Scott Adams' Blog

Dilbert Survey of Economists

Posted September 15th, 2008 @ 4:47am in #General Nonsense

As promised, here are the results of my survey of economists. You can see three views into the results today, and I plan to blog more about it this week. 

(Format problems are because my blogging software is finnicky.)

1. My opinion on the results, on CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/16/dilbert.economy/index.html
 

2. Detailed survey data: http://dilbert.com/dyn/ppt/Draft-report—9-3-08.ppt

3. Press release (below)

[Some contact information removed here]

 Dilbert Survey of Economists Democratic Economists Favor Obama. Republican Economists Favor McCain. Independents Lean Toward Obama. 

Dublin, CA (September 10, 2008) –  Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, commissioned a survey of over 500 economists to find out which candidate for President of the United States would be best for the economy long term.

Says Adams, “I found myself wishing someone would give voters useful and unbiased information about which candidate has the best plans for the economy. Then I realized that I am someone, which is both inconvenient and expensive.”

At considerable personal expense, Adams commissioned a survey of over 500 economists, drawn from a subset of the members of the American Economic Association, a non-political group, some of whose members had agreed in advance to be surveyed on economic questions. The results do not represent the AEA’s position. The survey was managed by The OSR Group, a respected national public opinion and marketing research company.

Nationally, most economists are male and registered as either Democrats or Independents. The survey sample reflects that imbalance.

48%     Democrats

17%     Republicans

27%     Independents

3%       Libertarian

5%       Other or not registered

86% of the economists surveyed are male, and 65% work in the field of academia or education. The rest are spread across various industries or not working.

When asked which candidate for President would be best for the economy in the long run, not surprisingly, 88% of Democratic economists think Obama would be best, while 80% of Republican economists pick McCain. Independent economists, who in this sample are largely from the academic world, lean toward Obama by 46% compared to 39% for McCain. Overall, 59% of the economists say Obama would be best for the economy long term, with 31% picking McCain, and 8% saying there would be no difference.

The economists were asked to rank the most important economic issues and pick which candidate they thought would do the best job on those issues. 
 Rank   Issues                            Obama      McCain     No Diff.

1          Education                          59%           14%           27%

2          Health care                        65%           20%           15%

3          International trade              26%           51%           23%

4          Energy                              61%           22%           17%

5          Encouraging
            Technology/innovation       43%           23%           34%

6          Wars and 
            homeland security              58%           30%           11%

7          Mortgage/housing crisis     41%           18%           41%

8          Social Security                  40%           24%           35%

9          Environmental policy          72%             9%           19%

10        Reducing the deficit           37%           29%           33%

11        Immigration                       33%           29%           38%

12        Increasing taxes                 79%           14%             7%

            on wealthy

13        Reducing waste                 16%           38%           46%

            in government

The economists in the survey favor Obama on 11 of the top 13 issues. But keep in mind that 48% are Democrats and only 17% are Republicans. Among Independents, things are less clear, with 54% thinking that in the long run there would either be no difference between the candidates or McCain would do better.

Adams puts the survey results in perspective: “If an economist uses a complicated model to predict just about anything, you can ignore it. By analogy, a doctor can’t tell you the exact date of your death in 50 years. But if a doctor tells you to eat less and exercise more, that’s good advice even if you later get hit by a bus. Along those same lines, economists can give useful general advice on the economy, even if you know there will be surprises. Still, be skeptical.”

[Some contact information removed]

Interview requests for Scott Adams can be directed to scottadams@aol.com. Adams will only be responding by e-mail for the next few months due to some minor surgery to fix a voice issue.

Update: Some of you will wonder how reliable a bunch of academics are when it comes to answering real life questions about the economy. You might prefer to know what CEOs think. But remember that CEOs are paid to be advocates for their stockholders, not advocates for voters. Asking CEOs what should be done about the economy is like asking criminals for legal advice. More on that this week.

And for my view on the value economists: http://dilbert.com/blog/?Date=2008-08-22

 
Any help in distributing this information across the Internet would be appreciated.

Today’s Post

Posted May 23rd, 2008 @ 5:16am in #General Nonsense

Today’s post was eaten by a bug in the software. It was quite interesting. But I don’t have time to retype it.

Gadolinium is Fun

Posted May 22nd, 2008 @ 5:00am in #General Nonsense

Yesterday I wrote about a rare earth material called gadolinium that loses its attraction to magnets when it reaches room temperature. And I wondered if you could use this strange phenomenon as the basis for a generator. I thought it was obvious that a device depending on outside heat was not a perpetual motion machine any more than a wind mill is, but but many of you left comments to clarify that point. Apparently my writing was sloppy because the earlier paragraphs were about perpetual motion and I didn’t call out the transition to non-perpetual motion and the gadolinium generator. In the interest of clarity, the rest of this post is NOT about perpetual motion in the strictest sense.

