Support Your Local Sheriff is the better movie -- less cartoonish and it holds together better -- but if you're looking for a complete dismantling of the Western hero, you'd be hard pressed to find a more thorough job than the follow-up, Support Your Local Gunfighter.
Though the comedy is much drier, Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (Garner's personal favorite) had a similar take on military honor, and produced one of the few really good anti-war films.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Repost: We'll be coming back to this.
One of the many discouraging things about the fight to address climate change and ocean acidification is that while the facts are overwhelmingly on the movement's side, it's narrative are increasingly handed over to people who traffic in questionable arguments and misinformation.
This controversy illustrates a larger problem with science reporting at the magazine. We already have a post in the queue discussing the neutral-to-credulous coverage of topics ranging from homeopathy to magic crystals to Gwyneth Paltrow's goop empire. The Wallace-Wells piece takes things to another level and goes in a very different but arguably worse direction. Rather than giving bad science a pass, he takes good science and presents it so ineptly has to do it a disservice.
I am not going to delve into that science myself. The topic has been well covered by numerous expert and knowledgeable writers [see here and here]. The best I could offer would be a recap. There are some journalistic points I may hit later and I do want to highlight a minor detail in the article that has slipped past most critics, but which is perfectly representative of the dangerous way Wallace-Wells combines sensationalism with a weak grasp of science.
No, David, no it doesn't.
I want to be painstakingly careful at this point. These are complex and extraordinarily important issues and it is essential that we do not lose sight of certain basic facts: by any reasonable standard, man-made climate change is one of the two or three most important issues facing our country; the effect of various pollutants on children's mental and physical development should be a major concern for all of us; high ozone levels are a really bad thing.
But the suggestion that ozone levels are causing an autism epidemic in West Hollywood is both dangerous and scientifically illiterate. You'll notice that I did not say that suggesting ozone levels cause autism is irresponsible. Though the study in question is outside of my field, the hypothesis seems reasonable and I do not see any red flags associated with the research. If Wallace-Wells had stopped before adding that last sentence, he would've been on solid ground, but he didn't.
Autism is frightening, mysterious, tragic. This has caused people, particularly parents facing one of the worst moments imaginable, to clean desperately to any explanation that might make sense of their situation. As a result, autism has become a focal point for bad science, culminating with the rise of the anti-vaccination movement. There is no field where groundless speculation and fear-mongering are less welcome.
So, if ozone and other pollutants may contribute to autism, what's so bad about the West Hollywood claim? For that, you need to do some rudimentary causal reasoning, starting with a quick look at ozone pollution in Southern California.
Here are some pertinent facts from a 2015 LA Times article:
Now let's look at some ozone levels around the region. West Hollywood, it should be noted, is not great.
But just over the Hollywood Hills, the situation is even worse.
Go further inland to San Dimas and the level is even higher…
Higher still in Riverside ...
Though still far short of what we find in San Bernardino.
If you look at autism rates by school district and compare them to ozone levels, it is difficult to see much of a relationship. Does this mean that ozone does not contribute to autism? Absolutely not. What it shows is that, as with many developmental and learning disabilities, the wealthy are overdiagnosed while poor are underdiagnosed. It is no coincidence that a place like Santa Monica/Maibu (a notorious anti-vaxxer hotspot) has more than double the diagnosis rate of San Bernardino.
The there's this from the very LA Times article by Alan Zarembo that Wallace-Wells cites [emphasis added]:
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
David Wallace-Wells, autism and bad science
David Wallace-Wells has been catching a lot of flack (most of it richly deserved) for his recent New York Magazine article on climate change. It is a hugely troubling sign when the very scientists you were claiming to represent push back against your article.This controversy illustrates a larger problem with science reporting at the magazine. We already have a post in the queue discussing the neutral-to-credulous coverage of topics ranging from homeopathy to magic crystals to Gwyneth Paltrow's goop empire. The Wallace-Wells piece takes things to another level and goes in a very different but arguably worse direction. Rather than giving bad science a pass, he takes good science and presents it so ineptly has to do it a disservice.
I am not going to delve into that science myself. The topic has been well covered by numerous expert and knowledgeable writers [see here and here]. The best I could offer would be a recap. There are some journalistic points I may hit later and I do want to highlight a minor detail in the article that has slipped past most critics, but which is perfectly representative of the dangerous way Wallace-Wells combines sensationalism with a weak grasp of science.
Other stuff in the hotter air is even scarier, with small increases in pollution capable of shortening life spans by ten years. The warmer the planet gets, the more ozone forms, and by mid-century, Americans will likely suffer a 70 percent increase in unhealthy ozone smog, the National Center for Atmospheric Research has projected. By 2090, as many as 2 billion people globally will be breathing air above the WHO “safe” level; one paper last month showed that, among other effects, a pregnant mother’s exposure to ozone raises the child’s risk of autism (as much as tenfold, combined with other environmental factors). Which does make you think again about the autism epidemic in West Hollywood.
No, David, no it doesn't.
I want to be painstakingly careful at this point. These are complex and extraordinarily important issues and it is essential that we do not lose sight of certain basic facts: by any reasonable standard, man-made climate change is one of the two or three most important issues facing our country; the effect of various pollutants on children's mental and physical development should be a major concern for all of us; high ozone levels are a really bad thing.
