5 Thoughts for November 7, 2015

1. Climate: I've written for some time now, that insurers have long taken the lead in researching and understanding climate change; this Newsweek article digs deep into their involvement and how banks are now getting into the act. Just about the only people not involved with fixing climate change, are dogmatic conservatives.
2. Politics: Speaking of dogmatic conservatives, if you're stuck in their bubble, you would be inclined to believe that the US is falling apart. And yet, the unemployment rate is now 5.0%, the number of uninsured Americans is down to 9%, and the 30-year bond rate, at 3.1%, remains half of what it was, 15 years ago. True, the participation rate remains relatively low, but that's in large part because of the retirement of baby-boomers; we know this to be the case, because the U-6 measure of marginally-attached has steadily dropped, at 11.5% in October 2014, to 9.8% in October 2015. Finally, year over year, average private income has gone up 2.1%, which is ahead of inflation (September 2015, was 1.9% annualized).
3. Comcast: So I learned an interesting tidbit with Comcast's internet service: The MAC address of the last device that was connected to the modem is saved, and won't allow any other device to connect. In my specific case, I had my laptop directly attached to the modem, and then tried to attach back my router to the modem; normally one would have the router powered down and then attach it to the modem after the modem had booted up, but in this case the router had to be powered on and attached to the modem at the time that the modem was powered up. It's an obscure point, but one that a person who self-diagnoses hardware issues, can appreciate. Of course, this means that I disconnected my WiMax, even though it was still working -- the Comcast service is much faster, making it easier to stream video. Now, I just need to wait a few days and then sign up for the 2 free months of Sling TV with my Chromecast, which by the way, if you have a Chromecast, you should have your TV turned on and visit this site to check for available offers with your device (they frequently have a free Google Play Store movie rental or something else): https://cast.google.com/chromecast/offers/
4. USC Trojans: USC pulled out a win against what might be considered a lousy Arizona team -- half of Arizona's linebackers are walk-ons for goodness sake -- thus avoiding a letdown. And I know what most fans were thinking: Why were you throwing the ball, when you have Ronald Jones? USC, through a series of comical errors, was down two touchdowns seconds into the second quarter. Fans were frustrated and infuriated, believing that the team had changed its old ways from when Sark was in charge. And in fact they did; they immediately came back to score 17 points in the second quarter. They showed off resilience and toughness, fighting through injuries and pain (not kidding, Juju Smith-Schuster was the leading receiver even though he'd just had an operation on a broken metacarpal bone) to come from behind and win. The second half was a thing of beauty, where USC gained 196 of its 229 game rushing yards, and the passing game took a supporting role; the running game gave the defense the time to rest, and they looked solid as a result. The defense isn't exactly great, but it has been doing much better these last several games, which one wonders if the absence of Sark has also led to the improved toughness of the defense?
5. Fallout Shelter: I've built 3 shelters that have reached 200 occupants, but I tell you, the game is rigged. In my current shelter, I'd gotten my top level of the shelter built up with strong occupants and powerful weapons -- my kill zone -- such that at one point, the game stopped sending Deathclaws for at least two whole days. Then today, the game decided that it was going to suddenly increase the burn rate of my energy. I destroyed four modules worth of rooms, and it only made the burn rate move faster. So I built an extra nuclear power plant. Nothing. Even when I rush production in my 12 modules worth of nuclear reactors (11 of which are upgraded to the maximum), it's still not fast enough to keep up with the burn rate. I left it alone for 5 minutes, and 300 units of energy was used up. This isn't the first time I've noticed this, either. For reference, I now have 10 occupants at the max 50 level and three of them are in those nuclear reactors; my average occupant level in my nuclear reactors is 40. There are about a dozen other signs that the game is rigged, but this is the most egregious example.