Author Archives: philipganderton

About philipganderton

A university professor, forensic economist, father, woodworker, driver, bicycle rider, former oenophile

We should all have a Big Adventure

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Paul Reubens died, at age 70, on Sunday, after a long illness. He was best known as Pee-wee Herman, and that’s the person who I certainly knew, and loved for his quirkiness and queer innocence. Some people might remember him as the guy who got caught with his pants down in the back of a porn theatre, long before we had cancel culture, but just like Kramer from Seinfeld, some times you weigh more than a duck, and you end up burned at the stake.
I came to the United States in 1984, just as Ronald Reagan was winning his second term, and just before Paul Reubens hooked up with Tim Burton (who went on to make Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman, along with many other memorable movies) to make the movie “Pee-wees Big Adventure” in 1985. It wasn’t the movie , however, that captured my attention, but the Saturday morning CBS childrens show “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” From 1986 to 1990 I watched each Saturday morning while Pee-wee paraded a gaggle of soon-to-become famous actors across the screen (Laurence Fishburne was Cowboy Curtis, Phil Hartman was Captain Carl) as weird and wonderful characters in his make-believe world, that was simple, and kind, and surreal, and certainly aimed at adults more than kids. But the best kids entertainment (Bugs Bunny, Sponge Bob Squarepants, for example) are really gritty satirical adult shows masquerading as kids shows which makes them even better entertainment (and watchable by the whole family!)
Pee-wee gave me some lifetime lines, such as “I know you are, but what am I?”, and the common French line “merci, blah, blah.” And of course my favorite: : “I wouldn’t sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!”

I’m saddened by the death of Paul Reubens, and I hope he’s remembered as the comic genius he was.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/paul-reubenss-preposterous-grace

ChatGPT

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I was searching on Google for a tool rest for my wood lathe and came across a website with the following text, accompanied by (relevant to the search) photographs.

I sure hope ChatGPT is NOT being trained on text like this, although since it employs the entire corpus of the web for written forms of language I suspect this is part of what the generative pre-trained transformer is basing its next response on…

(And oddly, the text below reminds me of the descriptions usually accompanying anything being offered on Ebay by a Chinese seller.)

Tool Rest For Wood Lathe
Paletta extended surgical incision crisscross Atomic does width brought an increase in the volume of the car ensuring stability and rigidity. Ideally the gumshoe would account for nearly an inch by twenty-five percent of the forest and around the need to cut. Me and my making out economic written reviews for substantive woodworking. XX position 4 real substance abuser friendly indexing agreement sport was added to the super C 1220 GERTJAN BLEEKER Tool Rest For Wood Lathe-5. JET 1220VS fanny HERBERT DANLER be Group A rescuer respectable money Tool Rest For Wood Lathe-5. Are you a woodturner purchase your lathe organize operating theatre by peerless of these beautiful tornio Hollowing enceinte vessls is circle item antiophthalmic easier with a unfluctuating rich this is a simple group questioning.Organic structure including two dozen in attitude

Starting the year off well

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Each new year day I try to do things I hope to continue all year long. This includes a New Year’s Resolution Ride, something I’ve done almost without fail for 43 years. This year I also made a spinning top, took some photos, read something, listened to a podcast, and posted on my Facebook group, Spin in Style. I visited with my children and caught up with an old friend. It was a full day, and now I’m tired.

What podcasts I listen to

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I listen to the following podcasts on a regular basis.

My first thing in the morning go to is The Intelligence (daily) from The Economist. I also consistently listen the following weeklies: from The Economist there’s Checks and Balance, Drum Tower, and Money Talks. The really great thing about these podcasts is that you don’t have to subscribe to The Economist to listen to them. (Sometimes I wonder why I pay my $170 annual subscription when this is the case…)

I also listen to Up First from NPR and The Daily from the New York Times each day. Depending on the topic I also regularly listen to Babbage and The Economist Asks from The Economist, The Ezra Klein Show from the NYT, This American Life, What Next from Slate Magazine, Today Explained from Vox, NPR’s Short Wave on science, as well as NPR’s Planet Money. I often enjoy Fresh Air from NPR as well as The Long Read from The Guardian.

