Reducing Corruption

Corruption is a significant problem.  It directly reduces the lifestyle people deserve and it greatly impacts economic progress.  Poor countries often are hampered by a large amount of petty corruption and large political corruption.

It seems to me corruption normally reduce as more wealth is created in the society.  As more people have power it is harder to enforce petty corruption against them.  And the effort taken to extract corrupt gains can be productively deployed more effectively to get higher gains doing less corrupt things.  So if you are competent you go earn money by providing value.  Leaving bozos and super lazy people to be corrupt who are not very good at anything they try so they are lame at being corrupt too.

Obviously this doesn't work perfectly but it seems to me that the correlation between wealth (especially with good wealth distribution) and reduced corruption is high.  It is true this is a dynamic process and what leads to what is not as clear - as one gets better normally the other does.

I do believe one good strategy is just to pursue economic growth and good things will happen.  It can be pretty ugly at first - it might not seem to be working.  One thing that happens is there is so much more wealth that at first corruption can seem to be growing because the corrupt are richer than ever.  But I think, even then, the level of corruption is really going down.  It is a lower proportion of the economy even though it grows in absolute terms at first.  Over time 10-20 (or more) years significant declines are made as those with power are not willing to tolerate systems burdened by huge levels of corruption.

A free press is a huge help.  Strong support for entrepreneurs is a huge help (versus big established businesses that can actually use corruption to suppress competition - this happens still in the USA all the time, using the congress to create and allow monopolistic markets for your industry).

Petty corruption is the type that is most easily reduced by wealth. The corruption that is more easily hidden with back-room deals are tougher to reduce. In my view this type of systemic corruption has increased in the USA in the last 30 years. There is more and more very economically damaging practices that are only possible with the cooperation of "leaders" and the situation doesn't even seem to be a serious consideration for most people.

Petty corruption (paying cash to a police officer to get out of a ticket [or to get out of a false ticket], demanding cash to process your passport, demanding cash to approve your building permit) is not very high in the USA I don't think (or Northern Europe, Singapore, Japan...). But corrupt practices at the core of how our financial system is run, how legislation is written... are extremely damaging. So we have largely eliminated corruption from most people, but leaders seem have taken to corrupt practices with a new zeal lately - unfortunately. In the USA we can stop this whenever we want. Just vote out the corruption. But it is so institutionalized in the political parties it doesn't seem likely anytime soon.

The leaders have figured out the way to make corrupt practices palatable is to impose the burden of the corruption on society and pay the benefits to a small group that then pays the politicians for the benefit they were provided at the expense of society. For those interested in corruption in a wealthy society this is the smart model to use. So at least our leaders are smart at figuring out the best way to be corrupt given the system they are operating in. This likely means they would react sensibly if we were to vote against those politicians providing benefits to those giving them cash, at the expense of society. But until then they seem to be interested in how to maximize their gain, not in ethics or helping society.

My comment on Reddit discussion on reduction of corruption throughout history.

Related: Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style - Why Congress Won’t Investigate Wall Street - Systems Design Can Create Perverse Incentives - Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans

I Don't See How the Ponzi Scheme Economy Doesn't End Badly

I am very worried about the ponzi scheme like action of the governments of the rich western countries the last 10 years.  I don't see how this is not going to end badly.

I also can't really figure out how it will end badly.  The first or second or third order effects shouldn't be too hard.  Eventually those getting the ious stop believing the ponzi creator and won't accept their promises anymore.  So then interest rates on debt sky and currencies collapse.  "Real assets" (I prefer real estate to gold) should do well.

But is the massive ponzi scheme so huge the economy breaks so completely that normal economic collapse history is useless.  Does it turn more into what happens with normally poor, corrupt, broken states?  How does that play out with the massive wealth the rich countries accumulated prior to the ponzi scheme "solutions?"  I really am not sure.

Does the failing cripple countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia, Korea?  The old model is the rich countries have so much wealth when they mess up they suffer a bit and others suffer a ton.  Does that happen again?  I am not so sure.

I can understand desire to avoid consequences.  That is what blew up the special favors to those giving lots of money to politicians into the ponzi scheme style in the first place.  But I don't understand how people believe this can work - just throw out more ponzi promises and avoid the consequences.

Sure something similar works fine if you can afford to just give away a bunch of money you saved for a rainy day to get through the tough times.  But we didn't.  Heck, even if you just hadn't gone hugely into debt in the boom times to give even more to those giving large amounts of cash to politicians and instead of saving for a rainy day just didn't go hugely into debt even during your boom times.  But we did go hugely into debt during the bubble times.

The USA is still extremely rich.  As is much of Europe and Japan.   But it sure seems to me that we are hugely rich but have been spending much more than we have been making by pretending these ponzi promises have actual value.  When the markets stop accepting that it sure seems like things could be VERY SCARY.  So scary and unpredictable I can't even figure out what the SAFE investment plays are.

By far the best hope is that I am just wrong about how rich we are compared to what seem like ponzi scheme promises to me.  If we are lucky the ponzi part is but a blip on top of a rich foundation.  I am very worried that the ponzi part is not a blip at all.  It is huge.

Diversity in investments helps when you are clueless (and also other times but specifically when you are clueless is important to me here).  I really can't see any way long term bonds are good now.  So that doesn't help in my opinion - of course if I am wrong about that the portfolio will suffer.

I don't like gold.  I don't like assets that are not capable of providing earnings.  For some amount of store of value if currencies lose most value fine.  But unless you are very wealthy I can't see putting much here.  Speculating in it, fine, but it seems to high to speculate to me (but I could be wrong).

Real estate I like though I am worried about what happens in a much much worse economy than we have had since the great depression.  Still putting some there is sensible to me.

A fair amount of cash just trying to not lose too much makes sense given this super risky ponzi atmosphere.  Savings account at a credit union seems the best place .  I trust the government will cover any real loses but my guess is the value of the $ will plummet if things get bad (at first it will rise as people think that is what you do in a economic crisis - buy $).  I can't see $ being the sensible thing if the ponzi scheme is no longer accepted but we will see.

Trying to figure out what companies should actually stay profitable is another sensible place.  Even if they earn less some companies will stay profitable.  While others may well go under.  Companies that have fairly low fixed costs to carry in bad times seem appealing.  I really think if companies like Google, Apple and Costco are not making actual profits things are so bad only the super lucky are doing well.  The tricky part is figuring out which companies are those that will remain profitable - I may have the theory right and still pick the wrong companies.  I would definitely be diversified globally (and Apple and Google do that for you, among other things).

Obviously, in order to work as an investment to be valuable in a ponzi collapse the company has to be profitable in very hard times.  I think another key is they can't need outside cash - I think likely currencies would collapse and interest rates would sky.  Solid cash flow, even in hard times is key.  Small, nimble companies can do well.  That is much harder for huge companies.  But small companies can also go under quickly.  After the fact seeing the nimble smarts is often easy.  Predicting the winners in advance is hard.

