One of the great things about being your own boss is you get to mold the work to your preferences. Now you still have to deliver, so unless you are one in a billion or so you likely are going to have to work hard and be smart but you decided exactly how.
Work early, work late, work in your room, work in a co-working space, work on the beach, work with music, work 5 hours 7 days a week, work 12 hours 10 days a month and play the rest... you get to decide.
For your business to work the customers must be happy. So for some businesses, for example, working 10 days a month won't work well but it is all up to you. Which is mainly great, but also can be a bit frustrating.
I find many people end up putting in more hours than they used to complain about their boss making them work. If that is because they love what they do, fine, but often it is just because when many people see how much it costs to take time off they don't want to. I find this funny because they are doing to themselves exactly what they said their former company was doing - prioritizing money over life.
Response to: Not a Morning Person but Need to Run a Business? We Understand
Related: Freelance Lifestyle, Finance and Entreprenuership Blog - Work and Life - Digital nomad and blogging related interviews with John Hunter
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Taking Care with Personal Finance - Avoiding Debt
Not all debt a person takes on is bad. But most personal debt should be avoided or reduced in amount.
Some debt makes a fair amount of sense - borrowing for college, a new house, perhaps a car, perhaps setting up your life after college. But those expenses should be reduced.
College is actually still a good investment according to many studies: The Time to Payback the Investment in a College Education in the USA Today is Nearly as Low as Ever – Surprisingly, Looking at the Value of Different College Degrees, Engineering Graduates Earned a Return on Their Investment In Education of 21%. But that doesn't mean huge debt for college is wise. Being careful to find cost friendly good schools is wise.
The same advice holds for a new car, house, etc. - an evaluation of your situation may show taking on debt is sensible but if so keep the debt level low. Credit card debt should not be taken on. If you want to buy new things, save up the money and pay.
One big problem that gets people in trouble is unexpected expense. That is why an emergency fund to pay those expenses is so important. Instead of going into debt, you just use the money you saved for such a situation. Proper insurance is also important (in the USA health insurance is critical - in most other rich countries health insurance is largely taken care of).
If you get into to much debt and then can't pay off your debts things become dangerous. Companies like Intelligent Banking Solutions provide those holding debt technology based solutions that will allow them to collect the money they are owed. Quickly realizing your situation and contacting those places you owe money to, to work something out may not be easy but it is your wisest course of action.
Most companies owed debt are going to be reasonable and not be obnoxious. But if they are obnoxious (or you just want help) find free debt counseling - this can be tricky and various companies seek to take advantage of people in trouble and setup companies that pretend to help those in debt (even setting them up as non-profits etc.). You have to be careful to find a reputable organization to help with your debt problems but doing so is possible and they will help a great deal.
Once you get your finances cleaned up, which is likely going to be a long process, put your finances in order to make sure you don't get back into the same mess again.
Some debt makes a fair amount of sense - borrowing for college, a new house, perhaps a car, perhaps setting up your life after college. But those expenses should be reduced.
College is actually still a good investment according to many studies: The Time to Payback the Investment in a College Education in the USA Today is Nearly as Low as Ever – Surprisingly, Looking at the Value of Different College Degrees, Engineering Graduates Earned a Return on Their Investment In Education of 21%. But that doesn't mean huge debt for college is wise. Being careful to find cost friendly good schools is wise.
The same advice holds for a new car, house, etc. - an evaluation of your situation may show taking on debt is sensible but if so keep the debt level low. Credit card debt should not be taken on. If you want to buy new things, save up the money and pay.
One big problem that gets people in trouble is unexpected expense. That is why an emergency fund to pay those expenses is so important. Instead of going into debt, you just use the money you saved for such a situation. Proper insurance is also important (in the USA health insurance is critical - in most other rich countries health insurance is largely taken care of).
If you get into to much debt and then can't pay off your debts things become dangerous. Companies like Intelligent Banking Solutions provide those holding debt technology based solutions that will allow them to collect the money they are owed. Quickly realizing your situation and contacting those places you owe money to, to work something out may not be easy but it is your wisest course of action.
Most companies owed debt are going to be reasonable and not be obnoxious. But if they are obnoxious (or you just want help) find free debt counseling - this can be tricky and various companies seek to take advantage of people in trouble and setup companies that pretend to help those in debt (even setting them up as non-profits etc.). You have to be careful to find a reputable organization to help with your debt problems but doing so is possible and they will help a great deal.
Once you get your finances cleaned up, which is likely going to be a long process, put your finances in order to make sure you don't get back into the same mess again.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Archiving Digital Data
My comments in response to Maintaining Your Digital Presence Is More Than Updating Your Status
This is an important topic and well suited to the Smithsonian :-) Many people don't realize how ephemeral are digital media is. It is much easier to view photos from the 1970s than images from the 1990s (that are probably locked on some hard drive or floppy disk or zip disk [remember those].
Web sites close down and go out of business. Trusting them with your history is unwise. Sharing it there is fine but you can't rely it will be their for your kids. The internet archive (wayback machine) is pretty awesome and seems likely to survive but...
The issue which most quickly causes problems is changing tech standards. But tech media are also unreliable for long term (hard drives... are not nearly as long lasting as high quality paper). Certain archival DVDs (gold plated) do last a while hopefully but even then paper last longer. It seems rewriting electronic data from one place to another is fairly good, but it is not perfect (basically you keep moving so avoid one drive failing after 10 years).
Dealing with electronic records is obviously going to be a big job for places like the Smithsonian going forward.