The best podcasts of 2022

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I listened to many podcasts this year. My favorite podcast was The Prince from The Economist, an 8-part (plus extras) series telling the story of Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of the Peoples’s Republic of China, the most powerful person in the world (sorry Joe…) Despite restrictions on foreign journalists inside China, host Sue-Lin Wong and her co-authors created a deep and personal view of the leader of China and his vision for the 1.4 bilion people under his control. The story is primarily told through interviews with Chinese and non-Chinese people with first hand experience of Xi and China, although many now live outside the country. I highly recommend this podcast to anyone who wishes to better understand what must be the most important country and leader in the world over the next ten years.

I also listened to another 8-part podcast called Gatecrashers which tells the story of how the Ivy League schools discriminated against Jews in the twentieth century. Each episode tells a story from one of the eight schools, starting with Columbia and ending with Harvard. It’s super interesting and both desettling and uplifting overall.

The Economist to the Stars is dead, long live The Economist to the Stars!

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Thirty years ago, in 1992, a call to the Economics Department at the University of New Mexico was forwarded to me. The caller was TJ Trout, a local celebrity disc jockey who had the morning drive time show. He was very popular on 94 Rock radio (FM 94.1 KZRR). He had called the department looking for an economist to go on the radio and explain to his listeners what the heck Ross Perot, the independent candidate for US President, was talking about. Perot was talking about the US Government deficits and debt, and the presentation was confusing, especially when he started referring to the debt as the grandma in the basement!
As an Assitant Professor, I was at work, unlike many of my senior colleagues, and so, as the only economist in the building, the call was passed to me. Thus begun a 30 year stint on the radio, as a guest of TJ Trout, initially with 94 Rock and lately with 96.3 News Radio (KKOB).
The moniker Economist to the Stars came after being dubbed The 94 Rock Economist, and stuck around even after TJ had retired from radio, moved out of state, and then returned and rejoined the workforce with News Radio (where The 94 Rock Economist would NOT have worked.)
I was not a regular guest, more an occasional guest, but I got on well with TJ and managed to share a little economic theory and insight with his listeners over the years. Radio is tough, and I usually got to speak for about 15 minutes out of the hour, having to compete with the news, traffic and weather reports, and advertisements.
I recently decided to hang up my headphones. Thirty years was a good innings, but no more.
Previous posts about my radio days:
My Alter Ego
Talk about a rock star economist

Cycling Truths

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There are two kinds of winds: strong head winds and mild head winds

Potholes and speed bumps are always located in shadows, regardless of time of day and time of year.

It is always colder than you think it is while getting dressed to ride.

You are always over-dressed for the temperature, no matter how cold it is.

If there is just one goathead on the path, your tires will find it.

There is always some driver who believes bicycles should not be on the road.

Cracks and holes in the bike path will never be filled.

You will always get a puncture the day you forgot your repair kit and pump.

I always wave or nod to other cyclists, but there is always one who refuses to wave or otherwise acknowledge your existence. I pity their miserable lives.

The day you forget to wear cycling gloves is the day you will go down hard and put your hand out to save yourself.

Back to Blogging

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I don’t know how many times I’ve committed to re-ignite this blog slash website. And this time might be like all the others where I make a couple of posts and then let it all slip. The only saving grace for me, and eternity I guess, is that the internet is forever (so they say) and my blog will live on in its completeness albeit in some dark, dusty corner never visited.

Now as I approach retirement, in my “trial run” as it were, I want to write more, read more, talk more, think more, and rest more. It might seem odd for an academic – someone who has spent the last 40 years doing all those things, except for the rest, on a daily basis, to want more of those things in retirement. Only time will tell if I succeed. But here, today, I commit to the attempt at least.

You learn something new everyday

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if you are lucky!
And today I learned that one of favorite woods to make spinning tops from – Lignum Vitae – belongs to the same family as one of my most hated organisms, the goathead or puncture vine. These two plants/trees belong to the family Zygophyllaceae or Caltrop family of plants. Lignum Vitae, or Guaiacum officinale, is an incredibly dense and oily wood that uniquely turns green as it ages, making it a wonderful wood to use in spinning tops because of it’s ease of working, weight, and color. Goatheads (Tribulus Terrestris) on the other hand are the bane of cyclists everywhere. As they dry out and separate from the plant they are easily moved by the wind, or animals on to the bike paths they surround.

A Lignum Vitae spinning top:

Lignum Vitae and Burmese Blackwood spinning top

Goatheads: