Dr. Jill Biden

On Saturday, December 13th, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Joseph Epstein that ignited a firestorm of criticism for being sexist and misogynist. In the piece he calls First Lady-elect Dr. Jill Biden "kiddo" and argued that she should stop using the "Dr." title in front of her name.

I thought Chasten Buttigieg's Tweeted response said what needed to be said succinctly with a dash of humor: The author could’ve used fewer words to just say “ya know in my day we didn’t have to respect women.”

(Follow up reporting found that Epstein who described himself as having taught for 30 taught from 1974 till 2002 years at Northwestern University's English department as a visiting adjunct lecturer.  see: wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Epstein_(writer))   

Typo and Nobody To Whine To

 

The article, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-been-years-since-investors-have-been-this-fearful-of-a-stock-market-crash-nobel-prize-winning-economist-warns-11603685224, discussed a NY Times Op-Ed by Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's observation that his Crash Confidence Index was flashing warning signs.,  In addition, the Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings (CAPE) ratio was in territory not seen except the lead-up to the Great Depression and just before dot-com bubble burst.

In my own version of flagellation, I checked finanace.yahoo.com, then assumed the fetal position and turned the electric blanket up to 9.   (The last phrase was stolen from a Limelighter's recording.)

Ever the pedantic, the sentence "Shiller also pointed to the Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings (CAPE) ratio, a measure he helped created." jumped out at me.  While I'm not confident enough in my English grammar to explain why this is not correct, I know enough to know that it is not correct.

A brief attempt to contact the author through the Marketwatch webs site was frustrating because it required filling in text boxes which didn't exist on the form.  I took a chance on searching for the author by name.  Even though I misspelled his name, Rocket Reach (rocketreach.co) found some probably email address sites, but without the name part.  Sigh.

Kitchen Sink Drain Mat

 The plastic coded wire rack in my kitchen sink has rusted through and left stains on the porcelain and told me in no uncertain terms that it was time for a replacement.  

In my 21^st Century it means asking someone the name of the object followed by a web search.  In the end I found a rubber mat at a discount store for $2.99.  ($3.25 if you add in the tax.)

Just before I put the mat in the sink I took a closer look.  It's something I've done more and more for ideas for my Engineering Drawing course.  This I imagine is similar to musicians looking for patterns and inspiration in sounds I'd never remember.  For me everyday objects get a brief consideration as a homework or exam problem.   (The latest midterm had a variant on COVID-19 icon.)

I realized that the lines of holes in the mat were not orthogonal (perpendicular to the sides), but at a slight angle.  And then there were the ridges.  Could I actually ask the students to do that in 3D, or more importantly, could I?

And with that I was off on a 2¹/₄ hour jaunt through AutoCAD land.  Here's the result:

This is the type of drawing which, in the past, I would say makes the world a safer place for democracy by keeping the students off the streets.  

Market Up a Little/Excess Cash

The announcer on NPR this morning said that the market was up "a little". The market was up over 200 points!

It makes me wonder yet again what the bleep is happening in this world. With unemployment somewhere near 10% (and higher among Blacks), the service economy in the toilet, and parents and student anxious about returning to school, why is the market up?

Wall Street pundits repeat the mantra, "Wall Street is not Main Street" often enough to explain why the price of a stock going up when a large company announces yet another huge round of layoff. The company has just reduced expenses why shouldn't the profits increase?

I stumbled over a description of Benjamin Graham forcing Northern Pipeline Company to distribute its "excess cash" to shareholders in 1927. The idea of excess cash is interesting for several reason, one of which is how one decides what excess is. 

 At one time in the mythological economic past the stakeholders involved the company, the stockholders, the employees, and communities. If one imagines communities where most of the jobs were dependent on a local employer you get the idea. The owner and his family had to face employees in the town.  There was responsibility and face and pride involved.

Change that to a board in a far off city who feel beholden only to shareholders and the difference becomes in focus to the detriment of the workers.

Why should employees feel a loyalty to a company whose only loyalty is to the faceless group who bought their stock?

Algorithmic Failure

Anyone who's been on the web recognizes that something is being tracked, otherwise why do the same ads for that thing keep showing up on different web sites? 

In my case I usually see ads for watches.  I often click on watch ads and announcements to see if there's something interesting.  Watch mechanisms fascinate me.  Just recently I noted that some new watches don't have crown guards.  

That there are watch rental web sites is fascinating.  I read a piece where a journalists felt he got an exclusive interview because the person spotted an expensive (rental) watch and deduced that the journalist was someone important/influential enough to warrant more consideration.

With that said about watches I wear one I got for $1 at a tag sale (and $10 more getting the battery replaced).  It tells time and suits me just fine. This is what it should look like, except that some of the bezel paint has flaked off mine.  (I probably could have bought one new for the same cost, but hey, I didn't know that then and I needed a watch.)

 So after that diversion about watches, what should show up as an ad on a comic site but an eBay ad for an "Advanced Aquaduck, Duck Puller Tool, Stainless Steel Tip, One Piece Shaft" a steal at a little over $50

and a "23 pcs Cup Type Aluminium Oil Filter Wrench Removal Socket Remover Tool Set Kit" for under $40.

Why?

My guess is that I was on eBay looking for something like the snow mobile boots I remembered from years ago.  Did that mark me as a man's man who needed tools?  

Perhaps you can boost your ego by searching for condominiums costing more than $2M.  My curiosity  about the cost of used Maserati resulted in those ads to popping up for several weeks.  (One of my students said, yeah, the price is reasonable, but the maintenance will kill you.  I take his word for it.)

Should we be annoyed or flattered if an algorithm is literally targeting us with ads suitable for a higher socio-economic class?  Forget about crows feet, varicose veins, and other signs of aging, Viking Cruise ads appearing in your feed signal that it's time to update your will.

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Mad Rush

Setting for a long session of grading and responding to students end-of-semeseter anguish, I turned to Philip Glass's performance of "Mad Rush" in Montreal (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q0G0-9E5SE).  In the comments echo_delta wrote: "Somebody's soul is invisible, but sometimes you can hear it.", a phrase I hope to remember. 

For some though,  you  can feel it.