Stephan Fassmann

What iPads Did To My Family - Chuck's Blog

2010-05-06T18:56:00.000-06:00

What iPads Did To My Family - Chuck's Blog: "All the PCs and laptops are basically not being used.� All the Macs are not being used.� All have been powered off.

Everyone in the family is waiting for their turn at the iPad.

My wife asserted her rightful place in the hierarchy later that evening, and took it upstairs to the bedroom to relax while watching TV.� Tap, tap, tap.� Occasionally, she showed me something interesting she found online.� And smiling."

Most interesting.

Tom Asacker on unlocking hearts and minds: The three knobs

2010-01-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Tom Asacker on unlocking hearts and minds: The three knobs: "Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.”"

The whole article is the most profound things I read all year.

Baby, It's cold outside.

2009-12-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

It's only 12F and its going to snow for 3 days. Not fun.

1 shot of gene therapy and children with congenital blindness can now see | Science Codex

2009-11-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

1 shot of gene therapy and children with congenital blindness can now see | Science Codex: "Born with a retinal disease that made him legally blind, and would eventually leave him totally sightless, the nine-year-old boy used to sit in the back of the classroom, relying on the large print on an electronic screen and assisted by teacher aides. Now, after a single injection of genes that produce light-sensitive pigments in the back of his eye, he sits in front with classmates and participates in class without extra help. In the playground, he joins his classmates in playing his first game of softball."

Wow, do we live in an age of miracles or what.

E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy by Sol Stern, City Journal Autumn 2009

2009-11-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy by Sol Stern, City Journal Autumn 2009: "At his Senate confirmation hearing in February, Arne Duncan succinctly summarized the Obama administration’s approach to education reform: “We must build upon what works. We must stop doing what doesn’t work.” Since becoming education secretary, Duncan has launched a $4.3 billion federal “Race to the Top” initiative that encourages states to experiment with various accountability reforms. Yet he has ignored one state reform that has proven to work, as well as the education thinker whose ideas inspired it. The state is Massachusetts, and the education thinker is E. D. Hirsch, Jr."

I love to see ideas in conflict and what each side brings to bare.

Rural towns need to reinvent themselves

2009-10-30T16:58:00.000-06:00

Doughnut-Hole Country | Print Article | Newsweek.com: "But there are people maybe with young families or who tried urban living and wanted to opt out and try something else, who could be lured to the region—maybe not every 22-year-old, but maybe a 32-year-old who would think, 'This is great. I can raise my kids, I can buy a gigantic house. And as long as I have the digital infrastructure, I can telecommute. I can have a very good quality of life.' I think the lifestyle rural communities have to offer is really more compatible for young families."

I don't think much of cities, they were and still are a place to get people together so they are easier to control. Until very recently cities were the only way to get enough people together to divide up the labor so you could do something big. Like build millions of cars or manage billions of dollars. When our cities were build the only only way to talk to someone was to walk or hop on a horse and ride to meet them in person or send a letter that took the same methods.

How many different ways can we get in contact with someone now?

It is interesting to see how important diversions are in this conversation. That is a question up there with "What about their socialization?" it misses the point. Look at NetFlix or iTunes they don't care where you live, all you need is mail or broadband. How many of those users are in cities already not taking advantage of those oh, so important amenities they claim are so important because they aren't in the rural.

Going out to the movies is a lot of fun, but in a rural town it is hard to do if the only theater is playing the same movie for weeks. Okay, so this is an issue that Hollywood has to get over itself to solve, but a small rural theater wouldn't be bad at all if there was a way to dial up the movie you want instead of waiting until the reels you have have "paid" for themselves. The technology is out there but it is stuck in oldthink.

Admittedly, sometimes you want to actually be with other people of similar interests. How many forms of MeetUp.com do you need? Just one for the town, really. Then you just have to be open and honest enough about yourself to post what you really want to do, rather then what you want them to expect you to want to do.

Rural towns need to reinvent themselves, because it isn't about the land, and cities are constantly reinventing themselves, they have lots of money sloshing around, rural towns don't but they can have things money can't buy.

Nasty Weather

2009-10-28T18:51:00.000-06:00

Got a lot of snow, it started last night just after dark and has been snowing all day. We have about a foot on the balcony and it is still coming down. Needed to take out the trash, forgot to do that before the snow started. It is really slippery out there and helped a lady get her car into a spot.
The weather service is saying it will snow tomorrow too.