I am very worried about China too.  India still refuses to get serious about reducing corruption and taking sensible steps to build infrastructure, improve education so I am not very positive there either.  It has potential but big problems.  I am most optimistic about countries growing into mid income (Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Ghana [early], Indonesia...) of high income (Singapore…along with Canada, Korea and Australia, maybe).

If you have good ideas for investments based on much more significant economic problems than we have seen let me know.


Related: The USA Doesn’t Understand that the 1950s and 1960s are Not a Reasonable Basis for Setting Expectations - Economic Consequences Flow from Failing to Follow Real Capitalist Model and Living Beyond Our Means - We Need to be More Capitalist and Less Cronyist - The USA Economy Needs to Reduce Personal and Government Debt

Google and Links

I have read over the years Matt Cutts (Google Guy) say that as long as you don't get paid cash other things that would have the exact same indication whether a link should be trusted are not penalized.  So if you bought the entire site and then added links to link to you (as large companies can do) that is fine (so if some large company buys a small company and then links to the corporate parent).  But paying a fee and getting links is not.

Similarly if you pay a speaker to speak at your conference and they add a link to your site I think Google says is fine.  Or if you win a scholarship and you link to the sponsor or the school from your site that is fine.  And in my opinion all 3 of those obviously should be fine.  They provide valuable insight I would want to include if I were deciding what are relevant links.

Google is trying to collect useful data from the web to make judgements for search rankings.  They decided that to make their jobs easier it would be better to stop some forms of influence in adding links.  But there are no clear sensible places to draw the lines.  So Google uses what people used to call FUD by Microsoft (casting fear, uncertainty and doubt) to aid Google's interests.

Google has a tricky task to try and decide what links to give value to.  Their decisions on how to treat certain kinds of influence seems wrong to me.  But it seems to be something they can chose to do.  Google also claims (I believe) that they don't bother to value links that would obviously provide value if those links are made nofollow by the websites (so say the links on Twitter that would obviously be useful to gage pagerank as it was discussed years ago).

Google seems to still claim that they are better off not using links that could be used by an algorithm to provide valuable insight because to do so would downplay their anti-spam efforts.  It is a hard spot they are in.   Until another search engine takes away a significant portion of their traffic I think they will stay on their current model.  If wonderfulnewsearch.com grew to 8% of the market by December I bet Google would use nofollow links to judge merits of links next to immediately.  It is a rich source of information that is being ignored.  They decide the search result quality can sustain that dilution in order to put pressure on those that try to manipulate the results by playing to the algorithms.

It is a dynamic, evolving contest where Google tries to gain insight and others try to figure out how to take advantage of how Google gains insight to gain favor for themselves.

Google can't say how people should run their businesses.  All Google says is if you link to sites in a way that we don't like we will then punish your site in our search results.  Of course that clearly means that Google is willing to provide worse results to users in the case when the best results for you as a search user are from a site that did something that Google didn't like.  As long as search users accept degrade search results Google can do this.  If degraded search results caused users to flee Google they would stop this method of trying to influence sites.

But they have a tricky balance of trying to degrade the search results just enough to force sites into being fearful of having their traffic harmed but not so much that users of the search engine get tired of the degraded results and go elsewhere.  The punishment portion is solely about the trading of worse search results to users today in order to get sites to follow the behavior Google wants to see.

The question of Google improving search results by devaluing links that are not valuable is a different, though related, question.  That doesn't result in degraded search results.  But that also has nothing to do with a site following Google's decision on where to draw the line of what is an influence that means you should mark your web links to tell Google that you don't value the page you are linking to.  Deciding how much to value links is a tricky business.  Google has a lot of money invested in doing that well.  The decided to have guidelins and punishment in search results for how links are done.  That seems to be Google's business.  If you want them to be happy with you, you follow their guidelines.  So for example if you want to get links you can do so in many ways, including many ways that are very similar to directly purchasing them but you can't do the one that is exactly directly purchasing them and not tell google that they shouldn't follow the link.

I am obviously critical of some of what Google is doing FUD :-) but I understand the difficult task they have.  I can understand the way they are trying to tilt the terms of the "game" to help them provide search results that are useful.  I am sure Google understands the points I make.  They just look at the situation and make a few calls that are slightly different than I would make.

Comment posted on: Why did our PageRank go down?

Remove Popup Ad Sites From Search Results

My feedback to DuckDuckGo:

I would like to be able to have popup ad sites flagged/removed. 

Maybe let me set no popups (then on the far right column (or something) show the sites you skipped because they are flagged as popup ads so I can click them if I don't like any of the non-user-hostile sites. 

Obviously this means getting a list of popup sites and maintaining it.  Would be a challenge but would great improve search results.  Lots of the big sites now are using popup ads (just ones that get around the users opting out of popup ads on their browser).

I would love it if the other sites (Google, Yahoo, Bing) would do this too, but Google is not likely to unless they are copying one of the others.  I understand sties want to make money by using popup ads even if they know users said don't do it (using browser settings).  This is why all the major sites now use popup ads that circumvent the browser settings).  I don't mind the sites choosing to how readable or customer unfriendly they want to be.  I just wish search engines wouldn't give me results as if popup ads are no a negative that should reduce the suggestion of using a site.

Related:  6 years Later Goolge Acts To Let Me Block Sites I don't want to see from 2011, does anyone else have this missing most of the time now? - Improvement ideas for Google (2006) - Web Search Improvements (2005)

PageRank Updates for August 2012

The pagerank google displays is mainly a fun measure, rather than a measure of much importance. But I still find it fun to look at the pagerank values - except when they go down for my sites :-(  Now I also track the similar MozRank and can take some solace if the MozRank goes up :-)

Pagerank is a value given to the links coming into a web page on a logarithmic scale. So a PR of 2 is 10 times greater than PR 1 and 100 less than PR 4. MozRank is a similar measure, developed by a separate company that is updated much more frequently. See more details on this topic in my previous post: Google PageRank and MozRank of some of my pages (Oct 2011).

Google updates the visible PageRank occasionally (often about every 3 months). The real pagerank Google updates much more frequently (it is only the pagerank shared with the rest of us that is only updated occasionally.

Check the current pagerank on your sites using our related site: Multiple Site PageRank checker.