Related: Photo Management and Web Gallery Creation Software - Don't Lock Your Content Inside a Proprietary System - Internet Archive of this site from 2006 (sadly the next record they have is 2011 for some reason. To some extent I think they maintain more copies of popular sites, but even so most of my sites have several captures a year) - Curiouscat.com backups on the wayback machine from 1997 to today
This is an important topic and well suited to the Smithsonian :-) Many people don't realize how ephemeral are digital media is. It is much easier to view photos from the 1970s than images from the 1990s (that are probably locked on some hard drive or floppy disk or zip disk [remember those].
Web sites close down and go out of business. Trusting them with your history is unwise. Sharing it there is fine but you can't rely it will be their for your kids. The internet archive (wayback machine) is pretty awesome and seems likely to survive but...
The issue which most quickly causes problems is changing tech standards. But tech media are also unreliable for long term (hard drives... are not nearly as long lasting as high quality paper). Certain archival DVDs (gold plated) do last a while hopefully but even then paper last longer. It seems rewriting electronic data from one place to another is fairly good, but it is not perfect (basically you keep moving so avoid one drive failing after 10 years).
Dealing with electronic records is obviously going to be a big job for places like the Smithsonian going forward.
Related: Photo Management and Web Gallery Creation Software - Don't Lock Your Content Inside a Proprietary System - Internet Archive of this site from 2006 (sadly the next record they have is 2011 for some reason. To some extent I think they maintain more copies of popular sites, but even so most of my sites have several captures a year) - Curiouscat.com backups on the wayback machine from 1997 to today
Saturday, February 07, 2015
Travel Blogger Interview - John Hunter
I was interviewed on the Travel Blogger Interview site: Interview With Travel Blogger John Hunter of Curious Cat Travels
Related: Interviews with John Hunter related to blogging, digital nomad life - Meet the Bloggers Series: Meet John Hunter of CuriousCat.com - Travel photos by John Hunter
I mention the first trip I remember was through Europe to East Africa (game safari) then to Nigeria for a year and then Europe on our way back to the USA. Before that, we spend a year and a half in Singapore. While I am too young to remember it, I believe even that influenced me (as did looking at all the photos of travels growing up). My brother has the same bug and has lived in Hong Kong and London and spent a year traveling with his family (South America, Africa, Turkey, India, Indonesia and Australia). We were infected with the travel bug by our parents.Read the entire interview.
...
Do you have any advice or tips for aspiring travellers?
Start with short trips that don’t stretch you to far from your comfort zone. Once you have some experience then take longer trips and try things that are a bit tougher. My Dad gave me some good advice – at the beginning of a trip expect to be ripped off in some way for $50, when it happens don’t let that stop you from enjoying your trip. You don’t always get ripped off but I think that is good advice to realize some problems are going to crop up and don’t let that ruin your day.
Related: Interviews with John Hunter related to blogging, digital nomad life - Meet the Bloggers Series: Meet John Hunter of CuriousCat.com - Travel photos by John Hunter
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Help Evaluating Server Co-Location Sites
Online security does get a fair amount of attention but it is still paid too little attention. Everyone should be using password manager to create long passwords, unique for them (not duplicating across sign ons) for our online accounts. And when possible using two factor authentication.
Part of the reason we need to be extra careful is to make up for less than ideal security practices at companies. I wrote about something that is similar to how Apple Pay works before they announced: a method to secure your credit card even in the event the store fails to protect their computer systems.
Since most businesses outsource hosting their web sites to network operations centers run by others this is another area that must be addressed. Evaluating co-location hosts is a complex task and companies such as Colocation Authority provide expertise in this area.
The factors in choosing a host for your servers are complex. Essentially you want a reliable connection to the servers either to access by your network (almost certainly tunneled over the internet) or to host content available directly via the internet. Physical security is one important factor but there are many others including redundant power supply, redundant connections to the internet, sensible infrastructure within the operations center and often security code at the network operation center level to aid in blocking things like denial of service attacks.
For even fairly large businesses having expertise to evaluate the best co-location options is difficult and would be expensive. Therefore using specialized experts is wise.
Related: Site Owner Impressed with FBIs Response to The Theft of Their Domain - Don't Lock Your Content Inside a Proprietary System
Part of the reason we need to be extra careful is to make up for less than ideal security practices at companies. I wrote about something that is similar to how Apple Pay works before they announced: a method to secure your credit card even in the event the store fails to protect their computer systems.
Since most businesses outsource hosting their web sites to network operations centers run by others this is another area that must be addressed. Evaluating co-location hosts is a complex task and companies such as Colocation Authority provide expertise in this area.
The factors in choosing a host for your servers are complex. Essentially you want a reliable connection to the servers either to access by your network (almost certainly tunneled over the internet) or to host content available directly via the internet. Physical security is one important factor but there are many others including redundant power supply, redundant connections to the internet, sensible infrastructure within the operations center and often security code at the network operation center level to aid in blocking things like denial of service attacks.
For even fairly large businesses having expertise to evaluate the best co-location options is difficult and would be expensive. Therefore using specialized experts is wise.
Related: Site Owner Impressed with FBIs Response to The Theft of Their Domain - Don't Lock Your Content Inside a Proprietary System
Sunday, February 01, 2015
Appeasing Rude Selfish People Just Makes them Behave Even More Selfishly
My comment on HackerNews, about Why are so many animals now in places where they shouldn't be?
Addressing the issues directly is often challenging. That is my guess on why we allow degenerate behavior to impose costs on others until it reaches epidemic proportions when we finally attempt to address it.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in enclaves where people that share certain expectations of behavior can shut out others and deal with those that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever behaviors the group cares about.
Allowing the rudest people to abuse society degrades the public square and tears at the benefits that can strengthen the social contract. Sadly it seems to be a pretty dominate trait in our society these last few decades and it seems likely to just keep getting worse. Hopefully I am wrong.