Week in Apple: New... everything! - Ars Technica

2009-10-25T12:53:00.000-06:00

Week in Apple: New... everything! - Ars Technica

A roundup of Apple news.

Something to shake up even the most blasé

2009-10-22T18:54:00.000-06:00

Now this is seriously cool!

What Every Super Achiever Knows About Time Management – That You Don’t | Investing Notes from REAL Investors

2009-10-06T20:13:00.000-06:00

What Every Super Achiever Knows About Time Management – That You Don’t | Investing Notes from REAL Investors: "Super achievers don’t manage their time, they create, manage and maximize their opportunities. At any given time they know the one critical, must complete, task and they work on that task. It is the most important and therefore deserves their full attention."

Don't lose sight of this.

WorldWatch - September 27, 2009 - Why Union Leaders Are Trying to Destroy Themselves - The Ornery American

2009-10-06T20:00:00.000-06:00

WorldWatch - September 27, 2009 - Why Union Leaders Are Trying to Destroy Themselves - The Ornery American: "Nobody learns from history -- isn't that sad? Now it's the extreme Left (the only kind that seems to exist any more) that behaves exactly like the extreme right of the 1950s, and it will lead to the same result. They look at anti-Communism and instead of learning that extremism, pushed too far, destroys itself; instead they only learn 'anti-Communism was bad' -- which, of course, it wasn't, when it was actually needed."

A lot of things are like that and he goes through a whole bunch of very useful examples. Right now the administrators in Washington are doing more of what's worked in the past but it is going to hurt everyone as they go a law too far.

The mis-measurement mismanagement continues

2009-10-04T19:56:00.000-06:00

Even as layoffs persist, some good jobs go begging - Yahoo! Finance: "The jobs opened up after the lab received federal stimulus money to research energy-efficient buildings. Baker needs employees with backgrounds in city management and a grasp of the building codes needed to design energy-efficient buildings. Yet even a salary of $140,000 for senior researchers isn't drawing enough qualified applicants.

Baker said he's getting resumes from well-educated people, including some from information technology workers who want to enter the green-energy field. But he said it could take a year to get an unqualified employee up to speed on all the building codes they need to know."

It reminds me of a job posting I saw once, a C++ programing fluent in English, Braille and Swahili.

There are lots of smart people out there that can't get a good job since they are missing some requirement or other.

The real question is how long will they let the position stay open before the cost/benefit calculation blows up.

A lot of companies are getting what they pay for even it is not what they really want.

The Believer - Closing Time

2009-09-30T16:07:00.000-06:00

The Believer - Closing Time

A fascination look into the history of cars and car salesmen.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE POLYMATH | More Intelligent Life

2009-09-29T20:02:00.000-06:00

THE LAST DAYS OF THE POLYMATH | More Intelligent Life: "In an age of specialists, does it matter that generalists no longer thrive? The world is hardly short of knowledge. Countless books are written, canvases painted and songs recorded. A torrent of research is pouring out. A new orthodoxy, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, sees obsessive focus as the key that unlocks genius."

I think someone hasn't left his ivory tower for much too long. There are more polymaths then ever. The average person goes thru 5-7 careers, not just jobs, these days.

The job market has been evolving so quickly the last 20 years that whole industries exist now and are major drivers of the economy that didn't exist even as scifi back then. Web designer, information marketer and hosts of others exist now that needed to be filled.

If you have been a monomath half a dozen times is that not the same as being a polymath just without the burnout, or at least the same kind of burnout.

You're looking in the wrong places. Polymaths are not valued by the big institutions, so obviously you won't find them there. They'll be in the small companies, they are the superstars that when they leave for whatever reason the company ends up hiring 3 or more people to replace them because they were so amazing in so many areas.

What a well-placed $20 gets you

2009-09-24T14:08:00.000-06:00

What a well-placed $20 gets you: "Tom Chiarella took a stack of $20 bills with him to New York City just to see what he could get by offering them to the right people at the right time. Turns out, quite a bit."

Interesting. But are the things you are buying worth it?

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: A day at the museum - how much do children actually remember?

2009-09-19T09:53:00.000-06:00

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: A day at the museum - how much do children actually remember?: "Gross's team said the results 'demonstrated that children learned and remembered an extraordinary amount of information about a school trip to a museum' even after a lengthy delay. The findings also showed that giving the children the opportunity to draw, significantly increased the amount of accurate information they recalled. This is consistent with previous, forensically motivated research showing that drawing facilitates children's verbal reports of their experiences."