Site	Aug 2012 [MozRank]	Oct 2011	April 2011	Dec 2010	Dec 2008	July 2008
PageRank 5 and MozRank > 5
Curious Cat Management Blog	5 [5.6]
John Hunter	5 [5.6]	4 [5.4]	4	4	4	4
Curiouscat.com	5 [5.6]	4 [5.6]	5	4	3	3
Curious Cat Engineering and Science Blog	5 [5.5]	6 [5.3]	6	4	5	5
CSS 4 Free	5 [5.5]	4 [5.4]	4	4	4	5
Management Dictionary*	5 [5.3]	5 [5.4]	5	4	3	3
Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site*	5 [4.9]	5 [4.97]	5	4
PageRank 4 and MozRank > 5
Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections*	4 [5.5]	5 [5.5]	5	4	3	3
Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog	4 [5.5]	4 [5.3]	4	3	4	4
Investment Dictionary*	4 [5.4]	4 [5.2]	4
externs.com - internship directory	4 [5.2]	4 [5.2]	4	4	4	4
Curious Cat Travel Photo Blog	4 [5.2]	3 [4.9]	3	-
Statistics for Experimenters	4 [5.1]	3 [4.5]	3	4	3	4
The Future is Engineering*	4 [5.2]	4 [4.7]	5	5
Alumni Connections*	4 [5.2]	4 [5.0]	4	4	4	5
Credit Card Tips*	4 [5.1]	4 [4.6]	3
Management and Leadership Quotes	4 [5.1]	2 [5.2]	2	2
Lean Management Resources*	4 [5.0]	4 [5.0]	4	4
Six Sigma Management Resources*	4 [5.0]	4 [5.0]	4
PageRank 4 and MozRank > 4
PDSA Improvement Cycle*	4 [4.8]	4 [4.9]	4
Curious Cat Code (programming)	4 [4.8]	4 [4.2]	0	0
Life and Legacy of William Hunter (my father)	4 [4.8]	4 [4.5]	4	4	4
Curious Cat Gadgets	4 [4.8]	-	-
Living in Singapore	4 [4.7]	3 [4.0]	-
Multi Site PageRank Checker	4 [4.5]	3 [4.7]	2	2	1	3
Mortgage Rate Article*	4 [4.5]	4 [3.8]	4
Curious Cat Web Directory	4 [4.5]	4 [4.7]	**	3	3	4
PageRank 3 and MozRank > 3
The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer*	3 [5.2]	4 [4.7]	5	4	3
Curious Cat Travel Destinations	3 [4.8]	-	-	-	-	-
Hexawise Software Testing Blog	3 [4.9]	-	-	-	-
Living in Malaysia	3 [4.8]	3 [4.1]	-
Rocky Mountain National Park photos*	3 [4.8]	4 [4.8]	4	3	-	2
Deming's Management Method*	3 [4.7]	4 [4.5]	4	4
Architecture and home design inspiration	3 [4.6]	-	-
Good Process Improvement Practices*	3 [4.3]	3 [3.8]
Curious Cat Management Comments	3 [4.2]
Management Improvement Resources	3 [4.2]	3 [3.8]	3	3	3
Curious Cat Comments (this blog)	3 [4.1]	- [3.8]	-		3	3
Best Research University Rankings*	3 [4.1]	3 [3.8]	3	3	4
PageRank 2 and MozRank > 2 (or no MozRank for new pages)
Johor Bahru Real Estate	2 [4.6]	-	-
Curious Cat Travel Destinations: Marina Bay Sands (Singapore)	2 [4.6]	-	-	-	-	-
Curious Cat Travel Destinations: France	2 [4.1]	-	-	-	-	-
Parfrey's Glen, Wisconsin Photos	2 [3.7]	2 [3.8]	2	2	-
CuriousCat Wordpress	2 [3.3]	-	-	-	-	-
Justin Hunter (my brother)	2 [4.1]	2 [2.9]	2	2	2
No PageRank
Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership*	u [5.2]	4 [4.7]	5	4	4
My Kiva page	u [4.1]	- [4.0]	-			3
Reddit management*	u [4.0]	4 [u]	7	4	0
Curious Cat Travel Destinations: Australia	u [3.9] ***		-

* internal pages
** new url, old url forwarded
*** (May 2012) 2 [-]
- didn't exist yet
u unranked
[blank] I don't know what the pagerank was, sometimes the site didn't exist yet.

Related: PageRank Updates for May 2012 - Web Page Authority - Google's Search Results - Should Factors Other Than User Value be Used

Systems Design Can Create Perverse Incentives

My comments on comment on my comment on The Two Root Causes of Everything?

“...the system is encouraging the bad behavior...” Such as the current Olympic games, with the badminton players throwing matches to get a better paths toward the medal round. It’s poor sportsmanship and poor ethics, but I can understand the players being tempted to do that.

I must admit I didn't see the badminton matches and my first response is that seems lame.  Did they break any rules or do anything really dishonest, it didn't seem like it.  For example,  those bike races where they roll around the sloped track - the competitors don't try to go fast, they try to setup the right conditions to help themselves (they practically stop sometimes).

Then I read a bit more and maybe it was justified (I guess refs even interrupted the play to say - quit that… the fans were booing...).  But yeah setting up the rules the way they did was crazy.  It shouldn't be you create an incentive to do worse in one game in order to do better overall.

Setting up the rules to make someone looking at the best system outcome  will come from sub-optimizing how I play in this game isn't great.

To a much much less degree other competitors have to sub-optimize current games to see the big picture (swimmers and track athletes have to swim fast enough to make the next round but not tire themselves out).  Granted those swimmers don't benefit from losing.  But they benefit from not trying their hardest at all times.

That situation with the gymnast also could be risky.  Only 2 on a team are allowed to compete for the overall individual competition.  The best USA person (I guess) was beat out they came in 4th overall but 3rd on the USA in qualifying.  It would be hard for an individual to give up, but I can imagine it would happen if #3 of the team did great but knew they didn't have a shot really (in the finals) and the country superstar hero was going to be shut out by them doing well in the last event…  Hard for the USA to image, I think, but for perspective in the USA, say if Michael Jordan would be denied a chance, the pressure on #3 to let Michael go through would be significant.

Penn State Scandal is Horrendous and Points to the Very Deep Corruption of Our Leaders

The truth is if you stand up for principles against the power structure you will most often be made to pay for trying to get in their way.  And most often you won't succeed.

In Penn State the few who tried to stand up against injustice are now seen in a positive light.  But the full Penn State power structure was able to undermine decency, even when that extended all the way to what is the most indecent act possible.  Only that most intolerable abuse finally brought enough weight (thought it took more than a decade) for the immoral actions of those in power to stop being accepted.

All the lessor abuses by those in power were not enough.  They were not remotely close to enough.  Those protesting those abuses are seen as pariahs.  Winning football (or basketball) games is much more important to those in leadership positions than behaving honorably.  Even today the Board of Penn State sees retaining the statue of Joe Paterno as the right thing to do (my guess is they will realize the big mistake this is soon and reverse course - but I figured the abuses of the TSA couldn't stand for long and I was completely wrong about that).  They are more fearful of powerful alumni that might still object then they are concerned about doing the incredibly too little too late of at least stopping honoring a man that disgraced their University.

Even once the scope of wrongdoing was obviously far far worse than should ever be tolerated and the board fired Joe Patero, there were riots protesting this action.  How shameful that behavior was.  How completely had the leaders of those that engaged in that behavior failed to create honorable people.

The complete failure of leadership evidenced by decades of utter failure at Penn State is the example.  But the system that allowed it is pervasive at nearly all our Universities.  They are lead by people that subvert integrity to pleasing the powerful.

