Looking down at the clouds from the summit (Volcano tours)
Another activity that I enjoyed in my younger days may be outlawed.
A popular Hawaii tourist activity, Maui downhill bicycle tours offer visitors an opportunity to see stunning landscapes on a ride down the winding roads of Haleakala with little physical exertion.
The activity, however, comes with some risk, as bicyclists share the road with vehicles, whose drivers sometimes get impatient, and downhill speeds may cause a rider to lose control.
Throughout its history, accidents have happened. Some have died. Earlier this month, Jeffrey Hins, a 68-year-old visitor from Arizona, was killed while biking down Haleakala as part of a group. The Maui Police Department said Hins crossed the yellow double-solid lane into the oncoming lane and crashed into a vehicle.
A new law addressing the safety of commercial guided and unguided bike tours, Ordinance 5439, just went into effect last year to alleviate concerns about safety and disruption to local traffic.,,“There’s been some in the community who want an outright ban on this type of industry operating on the road,” Mike Molina told KHON-TV. Molina, a former Maui County councilmember, championed the new law...
Haleakala downhill bicycle tours started in 1983. Over the next 20 years, the industry flourished, as it was a way for visitors to see Haleakala National Park at sunrise, then do a fun experiential activity. By 2007, about 90,000 visitors participated in bike tours annually, and revenues were estimated at $11 million...
Last year was the first time in 15 years that a new law was enacted to regulate the industry. Ordinance 5439 limits commercial tours to 10 riders, requires a minimum age of 15 and restricts guided and unguided tours to between Mile Marker 3 and Mile Marker 9.5 on Haleakala Crater Road.
Only a handful of companies continue to operate the downhill bike tours today and have altered their itineraries to accommodate the changes.
Depending on the operator, guided tours begin with a van ride up Haleakala Volcano to 10,000 feet to watch the sunrise inside Haleakala National Park. Then, the van brings the group down to around 6,500 feet, where cyclists launch after a safety briefing. Bicyclists then descend on a winding road of 29 switchbacks, while the van follows behind.
Ordinance 5439 cut some mileage from the tours by prohibiting specific areas of road and excluding the town of Kula. Operators have improvised by adding a second bike loop of the switchbacks, a van ride through Kula or lunch stop in Makawao, before continuing on the bikes to ride down to Haiku or Paia, where the tour ends.
I've done the summit downhill a number of times, the most recent occasion being a corporate retreat in the mid-1990's. We watched the sun rise over the crater, then cruised to Paia without stopping. It was early morning, traffic was light, and this weekend bicyclist used the brakes often. However, it is easy to see how increased auto traffic, combined with unskilled bicycle tourists, made serious accidents inevitable. Like many things in life, I'm glad I got to do the Haleakala ride before it got regulated away.
Kamala Harris has had trouble attracting Christian, particularly Catholic, voters due to her pro-abortion stance, so she began the day at a Black church in Philadelphia:
Vice President Kamala Harris started her Sunday at services at the Church of Christian Compassion in West Philadelphia. She told the largely Black congregation that the “next nine days will test us—they will demand everything we’ve got.”
“In this moment, we do face a real question: What kind of country do we want to live in? A country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, justice, and compassion?” Harris asked, adding, “The great thing about living in a democracy is we, the people, have the choice to answer that question.” Harris is spending the day in the Philadelphia area as polls show a tight race in Pennsylvania, the nation’s largest battleground state.
Vice President Harris is also trying to counter the anti-Christian impression of her "you guys are at the wrong rally" riposte when hecklers shouted "Jesus is Lord" and "Christ is King." (Her campaign asserts that she was responding to cries of "Lies! Lies! Lies!").
Despite her warm reception by the congregation, I doubt her appearance changed anyone's mind.
This is troubling but not surprising: many oncologists can't stay abreast of new developments in cancer research. [bold added]
Cancer care is getting more complicated, thanks to a better understanding of cancer’s molecular underpinnings. Doctors now think of cancer as more than 100 distinct diseases, with cancers including lung, breast and bladder broken into subtypes.
