Exponential decay

A lot of processes follow some kind of decay curve. Some of them are annoying.

I hurt my knee on November 5 while out in the Zion Canyon Narrows. I was jumping off a ledge about 4 feet high and landed on some uneven ground. All my weight shifted onto my right leg, which was awkwardly tilted and my knee buckled inwards. It actually felt more like the lower half dislocated and shifted inwards and then popped back in place. I somehow executed a very stylish roll onto my right side and even managed to keep the $3000 of camera gear in my right hand off the ground. To those watching, it probably just looked like I collapsed in a heap.

Needless to say, it hurt. I'd never felt my knee do anything like that before so I wasn't initially sure what shape it was in. I tried a variety of motions to test its strength (while having to take the time to tell the random people nearby asking me how I was doing that I wasn't sure yet) and it actually seemed ok until I tried to take a few more steps and it buckled again. Fearing the worst and lacking any medical insight, I decided that I might have torn an ACL. I figured out later that I probably just sprained an MCL (a much less serious injury) and got confirmation of that a few days after when I finally got home and saw a doctor.

The particularly interesting part of all this is the recovery arc, which I'll break down in a log format.

November 5

10:30am: Initial injury.

10:32am: Pain is mostly gone, knee is highly unstable while trying to walk in a rocky river or even on a relatively smooth beach. I'm still not entirely certain how limited I am.

10:45am: I've decided I can't continue upwards with the hike and basically haven't moved.

11:00am: I've decided I need to just work my way back down the river and give myself as much time as I might need. Greg offers to go back with me, which was actually really helpful. Thanks Greg!

12:00pm: Greg had to catch up to the rest of the group to let them know he was turning back. I spent the hour just standing around trying to figure out how I could best walk without exacerbating the injury. By now it was clear that I was stable front-back and on the outside of my knee, but not on the inside. I figured out that I could shuffle to the right and thus keep the weight off the inside of my knee.

2:00pm: We made it out of the river. The hike back was really annoyingly slow. I basically spent the entire ~2 miles bracing on my hiking pole in a preemptive posture. I had to adapt my right-shuffle to river crossings. When crossing left-to-right it worked fine, but right-to-left I actually would turn around and face up-river. I had lots of little tweaks on the knee. The slightest misstep would cause it to wobble. Once we got out of the river, we were back on relatively flat paved ground.

2:30pm: We covered the 3/4 miles or so to the bus stop. I was actually able to walk pretty ok, without the stick. I decided to try it just because it was so damn slow ... and it worked!

3:30pm: We've ridden the shuttle to the visitor center to find that the shuttle back to town wasn't running. Queue another 3/4 miles of walking. That also went ok.

At this point I went to the medical center which was closed, but self-diagnosed that I wasn't as badly hurt as I initially expected. A trip to the grocery store yielded a wrap and brace, which helped a lot.

November 6

Another day in Zion, this time with an off-road hike portion. I managed to scramble around for that with a couple tweaks. My knee didn't feel any more stable, but the brace helped. I'd also learned how to better compensate as well.

November 7

My brace wasn't compatible with jeans so I didn't wear it. Most of the day was spent sitting or driving, until we got to Las Vegas. That evening, however, I did walk around a fair bit without the brace though I was protecting the knee still and not going full speed.

November 10

I get my official diagnosis, twice. The doctor gave me a full immobilizing brace to wear in the morning. I felt much better wearing it to walk over to the health center later for my PT appointment. My PT then tells me not to wear it and puts me through 30 minutes of workouts, stressing the muscles around the knee. I still put the big brace back on to walk back to my office, but leave it off after taking it off to drive home.

November 11

I go to work without a brace. Tatiana questions my judgement, but I cite the PT. I'm able to get around on level ground pretty well, but still completely avoid the stairs.

November 12

I do my PT workout in the garage and feel confident enough to go up and down stairs normally, but still slowly.

November 13

I actually feel quite good. I did some stationary biking at the gym and I'm walking full speed on level ground and up and down stairs without holding the railing. I haven't tweaked the knee in a couple days at this point which implies the strength is coming back. Interestingly it's more sore/stiff than before, it almost seems like the swelling could be as much or more as in the early going.

The next markers will be when I feel like I can walk on uneven terrain, run and twist. I predict most of these within the week. I also predict the stiffness and soreness will last for about 4-6 weeks. I guess my big question is: if the initial recovery seems so rapid, why is there such a long tail to the whole healing process?

Updates

November 17
I'm walking pretty comfortably now and worrying less about slips and stuff.
The swelling is subsiding.

November 19
I was finally able to squat all the way down, but still with some pain. Before that, I couldn't get through the pain when my leg was fully bent.  I'm also starting to test a light jogging step.

November 26
All this limping around caused an old hip strain to flare up with a vengeance.
Note: finally around Jan 9 it's starting to come under control. I've had to dig up all my old hip PT and work through it like a madman.

December 1
My PT decided to "push me" and see how I responded. I was able to do a number of more things than I thought I could, including even lateral movements over a low exercise dome. Unfortunately on the 2nd set I collapsed again, feeling the same pain I felt during the original injury. I was painful and a little limpy again for a day or two. I was able to walk the same as before, but there seemed to be more damage than before.

December 19
At my PT's recommendation I've scheduled an MRI. Using a Lachmann test, he was still unable to definitively feel my ACL. Two other PTs at the office were also unsure about the state of my knee. He also recommended some surgeons in case I needed them.

December 28
Went in for my MRI. The machine is loud. I received earplugs and headphones. The overall process is about 15 minutes, and about 15 minutes overhead for checkin, switching into MRI pants, paperwork.

December 29
I received a call from the tech that the doctor saw a tear in the ACL, so I needed to schedule a consult with an ortho surgeon. I called immediately and got an appointment for a week out.

January 2
Submitted an appointment request for a consult with Neil Roberts (USWNT team doctor).

