August 5, 2002
Electric Bicycles
The Economist reports that Beijing is closing down the electric bicycles. Apparently electric bicycles are a recent craze in China. They are much cheaper than a car, but faster and more convenient than a regular bicycle. But it is annoying to the bureaucrats and going to be removed for the Olympics. Electric bicycles are made by new little companies. Cars and regular bicycles have the old large established companies with government ties. So the electrics must go.
There is also some concern about the batteries. They are mostly lead or nicad, which are not safely disposed when worn out (at present). This is an interesting inversion from US and European attitudes where the electric bicycle is considered much superior to the automobile for environmental reasons.
Five days have passed since the previous update. Amazing how
work and hot weather can interfere with writing. It seems like only a
day or two. Well, at least I have notes about things that are happening.
The Economist reports that Beijing is closing down the electric bicycles. Apparently electric bicycles are a recent craze in China. They are much cheaper than a car, but faster and more convenient than a regular bicycle. But it is annoying to the bureaucrats and going to be removed for the Olympics. Electric bicycles are made by new little companies. Cars and regular bicycles have the old large established companies with government ties. So the electrics must go.
There is also some concern about the batteries. They are mostly lead or nicad, which are not safely disposed when worn out (at present). This is an interesting inversion from US and European attitudes where the electric bicycle is considered much superior to the automobile for environmental reasons.
rjh at 2300
[link]
July 30, 2002
GPS Soundings
When I was in college I got to launch and track pilot balloons (pibals). We launched these during the afternoon when the weather was right for thunderstorms. It takes two people and sometimes entertains an audience. One person prepares the radiosonde package. It's about the size of a shoebox. He activates the battery, frees the antenna, attaches it to the balloon, etc. while the other checks that the radio receiver is working and recording the signal. Then we fill the balloon with some helium and make sure that balloon plus package were the right weight. (You weight up instead of down.) Finally we go out onto the field.
When the time is right, we let it go and scurry over to a telescopic theodolite. One of us would have the notebook and the timer. The other would quickly get the balloon in the crosshairs and keep it there. Then every time the timer beeped Mr. Notebook would write down the current angles on the theodolite. You had to write fast. This would last for a couple minutes until the balloon went into a cloud, got lost in the haze, or went below the horizon.
After this was some old style tables and arithmetic. We had one of those fancy mechanical calculators that could even multiply and divide. It made wonderful kerchunking noises as it worked. The radio receiver was attached to a strip chart, so you could read off the dry bulb and wet bulb temperature, and pressure, from the chart. These go into a form. Then you enter the theodolite readings onto the form using the timer and chart to put them at the right pressure elevation. A little more work with forms and tables get you the wind speed and direction from the theodolite angles. Balloons are designed to climb at a known rate, so the tables can be precomputed. Voila. You have an atmospheric sounding: winds and temperatures versus altitude.
I thought this was great fun, especially since we only did it on interesting days. We got to do this because the production soundings were at the wrong time.
For production weather observing there is a related technology called the rawinsonde. The balloons are much bigger and sturdier. The tracking systems work both day and night, and use electronic tracking instead of a theodolite. The current systems are mostly converted over to using GPS in the package. There are about 500 locations worldwide that take a sounding at 00 and 12 UTC every day. These balloons typically reach 50 to 100,000 feet before breaking. The data is highly detailed, with about 30m vertical resolution. And this forms the starting point for all the computer weather models.
But it has a two problems. First, it is expensive. Each launch costs about $250. The US has about 100 sites, so that is $50,000 per day. Second, it almost exclusively done on land at major airports. You need to pick locations where you can put the equipment and where there are people who can be assigned to do a 1 hour technical job twice per day. So there is coverage on land in North America, Europe, and across northern Asia. The rest of the world is almost empty.
There has been decades of research into replacements. The weather satellites have several kinds of vertical sounders. These lack the detail of the rawinsonde. They typically have vertical resolutions more like 1 km. This is good enough for most weather modeling purposes. But the present systems still have problems. They only take data where the satellite can see. One approach works over land and sea, but can't handle clouds. So it only gives soundings well away from any storms. The other approach only works over the ocean, but can look through clouds as long as there is no rain and no big waves. Both these sounders are expensive. Nonetheless, they are in use and have made significant improvements for forecasts over oceans and for the entire southern hemisphere.
There is another interesting new technology emerging. It uses a technique first used for planetary astronomy. They took very precise measurements of a radio signal from satellites like Voyager and Gallileo as it went through the atmosphere of other planets. The concept was to use the GPS satellites around Earth for a similar measurement.
At first, nobody thought that there was any hope of this working. GPS signals are designed for another purpose. The required radio receiver and signal processing would be too expensive and impractical. But after some heavy mathematics a way was found. One motivator was the hope that the GPS sounder would be cheap, if it worked.
The first experiment went up as one of several shared experiments on a small research satellite in 1992. It worked. More launches were made every few years to revise and improve the systems. An April 2002 launch included the newest revision of the system for further tests. These launches are all shared research systems and the GPS receivers are inexpensive, so the GPS related cost to build and launch is only a few million. And they show that this system will work.
The resulting design uses satellites 800 km up. Each has a modified GPS receiver installed that is preprogrammed to take measurements each time it sees a GPS satellite go below the horizon. The receiving satellite is circling the earth and sees about 500 suitable GPS occultations each day.