Isn't it interesting, that we take away our children's crayons in schools about this time.

ht Marginal Revolution

What's up with Google

2009-09-15T13:09:00.001-06:00

First they ignore 9/11 and now they have a crop circle doodle. What's up with that?

TigerHawk

2009-09-14T09:20:00.000-06:00

TigerHawk: "As we have long predicted on this blog, the health care 'reformers' propose to finance at least part of the 'savings' or new benefits -- it is impossible to know which -- by decreasing the rate of return on medical technology. There are many ways in which this might be done, but the Senate Democrats are proposing to do so directly, by levying a 'value added tax' on medical device companies according to their proportion of U.S. sales."

It not that they won't treat you or your grandma, but the treatment won't be as good as it could be. It seems to them that it is more humane to let us suffer for longer, rather then let us be treated.

Cell Phone Radiation Levels

2009-09-09T18:15:00.000-06:00

| Environmental Working Group

Even at the high level these are still pretty low. But it can be a useful tool if you care.
The biggest problem is that it is so hard to figure out how much a cell phone plan costs adding this into the mix won't help.

Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On - NYTimes.com

2009-09-07T18:07:00.000-06:00

Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On - NYTimes.com: "In the most direct measure of job market hopelessness, the bureau has a narrow definition of a group it classifies as “discouraged workers.” These are people who have looked for work at some point in the past year but have not looked in the last four weeks because they believe that no jobs are available or that they would not qualify, among other reasons. In August, there were roughly 758,000 discouraged workers nationally, compared with 349,000 in November 2007, the month before the recession officially began.

The bureau also has a broader category of jobless it calls “marginally attached to the labor force,” which includes discouraged workers as well as those who have stopped looking because of other reasons, like school, family responsibilities or health issues. But economists agree that many of these workers probably would have found a way to work in a good economy.

There were roughly 2.3 million people in this group in August, up from 1.4 million in November 2007. If the unemployment rate were expanded to include all marginally attached workers, it would have been 11 percent in August."

Yeah, it's pretty bad out there. And no one knows for sure exactly how bad because you can't manage the numbers. No everything can be measured and measuring the wrong thing makes things worse. Imagine that.

Calculus Demonstration: 3D printing � 360

2009-09-07T14:05:00.000-06:00

Calculus Demonstration: 3D printing 360: "So what is used for the printing? The article above describes a layer of powder being put down and the printing is actually done by spraying glue instead of ink. Wikipedia also describes printers that build with a liquid gel. But my favorite is printing done with candy."

What...WOW.
I wants one of them.

California Smoke hides the Rockies

2009-09-01T11:56:00.003-06:00

Colorado's hazy skies courtesy of California wildfires - The Denver Post: "The smoke over Colorado — which has made the mountains west of Denver invisible from downtown Denver — has come directly from the massive 85,000-acre wildfire in Southern California, according to the National Weather Service."

Yeah, that's about right. Usually the Rockies dominate the sky, today not so much. This usually happens only during the winter if and inversion layer is sitting on us. It doesn't smell of smoke but then it may have come in slowly enough we can't smell it anymore.
I won't mind the little bit of localized global cooling this will cause.

Education Needs to Be Turned on Its Head

2009-08-31T12:50:00.000-06:00

Education Needs to Be Turned on Its Head: "Traditionally, schools use this model:

1. Decide on what kids need to know to prepare them for adulthood.
2. Prepare a curriculum based on this.
3. Give students a schedule based on this curriculum.
4. Have educated teachers hand them the info they need, and drill them in skills.
5. The student reads, memorizes the info, learns the skills, and becomes prepared.
6. Students must follow all rules or be punished. This is actually more important than the info and skills, although it’s never said that way.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a great model. Mostly because it’s based on the idea that there is a small group of people in authority, who will tell you what to do and what you need to know, and you must follow this obediently, like robots. And you must not think for yourself, or try to do what you want to do. This will be met with severe punishment."

Yeah, that's about right.

Joel Klein vs. New York City teachers : The New Yorker

2009-08-27T10:36:00.000-06:00

Joel Klein vs. New York City teachers : The New Yorker: "“Children are fragile. Handle with care.” It’s a June morning, and there are fifteen people in the room, four of them fast asleep, their heads lying on a card table. Three are playing a board game. Most of the others stand around chatting. Two are arguing over one of the folding chairs. But there are no children here. The inhabitants are all New York City schoolteachers who have been sent to what is officially called a Temporary Reassignment Center but which everyone calls the Rubber Room."