That complexity is contributing to a divide in how patients fare depending on where they go.
Oncologists at magnet cancer centers that dot the U.S. develop expertise in just a few cancer subtypes. They draw from a rapidly expanding arsenal of new drugs for specific and sometimes rare cancers, including experimental ones that aren’t widely available.
But most people get treated locally to be near home and jobs. Local oncologists, faced with a range of cancers, can’t stay up-to-date on everything. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network updated its nearly 90 guidelines across cancer types more than 200 times in the past year.
A third of 120 patients who sought a second opinion at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York had their treatment changed, a 2023 review found. MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston said about one in five of its new patients are rediagnosed or restaged. Patients at academic centers have better outcomes for cancers including lung and multiple myeloma, studies show.
“It’s possible that one out of five patients in America is getting the wrong treatment,” said Dr. Peter WT Pisters, MD Anderson’s president.
I don't fault oncologists for finding it hard to do keep up with the research while treating patients by day. This is one obvious application for artificial intelligence, i.e., sifting through haystacks of information to find the needle that may apply to a patient.
Meanwhile, it behooves us all to stay alive as long as possible to give us the best chance for the science to cure the diseases that might kill us.
Bryant Lin teaching a class on Oct. 23 (Merc photo)
A member of our family has been seeing Dr. Bryant Lin at Stanford Health for years. Lately Dr. Lin has been unavailable. Now we know why; he has been battling lung cancer.
“If you look at the survival curves, you would give up. But you may be one of the lucky ones. You need to have optimism, tinged with reality,” said Lin, a beloved clinical professor and 50-year-old nonsmoker with two teenage sons who was diagnosed with advanced metastatic lung cancer earlier this year.
...Lin initially dismissed an annoying cough that started last spring. But it continued to worsen, causing him to wheeze.
“I’ve never had a puff of smoke of anything in my life,” he said.
In one week, he got stunning news. What he assumed was just a normal spring allergy was diagnosed as stage IV non-small cell cancer, which had already progressed to his bones and liver, with 50 lesions in his brain.
The diagnosis, about a month before his 50th birthday, “was so drastically different than what I was expecting,” he said. He was quickly hospitalized...
Lung cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer, with survival rates decreasing as the severity increases. While smokers make up the majority of those cases, 15% to 20% of people with lung cancer are non-smoking, like Lin. There is new evidence of an increase in the incidence of lung cancer in nonsmokers, although no one knows why. It is largely a silent disease that goes undetected for a dangerously long period.
The gene mutation that causes the cancer disproportionately affects those of Asian descent.
While not cured, Lin’s scans are strikingly improved after an innovative medicine called osimertinib, which targets his specific mutation. It blocks proteins that control cell growth and division. His cough is gone, and he is almost symptom-free...
With roles reversed, Lin says he is learning both how to be a patient and how to more fully be a doctor.
He urges doctors to not focus just on “medical science things” but the emotional and practical challenges of their patients. He urges patients to build tight community of support and deepen their relationship with their doctor, who can act as an advocate when things go wrong.
He’s not sure how much time he has left. “One year? Two years? Five years?” The class, he said, “is to give back to my community as I go through this.”
After receiving his terminal diagnosis, Dr. Bryant Lin continues not only to fight the disease but teaches classes at Stanford Hospital, including his own life experience in the content. None of us know with certainty how we might react to such news; character reveals itself in such moments.
Using 192 laser beams, this Lawrence-Livermore apparatus ignited a hydrogen fuel pellet the size of a peppercorn in 2022. The experiment produced more energy than it consumed and showed fusion energy was possible. (DOE/Chronicle)
Focused Energy, a startup specializing in laser fusion for clean energy, is relocating its U.S. headquarters from Austin to the Bay Area.
The German company announced plans on Wednesday to establish a state-of-the-art facility in the region, with an investment of $65 million. The facility will house some of the world’s most advanced lasers, crucial for developing commercially viable fusion energy, according to a press release.
