Downtown SF

Daughter is signed up for ice skating lessons downtown, so I've been spending Saturday mornings in downtown SF, after not having been in some time.

Can confirm the media reports that's it's completely trashed. Notice the candy wrapper wantonly discarded on the lawn:

(Just kidding, that's Tickles' poop bag, I staged this hellscape.)

Here's a building with some charming carved stone walruses in the... architrave? Facade? Whatever...

Glad to see the Tadich Grill is still offering Corned Beef Hash as an entree... and "Long Branch Potatoes" still available with your steak....

Some pics of the former Hills Brothers Coffee headquarters, now called Hills Plaza I think:

More facade, with depictions of the "California story" I think:

Gold miner:

Crab guy:

Chinese guy:

No idea:

 

Synthesized Learning

 Saw a brief show on AI. As I understand it, it's sort of artificial learning, accumulating knowledge and data, and I guess using that to recognize patterns, predict outcomes, even offer solutions.

Up til now we've had "repositories" for knowledge -- scrolls and books and databases. And we've developed tools to process crude knowledge (like the abacus, calculator, Excel spreadsheets, and spell check).

Advantage of AI is that it can internalize this data, recognize patterns, and retain those findings -- ie "learning."

The interesting thing is, humans have a short shelf-life -- they die and every new human has to learn everything all over again from scratch. So right off the bat AI has a huge advantage -- it retains its knowledge and presumably grows its capability forever.

I guess this is what gives rise to the fear of "machines taking over" -- they'll keep learning and growing while each generation of humans has to play catch up.

What I think of is, can AI take over all mental labor? Just as robots do manufacturing faster and better than humans, could AI be used to do all the "thinking" jobs like law, accounting, finance, medicine, even public policy? Creative jobs, music, entertainment?

Then we face the displacement paradox. "Labor saving technology" sounds great but so far it hasn't worked. We've spent 10,000 years developing labor saving methods and increasing yields, but today in France they're having to raise the retirement age so people work longer.  

Food Bank

If you live in the Bay Area you'll hear a lot of ads from the food bank.  They ask for money and/or time to help feed the starving masses.

Now with the pandemic, a ton of people, including myself, are out of work.  The food bank exists to help these poor souls.  So I decided to avail myself of the services.

They give away food all over the city, but the easiest options are the drive-thru locations.  So I made an on-line reservation for Friday afternoon down on the Embarcadero.

It was a quick drive because no one's working and no one's on the freeway.

You hold your printed confirmation up to the window and they wave you in.  You follow the line, pop your hatch, and they load you up with a couple cartons, and off you go. Quick and easy.

There was a bit of a line when I got there but it moved quickly.

I felt a little out of place in my Honda amongst the Lexuses and Mercedes Benzes, but hey, I'm human too...

The goods: oatmeal, canned peaches, pasta and sauce, garbanzos, 3 cans of tuna, peanut butter...

Gallon of milk, pound of cheese, tub of yogurt, 2 large bags of sausage, and a 4 POUND HAM -- ham sandwiches are 80% of my diet so this was particularly welcome....

Big bag of apples, big bag of potatoes, and a nice Korean melon which I normally can't afford.

It's a pretty good system -- the only issue is having to hit a time window, and the drive is sort of a hassle.  I'll send them a note asking if we can get home delivery.

The old economic model meant you had to labor, to earn money, to buy food... now your unemployment checks pay the rent and the food is free.  Why didn't they think of this before?  So much simpler!

CLO's -- The New CDO's

Remember the CDO's that tanked the economy in 2008?  Now they're back, in a more pernicious hidden form, as Collateralized Loan Obligations.  Mortgages were somewhat visible, in that everyone could see the irrational rise in real estate prices, and witnessed episodes of unqualified borrowers walking the plank of hope.

Collaterized Loan Obligations take private commercial loans and bundle them up.  Sounds like certain bundles contain a mix of quality:

"...collateralized loan obligations...bundle such leveraged debt into higher-rated securities that are pitched to more risk-averse investors." 

What could go wrong? Meanwhile, party party party!


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-16/a-leveraged-loan-collapses-and-reveals-key-risk-in-credit-market

4/22/23: no apparent fallout yet from the above.

Metal Recycling

I had a couple days off so I collected all the odd bits of metal I've been accumulating and took them to the metal recycler.  Items:

Some aluminum server shelves, and a big 6' section of ~2.5" copper pipe...