I think they need to have these "leaders" sit in the undergraduate seminars where ethics and morality are discussed and talk about the real issues.  University leaders seem to think that morality and ethics are meant for the ancient greeks only, not them.  They obviously believe (as shown in their actions) that might makes right is the primary moral measuring stick.  I think that it would help to take that message into the educational system so we can address the real issues to where the boundaries are for that style of leadership.  Because pretending that what is taught about right and wrong in their schools relates to the real world when in practice political expediency takes such a huge precedence over what is right for the "leaders" in our society is not helping.

That we finally have people saying what the facts show, is a good sign: Joe Paterno was a coward. Rick Reilly admits that he was fooled by Joe Paterno

What a stooge I was.
I talked about Paterno's "true legacy" in all of this. Here's his true legacy: Paterno let a child molester go when he could've stopped him. He let him go and then lied to cover his sinister tracks. He let a rapist go to save his own recruiting successes and fundraising pitches and big-fish-small-pond hide.
Here's a legacy for you. Paterno's cowardice and ego and fears allowed Sandusky to molest at least eight more boys in the years after that 1998 incident

Penn State leaders can't hide their guilt after damning Freeh Report

"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," Freeh wrote in his summary of his report. "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky's victims until after Sandusky's arrest."

My guess on what impact this will have on other University leaders acting ethically and morally instead of caving into power: very minimal. They will continue to cave into power to make their lives as easy as possible. Decades of behavior just doesn't change overnight. As long as the "leaders" are put in those positions mainly because they make things easy for those with power that is the main thing that will drive their actions.

If we want that to change we have to change the character of those placed in leadership positions. And we need to change what influences carry the most weight. As long as it is the football coach, boosters, large donors... then we will have the situation we have had. The worst abuses at Penn State with covering up child abuse would not have been tolerated at many other places. But the system that results in such cover ups being possible is firmly in place at most and is used to continue much more mundane abuse of power.

Penn State should be congratulated for hiring Louis Freeh. They finally stopped trying to protect those doing the abuse and those covering up for those doing so. Good for them.

I am sure Joe Paterno did plenty of good things. As a leader, critical failures that persist for over a decade can, and should, overshadow the good when it comes to our opinion of their character. They can still have done plenty of good things. But leaders failing to protect the innocent and powerless and allowing them to be abused deserve to have their reputations destroyed.

Related: The Moral Consequences of Your Actions - Don't Excuse Immoral Looters - Action Is More Important Than Sympathy - They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love

If You Create a System That Includes The Perfect Conditions for Scandals, Expect Scandals to Happen

Massively overpay people for taking huge gambles with other people's money and they will do so (ethical people won't, but you only need a few unethical people and their is an oversupply - county on running out of unethical people is an extremely foolish "strategy").   Make it even worse by creating a culture where everyone sees lots of people getting massively overpaid for the times when the roulette wheel lands in the right spot and you create a culture ripe for claiming good results (no matter what the truth is).  Add in a very smart strategy (for those seeking to siphon off billions from the productive economy) of creating massively complicated schemes that allow for all sorts of false claims and you have what the leaders of our country (and a few other countries leaders) have created.

Other leaders abolished child labor, created universal education, sent us to the moon.  Ours are busy justifying massively unjust payments to a few at the cost of the well being of the country and the citizens of the world.

The too big to fail welfare banks have been practicing this behavior for a couple of decades.  And, like clockwork, huge scandals occur.  It seems like we have a huge spike in scandals in the last couple of years.  The scandals are entirely predictable given the systems created to try and justify paying unjustifiable payments to executives and gamblers.

The reason for the spike in scandals being discovered now is probably 2 fold.  First the unjustified pay has increased massively and thus increased the irresponsible behavior and rewards for being irresponsible.  Also, fraud often remains hidden in boom times and becomes uncovered when the ability to hide that the roulette wheel hasn't actually been providing the returns used to claim the unjustifiable payments taken by the executives and gamblers.

The quote of the latest massively overpaid CEO overseeing yet another scandal is just the same as all the other mindless "explanations": 

'But he stressed that it was an “isolated” incident and that JPMorgan had already cleaned house'

They then pay those we elect enough to have those we elect continue to grant them massive favors and continue to allow the undermining of our economy by the continued scandalous practices.  The process will continue, as it has for decades, until we refuse to elect those that sell out the country to pay back those giving the politicians lots of cash (or for the politicians that can't understand what is happening).

Eventually the delaying game of those operating these phony systems to extract big payoffs for themselves will no longer be tolerated.  But so far we seem happy to continue to support leaders doing all they can to support this system.

It doesn't appear, even now, we are going to demand change.  And it is completely obvious the too big to fail welfare banks are just increasing the scandalous behavior and the politicians are just increasing their support for these institutions.  Oh the politicians will say silly things to claim they don't like the bad things being done to the country and then run right back and do the bidding of those at the too big to fail welfare banks that give them cash.  Those giving cash know it doesn't matter what politicians say only what they do.  And the too big too fail banks couldn't ask for any better lackeys.

It will change when we throw out the politicians that are (and have been for decades) making this possible.  Until we do it won't change.  The executives and politicians have shown no amount of suffering is enough for them to behaving honorably.  As long as they get their cash they don't care what it does to the country or the economy of the world.

Action Is More Important Than Sympathy

A Long Walk Home is a story about the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in the USA.  The discrimination and immoral actions in the USA at that time was horrible.  The tide was turned by many many small actions by many people (along with some great actions by a few).  It is very easy for society to allow a few misguided people to mislead us.

I think it is important to remember that it looks easy to see horrendous immorality in others.  It is very easy to miss the chances for you to act to make the world a better place, a more just place, a more moral place, a place you can not just accept but be proud of.  The actions you take matter much more than your ability to sit back and judge others you can't influence.

I find it helpful to watch movies like this and think about what I can do today to make a difference.  The battles are not the same.  The winners haven't been named, and often those we will look back with disgust on later had the power to make their immoral actions seem to be acceptable.

Paperclips is another inspirational movie. It is a documentary about a consciousness-raising project at a rural Tennessee school. The principal of Whitwell Middle School sought a program that would teach diversity to a predominantly white, Protestant student body, the notion of focusing on the Holocaust.

People that have helped us overthrow those leaders promoting racial discrimination, House Committee on Un-American Activities (McCarthyism witch-hunts), war crimes... took difficult stands (and substantial personal risks) to make society better.  We have opportunities to make a difference and we don't have to risk nearly as much.  We should do so.

Waiting until leadership has amassed the power of something like the House Committee on Un-American Activities is very dangerous.  Once that happens much more spectacular heroic action is required to save us than is required in stopping the dramatic, Orwellian (just look at the name of that committee, and the name of some of the recent acts of Congress), anti-liberty actions of government.

Sometimes inaction doesn't make future action harder.  But inaction can still be enormously costly.  The extreme poverty we have in the world (even after 70 years of fantastic wealth in the USA and elsewhere) means millions of people die every year for want of a few dollars (for food, safe water or basic medicine).  We can make a difference if we want.  It is as easy as writing a check, or with other, more direct action to help.  Or by writing (filming, sharing...) a story about the actions of those that were willing to make an effort to create a better world have done for us already.

