Monday, July 31, 2017

Follow-up: Perfect being the enemy of the good

Good WSJ article.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-seeks-to-reduce-nicotine-levels-in-cigarettes-to-nonaddictive-levels-1501253894

The FDA wants to regulate nicotine levels to make them non addictive.  Also they will start encouraging people to switch to less dangerous products such as e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.

People have noted that low nicotine products have been tried before and didn't make the market.  I suspect that's because they tried going to 0 nicotine.  Instead they should work like the patch and have different levels of nicotine.  Note that e-cigarettes have varying levels of nicotine available.  I suspect regular cigarettes have the levels of nicotine carefully set in order to satisfy the customer.

In some ways this is a bit like coffee and caffeine and such.  We have regular coffee and we have decaf.  I think if coffee caused cancer we would be having similar discussions.  The only thing that's a bit strange is if we have cigarettes that have no nicotine, wouldn't smoking them still cause cancer, since it's not the nicotine that's cancerous, it's the smoking part.

Plus I don't think we've yet drawn a lot of light on the addictive qualities of caffeine.  People need to get their fix in the morning, it's a stimulant, there are withdrawal symptoms, etc.  Like drug use there's all sorts of paraphernalia for making coffee, etc.  The similarities are quite close!  Apparently the thing that gets us all up in arms is intoxication which is the only thing missing in the caffeine.  Although I know some people who become somewhat aggressive after having a few cups of coffee, perhaps like a lighter version of somebody going nuts on crack.

Will be interesting to see how this all goes with the nicotine levels and harm reduction with other product uses.  I think the tobacco companies will thrive and will adjust to this quite nicely.  I think they've seen this coming for years (not that they are prescient but I think they have noticed rightly so that these other products are less harmful).

Friday, July 28, 2017

Follow-up: Tech Giants

Recent Op-Ed in the WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/article_email/tech-giants-see-how-the-mighty-have-fallen-1500677602-lMyQjAxMTI3MjI1MzEyNjMyWj/

There was recent concern about Artificial Intelligence causing widespread loss of jobs.  A reader noted that there was a similar panic in the 1990's where people feared that computers would replace teachers in the classroom.  Instead, the widespread use of technology in education has revitalized curriculum, teaching, and learning.  Technology remains an important tool to advance and transform the nature of human work.

Perfect being the enemy of the good

Great WSJ article - https://www.wsj.com/article_email/big-tobacco-finds-surprise-allies-in-smokeless-push-1500629402-lMyQjAxMTI3MjI5MzEyMzM0Wj/?mg=prod/accounts-wsj

Many scientists agree that moist, smokeless tobacco, including chewing and dipping tobacco, is significantly less harmful than cigarettes. But rather than encouraging the country’s 37 million smokers to switch to less-risky products, U.S. health officials have so far stuck with an abstinence-only message to the public.
Online fact sheets published by the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute list multiple health risks associated with smokeless tobacco—including cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and pancreas—but give no indication it is less harmful than cigarettes. “There is no safe form of tobacco,” the cancer institute says on its website.

I think we have an all or nothing tendency which can be harmful.  This is another case of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

The Robots!

Laurie Penny noted in Wired Aug 2017, P014 that

A recent Oxford study predicted that 70 percent of US construction jobs will disappear in the coming decades.

Makes you wonder what construction jobs were like before large yellow metal machines were used to dig big holes and pour concrete.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Paleo Mainfesto

Diet ideas from the Paleo Manifesto.