Wow.

ht kottke

Seth's Blog: Competing with the singleminded

2009-08-27T10:16:00.000-06:00

Seth's Blog: Competing with the singleminded: "I was talking with a few executives from one of the biggest technology companies in Europe, and they were explaining how their hands were tied in moving forward on the internet. They were doing the best they could under the circumstances, of course, but there were units in their organization that needed to be protected, prices that needed to be supported, sacred cows that couldn't be touched. After all, they argued, how could they wipe out their current business just to succeed online?"

Ohh, that sounds familiar.

Presentation Zen: Dan Pink: Rethinking the ideology of carrots and sticks

2009-08-27T10:11:00.001-06:00

Presentation Zen: Dan Pink: Rethinking the ideology of carrots and sticks: "We don't need sweeter carrots and sharper sticks, Dan says. We need a whole new approach, an approach that puts more stock in intrinsic motivation. Dan identifies three elements that comprise a new way of thinking about management:

Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives.
Mastery: The desire to get better at something that matters.
Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves."

A cool presentation. "Punished By Rewards" talked about this years ago and hardly anyone learned from that. I have to wonder if people don't want to learn.

see also johnniemoore et.al.

New Research Examines How Career Dreams Die

2009-08-25T15:19:00.000-06:00

New Research Examines How Career Dreams Die: "Still, Carroll said he doesn't often use what he knows to bring these students back to reality.
'I'm very cautious about using what I know with students,' he said. 'You're dealing with people's dreams and hopes, and with that awareness comes great responsibility.
'The dreams of who you could become are a very important part of how you define yourself, yet they are very vulnerable given that they exist only in our mind's eye as the best possible guesses from current evidence of what we could become in the future,' he said. 'We need to learn more about how those career dreams are constructed and revised.'"

Go find yourself.

Yeah, that's great advice. Not.

Oxytocin != oxycontin

2009-08-19T17:51:00.000-06:00

Oxytocin != oxycontin

Bwahhahahahahaha! I needed that.

Do Americans Care about British Soldiers?

2009-08-19T17:50:00.000-06:00

Do Americans Care about British Soldiers?: "Three Air Force aircraft along with multiple aircrew, aeromedical evacuation teams, and agencies from around the world gave a British soldier a fighting chance at life in late July after the soldier sustained multiple gunshot wounds and had his blood supply replaced more than 10 times at a military hospital in Afghanistan."

Yeah, that's about right.

and we're supposed to be the bad guys. Oh wait the left doesn't talk about the war anymore. I wonder why.

Why Are Schools So Ineffective?

2009-08-17T12:26:00.003-06:00

Schools in general are just not very effective at imparting real learning to their students. If we are looking to create a bunch of good little worker drones for busyness jobs then they doing pretty good, too bad that those kinds of jobs are pretty much gone, exported to India, and China.

Is that was we need? of course not. You look at what Ken Robinson had to say about the effectiveness of schools.

So I was reading up some on the wars that are going on and I run across this critique of the Iraqi Army and I was struck by how much it sounds like our school system.

Highlights:

Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation.
Improvisation and innovation is generally discouraged.
Units are purposely kept from working together or training on a large scale.
Arab officers often do not trust each other.
[V]alue and prestige of an individual is based not on what he can teach, but on what he knows that no one else knows.
Better for everyone to fail together than for competition to be allowed, even if it eventually benefits everyone.
Leadership is given little attention as officers are assumed to know this by virtue of their social status as officers.
Initiative is considered a dangerous trait.

Does that sound at all familiar?

And then I read Seth's take on education,

Imagine a school that's built around free, abundant learning. And compare it to one that's focused on scarce, expensive schooling. Or dream up your own combination.

Schools are all levels are going to change and change a lot. It is also reminiscent of what is happening to newspapers. I hope they don't try following that path.

What Is Your “Elephant Tether”? | Free Newsletter

2009-08-12T11:21:00.000-06:00

What Is Your “Elephant Tether”? | Free Newsletter: "Did you know that elephants are trained to stay where they are by tying a rope around one of their massive legs and attaching it to a peg in the ground? Can the peg and rope really hold back an elephant? Absolutely not!"

