Understanding Technology and Programing is Vital

In the future, will we *all* have to code?

However, if you want to put together a quick prototype, but use real content, then that kind of implies hooking it into a back-end database.
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David Haynes from Soundcloud suggest that developers are the people who are shaping the sound of modern music. And there is a constant debate these days in the journalism world about whether journalists need to learn how to code.

So, are we all going to have to learn how to code?
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[pairing] allows both parties to use their areas of expertise to develop something that is potentially bigger than the sum of its parts, rather than dumbing down software development to a commodity level.

Oh, and just a little something to throw into the mix - the pressure seems to be coming from both directions. Last week Tyler Tate posted “Why developers should become UX designers”

I believe most importantly we will all need to have a coding mentality. The world has changed from 50 years ago. It is hard to imagine making serious decisions about priorities for most any organization without a basic appreciation of coding. Here I am talking about something a bit different than you, I am talking about program managers that are not going to be doing anything related to creating the code behind the effort and executives... I don't understand how people think they can continue to be ignorant about technology and hope to be relevant. I don't think you need to have the knowledge to code yourself but you need to be much more knowledgeable than most people are today. And really if you are under 40 (maybe over that you can hope to slide by into the sunset without suffering too much from your ignorance but that is a dangerous gamble), I think you have to try to pick up coding in simple ways. Not to be an expert but to be able to at least understand the capabilities, the tradeoffs, databases, Ux principles...

My guess is over the next 20 years we will figure out much better ways to let people gain knowledge of coding ideas without having to become coders. But until then I think it is imperative for most people to realize to comprehend the modern world they need to gain an understanding of coding (even if they are not going to be an expert).

I agree strongly with your thoughts on pairing with experts. It is much easier to pair if you at least comprehend the general ideas of the others areas of expertise. I don't think it is great to dumb things down to the level one expert can do the others job. But I think it is critical to understand that your expertise is part of a system. The Ux is part of the solution. Coding is part of the solution. The whole is what matters.

However, if you want to put together a quick prototype, but use real content"

Absolutely. Prototypes without real data lose a great deal. Super quick, first drafts maybe that is ok. But quickly getting to prototypes that are integrated with real data should be the goal.

Related: Management By IT Crowd Bosses - Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work - Involve IT Staff in Business Process Improvement - Internet Access at Work

Making Money from Your Yard

I don't spend anything on yard maintenance. Though I do occasionally buy new plants and use water. Things grow fine. I put weeds occasionally. And use an electric mower for the lawn.

Not only that I eat from my yard. In reality this doesn't save a huge amount, though it does save some. It is much more about getting yummy food that is also healthy. The amount I spend for tomatoes plants say is easily paid back with the food produced. My favorite is wine berries and those I paid nothing for (a bird helped me plant them, I think). I bought 2 blackberry plants years ago and they keep spreading and giving me yummy food for free.

I also feed the backyard wildlife (which include butterflies, chipmunks, hummingbirds, robins, crows, turtles, rabbits, hawks, love birds, bees, squires, woodpeckers, preying mantises, ants even a fox) by planting (butterfly bush) and encouraging plants (holly trees and bushes - transplanting little ones that sprout, berries that sprout, mimosa trees...) that have food for animals.

I also have plenty of flowers that just return year after year: First Flowers of Spring, Spring Tulips.

Related: Growing Lettuce in My Backyard - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Is the stock market efficient?

I believe in weak stock market efficiency. I believe that the market does a good job of factoring in news and conditions but that the "wisdom of crowds" is far from perfect. There are plenty of valuing weaknesses that can lead to inefficient pricing and opportunities for gain. The simplest of those are spotted and then adopted by enough money that they become efficient and don't allow significant gains.

And a big problem for investors is that while I think there are plenty of inefficiencies to take advantage of finding them and investing successfully is quite hard. And so most that try do not succeed (do not get a return that justifies their time and risk - overall trying to take advantage of inefficiencies is likely to be more risky). Some Inefficiencies however seem to persist and allow low risk gains - such as investing in boring undervalued stocks. Read Ben Graham's books for great investing ideas.