Related:  The Moral Consequences of Your Decisions - Society is being shaped for us while we are busy getting through another day - Giving More Than Money to Charity - You Can Help Reduce Extreme Poverty - Bad Behavior

Curious Cat List of Super Useful Websites

Here is a list of some super great web sites

1. Google - Google search is great, even if they are making it worse with all their fancy gimmicks.
2. Gmail - excellent email, great spam filter, wonderful search.
3. YouTube - Google does many things very well and YouTube in another example. It is idiotic how Google messes up YouTube results based on your geographic location, though. Access YouTube from the wrong place and Google provides lousy recommendations. Come on Google this is really lame. Some interesting channels: Crash Course, Google Tech Talks, @Google Talks, Maru the Cat.
4. Reddit - find other great stuff on this social site
5. Netflix - great online video content. It would be a great deal at twice the price (something I rarely believe) and in sharp contract to cable which is a rip off at half the current price). Geographic limitations are the biggest problem.
6. Trip Advisor - a travel site with great advice on attractions, food, hotels for tourists (or locals - food mainly).
7. Hipmunk - absolutely great site for making plane reservations, very good for hotels too.
8. Google Reader - a very nice way to manage RSS feeds
9. Amazon.com - great site for shopping, and buying and sending gifts.
10. Duck Duck Go - Google is really good. Search is extremely important, Duck Duck Go is my second choice now. I would really like to see more good options for search. Google is not doing as well as I would hope at helping me, but there are not great options.
11. Yahoo Finance - my only real use for Yahoo, frankly.
12. Hacker News - another good source of content around the web from a technical and savvy crowd.
13. BBC News - edited news site (old school). NPR is also very good.
14. The Daily What - a good way to take a break. Boing Bong, Neatorama and Mental Floss are a few more good options.
15. xkcd, Abstruse Goose - fun comics
16. Kiva, Global Giving - worthwhile charities using the web well.
17. TED - lots of great talks by people on interesting and important topics
18. Stack Overflow - great site for answers to specific technical questions.
19. This American Life, Radio Lab and Science Friday provide enjoyable audio content.
20. I should add good sources for university lecture content.

Great Tools

1. Firefox browser - Chrome is very good too.
2. Dropbox - share files, sync files..
3. Ubuntu - wonderful, free, operating system based on Linux (debian), great server software.
4. Wordpress - blog software
5. Mac Air - wonderfully small laptop
6. Ruby on Rails - for creating web application
7. Some VPN should be used if you travel or use wifi. There are tons to chose from.
8. a password manager is another must have for security.

Three popular sites that don't make the cut for me: Twitter and Wikipedia (I use) and Facebook (I don't).

Provide Web Users Notice of Obnoxious Behavior by Owners of Website

I would like to see someone create an plugin that would give a warning if you went to a site that had used obnoxious legal bullying to harras small sites. I realize policing who gets shown on such a list would be a big job. I would love to have someone reliable do this and then I could chose to just not deal with such sites (or decided well yeah I don't like using lawyers to bullying but I am willing to sell out my principle because this site is so cool I can't live without it).

The way to counter the strategy of paying lawyers lots of money to bully your small competitors is to setup a method that forces those companies to suffer the consequences for their decision. I would be happy to help that process, but I can't keep track of who is doing the bullying.

This type of providing better information so I (and others) can make informed decisions not to use sites with practices I find obnoxious is something I would really love to see. Both for this type of obnoxious behavior but really a platform could support all sorts of notices on whatever people object to (probably using lists from whatever they care about World Wildlife Fund, NRA, EFF or whoever).

I don't think the legal system is going to be reasonable. We need a solution that allows the market to enforce an acceptable code of conduct with consequences for being obnoxious (even if the legal system thinks it is fine).

I believe the marketplace would be greatly improved if we improved transparency to let us factor in bad behavior by companies to our decisions. I am sure tons of people don't care. But if enough people do care, it will mean companies have to pay for their decisions to engage in obnoxious behavior.

Comment on Hacker News related to: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network - help!

Related: How About Only Enforcing Copyright in Your Country if the Owner Allows Your Citizens To Buy Access - Good Behavior - AT&T's Attempt to Take Away Consumer's Rights Denied

When You HIre People That Principle Strength is Fleecing Others, Don't be Surprised When They Fleece You

Response to: JPM is Just a Symptom of Wider Corporate Governance Issue – Why Do Shareholders Matter Less and Less?

I have been outraged for quite some time by actions of corporate leaders taking from the corporation what they don't deserve. Sadly there are very few investment options to avoid insiders dipping buckets into the treasury and using it for their personal desires. Most of the time this is done within the bounds of the law (sometimes it isn't).

But when you want to invest in stocks sadly it is a matter of only excluding the most abusive executives from consideration (which includes any large financial institution I looked at so I never invested in them in the last 15 years). If you tried to exclude all companies that were being ripped off by the executives you can't find enough decent options. So you have to accept a certain percentage of the profits will be lost due to executive shrinkage.

They act like cleptocrate dictators - taking from what is owed to others because they can get away with it - not because it is somehow deserved. I have written about this over the years 2005: Excessive executive pay 2006: Obscene CEO Pay 2007: No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota or Honda, where Honda has Never had Layoffs and has been Profitable Every Year 2008: CEOs Plundering Corporate Coffers 2009: Another Year of CEOs Taking Hugely Excessive Pay - CEO’s Castles and Company Performance 2011: Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style 2012: Massively Unjust Executive Compensation Damages Companies and Investments

The issue of shareholders finally getting tired of being ripped off by the executives of their companies reminds me of the statement by Martin Niemoeller "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist... Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me." The executives taking what they don't deserve isn't as important as societies not speaking up as liberty is taken away by police states but the process is similar.

Most of the people running our companies have no business doing so. They don't have the moral fiber to do so properly. They have systemically denied reasonable pay to employees, denied reasonable customer service to customers, denied to pay taxes owed (fleecing foolish tax authorities)... All in the name of taking more for themselves. It is not wonder, when their main focus seems to be how to fleece those they should be providing value to, that they turn on the owners and fleece them as they run out of others to fleece.

Using Twitter Data to Improve Search Results

Doesn't it seem pretty obvious that it would be possible to use Twitter mentions to improve search results?

I understand you would have to deal with people trying to "game the system."  Google seems pretty good at doing this.

The nofollow attribute was suggested by Google as a way of marking untrusted links.  I don't believe the application of that is great, but that was Google's plan.  One weakness is the nofollow name is not the same message as untrusted link.  This might not have mattered to Google originally but when you add confusion unnecessarily you open the door to problems.

Google then added to the problems by declaring paid for links should also be nofollow.  Again Google confusing the issue - if they want paid links noted as paid it is fine for them to say that is what they would like.  And if they want to treat paid links the same as untrusted links that is their option.  I think it is a mistake but it is their option.  Telling people they are suppose to mark links as nofollow when they are paid seems confused and lame to me.

