December 2000: Election Statistics

Even if one agrees with Noam Chomsky, quoted in Salon ("...the election was a statistical tie...the difference is surely overwhelmed by the inherent noise in the system...someone has to be picked...the sensible way would have been to flip a coin"), there is something terribly wrong with awarding all of a state's electoral votes on the basis of a statistical dead heat.

The national plurality for Gore (300,000) was not in any way a statistical tie, at 30 times the standard margin of error for a vote of 100,000,000 voters. But in Florida, the statistical margin of error on 6 million votes was about 2500. No amount of recounting of the votes could ever produce a plurality exceeding that number. Thus all the strife over the final vote was largely in vain, and served little purpose beyond the arbitrary declaration of a winner. However, Florida then awarded all 25 of its electors on the basis of this inconclusive plurality. Any system that awards a decisive share of spoils to an inconclusive winner will inevitably produce electoral strife and a lack of legitimacy.

In the wake of this election, many will call for the abolition of the electoral college. That system was designed for a weighting of the election results according to state representation in the house and senate, a desirable and eminently reasonable goal. If states were to award electors on a basis proportional to their popular vote, this goal would be just as well served, but the final result would be much less likely to produce electoral strife, and more likely to produce clear legitimacy. Winner- takes- all could perhaps be allowed in cases where a large plurality is achieved, say 2/3. In no case, however, should the winner take all when the plurality fails to meet the test of statistical significance, the same test used to qualify small-scale polling results.

We need an initiative to levy requirements on the states that their electoral votes reflect the strength of popular voter preference. A few states do this voluntarily already, and this would seem to be a much more reasonable federal requirement on the states than the unfortunate supreme court decision in the present election, specifying in detail how states may legitimately conduct their elections.

November 2000: New Member of the Family!

The Moore girls have for months been researching what kind of dog would make the best family pet for us, and figuring out what would be involved in dog ownership. After several false starts and discussions, one day at the local PetSmart, they came upon a weekend pet adoption agency desk where there was an 7 month old black lab (mostly) name of Roxy, looking for a home. Dad was quickly retrieved from at home for consultation, and despite 15 years of resistance to doggie charms, Dad had to admit that Roxy was too nice a dog to pass up and a perfect family pet. Roxy comes to us house trained and very well behaved in every other way as well. She loves to go for rides in the car, so she should travel very well. The cats may take a while to get used to a big puppy in the house, but they'll get over it eventually. Here she is:

October 2000: Macintosh OS X
The fancier our computers get, the more we want computer system software that lets us run piles of application programs with impunity from freezes and crashes, in other words, "industrial-strength operating system software". Microsoft took the time-honored approach of hiring the guys who wrote the Digital Equipment VMS operating system, a popular departmental computer system of the 80's. They plugged this into Windows and came up with Windows NT, which looks like Windows, but has a more robust underpinning that can be used for basic network servers, i.e., where it is important to be "up" as much as possible.

Now Apple Computer has adopted an analogous approach, electing to build their new OS on top of the venerable Unix operating system, a mainstay of the computing world since the 70s. Unix is the prevailing survivor over DEC VMS, which has all but died out except in legacy systems. In fact, Unix networking is the basis for the entire internet and world wide web. Unix is big, complicated, and unweildy, but personal computer RAM and disks have gotten big enough to handle it now.

According to WIRED magazine, the significance of the internet and OSX is that "the essential compatibility required will be with data, not with the operating system and applications. In other words, it will be essential to be able to move your data sets from computer to handheld to wireless device and back. Whether that device is running PalmOS, Mac OS X, Windows, Linux or some other flavor will be increasingly unimportant -- or, if you will, a matter of personal preference." The success of the Mac OS X, and the Palm OS, and Linux, exerts tremendous pressure toward the development of standard data formats that can be read by any software, and frees us from having to accept a vendor monopoly to communicate with each other.

More notes on OSX, from personal experience.

October 2000: Travelogue Japan
Tom made a trip to Sapporo, Japan for a conference on the Solar Terrestrial Energy Program. Apart from the conference subject matter, he learned that Sapporo is on the northern island of Hokkaido, which the Japanese have only occupied for about 150 years. Compared with the main islands of Japan, which have been Japanese since B.C., Hokkaido has a shorter history, having previously been populated by an aboriginal people, who were largely pushed aside when the island was taken over by the Japanese in the mid 19th century. Sounds almost like the American West, and Sapporo is an extremely modern and western city laid out on a grid. The fifth largest Japanese city, it occupies all the flat space among the mountains and boasts a population of over 1.8 Million. Nevertheless, the streets feel amazingly safe, the parks are safe to walk in at any hour of the day or night, and it is common for lost items to be returned to their owners, as happened to Tom when he left his package of meeting materials and gifts at the Tokyo airport as he travelled home. They arrived at the Baltimore airport on the next flight! An ariel view of Sapporo is shown in the linked picture. Tom was intrigued to find, in his hotel bedside table, copies of both the New Testament and The Teachings of Buddha.

September 2000: A High School for Our Community
Crofton is a beautiful community but parents here eventually recognize the lack of a local high school as a significant liability. Land was purchased for a local high school 25 years ago, and it has been talked about ever since. A few years ago, half the Crofton kids were moved from Arundel HS to South River HS, where some extra capacity existed that temporarily took the pressure off. However, both high schools are quickly filling back up owing to growth in both Crofton and the other areas that feed SRHS. And SRHS is 12 miles from Crofton, meaning that our kids are up at 05:30 and out to the bus by 06:20 every morning for a long ride to school.

This year the community is buzzing with activity to bring about the construction of the long-deferred high school for the Gambrills-Crofton area of Anne Arundel County. A committee has been formed, a web site created, letters have been written to the board of education, county and state officials, and the local newspapers. Editorials have appeared in the newspapers in support of the 13th high school. You can read more about it at the links provided at the left. With two high schoolers, and one in Crofton Woods Elementary School, you know where this family stands. And we think a new local high school would benefit everyone who owns property in a community made even more desireable.

June 2000: Bump in the Road for Tom
This was an eventful year, as Tom discovered he had symptoms of coronary artery disease. Sure enough, a single 90% blockage was the cause, and he was whisked through a fast angioplasty and stent insertion to reopen the artery. Then there were admonitions to increase exercise and decrease dietary fat and cholesterol, And just in case there was any doubt about that, drugs that enforce lower cholesterol levels, to be taken indefinitely. The numbers are down, and Tom and Gwen have taken up Tennis and walking to get that exercise. Technology is wonderful, but the heightened sense of mortality argues for taking stock and prioritizing to make the most of life.

What's a stent? Here's a picture of one, It's made of stainless steel, comes squashed into a small tube, and is inflated into place to hold an artery open by the angioplasty balloon.

© 2000 Moore Family, Inc.™
As of 15 September 2000