Related: Acting Considerately - Reasonable Accommodations Becoming Unreasonable - If You Create a System That Includes The Perfect Conditions for Scandals, Expect Scandals to Happen
People with genuine impairments who depend on actual service animals are infuriated by the sort of imposture I perpetrated with my phony E.S.A.s. Nancy Lagasse suffers from multiple sclerosis and owns a service dog that can do everything from turning lights on and off to emptying her clothes dryer. “I’m shocked by the number of people who go online and buy their pets vests meant for working dogs,” she told me. “These dogs snarl and go after my dog. They set me up for failure, because people then assume my dog is going to act up.”It is sad how we allow rude people to get away with selfish behavior and make life for difficult for everyone else. Doing so encourages rude people to be even more selfish and we get the kind of behavior you see discussed in the article.
Addressing the issues directly is often challenging. That is my guess on why we allow degenerate behavior to impose costs on others until it reaches epidemic proportions when we finally attempt to address it.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in enclaves where people that share certain expectations of behavior can shut out others and deal with those that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever behaviors the group cares about.
Allowing the rudest people to abuse society degrades the public square and tears at the benefits that can strengthen the social contract. Sadly it seems to be a pretty dominate trait in our society these last few decades and it seems likely to just keep getting worse. Hopefully I am wrong.
Related: Acting Considerately - Reasonable Accommodations Becoming Unreasonable - If You Create a System That Includes The Perfect Conditions for Scandals, Expect Scandals to Happen
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Publishing Your Own Book
Comments on How To Write And Sell Your Own Book.
I agree with this advice. I published my own book, Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability, with leanpub (I found them to be very good), I did a podcast on my book and using leanpub.
Leanpub allows you to import your blog to get started, which is very useful. I needed to do heavy editing but it was a nice way to start.
I can't believe how little control you have when you go through a traditional publisher; the book publishing process is broken . I didn't even consider doing that. For most people publishing using online services is so much better. Marketing is a big challenge, but the same issue holds for using a traditional publisher. Those that the traditional publisher will do a good job publicizing are mainly people that would do fine without it.
There is a small slice of people that don't have much name recognition but a publisher decides to try to make into a big success that are helped enormously by traditional publishers. But that number is TINY. There is a bigger (though still small) group that it is arguable whether traditional publishers help or not.
Also, just remember, no matter how you publish a book most sell nearly no copies. There are still plenty of good reasons to do it, even if you are not going to get rich off the book. A good book that gains you credibility in your field is likely worth many times more than the revenue directly from the book.
Related: Problems with Management and Business Books - Management Improvement Books: Where to Start - Podcast Discussion on Management Matters
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Exploitation or Economic Support as a Tourist?
Comments on Hilltribe Exploitation in Northern Thailand and Laos
I do think it is tricky to figure out what actions are most honorable. My Mom doesn't like supporting beggars on the street, with the belief it encourages that behavior. Especially pushing children to beg (the same with encouraging kids to sell to tourists at tourist attractions). When a mother with two little kids is begging it isn't easy for most people to just ignore it.
Even ignoring kids trying to sell stuff in Cambodia at tourist isn't easy. But the non-profits that know the situation best seem to agree that tourist buying from them just encourages parents to force them into that even at the expense of going to school. And while it is easy to vilify that behavior by parents, many of them don't have easy choices - they can be desperately poor and trying to do the best they can for the family. This isn't always the case, some parents are just bad and exploiting their kids when they could easily avoid it, but often it isn't as easy as that.
What I do is give to charities where I am going to travel (in poor countries - I don't do this when going to rich countries). Good Charities: Global Giving, Trickle Up.
For doing things like visiting Hill tribes I think it is confusing without knowing the details (which often are not easy to get). When I chose such options, I do try to chose situations where there is evidence the economic gains are being equitably shared with the community (which usually means they are more expensive than alternatives as they have to both share the wealth and take the time to explain it in a way that is convincing). In some ways it can be very beneficial and allow them to earn money while largely maintaining their way of life. I don't often do these kinds of things though. Partially for the reasons you mention, partially I just don't do tour stuff hardly at all.
I did go to a Maasi village in Kenya and it did feel a bit intrusive but it was also interesting and I could see how it would be very helpful to those living there also. At least for situations where it is arguably good (not purely bad exploitation) there are likely people supporting both sides (and people in debate with themselves on the issue) of pursuing tourist dollars.
There was another Native American village attraction in New Mexico that seemed intrusive (and a bit expensive) that really wasn't worth it but it was right on my path so I tried it. There were really expensive new cars all over which was not common in Native American. I did a bit of research and economically that village did very well. People can still argue about the benefits and costs of chasing tourist money but when there are significant economic benefits that the people actually get (that are not taken by others) it is very hard for me to say it is wrong.
I do get a bit annoyed at people from rich countries that downplay the importance of money. It is easy to say other things are more important when you have lots of cash.
And that brings me back to a specific point about the quote "must be a very exhausting existence for them." While this may be true it doesn't mean that they would be better off without being bothered. It may well be without the botheration of tourists things would be even worse. That doesn't mean I don't wish boorish behavior, which sadly many tourist exhibit, would be eliminated. I find the boorish behavior of people to other people (and even mores by rich people on poor and desperate people) very frustrating and sad.
Related: Highway Poses Threat to Uncontacted Tribe in Brazil - Supporting Virtual Workers - Using Capitalism to Create a Better World - GDP Growth Per Capita from 1970 to 2010 - China, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore...
While the children were sweet and endearing, it felt wrong, all of it. It felt wrong being there, stopping by the village to ogle and take photos. And, when I thought about all the boats that stopped here everyday, I figured it must be a very exhausting existence for them.I think
"I walked away from the experience with a renewed commitment to really thinking about how and where I am traveling and making sure my presence is delicate communities is not just as a spectator but that it has purpose."is a wise and honorable statement, though I think the "spectator" bit may be a bit overdone. Not being "just a spectator" is about you. While I agree it is easier to be callous as just a spectator. By demanding they engage with you to get the economic benefit that may well be more "exhausting" every day than short quick visits. Though it would be more rewarding for the tourist to be engaged for the tiny portion of their vacation maybe that is what those being visited would like; but maybe not.