Lately I have heard sources quote Google as saying we can't follow Twitter links because they told us not to.  And those are saying that using the untrusted link text Google asked them to was how Twitter told Google not to follow the links.

So anyway here we are today and there are many ways for a search engine to decide some Twitter accounts are trustworthy and that links from those accounts are an indication of the merit of the site linked to.  Why would you not use this information?  Even if Twitter told you the links were untrustworthy (because they were worried about sanctions Google might impose if they linked to sites Google didn't like without making those links nofollow) that doesn't mean you couldn't use the data from Twitter links to improve results.

Maybe in the decision to use the term nofollow and then set standards for what Google would do around this link Google has put themselves in a position where they can't follow nofollow links and do what they said they would do.  I am not sure about this.  But if they can't take advantage of useful data to make search results better due to their previous mistake of calling a untrusted link nofollow they should correct that failure.

If sites want to tell Google not to follow links that is fine (to preserve server bandwidth or just because they don't like Google or whatever).  But, I believe, most nofollow links are now used to

   1) avoid sanctions by Google
   2) keep "link juice" for the monetary benefit of the site that makes the link nofollow (ironically, that makes the non-nofollow links "follow" links essentially for monetary gain, which somewhat subverts Google's desire to remove monetary incentive from placing links)

It seems foolish to me to not use information that could make search results better.  It seems to me valuable information to make search results better is now clouded by nofollow links.  I certainly would be using that information if it were up to me.  And my guess is you can use a large part of it even if the past decisions mean you can't follow the links (this likely would make the silly use of link shorteners more of an issue - but at least the urls that are actually shown could be used to improve search results).

I am pretty sure Google ignores useful measures hidden in nofollow data.  I woudl guess the other search sites are ignoring it too, but I am not sure.

Related: Viewing Unpersonalized Google Search Results - Google Rank Patent for Delegation Authority Factors

PageRank Updates for May 2012

Pagerank is a value given to the links coming into a web page on a logarithmic scale. So a PR of 2 is 10 times greater than PR 1 and 100 less than PR 4. MozRank is a similar measure, developed by a separate company that is updated much more frequently. See more details on this topic in my previous post: Google PageRank and MozRank of some of my pages (Oct 2011)

Google updates the visible PageRank occasionally (often about every 3 months). The real pagerank Google updates much more frequently (it is only the pagerank shared with the rest of us that is only updated occasionally.

Check the current pagerank on your sites using our related site: Multiple Site PageRank checker.

Site	May 2012 [MozRank]	Oct 2011	April 2011	Dec 2010	Dec 2008	July 2008
PageRank 5 and MozRank > 5
Curious Cat Engineering and Science Blog	5 [5.6]
Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections*	5 [5.5]	5 [5.5]	5	4	3	3
John Hunter	5 [5.5]	4 [5.4]	4	4	4	4
Curious Cat Engineering and Science Blog	5 [5.4]	6 [5.3]	6	4	5	5
CSS 4 Free	5 [5.4]	4 [5.4]	4	4	4	5
Management Dictionary*	5 [5.3]	5 [5.4]	5	4	3	3
Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site*	5 [5.1]	5 [4.97]	5	4
PageRank 4 and MozRank > 5
Curiouscat.com	4 [5.6]	4 [5.6]	5	4	3	3
Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog	4 [5.5]	4 [5.3]	4	3	4	4
externs.com - internship directory	4 [5.3]	4 [5.2]	4	4	4	4
Investment Dictionary*	4 [5.3]	4 [5.2]	4
Management and Leadership Quotes	4 [5.2]	2 [5.2]	2	2
Curious Cat Travel Photo Blog	4 [5.1]	3 [4.9]	3	-
Lean Management Resources*	4 [5.1]	4 [5.0]	4	4
Six Sigma Management Resources*	4 [5.0]	4 [5.0]	4
Alumni Connections*	4 [5.2]	4 [5.0]	4	4	4	5
Statistics for Experimenters	4 [5.0]	3 [4.5]	3	4	3	4
The Future is Engineering*	4 [5.0]	4 [4.7]	5	5
Credit Card Tips	4 [5.0]	4 [4.6]	3
Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership*	? [5.0]	4 [4.7]	5	4	4
PageRank 4 and MozRank > 4
PDSA Improvement Cycle*	4 [4.9]	4 [4.9]	4
Life and Legacy of William Hunter (my father)	4 [4.8]	4 [4.5]	4	4	4
Rocky Mountain National Park photos*	4 [4.7]	4 [4.8]	4	3	-	2
Multi Site PageRank Checker	4 [4.7]	3 [4.7]	2	2	1	3
Curious Cat Code (programming)	4 [4.6] **new url	4 [4.2]	0	0
Living in Singapore	4 [4.5]	3 [4.0]	-
Curious Cat Gadgets	4 [4.5]	-	-
Mortgage Rate Article*	4 [4.4]	4 [3.8]	4
Curious Cat Web Directory	4 [4.3]	4 [4.7]	**	3	3	4
Hexawise Software Testing Blog	3 [4.3]	-	-	-	-
Curious Cat Management Comments	4 [4.1]
PageRank 3 and MozRank > 3
The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer*	3 [5.0]	4 [4.7]	5	4	3
Deming's Management Method*	3 [4.6]	4 [4.5]	4	4
Living in Malaysia	3 [4.6]	3 [4.1]	-
Architecture and home design inspiration	3 [4.4]	-	-
Good Process Improvement Practices*	3 [4.1]	3 [3.8]
Management Improvement Resources	3 [4.1]	3 [3.8]	3	3	3
Justin Hunter (my brother)	3 [4.0]	2 [2.9]	2	2	2
Curious Cat Comments (this blog)	3 [4.0]	- [3.8]	-		3	3
Best Research University Rankings*	3 [3.97]	3 [3.8]	3	3	4
PageRank 2 and MozRank > 3
Johor Bahru Real Estate	2 [4.2]	-	-
Parfrey's Glen, Wisconsin Photos	2 [3.6]	2 [3.8]	2	2	-
Curious Cat Travel Destinations	2 [3.2]	-	-	-	-	-
CuriousCat Wordpress	2 [3.1]	-	-	-	-	-
PageRank 2 and MozRank > 2 (or non MozRank - new pages)
Curious Cat Travel Destinations: France	2 [2.4]	-	-	-	-	-
Curious Cat Travel Destinations: Australia	2 [-]	-	-
Curious Cat Travel Destinations: Marina Bay Sands (Singapore)	2 [-]	-	-	-	-	-
No PageRank
My Kiva page	u [4.0]	- [4.0]	-			3
Reddit management*	u [4.0]	4 [u]	7	4	0

* internal pages
** new url, old url forwarded
- didn't exist yet
u unranked
[blank] I don't know what the pagerank was, sometimes the site didn't exist yet.
*** Google doesn't say they use a scale of 10 for the logarithmic PageRank. It seems as good a guess and any and is easier to picture so I use that until we have some new evidence.

I have noticed a continued trend over the last 6-12 months for more instances of internal pages having Google Page Rank of 3 and above. For several years this seemed to be greatly reduced, in my experience.