Interesting.

The disconnect of teaching and socialization

2009-08-10T23:02:00.000-06:00

By Sarah Fine -- Why I Left Teaching Behind: "But there is more to those numbers than 'burnout.' That term is shorthand for a suite of factors that contributed to my choice to leave the classroom. When I talk about the long hours, for example, what I mean is that, over the course of four years, my school's administration steadily expanded the workload and workday while barely adjusting salaries. More and more major decisions were made behind closed doors, and more and more teachers felt micromanaged rather than supported. One afternoon this spring, when my often apathetic 10th-graders were walking eagerly around the room as part of a writing assignment, an administrator came in and ordered me to get the class 'seated and silent.' It took everything I had to hold back my tears of frustration."

Is it not clear enough that schooling and education are not the same thing and have no business being discussed together?

Schooling, particularly public schooling, is all about "being seated and silent." It is all about creating worker drones. Socialization, the only objection people raise to homeschooling, is not practiced in schools. Schools have evolved to completely smother the creative spark that all of us have.

Even if you are good at something they care about they suck the life out of it so even if you are good at it you can no longer find joy in doing it. How stupid and sad is that?

Get your kids out. and just realize that they will never make good worker drones, train them to be a business owner, an entrepreneur or maker of something. That may be the only way they can become happy, truly happy doing what they are best at.

Colorado Cares – Broomfield Cares > Nonprofit > Stories > Broomfield > YourHub.com

2009-08-08T16:05:00.000-06:00

Colorado Cares – Broomfield Cares > Nonprofit > Stories > Broomfield > YourHub.com: "On Saturday, July 25 th over 200 volunteers, from senior citizens to toddlers, combed several miles of trails in the Westlake Village and Broomfield County Commons, picking up trash and cleaning up bordering areas. The project was organized by the Westminster Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints with the help of city representatives, under the direction of Kristan Pritz, Broomfield City and CountyDirector of Trails and Open Spaces. The activity was held in conjunction with the annual Colorado Cares Day."

Yeah, that was fun.

First They Came For...

2009-08-06T19:14:00.000-06:00

Book Banning - Megan McArdle: "Apparently, I can forget about that. Congress has apparently outlawed my hobby. Nor is this merely ideological hysteria. I just checked Amazon, and while there are still some old books for sale, it looks as if there are a lot fewer than there used to be."

First they came for the Hedge funds, and I didn't speak up because I I believed that the economy would stop if they didn't do something, but the money didn't do anything.
Then they came for the insurance companies, and I didn't speak up because I was told if they went down the economy would crash, but the money went overseas.
Then they came for the banks, and I called my congress people to say "no", but they didn't listen.
Then they came for the car companies, and I called them again and they still voted for it.
They are coming for our books.
They are coming for our medical core.
They are coming for our energy.

I still speaking up but they are ignoring me, they are ignoring you, they are no longer representing us.

Playing with Fire - Lapham’s Quarterly

2009-08-04T09:21:00.000-06:00

Playing with Fire - Lapham’s Quarterly: "Students don’t go to school to acquire the wisdom of Solomon. They go to school to acquire a cash value and improve their lot, to pick up the keys to the kingdom stocked with the treasures to be found in a BMW showroom or an Arizona golf resort. Their education bears comparison to the procedure for changing caterpillars into silkworms just prior to their transformation into adult moths. Silkworms can be turned to a profit; moths blow around in the wind, and add nothing to the wealth of the corporation or the power of the state."

So very true, especially when you read stories like this. Sad, Oh, Yes but sadly not unexpected.

The Simple Dollar Putting the Strength of Weak Ties to Work

2009-08-03T11:02:00.000-06:00

The Simple Dollar Putting the Strength of Weak Ties to Work: "Here’s what you do. Go to such meetings and get involved. Get over your stage fright and offer to present. Attend talks and presentations that are in your wheelhouse, pay attention, and ask questions that are interesting and potentially useful to others in the room."

I have never found this to actually happen. Often my questions are totally misinterpreted, i.e. they talk for 20 minutes about something only tangentially unrelated to the question I asked.

I've been trying to get a Readiness Fair together for my church and it was just cancelled for the third time. It is now just going to be a half hour presentation split between the canning lady, the Ham radio guy and myself, but we'll make it work.

