Four Years Ago

 Four years ago I read the NEJM article stating:

In December 2019, a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause was linked to a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China. A previously unknown betacoronavirus was discovered through the use of unbiased sequencing in samples from patients with pneumonia. Human airway epithelial cells were used to isolate a novel coronavirus, named 2019-nCoV, which formed a clade within the subgenus sarbecovirus, Orthocoronavirinae subfamily. Different from both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV is the seventh member of the family of coronaviruses that infect humans. Enhanced surveillance and further investigation are ongoing. (Funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Major Project for Control and Prevention of Infectious Disease in China.) emerging and reemerging pathogens are global challenges for public health. broadly among humans, other mammals, and birds and that cause respira 1 Coronaviruses are enveloped RNA viruses that are distributedtory, enteric, hepatic, and neurologic diseases.2,3 Six coronavirus species are known to cause human disease.4 Four viruses — 229E, OC43, NL63, and HKU1 — are prevalent and typically cause common cold symptoms in immunocompetent individuals.4 The two other strains — severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) — are zoonotic in origin and have been linked to sometimes fatal illness.5 SARS-CoV was
the causal agent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreaks in 2002 and 2003 in Guangdong Province, China.6-8 MERS-CoV was the pathogen responsible for severe respiratory disease outbreaks in 2012 in the Middle East.9  Given the high prevalence and wide distribution of coronaviruses, the large genetic diversity and frequent recombination of their genomes, and increasing human–animal interface activities, novel coronaviruses are likely to emerge periodically in humans owing to frequent cross-species infections and occasional spillover events.

 At that point I knew the proverbial would hit the fan. Also based upon experience and in my opinion it was likely this report would have been highly filtered. 

And to paraphrase an HIV term, "The Band played on"

Horse Shoes and other things

 Certain people seem to demand that what they do is essential and even if no one wants it anymore then we should all chip in an pay for it. Consist the horse manure collectors in New York City. Now we really did not need them for well over a hundred years an no one demand the "Government" fund their ongoing efforts. Frankly it would make traffic worse and one would guess Congestion Pricing would not apply to them.

Now along comes some privileged Atlantic reporter who states:

Some have called for direct and muscular government intervention. Policy proposals include tax credits for publications that hire reporters and for advertisers that place ads in those publications, as well as increased government spending on public-service ads. A potentially more powerful mechanism: a law compelling Google and Facebook to compensate publishers for the news content the tech companies display on their platforms. Publishers around the world have lined up in support of a law enacted in Australia in 2021 known as the News Media Bargaining Code. The law creates a framework for publishers to negotiate payments from tech giants. Thus far in Australia, the law has resulted in more than $140 million a year in payments, according to the former government official who implemented the bargaining code—a tiny fraction of the $424 billion that Google’s and Facebook’s parent companies collected in revenues last year, but real money to Aussie media companies. The law’s apparent success in supporting journalism has spurred similar proposals in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Indonesia, Brazil, Switzerland, and South Africa. California might pass a state-level bargaining code this year. In 2023, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Senator John Kennedy introduced a federal version. The tech giants themselves, unsurprisingly, have balked; Facebook has blocked news in Canada rather than paying publishers there. Still, even the threat of bargaining codes can nudge tech companies into negotiations that lead to meaningful payments to publishers, according to Anya Schiffrin, who has studied global media incentives as the director of the technology, media, and communications program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “I’m a huge believer in bargaining codes,” she told me. But, she predicted, the Klobuchar-Kennedy bill, despite its long list of bipartisan co-sponsors, is unlikely to become law anytime soon. “The Senate seems to have other things to do,” she said. Among those who wish Congress would act is Soon-Shiong, who responded to criticism from Democratic lawmakers by urging them to pass a law to support news organizations. “I’d like to put the question to them,” he wrote, according to the Times’ own coverage. “What can they do to help preserve a free and robust press, one that is instrumental in upholding our democracy?”

In a free market if no one wants your product you either change or go out of business. No more horses not more horse shoes. But there is now a class of people who firmly believe they are on high and demand we pay even though no one wants them.

A Modest Academic Proposal

 There is significant outcries against the DEI etc overhead at US universities. At some universities this type of overhead competes with total faculty. So how to solve it without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Simple:

1. Fund research directly with no overhead. Fund faculty, researchers, students if they work.

2. Do not fund overhead. MIT and others have 90% + overhead. It is this slush fund that supports DEI etc.

3. If they still want to do this stuff let them fund it out of endowment funds donated by alumni.

4. But alumni can do what I have done, give the money directly to the researcher for their own fund and not a penny goes to overhead.

