Tag: FAIL

From the Department of About F%$#ing Time

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 The State of Ohio has ordered GM to tax incentives for a factory that it has closed. 

A better idea is not to pay these bribes to the gods of capital in the first place:

The state of Ohio on Monday ordered General Motors to repay $28 million in public subsidies for reneging on its promise to keep its sprawling Lordstown plant open.

The automaker, which had pledged to keep operations going until 2040, closed its assembly plant last October, drawing criticism from elected officials in both political parties, including President Donald Trump. At the time, GM cited the collapsing market for small cars; Lordstown produced the compact Chevrolet Cruze.

But state officials said the closure violated the terms of two economic development agreements GM signed with Ohio more than a decade ago. Between 2009 and 2016, the company received more than $60 million in tax credits to maintain operations at the massive plant, which employed over 4,000 people.

On Monday, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority said GM must pay back roughly half of those tax benefits, as well as provide an additional $12 million in community support in the Mahoning Valley, the economically depressed region where the plant was located. The funds are targeted for education and job training at Youngstown State University and other colleges, community programs and infrastructure projects.

………

Although the clawback falls short of the total $60.3 million that GM received, the state’s action is significant, said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit agency that tracks corporate subsidies and violations.

“The $28 million still stands as the biggest clawback we can point to” nationwide, he said. Yet he believes that the state should have pursued a total refund. “It’s kind of a two-thirds of a loaf for taxpayers.”

Unfortunately, it appears that authorities then doubled down on the same f%$#ing failed strategy:

………

At the same time, the tax authority awarded GM a new tax credit to support the battery plant. In return for a promise to create 1,000 jobs, the company will receive a 15-year tax break estimated to be worth $13.8 million over its term.

The numbers are clear on this:  These incentives never pay for themselves. 

It cost Scott Walker reelection in Wisconsin, but until a few more political “Flaming Datums” are out there, this insanity is likely to continue.

Tweet of the Day

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Joe Biden is politely asking a group of cyborg T-1000 Terminators to follow their conscience https://t.co/DJggvsrUeX

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 20, 2020

This critique applies not only to Joe Biden, but to the whole of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), who have spent their time on the Sunday shows explaining how they are powerless to offer meaningful opposition to Trump’s and McConnell’s court packing.

Still Can’t Make Planes

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It’s time for more fun with Boeing.

According to the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA), Boeing’s 737 Max fixes do not address the problem. 

Specifically, requiring both pilots to simultaneously operate the manual trim wheel when MCAS goes insane is bat sh%$ insane:

The British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) has told American aviation regulators that the Boeing 737 Max needs better fixes for its infamous MCAS software, warning that a plane crash which killed 149 people could happen again.

………

In public comments submitted to the FAA’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), BALPA warned that one of the proposed workarounds for a future MCAS failure could lead to a repeat of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302.

………

The NPRM, published here, proposes various fixes to the 737 Max design, its software and procedures for pilots to follow in the event of a problem. One of those procedures includes disabling the airliner’s automatic trim system, operated by MCAS when the software kicks in, and having the two pilots use a manual backup trim wheel instead of the aircraft’s powerful electric motors.

BALPA said: “Requiring both crew members to turn the trim wheel simultaneously in a non-normal scenario is extremely undesirable and goes against all philosophies of having one pilot fly and one run the QRH [quick reference handbook: reading out the emergency checklist]. No flight control system should require both pilots to operate it at any stage, let alone in an emergency.”

The trade union added: “It is felt that this should be reconsidered (particularly in light of the smaller diameter trim wheel as fitted to the MAX to enable the new larger screens to fit, and as per the scenario observed in the Ethiopian Airlines accident).

………

Its pilots disabled electric trim motors that had been activated by MCAS and, crash investigators believed, tried to use the manual trim wheel in the cockpit to physically undo what the software had done – following Boeing procedures published after the Lion Air crash. Thanks to the aircraft’s excessive speed, built up as MCAS forced its nose to point downwards at the ground, the pilots were unsuccessful. Aerodynamic forces on the control surfaces made it impossible for them to rotate the trim wheel and point the airliner’s nose back at the sky.

Meanwhile, back with the FAA’s NPRM, the Joint European Max Operators’ Group, which includes Ryanair, Norwegian, and Tui, among other airlines, made some minor suggestions for textual edits while reassuring the FAA that they “are not intended to impact on the planned RTS [return to service] programme” for the 737 Max. Some airlines believe all will be well when their Maxes are allowed to fly again. ®

Bootnote

The 737 Max will be known as the 737-7, 737-8 and 737-9. In Ryanair’s case it will be known as the 737-8200, a reference to the base -8 Max model having been fettled to fit 200 seats rather than the stock -8’s 180ish.

International Air Transport Association aeroplane type codes will be B37M, B38M and B39M should you want to avoid booking a flight on one.

