Author: Muttrox

Democrats like Conor Lamb and Doug Jones (over Roy Moore) are winning deep in “Trump Country” without talking a lot about Trump. They are talking about local issues. They are spending less time attacking Trump and more time talking about what they would do. They are not coming from the Bernie Sanders wing, they are coming more from the center, and often have positions at odds with the center of the left. The GOP was wildly exaggerating to claim that Conor Lamb won because he was a Democrat in Republican clothing, but the exaggeration has some truth. Around the country, Democrats are running candidates with strong military backgrounds and candidates who own and shoot guns.

This is a good thing. The country needs less partisan ideologues on both sides. The country needs less nutjobs blowing up America to get their party a slightly bigger portion of the leftover scraps. The country needs more people who defy stereotypes of a typical Republican or typical Democrat. The country needs less of each party making a name by blindly supporting/attacking the President. The country needs more people who represent the people of their district/state as well as their national party.

So a big Muttrox hurray for candidates who simply represent their own district.

While watching the excellent Tom vs. Time documentary, I was startled to find that Tom “gets it” with analytics. He really is the greatest of all time! I have been parts of lots of analytics projects and work that don’t result in any real-world application. Analytics is a means to end. If it’s not usable, don’t bother doing it.

This is exactly where businesses struggle. They have incredible amounts of data. They have a team of bright young gearheads. But somehow they can’t leverage all that the way they want. That’s where folks like me come in, to bring the data to life and get real value out of it.

I apologize for the brief digression to my professional life, we now return to your normally scheduled blog posts of Trump, the NBA, and 50-year old music.

I don’t get it.

Let’s take it as a given that everyone in Congress sees that Trump is unfit for office on multiple levels. They see and understand the real threat he poses for American democracy. None speak out. The only ones who have are a few retiring Senators (Corker, McCain, Flake).

Why none others? The most common explanation is that he is delivering on the major policies goals of the GOP. He is all-in with transferring wealth and power to the rich on multiple levels, and… well, you don’t need anymore. Whatever other heresies he may commit, that is the sine qua non of the modern Republican party. And he has done well with those goals. So why defy him.

And yet. The first senator to actively speak out against Trump will likely be rewarded. Trumps approval ratings are in the toilet, and even within the GOP he is not particularly popular. Particularly if a group of Senators (and/or Representatives) take an active opposition against him, they are likely to be catapulted up to national prominence.

Perhaps not. Perhaps they will simply be ground into dust by the Trump and Fox machine. But from a game theory standpoint, the reward is surely worth the risk. Going into 2020 as the opposition to Trump, from within the GOP, is a good place to be. It is not a sure winner, but it is a good shot at winning. That person would also be getting support throughout from Democrats and Independents who are desperate to see the anti-Trump movement get some legs. Even if they lose, they will have speaking fees and book sales for the rest of their life.

It seems like a good gamble. Forget policy and morals, from a strictly greedy venal game theory perspective, there should be a few Senators within the GOP looking to make their bones by resisting Trump. So why hasn’t it happened?

Dear voice tree programmers: Stop this. Just stop it now.

1. No one memorizes the numbers. When someone calls, they listen to the choices, they pick the one and proceed. No one dials the main number, then quickly starts punching in “3-7-*”.
2. Even if that’s wrong and people do memorize the sequence, it’s not a big deal. The cost of making a mistake is simply trying again. Or hitting zero.
3. The cost of this message on the other hand is a few seconds multiplied times a number with lots of zeros. Every single person, every single call, every single time.
4. Your menu hasn’t recently changed. It changed a long time ago. I don’t know your business, but I know this. You made the changes and it was a big deal for you, but no one else noticed or cares. And they shouldn’t. Well designed products don’t need to be explained.

Would you like to do something productive? Figure out a way for me to reach a human being more effectively. You can usually say, “Human. Representative. Operator. Help,” hit zero a few times, and one of those will trigger the system to find a human.

Some places with complicated backends try harder. They ask you to explain what you need so they can get you to the right department. That seems like a good thing, right? Except for that it demands more voice recognition and matching to pre-set phrases. If your need was standard though, you wouldn’t have tried to get a human. It is easy to get caught in loops where it doesn’t know what you want and keeps returning you to the top of the tree to try again. Cut it out. If I need a human, select a default choice that the system will point to if it can’t figure out what I want.

The Fur Wizard is different than other lint brushes. You see, instead of having the lint brush on one side, it has one on each side. That’s a total of two sides! Wow!

During the course of their ad touting all the amazing things this brush can do, they say this (around 0:20):

Fur Wizard is faster because of the double-sided action. It cleans up twice as much in half the time of other lint brushes!