January 5
I had a consult with Vincent Santoro. Overall impression of him was good, he didn't feel rushed and engaged me in solid conversation, answered all my questions, told me roughly what to expect. The tricky thing at this point is the scheduled trip to Hawaii (Feb 11-20). He did tell me that there was no immediate rush to get the surgery done with the caveat that I am more fragile until I get it. In other words I need to be careful like I've been thus far. I also heard back from Roberts' office and scheduled a consult with him for Jan 12.

January 6
Talked with Bryan who had his ACL done (almost 10 years ago). He called out that 4 weeks post surgery "walking across Key Arena was intense". This made me realize I had not been clear with Santoro about what I wanted to be able to do in Hawaii and I needed to clarify. We also hadn't actually discussed the graft details.

January 9
Called Santoro to cover extra questions. I decided that "can walk 1-2 miles on pavement and half a mile on a beach" were good estimations of the activity levels I wanted to be able to do. He told me no way, we'll do the surgery after Hawaii. He said at about 4 weeks out the graft is still too fragile and can get torn out inadvertently. We also talked about the graft. He recommends an allograft, explaining that they had gotten a bad rep because they used to be sterilized via irradiation (which weakened them). His supplier uses a chemical sterilization process which leaves them much more intact. The downside is the full healing timeline is closer to a year instead of 6 months with a patellar tendon. He didn't recommend the hamstring option, though he volunteered that he had a bias against them because he had two of them fail in his own knees.

The upside of delaying surgery is that I'll be predictably functional in Hawaii and I can spend the next 5-6 weeks rehabbing my hip in preparation for being limpy again post-surgery. If I get the surgery done right after I return from Hawaii, I'll have 9 weeks before Yellowstone. I still need to decide on allograft vs patellar tendon.

January 12
Consult with Neil Roberts. He's super thorough about details, explanations, etc. Left a very good impression. He also recommended an allograft as the top option. Also agreed that before Hawaii is too soon.

January 14
Went hardcore on hip and knee PT and working out in general. I added squats and deadlifts (with small weights, lots of reps) into the routine and that has helped a ton. As a result my hip is noticeably better. The weakness/issues seem tied to the state of my hamstrings. I'm no longer getting numbness down my leg when I sit, which is great. I can tell it's still not at 100%, but based on the previous injury I wouldn't be surprised if end-to-end healing was closer to 2 months (from late November, at the earliest). I do feel like I'm out of the woods though.

January 19
Scheduled surgery with Roberts on Feb 24, using an allograft. Until then I'll just do my PT, keep my hip strain in good shape and enjoy Hawaii.

The sky is falling

No, seriously. While Trumpers are out in force saying nice things like "we should be united" and "give him a chance, he might surprise you" (of course, now they say that, while they were saying the exact opposite before he was elected), some serious scary horrible awful stuff is happening. Trump has released his First 100 Days plan; it's mostly hot air or seriously flawed. Specific names are emerging as potential members of his cabinet. I'm just going to have an ongoing list here, because I'm sure it's going to get worse every day.

Secretary of Education - Ben Carson
Umm. This is a guy who believes in a Young Earth Creationism and was adamant he knew better than all the Indiana Joneses what pyramids were for. Cuz obviously it was to store their grain.

Secretary of Homeland Security - Joe Arpaio
Arpaio's largest claim to fame was his absolute embrace of the Obama birther myth, to the degree that he commissioned his own investigation into the issue. Being an Arizona sheriff doesn't mean he has border experience either, Maricopa county is a good 100 miles and one large city away from Mexico.

Secretary of Homeland Security - Chris Christie
Another bully, currently embroiled in his own bridge closing scandal.

Head of the EPA - Myron Ebell
Never heard of him? Me neither. But he has no scientific education, denies climate change and was a key figure in favor of big tobacco's message of "safer cigarettes" in the 90s. Interestingly he believes climate change is an EU hoax, which stands are serious odds of Trump's claims that it's a Chinese hoax. Come on guys, who was it?

Director of Strategy - Steve Bannon
He was also the CEO of the Trump campaign, and before that he was the director/mastermind of Breitbart. Breitbart is the de facto media of the alt-right movement. Facts? Naw. Unsubstantiated claims? Hell yeah! Finger pointing at imaginary scapegoats? Got it. And so on. According to many, he's also an unabashed white supremacist.

Chief of Staff - Reince Preibus
I don't have a good sense of him, but he did drive the RNC process this year, including threatening to cut off debates he didn't like.

Secretary of Commerce - Mike Huckabee
Another loyalist.

Something - Sarah Palin
She's been irrelevant in politics and policy for years now, and rightly so. I can't believe she might get a chance to do her awfulness on a national stage.

The common thread here is that loyalty to Trump comes first. And if your merits are your loyalty, you can guess how much independent value you can deliver. All their actions will just be as mouthpieces for Trump. There's a consistent thread of anti-unity, bullying, anti-science and anti-expert.

100 days of Donald Trump

 It's no secret I want no part of this, but it's worth turning a more objective eye towards Donald Trump's proposed first 100 days in office. I'll roughly follow the article and take representative clips from it as prompts.

First, and perhaps most important, is Trump's relationship with all the establishment Republicans. Many have denounced him or at least refused to endorse him. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mostly made nice with Trump but also shot down or expressed little enthusiasm in some of his plans. There's some possibility, I think, that Congress breaks into 3 parties: Democrats, Trumpians, Republicans. Whether this happens or not will absolutely influence at least the next 2 years and possibly his whole presidency. A 3-party split could end up with more do-nothing, though it would come with a lot of finger pointing and I expect anyone up for re-election in 2 years would have a pretty rough time.

FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress.
I don't hate this idea. In fact, I'd want the same. How many Senators and Representatives will willingly vote to give up their own power though? Starting here could help underpin a 3-party split.

SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health)
Government jobs are notoriously safe and hard to be fired from. A hiring freeze, it seems to me, would serve to erode the incoming talent pool. I assume he includes You're Fired! in the attrition bucket, but I don't know how effective that is in this particular workforce. Or maybe it's intended to remove employees not aligned with the Trump direction.

THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated
Lol ... umm. I get where he's going with this, but this can't seriously become a requirement, can it? The long game is to de-regulate. But, regulations aren't just made for funzies, they are made to attempt to address issues. And just throwing them out for the sake of throwing them out seems unsustainable or will lead to weird workarounds, like condensing multiple regulations to combo regulations or whatever.

FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service
FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government
This seems fine. Will it work the other way too? Doesn't this seem at odds with how his team is already operating?

SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward
I will admit to being under-informed here. From a quick search it appears there's no serious environmental concern, so I assume the objections are more of the "we should be investing in sustainable sources" category. I do agree we should do more of that, but I don't have anything particularly smart to say about it.

SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America's water and environmental infrastructure
What is America's water and environmental infrastructure problem? Flint, MI had serious water issues, but that's a relatively one-off scenario. Environmental infrastructure problems seem to go right back to the climate change ... oh wait, that's a Chinese hoax.

To recap, a set of actions that are either impractical or downright harmful.
Trump also promised to take the following actions.

FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama
I would assume unconstitutional ones would already not stick, so this seems like a non-statement. What this is really saying is he'll cancel every action, memo and order he doesn't agree with. But, calling them unconstitutional just panders to his base.

SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
And he will. And the Republican congress will play along. The single good news is that it'll be largely status quo since Scalia was a very conservative.

THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
This is interesting. He's essentially threatening sanctions against cities that don't get in line. Sanctuary cities instruct their police not to actively seek out the immigration status of people. And the major ones are all democratic, so this would be politically divisive and oppressive. Curiously, his new home town of Washington DC would be affected too; wouldn't that shut the city down? Many programs affecting at-risk populations would lose funding. Depending on how federal funding is defined, would it affect federal income tax deductions too? This amounts to bullying cities into submission by exercising federal power instead of letting local governments decide how best to run themselves (exactly what Republicans argue shouldn't happen). This is classic Trump.

FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won't take them back
Criminal in the sense that they are illegally here AND committed a crime? This is already happening, about this many were deported under the Obama administration as well; after committing crimes. This is Trump trying to sound tough, but really just coasting down an already paved road.

FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
....except that how many problems in the USA were caused by such immigrants? It's tempting to say "don't let them in, just to be safe", but there are downstream consequences: bad foreign relations, resentment among those denied, a narrative that the USA is shirking responsibility for the destabilized Middle East, those people ending up in places where they're more likely to be influenced by extremists, and so on.

So he's "getting tough" by being a bully, and sounding like he's "getting tough" by doing stuff that's already the norm or is a scapegoat action.
He's also promised to work with Congress to do several things:

Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act
I don't think the number of brackets is the reason our economy does or doesn't grow, but that seems like part of the simplifications. Dropping tax rates sounds great until the federal government has a lot less money. I guess this goes with the attrition in the government jobs, but the income hit happens a lot faster. This is the same plan that didn't pass evaluation by non-partisan think tanks. Also, Trump is famous for borrowing against too much optimism and then getting burned.

End The Offshoring Act
I wonder how this works for software....
This one seems to appeal to unions but go against the global grain. Tariffs are a protectionist concept, the argument against them is that the scope of trade can increase, and thus successful firms can be even more successful. I don't understand this enough, except to say it seems to go against what both political parties have pushed for 30 years.

American Energy & Infrastructure Act
So he's going to give tax incentives to companies so they can make more money that they are taxed on so the net tax revenue is zero? Seems like a losing proposition for the fed? This is a very vaguely worded entry, to the point that I can't really tell what it even means.

School Choice And Education Opportunity Act
I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. It almost sounds like families would be given money to help fund whatever choice they make? Or that anyone doing education would get federal support? Unless they are in a sanctuary city? Is this really just a way to let parents teach their kids whatever they want?

Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act
This one's already backpedaled. Trump realized there were parts of Obamacare that worked, and he said he liked those. It's almost like he wrote this list without a clue of what's actually in play today? There's also a point about cutting the red tape at the FDA. The whole point of the "red tape" is to make sure drugs are effective, safe and consistent. The process is perhaps even long by design, to give time for issues to pop up on something we're going to start giving to an entire population.

Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act
This one I can get behind. Again, we have to figure out how the debt-accruing tax cuts are going to cover paying for it.

End Illegal Immigration Act
Writes a blank check on behalf of another country, spends our money if their citizens break our rules and makes laws in case employers go against their own economic incentives of hiring local.

Restoring Community Safety Act
Establishes more police, I guess? With more guns and more training? Or something?

Restoring National Security Act
Oh good, it mandates that we do things that we're already trying to do. Cuz without Trump, who would defend our cybers? And what the fuck, how do you expect to "ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values"? And just what values are those? What the fucking fuck?

Clean up Corruption in Washington Act
Yeah, but at the same time exploring appointing ass-hats like Ben Carson to lead Education, Arpaio to lead Homeland Security, Giulani to be your Attorney General, ... and it goes on like this. I mean, blatant slanted cronyism. Maybe I don't know what corruption is?

There it is. Either he has no clue about stuff, or says things that are already happening, or blatantly lies about the intent of the outcome. Hooray. Is it 2020 yet?

So, now what ... ?

Just a ramble in the wake of the greatest con. I am convinced the future will confirm Trump to be a fantastic con man, skirting the edges of the law to leach assets from others.