Scott Mercer, CEO of Focused Energy, said that the move aims to leverage the “incredible pool of talent” in the Bay Area and benefit from established methodologies developed by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which achieved net energy gain for the first time in December 2022...
With over $175 million in private and public funding, Focused Energy is one of eight fusion companies selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for support under its Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.
The company has also received significant grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to further its research and development initiatives.
Although numerous California companies such as Oracle, Tesla and Chevron have relocated their headquarters to Texas in recent years, this case illustrates the opposite trend.
The new Bay Area facility will enhance laser efficiency and establish a global supply chain necessary for scaling commercial fusion operations.
Once fully operational, fusion fuel equivalent to “three soda cans” will be capable of powering a city the size of San Francisco for an entire day, Focused Energy said.
Startups' main objective is to demonstrate their proof-of-concept. Cutting costs and red tape will be prioritized later, and the company can then decide if California is where it wishes to be planted.
Meanwhile, it's nice to know that the Bay Area hasn't yet dissipated its “incredible pool of talent” that attracts tech companies around the world. Your humble blogger still holds out hope that we can undo California's status as the worst-taxed, most woke, and most over-regulated State in the Union.
American Airlines is piloting a new system aimed at curbing the phenomenon known as “gate lice,” an industry term used to describe passengers who crowd the boarding area ahead of their assigned group.
The initiative comes in response to growing frustration around travelers who often disregard boarding instructions, leading to chaotic scenes at the gate.
While the new technology won’t speed up departures, it seeks to restore order to the boarding process, said the airline, the fourth largest operator out of San Francisco International Airport.
The system involves a warning sound triggered when passengers attempt to board outside their assigned group. When a boarding pass is scanned, an “audible alert” will notify the gate agent, displaying the passenger’s correct group number.
Many passengers rush to the gate out of anxiety or a herd mentality, despite having designated boarding groups, according to psychologists who have studied the “gate lice” phenomenon. But for those who genuinely need early access — such as families or travelers with disabilities — airlines say the prioritization system is essential. They also cite the need to protect the revenue they receive from those who have paid for these privileges.
One of the cultural differences that used to distinguish Americans from some, not all, Asian countries is that Americans would stand in line and wait their turn, while non-Americans would push their way through to get on buses, trains, and elevators. In the U.S. the willingness to wait is still around, but it began eroding a couple of generations ago.
Your humble blogger applauds the enforcement of the old norm, although the term "gate lice" is a bit mean. But I suppose the cultural norm against name-calling has eroded, too.
For the past month I've been watching the candidates for national office give speeches and interviews. I've been impressed with the ability of J.D. Vance to respond to questions, hostile or otherwise, and show that he has more than a surface knowledge of the issues. Of the four candidates I think he is the most skilled at dealing with the press.
Below is an example, albeit during a friendly interview with Fox News' Dana Perino:
At the 1:25 mark he says "You can't just walk into a McDonald's and sign a W-9 and actually go onto the payroll." (The W-9 is the IRS form in which a new employee declares his Social Security Number to his employer.) The fact that Mr. Vance knew the correct form number and stated it when he didn't have to was impressive to this career accountant.
Additional comment on McDonald's: there's a ridiculous controversy about whether Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's. She claims that she did, and her detractors say that she didn't; neither side has produced evidence to support their position, and McDonald's has no record of her employment. (The Harris campaign believes that she worked during the summer of 1983 at the McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda, California.)
We can give you copies or printouts of your Forms W-2 for any year from 1978 to the present. You can get free copies if you need them for a Social Security-related reason. But there is a fee of $62 per request if you need them for an unrelated reason. You can also get a transcript or copy of your Form W-2 from the Internal Revenue Service. However, state and local tax information isn’t available if you e-filed your tax return.
How tough would it be for Kamala Harris to request a copy of her 1983 W-2 from the SSA or IRS and put the matter to rest? The fact that she hasn't done so is a strong indicator that she did not work at McDonald's, but of course yours truly is just a simple accountant who knows nothing about the subtlety of politics.
