Comments, observations and thoughts from two bloggers on applied statistics, higher education and epidemiology. Joseph is an associate professor. Mark is a professional statistician and former math teacher.
Hand mit Ringen (Hand with Rings): print of Wilhelm Röntgen's
first "medical" X-ray, of his wife's hand, taken on 22 December 1895 and
presented to Ludwig Zehnder of the Physik Institut, University of Freiburg, on 1 January 1896
Conventional wisdom has it that our modern pace of technological change is so fast that someone from 100 years or so ago would find it incomprehensible. I don't buy that for at least a couple of reasons. First, we have a tendency to forget just how long some technologies are taking to get here (do you have any idea how long autonomous vehicles have been just around the corner?). Second, we tend to grossly underestimate how quickly many technologies of the past were disseminated.
For the canonical example of rapid adoption, check out the following excerpts from the Wikipedia article on the history of the x-ray starting with Röntgen's breakthrough, followed by some excerpts from Scientific American. Pay close attention to the timeline and keep in mind, this is how people reacted to a technology so new and unexpected that it bordered on unimaginable.
[Emphasis added for dates throughout.]
On8 November 1895, German physics professor Wilhelm Röntgen stumbled on X-rays while experimenting with Lenard tubes and Crookes tubes
and began studying them. He wrote an initial report "On a new kind of
ray: A preliminary communication" and on 28 December 1895, submitted it
to Würzburg's Physical-Medical Society journal.
...
The discovery of X-rays generated significant interest. Röntgen's biographer Otto Glasser estimated that, in 1896 alone, as many as 49 essays and 1044 articles about the new rays were published.[25]
This was probably a conservative estimate, if one considers that nearly
every paper around the world extensively reported about the new
discovery, with a magazine such as Science dedicating as many as 23 articles to it in that year alone.
...
Röntgen immediately noticed X-rays could have medical applications.
Along with his 28 December Physical-Medical Society submission, he sent a
letter to physicians he knew around Europe (1 January 1896).[29] News (and the creation of "shadowgrams") spread rapidly with Scottish electrical engineer Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton
being the first after Röntgen to create an X-ray (of a hand). Through
February, there were 46 experimenters taking up the technique in North
America alone.[29]
The first use of X-rays under clinical conditions was by John Hall-Edwards
in Birmingham, England on 11 January 1896, when he radiographed a
needle stuck in the hand of an associate. On 14 February 1896,
Hall-Edwards was also the first to use X-rays in a surgical operation.[30]
Images by James Green, from "Sciagraphs of British Batrachians and Reptiles" (1897), featuring (from left) Rana esculenta (now Pelophylax lessonae), Lacerta vivipara (now Zootoca vivipara), and Lacerta agilis
In early 1896, several weeks after Röntgen's discovery, Ivan Romanovich Tarkhanov irradiated frogs and insects with X-rays, concluding that the rays "not only photograph, but also affect the living function".[31] At around the same time, the zoological illustrator James Green began to use X-rays to examine fragile specimens. George Albert Boulenger first mentioned this work in a paper he delivered before the Zoological Society of London in May 1896. The book Sciagraphs of British Batrachians and Reptiles
(sciagraph is an obsolete name for an X-ray photograph), by Green and
James H. Gardiner, with a foreword by Boulenger, was published in 1897.[32][33]
The first medical X-ray made in the United States was obtained
using a discharge tube of Pului's design. In January 1896, on reading of
Röntgen's discovery, Frank Austin of Dartmouth College
tested all of the discharge tubes in the physics laboratory and found
that only the Pului tube produced X-rays. This was a result of Pului's
inclusion of an oblique "target" of mica, used for holding samples of fluorescent
material, within the tube. On 3 February 1896, Gilman Frost, professor
of medicine at the college, and his brother Edwin Frost, professor of
physics, exposed the wrist of Eddie McCarthy, whom Gilman had treated
some weeks earlier for a fracture, to the X-rays and collected the
resulting image of the broken bone on gelatin photographic plates obtained from Howard Langill, a local photographer also interested in Röntgen's work.
i've had a
bunch of very exalted people from many walks of life ask me this in
recent days. like as a genuine question, and thinking i'll have the
answer
Obviously, this is anecdotal, based largely on the sample of journalists and bloggers I follow online and whom they choose to quote and repost, but within that limited field of vision, a divide has opened substantially, particularly since Biden stepped out of the race.