I do think it is tricky to figure out what actions are most honorable. My Mom doesn't like supporting beggars on the street, with the belief it encourages that behavior. Especially pushing children to beg (the same with encouraging kids to sell to tourists at tourist attractions). When a mother with two little kids is begging it isn't easy for most people to just ignore it.
Even ignoring kids trying to sell stuff in Cambodia at tourist isn't easy. But the non-profits that know the situation best seem to agree that tourist buying from them just encourages parents to force them into that even at the expense of going to school. And while it is easy to vilify that behavior by parents, many of them don't have easy choices - they can be desperately poor and trying to do the best they can for the family. This isn't always the case, some parents are just bad and exploiting their kids when they could easily avoid it, but often it isn't as easy as that.
What I do is give to charities where I am going to travel (in poor countries - I don't do this when going to rich countries). Good Charities: Global Giving, Trickle Up.
For doing things like visiting Hill tribes I think it is confusing without knowing the details (which often are not easy to get). When I chose such options, I do try to chose situations where there is evidence the economic gains are being equitably shared with the community (which usually means they are more expensive than alternatives as they have to both share the wealth and take the time to explain it in a way that is convincing). In some ways it can be very beneficial and allow them to earn money while largely maintaining their way of life. I don't often do these kinds of things though. Partially for the reasons you mention, partially I just don't do tour stuff hardly at all.
I did go to a Maasi village in Kenya and it did feel a bit intrusive but it was also interesting and I could see how it would be very helpful to those living there also. At least for situations where it is arguably good (not purely bad exploitation) there are likely people supporting both sides (and people in debate with themselves on the issue) of pursuing tourist dollars.
There was another Native American village attraction in New Mexico that seemed intrusive (and a bit expensive) that really wasn't worth it but it was right on my path so I tried it. There were really expensive new cars all over which was not common in Native American. I did a bit of research and economically that village did very well. People can still argue about the benefits and costs of chasing tourist money but when there are significant economic benefits that the people actually get (that are not taken by others) it is very hard for me to say it is wrong.
I do get a bit annoyed at people from rich countries that downplay the importance of money. It is easy to say other things are more important when you have lots of cash.
And that brings me back to a specific point about the quote "must be a very exhausting existence for them." While this may be true it doesn't mean that they would be better off without being bothered. It may well be without the botheration of tourists things would be even worse. That doesn't mean I don't wish boorish behavior, which sadly many tourist exhibit, would be eliminated. I find the boorish behavior of people to other people (and even mores by rich people on poor and desperate people) very frustrating and sad.
Related: Highway Poses Threat to Uncontacted Tribe in Brazil - Supporting Virtual Workers - Using Capitalism to Create a Better World - GDP Growth Per Capita from 1970 to 2010 - China, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore...
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Comments Blog
The most popular posts on our blog (by page views):
- Letting Mom Enjoy the Results of Her Work (2014)
- Blog Readers - Options for Reading RSS Feeds (2013)
- Preaching False Ideas to Men Known to be Idiots (2010)
- Designing Cities for People, Rather than Cars (2007)
- Hootsuite Scheduled Posts Fails When urls include /@ as Medium Posts Do(2014)
- Bad Behavior - Shining light on the actions of those in power (2006)
- Canon PowerShot SX60 HS, with release date and feature history (2014)
- Deleting Apps on iOS When the "x" is Missing (2014)
- How to View Unpersonalized Google Search Results (2008)
- Talking Out Decisions (2014)
- Wordpress Plugins: Super Cache and Bad Behavior (2009)
- What I Would Include in a Redesigned Twitter Profile (2014)
- More Evidence of the Bad Patent System (2006)
- How to Turn Off Google Hangouts on iPad Mini? (2014)
- Interview with John Hunter - on Meet the Blogger Series (2014)
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Most Popular Post for the Curious Cat Comments Blog in 2015
The most popular posts on our blog (by page views in 2015):
The publication year of our most popular posts:
2015: 2 posts
2014: 3
2013: 3
2011: 1
2010: 3
2007: 1
5 of these posts also made the top posts list on this blog last year.
Related: Most Popular Post on the Curious Cat Comments Blog (2011) - Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Comments Blog - The Most Popular Photos on the Curious Cat Travel Photo Blog in 2015
- Curious, Joyful, Happy Kids Grow Up: Unfortunately (2010)
- Bikinis For Liberty (2010)
- Blog Readers - Options for Reading RSS Feeds (2013)
- Letting Mom Enjoy the Results of Her Work (2014)
- Liberty and Support or Control and Hate (2013)
- Designing Cities for People, Rather than Cars (2007)
- Universities Again Abandon Fans/Mission to Increase Pay to Administrative Staff/Coaches (2013)
- Utopia (Dreamland in the USA) is an Amazing TV Program (2015)
- Preaching False Ideas to Men Known to be Idiots (2010)
- Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans (2011)
- What I Would Include in a Redesigned Twitter Profile (2014)
- Interview with John Hunter - on Meet the Blogger Series (2014)
- Improve Security with Verification of a Change (2015)
The publication year of our most popular posts:
2015: 2 posts
2014: 3
2013: 3
2011: 1
2010: 3
2007: 1
5 of these posts also made the top posts list on this blog last year.
