For dragon enthusiasts
DU keeps serving what they call ‘chicken carnitas’ or ‘turkey carnitas.’
I don’t want to offend so I don’t say anything, but sometimes if it’s a Spanish-speaker serving when I order ‘chicken carnitas’, they look at me sideways.
Look, you work here! Don’t give me that. It’s your sign!
They spice it up really well, so I’m happy.
I saw a story about Masatoshi Koshiba today. I’d heard about him but never really looked into his life. Interesting guy. Helped discover the neutrino, which will be a big deal in 100 yrs.
The thing I like about this guy is that apparantly someone told him he couldn’t hack physics so he dropped a German Literature major and became a physicist. Big thumbs up. I did something similar many years ago.
Weather is the day to day state of meteorological conditions. Climate is the statistics thereof.
Say you want to know how much you weigh. You might weigh yourself on a bathroom scale. You’ll get a number. That’s like the weather.
But if you do this, you’ll notice your weight changes throughout the day. If you want to get an idea of what’s going on, you should weigh yourself regularly in the same situation. An often passed around bit of advice is weigh yourself in the morning before a shower (if you’re a morning showerer, etc.). That way your hair isn’t wet, you’re consistently dehydrated, and the weight will be comparable. The long term trends in these weights are similar to climate.
But if you weigh yourself sixty times in the hour after eating Thanksgiving Dinner, you’re not getting better numbers than the sixty weights over sixty days that preceded Thanksgiving. You are, at best, getting good data for that moment, but not data well comparable to two months. If you weigh yourself every minute every day for another sixty days, those data sets can be compared well. One must do some manipulation to compensate for the morning weighing being probably a daily low-weight average, whereas the weigh-every-minute data points will average higher.
In climate studies, the doing of this, comparing a weigh-every-minute data set to the weigh-once-a-morning-before-shower data set, gave rise to the corrections incorporated into the hockey-stick graph. But comparisons between weigh-every-minute data sets and weigh-every-second data sets do not. This is because one’s weight does vary over the course of a day, it doesn’t vary much over the course of a second.
What’s really happening is that now we’re in a take-a-billion-measurements-a-second climate data set, and we’re comparing it to last decade’s take-a-million-measurements-a-second data set. It’s a different set of correction issues.
I remember once talking climate studies with some climate-change skeptics, and they brought up the solar cycle. The solar cycle is a real thing. It’s absolutely there. Its got a 11 year period, and it falls right out of the data. It does exist.
But if you look across decades, plural, you’ve got repeated solar cycles. And those are like multiple days in our earlier body-weight analogy. Yes, gaining body weight across the day isn’t an indicator of gaining body weight due to health decisions. But gaining body weight across many days, and the morning weighings trending consistently up, is.
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On a very different but closely related thought, suppose we measure something. We compare that measurement to some criteria.
If we measure humankind’s contribution to the wildfires, and we measure above two units, our first criteria indicates humankind is contributing to causing wildires. If we measure ten units, our criteria indicates humankind is the sole cause of wildfires.
We measure four units.
That would indicate humankind is doing something, and depending on accuracy, precision, yadda yadda, that might be a comfortable margin to be sure we aren’t getting measuring error. We can safely conclude that humankind is contributing to wildfire incidence.
But we didn’t measure above ten, and commensurate with those same limitations of accuracy, precision, and the yaddas, we cannot claim this study supports the notion that humankind is the sole cause of wildfires.
We measured four. Not one, not eleven, not something else. We got what we got.
Competition is good for everyone but you. If other people are competing against each other, that’s great! If they’re competing against you, that’s bad.
In the short term.
Some day I will be able to wash my dishes without looking like I need a refresher class on potty training.
But today is not that day.
Boeing received clearance for the Max to fly again.
This is what worries me:
“This airplane is the most scrutinized airplane in aviation history,” Dickson told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. “The design changes that are being put in place completely eliminate the possibility of an accident occurring that is similar to the two accidents.” [bolding mine, from here]
That rhymes with an unsinkable Titanic.
The advantage to the gold standard isn’t that control of the money supply lies with miners. It’s that there is a limit on the Federal Reserve’s power over the money supply.
The problems with the gold standard are all various renumerations of two points: A) that power will lie with miners and B) the Fed won’t have it.
