From loyal commentor WaterGirl:
I always forget to send you my garden photos, so here are a few from last year. I would have sent you the photos I took yesterday, but they are refusing to sync with my computer at the moment.
This [top pic] will be my round bed in just 2-3 weeks. If you look closely, you can see my rain chain in action on the left.
My ferns will look like this in less than a month.
Since the big tree fell on my house 3 years ago, the sun is so brutal on my deck and back yard that I can’t even sit out there anymore. So last summer I made this little area on the side of my house.
And this is the “pink grass” that I got last spring. It didn’t do much of anything all summer, but it was my favorite thing last fall. It was so happy when everything else was starting to fade.
***********
It’s been drizzling & raining & mizzling & raw for eight straight days here in the northeast — you’d think it was Seattle except right now it’s warmer in Seattle. Needless to say I haven’t done any (much needed) yard cleanup; to be positive, at least I’ll have the incentive to get out there once the skies dry out, which the weatherpersons promise will happen in the next day or so.
What’s going on in your garden (planning) this week?
OzarkHillbilly
Very nice, WG. Oh so lush, and the sitting area looks quite peaceful and relaxing.
OzarkHillbilly
FYWP. Try try again.
Very nice, WG. And oh so lush. The sitting garden looks very quiet and peaceful .
SectionH
@WaterGirl – Lovely. The ferns are amazing. And the Pink Grass.
raven
Great to see some pictures of home. What you don’t see is the incredible black earth of east central Illinois! We busted ass on the house and yard all day yesterday and will probably do the same today.
raven
Here I am with my mom in Urbana in 1950!
SectionH
I srsly do love being in a city, mostly, but our north-facing balcony is hard to adapt to. We’ve experimented with some awesome grow lights – everyone who paid attention, well mostly my DIL, who is the coolest person ever, was like, Smirk. I’m like, noooo, we’re growing Chard, and Rosemary, and keeping a Bay Tree alive. And a Golden Current…
All of the Above are alive, and we’re getting hours of actual sun now, so yay?
No, I’m not going back to humidity. Ever..
So we also have – and this helps my heart – volunteer Borage on one of our pots.
SectionH
@raven: Love it. We busted our asses on a place we knew we were selling (our 60 yr old asses, I mean). But gardening is important. Srsly.
satby
Watergirl, gorgeous gardens! I love the pink grass too, can you tell me what the name is? I want some!
satby
@raven: too cute!
Joel
Saw “The Big Short” on my transatlantic flight. Pretty good, albeit plagued by some filmmaking decisions that I fucking hate: too much exposition and constant fourth wall breaking. Also, the filmmaker speaking directly through characters. It was like Adam McKay had seen “The Threepenny Opera” and wanted to try on his best Brecht impression. That said, I watched the whole thing despite the occasional aggravation. Steve Carrell is a compelling actor.
raven
@Joel: I thought it was ok.
Baud
Nice, WaterGirl.
Cute pic, @raven.
satby
Happy Mother’s Day to any moms out there!
We’ve had the same long stretch of rainy gray weather here, it broke Friday just in time for the weekend, but then turned cold (for May, highs in the 50s). I haven’t done much as a result but pick asparagus, and not even much of that yet. I do have the hummingbirds and orioles back, joining the rest of the flock feeding at all my stations around the yard. And my early irises are starting to bloom as the later daffodils fade. So it looks pretty even when I don’t do much.
JPL
@satby: Me too! Google identifies it as cotton candy or pink muhly grass.
Someone needs to wake up WaterGirl so we can find out more.
satby
@SectionH: You may have mentioned and I missed it, but you moved from where to where?
OzarkHillbilly
@Joel: @raven: Haven’t seen the movie yet but the book is well worth a read. One can’t help getting the feeling that Wall Street is fundamentally broken, even if you can’t put your finger on exactly how.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Overregulation, silly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Damn. And I thought it had something to do with unadulterated greed run rampant.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Everyone know that the law passed during the Carter era, caused the financial meltdown.
I enjoyed the movie but had also read the book.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s what the liberal media want you to think.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: More proof that Jimmy Carter is history’s greatest monster.
Mary G
Beautiful garden, WG! I love your metal birds, and the pink grass.
You were an adorable little boy, Raven.
Baud
@Mary G:
You forgot, “What happened?”
SectionH
@satby: Lexington (blue island in red state) KY to San Diego. First in North County inland, and we had more land than we could xeriscape as hard as we tried (because no money, it was all us). But it was also a wonderful thing to learn an incredibly different gardening experience. We loved learning about native California plants, planting some. It was brilliant.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Beat me to it. Dam you to heck, Baud!.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’m doubting that is him. Looks way too happy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@SectionH: Heh, San Diego(red island, blue state).
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly:
He hadn’t met us yet.
Raven
@Mary G: didn’t last
SectionH
@BillinGlendaleCA: pffft. My rep is Susan Davis. You’re thinking of North County, where I don’t live any more. Garden srsly missed, RWNJs not so much.
SectionH
Not gardening story, but my son & family have been having a great Derby Party in San Diego for, I think this was # 13. Mr S made Mini Hot Browns for it – 5 dozen. The whole table was all “We’re Gonna Starve” (like, burp) but I do think the Hot Browns were a srs Hit. (Hmmm… yes, I will send details to Tamara, but basically it was all about the Mornay sauce.)
Davebo
Beautiful pics!