Related: Market Inefficiencies and Efficient Market Theory - Lazy Portfolios Seven-year Winning Streak - investing in stocks

Productivity Growth and Government Debt

Who reaps the rewards of productivity?

Productivity matters for the prosperity of children because it measures the amount that an average worker produces in an hour of work. If productivity rises by 10% over three years, that means that we can produce 10% more output with the same amount of work than we could three years ago. The size of the economy was roughly $14tn three years. A 10% rise in productivity means that we can produce approximately $1.4tn more this year with the same amount of work. This would come to an additional $18,000 a year for an average family of four.

Alternatively, a 10% rise in productivity would mean that we could produce the same amount of output as we did three years ago, while working 10% less time.
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At this point, the politicians start screaming about the debt bankrupting our kids. The problem with this claim is that our kids will own the debt. At some point, all of us will be dead, meaning that the people who hold the bonds that constitute the debt will be our children and grandchildren.

How can holding government bonds make our children bankrupt?

The author dismisses the problem of foreign ownership of government debt erroneously. The problem is if you have to pay foreigners the interest that is essentially a tax on current production to pay for past overspending.

Japan has far more government debt than other countries. http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2010/10/18/government-debt-as-percentage-of-gdp-1990-2009-usa-japan-germany-china%E2%80%A6/ Yet that is not as big a problem as it seems as they owe most of it to themselves. That is still not a great condition to be in but it means you will just have to pay a portion of yearly production to pay off a segment of society that owns that debt (it stays within your country).

Now all of this gets much more messy nowadays as the borders are much more transparent and movement is much easier...

I agree that productivity improvements are great and will help with the problem. But you have to understand that productivity measurements are extremely unreliable. All economic data has issues (see all the consternation over unemployment and inflation data) but productivity measures may well be the most problematic. They rely on significant guesses about what is really going on and have issues with short term unsustainable 'gains' often due to layoff, cutting maintenance... (things that get better productivity numbers but may well just be measurement issues not sustainable productivity improvements).

The author does correctly point out the problem of foreign ownership of debt is due to us living beyond our means (not in those words though) and borrowing from foreigners to sustain this level of comfort (just like the government is doing itself).

Related: The USA Economy Needs to Reduce Personal and Government Debt - Government Debt, Greece is a Very Small Part of the Problem - Dollar Decline Due to Government Debt or Total Debt? - Economic Measurement Issues Arising from Globalization

Google Rank Patent for Delegation Authority Factors

Delegated authority evaluation system (patent application)

The evaluation system is managed by a primary authority that designates one or more contributing authorities by delegating to each a specific quantity of authority.
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Each contributing authority, and optionally the primary authority itself, may evaluate one or more portions of content by associating a rating with each evaluated portion of content. A composite rating for a particular portion of content may then be determined based upon the ratings associated with the portion of content. Preferably, the ratings are combined in a manner that affords a higher priority to the ratings provided by contributing authorities to which a greater quantity of authority was delegated.

The Evolution of Google Ratings (Experts Delegating Authority)?

The important part of the patent is that this rating system involves experts on specific topics, who might delegate some of their authority to others when providing ratings.
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Maybe elements of this rating system might be incorporated into the social network that Google is said to be launching sometime next year.

Couldn't they also just tweak the pagerank passed to be somewhat more user-definable. I could to pass 40% of the pagerank to x link and split up the rest to all links. And adding it to be specifically targeted to keywords wouldn't be that hard. The bigger problem, I would think, is getting people to spend their time doing that. So somehow meta tools would be needed to make this practical. I am not sure how they would work but I could imagine some such system working pretty well.

There would obviously be all sorts of gaming risks that would have to be dealt with somehow.

Google does now provide search results enhanced by your social network (showing links they tweeted...). My guess is Google increases the rank of those pages - though maybe they leave the rank the same and just add a little note for you to see.

6 years Later Goolge Acts To Let Me Block Sites I don't want to see

A bit over 6 years ago I suggested a few things to improve Google search results (Jan 2005) they have finally adopted the feature:

Ability to restrict sites from the search results in my preferences (Google doesn't seem to be able to restrict certain obvious spam names databases from results, so let me do so myself. It would be best if there could be filter lists that are maintained by various communities that I could choose to apply. I can imagine there are technical hurdles to overcome to make this a reality).