Barring something truly bizarre, Trump will be our president for the next 4 years. If you’re like me, this is a sad occasion. We’ve elected a man whose platform was built on his business acumen, yet serious doubt remains about whether he’s built healthy businesses. He could have put all of it to rest by just releasing his taxes, but he didn’t. There are interesting nuggets suggesting strong ties to Russia as well. And he’s just an asshole, demeaning and marginalizing virtually every group that isn’t white, straight and male. Unity seems not to be his strong suit, and caring for people outside his immediate circle seems never to have been on his agenda. He says he will represent all Americans; that we should be united, but he’s shown zero tendency towards that. Ever. To make matters even more dire, the Senate and House remain majority Republican. A variety of economic, political, social and international issues are suddenly very much at risk of drastic change. While change is not inherently bad, the likely changes are more alarming than reassuring. Instead of trying to predict exactly what will happen, it’s better to look at potential broad arcs and consider how to recognize we’re on one and how to respond. The arcs can coexist, and I’ll break them apart into the listed buckets.


Social ramifications
The hallmark progress in the Obama administration was around LGBTQ rights. Marriage equality became federally protected. Same-sex couples could be married and enjoy the same family rights. Planned Parenthood came under vicious, unjust, attack from the right and lost a lot of funding and ability to operate due to regressive laws enacted by heavily red states. This hurts women and their right to choose; it also hurts women and their basic health. Let’s not forget that the vast majority of what Planned Parenthood does is NOT abortions. They fill a gap in low income basic health care that is limited not just to reproductive health, but also cancer screening.

In the meantime Justice Scalia unexpectedly died. Republicans refused to even vote on a compromise candidate offered by Obama despite vast majority agreement a year prior that Garland would be the kind of justice they would easily approve. It was a huge gambit that, now, has paid off. Had Hillary won, most likely an alternate, far more liberal, justice would be nominated. Now Trump gets to pick, and his runaway congress can rubberstamp his choice. Trump has pledged to pick someone who would be on the unfriendly side of choice; such a candidate is also likely to be anti LGBTQ marriage and family rights.

It will be readily apparent if we end up on this path. Unless something incredibly dramatic (like overturning Roe v Wade or outright making abortion illegal) happens, blue states will need to take point on ensuring these rights for their citizens. Democrats need to get their act together and make sure they succeed in electing Democrats in local elections. This will be a common trend, and something Democrats need to do a better job of across the board all the way up to congressional seats. Gerrymandering is an obstacle as well, so perhaps challenging the legality of the districting process is a good place to start?

Economic ramificationsTrump’s economic plan echoes his style: we’re the biggest kid on the block so we can beat trade partners into submission (“renegotiate the bad deals”). Since trading with us is desirable for other countries, they should bend over backwards for the ability to do so and we should profit. Who cares if we piss them off, because America. Fuck yeah. He’s also calling for a tax cut on the rich, which has been shown not to work. He’s spewed protectionist rhetoric as well, but did all these American companies become huge and successful because they were limited in the ways they could engage with the globe? Does manufacturing stuff we import from China lead to more money generated here?
Recognizing this is going to be a little harder. There will be macro-indicators like the health of large indices (Dow, S&P, Nasdaq, … ) and the national GDP, internal indicators like employment and poverty rates. However, all this stuff will take time to sort out. It can either go well, not well, or be a disaster. In the latter two cases, individuals are probably best off pulling out of the stock market. An extreme version would be to liquidate assets and move abroad, or at least move the assets abroad (though that may have some ugly tax tangles).

In the event of an economic downturn, it’s possible that certain parts of the country will hold up better (this has certainly been true, for example in the housing downturn). Sadly this will likely lead to people moving around more and causing even more pronounced separation between rich and poor, red and blue. Score a point against unity.

Political ramifications
This is the one which leaves me with the most hope, but also the most anxiety. In the run-up to the election, unprecedented numbers of heavyweight Republicans (including many members of Congress) did not endorse Trump. While both the Senate and House remain Republican, I predict (or hope at least) that those Republicans will have a hard split. This will create, at least briefly, a sort of 3-party system and prevent a runaway political machine. The numbers are particularly tight in the Senate, only a few Republicans need to cross the aisle or at least not stay in the groupthink. Senators are elected for 6 years, 2/3 of them can either outlast or last through Trump’s presidency. This might give them the courage to act.

Let’s remember that America was built on a system of checks and balances: legislative, executive and judicial can’t act alone, left and right balance each other as well. This is important because it IS how all of America gets representation. When the checks converge on the same side, they disappear. Balance is lost. Even if it were all the side I more agree with, it’d be a bad thing. My hope is that at least some Republicans recognize this and feel it’s their duty to make sure the very basis of the American model is not compromised.

If the party fractures, it will trigger major shifts. The Republican party knew it was in trouble in 2012 and didn’t act. It’s become conservative to the point of impracticality and it needs to change. The issue is not actually that they are hyper-right on all the things, but rather that all the members are aligned on all the things. This is unhealthy; diversity is far more resilient. We’ll see very quickly whether Congress gets in line or not. If they don’t, local elections are the only place to gather resistance until 2018 when we elect the House again and about a third of Senators. Each district and state needs to contribute to diversity to restore the health of the checks and balances.

International ramifications
This is perhaps the most volatile and longest-lasting area and there are so many places for it to go wrong with both allies and adversaries. Trump is on record opposing NATO, the longest, largest, military coexistence in history. Unity, remember? He wants to bomb the hell out of ISIS, which sounds great except that there’s not an ISIS base to bomb; they’re sprinkled throughout populated areas. There’s a lot of smoke around ties and loyalty to Russia, which seems concerning. He’s ignored the advice of non-partisan security experts about Russia’s role in hacking schemes. Why use the united strength of the experts when you can just go with your gut? There’s been some sabre-rattling with China that needs to be handled with care. North Korea is a looney toon; again care has to be taken to neither provoke or be provoked into something awful, or to be seen as stepping on China’s ally. Why take input from the united judgement of highly respected military leaders when you can just go with your gut? Other countries either don’t respect him or will outright look to exploit him.