But the suggestion that ozone levels are causing an autism epidemic in West Hollywood is both dangerous and scientifically illiterate. You'll notice that I did not say that suggesting ozone levels cause autism is irresponsible. Though the study in question is outside of my field, the hypothesis seems reasonable and I do not see any red flags associated with the research. If Wallace-Wells had stopped before adding that last sentence, he would've been on solid ground, but he didn't.
Autism is frightening, mysterious, tragic. This has caused people, particularly parents facing one of the worst moments imaginable, to clean desperately to any explanation that might make sense of their situation. As a result, autism has become a focal point for bad science, culminating with the rise of the anti-vaccination movement. There is no field where groundless speculation and fear-mongering are less welcome.
So, if ozone and other pollutants may contribute to autism, what's so bad about the West Hollywood claim? For that, you need to do some rudimentary causal reasoning, starting with a quick look at ozone pollution in Southern California.
Here are some pertinent facts from a 2015 LA Times article:
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy selected a limit of 70 parts per billion, which is more stringent than the 75 parts-per-billion standard adopted in 2008 but short of the 60-ppb endorsed by environmentalists and health advocacy groups including the American Lung Assn. The agency’s science advisors had recommended a limit lower than 70 -- and as low as 60.
...
About one-third of California residents live in communities with pollution that exceeds federal standards, according to estimates by the state Air Resources Board.
Air quality is worst in inland valleys, where pollution from vehicles and factories cook in sunlight to form ozone, which is blown and trapped against the mountains.
The South Coast air basin, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, violated the current 75-ppb ozone standard on 92 days in 2014. The highest ozone levels in the nation are in San Bernardino County, which reported a 2012-2014 average of 102 parts per billion.
Now let's look at some ozone levels around the region. West Hollywood, it should be noted, is not great.
But just over the Hollywood Hills, the situation is even worse.
Higher still in Riverside ...
Though still far short of what we find in San Bernardino.
If you look at autism rates by school district and compare them to ozone levels, it is difficult to see much of a relationship. Does this mean that ozone does not contribute to autism? Absolutely not. What it shows is that, as with many developmental and learning disabilities, the wealthy are overdiagnosed while poor are underdiagnosed. It is no coincidence that a place like Santa Monica/Maibu (a notorious anti-vaxxer hotspot) has more than double the diagnosis rate of San Bernardino.
The there's this from the very LA Times article by Alan Zarembo that Wallace-Wells cites [emphasis added]:
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist at UC Davis, suspects that environmental triggers such as exposure to chemicals during pregnancy play a role. In a 2009 study, she started with a tantalizing lead — several autism clusters, mostly in Southern California, that her team had identified from disability and birth records.
But the hot spots could not be linked to chemical plants, waste dumps or any other obvious environmental hazards. Instead, the cases were concentrated in places where parents were highly educated and had easy access to treatment.
Peter Bearman, a sociologist at Columbia University, has demonstrated how such social forces are driving autism rates.
Analyzing state data, he identified a 386-square-mile area centered in West Hollywood that consistently produced three times as many autism cases as would be expected from birth rates.
Affluence helped set the area apart. But delving deeper, Bearman detected a more surprising pattern that existed across the state: Rich or poor, children living near somebody with autism were more likely to have the diagnosis themselves.
Living within 250 meters boosted the chances by 42%, compared to living between 500 and 1,000 meters away.
The reason, his analysis suggested, was simple: People talk.
They talk about how to recognize autism, which doctors to see, how to navigate the bureaucracies to secure services. They talk more if they live next door or visit the same parks, or if their children go to the same preschool.
The influence of neighbors alone accounts for 16% of the growth of autism cases in the state developmental system between 2000 and 2005, Bearman estimated.
In other words, autism is not contagious, but the diagnosis is.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Electability
This is Joseph
Ok, I am bracing for being taken down by Mark, but I wanted to comment on one of my current pet peeves.
There is a presidential primary going on right now. One of the big issues I keep hearing is whether a candidate is "electable". Now, historically speaking this might have been a valid concern. From Wikipedia:
Now, I think that this argument is a proxy for what people don't want to say out loud. All candidates who are able to win the primary do it from a combination of "crossover appeal" (get the other side to vote for you) and "enthusiasm" (get more of your base to run out and support you). In general, these things tend to be negatively correlated. Making your core supporters super-happy is often in conflict with reaching across the aisle.
In the small number of cases where this is not true, there doesn't tend to be much life in such a proposal. Both parties are united in not wanting to return big pieces of the country to Mexico, and you will note the absence of such proposals.
So I loathe the term "electable" in this context. Instead, I want the more precise discussion of the trade-off between exciting people and building bridges. Anybody who can survive the primary process looks like they are at least potentially "electable" to me. We'd probably all have had a clearer view in 2016 if we'd remembered that about Donald Trump.
Ok, I am bracing for being taken down by Mark, but I wanted to comment on one of my current pet peeves.
There is a presidential primary going on right now. One of the big issues I keep hearing is whether a candidate is "electable". Now, historically speaking this might have been a valid concern. From Wikipedia:
The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the Presidential nomination despite not winning a single primary under his own name.So in earlier eras it was a reasonable concern that the delegates at the convention might not be a representative sample of the voting population. Now primaries today are not necessarily representative of the electorate as a whole, but they are broadly based elections. It's pretty clear that anybody who wins a primary is "electable" in some important sense of the term.