Then I posted about how Google should improve, again a year later

Let me remove web sites from my default searches. I would imagine this could even be used to help Google’s normal search results by getting a sense of sites huge numbers of people “block” The same spam sites show up for searches and I would rather block them if Google can’t figure out how to do so.

Hide sites to find more of what you want

We’re adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalized and enjoyable experience on Google. In addition, while we’re not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future.

Better later than never. But 6 internet years is a long time to wait.

Related: Google Social Circle Results - Search Share Data, Checking the ACSI - find management content online

Education, Training and Employment

Education and employment

we ought to have... far more widespread, transparent and effective systems for labour market matching between job-seekers and openings, taking into account what really makes the difference between "just a job" and genuine employee engagement, satisfaction and development.

I agree with this sentiment to some extent. I also didn't expect much of any direct connection when I was a student. I like studying economics but I really don't see the value in many economics students actually being practicing economists. I figured I was getting a education that would allow me to learn and adapt throughout my life - the old fashioned idea of liberal arts education. I think that is great for many people.

But more people seem to want to finish school with skills (using college as a technical school but that they can see as superior to technical schools). And I think the market for these types of customer/students probably exceeds that wanting to be educated in a broad, and not necessarily directly applicable sense.

I also believe that even with a liberal arts education it makes sense to make it relevant. To participate in modern society without an understanding of science and technology is very limiting.

Related: A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers - Applying Lean Management Tools to University Courses - Innovative Science and Engineering Higher Education - The Future is Engineering

Health Care System Remains Broken, Neglected

I think the real problem is decades of resistance to fundamental change. The health care system in the USA has been broken for decades and resisted change to bring costs and other burdens into line with other rich countries. Piling on decades of neglect to a system broken decades ago has left a huge (huge - over 17% of GDP, costs twice as high as many other rich countries and results no better than average rich countries) problem. Trying to reform a huge broken system after the crisis point has been reached (where we are now) is very difficult. I think looking for short term causes of the current problems is deceptive. The real cause of the current mess is decades in the making.

The USA health care system is huge. Tons of great stuff has been done for decades. The problem is with such a huge system enormous problems remain and have festered for decades. I think things will get much worse (difficult to deal with the long overdue needed, improvement) before getting better. The system is unimaginably expensive and wasteful. The fundamental brokenness continues to be ignored. Even the good stuff being done now, seems to be minor compared to the fundamental changes needed.

The USA economy has many problems and strengths. The health care problem remains the largest - larger than investment banking, unemployment, unfunded liabilities (which the health care system is by far the largest factor - unfunded retire health care costs), huge jail population, education system needing improvement... The good news is the USA economy, even with all this, has enough strengths to carry the weak parts of the economy for decades to come. It is true however, that even the USA economy cannot carry huge under performing parts of the economy forever and remain strong. Of all the economic problems we face, failing to address the huge problems in the health care system is the most likely to lead to a dramatic decline in the USA's economic future. We have avoided systemic changes for decades. Year after year the problem grows (even with lots and lots of great things being done - which seem large but are unnoticeable within the enormous scope of the problem) - with the health care system not only costing more but a larger percentage of GDP EVERY YEAR for decades (I may be wrong but I think this is true). Dr. Deming pointed out the system was a deadly disease decades ago. And it has gotten worse (costing more and continuing huge economic problems - huge cost to business and people and huge worry, bankruptcies, focus on disease treatment not health care...).

I'm sorry to say I think things will get much more hectic in the coming decades than they have been as the cumulative effect of putting off needed system improvements for decades come home to roost.

Reaction to, Industry in Crisis

Across the nation delivery systems, policy makers, insurers and consultants are searching for new ways to solve problems or create value. Systems are banding together to form Accountable Care Organizations, we are reorganizing around Value Streams, Value Based Benefit plans are getting created to shape behaviors, large hospital systems are buying practices and consolidating the market etc. The list goes on and on.

