Dirca occidentalis...

... colloquially known as western leatherwood. A humble, gangly shrub, its sunny yellow fuchsia-shaped blossoms might just catch your eye on the slope next to the trail this time of year, when lowly milkmaids are the only other thing in bloom. Dirca is a rare plant, according to CNPS, but a reliable winter bloomer in a few places in Palo Alto's Foothills Park. Mind you, at 70 degrees, it sure didn't feel like winter today.

Uber alles

The new world of work, Uber-ized:

Just as Uber is doing for taxis, new technologies have the potential to chop up a broad array of traditional jobs into discrete tasks that can be assigned to people just when they’re needed, with wages set by a dynamic measurement of supply and demand, and every worker’s performance constantly tracked, reviewed and subject to the sometimes harsh light of customer satisfaction.

 Professor Arun Sundararajan thinks it's not a bad thing:

“We may end up with a future in which a fraction of the work force would do a portfolio of things to generate an income — you could be an Uber driver, an Instacart shopper, an Airbnb host and a Taskrabbit,” Dr. Sundararajan said.

“I think it’s nonsense, utter nonsense,” says Robert Reich.

Sundararajan's vision of the future somehow echoed a familiar quote:

"... in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wished, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic." (Marx, The German Ideology)

Of course, Marx assumed a society post-scarcity– distribution "to each according to his need," etc. The Uber economy might not be that bad, undergirded by a fairly generous basic income guarantee, universal health insurance... nah, that would be communism!

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 54

Tom's gone to Hilo. A slow shanty for a heavy lift. And a heavy heart.

Ben Shahn: pictures and pictures

The great New Deal photographer Ben Shahn was also a painter of some ability. In fact, he has paintings hanging in the Vatican Museum, not very far from those of his superior predecessors, Raphael and Michelangelo. Here's "The Burial Society":

He also took good pictures of pictures... in this case, kids painting in school in Pennsylvania.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 53

So... what is it that makes it so damn funky? It has to be super laid back, but tight like a coiled spring at the same time. Oh, and the band, and Maceo and Fred, and the Godfather himself, a vocalist with few peers and a bandleader with none.

Hopkin's Rose, II

Laura took this picture out at Mavericks. Looks like a cat toy. And I bet the kitties would enjoy playing with it, although the tempting structure collapses out of water.

Cookers slow and fast

This article on the Crock-Pot and women's labor force participation is interesting, if in need of some editing. In my household we have owned a slow cooker for a few years, and more recently I purchased what might be considered the device at the opposite end of the speed spectrum, a pressure cooker. Neither one gets used very often. I'd much prefer to load up one of my wonderful Creuset Dutch ovens and stick it in the oven or on the stove top at low temperature for a couple hours... It's more civilized to eat late, anyway...

I've never been very happy with the results from the slow cooker, but maybe it has something to do with the bland recipes. The pressure cooker, on the other hand, is really rather amazing for certain tasks, such as dried beans or braised short ribs. But no matter the assurances from me or the manufacturer, Laura doesn't quite trust the thing... and I confess that the hissing and sputtering from the pressure valve is indeed a little unnerving.

Untaxed household labor

Here's an excellent post from Josh Barro on Obama's proposed childcare tax credit for "working" parents... in quotes because of course all parents work, inside and/or outside the home. Barro's point is that we don't tax home labor, so in fact the tax system provides an incentive at the margin for parents to stay at home. A perfect little lesson in Beckerian economics, and even with some back-of-the-envelope data analysis. Nice.