Better off Ted is Reality, Zoom Edition

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Algorithms are a Dystopian future

A professor teaching Zoom classes, and he discovered that his head was being removed by the program. 

He called tech support, who trouble shot the problem, and (with said professor’s permission) related the account on Twitter. 

It turned out that he Zoom algorithm was choosing a globe for his head, and removing his actual head when it was doing that background trick thing.

One fact that will surprise anyone who has seen THAT episode of Better off Ted, is that the professor with the problem was Black. (See clip below)

It appears that much like Racist Republicans, Zoom cannot see color.

It cannot see it at all, and so the person is erased, which is one f%$# of a metaphor.

The optimists among us say that computer algorithms will eventually do away with racism.

The pessimists among us say that the computer algorithms will reinforce and extend racism.

The police, of course, are pulling out their wallets, because this gives them a excuse to discriminate, as is evidenced by the false arrest of a black man based on racist facial recognition.

Color me cynical.

Headline of the Day

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Banks’ Airtight Compliance Procedure Involves Laundering Money, Sending Report That Won’t Be Read, Collecting Fees, Laughing All The Way Back To Themselves

—Dealbreaker

To be fair, the story was broken by Buzzfeed, but they don’t have the same attitude as Dealbreaker.

A huge trove of secret government documents reveals for the first time how the giants of Western banking move trillions of dollars in suspicious transactions, enriching themselves and their shareholders while facilitating the work of terrorists, kleptocrats, and drug kingpins.

And the US government, despite its vast powers, fails to stop it.

Today, the FinCEN Files — thousands of “suspicious activity reports” and other US government documents — offer an unprecedented view of global financial corruption, the banks enabling it, and the government agencies that watch as it flourishes. BuzzFeed News has shared these reports with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 news organizations in 88 countries.

These documents, compiled by banks, shared with the government, but kept from public view, expose the hollowness of banking safeguards, and the ease with which criminals have exploited them. Profits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees.
Laws that were meant to stop financial crime have instead allowed it to flourish. So long as a bank files a notice that it may be facilitating criminal activity, it all but immunizes itself and its executives from criminal prosecution. The suspicious activity alert effectively gives them a free pass to keep moving the money and collecting the fees.

………

But the FinCEN Files investigation shows that even after they were prosecuted or fined for financial misconduct, banks such as JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon continued to move money for suspected criminals.

This information should be routinely made public.

Name and shame the oligarchs and those who help them to launder their money.

European Leaders Call Bullsh%$ on Trump’s Anti-Iran Jihad

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We don’t care, we don’t have to ……… we’re the United States.

The European signatories of the Iran nuclear deal are saying that they will not support the US move to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran. 

More specifically, they note that, since the US unilaterally pulled out of the deal, the UN response is none of our business.

I get what is going on here, Trump, who wants to overturn one of the few Obama administration foreign policy successes, has found common ground with the regime change folks, but this is not a basis for a winning friends and influencing people:  (Also, Russia and China still have a veto)

European leaders have warned the US that its claim to have the authority to reimpose sweeping UN-mandated sanctions on Iran has no effect in law, setting up a major legal clash that could lead to Washington imposing sanctions on its European allies.

In a joint statement on Sunday, France, Germany and the UK (E3) said any attempt by the US to impose its own sanctions on countries not complying with the reimposed UN ones was also legally void.

On Saturday, the US moved to reinstate a range of UN sanctions against Iran, saying it had the authority to do so as an original signatory of the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and other major powers.

The other signatories claim the US left the JCPOA in 2018 and therefore no longer has a unilateral legal right to either declare Iran in breach of the agreement or to reimpose sanctions in the name of the UN.

………

The disagreement is not just a legal wrangle since the Trump administration claims the US now has the authority to act against any country breaching the reimposed sanctions.

The US also claims the scheduled lifting of the UN embargo on arms sales to Iran in October is null and void. There is also a risk that the US will claim it has a new mandate to interdict Iranian shipping, a move that could lead to a naval clash in the Gulf.

In a joint statement, the E3 said: “The United States of America ceased to be a participant in the JCPOA following their withdrawal from the agreement on 8 May, 2018. Consequently, the notification received from the United States and transmitted to the member states of the [UN] security council, has no legal effect. It follows that any decision or action which would be taken on the basis of this procedure or its outcome have no legal effect.

………

Earlier on Saturday the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said the US had reimposed UN sanctions and expected “all UN member states to fully comply with their obligations to implement these measures”.

Since the fall of the USSR, the United States’ foreign policy can be summed up as, “Rules for thee, but not for me.”

I am stunned that France and Germany have called the Trump administration on this, and I am positively flabbergasted that the US poodle in Europe (the UK) is also making the same statement.

They Have Forgotten Nothing, and They Have Learned Nothing

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It appears that the Biden campaign is determined to repeat the litany of f%$#ups that the Clinton campaign used in 2016.