Steve Jobs gets all the adulation, but Tim Cook deserves his own chapter in the history of American business. Steve Jobs rescued Apple from insolvency and transformed it into the world's most innovative consumer company; Tim Cook was handed the keys in 2011 and oversaw its growth into an international colossus that is worth ten times as much as it was when he took over. Perhaps we should focus less on what Apple products are in the pipeline than the man himself. The WSJ ran a profile over the weekend: [bold added]
There is one idea that encapsulates the approach to innovation that makes all of it possible—and it’s maybe the closest thing to a grand unified theory of Apple. It’s a philosophy of just four words that describe Apple’s past, present and definitely its future. Four words that help explain why this was the year the company plowed into spatial computing and artificial intelligence. During one of those epochal years when it feels like everything is about to change again, I heard them over and over, in conversation with Apple executives and Cook himself: Not first, but best.
...“We weren’t the first to do intelligence,” he says. “But we’ve done it in a way that we think is the best for the customer.”...He puts Apple Intelligence in the same pantheon of innovative breakthroughs as the iPod’s click wheel and the iPhone’s touch interface. “I think we’ll look back and it will be one of these air pockets that happened to get you on a different technology curve,” he says.
Tim Cook, 64, may not be as inventive as Steve Jobs, but he has arrived at the point where he trusts his ability to select that one "great" idea from the merely good ones that Apple considers every day. As a shareholder, I hope his tenure continues for a long, long time.
Forget about rebooting one's life every new year. The month for goal setting is October, according to the TikTok meme "October Theory":
October Theory is catching on partly because it sets someone up for success by the time January rolls around, say fans of the trend. Instead of picking up a new habit in the dead of winter—at the same time everyone else is trying to make it to the gym, for instance—it has already been in place for three months...
Others view October as a last chance to fulfill the goals and aspirations they set months ago.
October is the perfect month for recalibration. There's still time to complete the unfinished aspirations for this year and test-run the goals for the next. The busy-ness of Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas is still weeks away, and the weather is pleasant and often magnificent.
Metaphorically, we baby boomers (60-78 years old) are in or about to enter the winter of our lives, if indeed we are lucky to be still alive, and there are not many seasons left. Your humble blogger feels the fierce urgency and intends to make this October count.
We are used to hearing about vulnerable subsets of the American population who need a lot of help in taking care of themselves. Here's another one that numbers in the millions: [bold added]
]Sociologist Elena] Portacolone got to work and now leads the Living Alone With Cognitive Impairment Project at UCSF. The project estimates that that at least 4.3 million people 55 or older who have cognitive impairment or dementia live alone in the United States.
About half have trouble with daily activities such as bathing, eating, cooking, shopping, taking medications, and managing money, according to their research. But only 1 in 3 received help with at least one such activity.
Compared with other older adults who live by themselves, people living alone with cognitive impairment are older, more likely to be women, and disproportionately Black or Latino, with lower levels of education, wealth, and homeownership. Yet only 21% qualify for publicly funded programs such as Medicaid that pay for aides to provide services in the home.
Increased longevity is a societal good, but smaller families, that is, fewer relatives to check on a person, and the decline of churches and other community organizations have resulted in millions of aging, cognitively impaired adults falling through the cracks.
As further proof that its stores are not all alike, the new warehouse that opened in Napa today already is reputed to have one of the best wine selections among Costco's 140 California stores. [bold added]
[Selman] Medina is a Bay Area Costco legend. He spent 11 years commuting from Napa to work the floor of the wine section at the Novato Costco, widely believed to have the best wine section of any Costco in California. He’s one of 30 “wine stewards” employed at Costco stores across the U.S., and according to Bay Area Costco wine buyer Mark Kalkbrenner, he’s one of two wine steward program originals still standing.
Costco is one of the best-run and most popular retailers in the country. It doesn't go overboard on standardization and has a few products (e.g., surfboards in Hawaii warehouses) that cater to the local market. It's no surprise that its new store in wine country has an excellent wine selection, overseen by an expert buyer.
