Author: Art Diamond

Long Lines at California DMV’s Fumbling Bureaucracy

(p. 12) LOS ANGELES — They were lined up by the dozens clear down the street on a recent afternoon — hot and frustrated in the sun, trying to attend to the most routine (and unavoidable) encounters with local government: renewing a driver’s license.
Inside the Hollywood office of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the wait was close to two hours. Folding chairs, all filled, were set up three-deep against three walls.
“There’s a six-week wait just to get an appointment,” said Alfred Kendrick, a fitness trainer from West Hollywood who, like many people here, showed up without one. “Come on. This is 2018. I can order a bowl from China in less time than it takes to get a driver’s license in California.”
Few states have embraced the idea of an expansive government as fervently as California, with its vast public university system, $100 billion high-speed rail project and even, the other day, the passage of legislation outlawing plastic straws. California’s leaders are on the forefront of global efforts to combat climate change and the Democratic challenge to President Trump.
But these days, to the embarrassment of Democrats who control the state government, California is fumbling one of its most basic tasks. Waiting times at motor vehicle offices have increased as much as 46 percent from a year ago, spotlighting a departmental bureaucracy marked by green computer screens and computers that still run on DOS.
California is by no means the only state where motorists have had to endure long lines. Complaints could be heard this summer from Texas to North Carolina to Connecticut. But the breakdown is particularly striking here in a state whose identity is defined in no small part by the automobile and by a sprawling view of government.

For the full story, see:
Adam Nagourney. “‘To Get on Road, California Drivers Spend Hours on Sidewalk.” The New York Times (Monday, Sept. 10, 2018): A12.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 9, 2018, and has the title “‘A Scourge for California Drivers: Hours on a Sidewalk to Renew a License.”)

“Machines Are Not Capable of Creativity”

(p. A11) New York
“I rarely have an urge to whisper,” says George Gilder–loudly–as he settles onto a divan by the window of his Times Square hotel room. I’d asked him to speak as audibly as possible into my recording device, and his response, while literal, could also serve as a metaphor: Nothing Mr. Gilder says or writes is ever delivered at anything less than the fullest philosophical decibel.
. . .
Citing Claude Shannon, the American mathematician acknowledged as the father of information theory, Mr. Gilder says that “information is surprise. Creativity always comes as a surprise to us. If it wasn’t surprising, we wouldn’t need it.” However useful they may be, “machines are not capable of creativity.” Human minds can generate counterfactuals, imaginative flights, dreams. By contrast, “a surprise in a machine is a breakdown. You don’t want your machines to have surprising outcomes!”
The narrative of human obsolescence, Mr. Gilder says, is giving rise to a belief that the only way forward is to provide redundant citizens with some sort of “guaranteed annual income,” which would mean the end of the market economy: . . .
. . .
For all the gloom about Silicon Valley that appears to suffuse his new book, Mr. Gilder insists that he’s not a tech-pessimist. “I think technology has fabulous promise,” he says, as he describes blockchain and cryptocurrency as “a new technological revolution that is rising up as we speak.” He says it has generated “a huge efflorescence of peer-to-peer technology and creativity, and new companies.” The decline of initial public offerings in the U.S., he adds, has been “redressed already by the rise of the ICO, the ‘initial coin offering,’ which has raised some $12 billion for several thousand companies in the last year.”
It is clear that Mr. Gilder is smitten with what he calls “this cryptographic revolution,” and believes that it will heal some of the damage to humanity that has been inflicted by the “machine obsessed” denizens of Silicon Valley. Blockchain “endows individuals with control of their data, their identity, the truths that they want to assert, their transactions, their visions, their content and their security.” Here Mr. Gilder sounds less like a tech guru than a poet, and his words tumble out in a romantic cascade.

For the full interview, see:
Tunku Varadarajan, interviewer. “Sage Against the Machine; A leading Google critic on why he thinks the era of ‘big data’ is done, why he opposes Trump’s talk of regulation, and the promise of blockchain.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018): A11.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date Aug. 31, 2018.)

The “new book” by Gilder, mentioned above, is:
Gilder, George. Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 2018.