Case in point, the Biden campaign is nearly invisible in crucial states that Hillary Clinton lost, including ignoring the ground game in crucial swing states.

The campaign is studiously avoiding creating campaign offices in swing states.

These mooks (including in 2016 one named Robbie Mook) spent a huge amount of money duing things like running the numbers up in California through a large media buy that served no purpose but to enrich politically connected consultants.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is less the party leadership than it is a group of bunco artists who find the party convenient for lining their own pockets:

Contrary to the mantra of the “Resistance.” “Russia, Russia, Russia,” the primary reason for Clinton losing in 2016 was most likely that she didn’t campaign properly in many battleground states. This is something Clinton had control over, and she just refused to do it.

Biden apparently feels or thinks or some perverse combination of the two, similarly. Time:

“I can’t even find a sign,” Sabbe says outside a Kroger’s in Sterling Heights, where surrounding cars fly massive Donald Trump flags that say “No More Bullsh-t” and fellow shoppers wear Trump T-shirts for their weekend grocery runs. “I’m looking for one of those storefronts. I’m looking for a campaign office for Biden. And I’m not finding one.”

The reason Sabbe can’t find a dedicated Biden campaign field office is because there aren’t any around here. Not in Macomb County, the swing region where Sabbe lives. It’s not even clear Biden has opened any new dedicated field offices in the state; because of the pandemic, they’ve moved their field organizing effort online. The Biden campaign in Michigan refused to confirm the location of any physical field offices despite repeated requests; they say they have “supply centers” for handing out signs, but would not confirm those locations.

This is truly insane. Absolute and complete malpractice.

Democrats are completely vicious when taking down someone like Sanders, but they don’t even bother to try when it comes to winning national elections against Republicans. To all appearances they actually don’t care if Biden wins, or Trump loses.

Or they are completely incompetent.

Why not both? 

……… 

I suspect Democrats lose because not just because they are incompetent but because they don’t actually care. Losing is fine, they’ll still be OK. Pelosi will still be rich as Croesus, Biden will be fine, Harris will fine. Winning is nice enough, but they don’t need to win. They don’t even have a power drive, they’re people with sinecures protecting them savagely, but since they don’t need to win to keep their comfortable lives, only keep control of the party, they are only savage to those who threaten their control of the party (the left), not to the right.

Let me remind you of the Iron Law of Institutions, which states that power WITHIN an organization is pursued at the expense of the power OF that organization.

They care less about winning and losing, even losing to Trump, than they do about maintaining their power, status, and revenue streams.

I’m Beginning to Think That Boeing Doesn’t Want to Make Planes

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It turns out that the problems with the 737 MAX and MCAS were patently obvious early in development in simulator tests, but Boeing ignored and actively covered up these problems. 

At this point, I think that we need to seriously consider filing criminal charges against senior figures at Boeing aircraft, and maybe a few FAA officials.

Otherwise, the finance types will kill again:

Six years before the crew flying a Lion Air Boeing 737-8 reacted to an emergency in a very different way than Boeing assumed pilots would, something similar happened within Boeing’s walls.

During simulator sessions to evaluate a new flight control law’s potential hazards, Boeing test pilots took more than 10 sec. to diagnose and correct a runaway stabilizer. The session caused one employee to wonder whether pilots of the newest 737 family member, dubbed the MAX series for marketing purposes, needed more information to diagnose the hazard. A second employee who flew the simulator scenario responded that more analysis was needed.

  • New U.S. Congress report highlights issues with pilot-aircraft interface during 737 MAX development
  • Long-accepted norms for predicting how pilots react are now being challenged
  • Boeing did not deem the issues significant risks and minimized how much information pilots received

Boeing ultimately determined that MAX pilots would react within seconds in such scenarios—and that the new control law, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), could not create new or more severe hazards. The assumptions were not challenged by regulators.

The similar accident sequences of Lion Air Flight 610 (JT610) in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (ET302) less than five months later—both caused by unneeded MCAS activations—showed that Boeing and the FAA were wrong. Now Boeing, the FAA and others point to the accidents as hard, painful evidence that generally accepted assumptions used to evaluate how pilots will react during inflight emergencies need revamping (AW&ST Oct. 14-27, 2019, p. 18).

But newly revealed information collected by U.S. lawmakers investigating the 737 MAX development raises questions about how Boeing handled hazard assessments and whether it ignored evidence that showed MAX pilots would need more help than they were given.

“Multiple Boeing [employees] failed to inform the FAA that Boeing had discovered early on in the MAX program that it took one of its own test pilots more than 10 sec. to respond to an uncommanded activation of MCAS in a flight simulator, a condition the pilot found to be ‘catastrophic,’” states a report released by the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee. “This should have called into question Boeing’s assumptions about pilot response times. It did not.”

The committee’s view is based in part on email messages about the 2012 simulator sessions included among thousands of pages of documents Boeing and the FAA provided in response to lawmakers’ requests during the 18-month investigation.

