Thursday, December 29, 2022

The Next Generation COVID?

 The NY Times has written a mild piece on China and COVID. However in the past week I have seen a massive outbreak of second, third and fourth infections of vaccinated patients. 

The question is: Are these new mutants from China or is the virus as I had suspected creating protective granulomas and reemerging again and again, like TB for example, or both! 

I suspect it is both. BUT unless we have a competent CDC to sequence these variants we are left totally in the dark and vulnerable. We are not only back at the beginning but worse. Citizens have little or any faith in their Government, especially the bureaucrats who seem to be game players but devoid of any competence.

Large samples of sequenced variants should be tracked, published, and measured. This disease is not over, it is not even hiding. It does not seem as deadly but it will become a major drag on the country. Faith in Public Health has gotten to the lowest ever, rightly earned by their lack of proactive fact based information.

The vaccines must be continuously adapted to meet the mutations, but to do that we need to monitor the mutations. We don't need extremists on either end, those academics claiming absolute knowledge and those public voices making baseless statements. 

We have had three years of chaos. We  need leadership of credible people not publicity hounds dictating what we all should do. 

If this is not done we are again in for a very bumpy ride. The greatest risk will be as before. Namely the uncontrolled entry of infected people carrying variants. We saw that with Omicron and most likely we shall see the same if not worse. Border controls are not political, they are public health mandates. At the beginning of the 20th century the country was smart enough then to do it. Now we have regrettably politicized our limited preventative measures. That means not only the Southern border issue but China and leaky entries from there.

Online Shopping and Delivery

 As the trash from Christmas gets collected one sees hundreds of Amazon boxes at the curb but not a single Walmart. Interesting observation after the pandemic, although it still continues but not being recorded, fewer bodies I guess or no one left in Nursing homes, one has seen a shift from physical sales to Internet sales. The process has a bit of the Southwest Airline mess. Amazon delivery is now totally unpredictable, used to be 2 days as a Prime Member but now luck to get it in a week or more. But Walmart really takes the cake. They do not use boxes. So I purchased some items, 8 in all. I got 7, from the trunk of some person's car and they were dropped multiple times as they made their way to my front steps! Nice that I photographed seeing the defective order! 

I would suspect I shall refrain from Walmart, a company now famed for its incompetence. However given the people running these places perhaps there is a window for competence. Or are we just seeing the end of competency and the entry of true wokeness in the workplace.

Monday, December 26, 2022

Social Media is a Two-way Street

 The current flaps of Government agencies using social media to send out messaging on monitor users is no surprise. After all people willingly shared the deepest thoughts on a "public" platform and abrogated their limited right of privacy, if any even exists. 

But alas that is just the tip of the iceberg. This medium allows for total psychological profiling as well as using that information to prime people to respond in a certain manner. Think Manchurian Candidate and use smart phones instead of the ladies garden club. 

Namely one can readily find individuals who meet a certain psychological profile and then send them messages to effect their behavior, if not totally control it. This is a powerful and dangerous tool. The type of tool which should be delimited. Instead the Government is wallowing in its swamp and one can only guess how far this will go. It further opens up the path for many others to do the same.

One wonders if we should just let some of these creature go back to writing on rest room walls.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas

1. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.

3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,

5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.

6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered.

7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.

10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.

11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

14 “ Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!

15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.”

16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.

17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely[d] known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.

18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

20 Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

Friday, December 23, 2022

Interesting Comparison

 

Here is MIT in the years 1961-1962. Tuition was $750 per semester. Yearly Medical Insurance was $55!

Compare that to today! But they now have more Administrative Staff than students!

Now for today:


That is $57,000 not $1,500 and no health insurance.

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

If Elephants Had Wings

The book by Thompson of the constructs of models is an interesting read. It is clearly targeted for the general audience but does provide some enlightenment to the world of models, especially ones that have played a part in our day to day living. Two of the most recent are those related to COVID and those related to climate change.

 Overall the books is well written and the author gets their point across. However, there are many points of views on models. I have worked with models for well over sixty years. Thus I have the distinct disadvantage of experience. Early on I had to model the dynamics and control of spacecraft, some of which is controlled by the laws of physics and some by random or stochastic processes. Namely there are event we model to account for things that happen beyond our control or that we have no idea about other than trying to anticipate them. These models got people to the moon and back.