The occultation measurements are processed on the ground. This can take up to 20s of Cray-3 time for one occultation. But from the tiny variations in the signal, they compute the temperature and humidity levels from the ground all the way up to about 500km. The resolution is about 1km vertically, so this is suitable for weather prediction. Best of all, the GPS signals are completely unaffected by clouds or rain, and the GPS receiver is very accurate and almost self calibrating.
The next step is the COSMIC system. This will be the first operational use of the GPS sounding system. It will launch 6 satellites into orbits chosen to optimize the scatter of soundings around the globe. There will be about 3000 soundings per day from the system. The satellites will be launched during 2006. The system cost is only $100 million, including satellites, launch costs, ground equipment, and several years operation. A typical weather satellite costs about $500 million for one satellite and launch. These GPS-only systems are very small, light, and inexpensive.
So weather forecasts should be improving again later this decade when the GPS soundings start being fed into the computer models.
The news these past few days has been just too depressing with the DHS, UCITA, RIAA, DMCA, and other news. I needed something more pleasant and uplifting.
When I was in college I got to launch and track pilot balloons (pibals). We launched these during the afternoon when the weather was right for thunderstorms. It takes two people and sometimes entertains an audience. One person prepares the radiosonde package. It's about the size of a shoebox. He activates the battery, frees the antenna, attaches it to the balloon, etc. while the other checks that the radio receiver is working and recording the signal. Then we fill the balloon with some helium and make sure that balloon plus package were the right weight. (You weight up instead of down.) Finally we go out onto the field.
When the time is right, we let it go and scurry over to a telescopic theodolite. One of us would have the notebook and the timer. The other would quickly get the balloon in the crosshairs and keep it there. Then every time the timer beeped Mr. Notebook would write down the current angles on the theodolite. You had to write fast. This would last for a couple minutes until the balloon went into a cloud, got lost in the haze, or went below the horizon.
After this was some old style tables and arithmetic. We had one of those fancy mechanical calculators that could even multiply and divide. It made wonderful kerchunking noises as it worked. The radio receiver was attached to a strip chart, so you could read off the dry bulb and wet bulb temperature, and pressure, from the chart. These go into a form. Then you enter the theodolite readings onto the form using the timer and chart to put them at the right pressure elevation. A little more work with forms and tables get you the wind speed and direction from the theodolite angles. Balloons are designed to climb at a known rate, so the tables can be precomputed. Voila. You have an atmospheric sounding: winds and temperatures versus altitude.
I thought this was great fun, especially since we only did it on interesting days. We got to do this because the production soundings were at the wrong time.
For production weather observing there is a related technology called the rawinsonde. The balloons are much bigger and sturdier. The tracking systems work both day and night, and use electronic tracking instead of a theodolite. The current systems are mostly converted over to using GPS in the package. There are about 500 locations worldwide that take a sounding at 00 and 12 UTC every day. These balloons typically reach 50 to 100,000 feet before breaking. The data is highly detailed, with about 30m vertical resolution. And this forms the starting point for all the computer weather models.
But it has a two problems. First, it is expensive. Each launch costs about $250. The US has about 100 sites, so that is $50,000 per day. Second, it almost exclusively done on land at major airports. You need to pick locations where you can put the equipment and where there are people who can be assigned to do a 1 hour technical job twice per day. So there is coverage on land in North America, Europe, and across northern Asia. The rest of the world is almost empty.
There has been decades of research into replacements. The weather satellites have several kinds of vertical sounders. These lack the detail of the rawinsonde. They typically have vertical resolutions more like 1 km. This is good enough for most weather modeling purposes. But the present systems still have problems. They only take data where the satellite can see. One approach works over land and sea, but can't handle clouds. So it only gives soundings well away from any storms. The other approach only works over the ocean, but can look through clouds as long as there is no rain and no big waves. Both these sounders are expensive. Nonetheless, they are in use and have made significant improvements for forecasts over oceans and for the entire southern hemisphere.
There is another interesting new technology emerging. It uses a technique first used for planetary astronomy. They took very precise measurements of a radio signal from satellites like Voyager and Gallileo as it went through the atmosphere of other planets. The concept was to use the GPS satellites around Earth for a similar measurement.
At first, nobody thought that there was any hope of this working. GPS signals are designed for another purpose. The required radio receiver and signal processing would be too expensive and impractical. But after some heavy mathematics a way was found. One motivator was the hope that the GPS sounder would be cheap, if it worked.
The first experiment went up as one of several shared experiments on a small research satellite in 1992. It worked. More launches were made every few years to revise and improve the systems. An April 2002 launch included the newest revision of the system for further tests. These launches are all shared research systems and the GPS receivers are inexpensive, so the GPS related cost to build and launch is only a few million. And they show that this system will work.
The resulting design uses satellites 800 km up. Each has a modified GPS receiver installed that is preprogrammed to take measurements each time it sees a GPS satellite go below the horizon. The receiving satellite is circling the earth and sees about 500 suitable GPS occultations each day.
The occultation measurements are processed on the ground. This can take up to 20s of Cray-3 time for one occultation. But from the tiny variations in the signal, they compute the temperature and humidity levels from the ground all the way up to about 500km. The resolution is about 1km vertically, so this is suitable for weather prediction. Best of all, the GPS signals are completely unaffected by clouds or rain, and the GPS receiver is very accurate and almost self calibrating.