This was if the alumni want to support the overhead, let them, but also they have the option for direct funding via faculty discretionary funds, no overheat etc.

Dumb and Dumber

 The NY Times reports why the US military were killed. They state:

Air defenses failed to stop an attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan on Sunday that killed three American soldiers at least in part because the hostile drone approached its target at the same time an American drone was returning to the base, two U.S. officials said on Monday. The return of the American surveillance drone to the remote resupply base caused some confusion over whether the incoming drone was friendly or not, and air defenses were not immediately engaged, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss preliminary findings into a major contributing factor to the incident. Two other drones that attacked other locations nearby in southeast Syria were shot down, they added.

 For almost a century we have had IFF, Identification Friend or Foe. One would have expected this in our most advanced systems, but alas like so many software systems today they are designed in my opinion by arrogant and ignorant morons. Pity!

More Nonsense

 MIT News has an article which in my experience is nonsense. 

An MIT study finds the brains of children who grow up in less affluent households are less responsive to rewarding experiences. MIT neuroscientists have found that the brain’s sensitivity to rewarding experiences — a critical factor in motivation and attention — can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions. In a study of 12 to 14-year-olds whose socioeconomic status (SES) varied widely, the researchers found that children from lower SES backgrounds showed less sensitivity to reward than those from more affluent backgrounds.

In reality and in my experience, the old MIT was  the bastion of opportunity for those from lower incomes. Those who created their own opportunity. MIT was not a Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, it was pure meritocracy. If you studied like crazy for the SATs and got 1500 or higher, if you got a New York Regents Scholarship, high grades on State Regents exams, despite having no money and less than supportive parents and environments, it was an escape, one where you never wrote an essay bemoaning your life! 

Yes we had a few Prep school kids, one that I remember, but for the most part they were Bronx HS Science and Stuyvesant. They were kids from low income homes, individual achievers. This write up is in my experience utter nonsense, unless of course you dig a bit deeper as to what types of people the writers are speaking of.

Kind of Fishy?

 The Chevron ruling of the Supreme Court has in my opinion over the decades been one of the worst. Simply stated, Chevron says if Congress passes a law and it is not well written then the Administrative agency responsible for its administration can interpret the law as it sees fit no matter what. In effect it establishes an independent Governmental body composed solely on bureaucrats whose person opinions control what happens.

The latest is the herring case where the Government Administrators demand that fishing vessels have monitors and that the vessel must pay the monitors salary. As Turley notes:

The cases today concern federal requirements that commercial fishermen pay for at-sea monitors. Herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island are challenging the law in a case with a long list of amicus filings on both sides from groups, politicians, and businesses. The fishermen say that the monitors could put them out of business, costing up to 20 percent of their annual revenues in a business that is already marginal for profits. They argue that the government wants monitors (which they do not necessarily oppose) but lacked the funds. The decision was made to shift the costs to the fishermen and then citing Chevron to curtail judicial review.

 Chevron was always a problem. Congress can be sloppy and then let the uncontrolled bureaucrats make the decisions and having the taxpayers pay the costs of these often politically divergent acts. Hopefully Chevron is overturned. In my opinion and my experience this is worse than Roe.

From Whence Do They Come?

 The USNI newsletter notes:

U.S. fighter aircraft shot down an anti-ship cruise missile the Houthis fired toward USS Laboon (DDG-58), U.S. Central Command announced Sunday night. Central Command’s release did not specify the aircraft that shot down the missile or the military branch. The fighter aircraft shot down the missile off the coast of Al-Hudaydah, according to the release. There were no reports of damage or injury following the strike. The attack on Laboon comes after two days of strikes by the U.S. and the United Kingdom on Houthi targets in Yemen. During the strikes, which involved a number of warships and aircraft, the U.S. and U.K. hit sites that included radar systems, production facilities and munition depots, USNI News previously reported.

Now one may ask; where do these state of the art anti-ship cruise missiles come from. Sanaa in Yemen was a key stop on the trade routes from Aden on to Rome. It also was the source of incense used by Rome when burning bodies. Today Sanaa is a stronghold of the local terrorist clans. 

