Today Elli and I went to the Science Centre. On most of our trips we do the same activities and see the same exhibits as the previous trip (much to the delight of Elli, less so for me) but this time we got to see the CSI show which was certainly new and different. The people manning the information booth were decidedly unhelpful but that did not deter us.
"So, my daughter is 4, is this show suitable for her?"
"The show is fine for kids."
"Okay, but she is only 4 and has no idea what CSI is... will she enjoy herself?"
"Everything at the Science Centre is designed for kids."
Yeah, I know that everything at the Science Centre is designed for kids, but you have to be pretty clueless to not suspect that shows that a 12 year old who is a big fan of CSI will enjoy are different than the shows a 4 year old who can barely read the letters CSI will enjoy. I wouldn't mind if a random employee was only this helpful but this person's only responsibility was talking about and handing out tickets for the CSI show. Your whole job is being able to describe one thing! Be descriptive! Tell me things!
The show itself was actually really well done and even though it was regularly way out of Elli's range of comprehension she had a great time... mostly. When we left her summary was "The show was great but too loud." I couldn't agree more. The microphones the cast used were set too high but it capped out at unpleasant. The music on the other hand was set to 'rock concert' and caused both Elli and I to immediately clap our hands over our ears in shock. Even with my palms anchored firmly to the sides of my head I found it too loud and yet the rest of the theatre sat there seemingly unaffected.
I am paranoid about noise. Whenever I visit my grandparents I am pained by watching my grandfather sit on the edge of the room unable to take part in conversations. He has so much to say and so much knowledge to impart but solo conversations are challenging and when there is background noise at all no communication is possible. I find the idea of watching my own parents go through that frightening to contemplate and even more so when it applies to Wendy or I. For years I have worked hard to limit my exposure to loud noise for that very reason and as such I find it particularly aggravating that a place like the Science Centre would decide to blast the audience with music at a volume that certainly causes long term hearing damage. Not much damage, of course, and on its own completely harmless... but so is the smoke from a single cigarette. The greatest part of extreme hearing loss results from our modern society and the noise we create and as such we have a responsibility to not exacerbate that problem for no reason.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wicked Problems
Charles Stross has a great blog where he shares all kinds of interesting ideas. Recently he had a guest blogger write about the topic of Wicked Problems. I highly encourage reading the article, and although the comments are really interesting they are also really long. One thing I think was left out of the definition of a Wicked Problem there is the idea that the sizes of the groups that believe in particular definitions of the problem and their attendant 'solutions' need to be comparable.
For example, abortion is a Wicked Problem. There is no right answer, just lots of answer of varying degrees of wrong. Defining the issue is very hard, the solutions are myriad and testing out those solutions in some safe, scientific way is impossible. However, if 99% of people concluded that abortion is fine up until 20 weeks then we would pretty much all conclude that abortion is not a Wicked Problem even though it meets the other criteria. Note that I am not redefining the problem here, just suggesting that when people think of things that are Wicked Problems they will only include the ones that have a significant element of controversy - that is, those that have two or more groups of substantial size in disagreement. That sometimes is going to correspond to problems that aren't actually all that challenging to solve but sometimes not since whether or not people agree on a topic is correlated to it being solved, but certainly there is no causality there.
Religion is the same way. Religious conflict is clearly a Wicked Problem both by the definitions in the article and by near unanimous belief but that wouldn't be true if basically everybody was an atheist (not so if we all shared a religion since there is no end of examples of religious infighting) since we would all basically ignore the few crazies who don't follow the party line. We would fight over something else, no doubt, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone thinking that religious conflict was a Wicked Problem. To my mind it is less about the actual nature of the problem being looked at and far more about what people think about the problem. Once we mostly agree on the nature of the issue and the goals involved the rest is just engineering.
For example, abortion is a Wicked Problem. There is no right answer, just lots of answer of varying degrees of wrong. Defining the issue is very hard, the solutions are myriad and testing out those solutions in some safe, scientific way is impossible. However, if 99% of people concluded that abortion is fine up until 20 weeks then we would pretty much all conclude that abortion is not a Wicked Problem even though it meets the other criteria. Note that I am not redefining the problem here, just suggesting that when people think of things that are Wicked Problems they will only include the ones that have a significant element of controversy - that is, those that have two or more groups of substantial size in disagreement. That sometimes is going to correspond to problems that aren't actually all that challenging to solve but sometimes not since whether or not people agree on a topic is correlated to it being solved, but certainly there is no causality there.