Sometimes it is just hard to deal with the meeting where no one wants to make a decision. I hate those meetings and they happen all the time. I toss ideas on the table just to make something happen, often those ideas are not all that good but we often end up with something that works. Sadly, a lot of those things die on the vine anyway since on one is willing to in charge especially not the managers. Oh, well.

Daring Fireball: Microsoft's Long, Slow Decline

2009-07-31T10:33:00.000-06:00

Daring Fireball: Microsoft's Long, Slow Decline: "They’re a software company whose primary platform no longer appeals to people who like computers the most. Their executives are either in denial of, or do not perceive, that there has emerged a consensus — not just among nerds but among a growing number of regular just-plain users — that Windows PCs are second-rate. They still dominate in terms of unit-sale market share, yes, but not because people don’t recognize Windows as second-rate, but because they don’t care, in the same way millions of people buy metric tons of second-rate products from Wal-Mart every hour of every day.

That’s the business Wal-Mart wants to be in — selling a zillion cheap low-margin items and turning a profit on volume. That’s not the business Microsoft is in."

Poor Microsoft, they aren't in the business they believe they are in. That is probably the most dangerous place to be. This is a classic mis-management by mis-measuring problem.

The Way We Live Now - Kindergarten Cram - NYTimes.com

2009-07-24T14:37:00.000-06:00

The Way We Live Now - Kindergarten Cram - NYTimes.com: "I wonder how far I’m willing to go in my commitment to the cause: would I embrace the example of Finland — whose students consistently come out on top in international assessments — and delay formal reading instruction until age 7? Could I stick with that position when other second graders were gobbling up “War and Peace” — or at least the third Harry Potter book?"

Interesting.

Speechless: Dilbert Creator's Struggle to Regain His Voice

2009-07-23T17:56:00.000-06:00

Speechless: Dilbert Creator's Struggle to Regain His Voice: "After a few more searches, Adams arrived at his own diagnosis: spasmodic dysphonia. It was another neurological disorder, one that causes the throat muscles to clamp down erratically on the vocal cords, strangling speech. In all of Adams' meetings with physicians, no one had even mentioned SD; the disorder is so rare that few doctors have heard of it. Adams tracked down a throat specialist, who confirmed Adams' findings and told him that SD had no known cure. He'd never regain his normal speaking voice."

Interesting. I wonder if there is any relation to Target Panic.

Until this malady struck, I was a bad MoFo Robin Hood with the bow and arrow. I had shot naturally since I was a small child, and was rather cocky about my accuracy, even under extreme conditions. Squirrels running along powerlines or hugging stratospheric oaktop limbs, I almost never missed with my Osage longbow and cedar arrows. It was wonderful. Then the mind kicked in at the tender age of 28, and blew the whole shootin match. Once asked what he thought about when he stood in the batter's box before the pitch, the great Babe Ruth said, "Hell, if I tried to think, I couldn't hit the damn ball!" Aha! Don't confuse simple function with superfluous mindgames. Zen. Mind over matter. Second nature. Subconsciousness. The physics of spirituality. Nike got it right. Just do it!

They sound so simliar, both are related to over work of a neural pathway.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

2009-07-23T10:49:00.000-06:00

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule: "For someone on the maker's schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn't merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work."

This is a good one to remember. It goes back to flow and you can even see it in The Wealth of Nations, while people have seen the existence of the problem for hundreds of years no one has done a good job quantifying it until recently. We have been fooled in school to think that anything can be done in the 50 minutes between bells. They're wrong.

From a cold start it will take 15 minutes or more to get into flow if you are working at it. Most people don't really understand how they do it so it takes even longer. Of course, since most people are interrupted more often then that so they never get there in the first place. If you are in flow and you are interrupted by a short question you can often get back in in a few minutes but a meeting is a total context switch which will drive you back to square 1.

I've been in meetings that were a total waste of time. The worst was a 14 hour meeting that made ZERO (0) decisions. That wasted tens of thousands of dollars and it didn't faze them in the slightest. The first time a manager should do is figure out who needs to be there and how much they cost per hour (all meetings are in hourly increments) and calculate how much the meeting will cost. Then decide if the meeting will generate more value then letting your makers actually make stuff.

Never Before Seen Image of Neil Armstrong's First Moonwalk Shows His face - apollo 11 - Gizmodo

2009-07-20T11:55:00.000-06:00

Never Before Seen Image of Neil Armstrong's First Moonwalk Shows His face - apollo 11 - Gizmodo: "This weird and never-before-seen photo was taken by the top camera of the Eagle. As Armstrong walked his first steps across the surface of the Sea of Tranquility, on that little dusty ball of cheese we like to call the Moon."

