Russ Nelson

Federal Spending vs Candidate spending

Seems like every handful of years, somebody starts yammering about how much money candidates spend to get elected. About how that spending is going up and up and up. And they claim that that's a sure sign of corruption.

Not likely. Look instead at the ratio of federal spending versus spending by presidential candidates over several decades:

See how the ratio varies between ~~1 and 2~~0.5 and 2.5? That's because candidates spend in proportion to the power they'll have. If you want them to spend less, expect them to do less and spend less of your own money.

UPDATE 2/8/2010: Sam Nelson of clevernamehere.com fame (which would let you guess his email address) noticed that I was plotting the wrong column from the DebtArticle.csv dataset. I've re-generated the plot, and included 2008 spending (which is for a partial year, so in your head, move the rightmost point lower). The graph is a little more noisy, but still serves to make my point.

Data sources: Federal spending and Presidential campaign spending.

[Tags economics, politics, campaign, finance, reform ]

The Macroeconomist

On a cloudy day, the macroeconomist, on being asked where the sun is, will point up, and think he has been helpful.

[Tags economics, macro, macroeconomics ]

Lawrence Lessig on Obama's First Year

Well, I listened to Larry talking about how Obama failed to change anything. And I heard about Larry's plan to change this: Citizen Funded Elections. It's astounding how someone so smart can miss the mark by so much. The problem is not that special interests are buying congressmen. The problem is that congressmen have power to sell to them. As long as they have the power, they will be able to demand a price.

So, first things first: If we want to be able to trust Congress again, first we have to take away their power. How do we do that? Well, for one, people could vote Libertarian, but I don't think that's likely. More likely would be to demand that state legislators take back the power that rightfully belongs to them, according to the design of our country.

Strong Feelings

I've been rude to a friend of mine (Simon Phipps) on Twitter. On the one hand, why should I be rude to a friend of mine? On the other hand, if I don't call him out for quoting stupid things (as if he agrees with them), then how much of a friend do I consider him? If I'm not willing to be harsh with him, then I can't value his friendship much. If I'm not able to be harsh with him, then he doesn't value my friendship much.

In particular, I feel very strongly that the wealthy should be responsible for the poor. "Responsible" means several things. First, it means only lending aid appropriately. "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime." It also means charity should only be for the deserving. "Give an ailing man a crutch and you have gotten him back on his feet. Give a healthy man a crutch and you have taken away his ability to walk."

Responsible also means not using the power of wealth against him. This is a tough one. It's very easy to look at someone who is not as wealthy as you, and decide how they need to be helped. Everyone who has more than someone else can fall into this trap. Certainly my country does it all the time, sending food aid to countries that can't use that food, or to countries where their competitive advantage is that food.

And responsible means consistently advocating for free markets (not using the power of wealth) and private property. When my friends harm that cause, I get very upset. I can understand my enemies, and the people that hate me advocating for coercion. But my friends? That cuts me to the quick.

[Tags economics, harshness, rudeness ]

Rail Trails #2

I have a goal of riding every named Rail-Trail in New York State. There are many more railbeds not used for trains anymore which are also ridable. They are usually unnamed, unsigned, and unpublished. I speculate that this is because the owner is either indifferent or away. I've ridden some of these but I'm more interested in getting the named trails ridden first. I'm maintaining the list of NY rail-trails on my Rutland Trail website.

This past year I rode 2/3rds of the Catskill Scenic Trail (got too dark), the eastern undeveloped end of the Orange Heritage Trailway plus about 200' of the trailway itself, and the whole of the Uncle Sam Bikeway.

Trails I've ridden:

Ballston Bike Trail,
Black River Recreational Trail,
Bog Meadow Brook,
Cato Fair Haven Trail,
Catskill Scenic Trail (2/3rds),
Cayuga Hojack Trail,
DnH Canal Heritage Corridor North,
DnH Canal Heritage Corridor South, (partially)
Dutchess Rail Trail,
Gorge Trail,
Hudson Valley Rail Trail,
Jim Schug Trail,
Jim Tedisco Fitness Trail,
Maple City Trail,
North County Trailway,
Ontario Pathways Rail Trail,
Orange Heritage Trailway (the unimproved eastern end),
Oswego Recreational Trail,
Railroad Run,
Rivergate Trail,
The Rutland Trail,
South Hill Recreation Way,
The Uncle Sam Bikeway,
Wallkill Valley Rail Trail,
Warren County Bikeway,
Zim Smith Trail,