As far as I know there are no Raytheon or Lockheed factories there, no high tech firms, no universities etc. Thus, from whence do these weapons come? Perhaps addressing the source would be helpful.

BTW, the market for incense has dropped significantly in the last two thousand years.

X-15 to X-59

 NASA and Lockheed unveiled the new supersonic X-59. My first work was on the X-15 tracking atmospheric aerosols. The X-59 is a "quiet" supersonic. As NASA notes:

NASA and Lockheed Martin formally debuted the agency’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft Friday. Using this one-of-a-kind experimental airplane, NASA aims to gather data that could revolutionize air travel, paving the way for a new generation of commercial aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound. “This is a major accomplishment made possible only through the hard work and ingenuity from NASA and the entire X-59 team,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “In just a few short years we’ve gone from an ambitious concept to reality. NASA’s X-59 will help change the way we travel, bringing us closer together in much less time.”

 Interesting how time changes, kind of. I flew the Concorde two times, even then it was a bit out of date. But it made a tremendous difference getting to Europe.

Teaching

 I have had the good fortune to have taught at multiple institutions. What I recall most was that to be effective a good professor needs to make a connection with the students, they must become one with the material being taught. That means I had to have eye contact with each student, I had to see if they were missing something.

I recalled from my High School days I took college chemistry on television via a program called Continental Classroom. Midway through the course they introduced the concept of a mole. I could only think of pigmented skin lesions. One I kind of got it I could not figure out what experiments would demonstrate it. It took me fifty years to come back to Einstein and Brownian motion, despite having written about it I never realized Einstein's paper allowed for the calculation of Avogadro's number. You see in 1959 one could not ask the TV professor and he obviously could not see me.

The NY Times discusses AI as a means to instruct. They note:

Sal Khan, the chief executive of Khan Academy, gave a rousing TED Talk last spring in which he predicted that A.I. chatbots would soon revolutionize education. “We’re at the cusp of using A.I. for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,” Mr. Khan, whose nonprofit education group has provided online lessons for millions of students, declared. “And the way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.”

Nonsense. We have tried this for a decade with online courses.  The AI bot cannot see the student, cannot see the eyes showing lapses in understanding. The AI bot treats each student the same, when in reality they are all different.

This nonsensical proposal will just homogenize incompetence rather than provoke brilliance.

The Intern

 I can now see the importance of a Union in Colleges. The Intern. This is an unpaid laborer, a student perhaps, who is providing a valuable service such as grading exams, tutoring students, do research work, editing papers, etc. They are told that this unpaid labor will benefit them in the long run. In actuality the institution benefits and no one ever remembers the indentured servitude. The very need of a union. Remember Harvard now pays PhD students $50,000 per year and God knows what that means per hour.

When I was an undergrad, Junior and Senior years I was a Lab instructor and paid. As a Grad student I was an Instructor, paid and no tuition. In today's world, this invention of "the intern" is merely a way for the institution to get free labor. "Workers of the world arise!"

Urban Planners, Architects, and Nonsense

 The NY Times has an article as to how best to house 1 million more people. The author states:

New York City doesn’t have enough homes. The average New Yorker now spends 34 percent of pre-tax income on rent, up from just 20 percent in 1965. There are many reasons homes in the city are so expensive, but at the root of it all, even after the pandemic, is supply and demand: Insufficient housing in our desirable city means more competition — and therefore sky-high prices — for the few new homes that trickle onto the market. Some New Yorkers harbor fantasies that instead of building more, we can meet our housing needs through more rent control, against the advice of most economists, or by banning pieds-à-terre or by converting all vacant office towers into residential buildings, despite the expense and complexity. Given the enormity of the crisis, such measures would all be drops in the bucket, leading many to worry that if we were to actually build the hundreds of thousands of homes New Yorkers need, we would end up transforming the city into an unrecognizable forest of skyscrapers.

The structures the author promotes look like prisons. Have we not learned anything from the mass problems of "public housing". Try going into one. Crime, filth, decay, etc. There is in my opinion and my experience a single public housing system that works. It infects the city with a blight.

Yes, NY is expensive. We all pay the price. The new tax on driving into Manhattan is just an example. It forces people out of New York. At least those people legally here and working.  I grew up on Staten Island. Two busses, a ferry, then the subway was a daily occurrence. Two hours commute each way. 

