The Tin Lizard

Pigs, Lots Of Pigs

Gosh, I almost skipped over this interesting article about wild pigs in Virginia, thinking it was either about our state politicians, or just another jab at people's habit of overeating at Thanksgiving. 

But no, it's the interesting tale of wild pigs in Virginia, and by extension, wild pigs in many areas of the U.S. where the problem is actually much more serious than here.  I'd heard before of concerns about wild pig populations across the U.S. but hadn't really focused on the reasons.  The main one is something that probably doesn't occur to us, i.e. that much like deer and rats, which also tend to uncontrolled overpopulation, are destructive - destructive of crops, and even of forests.  They can also be dangerous.

I'm sure there will be bleeding hearts who seek to block any plans to reduce the pig population, yet it appears to be necessary, and I'm all for it if the solution is to hunt more of them, because boar is a great addition to menus, either at home or in restaurants. 

 

Price Checking - A Job For Humans

The Washington Post has a vignette about the "economic assistants" who work for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, checking the prices of all manner of goods and services nationwide.  The work these part-timers do feeds into the nation's basic economic data (e.g., the Consumer Price Index) and thus is critical to a lot of people.

I've heard of these people's work before but the intriguing thing now is whether the job can be farmed out to a computer.  (The Post itself seems ambivalent about this point, with the text of the article claiming that "as the Bureau looks for ways to modernize ... this century-old job could be in jeopardy,"  while the subheading on it says this is "still an in-person job.")

I'd say real people are going to be needed for a good long while yet.  At the crux of the matter, as the subject of the article, Ms. Gaffney, points out, is that accuracy can only be guaranteed by ensuring that the "price" being quoted for any item across different sales portals is for a completely comparable product.   The difference between bread crumbs and "Italian" bread crumbs, organic and non-organic apples, gasoline that's on special Tuesdays as opposed to the "regular price," or a shirt that's 30% cotton vs. one that's 50% -- these things affect prices. 

So, could the finer points of this comparability be adequately handled by a computer checking bar codes, or scanning the inventories of stores?  The Bureau official waffles a bit, but I'd say, absolutely not.

The problem is the same as for us poor consumers shopping online.  If you're at all concerned about details of what you're buying, you'll be stymied at every turn online.   Some retailers fully describe a garment:  the mix of fibers in the fabric, for example -- but most do not.  "Cotton, polyester, and rayon" is meaningless unless percentages are given.  Looking for a laptop or tablet?  Many offerings you'll see don't even bother to tell you how much memory it has.   And when you account for plain old sloppy data entry ... a product may be shown as containing no fragrance although it does; the different volumes of a multi-volume book won't be distinguished from one another, and on and on.

In short, it's a world of inaccurate, outdated, and sometimes even deceptive, information out there.  Is this the appropriate basis for statistics that are fundamental to our understanding of our economy?  Hardly.  It's difficult to see how the human element (Ms. Gaffney) could be dispensed with at all; certainly not in the near future.   

Mea Culpa (There Now, Don't You Feel Better?)

Kathleen Sebelius is apologizing.  Obama is apologizing.  "60 Minutes" is apologizing.  Home Depot is apologizing.  And celebrities apologize so often it's hard to keep track.

It's a virtual orgy of apologies, although there are exceptions:  Lululemon is not apologizing (so far) for its CEO's "blaming the customer," and no Republican has been heard to apologize for bringing the country to the brink of worldwide economic disaster (not yet - maybe closer to election time next year?).

It seems that no matter what happens, whether anyone is offended or not, if it's something that could have been prevented or not, if it's something for which the "offended" party really should take blame himself -- the public apology is the order of the day.

It's not clear, though, if anyone really feels they get closure from such apologies.  Usually, they come only after public pressure (often, the media applying such pressure "on behalf" of someone and conveniently creating a story at the same time), so it's difficult to judge if they're genuine.  And sometimes, there is clear evidence that they aren't, as for example, when apologizes and then commits the same problematic behavior again, a la Anthony Weiner or Chris Brown.

As for me, I'll take the days when an apology was a personal matter, and may have meant something.

 

 

 

Daylight Saving Linked To Coronaries - It's True

So, at long last, this morning in the wee small hours, we returned to "regular" time.  Better very very late than never, I guess?

We all know by now that the transition from daylight to standard, and standard to daylight, time results in a significant uptick in heart attacks. You might wonder about whether there's a real connection or not, but I can say from my own personal experience that there is. 

I got up this morning; headed downstairs and caught a glimpse of a clock ... a quarter to 7?  Getting up that late almost gave me a heart attack until I realized I had forgotten to set it back.  It was really 5:45, so all was well.

 

Google Gaffe - Squaring Stupidity

Have you heard of "Google Glass?"  The term, which is probably a registered trademark, refers to a miniature computer that displays either on a miniscreen right in front of your face, or even on the lenses of your glasses themselves (prototypes exist).

I confess, though I may have heard reports that such a thing was possible, or even under development, I wouldn't have recognized the term.  Clearly, the state of California is far ahead of me, though.  Today's news reports a woman getting a ticket in California for wearing Google Glass while driving.  The law is real, and it forbids any video screen farther forward than the back of the front seat, unless it's showing navigation information. 

My first thought on reading this is, "what sort of dunce could possibly think of this sort of device would not be a distraction to driving?"  Even as I recognize that many people apparently don't think of texting as a distraction to driving, it seems to me you'd have to be doubly dense to think a computer screen directly on your eyeball wouldn't be. 

This incident makes me hope that many other states have similar laws, though in fact not very many do.  It all illustrates the difficulty of legislating in this area.   "Hands free" doesn't mean your brain isn't engaged elsewhere, yet legislatures have been reluctant to concede that basic fact.  People (including some of our legislators) tend to be oblivious, and to deny the obvious (hey - the truth is right in front of their faces, isn't it?)   

Yet I know from personal experience that trying to follow a navigation screen while driving can itself be distracting, even if you are getting voice instructions; music playing, a DVD in the back seat, a squalling kid, a chatting front-seat passenger ... ALL these things can be distracting to varying degrees, and all to a degree to be dangerous.