Now, I think that this argument is a proxy for what people don't want to say out loud. All candidates who are able to win the primary do it from a combination of "crossover appeal" (get the other side to vote for you) and "enthusiasm" (get more of your base to run out and support you). In general, these things tend to be negatively correlated. Making your core supporters super-happy is often in conflict with reaching across the aisle.
In the small number of cases where this is not true, there doesn't tend to be much life in such a proposal. Both parties are united in not wanting to return big pieces of the country to Mexico, and you will note the absence of such proposals.
So I loathe the term "electable" in this context. Instead, I want the more precise discussion of the trade-off between exciting people and building bridges. Anybody who can survive the primary process looks like they are at least potentially "electable" to me. We'd probably all have had a clearer view in 2016 if we'd remembered that about Donald Trump.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Daycare and what does work pay for?
This is Joseph
So, I have a philosophical question. It is clear that work places benefit from having a robust set of benefits for workers, many of which make a lot more sense given as a employer benefit rather than as a part of cash compensation. In the United States, for example, the current regulatory system favors employer sponsored health care (although I hear they are in the process of revisiting this assumption).
Other benefits are a lot more standard. For example, heating and/or air conditioning makes a big difference in an office. Parking is another case where you could just give employees money but liquidity issues might make that inefficient (is there a private parking vendor near work that employees could rent spots from? Will land use allow this?).
An interesting case in this rubric is daycare. On site daycare would make at least as much of a positive difference for workers as on-site parking. Not everyone uses parking and not everyone uses daycare, either, but it would be a broadly useful benefit. It is also quite possible to offer paid daycare just like many universities offer paid parking.
My question is what is it that has kept daycare from being in the same category as parking for workplace infrastructure? Marissa Mayer was famous for thinking that raising a child as CEO wasn't as bad as people predicted, but she had a daycare in the office next door. Now, she paid for the expenses but the typical employee does not have the option to pay for a daycare in the same building, even if they want to.
Is there a reason that this relatively big boost in workforce benefit is so rarely fully staffed? Most daycares I am looking at, in multiple cities, have difficult wait lists and are hard to coordinate with work locations. Can't this be improved?
So, I have a philosophical question. It is clear that work places benefit from having a robust set of benefits for workers, many of which make a lot more sense given as a employer benefit rather than as a part of cash compensation. In the United States, for example, the current regulatory system favors employer sponsored health care (although I hear they are in the process of revisiting this assumption).
Other benefits are a lot more standard. For example, heating and/or air conditioning makes a big difference in an office. Parking is another case where you could just give employees money but liquidity issues might make that inefficient (is there a private parking vendor near work that employees could rent spots from? Will land use allow this?).
An interesting case in this rubric is daycare. On site daycare would make at least as much of a positive difference for workers as on-site parking. Not everyone uses parking and not everyone uses daycare, either, but it would be a broadly useful benefit. It is also quite possible to offer paid daycare just like many universities offer paid parking.
My question is what is it that has kept daycare from being in the same category as parking for workplace infrastructure? Marissa Mayer was famous for thinking that raising a child as CEO wasn't as bad as people predicted, but she had a daycare in the office next door. Now, she paid for the expenses but the typical employee does not have the option to pay for a daycare in the same building, even if they want to.
Is there a reason that this relatively big boost in workforce benefit is so rarely fully staffed? Most daycares I am looking at, in multiple cities, have difficult wait lists and are hard to coordinate with work locations. Can't this be improved?
Friday, February 21, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Didn't even get to Thiel's Cato Institute essay on women's suffrage
This 2014 piece by Mark Ames on the relationship between the Holocaust denial movement and the Koch Brothers should be read in its entirety, but I wanted to highlight this section.
The Reason issue discussed here was from 1976. The provocative, contrarian rhetorical approach is familiar to anyone who has been following Robin Hanson. It’s a process that pretends to be a free intellectual inquiry but which always ends up attacking a liberal position and pushing the Overton Window to the right.
Of course, Reason and Hanson have something else in common.
My dept just got $5M grant from Koch foundation. I'm pretty sure this won't influence what policies we recommend. https://t.co/zuO71GysTG— Robin Hanson (@robinhanson) March 22, 2018
It’s easy to dismiss the more clownish examples, but in today’s journalistic ecosystem, no one from the right is more than one degree of separation from respectability in the mainstream media. Pretty much every major press outlet (the New York Times, NPR, CNN) welcomes Koch-subsidized academics and pundits. For the serious news consumer, they are unavoidable.
Obviously, there are smart people doing serious work at places like the Manhattan Institute or George Mason University, but while we shouldn’t reject their work out of hand, for the sake of the discourse, we need to find a way of reminding ourselves that their funding comes from an initiative that promotes Holocaust deniers, rape apologists and other extremists and propagandists when they serve the agenda, and that even the most independent researchers in that world know that reaching the wrong conclusions too often will cost them.
There is a politics to all of this, a politics that's barely budged since the days of the American Liberty League: The goal is to discredit the New Deal and FDR, which can't be done effectively without discrediting FDR's most popular cause, the victory over fascist Germany and Japan. To far-right extraction industry billionaires like the Koch family, FDR and his New Deal politics were a kind of anti-business "holocaust," because the New Deal forced the long-dominant plutocrats to part with a portion of their wealth and political power. To the nation's Big Business oligarchs in the 1930s, FDR's New Deal reforms — breaking up the power of finance, trusts, and industrialists, while empowering labor unions —was a crime and a wound as raw in 1976 as it was in 1936.
