the
inquiry to the depths it needs to go in order to answer it with fairness both
to United Airlines and to the flying public.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe some investigative reporter is busily digging into the
records as we speak, but somehow I doubt it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The drag-queen videos combined with a two-year-old interview quote have
done their job of increasing Internet traffic to certain sites that are more
interested in traffic than truth or objectivity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In order to remain professions and merit the respect and
prestige they receive from the public at large, professions, including that of
airline pilot, must maintain their professional standards, and must also be <i>perceived</i>
as maintaining those standards in order to retain the public's trust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This Internet-based kerfuffle about Steve
Kirby has undoubtedly eroded that trust, but has left the real question of
pilot quality unexamined.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
referred to a Fox Business report at <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/pilots-hired-based-merit-not-diversity-safety-top-priority-aviation-expert-says">https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/pilots-hired-based-merit-not-diversity-safety-top-priority-aviation-expert-says</a>,
the quote from Patriot Oasis at <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/1747584074175107488">https://twitter.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/1747584074175107488</a>,
and for statistics on women in law at <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/05/women-lawyers.html">https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/05/women-lawyers.html</a>,
in addition to the Wikipedia article on Steve Kirby, United Airlines CEO.</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-22363362623745646292024-01-15T04:16:00.000-08:002024-01-15T04:16:00.132-08:00The Door Plug Blowout on a 737 Max 9: Another Headache for Boeing<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">When Alaska Airlines flight 1282 took off around 5 PM Friday,
Jan. 5 from Portland, Oregon, few if any of the 171 passengers suspected that
anything unusual was going to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But at 5:11 PM, as the Boeing 737 Max 9 was climbing through 16,000
feet, passengers heard a loud bang followed by a roaring wind noise that made
conversation impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where a normal
porthole window had once been, a gaping two-by-four-foot hole had appeared next
to a row of seats on the left side of the plane. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One passenger, Kelly Bartlett, didn't realize
what had happened until a teenage boy moved into an empty seat next to
her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was sitting in the row next to
the hole, two empty seats away from the window, and the blast sucked the shirt
off his back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he hadn't been wearing
his seatbelt, he might have gone with it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Oxygen masks deployed all over the plane, and the passengers
remained calm amid the chaotic noise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The pilot immediately returned to Portland and landed the plane
safely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one other than the boy next
to the hole was injured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Boeing 737 Max 9 can be configured for various numbers
of seats, and for more than 200, an emergency exit is required in the location
where the hole appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But for smaller
capacities, the emergency exit is replaced by a panel, basically a plug the
shape of the exit door, that blocks the exit opening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From inside the plane, the window and trim
make this plug almost invisible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But all
that was holding it against the differential pressure of over a ton as the
plane rose through 16,000 feet were four bolts, at least if the plug had been
installed correctly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This particular Max
9 was delivered to Alaska Airlines only last October, so the problem may have
existed since it was built.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Portland high-school teacher found the door intact in his
back yard, so investigators are looking at it closely to determine the cause of
the failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the meantime, the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) has grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes, which affects some 171
aircraft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has ordered inspections of
the bolts and other structures around the door plugs, and United Airlines has
already found that some bolts on its door plugs are loose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Only last week, we described in this space how all
passengers on a commercial flight involved in a runway collision in Japan survived
with only minor injuries, and we can fortunately say the same about this
accident in Portland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But things could
have been much worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In similar
incidents involving sudden holes in fuselages, passengers or flight attendants
have been sucked out bodily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the boy
sitting next to the hole hadn't been wearing his seatbelt, that probably would
have been his fate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if the plug had
waited to fail at a higher altitude, the pressure differential would have been
greater, possibly tearing a seat off its mounts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although we can rejoice that nobody was seriously injured,
the big question now is why the plug blew out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fact that at least one other plane has been found with loose bolts
holding the plug says that this may not have been an isolated incident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why the FAA has wisely grounded the
Max 9s until a thorough investigation shows exactly what the problem was.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We can only speculate at this point, but already some things
are fairly clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that the
plane suffering the accident was so new points to a possible manufacturing
problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nuts on airframes must be torqued
to a specific tension, because the proper amount of torque represents a
compromise between not enough tension on the bolt, which might leave it subject
to vibration loosening or fatigue in some cases, and too much tension, which
could lead to bolt failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many bolts
on aircraft have locking cables, cotter pins, or other means by which the nut
on the bolt is prevented from turning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It's not clear whether the four bolts that hold the door plug in place
had such provisions, but even locking devices can fail, or be improperly
installed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another 737 Max series, the Max 8, was the subject of an
extensive and expensive investigation involving defective software that
intentionally crashed the plane when it received faulty data from attitude
sensors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This problem cost Boeing
billions of dollars and lost prestige, and the last thing the company needs
right now is another expensive and embarrassing safety problem.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a statement to employees that was also released to the
public, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun promised "100% and complete transparency
every step of the way" during the investigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can hardly promise less, because Boeing's
reputation is on the line with every accident that points to a manufacturing
cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As airlines which own 737 Max 9s wait impatiently to begin
using their millions of dollars of investment again, both the FAA and Boeing
have big incentives to figure out why the plug blew out and how to make sure it
doesn't happen again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The recovery of
the intact door will be very helpful in the investigation, and I expect we will
know something definite within 60 to 90 days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the meantime, air flight remains a safe mode of travel
for the vast majority of passengers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
incredible number of things that all have to work flawlessly for a typical
flight to be completed goes completely unnoticed by most passengers, but it is
the product of the efforts of thousands of engineers, technicians, service
people, pilots, crew members, air traffic controllers, and others who do their
jobs without public recognition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are fortunate that the last two attention-grabbing commercial
aircraft accidents have resulted in relatively few casualties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But grounding the Max 9s was the right thing
to do, and everyone looks forward to the time when we can know what happened,
why it happened, and how to keep it from happening again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>I
referred to the FAA website at<a href=" https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-grounding-boeing-737-max-9-aircraft"> https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-grounding-boeing-737-max-9-aircraft</a>
and the following news reports:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/alaska-airlines-emergency-fittings-top-door-plug-fractured/story?id=106218951">https://abcnews.go.com/US/alaska-airlines-emergency-fittings-top-door-plug-fractured/story?id=106218951</a>,
<a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/08/1223517098/door-plug-boeing-737-max-portland-ntsb-faa">https://www.npr.org/2024/01/08/1223517098/door-plug-boeing-737-max-portland-ntsb-faa</a>.
and <a href="https://abc7ny.com/alaska-airlines-flight-emergency-boeing-door-plug/14298712/">https://abc7ny.com/alaska-airlines-flight-emergency-boeing-door-plug/14298712/</a>.</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-64567042727302409832024-01-08T03:55:00.000-08:002024-01-08T03:55:00.128-08:00The Mostly Good News of the JAL Flight 516 Crash<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Any air transportation fatality is tragic, and our sympathy
is extended to the loved ones of the five crew members of the Japan Coast Guard
plane who died in a collision with Japan Air Lines (JAL) flight 516 on Tuesday
Jan. 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But considering that the JAL
Airbus 350 had 367 passengers and 12 crew members on board, and every single
one of them survived, this accident could have been so much worse.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Investigation of the crash will continue for months, but
initially it appears that while the JAL flight was cleared to land on runway
34R at Haneda Airport, one of the two international airports in Tokyo, a much
smaller Japan Coast Guard De Havilland turboprop was supposed to be waiting to
enter the runway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, possibly due
to a misunderstanding or communications error, the De Havilland was already on
the runway as the JAL aircraft was landing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two aircraft collided, killing five of the six crew
members on the Coast Guard plane and sending the Airbus 350 skidding down the
runway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It eventually ground to a stop
with the right engine still running. Dramatic video footage of the wreck shows
passengers escaping down inflatable ramps in the red glow of the engine's fiery
exhaust.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The JAL flight crew were unable to use the plane's PA
system, so they resorted to megaphones in order to direct the passengers to
usable exits amid the smoke that quickly filled the cabin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wide-body carbon-fiber-composite A350 was
designed for quick evacuation, but until now the evacuation procedure had only
been tried out in drills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eyewitnesses
say none of the passengers appeared to be carrying luggage, which probably
helped evacuate the plane quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
plane's captain was the last person to leave the aircraft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the presence of over 100 fire trucks
and the efforts of firefighters, the A350's fire spread throughout the plane
and completely destroyed it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But other
than bruises and minor injuries, all the passengers and crews made it out
safely.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to a BBC report on the crash, after a 1985
accident in which a JAL aircraft collided with a mountain and killed 520 people
the company pledged that they would "never again allow such a tragic
accident to occur."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a look at
commercial aircraft fatalities over the years shows a generally declining trend
since the 1970s, with a low of 59 deaths worldwide in 2017, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is the first total loss of a carbon-fiber-airframe A350,
and the Airbus designers should be justifiably proud of the way the plane took the
punishment of a crash landing without coming apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carbon does burn, after all, while aluminum
doesn't burn as easily, and one might be concerned that a carbon-fiber plane
would be more dangerous in terms of flammability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the JAL 516 crash proved that under the
particular circumstances of this accident, the Airbus managed to protect every
human being inside from a fiery death.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Turning to the causes of the crash itself, increasing
aspects of commercial flying have been computerized and automated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the processes of taxiing, takeoff, and
landing are mostly still done manually by the pilots and copilots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Decades ago, railroads devised a system called "interlock"
which helps prevent settings of switches that would put a train on a track
occupied by another train.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Planes aren't
trains, but it seems that with modern GPS systems installed on every commercial
plane, some sort of coordinated alarm process could be designed to inform
pilots when they are straying onto a runway that they have not yet been
authorized to enter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, such a system could cause more trouble than it's
worth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And cockpits are already overflowing
with alarms, flashing indicators, and other distractions that sometimes encumber
pilots more than helping them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But when you look into any multiple-fatality accident, regardless
of the engineering field, you will typically find that there were precursors:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>less serious non-fatal incidents that
nevertheless resembled the big awful one, but for some reason turned out to be
either harmless or only slightly harmful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These near-misses are full of information about how to avoid the big
awful accident, if only engineers and safety people will pay attention to them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the JAL-Coast Guard plane crash, five people died, but
that was only a small fraction of the number who could have perished, had it
not been for the excellent safety procedures and obedience of the passengers
who evacuated Flight 516 so quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
in terms of what could have happened, this crash was more of a warning than a
full-fledged tragedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If the cause does turn out to be due to pilot error, I think
it's time to consider some sort of automated system that at a minimum, warns a
pilot when he is about to stray onto a runway for which he hasn't been
authorized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not being a commercial
pilot, I may be speaking out of ignorance and there may be such a system in
place already.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it seems like if
there was, we would have heard about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Warning systems can only do so much, but if a light or voice had warned
the Japan Coast Guard pilot that he didn't belong on the runway yet, his crew
members might not have died, and 379 other people might not have had to run for
their lives before their plane burned up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It's good to know that those inflatable ramps are actually
good for something, and that the practice evacuations in aircraft
manufacturers' test facilities that some people make fun of ("Sure, try
doing that with smoke in the cabin and screaming people everywhere") can
actually be realized in a real-life emergency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But what would be even better is if this accident encourages new safety