The next step is the COSMIC system. This will be the first operational use of the GPS sounding system. It will launch 6 satellites into orbits chosen to optimize the scatter of soundings around the globe. There will be about 3000 soundings per day from the system. The satellites will be launched during 2006. The system cost is only $100 million, including satellites, launch costs, ground equipment, and several years operation. A typical weather satellite costs about $500 million for one satellite and launch. These GPS-only systems are very small, light, and inexpensive.
So weather forecasts should be improving again later this decade when the GPS soundings start being fed into the computer models.
rjh at 1300
[link]
The news these past few days has been just too depressing with the DHS, UCITA, RIAA, DMCA, and other news. I needed something more pleasant and uplifting.
July 30, 2002
Another storm?
There was a nice looking swirl off Bermuda yesterday, and now it is looking better developed. There are hints of strong convection and better organization. But the location is poor (it is on the edge of the warm water) and the forecasters don't consider it even a potential.
There was a nice looking swirl off Bermuda yesterday, and now it is looking better developed. There are hints of strong convection and better organization. But the location is poor (it is on the edge of the warm water) and the forecasters don't consider it even a potential.
July 26, 2002
AAAS Yearbook Articles
The AAAS has published their 2002 yearbook articles, and three of them are worth reading. These are:
Disgust with using chemicals or disease as weapons may have delayed involvement. But it means that little time as been spent thinking about the unthinkable. For example, the leading candidates for bio-weapons (against humans) are: smallpox, anthrax, plague, tularemia, botulin, and the hemorrhagic fevers (e.g. Ebola). These have various spread mechanisms, but only one that provides a rapid widespread exposure. That is a weaponized aerosol. Yet there has been a great expenditure and fear around public water supplies. These diseases are very hard to spread through water supplies. They don't survive well in chlorinated water. This kind of mistake is the result of being unprepared.
The greatest gap at the moment is detection. There are no machines to reliably detect these agents as aerosols, nor are such machines likely any time soon. So automatic detection of an attack will not happen. An attack will be detected by the front line doctors in primary care and emergency rooms. We will be depending on them to detect diseases that they have never seen before and to know how to report these detections. They will need rapid diagnostic confirmation. This depends on training that doctors do not have, a reporting system that does not exist, and a diagnostic laboratory system that does not exist.
My comments:
The brightest hope is the low contagion rate for all of these diseases (except smallpox). Using scrupulous sanitary practices at all times, both in the home and in the medical facilities, tremendously reduces the contagion rate for these diseases. This also have a beneficial side effect of reducing the contagion rate for more common diseases like colds and various food borne ailments. Yet, oddly, I have seen no major educational push to make people aware that simple cleanliness and sanitary procedures are a step that you can take that will make a real difference in slowing the spread of these diseases. It won't stop the initial infections from an attack, but it will greatly slow the subsequent spread.
Smallpox is the big exception to this. It is the only one of these diseases that has significant airborne contagion. Simple cleanliness helps, but the airborne contagion remains very effective in smallpox. Hence the need to prepare vaccination.
One significant risk in all this is that the bio-weapons thought has come from the military. Various militaries have worked with bio-weapons and they all share one common concern. None want to develop weapons that would spread to their home territory and cause major damage. They want weapons that are controllable. If terrorists use bio-weapons developed for military purposes, they will be diseases like the ones above. But, terrorists might not care about using a weapon that kills their own civilians. If they develop their own, it could be other diseases with other characteristics.
Terrorists probably lack the resources to develop entirely new weapons from scratch. They will probably start with the military bio-weapons.
Time trials today. Boring. The one giggle is the race for last. It seems that getting the bottom spot is good for extra money in various later events. But you must be last, not second to last. And you must finish stages within the time needed to qualify. In this years race, there are two people dueling for the bottom and trying to gauge how poorly they can go without disqualifying.
The AAAS has published their 2002 yearbook articles, and three of them are worth reading. These are:
- Public Health Preparedness, by Donald Henderson,
- One View of Protecting the National Information Infrastructure, by Eugene Spafford, and
- Assessing and Communicating the Risks of Terrorism, by Baruch Fishoff
Public Health Preparedness
Professor Henderson discusses the lack of preparedness for non-traditional terrorist attacks. The health care sector is prepared for bombs and guns. It is poorly prepared for chemicals and completely unprepared for bio-weapons. This in part explains the extreme foolishness of the CDC response to smallpox vaccination. At a 1998 national conference on urban terrorism with over 500 attendees, there was not one physician, hospital employee, nor anyone who had dealt with an epidemic. The health care sector has not thought about the issues and in a crisis falls back on the techniques that they understand from peacetime settings.Disgust with using chemicals or disease as weapons may have delayed involvement. But it means that little time as been spent thinking about the unthinkable. For example, the leading candidates for bio-weapons (against humans) are: smallpox, anthrax, plague, tularemia, botulin, and the hemorrhagic fevers (e.g. Ebola). These have various spread mechanisms, but only one that provides a rapid widespread exposure. That is a weaponized aerosol. Yet there has been a great expenditure and fear around public water supplies. These diseases are very hard to spread through water supplies. They don't survive well in chlorinated water. This kind of mistake is the result of being unprepared.