Cool image.

Facilitation - Evaluation - Beyond the Edge - Viv McWaters

2009-07-13T10:42:00.000-06:00

Facilitation - Evaluation - Beyond the Edge - Viv McWaters: "“Giving it all you’ve got commonly backfires. There is a paradox that when we are trying hard the result is often disappointing. A healthier climate is one in which we tell ourselves to just be average. Take the pressure off. Avoid the mindset that says “This one better be good!” or “Be original.”�When you try to do your best the effect on your performance is often to jinx it. In all cases there is something to lose. This can provoke tension and easily lead to anxiety.”"

You know I think some of this comes from school. We are trained, demanded to be different yet exactly the same. I had a friend in my high school programming class that did each assignment in a way that was not what the teacher expected so he almost failed the class, even though they all worked. Or on the opposite side of the spectrum you have a teacher that praises an essay that is finally different from the same old-same old even if it is repulsive.
Then there are a all the groups, how many can you identify just by the clothes they wear? Does it really matter if they are a clique in a high school or the consulting group in a major corp?

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Avoiding presentations

2009-07-12T15:17:00.000-06:00

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Avoiding presentations: "My own hunch is that our education system has a huge amount to answer for. School was an extraordinarily rigorous drilling in the idea we should sit in serried ranks, at the behest of others. Any interaction was to be at the whim, and following the instructions, of the leader."

Need to remember this.

Annals of Education: Most Likely to Succeed: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

2009-07-11T12:54:00.001-06:00

Annals of Education: Most Likely to Succeed: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker: "A group of researchers—...—have investigated whether it helps to have a teacher who has earned a teaching certification or a master’s degree. Both are expensive, time-consuming credentials that almost every district expects teachers to acquire; neither makes a difference in the classroom. Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications—as much as they appear related to teaching prowess—turn out to be about as useful in predicting success as having a quarterback throw footballs into a bunch of garbage cans."

I keep seeing things like this, mismanagement because of mis-measurement. When you spend a lot of time and effort not getting what you really want you have wonder what is causing these perverse effects.
The funny thing is is how different Collage and the NFL is, it makes sense that the one can't predict the other, they have relatively little in common. They may both be called football but are as different as a Trebant and a Porsche.

One interesting segment is that it takes a few years to find out if a person is good at something. That is about the half the time it takes master a subject (~10,000 hours) which is about what you would expect if someone is doing the same thing as they studied in college.

I know plenty of teachers and they all have complained about not learning enough about how to handle classrooms It is odd that isn't it.

***

Now on to the actually content of the video that was presented by Dr. Tae. from MeFi
1. School Sucks.
2. Make it meaningful.
3. Don't rely on fixed time periods for subject mastery.
4. Distributed teaching. e.g. get good teachers from anywhere.

Congratulations, Dr. Tae you have just derived from first principles what homeschoolers have known since the 1980's.

I agree with him that sharing knowledge is a good thing, right now do it for free because soon an ecosystem of distributed education will develop and someone will monetize it somewhere, somehow, but get your practice in now.

The Pleasures of Rereading | Newsweek Books | Newsweek.com

2009-06-29T23:33:00.000-06:00

The Pleasures of Rereading | Newsweek Books | Newsweek.com: "Most of the 'joys of rereading' pieces you come across tuck in an obligatory apology for indulging in the 'childish' pleasure—this is a bad thing?—of 'obsessive' repetition. You often hear a distinction made between strictly literary rereading, the kind of close study scholars and writers undertake, and the 'comfort' reading relegated to the beach, the bathroom, and the bedroom."

I'll tell you now, that I like rereading. Many people will listen to their music over and over again, and movies will be re-watched time and again.
Some people need the new, and can't stand to go back to something they've done before, fine, enjoy it. That is not me.

We read very quickly and you know what there are not a lot of works out there that are engaging for us. We like going back to the Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad, Harry Potter and the like because they are actually long enough to be satisfying. Short one-off stories are fine but they are like an appetizer good enough for starters but not a meal on its own.

For some people the problem may be their reading speed, The Harry Potter audiobooks run around 24 hours long. Most people can read about twice as fast as a person can talk so that still takes up a huge amount of time for them.