 The next level  of models are those in business plans for startups. I spent several decades in that space both as an entrepreneur and as an investor. In over hundreds of business plan models I do not think a one ever was even close to what happened. Success came from the entrepreneur being able to recognize issue and adapt accordingly.

 The author interjects models of COVID, especially those from Ferguson and the London cabal. In later March of 2020 they predicted in their model deaths in excess of 2.5 million in the US in less than a year. So far three years out we have less than 1.1 million. That is three years and more than two dozen variants. The flaws in their models are extensive. They did not anticipate the mutation rates we see but anyone with minimal skill in virology would have done so since it was a single stranded RNA virus and was easily mutated. Secondly, even today, we really do not know the details of transmission. Large crowds yes but aerosols and virions and then what? Third they made recommendations from those models which resulted in enormous societal impacts and economic disasters. Their models were specious at best and lacking in any details to have reached such conclusions. They did get a lot of Press however.

 The author discusses LTCM, and the Black Scholes disaster in 1998. I recall that quite well, I was in Moscow watching banks collapse as well. In 1972 I was at a conference at the University of Chicago with a team from MIT. We were to work with economists on systems and models, especially in a stochastic domain. Some of the folks later at LTCM were there as we had a discussion of an Ito process, and the formula. My parting remark having had the experience of spacecraft and especially Apollo XIII was that they should beware of the long tails on the probability distribution, that are never Gaussian. Thus LTCM was not a surprise. The model was flawed and they knew it.

 The author then moves to climate and the related models. Of course one must be careful here since there are many committed souls who have faith in these models. Yet one thing we know about models is that are reflections of their makers not necessarily of the reality they are attempting to describe. In the lates 60s I had the experience in some of the early models, and worked on getting data on aerosols and heating. I learned that each time I gathered mor data I had more questions. I suspect global climate models evoke similar responses.

 Let me now make some specific comments.

 p.15 Ockham dies in 1348 thus he lived and was active in the 14th century NOT the 13th. In fact his Nominalism was a major factor in examining each entity as unique and the existence of the abstract was denied.

 p. 19 Regarding mouse models we have the issue that they are used to examine, for example, immune system responses on specially genetically engineered mice. That in itself is an interesting tale of models. Mice ae mice, and genetically engineered mice are just that. Humans have unique characteristics and each is unique unto themselves. Thus mouse models explore just what the model is capable of stating.

 P 36 The single story statement is interesting. Perhaps that is why we have 4 Gospels?

 Pp 50-51 Are models sufficient to tell us something? Yes, like an exercise. One must recall that the Navy had a model for war with Japan, War Plan Orange. This was a model of how to fight Japan. So how well did that work out? Think Pearl Harbor. Likewise the Big Data and AI issues are themselves models, but models devoid of any paradigms. Namely AI is nothing more than lots of input with little output. For example thousands of mammograms and ultrasounds with the training for breast cancer. Place a new set in and it will tell you if it cancer or not. Hopefully.

 Pp 52-53. Feedback in reality is a key factor found in nature. The Cybernetics of Wiener is a critical element lacking in many models of physical systems. However it is a critical reality in almost all if not every organic system.

 P 83 is part of the Black Scholes model I discussed above. The author finds that a model wanting but perhaps for just some of the right reasons. Nature and the markets have that feedback capacity that often changes the underlying model elements one starts out with. Then again there are those nasty Black Swans.

 P 108 The author calls AI and autonomous system. I would say it goes well beyond that. AI is not based on underlying first principles proven buy clear and repeatable physical experiments. In contrast it is oftentimes just an amalgam of data weighted in a manner suitable to the designer and “trained” to produce a “proper” answer.

 p 114 et seq Economic models are complex abstractions of reality. Demand, supply, etc are abstractions and measured at some gross level. Each economic crisis we go through evokes some alternative economic reality that is an attempt to justify actions. But alas one wonders where this specific economic paradigm was before the crisis and what should have been done to prevent it.