People on both sides of the divide are at least nominally supporting the Democrats – – at this point it is difficult to find anyone in the establishment press arguing that another Trump presidency would be acceptable – – but while those on one side are greatly pleased by the way the handoff has gone, the other side is curiously upset by recent events and often seems, deliberately or not, to be clearly biased against the Harris campaign. As a result, differences in approaches are growing more stark and both sides are getting increasingly annoyed. Those who are happy with the new status quo are losing patience. Those on the other side are getting more and more defensive.
I've explained this before. But in addition to a lot of frivolous and biased journalism the real root of a lot of what you see in the elite press isn't bias precisely. Certainly it's not that the reporters are right wingers or Trumpers. It's something different but insidious.
If anything, the faction that seems to be rooting against Kamala dominates the establishment press with the epicenter being, of course, the New York Times, but what's unusual this time is how many establishment figures are making their criticisms public.
Mark Jacob Ex-editor at Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times
If this country manages to fight off Republican authoritarianism, it will be in spite of the New York Times, not because of it.
There is zero [nada] in this column by @ezraklein arguing that the Dems have become a "pitiless machine." The closest he comes is saying they have become "ruthlessly pragmatic."
I am watching Harris talking to reporters in Pennsylvania. A question about policy, including the child tax credit and homeowner credit is answered masterfully, the contrast with Trump‘s babble could not be greater. Of course, half the questions were about the horse race.
Uh, no. "Parties picking their nominee after some rough internal wrangling" is not a coup. "An armed mob trying to stop the electoral process and install the losing candidate" is a coup. pic.twitter.com/LxlbUX4DqV
Kind of amazing how much of the commentariat went into a tizzy over Harris calling for price controls, when she did no such thing. And bear in mind that most states — including Texas! — already have laws against price gouging.
"A stack of turned phrases don’t add up to an argument or a point."
Doesn't that describe every Dowd column?
It's time that friends and Times Op-Ed leaders take Ms. Dowd aside and address the reality that her ability to communicate clearly with others is no longer sufficiently reliable, and that she needs to step aside
This Wolfer's clip shows how fed up people like him are with the way these issues are being covered.
When @CNN asked me to score the big economic policy speeches this week by Trump and Harris, I decided not to grade against a curve, but rather to simply state what I saw. pic.twitter.com/eyiCwCFMAr
Matthew Cooper Executive Editor—Digital, Washington @Monthly, Alum: @Time, @Newsweek, @CondeNast, @NewRepublic
The @nytimes headline about @GovWesMoore
was alarming. The story didn't deliver, burying key elements. Something
is very wrong on 8th Avenue. I'm sure the gray lady's high stock price
and booming subscriptions aren't fueling introspection but it's really
time. https://t.co/Rq6LkWsG15
It's safe to say this guy had to be pretty pissed to go after public radio.
Not so bold but in some ways more significant is the veiled criticism coming from actual NYT writers. This goes right up to the line of publicly criticizing the paper, and with the exception of Paul Krugman (who is very much a special case), that is the one rule you do not break.
It’s time to revive the conversation about whether a major-party candidate is too old to run for president and is losing his grasp of reality. pic.twitter.com/jITQ4ClVGb
I should have mentioned that Edsall includes this not too subtle dig against his own employer:
“Yet, Wilentz writes, “many of even the most influential news sources
hold to the fiction Trump and his party are waging a presidential
campaign instead of a continuing coup, a staggering failure to recognize
Trump’s stated agenda.”
