Politics, Economics and other Stuff

NYC Marthon Injuries

The WSJ reports

Of the 60,000 runners who registered for the New York marathon several months ago, about 45,000 will show up for its Staten Island start. Fewer than 2,000 who start the race won't finish. Those 15,000 no-shows reflect a variety of unforeseen circumstances. The most common reason, race organizers say, is injury.

Putting my running prowess in perspective

Putting my running prowess -- with my recent 21:06 5K -- in perspective, David emails that he ran a (very impressive) 19:20 19:39 5K today.  I suspect I can get to a 19:20 5K eventually, but I'm not sure I can and I'd not bet on it happening by next Spring or even next Fall.  But I'll try!  One of the benefits (?) of long distance competition.  

I do think I can get under 20:00 by next Spring (or by next Fall?) and under 19:00 eventually, but I won't know until I try.  I have started running two tempo runs a week as of last week and I'll need to keep that up. 

Update #1: David updates

They changed the official time again. Now it's 19:39. Oh well. Still respectable. I got new much lighter shoes, Brooks Launch. That helped. Also lots of chocolate espresso beans. And 6 oz. of scotch night before had no negative impact.

107,894 Photo Files

There are 107,894 photo files on my hard drive.  The breakdown by meta-data is

So my photo taking is already setting a new record for 2011 and the year still has two months to go.  The '1980' date is a meta-data error.  My lenses for the Canon 40D are the EF lenses. 

There is some double counting here, since the count includes at times jpg, psd and raw files for the same shot.  But I convert much less than 10% of my raw files. 

 

Robert Mickey, The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944-1972

I know, my wife tells me to slow down my book buying...still, I couldn't resist pre-ordering Robert Mickey's The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944-1972.  His article The Beginning of the End for Authoritarian Rule in America: Smith v. Allwright and the Abolition of the White Primary in the Deep South, 1944-1948" (Studies in American Political Development, Fall 2008) was terrific and I'm looking forward to reading the longer book version. 

How a 50% debt cut is actually 28%

Zero Hedge writes:

• Greece has €350 billion in total debt including about €70 billion in Troika "post-petition" loans; these are untouched.
• Of the €280 billion, roughly €75 billion is held by the ECB: this, like the Troika loans, will be untouched.
• This leaves just ~€200 billion in actual debt to undergo a haircut.
• Apply a 50% haircut to this debt [...]
• Total debt to be cut: just about €100 billion.
• Hence, of the total €350 billion, just €100 billion is eliminated, [€35 billion] used to backstop and service Greek pension and retirement obligations
• €250, or the residual, of €350, the original, means 72%, or a 28% haircut.
  
• Greek GDP was €230 billion on December 31, 2010 and declining fast.
  
• And that is how a 50% haircut is "cut" almost in half

Rampant Speculation in Science

From The Costs of Breathing

[M]utations in mitochondrial DNA arise over time as a result of simple usage; and mitochondrial heteroplasmy (a mixture of mutant and normal DNA in the mitochondria of the same cell) is indeed common in aging tissues and many tumors (8). Heteroplasmy potentiates mitonuclear mismatch, increasing ROS leak and the likelihood of apoptosis, which can lead to tissue loss. As the most metabolically active tissues—notably brain and muscle—approach the apoptotic threshold faster, they are preferentially lost, which can lead to degenerative diseases. Some cells escape that fate. Senescent cells survive by glycolysis, often with high mitochondrial ROS leak, which gives rise to oxidative stress. This drives epigenetic changes and the expression of proinflammatory factors (3) associated with chronic inflammatory conditions such as diabetes, and cancer (9).

Mitochondria and the Autophagy–Inflammation–Cell Death Axis in Organismal Aging

Alterations of mitochondrial functions are linked to multiple degenerative or acute diseases. As mitochondria age in our cells, they become progressively inefficient and potentially toxic, and acute damage can trigger the permeabilization of mitochondrial membranes to initiate apoptosis or necrosis. Moreover, mitochondria have an important role in pro-inflammatory signaling. Autophagic turnover of cellular constituents, be it general or specific for mitochondria (mitophagy), eliminates dysfunctional or damaged mitochondria, thus counteracting degeneration, dampening inflammation, and preventing unwarranted cell loss. Decreased expression of genes that regulate autophagy or mitophagy can cause degenerative diseases in which deficient quality control results in inflammation and the death of cell populations. Thus, a combination of mitochondrial dysfunction and insufficient autophagy may contribute to multiple aging-associated pathologies.

