I went shopping with youngest son on Saturday. We went to the North Shore Mall on Rte 128. I worked on the north shore for ten years, back before I retired. Used to stop into the North Shore Mall regularly. This was the first time back there in ten years. It was a nice Saturday, no snow, temperature in the 50's, sunny, a nice day.
And the place, a truly big mall, was far from crowded. There were some shoppers, but not all that many, compared to what they used to have. And the shops were women's clothing, cosmetics, GMC herbs, new age crystals. Nothing much to attract a guy. No Radio Shack, no men's wear, no hardware. The North Slope didn't have ski gear or snowshoes, or ice fishing stuff, or winter camping gear. They only had two colors of parkas, black and International Orange. I don't like either color. We did find a Lego store, and a Brookstone, but that was about it as far as stores selling guy stuff.
Any how, I'm glad I don't have to make a living in retail. Let's guess, Amazon and Walmart and Target, and Home Despot have taken the North Shore Mall customers.
Monday, February 20, 2017
How to tell fake news from real news
Graph department that is. The Internet is awash in graphs claiming to show the growth, or shrinkage of all sorts of things. Net Worth, employment, GNP growth, income inequality, and on and on. The graphs typically show a bunch of colored lines, rising dramatically, and implying that something is getting bigger, or better, or worse, or something.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. How can you tell a real and true graph from fake data trying to convince you of something that isn't true?
These tricks may not work all the time, but they will weed out a lot of fake data graphs.
1. Are both axes labeled? With what they represent and what the units are (gallons, pounds, feet, furlongs per fortnight, dollars, whatever).
2. Are the scale divisions of the axes uniform? A graph with scale divisions every 10% except for a few on the end scaled out to 2%,1%, and 0.1% is attempting to bend the plotted curve somewhere. Any graph with non-uniform scale divisions is trying to lie to you.
3. Does the vertical axis go all the way down to zero? I can take a straight line and turn it into a jagged mountain range if I expand the vertical scale enough. If the vertical scale doesn't go down to zero, the graph is trying to make bumpiness bigger than it really is.
4. If its a graph of something versus time, does the time axis go back before 2007? Great Depression 2.0 started in 2007 and just about everything went down the drain that year. A graph that starts in 2009 will show a steady increase as we pulled out of Great Depression 2.0 Same graph restarted in 1997 will likely show a great dropoff in 2007 and may show that things have not recovered to where they were in 2006. Two different messages.
5. Do the numbers at the extremes of t he graph make sense? For instance I saw a graph claiming that of the top 0.1% income individuals in the country, 40% of them had not completed college and were out of work. Somehow I just don't believe that. When I find one unbelievable data point, then I figure there are more that I don't find. Put that graph into the damn lies category.
I'm picky. If a graph fails any one of these tests, I put in into the "damn lies" category.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. How can you tell a real and true graph from fake data trying to convince you of something that isn't true?
These tricks may not work all the time, but they will weed out a lot of fake data graphs.
1. Are both axes labeled? With what they represent and what the units are (gallons, pounds, feet, furlongs per fortnight, dollars, whatever).
2. Are the scale divisions of the axes uniform? A graph with scale divisions every 10% except for a few on the end scaled out to 2%,1%, and 0.1% is attempting to bend the plotted curve somewhere. Any graph with non-uniform scale divisions is trying to lie to you.
3. Does the vertical axis go all the way down to zero? I can take a straight line and turn it into a jagged mountain range if I expand the vertical scale enough. If the vertical scale doesn't go down to zero, the graph is trying to make bumpiness bigger than it really is.
4. If its a graph of something versus time, does the time axis go back before 2007? Great Depression 2.0 started in 2007 and just about everything went down the drain that year. A graph that starts in 2009 will show a steady increase as we pulled out of Great Depression 2.0 Same graph restarted in 1997 will likely show a great dropoff in 2007 and may show that things have not recovered to where they were in 2006. Two different messages.
5. Do the numbers at the extremes of t he graph make sense? For instance I saw a graph claiming that of the top 0.1% income individuals in the country, 40% of them had not completed college and were out of work. Somehow I just don't believe that. When I find one unbelievable data point, then I figure there are more that I don't find. Put that graph into the damn lies category.
I'm picky. If a graph fails any one of these tests, I put in into the "damn lies" category.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Got a call from my old Alma Mater
It was a young female student, a senior, getting in some work for the alumni office, calling to thank me for a contribution I made a few weeks ago. We got to chatting, about majors and the job market and how things were back when I graduated better than 40 years ago. She thought things must have been better back then, especially after I mentioned that I had a job offer before I graduated. I asked here what shw was majoring in. "International relations" she said. I refrained from saying anything while I thought to myself, "A real dead end major unless you want to join the State Dept or the CIA." So I asked her if she had taken a course in computer programming. "No, but I wish I had" was the reply.
After the phone call was over, I thought to myself, "There goes a nice young woman who is graduating with a major that won't help her get a job. Let's hope she can marry the right guy."
Lesson: if you are a student, or a parent of a student, you need to do some serious thinking about your college major. The right major will get you a job upon graduation. The wrong major and you are out of luck. Decide now what you want to do for a living when you graduate. Pick your major to make you employable in your chosen field. Engineering (real engineering, chemical, electrical, mechanical, or civil) worked for me, is fun to do, plenty of jobs, and decent pay. The sciences, computer programming, business administration, and mathematics are also good bets.
Avoid the talky-talk "sciences" (sociology, anthropology, psychology, ecology) and anything with "studies" in its name (ethic studies, gender studies and so on).
If you just cannot stomach a STEM major, learn to write. There is a tremendous demand for good English writing in business, industry, and government. An English major or a history major will teach you how to write.