My recent ex girlfriend in in Hong Kong and seems to have forgotten about the 13 hour time difference. Woke me with a Face Time call at 5:00AM asking for help with her Mom’s iPad.
At some point I have to explain the 24/7 tech support stopped when the sex did.
Gvg
The “pink grass” is muhly grass, a gulf cast native, much planted in Florida nowadays. I am fond on it myself. I have seen highway plantings with solid sheets of it on highway islands. It blooms in fall. My only problem with growing it is discovering that both cats and dogs love to roll on it and sleep on it, leading to flat plants and fewer blooms. I have to use those small poke in the ground fences to protect it.
Schlemazel Khan
@OzarkHillbilly:
and no fishing rod!
JPL
I have a major problem with wild euonymus, so today will be spent trying to get it down to ground level and digging up what we can. Mother’s day brunches have never appealed to me, so I use the day torturing the sons. I’m going to whole foods, but can’t decide if I want to prepare ribs or halibut.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel Khan: You’re right. Now I’m certain that is not the Raven we all know and love.
AnonPhenom
Those ostrich ferns would have never seen adulthood if I was within 10 miles of them.
satby
@SectionH: At some point in the future I’ll move from SW MI, but probably not this year after all now that I don’t need to move to care for my late mom. I loved San Diego but it’s too expensive for me. I’m seriously considering Central America for a few years, until I’m ready for the nursing home anyway.
satby
@AnonPhenom: I’m not brave enough to forage. Wild chives is as far as I go. How’d you learn what was safely edible?
satby
@Gvg: Thanks! I really like that and now NEED to get some!
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Cute photo!
@AnonPhenom: Didn’t know ferns were edible. Thanks for that recipe.
Looks like the D.C. area is finally having a few days without rain which is a good thing.
Baud
According to LGM, an epic battle between our two blogs for the soul of efgoldman will occur a week from tomorrow in DC.
JPL
@Baud: Now that the site has been recognized by Garrison Keillor, LGM doesn’t stand a chance.
debbie
@raven:
Who knew you were so cute?!
germy
Have you all seen this?
https://twitter.com/xeni/status/729048354236338176
trump with no hair & no tan.
truly the “drunk uncle”
Immanentize
Happy Mothers Day to all those who are mothers, who have/had mothers or know a mother or two. I’ll confess, I had no idea what my mother did for me until I was a father for one month.
@raven: What a great picture. Your mom was stunner, Raven. And you look pretty happy yourself!
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I liked the book too. I don’t know if they show this in the film, but the guys who figured out what was going on were just as amoral as the crooks. They made a half-hearted attempt to alert authorities, got no response, shrugged their shoulders, and joined in on reaping the profits.
Schlemazel Khan
@Patricia Kayden:
The ferns I have eaten remind me of asparagus.
THe county has not yet finished rebuilding your front yard. The laid a 10″ concrete ‘wall’ (looks more like a fat curb!)last week so as to make the slope a little gentler. We have decided to get out of the flower gardens out front and go with ground cover and ornamental grasses; I sure wish that pink stuff would tolerate the frozen tundra!. We will probably get a few large rocks and plant phlox between them and I am thinking sedum along ‘curb’ but we have not decided on the grasses to go in.
The 60 or so lilies are doing great at the kids house after we transplanted them there, the bleeding hearts actually are doing better out back than they had in the front so the move was a positive. But the real net is that we have almost no gardening to do. We pruned the heck out of the cherry trees a couple weeks back and the county is going to shape the hill so as to do the least amount of damage to the roots so we are hoping they survive.
debbie
I love your sitting area, WaterGirl!
I have to compensate today for having overwalked yesterday, but I just had to check out all the azaleas in the surrounding neighborhoods. Too feeble for 40-minute walks anymore, I guess. But, boy, they were beautiful. Nature comes up with colors that put pathetic human efforts (paints, photos, etc.) in their proper place.
Schlemazel Khan
@satby:
I have had knowledgeable people show me stuff you can eat. We find morel mushrooms occasionally, which are easily identified. Our younger son actually forages for mushrooms which scares the hell out of me but he has very knowledgeable guides. We were out in the woods in Southern MN last year & he found a giant lions mane which is something I have never even heard of or seen. He took about 1/3 of it home and fried a little to taste it & used the rest in a spaghetti sauce.
Immanentize
My garden near Boston is drenched. I’ve tilled, put in the manure two weeks ago, took out another wheelbarrow of stones that heaved this winter and I’m ready to plant. But the constant rain and drizzle prevents it. Tomatoes, tomatillos (my favorite), Anaheim peppers, green beans and zucchini are the staples. The latter I often lose to borers.
Meanwhile, I have to take four big trees out of my back yard. Two white pines that are cresting, a hemlock that I love with split trunk, and a huge Norway maple that has a terrible crotch, some rot and now has chancre. If that thing goes it will level a shed, my neighbors garage and someone’s house. I will then have a LOT of sun. Maybe time for solar on the roof!
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Especially John Paulson who was not a big part of Lewis’s book due to the worshipful Zuckerman book being written at the same time. The amorality that runs in the blood of every Wall Street denizen is the most disturbing part of the book. The even more disturbing part was that by the end I was rooting for one of them (the “autistic” running his hedge fund out of his apartment). He kept running into brick walls as he tried and tried again to explain what was really going on but almost nobody would listen to him. Instead of making a killing, he had to settle for the amputation of a major limb.
MomSense
Lovely gardens, Watergirl.
I spent yesterday weeding and have more to do today.