I'm a bit puzzled by the popularity of this sort of, at least apparently, broad brush thinking. Theory ahead of evidence...but it's not even theory, more hand waving. 

Fitness Schedule

1) I need to incorporate cycling into my training schedule.  Running will, hopefully, remain my main activity.  I'm thinking of sticking with running 5 times per week, maybe cutting back to 4 times a week if necessary to prevent injury or if cycling takes over.  This would be 1-2 tempo runs, 2-3 normal run and 1 long run.  I'm thinking of starting out with 1 tempo run per week, but eventually upping it to 2 tempo runs per week.  Or I might just go for 2 tempo runs a week right now.  For cycling I'm aiming at 3 times a week, initially just 3 normal sessions (which are now just 30 min), but then going to 1 tempo session, 1 normal session and one long session.  Normal sessions should also get longer than 30 min. 5x running and 3x cycling a week with one mandated full rest day will mean two days with both running and cycling. 

I'm also going to move from strength training every day (with reduced work on Saturday and Sunday) to the usually recommended strength training every other day.  This will, however, mean raising the work load a bit.  Strength will then alternate with stretching/yogo days (as well as a bit of injury prevention strength, i.e. weighted leg raises). 

2) I did manage to run my first tempo run in a long while this morning.  It was cold and I felt less springy than I would have hoped, but I did manage to run 10 min easy, then 4x 4 min tempo with 2 min easy run breaks, and finishing out easy to make 45 min.  Pace on the tempo was a bit under 7 min/mile on all intervals. 

3) I've been playing around a bit more with age-grading calculators and it seems that my horrible times as a 15 year old indicate I should be able to run a 18:30 5K (or a 1:25 half marathon or a 2:58 marathon) at age 45.  I don't expect to see that anytime soon...I do hope to get under 20 min by next Spring.   How heavy was I at 15?  Would loosing 5 more lbs help? 

One Problem with Originalism

This is one of my problems with actually practiced originalism as well:

If you are going to proclaim "originalism", but don't want to consider the intent of the Radical Republicans whose amendments radically changed the Constitution, you are confessing to being a fake. 

I'm puzzled why this point doesn't come up 100% of the time when original meaning is used. 

Just another afternoon in Northern Virginia

A traffic jam one or the other direction.  We actually didn't seriously get stuck in traffic on our way to the National Zoo and back. 

1:39 pm on Sunday and we're still not out of the house

Kids are slow.  Adults are about to .... but taking kids outside who have not eaten is a loosing proposition.  I can't stand whining for fast food away from home. 

U Chicago Labor Economists

A friend reports:

High point of visit to Chicago: Derek Neal's horror at learning that Eddie Lazear (visiting [from Stanford, formerly U Chicago]) was the economist for the NFL players' union. Meanwhile, Kevin Murphy was absent, occupied with his duties at the NBA players's union.

Dinotte 1200L+ and 300R

The lights showed up today, I installed them and took a short ride up and down the street in the dark.  The front light has good throw and good brightness.  The rear light looks fine too, though less bright than I may have feared...it's not going to blind anybody. 

Germany and the Eurozone

David Beckworth writes:

[M]ore often than not, it has wielded its influence in a manner that best served Germany rather than the Eurozone as a whole.  This tendency is clearly seen in the figures below which show that ECB monetary policy has been rather effective in stabilizing the trend path of nominal spending in Germany, but not elsewhere in the Eurozone:

My age-graded 5K time of 21:12 is 19:26

The people who organize 'masters athletics' for people 35 and older have 'age graded' running times, which adjust race times for age.  I've not looked into the methods used, but it is an accepted approach and probably not a bad first pass.  In any case, if you look up my 5K time of 21:12 you get that, age-adjusted, it is equivalent to a young person running 19:26.  So theoretically, I'm already under a 20 min 5K. 

On the other hand, my basically untrained race results from when I was around 15 years old indicate I should be able run a 19:44 5K at my age.  So I still need to improve at least 1:30 min.  If not more, since I'm putting in a lot more disciplined training now than I ever did at 15. 

Getting under 20 min for a 5K may not be a pipe dream.  Even at my age. 

Looking into iPhone Pricing again

Well, first thing: availability seems to be a problem in Northern Virginia. 