Related: Most Popular Post on the Curious Cat Comments Blog (2011) - Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Comments Blog - The Most Popular Photos on the Curious Cat Travel Photo Blog in 2015
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
BMW Motorcycle Factory Webcast
The video shows a BMW motorcycle factory in Germany. I find factories very interesting. As a kid I would visit factories with my father (very occasionally) as he was consulting with them. The BMW factory (and many modern factories [VW Phaeton assembly plant in Dresden]) are very different from the extremely noisy and dirty factories I visited as a kid.
For those in the North-East USA Max BMW Motorcycles has a huge inventory of BMW motorcycles built in factories like the one above.
My guess is, even if self driving cars become commonplace we are not likely to have self driving motorcycles any time soon. Still technology keeps advancing; Honda actually has airbags for some motorcycles. And BMW is developing airbag suits for motorcycle riders.
Related: Self Balancing Enclosed Motorcycle - Wave Disk Engine Could Increase Efficiency 5 Times - Webcast on Machine That Bores Subway Tunnels - Should You Consider a Career in Manufacturing?
Saturday, January 03, 2015
Prioritization - It Isn't As Easy As It Is Implied To Be
Comments on: How To Handle The “Lack Of Time Monster” Before It Kills Your Blog
I like the general idea of the post. And I really like the idea of figuring out what the purpose of your decisions are. Too often it seems to me people get trapped into doing stuff just because they think they should be, when they haven't really thought out the implications.
In addition tasks are often somewhat dependent on each other. So it isn't as straight forward as do 1,2,3,4 by priority order. If I do task 9 that will make task 2 and 4 and 5 easier and allow me to delay task 3...
This complexity makes it so many people struggle with seemingly logical prioritization schemes. The idea is fine assuming tasks are truly A,B,C,D,E but they are not often very close to that. So people need to take the concept but apply it to a big mess of tasks and that doesn't really translate to a simple do A then B then C tasks.
Related: Keeping Track of Improvement Priorities - Appreciating Health - Manage Better by Managing Less
Let's say that you have a little girl and she’s with you in the grocery store. She wants candy, even though it’s not Saturday. (When I grew up in Norway, we had a tradition called Saturday’s candy, which resulted in that we, the kids, were only allowed candy on Saturdays.)One thing I find a bit awkward about these types of posts though is the implications that is it easy to classify tasks in some A, B, C, D, E way. A few task fit that way, but I think the real world is most often much more murky. So you can get a top couple tasks and a bottom couple tasks but the jumble in the middle could be B, C, D even A and E sometimes depending on how you look at it, what your mood is, what else you do. For example if marketing is important you can have 10 tasks none of which are super critical, but if you do 0 that is super critical. If you do 4 of them it is ok if you do 7 it is very good and those other 3 are not so important. To some extent which of those 10 you do is impacted by the others but not completely (if you do task 7 then the need to do task 4 is less...).
At first, you say no to your little girl, because there is no reason she should get candy that day.
And we all know, that giving candy to your children every day, would only transfer the money from your kid’s college fund to the dentist.
...
Then your girl starts giving you the cute Bambi eyes, and you realize that you are only human, and that giving her candy just for today, couldn’t really hurt.
On the flip side, if your little girl wants to put her hands into the fireplace, it doesn’t matter how cute her eyes are, the answer is no.
In addition tasks are often somewhat dependent on each other. So it isn't as straight forward as do 1,2,3,4 by priority order. If I do task 9 that will make task 2 and 4 and 5 easier and allow me to delay task 3...
This complexity makes it so many people struggle with seemingly logical prioritization schemes. The idea is fine assuming tasks are truly A,B,C,D,E but they are not often very close to that. So people need to take the concept but apply it to a big mess of tasks and that doesn't really translate to a simple do A then B then C tasks.
Related: Keeping Track of Improvement Priorities - Appreciating Health - Manage Better by Managing Less
Thursday, January 01, 2015
Terrorism Response by the USA is Society’s Immune System Attacking Itself
Simon Phipps states very well and concisely what the results of the reaction to terrorism driven by the USA in his post On Terrorism
Related: Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State (2013) - USA Encouraging Governments Worldwide to Spy and Hack Globally is Very Dangerous - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008) - What Principles Does the USA Government Still Honor? - Liberty and Support or Control and Hate - Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government - Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress (2012) - Liberty Again Denied - It is Sad How Little We Seem to Care (2011)
Terrorism isn’t just performing a terrifying act. It’s provoking society’s immune system into attacking itself, making its defence systems attack the values and people they are supposed to be defending. Terrorism is an autoimmune disorder of democracy. You don’t fight terrorism by attacking the virus; you fight it by strengthening the immune system.
Related: Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State (2013) - USA Encouraging Governments Worldwide to Spy and Hack Globally is Very Dangerous - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008) - What Principles Does the USA Government Still Honor? - Liberty and Support or Control and Hate - Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government - Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress (2012) - Liberty Again Denied - It is Sad How Little We Seem to Care (2011)
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Interview with John Hunter - on Meet the Blogger Series
I was interviewed for the Meet the Blogger Series, read my interview: Meet John Hunter of CuriousCat.com.
John Hunter at Candi Sewu in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. See more on my travels in my newest blog: Curious Cat Travel Destinations.
Read the entire interview.
Related: Interviews with John Hunter related to blogging, digital nomad life - Escaping to Greener Pastures - Living Abroad - Quick Thoughts on the Risks of Violence while Traveling
At that time (2004) I had my Curious Cat Management Improvement website. I decided to start with a science and engineering blog (I worked for an engineering association) and one for management improvement. I wasn’t really sure I would have that much to say about science and engineering so I wanted to give both a try to see if blogging would be a good fit for me. I started on blogger to get a quick and easy feel for how it would go and if I wanted to continue. After a few months I decided I liked it and launched self hosted blogs using WordPress: Curious Cat Management blog and Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog. As part of the launch of the self hosted blogs I also decided to also launch a 3rd blog: Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog. I have been active with those blogs for 10 years now. ... Over time the topics of those first 3 blogs, and one new one topic (travel), have remained the main topics that I have an interest in blogging about; still I have launched several new blogs in niches under those topics, and a couple outside them. The Curious Cat Blog Network has grown to 18 blogs.I started this blog a bit after those first 3 self-hosted blogs; to post stuff that didn't fit well in another blog. And as you can see I am still publishing it 10 years later. I left all the old blogs in place - I believe strongly in the concept that web pages should live forever. I repurposed my blogger management blog to post some of the management improvement related comments I make on other blogs.