features that would keep the precipitating cause from happening anywhere, ever
again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thank my wife for alerting me to the BBC
article on this crash at <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67870119">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67870119</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to statistics at <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/263443/worldwide-air-traffic-fatalities/">https://www.statista.com/statistics/263443/worldwide-air-traffic-fatalities/</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/aviation-fatalities-per-million-passengers">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/aviation-fatalities-per-million-passengers</a>,
and the Wikipedia article "2024 Haneda airport runway
collision."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-26940154428595914112024-01-01T04:11:00.000-08:002024-01-01T04:11:00.252-08:00California Cracks Down on Warehouse Pollution—Or Does It?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">As the retail
economy transitions from big-box stores to big-box warehouses supporting home
delivery, the U. S. has experienced something of a warehouse building
boom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the South Coast Air Quality
Management District (SCAQMD) in Southern California is going to make sure that
those warehouses don't pollute the air.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">How does a warehouse
pollute the air?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A warehouse itself is just a big room full of
stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But getting the stuff in and out
of the warehouse requires trucks and forklifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Never mind that those trucks are going to be going somewhere else and
emitting pollution anyway if that particular warehouse isn't built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The brilliant minds of the California
regulators have determined that warehouse owners and operators are liable for
the air pollution caused by any truck that delivers or picks up stuff at the
warehouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In order to be
absolved of these sins, warehouses must either pay a fee that allegedly goes toward
the air district's anti-pollution initiatives, or must install electric vehicle
chargers or rooftop solar panels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the
warehouse doesn't comply by the deadline (which varies from now till 2025,
depending on the warehouse's size), the SCAQMD can assess fines of $11,700 a
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And according to an <i>LA</i> <i>Times</i>
article, only about half of the warehouses included in current regulations have
complied so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to shame the
noncompliant ones, the paper published a 109-line table of the warehouses that
haven't complied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The article noted that
the regulators made warehouses in disadvantaged communities a special priority
for enforcement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Nobody in
their right mind is in favor of air pollution, other things being equal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But other things are hardly ever equal, and
this attempt on the part of California regulators to reduce pollution that is
loosely associated with warehouses shows that the regulatory process has
reached the outer limits of feasibility in this case.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Let's see if
we can analyze the logic of the regulations, such as it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Californians need stuff that is typically
shipped by truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Currently, that stuff
is moving less through retail stores and more through warehouses owned by
retailers, shippers, and manufacturers, and a lot of truck traffic is going to
and from the warehouses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">So far,
electric trucks are not much of a thing, although in other regulations
California is threatening to ban diesel trucks from the state altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(That would certainly fix the truck-pollution
problem, but would deprive most Californians of their stuff.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people building warehouses clearly have
money to spend on building them, so they can certainly afford to pay either
fees the regulators assess—so many dollars per truck coming and going—or they
can afford to install lots of charging stations for the electric trucks which
will surely materialize ("If you build it, they will come"), or force
the warehouses to install solar panels on those nice flat roofs of theirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Now suppose
you're a poor person living in one of those disadvantaged neighborhoods near
which a big new warehouse has been built, and you open your door to diesel
fumes emitted by the many trucks that drive past your house on the way to the
warehouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How is any aspect of these
new regulations going to make your life better?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">If the
warehouse is paying a fee per truck and that goes to the SCAQMD, that isn't
going to help you directly unless you get a job at the SCAQMD.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">If the
warehouse installs hordes of electric-truck charging stations, that isn't going
to help you until the electric trucks come along, which may be many years from
now, if ever.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">If the
warehouse installs solar panels on their roof, there's just as many trucks
going by your house as there were before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Unless you
have the particular mindset that rejoices when any polluter is made to pay a
penalty for their crime, and derive enough satisfaction from knowing that the
warehouse operator is doing daily penance for attracting all those trucks that
drive by your door, and that warm glow of vengeance or whatever it is outweighs
the problem of all those trucks passing your house, you are no better off with
these regulations than without them, at least for the foreseeable future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Yes, perhaps
the regulations move us incrementally closer to the fossil-fuel-free utopia
envisioned by many in our elite classes, in which the roar of diesel engines is
replaced by the almost imperceptible hum of electric motors—except for the
occasional boom of exploding transformers overloaded by too much demand on an
outmoded power grid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">I put the
regulations in terms of sin and penance rather than in more objective or
scientific terms, because that is what they amount to:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a secular version of the religious concepts
of sin and salvation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I have shown,
the warehouse anti-pollution regulations are not going to reduce the diesel
emissions from trucks going to and from the warehouse, at least not until most
of the California truck fleet becomes electric.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they punish people who have had the economic initiative to build
warehouses in order to meet California's insatiable desire for stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It would make
more sense to assess fines on the trucks each time they make a delivery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the regulators know they have pushed truckers
about as far as they can stand, and so instead they go for large warehouse-owning
corporations, which are richer and easier to shake down than individual
truckers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I use the term
"shakedown" intentionally, because in some ways, these environmental
regulations are taking on the look of the Mafia henchman who comes into a dime
store and says to the owner, "Nice little place you got here—a shame if
anything happened to it."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
air quality has become such a sacred cow in California, almost anything can be
done in its name, including the slapping of ineffective regulations that don't
get at the root of the problem, but appease the gods of air quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Perhaps these
regulations are just rough spots on the road to a diesel-free future, but in
the meantime, I'm glad I don't run a warehouse in California.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The article "Crackdown on warehouse pollution results in more than
100 violation notices" appeared on the <i>LA Times</i> website at <a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-12-22/warehouse-crackdown-results-in-over-100-pollution-violations">https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-12-22/warehouse-crackdown-results-in-over-100-pollution-violations</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-33581659302572001672023-12-25T04:11:00.000-08:002023-12-25T04:11:00.138-08:00Predatory Sparrows in Iran<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In the United
States, fears of widespread hacking causing major national disruptions have so
far been mostly unfounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have
been isolated foreign-based attacks on infrastructure here and there, but no
one has so far been able to disrupt an important nationwide system deliberately
for political reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Iran hasn't
been so fortunate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hacker group
calling itself Gonjeshke Darande, which translates as "Predatory Sparrow,"
claims responsibility for knocking out about 70% of Iran's gas stations in the last
few days, according to an Associated Press report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A related CNBC piece connects the Predatory Sparrows
with Israel, although the connection is unconfirmed by the group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">This isn't
the first time the Sparrows have mounted cyberattacks in Iran.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CNBC report recounts a fire in an Iranian
steel plant in June of 2022 which the group claimed to have started.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hackers say that they try to avoid
inconveniencing civilians, but having 70% of a country's gas stations shut down
is more than an inconvenience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iran
reportedly disconnected most of its government infrastructure from the Internet
after the Stuxnet virus damaged uranium-enrichment centrifuges in the late
2000s, but the hackers have evidently found a way around that obstacle.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Iran has been
sanctioned for its support of terrorism in other countries, and these sanctions
prevent hardware and software updates from being installed that might otherwise
help the country defend itself against attacks such as these.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reportedly, software pirating is widespread,
but pirated software typically loses manufacturer support for security updates,
with the result that such systems are comparatively easy to invade for
nefarious purposes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Iran is widely
believed to be the power behind Hamas, the group which mounted the October 7
attacks in southern Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Engineering
ethics always has to operate before a background of cultural and historical
events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An action which can be construed
as ethical in wartime, at least by some people, would be considered highly
unethical in peacetime circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">As large-scale
hacks go, the Predatory Sparrows' shutdown of most gas stations, which isn't
the first time they've done something like this, is not life-threatening, at
least to most people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In tweets, the
group claimed to have warned emergency services in advance, and so they at
least appear to be trying to avoid serious harm to civilians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their idea seems to be that if the people of
Iran get fed up enough with issues like not being able to buy gas for a time,
they will rise up and throw off the chains of the present regime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that might happen, but the ayatollahs in
charge have endured much worse challenges up to now, and unless their grip on
power gets a lot shakier, they will probably shrug off this cyberattack as
easily as they did the others.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Cyberattacks
are still new enough to count as a novel addition to the warmonger's bag of
tricks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with other forms of warfare, its
success depends on how well-defended the enemy is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For whatever reason, the United States seems
to be doing a better job at defending itself against hacks than Iran has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect a large factor in this difference
has to do with the wide range of systems employed in the U. S. compared to more
top-down-governed places like Iran.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">I have no way
of knowing for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if nearly all the gas stations
in Iran use the same kind of hardware and software.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That uniformity makes a system much easier to
hack compared to an infrastructure built out of several different brands and
designs of technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why
theories of how a national election was allegedly hacked in many U. S. states
hold so little water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hacker would
have to master and invade dozens or hundreds of different systems and would
have to gain access to literally thousands of machines through individual
county election offices in order to swing millions of votes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">While the
rule can be extrapolated beyond its range of usefulness, it is true that in
technological systems, diversity lends a kind of strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If one brand of system falls to a hacker, the
others may not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Iran would probably like
to have a robust market for software, but sanctions and the general economic
climate have militated against that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
in addition to having to limp along with outdated machinery, they suffer from
Predatory Sparrows who take advantage of the vulnerabilities of outdated and
pirated software.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">What can the
U. S. learn from this situation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
least two things.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">First, money
spent on cybersecurity is generally worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regular updates and security patches are simply good practice, and most
responsible organizations follow these guidelines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Second, in
technological diversity there is strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Highly centralized national mandates dictating the details of any kind
of cyber-infrastructure are liable to produce security vulnerabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The software industry is still one of the
most lightly-regulated ones in our economy, and the resulting variety and dynamism
is a security advantage as well as providing customers with the latest and
greatest, other things being equal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any
attempt by government to do heavy-handed regulation is likely to lead to a
uniformity that would not be in the best interests of customers, and it might
make life easier for predatory sparrows and their like.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It's too bad
that Iranians are having to wait in long lines at the 30% of gas stations that
still operate (a fraction apparently chosen deliberately by the hackers), but
when your government fights a proxy war, you can expect the enemy to get back
at it by both fair means and foul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
cyberattacks, the line between fair and foul is especially fuzzy, and Iranians
should be glad that the hackers are as relatively polite as they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, it's a pain, and we can long for a day
when neither Iran nor Hamas nor Israel has to resort to hacking, because peace
has at long last come to earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">And that's
what Christmas is all about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that's
a story for another time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The AP report "A suspected cyberattack paralyzes the
majority of gas stations across Iran" appeared prior to Dec. 18, 2023 on
the AP website at <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-gas-stations-cyberattack-a9ae33c352812e40ca3d255a2533fea9">https://apnews.com/article/iran-gas-stations-cyberattack-a9ae33c352812e40ca3d255a2533fea9</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to a CNBC report at <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/18/pro-israel-hackers-claim-cyberattack-disrupting-irans-gas-stations.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/18/pro-israel-hackers-claim-cyberattack-disrupting-irans-gas-stations.html</a>.