The greatest gap at the moment is detection. There are no machines to reliably detect these agents as aerosols, nor are such machines likely any time soon. So automatic detection of an attack will not happen. An attack will be detected by the front line doctors in primary care and emergency rooms. We will be depending on them to detect diseases that they have never seen before and to know how to report these detections. They will need rapid diagnostic confirmation. This depends on training that doctors do not have, a reporting system that does not exist, and a diagnostic laboratory system that does not exist.
My comments:
The brightest hope is the low contagion rate for all of these diseases (except smallpox). Using scrupulous sanitary practices at all times, both in the home and in the medical facilities, tremendously reduces the contagion rate for these diseases. This also have a beneficial side effect of reducing the contagion rate for more common diseases like colds and various food borne ailments. Yet, oddly, I have seen no major educational push to make people aware that simple cleanliness and sanitary procedures are a step that you can take that will make a real difference in slowing the spread of these diseases. It won't stop the initial infections from an attack, but it will greatly slow the subsequent spread.
Smallpox is the big exception to this. It is the only one of these diseases that has significant airborne contagion. Simple cleanliness helps, but the airborne contagion remains very effective in smallpox. Hence the need to prepare vaccination.
One significant risk in all this is that the bio-weapons thought has come from the military. Various militaries have worked with bio-weapons and they all share one common concern. None want to develop weapons that would spread to their home territory and cause major damage. They want weapons that are controllable. If terrorists use bio-weapons developed for military purposes, they will be diseases like the ones above. But, terrorists might not care about using a weapon that kills their own civilians. If they develop their own, it could be other diseases with other characteristics.
Terrorists probably lack the resources to develop entirely new weapons from scratch. They will probably start with the military bio-weapons.
One View of Protecting the National Information Infrastructure
Professor Spafford notes:
...our government has decided that cost is more important than
quality. They use a monoculture computing system that has a
compromised (and some would say minimal) immune system.
...The speed of the market [means that] getting there first is now more important than getting there correctly.
There are higher quality, more reliable, more secure systems available
but these are not widely chosen. Further,...The speed of the market [means that] getting there first is now more important than getting there correctly.
Another problem is the vendors. They are annoyed that management is
trying to keep out their advertisements. As a result, they create
protocols and methods to circumvent security.
... Vendors produce goods that they know are bad ... The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act [UCITA] ... is being lobbied very heavily by a number of manufacturers. ... This law allows the vendors to disclaim all liability and to actually prohibit individuals from writing anything critical about their software for publication.
We also have major firms pushing special interest legislation that actually hinders research. Many large intellectual content providers, such as Sony and Disney, have supported laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law makes it actionable for a researcher to perform many kinds of investigations into weaknesses ... If the DMCA had been passed before 1999, most of the technology and efforts used to remediate Y2K would have been illegal.
And he has some suggestions for action:
... Vendors produce goods that they know are bad ... The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act [UCITA] ... is being lobbied very heavily by a number of manufacturers. ... This law allows the vendors to disclaim all liability and to actually prohibit individuals from writing anything critical about their software for publication.
We also have major firms pushing special interest legislation that actually hinders research. Many large intellectual content providers, such as Sony and Disney, have supported laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law makes it actionable for a researcher to perform many kinds of investigations into weaknesses ... If the DMCA had been passed before 1999, most of the technology and efforts used to remediate Y2K would have been illegal.
We can be better consumers. We can buy tools that
have better quality ... [suggests MacOS, Linux, and Unix rather than
Microsoft].
... government and industry need to invest more resources in information assurance research and education. ... [to avoid the current cycle of fix, patch, break, fix, patch, break]
... [start holding vendors accountable for quality]
... government and industry need to invest more resources in information assurance research and education. ... [to avoid the current cycle of fix, patch, break, fix, patch, break]
... [start holding vendors accountable for quality]
Assessing and Communicating the Risks of Terrorism
Professor Fischhoff: We need to communicate with people well in advance
of any terror related crisis. They need to have some idea of what is
going on in order to have a chance to make effective decisions, being
as heroic as they choose, without feeling they were misled or
incompletely informed. ...
If we do not understand human behavior, then we have behaviorally unrealistic plans. ...
People's ability to process risk communications depends on their numeracy and literacy. Numeracy is required to understand how big risks are and how much risk reduction will cost. Language literacy is required to process written messages.
He follows this with a series of examples of how to examine, analyze,
display, and explain a variety of terrorism risk situations. The
following diagram is an example of how to show the factors and
relationships that affect the probability of catching a
disease. (It looks better in the original.)If we do not understand human behavior, then we have behaviorally unrealistic plans. ...
People's ability to process risk communications depends on their numeracy and literacy. Numeracy is required to understand how big risks are and how much risk reduction will cost. Language literacy is required to process written messages.
rjh at 1300
[link]
More cycling newsTime trials today. Boring. The one giggle is the race for last. It seems that getting the bottom spot is good for extra money in various later events. But you must be last, not second to last. And you must finish stages within the time needed to qualify. In this years race, there are two people dueling for the bottom and trying to gauge how poorly they can go without disqualifying.
July 25, 2002
Why we should not immunize for
Anthrax
I saw this question in a letter to the editor and realized that the media has not explained why public anthrax immunization is not necessary.