John Hunter at Candi Sewu in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. See more on my travels in my newest blog: Curious Cat Travel Destinations.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Deleting Apps on iOS When the "x" is Missing
I recently bought an iPad mini. Unlike many people that say they interface is wonderful I find it to be annoying and lacking and not up to what I expected from computer applications 15 years ago, forget what I expect today. But I guess I am in the minority.
Well I couldn't delete an app. I followed the instructions
I went to a Apple reseller store and they were able to figure out that in settings there were restrictions set. Why the Ux doesn't have the x and then when you use it gives a challenge to prove you can override the restriction is beyond me. But lots of the Ux decisions they make in iOS are beyond me.
Anyway what you have to do is go into settings and then restrictions then type in your passcode then you can delete it. You also then can see the restrictions and turn some off if you want. I am sure I got some advice on making things more secure (the security setup seems horrible to me - the Ux makes being secure a real pain so encourages bad security). And stuff like fingerprint "password" is lame. "fingerprint" is username not password. But whatever, that should let you delete stuff.
Related: Bad iTunes Ux and How to Submit a Podcast to iTunes - Use Urls – Don’t Use Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z Instructions - Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux) for Stock Market Data (post is from over a year ago but the problem remains) - Gobbledygook (bad password usability)
Well I couldn't delete an app. I followed the instructions
- "click" an icon and keep holding it down until all the icons "vibrate"
- "click" the x to delete what you want (note Apple doesn't let you delete the apps they don't want deleted - their default apps - I guess the same idea as them forcing some music streaming junk in the next version of extremely bloated iTunes, that seems to be verging on becoming unremovable crap-ware)
I went to a Apple reseller store and they were able to figure out that in settings there were restrictions set. Why the Ux doesn't have the x and then when you use it gives a challenge to prove you can override the restriction is beyond me. But lots of the Ux decisions they make in iOS are beyond me.
Anyway what you have to do is go into settings and then restrictions then type in your passcode then you can delete it. You also then can see the restrictions and turn some off if you want. I am sure I got some advice on making things more secure (the security setup seems horrible to me - the Ux makes being secure a real pain so encourages bad security). And stuff like fingerprint "password" is lame. "fingerprint" is username not password. But whatever, that should let you delete stuff.
Related: Bad iTunes Ux and How to Submit a Podcast to iTunes - Use Urls – Don’t Use Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z Instructions - Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux) for Stock Market Data (post is from over a year ago but the problem remains) - Gobbledygook (bad password usability)
Sunday, November 02, 2014
How to Turn Off Google Hangouts on iPad Mini?
How do I turn off Google Hangouts on my iPad Mini?
I don't understand how smart phone and tablet apps seem to miss super basic functions and that people actually find using such apps acceptable. Either there is some UI feature that lets you deal with super basic stuff (like turning off something you don't want bothering you) that I can't see or I think people are crazy to accept such broken software as acceptable.
As far as I can see the only way to turn Hangouts off is to uninstall it. So their model seems to be, if I wanted to turn my car off I had to sell it. Then when I want to use it again I have to buy it, reregister it, reset… What kind of idiocy is this? I would say this is impossibly stupid and I must be missing some setting somewhere, but there are not that many buttons to push, it seems like I have tried looking everywhere numerous times and uninstalling is the only way to turn it off. But maybe I am wrong, please tell me how to do so, if I am?
Also having used several apps now for awhile, missing super basic things seems common. It seems like apps have reverted to failing to do super basic stuff that even bad software has done for a couple decades so having to un-install in order to turn something off, while amazingly lame, may actually the true level of service provided by the app.
Also how the bleep to you stop nagware idiocy on items you purchase asking you to do their marketing for them by posting app reviews? It is extremely common in the few apps I use to have this nagware that hasn't been seen in a decade in the software I use (I used to get nagware for freeware software over a decade ago).
Related: Complicating Simplicity - If Tech Companies Made Sudoku - Bad Visual Controls in Software
I don't understand how smart phone and tablet apps seem to miss super basic functions and that people actually find using such apps acceptable. Either there is some UI feature that lets you deal with super basic stuff (like turning off something you don't want bothering you) that I can't see or I think people are crazy to accept such broken software as acceptable.
As far as I can see the only way to turn Hangouts off is to uninstall it. So their model seems to be, if I wanted to turn my car off I had to sell it. Then when I want to use it again I have to buy it, reregister it, reset… What kind of idiocy is this? I would say this is impossibly stupid and I must be missing some setting somewhere, but there are not that many buttons to push, it seems like I have tried looking everywhere numerous times and uninstalling is the only way to turn it off. But maybe I am wrong, please tell me how to do so, if I am?
Also having used several apps now for awhile, missing super basic things seems common. It seems like apps have reverted to failing to do super basic stuff that even bad software has done for a couple decades so having to un-install in order to turn something off, while amazingly lame, may actually the true level of service provided by the app.
Also how the bleep to you stop nagware idiocy on items you purchase asking you to do their marketing for them by posting app reviews? It is extremely common in the few apps I use to have this nagware that hasn't been seen in a decade in the software I use (I used to get nagware for freeware software over a decade ago).