</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-25119940266519801632023-12-18T03:52:00.000-08:002023-12-18T03:52:00.138-08:00Are We Ready for Mandatory Alcohol Detectors in Cars?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Drunk driving
has been a problem ever since automobiles were invented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The alertness needed to control a motor
vehicle is incompatible with drinking more than a certain amount, and as a
consequence of ignoring this fact, 13,400 people in the U. S. died in
alcohol-related crashes, according to a recent AP news report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That may be about to change, because in
response to a law passed by Congress in 2021, the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Dec. 12 that it is going to require
all new passenger vehicles to have a device that will prevent drunk driving.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The NHTSA
rule will not go into effect for a year or two, at least, because the agency's
notice of proposed rule making first allows manufacturers to provide
information about the state of the technology so as to have an orderly rollout
and reasonable requirements once the rule is finalized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But unless Congress changes its mind, sooner
or later all new cars will have this feature—or bug, depending on your point of
view.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">So-called
"ignition lockout" devices are not new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A cursory search of the Internet turns up
dozens of papers and project descriptions to implement versions of this
technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appears that some
jurisdictions already require certain people convicted of drunk driving to
install a lockout device on their car before they are permitted to drive
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of these gizmos are pretty
inconvenient—imagine having to blow into a tube every time you start your
car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it's better than not being able
to drive at all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The AP
article says that the new required device won't have a tube for drivers to blow
into, and the average driver may not even be aware of its presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The optimum technology hasn't been decided on
yet, but leading candidates include a sensor that would check the driver's
breath from a distance (maybe mounted in the steering wheel?), or an optical
spectrometer that would derive blood alcohol content from reflectance
measurements on a finger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">From a
technical point of view, one can ask what the acceptable rate of false
positives and false negatives are going to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For sober drivers and those who haven't consumed their legal limit,
false positives will mean that your car won't start until the device decides
that you're really sober.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Users of
alcohol-based mouthwashes and breath-freshener sprays will have to avoid using
them just before getting in the car in the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This in itself is not a major problem, but
other factors could cause false positives as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the finger-spectrometer device, what if
you happen to wear gloves?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too bad,
you'll have to take them off to drive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">And then
there's the question of setting a threshold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the instrument itself can be backed up by sophisticated statistical
software, it may take other factors into account:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the weight of the driver (easily obtained
from a strain gauge in the seat), the driver's motions as monitored by pedal
and steering wheel activity, and history of alcohol use as detected by the
system in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no system is
going to be perfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can expect some
unanticipated problems when the systems are first deployed widely among drivers
who don't drink, because there's nothing like the real world to come up with
situations that even the most imaginative engineer can't predict.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Even worse
will be the false negatives:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cases in
which the driver is really drunk but the system doesn't detect it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Habitual drunk drivers will have a strong
motivation to defeat the system, and designers will have to take measures to
ensure this doesn't happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"See
that little hole in the steering wheel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Plug it up with chewing gum and you can drive no matter how many you've
had." Tricks like that will have to be prevented somehow.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Reducing the
thousands of deaths annually due to drunk driving is worth something,
certainly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And adding one more required system
to automobiles is not going to be noticed along with the many hardware and
software enhancements—assisted driving chief among them—which are already being
implemented voluntarily by carmakers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">But an alcohol-detection
system is different in kind from other systems, in that it monitors the
driver's condition independent of how well he or she drives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can make the case that automatic braking
systems step in and remove control from the driver when the system decides it's
necessary, but that is determined by immediate road circumstances to avoid an
imminent crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An alcohol-detection
system uses a chemical sensor to conclude that the "meat system"
called the driver is unsuitable for use, and simply shuts down the car until
the driver sobers up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">This may be
the first step toward driver evaluation that is already implemented in some
ways elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Dead man"
lockout systems in certain types of industrial equipment require that a person
always be touching the controls or holding a pedal down, and if the operator
ceases to do so, the equipment automatically stops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One can imagine alertness tests using subtle
cues such as eye motion in response to instrument-panel changes, and if the car
decides you're too sleepy to drive, it tells you to pull over or else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or else—what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stopping in the middle of traffic wouldn't be a good idea, but unless
the car is semi-autonomous already, it's hard to think of what to do with a
sleepy driver other than to tell him or her to get off the road, and hope that
the driver obeys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Like it or
not, all new cars will eventually have the alcohol-detection feature, which is
already being required next year in some European Union countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we will have to deal with the
consequences, whatever they may be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reducing the number of drunk-driving crashes is a highly worthwhile
goal, and if it means a few non-drinkers will be inconvenienced by false
positives now and then, it's probably worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The AP article "US agency takes first step toward requiring new
vehicles to prevent drunk or impaired driving" was published at <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alcohol-breath-test-devices-required-new-vehicles-2a2e2862691ecea396df3ab66d4440c6">https://apnews.com/article/alcohol-breath-test-devices-required-new-vehicles-2a2e2862691ecea396df3ab66d4440c6</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to a website of the Chinese
firm Winsen (which makes alcohol-vapor detectors) at <a href="https://www.winsen-sensor.com/knowledge/alcohol-detection-engine-lockin-to-prevent-drunk-driving.html">https://www.winsen-sensor.com/knowledge/alcohol-detection-engine-lockin-to-prevent-drunk-driving.html</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-59303889960446594132023-12-11T04:14:00.000-08:002023-12-11T04:14:00.380-08:00Water Beads: A Small But Significant Ethics Issue<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Water beads,
which are spheres of a highly absorbent polymer compound that absorbs water to
produce glassy-clear globules that are nearly all water, turn out to be the
focus of an ethical issue as complex as many that involve more influential
technologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I managed to survive until
an advanced age in complete ignorance of the existence of water beads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now that I've found out about them, they
turn out to be more controversial than you'd think.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It all began
last Friday at a Christmas dinner and concert at a church some friends of ours
attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The table decorations were clear
plastic candle stands with a thin stem supporting a clear cup that had what
looked like water in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Floating on the
water was a disc-shaped candle, but what caught my interest was what I saw
between the candle and the bottom of the cup.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Somehow,
there were five or six small Christmas ornaments suspended at various heights
in the cup, which was at least two or three inches (2.5-4 cm) high.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some ornaments were at the bottom, some were
suspended in the middle, and some were near the top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This got my physics-oriented mind going:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what kept the ornaments from either all
falling to the bottom or floating to the top?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Was it clear gelatin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A touch of
my fork to the top of the cup proved that no, there was plain water at the
top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(You see how I spend my time at
parties.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I leaned over to my friend at
the next table, who is also technically inclined, and asked him how it
worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had no idea, but knew the
lady who did the table decorations and said he'd ask her after the event was
over.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">When we
caught up with her, she said, "You want to know my candle-holder
secret?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Orbeez."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">We didn't
know what Orbeez were.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">"Water
beads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See, here's a cup that got
spilled."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the table were dozens
of what looked like clear marbles, maybe 5 mm (1/4 inch or so) in diameter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being almost all water, they are almost invisible
when suspended in water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I looked
through an intact cup with its ornaments, I could see sort of ripples in the clear
fluid, like heat waves above a hot road in the summer, but nothing more than
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The water beads in the water stay
intact and support the Christmas decorations at various heights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mystery solved, but what the heck were
Orbeez?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It's a trade
name for water spheres made with a special polymer originally developed to make
highly absorbent sanitary napkins in the 1970s. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When compressed dry into either spheres or
various other shapes, the material expands when placed in water, but retains
its relative shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wikipedia's article
on expandable water toys describes both the attraction they have for children
and also the hazards they pose.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Especially if
the objects are brightly colored or have interesting shapes resembling candy,
it's easy to imagine a baby or young child eating them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this has happened—a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem is that unless the object is
already saturated with water, it will continue to absorb water and expand
inside the digestive tract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U. S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has a grim webpage with an X-ray
showing a child's colon filled with water beads that caused an intestinal
blockage, which leads to severe illness or even death if untreated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">According to
an article on the ClickOrlando.com website, 4,500 emergency-room visits in the
U. S. were attributed to water beads from 2017 to 2022.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why last month, U. S. Representative
Frank Pallone introduced legislation that would ban the sale of such beads
altogether.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">As with other
engineering-ethics issues, the first step is to identify the parties
involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The manufacture of the beads
takes place offshore, mostly in China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Retailers buy them either directly or from repackagers, and sell them to
the public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both children and their
parents buy the beads, and adults such as our table decorator as well as
children use them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some types of beads
have a maximum size of only a few millimeters, and are advertised as harmless
except to very young children, whose small-bore internal plumbing could still
be plugged by such objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others can
get as large as two inches (about 50 mm), and pose a clear hazard if
ingested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">What we have
now is close to a libertarian approach to the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Water beads as such are unregulated, but the
CPSC has issued consumer recalls on specific brands of water beads that appear
to be very likely to be misused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
example, Target sold a product called "Chuckle and Roar Ultimate Water
Bead Activity Kit."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CPSC issued
a recall notice for this product on Sept. 14 of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's not stated why this particular product
was singled out, unless it was associated with an unusually high number of ER
visits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Rep. Pallone's
bill would take the government-knows-best approach and simply ban all such
products, at least according to the brief report on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's unclear whether responsible adult users
such as florists and decorators would be allowed to buy them, perhaps after
showing proof they are over 18, like ammunition is treated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If enforcement is not any more rigorous than
the regulations around buying ammunition, which I did online by simply checking
a box saying that I was over 18, the new law might not be very effective.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Somehow,
people with small children keep them alive in houses full of things that might
hurt them:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>drain cleaner, cleaning
fluids, medicines, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
allowing a very young child who doesn't know the difference between food and
plastic to play with water beads seems unwise, it's up to society at large to
decide whether hundreds of ER trips every year for kids who eat water beads is
worth the pleasure they derive from using them properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">To be frank,
most of society is unaware that there is even an issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Rep. Pallone's bill advances toward
passage, you can count on the water-bead sellers to protest, and unless there
is an organized group such as Parents Against Water Beads, the voices of the
manufacturers and retailers may prevail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In that case, we'll all just have to be more careful and try not to make
this world any more hazardous than it is already for small children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if water beads really are cool looking. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The article describing Rep. Pallone's bill is at <a href="https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/11/13/bill-coming-to-congress-would-ban-orbeez-other-water-beads-over-child-injuries/">https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/11/13/bill-coming-to-congress-would-ban-orbeez-other-water-beads-over-child-injuries/</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CPSC statement on the water-bead product