No. With two sides, it can do the work in half the time, or twice the work in the same amount of time. You only get credit for doubling the output, you don’t get to quadruple it.

And can it even double the output? Hardly. Remember, the two brushes are on opposite sides, you can’t use them simultaneously.

Can it really do twice the work in the same amount of time? Hard to see how. Since you can’t use the brushes at the same time, two lint brushes are going to get the same amount of lint up in the same amount of time. If one is two-sided, maybe you need to clean it less often, but that’s hardly going to do double the work.

Can it really do the same work in half the time? Hard to see how. I guess you can gather twice as much lint up before you need to clean the brush, but that’s hardly going to halve the time.

Their claim is absurd. And by the way, the Fur Wizard costs there are plenty of two-sided lint brushes out there. Amazon and Walmart have them for $7.

Slow people who won’t stay on the inside irritate me. But this kills me every time.

The track is 19 laps to a mile. 19. A prime number. It makes it impossible to easily run quarter-miles, half-miles, any interval smaller than a mile. It also doesn’t divide into kilometers. For a numbers guy like me, this is torture.

Additionally, the track is small enough that the inside and outside are significantly different lengths. Is the outer edge 19 to a mile, or the inner edge? Yes, I asked the staff. No, they had no idea. Yes, they looked at me funny.

I am seriously considering driving twenty minutes further to go the next YMCA, whose track is eighteen to a mile, a nice abundant number.

 

At my local YMCA, slower people are to stay on the inside of the track. There is a clearly posted sign.

I do walk/sprint intervals and need to dodge around folks when I run. The last two sessions the same woman has been briskly walking, sticking to the outside of the track. The first time as I passed her, I turned around, got her attention, and pointed at the sign.

Yesterday she was back, and still on the outside of the track. This time I got her attention and told her, “Please stick to the inside, like the sign says.”

A couple of laps later she got my attention. This gem of a conversation ensued.

Her: I’m sorry, but I just wanted to explain what’s going on. I did see the sign. I try to stay out of the way when you’re coming around

Me: Well ok, but –

Her: I can only get here for a little while. I drop off the kids and have to get to work, there isn’t much time. I do it this way to get as many steps as I can.

Me: I understand, thanks for explaining, as long as you’re aware and moving out when I come around, no big deal.

 

And I put my headphones back on and jogged away. Two seconds later, I realized what I had just heard. She does it to get more steps in!? That doesn’t make any sense at all!

The Patriots lost to the Eagles last night. Darn shame. As usual, a couple plays here and there made the difference. The Patriots tried a sneaky pass to Tom Brady, it bounced off his fingers. The Eagles tried a sneaky pass to Nick Foles, he caught it for a touchdown. In the end, the better team won. The MVP of the game was really the Eagles front office and coaching staff. They are deep, versatile, aggressive, and smart. The smarts and aggression paid off with 4th down conversions. They deserved it.

And yet — I can’t help but wonder. Would it have been different with Brandin Cooks playing? And Malcolm Butler, why on earth wasn’t he used once? And of course, losing Julian Edelman for the entire season.

Oh well. We’ll get ’em next year. And knowing the Patriots, that’s very likely true!

I recently listed a few ways to improve the NBA. Here are a few more.

1. Get rid of jump balls. Use the possession clock. This has been used in college for a long time and it works. It is fair. It is easy. It is tested. Jump balls are hard to administer. And the less time players have to drill on jump balls, the more they can focus on basketball skills that matter. This is long overdue.
2. The referees should be allowed to fraternize with players much more. They have very strict non-contact rules. There’s no reason players can’t have relationships with referees. It’s good for the game for them to know each other. There wouldn’t be so much bad blood between players and referees if they could actually talk to each other outside of the game.
3. Enough with the suits. Basketball coaches aren’t CEOs. They should be able to dress how they want. One of the best parts of basketball is that you can see the players, and you can see how they express their personalities. That is a feature, not a bug! Coaches should be able to loosen up also.Frank Leyden is what a coach should look like:
   
   Larry Brown (The modfather):
   Pete Carril:
   John Chaney:

(This was written two weeks ago, it was somehow lost and been rewritten from memory)

As Trump was taking office, I laid out the crucial things to keep an eye on. There are so many bad things, you need to step back and get a fuller perspective.
(I use Trump and the GOP interchangeably, since many of these trends predate Trump and the GOP has not pushed back on Trump in any meaningful way.)

Existential Threat to Human Existence: Nuclear Annihilation: Grade of C.

Trump has continually escalated the stakes. He’s given North Korea and other countries incentives to continue developing nuclear weapons. He’s undermined NATO. He has destroyed the State Department and dismisses any diplomatic means to achieve ends.
However, the rhetoric is worse than the reality. Particularly on North Korea, outside of the crazy tweets he has been pretty reasonable and continued the same policies of that last several presidents.