For them, FDR was a tyrant and a criminal, an American Hitler, only no one else could see things their way, because the real Hitler was widely believed to be one of the worst figures in history. Therefore, libertarian "historical revisionism" had to convince these Americans that Hitler wasn't nearly as awful as they believed, which meant that the Holocaust couldn't have happened — if the goal was to discredit FDR and the New Deal.
North’s article appeals to another sensibility popular with libertarians (and the Boomer left): the cult of the anti-Establishment iconoclast, every self-absorbed middle-class Baby Boomer's fantasy. That cult of the iconoclast allows North to paint libertarianism's far-right "historical revisionism" as anti-Establishment Cool, more an expression of one's individuality than a political act. So if the boring, bad Establishment says Hitler was bad and World War II was good, then naturally the anti-Establishment maverick will question that. Gary North writes:
One topic—the ultimate litmus test of hardnosed World War II revisionism—has generally been skirted: Hitler. Was he a madman, diplomatically speaking? Was he exclusively responsible for the Second World War?”
Much of the Reason Holocaust denier propaganda is about promoting a new set of anti-authority voices to replace the Establishment’s. So Martin cites Holocaust deniers Paul Rassinier and Harry Elmer Barnes; and Gary North introduces Reason’s readers to Bay Area Holocaust denier David Hoggan, the “anonymous” author of the 1969 neo-Nazi book “The Myth of the Six Million”:
“In American revisionist circles the most famous (or infamous) case has been that of David Hoggan, the Establishment’s number-one academic pariah of the revisionist camp...Hoggan’s thesis regarding the origins of the Second World War are straightforward, and completely unorthodox. The primary villain was not Hitler; it was Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary.”
North is a clever huckster who’s studied his Baby Boomer audience, so he uses marketing words that he knows appeal to his target consumer: “unorthodox,” “Establishment’s number-one academic pariah,” and weirdest of all for a strict Old Testament theofascist like North, he even uses the then-popular hippie expression “far-out” (meaning “cool") to sell Holocaust denial:
“Probably the most far-out materials on World War II revisionism have been the seemingly endless scholarly studies of the supposed execution of 6 million Jews by Hitler. The anonymous author [Hoggan] of ‘The Myth of the Six Million’ has presented a solid case against the Establishment’s favorite horror story—the supposed moral justification for our entry into the war.”
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Tuesday Tweets
These next few tweets go to a longstanding problem with the New York Times and its place in the ecosystem. As many including Josh Marshall have observed, the NYT has a way of coming late to a story and downplaying the work that came before. Because of the paper's standing, from that point on, it's "as reported by the New York Times."
My impression is that the conservative think tank world initially built up Hanson as a deep thinker assuming he'd be useful for moving the Overton Window, Unfortunately, Hanson has been too big of a attention junkie/clown to be effective.
I know I'm not supposed to call Robin Hanson creepy because that would be mean. How about this? Can I call this creepy?
Worth a look.
'“We remain neutral on geopolitical disputes and make every effort to objectively display disputed areas,” Russell said in the statement. “In countries where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders.”'
My favorites are the pundits who go from one set of absolute certainties to another completely contradictory set without the slightest pause for doubt, humility or reflection.
in case i wasn't clear: THIS VERY NYT STORY rips off a Vox story, which the Times merely alludes to airily in passing, a dozen or more paragraphs in, without saying THIS IS THE EXACT SAME STORY. O the irony. https://t.co/ZYGFvSiubC— Marjorie Ingall (@MarjorieIngall) February 15, 2020
here's one of the more egregious examples I know of but there are tons.
Buzzfeed (Apr 7): https://t.co/R1wmd8YjWq
NYT (Apr 21) https://t.co/Itm31NcCsF— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) February 15, 2020
My impression is that the conservative think tank world initially built up Hanson as a deep thinker assuming he'd be useful for moving the Overton Window, Unfortunately, Hanson has been too big of a attention junkie/clown to be effective.
I'm going to retweet this every time @NoahHaber starts on about economists being smarter than epidemiologists. https://t.co/JmnyXmpmKO— George Savva (@georgemsavva) February 15, 2020
Life came with challenges back in 1632.
“Kil’d by several accidents” seems a tough way to buy it. https://t.co/T6z5rsLjQs— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 15, 2020
I know I'm not supposed to call Robin Hanson creepy because that would be mean. How about this? Can I call this creepy?
Great lede and great story by @JamesVGrimaldi, Brody Mullins and @johndmckinnon https://t.co/kQzSQRcj5F pic.twitter.com/wnVl4XxS0Y— Joe Palazzolo (@joe_palazzolo) February 13, 2020
Bernie Sanders Isn’t a Socialist https://t.co/VGxWuWGeAX— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 13, 2020
Worth a look.
"It works just like Google Trends, the popular tool that displays and compares terms that people are searching for with Google, except that MuckRack Trends looks only at news articles." https://t.co/8C60scF7CI Pretty useful for people in my business.— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) February 14, 2020
In a damning audit, Indiana calls on two virtual schools to repay $85 million in misspent state funds https://t.co/JgBYFdc29d— Jersey Jazzman (@jerseyjazzman) February 13, 2020
NEW: Arizona charter school principal pleads guilty in $2.5 million enrollment scheme https://t.co/d2mW8Z3Zwz via @azcentral— Craig Harris (@charrisazrep) February 14, 2020
'“We remain neutral on geopolitical disputes and make every effort to objectively display disputed areas,” Russell said in the statement. “In countries where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders.”'