We were mentioned on Prairie Home Companion?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Agreed. I blame Gordon Gecko.
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
@raven: Aw! Cute baby raven.
MomSense
@raven:
That is a wonderful photo, Raven. Your mom had a wonderful smile and you were adorable.
Jeffro
Palin is on CNN right now… Defending the indefensible as always. According to her Trump is extremely respectful of women …hoo boy…
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I blame the idea that a corporations only duty is profit for it’s stockholders. Wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time they were supposed to “better their communities”. (read that in a college business text book I picked up off the coffee table at a friends house. the closest I have ever to an MBA)
mike in dc
@Baud:
Hopefully a venue where conversation is possible. The debate watch with DougJ was fun but really noisy.
MomSense
@Immanentize
I was weeding in the mud yesterday. At least the snow finally melted.
D58826
nice garden. Glad to see yesterday’s, how should I say it, ‘tiff’ on another thread didn’t chase you away.:-)
JPL
@MomSense: Raven looks so happy, also.
A few mentioned last night, that while listening to Prairie Home Companion, Brad Paisley talked about social media and blogs, i.e. Balloon Juice. I’m going to listen online later.
If you arrange a few letters and replace the u with an r, Baud easily becomes Brad… hmmm
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
Happy Mothers Day ?
JPL
@rikyrah: You, too!
Schlemazel Khan
@JPL:
I assume GK writes all the stuff on his show (for one there is no mention of other writers and for two GK’s ego) so I assume it was his list. I asked yesterday if one of us were GK but I suppose it is possible he saw the name on a list & just liked the sound of it. For those who only want to hear the mention it is about 20 minutes into the first hour during the ‘Guy Noir’ sketch.
Keith G
@raven: Your mom is quite the looker. There is something about the popular style for American women in the later 40s (and bled through to the early 50s) that was so casual seeming yet beautiful.
Photos of my Mom from that era are among my treasures.
debbie
@Schlemazel Khan:
He credits other writers at the end of the show. It’s always seemed like an ensemble production to me.
Joel
@debbie: fuck man, it’s older than that. Think of the merchants of Venice. Enrico Dandolo and the sacking of Constantinople..
JPL
@Schlemazel Khan: Thanks.. Did he mention other blogs? It must have been interesting and hearing John’s site mentioned.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah: Good morning to you!
It was a good morning for me too, winning the first skirmish against the pack rat(s) that were building a nest in my car engine. Removed their nasty debris, washed the engine out with bleach solution twice, put moth flake sachets on the engine (must remember to remove before driving!), and sprayed ammonia solution around the tires and undercarriage. This morning: clean and clear engine. Someone managed to eat the peanut butter out of the snap trap and get away though. Tonight the battle continues.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Iowa Old Lady
@Jeffro: Oh good. There’s someone whose opinion is deeply respected.
She’s probably fishing for a VP spot.
D58826
@raven: I have a similar photo but was a bit younger. Definitely NSFW. My nieces thought it was hilarious when they saw it.
O. Felix Culpa
Oh, and cute baby raven is cute. :)
SectionH
@satby: SD is even expensiver than I could have imagined. Even with 60 yr olds getting the $18/month transit passes. We’re within a 1/2 mile at farthest and useful ones closer – of 5 bus lines – 42 busses/hr (so Mr S says, and I srsly don’t care to check). I so love this place, but yeah, I’m looking at less expensive long term. But “my kids” (son and DIL) and granddaughter are here, so not leaving soon.
I spent five years here when my husband was still in Lex, taking care of my aunt who had Parkinson’s, because family? Only child, only grandchild. Srsly hard to say No.
But yeah, I’m looking at affordable places non-US. I’ve been Aussie’splained that I can’t afford to move there, unless to Ballarat or some other hellhole. Not sayin’ about that. My heart’s in the HIghlands, but the rest of my body says Fuck that cold damp shit.
Right now, I’m thinking calling in some chits and doing GOTV in Arizona. Because, damn, we could win that seat
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: I can live with the idea of corporations who are basically modelled on the cancer cell (profit and growth the only factor), if that means they quidtheirbidchin about being regulated.
The turning point started, for me ,when Exxon made their first “Ode to Joy leaping dolphin” ad after yet another crashed oil tanker, celebrating their compliance with the court order to clean up (some of) their shit. May have been a few years after Bhopal, but this happened to Americans, dammit!
Schlemazel Khan
@debbie:
I don’t recall his mentioning writers at the end but maybe I just missed it
A Ghost To Most
@O. Felix Culpa:
Dang, those pack rats sound like a major pita.
ruemara
Wow, your home looks lovely, WG. Now I know where the pets hang out. No garden story from me. I have to play catch up on chores and decide if I’m hitting hippy fest again ( many people I know are performing) or going to the gym. And maybe test driving a kia soul. And maybe asking a friend out for dinner.
Schlemazel Khan
@JPL:
There was a whole list, the ones I recognized were all social media sites. It was part of a bit & not an endorsement or anything like suggesting he read us
D58826
Non-surprises of the week:
Pamela Geller Will Support Trump
During an interview on CNN, Sarah Palin said she would work to help Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s primary opponent beat him. “I think Paul Ryan is soon to be ‘Cantored,’ as in Eric Cantor,” Palin said,
and a pleasant deja vu :Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore may in fact finally be removed from the bench after continued efforts by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Committee reviewed the organization’s ethics complaint and decided there was enough evidence to file ethics charges against him.