The really short answer is because anthrax is not contagious. This sounds odd. But if you look at the details regarding anthrax you see that human to human transmission is extremely rare. The infectious paths are very few and routine precautions bring them to nil. To make anthrax widely dangerous it must be "weaponized". The dangerous form is the powdered spores, and these are not found on infected humans. They are occasionally found on cattle, which are the animals that are most often infected by anthrax.
Anthrax is found in the wild in North America, Asia, and Africa. Human epidemics of anthrax do not occur. Humans occasionally become ill through catching anthrax from cattle or wild animals.
The anthrax vaccination process is also unpleasant. It takes six shots over a one year period and most people have a negative reaction to the shots. It ranges from pain and swelling through several days of flu like symptoms after each shot. There are also a variety of effective treatments if the disease is caught early. So the vaccination is only worthwhile for people at high risk of being exposed. Military targets, terrorist targets, and cleanup crews should consider vaccination.
While I was at it, I also check on the favorite boogie man: Ebola. This disease has no vaccination, so what happens if terrorists use it. It turns out that Ebola is only moderately contagious. This is not how it is shown in the movies. Ebola is spread by direct contact between an infected person's bodily fluid (blood, vomit, etc.) and another person's skin. It is not spread through the air. It is also easily killed by strong chemical disinfectants like chlorine.
That is why it is so quickly contained in the various outbreaks. Once the outbreak is recognized, sterile procedures are easy to put in place. You become extremely careful about using rubber gloves, washing with hot water and bleach, etc. This contains the spread quickly.
The spread mechanism also indicates why it is hard to use as a weapon. You can't spray it in the air. You need to get the target's skin wet with the contagious fluid. That is easy if you are targeting one or two people. That is very hard when you are targeting many people.
I saw this question in a letter to the editor and realized that the media has not explained why public anthrax immunization is not necessary.
The really short answer is because anthrax is not contagious. This sounds odd. But if you look at the details regarding anthrax you see that human to human transmission is extremely rare. The infectious paths are very few and routine precautions bring them to nil. To make anthrax widely dangerous it must be "weaponized". The dangerous form is the powdered spores, and these are not found on infected humans. They are occasionally found on cattle, which are the animals that are most often infected by anthrax.
Anthrax is found in the wild in North America, Asia, and Africa. Human epidemics of anthrax do not occur. Humans occasionally become ill through catching anthrax from cattle or wild animals.
The anthrax vaccination process is also unpleasant. It takes six shots over a one year period and most people have a negative reaction to the shots. It ranges from pain and swelling through several days of flu like symptoms after each shot. There are also a variety of effective treatments if the disease is caught early. So the vaccination is only worthwhile for people at high risk of being exposed. Military targets, terrorist targets, and cleanup crews should consider vaccination.
While I was at it, I also check on the favorite boogie man: Ebola. This disease has no vaccination, so what happens if terrorists use it. It turns out that Ebola is only moderately contagious. This is not how it is shown in the movies. Ebola is spread by direct contact between an infected person's bodily fluid (blood, vomit, etc.) and another person's skin. It is not spread through the air. It is also easily killed by strong chemical disinfectants like chlorine.
That is why it is so quickly contained in the various outbreaks. Once the outbreak is recognized, sterile procedures are easy to put in place. You become extremely careful about using rubber gloves, washing with hot water and bleach, etc. This contains the spread quickly.
The spread mechanism also indicates why it is hard to use as a weapon. You can't spray it in the air. You need to get the target's skin wet with the contagious fluid. That is easy if you are targeting one or two people. That is very hard when you are targeting many people.
rjh at 1300
[link]
July 24, 2002
Tour de France
A thrilling race today. For most of the race there was one lone breakaway, a small pack a few minutes behind, and the peloton at 8 minutes behind. Armstrong and USPS held to their strategy of staying in the pack and not letting any of the tour competition get ahead of Armstrong. All the breakaways were more than 15 minutes behind on a tour basis.
Then USPS attacked at the beginning of the final 18km hill climb. They began charging the hill and dropping pack members. At 6km to go Armstrong broke free and began his personal charge. The lone breakaway won the stage by 1min 25 seconds. Armstrong passed all the other breakaways. Only one tour competitor (Beloki) kept even with Armstrong. Armstrong gained another 30 or more seconds over all the rest of his competition. Beloki held onto second place at 5.06 behind Armstrong.
The Internet bulletins are every few minutes toward the end. The imagination can fill in the rest.
A thrilling race today. For most of the race there was one lone breakaway, a small pack a few minutes behind, and the peloton at 8 minutes behind. Armstrong and USPS held to their strategy of staying in the pack and not letting any of the tour competition get ahead of Armstrong. All the breakaways were more than 15 minutes behind on a tour basis.
Then USPS attacked at the beginning of the final 18km hill climb. They began charging the hill and dropping pack members. At 6km to go Armstrong broke free and began his personal charge. The lone breakaway won the stage by 1min 25 seconds. Armstrong passed all the other breakaways. Only one tour competitor (Beloki) kept even with Armstrong. Armstrong gained another 30 or more seconds over all the rest of his competition. Beloki held onto second place at 5.06 behind Armstrong.
The Internet bulletins are every few minutes toward the end. The imagination can fill in the rest.
rjh at 1300
[link]
Aviation
The latest quarterlies are looking bad for the airlines. According to Crandall (AA president) the aggregate industry losses from 1903 to now equal the profits. So the industry is now going into net losses. Also, the aggregate ROI has not matched the cost of capital since 1978. (Frequent travelers may argue that their poor revenues are caused by their poor service quality.)