Someone pointed out that gadolinium doesn’t lose its attraction to magnets; it just becomes less of a magnet itself, but would still be attracted to magnets like metal. There appears to be some conflicting information on the Internet on that point. The stuff I read indicates that a warmed piece of gadolinium wouldn’t be attracted to a magnet in any fashion. Your unreliable strangers might be more reliable than my unreliable strangers.

But here’s the interesting part. When you expose gadolinium to a magnet, it heats up. That property has been used to create refrigeration, although I don’t see any recent articles about it. http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2001-11/dl-mrs062802.php

So if what I read on the Internet is correct (which seems hugely unlikely) you could build a (nearly) perpetual motion device using a natural magnet and gadolinium as long as you could control the room temperature without any extra energy. Here’s how it would work: Imagine a natural magnet suspended over a piece of gadolinium in a room that is just below room temperature. The gadolinium is attracted to the magnet and jumps from its resting point to attach to the magnet. Now the gadolinium is experiencing a stonger magnetic force, and according to its natural and unique properties, it heats up. That extra heat puts it above room temperature and it becomes suddenly unattracted to the magnet, falls off, and begins to cool. And repeat, forever, or until someone opens a window.

I suppose you’d use more energy keeping the room at the right temperature than you’d create by the process. But still, if it worked outdoors for half an hour every day, as the world went from cool to warm, in certain climates on certain days, it would still be nifty.

Clearly this won’t work, or you’d have a toy like this on your desk as a novelty item that only operates when the room temperature is in a particular range. So I assume I am misinterpreting the qualities of gadolinium. But that doesn’t make it any less fun to think about.

Solving the Energy Problem with Global Warming

Posted May 21st, 2008 @ 5:39am in #General Nonsense

Yesterday I made the mistake of entering the search term “perpetual motion” at youtube.com. Then I lost an hour of my life looking at videos claiming to make perpetual motion engines out of natural magnets. These videos fascinate me because I presume they are all fake. It seems to me that if any of these devices worked I wouldn’t have to hunt around on youtube to find them. I’d already have one in the garage charging my electric car. So what is up with these videos?

One theory is that all of the inventors started out seriously trying to build perpetual motion machines, realized at some point they couldn’t do it, and decided to salvage something out of the effort by making fake videos and getting some attention.

Another theory is that the so-called inventors never intended to do anything but create fake videos. But it sure seems like a lot of work for that. That option seems unlikely to me.

Lastly, we must entertain the possibility that the laws of physics have some sort of loophole, inventors sometimes find it, and the big corporations send around hit men every time it happens. That’s why you never see the invention beyond youtube.com or some local news show. But that seems unlikely too. So it remains a mystery.

As I was googling around on this topic, I discovered that there is an element called gadolinium that is attracted to magnets up to about room temperature, then it abruptly loses its attraction . It seems to me you could build a generator using that principle. All you need is an external source of heat, and not much of it, to power the thing. A natural magnet could attract the gadolinium, which creates some mechanical energy, and some portion of that energy could be used to introduce heat from the outside that makes the gadolinium non-magnetic and puts the device back to its original position. Some of that energy from the return trip would turn off the outside heat source and the process repeats forever. It would only operate at about room temperature, but that’s still pretty nifty. The inside of my house, for example, is always at about room temperature, so there is no shortage of that environment.

Yeah, I know, someone probably already invented it.

Sci Fi Plot

Posted May 20th, 2008 @ 5:46am in #General Nonsense

I like to concoct concepts for science fiction movies and do nothing with them. Lately my favorite concept involves aliens who are having a sort of sporting contest that involves humanity, unbeknownst to us. Somehow the competing teams of aliens can see our world through our eyes when they want to, and can influence our actions by ramping up or down on our desires. They can’t control our specific actions, just our general propensities, making us, for example, hungrier or hornier or lazier than normal whenever that would be a strategic advantage in the game.

There would be some rules of the game, such as only one alien can influence one human at a time, and maybe an alien team can influence no more than five people per game. So most people would not be under the direct influence of the aliens at any given moment. They would be random elements of the game.

The plot of the movie would involve a brain surgeon who discovers the control mechanism in all of our brains. It would be organic in nature, but sending and receiving some sort of control signal that hadn’t ever been discovered before. The brain surgeon would be trying to unravel the mystery and detach humanity from the game while at the same time the aliens are having their Superbowl equivalent match that might result in WWIII.

The aliens live many light years from Earth, having visited only once several billion years ago to influence evolution in a way that would turn us into their living chess pieces. They didn’t mind waiting billions of years because they have been doing the same game-making process since the beginning of time and there is always a new world somewhere coming online. They like to think ahead. They are immortal, so having game pieces that can die allows them to experience the preciousness of life vicariously.

In the end, the brain surgeon discovers that humans have a synergistic arrangement with the aliens that helps us just as much as it helps them. If we were not part of their game, our lives would be dull and meaningless. So he decides to keep it to himself. The aliens reward him for his silence by filling whatever hole he had in his personality up until that point. For example, they might give him the capacity to feel love.