The good news is that there seems to be more experimentation taking place than ever before and some ideas are gaining traction (just read Atul Gwande’s article last week in the New Yorker or my own organizations work in the Medical Home and Hospital Transitions). The challenge is that so many things are happening all at once that our current management systems are neither disciplined nor flexible enough to effectively manage this change.

Related: USA Heath Care System Needs Reform - CEOs Want Health-Care Reform - Health Care Crisis

Unemployment - hidden activity?

I Wonder How Many Unemployed Folks Are Hustling

But the idea here is that "hustling" is any kind of economic activity that you are not reporting to the government; either because you don't want to go to jail or just don't want to pay taxes or for them to know how much you make.
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Are my hypothetical self and this real life person the majority of the unemployed? Of course not. But you've got to at least wonder how many of them are out there.

Probably the most important part of that measure would be a measure of the change in that during the employment cycle. If it were say 2% of the population every year while the IRS might want to know it isn't a huge factor in thinking about the state of the economy and employment. If it is 8% of the population today, and was 2% 5 years ago, that would be more interesting and let you know the situation may not be as bad as you think (looking just at employment data). I personally doubt it is a significant macro-economic factor (the variation in it during the employment cycle).

Looking at this rate between countries would probably provide valuable information. Some of the Euro and bank scandals have shown the underpaying of taxes by Europeans and also the rich Americans suing to prevent disclosure of their fraudulent tax avoidance aided by large bailed out banks.

Related: How do I Know What Unemployment Statistics Mean? - Another 663,000 Jobs Lost in March, 2009 in the USA - Can Bankers Avoid Taking Responsibility Again?

The TSA doesn’t give a hoot about security

Jobs I am Glad I Don't Have

So, it appears that the TSA has a choice. Be vigorous in its inspection and be blasted for invasion of privacy, or use less rigorous methods, and face the consequences of missing dangerous materials.

I think you raise the wrong question. I think your question is similar to a CEO saying to Taiichi Ohno:

I care most about quality - providing excellent products to the customer. Either add more inspectors or tell me we have enough inspectors and tell me who we need to replace. The answer Taiichi Ohno would give is to change the way we work to be better, not just add more resources to try and cope with a bad system. More of my thoughts on the topic the TSA doesn't give a hoot about security.

There is another choice - find effective methods to improve quality (better security), reduce waste ($ spent by TSA, people wasting time in line...), respect people. There are many bad things about the current situation at airports they include:

• poor security measures (not well designed to reduce risks), and


• far too intrusive

Both should be fixed. As well as reducing waste. And the way to do so is to change the system - not either add to or take away from what is done now.

The front line TSA people are in a horrible situation. This is the classic situation where Dr. Deming would empathize with the employees and blast the senior leadership who have failed their customers and their employees.

Related: Bikinis For Liberty - Freedom Increasingly at Risk - Exposing Bad Behavior

Bikinis For Liberty

The United States Transportation Agency is choosing to take extremely controversial tactics. See the video for details. I am amazed that this hasn't been shut down extremely quickly. Normally such lunacy is not allowed to continue, no matter what fear tactics people try to use to justify their extremely disturbing actions. Such failures to watch the watchmen are often taken when it just seems easier to ignore that bad action because we can hope it won't happen again. This is just a nightmare it seems to me for all those who currently have already failed to stop this behavior. I will be amazed if senior officials are not gone within 1 month for allowing this to last more than 1 day. But I have been amazed before, so...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - TSA, Bert & Dogs<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Reddit, an online community, has a significant number of people that have been galvanized by this attack on liberty and want to take action to bring about change in how our government acts. And the first step is to look at bringing attention to the misdeeds.

A response to this attack on liberty requires a campaign. I ran across an wonderful idea as a comment on We Won't Fly. I wouldn't see this idea as the lead but as supporting campaign. There seem to be some powerfully good ideas that could form the foundation for a campaign, already. The idea is that you have a way to opt out of those 2 degradations (the "naked" scan or being groped) - go to the airport in a spedo or bikini. It seems to me creative ad people could make something good with that.