Other ramifications
Trump repeatedly states that he will hire all the best people. His first announced appointment is slated to be a global warming skeptic to head up the EPA. This will lead to 4 more years of ignoring issues with fossil fuels. America will probably Drill Baby, Drill! We’ll have more oil-related accidents too. And we won’t invest in renewable energy. Depending on where we live, we can choose to invest in solar power and hybrid cars ourselves, but a federally supported program would have way bigger impact. In the meantime, we can look to companies to lead the way in showing that using clean energy or being carbon neutral can be a part of a sustainable, profitable venture. I’m sure there will be lots more questionable appointments.

The state of public discourse
Trump has also has a very sketchy relationship with the truth. Many say the same about Hillary, but I’d draw a serious distinction here. Hillary’s lies (to the degree you believe she’s lying) were mostly self-preserving: they were about keeping herself out of trouble. Trump lies about things that directly impact citizens, about how his policies will help those who support him. He has been given the highest office in the land despite proving nothing about his own competence for the job. Clinton can point to her public service track record which is on public record. We can each go and decide if we like what she’s done. Trump points to a black box and says “trust me, I’m great and do great things.” He’s unwilling to put any facts into the public domain. Is he as rich as he says? Are his businesses healthy and sustainable? Does he have deep personal financial ties to Russia? Or has he just swindled everyone along the way, perhaps on the fringes or legality, and gotten rich at everyone else’s expense. It certainly would be consistent with his attitudes on international trade agreements, penchant for lawsuits and bullying contracted companies into taking less money than agreed upon. All this matters because he’s explicitly used his business acumen to support his credibility as a potential president. He unapologetically lied about everything and it didn’t seem to matter. He’s made it legit to conduct a presidential primary and race in this manner. He’s gone so far outside the bounds of decorum that I’m not sure we get to come back for a while.

Discussion has been reduced to threats, unproven claims and blatant lies. In the end, I think he’ll be revealed as a con man, and con men aren’t usually interested in helping the people they took advantage of along the way. They have no qualms about acting like this as long as they get ahead.

1+1 = ?

Usually 2, unless 1 is an abstraction.
An interesting context to look at this in is the addition of ideas.

Let someone's idea be 1.

a. If another person has the same idea, putting those together gains nothing: 1+1 = 1.
A group that does not question ideas does not gain from its diversity and individuals.
The longterm trend of this group is just whatever the individual who originates the ideas (usually others just nod along) produces.

Let two people have different ideas, each is 1.
Since the ideas are not in agreement, a lot of different results can occur:
b. One of them bullies the other into accepting their idea: 1+1 = 1 (and time was wasted and feelings are hurt)
c. Consensus is not reached, nothing happens: 1+1 = 0 (lose-lose)
d. A compromise is reached where the overlapping parts of the ideas are kept: 1+1 in (0,1)
e. The ideas are used as the basis for arriving at a new, better idea: 1+1 in (1, inf)

These results are not inherently amazing or surprising, but they explain why certain systems work better than others. Scaling each of these up we see:

a. Popular dictator or religious leader
The populace accepts the mantra and goes with it. However, the group adapts slowly to changes and is not resilient to deterioration due to a poor leader. Eventually, a leader will be poor and the system will crumble.

b. Authoritarian regime
People learn that dissenting ideas will be fought and overridden. They either choose to stop resisting and society becomes a lower-functioning version of [a], or they continue having contradicting ideas which cause the regime to spend resources on enforcement and the system eventually crumbles due to inefficiency and resistance.

c. Current United States Congress
Nothing more to say.

d. Typical Congressional or Parliamentary system
Ideas are often severely hampered by the time they go into effect. Various special interests all tug an initially sound proposal in incoherent directions. However, it's less fragile than [a] because some members are always yanking in positive directions. The system has resilience from the many members involved.

e. Free market
Lots of people have lots of ideas. Some of them collaborate to produce super ideas. The super ideas win out over time. Other people have ideas that combine with the super ideas. The best combinations prove themselves to be the next wave of super ideas. The weaker ideas fade away. The system is most resilient and quickly evolving because there's incentive and freedom to create super ideas.

Make America Safe Again!

Trump's slightly shifted his message at the RNC. It sounds great in principle; who doesn't want to be safe? But what does this really mean? And what about the "again"? Are we not as safe as we used to be?

What does it mean to be safe? This is a rather nebulous question, but one reasonable approximation is the odds of "something bad" happening to you outside your control. I don't think most people consider falling off a cliff while playing Pokémon Go an example of an unsafe world; I think they're more likely to just throw a Darwin Award after the person.

"Something bad", in the way people talk about it, mostly refers to ending up dead. This, too, can be broken down into many buckets. Someone could get and die of cancer. We tend not to chalk these cases up to "being safe" unless there's ample evidence of some man-made hazard (like Fukushima). Generally, death from illness is less and less likely and I doubt will regress from one president to the next, so there's no way to say a particular president had an influence. Deaths from accidents (like car crashes) falls in a similar bucket.

Mostly, Making America Safe Again means you're less likely to get violently killed by someone who's attacking you for their ideological purposes and you had particular ability to avoid them. First things first, what baselines or expectations or norms do we have? Using this compilation of Terrorist attacks and related incidents (which, at a glance, seems reasonably complete), we can establish the number of such deaths per year, and per president. In the interest of modern-day discourse, I'm filtering this to 1980 and after. No one's political memory goes back past Reagan anyways and the draft was still in effect for most of the time before; subjective many to deaths in faraway lands that they probably wanted nothing to do with. So, let's just say that before Reagan, self-started wars were the leading such violators of American safety. Since military involvement is now fully voluntary, I'm content to say that bucket has dried up and has no bearing on this discussion.

I've exported the linked table to Excel, filtered for only dates after Jan 1, 1980 and removed all cases marked as accident (ACC). There are 4267 qualifying deaths (and 12068 injuries) over approximately 36 years (average: 118 and 335 per year). All else equal, a president should expect to see about 474 deaths and 1341 injuries in a term. Since all but Bush Sr** served two terms, they get to double their expected numbers. How did they do?