Google redraws the borders on maps depending on who’s looking https://t.co/siDhFbGuWh— Paul Staniland (@pstanpolitics) February 14, 2020
My favorites are the pundits who go from one set of absolute certainties to another completely contradictory set without the slightest pause for doubt, humility or reflection.
Lots of potential explanations for it, but maybe worth noting: On twitter I see tons of political scientists (and others) confidently stating which dem candidates are more or less electable. In offline conversations, the political scientists I talk to are far more uncertain.— Andrew Little (@anthlittle) February 13, 2020
I'm not saying I'd never use the phrase "surge to third place in New Hampshire" unironically, but I promise to feel bad about myself if I do. https://t.co/BTImXfNsxb— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 13, 2020
I think that captures it. And there's an impatience that they're fighting each other - even though that's what a primary is - because people want to move on to running against Trump.— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 11, 2020
Monday, February 17, 2020
High SF housing prices are forcing Silicon Valley workers to make slightly shorter commutes
Just to get the obvious out of the way, California needs to build more housing. Rents are too high and the situation with the homeless is becoming a genuine humanitarian crisis. Unfortunately, as with climate change, the very seriousness of the problem sometimes makes people reluctant to criticize bad arguments, lest they be accused of minimizing the issue (see the reaction to the collected works of David Wallace Wells). The result is some truly silly ideas have lodged themselves into the standard narrative.
Case in point. [Emphasis added]
We need to talk about the word “farther” because in this context, it is more of a cultural than a physical concept. Go online and check out the distance and rush-hour driving times from Silicon Valley towns like Sunnyvale to either San Francisco or Gilroy and you’ll find that the differences aren’t great and that Gilroy is often closer.
A great deal of the discussion of Bay Area housing and infrastructure is based on the implicit assumption that Silicon Valley is next to San Francisco rather than 40 or so miles away. It’s not even the closest big city (San Jose is considerably larger).
Nonetheless, Bay Area residents still refer to it as “the City” and the other towns continue to have an inferiority complex that as an Angeleno I’ve always found a bit odd, as if it were 1900 and it was the only outpost of culture west of the Continental Divide.
Whatever its origins, the mystique of San Francisco has badly muddled people's thinking about the housing crisis, and this is a problem that requires clear thinking.
Case in point. [Emphasis added]
Welcome to life on Silicon Valley's new frontier. When tech companies first introduced private shuttles for their employees more than a decade ago, they served the affluent neighborhoods in San Francisco and the Peninsula. Now the buses reach as far as the almond orchards of Salida and the garlic fields of Gilroy.
…
"That just tells you the story of the Bay Area," said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of regional think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. "We're going to be in these farther-flung places, and that's our reality because we're not going to be able to create affordable housing."
...
A few miles into Alameda County, a fairgrounds parking lot has been transformed into a massive park-and-ride operation. A laundry list of tech companies — Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and others — send shuttles here or nearby train stations, according to a report prepared for the Alameda County Transportation Commission. Around 7 a.m., people in puffy jackets and backpacks jog to a silver bus with its destination displayed as Wolfe Road in Sunnyvale, where Apple has a large campus.
We need to talk about the word “farther” because in this context, it is more of a cultural than a physical concept. Go online and check out the distance and rush-hour driving times from Silicon Valley towns like Sunnyvale to either San Francisco or Gilroy and you’ll find that the differences aren’t great and that Gilroy is often closer.
A great deal of the discussion of Bay Area housing and infrastructure is based on the implicit assumption that Silicon Valley is next to San Francisco rather than 40 or so miles away. It’s not even the closest big city (San Jose is considerably larger).
Nonetheless, Bay Area residents still refer to it as “the City” and the other towns continue to have an inferiority complex that as an Angeleno I’ve always found a bit odd, as if it were 1900 and it was the only outpost of culture west of the Continental Divide.
Whatever its origins, the mystique of San Francisco has badly muddled people's thinking about the housing crisis, and this is a problem that requires clear thinking.
Friday, February 14, 2020
RIP Robert Conrad, good work Kai Ryssdal
At the risk of getting lots of angry comments, Star Trek makes the top ten my best of 60s TV list. This spy-fi/proto-steampunk series makes the top five.
This episode of Marketplace had three stories I was thinking about blogging...
The business and business metrics of music and streaming about 10 minutes in. If nothing else, check out the chutzpah of Justin Bieber.
Wal-Mart will now deliver to your home while you're not there about 20 minutes in. It's not quite as creepy as it sounds but, with the tight margins of the grocery business, it's not easy to see how they expect to turn a profit. Given that the two big players in this are Wal-Mart and Amazon, I wouldn't rule out a purely anti-competitve play to drive smaller competitors out of business.
And finally the show ends with an interesting new hiring policy at the Body Shop retail chain.
This episode of Marketplace had three stories I was thinking about blogging...
The business and business metrics of music and streaming about 10 minutes in. If nothing else, check out the chutzpah of Justin Bieber.
Wal-Mart will now deliver to your home while you're not there about 20 minutes in. It's not quite as creepy as it sounds but, with the tight margins of the grocery business, it's not easy to see how they expect to turn a profit. Given that the two big players in this are Wal-Mart and Amazon, I wouldn't rule out a purely anti-competitve play to drive smaller competitors out of business.