………

In a second run-through, “the reaction time was long,” greater than 10 sec., the employee wrote, before the cutout switches were toggled, stopping the MCAS-triggered automatic nose-down inputs.

“Do you think that with pilot training/knowledge of the system there will be a sufficiently quick response to the [stabilizer] runaway . . . ?” the employee asked.

“I would like to take a look at how much time there is between a hazardous assessment and a catastrophic assessment,” a second employee responds.

The T&I Committee report does not explain what happened next. Testifying before the committee in October 2019, former Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief engineer John Hamilton told lawmakers that subsequent simulator runaway-stabilizer scenarios showed “the typical reaction time was 4 sec.”

Boeing also concluded that a reaction of 10 sec. or longer must be categorized as “catastrophic,” which the FAA’s large aircraft system design and analysis certification guidance defines as “failure conditions which would prevent continued safe flight and landing.” The 10-sec. parameter was listed in 737 MAX internal design parameters, or “coordination sheets,” right through the 737-8’s March 2017 certification.

………

“Every new buzzword represents a company and airline cost via changed manuals, changed training, changed maintenance manuals,” says a 2013 Boeing internal “problem statement” document discussing how the MCAS should be categorized. “Recommended action: investigate deletion of MCAS nomenclature and cover under ‘revised speed trim.’”

While the MCAS name did not disappear, it was downplayed.

A 2014 Boeing presentation prepared for Southwest Airlines and included in the committee’s report discusses the MCAS, underscoring that the system was not kept a secret. But Boeing opted not to include it in flight crew operations manuals, so most line pilots did not realize it existed.

Meanwhile, Boeing determined that the MCAS’ original authority was not enough.

Developed in response to 2011 wind-tunnel testing that quantified the effects of the MAX’s CFM Leap 1B engines on the aircraft’s aerodynamics as a requirement to ensure the new model handled like its predecessors in certain rare flight profiles, the MCAS’ original authority covered high-speed scenarios such as wind-up turns.

………

Adding the low-speed authority meant that the MCAS could direct an aircraft from wings-level to full aircraft nose down in two cycles or an elapsed time of 25 sec., counting a 5-sec. pause between activations.

………

The day before JT610 went down, a different crew flew the same aircraft and experienced a similar situation (AW&ST Nov. 11-24, 2019, p. 23). While the crew, aided by a pilot flying in the jumpseat, toggled the stabilizer trim cutout switches and eventually landed safely, their reaction did not match Boeing’s assumptions. This flight and the two accident flights are the only three in-service reports of the MCAS triggering unneeded stabilizer inputs.

………

………

The T&I Committee’s 238-page report cites Boeing’s “disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments” as well as “numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA” as playing a “significant” role in the two accidents. The pilot-response issue is part of a long list that includes designing the MCAS to be activated based on one AOA sensor’s input and deciding, with FAA approval, to keep any discussion of the MCAS out of pilot flight manuals.

………

“Our report lays out disturbing revelations about how Boeing . . . escaped scrutiny from the FAA, withheld critical information from pilots, and ultimately put planes into service that killed 346 innocent people,” says committee Chair Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.). “What’s particularly infuriating is how Boeing and FAA both gambled with public safety in the critical time period between the two crashes.”

They knew.  Their own pilots, who knew the plane like the back of their hands,  could not reliably react in under 10 seconds.

Because the Consulting Get Their Vig

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Not a great report card

Over at The Nation, they are wondering why so many of the super-PACs were spending their money so stupidly.

The answer is simple: The consultants are paid a percentage of the media buys, so the more that is spent, the more money they get.

Quoting Upton Sinclair YET AGAIN, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

If the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) managed to kick the looters and snake oil salesmen out of the party, they would get a lot more bang for their proverbial buck:

Why do we settle for mediocrity when we should be insisting on excellence? Having spent the past few weeks working on a report card grading the Democratic super PACs and the more than $600 million they’re planning to spend on the fall elections, my main takeaway is that we tolerate far too much mediocrity in progressive politics.

The grades given in the report cards span the spectrum from D+ and C- (American Bridge 21st Century and Senate Majority PAC) to A and A- (Fair Fight, Next Gen Climate Action, and the Progressive Turnout Project), and the underlying analysis clearly shows that tens of millions of dollars are being wasted on spending strategies that are unsupported by—if not directly contradictory to—what the empirical evidence says we should be doing. A summary chart is below, and you can read the full report here.

The consultants are paid a percentage of he spending, so it is no wonder that they try to maximize spending, and hence their pay.

Q.E.D.

This Will Not End Well

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Nothing to see here ……… Move along

There have been some very odd, and VERY large movements in the US stock market driven by a huge purchase of equity derivatives (Warren Buffet defined derivatives, “Financial weapons of mass destruction.”) of tech stocks.
Someone has been making huge, and risky, speculative bets.