LED Front and Tail Lights

I got the Dinotte 1200L+ front light (and battery pack) and 300R tail light.  Very bright...they do have a 60 day return policy.  Probably overkill, but this is suitable for a daytime running light.  Not clear how many lumen the tail light is, but the front light is 1300 lumen (without too much cheating with measurement).  2.5 hours on 1300 lumens, 10 hours on 325 lumens, flashing a bit more than doubles run times. 1300 lumen is about 15% under the approx 1500 lumen you get out of a standard halogen car light (not high beams).

I'm not going to fess up on cost here, but I am willing to spend as much on bike lights as you would one a single car light (i.e. we are in the $100+ range).  

Photo of the Day

via the WSJ.

Canon announces its new 1D camera body

Not that I'll be able to afford it.  Looks nice.  This opens up the space for the 5DIII to get announced, but they may need to lag it quite some time after the 1DX availabilty in March 2012.

Canon EOS-1D X

• Full Frame
• 18.1MP
• Dual DIGIC 5+ – 17 Times The Processing Power of DIGIC 4
• ISO 100-51200 Native
• 100,000 Pixel RGB Metering Sensor
• EOS iSA (Intelligent Subject Analysis)
• 61 Point AF
• 21 f/5.6 Cross Type Sensors
• 20 f/4 Cross Type Sensors
• 5 f/2.8 Cross Type Senors
• EOS iTR AF (Intelligent Tracking & Recognition Auto Focus)
• 12 Frames Per Second
• 14 Frames Per Second JPG Only
• 400,000 Shot Rated Shutter
• Ethernet Connection
• March Availability

Much more over at Planet5D. 

JSTOR access for alumni

Hey, this is something I want (via InSide HigherEd).  My two alma maters better get their act together quickly. 

Alumni Access Pilot

The schools below offer ongoing access to JSTOR to their alumni as part of JSTOR's pilot program. Alumni at participating institutions gain full access to the same set of content available to all current students and faculty.

Follow the links below or contact your alumni society for more information! 

• Agnes Scott College 
• American University 
• Amherst College 
• Bucknell University
• Case Western Reserve University
• Catholic Theological Union
• Columbia University
• Deakin University
• Duke University 
• George Washington University
• Pennsylvania State University
• Rice University
• Saint Meinrad School of Theology
• Smith College
• Southern Illinois University
• SUNY at Buffalo
• University of Exeter NEW!
• University of London
• Yale University NEW!

Cafe Nehmoneeh

Highly recommened.  Not that their web site provides much information (why would it?). 

Today's 5K Run: 21:12

The 5K race I was fearful about ended up not so badly.  I ran, unofficially (i.e. my best guess, official results are yet to be posted online), 21:17 21:12 ('net time', 'gun time' was 21:17 -- but it took me 5s to get to the start line).  This is a personal best and encouraging after I ran 22:00 a few weeks ago after running 22:06 in May.  And I didn't feel like I pushed my limits (which probably just means I didn't mispace myself too much, though I did have a 10:05 half-race split, so I did slow down in the 2nd half).  I even had a substantial final sprint in which I passed thy guy in front of me by a wide margin in pace.   On the other hand, it was a very flat course, much flatter than the previous two courses. 

This is a 6:49 mile/min pace.  Actually pretty slow, this is a pace that comes out to a three hour marathon (something that is in my long-range planning as a potential goal...).  So I have a while to go. 

Speculation:

1) my first race in an 'uninjured state' in which I'd been running (though on a reduced weekly mileage of just over 20 miles) for the last few weeks.  Both previous 5K were coming off several weeks of not running much due to injury. 

2) I did try the beet juice performance enhancement.  More on that later...supposedly a 2% improvement in pace, which does come down to about 25 seconds.  But I only drank 0.4 liters in two days.  And I'm not convinced it makes any difference anyway.   Beet juice and the flat course could account for 100% of the improvement. 

3) My goal of getting my 5K under 20 minutes may be alive again.  One or two weekly tempo runs should get me there by the Spring at the latest?  I've not been doing tempo runs at all due to injury concerns.

Starting this last week, I'm now doing leg lifts with 10 lbs weights, after doing them without weights for a few weeks.  I hope this helps with my quad tendinitis/knee issues.  So far it's working. 