Schlemazel Khan
@Iowa Old Lady:
PASTA! the FSM could not love me enough to actually allow a Drumpf/Palin ticket! I think that might test the 27% theory to an extreme.
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: shareholder capitalism vs stakeholder capitalism. Today the former fits the American every man for himself outlook while the later seems more at home in community minded Europe
O. Felix Culpa
@A Ghost To Most: They are! We just helped our mechanic’s children’s college fund (actually, he’s a good guy and fairly priced) after the wretched rats chewed through some brake wires on my partner’s Prius. So we put her car in the garage after the repairs and left mine out, and the wretched rats immediately began homemaking in mine. I’m generally a peaceable person, but this is war.
I hope someday to have the funds to build a two-car garage, but right now we have to make do with the one.
Princess
Palin sure is working overtime to get out on that Trump ticket. I wish her every success. Please proceed, governor.
MomSense
@JPL:
Baud is Brad Paisley? Wowza! And he likes dogs. Perfect
JPL
@Schlemazel Khan: After watching Palin at a Trump event, I think the odds are better for Bobby Knight. I still think it’s Christie, though.
JPL
@MomSense: could be… just sayin
WaterGirl
@satby: The common name is actually “Pink Hair Grass“. Forgot to include the hair part when I wrote to AL. Real name is Muhlenbergia capillaries.
@JPL: WaterGirl slept in this morning!
Schlemazel Khan
@D58826:
Damn! we should find the wingnuttiest of wingnuts to run against Ryan & send him/her money early to defeat him. When the morons are sawing off the branch they are sitting on we should help sharpen their saws.
@JPL:
Well, Knight is certainly a gem but a boy can dream can’t he?
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: If we get to vote, I’m voting with your explanation. Sorry, Baud!
ThresherK
@O. Felix Culpa: Rats chewing through brake wires?
See, that’s the problem with yer fancy hybrids. All the rodents used to do to my ’88 Nova was leave acorn shells inside the air cleaner “dish” (about the last of the old-school big, round ones on top of a carb, not the new style square box).
I’d figure it out every so often when after 20 minutes I got the oddest aroma of burning…something…which was unusual for a car. I was used to all the other burnings: Brake pads, oil, gaskets, tranny fluid…but not a vague roasted chestnut scent.
Patricia Kayden
@Princess: Now that would be a circus!! Please please please make it so! Christie would weep himself in a coma if Palin is chosen over him.
O. Felix Culpa
@ThresherK: They seem to have a liking for old non-fancy cars too, seeing as the wretched rats tore up a bunch of insulation and surrounded the fluff with cholla cactus chunks in my 2003 CRV.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: Christie wants to fill Scalia’s robe.
D58826
@JPL: Rumor has it Scalia took it with him. So go for it Chris:-) Just don’t forget the suntan lotion
Schlemazel Khan
@JPL:
They would have to let it out a couple of feet as even Fat Tony’s robe wouldn’t fit him.
Yes, I am fat shaming but the two are such bullies I feel no compulsion to be decent in return.
@D58826: – your response was much better than mine, nice job!
debbie
@Schlemazel Khan:
I just listened to it again. I think with few exceptions, they were made up? Zipper-something?
Schlemazel Khan
@debbie:
I thought that too but then I am not hep on all the groovy hip places you kids hang out at these days. That was half of why it came as a surprise, if they made up names why toss a real place into the middle?
Germy
@Patricia Kayden: I believe it would be Scott Brown or Chris Christie before he would ever consider Palin. Although my guess is Christie is dreaming of Attorney General…
Schlemazel Khan
For Mothers day we went on a picnic with the local kid & his family followed by a glorious 5 mile hike in the woods. We searched for mushrooms but it has been too dry. It is supposed to rain most of this week so maybe next weekend will be better for that. But the weather was fantastic & the flowers were going nuts. Really a great day.
Now we are going to set out on a 20 mile bike ride West of the cities with Lunch in a little cafe at the far end of the trail. Its what mommy wants to do on her day but thats OK by me. Hope you all have a great Mothers Day!
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
I made a point of listening to the encore PHC this morning specifically so I could hear the Balloon Juice reference. It was just a few minutes ago. Hope you caught it. Even though I knew it was coming, still kind of a kick to hear our little blog community called out on a venerable program like Prairie Home Companion.
WaterGirl
OzarkHillbilly, I made your cozy breakfast this morning. It’s about to come out of the oven. I made it several weeks in a row, then forgot about it for weeks until this morning.
Germy
@ThresherK:
Do advocates of self-driving cars ever factor in weird but common scenarios like that? “What a wonder time to be alive! I’ll just climb into my self-driving car and take a nap while I’m delivered safely to my… Oh my God!!!”
Jeffro
@Germy: I think Trump’s VP list is Ernst, Brown, Christie, or Rick Scott. Possibly some random general. That’s about it. He’ll never put Palin on the ticket.
Jeffro
Btw a little note from a friend, illustrating for right-wingers why its unacceptable to find Trump and Clinton equally unacceptable:
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
@Schlemazel Khan:
Garrison Keillor’s chief writer, credited at the end of just about every show, is “Sarah Bellam” = “cerebellum” = his own self. I have read in various interviews and articles about him that he writes about 90% of each week’s material. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out that he stops by this place on occasion. He’d definitely find the politics compatible!
D58826
@Jeffro: Every one is over analyzing this. Trump is obviously the master the the huge deal. Therefore he will place himself in nomination for the VP slot. There simply is not enough room on the stage for him and someone else the last night of the convention when the Prez/VP candidates and their families all appear.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: I used to make it with half apples and half frozen raspberries. This time I made it with a frozen raspberry/blueberry/blackberry combination. The all berry version really pops.