President	Deaths	Injuries
Reagan	51	327
Bush Sr**	182	54
Clinton	587	2101
Bush Jr	3072	9005
Obama	241	591

The statistically very difficult thing here is that over 70% of the total comes from a single event (9/11), so everyone else is below the average. It can also be argued that the first WTC attempt *could* have been successful, and that was under Clinton's watch. But, let's just stick to what actually happened.

We can also sort and see when the largest events occurred. I'm going to semi-arbitrarily pick all the events with at least 10 casualties:

Bush Jr	New York City, New York	2759	8700	TER-islm	crashing of two hijacked planes into World Trade Center towers, causing fires and collapse
Clinton	Atlantic Ocean, Massachusetts	217	0	TER-islm	intentional crash of Egypt Air flight off Nantucket Island by copilot
Bush Jr	Alexandria, Virginia	189	200	TER-islm	crashing of hijacked plane into Pentagon
Clinton	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	169	675	TER-right	truck bombing of federal building, causing partial collapse
Reagan	San Juan, Puerto Rico	97	140	CRI	three employees set fire in Dupont Plaza Hotel; most fatalities were in the hotel casino; the employees were in a labor dispute with the hotel's management
Bush Sr	New York City, New York	87	0	CRI	arson fire in social club
Clinton	Waco, Texas	86	25	CRI	Branch Davidian cult members kill 4 ATF agents, injure 16, when agents raided their compound in Waco, TX; 10 cult members killed; compound was sieged until 19 Apr when another raid was attempted and the compound burned down
Obama	Orlando, Florida	50	53	TER-islm	shooting attack at nightclub
Bush Sr	Atlantic Ocean, Puerto Rico	47	0	CRI?	explosion in gun turrent of battleship U.S.S. Iowa off Puerto Rico kills 47; Navy cites some evidence of sabotage
Bush Jr	Somerset County, Pennsylvania	45	0	TER-islm	crashing of hijacked plane into rural area of Pennsylvania, following attempt by passengers to regain control of aircraft
Clinton	Rancho Sante Fe, California	39	0	CRI	discovery of mass suicide by 39 members of Heaven's Gate cult, tied by cult members to Comet Hale-Bopp
Bush Jr	Blacksburg, Virginia	33	17	CRI	shooting attack at Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Obama	Newtown, Connecticut	28	3	CRI	shooting attack at elementary school kills 20 children and 6 adults; shooter killed himself and had killed his mother earlier that day
Bush Sr	Killeen, Texas	24	20	CRI	shooting attack at Luby's restaurant
Reagan	San Ysidro, California	22	19	CRI	shooting attack at McDonalds restaurant
Obama	San Bernardino, California	16	23	TER-islm	two attackers killed 14 and injured 21 at a county employee meeting and Christmas party; both attackers were killed hours later in a shootout with police in which 2 police officers were injured
Reagan	Edmond, Oklahoma	15	6	CRI	shooting attack by postal employee at post office
Clinton	Littleton, Colorado	15	27	CRI	mass shooting at Columbine High School by two students; 12 students and 1 teacher killed, 21 students and 2 teachers killed; both gunmen killed themselves
Obama	Binghamton, New York	14	4	CRI	shooting attack at immigrant center
Reagan	Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania	13	0	CRI	shooting attack
Obama	Foot Hood, Texas	13	44	TER-islm	shooting attack at Soldier Readiness Center at Foot Hood
Obama	Washington, DC	13	3	CRI	shooting attack at Washington Navy Yard
Obama	Aurora, Colorado	12	58	CRI	shooting attack at movie theater; suspect was arrested afterwards; suspect had booby-trapped his nearby apartment with explosives which were successfully disarmed by police
Reagan	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	11	0	CRI	police assault on headquarters of radical black group Move starts fire
Obama	Alabama	11	6	CRI	multiple shootings at residences and businesses in Samson and Geneva, AL
Bush Sr	Jacksonville, Florida	10	4	CRI	shooting attack at GMAC office
Bush Jr	Red Lake, Minnesota	10	7	CRI	shooting at Red Lake Indian Reservation school

The worst incidents happened under Bush Jr and Clinton. Bush Sr and Reagan are next, and Obama is last in this ordering. Obama is also second-to-last in per-term deaths and injuries.

I suppose if we want to Make America Safe Again, we should bring back zombie Reagan. If that's not feasible, let's give Obama a 3rd term. His track record demands it.

An Apple (R) a day keeps the DoJ away

Couple kills 14 people in San Bernardino; they are determined to have terrorist ties.
iPhone with potentially valuable law-enforcement data is recovered.
FBI asks Apple for help retrieving data, Apple declines.
FBI takes them to court, judge orders Apple to help.
Tech world gets behind Apple's appeal centered on privacy and back-doors.

This is where we are now. It's been incredibly disappointing to me to see so many tech-involved people (Apple included) blatantly misrepresent what Apple has been asked to do. The narrative is that the FBI would get a backdoor that they (or hackers) could freely use to access any encrypted data in the future. This is not at all the case, and is a very important point in the discussion:

 "Apple’s reasonable technical assistance shall accomplish the following three important functions: (1) it will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled; (2) it will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT and (3) it will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware."

This would be a custom OS that prevents the booby-trap of locking down the device after a handful of incorrect passwords. The FBI's approach afterwards would be to brute-force their way in by guessing the pin code. This is also a very important distinction. The details of how the device is encrypted are fairly technical (Apple seems vague on details because their devices use magical fairy dust, but it's likely very similar, or identical, to Windows bitlocker). The key takeaways here are that

1. The FBI is not actually accessing anything to do with the real encryption of the data.
2. The FBI is exploiting the relatively weak pin that lets the underlying hardware decrypt far more securely locked data. In other words, your data is only as secure to attack as guessing your 4- or 6-digit pin in a handful of tries is.
3. There is no general alternate route to the data provided to the FBI or anyone else who gets a hold of the device

Apple, like other technology companies, has been asked to (and complied with) dig up data on customers by law enforcement. Why in this case are they resisting? There are numerous possibilities, some more rational than others. The following have been explicitly cited:

Apple is fearful the custom OS will get into the wrong hands
This is probably the most valid concern. I can't imagine they can't negotiate some arrangement where they recover and hand over the unencrypted data, but never hand over the OS to the FBI. Essentially, guarantee they maintain custody of said OS bits and move on.