Religion is the same way. Religious conflict is clearly a Wicked Problem both by the definitions in the article and by near unanimous belief but that wouldn't be true if basically everybody was an atheist (not so if we all shared a religion since there is no end of examples of religious infighting) since we would all basically ignore the few crazies who don't follow the party line. We would fight over something else, no doubt, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone thinking that religious conflict was a Wicked Problem. To my mind it is less about the actual nature of the problem being looked at and far more about what people think about the problem. Once we mostly agree on the nature of the issue and the goals involved the rest is just engineering.
More corn
There was a question raised at the dinner table tonight. I had served up corn on the cob fresh from the farmer's market, duly slathered with butter, salt and pepper. The corn was absolutely delicious, in that sense of desperate chomping, butter dripping down chins and a beard full of salty, oily goodness. As usual we were so desperate to eat we burnt our fingers and scorched our tongues rather than just wait 2 minutes for it to cool down.
OM NOM NOM!
The question for the ages is "Is this corn actually any good or is it just a vehicle for copious quantities of spices and fats?
You will note that in the aftermath of our gluttony one cob of corn was left partly eaten because it sucked. It tasted bad and looked old. So the answer is now clear: Butter, salt and pepper are wonderful things but even they cannot fully disguise the taste of bad. Fresh corn on the cob is actually as awesome as it seems. Write that down.
OM NOM NOM!
The question for the ages is "Is this corn actually any good or is it just a vehicle for copious quantities of spices and fats?
You will note that in the aftermath of our gluttony one cob of corn was left partly eaten because it sucked. It tasted bad and looked old. So the answer is now clear: Butter, salt and pepper are wonderful things but even they cannot fully disguise the taste of bad. Fresh corn on the cob is actually as awesome as it seems. Write that down.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Danger danger!
When I was doing my barefoot project everyone asked me if I was worried about broken glass on the ground. Well, either that or they asked me how often I had cut my feet on broken glass on the ground but either way the answer was about the same...
"What glass?"
To be sure, I *saw* glass on the ground here and there and sometimes there were bits of glass in the crevices of the pavement but it was never an issue. Today I stepped directly on a piece of broken, jagged glass with bare feet for the first time. I felt a pinch under my foot, shifted my stance, continued to feel a pinch and then lifted up my foot to find a shard of glass stuck to it. I peeled it off and noted that absolutely no damage had been done even though 3 distinct pointed edges had been trying their best to pierce my flesh.
So there you go. It turns out I am largely invulnerable to glass. In even more ironic news the glass was not located on a sidewalk, nor even a park but rather in the elevator in my building. So much for the outside world being dangerous. :)
"What glass?"
To be sure, I *saw* glass on the ground here and there and sometimes there were bits of glass in the crevices of the pavement but it was never an issue. Today I stepped directly on a piece of broken, jagged glass with bare feet for the first time. I felt a pinch under my foot, shifted my stance, continued to feel a pinch and then lifted up my foot to find a shard of glass stuck to it. I peeled it off and noted that absolutely no damage had been done even though 3 distinct pointed edges had been trying their best to pierce my flesh.
So there you go. It turns out I am largely invulnerable to glass. In even more ironic news the glass was not located on a sidewalk, nor even a park but rather in the elevator in my building. So much for the outside world being dangerous. :)
Tattooes
A long time ago I heard a very good bit of advice surrounding when to get a tattoo. The advice was to write down exactly what you want and where you want the tattoo and put it in a drawer for a year. After the year is up you decide what tattoo you want and where you want it and check to see if your current desire matches up with what is in the drawer. If they match and you haven't changed your mind in the interim, go ahead and get the tattoo! Otherwise, write the new preference down and put that in the drawer for another year.