OzarkHillbilly, thanks for posting that recipe!
gf120581
@Jeffro: Of those four, I think Scott Brown’s the most likely choice, at least going by Trump logic. His political career is over, so he has nothing to risk latching himself to Trump; he’s a hunk and therefore women will swoon over him (again, using Trump logic); and also, much like Trump, he’s filled with petty rage against women, given he’s the only guy to get his ass handed to him in Senate races by two different women (one of them the woman Trump recently dubbed “goofy”). He’s perfect! ;)
debbie
@Schlemazel Khan: @SiubhanDuinne:
LOL, I’m no kid.
I checked the website for the show. There is another writer credited, but I’m sure Keillor directs and shapes the scripts. It will be interesting to see how the show changes after he retires.
ThresherK
@O. Felix Culpa: Cactus chunks? I forgot at some point you were in the desert; I’m in northeastern suburbia. Truly a universal problem.
@Germy: Yeah, that’s the “last mile” problem for these devices. Screw the self-driving cars. I’m repeating myself, but I’m tired of automobiling future still being fapped over like it was the 1939 World’s Fair redux, in a country that’s too full of people and VMTs to ever get to how open the road was (and therefore how fun driving was) when we were all kids, while those of us who don’t want to have to drive friggin’ everywhere get to dream of a day when, perhaps, the heaviest passenger rail corridor doesn’t share space with CSX.
ThresherK
@gf120581: A hunk?
He’s older than he was when he beat Martha Coakley. Sarah Palin is older too. Is Brown still that good-looking in an age of HDTV, or is it simply by comparison?
scav
@debbie: et all. I’d be a little more confident about the mention if Balloon Juice weren’t already an existing term for essentially nonsense, blatherskite, et cetera and one that so neatly slides into the type of word games he often plays. And, who know that Balloon Juice also ties into temperance – it also means/nt soda water, so a balloon juice lower was simply not keeping up with the rounds. But then, Balloons got into still more trouble in all directions, it’s quite the Balloon debauch in Cassel’s.
gf120581
@ThresherK: Remember, I’m using Trump logic! ;) Brown was a former centerfold, remember.
Oh, and another thing he and Trump have in common; both say creepy things about their daughters.
Mike J
@Germy:
I’ll bet they give a lot more thought to failure modes than a typical high school driver’s ed class does. I’d also have a lot more faith in a computer diagnosing the problem and executing the proper response without panicking.
D58826
Totally OT. linked on a twitter feed from Prof. K. Its a rather deep dive into economics but what had my eyes glazed over was ‘he did his own cure fitting. instead of using a linear model for log GDP, he fits a quadratic polynomial, a cubic polynomial and quartic polynomial……’ I guess advanced math in high school and college does come in handy. I had to look twice to see the difference between ‘ quadratic polynomial’ and ‘quartic polynomial’. Now back to my calculator and see if I can get 5+ 5 to equal 10
ThresherK
@gf120581: I haven’t heard re Brown and his daughter. I don’t want to know. I’ve already had to reconcile the idea of: Trump and his daughter, Matthews and Trump’s daughter, and (in the opposite manner) Cruz’ daughter recoiling from Cruz.
After 8 years of PBO and FLOTUS and their daughters looking as normative and happy as any family living in the WH could be, this promises to be another rough transition.
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne: Never listened to PHC, sounds sort of like the “credits” at the end of Cartalk…
gf120581
@ThresherK: At least Hillary will have Chelsea and the grandkids.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ThresherK: great double interview in today’s NYT with Obama and Bryan Cranston– who’s bringing his stage LBJ role to a movie, PBO talks a fair bit about being a father
? Martin
@Germy:
Of course. ‘Self driving cars’ is really shorthand for several things, because these will all arrive simultaneously in order for autonomous vehicles to be viable, and a lot of people may not realize this:
1) A shift from primarily analogue to exclusively digital control systems
2) Fully electric
3) Fully connected
4) A significant reduction in the manner and cost of production due to the above factors
5) A fundamental reduction in the overall cost structure of vehicles for owners
1) answers your concern. A fully autonomous vehicle will have a significant amount of computing power on board, mainly dedicated to various control cycles. Conventional analog controls are actually the more dangerous because there is no return communication of whether the system trying to be controlled is actually working. The only way to know if your brakes are working properly is to push on them while moving and see if the car stops.
Digital controls (usually, and in this case will) work differently. They will be two-way communication – the centralized computer will perform a system check to ensure that the system is working properly. Brakes will move from hydraulic, which is reliable, but very complex and expensive, to electric/regenerative which will be cheaper/simpler at scale (advanced electric vehicles are moving to single pedal driving where all but emergency braking is done by adding load to the electric motor, regenerating the batteries – one advantage is that there is no friction braking which reduces the cost of renewables – brake pads). That system will have two benefits – one the ability to accurately measure stopping ability at all times and two redundancy. At scale, it will be cheap to have redundant communication to the brakes – a wired connection and a wireless one. If the wired connection is chewed through or is damaged in some way, the wireless could serve as a backup (or the reverse if wireless is reliable/secure enough). That’s far better than conventional autos. Trucks have solved this in a different ways. Air brakes operate by having the brakes engage in the failure state (power off) and the brakes only release when the system is working properly. Autonomous vehicles will almost certainly be designed so that all failure conditions result in the car stopping and pulling over (if possible). Autonomous vehicles are guaranteed to be safer than conventional ones.