Make Broths and Stocks.
Eat Fermented Foods.  Sauerkraut, Kimchi, pickles, kombucha, full-fat Greek yogurt, aged cheeses.  Avoid sterilized fermented foods.
Use traditional animal fats, beef fat, lard, butter (Kerrygold, Irish grass-fed butter).  Healthy plant oils include coconut and olive oil.  Avoid industrial vegetable oil such as canola or soybean oil.
Eat a variety of colors, different color plants have different chemical compounds.
Eat Eggs.
Eat Liver.  Duck liver pate is affordable and an easy way to get liver into the diet without having to cook it.
Eat Oily Cold Water Fish.  Mackerel, sardines, herring, anchovies.
Eat Seaweed.
White Rice is OK.
Drink Tea
Alcohol is OK


Avoid industrial foods, things made in a factory, contain lots of ingredients and that don't spoil. 
Avoid sugar, vegetable oils, cereal grains.
Avoid Cereal Grains.  Seeds have toxic proteins designed to pass through mammal digestive tract intact and dispersed and covered in manure for fertilized growth.  Toxic proteins are more heavily concentrated in the outer shell, the bran.
Avoid Legumes, which are grain-like seeds.  Soybeans, peanuts, lentils, peas, alfalfa, any variety of beans.  They have similar defenses like wheat.  White rice is OK.
Avoid nuts and seeds, almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, like grains and legumes.
Avoid Potentially Problematic Foods, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, potatoes.
Avoid fruit juices with added sugar.

Interesting note, Wheat contains opioid peptides and make eating wheat enjoyable, addictive, and difficult to stop.

Friday, July 21, 2017

Get Smart!

smartmontools are awesome!


Get status of a drive:

smartctl -a /dev/sda

USB connected drive:


smartctl -d sat,12 -a /dev/sdb


Run a quick test:


smartctl -d sat,12 -t short /dev/sdb

Run a more in-depth test:


smartctl -d sat,12 -t long /dev/sdb


Sunday, July 9, 2017

Your License Please!

Great article in Barron's by Gene Epstein, July 10, 2017, P. 27.

Paraphrasing:

The pressure on legislature to license doesn't come from the public but the members of the occupation. (Milton Friedman).  55 years later two other commentators observe licensing having negative effect on employment (since it restricts access to the field).  It's also the case that occupational licensing "widens the gap between rich and poor by squelching employment opportunities at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, and by inflating the compensation of highly skilled professionals at the top of that scale."  (The Captured Economy, How the Powerful Become Richer, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality, by Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles).

No study has been done on degree to which occupational licensing has widened income inequality but we do know that since 1970, the share of workers subject to licensing has jumped from 10% to almost 30%.  There are lots of occupations paying reasonably well which people at the low end might normally be able to fill with minimal on-the-job training, but they may be out of reach due to money and time required for the license - beauticians, manicurists, barbers, preschool teachers, athletic trainers, gambling dealers, bartenders, massage therapists, interior designers, and florists.

Those who defend licenses confuse it with branding, meaning branding makes us better-informed consumers.  Private market already performs this in various ways, online evaluations for example.  The advantage of branding is the market doesn't place restrictions on people's right to enter a field.

Studies of licensing show little connection between quality and licenses.  Louisiana requires florists to be licensed which Texas doesn't.  An experiment involving florists from both states revealed no difference between floral-arranging skills of the licensed professions vs. unlicensed.  That's because licensing is mainly about barriers to entry, not enhancing skill.  

I agree with this but I would be concerned about skills at the higher end professions.  Licensing does force you to keep up with studies and updates that normally would languish.  Also, some things might lack adequate oversight or market pressure to weed out inferior people (sounds like I don't believe in market efficiency in some fringe cases) whereas routine testing or re-licensing should help that.  But I definitely do agree that there are some professions requiring licensing that are just way too much nanny state.


Also somewhat related from the Editorial Commentary by Thomas W. Hazlett
The Radio Act of 1927, the brainchild of then-secretary of commerce Herber Hoover, created a regulatory regime for carefully parceling out airwaves according to a "public interest" standard.  It was said to be necessary to prevent chaos - "etheric bedlam."
In fact, it was not.  Rather, it reflected Washington politics that favored incumbent interests - the first few visionaries who opened radio stations and enjoyed commercial success.  The scheme hamstring competition and flummoxed innovators for generations"