recall is at </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Chairman/Alexander-Hoehn-Saric/Statement/Chair-Hoehn-Saric-Statement-on-the-Dangers-that-Water-Beads-Pose-to-Young-Children">https://www.cpsc.gov/About-CPSC/Chairman/Alexander-Hoehn-Saric/Statement/Chair-Hoehn-Saric-Statement-on-the-Dangers-that-Water-Beads-Pose-to-Young-Children</a>.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1</style><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to the Wikipedia article on
"Expandable Water Toy."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-47304694141610500152023-12-04T04:02:00.000-08:002023-12-04T04:02:00.142-08:00Consumer Reports Says Electric Cars Have More Problems<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In a
comprehensive survey covering vehicle model years 2021 through 2023, the
publication <i>Consumer Reports</i> found that electric cars, SUVs, and pickups
had among the worst reliability ratings compared to either all-internal-combustion-powered
vehicles or IC-powered hybrids (not plug-in hybrids, which were also
problem-prone).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Results
varied by brand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tesla, the largest
seller of all-electric vehicles, rose in the reliability rankings from 19th out
of 30 automakers in last year's survey to 14th out of 30 in the latest
study.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This reflects an overall tendency
that is probably the main cause of reliability problems with electric vehicles
(EVs):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>inexperience.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The first
time you do anything, you're not likely to do it perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young people sometimes don't understand this
basic principle of life, and it leads to unfortunate consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother once sent me to take tennis lessons
when I was about ten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I discovered
I couldn't serve like a pro right off the bat (or the racket), I promptly lost
all interest and closed myself off to a lifetime of tennis enjoyment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The same
thing that is true of individuals learning how to do new things is true of automakers
learning how to make EVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Associated
Press article on the <i>Consumer Reports</i> survey quotes Jake Fisher, their
senior director of auto testing, as saying the situation is mainly "growing
pains."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how detailed and
accurate computer models and laboratory prototypes are, a manufacturer can't
simulate the myriad of unlikely situations that will arise when a product is
made in units of thousands and sent out to the great unwashed public, who will
do a lot of crazy durn things that the maker could never think of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">This sort of
thing has been going on with internal-combustion (IC) cars since before 1900,
and the automakers are supremely experienced with what can go wrong with that
technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be surprising to
learn, but the reliability requirements of military-grade technology are
nowhere nearly as rigorous and demanding as the requirements for hardware used
in the automotive industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jet aircraft
are inspected and serviced every few hundred hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Grandma just drives her car until it breaks,
and expects that to happen very rarely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Combine that consumer
expectation with a radically new powertrain, control system, and body, which is
what EVs represent, and you're going to have problems, even entirely new types
of problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue of autonomous
vehicles is formally independent of EVs, but as some of the most advanced
autonomous-vehicle systems are found in EVs such as Teslas, the two often go
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And autonomous driving is only
one of the multitude of new features that EVs make either possible at all, or a
lot easier to implement.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">An EV is more
of a hardware shell for a software platform than anything else, and reliability
standards for software are a different kind of cat compared to automotive reliability
expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Software is at fault in
many issues involving EVs, although it can increasingly cause problems with IC
cars as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The hope
expressed by many EV makers is that consumers will recognize the higher problem
rate as something temporary, and won't allow it to tarnish the overall
reputation of the technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This depends
on the age and psychology of the customer to a great and imponderable
degree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Just last
night, for instance, I was talking with a friend who bought his first Tesla
about five months ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he's had any
problems with it, he didn't mention them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I asked about charging times, and he said it was no problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can charge his Tesla at his house
overnight, and he knows where there are supercharging stations that will do it
in only 30 minutes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">His attitude
reminds me of a scene in the Woody Allen movie "Annie Hall."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a split-screen scene, Alvy Singer's
therapist asks him, "How often do you sleep together?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Singer replies forlornly, "Hardly
ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe three times a
week."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the other half of the
screen, his partner Annie Hall gets asked the same question by <i>her</i>
therapist, and Annie says with annoyance, "Constantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'd say three times a week."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">My friend, a
power engineer and Tesla enthusiast, sees charging an EV in thirty minutes as
wonderful, hardly any time at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Someone like me, who is a dyed-in-the-wool IC traditionalist, can't help
compare that half hour to the five minutes I usually spend at the gas pump, and
the Tesla suffers by comparison.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The true-blue
EV proponents will undoubtedly overlook or tolerate minor issues with their
vehicles and rightly regard them as temporary stumbling blocks that will grow
less frequent as the makers learn from their mistakes and improve reliability
overall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big question is, are there
enough such proponents to support the overwhelming market share growth that the
automakers hope for, and that the federal government is standing by to enforce
with a big stick if it doesn't happen?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The same AP
article notes that the initially explosive growth of EV sales has slowed by about
half in the last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's a genuine open
question as to where EV sales will stabilize, if they ever do, with regard to
IC sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem that the automakers
face is that as things currently stand, they must comply with the so-called CAFE
standards for overall fleet fuel economy, or else pay heavy fees for non-compliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the Biden administration has proposed
steep increases in the fleet-mileage numbers that will require a large fraction
of all cars on the roadways to be EVs in the coming years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">One can question
the propriety of government interference in the auto marketplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If left alone, the market will let all the EV
enthusiasts satisfy their wants without driving up the overall price of cars or
causing artificial scarcities of IC vehicles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Both of these downsides are likely if the government forces Adam Smith's
famed invisible hand to deal only the kinds of cars the government wants,
without regard to consumer preferences or needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Electric cars
will become more reliable, but it's by no means clear if consumers will want
enough of them to warrant the current pressures to overthrow the century-long
reign of IC cars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The AP article "Consumer Reports:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Electric vehicles less reliable, on average, than conventional cars and
trucks" appeared on Nov. 29, 2023 at </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/electric-vehicles-consumer-reports-gasoline-vehicles-charging-eed9c3b8d86c1f7708b7c6e2d4dbf55e">https://apnews.com/article/electric-vehicles-consumer-reports-gasoline-vehicles-charging-eed9c3b8d86c1f7708b7c6e2d4dbf55e</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to IMDB for the "Annie
Hall" quote at <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/characters/nm0000095">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/characters/nm0000095</a>,
and for CAFE standards at<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/28/1190799503/new-fuel-economy-standards-cars-trucks" target="_blank"> https://www.npr.org/2023/07/28/1190799503/new-fuel-economy-standards-cars-trucks</a>.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-53955494498047305422023-11-27T04:10:00.000-08:002023-11-27T04:10:00.140-08:00Corpus Christi Gets a New Harbor Bridge --- Eventually<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">When my wife
and I took a short vacation down to the Gulf Coast in October, we used part of
a day to visit the Texas State Aquarium in the North Beach part of Corpus
Christi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To get there, we had to take
the (old) Harbor Bay Bridge that crosses a large industrial canal through which
pass tankers going to the main industry of Corpus Christi, which is oil
refining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That bridge was built in 1959,
and about twenty years ago, plans began to be made for a new bridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we saw from miles away, the new Harbor
Bridge is well under way and may be completed as soon as 2025.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The new
bridge will be cable-stayed: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>two tall
pylons will hold sets of cables that slant out and down to connect to the
bridge deck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I do mean tall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the pylons is complete, and the
builders are extending the deck out from it in both directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is by far the tallest structure for
hundreds of miles around, and the cantilevered-out parts extend so far that I
got a little giddy just looking at the thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When it's finished, the bridge will allow much taller ships to pass
underneath than the current bridge, and will have a pedestrian walkway and LED
lighting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its planned cost is some $800
million, but that was before some delays occasioned in 2022 when an outside
consultant raised safety concerns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
halted construction on a part of the bridge for nine months, but the five
safety issues were addressed, and construction resumed last April.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Later that
month, as the Corpus Christi Hooks were playing a baseball game at nearby
Whataburger Field (the eponymous fast-food firm's first restaurant was in Corpus
Christi), a fire began near the rear of a construction crane on the
bridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Subsequent videos obtained by
news media show a load on the crane falling rapidly to the ground, and flying
debris injured one spectator at the ball game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A battalion chief for the Corpus Christi Fire Department said a cable
failure caused enough friction to set grease on a cable reel afire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Internet search has not revealed any other
major accidents since the bridge project formally began in 2016, but it is
possible that some have escaped the news media's attention.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Originally scheduled
to be completed in 2020, delays and engineering-firm changes have pushed back
the anticipated completion date to 2025.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That's only two years from now, and while a good bit has been
accomplished, there is still much remaining.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">While any injuries
or fatalities from construction projects are tragic, we have come a long way
from the days when it was just an accepted fact that major bridges and tunnels
would cost a certain number of human lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In 1875, the
4.75-mile Hoosac Tunnel was completed in the hills of Western
Massachusetts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took twenty years to
build, and 135 verified deaths were associated with the project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the worst accidents happened when a
candle in the hoist building at the top of a ventilation shaft caught a naphtha-fueled
lamp on fire, and the wooden hoist structure burned and collapsed down the
shaft, trapping 13 workers at the bottom, who suffocated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the hazards were severe enough to
inspire a workers' strike in 1865, this failed to stop construction, and the
following year saw the highest number of fatalities: fourteen.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In 1937, San
Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge opened after four years of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its safety record was better than the Hoosac
Tunnel, and would have been almost perfect except for a scaffolding failure
that sent twelve men plunging through the safety net to the bay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two survived, and there was one other unrelated
fatality, making a total of eleven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nineteen
men fell into the safety net and survived to form an exclusive group they
called the Half Way to Hell Club.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">This
completely unscientific survey of major construction project fatalities and
injuries seems to indicate that over time, we as a culture in the U. S. have
grown less tolerant of having workers killed on the job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Credit for this improvement can be parceled
out in a number of directions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The
contractors and engineers in charge of construction projects deserve a good
share of the credit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are the ones
who determine how the work will be done, and how important safety is compared
to the bottom-line goal of getting the job done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The increased
mechanization of construction labor has to be another factor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One modern construction worker equipped with
the proper tools can do the work that required several workers decades or a
century ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the simple fact that
fewer people are needed to do a given job has made it less likely that people
will be injured or killed on the job.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Government
agencies—federal, state, and local—also deserve some credit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Federal Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) was founded in 1970, and its influence has undoubtedly
led to safety improvements, although doing a cost-benefit analysis of OSHA
would be a daunting task even for a team of historians and safety
analysts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Labor unions hold
safety as a high priority, and while there are probably statistics supporting
the contention that unionized workers have better safety records than non-union
employees, a lot of non-union workers manage to work safely too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">If the worst
accident that happens during the construction of the new harbor bridge in
Corpus Christi turns out to be the flying-debris crane mishap, that will be a
truly exemplary record for a project that will have taken nearly a decade and
cost nearly a billion dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The project
still has a long way to go, and it's possible that the most hazardous
operations lie in the future:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>putting the
rest of the cables in place and connecting the deck to finish off the
bridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the contractors have
enforced safety sufficiently to get this far with no major incidents, and the
hope is that this trend will continue.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The other question
about the bridge is, of course, will it stay put once it's built?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The original engineering firm for the bridge,
FIGG, was kicked off the project in 2022 after an independent review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FIGG, by the way, was involved in the
ill-fated Florida International University pedestrian bridge that collapsed in
March of 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recent reports indicate
that all the engineering concerns have been adequately addressed, but we won't