Update #1: I did manage to step on the heel of some poor kid on the first 100 yards.  So I should in the future start in the first row, instead of running down people half my size. 

Update #2: all kids finished the 5K distance.  Kid #1 had a personal best and got #2 in her age/sex group.  Her time was 25:51 -- her comment: 'that was slow, I want to get a lot faster.'

Bike Carrier is up

I installed the Thule 917xtr T2 bike carrier this afternoon.  It took longer than I expected, but less than the 'one hour easy installation' I've seen in customer evaluations on Amazon.  There is more assembly than you'd expect since they pack the carrier in a pretty disassabled form.  I ended up taking off the 2nd track of the carrier since it blocks back car lights and my licence plate when it is on (see blow, some identifying info photoshopped out).  I can put it back on in about 3 min if necessary.  There is a lock mechanism for the bike frame, but you still need a cable and lock for the wheels -- though in general locks only slow down serious thieves slightly.  Locks are about discouraging the casual theft. 

I've not actually driven the bike carrier set-up with bike yet.  I did go bike with the kids #1 and #3 around the neighborhood this evening.  Kid #3 really is good keeping up with her small single gear bike that weights more than my new bike (seen blow on the left hand side).  No serious bike riding yet...time with the kids dominates.  They competed in X-country this morning, got Holloween costumes and we got 3 goldfish and had a kid #2 friend over for dinner (where we discussed the bad state of one of the running programs our kids are not in). 

Superluminal neutrinos -- how interesting physics dies

Technology Review reports on a paper that may explain where the group measuring the faster than light neutrinos went wrong.  On the other hand, it is hard to believe that something this simple could be done wrong after a large group of physicists sleeping on the problem a few times. 

From the abstract of the underlying paper Times of Flight between a Source and a Detector observed from a GPS satelite by Ronald A.J. van Elburg:

The Michelson-Morley experiment shows that the experimental outcome of an interference experiment does not depend on the constant velocity of the setup with respect to an inertial frame of reference. From this one can conclude the existence of an invariant velocity of light. However it does not follow from their experiment that a time-of-flight is reference frame independent. In fact the theory of special relativity predicts that the distance between the production location of a particle and the detection location will be changed in all reference frames which have a velocity component parallel to the baseline separating source and detector in a foton time-of-flight experiment. For the OPERA experiment we find that the associated correction is in the order of 32 ns. Because, judging from the information provided, the correction needs to be applied twice in the OPERA experiment the total correction to the final results is in the order of 64 ns. Thus bringing the apparent velocities of neutrino's back to a value not significantly different from the speed of light.

Could it be simple old physics? Making stupid errors is still more plausible than new physics.  On the other hand I've not read the paper...

More Spending/Consumption

I pre-ordered the Garmin 910xt (got a 10% off discount -- I know, price will come down by next year, but I don't want to wait).  Should show up in the 2nd half of November.  This will serve as both as full feature (location, pace, altidute, heart rate, cadence) GPS running watch and a full feature bike computer/power meter head.  Also a swim watch.  Includes features like barometric altitude meter and 1 second interval data recording.  Battery duration is long enought to run any ultra run I'm ever likely to do. I still need to get the foot pod and the cadence sensor for the bike.  At some point (Christmas?) I will consider getting the Quarq power meter -- now that I've been out with the bike again it becomes very obvious why people use power meters, cycling effort just isn't at all uniform.  There is no way you can hold a steady constant power pace on almost any real world terrain.  Using a power meter gets you something to shoot for and compare to.  The feel is very different than running. 

I got the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine trainer. There seems to be some concern that trainers break carbon frames, but under realistic use by a light person like me it should not be a problem.  But out of the saddle banging around is probably not a good idea. 

New starter for my wife's car. 

At least this is durable goods consumption.

Bike Lighting

I'm looking into bike lighting systems.  I do have, on loan from a friend, the Light & Motion Vis 180 rear light and the LIght & Motion Urban 300 front light. I've still not gotten out there to ride -- it's been raining and storming this evening, with a tornado warning that kept me from driving home from food shopping after work for 30 min -- so I still need to see how well these lights do under real world conditions.  The Vis 180 rear light looks very good in the garage, much better than any light I've seen so far.  It is a flashing multiple LED set-up, 35 lumen overall.  Bright enough that you don't want to look directly at it at close range.  Bright enough for my wife to yelp about shutting it off right this moment and 'that's obnoxious' when I turned it on in the kitchen.  The alternative to the Vis 180 is the 300 (?) lumen Dinotte 300R -- which I hear can be obnoxious when you need to ride directly behind it even turned down to its lowest 75 lumen setting.  I think the choice will come down to the Vis 180 or the 300R. 

