Her Nobility Gives It Resonance

My home parish--where I was baptized during the Eisenhower Administration--looked the same as it did five months ago. Worship protocols are stuck on COVID.

Everyone was masked, every other pew was blocked, and the offering plate placed at the entrance was not taken to the altar during the Offertory section of the service. The lady minister brought the wafers to each communicant, and everyone waited to consume them at the same time.

Today the Episcopal Church in Hawaii remembered Queen Liliuokalani, who became a church member in 1896 after the Kingdom was overthrown. The dethronement of the Queen in 1893 and her imprisonment was such a naked power-grab by American sugar growers that the U.S. Senate and President Grover Cleveland refused to recognize the newly created Republic of Hawaii until the exigencies of the Spanish-American War made annexation inevitable in 1898.

Queen Liliuokalani and the Hawaiian people were not uncivilized savages, a characterization that was often used to justify colonialism. She was highly educated, fluent in English and led a government that followed the Western model. Moreover, she was Christian, and her faith was sorely tested by those who abandoned the teachings of their missionary fathers for the sake of wealth and power. Though she resisted annexation, she finally relented because of the destruction an armed rebellion would bring down on her people.

It's safe to say that Liliuokalani's nobility of character in the face of vastly superior power is an important reason why the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has such resonance.

She was also a gifted composer who wrote some of the most well-known numbers in the Hawaiian songbook. Below is the Queen's Prayer:

Waikiki on Saturday Night

Waikiki on Saturday night was crowded with tourists, musicians, and shoppers.

A group of anti-vaccination-mandate protestors marched up and down Kalakaua Avenue. Their demographic diversity--old, young, black, brown, white, mixed, male, female, indeterminate--would have warmed the heart of any diversity and inclusion officer, but only if the group had advocated one of the causes on the approved list.

I stopped at a couple of shops and made a small contribution to the Hawaiian economy. As they say in Vegas, someone's gotta pay for the lights.

Zillow: Too Early, But They'll be Back

(Photo from Star Tribune)/td>

We've been regular users of Zillow since 2016. It has a trove of real estate information, useful for checking on the value of one's own home, the cost of homes in areas that we might want to move to, or market rents in every zip code.

However, one would be crazy to make a purchasing decision based solely on Zillow's algorithms. One can't know the "feel" of a house or a neighborhood, or whether the roof might leak or the pipes need replacing, without a viewing by a real human being and/or inspector.

Zillow thought that its valuation algorithm could be relied on to buy houses en masse to build a house-flipping enterprise. Now it's getting out of the business.

Zillow Group Inc. reached a deal to sell about 2,000 homes from its ill-fated house-flipping program, the company’s biggest bulk sale as it starts unloading thousands of homes and terminates the business...

Zillow’s home-flipping practice involved buying homes, lightly renovating them and then selling them quickly, making money on transaction fees and home-price appreciation. The company and other iBuyers used an algorithm to make home-price estimates and determine what to pay home sellers.

Zillow said last week that it was shutting down the business because it couldn’t accurately predict future home prices and was losing too much money. The company expects to record losses of more than $500 million from home-flipping by the end of this year and is laying off a quarter of its staff.

I confess to feeling a bit of schadenfreude that a successful (up to now) tech company got a little too big for its britches, but I think they were on the right track.

The algorithm needed to incorporate additional data--the kind of data that's hard to obtain--and Zillow needed to test the program on a much smaller scale before it bet the farm. They had the courage to pull the plug before it took down the company, and it's likely they'll be back some day, probably with a "money" partner that will provide the risk capital while Zillow provided the smarts.

Note: here we know all about being too early. Foster City was the headquarters of Webvan, the highly-touted grocery delivery business that failed nearly 20 years ago.

Homelessness in Hawaii: Living with It

Tents along Kapiolani Boulevard, a block from my parents' home

We first posted about homelessness in Hawaii ten years ago. Since then the tents have gotten closer. Two years ago they were seven blocks away. Now they're just across the street.

Some official sources say that the homeless population is going down: [bold added]

Overall, there were 6,458 people experiencing homelessness in Hawaii on one night and about 57% of those individuals were unsheltered. The statewide homelessness rate for 2020 was about the same as 2019, but has decreased since 2016.

Others say the count is much higher:

Hawaii’s Homeless: Estimated to be around 15,000 homeless individuals in Hawaii

Perhaps the disparity can be explained by analysis (date of sampling, self-reporting vs. outside observation, etc.), but from a personal perspective it doesn't much matter. The problem is getting closer to home, so we will continue to subscribe to the monitored security system that my father had the foresight to install in 2012.

