I'm a marginal fan of professional sports, but when I have the Patriots playing in the Superbowl, I gotta watch, 'cause everyone else does. This game has grown over the years into a national spectacle. Someone sang "America the Beautiful" and someone else sang the "Star Spangled Banner". The camera traced over the faces of the players, who all had suitably reverent expressions. They did a flyover by the Thunderbirds. The game got under way. Tom Brady was amazing. Pass after pass, completed. They were mostly short, enough for a first down, but it seemed like he never missed. Everytime the Pats got the ball, Brady would march them down the field, like clockwork, until they scored a touchdown. He played the whole game, didn't get injured, although he looked a bit tired by the end. There were some fantastic plays. Some of the players sported weird hairdos, with shaggy hair sticking out a foot from under their helmets. The defense on both sides was amazing. Every pass receiver was covered, all the time. If the receiver caught the ball, he was tackled immediately and smashed into the turf. The game was in doubt right down to the last couple of minutes. No memorable commercials this year.
All in all, a good show.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Grexit
Jargon for Greek Exit from the Euro. The Economist is highly concerned. The new left wing Syriza government of Greece is making silly noises. Economist has a good cartoon, showing the new Greek government barreling along a one lane mountain road in a steamroller, bearing a sign reading "Irresistible Force". Coming the other way is a big 18 wheeler, filling the road from side to side, with Angela Merkel at the wheel. Bearing a sign reading "Immovable Object".
What will happen? No one knows.
What ought to happen, is the EU tells the Greeks to keep sucking it up, or do without. There is a multi billion Euro chunk of bailout money still due the Greeks. The EU could, if it has the stones, with hold it if they don't like what the Greeks are doing.
The EU may not have the stones. There are plenty of lefties all over Europe who dislike "austerity" (a balanced national budget). The think if the Greeks drop austerity, it will be a signal to their own governments to crank up the welfare spending.
The other issue for Greeks is leaving the Euro. This would enable them to print all the drachmas they need to pay for all the welfare they want. At the stroke of a keyboard, all the Euro deposits in Greek banks would become drachma deposits. And everyone expects the newly declared drachma to drop 50% or more against the Euro. So every Greek with money, in the bank (maybe half of them?) is against Grexit. Will their interests be strong enough to overcome the desire of the welfare staters to print all the money they want?
What will happen? No one knows.
What ought to happen, is the EU tells the Greeks to keep sucking it up, or do without. There is a multi billion Euro chunk of bailout money still due the Greeks. The EU could, if it has the stones, with hold it if they don't like what the Greeks are doing.
The EU may not have the stones. There are plenty of lefties all over Europe who dislike "austerity" (a balanced national budget). The think if the Greeks drop austerity, it will be a signal to their own governments to crank up the welfare spending.
The other issue for Greeks is leaving the Euro. This would enable them to print all the drachmas they need to pay for all the welfare they want. At the stroke of a keyboard, all the Euro deposits in Greek banks would become drachma deposits. And everyone expects the newly declared drachma to drop 50% or more against the Euro. So every Greek with money, in the bank (maybe half of them?) is against Grexit. Will their interests be strong enough to overcome the desire of the welfare staters to print all the money they want?
Friday, January 30, 2015
Cannon Mountain Ski Weather
It's snowing right now. We have maybe 2-3 inches down and it's still falling. What with the 9 inches we got on Tuesday, the mountain will be in great shape.
A Conservative Republican candidate?
The conservative Republicans claim that the party needs a truly conservative candidate and the losses to Obama in 2008 and 2012 came about because we ran middle of the road candidates. I don't believe that.
We the voters want a decent, competent, and caring president. We want a president who can make a decent public speech, and actually say something of substance, rather than declare his allegiance to motherhood and apple pie. We want someone who understands who our overseas friends are, and who our enemies are. We want someone who will support our friends and visit harm upon our enemies. We want someone who understands business and labor well enough to get the economy growing again. And make jobs plentiful again.
These are the things that really count. Wedge issues, gay marriage, common core, creation science, gold standard, and anti vaccine policies don't really count.
I notice Mitt Romney is bailing out. Not a bad idea. Romney would make a fine president, trouble is, I don't think he could ever get elected against a Democrat. He allowed Obama to beat him in 2012, which should never have happened. When Obama smeared him as a heartless capitalist who threw people out of work and canceled their health insurance, Romney never replied. Silence gives assent. Coming from a state that does Willy Horton ads, Romney should have known that he had to deny Obama's smears. He didn't, and Obama gets another four years to flush the country down the drain.
We the voters want a decent, competent, and caring president. We want a president who can make a decent public speech, and actually say something of substance, rather than declare his allegiance to motherhood and apple pie. We want someone who understands who our overseas friends are, and who our enemies are. We want someone who will support our friends and visit harm upon our enemies. We want someone who understands business and labor well enough to get the economy growing again. And make jobs plentiful again.
These are the things that really count. Wedge issues, gay marriage, common core, creation science, gold standard, and anti vaccine policies don't really count.