A cynic might think that some deep pocketed operator is attempting to use their deep pockets to move the market, and then cash out in a classic, “Pump and dump.”

Well, now it seems that Softbank, whose whole model is to pump up some hair-brained operation (**cough** WeWork **cough**) and then find some idiots to buy their stake, is the “Nasdaq whale”.

Let’s be clear, when you are nicknamed a whale in finance, it does not bode well. Just ask JP Morgan Chase’s, “London Whale,” Bruno Iksil.

The problem is that it is likely that the taxpayers are going to be paying out when this all goes pear shaped:

SoftBank is the “Nasdaq whale” that has bought billions of dollars’ worth of US equity derivatives in a series of trades that stoked the fevered rally in big tech stocks before a sharp pullback on Thursday and Friday, according to people familiar with the matter.

………

The aggressive move into the options market marks a new chapter for the investment powerhouse, which in recent years has made huge bets on privately held technology start-ups through its $100bn Vision Fund. After the coronavirus market tumult hit those bets, the company established an asset management unit for public investments using capital contributed by its founder, Masayoshi Son.

Now it has also made a splash in trading derivatives linked to some of those new investments, which has shocked market veterans. “These are some of the biggest trades I’ve seen in 20 years of doing this,” said one derivatives-focused US hedge fund manager. “The flow is huge.”

………

One person familiar with SoftBank’s trades said it was “gobbling up” options on a scale that was even making some people within the organisation nervous. “People are caught with their pants down, massively short. This can continue. The whale is still hungry.”

………

The overall nominal value of calls traded on individual US stocks has averaged $335bn a day over the past two weeks, according to Goldman Sachs. That is more than triple the rolling average between 2017 and 2019. The retail trading boom has played a big part in the frenzy, but investors say the size of many recent option purchases are far too big to be retail-driven.

………

The size and aggressiveness of the mysterious call buyer, coupled with the summer trading lull, has been a big factor in the buoyant performance of many big tech names as well as the broader US stock market, according to Mr McElligott. This week, he warned that dynamics around options meant the heavy purchases forced banks on the other side of the trades to hedge themselves by buying stocks, in a “classic ‘tail wags the dog’ feedback loop”.

Meanwhile, people are dumping Softbank stocks, because it is self-evidently clear that what they are doing now is bat-sh%$ insane.

I’m not sure if this is a, “Put your money in a bank account,” moment, a, “Put your money in cash,” moment, a, “Put your money in gold,” moment, or a, “Put your money in canned goods,” moment.

In any case, don’t go long on anything if you might need that money in the short term.

We are in a Wile E. Coyote moment right now.

Boeing Still Can’t Make Airplanes

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It now appears that issues at Boeing’s union-busting plant in South Carolina are bad enough for the FAA to take notice:

Production problems at a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner factory have prompted air-safety regulators to review quality-control lapses potentially stretching back almost a decade, according to an internal government memo and people familiar with the matter.

The plane maker has told U.S. aviation regulators that it produced certain parts at its South Carolina facilities that failed to meet its own design and manufacturing standards, according to an Aug. 31 internal Federal Aviation Administration memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

As a result of “nonconforming” sections of the rear fuselage, or body of the plane, that fell short of engineering standards, according to the memo and these people, a high-level FAA review is considering mandating enhanced or accelerated inspections that could cover hundreds of jets.

………

But that slip-up combined with another recently discovered assembly-line defect prompted Boeing to take the unusual step in late August to voluntarily tell airlines to ground eight of their 787s for immediate repairs. Since then, Boeing has publicly confirmed the eight planes weren’t safe to remain in service.

………

The manufacturing slip-ups mark the latest production problems for the troubled plane maker and present a test for Chief Executive David Calhoun and a revamped safety-review process after two fatal accidents of its narrow-body 737 MAX. The crashes took 346 lives.

THIS is what happens when you let finance guys run things.

Over 260,000!!!

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We now have an estimate on the total number of Covid-19 cases from the idiots who whent to the Sturgis motorcycle rally, over 260,000, or nearly half of all of the new cases over the past few weeks:

Last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally drew upwards of 450,000 attendees to the small city of Sturgis, South Dakota, marking the largest physical gathering since the pandemic began. While many feared the Sturgis would prove to be a “super spreader” event, the true magnitude of the spread is only now becoming known. And it isn’t pretty.

A new study published by health economists Dhaval Dave, Andrew Friedson, Drew McNichols, and Joe Sabia concluded that Sturgis is responsible for 260,000 new cases of COVID-19 – or, 19% of the total number of US cases during the month of August — and $12 billion in new medical care.

………

In the case of Sturgis, attendees generally did not wear face masks and congregated in confined spaces (restaurants, bars, Smash Mouth concerts, etc.) over the course of 10-day event, and did not self-isolate once the event was over. As a result, an estimated 263,708 cases of COVID across the country can now be attributed to the rally. Already, one person who attended the rally has died from the virus, but unfortunately that number is also expected to grow.