And finally the show ends with an interesting new hiring policy at the Body Shop retail chain.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
The Saudi sovereign wealth fund bet big on Uber.. That didn’t work out too well for them. Then they backed WeWork. This time though, I think they picked a winner.
As I've said before, serious money is starting to change hands here.
"Saudi Arabia, Virgin Hyperloop One to conduct world’s first national hyperloop study"
RIYADH: A groundbreaking study will be conducted to build the world’s longest hyperloop track, the Ministry of Transport announced on Thursday.
It said an agreement with Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO), the world’s leading hyperloop company, would see a groundbreaking pre-feasibility study conducted on the use of hyperloop technology, laying the groundwork for a network of routes across Saudi Arabia.
The study is the first to be carried out anywhere in the world [I assume they mean the first on this scalee – MP] and will examine viable routes, expected demand, anticipated costs and explore the socioeconomic impact, such as the creation of jobs and environmental effects.
...
“We have a vision for the Kingdom, and that vision is of connecting it and the Gulf with the ability to travel from Riyadh to Jeddah in 46 minutes, to Neom from Jeddah in 40 minutes, from Riyadh to Dammam and Jubail in 28 minutes, and to go beyond the Kingdom, from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi, in 48 minutes.
“It’s not just about providing a future transportation system, it’s the ecosystem behind it. What we want to do is to be able to bring technology to the Kingdom to be able to share and develop that knowledge. We signed an agreement with King Abdullah Economic City in October last year specifically to look at manufacturing, how we can actually bring technology, and that is expected to create about 124,000 jobs.”
Saudi Minister of Transport Saleh Al-Jasser said: “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has outlined the role of transport in shaping the future of the Kingdom’s economy within Vision 2030. As we enter a new decade, we intend to make rapid progress in building the infrastructure required to define mobility for the future, enabling the efficient movement of people and goods. With the transformative hyperloop technology, Saudi Arabia will not only unlock unparalleled benefits for its people and the economy but will continue to lead the region into an era of prosperity.”
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
I started to make a "Vulture" joke, but I realized carrion play an important role in the ecosystem
This screen grab does a great job capturing so much of what’s wrong with the New York Magazine family and with business and entertainment journalism in general.
First off, there’s the article itself. Billed as an explainer, it’s nothing more than an especially embarrassing press release for a business model that makes WeWork look well thought out. It will take more than one post to explore the full awfulness of Quibi as an investment. For here, I’ll just say that this is possibly the stupidest proposal you’ll read involving the streaming industry, and that’s a high bar to clear.
Then there’s the sidebar. I’m sure I could think of a celebrity of comparable stature more despicable than Gwyneth Paltrow if I tried, but none come to mind (and, no, that’s not an invitation for suggestions. I already spend too much time thinking about horrible people). She uses the press’ sycophancy toward the rich and famous and fascination with lifestyle porn to push flaky and sometimes dangerous pseudoscience. The New York Magazine group has been playing footsie with quacks and new age charlatans for years (see here and here)
Finally there’s Netflix’s minor but still notable accomplishment of making the normal monthly cycling of shows in and out of rotation into a respectable news genre. Even HBO, which has long been extraordinarily good at working the press, was never able to get this kind of steady, extensive PR out of routine programming changes. We can’t exactly single out Vulture for this one but they certainly seem willing to play along.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Tuesday Tweets
Because sometimes I just like to dominate the conversation
The casts of next season's CBC shows will just be Tatiana Maslany— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 2, 2020
just might be the best qualifier ive EVER heard! 😂🤣🤣🤣🤣— T (@CheddarBo) February 8, 2020
When management consultants start bringing out the mindset, you know they mean business. https://t.co/NweBR0csJw— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 8, 2020
I wonder if they'll use more CGI on the dog or on Ford— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 8, 2020
buttigieg talks completely in platitudes! it is maddening!— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) February 8, 2020
One of the things we've learned from the primary so far is that many journalists had no idea what management Consultants actually do. This is it.— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 9, 2020
The Saudis have been big backers of the hyperloop, Uber, WeWorks and I strongly suspect they secretly financed Cats.— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 9, 2020
Monday, February 10, 2020
Since it's probably quicker to list the people who aren't losing their goddamn minds, let's start with Paul Campos
Even more than normal for primary season, we've seen a remarkable amount of panic and wild shifts in assumptions, the latter often driven by nothing but noise.
We could debate the odds endlessly, but at this point no one really has any great insight into who's going to win either the Democratic primary or the general election. Neither side is doomed and anyone who tells you _____ has ______ locked up is probably not someone you should be listening to.
Over at LGM, Campos takes on the current wave of WE'VE-PICKED-A-FLAWED-CANDIDATE-WE'RE-ALL-DOOMED hysteria.
We could debate the odds endlessly, but at this point no one really has any great insight into who's going to win either the Democratic primary or the general election. Neither side is doomed and anyone who tells you _____ has ______ locked up is probably not someone you should be listening to.
Over at LGM, Campos takes on the current wave of WE'VE-PICKED-A-FLAWED-CANDIDATE-WE'RE-ALL-DOOMED hysteria.
You get the idea. Every one of these candidates has serious potential flaws in the general because EVERY CANDIDATE has serious potential flaws. Because they’re human beings, not LARP fantasy figures.
And the problem is losing to Trump is not an acceptable option. Can’t happen. So none of these candidates is the right candidate because they have serious flaws so they could lose, and that can’t happen. So everyone is freaked out right now, and instantly focuses on how what can’t happen could very much happen if X is the candidate.