Seems like good advice... but the question remains as to whether this is a necessary or sufficient condition. I have known for years that I want to get the ace of spades and a 20 sided die tattooed on me if I get a tattoo and I know that I would put them on my inner arms. (Visible when in casual clothes, hidden in formal clothes) Am I now obligated to get these tattoos now that I have completed the recommended preparations? My parents were definitely against tattoos when I was younger although they clearly don't get much say in the matter these days! My brother and my sister in law both have tattoos that I like and both chose tattoos that were particularly appropriate for them; though I generally don't think keeping up with the Joneses is especially useful it does tempt me.
I don't especially want gigantic pictures on myself but rather just small graphics. Is it go time?
Clearly I am not the first to come up with this theme, as the following pictures from the internet show admirably.
I don't especially want gigantic pictures on myself but rather just small graphics. Is it go time?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Estate taxes
In my last post I got a comment suggesting raising estate taxes to pay for more costly electricity generated by solar and wind power. I got to thinking about estate taxes and what we might hope to accomplish with them. Right now we pretty much let people pass on their wealth with some taxation but there is a real question of whether or not that is a good way to do things. One of the biggest issues I think is the image of the family farm being passed down from generation to generation and the children being destroyed by not being able to pay enough to keep up the family business upon the death of their parent. The Republicans used this image years ago to drum up opposition to estate taxes (stop the death tax!) in the US even when the taxes were restricted to those estates worth multiple millions of dollars - hardly starving farmers desperate to make a go of it. I think that the concern of taxing people who follow in their parents footsteps is real but hugely overblown; it happens but it isn't the standard these days that it once was.
Imagine what would happen if the government taxed 100% of estates left over after death. This isn't practical from a policy perspective but it is interesting as a benchmark to think about. Clearly we would need to continue the tradition that spouses are exempt as otherwise we would destroy people very much unjustly. The problem is that we would be directly encouraging people to give away everything they have to those close to them as they aged or took sick and it would create a market for disposable spouses that bought their way into estates for substantial amounts of cash. I don't have any problem with the situation of rich people who die late in life being unable to give their cash to their children but single parents dying and leaving their young dependents with no means of support at all is quite the disaster. I wouldn't have any problem with a 100% tax on those who have no dependents or spouses so perhaps that could be a useful dividing line. We might also just leave the current tax rate for small estates and only have a punitive tax rate levied against really large estates, say those over $1,000,000. In reality a 100% tax would surely have lots of other negative consequences including people destroying value when they are in a nihilistic mood near death's door. A number more like 50-75% would prevent some of the abuses but would achieve the same goals I think.
Increased taxes is a really scary concept politically speaking especially in these days of economic unrest. People would be incredibly upset at not being able to leave everything to whoever they want but from a societal perspective I see a real value in preventing massive quantities of power (money) from translating directly down family lines. Handing over a small business or some cash hidden under the mattress to the person of your choice seems often harmless, occasionally abusive and sometimes really positive but shipping millions to your favourite person is just concentrating power in the hands of the few and that isn't good at all. You can earn it and you can spend it but you can't take it with you when you leave.
Imagine what would happen if the government taxed 100% of estates left over after death. This isn't practical from a policy perspective but it is interesting as a benchmark to think about. Clearly we would need to continue the tradition that spouses are exempt as otherwise we would destroy people very much unjustly. The problem is that we would be directly encouraging people to give away everything they have to those close to them as they aged or took sick and it would create a market for disposable spouses that bought their way into estates for substantial amounts of cash. I don't have any problem with the situation of rich people who die late in life being unable to give their cash to their children but single parents dying and leaving their young dependents with no means of support at all is quite the disaster. I wouldn't have any problem with a 100% tax on those who have no dependents or spouses so perhaps that could be a useful dividing line. We might also just leave the current tax rate for small estates and only have a punitive tax rate levied against really large estates, say those over $1,000,000. In reality a 100% tax would surely have lots of other negative consequences including people destroying value when they are in a nihilistic mood near death's door. A number more like 50-75% would prevent some of the abuses but would achieve the same goals I think.
Increased taxes is a really scary concept politically speaking especially in these days of economic unrest. People would be incredibly upset at not being able to leave everything to whoever they want but from a societal perspective I see a real value in preventing massive quantities of power (money) from translating directly down family lines. Handing over a small business or some cash hidden under the mattress to the person of your choice seems often harmless, occasionally abusive and sometimes really positive but shipping millions to your favourite person is just concentrating power in the hands of the few and that isn't good at all. You can earn it and you can spend it but you can't take it with you when you leave.