know for sure until the bridge is finished and has withstood its first
hurricane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay tuned.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I referred to the following sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/new-video-port-of-cc-cameras-show-initial-fire/503-52b32589-f72c-4653-926b-2160c83fa3fd">https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/new-video-port-of-cc-cameras-show-initial-fire/503-52b32589-f72c-4653-926b-2160c83fa3fd</a>,
<a href="https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/a-crane-fire-seen-from-up-above-and-felt-from-down-below">https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/a-crane-fire-seen-from-up-above-and-felt-from-down-below</a>,
<a href="https://www.tpr.org/news/2022-09-16/construction-on-new-corpus-christi-bridge-halted-as-engineers-say-design-flaws-could-lead-to-collapse">https://www.tpr.org/news/2022-09-16/construction-on-new-corpus-christi-bridge-halted-as-engineers-say-design-flaws-could-lead-to-collapse</a>,
<a href="https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/whataburger-field-spectator-hospitalized/">https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/whataburger-field-spectator-hospitalized/</a>,
and <a href="https://practical.engineering/blog/2022/9/15/what-really-happened-at-the-new-harbor-bridge-project">https://practical.engineering/blog/2022/9/15/what-really-happened-at-the-new-harbor-bridge-project</a>,
as well as the Wikipedia articles on the Hoosac Tunnel and the Golden Gate
Bridge.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-49229297617831781292023-11-20T04:27:00.000-08:002023-11-20T04:27:00.126-08:00Cruise Gets Bruised <p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">General
Motors' autonomous-vehicle operation is called Cruise, and just last August, it
received permission (along with Google's Waymo) to operate driverless robotaxis
in San Francisco at all hours of the day and night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This made the city the only one in the United
States with two competing firms providing such services.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Only a week after
the California Public Utilities Commission acted to allow 24-hour services, a
Cruise robotaxi carrying a passenger was involved in a collision with a fire
truck on an emergency call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The oncoming
fire truck had moved into the robotaxi's lane at an intersection surrounded by
tall buildings and controlled by a traffic light, which had turned green for
the robotaxi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Engineers for Cruise said
that the robotaxi identified the emergency vehicle's siren as soon as it rose
above the ambient noise level, but couldn't track its path until it came into
view, by which time it was too late for the robotaxi to avoid hitting it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The passenger was taken to a hospital but was
not seriously injured.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">As a result,
Cruise agreed with the Department of Motor Vehicles to reduce their active fleet
of robotaxis by 50% until the investigation by DMV of this and other incidents
was resolved.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In many engineering
failures, warning signs of a comparatively minor nature appear before the major
catastrophe, which usually attracts attention by loss of life, injuries, or
significant property damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These minor
signs are valuable indicators to those who wish to prevent the major tragedies
from occurring, but they are not always heeded effectively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cruise collision with a fire truck proved
to be one such case.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">On Oct. 2, a pedestrian
was hit by a conventional human-piloted car on a busy San Francisco street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This happens from time to time, but the
difference in this case was that the impact sent the pedestrian toward a Cruise
robotaxi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the unfortunate
pedestrian hit the robotaxi, the vehicle's system interpreted the collision as
"lateral," meaning something hit it from the side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of lateral collisions, the
robotaxi is programmed to stop and then pull off the road to keep from
obstructing traffic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">What the
system didn't take into account was that the pedestrian was still stuck under
one of the robotaxi's wheels, and when it pulled about six meters (20 feet) to
the curb, it dragged the pedestrian with it, causing critical injuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">California
regulators reacted swiftly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The DMV revoked
Cruise's license, and the firm announced it was going to suspend driverless
operations nationwide, including a few vehicles in Austin, Texas, and other locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were only 950 vehicles in the entire U.
S. fleet, so the operation is clearly in its early stages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">But now,
after Cruise has done software recalls for human-piloted vehicles as well as
driverless ones, it is far from clear what their path is back to viability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to an AP report, GM had big hopes
for substantial revenue from Cruise operations, expecting on the order of $1
billion in 2025 after making only about a tenth of that in 2022.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And profitability, which would require
recouping the billions GM already invested in the technology, is even farther
in the future than it was before the problems in San Francisco.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The consequences
of these events can be summarized under the headings of good news and bad news.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The good
news:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody got killed, although being
dragged twenty feet under the wheel of a robot car that clearly has no idea
what is going on might be a fate worse than death to some people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After failing to heed the warning incident in
August, Cruise has finally decided to react vigorously with significant and
costly moves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to AP, it is adding
a chief safety officer and asking a third-party engineering firm to find the
technical cause of the Oct. 2 crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
after clearly inadequate responses to the earlier incidents, a major one has
motivated Cruise management to act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The bad
news:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several people were injured, at
least one critically, before Cruise realized that, at least in the complex
environs of San Francisco, their robotaxis posed an unacceptable risk to
pedestrians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm sure Google's Waymo
vehicles have a less-than-perfect safety record, but whatever start-up glitches
they suffered are well in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cruise does not have the luxury of experience that Waymo has, and is in
a sense operating in foreign territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe Detroit would have been a better choice than San Francisco for a
test market, but that would have neglected the cool factor, which is after all
what is driving the robotaxi project in the first place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Back when
every elevator had a human operator, there was a valid economic and engineering
argument to replace the manually-controlled units with automatic ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main reason was to eliminate the salary
of the operator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, the environment
of an elevator is exceedingly well defined, and the relay-based technology of
the 1920s sufficed to produce automatic elevators which met all safety
requirements and were easy enough for the average passenger to operate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, some places clung to manual
elevators as recently as the 1980s, as I recall from a visit to a tax consultant
in Northampton, Massachusetts, whose office was accessed by means of an
elevator controlled not by buttons but by a rather seedy-looking old man.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Being an old
man myself now, I come to the defense of everyone on the street who would like
to confront real people behind the wheel, not some anonymous software that may—<i>may!</i>—figure
out I'm a human being and not a tall piece of plastic wrap blowing in the wind,
in time to stop before it hits me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes,
robotaxis are cool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, they save on
taxi-driver salaries, but this ignores the fact that one of the few entry-level
jobs that recent immigrants to this country can get which actually pays a
living wage is that of taxi driver, many of whom are independent entrepreneurs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Robotaxis may
be cool, but dangerous they should not be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>GM may patch up their Cruise operation and get it going again, but then
again it may go the way of the Segway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Time will tell.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>An article from the USA Today Network in the online <i>Austin
American-Statesman </i>for Nov. 16, 2023 alerted me to the fact that Cruise was
ramping down its nationwide operations, including those in Austin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I consulted AP News articles at </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/cruise-general-motors-pedestrian-recall-software-crash-bf08c0c6e7914649750b4dde598af5fc">https://apnews.com/article/cruise-general-motors-pedestrian-recall-software-crash-bf08c0c6e7914649750b4dde598af5fc</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">(Nov. 8,
2023) and at </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-cruise-robotaxi-crash-e721a81c1366c71a03c0aa50aa2e98f3">https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-cruise-robotaxi-crash-e721a81c1366c71a03c0aa50aa2e98f3</a>
(Aug. 19, 2023).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-91151960440816330142023-11-13T03:48:00.000-08:002023-11-13T03:48:00.141-08:00Should Social Media Data Replace Opinion Polls—And Voting?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Pity the poor
opinion pollsters of today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their job
has been mightily complicated by the rapidly changing nature of communications
media and the soaring costs of paying real people to do real things such as
knocking on doors and asking questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
an age when even the Census Bureau has mostly abandoned the in-person method of
counting the population, opinion polls can't compete either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a time—say 1950 to 2000—their job was
made easier by the advent of the near-universal telephone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the rise of robocalling, mobile phone
proliferation with the caller ID feature, and the consequent general aversion
of nearly everybody to answering a call from someone you don't know, has made
it much harder for opinion poll workers to approach the ideal of their
business:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a truly representative sample
of the relevant population.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">So why not
take advantage of the technological advances we have, and use data culled from
social media to do opinion polling?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After all, we are told that some social-media and big-tech firms know
more about our preferences than we do ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out there in the bit void is a profile of
everyone who has anything to do with mobile phones, computers, or the
Internet—which is almost everyone, period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And much of that data on people is either publicly available or can be
obtained for a price that is a lot less than paying folks to walk around in
seventeen carefully selected cities and countrysides knocking on one thousand doors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Well,
anything a piker like me can think of, you can bet smarter people have thought
of as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And sure enough, three
researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland have not only thought
of it, but have collected nearly two hundred papers by other researchers who
have also looked into the topic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In surveying
the literature, Maud Reveilhac, Stephanie Steinmetz, and Davide Morselli apparently
did not find anyone who has gone all the way from traditional opinion polling
to relying mainly on social-media data (or SMD for short).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is a bridge too far even now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they found many researchers trying to
show how SMD can complement traditional survey data, leading to new insights
and confirming or disconfirming poll findings.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">With regard
specifically to political polls, a subject many of the papers focused on, one
can imagine a kind of hierarchy, with one's actual vote at the top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Below that is the opinion a voter might tell
a pollster in response to the question, "If the Presidential election were
held today, who would you vote for?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And below that, as far as I know, anyway, are the actions the voter
takes on social media—the sites visited, the tweets subscribed to, the comments
posted, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It only
stands to reason that there is <i>some</i> correlation among these three
classes of activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If someone watches
hours of Trump speeches and says they are going to vote for Trump, it would be
surprising to find that they actually voted for Bernie Sanders as a write-in,
for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">But there is
a time-honored tradition in democracies that the act of voting is somehow
sacred and separate from anything else a person happens to do or say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because voting is the exercise of a right
conferred by the government, in the moment of voting a person is acting in an
official capacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is essentially the
same kind of act as when a governor or president signs a law, and should be
safeguarded and respected in the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A president may have said things that lead you to think he will sign a
certain law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He may even say he'll sign
it when it comes to his desk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But until
he actually and consciously signs it, it's not yet a law.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">There are
laws against bribing executives and judges in order to influence their decisions,
and so there are also laws against paying people to vote a certain way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is because in a democracy, we expect the
judgment of each citizen to be exercised in a conscious and deliberate
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And bribes or other forms of vote contamination
corrupt this process.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Despite the
findings of the University of Lausanne researchers that so far, no one has
attempted to replace opinion polls wholesale with data garnered from social
media or other sources, the danger still exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with the advent of AI and its ability to
ferret out correlations in inhumanly large data sets, I can easily imagine a
scenario such as the following.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Suppose some
hotshot polling organization finds that they can get a consistently high
correlation between traditional voting, on the one hand, and "polling"
based on a sophisticated use of social media and other Internet-extracted
data—data extracted in most cases without the explicit knowledge of the people
involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right now, that sort of thing
is not possible, but it may be achievable in the near future.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Suppose also
that for whatever reason, participation in actual voting plummets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This sounds far-fetched, but already we've
seen how one person can singlehandedly cast effective aspersions on the
validity of elections that by most historical measures were properly
conducted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Someone may
float the idea that, hey, we have this wonderful polling system that predicts
the outcomes of elections so well that people don't even have to vote!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let's just do it that way—ask the AI system
to find out what people want, and then give it to them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It sounds
ridiculous now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in 1980, it sounded
ridiculous to say that in the near future, soft-drink companies will be
bottling ordinary water and selling it to you at a dollar a bottle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it sounded ridiculous to say that the U.