As the Japanese say, “バカにつける薬はない.”*

*There is no medicine for stupidity.

Broadening the Definition Of, “Blue Screen of Death”

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I just discovered that Bill Gates is funding a nuclear power startup.

The “Secret Sauce” is that it uses a molten salt for thermal storage, so that it can respond quickly to shifts in demand.

This from the guy Microsoft®, so if your alarm bells are going off over the thought of the inevitable system crash, it gets even better.

The reactor in question is a fast fission breeder reactor using using liquid sodium as a coolant, so it produces large quantities of Pu239 and uses a coolant that ignites upon contact with air, and cannot be extinguished with water.

All this from the mind that gave us “Blue Screen of Death”.

Delightful:

Nuclear power is the Immovable Object of generation sources. It can take days just to bring a nuclear plant completely online, rendering it useless as a tool to manage the fluctuations in the supply and demand on a modern energy grid.

Now a firm launched by Bill Gates in 2006, TerraPower, in partnership with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, believes it has found a way to make the infamously unwieldy energy source a great deal nimbler — and for an affordable price.

The new design, announced by TerraPower on August 27th, is a combination of a “sodium-cooled fast reactor” — a type of small reactor in which liquid sodium is used as a coolant — and an energy storage system. While the reactor could pump out 345 megawatts of electrical power indefinitely, the attached storage system would retain heat in the form of molten salt and could discharge the heat when needed, increasing the plant’s overall power output to 500 megawatts for more than 5.5 hours.

………

The use of molten salt, which retains heat at extremely high temperatures, as a storage technology is not new. Concentrated solar power plants also collect energy in the form of molten salt, although such plants have largely been abandoned in the U.S. The technology could enjoy new life alongside nuclear plants: TerraPower and GE Hitachi Nuclear are only two of several private firms working to develop reactor designs that incorporate molten salt storage units, including U.K.- and Canada-based developer Moltex Energy.

………

Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, suggested on Twitter that the nuclear designs used by TerraPower and GE Hitachi had fallen short of a major innovation. “Oh brother. The last thing the world needs is a fleet of sodium-cooled fast reactors,” he wrote.

Yeah, this makes me feel safe an secure.

Could Someone Help Me with a Metaphor?

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Sometimes, I’m not good with metaphors.

I can recognize that certain situations evoke a metaphor just as well as the average Joe, but sometimes, the metaphorical possibilities are so broad that I am paralyzed by the range of choices.

Case in point, the sinking of multiple boats at the pro-Trump rally on Lake Travis outside of Austin, TX.

Is this the time for a metaphor about choppy waters, or a metaphor about the wakes of large boats swamping small boats, or just a snarky comment about how maritime navigation charts having a,”Well known liberal bias?”

I am at a loss, reader(s), so I need your help:

A parade of boats in Texas celebrating their support for Donald Trump ended in disarray when multiple vessels got into trouble on apparently choppy waters leading to several sinking and a slew of distress calls being made to rescue officials.

Multiple media reports described a chaotic scene on Lake Travis, near the state capital of Austin, when a procession of boats waving Trump flags and banners motored over the waters but then got into potentially serious trouble.

Videos of the event circulating on social media showed several boats being swamped by waves and sinking as frantic passengers jumped into the water.

Artificial Stupidity

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Students have been given online short essay exams, and the kids have discovered that they are graded by artificial intelligence, and you can ace the test with two sentences and a word salad.

The problem here is not AI. The problem here is the tech bros trying to sell crap AI as gold:

On Monday, Dana Simmons came downstairs to find her 12-year-old son, Lazare, in tears. He’d completed the first assignment for his seventh-grade history class on Edgenuity, an online platform for virtual learning. He’d received a 50 out of 100. That wasn’t on a practice test — it was his real grade.

………

At first, Simmons tried to console her son. “I was like well, you know, some teachers grade really harshly at the beginning,” said Simmons, who is a history professor herself. Then, Lazare clarified that he’d received his grade less than a second after submitting his answers. A teacher couldn’t have read his response in that time, Simmons knew — her son was being graded by an algorithm.

Simmons watched Lazare complete more assignments. She looked at the correct answers, which Edgenuity revealed at the end. She surmised that Edgenuity’s AI was scanning for specific keywords that it expected to see in students’ answers. And she decided to game it.



Now, for every short-answer question, Lazare writes two long sentences followed by a disjointed list of keywords — anything that seems relevant to the question. “The questions are things like… ‘What was the advantage of Constantinople’s location for the power of the Byzantine empire,’” Simmons says. “So you go through, okay, what are the possible keywords that are associated with this? Wealth, caravan, ship, India, China, Middle East, he just threw all of those words in.”

………

Apparently, that “word salad” is enough to get a perfect grade on any short-answer question in an Edgenuity test.