There are a lot more choices for headlights.  300 lumen like the Urban 300 seems like it is the minimum, but I might go up from there.  One of the ideas getting promoted is lights that are bright enough to be visible in daytime, basically daytime running lights for bikes.  I'll try to get an idea of what the actual safety gains are from stronger lights, but I'm inclined to go for safety if it is available here.  But I need to try out the 300 lumen light first. 

BTW, I looked up the German lighting regulations...my bike would be out of order since it doesn't the mandated reflectors.  But battery powered lighting systems are okay in Germany under the 1953 traffic law regulating bikes, but only since it is a road bike under 11 kg.  Other bikes must have a dynamo powered lighting system (though battery powered supplement lights are fine it seems).   There was a move to revise the law in 2006 and allow Mountain bikes under 13 kg to have battery powered lights as well, but the law failed in the Bundesrat (under the reasoning that it was excess regulation, since the draft law also imposed additional regulation on brakes etc.).  I have no idea how strict enforcement of these rules is.  Dynamos were always very annoying to ride with when I was a kid.  On the other hand, having a dynamo you don't use is probably okay. 

5K Race Fear

My wife has us all signed up for a 5K on Sunday at 8:30 am.  I'm going through my pre-race apprehension/fear.  Running hard will hurt and I might end up slower than my previous 22:00 race time. 

My wife complains that she's forced to run with kid #3 and can't race. 

Kid #2 reports she ran a 8:03 mile yesterday. 

Bike Carrier

Got the Thule 917xtr T2 bike carrier.   Hitch gets installed on Saturday. 

No biking today due to rain and slick wet leaves on the road.  Kids also need to be cared for. 

Here is the rack on somebody else's car:

Polypills

An example:

As tested, Polycap combines 100 milligrams of aspirin, with simvastatin (a generic version of Zocor, the cholesterol-lowering statin; 20 mg) and low doses of three blood pressure medications, atenolol (50 mg), ramipril (5 mg) and thiazide (12.5 mg).

More later...

No biking today

a) kid #3 had a breakdown about going x-country running, so only kids #1 and #2 went and I got to pick them up while my wife went grocery shopping with kid #3.  So no biking for me during this time.

b) it was getting pretty overcast and dark around 6 pm and I don't yet have lights for my bike.  I do get to borrow lights from one of the bike guys at work, starting tomorrow, to see what sort of lighting system I'm comfortable with. Lighting systems get pretty big and expensive, but good lighting would make my wife happy and might be safer too.  But they cost enough that you don't want to make a mistake. 

I might as well toss in the required new bike photos.  This is not the exciting part though.  I need to get out there...

West African Shell Currency

I didn't know that there even was West African shell currency.  I've always thought of shell currency as a Oceanic/Polynesian institution.  A more sensible (i.e. lower cost) set-up than gold or silver currency? 

Bike is fixed

My wife -- thanks! -- took my bike to the bike shop today and I have a new chain.  The bike shop mechanic thought it was a very rare bad chain, a 'fluke', not an operator error.  The two dedicated road/cross racing guys I get my advice from, with several decades of racing between them, tell me that between them they've seen only one of these chain failures, and not on one of their bikes.  It not what happens if you do things wrong or abuse the bike.  A bad part or a bad installation. 

No biking today, cooking for the kids and installing new flood lights out front had priority.  I also don't have lights on the bike yet, so riding at dusk isn't yet feasible. 

I'm up to 152 lbs again due to barbeque and the associated salt intake. 

Bike Size and Bike Fitting

I have a 56 cm frame size.  I ended up there mostly since this frame and the overall specs looked good given the end of the 2011 model year pricing (i.e. off 20% as the new models come in).  In terms of what the frame size 'should be' for me, it isn't all that clear until I have some actual riding experience and do a full bike fit.  A full bike fit now wouldn't make much sense, since I don't yet have the endurance or muscles to ride a bike correctly. 

Given my height of ~ 5ft 10.25 inches and an inseam of about 32 inches, bike sizing charts suggest frame sizes of 54-56 cm.  More later...