S. Census Bureau would quit trying to count every last person in the country,
and would rely instead on a combination of mailed questionnaires and
"samples" collected in person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">So if anybody
in the future proposes replacing actual voting with opinion polls that people
don't actually have to participate in, I'm here to say we should oppose the
idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It betrays the notion of democratic
voting at its core.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The social scientists
can play with social-media data all they want, but there is no substitute for
voting, and there never should be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The paper "A systematic literature review of how and whether social
media data can complement traditional survey data to study public
opinion," by Maud Reveilhac, Stephanie Steinmetz, and Davide Morselli
appeared in <i>Multimedia Tools and Applications</i>, vol. 81, pp. 10107-10142,
in 2022, and is available online at <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-022-12101-0">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-022-12101-0</a>.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-34500009022600343902023-11-06T04:26:00.003-08:002023-11-06T04:26:00.132-08:00The Biden Administration Tackles AI Regulation—Sort Of<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In our
three-branch system of government, the power of any one branch is intentionally
limited so that the democratic exercise of the public will cannot be thwarted
by any one branch going amok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
division of power leads to inefficiency and sometimes confusion, but it also
means that the damage done by any one branch—executive, legislative, or judicial—is
limited compared to what a unified dictatorship could do.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">We're seeing
the consequences of this division in the recent executive order announced by the
Biden administration on the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One take on the fact sheet that preceded the
63-page order itself appeared on the website of IEEE Spectrum, a
general-interest magazine for members of IEEE, the largest organization of
professional engineers in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It's
interesting that reactions from most of the technically-informed people
interviewed by the Spectrum editor were guardedly positive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lee Tiedrich, a distinguished faculty fellow
at Duke University's Initiative for Science and Society, said ". . . the
White House has done a really good, really comprehensive job."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She thinks that while respecting the
limitations of executive-branch power, the order addresses a wide variety of
issues with calls to a number of Federal agencies to take actions that could
make a positive difference.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">For example,
the order charges the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
with developing standards for "red-team" testing of AI products for
safety before public release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Red-team
testing involves purposefully trying to do malign things with a product to see
how bad the results can get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although
NIST doesn't have to do the testing itself, coming up with rigorous standards
for such testing in the manifold different circumstances that AI is being used
for may prove to be a challenge that exceeds the organization's current
capability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, you don't get
what you don't ask for, and as a creature of the executive branch, NIST is
obliged at least to try.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The U. S.
Department of Commerce will develop per this order "guidance for content
authentication and watermarking to clearly label AI-generated
content."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cynthia Rudin, a Duke
professor of computer science, sees that some difficulty may arise when the
question of watermarking AI-generated text comes up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her point seems to be that such watermarking
is hard to imagine other than seeing (NOTE:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>AI-GENERATED TEXT) inserted every so often in a paragraph, which would
be annoying, to say the least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(You have
my guarantee that not one word of this blog is AI-generated, by the way.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Other experts
are concerned about the use of data sets for training AI-systems, especially
the intimidatingly-named "foundational AI" ones that are used as a
basis for other systems with more specific roles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many training data sets include a substantial
fraction of worldwide Internet content, including millions of copyrighted
documents, and concern has been raised about how copyrighted data is being
exploited by AI systems without remuneration to the copyright holders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susan Ariel Aaronson of George Washington
University hopes that Congress will take more definite action in this area to
go beyond the largely advisory effect that Biden's executive order will have.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">This order
shares in common with other recent executive orders a tendency to spread
responsibilities widely among many disparate agencies, a feature that is
something of a hallmark of this administration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the one hand, this type of approach is good at addressing an issue
that has multiple embodiments or aspects, which is certainly true of AI.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything from realistic-looking deepfake
photos, to genuine-sounding legal briefs, to functioning computer code has been
generated by AI, and so this broad-spectrum approach is an appropriate one for
this case.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">On the other
hand, such a widely-spread initiative risks getting buried in the flood of
other obligations and tasks that executive agencies have to deal with, ranging
from their primary purposes (NIST <i>must</i> establish measurement standards;
the Department of Commerce <i>must</i> deal with commerce, etc.) and other
initiatives such as banning workplace discrimination against LGBT employees,
one of the things that Biden issued an executive order for in his first day of
office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is partly a matter of
publicity and public perception, and partly a question of priorities that the
various officials in charge of the various agencies set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the growing number of Federal employees,
it's an open question as to what administrative bang the taxpayer is getting
for his buck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regulation of AI is
something that there is widespread agreement on—the extreme-case dangers have
become clearer in recent months and years, and nobody wants AI to take over the
government or the power grid and start treating us all like lab rats that the
AI owner has no particular use for anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">But how to
avoid both the direst scenarios, as well as the shorter-term milder drawbacks
that AI has already given rise to, is a thorny question, and the executive
order will only go a short distance toward that goal.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">One nagging
aspect of AI regulation is the fact that the new large-scale "generative
AI" systems trained on vast swathes of the Internet are starting to do
things that even their developers didn't anticipate:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>learning languages that the programmers
hadn't intended the system to learn, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One possible factor in this uncontrollability
aspect of AI that no one in government seems to have considered, at least out loud,
is dwelled on at length by Paul Kingsnorth, an Irish novelist and essayist who
wrote "AI Demonic" in the November/December issue of <i>Touchstone</i>
magazine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kingsnorth seriously considers
the possibility that certain forms and embodiments of AI are being influenced
by a "spiritual personification of the age of the Machine" which he
calls Ahriman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The name
Ahriman is associated with a Zoroastrian evil spirit of destruction, but
Kingsnorth describes how it was taken up by the theosophist Rudolf Steiner, and
then an obscure computer scientist named David Black who testified to feeling
"drained" by his work with computers back in the 1980s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole article should be read, as it's not
easy to summarize in a few sentences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Kingsnorth's basic point is clear:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>in trying to regulate AI, we may be dealing with something more than
just piles of hardware and programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
St. Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, ". . . we wrestle not against flesh and
blood [and server farms], but against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Anyone trying
to regulate AI would be well advised to take the spiritual aspect of the
struggle into account as well.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The IEEE Spectrum website carried the article by Eliza
Strickland, "What You Need to Know About Biden's Sweeping AI Order"
at <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/biden-ai-executive-order">https://spectrum.ieee.org/biden-ai-executive-order</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to an article on AI on the <i>Time
</i>website at <a href="https://time.com/6330652/biden-ai-order/">https://time.com/6330652/biden-ai-order/</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul Kingsnorth's article "AI
Demonic" appeared in the November/December 2023 issue of <i>Touchstone</i>,
pp. 29-40, and was reprinted from Kingsnorth's substack "The Abbey of
Misrule."</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-52884596343357078372023-10-30T04:25:00.001-07:002023-10-30T04:25:00.144-07:00The Advent of Digital Twins: Should They Replace Caregivers?<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">It's 2027,
and your father is in a rest home suffering from Alzheimer's disease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are considering a new service that takes
samples of your voice and videoclips of you, and creates a highly realistic 3-D
"digital twin" that your father can talk with on a screen any time he
wants to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The digital twin has your
voice and mannerisms, and shows up on your father's phone to remind him to take
his medicine and furnish what the company offering the service calls "companionship."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime, you yourself can simply go
about your own life without having to do the largely tedious work of getting
your father to take care of himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Should you go
ahead and pay for this service?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or
should you just continue with your daily visits to him, visits that are
becoming increasingly inconvenient?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">I put this
scenario a few years in the future, but already academics are considering the
ethical implications of using digital twins in healthcare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matthias Braun, an ethicist at the Friedrich-Alexander
University in Germany, thinks that the answer to this question depends on the
issue of how much control the original of the twin exerts over it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Applying that notion to the situation I just
outlined, who is involved, and what benefits and harms could result?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The people
involved are you, your father, and the organization providing the digital
twin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Digital twins are not people—they
are software, so while the digital twin is at the core of the issue, it has no
ethical rights or responsibilities of its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Consider your
father first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be that his mind is
so fogged by Alzheimer's disease that he may be completely fooled into thinking
he is talking on the phone with and watching you, when in fact he's speaking
with a sophisticated piece of software.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So by means of the digital twin, your father may well be persuaded to
believe something that is not objectively true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">But people
who deal with Alzheimer's patients know that sometimes the truth has to be at
least elided, if not downright falsified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When my wife's father with dementia lived with us, he would often ask,
"Where's your mother?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
wife had died some years previously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An
answer like, "She's not here right now," doesn't strictly violate the
truth, but leaves an impression that is false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nevertheless, it's likely to be a less disruptive reply than something
like, "You dummy!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don't you remember
she died in 2007?"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Then consider
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One alternative to providing the
digital twin is to hire a full-time personal caregiver, as some people can
afford to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides the expense, there
is the question of whether your father will get along with such a person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While my father-in-law was with us, we tried
hiring a caregiver for limited times so that my wife and I could get a few
hours' break from continuous 24-hour caregiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, the caregiver—an older
man—didn't appeal to his patient, and after one such visit we got an earful of
complaints about "that guy," and it didn't work out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in addition to being expensive, personal
caregivers don't always do the job the way you hoped they would.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">From your
perspective, the digital-twin caregiver has the advantage that if successful,
your father will think he is really talking with a very familiar person, and is
more likely to follow instructions than if a stranger is dealing with him.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">So where's
the harm?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could possibly go wrong?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Consider
hacking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No computer system is 100%
secure, and the opportunities for mischief ranging from random meddling to
theft and murder are obviously present if someone managed to gain control of
the digital twin's software.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wouldn't
be easy, but a lot of very difficult hacks have been carried out by criminals
in the past, and if the motivation is there, they will find a way sooner or
later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Even if criminals
aren't interested in messing with digital-twin rest-home caregivers, what if
your father starts to like the digital twin more than he likes your real
physical presence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, a digital
twin could be programmed to have nearly infinite patience in dealing with the
repeated questions that dementia patients often ask—"Where's your
mother?" being a prime example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
would you feel if you visit your father some day and he says, "I like you
a lot better on the screen than I like you now."?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">And even if
the digital twin doesn't manage to alienate you, the original of its copy, I
can't rid myself of a feeling of distaste that if the twin succeeds in fooling
your father into thinking it's really you, a species of fraud has been
committed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">At a minimum,
even a successful digital-twin substitution would mean that once again in our
digital world, an "I-thou" relationship, in Martin Buber's terms, has
been replaced by an "I-it" relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of continuing one of the most
meaningful relationships anyone can have in this life—the relationship with
one's father—that relationship would be replaced by one that connects your
father to a machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, a
sophisticated machine, a machine that tricks him into thinking he's talking
with you, but a machine nonetheless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the greater scheme of things, and even leaving religious considerations aside,
it's hard to believe that both you and your father would be ultimately better
off if your father spent his days talking with a computer and you went about
whatever other business you have instead of spending time with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Digital twins
are not yet so thick on the ground that we have to deal with them as a routine
thing—not yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if the momentum of
generative AI keeps up its current pace, it is only a matter of time before
they will be a genuine option, and we'll have to decide whether to use them,
not only in a medical context but in many others as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should sort out what is right and wrong
about their use now, before it's too late.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Sources:</span></b><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Matthias Braun's article "Represent me: please! Towards an ethics