It sets a bad precedent that the government can have Apple build custom OS
This seems silly to me. This is an example of requiring technical assistance to gather data. This happens all the time. When the FBI collects phone records, or cloud-stored info, or identities from an account, etc, they call the affiliated company, present a warrant, and the company gets the data for them. The FBI does not have the technical capability to get this info without help; in fact, doing so would require them hacking databases which is not kosher.

People have a right to privacy
I'd scoff far louder if Google were making this claim ... but let's stick to the case at hand. Yes, people have a right to privacy. Law enforcement can't randomly peek into my house to see if something is amiss. That requires a warrant, just like the one the FBI has for the phone, just like the ones they need to call Verizon and get phone logs, etc. This, to me, is absolutely no different.

It compromises encryption for all
This is simply technically false and has been a completely erroneous part of the discussion. No, we should not compromise the quality of encryption. No, that's not happening in this case.

Compelling companies to write custom software is a slippery slope towards encryption backdoors
I don't think this is true. I think the road to encryption back doors is independent of this. Companies are already 'compelled' to write certain code; for example anyone working in healthcare or finance has to comply with very strict auditing guidelines. No one is dictating particular lines of code, but some very specific features have to exist.

Apple wants to look like the technical leader of privacy
Bingo! Sell more iPhones! I can't imagine this isn't a/the top internal reason.

But other tech companies all back Apple, Apple must be right
Yep, cuz people are dumb and none of the other big players want to look like law-enforcement pawns to these technically illiterate people. Or to the technically semi-literate who have misconstrued all of this.

A couple Facebook discussions yielded numerous other claims, but they fall into the technically inept bucket so I'm not even going to address those. Bottom line is this narrative has fallen far from the scope of reality and entered a world of fearmongering most tech people seem to think only exists in the GOP around Planned Parenthood and persecutions on Christianity. We make fun of them for being ridiculous, let's turn that same analysis on ourselves.
 

Driving the Ford Mustang

Upon arrival to Phoenix, I was offered a swap from whatever I had rented to a Mustang for no extra cost. I said sure.

The car looks pretty nice from the outside, and the interior finishes are better than I remember from previous generations. I often say that of the American car companies, Ford got their shit together first, and this continues to show. One thing that continues to confound me is the sheer size of the car. It's huge, but doesn't feel particularly spacious. The trunk is a weird shape that not much fits into, and the seats don't offer excessive room. It's 14" longer and 8" wider than my Acura RSX and feels more cramped inside. So, that's weird.

The next thing I noticed is just how enormous the hood is. I can't see over it at all, and it definitely makes me feel uneasy about where the car ends. The windows are also relatively small and high, the doors also limit sideways visibility downwards, meaning it takes a while to not feel like I'm going to run over curbs. Forward 180 degree visibility is otherwise good (like to avoid other cars), but rear quarter is non-existent. Compounding this is a pair of very small side mirrors; after a couple days driving this thing I'm still a touch uneasy during lane changes.

The power is good enough, its handling is generally good, though a little vague. It feels like there's a few inches of play in where the car will end up, which is usually ok, you just have to get used to it and trust it. It definitely feels more like a cleaver than a scalpel, to use familiar tropes.

It has a froofroo feature: when unlocking the car, it shines a pony on the ground by the door. I can't come up with a reasonable use for this, so I'm just assuming it's new-age car bling?

The interesting new feature on this car is that the seats are vented. I'd often wondered if it made sense to route the hvac through the seat. I can imagine it'd help cool the seat itself down quickly, which is a huge deal in hot climates with strong sun. The amount of heat a leather seat can soak up is surprising and also causes unavoidable horrific back sweat. For whatever reason the venting is through the bottom of the seat, up. So you're sitting on (as opposed to leaning back onto) an air-conditioned layer which does nothing for the aforementioned back sweat. And frankly, sitting on a cold air jet kinda tingles in a weird way. I find it not unpleasant, but just kinda weird. So that answers that, at least for me. It's February now and only 80 out so I can't really test the extreme heat theory part of this .. .maybe that would change my mind.

What are the odds!? **

** - given various pre-conditions.

"If you're ever sad, just remember the Earth is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie"

This has been making the rounds on Facebook following Bowie's recent death. It's pretty amazing, right? Except not really. Because while I could certainly calculate an infinitesimal probability that two human lifespans overlap in a 4.5 billion year window, that's simply not the right constraint for the claim. For one, humans, and written history of particular individuals, has only existed for a few thousand years. Already our odds are a million times better than before. Furthermore, such sentiments tend to come out right when someone well-known dies, in which case there's a 100% chance that anyone reading such a sentiment is alive at the same time. And therein lies a perhaps unintuitive truth: that we only perceive when we exist, so anything we perceive sets a very significant condition on any probability we might think about. If the problem is simply "what are the odds you're alive at the same time as a famous person who just died (or while they are alive)", the real odds are something, but the odds, to you, are 100%. You only perceive in the case where you are also alive, thus limiting the conditional probability significantly.

There are a number of similar realizations. A friend recently posted a picture of her great grandmother, along with the story behind the picture. It was taken to commemorate buying a ticket for the maiden voyage of a certain ship named the Titanic. Gram had gotten out of line to tend to something with the kids who were not on the ship, and by the time she'd gone back, boarding had completed and gates were closed. She missed the ship, and therefore the iceberg, due to unlikely random circumstances. My friend effectively was saying, "look how close I came to never being here". But in the same vein, had she never been born, she wouldn't know it. Alternatively, being born guarantees that the unlikely event did occur. Again, allowing for perspective alters the odds.