 The latter part of the book is an attempt to justify climate models and discusses what governments should be doing. The reality unfortunately is that climate models are just that, models limited by data and the stochastic dynamics of reality.

 Overall the book is a good take on models in general. Some models are good, some necessary, some useless, and some cause undue harm. COVID models were example where anyone could be their own epidemiologist, albeit lacking any knowledge of the virus itself. The virus has taken on a life of its own and may very well outlast all it models.

Monday, December 19, 2022

Power is Out Again

 JCP&L in my opinion is the most incompetent third world power company! Power out again back up gas generator! Yep, gasoline folks, it works, otherwise we would be freezing here in the global warming paradise of New Jersey. 

This is why I moved my company from New Jersey to Prague. The Czechs are competent and reliable. The local power companies not so much. So before we single thread our existence we must always have a second exit, Plan B or whatever! 

I am thankful for gas powered electricity!

Saturday, December 17, 2022

When is Amazon NOT Amazon?

 I have been noticing an interesting trend in Amazon. Two day delivery is gone by the wayside. Especially if your seller is Amazon Services LLC. It appears that this entity of Amazon is merely a broker with third party sellers. They accept your order, then find a seller, who may or may not have the product, then wait until the seller sends Amazon the product, then you wait while some third party delivery gets the product to you.

It typically takes 9-15 days from time of order at the very best. 

This is a bit of slight of hand. But the service is getting atrocious. I believe that if you know the manufacturer or vendor go there directly. Amazon Services just add useless overhead for the same or often at a higher price.

It is a bit of a bait and switch in my opinion. Trust in Amazon is nearing zero! Pity. I was a great service at one time.

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Wishful Thinking

 Some eight years ago I wrote about CRISPRS and cancer. At that time there was a lot of hope but like many new techniques there are issues.

CRISPRS are simply DNA attack objects that when entering a cell can attach to a gene to be removed and replace it with something that works. So if a cancer is due to some genetic defect then using a CRISPR approach can delete the gene and replace it with a non-cancerous gene. Sounds simple. But:

1. It may not get to ever aberrant cell.

2. It may eliminate the wrong gene

3. It may cause serious immune responses

etc

This approach works on many blood system cancers but not every one. One must be able to identify the aberrant gene. That itself is not easy. There may be many such genes. Also cancers have the annoying behavior of hiding out in a protected environment so they cannot be gotten to. The list goes on.

A write in the NY Times seems to say it is real easy. The author notes:

I cannot imagine responding: “I’m sorry to say that while we can use CRISPR to repair your mutation in a test tube, we cannot repair it in you because this is not commercially viable.” Instead, I often try to connect patients with physicians who may specialize in their condition. A case study from gene therapy with viruses highlights the problem. Dr. Donald Kohn at U.C.L.A. built a therapy for a devastating genetic disease called severe combined immune deficiency. Partnering with clinicians at University College London, he used this therapy to treat 50 children doomed to die. Forty-eight were cured by the therapy; the other two survived after receiving a bone-marrow transplant. But public universities are not in the business of commercializing medicines they build. For this reason, U.C.L.A. licensed this miracle drug to a for-profit biotechnology company. After the company failed to make a profit on it, U.C.L.A. took back the license and obtained funding from the State of California to treat a small number of children in an academic setting. No children were treated in the four years it was under for-profit purview.

Thus CRISPR cures, like CAR-T cell and CIK cell approaches are true personalized medicine but our medical system does not deal with that effort very well. About ten years ago I worked on an MDS cancer using CIK approaches. Highly personalized and dramatically costly. 

The limitations are cost, human resources, training, and reimbursement. Most physicians follow the "book". Namely do what the FDA has approved. The challenge is how to get these innovative tools approved and how to get competent and trained physicians to apply them. 

As we get an aging population we see more challenging diseases. Unfortunately we do not have physicians either educated or trained to be innovative. Worse, they do not have the time to spend with patients needing these treatments.

Friday, December 9, 2022

Video Backgrounds


 As we have been using remote video connections for various purposes over the past three years now I am interested in how people represent themselves by the background in their video. A kitchen, a closet, a flower pot, a book case filled with books they never read...