All of the above categories are solved problems in theory. 3) will be the hardest to implement technically. Securing connected devices is not necessarily difficult but we have very poor experience with doing so. There needs to be a fundamental change in how industry approaches this area. 4) will also be difficult because we have a highly uncompetitive market in the broadest sense – a handful of very large, highly capitalized companies that have been operating along a single business model for a century. Their underlying business rules will change radically, and they will likely prove unable to do so. This is why the industry is wary of the tech companies – they are not burdened by legacy business models and sunk costs.
5) will happen naturally. Autonomous cars have much lower consumable costs, annual operating expenses will be much lower (insurance, fuel, maintenance). For a typical car, only 50% of expenses are the acquisition of the car. A $30K car will cost most people $30K to operate over its life. If you can largely eliminate the operating costs, you can then finance the car in a completely different way. This is really what Uber is looking at. Don’t get too hung up on their taxi disruption – this is just a temporary step on the way to their real business.
The driver for all of this will be the trucking industry. Just in the US, they had revenues of $700B, ⅓ of which goes to wages, ⅓ to capital costs (the truck), ⅓ to operating costs for the truck (fuel, tolls, insurance, maintenance). Autonomous trucks would cut their costs in half – the ⅓ for labor is mostly gone and half of the maintenance is gone. The capital costs will likely also go down as the trucks get simpler – remove the cab, etc. You basically just need a sled that sits under the front of the trailer.
D58826
Salon continues to out do it self in silliness. Patrick Smith has a piece entitled – ‘We can’t vote for either one. On the world stage Clinton and Trump present different but serious dangers’. He then goes on to list all of the dangers he sees from each candidate. He throws in the occasional friend, like the one in Europe who prefers Trump as the devil unknown vs Hillary as the devil known. Or his republican friend who is going to sit out the election. His preferred candidate seems to be the actor Tea’ Leone. He realizes that she is only an actor but she has better hair than the last actor that occupied the Oval Office.
Since Tea’ isn’t on the ballot he never addresses what to do on Nov. 9th when one of these two unfit people is the president-elect. Of course if enough people decide to sit this one out, then the election very well could come down to which candidate has the most family members will to vote for him/her, if only out of familial loyalty
FlyingToaster
@ThresherK:
That was his teenaged niece. His daughters are both in grade school, and better trained.
The weird one was him trying to kiss his wife and her turning her head about 180° to avoid it. Both of them are lizard people. Makes me think that V was based on reality. Or maybe they’re Zygons.
J R in WV
Well, all the work we’ve done in years past planting shade tolerant perennial plants is paying off now, we haven’t lifted a finger except to kill a few invasives along the driveway, and use the tractor to fill some potholes with crusher-run gravel I had delivered a couple of weeks ago.
But the helleboros bloomed early, and now ferns, blue and purple spiderwort (interesting flowers that close up at night), hostas that the deer will probably eat, and astilbe are all doing well. Mrs J had a knee replacement, and of course I spent all last summer having and recovering (well it seems) from shoulder replacement, so not much work going on either outside nor inside. Laundry and dishes are kept up, mostly, but that’s about it.
But the woods are in full leaf now, so things have cooled off. Recent rains after a dry spring have inspired the frogs and toads to sing at night, and the hummers are back. I do try to keep hummer-juice in the feeders, we used to do a lot of bird-feeders but less lately.
WaterGirl, fabulous gardening, you should be so proud of how it has turned out so far. Keep up the good work!!
Careful with the trees, all, they can be really dangerous. Friends do timber work, and they are really careful, it is one of the most dangerous activities ever!! So be careful!!!
Iowa Old Lady
Someone needs to tell Cole that he missed celebrating World Naked Gardening Day yesterday.
Mike J
@gf120581:
Yeah but last year’s champions are going to end the season tied with Stoke City for 9th. Hardly any comfort there.
scav
@J R in WV: Congratulations with the shade tolerant spread! My borrowed plot (Im only grunt labor) is a few years behind, but I recognize many of the choices. We’ve even got the spiderwort, although I think the Toad Lilies might edge them slightly for favorite odd blooming grassy thing. Our spring was notable for proving that swathes of various squill would work along with the trout lilies and snowdrops (hoping to sneak some glory of the snow in there too). And some prairie trillium snuck in! Now it’s bleeding hearts and phlox time. Thanks again for the info on the hellebores, the directrice purchased another one so they may remain on the to be planted list.
J R in WV
And I forgot we’re working on putting a LED rope light string along the curved stone steps up to the front door from the parking area. All hardware is on hand now. It will be a great safety addition as there is about a third of the steps that are always dark as pitch at night, the bottom of the steps gets light from the kitchen solarium windows, the top get light from the front stoop light, but the middle!!!
I try to always take a flashlight if we’re going to be out past dusk, but I’m an old hippie and forget things sometimes, and sometimes we got to having so much fun things just slide late, like at the grocery store…
My Kil-a-watt tells me the strand, nearly 20 feet long, will only just use a watt of power, and we got a light-sensitive switch to turn it on after the sun sets, so it won’t be an expensive thing to run. Over at the shop we have both dusk-to-dawn sensors AND motion detectors, so if those lights are on, I know the deer are around the shop, and that isn’t often.