Now in New Jersey, it is 45 minutes to NYC and then pray you can survive a subway ride to some short distance. 

Perhaps an economic solution is best, just let the prices increase and drive the residents to wherever they can exist. Building more prison like structures will do nothing more than enhance the criminal underbelly of the city.

NYC and Common Carriage Law

 Jonathan Turley makes an interesting observation regarding the bussing of illegals to NYC. I believe that there is another more salient dimension to this claim by NY regarding the transport of indigent illegals. Namely common carrier law! As Turley notes:

New York City Major Eric Adams announced on Thursday that he is suing bus companies for over $700 million for busing undocumented persons to the state. This is truly a thing to behold. It is a frivolous lawsuit based on an absurd law motivated by raw hypocrisy. In the meantime, the Biden Administration has been flying migrants to outside the city but no lawsuit is expected. New York City politicians have long heralded their status as a sanctuary city. Yet, it is now taking various methods to prevent migrants from seeking sanctuary by threatening anyone who brings them to the city. The lawsuit will rely on New York Social Services Law § 149, which requires that “[a]ny person who knowingly brings, or causes to be brought, a needy person from out of state into this state for the purpose of making him a public charge…shall be obligated to convey such person out of state or support him at his own expense.”

 The bus is a common carrier. It carries people from one place to another regardless. As such if a bus happens to carry a bank robber from A to B they are held harmless for that person robbing the bank. The whole information industry is based upon some form of common carriage. Common carrier law has been around since Queen Elizabeth I. We here in the US inherited it and it initially applied to ships and land based physical carriage. The carrier is immune from what the entity does which it carries. Otherwise commerce would come to a halt. The English recognized this and common carrier laws allowed England to dominate world trade.

But New York City and State are run by the same folks that instituted the tea tax that led to the Boston Party of past fame. They tax anything, dead or alive. Recently they sue anything dead or alive, if they do not like it. 

It will be interesting to see what this does.

Swearing

 The Guardian has a piece that at this time of year I find amusing. The writer notes:

Swearing has become more widely acceptable over the past two decades because it is increasingly used for other purposes than to insult people, linguistics experts have said. “F..k” and “s..t”, the two most commonly used swearwords in the UK, are frequently used to emphasise a point in conversation or to build social bonds, rather than with the specific intent to cause offence, according to academic researchers.

The use of the F word, actually a Germanic derivative but introduce by Edward III in 1353 as "Fornication Under Consent of the King". This was a permission for what was then for Common Law Marriages,  since the Plague of 1348 had demolished religious orders and those capable of performing a legal ceremony. Needless to say the shortening of the word has come down to us as noted. 

In my own case, it was the cold January of 1961 that my father sent me to work at the NY Sanitation Department, if I recall to teach me what work was really like. Perhaps I was a bit rebellious, but I don't recall. So every day I arose at 4 AM, dressed warmly, took two busses to the Sanitation Garage in Port Richmond. There after 4 years of Latin, three of French, one of Greek, a bit of Italian, a summer of Russian, I learned Staten Island speak, Namely the use of the F word as a noun, adjective, verb, adverb, conjunctive, preposition and on an on. One spoke using the F word as every other word. I had become a true Staten Islander, or even a Brooklynite! I could mumble and interject Fs as good as anyone else. Thus I could terrify the worst of my Mafioso friends.

Language is a reflection of class. In England it defines one's class, think King Charles. Most people fail to recognize that. Thus Jersey Shore is a true reflection of some I knew in my youth. As an aside Snooki (actually born in Chili) lives just around the corner from me here in New Jersey. She is listed by Wikipedia as a famous resident beating out two Mafioso heads who are now in the slammer. 

But the question is; what does the use of the F word, as it migrates through society really mean? I still feel the pull of that Sanitation Garage!

MIT, Policies, and Ethics

 The current President of MIT sent out a letter to students, faculty, staff and alumni/ae. She makes four points which are interesting. She notes:

1. Benchmarking and improving student disciplinary processes

MIT’s long-established student disciplinary processes were designed to be fair, proportionate and confidential. Those qualities are vital. However, recent events have spurred some frustration in the community with respect to the timeliness, accountability and transparency of our disciplinary system.