Related: Complicating Simplicity - If Tech Companies Made Sudoku - Bad Visual Controls in Software
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Talking Out Decisions
I am someone who is much more comfortable working, thinking, deciding, traveling etc. alone. I rarely feel lonely or the need to talk things out with someone or get advice.
But, that still doesn't mean, never. And some of those times when I seem to have trouble just acting don't seem very complicated or something that logically I need assistance to decide. I think it is just an emotional reaction that occasionally hits me (and I guess hits others much more).
I am getting ready to start a nomadic existence (I am talking about such an existence at BarCampJB this weekend). I am delaying buying my tickets for no good reason I can think of. The people I would talk to are not going to give me any insight that is going to change my choices. Yet, I feel that lack of talking it out with others is contributing to my delay. I am sure glad I don't have this indecisiveness often. That would really be annoying.
People are weird.
There is also a somewhat related situation of motivation on a trip. I enjoy traveling alone. There are advantages to traveling with friends or by yourself. For me the advantages of being alone are far greater, most of the time. There are some times when I wish someone were with me when I don't feel motivated to get up and go do what I wanted to do when I planned on the trip. But that is fairly rare.
I find meeting up with people for a bit, lets me get the advantages of traveling together, but lets me retain the freedom to spend most of time and energy the way that I want.
Actually part of the reason I am going into nomadic mode is my plans to travel from my base in Malaysia ended up resulting in less travel than I wanted. So this is my new strategy to get in more travel. We will see how it works.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Letting Mom Enjoy the Results of Her Work
I wasn't the easiest child to raise. I was pretty good as far as avoiding any real trouble. But I was quite a stubborn and argumentative kid. I still am really, but when in control of my own life, I can avoid much of what would annoy me (which sometimes wasn't so easy as a kid) - thus I am able to avoid situations where my behavior might not be so enjoyable for others.
I think I turned out pretty well. Most of that credit goes to my Mother and Father. Once parents can no longer stick drawing and report cards (I don't think my parents ever did the report card one - that would be too crass I think) on the refrigerator they don't have many options to get good feedback on their kids. I guess if you lived in the same town that might be a bit different, but for me that isn't the case.
I suppose there are some instance where parents can bask in the glow of their efforts: at their child's wedding, if they design the iPhone, become a doctor, etc.. That is fine, but nothing that really works for me, sadly. Having grandkids is the gift that keeps on giving in this realm, but again I am lacking.
One of the things I do is forward some emails to my Mom that I know she would appreciate. I feel a bit funny about it because what she is going to appreciate is people saying good things about me. And sharing people saying good things about you is considered a bit gauche isn't it (it sure feels that way). Still I know it really does make her happy to read such things.
I have had several such instances recently, which is what made me think of writing this. It is a bit funny, and can feel a bit odd, reverting to behavior that seems reminiscent of when you were about 8 years old. But I really do think it is a way that can make parents appreciate all the effort they put into making you successful.
Related: Kittens Reminding You to Thank Your Mother - Mother Polar Bear Giving Her Cub a Helping Paw - Encouraging Curiosity in Kids
I think I turned out pretty well. Most of that credit goes to my Mother and Father. Once parents can no longer stick drawing and report cards (I don't think my parents ever did the report card one - that would be too crass I think) on the refrigerator they don't have many options to get good feedback on their kids. I guess if you lived in the same town that might be a bit different, but for me that isn't the case.
I suppose there are some instance where parents can bask in the glow of their efforts: at their child's wedding, if they design the iPhone, become a doctor, etc.. That is fine, but nothing that really works for me, sadly. Having grandkids is the gift that keeps on giving in this realm, but again I am lacking.
One of the things I do is forward some emails to my Mom that I know she would appreciate. I feel a bit funny about it because what she is going to appreciate is people saying good things about me. And sharing people saying good things about you is considered a bit gauche isn't it (it sure feels that way). Still I know it really does make her happy to read such things.
I have had several such instances recently, which is what made me think of writing this. It is a bit funny, and can feel a bit odd, reverting to behavior that seems reminiscent of when you were about 8 years old. But I really do think it is a way that can make parents appreciate all the effort they put into making you successful.
Related: Kittens Reminding You to Thank Your Mother - Mother Polar Bear Giving Her Cub a Helping Paw - Encouraging Curiosity in Kids
Sunday, September 07, 2014
Hootsuite Scheduled Posts Fails When urls include /@
When adding Tweet via Hootsuite schedule posts the Tweet was schedule without the url. I was trying to add a Medium url (Twitter also used to have /@ in some urls). I guessed the @ symbol was likely the cause of the failure. I did just tiny bit of experimenting and it seems as though Hootsuite removes the link if /@ are included in that order (but more experimenting - or looking at the code used by Hootsuite should be done - I spent less than a minute on it).
Given how popular Medium is I am amazed Hootsuite allows this problem to slip through software testing and use. Maybe Medium recently switched the url or Hootsuite just pushed some new code that broke it.
Luckily you can just remove the @ from the url and then it works (Medium just redirects to the url with the @ in front of the username).
But this is a lame error by Hootsuite. I would imagine it will be fixed quickly - so this post won't make sense anymore (but occasionally big sites fail to do obvious stuff - for example Google still fails to use human readable urls or have even mildly acceptable help).
Related: Coping With Bad Web Page Layouts - Use Urls Not "Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z" Instructions - Bad iTunes Ux and How to Submit a Podcast to iTunes - Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux)
Given how popular Medium is I am amazed Hootsuite allows this problem to slip through software testing and use. Maybe Medium recently switched the url or Hootsuite just pushed some new code that broke it.
Luckily you can just remove the @ from the url and then it works (Medium just redirects to the url with the @ in front of the username).