I’m not terribly impressed with the Fed. They’re far more culpable in the GFC than they admit. Autocratic regimes across the globe often fail to respond to tragedies, deny responsibility after causing problems, and that’s it. Neither is answerable to voters. Neither wants to admit a problem, because if they admit a problem and don’t fix it, they lose face. And that’s what leads to catastrophic outcomes in single-party municipalities, collapsing states (nation- and United), and cults. The Fed is an unanswerable technocracy effectively immune to the court system. I suppose Powell can’t be considered an autocrat, but oligarch seems to fit the bill.
I would like to see some kind of check and balance on the Fed, and CBs as a whole, and I don’t think the current system of governors and directors who can only be fired for cause is sufficient. Which leads back to the gold standard.
The basic issue about being honestly wrong is that without some form of competition, being wrong doesn’t carry a sting. It’s an issue with fraud, and that very often it is impossible to prove someone acted with malice instead of incorrectness. If you have a vote or vote surrogate, like choosing to root for another team or taking your money elsewhere, someone who is consistently wrong can’t win. But I don’t think we should legally punish people for being wrong, or at least not without other factors. One of the advantages to democracy is if you don’t like someone, Alice, you can vote for the other one, Bob. But you don’t elect Fed governors, and the process by which they’re picked is so obscure as to insulate them from public consequences of their actions. They’re all rich to begin with.
Between 2004 and 2006, a little over two years, the Fed took the interest rate from about 1% to 5.25%, a relative increase of about 425%. They did that in just over two years, and the typical turn around for property loans is at least three. Often it’s five. That’s like a sports car break-checking a semi. Yeah, the semi shouldn’t follow so closely the semi can’t stop in time, but the sports car driver is culpable too.
I’m not for the gold standard, but I understand.
Miroveha left kudos on Sauron Explains It All. Thank you very much. I do like each and every one of those.
There are these things called differential equations. They’re very common everywhere. They haven’t really penetrated the general consciousness of economics though, and that’s leading to the low interest rate problem.
Suppose something is related to and directly caused by something else. I have a scale. On the scale is a basket. I put apples in the basket and read the scale. There are no strings or springs or other weird stuff, and each apple weighs half a pound (a little more than 200-ish grams). I zero out the weight of the basket.
The output of the scale, the numbers on the display, is a function of the number of apples in the basket. If I put one apple in the basket, the scale will read 1/2 pound. Two apples: 1 pound. Three apples: 1 1/2 pounds. Etc. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and this isn’t a trick example. This is called a function, and in math terms, we would write f(x) = y where y is what the scale display displays, and x is the number of apples. So again, x=1, y=1/2, because each apple weighs half a pound. It’s exactly what it sounds like.
Every human being on Earth with a scale knows how this works. The trick is that a function doesn’t have to take inputs that are so concrete. The function input can be time, and that’s the real kicker.
Suppose you’ve got a house with a rain barrel (a rain barrel is just a barrel under the drain spout so when rain falls on the roof, it runs into the gutters, from the gutters it runs into the drain spout, and the drain spout empties into the rain barrel. Rain barrels usually have a lid on them so when it’s not raining, the water in the barrel can’t evaporate away. So all the water in the barrel comes from the drain spout). Now suppose it rains. Every second, some water is going to fall into the rain barrel through the drain spout. Suppose it’s not raining that hard, so every second a quart of water (a little less than a liter) runs down the drainspout into the barrel. One could write that as a function, f(x) = y where y is the total water in the barrel, and x is time in seconds.
One would need to pay attention to whether or not there was any water in the barrel to begin with, as well as whether or not the rain is constant. If it starts raining harder, the function f will change. If it lightens up, it will change the other way. Wind and temp may change things as well, as would the roof springing a leak. We’re going to ignore all of that for the moment.
But the basic math is pretty simple and intuitive. If one quart a second is pouring into the barrel, after one second, the barrel will have one quart. After two seconds, it will have two quarts. Three seconds: three quarts. Etc. Again, this is exactly what you think it is.
Now suppose the rain is getting harder. It started out with a drizzle, and the rain got steadily harder and harder. Maybe in the first second 0.1 quarts poured out the drain spout. In the next second, 0.2 quarts poured out. Third second: 0.3 quarts. So on and so forth. Obviously the function f will be changing. Initially, if nothing else changes, the math will just get more complicated. There may be more steps, but those steps will just be more of the same. You might have some multiplication or something, maybe a few more multiplications, but the math is basically the same kind of math, you’re just doing more of it. It is a little easier to make a mistake or forget to carry the one, but it’s generally the same stuff.
Here’s how to think about it: there’s only one function. That function may change, but there’s only one function. So the amount of rain that pours into the barrel between second 0 and second 1 might be different than between second 8 and second 9, but it’s just one function.