 This is truly a problem of culture. If a speaker is invited to discuss some topic, perhaps opposing the views of some clan established at the Institute, it should be allowed to occur unencumbered unless it incites actions which are material threats to others. It is simple, you do not and cannot shout down speakers. It worked in Germany in the 30s but should not be tolerated at MIT today. The cause is simple, MIT has deliberately changed its culture via its student body and has selected students, and in turn some faculty, who are fundamentally attached to this type of behavior. Proper behavior is like pornography, you know it when you see it. Shouting in someone's face, blocking access to classes or lecture halls, clear threats of violence, well not too hard. Solution, simple, expulsion or termination.

2. A shared understanding of the rights and responsibilities of free expression

In response to a speech controversy in 2021, the faculty approved the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom in late 2022 as the foundation for a strong campus culture of free expression. In its first year, the statement has been tested publicly several times: last spring with a provocative postering campaign, and in multiple moments this fall.

MIT created this problem by its deliberate change of culture. One should try to examine the student body and what was the basis for admission of the culprits opposing free speech. In the old days, students were just too busy with studies to assemble and oppress others. I was a student and faculty member during the Viet Nam War period. Harvard had protests. MIT had virtually none. Yes we had bomb threats, yes we had SDS attacks, but on a day to day basis it was calm. After all, anyone one of us could be drafted in a femto second!

3. Making sure our DEI programs effectively meet campus needs

We will soon announce a new Vice President for Equity and Inclusion (VPEI). With this new role, we have an important opportunity to reflect on and comprehensively assess the structures and programs intended to support our community and create a welcoming environment.

This is the core problem. MIT was based on excellence. Diversity works in environments wherein commonality of performance is the norm. A factory, Government positions, and the like. In a place like MIT, which is highly selective, the choice of people must be blind to anything but thier performance and moral character. That should be the only factors. The DEI cadre has expanded to hundreds of highly paid individuals overseeing the Institute. The needs of the campus are varied. It needs competent facility mangement, lab safety, and of course students and faculty. In the latter two one seeks excellence.

4. Targeted questions in our campus climate survey

To be effective in fighting antisemitism, Islamophobia and hatred based on national origin or ethnicity on campus, we need a clear understanding of the nature and extent of the problem.

 This is an interesting point. Namely a survey to understand the attitudes of students and perforce faculty. MIT has always been a multicultural community. I had students from China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Israel, various European countries, and I was actively participating in the MITES program seeking minority students to bring into the MIT student body. Many of the MITES students I have remained in touch with for over forty years. All have been quite successful. But the question is; what has MIT done in its selection process of students and faculty to actually CREATE this environment?

In my opinion, the point addressed are germane but one suspects that the results will perforce of the people be just a reinforcement of the culture leading to this collapse. Pity!

A University Student Newspaper

 Over the past few months I was impressed by the fairness and depth of coverage by the Harvard Crimson. The reporting was clear, comprehensive and balanced. I have a nexus to Harvard, not as strong as it had been to MIT, and have the habit of reading The Crimson each day. Unlike Harvard however, MIT has no such Institute wide news reporting. The MIT News is a propaganda sheet which has become the classic example of what to think not how to think. 

I think that the MIT students should/must take the example of Harvard and create a newspaper, website if you will, that is a balanced and truthful non-propaganda sheet for the MIT community. Otherwise the propaganda rag of MIT News will form MIT for the years to come. 

In Loco Parentis Circa 2024

 The MIT President, the sole surviving member of the University Presidents telling Congress their tales of woe, writes a letter to the MIT Community (includes us poor Alumni/Alumnae). Following through on the links one observes several facts.

1. MIT no longer helps students how to think but clearly tells them what to think. 

2. I counted hundreds of staff and faculty involved in overhead work as thought police. The costs of this must be enormous! That is why I have refused to donate another penny! The costs of this Stasi like infrastructure is clearly in the tens of millions a year.

3. There are so many goals and wishful thinking that it is impossible to follow any of them. Clarity is gone, transparency is dissolved into a miasma of proto Marxist speak.

4. MIT was know as an egalitarian institution, wherein ones background, genetic makeup, etc were incidental to your ability to produce. Your work was judged by competent peers and not controlled by policy Commissars. 

5. The current President in my opinion may well lead to the demise of the MIT that many of us knew and admired. 

Having been at this blog for now over fifteen years, I saw the changes in our society but I never anticipated that I would ever see the collapse of so cherished institution. MIT was never a place where you went to become indoctrinated by minions of mind changers. It appears to have become that now.