The idea isn't mine, I saw a comment from Clark:

I wonder, if some brave souls go to the airport in bikini or speedos would they be exempt from both types of searches?

I think it actually is a good option for people to chose. It is sad the government is forcing people to make such a choice, but given the governments options of degradation, this option, it seems to me may well be less degrading for most. And I can't image how they could try and require you to subject yourself to one of those degradations if you did make nearly everything visible.

It also has the advantage of providing some good news footage making visible the lengths people have to go to to avoid the governments heavy handed actions. It would seem to me a whole mass of people could go to the airport dressed like that for flights and it would make a pretty good photo op. Also it is the least confrontational of any of those such ideas (at least that I have seen).

I really am sick of how our country has allowed itself to degrade liberty to such an extent http://curiouscatlinks.blogspot.com/2008/04/freedom-increasingly-at-risk.html

"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

I understand there are risks the government is trying to mitigate. The actions they are taking now are not acceptable. They need to think and find much better solutions. And if they can't come up with them they need to resign and then be replaced with some people that can.

Related: Tired of Incompetent Government Harassment - Librarians Standing Up to the Madness - Failure to Address Systemic SWAT Raid Failures - Preaching False Ideas to Men Known to be Idiots - Shining the light on the actions of those in power

Pointless security - Unions tell pilots to avoid body scanners at airports - Growing anxiety over airport pat-downs and scanners

Curious, Joyful, Happy Kids Grow Up: Unfortunately

I must admit I find the wonder kids have amazingly refreshing. When I was a kid I just took it for granted. Now, unfortunately surrounded by way too many incurious, blasé, dreary adults I realize the kids really have a much better idea how to live than we adults do.

Have some fun. Have some fun with a cardboard box and a stick. Or a plastic dinosaur and a small firetruck. Or just reading a book, for the 56th time this year, about how some cat goes to the store.



Meanwhile I think an alien could appear on the subway and most of my fellow passengers would only be concerned if it was taking up too much space or blocked their exit, and if not, maybe not even notice it.

Hey, maybe this is why my parents always asked me "what did you do today?"
Me: [Jeez stop hounding me, Dad] "Nothing"
Actually what I did: played in a puddle; landed on the moon with Rachel and Dan and brought some moon rocks back to play with; learned that we named the people in North America, Indians, when Christopher Columbus came because we were completely wrong about who they actually were and somehow never got around to fixing that error (another strike against you crazy adults); and decided that really chocolate ice cream is better than spinach and adults don't have any idea what they are talking about.]

Me: [Why the heck do I want to talk about that stuff, you are an adult you must have done much cooler stuff. You get to do whatever you want, you are not trapped all day being ordered around by big adults who can make you do whatever they want :-(]. "Yuck, spinach" :-( [I can't wait until I get to just eat chocolate ice cream and no spinach]

Well maybe I now finally figured out why adults want to know what kids did every day - they might get some vicarious joy (having nearly forgotten how to find a falling leaf, or cool green shoe joyful). Now why people want to know what their spouse did, I still don't understand that :-)

Just watching the faces of adults and kids is amazing. Adults, by and large show no joy. A kid's face will show more joy when they see their Mom for the 8th time today than an adult will in the entire month. I just have to believe that is not a good sign.

As a kid I didn't think adults had much of a clue or very good reasons for why things had to be certain ways. Of course, as a kid, I was "unreasonable" and had to "wait to grow up" and then I would understand. I have to say I think my kid self had most of it right.

I didn't get how trapped we become as adults into day to day lives that we don't mean to chose - I did get that wrong. But I am not sure I was wrong that we shouldn't do that. But it is harder than I thought to avoid it (especially since I didn't think it was even a risk that an adult would be stuck doing stuff about as fun as being stuck in a chair and being lectured to with a bunch of other people all day long about stuff you often couldn't care about at all).

What is exciting to me now? Refinancing my mortgage at 3.75%. Now that is great. But, I think most 7 year olds have much better things they are excited about.

Photo of my nephews by my brother.

Related: The freedom to act before you have been trained to follow convention, at all costs - Sarah, aged 3, Learns About Soap - Letting Children Learn – Hole in the Wall Computers - Amy's Halloween Costume



Photo of my nephew at the Staten Island Children's Museum. We need to get back to that time when we spend through life in a blur of wonder and excitement.