But the problem aren’t these particular candidates — not really. The problem is that when American political system combines with the contemporary American media environment and then the two of them meet the American voter, you get Donald Trump as president. That’s the problem. And that problem isn’t going away, unless we stop freaking out and do everything we can to make it go away, temporarily, no matter who gets the nomination. All of them could lose but all of them could also win, and if you think any of these people can’t win you’re just panicking. Don’t panic.
Friday, February 7, 2020
RIP Kirk Douglas -- Don't watch the trailer...
... Unless you've seen the movie.
I was going to post just the trailer, but I checked it out and it was absolutely terrible, a complete misrepresentation of the film.
Of course, this was a picture that needed considerable misrepresentation in 1951. Even by 2020 standards, it's a stunningly hard-edged, cynical, mean piece of work. You can imagine the horror the PR department must have felt when they first saw what they were supposed to promote.
I was going to post just the trailer, but I checked it out and it was absolutely terrible, a complete misrepresentation of the film.
Of course, this was a picture that needed considerable misrepresentation in 1951. Even by 2020 standards, it's a stunningly hard-edged, cynical, mean piece of work. You can imagine the horror the PR department must have felt when they first saw what they were supposed to promote.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
More appetizing than Milton Friedman's Underwear Index
The BBC has a list of oddball economic indicators centered around fast food. I was familiar with the Big Mac Index, and of course, I knew about the Waffle House Index. (I don't like to brag, but I grew up in a two WF town). The rest of these, however, are new to me.
Mars Bars
In 1932, a factory in Slough produced the world’s first Mars bar. Fifty years later, Financial Times writer Nico Colchester pointed out that the price of the confectionary in Britain was neatly correlated with the buying power of pound sterling. By measuring the cost of things in Mars Bars, Colechester noted how graduate salaries had improved slightly in 40 years. Meanwhile, train fares had become cheaper but roast beef dinners in pubs had gone up by more than 60 percent.
Baked Beans and Popcorn
When financial experts are trying to determine whether an economy is generally in good health, they often look to food products. In 2009, the Odeon cinema company announced an “Odeon Popcorn Index” that it claimed showed higher sales and therefore signs of economic recovery in Britain following the financial crisis of 2008. And analysts have also scrutinised sales of baked beans, popular when times are tough, as an indicator of how people are responding to periods of economic decline. When baked bean sales fell in 2013, some took it as a sign that the UK economy was in rude health.
French Fries
A fascinating article in the Oregonian in 1998 observed that sales of French fries could be a helpful indicator of trade between America and Asia. This food “leads US industries into foreign markets” wrote Richard Read, thanks to the fact that America exports so many of them (something that remains true today). And he added that consumption of French fries was also an indicator of how well-developed an Asian economy had become. This meant that when economic trouble in Asia was brewing in the late ’90s, farmers in the US were hit hard.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Josh Marshall on the reaction to the impeachment
We've been pushing this for a long time, but political journalists (at least the smarter ones like Marshall) are getting better about thinking through the implications of selection effects on polling data.
Why Are President Trump’s Poll Numbers Going Up?
But there is another plausible explanation. Pollsters call it differential response. When one side gets enthused or energized their numbers go up but in an ephemeral fashion. The pumped-up side is a bit more eager to answer the phone or fill out the survey. The demoralized side is a bit less eager. This is a real and demonstrated phenomenon, not just a concept or speculation. It’s not necessarily an error per se in the polling. It’s picking up something real. It’s just ephemeral.
One example many of us likely remember came after the first general election debate in 2012. President Obama turned in a stiff and disconcertingly flat performance. The consensus was that Mitt Romney won the debate and for the first and last time in the cycle Romney briefly pushed into the lead.
There are good reasons to think that at least some of that is happening today — the President’s impending acquittal and Republican unity have been the driving news of the last two or three weeks. Republicans are energized and enthused by the certainty of President Trump’s acquittal. Many Democrats are demoralized by seeing an overwhelming and exacting case made for the President’s guilt and seeing it simply not matter.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Tuesday Tweets
Not a perfect film, but damn, are parts of this movie are prescient.
Certain irony in seeing it on Movies! which is one of the Fox divisions that stayed with Murdoch.— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 2, 2020
Holy hell. https://t.co/PKYnWI9fvn— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 2, 2020
Good. National coverage of Iowa and New Hampshire tends to set up unhealthy feedback loops and pushes them further into Keynesian beauty contest territory.
The NYT, WaPo and CNN homepages all have essentially nothing above the fold about the Iowa caucuses, which are in 2 days. It's still all impeachment.
(Although CNN does have a house ad up for its show(!) about the final Des Moines Register poll tonight.) pic.twitter.com/dAeQvDP5TI— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 1, 2020
We're all nerds here. We might as well embrace it.
There's arguably a Cretan's paradox aspect to 2016. If Trump won because experts were wrong (thinking he couldn't win), then he would have lost if they thought he could have won. https://t.co/FizJAzXyoX— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) February 2, 2020
Extraordinary footage from the front-line of the Australian fires. Watch how an apparently normal scene is transformed in 90 seconds into an inferno. https://t.co/8sdOeWRncL— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) January 30, 2020
Classic emperor's new clothes: Once the PR bubble pops, no aspect of a company's former "genius" is not subject to withering scrutiny, where it suddenly looks beyond ridiculous. https://t.co/vYsM3BehGr— Barry Ritholtz (@ritholtz) January 30, 2020
We'll be making fun of Quibi (and Vulture) later.