As with many problems, history has shown that we cannot rely on the government to solve homelessness, it's fruitless to get angry, and we have to do the best we can to find a way to live with it.

Tesla: It Makes Sense in Hawaii

The Tesla showroom in Waikiki wasn't busy on Wednesday night, but don't go by appearances. Tesla is the luxury car leader in Hawaii:

Tesla is also far and away the most popular luxury car brand in Hawaii with a 40% market share, followed by BMW with 18.7%, Mercedes with 13.3% and Lexus with 7.8%. And Tesla enjoyed the second-largest increase in new retail light vehicle registrations, trailing only the Lincoln.

Living on the Mainland, we are years away from buying an electric vehicle, primarily because they are range bound. Despite the vaunted infrastructure bill, I don't believe that charging stations will be widely available across the country any time soon. For at least the next ten years gas stations will continue to be ubiquitous, and so will be the information signs posted on the nation's highways. When I see a "Next gas in 30 miles" sign, and I'm down to a quarter tank, I know what to do. Not so much with an EV.

In Hawaii Teslas and other EVs make sense. The average road trip is 30 minutes or less, making it very unlikely an electric vehicle will be stranded. If we ever moved back, a Tesla would be one of the first purchases we make.

Slow and Safe Travels

The ticket agent asked to see my vaccination credentials, but he didn't want to see the copy on the iPhone or even the real card itself.He wanted the information from the Hawaii Safe Travels website.

The State of Hawaii has imposed a 21st-century version of "show me your papers." Last week I had uploaded the image of my vaccination card and re-typed the information (location, dates, provider name, etc.--absurdly redundant with OCR) on various input blocks. To Hawaii it wasn't reality unless it was in digital form.

And so it was that after the baggage was checked and the boarding pass printed there was just one more thing.

I typed in the Safe Travels URL on the iPhone, logged in with the userid and password, then answered the familiar questions (are you sick, have you been in contact with anyone who has COVID, etc.). One would think that Hawaii could have created an app with Face ID to ease the hassle of logging in, but one would be wrong.

After pressing "submit" (thinking sardonically upon the several meanings of the word), I received a QR code that acknowledged my legitimacy. The agent gave me the precious wristband that told Hawaii officials that I was cleared to enter.

The take-off was delayed one hour because the catering truck was late. A long day had just gotten longer.

Infrastructure Spending: Hoping for a Different Result

From July 22nd: Lake Oroville reservoir

Government spending programs are signed to much fanfare, yet always seem to fall short of their goals (or eventually succeed at multiples of the original cost estimates). Your humble blogger nevertheless hopes that the infrastructure bill will produce some progress at improving California's water storage capacity. [bold added]

In California, where a historic drought has depleted reservoirs, state Sen. Melissa Hurtado said infrastructure money is needed to help fund new places to store snowmelt from the local mountains and to repair canals, levees and other methods of conveyance, which are crumbling or in other disrepair. Ms. Hurtado’s Central Valley district has been hit hard with water cutoffs to its big farming sector, and she said some small towns there face possible loss of drinking water due to the shortfall.

“If we don’t act now, it is going to be just catastrophic for mankind,” said Ms. Hurtado, a Democrat.

Maybe there's hope after all: a Democrat used the traditional "mankind" instead of "humankind", and she did not refer to "catastrophic" climate change but water shortages that everyone, global warmists or not, can do something about.

The Learning Trap

(Image from very well mind)

Berkeley psychologist Alison Gopnik showed experimentally that children were willing to take greater risks than adults for the sake of gathering information. [bold added]

We used what’s called a “learning trap.” When we grown-ups try something new, from oysters to opera, and get a bad result, we usually won’t try it again... If we quickly conclude that all oysters and operas are indigestible, and reject them ever after, we will never learn that the world is more complicated than that. A stale clam or lame Aida may keep us from ever discovering the delights of a sparkling Belon oyster or a scintillating Magic Flute.

When you give 4- and 5-year-olds exactly the same problem, they behave very differently. They are irresistibly drawn to see what the new blocks will do, even though they love the stars and know that they risk losing them.

But just as grown-up prudence may have drawbacks, childhood curiosity has advantages. Children gathered much more evidence than the adults and were much better at learning. Most of the children did figure out the right rule. However, they earned fewer stars than the grown-ups.

