Route 9 reconstruction complete

I was pleased to read in Saturday's paper that the Route 9 reconstruction project through Peekskill had been completed. I was a bit surprised as the project had been ongoing for a couple of years and I would have guessed had a while to go. But when I drove up there it was indeed finished and looking pretty good. Well except for the construction zone signs which haven't been taken down yet.

Benoit Mandelbrot RIP

Benoit Mandelbrot died last week. I had lunch with him a few times when I worked at IBM and found him pleasant enough although I could see why some of my colleagues thought he was a bit full of himself.

Yankees win

The Yankees won last night putting them in a good position to make the playoffs as their magic number is now one. But not quite as good as their radio announcer, John Stirling, kept claiming. He repeatedly declared that the Yankees now have thirteen chances to clinch (as they have six games remaining and the Red Sox have seven and any Yankee win or Red Sox loss eliminates the Red Sox). But there is a rather obvious flaw in this argument. This isn't the first time I have noticed that careful analysis is not Stirling's strong suit. It can become annoying. As with his mantra invoked whenever something slightly unusual happens that "you can't predict baseball".

Thornton Hill

It appears Ossining has a new street, Thornton Hill. I was driving by the new Hawkes Crossing development and noticed it now has a street sign. So I walked over to check it out. The first six houses (phase 1) have been built and sold. Ten more (phase 2) further in were planned but I saw no indication they will be built any time soon.

The existing six houses look nice enough but I was a bit surprised to see they all have propane tanks. I am just a short distance away and have natural gas service which I would certainly consider a plus as a buyer. It would be interesting to know why they aren't on natural gas.

Added 10/8/10: Apparently the propane tanks are temporary, see first comment.

Bridge not out

Speaking of government not working well, this isn't the biggest deal in the world but it is starting to annoy me. The Quaker Bridge Road Bridge repairs took longer than they were supposed but they were finished months ago and the bridge was reopened. It is time someone took down the sign.

Public Servants

Matthew Yglesias responding to a rant about the DMV by Keith Humpheys makes a point with has also occurred to me. Namely that liberals who want a society with a bigger role for government should worry more about making government work well than they do. People are naturally reluctant to give more responsibilities to an entity that doesn't appear to be handling its current responsibilities well.

Complexity theory update

I was asked in comments about the claimed P != NP proof I posted about last week. This NYT article has a reasonable summary of current opinion. Basically the "proof" appears to have some serious problems. Unfortunately the author may have trouble accepting this verdict.

As for what a proof would mean, the bare fact alone would not change much since many people already assume it is true. However it is likely a valid proof would depend on much greater insight into the theory computation than we currently have.