Monday, August 1, 2011
The economics of CO2
I went to visit The Naturalist and The Quilter today. They took advantage of a green energy policy by the Ontario government that was aimed at increasing solar power creation in the province. I got to watch them show off their immense solar array that was about 10 meters tall and perhaps 15 meters wide. The engineering aspect of the project was really neat but the economics of supporting it looked mighty suspicious indeed. Energy around here is sold for approximately 8 cents per kwh and Ontario Hydro is committed to buying solar energy from producers like the folks I visited at a much higher rate; initially the price was 80 cents per kwh and now it is down to 64. Essentially what the government did is force everyone using electricity to subsidize these solar installations by paying 10 times the going rate for electricity. People who installed these very expensive machines were looking at paying back their investment in full in 8 years and then making pure profit from that point forward. While this unquestionably reduces emissions and gives good investment opportunities to local people with capital and real estate I really have a lot of doubts as to whether this policy was remotely sensible.
First off, why was it set up so that anyone buying into the program would make such immense profit at the expense of the regular ratepayers? Clearly if you want anyone to opt in you need to make it possible to recoup the initial investment but the rate was simply set way too high to start. Secondly I question the strategy of having huge numbers of individuals set up solar panels in their backyards when it is abundantly obvious that a large number of panels built in an ideal location would generate much lower setup costs. It has the 'local' feel to it but is certainly inefficient. Thirdly I wonder why anyone thought it was the best possible use of capital to generate electricity at such a low return on investment. If the utility was buying at 30 cents there would be practically nobody who would view setting up their own solar panel as a good investment and yet they would still be generating electricity at 5 times the normal cost!
So here is the big dilemma: Since we have finite dollars to spend and want to achieve the maximum emissions and CO2 reduction how should those dollars be spent? In some kind of imaginary fairyland we simply produce all of our power from solar and wind and reduce electricity sourced emissions to zero but the cost of doing so would be a stupendous capital investment and then quintupling the cost of electricity; hardly a palatable solution. In the real world where capital is limited the clear choice is to produce the maximum emissions reductions possible per dollar invested and solar and wind power are laughable in that regard. There are ways to close old, dirty, inefficient coal plants and replace their output effectively but local solar isn't that way at this point. If we want to have cleaner air and lower emissions we need to invest in nuclear power and high efficiency fossil fuel plants burning coal if necessary, gas where possible. These options are drastically better from a ROI perspective and that is the perspective that matters in the long run. Right now the government is supporting options that look good from a PR standpoint and bad from the standpoint of actually making the world a better place.
First off, why was it set up so that anyone buying into the program would make such immense profit at the expense of the regular ratepayers? Clearly if you want anyone to opt in you need to make it possible to recoup the initial investment but the rate was simply set way too high to start. Secondly I question the strategy of having huge numbers of individuals set up solar panels in their backyards when it is abundantly obvious that a large number of panels built in an ideal location would generate much lower setup costs. It has the 'local' feel to it but is certainly inefficient. Thirdly I wonder why anyone thought it was the best possible use of capital to generate electricity at such a low return on investment. If the utility was buying at 30 cents there would be practically nobody who would view setting up their own solar panel as a good investment and yet they would still be generating electricity at 5 times the normal cost!
So here is the big dilemma: Since we have finite dollars to spend and want to achieve the maximum emissions and CO2 reduction how should those dollars be spent? In some kind of imaginary fairyland we simply produce all of our power from solar and wind and reduce electricity sourced emissions to zero but the cost of doing so would be a stupendous capital investment and then quintupling the cost of electricity; hardly a palatable solution. In the real world where capital is limited the clear choice is to produce the maximum emissions reductions possible per dollar invested and solar and wind power are laughable in that regard. There are ways to close old, dirty, inefficient coal plants and replace their output effectively but local solar isn't that way at this point. If we want to have cleaner air and lower emissions we need to invest in nuclear power and high efficiency fossil fuel plants burning coal if necessary, gas where possible. These options are drastically better from a ROI perspective and that is the perspective that matters in the long run. Right now the government is supporting options that look good from a PR standpoint and bad from the standpoint of actually making the world a better place.
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