I think that there is an interesting study to be made here.

Commencement Speakers

 Back in the Dark Ages at MIT there were no Commencement speakers. The students had earned the right to be there and not any third parties. Then somebody decided that they needed someone to tell the graduates something. Like actors who played floor cleaners at MIT in a grossly illogical drama. Then COOs of media companies. Now this year there is a You Tube personality!

You really cannot make this up. Instead of curing cancer, eliminating TB or the plague, we get a backwards wearing baseball hat "influencer" So "swimming in Jello" may be a pressing theoretical issue and not solving the genetics of breast cancer. 

But this is a classic proto-Marxist approach, down grade everyone and then control them. 

Imagine a parent who dumped a quarter million into the education having to sit while this "dude" tells people about being a video influencer. At some point the MIT Board should be asking themselves some questions.

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Amazon and Prevarication

 Amazon has been having lots of problems. Now the default on delivery and blame the customer. For example:

Thursday, December 8
11:00 AM
Package is out for delivery.
Kearny, US
3:05 AM
Package being processed at carrier facility.
Kearny, US
Wednesday, December 7
10:52 PM
Package arrived at a carrier facility.
Kearny, US
10:15 PM
Delivery attempted.
Kearny, US
10:55 AM
Package is out for delivery.
Kearny, US
2:23 AM
Package being processed at carrier facility.
Kearny, US
2:12 AM
Package arrived at a carrier facility.
Kearny, US
 
Note that NO Delivery was attempted. They blame the customer for their incompetence. It took them 12 hours to accomplish nothing and then accuse the customer! 

Crashing systems, falsely blaming the customer, etc. BTW still not here!
 
 

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

The Christmas Letter

 Every year there are folks who send out the Christmas Letter. It extols their success and that of each member of their family and how well they are doing. 

I often have wondered why this is done. As we age the burdens of age pile up and some of us, if we were to be true writers of the year past, would list a set of trials and tribulations, age does that to us. And our children and grandchildren may also have faced challenges and may not be a world class oboe player or mountain climbing expert. 

Many people keep their challenges to themselves and unlike the may today who proclaim ever hung toe nail problem just take life a day at a time. 

This past year I have seen friends and colleagues deal with many challenges from children with cancer to the death of long time colleagues. I get no Christmas Letter from those whose life is a struggle. 

Then again I wonder if these letters are really what has happened. Or are they just made up stories to show how wonderful the life of these folks is. 

Perhaps we should just band these letters. We all have ups and downs, and our grandchildren are doing well or possibly struggling.

Penmanship?

 Back in the mid 50s and before then students were taught penmanship. Namely how to hold a writing instrument and how to write cursive. One was graded on one's proficiency and neatness. There was a standard way to hold a pencil or pen in one's hand. That technique using the opposing thumb distinguished humans from the lower casts of animals. 

Students used pencils until the third grade at which point they received their first ink pen, usually a Waterman pen, and blue ink. Blue-black, black and even turquoise inks were available but delayed until high school. Paper sizing assured the ink would not mess up the page. One could judge the future success of a person by how they wrote with a pen and moreover how neat they were in doing so. 

Now if one looks at students they write using instruments that barely provide for any useful purpose and the grip the student has on the instrument looks more primitive than a rat's holding a rancid piece of pizza on the New York subway. The scratching is incomprehensible and the spelling never accurate not to mention the syntax. 

The educational establishment has adopted computers which serve the purpose of entering answered to multiple choice questions and eliminate the need for a teacher to understand any one of their students needs.

Penmanship was a window to a students mind and character. It is a loss to no longer have that insight. When I graded exams and Problem Sets I could see what the student missed and what my faults as an instructor were. That is now lost. There is no pride in writing, and worse yet we have social media that destroys both writing and civility.

Just a thought for the day. Yes, I still have my Shaffer pen, blue black ink, ans a notebook with sizing. Rare as it may be. I also write and send letters. In ink!