Oregon, TCU, Boise State, Auburn...

Oregon, TCU and Boise State are all great college football teams. If Auburn wins their next 2 games they will be up there with those 3.

I hope we get TCU or Boise State in the championship game and the other versus Auburn, Oregon, LSU, Stanford or Alabama. Boise State v Oregon and TCU v. Auburn would be great. I think Boise State and TCU would beat most other teams badly - and probably would beat some of those teams above badly. On a good day one of the Big Ten schools might be able to be competitive but I think they would most likely be destroyed. I think even with a loss either TCU or Boise State are no worse than 5th. I am a long time Badger fan, we good this year but good about 15th, not good 7th...

Even though I think TCU and Boise State could be the best 2 teams I hope we don't get that as the title game. I really would rather see those 2 teams play and beat the best of the rest of the teams. Or fail to do so. Oregon might have a chance to beat them. Though I would favor TCU and Boise State against whatever team they play.

My ranking
1 - Oregon, TCU, Boise State
4 - Auburn
5 - LSU
6 - Stanford
7 - Wisconsin
8 - Michigan State
9 - Nebraska
10 - Iowa
11 - Arkansas
12 - Alabama
13 - Ohio State

I feel the teams from about 7 - 18 are very closely matched. The SEC is packed with very good teams. Unlike past years where schools that weren't that good were threatening to sneak by without deserving it. I think Boise State and TCU are clearly among the best few teams in the country.

Bad Government, Closed Access

Charging money for laws that people must follow. Great talk. We really do need to stop allowing special interests to so completely take from the public for very bad reasons. We need to replace dinosaurs that don't understand that closed, proprietary systems are dangerous and should be avoided when possible (and tolerated while continuing to look for better solutions).

Pulic.Resource.Org. Public.Resource.Org is a receipient of the Project 10100 Award from Google.

Related: Publishers Fight Progress Again - Against Amazon Kindle - What is Wrong with Copyright Taking Public Good for Private Special Interests - The Differences Between Culture and Code

Economic Freedom

The "Economic Freedom Index" Isn't

For example, by any valid measure of economic freedom, the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would have been considered an upward surge in statism and protectionism unequaled since (at least) the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. But Heritage, a co-creator of the Index, is one of the most strident advocates, inside the pseudo-libertarian beltway establishment, of global “intellectual property” enforcement expansion.

The Economic Freedom Index fails to distinguish between the primary, structural forms of state intervention that prop up corporate power, and the secondary, ameliorative forms of intervention that attempt to moderate its side effects. The state enforces a whole host of artificial property rights and artificial scarcities which serve as sources of economic rent to privileged firms, and maintains all sorts of regulatory cartels.
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If I didn't know better, if I didn't know that real free markets were the enemies of corporate power, I’d hate them myself.

Very well said. I completely agree with your statement that "real free markets were the enemies of corporate power." I find myself frustrated at those that argue capitalism is bad because... and then they talk about corporate welfare policies, policies aimed at paying off those that pay politicians etc.. That are not capitalism. And the others that claim they like capitalism and basically they just want the government to support big business interests and their policies. Real capitalism does a great job of providing economic wealth to the population. And it must be regulated sensible (that is part of capitalism not some add on). You need to regulate negative externalities (pollution etc.). You need to enforce the rule of law. It makes sense to have patents and copyright (but they need to balance the interests of the parties involved to promote societal benefit and individual reward, to encourage people to invest their time and resources).

Related: Copywrong - Have We Lost Our Capitalist Heritage? - China and the Sugar Industry Tax Consumers

Suicides: Foxconn, Cornell and the Golden Gate Bridge

Wrong on So Many Levels

Foxconn Installs Antijumping Nets at Hebei Plants. Anti-jumping nets?