Some aluminum from motor casings and espresso machine mechanisms... 

Brass: espresso machine fittings, boiler shells, and a can of house keys...

Insulated wire from miscellaneous appliances...

Bare copper: some pipe fittings, and wire from motor armatures...

This is a funky place in a funky part of town.  They have huge (beat up ) bins like this for your stuff.  They mostly serve larger recyclers -- the guy ahead of me had a cart full of brass plumbing fittings.

I wish I'd thought to get more pictures of the facility -- it's a real warren old radiators, piles of conduit, wheels of cable, etc.   I have to say they were nice and accommodating and helpful for my little load of scrap. 

Provide ID, license plate number and fingerprints at the cigarette-smelling window...

Net result: $58, not bad for a 10 minute drive.  Obviously, copper is where the money is.  Stainless only got me 20 cents a pound -- surprising, considering how expensive stainless is. Any commercial kitchen contains thousands of dollars worth of stainless equipment.

Interestingly, beverage can recyclers pay about $1.30 for aluminum cans. Scrap aluminium gets you $0.25.

When I retire, I'll set up a workstation in my garage, and make a hobby out of collecting motors and stripping the wire out of the armatures.

Chinese Tariffs

The US has issued a 40-some page list of Chinese tariff items.  It targets all kinds of stuff, including medical, automotive, aircraft, transport equipment, lots of machinery, ag and industrial equipment, all kinds of metals, appliances and parts, electronics .... full list:

https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/301FRN.pdf

The level of detail is excruciating.  Also the randomness of detail -- for example, there are separate categories for various types of parts within a trash compactor (cabinet, ram, frame,container...) yet only one category for "Vessels, designed for the transport of goods, tankers."

Some of the quirkier items:

• Industrial machinery, plant or equip. for the treat. of mat., involving a change in temp., for molten-salt-cooled acrylic acid reactors
• Aluminum, foil, w/thickness n/o 0.2 mm, backed, covered or decorated with a character, design, fancy effect or pattern 
• Bed plates, roll bars and other stock-treating parts of machinery for making pulp of fibrous cellulosic materials
• Sewing machines, other than automatic, specially designed to join footwear soles to uppers
• Caps, lids, seals, stoppers and other closures, of noncellular vulcanized rubber other than hard rubber
• Honing or lapping machines for working metal or cermets, other than numerically controlled
• Parts of trash compactors, ram assemblies
• Parts for bookbinding machinery, including book-sewing machines
• Bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and pts thereof; other ammunition projectiles & pts. thereof
• Bakery ovens, including biscuit ovens
• Cassette players (non-recording)
• Klystron tubes
• Flight data recorders
• Balloons, dirigibles and non-powered aircraft, gliders and hang gliders
• Artificial teeth and parts and accessories thereof, of plastics 
• Vessels, designed for the transport of goods, tankers
• Root or tuber harvesting machines

New Lighting

The downstairs room is awkward.  It's 24'  long, with only one ceiling box at one end.  How to light the whole room?  Recessed lights are good, but a big project unless your sheetrock is open.  I decided to use the existing ceiling box and run some lighting from there down the length of the room.

Decided to go with the flexible track LED lighting, Home Depot Hampton Bay El Cheapo.  Regular tracklight is cheaper, but they're mounted right on the ceiling.  The flexible stuff is slightly suspended.

I always thought this stuff was kind of jakey, the way people run it in spirals and waves and try to make seashells and stuff. But I thought if I just made one long slight curve it would look OK.

Kind of a bear to install.  Had to lay a rope on the floor in the shape and position I wanted, then use a plumb to mark the mounting spots on the ceiling.  Used a hard disk magnet to locate the drywall screws/joists.

I had to join two tracks together end-to-end, and for some reason I had a hard time getting continuity between the two.  Only discovered this after putting the track in the stanchions and testing some lights.  Had to take it down like 3 times, experimenting and testing with the meter.  I think it was the copper conductor sliding around in the track and not making contact in the connector.  Anyway finally got it working.

The other irritating thing was that each tracklight head had 4 separate warning stickers on it.  I probably spent an hour taking the stickers off and using Goo Gone to get the sticker gunk off them.  8 or 9 lights times 4 stickers....thanks Nanny State.

End result is OK.  Like any tracklight they glare, and when they hit you in the eye it's pretty bright, it's sorta like being in a trendy retail shop, but it's a big improvement over the prior dim 'n dank look.