The displayed pagerank is mainly a fun measure, rather than a measure of much importance. But I still find it fun to look at the pagerank values - except when they go down for my sites :-( Now I can take some solace if the MozRank goes up :-)

Related: Web Page Authority - PageRank Distribution - Google's Search Results - Should Factors Other Than User Value be Used

Can Mental Health Treatment Facilities Notice Healthy People?

On Being Sane In Insane Places by David L. Rosenhan

Despite their public “show” of sanity, the pseudopatients were never detected. Admitted, except in one case, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia,[4] each was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia “in remission.” The label “in remission” should in no way be dismissed as a formality, for at no time during any hospitalization had any question been raised about any pseudopatient’s simulation. Nor are there any indications in the hospital records that the pseudopatient’s status was suspect. Rather, the evidence is strong that, once labeled schizophrenic, the pseudopatient was stuck with that label. If the pseudopatient was to be discharged, he must naturally be “in remission”; but he was not sane, nor, in the institution’s view, had he ever been sane. The uniform failure to recognize sanity cannot be attributed to the quality of the hospitals, for, although there were considerable variations among them, several are considered excellent. Nor can it be alleged that there was simply not enough time to observe the pseudopatients. Length of hospitalization ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days. The pseudopatients were not, in fact, carefully observed, but this failure speaks more to traditions within psychiatric hospitals than to lack of opportunity. Finally, it cannot be said that the failure to recognize the pseudopatients' sanity was due to the fact that they were not behaving sanely. While there was clearly some tension present in all of them, their daily visitors could detect no serious behavioral consequences—nor, indeed, could other patients. It was quite common for the patients to “detect” the pseudopatient’s sanity. During the first three hospitalizations, when accurate counts were kept, 35 of a total of 118 patients on the admissions ward voiced their suspicions, some vigorously. “You’re not crazy. You’re a journalist, or a professor (referring to the continual note-taking). You’re checking up on the hospital.” While most of the patients were reassured by the pseudopatient’s insistence that he had been sick before he came in but was fine now, some continued to believe that the pseudopatient was sane throughout his hospitalization. The fact that the patients often recognized normality when staff did not raises important questions.

This study was done in 1973, do you think the results would be any better today? In looking around for current research I can't find much (that may be my fault). It does seem to me if mental health organizations or educational institutions cared about improvement they would do more real world research on what happens. I'm not sure who makes money from improving it so if the research has to be funded by someone with money to gain from the research that may explain it. That isn't a very healthy place for a health care system to be in.

Employee Benefits: Concierge Services

I would have to say actually good concierge services would rank very high up on my list of benefits I would actually care about a company providing.  If the services are lame then it is probably more trouble than it is worth.  But good concierge services would be a great benefit.

Some services help you fight the HMO nightmare.  That would be another useful service (though one I guess companies would be less willing to provide.  A great basketball gym would be high on my list also.  As would flexible work schedules and telecommuting.


My Personal To-Do List? The Concierge Has It

When Jonathan Swanson, a warehouse associate at Mercedes-Benz USA, was planning his honeymoon, he didn’t log on to a travel Web site or start a Google search. Instead, he picked up the phone and called Circles, a 24-hour personal concierge service that is a free benefit available to Mercedes-Benz USA employees.

The biggest thing I want now it to pay someone to do the stuff that is a bother for me.  My attempts (to get this myself) so far show it isn't as easy as it sounds.  Getting service that is actually good enough is tricky (often you waste so much time trying to explain what is needed you save none).  Also I can't fit a huge cost in my budget so the services have to be fairly cheap (the larger companies tend to be hugely expensive).

Systemic Waste in Society

The Caging of America

there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height
...
in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that.

The amount of wasted human potential and direct costs of such huge numbers of people in prison is a huge loss to society.  Along with things like our broken health care system the damage to our society is enormous and yet we don't seem to be very interested in fixing the problem.


Sadly this is fairly typical; we don't seem to be interested in fixing any of our problems.  Instead we just seem to hope the good forces (entrepreneurism, successful businesses, scientific breakthroughs, existing wealth, hard work...) can do enough to make up for the wastes (prison, bailouts for too-big-to-fail-institutions, healthcare costs, anti-market favors for big political donors [flawed intellectual property rules, failure to preserve competitive markets - allowing companies to buy competitors to eliminate competition...], security theatre...).

Using Bayesian Analysis to Filter Hacker News To Your Preferences

Very cool post on code to use bayesian analysis to filter Hacker News for your preferences. My comment:

Very cool. It would be nice if you could include data on users that up-voted the story. My guess is you don't have access to that data though. But if you did I would think that could be a very useful test. Even getting things like if these 2 or 3 people liked it super big bonus points... And even learning, either bozos that like stupid stuff or spammers so that if it learns big up-votes from those people is a negative (not a positive). At the very beginning of using Reddit I thought they were doing that kind of stuff when displaying the home page. I thought my preferences were being stored so that it could judge what I would like (not just to bump that story up). It would be cool if Reddit and/or HN could at least let us say add this person to my recommended list (and then highlight all stories those people up-vote).

Systems Thinking: The Later You Are Picked The Better Off You Are

As a kid I would hear people say how mean it was to have kids being picked for sports.  Which mainly made me think of how incredibly wimpy we have become.  But that isn't what got me writing this post.  I always figured the later I got picked the better.  My team was going to be pulled from the same pool of people.  My belief was people could judge the ability of others to some extent but with plenty of room for error.

So if I am the second person chosen that means my team will be filled would likely have a significantly worse teammate than if I am the second to last person chosen.  This first came up in gym class.  I really couldn't understand this pretty obvious analysis was not appreciated by people.  I still don't, frankly.  But I do think I now understand psychology a bit better.

It is a rather silly bit of psychology that leads people to worry about when they are selected.  But lots of people let themselves get worked up with silly psychology when they would be better off realizing how silly it is to worry about some thing they can choose to let bother them.

I can understand kids wanting to be liked and appreciated.  Attaching much value to what order you are chosen for in some sport to your desire to be liked a appreciated is pretty silly.  But I suppose if lots of kids do it (which may well be true) perhaps eliminating picking sides is a fine counter-measure.  My desire would actually be to have us learn not to worry about stuff that shouldn't worry us (build up emotional intelligence instead of deciding anything that might potentially make anyone uncomfortable needs to be avoided).  But if we are unable to that, fine not having kids pick the teams is ok.

The value of being picked later increases in pick up games.  When the winning team gets to keep playing, while the losers might have to sit out until it is their turn again.  My appearance on the court has never been very impressive so I am often picked later than I probably would be if I looked more impressive.  And that has helped me be on better teams more frequently.

I see it as my innate appreciation of systems thinking that let me see the value of being picked late.  The only time this would worry me is if there were more people waiting to play than spots to be chosen, then I had to hope I didn't drop so far I had to sit out the first game.