of digital twins in medicine" <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>appeared
in 2021 in the Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 47, pp. 394-400.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-12218125250043907052023-10-23T04:11:00.001-07:002023-10-23T04:11:00.178-07:00Carbon Indulgences: The South Pole Scandal<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Repentance is hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Obtaining true forgiveness is even harder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it is no surprise that over the ages,
people have tried to find shortcuts around the difficult chores of changing
one's ways and being forgiven for going astray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This week's <i>New Yorker</i> carries the story of one such effort:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the activities of the world's largest carbon-offsetting
firm, South Pole, turn out to have been something of a shell game.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Carbon offsetting is based on the notion, accepted as gospel
in many circles, that by using fossil fuels, humans are committing slow mass
suicide that can be averted only by striving toward "net zero"—that
is, not adding any more CO<sub>2</sub> to the atmosphere than we take out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A logical consequence of this notion is that
doing anything that produces CO<sub>2</sub> is the secular equivalent of a sin
in Christian theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately,
this type of sinning is extremely hard to avoid, because ordinary things like
turning on the lights, driving a car, flying, or running a business—especially
a manufacturing business—necessitate committing manifold sins of this kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As in the days of old when people sought out Catholic
priests to get their sins absolved, people and corporations today want to get
the same feeling of being washed clean of their carbon misdeeds, but without
facing the hard tasks of doing without fossil fuels altogether.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Enter South Pole, and smaller outfits like them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South Pole sells "carbon
offsets."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The basic idea is
simple:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if you want to make up for your
carbon sins, conveniently measured in millions of tons of CO<sub>2</sub>, you
simply pay South Pole the going rate, which has varied widely over the years
like any other commodity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And <i>voila!</i>—South
Pole promises to preserve a Zimbabwean forest that would otherwise be cut down,
and those precious trees will absorb not only your carbon sins, but those of all
the other companies paying millions for carbon offsets.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Deforestation is another secular sin we've heard a lot
about, so it makes a certain amount of sense to pay villagers not to cut down
trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's fine as long as the villagers
really do refrain from destroying the forest, and also if it was certain that
they would have cut it down otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can already see a potential problem here, involving long-term
hypotheticals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How sure are we that the
forest in question would have been destroyed if the offset money wasn't
paid?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how sure can we be that most
of the money is really getting to the villagers whose behavior has to change?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not so sure, it turns out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Heidi Blake's article describes in great detail the dubious accounting
of one Steve Wentzel, who was South Pole's man in Zimbabwe charged with
actually implementing the forest preservation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>According to Blake, Wentzel promised a great deal more than he
delivered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While he still claims to have
prevented the requisite amount of deforestation, he has no paper trail to prove
it, and says that the erratic Zimbabwean economy and currency forced him to do
what amounted to money-laundering in order to get U. S. currency with which to
pay the villagers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Blake describes how one employee after another of South Pole
left the organization once they realized that the firm was taking money mainly
to make its customers feel better, not because they were doing anything
objectively to improve the world's climate crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
addition, the price of carbon offsets has gyrated wildly in recent years,
affected by such things as the failure of the Kyoto Protocol agreement to
commit most major carbon-emitting countries to substantial reductions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This situation reminds me of an episode in the Protestant
Reformation that involved what are called indulgences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to be fair to the Catholic side, I'm
going to quote directly from the Catholic Encyclopedia (published around 1914)
as to what an indulgence is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">An </span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">indulgence</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"> is the extra-sacramental remission of the
temporal punishment due, in </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608a.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">God's</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08571c.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">justice</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;">, to </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">sin</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"> that has been forgiven, which remission is
granted by the </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03744a.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Church</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"> in the exercise of the </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08631b.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">power of the keys</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;">, through the application of the superabundant </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10202b.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merits</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"> of Christ and of the </span></span><a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04171a.htm" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">saints</span></a><span style="background: white;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 3; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 3; word-spacing: 0px;">, and for some just and reasonable motive."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Preceding that is a definition of what an
indulgence is <i>not</i>, which includes the following:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"It is not a permission to commit sin, nor
a pardon of future sin; . . . [i]t is not the forgiveness of the guilt of sin .
. . . "</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">The basic idea, as this Protestant understands it, is this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only God through Jesus Christ's atonement
really forgives sins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even if a sin
is forgiven, there remains "temporal punishment," meaning that souls
who have died without being fully cleansed of their venial sins have to undergo
some suffering in Purgatory before going to Heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, according to Catholic doctrine, prayers and
good works by the living on behalf of those suffering in Purgatory can help
them get out sooner than otherwise.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">In the 16th century, someone (it isn't clear who) came up with the
following jingle in Germany:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>"Sobald
der Pfenning im Kasten klingt, die Selle aus dem Fegfeuer springt."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In English:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul out of purgatory
springs."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, if you
give me money, I can guarantee your Aunt Bertha will get out of Purgatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was associated with one Johann Tetzel, who
apparently preached in the spirit of such a saying without using the actual
words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The misuse of indulgences was one of the inspirations for the
Protestant Reformation, and although the Church still offers indulgences, it no
longer puts a price on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">South Pole appears to be a modern-day secular equivalent of
Johann Tetzel, promising more than it can possibly deliver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in a free market, the price of
forgiveness can soar, and those who trade in it can profit mightily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What they do with the money is another
question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The carbon-offset concept
seems so inherently open to abuse that I, for one, think it should be abandoned
for more practical short-term efforts to deal with the consequences of climate
change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there will always be those
seeking secular forgiveness, and those willing to sell it for a good price.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heidi
Blake's article "Hot Air" appears on pp. 42-55 of the Oct. 23, 2023
issue of <i>The New Yorker</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found
the German version of Tetzel's non-quote at James Swan's blog <a href="https://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2012/01/did-tetzel-really-say-as-soon-as-coin.html">https://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2012/01/did-tetzel-really-say-as-soon-as-coin.html</a>,
and referred to the online Catholic Encyclopedia definition of indulgence at <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm">https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm</a>.<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"></span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-83710117286721468932023-10-16T04:34:00.001-07:002023-10-16T04:34:00.146-07:00Don't Bet on Online Gambling<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Headlines aren't supposed to be in the imperative mood,
telling readers what to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in this
case I think it's appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Online
gambling in many U. S. states has become a multibillion-dollar industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While many people can control their gambling,
others can't.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the ones who can't are
suffering, along with their families and friends.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Full disclosure:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don't personally gamble, I have little interest in sports, and my state of
residence (Texas) does not allow sports gambling, either in person or
online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So mine is definitely an
outsider's viewpoint, but perhaps that can make me more objective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1992, the U. S. Congress passed the Professional and
Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) which prohibited sports gambling in all
U. S. states and territories, with some minor exceptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the next decade, individual states where
gambling was popular, notably New Jersey, mounted legal challenges to the act,
and in 2018 the Supreme Court ruled that it was an unconstitutional violation
of states' rights, citing the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This opened the door for individual states to allow sports gambling,
and so far about half of them have in one form or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the time PASPA was in force, the United Kingdom legalized
sports betting and became one of the early hotspots for online gambling with
the advent of smart phones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to
an article in the <i>Financial Times</i>, in recent years a spate of bad
publicity and suicides related to gambling addiction has led to a crackdown on
online gambling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since 2017, UK online
gambling organizations have paid fines of about $240 million in fines to that
country's gambling regulatory agency.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like any addiction, online gambling is easy to fall into and
hard to escape the clutches of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i>Financial
Times</i> article tells the story of 22-year-old Dylan, a New Jersey lawyer in
training who recently confessed to his family that he had spent over $50,000 in
mostly online bets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is currently
attending Gamblers Anonymous and hopes to free himself from his addiction, but
unless he divests himself of his cellphone and stays away from computers, the
means to resume it will always be literally at hand.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ethically speaking, gambling is an activity in which one
person—the gambler—risks something of value, and another person or entity, which
we will call "the house" profits from the gambler's risks, on average
over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gambling is distinguished
from stealing because presumably, the gambler receives something of value from
the activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And unlike armed robbery,
whose victims generally have no choice in the matter, nobody is obliged to
gamble. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this regard, a libertarian
would in principle oppose any attempts to regulate gambling, saying that unless
some third party is harmed by the transaction, the gambler and the house should
be left alone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is also the argument that casinos and other forms of
gambling benefit certain communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was the idea behind allowing certain Indian tribes to run casinos
in the U. S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While nobody can deny that
such things make money, I can't shake an uneasy feeling that basing a
particular cultural group's economic viability on such a foundation is not in
the best interests of the group, or their customers either, for that matter.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And gambling doesn't take money from all socioeconomic groups
equally, either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many studies have shown
that gambling revenues are regressive, in the sense that most of the money
comes from the poorer segments of the population—those who can least afford it,
in other words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The libertarian would
come along and say, "Well, if those folks choose to spend their money that
way, it's their choice, and who are you to interfere?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One way to look at an economic activity is to ask what would
happen if a whole lot of people tried to make money that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm not a trained economist, but it's worth a
try, anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly, gambling is a
parasite on any economy worthy of the name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If everybody tried to make money by gambling, no one would have any time
left to do anything productive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
economy would devolve into the equivalent of prisoners playing pinochle for
toothpicks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might pass the time, but
it's not going to put food in anyone's mouth or make anything useful.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Granted, we are not in imminent danger of turning into a
nation of 24-hour gamblers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But online
gambling is particularly pernicious because it produces a complete geographic
separation between the gambler and where his or her money ultimately ends
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a friendly office football pool,
you at least know the people who end up with your money if you lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Betting on your football team online may
enrich some executives in the Cayman Islands, but it's a net loss to your neighborhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of course, many states (including Texas) run lotteries,
which is a sort of gambling monopoly exercised by the state involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because I teach at a state university,
some portion of my paycheck could probably be traced to revenues from the state
lottery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish it were otherwise,
because I disapprove of gambling in general, but not so much that I'm going to
quit my job over it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is really just
an example of how an industry can co-opt government into benefiting from its
operations, even if on balance those operations are harmful to the public.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It's interesting that Richard Daynard, who is a professor of
law at Northeastern University, is now looking into filing a class-action
lawsuit against online gambling outfits, claiming that their advertisements are
misleading and that they encourage problem gamblers to go deeper into their
addiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The online betting industry had
better pay attention to what Prof. Daynard is doing, because he was one of the
prime movers behind the giant settlement with the tobacco industry that took
$200 billion out of their collective hides for deceptive advertising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that lawsuit, you didn't see any more ads