Existential Threat to Human Existence: Global Warming: Grade of F.

“On all of Earth, there is only major political party that denies the existence of global warming and the role of humans in it. That is the Republican party of The United States of America.” Nothing has changed in the last year. Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement as expected. He has fully denied the science. Where once he seemed fuzzy on his beliefs, he has hardened into a complete denier.

Trump and the GOP get a F, but America as a whole is doing much better that that. Many states, municipalities, companies and citizen groups have accelerated efforts, essentially ignoring The White House. Many of the trends that were reinforced under Obama continue (for instance the price of solar energy continues to decrease).

All told, the threats to human existence are real, and Trump and the GOP have worsened the odds of our continued existence as a species, but all told, it could be much worse. Yay?

Threats to American Democracy

America under control by a foreign power: D

Despite the overwhelming evidence and common sense, Trump refuses to believe that Russia meddled in the election. His circle is apparently afraid to even raise the topic. You don’t have to believe that Trump is personally allied with the Russians to see the real threat. They tampered in the 2016 election, and Trump would likely not be president without their interference. Their clear goal is to undermine American democracy. They are continuing to tamper, will interfere with the 2018 elections, and there is no real push back of any kind. It is staggering that this treason is allowed, but that’s the GOP at work. They are only saved from flunking because Sessions recused himself and the investigations are continuing.

Corruption of the presidency: F
Trump, his “foundation”, and his family continue to profit personally from the Presidency. Two years ago, the behaviors would have been unspeakable, now it just seems like normal background noise. Here is a fairly random summary of just the last couple weeks.

Interestingly, Trump has consistently said that if Mueller investigates his personal finances (as he of course will), he will fully retaliate. This is consistent with his otherwise bewildering refusal to release his tax information. The only question is whether he resists because he is actually poor or actually a crook.

Partisanship above country: F
Trump himself doesn’t seem to accept that he is the President of all Americans. He is there to serve his base and has no interests in bettering the world for others. In rhetoric and policy he continually goes after anyone not ‘on his team’. Out of many example, nothing stands out as much as the President essentially refusing to help American citizens in Puerto Rico because… because… you fill in the end of that sentence.
The behavior of the Republican Congress and media have been much worse. The framers saw the three branches of government and the press battling against each other in checks and balances. That is no longer how it works. The Republican party is a united front across all branches. A GOP congress supports the GOP President and vice versa. They cheat to get GOP justices (How’s Merrick Garland doing?). They have their own propaganda media operation devoted to their party. The only Republicans speaking out against Trump are the ones who are retiring. Everything bad in this summary is a reflection of a political party that has no morals, has no red line, has no “at long last have you no shame” moment.

Degradation of facts and free-speech: F
Trump is a liar. He is a liar of historic proportions. He has not suffered consequences, he will continue to lie. He will continue to blur the idea of truth as an objective reality apart from partisan interests.
I almost hope Trump does somehow manage to loosen the libel laws, and the next day is sued into poverty.

Overall Grade: D.
One year ago most of the world held it’s breath. A year later, the best you can say is that humanity will probably get through this.

Sons of Anarchy had some pretty good songs on it. Here are two cover versions I particularly like:

Lyle Workman & The Forest Rangers did this very soulful instrumental version of Fortunate Son.

Other good covers include Hey, Hey, My, My, Gimme Shelter, Someday Never Comes, and (below) White Buffalo’s version of House of the Rising Sun. Enjoy!

Sons of Anarchy.. not the greatest show by a long shot, but one out of every three episodes seemed tighter with better flow and structure. Wonder why?

That’s our wacky president!
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” And he added that the United States should admit more people from places like Norway.

Let’s unpack this:
1. He used vile profanity. Not a big deal. Plenty of presidents used salty language. This one is predictably much more coarse. It is not surprising and not important.
2. He thinks we should have more immigrants from prosperous first world countries, countries kinda like us. Not much wrong with that either, or at least it is easily defensible.
3. The people from these countries are not the same as these countries. There is something wrong here. Not everyone from a country represents that country, and Haiti’s poverty corruption and hopelessness shouldn’t condemn any of their people.
4. What is truly sad is the complete and utter lack of empathy. The idea of immigration as something we do for someone else is completely foreign (ha ha) to Trump. Refugees are losers. He genuinely feels that people born in the wrong circumstances brought it upon themselves. He seems utterly confused at the rationale for allowing folks in. It is the complete antithesis of the words on the Statue of Liberty.
The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!

President Trump said (tweeted) later:

The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!

I agree fully. Except the outlandish proposal was from Trump.