It's Labor Day weekend so let's stop by Emma Goldman's ice-cream shoppe in Worcester for a hot fudge sundae and some anarchy. pic.twitter.com/LgPLuxkmWG
The ILGWU sponsored a contest among its members in the 1970s for an
advertising jingle to advocate buying ILGWU-made garments. The winner
was Look for the union label.[9][10] The Union's "Look for the Union
Label" song went as follows:
Look for the union label
When you are buying a coat, dress, or blouse,
Remember somewhere our union's sewing,
Our wages going to feed the kids and run the house,
We work hard, but who's complaining?
Thanks to the ILG, we're paying our way,
So always look for the union label,
It says we're able to make it in the USA!
The
commercial featuring the famous song was parodied on a late-1970s
episode of Saturday Night Live in a fake commercial for The Dope Growers
Union and on the March 19, 1977, episode (#10.22) of The Carol Burnett
Show. It was also parodied in the South Park episode "Freak Strike"
(2002).
Things have gotten a little better with prescribed burns, but not nearly enough.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Megafires, incentives and the inactivity bias
One of the recurring themes of my conversations with Joseph is this
country's growing disinterest, bordering on antipathy, in getting things
done. (If you think I'm bad, you ought to get him started.) From
building a badly needed piece of infrastructure to addressing global
warming, we seem to focus most of our energy on finding reasons for
inactivity.
NPR's excellent series on wildfires has a good example.
If you weigh the costs and risks of prescribed burns against the costs
and risks of letting current trends continue, the case for action is
overwhelming, but we continued to let the situation get worse.
Add climate change to the mix (another situation we've shown lots of interest in discussing and little in solving), and we may have reached the point where there are no good solutions, only less terrible ones.
I remark just how lush his forest is, how the Ponderosa pines almost
reach out and touch one another. He doesn't take it as a compliment.
"They're a plague," he says. "On this forest, it's averaging about 900
trees per acre. Historically it was probably about 40. Here in the
national forest, what we're facing is a tree epidemic."
Armstrong has rubbed some people the wrong way with talk like that. But
he says forest this dense is dangerous. "We're standing here on the edge
of what is known as the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed," he explains.
"Imagine a huge bathtub" — a natural bathtub sitting in the mountains
around Santa Fe. When it rains, the water flows down into reservoirs.
That's where the state capital gets most of its water.
Trees help slow down the flow, but big wildfires take out the trees.
They even burn the soils. "They convert from something that's like a
sponge to Saran Wrap," Armstrong says. "In the aftermath of a wildfire
within this watershed, that would flood like the Rio Grande, for
heaven's sakes; that would come down a wall of water, and debris and ash
and tree trunks, and create devastation in downtown Santa Fe. Suddenly,
they find that the entire mountain is in their backyard."
Armstrong supports trimming smaller trees with machines and chain saws.
But that costs hundreds of dollars per acre. The service now lets some
natural fires — ones started by lightning, for example — burn within
prescribed limits. Or they start "prescribed" burns when conditions are
safe. These clear out smaller trees and undergrowth to keep them from
fueling megafires. Armstrong has done that here.
But people didn't like the smoke, and when an intentional fire gets out
of control, people sue. And there's been widespread drought in recent
years. These are some of the reasons the Forest Service has reduced the
use of prescribed fires.
_________________________
PS A couple of days earlier, we ran a link to another All Things Considered story which included this truly disturbing graphic.
[This project appears to have stalled, but don't worry, there are plenty of other plans for badly placed, car-dependent exurbs waiting in the wings.]
Don't get me wrong. This document has lots of ideas, some impractical, some with a horrible real-life track record, some silly, and yes, some genuinely good, but when it comes to the primary obstacles to achieving the various high sounding goals, it has nothing. At least nothing with a snowball's chance in hell of working.