Update #1: I took the bike out this morning and around 20 min in I managed to break the chain...oh well, better than falling with clipless pedals because you can't get out of them.  I assume either operator error, an installation error or simple bad luck.  My wife volunteers to take the bike in for fixing tomorrow morning. Biking is a more, what's the word, finicky sport than running. 

Now off the the kid's running meet more than an hour away in Maryland. 

Back to 150 lbs

I'm back down to a weight of 150 lbs.  Mostly due to getting my running (barely) back over 20 miles/week. 

Missing dinner yesterday until after 10 pm after having a milk and tuna lunch (and realizing that I'm nevertheless not hungry) probably helped as well. 

Today

Lots of whining, various delays, trouble getting out of the house.  My wife went running with kid #1.  I went running later.  More delays.  Eventually the rest of the family went off for pizza at a place we'd not tried yet around 3 pm instead of having lunch at home (kid #3 was prefed due to her allergies).  Due to the delays I couldn't come and instead had to head off to my bike fitting appointment at 4 pm.   Pizza was reportedly good, as good as can be expected in NOVA. 

So yes, I got the bike.  Then the rest of the family showed up at the bike shop and we left my car there and went into DC (with the bike) to the new MLK memorial (as well as the FDR memorial).  Very crowded on a most excellently beatiful Fall day.  The MLK memorial works much better in real life than it comes across on paper or the computer screen.  I see the issues that have been reported, but overall the monument works for me.  A 95% black crowd, I would have expected more of a 2/3 black crowed.  Very good weather may have brought out locals (as it did us). 

On heading back to the bike shop to pick up my car...well, the car was towed.  Turned out thought that I managed to get the car back without paying in about 20 min, so this ranked in the top 1% of towing experiences (i.e. the bike shop doesn't really want to piss off paying customers). 

On getting home at 8 pm, with the ribs in the slow cooker waiting, the Cockatiel freaked out in the dark when we came in the house and injured itself in its cage, breaking a 'blood feather'.  This is, according to Cockatiel car lore, a medical emergency.  So off to the -- luckily very local -- emergency 24h vet.  After sitting around for an hour (with kid #2) we have a pulled blood feather and a bird who should be fine.  Until the next time.  We've hit  vet costs > purchase cost for our bird within two weeks. 

Photo of the bike will need to wait for another day.  I was also a bit unhappy that I've not gotten to ride the bike yet (except for a few rounds around the MLK monument area, not ideal for biking).  Tomorrow I'll head out in the morning, after that we need to head out to a 3K run for kids #1 and #2 in Maryland, more than an hour away. 

Bike seems very good as far as I can tell.  As it better be. 

Tirole and/or Doug Diamond

Tirole and/or Doug Diamond would be my guesses for the Economics Nobel Prize if you put a gun to my head.  I don't think Sargent, Hansen, Sims or any other macroeconomist would win this year. Some less theoretical economist outside of the standard candidate set, like Ostrom in 2009, could win too.  I don't thing econometricians are up for another turn yet.

Bike Weight

I'm not at all a bike weight fanatic.  Still, weight is interesting enought to put up one blog post about it.  The Cannondale Supersix Rival I'm getting, if it is speced the way it should be (I need to check), has the following weight.

Frame: 890 gram

SRAM Rival groupset:

DoubleTap Levers: 320 grams
Rear Derailleur: 188 grams
Front Derailleur: 88 grams
Crankset: 830 grams
Brakes: 287 grams
PowerGlide Cassette: 229 grams
Chain: 260 grams
Bottom Bracket: 119 grams

Total Groupset Weight = 2305 grams

This is the same weight as the Shimano Ultegra groupset, which is one price point higher up (as well as the other standard more expensive groupsets, all for 2011 models):

SRAM Rival = 2305 grams
SRAM Force = 2111 grams
Campagnolo Record = 1990 grams
Campagnolo Chorus = 2200 grams
Shimano Dura Ace = 2180 grams
Shimano Ultegra = 2301 grams

Shimano Ultegra pedals are 317 grams. 

Wheelset is Mavic Aksium, the most basic Mavic wheelset (thought this may be a 60 grams lighter 2012 version spec):
front wheel: 800 grams
rear wheel ED11: 935 grams
for 1735 grams

Tires are Schwalbe Durano at 225 grams each.  The surprise here is the high fraction of weight in the wheelset.  A lighter alloy wheelset gets you down from these 1735 grams to 1300 grams, down 435 grams.  These are training wheels...which I what I'll be doing. 

