How smart are spiders? Every up and coming web spinner needs to get a web spun so he/she can eat. Some lucky spiders spin in a workable corner and raise a good looking, bug catching web over night. Less lucky spiders try to spin a web from my eaves to my deck railing. It's a web too far, no spider has that much silk in his little bottom, plus people on the deck wreck the web by merely bending their elbows (as in lifting a beer can to their lips).
I watched a number of small junior spiders starting web spins. They were jumping off from my deck sun umbrella, into the air, trailing silk behind themselves. Could they know if the breeze would take them to a nearby anchoring point from which a successful web could be spun? I doubt it, I think they just leap off into the air and hope for the best.
So, I think the survival spiders, those that spin a good web, are the ones lucky enough to land on a nearby anchor spot when they leap into the unknown air. Most of 'em miss, and expend their limited supply of silk on blind alleys. Then they starve to death.
Which is too bad. I'm basically on the spider's side. They eat mosquitoes which is a very good thing and to be encouraged.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
GOP Debate
I watched it for about an hour before falling asleep in front of the tube. Looks like Rick Perry and Mitt Romney got all the airtime, the other candidates were just stage decoration. The moderators sucked. Nobody committed hari kari on live TV.
Apprenticeships
NPR ran a piece on apprenticeships this morning. They talked about the need for more trained workers, and speculated that apprenticeships were the way to train them. Some incredible percent of Germans are apprentices. Sounded good.
They did not talk about the real reason American companies don't do more training, the fear that expensively trained apprentices will then quit and take a better paying job with someone else.
They did not talk about the real reason American companies don't do more training, the fear that expensively trained apprentices will then quit and take a better paying job with someone else.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Regulation. It hits everything
NPR was running a piece on a new website that connected travelers with homeowners renting out rooms. Air B&B they called them selves. It seemed interesting, and apparently successful. One Air B&B user reported she had a waiting list, and was making enough money that she could give up waitressing and do B&B full time. Sounds cool, money can be made. What's not to like?
Then NPR rained on the parade. B&B owners were being required to obtain hotelier licenses, pay a rooms tax, suffer inspection, and generally get regulated to death. Arrg.
Then NPR rained on the parade. B&B owners were being required to obtain hotelier licenses, pay a rooms tax, suffer inspection, and generally get regulated to death. Arrg.
Home refinance to fix Great Depression 2.0
Yesterday's Wall St Journal had a piece on home refinancing. With home mortgage rates in the cellar (4% !!) people could refinance and reduce their monthly mortgage payments. They estimated that refinancing from a 6% mortgage to a 4% mortgage could save the borrower several thousand dollars a year. Not bad.
In the past, consumers have rushed out and spent such savings. The Keynesians see a massive home refinancing creating the demand needed to get the economy growing again. Other, saner, commenters think the consumers would use the windfall savings to pay down credit card debt, or just put it in the bank rather than spending it.
Me, I think American consumers are rational. In these times of layoffs and job losses, the rational thing to do is save the money in case of job loss. Which can happen to anyone, anytime. And the consumers know it.
In the past, consumers have rushed out and spent such savings. The Keynesians see a massive home refinancing creating the demand needed to get the economy growing again. Other, saner, commenters think the consumers would use the windfall savings to pay down credit card debt, or just put it in the bank rather than spending it.
Me, I think American consumers are rational. In these times of layoffs and job losses, the rational thing to do is save the money in case of job loss. Which can happen to anyone, anytime. And the consumers know it.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Consumer Confidence
The official US govt index of consumer confidence has been sinking, with the steepest decline coming right after the Washington debt limit kerfuffle of a couple a weeks ago. NPR commented about this on the morning talk show. The gist of the radio piece was "Oh dear, those terrible Republicans, they got the consumers all upset and now they won't spend money and Great Depression 2.0 will never end."
The way I see it, the Republicans made the country, voters, consumers and even a few politicians realize that the US govt is broke and getting more broke every day. A fact the news media had been concealing from the public. There is now a chance to do something before the United States of America gets flushed down the same drain the Greeks are swirling down. Wising up the public is a good thing.
The way I see it, the Republicans made the country, voters, consumers and even a few politicians realize that the US govt is broke and getting more broke every day. A fact the news media had been concealing from the public. There is now a chance to do something before the United States of America gets flushed down the same drain the Greeks are swirling down. Wising up the public is a good thing.
Computer Models.
A computer model is actually a computer program that computes future results. The most famous computer models out there are the ones predicting global warming. There are many of the models and they have been criticized from many angles.
Without going into specific criticisms, remember, a computer model will predict what the programmer wants it to predict. If the model makes undesired predictions, the programmer assumes there is something wrong with the program and makes changes to fix the problem. I used to program for my day job, and I wrote a computer model or two over the years. Neither model produced the desired (right) answers first time I ran the code. One had a bug that I fixed, and the other never did give the "right" answers. That one showed us that a design approach we liked was never gonna work, and we changed the design. Thank goodness we were open minded enough to listen to the model and not waste money going down a blind alley.
But you gotta watch those computer models. Basically models will tell you, what you want to hear. Or what the programmer wanted you to hear. The Hadley CRU climate model, leaked to the web last year, had a single line of code that "scaled" (boosted) recent temperatures to produce the "hockey stick" graph of temperature over time.
Without going into specific criticisms, remember, a computer model will predict what the programmer wants it to predict. If the model makes undesired predictions, the programmer assumes there is something wrong with the program and makes changes to fix the problem. I used to program for my day job, and I wrote a computer model or two over the years. Neither model produced the desired (right) answers first time I ran the code. One had a bug that I fixed, and the other never did give the "right" answers. That one showed us that a design approach we liked was never gonna work, and we changed the design. Thank goodness we were open minded enough to listen to the model and not waste money going down a blind alley.
But you gotta watch those computer models. Basically models will tell you, what you want to hear. Or what the programmer wanted you to hear. The Hadley CRU climate model, leaked to the web last year, had a single line of code that "scaled" (boosted) recent temperatures to produce the "hockey stick" graph of temperature over time.
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