If I played at the same place too often my advantage of being picked really late often suffered.  Still it is funny because quite often the person that is suppose to cover me is blamed (how could you let that bozo score), more than I am credited so I can still be picked later and gain that advantage.

I realize some kids won't be able to understand the logic that the best result is for them to be picked later.  But you might want to give it a try.  Perhaps it can jump start an interest in thinking about what system impacts different scenarios have.  And how you can benefit from situations where others might try to make you think you should feel sad.

Related:  Flaws in Understanding Psychology Lead to Flawed Management - The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

Make Your Blog Welcoming

Good tips to make your blog welcoming, for first time and new visitors:

1) have a design that is distinctive (readers judge credibility partially on design) - also for 2nd and 3rd time readers it helps to have something they remember visiting before.
2) A photo of you helps as people connect visually. Which also helps them remember site on future visits.
3) About page that tells them what this place is about.
4) Let them see a list of popular posts, favorite posts...
5) Categories or tags can help - they can see what you focus on and can find more on topics they are interested in
6) Make RSS subscription link easy to see Curious Cat Management blog - About us page Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog - about us page

USA Falls to 47th in Press Freedom Ranking

Reporters Without Borders released the latest ranking of countries press freedom. The United States fell 27 places to 47th due to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests. It is one more indication of the erosion of liberty in the USA. Related: Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress - Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans

Money Is Corrupting Our Political Process

I like capitalism.  I support those who provide benefit to society (as expressed by the market) being rewarded with money by the market.

We have allowed our politicians in the USA to focus on money instead of doing the business of the people.  The corruption is fundamental and endemic.  The liberty the founders of the USA gave us an opportunity to enjoy has been greatly impinged upon and the system continues to do harm.

It is hard to appreciate and understand the situation.  Those benefiting from the current system are very effective at using every lever they have to continue the current corrupt system.  Lawrence Lessig provides an excellent review of where we are.



Related: rootstrikers - Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress  - Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans - Health Care System Needs Much More Reform - Lessig Video: Information Revolution

Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress

Written for my management blog blackout in support of those fighting SOPA and PIPA:


This site is participating in the SOPA/PIPA blackout day. Sadly I don't have a simple way to just have this page for the USA and I decided having it show for everyone was better than not showing it.

As this is a management blog, I would like to explain my analysis of this situation. The SOPA and PIPA bills are not special cause results. They are the natural outcome of the current anti-liberty system in place in Washington DC. As such the proper counter-measure is not to band-aid this negative outcome and think you have done well. If you need a band-aid counter measure immediately, that is fine. But if you don't then look at the system creating that result: the bad result will just reappear.

My belief on the systemic cause is the anti-liberty sentiment in congress. This creates the conditions where lots of extremely bad anti-liberty laws are proposed and passed. SOPA and PIPA happened to be so horrible that an huge outcry they couldn't ignore and push through (most likely, it is still possible they might). But that is all. SOPA and PIPA are the natural result of the current system. They are not some special outlier that you can block and then be confident the system is working.

There are a few other systemic issues that contribute to the extremely bad law that SOPA and PIPA would be. A profound lack of basic understanding of technology. A profound lack of understanding of copyright. Those are compounded by a profound lack of respect of knowledge (so ignorance is not seen as any reason to act cautiously or seek expertise). A system where large amounts of cash seem to drive policy much more than anything else. Add those to the anti-liberty agenda of the last decade and you will continue to get SOPAs and PIPAs.

Where we are today
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" - Wendell Phillips
which is often quoted as "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" and attributed to Thomas Jefferson

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Richard Jackson (maybe)

Those outside the USA
Several other countries have already had the USA coerce their governments into adopting legislation desired by those who "donated" (in other words gave cash to) American politicians. I am surprised none of those countries has reversed the decision to harm their citizens as a favor to those paying American politicians cash but I don't think any have. If you live in one of those countries maybe you should see about getting rid of the people that do such things to your country. And the State Department may well be pressuring for SOPA like laws right now.

The USA's Anti-Liberty Agenda
Sadly the USA has been on a kick to reduce liberty and increase government and corporate power over liberty of citizens. I have written about the attacks on liberty on another of my blogs.

SOPA and PIPA are the recent outcome of this mindset of those in congress today. The attempts to payoff a few of the lobbyists that give them large amounts of cash has resulted in many bills; SOPA and PIPA being the current examples. They have become so used to egregious anti-liberty legislation being ignored that they allowed the lobbyists to go so far in writing SOPA and PIPA that even the normal apathy was overcome.

It appears they realize the price of their favors to those giving them lots of cash (for their campaigns) is too high in this case. People actually noticed how egregious the attacks on liberty were. And the reactions by those people have made it seem that the consequences to the politicians of passing the law (that they wanted to pass before the consequences to themselves was made obvious) are now too high.

Given past conduct I would expect them to bow to the current pressure and just sneak in most of the bad policy (to pay back those giving them cash) into future bills. They also seem to be trying to say by getting rid of a couple of the most vile parts of the laws that the rest of the payoffs to those giving them cash should be ok.

I was amazed when the politicians were able to withstand the maelstrom of criticism about he security theater/anti-liberty practices of TSA. So how far they are willing to fight in order to pay off contributors and further the anti-liberty agenda I am not sure. But the evidence seems to be pretty far. I would expect they will not learn from this and continue their normal conduct, which will mean continued attempts to pass similar measures.

Until we refuse to elect people that are willing to sacrifice liberty for their personal short term interests we have risks of such laws passing. Only extraordinary efforts seem capable of rolling back small pieces of the anti-liberty agenda currently being pushed by both parties in Washington DC. But it is only because the public lets them get away with it. So it is really our problem. If we want to stop the anti-liberty agenda (of which SOPA and PIPA are a minor, though dramatically flawed example) we need to stop electing those that support it.

There is an App to Help You Avoid Supporting Companies Actively Undermining Your Rights through their support for SOPA and PIPA.

Librarians Standing Up to the Madness

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me."
Martin Niemoeller



SOPA/PIPA resources:


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

• How PIPA and SOPA Violate Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation

• Letter from people that understand the internet about the huge problems with SOPA/PIPA

App to Help You Avoid Supporting Companies Actively Undermining Your Rights

Use the power of the internet to avoid supporting companies that actively seek to take away your rights: Android app to scan bar codes and reveal if the company supports taking away your liberty via SOPA. I am all for these kind of transparency initiatives. Shinning the light on the dirty dealing going on is a way to clean things up. Given that we chose to elect people that are more concerned with pleasing those that give them cash that protecting liberty it is more important that we act on our beliefs (or we will see them sold away). With transparency we can then choose what we want to support. I believe, with transparency many will decide they don't really care about principle and can more about whatever is cheapest or easiest. At least we then get the society we chose. I may well not like some of the choices, but I would rather have transparency let people make the choices than the lobbyist written legislation we have slipped into the last few decades. If there turn out to be consequences for trying to remove basic rights from people, companies will stop. Otherwise they will continue. Related: Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans - Liberty Again Denied, It is Sad How Little We Care - Freedom Increasingly at Risk