Maybe get that in this afternoon…
schrodinger's cat
@OzarkHillbilly: I know MBA bashing is what’s for lunch on Balloon Juice but if anyone is to blame for share holder capitalism being the dominant view, its the influential view propounded by two HBS professors, Jensen and Meckling and their seminal agency theory paper. MBAs are just foot soldiers, putting into practice the theories of econ and finance professors. Based on ideas like rational investors etc.
WaterGirl
@Iowa Old Lady: I just sent that article to my best friend. He always gardens in the least amount of clothing that he can possibly get away with. Perhaps he’ll be inspired.
debbie
@schrodinger’s cat:
MBAs made their own contribution: Bottom line over anything else. The number of industries they’ve destroyed is very, very long.
scav
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s still the difference between the use of a hammer in the hands of a trained carpenter and it’s use by toddlers after watching a few youtube videos. (Which isn’t to say academics can’t get over-involved and ridiculously over-extend their pet theories, especially in disciplines that simplify much of reality out in their modeling assumptions and never put it back in again).
D58826
@scav: Like most of the models in science they have to be simplified. There are to many variables and not enough CPU time to do anything else but. Ofourse when that is forgotten, the worst that can happen in rocket science is you plow the probe into Mars rather than dropping into orbit because you screwed up units of measure in a velocity calculation. When you forget that in economics you have the masters of the universe blowing up the world economy.
? Martin
@debbie:
I think finance as an industry (which is pervasive within the MBA community) is the real culprit. That’s really what drives the private equity market, what was behind most of the financial crisis, etc.
There are MBAs that aren’t interested in finance, that are interested in business models, marketing, HR, etc. And there are MBA schools that aren’t particularly interested in finance, that focus on health care, or tech, etc. You can tell a lot about a business by what kinds of MBAs they hire and where they hire them.
What’s been damaging is businesses that have transformed from their core focus to finance without anyone really knowing that transformation took place. HP is a decent example of this. They went from engineering things, to a product channel manager – slapping their name on products that other companies engineered. They went from a company that created real value – inventing new markets, advancing their industry to one that simply served as an efficient intermediary between retailers and manufacturers, figuring out how to most efficiently pump crap from one end to the other and deliver as little value as possible in the middle. That’s the HP that Carly Fiorina built. Her great innovation at Lucent:
Not that MBAs need any defense from me, but I think people over-focus on MBAs and not enough on finance. Take out the finance mentality and I think a lot of the MBA complaints would go away.
? Martin
@D58826: Well, rocket science is relatively simple because it’s deterministic. Economics is not. More to the point, people are not. One of the biggest problems in finance is the impedance between when an employee is financially rewarded and when the results of their actions are fully measured. We have a lot of subprime lenders where I live (most of them, actually) and there was a point in 2007-2008 when I kept getting resumes from people from that industry. One of them told me they made their money and they were getting out before it blew up. They weren’t planning on being around for when the consequences would be felt – and they wouldn’t have been felt at all. Many of the brokers simply shut down when the shit hit and opened up new businesses a year later to hoover up properties that had lost half their value, using the capital they had sucked out of the subprime industry. By the time anyone realized what was going wrong, these guys were out of the game and in new businesses.
That’s private equity in a nutshell along with a host of other sectors/subsectors.
germy
@ThresherK:
this.
debbie
@? Martin:
You could be right. The MBA who destroyed the publishing house where I worked was all about finances. He demurred from giving his opinion on publishing decisions, but since he controlled the cash, he more or less did make the decisions. It didn’t take long before he considered himself to be a real publisher.
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: I think I missed that recipe. Can I haz link please?
Renie
Love the rain chain will have to look for one of those. Also need to see in that pink grass will grow in my zone.
This year I am doing my first inground fairy garden. Already becoming a bit expensive but most new gardening projects are. Will share pictures later in the season since I am trying to journal it on my website.
scav
@D58826: Of course you have to simplify things out, for pure mental logic games as well as the mathematically expressed ones. It’s not recognizing the results thus obtained are simplifications and won’t quite work exactly that way in reality that is the step that shouldn’t be omitted. Large streams of economics plays it that way (confusing homo economicus with actual people, and moreover, sometimes elevating homo economicus to the ideal of actual human behavior), and context-free application of models is even worse in MBAland. Any human science that confuses mechanistic deterministic atoms for self-aware actors is going to have issues.
WaterGirl
@Glidwrith: I don’t have a link, but I can copy from my recipe folder. I will start with my simplified version and then the comment below will have the original version from OzarkHillbilly I call this one “Cozy Oatmeal Breakfast”.
Here’s the quick and dirty version of the recipe. The quantities and details of the various items don’t matter, just the proportions. Basically it’s equal parts of fruit, the dry mix and the wet mix.
Here’s what I use:
2 cups of just about any fruit (maybe not fresh pineapple)
2 cups of dry mix (whole oatmeal + cinnamon)
2 cups of wet mix (2 cups milk, 1/8 cup brown sugar, splash of vanilla, a generous pinch of salt + one beaten egg).
Step 1: Melt a small pat of butter in the bottom of a baking dish (so it doesn’t stick) in the oven as it preheats
Step 2: Layer one cup chopped apple (basically one good size apple) in the bottom of the dish
Step 3: Layer one cup of frozen raspberries
Step 4: Layer the dry mix
Step 5: Pour the wet mix over the top
Bake at 350 degrees until brown, maybe 35 – 45 minutes?