E-Commerce Creates “More and Better Jobs than It Destroys”

(p. A17) . . . , the men and women who go to work each day in e-commerce fulfillment centers are much better-equipped with information technology–and therefore more productive and better-paid. Our research shows that fulfillment center weekly wages are 31% higher on average than brick-and-mortar retail in the same area.
. . .
But does e-commerce destroy more jobs than it creates? So far the answer seems to be no. From the third quarter of 2015 to the third quarter of 2017, brick-and-mortar retail full-time-equivalent jobs fell by roughly 123,000, or about 1%, according to my think tank’s analysis of the latest Labor Department data.
Over the same two-year stretch, the e-commerce industry has added some 178,000 jobs in fulfillment centers and electronic shopping firms. In addition, express delivery companies and other local couriers boosted their full-time-equivalent workers by another 58,000.
. . .
The Internet of Goods–our term for the fast-growing digitization of the production, sorting and movement of physical products–will be the next major step in the internet’s evolution.
If e-commerce is any guide, the jobs created for the Internet of Goods will require workers who have a good mix of physical and cognitive skills, just like the industrial jobs of the early-20th century. Moreover, they will be more evenly spread around the country, boosting growth in America’s heartland as well as the coasts.

For the full commentary, see:
Michael Mandel. “Get Ready for the Internet of Goods; Already, e-commerce has been creating more and better jobs than it destroys.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Oct. 15, 2017): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Oct. 15, 2017.)

Drones Reduce Worker Danger of Many Tasks

(p. B3) Small, swift and agile, drones have all but replaced the more costly and less nimble helicopter for tasks that involve inspections, measurements and marketing images.
. . .
On building sites, drones are saving money and time by providing digital images, maps and other files that can be shared in a matter of minutes, said Mike Winn, the chief executive of DroneDeploy, a company founded five years ago in San Francisco that creates software for, among other uses, operating drones with mobile apps.
Drones are reducing the travel time for busy executives, Mr. Winn said. “The head office can see what’s going on, and the safety team, the costing team, the designers — all of them can contribute to the project, share data and comment on it, without actually going to the job.”
They could also improve safety. In the days before drones, Mr. Winn said, measuring the roof of a house for solar panels would require “a guy with a tape measure to climb up there,” which often produced inaccurate results and, like anything involving heights, was dangerous.
Such peril is magnified in the construction of skyscrapers, said John Murphy Jr., a contractor on the Paramount Miami Worldcenter, a 58-story condominium tower being built in downtown Miami. Before drones, Mr. Murphy said, workers seeking access to the exterior of a high-rise were “dropped over the side” in so-called swing stages, small platforms that hang from cables. Often used by window cleaners, swing stages are precarious in high winds.
“No one wants to go out there,” he said. “It’s scary.”

For the full story, see:
Nick Madigan. “‘It Can Leap Tall Buildings and Save Money and Lives.” The New York Times (Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018): B3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 14, 2018, and has the title “‘Need a Quick Inspection of a 58-Story Tower? Send a Drone.”)

N.Y.C. Regulation of Uber and Lyft Hurts Poor Blacks and Hispanics

(p. A1) Jenine James no longer worries about getting stranded when the subways and buses are unreliable — a constant frustration these days — or cannot take her to where she needs to go. Her Plan B: Uber.
So Ms. James, 20, a barista in Brooklyn, sees New York’s move to restrict ride-hail services as not just a threat to her own convenience and comfort but also to the alternative transportation system that has sprung up to fill in the gaps left by the city’s failing subways and buses. She does not even want to think about going back to a time when a train was her only option, as unlikely as that might be.
“It was bad, so imagining going back, it’s terrible,” she said.
The ride-hail cars that critics say are choking New York City’s streets have also brought much-needed relief to far corners of the city where just getting to work is a daily chore requiring long rides and multiple transfers, often squeezed into packed trains and buses. The black cars that crisscross transit deserts in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island have become staples in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods where residents complain that yellow taxis often refuse to pick them up. They come to the rescue in the rain, and during taxi shift changes, when rides are notoriously hard to find even (p. A19) in the heart of Manhattan.
New York became the first major American city on Wednesday [Aug. 8, 2018] to put a halt on issuing new vehicle licenses for Uber, Lyft and other ride-hail services amid growing concerns around the world about the impact they are having on cities.
The legislation calls for a one-year moratorium while the city studies the booming industry and also establishes pay rules for drivers. It was passed overwhelmingly by the City Council and is expected to be signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, who attempted to adopt a similar cap in 2015 but abandoned the effort after Uber waged a fierce campaign against him.

For the full story, see:
Winnie Hu and Mariana Alfaro. “‘At End of Line, A Cap on Uber Causes Distress.” The New York Times (Friday, Aug. 10, 2018): A1 & A19.
(Note: bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 9, 2018, and has the title “‘Riders Wonder: With Uber as New York’s Plan B, Is There a Plan C?”)