Trails I haven't (yet) ridden:

Allegheny River Valley Trail, Auburn Fleming Trail, Canalway Trail, Catherine Valley planned, Catherine Valley, Catskill Scenic Trail (still need to ride the 1/3rd), Chautauqua Alison Wells Ney, Chautauqua Brockton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Brocton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Laurie A. Baer Trail, Chautauqua Nadine and Paul Webb Trail, Chautauqua Nancy B. Diggs Trail, Chautauqua Ralph C. Sheldon Jr. Trail, Chautauqua Village of Mayville Trail, Cheektowaga Trail, Clarence Akron Pathway, Corning Bike Path, Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Rail Trail, Genesee Valley Greenway, Harlem Valley Rail Trail, Joseph B. Clarke Rail Trail (walked a couple of hundred feet of it in October), Lehigh Memory Trail, Lehigh Valley Linear Trail, Lehigh Valley Rail Trail, Newstead trail, Orange Heritage Trailway (still need to ride the paved portion), Outlet Trail, PatMcGeeTrail, Philip A. Rayhill Memorial Recreational Trail, Portage Trail, Putnam County Trailway, Rochester, Syracuse n Eastern Trolley Trail, Shawangunk Rail Trail, Sodus Point to Wallington Trail, South County Trailway, Spring Run Trail (doesn't really exist yet), Tarrytown Lakes extension, Town of Edwards Nature Trail, Vestal Rail Trail, Webster Hojack Trail, White Plains Greenway,

[Tags railtrail, bicycling ]

Ride starting Wed Oct 7 17:27:03 2009

15.26 km 50070.49 feet 9.48 mi 3526.00 seconds 58.77 minutes 0.98 hours 9.68 mi/hr

Rode the Uncle Sam Bikeway way back in October. Had to be down in Albany, so I took the bike with, found the trail, and went for a nice ride. Didn't know where the trailhead was, so I just parked on a side street and went north looking for an entrance. It's a nice trail, if a bit short. Would be much nicer if they lengthened it on the north end. South end has been built upon and so is unusable.

[Tags bicycling ]

Mark XV keyboard

Sigh. So little time, so many keyboards. The Mark XIV keyboard, using surface-mount pushbuttons was utter fail. Had I actually looked at them, I would have seen that they can't withstand any sideways force at all. Consequently, they break when you look at them sideways. I only discovered this after arriving in India and finding three switches completely useless. Oh well, back to the reliable Marquardt switches. Will remove the surface mount switches and replace them with the Marquardt switches.

[Tags chording, keyboard ]

My Life Philosophy

All evil starts with one person threatening to hurt another person. The purpose of government is to threaten to hurt people (that's what makes it different from any other organization). Thus, the only way that government can not be evil is if it only threatens to hurt people who threaten to hurt other people. When government undertakes any other activity, it becomes a source of evil.

[Tags principles, philosophy ]

A Society of Libertarians

A society of libertarians is not an oxymoron. Libertarians aren't loners; in fact we're usually even more socially oriented than socialists. What we are is individualists; meaning that all relations between individuals should be voluntary. Socialists think that it's acceptable for some relations to happen at the point of a gun. Note that someone may hold individualist and socialist ideas; while they may think of themselves as pragmatic, compromising towards a worthy goal; instead they're just confused. You can't compromise on a principle, otherwise you lose it entirely. For example, it's wrong to kill; thus it's wrong for a group to kill; thus it's wrong for a government to kill; thus capital punishment is wrong. At best it's a cheaper method of life imprisonment -- but when you compromise your principles to save money, you are not principled at all.

[Tags libertarian, society, socialist, individualist, principles ]

Mark XIV keyboard

I've given up on the Mark XIII keyboard. The problem is that the small PC board plus the brass barrier was too big to position close enough even for MY hands. I've got a Mark XIV keyboard which uses different switches (surface mount SPST very short displacement). Soldered the switches directly to the copper wires I suggested earlier, and ran wires to the bottom, weaving them into a grid holding the keyboard firmly. Got them as I wanted them and put polycapralone on both sides as reinforcement. Have a folding knuckle rest, thumb rest, and palm heel rest. It's by far the smalltest keyboard I've made so far.

I'm using a wired keyboard this time, to see how compatible I can make it. It's based on the Teensy. It's very similar to an Arduino, but it can take on a USB Keyboard flavor.

[Tags chording, keyboard ]