Wait a Second, Isn’t Wikipedia Supposed to be All Knowing?

I am currently reading the book “Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst” about, maybe you guessed it, a Wall Street analyst named Dan Reingold, and what was going on around him during the late 90’s early 00’s dot com/telecom bubble and eventual crash. One of the main protagonists of the book is Jack Grubman, former telecom analyst for Salomon Smith Barney, who accepted a lifetime ban from the securities industry and paid a $15 million fine for his involvement in the mess.

The book is a good read if you’re interested in the world of business, especially to get an insider’s view of Wall Street, but that’s really not the point of this post. Being a geek of many flavors - business and history among them - oftentimes I Wikipedia some of the events, people, or places after watching a movie or reading a book to gain a little more perspective on the situation. Yeah, I said I was a geek. Sometimes I’m interested seeing how much the book or movie diverged from the actual historical events. In this case, I was interested in finding more about Jack Grubman, to see how closely he resembled the devil spawn that he was portrayed as in the book.

Unfortunately, this is what you get when wiki’ing Grubman. A nonexistent page. Ok, not everyone is important enough to have their own page on Wikipedia. Considering his role in the tech bubble and the fact that he’s a main character in not only this book, but a host of articles about the era, and it seems strange that he doesn’t exist on Wikipedia. Especially since other, arguably lesser players in the crash like Mary Meeker and Henry Blodget, have personal Wikipedia pages.

Maybe there is a reason for it. But while a patiently wait for his wiki, I can always attempt to join his LinkedIn Network. The maybe I can ask him myself.

Stop Complaining About Your Job

God knows that my job isn’t perfect. Lately, I’ve been showing up to the office an hour early and working though lunches in order to meet a couple of mid-July project deadlines. I’m not a morning person, so rolling out of bed before 6 am feels like a perverse form of torture that I’m inflicting on myself every morning.

But hey, at least I’m not this guy. A 45-year old Japanese man, who was a lead engineer for Toyota, died in 2006 from overwork (or heart disease caused by working too many hours, a Japanese court recently ruled). This man apparently averaged 80 hours OF OVERTIME per week, which by my calculation would be 120 hours of work every week. Assuming he had no commute, didn’t eat, didn’t spend any time with family or friends – basically didn’t doing anything other than work and sleep - it would leave him a solid 6.8 hours of sleep per day.

The Japanese even have a word for death by overworking: Karoshi

Knowledge is power.

John McCain Promises to Balance the Budget

Thanks to an article in Politico, I learned yesterday that John McCain has pledged to balance the federal budget by the end of his first hypothetical term in 2013. After living through 8 years of the new “conservative” movement and the current administration’s complete disregard of economic policy beyond tax cuts, I’m all for a balanced budget (as well as the opportunity costs that a balanced budget will no doubt require from taxpayers).

So, I was initially interested - abet a bit skeptical - that McCain has set a balancing the budget as a priority in his campaign.

It turns out that McCain's plan is great as long as you ignore every single detail and assumption that goes into it. hilzoy has a great post that breaks down McCain’s plan and the ridiculousness of his numbers, which is worth a read if you like math.

Basically, the Congressional Budget Office currently estimates that in 2013, we will have a deficit of $443 billion assuming the Bush tax cuts are extended (which McCain has come out in favor of doing). Now, McCain has already proposed a number of additional policy measures that would increase the deficit even more. It’s estimated that his tax plan would cost an additional $195 billion a year. He’s also in favor of capping the Alternative Minimum Tax, increasing the size of the army, procuring advanced weapons systems to protect the country, and the Lexington Project – aimed at breaking our dependence on foreign oil.

None of the above comes free and hilzoy conservatively estimates that if McCain implements the above policies, he would have to cut a staggering $695 billion a year from the budget, or two-thirds of all discretionary spending by the US Government. It seems like quite the feat. How does McCain plan on doing it?

According to Politico:

“curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security.”

Oh, ok. Count me in the camp that believes the federal government is inefficient and wastes money, but cutting it by two-thirds seems a little insane. There is also this sweet little idea:

“The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”

I’m not sure how McCain plans to reconcile “victory in Iraq and Afghanistan ” with “we’ll stay in the Middle East as long as is necessary” but color me interested. I really like the idea that magical ponies could be involved in the solution.

What is a Leech Bed?

When we purchased our house a couple years ago, our very nice sewer inspector (who, in my opinion, loved his job more than was physically possible) informed us that the house’s 30 year old septic tank and leech bed was no longer functioning properly and would have to be replaced ASAP. That led to a couple questions:

1. What the hell is a leech bed and why does it go bad?
2. Can the seller put in a new one before we buy the house?

As far as the first question goes, a leech bed (or leech field or drainage field), along with a septic tank, forms the sewer system for houses that are not on public or private sewer lines. A septic tank is typically 1,000 to 2,000 gallons in size and is made out of concrete, fiberglass or plastic (ours is concrete). It’s installed underground and is connected to an inlet wastewater pipe coming from a house. Waste flows out from the house into the septic tank. The tank provides an “anaerobic bacterial environment” and decomposes the waste that is sent to the tank via the house’s toilets, sinks, and showers. Mmmmm.

The basic gist of a septic tank and leech bed
Of course, a 1,000 gallon tank would fill up quickly if the water running from the house didn’t have anywhere to go. So, excess waste water is purged from the tank and cleaned via a leech bed. The purpose of the bed is to:

...remove contaminants and impurities from the liquid that emerges from the septic tank. This is typically done by burying perforated pipes in trenches and allowing the liquid to leach out and the surrounding soil absorbs the unwanted waste.”

If treated with love, septic systems generally have a life expectancy of 30-50 years, although a number of factors can lead to their early demise.

1. Food disposals are a huge no-no (our inspector was all over this – telling us in great detail the horrors of disposals at least a half a dozen times). Basically, disposing of food into septic tanks can quickly fill, clog, or overload the system.
2. Oil and grease from cooking or other activities have a nasty tendency to clog drains and ruin the ability of the soil to filter waste water.
3. Flushing non-biodegradable items down toilets (I’m sure you can think of a few – although alligators probably count as biodegradable) can fill or clog a septic tank.
4. Similarly, the anaerobic bacteria in tanks really don’t appreciate pesticides, herbicides, or stuff like paints and solvents. That stuff will greatly reduce the tank’s ability to decompose waste.
5. Tree roots and other structures can damage a tank or the leech field.

But even with the best care, oils and bacteria will slowly enter and degrade a leech bed and its effectiveness to drain and clean waste water. Eventually, the drain pipes in the system will become clogged, which can lead to sewage backing up into the tank and (if you’re really unlucky) backing up into the house itself.

An actual sewer system installation

While we left the installation of our new leech bed to the professionals, with the proper skills and equipment, it is possible to install one yourself. Here is a forum discussion from someone thinking about rebuilding their leech bed. And, if you’re really adventurous, here is a site that goes through installing a sewer system yourself, down to every last dirty detail. Of course, I only made it a few paragraphs into the article (soil classifications? What?) before my brain starting hurting.

Want to know even more about sewer systems? Who doesn’t? Check out Wikipedia or the EPA.