Now imagine the roof has two parts. One part is a little higher than the other. They’re connected, but each part of the roof has it’s own drainspout. For simplicity, say both spouts feed into the same barrel. We could easily write two functions, f and g, where f is the lower roof and g is the upper roof.
With me?
If the two roofs are separate, things are a little more complicated but not much. You just have to keep track of two functions. Maybe the upper roof is a little bigger than the other, more area, so it drains more water. So g(x) is a little bigger than f(x) at the same time. But as long as the rooves are separate we still only have two functions, and they don’t depend on each other. They are separate, the functions are ‘separable’ (math term), and again, you might have a little more math to do, but the math is all pretty straight forward.
Bad news. We didn’t clean the drainspout. It’s clogged. The upper drainspout g will carry some water, but if too much water lands on the upper roof, it overflows and spills onto the lower roof, and goes out the lower drainspout, f.
We now have a differential equation.
A differential equation is (often) non separable. You can’t talk about f(x) without talking about g(x). The ‘difference’ is inherent to the equation, hence ‘differential equation.’ The word differential means ‘showing a difference.’
Interest rates are what banks charge you or each other when they lend you or each other money. These interest rates change with time. That’s what it sounds like too. So last year, I got quoted a mortgage rate of 4.7% in Denver, CO, and earlier this year, I got quoted 3.7%. The interest is a function of time. Remember that f(x)=y? Same deal. The interest rate is y, and the x is time in years, but that’s the same as seconds, just with bigger numbers.
CHANGE in interest rates would be written as f'(x). See that little single quote? It’s called a prime, and it means we’re talking about how interest rates change. F'(x) is called the first derivative of f(x).
If we talk about how the water coming out of the drainspout changes with time, we’re talking about the first derivative. Since we aren’t talking about any derivatives, we can just call f'(x) the derivative. If it starts raining harder, f(x) goes up which means f'(x) is positive. If it starts raining lighter, f(x) goes down which means f'(x) is negative. See how that works? A negative f'(x) doesn’t mean the rain is going back up the drain spout. I guess that is possible, but it’s not what we’re doing here. A negative f'(x) means less water is coming out the drainspout every second, and a positive derivative (f'(x)) means more water is coming out the drainspout every second. If the derivative is zero, the amount of water coming out the drainspout isn’t changing. That’s why the derivative is called the rate of change.
Back to interest rates, the rate of change in interest rates has been negative in Denver over the last year. They went down. Last year I got quoted 4.7% and now I got quoted 3.7%. (I’m trying to figure out a way to make this work, but I’m a grad student and I have no money. Buy Mara, please. Pretty please. I wanna buy a house, or at least a condo)
If interest rates go up, the rate of change is positive. If interest rates go down, the rate of change is negative.
Still with me?
It’s sort of like running long distance. It’s simple to understand, but doing it is hard.
Negative interest rate changes, f'(x), are good for the economy. Negative interest rates, f(x), are bad. If f'(x) is negative, economy good! If f(x) is negative, economy bad. Conversely, if f'(x) is positive, economy bad. If f(x) is positive, well, actually there’s a middle ground that’s good but if they get too high, that’s bad too.
This is the problem. Cutting rates, what the Central Banks are addicted to, is good, but the problem is that cutting rates, making f'(x) negative, results in low actual rates, f(x), and that’s terrible. That’s tanking Japan, trying to tank Europe, and is a terrible concern in the US. Yes, in the short term, if you’re going from high rates to low, the cutting is good for the economy. But in the long term you get stuck with low rates, almost a decade now for Europe and longer for Japan, and it kills the economy. It kills the banks, and bank health is the poop of an economy. You may not like it, but if the poop is unhealthy, everything’s unhealthy.
But economics as a whole doesn’t recognize that these two things, f'(x) and f(x), affect the health of the economy differently. F'(x) negative is good, so central banks, CBs, keep cutting. But then f(x) is low, and there’s no way out. The lower bound of zero is a little fuzzy, so Europe can go -0.5% or so, but they can’t hit -3% or every bank in the continent will explode. And so they’re stuck, because they can’t go back any more and low interest rates plus a positive interest change (f(x) and f'(x) respectively) are both bad for the economy.
The best thing that happened for the US during the Trump administration, and the reason we outperformed the EU and Japan, was the Fed (US CB) raised interest rates off the floor starting in 2016. But they cut again with the pandemic, and now we’re stuck again.
Runge-Kutta is the best name in computational mathematics.