Saddle is Prologo Scratch Pro T2.0, claimed at 221 grams but reportedly closer to 260 grams.  I'd not be surprised if I need to try a different saddle eventually, that seems to be a standard issue. 

Total weight so far is a tad under 6 kg. 

There's more, like the seatpost, 217 grams.  Also stem and handlebars. 

Model Airplanes are improving

Steve Jobs is Dead

Just a reminder of how Jobs started out in the computer business:

Jobs returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $700 (instead of the actual $5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.

Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius by Sylvia Nasar

Bob Solow doesn't like Nasar's latest book:

THIS PATTERN of downplaying intellectual content persists throughout.  The rest of Nasar’s cast of characters includes Beatrice Webb (an oddball in this company), Irving Fisher, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, Joan Robinson, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and Amartya Sen. In no case is there a serious discussion of the ideas that might earn their author a place in a history of economic thought, although some on the list are truly important figures in that story. ...

This could have been an interesting story to trace in more detail, through a larger cast of characters, coming to terms, step by humdrum step, with the new reality, and folding it into the body of economic theory. On the other hand, that might make rather dull reading. In any case, Nasar took a different tack, as I have already described it. She offers a colorful, sometimes even exciting, series of historical vignettes involving important protagonists in the history of economic thought. They appear sometimes as meritorious, occasionally as foolish, usually as self-confident, in the manner of important protagonists. You know that they have contributed to the body of economic thought, although you may not always know exactly what they have contributed. At least your sense of them is not less than life-size.

Solow instead recommends the also recent Economics Evolving: A History of Economic Thought by Agnar Sandmo.

Also, this complaint from Solow:

In the course of the book, Nasar refers to Oskar Lange as “a Polish economist and central planner who collaborated with the KGB,” and later as a cold war spy. Lange immigrated to the United States via London, and taught economics very successfully at the University of Chicago. He wrote several quite interesting and well-known mainstream papers (and some less interesting ones) on a variety of topics, mostly technical. At the end of the war, and against the advice of his friends, he returned to Poland and held posts in the then-communist government. I had never heard any allegations of spying or earlier association with the KGB, and Nasar provides no evidence or reference. However that may be, it is certainly wrong to describe Lange as a central planner. He was, on the contrary, one of the leading theorists of decentralized market socialism, from as early as 1936. The sorts of prices that were presumed to be used to guide such an economy are colloquially known as “Lange-Lerner prices” after him and Abba Lerner.

Three Generations of Prime Ministers

The current Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, is the son of former Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou and the grandson of former Greek prime minister Georgios Papandreou. Three generations of Nehru-Gandhis were prime ministers of India. Any other examples for elected heads of government?

Bike Project is (still) moving forward

I may have a bike by Saturday.  Bike rack will take longer.  The Power Meter, most likely a Quarq, will have to wait for later.  I'll need to figure out the electronic gear, which is not made easier by new options coming on the market this Fall (Garmin Edge 800 or soon available Garmin Forerunner 910XT are two obvious choices, if the Edge 800 didn't have reports of many glitches I'd be more comfortable going with it).  A Kurt Kinetic trainer is also on the not immediate shopping list. 

Below a stock photo of the 2011 Cannondale SuperSix Rival.  Yes, it is black (not by choice, but I'm not paying for color).  I ordered Shimano PD-6700 Ultegra SPD-SL pedals this evening, they show up on Friday. 

Expect a Deadlock in the Supercommittee

Bernstein writes:

Politico reports this morning that Republicans are already telling their K Street allies that the Joint Select (Super) Committee isn’t at all likely to go big with a “Grand Bargain” that would exceed the committee’s minimum deficit-reduction instructions. In part, that’s because of what we’ve known all along: Republicans aren’t really very interested in deficit reduction, certainly not compared to their main policy goal of keeping taxes as low as possible, especially for rich people. ...

Remember, the idea of the trigger was to design a process in which both Republicans and Democrats would prefer compromise to deadlock. Inaction would mean deep cuts in domestic spending (which would be unacceptable to Democrats) and defense cuts (unacceptable to Republicans), and so both sides would have heavy pressure to cut a deal that protected their core concerns.