To serve, I melt butter in a pan on the stove, add brown sugar, then put one serving in the pan and heat until warm. Move it to a bowl, then pour a splash or two of milk in the pan to warm it and get any remaining brown sugar and butter that’s in the bottom of the pan. Sometimes I add chopped pecans to the bowl.
Notes: the original recipe calls for butter and much more sugar IN the oatmeal casserole, but I prefer adding the butter and sugar as I am reheating – I think it gives a richer taste for the same amount of fat & sugar.
WaterGirl
@Glidwrith: Just occurred to me that I could google a long line from OzarkHillbilly’s recipe and maybe find it on-line. He calls it: The Best Cozy Breakfast You Can Make (Ahead!) Without a Recipe
WaterGirl
@Renie: I love my rain chain, too! You won’t regret getting one. (except for the price!) One year a niece that I’m close to asked what I wanted for my birthday. I said I had been wanting a rain chain but they were expensive, would she be interested in going in on it with me? I sent her the link and she was not interested in doing that, so she got me a different, lovely gift.
Every year when she visits she comments on the lovely rain chain and I think she wishes she had gone in on it with me. It’s okay, I think of it as being from her anyway, somehow. It really started being beautiful after a couple of years when it went from shiny copper to this aged version. I had the option of shiny copper or a green version that came pre-aged. I have had the rain chain for years and I love it in this in-between stage where it’s aged but not the pale green.
Probably more than you wanted to know!
edit: P.S. from the link to the pink hair grass above: (I am zone 5B and I have full, brutal sun, but it sounds very flexible about that.)
Temp / Zone: Zone 6A · -10° to -5° F, Zone 6B · -5° to 0° F, Zone 7A · 0° to 5° F, Zone 7B · 5° to 10° F, Zone 8A · 10° to 15° F, Zone 8B · 15° to 20° F, Zone 9A · 20° to 25° F, Zone 9B · 25° to 30° F, Zone 10A · 30° to 35° F, Zone 10B · 35° to 40° F
Sun Exposure: Full / Mostly Sun, Morning Sun / Evening Shade, Morning Shade / Evening Sun
HeartlandLiberal
I had a two break in the constant rain that has plagued us here in south central Indiana. Of the two long rows of purple potatoes, one had sprouted, the other, which was too close to a drain line edging the vegetable garden to pull water away from the house and middle of backyard and garden, was so saturated since planting potatoes three weeks ago that all but two seed potatoes had rotted rather than sprout. I had ordered three boxes of purple seed potatoes from Amazon. The arrived in middle of the two day break from rain. I toiled and planted them. They came with 6 – 8 inch sprouts from the seed potatoes, I got two cuts from each potato, so after an hour and half crawling and standing and scooping mixture of composted vegetable matter, compost from the composting bin, and composted cow manure and dirt onto the little potatoes and their sprouts, I replanted the whole row, about 30 plants, I think. And today, the rains have returned, and are forecast pretty much every day for the rest of the week. I sincerely hope that this time, because I had such good sprouts to plant, they will survive.
Renie
@WaterGirl: Is your chain connected to the house gutters or is it free standing? I was looking on websites after seeing your pictures and they can be expensive but I will definitely get one. Just have to figure out where I can put it to get the most enjoyment out of it.
WaterGirl
@Renie: I only have gutters on one side of my house – the side with bricks instead of grass and flower beds that are happy to get the rain that rolls off the roof. My rain chain is connected to the end of the gutter with a sort-of V-shaped thing (technical term) that fits horizontally within the width of the gutter. The rain chain came with that piece. As I recall, I didn’t have an end piece like gutters often have so we kluged it a bit but it works just fine.
This isn’t the place where I bought mine (and they are less expensive now!) but it does look like the one I have. (except that this one is shiny and mine has aged.) You have to measure the height so you get the right length to go from your gutter to the ground. The place where I bought mine had an optional copper bowl that sits at the bottom of the rain chain and you connect the rain chain to that so it doesn’t just fly around in the wind. I have so big stones in the bottom of mine to keep everything in place.
http://www.windandweather.com/umbrella-rain-chain.htm
This may be terribly obvious, but since I am terribly not-handy I never like to assume what people know. You have to hang the rain chain on the low end of the gutter, so you may not have as many options as you think. It all depends on the way your gutters are set up.
WaterGirl
@Renie: I found the place where I bought my rain chain. Amazing that I recognized the name after all these years! They have the chains plus the copper bowl at the bottom, which kind of makes the whole thing, I think. Good luck, and send photos when you get one. Also photos of your fairy garden.
http://www.cozydays.com/home-garden/home-decor/good-directions-umbrella-rain-chain-polished-copper-21164.html?gclid=CLmxw-CXy8wCFQERaQodZesILg
SIA
@raven: Wonderful photo!!
WaterGirl
@SIA: I know! We’ve seen photos from when he was just a pup, but never from when he was just a little guy.
SIA
@WaterGirl: What lovely pictures! Intrigued by the rain chain…are you using it instead of gutters?
SIA
@WaterGirl: he was pretty damn cute! And his mom so pretty!
SIA
@WaterGirl: I see you’ve answered my question.
WaterGirl
@SIA: I must be psychotic, I mean psychic. :-)
I forgot to thank all of you for your kind comments about my garden! Where are my manners???
thank you!
edit: oh, I had missed your question, that’s why I thought I was psychic for answering a question I had never seen. But yes, the rain chain goes at the end of a gutter. Instead of the downspout, you get this lovely display of water as it moves down the chain.
SIA
@WaterGirl: Thanks! And thanks for the photos.