Alibaba’s Jack Ma Retires Early as Chinese Communists Intervene in Ventures

(p. B1) HONG KONG — Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, said he planned to step down from the Chinese e-commerce giant on Monday to pursue philanthropy in education, a changing of the guard for the $420 billion internet company.
A former English teacher, Mr. Ma started Alibaba in 1999 and built it into one of the world’s most consequential e-commerce and digital payments companies, transforming how Chinese people shop and pay for things. That fueled his net worth to more than $40 billion, making him China’s richest man. He is revered by many Chinese, some of whom have put his portrait in their homes to worship in the same way that they worship the God of Wealth.
Mr. Ma is retiring as China’s business environment has soured, with Beijing and state-owned enterprises increasingly playing more interventionist roles with companies. Under President Xi Jinping, China’s internet industry has grown and become more important, prompting the government to tighten its leash. The Chinese economy is also facing slowing growth and increasing debt, and the country is embroiled in an escalating trade war with the United States.
“He’s a symbol of the health of China’s private sector and how high they can fly whether he likes it or not,” Duncan Clark, author of the book “Alibaba: The House Jack Ma Built,” said of Mr. Ma. “His retirement will be interpreted as frustration or concern whether he likes it or not.”
In an interview, Mr. Ma said his retirement is not the end of an era but “the beginning of an era.” He said he would be spending more of his time and fortune focused on education. “I love education,” he said.
Mr. Ma will remain on Alibaba’s board of directors and continue to mentor the company’s management. Mr. Ma turns 54 on Monday, which is also a holiday in China known as Teacher’s Day.
The retirement makes Mr. Ma one of the first founders among a generation of prominent Chinese internet entrepreneurs to step down from their companies. Firms including Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com have flourished in recent years, growing to nearly rival American internet behemoths like Amazon and Google in their size, scope and ambition. For Chinese tycoons to step aside in their 50s is rare; they usually remain at the top of their organizations for many years.

For the full story, see:

Li Yuan. “Founder Sees A ‘Beginning’ As He Retires From Alibaba.” The New York Times (Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018): B1 & B3.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 7, 2018, and has the title “Alibaba’s Jack Ma, China’s Richest Man, to Retire From Company He Co-Founded.”)

The book by Duncan Clark, that is mentioned above, is:
Clark, Duncan. Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built. New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, 2016.

Dog Research on Muscular Dystrophy Can Lead to Cures for Both Dogs and Humans

(p. A13) Researchers used a gene-editing tool to repair a gene mutation in dogs with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, an important step in efforts to someday use the tool to edit DNA in people with the same fatal disease.
In a study published Thursday [Aug. 30, 2018] in the journal Science, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and the Royal Veterinary College in London reported that they used the Crispr gene-editing system in four dogs to restore production of dystrophin, a protein crucial for healthy muscle function.
. . .
“It’s like putting a good spare tire on a car. It’s not as good as the original, but it gets you where you want to go,” said Eric Olson, director of UT Southwestern’s Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine and senior author of the paper.
Dr. Olson, who is also founder and chief scientific adviser of Exonics Therapeutics Inc., which licensed the technology from UT Southwestern and helped fund the dog studies, said next steps involve testing Crispr in more dogs and observing them for a year or more. If the approach works in the dogs, he said researchers hope to try Crispr in a clinical trial with people with Duchenne.

For the full commentary, see:
Amy Dockser Marcus. “Gene Editing Shows Promise for Muscular Dystrophy.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, Aug. 31, 2018): A13.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 30, 2018, and has the title “Crispr Used to Repair Gene Mutation in Dogs With Muscular Dystrophy.”)

The study in Science, that is mentioned above, is:
Amoasii, Leonela, John C. W. Hildyard, Hui Li, Efrain Sanchez-Ortiz, Alex Mireault, Daniel Caballero, Rachel Harron, Thaleia-Rengina Stathopoulou, Claire Massey, John M. Shelton, Rhonda Bassel-Duby, Richard J. Piercy, and Eric N. Olson. “Gene Editing Restores Dystrophin Expression in a Canine Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.” Science (Aug. 30, 2018), DOI: 10.1126/science.aau1549. [Epub ahead of print]