But this is a lame error by Hootsuite. I would imagine it will be fixed quickly - so this post won't make sense anymore (but occasionally big sites fail to do obvious stuff - for example Google still fails to use human readable urls or have even mildly acceptable help).
Related: Coping With Bad Web Page Layouts - Use Urls Not "Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z" Instructions - Bad iTunes Ux and How to Submit a Podcast to iTunes - Poor Web Site User Experience (Ux)
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Banks Continue to Push for Insane Special Favors (and Sadly Get Them)
The lack of rules that allowed the banks to gamble and go bankrupt but for the taxpayer (and saver) bailout and created the great recession was a huge failure. Caused mainly by our electing people that don't comprehend the issues they need to make decisions about. And also those same politicians selling out to those giving them lots of cash, investment banks for example.
The banks have been extremely successful at having government tilt the economy to push billions into the banks pockets every year (also deducting billions from savers with artificially low interest rates). The banks have also managed to buy or trick those we elect into doing very little to stop bankers from doing exactly what they did in the first place.
Of course if you are those bankers, why would you change. Get billions in bonus with government granted welfare. Then gamble and take billions in profits for winning gambles. Go get a bailout again when your gambles eventually fail.
They fight against each tiny step to return to a more capitalist economy (which these enormous banks are the antithesis of). They argue with every attempt to have banks be safe and split of speculation to entities that won't get taxpayer bailouts as soon as their gambles fail.
Banks say funding rules will make key equities trades more expensive
Just because you can do these things, doesn't mean it isn't immoral. We learned that a century ago, when the robber barons attempted to convince people business didn't related to morality. As if somehow actions people took to ruin an economy so a few cronies can split of the proceeds are any less immoral than some small time crook stealing cash directly from windows and orphans.
Unless you pay those we elect to sellout the country to allow an "unregulated shadow banking system, increasing systemic risk" it won't happen. Having banks have to be banks is what should happen. Those funding speculation have to have adequate resources and be willing to lose what they loan speculators. They obviously should not be allowed to come anywhere close to actions that "increase systemic risk." If that means speculators can't leverage themselves as much and banks can't gamble as much (knowing any big losses will be covered by the government) too bad.
If the cost of speculation without socialized failure and individualized gains that has been the hallmark of the crony investment banks the last 30-40 years then too bad. Less speculation will have to happen. I don't think speculation is bad. It is part of the market. But speculation doesn't have to be subsidized by society as you bankers seem to think is your right.
Stop trying to increase the amount you can gamble and leverage with threats that not allowing you to gamble the global economy means others will be allowed to do so. The idea is not to continue to allow the cronyism you all use to create massive speculation and leverage that threatens the global economy.
Related: Continuing to Nurture the Too-Big-To-Fail Eco-system - Lobbyists Keep Tax Off Billion Dollar Private Equities Deals and On For Our Grandchildren - Financial Transactions Tax to Pay Off Wall Street Welfare Debt
The banks have been extremely successful at having government tilt the economy to push billions into the banks pockets every year (also deducting billions from savers with artificially low interest rates). The banks have also managed to buy or trick those we elect into doing very little to stop bankers from doing exactly what they did in the first place.
Of course if you are those bankers, why would you change. Get billions in bonus with government granted welfare. Then gamble and take billions in profits for winning gambles. Go get a bailout again when your gambles eventually fail.
They fight against each tiny step to return to a more capitalist economy (which these enormous banks are the antithesis of). They argue with every attempt to have banks be safe and split of speculation to entities that won't get taxpayer bailouts as soon as their gambles fail.
Banks say funding rules will make key equities trades more expensive
The banks are making a last-ditch effort to modify the Net Stable Funding Ratio, seen as the final plank of the "Basel III" banking reforms that seek to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. … "By unnecessarily increasing the funding cost for banking organisations' equity market intermediation activities, the revised NSFR would also potentially force such activities into the largely unregulated shadow banking system, increasing systemic risk."They have already won so many efforts to eliminate any meaningful reform. But they keep pushing for even more. Look you immoral cretins, you don't have the right to ruin tens of millions of people's economic life and get even more favors. Granted it is hard for you to believe that when you just pay the politicians a few tens of millions in cash to get billions showered upon you while others pay. But you don't. Now will you manage to buy the right to do so and have your cronies (politicians or their co-opted regulators) sell out country? Probably. We will re-elect those that you bought? Probably.
Just because you can do these things, doesn't mean it isn't immoral. We learned that a century ago, when the robber barons attempted to convince people business didn't related to morality. As if somehow actions people took to ruin an economy so a few cronies can split of the proceeds are any less immoral than some small time crook stealing cash directly from windows and orphans.
Unless you pay those we elect to sellout the country to allow an "unregulated shadow banking system, increasing systemic risk" it won't happen. Having banks have to be banks is what should happen. Those funding speculation have to have adequate resources and be willing to lose what they loan speculators. They obviously should not be allowed to come anywhere close to actions that "increase systemic risk." If that means speculators can't leverage themselves as much and banks can't gamble as much (knowing any big losses will be covered by the government) too bad.
If the cost of speculation without socialized failure and individualized gains that has been the hallmark of the crony investment banks the last 30-40 years then too bad. Less speculation will have to happen. I don't think speculation is bad. It is part of the market. But speculation doesn't have to be subsidized by society as you bankers seem to think is your right.
Stop trying to increase the amount you can gamble and leverage with threats that not allowing you to gamble the global economy means others will be allowed to do so. The idea is not to continue to allow the cronyism you all use to create massive speculation and leverage that threatens the global economy.
Related: Continuing to Nurture the Too-Big-To-Fail Eco-system - Lobbyists Keep Tax Off Billion Dollar Private Equities Deals and On For Our Grandchildren - Financial Transactions Tax to Pay Off Wall Street Welfare Debt
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