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Apps Store vs Hush a Phone

 In the past century there was a case that ATT filed against a company that mad a mechanical device to make calls more discreet. It was a covering over the mouth piece and speaker to eliminate third parties from hearing the conversation. ATT alleged that this was their network and they had control over every element in the network. The Courts eventually disagreed. That was the beginning of the 1980 divestiture.

Now along comes certain phone makers who only permit uses via their App Store. In many ways the Hush a Phone decision mirrors the same issues. In fact in my opinion it is worse. For at the time ATT sought the remedy it was a Federally supported monopoly. The vendors in this case are not. Thus antitrust laws also apply.

Perhaps a time to sell short.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Masks Redux

 NEJM has a pro-mask piece which unfortunately is clearly politicized. It is clear that even today we do not know two facts:

1. How is COVID spread? Aerosols and if so how far and haw how a count?

2. What is a mask blocking if it is to prevent infection. The corollary is what does a mask have to do to prevent spread?

The NEJM piece states:

These tensions were exacerbated by ongoing scientific debates about exactly what masks accomplished (did they protect people who wore them from others, or did they protect others from those who wore them?). Playing out during a heated presidential campaign, the mask debates were quickly politicized. And as had happened in 1918, mask confrontations could turn violent.

 The article then states:

 A definitive count will probably never be possible, but it is certainly plausible that many deaths occurred because of people's reluctance to use masks, and other basic preventive techniques, to their fullest potential. These deaths should not be forgotten. The public health field may have the tools it needs to prevent another pandemic, but it will succeed only if it receives adequate investment and public support.

In my opinion and in my experience the problem was the Government, both Administrations. Thankfully we have vaccines, a patina of protection. The mask issue however is problematic. On march 9, 2020 I sat waiting for a meeting in the Weill Cornell hospital downtown in a stuffed waiting room. I sat by the door with alcohol for my hands and fresh air to avoid transmissions and gloves to take the subway. This of course when the risk on the subway was greater from a virus than the miscreants attacking the riders. But alas, I saw the lights of the train coming down the COVID tunnel, we already had two months warning.

The real problem is that science is often more adversarial than our legal profession. "Facts" change as we learn more yet two problems exacerbate the issue. First almost all people assume science is somehow settled. Second we have seen a massive explosion of ego driven "scientists", especially related to the Government, who are more often the Ex Cathedra variant than the true scientific mode.

The second statement above will never be achieved as long as he above problems persist, especially the latter. Egos can kill more people than the virus. 

MIT, Return of the Kluge Lady?

 As one may recall, the MIT Provost single handedly closed MIT to its alumni. The COVID virus was one of many reasons but it has become the raison d'etre for all proto-Marxist attacks on freedom and individuality. Not that I am in any way opposed to Public Health, in fact I believe it is essential, but regrettably it has become a political tool.

Thus I guess the backlash to closing MIT to only the select few to adhere to its new policies got the Provost to slightly back off. But the back off allows entry to lobbies and still has significant delimitation. Thus if an alum desires to contribute to a research effort they must be escorted by an appropriate Commissar to that area. 

I recall Moscow in the 70S! I recall the Kluge Lady, the KGB plant that kept your key to your Intourist Hotel room, and controlled your entry and departure. I guess MIT had its own version of a Kluge Lady controlling the entry to only politically approved Party Members!

Malevolent Microsoft

 Here is the latest. W11 Cumulative Update KB5020044 performs the following truly evil deeds.

1. It takes 6 hours to install. You are thus non-productive for that time.

2. I crashes the system thus taking another 2 hours to reboot. This usually occurs at a peak time.

3. I use Task Manager, a small and old tool that allows one to see what MS SW is messing up the system by using memory, disk space, CPU time etc. Now the evil doers at MS have decided to up date this with a "black screen" Nice but the text is also black. Get it, black on black. Try and read it! NOT

4. Thus for the past 24 hours I have messed up a few of our systems with this useless change. BTW we just has one on 11/8/22. So why do we need another mess 22 days later! These true evil doers cannot seem to get anything stable. Just when you get settled they come up with some other moronic act.

BTW, MS has the standard ploy of making their customers debug their products! There should be a basic product that is safe and not changed. Let the changes be an upgrade for those who want the special effects. I don't.