with doctors in white coats saying how healthy X cigarette was for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if you're invested in online gambling, you
might try to find some other way to make money—or lose it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i>Financial
Times </i>article "The Dark Side of the U. S. Sports Betting Boom" by
Oliver Barnes appeared on Aug. 9, 2023 at <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2e1a235a-8a46-47f3-b040-5ca21a04ebf4">https://www.ft.com/content/2e1a235a-8a46-47f3-b040-5ca21a04ebf4</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to Wikipedia's article on
PASPA.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-88370069155543666772023-10-09T04:04:00.001-07:002023-10-09T04:04:00.136-07:00Irony in Orlando: Men Gate-Crash Grace Hopper Job Fair<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">For the last three decades, one of the biggest job fairs for
women in tech has been the Grace Hopper Celebration, named after the
computer-science pioneer who devised the theory of machine-independent
programming languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the past, the
fair has been a Mecca of sorts for women looking for high-tech jobs, and not
surprisingly, the great majority of attendees have been women, or lately
"non-binary" persons as well, according to a news report in <i>Wired</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This year's GHC held in Orlando, Florida was a
disappointment to many women, however.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The problem?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a word, men.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lots of high-tech companies have laid off their skilled help
in the last couple of years, and so there is a larger than usual turnover in
the field, with people of both sexes trying to find jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By Federal law, GHC cannot discriminate
against men by, for example, allowing only women (and non-binaries) to attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So technically, it has always been open to
men, but everybody involved knew that the main idea was to provide a place
where women (and non-binaries) could gain the exclusive attention of recruiters,
and recruiters could count on being able to make their upper management happy
by hiring more women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this year, not
so much.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If anyone kept statistics on the number of men and number of
women (and non-binaries), the Wired reporter, Amanda Hoover, didn't cite them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most she could get out of a conference
organizer was that there was "an increase in participation of
self-identifying males."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly,
there were more men than many women wanted to see there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A founder of a "female-talent focused
media platform" said she heard from a number of women who were sad and
frustrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A female student from Ohio
State said, "Now is one of the most important times to advocate for gender
equity."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Consider that phrase "gender equity."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word "equity" has chased
"equality" out of rights-based public discourse like bad money chases
good out of circulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not to
make a iniquitous judgment against equity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But some people use the word "equity" to mean a goal that
seeks something close to identical outcomes, not just equal opportunities for
everyone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here's an example from my own field of engineering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to about 1960, a woman who wished to
become a professional engineer faced tremendous obstacles which were social,
legal, and customary in nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
engineering schools accepted only men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The ones who accepted women sometimes didn't allow them to take certain
courses or specializations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a woman
managed to get a degree and an engineering job, she was almost certain in a
meeting to be asked to go get the coffee, as I heard from a pioneering civil
engineer who also happened to be female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The field of engineering, in the U. S., anyway, lacked both
equality and equity for women.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following the enactment of various civil-rights laws and the
advance of feminism in the 1960s, most of the formal legal and organizational barriers
that kept women out of engineering collapsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Women could take any engineering course or degree, and many did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As time went on, they went from being a tiny
and obvious minority to being relatively common in the field, and in a
generation some rose to positions of management, founders, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people would agree that equality has
been achieved for women in engineering, by and large.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But what about equity?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many government officials, politicians, and activists who concern
themselves with such things keep their eyes on the raw numbers of women in this
or that field, and compare that number with the magic 51.1%<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is magic about 51.1%?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the fraction of the U. S. population
who are female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the percentage of
women in any field whatsoever—engineering, law, medicine, harness racing—is
less than 51.1%, to these folks that is <i>ipso facto</i> evidence that equity
has not been achieved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence the
billions of dollars expended by the U. S. National Science Foundation on
programs for women in engineering, and other perpetual efforts to bring the
fraction of women in engineering schools and organizations closer to that magic
number.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So far, it hasn't worked, at least in the U. S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those of us who believe that there are
deep-seated psychological as well as physical differences between men and women
(and non-binaries), which may lead the two sexes to choose different kinds of
careers for reasons that may be obscure even to themselves, are not overly
troubled by this fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I rejoice that
the barriers to equality came down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
find it easier to remember the names of the women in my classes, not solely
because there are only a few of them, but I'm sure it helps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I don't think it is a blot on the
escutcheon of engineering that we have fewer than 51.1% women in the field, any
more than I think it is a shame that there are less than 51.1% of men teaching
kindergarten classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The irony of a womens' tech job fair being overrun by men is
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same law that allowed women to
do engineering at all, allows men to go to job fairs designed mainly for
women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when men take advantage of a
privilege that women have benefited from, the women get annoyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I personally don't see why the organizers of the GHC can't
declare it a private club for four days and admit only people they like,
whether they be women, non-binary, red-headed, or whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If women (and non-binaries) want to have a
meeting to themselves, by all means let them have it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely their lawyers could find a way to do
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it would smack of the old private-club
dodge that Southern swimming pools tried for a while to exclude blacks, until
the lawyers put a stop to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So maybe
it wouldn't work after all.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The best outcome of all would be if men, out of deference to
womens' delicate feelings, and acting as true gentlemen, refrained from
registering for the GHC next year, and let the women know the reason they were
staying away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that would probably
just make them even madder.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Amanda Hoover's article "Men Overran a Job Fair Designed for Women
in Tech" appeared on the <i>Wired</i> website at <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/grace-hopper-celebration-career-fair-men/">https://www.wired.com/story/grace-hopper-celebration-career-fair-men/</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also referred to the Wikipedia article on
Grace Hopper.</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Kaydeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15055360323969104129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23884640.post-30634852950313292562023-10-02T04:28:00.003-07:002023-10-02T04:28:00.137-07:00A Fatal Ammonia-Tanker Crash in Illinois<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Around 5 p. m. on Friday, Sept. 29, a wreck on Interstate 70
between Effingham and Teutopolis, Illinois caused authorities to divert traffic
from the interstate onto the older Route 40 that goes directly through the two
towns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Farming is the main business in
that region, and among the vehicles diverted onto Route 40 that evening was a
tanker truck carrying 7,500 gallons of anhydrous ammonia, which is a popular
form of nitrogen fertilizer.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At 9:25 p. m., the truck overturned in a multiple-vehicle
collision which is still being investigated by the National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of the
large toxic plume of ammonia that resulted, first responders evacuated about
500 people from northeast Teutopolis overnight, allowing them to return late
Saturday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once rescuers were able to
access the scene, it was found that five people had died, including two
children under 12.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not clear at
this writing whether the victims died of ammonia inhalation or from effects of
the crash itself, but five survivors were taken to a local hospital as well.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Every day, hundreds of ammonia tankers travel between
distribution points on their way to supplying farmers with what many consider
to be an essential and economical fertilizer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ammonia gas, which consists of one atom of nitrogen and three of
hydrogen, is a colorless acrid-smelling substance that boils at 28 below zero
Fahrenheit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The household bottles of
ammonia that can be found in grocery stores are actually weak solutions of the
gas in water.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before Fritz Haber
developed a high-pressure process to synthesize ammonia directly from hydrogen
and nitrogen in the air around 1910, ammonia was obtained mainly by distilling animal
urine, a messy and expensive job at best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After World War II-era chemical plants found themselves with an overcapacity
of ammonia plants once the war ended, the price dropped to the point that
direct injection of the gas into soil at a depth of six inches or more became a
fast and economical means of applying nitrogen fertilizer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since then, an entire anhydrous-ammonia
infrastructure has grown up to deliver the substance to millions of acres of farmland,
usually without incident.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But every now and then something goes wrong, as it did last
week in Teutopolis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the best
efforts of mechanical designers to make tanker trucks safe, collisions can
sever connecting pipes and cause leaks, which is apparently what happened last
Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ammonia as a gas is lighter than
air, but if enough is released near the ground it will form a suffocating cloud
that cannot be seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why the
authorities took the prudent precaution of evacuating part of Teutopolis once
the nature of the accident became clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to being toxic at concentrations above a few
parts per million, ammonia is explosive when present at air concentrations
higher than about 15%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if you escape
being suffocated by it, you could instead be blown to bits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It's surprising that there aren't more accidents involving
anhydrous ammonia, but when it is used in properly designed equipment by
trained operators who know how dangerous it is, it can be transported safely all
the way from the factory to the soil, where it is quickly absorbed by complex
chemicals and biological materials and becomes available to fuel plant
growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the same time, it is a highly unnatural process
characterized by many features that we associate with modern industrial culture:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>large-scale concentrations of products,
complex distribution networks, and use in largely monoculture farms (all corn
or all wheat, for example).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All these
things go against the grain (so to speak) of the small-farming idea that each
farm should be its own ecosystem, recycling manure to the soil, which grows the
food for the animals, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For whatever reason, we as a culture seem to be happy with
(or at least blissfully unaware of) the forces and compromises involved in the
kind of industrial-scale agriculture that we have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cheapest food, if externalities such as
ammonia accidents are ignored, will always be the mass-produced type made with
the minimum amount of labor using the largest economies of scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But externalities are not nothing, and the
problems that large-scale agriculture causes, ranging from pollution to alleged
animal cruelty to obesity, don't often have dollar prices attached to
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If we were losing hundreds of people a year in anhydrous-ammonia
accidents, the issue might come into public consciousness to the extent that some
might at least question the propriety of fertilizing plants this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as it is, such mishaps are so unusual as
to be newsworthy in themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it
is tragic any time anybody is killed, we may find that the people who lost
their lives in this accident were killed by the consequences of the collision
itself and not the ammonia that was released afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, it seems that we as a nation are
willing to accept some hazards—namely, having tons of anhydrous ammonia rolling
around on highways and railroads—in exchange for the advantages that the
process confers on farming.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I recently read a book with a title that my wife remarked
was one of the longest for a non-fiction book she's seen:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>The End is Near And It's Going To Be
Awesome:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How Going Broke Will Leave America
Richer, Happier, and More Secure</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its
author, Kevin Williamson, has a background in economics, but he's not one of
these wonky numbers-only types who reduces every human to a rational utility
optimizer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His main point is that when
society wants to do something, the best way to do it is for interested people
to get together and figure it out for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only as a last resort should we invoke the
power of politics to pass laws about the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The reason is that law is a blunt instrument that is usually wielded by
the powerful to exploit the less powerful, and no matter how well-intended the
action is to start with, the effect usually ends up making the strong better
off at the expense of the less fortunate.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So while we await the results of the Teutopolis accident
investigation, let's hope it doesn't lead to a call for new regulations on the
anhydrous-ammonia industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From all
appearances, that enterprise seems to be handling things pretty well on its
own, and I hope the tank-truck makers learn from this accident how to prevent
more like it in the future.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sources:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
referred to articles on the Teutopolis accident at <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/30/us/illinois-anhydrous-ammonia-leak/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/30/us/illinois-anhydrous-ammonia-leak/index.html</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">and <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/teutopolis-fatal-crash-evacuation-anhydrous-leak-ammonia/13847580/">https://abc7chicago.com/teutopolis-fatal-crash-evacuation-anhydrous-leak-ammonia/13847580/</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kevin D. Williamson's <i>The End is Near And
It's Going To Be Awesome </i>was published in 2013 by HarperCollins.</p>
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