How to win the midterms

There are several ways to win elections in American politics, and successful strategies are opposite depending if you are in power or out of power. Other impacts outside the control of politicians (such as media bias) can impact election outcomes, but ultimately politicians will collectively determine their fate. When you are in power, you want …

Setting with Copy Warning

One of the most frustrating issues in Pandas is the SettingWithCopyWarning. To a beginner in Pandas this can be one of the most frustrating issues to deal with. What becomes even more frustrating is that the documentation is not very helpful, and StackOverflow offers a ton of answers which don’t help either. The answer is …

How I protect my accounts

I have several layers of protection on my most important accounts. In short, I use the following secure features: Each account has a unique random password which is generated and stored in my Lastpass Vault Lastpass requires Email authentication to login to a new device The email I use for Lastpass has two factor authentication …

Apple vs Google, smartphone edition

I recently changed from Android to iOS, and I have a number of thoughts on what the different carriers do differently. Neither is inherently better than the other, and come with some massive tradeoffs. If one of these companies chose to learn from the other, there would be millions of people migrating from one platform …

Control inflation while reducing inequality

America’s GDP per capita is at a record high. Inflation is climbing. Immediately we know that the issue is a soaring demand curve, with a supply curve which is struggling to keep up. So the answer to controlling inflation is pretty easy, either reduce demand (which would also harm GDP) or increase supply. Unemployment is …

Why we should cancel student loan debt

The year is 1992, you just had a baby, and you live in Washington State. The cost of college at University of Washington is around $3000, and you talk to your financial advisor about how to plan to make it so your child has the best opportunity possible. You don’t live in poverty, so there …

Closest Presidential Elections in American History, Part 2-1

What would happen in historic presidential elections if the vote flipped by 1% in each State towards the candidate who lost that state? In 2020 Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin had margins of under 1%. Biden would have lost 37 electoral college votes compared to our reality and won 269 electoral college votes, sending the election …

Closest presidential elections in American history, Part 1

What would happen if you were to take the states which voted for the winner with under 51% of the vote and flip those states to the loser in all historical Presidential elections since Andrew Jackson? Here’s the answer: In 2020 Joe Biden won 306 electoral college votes. Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Michigan …