Boeing is making noises about backing down on the Sonic Cruiser. The latest trial balloon is an update to the Blended Wing Body (BWB). BWB designs have been around for a couple decades as discussion pieces. A BWB looks somewhat like the old Ford "Manta Ray" fighter or the B-2 bomber. Instead of the traditional tube with narrow wings, the wings are thick and wide. They blend into the top and bottom of the fuselage, leaving a blended nose portion.
The BWB is attractive because it has better internal space utilization for large aircraft and because it gets 30% better fuel economy. They are difficult to design and require electronic control systems, but there are now a couple decades of military experience with similar aircraft.
There are still problems to resolve:
Railroads
Mitsubishi, Mitsui, et al have been awarded the high speed rail contract for Taipei to Kaoshiung. This is a 345km run that should take 1.5 hours when complete in 2006. This is also the first sale for Japanese "shinkanshen" technology outside of Japan. All other non-Japanese high speed rail has used European technology.
The latest quarterlies are looking bad for the airlines. According to Crandall (AA president) the aggregate industry losses from 1903 to now equal the profits. So the industry is now going into net losses. Also, the aggregate ROI has not matched the cost of capital since 1978. (Frequent travelers may argue that their poor revenues are caused by their poor service quality.)
Boeing is making noises about backing down on the Sonic Cruiser. The latest trial balloon is an update to the Blended Wing Body (BWB). BWB designs have been around for a couple decades as discussion pieces. A BWB looks somewhat like the old Ford "Manta Ray" fighter or the B-2 bomber. Instead of the traditional tube with narrow wings, the wings are thick and wide. They blend into the top and bottom of the fuselage, leaving a blended nose portion.
The BWB is attractive because it has better internal space utilization for large aircraft and because it gets 30% better fuel economy. They are difficult to design and require electronic control systems, but there are now a couple decades of military experience with similar aircraft.
There are still problems to resolve:
- It may upset passengers. It looks very different. It has almost no windows. The interior is wide, 12-16 or more seats across. It is hard to predict the public reaction to this. Will they be comfortable with what is more like a flying room?
- It has clearance difficulty with current jetways. They are designed for tube with wing. The unusual shape may pose a variety of problems at airport terminals.
- It is tricky to load and unload. You can funnel people through a little door at the nose, but freight and emergency exits are a problem. One possibility is that the front or back might swing open in a manner similar to military cargo airplanes.
- It is sufficiently different that there will be much longer training delays while pilots learn its characteristics.
Railroads
Mitsubishi, Mitsui, et al have been awarded the high speed rail contract for Taipei to Kaoshiung. This is a 345km run that should take 1.5 hours when complete in 2006. This is also the first sale for Japanese "shinkanshen" technology outside of Japan. All other non-Japanese high speed rail has used European technology.
rjh at 1100
[link]
July 23, 2002
RSNA
Well, looks like I give another presentation. Got the approvals today. So yet again, Chicago for Thanksgiving.
Tour de France
I "watched" the race again this morning. This is kind of a throwback to the real old days of telegraphs. I keep up the site for continuous race updates and every few minutes I get another status update. So I can work and just see these updates in another window. Beats the radio (which won't cover bike racing anyhow). Watching the race up Mt. Ventoux in my imagination easily beat the real thing. Meanwhile Armstrong's strategy seems to be working well. Like in today's race where he made sure that he stayed ahead of his real contenders.
Thunderstorms
Real wizbang storms today. It got dark enough to need to turn on the lights to see the keyboard. Then bang, etc., and no power. Then power comes back and I get to watch computers check their disks. The cat had been hiding from the heat and humidity. It got onto the windowsill and now it is all wet.
The rain gauge is battery powered and it shows 11 mm of rain. Rain gauges are great toys for weather watchers.
Well, looks like I give another presentation. Got the approvals today. So yet again, Chicago for Thanksgiving.
Tour de France
I "watched" the race again this morning. This is kind of a throwback to the real old days of telegraphs. I keep up the site for continuous race updates and every few minutes I get another status update. So I can work and just see these updates in another window. Beats the radio (which won't cover bike racing anyhow). Watching the race up Mt. Ventoux in my imagination easily beat the real thing. Meanwhile Armstrong's strategy seems to be working well. Like in today's race where he made sure that he stayed ahead of his real contenders.
Thunderstorms
Real wizbang storms today. It got dark enough to need to turn on the lights to see the keyboard. Then bang, etc., and no power. Then power comes back and I get to watch computers check their disks. The cat had been hiding from the heat and humidity. It got onto the windowsill and now it is all wet.
The rain gauge is battery powered and it shows 11 mm of rain. Rain gauges are great toys for weather watchers.
July 21, 2002
Problems with US Medical Payment System
One pervasive problem with the US medical system is the distortions that result from the insurance payment system. The problem is that insurance is only partially appropriate. Classical insurance theory is:
I can also estimate the approximate size of these three based on the costs for HMO and catastrophic illness insurance. For the single young adult the current routine expenses are about $1,000/yr; the savings for likely future expenses about $2,000/yr; and the catastrophic coverage about $1,500.
The large portion that is needed for the savings plan component is a part of the problem. The usual pattern is that young adults have low costs that grow to cover children and that then oscillate into old age, with a generally growing cost trend. Medical insurance handles both the low probability high cost events and acts as an income transference from the low cost adults to others with higher costs.
This leads to behavioral distortions. There is strong motivation to modify the medical costs to appear to be insurance events to move costs out of the routine expense category. There is no reward for controlling minor costs. The HMO model attempts to modify this with a combination of paternalistic treatment controls and a revised cost structure that rewards some kinds of minor cost controls. But the paternalistic decision making process of the HMO ignores the intelligence of the patient and leaves them out of the decision making process.
A better system would recognize the three financial components. It also needs to reward appropriate routine expense behavior. This means:
The MSA accounts are the closest to the right financial structure but have serious problems:
One pervasive problem with the US medical system is the distortions that result from the insurance payment system. The problem is that insurance is only partially appropriate. Classical insurance theory is:
The purpose of any insurance policy is to convert an uncertain, but
potentially large, loss into a certain, small loss.
Medical insurance is more accurately described by the theory:
...becoming ill fundamentally changes preferences. Thus, an insured
consumer is able to transfer income into the ill state where the
marginal utility of income is greater. Under this theory, the demand
for insurance is derived from the demand for a payoff in the ill
state, rather than the demand for certainty or risk
avoidance.
An alternate theory is:
... insurance is demanded because the uncertain payoff is
timed to coincide with the occurrence of the bad state, not because
of the certainty it provides.
Medical insurance is used in the US to provide:
- Payment for low probability high cost events. This is the classical insurance goal.
- Transferring income from current income into future payments. This is more properly called a savings plan.
- Paying current routine expenses.
I can also estimate the approximate size of these three based on the costs for HMO and catastrophic illness insurance. For the single young adult the current routine expenses are about $1,000/yr; the savings for likely future expenses about $2,000/yr; and the catastrophic coverage about $1,500.
The large portion that is needed for the savings plan component is a part of the problem. The usual pattern is that young adults have low costs that grow to cover children and that then oscillate into old age, with a generally growing cost trend. Medical insurance handles both the low probability high cost events and acts as an income transference from the low cost adults to others with higher costs.
This leads to behavioral distortions. There is strong motivation to modify the medical costs to appear to be insurance events to move costs out of the routine expense category. There is no reward for controlling minor costs. The HMO model attempts to modify this with a combination of paternalistic treatment controls and a revised cost structure that rewards some kinds of minor cost controls. But the paternalistic decision making process of the HMO ignores the intelligence of the patient and leaves them out of the decision making process.
A better system would recognize the three financial components. It also needs to reward appropriate routine expense behavior. This means:
- Transfer saved routine expense costs into a savings plan for future expenses.
- Provide encouragement for appropriate preventative behavior.
- Provide insurance (in the traditional sense) for catastrophic illness.
The MSA accounts are the closest to the right financial structure but have serious problems:
- They do not coexist well with current insurance and HMO systems. These are structured to divert costs heavily onto those who pay directly. Those are the rich and MSA user. The major insurers and HMOs get massive discounts.
- The MSA user lacks market information regarding costs and services. This makes intelligent purchasing extremely difficult.
- The payment system is extremely awkward for MSA customers. This is mostly related to there being so few MSA customers.
- Many patients are completely unprepared for the MSA responsibilities. It is hard to experience years of paternalistic decision making and suddenly be expected to make extensive detailed decisions.
- The current MSA system does not meet the needs of spendthrifts. People who cannot manage money can abuse their MSA much like they presently abuse their 401(k) plans.
- Neither the current insurance system nor the MSA system address the needs of the intermittent worker. They would probably benefit the most from something with the savings plan component of the MSA, because they could fund the MSA while employed and then use the MSA during periods of unemployment. At present, neither MSA nor conventional insurance provides reasonable access to the intermittent worker.
rjh at 2300
[link]
July 20, 2002
Yet another Face Recognition
Failure
Yes, still more failures for automatic face recognition. How many more test failures will it take before people realize that these are sold by charlatans. The technology works for comparing faces in well controlled picture taking environments. For example, drivers license and passport photos are taken in a very uniform well controlled environment. Face matching for this kind of pictures works very well. (I've seen the tests and test results.)
But it does not work for general public picture taking by video cameras. It cannot deal with lighting variations, face orientation, etc. Even people (who are still far superior to machines when it comes to face matching) have difficulty in those environments. But government pork money is there, so the vultures keep coming.
Yes, still more failures for automatic face recognition. How many more test failures will it take before people realize that these are sold by charlatans. The technology works for comparing faces in well controlled picture taking environments. For example, drivers license and passport photos are taken in a very uniform well controlled environment. Face matching for this kind of pictures works very well. (I've seen the tests and test results.)
But it does not work for general public picture taking by video cameras. It cannot deal with lighting variations, face orientation, etc. Even people (who are still far superior to machines when it comes to face matching) have difficulty in those environments. But government pork money is there, so the vultures keep coming.
Hmm. Still more on railroads.
Solar Powered Grease Squirters
Steel wheels on steel rails are amazingly efficient, but they do suffer at curves. The wheels get slightly out of alignment with the tracks. The result is a some extra wear on the wheels and the track, plus extra fuel consumption. On sharp turns, like in subways, you can hear this squealing. New locomotives and fast trains deal have fancy expensive radial wheel assemblies. But what about the plebian freight car?