The grown-ups were less willing to experiment because they did not want to lose what they had, while the children were more willing to sacrifice their possessions for knowledge. (One can't over-generalize from this experiment, however, because anyone who has any experience with children knows that they often will fight very fiercely over toys and desired foodstuffs.)

Almost always dismissing ideas because of similarities to things that have failed in the past, I have to fight against the tendency to fall into the Learning Trap. At the same time there is much truth in the quote misattributed to Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” As winter approaches, I have less time to waste on repeating mistakes.

Wisdom is knowing when people, situations, objects, and ideas are fundamentally the same..or different.

Hawaiian Time

This morning I performed the annual ritual of turning the clocks back for one hour as California switched from Daylight Saving to Standard Time.

Our household still has analog clocks that don't adjust automatically. I am fond of their look, which offsets the inconvenience. And I can feel the time of day reading a clock face; a digital readout doesn't resonate as deeply.

Hawaii never adopted Daylight Saving Time and doesn't have to go through the semi-annual springing forward and falling back. Hawaiian time is constant, yet unhurried. I am going to the Islands later this week and can already feel the temporal tension dissipating.

Note: Hawaiian Time is often used as an excuse for being tardy, but holding Arbor Day in November, seven months after the rest of the country, is extreme.

Burglars Caught and Released: the Policy San Franciscans Voted For

Partial snapshot of Tyler Howerton's arrests

Your humble blogger stopped posting on property crime in San Francisco nine months ago. The City didn't seem to be doing anything to stem the tide, and, of course, crime has escalated. We're starting to follow the issue again because there are faint glimmerings of a shift in attitudes.

The Chronicle highlights the futility of San Francisco's soft-on-property crime approach. Police arrested Nicholas Tiller and Tyler Howerton for stealing expensive bicycles. [bold added]

According to documents reviewed by The Chronicle, both men had extensive criminal histories: Howerton had been arrested seven times on suspicion of burglary since 2019; Tiller had been arrested 13 times in burglary cases since 2013. Both were on probation at the time they were apprehended last week.

What to do about the two men is a quandary for a city pursuing criminal justice reform while debating how to manage rates of property crime that for years have been among the highest in the nation...Last week, Superior Court Judge Brian Ferrall ordered Howerton released from jail with GPS monitoring...

Tiller remains in jail. Attorneys representing Tiller and Howerton declined to comment.

In San Francisco burglary is a lucrative occupation because, if caught, the perpetrator is released to steal again. Many thieves have upgraded their skills and equipment because the rewards have become greater, while the risk of imprisonment has nearly disappeared.

the crimes are serious, but not violent. The perpetrators are often methodical, repeat offenders with tools and expertise. They know how to drill holes and use wires to open garage doors; they don’t have the desperation of people who steal packages from porches, or even of the drug store shoplifters who grab toiletries from shelves and toss them into garbage bags.

And in the case of the most recent arrest, both defendants have long rap sheets. Tiller even made headlines in 2016, for participating in a robbery of the Make a Wish Foundation at 400 Market St. and stealing — among other things — a scooter autographed by former Giants right fielder Hunter Pence.

Boudin and other policymakers believe that incarceration fails to address the root causes of property crime, such as poverty and addiction.

A sensible counter-argument is that incarceration keeps them from robbing more people and may even have a deterrent effect on others criminals, actual and potential.

But San Franciscans disagree with the latter point of view. They keep voting in the Progressives who created the "humane" policy of repeatedly releasing people like Nicholas Tiller and Tyler Howerton to ply their trade. As we said last year, they're getting what they wanted, good and hard.

To the End He Knew What He Was Doing

He quit to spend more time with his family (Chron)

Perennial All-Star catcher Buster Posey is retiring. We have followed his career since he was called up briefly to the San Francisco Giants at the age of 22 in 2009.

In 2010 he was National League Rookie of the Year as he helped lead the Giants to their first World Series title since the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1958. Long-time fans were incredulous and grateful, but the moment wasn't too big for Buster:

After the all-night celebration following the Giants' National League Series victory, veteran Aubrey Huff gave advice to rookie Buster Posey as they headed back to the room.

Huff: Don't think this happens every year, kid.

Posey: Why not?

Two World Series championships followed in 2012 and 2014, then the nearly inevitable injuries and aging-out of the championship roster. Only Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, and Buster Posey remained from the glory years.