I may take a deeper dive one of these days, but for now let's focus on the exurb problem (there are others but that's the big one). The proposed city is perfectly situated for car dependence, lacking any rail service and far enough from major population and employment centers (San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton) to rule out any form of transportation other than automobiles, but close enough that almost everyone will be willing to make the drive.
The fundamental contradiction of a green exurb is never really addressed, but the way the author skirts the issues suggests that it's on their mind; they just don't want to talk about it.
We realize that the California Forever proposal is a big change in the thinking of many urbanists, who equate ”greenfield” with ”sprawl” - low-density, auto-oriented development. We know, most greenfield development is sprawl, even when developers use words like walkable. But there are exceptions. Seaside, FL was a greenfield development, but it’s not sprawl [Remind me to talk about Seaside, Florida as an example of planned urban development. We'll have a lot of fun with that one. – – MP] . And the plan we have put forward is not ”sprawl” either - it’s medium-density, high-quality urbanism. And again, the plan even has a legally binding minimum density standard to make sure we hold ourselves accountable to our walkability goals. We are literally prohibiting ourselves from building sprawl.
We are dealing with a narrow and rather interesting definition sprawl here, and one that doesn't apply to some fairly notable examples. When we talk about a city like Alpharetta being a case of urban sprawl, we are referring to the distance between it and Atlanta. The fact that Alpharetta's downtown is fairly dense isn't all that relevant. Whenever someone use the word walkable, it begs the question walk to where? If the vast majority of jobs, shops, universities, restaurants, bars and entertainment venues are accessible only by car, the fact that you can stroll down to the neighborhood Coffee Bean doesn't actually mean a hell of a lot.
Another place where the author almost hits on the issue of car dependency is in the section on parking. [Emphasis in the original.]
A smart parking strategy. Parking minimums for new buildings in this community are set at zero. While homeowners can build parking garages if they wish, we will provide shared community parking garages - some located at the edge of the community, some located at carefully selected locations throughout the city. We have given careful thought to the design of the garages, with seamless transfers to public transit at each location. We will also operate a robust car-sharing program, providing access to a car without the hassle and expense of having to own one. All of this translates into some important objectives for us: reduced cost of construction so we can deliver homes more people can afford; reduced cost of transportation for households; reduced urban footprint devoted to storing cars. We understand that people are going to need to drive sometimes, as they do in the rest of the region. The mode split for external trips will probably mirror infill development in the Bay Area. [Remember, unlike the Bay Area, this development has no rail whatsoever. -- MP] But the California Forever city plan will encourage less car use for internal trips, with all the benefits this creates for people’s health, social connections, and the environment.
If you want to keep your bearings during this discussion, here's the one fact you have to keep your eye on: while you may (and the "may" is doing a great deal of work there) have lots of appealing options for internal trips, most of those will be under 5 miles. You basically have one option external trips and most of those will be more than 50 miles, and as mentioned before, the vast majority of jobs, stores, restaurants, colleges, museums, nightclubs, and entertainment venues will require external trips, at least for years to come.
The virtues of car sharing have been greatly overhyped, but you can at least make a case for the approach in major urban areas. In an exurb, it is completely unworkable. It's difficult to imagine bus lines running frequently and for long enough hours for people to get by on them solely. Rail service would require entirely new track to be laid and is, at a bare minimum, more than a decade away. Even if things go exactly as planned (and there are any number of reasons to think that they won't) it is difficult to imagine a substantial number of people choosing to live in a place like this without a car.
There are rules-based approaches that might reduce car ownership and force people to make use of other options. You could limit households to only one car. You could ban private garages. You could move all public garages to the outskirts of town. You could greatly increase parking fees. You could make not having a car at all a condition for subsidized housing. I'm not saying any of those would be good ideas, but they represent the kind of thing you would need to do to get people to go without cars in this situation. Unfortunately, there is a strong recurring libertarian thread running through these proposals. If you give people living in an exurb the freedom to choose their mode of transportation, you're not going to like their choices.
And to get a feel for the impact on the popular imagination. 