In the final minute we discover that even the brain surgeon’s search for the truth of the game had been part of the game.

Air Battery

Posted May 19th, 2008 @ 4:28am in #General Nonsense

I’m in the (long) process of building a house. The house will have solar panels, but it bugs me that I can’t be off the electric grid entirely. There’s no convenient and economical way to store energy at your own house while the sun is shining. But is that technology imminent?

Some car companies are allegedly coming out with vehicles that operate on compressed air. Here’s one.

http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

How hard would it be to convert that compressed air technology to a home generator? My solar cells could compress air during the day and the compressed air engine would produce electricity at night. There would be plenty of waste in the process, I assume, but it sounds feasible to me.

I’d also like to have a house with two elevators that are balanced so that when one goes down, the other is pulled up. And I would only use the elevators for going down, so my weight causes one side to be heavier than the other. To slow the descent, I’d be compressing air into my home air battery. If you need to go up, you use the stairs. It’s healthier. I’d have a full-power elevator option for the elderly and handicapped, but everyone else would be an energy producer.

Then I’d put the guest bathroom on the second floor so I gain some electricity every time a guest goes to take a whiz. It wouldn’t balance out the water use, but it would make me feel better. And every time my wife or kids asked me where some lost item or other was, I’d say, “I saw it upstairs.”

Funniest Comic of the Day

Posted May 16th, 2008 @ 9:06am in #General Nonsense

I wish it was Dilbert. But today it is the May 16th Pearls Before Swine. Check it out today at this URL, but after today it will be in the archive.

http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/

Throne Room

Posted May 15th, 2008 @ 5:29am in #General Nonsense

In the news, a JetBlue pilot allegedly made a passenger give his seat to an off-duty flight attendant. The flight was full, so the passenger was ordered to sit on the toilet for three hours.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24585615/

I’m sure your reaction to this story was the same as mine: That passenger got the best seat in the house! He had lots of leg room, total privacy, no one trying to hog the armrest, no seatbelt requirement, and all the whizzing he could handle. So naturally he sued the airline.

The passenger’s problem was that he didn’t know how to make the best of a great situation. I would have kept the door propped open and yelled “Waiter! More Diet Coke!” every time a flight attendant walked past. And I would have gathered up enough blankets and pillows to feather my little nest.

You might be thinking that the toilet seat in the bathroom has more cooties than Rick Solomon’s beard. That’s true, and it’s why you should always pee in the little sink. But I digress. My point is that there is some theoretical number of airline blankets that will give you three hours of protection. Then all you have to worry about is the germs on the blankets themselves.

The real victims in this story are the two-hundred passengers who had to share one bathroom. They’re the ones who should be suing. Airlines have a rule that you can’t congregate around the bathroom and wait in line. That means you have to keep one hand on your seatbelt buckle and get ready to pounce as soon as the door opens. If anyone else makes a move, you might need to show your box cutters and yell something about Allah to clear the aisle. It’s either that or your bladder will burst. There are no good choices here.

The passenger in this story had his own private suite for three hours and apparently missed the opportunity for a solo flight to the Mile High Club. I assume this is the case because he arrived in California all angry. If you put most men of that age group behind a locked door for three hours, with no other form of entertainment, you need a gurney and an IV at the other end.

Slow Wave

Posted May 14th, 2008 @ 4:57am in #General Nonsense

Few things fascinate me more than seeing something work when it really shouldn’t. For example, as you know, nothing is more boring than listening to another person talk about the dream he had last night. Therefore, you would assume, a comic that is nothing but an account of a stranger’s dream should be the most uninteresting comic in the universe. And yet it isn’t.

Artist Jesse Reklaw turns people’s dreams into four-panel comics on the Internet. They have no coherent story line and no punch lines. If you read only one, you would probably scratch your head and wonder what he was smoking. But if you read several it feels like accessing the dream part of your brain while being awake. It’s the strangest sensation. Check it out.

http://www.slowwave.com/index.php

Your Secret Thoughts

Posted May 13th, 2008 @ 5:05am in #General Nonsense

The hardest part about writing is capturing your own (or someone else’s) inner thoughts. For example, if I ask you to tell me something funny or frustrating about your job, you’d give me tales of coworkers eating your food from the break room fridge, or tell me your boss is incompetent. But those aren’t thoughts, just observations. We seem to store memories in terms of actions and some broad emotions, but not thoughts. And it is the thoughts you generally don’t voice that make writing interesting.

Let’s test this. In the comments section, tell me what you were DOING immediately before reading this blog, and also tell me what you were THINKING about while you did it. If you can do both of those things, you are halfway to being an interesting and humorous writer.

For example, “I was answering an e-mail from my coworker Karl while thinking he won’t understand my answer because he has an unusually small head that probably can’t hold much of a hat much less a brain.”

Your turn.