Algorithm update. He cracked it: Two full sentences, followed by a word salad of all possibly applicable keywords. 100% on every assignment. Students on @EdgenuityInc, there's your ticket. He went from an F to an A+ without learning a thing.

— Dana Simmons (@DanaJSimmons) September 2, 2020

This is typical of what we are getting from tech these days.

It seems that it’s all the late David Graeber’s “Bullsh%$ Jobs.”

Cheap Harleys at Estate Sales

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A Minnesota biker who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has died of covid-19 — the first fatality from the virus traced to the 10-day event that drew more than 400,000 to South Dakota.

The man was in his 60s, had underlying conditions and was hospitalized in intensive care after returning from the rally, said Kris Ehresmann, infectious-disease director at the Minnesota Department of Health. The case is among at least 260 cases in 11 states tied directly to the event, according to a survey of health departments by The Washington Post.

Epidemiologists believe that figure is a significant undercount, due to the resistance of some rallygoers to testing and the limited contact tracing in some states. As a result, the true scope of infections stemming from the rally that ran from Aug. 7 to Aug. 16 is unlikely to ever be known. Public health officials had long expressed concern over the decision to move forward with the annual event, believed to be the largest held anywhere in the U.S. since the pandemic shelved most large-scale gatherings.

Now, just over two weeks after the conclusion of the rally, the Midwest and the Dakotas in particular are seeing a spike in coronavirus cases even as infections decline or plateau in the rest of the country. South Dakota’s seven-day averages for new cases stood at 347 on Sept. 2 compared to 107 two weeks earlier and its total caseload was 14,003, up from 10,566, according to The Post’s tracking. In North Dakota, the seven-day averages for new cases was 257, up from 142 two weeks earlier and its total caseload was 12,267, compared to 8,968.

If you are looking for a deal on a low mileage Harley, you are in luck.
Not so much the idiots who went to Sturgis.

H/t BS at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Boeing Still Unable to Manufacture Aircraft

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They are screwing up a critical structural joint on the 787 down in their union busting facility in South Carolina.

This is not a surprise.  They went there to treat employees like crap, and they have had problems, the the facility for a very long time, to the degree that some of the employees in the North Charleston facility saying that they would refuse to fly in a plane made there:

Boeing earlier this week instructed airlines to pull a batch of eight recently-manufactured 787 Dreamliners from service, prompting their immediate grounding, after the plane maker determined that a manufacturing issue undermined the strength of an area of the jet’s carbon fiber composite structure.

So far, eight 787s — all built in the last few years — have been withdrawn from flying. Aircraft for United Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Air Canada are impacted by the impromptu grounding, according to a person familiar with the situation.

According to those familiar with the issue, an area of the structure in the rear of the aircraft is unable to withstand the maximum stress that would be experienced by the aircraft in service and could fail.

By, “Could fail,” they mean a failure in flight leading to a depressurization incident, and possibly an inflight breakup.

………

This new issue is the first publicly known instance in the jet’s nine year service life that a structural defect with its mostly carbon fiber airframe has caused Boeing to immediately withdraw 787s from service. The 787 fleet was grounded for three months in 2013 following the overheating of lithium-ion batteries. At that point, the global cadre of 787s was just 50 airplanes and the jet returned to operation after the company developed a new containment and venting system for the main and auxiliary power unit batteries inside the jet’s electronics bay.

The source of the newly-discovered structural issue has been traced to a mating point inside the aft fuselage between two carbon fiber composite barrels, known as Section 47/48 where the two barrels meet with a large bulkhead that caps the pressurized cabin. The pieces are fabricated and joined with the aft pressure bulkhead at Boeing’s North Charleston, S.C. plant and then delivered for final assembly to the company’s nearby final assembly building or flown to Everett, Wash.

………


The first of the two issues causing the issue centers on how naturally occurring gaps in the structure are filled with shims that ensure stresses on the airframe are carried as they’re designed. Boeing has used a predictive shimming technology on the 787 program for more than a decade, robotically laser scanning the surfaces around the structural joins to automatically generate the required shims to fill the gaps.

In the case of the eight withdrawn aircraft, the gaps were improperly filled. On their own, that might not produce an immediate issue, but Boeing said a second manufacturing issue has prompted the pulling of the jets. The second issue centers on the inner skin of the large monolithic composite barrels. On the suspect aircraft, the skin of the woven carbon fiber fuselage is “supposed to be smooth enough so there are no abrupt ridges,” said one person familiar with the issue.

………

When the gaps are improperly filled in combination with the roughness of the inner skin, the required structural strength does not meet the limit load requirement. Limit load is the maximum expected stress the aircraft would ever expect to experience in service. While limit load is not solely an airline service requirement, every commercial aircraft test program has to demonstrate an aircraft’s structure is designed for limit loads before it can be safely cleared to fly for the first time.

