Computerized election theft a reality?

I recently read a book making some disturbing claims about our election systems:

Points the author makes:

• Exit polls no longer are as accurate as they once were. Why?
• If you don't have a system where humans are observably counting ballots in public, various tricks can be played
• Even optical scan systems are vulnerable (just set the target to -100 and the opponent to +100 on startup and the machine balances)
• "Social issues" have tilted left recently (legal marijuana, gay marriage) but elections somehow still go to Republicans

The author is an admitted 'democrat/left-winger' but makes the point that if results were skewed toward the Democrats the way they've been skewed toward the Republicans since 2000 there would be no end of screaming ... and of course there isn't!

I found it annoyingly plausible ... the author calls for auditing of election results which seems to be all we can hope for.

What do you think?

Can't understand your (insert your opposite political number here) neighbor?

In 2004 I was having lunch with this computer programmer I've known for 30+ years now and I was going on and on about George W. Bush and how we had to get him out of office in that fall's election ... and this guy let me go on a bit and then said "of course you know we support him for reelection" ...

My jaw dropped. But! This guy is a rather conservative Christian, and Bush spoke to that segment of the populace and even though I couldn't see it I couldn't deny that this guy was intelligent and reasonable in other respects ...

I later read a book that made some sense of this:

It gives a possible origin for political divisions, even within the same family. I heartily recommend it to any {Tea Party Trump supporter,Bernie Sanders Bigot} who's trying to understand the other side.

I later came upon a previous book of his that was very compelling also:

Reviews of this book are here. I enjoyed it immensely and read in pretty much one sitting; his way of stringing together classroom anecdotes and the discussion of ancient wisdom was a kick.

Most recently there's an Atlantic Monthly article by Haidt and a colleague on the overdoing of "disturbing speech" suppression in colleges ... well worth a read.

Home fuel cell: finally almost here?

A Maryland company called Redox Power is readying a 25KW fuel cell:

They're focusing first on multi-thousand-unit ordering customers and I guess will get to us homeowners next.

I'll let you know when I have one!

The easy way to avoid debit card fees

I have my main checking account with BECU and mainly use their ATMs and other fee-free ATMs in their affiliated CO-OP Network.

Mostly this works to avoid fees, but occasionally ... My lovely wife and I were headed to a movie in North Bend, where I thought I could quickly track down a fee-free ATM. Not so! The movie was about to a start, so I wound up paying a $3.50 ATM fee to Bank of America. Harrumph.

I had previously received a debit card and checkbook issued by my brokerage, T.D. Ameritrade, but I hadn't been using either. I started carrying the debit card, since they reimburse me for ATM fees, and started using it now and then when I don't go right by a BECU ATM.

This is very satisfying .. I'm no longer stuck hunting for an ATM at short notice trying to avoid those fees.

Schwab also does this with its debit card, and I know there are other remote banks and brokerages that do too. Get one of these for yourself today and stop paying ATM fees!

An alternate view of how to invest your retirement funds

I've been watching Tastytrade off and on for a couple of years now. They've mostly been focused on small accounts, but recently have started a series called Top Dogs focussed on those with more substantial assets: $250K and up.

This is a 12-part series and so far only 4 have been shown. But the recommendations they make vary wildly with the standard financial planner's:

• You get to go short as well as long (that is, bet on a market segment to go down and not just up)
• "Reducing basis" (selling covered calls and covered puts)  is a standard part of the basic strategy
• According to their research, one can pick from a standard bunch of not-very-correlated underlying instruments (S&P 500 futures, Nasdaq Futures, a U.S. Treasury bond ETF, an emerging market ETF, and a gold ETF ... and it doesn't make any difference in what direction you pick any of them (short/long) and you won't be up/down more than 15% in any year. They ran a huge backtest simulation on 243 up/down combinations and proved this out.
• They suggest leverage in trading for yourself. For example, Portfolio Margin gives you more trading "bang for your buck", as does futures trading. In either case this can give you around 3 to 1 leverage, allowing you to control, for example, $300,000 in underlying assets while only putting up $100000.

This seems worth a look if you're paying fees to a financial planner or a mutual fund. Good luck!

PBS's Nova ... for the cost of just a couple of commercial interruptions

Nova is the science/technology show from PBS and has been available for a while now for almost-free streaming (at just the cost of watching a couple of randomly-inserted ads into the 52 minute or so production.

It's worth it! I've found the ones I've seen generally excellent and often fascinating, including:

Mind Over Money is a discussion and critique of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis ... one of the experiments described (where grad students hold on for too long, bidding up the value of an asset that's due to expire worthless) is the key to winning at options trading: selling options to over-optimistic buyers.

And:

This is where I first heard about the B612 Foundation, trying to raise enough money to build a satellite to watch for city-killing-sized asteroids. (They're well short, according to a recent Planet Money episode ...)

And one more exciting one:

focussing on Iceland's volcanoes, which messed up air travel in 2010 and supposedly killed thousands in Iceland and Europe in 1783 and could do worse anytime now ...

Big fun! Anytime you're not in the mood for a romantic comedy, there are 150 of these available and more all the time. Enjoy!

Genetic Genie takes on some of 23andMe's responsibility; The Gut Biome

23AndMe got in minor trouble with the FDA over doing health tests without authorization. Supposedly they can now test for Bloom Syndrome, but from the description it doesn't look too useful for anybody of normal or near-normal height.

Genetic Genie arose to provide a couple of tests that 23andMe can't. You can download your data from 23andMe and upload to Genetic Genie and get a few health results that way.

Genetic Genie is free but solicits donations on its site.

It turns out, though, that we're 99% bacteria and the contents of these bacteria are a huge determinant of our health. This is a huge, newly emerging and very complex subject. See, for example:

The American Gut Project
New York Times: "No Healthy Microbiome"
Larry Smarr at UW in 2014

Wide-ranging dinner conversation inspires subjects of general interest ... first up: Podcasts

My lovely wife and I went to dinner with some old friends D and N last evening and I was making notes during dinner to send an email afterward. But I realized overnight that most of the subjects should be of general interest so I'm posting them here.

Podcasts

I mentioned the Bulletproof Radio Podcast  and it turns out that none of my dinner companions had ever listened to a podcast on their own. (Kate has listened to a few podcasts in the car with me but I was driving the car and the podcasts.)

Here's the general technique: Google the subject you're interested in and then the word podcast.  For example, Astronomy: there are several listed, and all have clickable links where you can listen to recent shows. Almost any radio show you listen to these days will be offered as a podcast.

I listen on my phone with the DoggCatcher app; this is available through the Google Play store for Android users. There is a built-in Apple Podcast player for you iPhone users. (Hi Kate.)

My Favorite Podcasts

This American Life

Radiolab

Marketplace

Freakonomics

Planet Money

Others I like

Bulletproof Radio

Snap Judgment

Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me

Actuality

The TED Radio Hour

Really, the woods are full of them ...