Having built safety nets along its employee dormitories after a series of jumping suicides at its Shenzhen production plant, Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which uses the trade name Foxconn, is now installing the same sort of nets at some of its inland factories

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If things are so bad that people would rather hurl themselves off of tall buildings than work in a Foxconn factory (or even just go find a factory job down the street) it seems like Foxconn should put the nets on the doors of their factories to catch people from going in.
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The 42,000 employees in the Shenzhen plant assemble nearly 70% of the iPhones and iPads for Apple. There have been 10 factory workers who jumped to their deaths in the first 5 months of 2010 at the Shenzhen plant

It is wrong on many levels. I do think Apple has some responsibility. I do think human psychology around suicide is complex and confusing and cause and affect can be confused by correlation not cause.

Putting the nets there sure looks lame, and like non-root cause problems solving. But if they actually save lives then what? There are nets below the Golden Gate bridge (also to reduce suicide deaths) after quite a bit of debate. It sure takes a long time for them to act. 2 years later and still barely moving forward.

Cornell University has a long term problem with suicide jumpers, 6 this year - and they have installed suicide prevention fences:

Several suicides clustered in a close proximity of time and location, such as what Cornell experienced in late winter, are known to cause an "imitation" effect on vulnerable members of the community, elevating their risk of suicide. No one knows for sure how long the elevated risk can last, but the mental health professionals Cornell consulted said that it is very likely to continue for the foreseeable future and strongly recommended that temporary barriers remain in place while permanent means restriction measures are explored and designed.

I am not at all sure the suicide prevention nets at Foxconn are a bad idea. They certainly "look" (visually, and the image they convey is not being very root cause problem solving like) bad.

If we examine Cornell and Foxconn together what answers might we find? I think there are things to fix at Foxconn, but it is very easy for those of us the USA to just paint management as villainous. I don't think we will paint Cornell professors as villainous. Foxconn absolutely needs to do much more than put up nets. But whether putting up nets is good short term fix (like Cornell's) I think is at least debatable.

Problem solving can be quite complex. Especially with something like suicide where the causes are very likely to be varied and systemic. I doubt you will find one root cause. You may find at Foxcon: low wages (and the pressures that brings on as one factor - Foxconn doubled wages recently), lack of joy in work (to an extreme level - truly feeling like a cog in a machine with no hope), "imitation effect", homesickness (moving to the factor hundreds or miles from home and living in a dorm), youngness (hormones, lack of life experience, exaggerated importance... - similar at Cornell and Foxconn), perhaps abusive practices in the factory, perhaps other psychology in the factory (low light, long hours, painful work...), perhaps bullying of peers...

I think a good systemic solution will look at what I think all management should look at: practicing respect for people and creating joy in work. But that isn't an overnight solution, even if they wanted to pursue that strategy (which I don't see any evidence that they do). It will take time to change the system. It is something that I think can address the systemic root causes.

Related: Auto Manufacturing in 2009: USA 5.7 million, Japan 7.9 million, China 13.8 million - Motivate or Eliminate De-Motivation - USA, China and Japan Lead Manufacturing Output in 2008 - China’s Manufacturing Economy

They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love

Peter Scholtes was a friend. He wrote a great song: They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love (we are One in the Spirit). Here are several versions of the song:



Lyrics to They Will Know We are Christians by our Love:

We are one in the spirit we are one in the Lord
We are one in the spirit we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity will one day be restored

And they'll Know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.

We will walk with each other we will walk hand in hand
We will walk with each other we will walk hand in hand
And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land.

We will work with each other we will work side by side
We will work with each other we will work side by side
And we'll guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride

All praise to the father from whom all things come
And all praise to Christ Jesus his only son
And all praise to the spirit who makes us one.













Related: Books and articles by Peter Scholtes - Company Culture - Amazing Grace - John Dower

War is Horrible

War is horrible. It may well be necessary at times, unfortunately. But it is horrible and pretending otherwise is a mistake.

Unfortunately governments have taken advantage of several factors to hide the costs of war. We are by and large sheep that take whatever news the government gives (on military and security matters). The government decided to eliminate (or drastically reduce) images that would make us question war and paint anyone that finds this bad as potentially in league with the enemies. That we have taken such treatment is sad. We do have some journalist that write actual news but that seems to be something most news media types object to.