Because nothing enhances a sweeping epic like being chopped into 10 minutes chunks.
"Quibi tells Vulture it is working with Vikings writer-producer Michael Hirst on Charlemagne, a biopic about the historical icon Charles the Great." https://t.co/yYx3KcvS1o via @vulture— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) January 31, 2020
I really want to see how Carl's Jr/Hardees markets the cricket-burger.
"Crickets offer roughly the same amount of protein as beef as well as significantly more micronutrients since you're consuming the exoskeleton as well." https://t.co/u2z2XhfOxp— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) January 29, 2020
Still suspect that McConnell made the smart call for the party (not to be confused with the right call for the country), but it couldn't have been an easy calculation.
Support for witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial in recent polls:
Quinnipiac 75
Monmouth 80
Reuters 72
CNN 69
AP/NORC 68
Quinnipiac 66
WaPo 71
Support for witnesses even in positive territory among Republicans.
And these polls are almost all before the Bolton story broke.— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) January 28, 2020
I wonder if there are new Festinger's already embedding themelves and working on their QAnon books.
QAnon conspiracy theorists are urging their fans to ward off the coronavirus by drinking bleach.
https://t.co/UYRT3mYN7F— Will Sommer (@willsommer) January 28, 2020
Monday, February 3, 2020
On a related note, I completely believe the claim that losing their top viewed shows had no negative impact
Picking up on last week’s story. This is getting more play than I expected.
For those tuning in late (a callback to when media was something you tuned into), Netflix has always been a push-the-envelope when it comes to metrics and transparency, going back to the debut of House of Cards, when the company let pretty much every journalist on the East Coast report that the company actually owned rather than merely licensed their “originals.” (When business reporters finally caught on, the company started actually buying some of the rights, though still less than most people realize.) The narrative that has kept the stock flying high (P/E in the eighties last time I checked) depends on the business press not looking too closely at these details.
[See also here. I'll admit being a bit smug about "I have a feeling that Netflix's transparency is about to become a bigger part of this story."]
The narrative is even more dependent on the idea that Netflix is building a massive library of popular, highly valuable content. Putting aside the enormously complicated question of exactly who owns what with shows like She-Ra, it is also essential to remember the incentive that the company has in portraying their originals as successful, and how much it spends to push that impression.
The streaming wars opened up unprecedented floods of marketing and PR cash, with Netflix taking the lead. An astounding amount of money has been spent getting you to check out the Witcher, either through advertising, SEO, press junkets and interviews, and planting (sometimes ghost-written) stories in major news outlets. Except for SEO, there’s nothing new here – the practices go back to when United Artists meant Chaplin, Fairbanks, Pickford and Griffith – but the magnitudes are unheard of.
With that in mind, think about the difference between a metric that counts people who watched more than two thirds of a show and people who basically made it through the opening credits. Marketing and PR definitely build interest and curiosity, so we would expect the new metric to favor heavily promoted originals over old TV shows and familiar movie (none of which are central to the Netflix narrative and most of which are owned by studios that are starting their own streaming services and pulling their content).
Fuzzy stats. There was a whiff of desperation in some of the data Netflix shared in its letter Tuesday. The company announced it changed the way it counts views on the service. Now, instead of counting a “view” as a subscriber watching 70% or more of a show or movie, Netflix stops counting after the first two minutes. The company said measuring views that way puts it on par with other online video platforms like Google’s YouTube.
But YouTube and other free video platforms are much different than Netflix. Counting a view after two minutes makes sense for them because that’s long enough for a viewer to get an ad served to them. Netflix doesn’t have advertising, and relies on subscribers staying glued to their screens for as long as possible. Even with the new counting method, Netflix said views were up an average of 35%.
Then there was that odd Google Trends chart Netflix plopped into the letter that was meant to demonstrate the popularity of its new show “The Witcher” versus shows on new rival platforms like Disney+‘s “The Mandalorian” and Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.” Putting aside the fact that a Google Trends chart isn’t the best way to measure interest in a TV show, Netflix used a global version of Google Trends to make its comparison, even though Disney+ was only available in the U.S. and Canada. Netflix said 76 million member households watched “The Witcher” in December, but it’s impossible to gauge how popular it really was if those views were based on just a minimum of two minutes.
Competition affected domestic subscribers. It looks like the November 2019 launches of Disney+ and Apple TV+ took its toll on Netflix in the U.S. and Canada. Netflix said its recent price increases and “competitive launches” in the quarter caused its “low membership growth” for the quarter. (Netflix only added 550,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Canada versus the 1.75 million it added in the year-ago quarter.)
That could spell trouble for Netflix as its rivals expand across the globe.
...
No “Friends,” no problem. Netflix’s execs were asked on the earnings call Tuesday about the loss of “Friends” to upcoming rival HBO Max. While “Friends” was believed to be one of the most popular shows on Netflix, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said subscribers find other things to watch when a popular licensed show leaves the service. (Although he didn’t provide any data to back that up.)
The bottom line: Netflix’s mixed earnings report showed the company is sticking to its strategy of investing more and more in content, with the aim of growing its subscriber base. But as the competitors start to light up their own streaming services, it has a renewed pressure to prove it can compete.
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