Another friend's grandfather flew on bombers during WW2. If I recall right, he was one of the first to successfully complete 25 missions without being maimed or killed. He then met a nice lady, they had a son who also met a nice lady, and my friend became. How lucky he is that his grandfather was one of the few who survived! This is essentially the lottery winner concept. Someone gets lucky, and only because they got lucky are they there to evaluate it. Sure they got the winning ticket, but the ones who didn't, never found out. They never even knew tickets were being passed out.

The notion of "how lucky I am to be here" is funny too. Every single one of us has defied great odds to be here. I myself am born to a father who would be dead at age 2 weeks had a Russian bomb detonated when it hit the next building, a mother who survived some serious lung problems as a child and capsizing into a stormy lake as a teen, a grandmother who had to walk through the raging winter to get away from incoming Russian troops, another grandmother was had been ordered shot if she tried to sneak the kids away, and two grandfathers who were POWs during WW2. Many others weren't so lucky; their prospective offspring are not around to ponder their unluckiness.

Some wonder how we, as a race, have defied cosmic odds to exist in this universe. Isn't it a miracle? Maybe, to some other observer. But to us, the only possible odds are 100%.

A week with an RDX

My wonderful little Acura RSX-S had to go to the doctor for a transplant. The seatbelt buckle wasn't quite right and was causing the airbag light to come on (which could end with the airbag not deploying, I suppose). This was diagnosed in 5 minutes by regular mechanic, but since he doesn't do warranty service and Acura of Bellevue ("AB") does, he sent me there to get it fixed.

I checked into AB on Dec 30. They told me they'd get back to me by the afternoon. They also quoted me an estimate of $144 for the service (which I hope won't be on my bill because, warranty). They were nice enough to give me a loaner: an Acura RDX. Not really my top choice, but whatever, it's for a day ... until AB called late Dec 30 to let me know that they'll need to replace the buckle and need to order the part. I'd have to keep the loaner until Jan 2. They then called me on Jan 2 to let me know that, just kidding, it won't be here til Jan 5.

Aside about AB: I had already told them the issue was diagnosed by my guy when I dropped the RSX off in the morning (actually, told them when I booked the appointment on Dec 22). It still took them a full day to diagnose it and get the part ordered (or at least I'm concluding that from when they called me). That delay could absolutely affect when the part gets in. I really wish there was some reference concept where they could have just ordered the buckle based on my guy's diagnosis even before I dropped the RSX off. Sure, they could spend some time to confirm it, but they'd be ready and we'd all be done by now. I'm still curious to see what happens with the $144 estimate, hopefully that will just disappear.

So now I've got this beast mobile for a week. I'm not a big-car guy, so this isn't really up my alley and thus I'm not going to looooove driving it around. But that's ok. I can still try and take an objective look at the car. Marisa immediately commented that it "is really nice to sit up high" and that "it looks really good in our garage". She also commented that the seats are really nice. That's all great. In fact, the car overall is hard to fault. The 279 peak hp and 252lb-ft peak torque drag its 3800 pounds around quite easily; acceleration is good for the most part, the engine sounds great. The seats are great, there's plenty of space and all that. The general interface is clean, things are where I'd expect them to be (though Hondas are pretty consistent car-to-car, so it could just be that I'm used to them). I personally don't love the whole navigation system center console thing, but that's me being generally grumpy about such things.

What about my quibbles? Sure, I find the following weird:
1. The shift lever for the auto has a button that you kinda pull up instead of pull back. Marisa and I both found it weird, but this is the kind of thing you get over by the 3rd time and stop thinking about.
2. The driver's side mirror's outer edge is curved to give a very wide angle of view, which is distracting because the edges of what you see in the mirror are heavily distorted.
3. The seat heaters (and the heater in general) take a while to get going. The seats in Marisa's Jetta, for example, will feel warm within 10 seconds. The RDX takes a couple minutes. The RDX also takes a minute or so to start blowing hot air. I think this is a philosophical thing with Honda; they don't want to add an electric heater to their HVAC? My RSX is also a little slow to get the heat blowing.
4. I don't like the material used for the steering wheel. It's too smooth and I'd worry it'd slip if my hands were sweaty. Marisa said the same.

Nothing terrible really, which is a lot more than I can say for some other cars I've driven around.
There is, however, one other thing and this surprised me because it seems so un-Honda. The transmission is slow. There's really no two ways about it: shifts take a long time. I noticed while driving it in D that while it has very nice acceleration once going (like from 30 to 50, or even from rolling to whatever), it's a little sluggish off the line. To debug this more, I popped it over into Sport mode and drove it around with the paddle shifters.

First, the car doesn't really like to stay in 1st gear if you're not flooring it. In my couple trials, it flipped over to 2nd around 3000 rpm (despite the 6500 rpm redline). As most people who drive stick can attest, cars get a little twitchy in 1st, so maybe this is ok. But, the shift takes about 1.5 seconds (whether I initiate the shift with the paddle or not):

Click (+) paddle, instantly see dash show next gear, wait 1.5 seconds, see RPMs actually move (meaning that's when the next gear was actually engaged). The same delay is present between every pair of gears. If you double-click the paddle, it won't show confirmation. The dash will show the next gear, then the gear will engage, then there's a little pause, then the dash shows the 2nd next gear, then that gear will engage. A double-click has an end-to-end runtime of about 4 seconds, with a distinct ambiguous middle zone before you know that the 2nd shift is coming.

This lead to a curious realization: the car would be better served without a 1st gear (or just have 1st be a 'low' gear, out of the way for usual driving). Sure, getting to 20 takes a touch longer, but there's enough torque that you can't remotely make full use of 1st anyways. 2nd isn't much slower, and it avoids one slow shift while getting up to normal speeds. I started just flipping the car into 2nd after stopping, and the driving experience was a lot better.