However, because those cuts won’t be enacted until 2013, there’s a catch to all of that. It means that if the trigger kicks in, the resulting cuts can be undone by the next Congress. And if either party is convinced that it will win in 2012 and control all the branches of government, then it has an incentive to let the Joint Select Committee fail, wait out the clock, and then impose their own preferences after the election.

And if there’s one thing that’s changed since July, it’s GOP optimism about 2012....

Our Census Blocks, Old and New

This was initially going to be a post on how many census blocks are 90+% hispanic, but I'm not going to do the work for that now.  It's more than you'd think, and the complement can be only black, with few non-hispanic whites around. [For instance this census block group in Bridgeport, CT: Caucasian 14, African American 265, Hispanic 682, Native American 5, Asian 3, Pacific Islander 3.  Okay, only 70% hispanic and 98% minority.]  Hispanic enclaves get surprisingly little public attention (or I just miss it, since I don't live near them, at least jursidictionally, I did commute past that Bridgeport census block group for several years). 

Old:

New:

Base Jumping Videos are getting impressive

Note the option to pick screen resolutions up to 1080p and go full screen.  Most impressive squence at the start and then after 7:20. 

BMI vs Mortality Risk graphs never look like this

From a news story on a recent paper: Pramil N. Singh, Ella Haddad, Serena Tonstad, Gary E. Fraser. Does Excess Body Fat Maintained After the Seventh Decade Decrease Life Expectancy? Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2011. 

Several points:

1) The authors are using a parametric model.  This can drive results at the boundary in ways that do not describe the data.  So I'd not take the flattening out of the relative risk cure for low male BMI that seriously, unless they have more data than the graph suggests for BMI < 21 for men. 

2) You almost never see a minimum relative risk for BMIs this low, either for men or women, in US (or other country) observational studies.  Most studies show a minimum mortality risk for BMIs around 25-27, i.e. light overweight. 

3) There are indications from older European data that once upon a time, i.e. before 1970, the minimum mortality BMI for men was under 25 and much closer to 22, especially for men who remained at this BMI throughout their adulthood. 

4) These high minimum mortality BMIs don't line up with our prior beliefs.  The most common hypothesis, which is also mine, is that in the modern US population lots of low BMI person are only low BMI due to health issues and have gotten there after having been non-low BMI and then developing a disease that brings down their BMI and then, for some of them, kills them.  In the past this fraction of the low BMI population wasn't large enough to drive up the minimum mortality BMI, but now, weight the greater mean BMI of the population, this fraction of the low BMI population is starting to drive results.

5) But there is little empirical work that investigates this intuition.  This paper looks at, so far I can tell without having access to the paper itself, only people who never lost (much) weight (for a sustained period -- hm, this may just mean they were similar in weight at two points 17 years apart, i.e. what would be 150-160 lbs for me).  I don't know they handle people who keep gaining weight though...what's the X variable for somebody who has a BMI of 21 at 20 years, 25 at 35 years and 30 at 45 years?  In any case, I'd like more research on the life course of weight and mortality, ideally with some indication if weight is targeted by the individual or not (i.e. is weight loss intentional?). 

I'm currently around 153-154 lbs., not getting under 152 lbs., so around a BMI of 21.75, most likely due to my running being slightly under 20 miles/week right now, though I am now trying to ramp up slowly (as well as acquiring a bike). 

The Debt Limit Fight cut 1.5% off US GDP growth

via Free Exchange, the Macro Advisers survey of macro forecasters shows that mean GDP growth forecasts for US Q3 and Q4 took a big hit during August, a fall of 1.25% from about 3.25% to 2%.  Obviously the real impact could be smaller or larger and this may also be due to other factors, but the timing looks suspect.  I've worked with this data professionally in the past (not longer though...) and this is a historically large fall. 

90 grams of bird

The bird weighs in this evening with 90 grams.  This is the first time we weighted her.  I had roughly guessed that she weighed 1/1,000 of what I weigh, but it turns out it is more like 1/800. 

From googling around, 90g is within the expected adult weight range and also what you'd expect at 8 weeks.  Maybe a bit below average, but not low in itself. 

Bird Action

2011 Cannodale SuperSix Rival

A possible bike purchase. 

Canon 5DIII is now a September 2012 Release

Or that appears to be the current Canon roadmap.  'It was stressed that roadmaps are extremely loose within Canon, and stuff is announced when it’s done.'  Same for the 7DII.