I notice Mitt Romney is bailing out. Not a bad idea. Romney would make a fine president, trouble is, I don't think he could ever get elected against a Democrat. He allowed Obama to beat him in 2012, which should never have happened. When Obama smeared him as a heartless capitalist who threw people out of work and canceled their health insurance, Romney never replied. Silence gives assent. Coming from a state that does Willy Horton ads, Romney should have known that he had to deny Obama's smears. He didn't, and Obama gets another four years to flush the country down the drain.
Avoiding "sexual assault"
Don't get drunk at parties. You go to parties to meet guys, enjoy conversation, and show yourself off. You can't do any of these when you are falling down drunk. And, guys go to parties to pick up girls. They know that falling down drunk girls will likely not object to getting laid.
And know your limits. Tolerance for alcohol is a learned thing, If you haven't done much drinking, a couple of drinks can get you into trouble. Best plan is stick to beer, from a bottle. You can drink enough to quench your thirst without getting smashed, unlike say martinis.
Same goes for weed. Couple of tokes is probably OK, but a whole joint can put you on cloud 9 if you aren't experienced with the stuff.
Have a plan for getting home from the party. Don't depend upon friends, they may hook up with a really cool guy and disappear. Walking alone after dark is a bad idea. If you get to your car and find you are too buzzed to drive safely, just take a nap in the car.
If you really want to get pie eyed, do it on dorm, or at home, with some good same sex friends.
And know your limits. Tolerance for alcohol is a learned thing, If you haven't done much drinking, a couple of drinks can get you into trouble. Best plan is stick to beer, from a bottle. You can drink enough to quench your thirst without getting smashed, unlike say martinis.
Same goes for weed. Couple of tokes is probably OK, but a whole joint can put you on cloud 9 if you aren't experienced with the stuff.
Have a plan for getting home from the party. Don't depend upon friends, they may hook up with a really cool guy and disappear. Walking alone after dark is a bad idea. If you get to your car and find you are too buzzed to drive safely, just take a nap in the car.
If you really want to get pie eyed, do it on dorm, or at home, with some good same sex friends.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Will Airbus reengine the A380?
The A380 is the enormous double deck four engine super jumbo jet, biggest one in the air. It's been on the market not very long, and sales have been mediocre at best, 318 delivered or on order since the rollout. Now Airbus is talking about re engining it. The newest engines can save 5 to 10 per cent on fuel consumption. So far, only Emirates is pushing for this, they say they will take 70 more A380's if Airbus reengines them.
Cost quoted for the engineering is staggering. They are talking about $2.5 Billion just for the design, and presumably some flight testing. Wow. This is a airplane with the four engines in under wing pods. Changes would be confined to the engine pods. Design a new bracket to fit the new engine. Make some changes in fuel piping, electrical harnesses, and the pod to accommodate the new engine. You don't have to change anything in wings or fuselage or cockpit. You might have to replace the engine alternator control box, the one that keeps all four alternators in phase. I figure 4- 5 engineers, with CAD/ CAM could do the drawings in a couple of months. Then you have to test fly the aircraft to make sure everything works, and to make the regulatory agencies happy. I'd budget $200,000 for engineers salaries, and let's say $1000 per flying hour for test flights. Call it 500 hours of test flying (gross overkill) The whole design and test effort is less than $1 million. I may be a little low, but there is a helova long way between my back-of-the-envelope estimate and $2.5 Billion.
And, with the price of oil down by half since last summer, the urge to buy fuel efficient aircraft has presumably eased off a bit.
Cost quoted for the engineering is staggering. They are talking about $2.5 Billion just for the design, and presumably some flight testing. Wow. This is a airplane with the four engines in under wing pods. Changes would be confined to the engine pods. Design a new bracket to fit the new engine. Make some changes in fuel piping, electrical harnesses, and the pod to accommodate the new engine. You don't have to change anything in wings or fuselage or cockpit. You might have to replace the engine alternator control box, the one that keeps all four alternators in phase. I figure 4- 5 engineers, with CAD/ CAM could do the drawings in a couple of months. Then you have to test fly the aircraft to make sure everything works, and to make the regulatory agencies happy. I'd budget $200,000 for engineers salaries, and let's say $1000 per flying hour for test flights. Call it 500 hours of test flying (gross overkill) The whole design and test effort is less than $1 million. I may be a little low, but there is a helova long way between my back-of-the-envelope estimate and $2.5 Billion.
And, with the price of oil down by half since last summer, the urge to buy fuel efficient aircraft has presumably eased off a bit.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
What's so bad about Common Core?
I actually took the time to download it and read a while ago. It's not great. It's written by Ed majors, using Ed major jargon, which makes it vague and hard to read. Since it was too big to read altogether, I concentrated on the high school mathematics section. It wasn't bad. It wasn't as good as the high school math I had many years ago, but it wasn't all bad. For instance, Common Core called for plane geometry up to the proving of some lesser theorem. When I took plane geometry, we proved the Pythagoras theorem, which is harder, and basic.
Actually, as far as educating children goes, we would do better by simply requiring all high school students take chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as algebra, plane geometry, and trigonometry.
Anyhow, I am not going to take Common Core as a serious political issue. It's a wedge issue, all emotion, no real substance.
Actually, as far as educating children goes, we would do better by simply requiring all high school students take chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as algebra, plane geometry, and trigonometry.
Anyhow, I am not going to take Common Core as a serious political issue. It's a wedge issue, all emotion, no real substance.
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