Billions of Public Dollars “Siphoned Off” by A.N.C. Leaders in South Africa

(p. A1) VREDE, South Africa — With loudspeakers blaring, city officials drove across the black township’s dirt roads in a pickup truck, summoning residents to the town hall. The main guest was a local figure who had soared up the ranks of the governing African National Congress and come back with an enticing offer.
Over the next few hours, the visiting political boss, Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane, sold them on his latest deal: a government-backed dairy farm that they, as landless black farmers, would control. They would get an ownership stake in the business, just by signing up. They would go to India for training, all expenses paid. To hear him tell it, the dairy would bring jobs to the impoverished, help build a clinic and fix the roads.
“He said he wanted to change our lives,” said Ephraim Dhlamini, who, despite suspicions that the offer was too good to be true, signed up to become a “beneficiary” of the project. “This thing is coming from the government, free of charge. You can’t say you don’t like this thing. You must take it.”
But, sure enough, his instincts were right.
The dairy farm turned out to be a classic South African fraud, prosecutors say: Millions of dollars from state coffers, meant to uplift the poor, vanished in a web of bank accounts controlled by politically connected companies and individuals.
The money from an array of state contracts like this one helped pay for a lavish wedding that a top executive at KPMG, the international accounting firm, described as “an event of the millennium,” according to leaked emails. And Mr. Zwane, continuing his meteoric rise, soon leaped to the national stage to become South Africa’s minister of mineral resources.
Almost nothing trickled down to the township or the scores of would-be beneficiaries after that first meeting in 2012. The only local residents to get a free trip to India were members of a church choir headed by Mr. Zwane.
In the generation since apartheid ended in 1994, tens of billions of dollars in public funds — intended to develop the economy and improve the lives of black South Africans — have been siphoned off by leaders of the A.N.C., the very organization that had promised them a new, equal and just nation.

For the full story, see:
NORIMITSU ONISHI and SELAM GEBREKIDAN. “‘They Eat Money’: How Graft Enriches Mandela’s Political Heirs.” The New York Times (Monday, APRIL 16, 2018): A1 & A8-A9.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date APRIL 16 [sic], 2018, and has the title “‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption.”)

Affordable Methods for Countering CO2 in Atmosphere

(p. A13) A new study partly funded by Bill Gates has dramatically cut the estimated cost of removing CO2 directly from the air to as little as $100 a ton. According to the study, much of this expense could be recaptured by converting the CO2 into low-carbon motor fuel.
Assume California recovered 80% of its costs. For $500 billion a year, or 20% of state gross domestic product, California could solve the alleged problem for the whole world, reducing global emissions by half and meeting the widely touted goal of holding warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius according to prevailing climate models.
Too speculative? Too expensive? Many classic studies suggest that, at a cost as low as $2 billion a year, any highly motivated actor, even one with pockets less deep than California’s, could offset the entire warming effect of excess CO2 by distributing enough high-altitude sulfates or other aerosol particles to limit by 1% the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface. Indeed, experts quietly acknowledge that, by reducing such particulates, our clean-air efforts have actually made our climate problem worse.

For the full commentary, see:
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. “If California Was Serious About Climate; Its pockets are deep enough to cool the planet if politicians believe their doom-mongering.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Sept. 1, 2018): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 31, 2018.)

The study, partly funded by Bill Gates, that is mentioned above, is:

Keith, David W., Geoffrey Holmes, David St. Angelo, and Kenton Heidel. “A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere.” Joule 2, no. 8 (Aug. 15, 2018): 1573-94.

Cancer Cure Progress Has Been “Painfully Incremental”

(p. A15) Hopes were high in 1971 when President Richard M. Nixon called for a War on Cancer. The disease was as pernicious as it was mysterious, claiming more American lives each year in the 1960s than had perished in combat during all of World War II. Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine medical experts coming up with a cure. After all, hadn’t the country just put a man on the moon?
Almost 50 years later, the war rages on. Decades of hard work and grand promises have yielded more disappointments than breakthroughs. Reliable treatments remain elusive, and researchers still aren’t sure why some people get the disease and others don’t, why some die while others survive. In “Cancerland: A Medical Memoir,” David Scadden offers a personal account of the inspiring but often exasperating hunt for solutions to the profound problem of cancer.
. . .
. . . moving science forward “to create better clinical approaches,” Dr. Scadden writes, “is an almost painfully incremental affair.” This puts physicians in the awkward position of having to explain the slow pace of research to dying patients, many of whom hope that a miraculous new drug or therapy awaits them if they can just hold on for another year or two. This is not a crazy idea. Dr. Scadden’s own mother, who died of colon cancer in 1985, might have survived if certain studies were completed five years sooner. But most clinical trials come to nothing, particularly in cancer. Many patients are stuck with the same interventions that have been around for decades: surgery, radiation and toxic chemotherapy. The miserable side effects can sometimes make life only marginally better than death.

For the full review, see:
Emily Bobrow. “BOOKSHELF; Reason to Hope.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 1, 2018, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘Cancerland’ Review: Reason to Hope.”)

The book under review, is:
Scadden, David, and Michael D’Antonio. Cancerland: A Medical Memoir. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2018.