Enter the solar powered grease squirter. A little bit of lubrication of ordinary fixed wheels on freight cars does a lot to reduce wear and fuel consumption. So out in the boonies you find solar powered grease squirters.
These things are basically a big barrel of grease, a few sensors, a little electronics, and a carefully designed squirter. The idea is to time the squirt so that you lubricate the freight wheels without interfering with the locomotive wheels. They position these things near the beginning of particularly twisty slow stretches of track. Then each train gets its own little lube job. Why solar power? Unless there is convenient power within a few hundred feet, the solar panel and batteries cost less than installing a power line.
A much smaller project of track straightening, siding adjustment, and highway crossing improvements just completed in North Carolina. It will now take ten minutes less to cross that state. When this series finishes in 2004, it will total a savings of 30 minutes. Not very dramatic is it. But it means 10% greater capacity by reducing the travel time from 6.5 hours to 6 hours.
There is no financial appetite for big rail investments. Railroads are still recovering from the 50 year effort by the US government to kill railroads. The overall ROI for railroad investment is only 4-5% so they primarily use profits to fund little improvements like this. And, in this case the highway funds are picking up part of the cost because it does include crossing changes.
Solar Powered Grease Squirters
Steel wheels on steel rails are amazingly efficient, but they do suffer at curves. The wheels get slightly out of alignment with the tracks. The result is a some extra wear on the wheels and the track, plus extra fuel consumption. On sharp turns, like in subways, you can hear this squealing. New locomotives and fast trains deal have fancy expensive radial wheel assemblies. But what about the plebian freight car?
Enter the solar powered grease squirter. A little bit of lubrication of ordinary fixed wheels on freight cars does a lot to reduce wear and fuel consumption. So out in the boonies you find solar powered grease squirters.
These things are basically a big barrel of grease, a few sensors, a little electronics, and a carefully designed squirter. The idea is to time the squirt so that you lubricate the freight wheels without interfering with the locomotive wheels. They position these things near the beginning of particularly twisty slow stretches of track. Then each train gets its own little lube job. Why solar power? Unless there is convenient power within a few hundred feet, the solar panel and batteries cost less than installing a power line.
A much smaller project of track straightening, siding adjustment, and highway crossing improvements just completed in North Carolina. It will now take ten minutes less to cross that state. When this series finishes in 2004, it will total a savings of 30 minutes. Not very dramatic is it. But it means 10% greater capacity by reducing the travel time from 6.5 hours to 6 hours.
There is no financial appetite for big rail investments. Railroads are still recovering from the 50 year effort by the US government to kill railroads. The overall ROI for railroad investment is only 4-5% so they primarily use profits to fund little improvements like this. And, in this case the highway funds are picking up part of the cost because it does include crossing changes.
rjh at 1500
[link]
July 19, 2002
On Salesmen
In a letter to the editor of the Financial Times this week someone noted that the American companies with accounting problems were led by ex salesmen and marketeers. It went on to say that English companies give the high salaries and positions to accountants and don't have such problems. My reaction was "there's an accountant who didn't get a raise." But there is some truth to the claim.
I've dealt with quite a few industries and have found that the typical salesman places very little importance on truthfulness. It's not that they lie for the joy of lying. It's that in the conflict between making a sale and telling the truth, the sale usually wins. What they take joy in is manipulating people and gaining high status.
You could, like the FT writer, advocate eliminating sales and marketing from corporate leadership. But often they are the only group that really cares what the customers want. Engineering knows what the customer needs, and if the customer disagrees they will start correcting the customer. Legal just sees all the potential problems in doing anything. Accounting is worried about finding the proper forms. Manufacturing is sick of all the changes and wants people to make up their minds.
But for a while at least, a corporation that has a marketing or sales leadership deserves extra accounting scrutiny. Most of the problems found so far are "small" lies to make a better impression. This is exactly the kind of lie that fits a salesman. And both Enron and Worldcom were run by highly egotistical salesmen.
In a letter to the editor of the Financial Times this week someone noted that the American companies with accounting problems were led by ex salesmen and marketeers. It went on to say that English companies give the high salaries and positions to accountants and don't have such problems. My reaction was "there's an accountant who didn't get a raise." But there is some truth to the claim.
I've dealt with quite a few industries and have found that the typical salesman places very little importance on truthfulness. It's not that they lie for the joy of lying. It's that in the conflict between making a sale and telling the truth, the sale usually wins. What they take joy in is manipulating people and gaining high status.
You could, like the FT writer, advocate eliminating sales and marketing from corporate leadership. But often they are the only group that really cares what the customers want. Engineering knows what the customer needs, and if the customer disagrees they will start correcting the customer. Legal just sees all the potential problems in doing anything. Accounting is worried about finding the proper forms. Manufacturing is sick of all the changes and wants people to make up their minds.
But for a while at least, a corporation that has a marketing or sales leadership deserves extra accounting scrutiny. Most of the problems found so far are "small" lies to make a better impression. This is exactly the kind of lie that fits a salesman. And both Enron and Worldcom were run by highly egotistical salesmen.
rjh at 2100
[link]
Camille Paglia
I really enjoy her writing. This is how polemics should be written.
I really enjoy her writing. This is how polemics should be written.
rjh at 1900
[link]