Most unexpectedly, the Giants won the Western Division title in 2021 with a franchise record 107 victories. Though they lost to the Dodgers in the playoffs, the Giants' performance had fans dreaming of the club being in contention for years to come. Buster Posey's retirement makes those dreams unlikely, but no one's angry at him. He earned every penny of his 8-year $159 million contract and is going out on his own terms.

Longer Lasting

The new Mac is tempting.

An overarching environmental ethic should be not to throw away anything that can be employed usefully. Not only does following this principle preserve the landfill, it delays or even eliminates the pollution behind making a new item.

And so it was that I opted to replace the battery of the 7-year-old MacBook Air instead of buying one of the fancy new MacBooks.

These laptops balance high performance, portability and power savings in ways we just haven’t known in previous Macs and Windows machines.

The downside of the new Macs: they start at $1,999, but the one I wanted had added memory and an upgraded processor and would set me back $3,000.

The new battery arrived in two days. It was a $50 item which was shipped to Amazon's warehouse long before "supply chain problem" became a term in the popular consciousness.

I opened up the back using torque screwdrivers that came with the battery and put in the new unit.

Obeying the startup instructions to operate the computer until the battery drained completely, then charging it to 100%, I hope to get another three years out of the replacement.

A new Mac would have given me a thrill, but not having to spend $3,000 imparts a longer-lasting satisfaction.

The Butterflies Return

Santa Cruz Monarch butterfly (Chron photo)

In an unexpected development global warming, the bête noire of environmentalists everywhere, may be responsible for the resurgence of the monarch butterflies in Monterey County:

conservationists estimate the current population that has arrived in its annual wintertime migration to the California coast to be around 10,000 compared with 1,900 last year.

One possible reason for the rebound: this year’s drought, since warm and dry conditions in early spring can help with their migration...

Though the reason for the rebound isn’t known, [biologist Emma] Pelton said scientists such as Arthur Shapiro at UC Davis have found correlations between drought years and a boost in butterfly populations, at least for butterflies at lower elevations like monarchs.

(Photo from Siberia Times)

Opinion is overwhelming that global warming is normatively bad, but impartial analysis makes it clear that there are significant beneficiaries, specifically Russia and Canada, if temperatures keep rising: [bold added]

Let’s state the long-term truth no diplomat would: The world’s two largest countries are also among the two biggest winners from climate change.

They are already among the top energy and food producers in the world, and with warming temperatures they can more easily access even more energy and produce quantum leaps more food. Oil may be getting cheaper, but agrobusiness is a surging asset class. According to New Scientist magazine, a 4 degree Celsius rise in global averages temperatures would decrease agriculture yields in today’s other leading states such as the U.S., Brazil,China, India and Australia. Meanwhile, Canada and Russia’s ramped up industrial farming industries could be the breadbaskets for the planet. They are the hydro and food superpowers of a dry and thirsty planet.

The land area of the contiguous 48 states is approximately three (3) million square miles, while Siberia's is 5.1 million. If only a fraction of the latter becomes arable due to global warming, it will more than offset farmland losses in the rest of the world, and we're not even taking into account the gains from Canada.

And if the above seems too left-brain for you, dear reader, isn't it great that the butterflies are coming back?

Sandwiches on Sunday: Normal is Still Far, Far Away

Seven people gathered at the parish hall on Saturday to assemble 80 bag lunches. It would be their fourth and final Sandwiches on Sunday for the year. Volunteers had other things to do on Halloween, but on the bright side they didn't have to work on the last weekends of November (Thanksgiving) or December (between Christmas and New Year's Day).

We were finished in the record speed of an hour, because I've gotten better at taking inventory and didn't have to run to the supermarket.

On Sunday the sandwiches and the water were set out on the tables of the Redwood City community center. Within a half an hour everything was gone. Most of the 50 people served asked for an extra bag, and we were happy to accommodate them.

The next sandwich-making is January 30th. The last time we served hot lunches was December, 2019, and the community center director said she didn't know when COVID-19 safety protocols will be lifted.

We had been running low on bulk supplies like brown paper bags (500 count) and plastic sandwich bags (300 count) and had been delaying replenishment in case we went back to normal cafeteria-style meals, but it looks like normal is still far, far away.

Jim Cramer Moves Markets

Jim Cramer on CNBC's Squawk on the Street this morning, 9:36 EDT:

Pepsi has so many new drinks, they're so incredible. I had the G2 after working out today. I said "Wow, that is one special group of chemicals."

On the way back from my morning walk, I'm gonna get me some of that blue juice to wash down the meatless breakfast patty.

Taking care of myself and the planet at the same time.