The Hidden Cost of War by Ron Paul

War is dirty and horrible and even in a good war (if such a thing exists, but lets just say it does) there will be tons of stuff that is very disturbing to see. I don't think the solution to that is to stop seeing the disturbing images, data... I believe we should do things that are sensible which can be seen as very bad and openly accept the criticism and explain why it is necessary.


But the government knows this is a bad strategy if your goal is to make people like you. Explaining why horrible things are necessary doesn't get people to like you, by and large. It is much easier to just smile and speak about abstract ideas and hope no-one looks behind the curtain. Most won't. It works well.
I suppose part of the explanation for why we don't demand more is that those that like the unexamined wars are good at selling their views. All the ridicules stuff they do where they try to claim any examination is an insult to the soldiers... Equating support of whatever they believe with patriotism and anyone criticizing those views as unpatriotic... They have learned that manipulating the media to manipulate the populace is much easier than honestly delving into the options, costs, risk and trade-offs that must be considered. But I would say mostly it is because we are sheep. And we don't like to hear bad news and about suffering. So we are perfectly willing to be ignorant of the cost of war.



And above I am focusing on the human costs of war. The killing, injuries, loss of freedom, loss of fathers, mental health problems of returning soldiers... The financial costs are also huge and as a conscious strategy of those who don't want to examine the costs of war largely left out of the debate.

The War on Terror is now more expensive than Vietnam or World War I—but the dishonest way Washington is paying for it may prove costliest of all. - The $3 Trillion War

A Warning from History: Don’t expect democracy in Iraq by John W. Dower, February, 2003.

Related: Iraq: the Human Cost - Preaching False Ideas to Men Known to be Idiots - National Book Award (1999): Embracing Defeat - Freedom Increasingly at Risk - Tired of Incompetent Government Harassment - The First Amendment - Walter Reed Patients Told to Keep Quiet

Google Voice for Everyone in the USA

I have been using Google Voice for a couple years now (from when it was Grand Central). It is great. Now it is openly available



The messages "transcribed" and sent to your email is nice (though it is still fairly lame). The ability to force unknown numbers to announce themselves before being put through to your phone is awesome. No more spam calls at all. You can also send calls to any of your phones based on show is calling. Basically it is great and it is free. There are lots of features I don't even use but the best features for me are call screening and emails with the voice messages. I don't have to worry about giving my phone number to business that will then abuse the information they were provided -
Google Voice gives me control over who can ring my phone and who must first leave a message.

Related: Droid Incredible - Kiss Your Phone Bill Good-bye - Save Money on Cell Phone Service, Price Reductions - Google Operating System (Chrome)

Adam Smith Supported Using Markets to Serve Society Not Robber Barrons

The Beast Unchained: Privatizing Up, Down, and Inside

If we cede our minds "in here" to the beasts of private enterprise, they will hold the keys to our global mind, and it will be to them that we will have to turn when the challenges before us demand that we apply our minds "in here" most keenly.

The fanciful idea behind unfettered free markets and private enterprise — Adam Smith's "invisible hand" — is the law of the jungle, in which we imagine that we can ride on the back of perfect predators, unchained from public regulation and common purpose.

Adam Smith did have great ideas on economics. However, those quoting him now often do him grave injustice. Including those that think he argued for an unregulated market. He was first a moral philosopher who looked at emerging capitalism to document how it markets work and detail that direct intervention was often not the ideal solution. Basically taking a systemic view that markets can react better at meeting some societal needs than individuals making decision.

Adam Smith completely understood businesses would seek unfair advantage in the market. For capitalism to work the market must be regulated. In addition, the externalities (pollution, risks…) are failing in the market – and must somehow be addressed for markets to work.

Adam Smith did not believe free markets were the end (the aim). He believed the greatest good to society would come when the market was allowed to operate efficiently but that those players in the market would attempt to subvert societal good for their own good and that needed to be managed.

We should not allow those seeking to take from society what they don't deserve to claim such immoral behavior (that Adam Smith saw as wrong) to claim support from Adam Smith for their desires.

Related: Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make - What Capitalism Is, And Is Not - There is No Invisible Hand