Last month we commented about how the super-rich signal their wealth to each other without making it obvious that's what they're trying to do. But not all of them, or those trying to be as wealthy as they are, are into that game at least when it comes to timepieces.
Sponge Bob and Avengers watches worn by financiers Patrick Lyons and Leroy Dikito (WSJ/Lyons/Dikito)
Though finance guys famously flaunt Rolexes or Patek Philippes on their wrists, an established subspecies of money men goes the other way entirely. In place of a sleek steel case and elegant ceramic dial? Mickey Mouse. SpongeBob SquarePants. Fanta-orange rubber straps.
Over the years, highfliers have made headlines for sporting Swatches. (See: Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman or former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.) That “wealthy guy, cheap watch” ethos continues to resonate in boardrooms and on trading floors, with men of all seniority levels embracing plasticky, offbeat designs, from superhero models to calculator Casios. Many resemble something you might win in a claw machine. Priced from $30 to a few hundred bucks, they’re a bit of fun and a different sort of flex, conveying an “I don’t need a Rolex” bravado that comes from having made it. Call them anti-status watches.
A practical reason for this anti-status affectation: cheap, everyday watches can be used as conversation starters in business conversations.
It's also possible to be viewed as truly wealthy, especially if everyone knows that a person is rolling in it, by not appearing to care about looking the part. The psychology of wealth, like the most important aspects of life, can be complicated.
This happened on Sunday and was widely reported on all media channels. Your humble blogger had nothing to add, so initially refrained from comment.
Upon reconsideration, I thought that, of all the important events that have happened or likely will happen this October in a Presidential Election year, this is the one that will be remembered centuries from now.
SpaceX caught a towering booster rocket back at its launchpad in south Texas, an engineering milestone for the Starship vehicle at the center of Elon Musk’s plans for deep-space exploration.
The Super Heavy booster, the first stage of Starship, lifted off from south Texas on Sunday morning and propelled the Starship craft into space. Shortly after the launch, SpaceX made the call to return the booster back to the pad from which it had launched.
A livestream from SpaceX showed the device zipping back toward the facility, and, as it approached a tower, its engines slowed the enormous device down, allowing for the catch around 8:30 a.m. ET. The vehicle latched down on mechanical arms sticking out of the tower.
It was SpaceX’s first attempt at the catch, a feat that the company and Musk, its chief executive, have said is key to reducing the cost of rocket launches...
Starship, which consists of the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft, stands about 400 feet tall when it is launched.
Elon Musk is that rarest of technological pioneers who prioritizes the economic viability of his product. After the Apollo missions NASA lost its funding because its programs were always viewed as nice-to-have, not got-to-have. Reusability of boosters will drive down the cost sufficiently to make space travel more accessible and perhaps even profitable in its own right.
This year I've started to look my age. I've lost hair, and what I have remaining has turned white. Which is background to the following:
We've been shopping at the local 99 Ranch Market for 20 years. As I was checking out, the middle-aged Chinese man at the register said, "I'll get you a senior discount." I didn't even know 99 Ranch had one. Sure, I shrugged.
He put his hands on his hips and bellowed, "Senior....senior!" Several customers turned their heads. Apparently the senior discount had to be approved by the manager. She came over in less than a minute and scanned her cellphone over a reader, authorizing the transaction. So 99 Ranch does use current technology, except for the part where cashiers yell for the manager.
I studied the receipt. The vegetables, ramen, and pastries cost $23.59, and the 5% senior discount saved $1.18. After writing the check to the U.S, Treasury for our 2023 income taxes, every penny counts.
Your humble blogger spent most of Sunday night and Monday morning working on his 2023 income taxes. While there are some justifiable reasons for his procrastination, it's hard to utter with a straight face that he couldn't have spared some time in the six months since April 15th to finish the task. October 15th is the drop-dead due date for filing.
But that's water under the bridge. I completed the input forms and submitted them to the processor. The preliminary run came back this afternoon, and there was a $10,000 error that should be easily fixable. Tomorrow I'll phone in the correction, get back the final run in the afternoon and drop it off at the Post Office by 5 p.m. Easy as pie.