………

Over the longer term, the gaps left by improper shimming can put added stress at certain points in the structure that can cause unexpected fatigue cracks to develop and propagate. The Boeing spokesman said its engineers “are analyzing data on the in-service fleet to determine if action is required, potentially including more frequent inspection or rework. It could also be determined that no further action is required if the condition is found to not impact the longevity of the structure.”

………

A spokesman for the FAA said that the U.S. aviation regulator “is aware of the matter and continues to engage with Boeing,” according to a single-sentence statement.

………

Installation of the shims across the 787s structure have been a recurring challenge for Boeing. Prior to the 787s entry into service, in June 2010, improperly shimmed horizontal stabilizers temporarily grounded Boeing’s test fleet. And the issue, according to several Boeing manufacturing engineers and aircraft assemblers familiar with the situation say the structural shimming has been a longstanding challenge for the company’s South Carolina manufacturing operation.


“Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard to do,” said one engineer. “But they are so hellbent on making rate, sometimes engineering and production aren’t aligned.” In 2012, early in the 787’s production run, Boeing found more than a dozen improperly shimmed longerons, structural stiffeners, inside the same 47/48 section requiring inspections and localized repairs for structural delamination.

………

The recurrence of shimming issues on the Dreamliner program comes as Boeing is considering consolidating 787 final assembly operations exclusively to South Carolina. The North Charleston, S.C. factory that produces the aft fuselage where the structural issue was introduced builds the section regardless of where final assembly is completed.

Shorter Boeing, “Our South Carolina facility is not executing properly, but because we are in a right-to-work state, we can push them to assemble dangerous aircraft and hit the production numbers that we want, so we want to move more production to South Carolina.”

This can’t but help Airbus, because, even if Boeing is a superior aircraft, you are wiping out a decade of advantages with a two week grounding.

Boeing’s upper management has been taken over by former McDonnell and finance types, and they are completely unable to manufacture an aircraft for a civil environment.

Boom!

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I’m kind of surprised.  I knew that the DeSantis order was terminally stupid, but I did not think that it was illegal:

Florida’s state government cannot force schools to reopen this month, a judge ruled yesterday. The state’s order to reopen K-12 schools disregarded safety risks posed by COVID-19 and gave schools no meaningful alternative, according to the ruling issued by Judge Charles Dodson of the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County.

On July 6, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an emergency order stating, “Upon reopening in August, all school boards and charter school governing boards must open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students.” Schools that don’t meet this requirement could lose state funding. Corcoran, Governor Ron DeSantis, and other state officials were then sued by the Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers’ union; the NAACP; and several individual teachers and parents.

After summarizing the health risks of reopening schools during the pandemic, the judge wrote that the state’s order to reopen schools “takes none of that into consideration. It fails to mention consideration of community transmission rates, varying ages of students, or proper precautions. What has been clearly established is there is no easy decision and opening schools will most likely increase COVID‐19 cases in Florida. Thus, Plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success in procuring a judgment declaring the Order is being applied arbitrarily across Florida.”

Dodson concluded that the state’s order violates the Florida state constitution “to the extent it arbitrarily disregards safety, denies local school boards decision making with respect to reopening brick and mortar schools, and conditions funding on an approved reopening plan with a start date in August.” Having found that the plaintiffs are likely to win at trial, the judge issued a temporary injunction that strikes down the controversial portions of the state’s school-reopening order.

Gee, guv, I think that this ruling will leave a mark.

This is Worse than I Had Imagined

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I knew that hedge fund fees were excessive, but run the numbers, and it is beyond my wildest imaginings.

Their fees amount to 64% of all returns:

If you already see hedge fund fees as exorbitant, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Over the past two decades, the hedge fund industry has kept 64 cents of every dollar of gross profits that it has generated above the risk-free rate.

You’d be excused for thinking this is a mathematical impossibility. The predominant fee arrangement in the hedge fund industry is the so-called 2-and-20 fee structure, under which a fund charges an annual management fee of 2% of assets under management and a performance incentive fee of 20% of any profits. So how can hedge funds keep more than 20 cents of every dollar of profit, on top of management fees?

The answer is provided in a new study that the National Bureau of Economic Research recently began circulating. Entitled “The Performance of Hedge Fund Performance Fees,” the study was conducted by finance professors Itzhak Ben-David and Justin Birru, both of Ohio State University, and Andrea Rossi of the University of Arizona.

The professors analyzed a comprehensive hedge fund database containing nearly 6,000 funds over the 22 years from 1995 through 2016. Over that period these hedge funds collectively produced total gross profits of $316.8 billion. Of this total, fund managers kept $202 billion ($88.7 billion in management fees and $113.3 billion in performance incentive fees). The remainder—$113.3 billion, or 35.8% of total gross profits — went to investors. (See the chart below.)

That is almost 2/3 of returns, which means that even by hedge funds extravagant claims, they would never exceed the numbers of things like index funds.