After the phone call was over, I thought to myself, "There goes a nice young woman who is graduating with a major that won't help her get a job. Let's hope she can marry the right guy."
Lesson: if you are a student, or a parent of a student, you need to do some serious thinking about your college major. The right major will get you a job upon graduation. The wrong major and you are out of luck. Decide now what you want to do for a living when you graduate. Pick your major to make you employable in your chosen field. Engineering (real engineering, chemical, electrical, mechanical, or civil) worked for me, is fun to do, plenty of jobs, and decent pay. The sciences, computer programming, business administration, and mathematics are also good bets.
Avoid the talky-talk "sciences" (sociology, anthropology, psychology, ecology) and anything with "studies" in its name (ethic studies, gender studies and so on).
If you just cannot stomach a STEM major, learn to write. There is a tremendous demand for good English writing in business, industry, and government. An English major or a history major will teach you how to write.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Words of the Weasel Part 46
"What did he know and when did he know it". The old Watergate cry. Congressional Democrats are in full cry on TV this morning. This is an accusation of thought crime. And I don't believe in thought crime. Liberty means the right to think anything you please. Crime has to be action of some sort.
The proper questions are "What did he do? When did he do it? Where did he do it? And what evidence do you have? " To be a crime it has to be an action. Thought (or knowledge) is never a crime.
The proper questions are "What did he do? When did he do it? Where did he do it? And what evidence do you have? " To be a crime it has to be an action. Thought (or knowledge) is never a crime.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
$3000 health insurance vs $12000 health insurance
Used to be, before Obamacare, you could purchase health insurance for your and your family for about $3000 a year. It was "hospitalization only" insurance, it only paid if you got really sick and got put into the hospital. Routine stuff, yearly physicals, taking the kids to the doctor for earaches and such, you paid for out of pocket. The savings, $9000 a year, paid for a lot of trips to the doctor and a lot of yearly physicals. If you had some money in your checking account to handle the routine stuff, hospitalization only made a lot of sense. You were protected against catastrophe, at a price you could afford.
The medical community detested hospitalization only. It led to patients asking how much that recommended CAT scan might cost, and checking prices on pills and getting prescriptions changed over to cheaper drugs.
When they slipped Obamacare over on us, they remembered how opposition from the medical community had killed Hillarycare. They remembered those Harry and Louise radio commercials, and decided to get the medical community on board by giving them everything they ever wanted in Obamacare.
And so, Obamacare outlawed hospitalization only insurance. No more would medical providers have to explain how much treatments would cost to patients. Since every thing was all paid for, patients didn't care what stuff cost. While they were at it, Obamacare made all kinds of weird and wonderful medical scams mandatory and all paid for, like osteopathy. The practitioners love it.
The medical community detested hospitalization only. It led to patients asking how much that recommended CAT scan might cost, and checking prices on pills and getting prescriptions changed over to cheaper drugs.
When they slipped Obamacare over on us, they remembered how opposition from the medical community had killed Hillarycare. They remembered those Harry and Louise radio commercials, and decided to get the medical community on board by giving them everything they ever wanted in Obamacare.
And so, Obamacare outlawed hospitalization only insurance. No more would medical providers have to explain how much treatments would cost to patients. Since every thing was all paid for, patients didn't care what stuff cost. While they were at it, Obamacare made all kinds of weird and wonderful medical scams mandatory and all paid for, like osteopathy. The practitioners love it.
In like Flynn
Some things I don't understand. It's perfectly reasonable for Trump's national security advisor to talk to some Russians. Flynn is an old intelligence guy, knows some Russians, and contacting our biggest international problem is a good idea. Let 'em know that we won't nuke 'em, that we could make a deal, pass on a bit of sweetness and light, is always a good idea. We aren't at war with the Russians, reaching out and schmoozing them is a good thing. Far better than calling them names.
How did Flynn manage to get himself cross threaded with Mike Pence? Just what was it that he failed to say, or "misspoke" ? And why would a senior retired Army general officer not live up to the code of the services and tell the truth?
And, who in the intelligence world leaked the phone taps on Flynn? And leaked them to the press, not just Congressional Democrats? You tap a senior guy's phone and that's serious business. When the senior guy finds out, he will retaliate. Clearly Trump has a heavy duty leaker on the loose. He needs to call a plumber ASAP.
How did Flynn manage to get himself cross threaded with Mike Pence? Just what was it that he failed to say, or "misspoke" ? And why would a senior retired Army general officer not live up to the code of the services and tell the truth?
And, who in the intelligence world leaked the phone taps on Flynn? And leaked them to the press, not just Congressional Democrats? You tap a senior guy's phone and that's serious business. When the senior guy finds out, he will retaliate. Clearly Trump has a heavy duty leaker on the loose. He needs to call a plumber ASAP.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Words of the Weasel Part 45
"Border Tax". A euphemism for tariff. I listened to some talking head on Fox News spend five minutes explaining why Trump's proposed "border tax" was not a tariff. Tariffs have been a hot subject thru out American history. And the history books all use the word tariff. We are doing our children a disservice to introduce a new buzz phrase for an old old concept.
Could it be that a century of free trade agitation has made people think that tariff's are bad for them?
In real life, tariffs are good for domestic makers of stuff, for obvious reasons. Tariffs are bad for everyone else because they have to pay more for stuff. Everyone else is more people than the makers (both labor and company) of any one kind of stuff. Since this is a democracy, it is reasonable to support free trade since more people benefit from a free trade regime.
Could it be that a century of free trade agitation has made people think that tariff's are bad for them?
In real life, tariffs are good for domestic makers of stuff, for obvious reasons. Tariffs are bad for everyone else because they have to pay more for stuff. Everyone else is more people than the makers (both labor and company) of any one kind of stuff. Since this is a democracy, it is reasonable to support free trade since more people benefit from a free trade regime.
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