You go back to a restaurant that you like, re-reading is much the same.

Seth's Blog: Direct and useful project feedback

2009-06-12T17:03:00.000-06:00

Seth's Blog: Direct and useful project feedback: "In my experience, there are three different ways to structure the project. Each leads to a very different feedback loop.

1. The goal of the team is to please you.

2. The goal of the team is to make a product that they love and are proud of building.

3. The goal of the team is to build a great product."

Actually I think Pixar is in #3. Their films are so often filled to the brim with amazing detail that you are sure that the whole team is adding and tweaking and doing their darndest to make the best film possible.

The Long Tail - Wired Blogs

2009-06-08T17:24:00.000-06:00

The Long Tail - Wired Blogs: "The pricing of Nyhedsavisen was simple: it was free. And, as something entirely new: it was going to be delivered to the homes of all Danes – at no cost. Not only the newspaper itself was free, delivery was free as well. It was in effect “double-free”."

This looks sane on the surface, it is essentially the exact same business model as the yellow pages. But newspapers have been dying for some time not just the last year so why this was considered a good idea, I don't know. People still read a lot for news but mostly it is online now and it is so much faster it is practically real-time. They lost so much money it would have been cheaper to give away one of the early ebook readers and sell ad space on that.

Practically killing an industry because you are too proud to see you are wrong is stupid beyond reason.

The courage of D-Day

2009-06-07T23:21:00.000-06:00

1944_NormandyLST.jpg 3000�2274 pixels

Feng Shui On Steroids: Design Your Space to Achieve Your Goals | Zen Habits

2009-06-06T10:39:00.000-06:00

Feng Shui On Steroids: Design Your Space to Achieve Your Goals | Zen Habits: "Our inner world — emotional, mental space — helps determine our outer world, right? But the space we spend the majority of our time in also plays a huge role in our lives. It can influence our actions, our mood, and it can determine whether we remain stuck or achieve our dreams."

I just redid my desk, since it is just a corner of the bedroom I am not going to call it an office and I worked at making it more ergonomic. And that part works great. There are some holes in the design. The bookshelf is a little too far way but then I wouldn't be able to move the screen as much. There are always tradeoffs.

I think I am going to change the desktop theme to help too.

The Simple Dollar Building Your Career, One Brick at a Time

2009-06-05T13:54:00.000-06:00

The Simple Dollar Building Your Career, One Brick at a Time: "A career is like a brick wall. If it’s built well, from a collection of bricks that fit well together and are thoughtfully put in place, it can be a very strong foundation for whatever dreams you may want to reach for. A great collection of bricks, well assembled, will build a platform for you that allows you to stand tall in your profession."

It isn't enough to build up a pile of bricks they need to be set together in proper order.
I am expanding my wall with a more classical education. I am big on American history now to make up for my public schooling. I am also learning iPhone programming. I learned quite a bit about programming in school and did a lot of embedded programming at work but iPhone programming is a lot different and more fun.

Fantasy master David Eddings dies aged 77 |

2009-06-04T18:40:00.000-06:00

Fantasy master David Eddings dies aged 77: "Eddings was always delighted, he said, to hear that he'd turned non-readers into readers. 'I look upon this as perhaps my purpose in life,' he said in 1997. 'I am here to teach a generation or two how to read. After they've finished with me and I don't challenge them any more, they can move on to somebody important like Homer or Milton.'"

Oh no, another great author has died. I really enjoyed the Belgariad and the Mellorean they were the great for heavy readers wanting something on the light side. My wife and I can read very quickly ~2000 wpm on good days and it there are not a whole lot of books or series out there that can match that.
We'd be closing the back cover and be revved up for something longer. A 5 book series was long enough to really develop the characters and background to the point it would really come alive.

Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia: Million Dollar Ideas...

2009-06-04T13:01:00.000-06:00

Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia: Million Dollar Ideas...: "Million dollar ideas are a dime a dozen. For immediate results, focus on ideas that can be developed on a shoestring or a credit card. Ideas you can finance yourself and test on a small scale are more likely to bring you income and job satisfaction"

Hmm.

Wal-Mart's Weight Effect - Forbes.com

2009-06-03T10:30:00.000-06:00

Wal-Mart's Weight Effect - Forbes.com: "Our data suggest that we buy healthier food when our purchasing power increases. There is a small increase in consumption of fruit and vegetables in places where Wal-Mart does a lot of business and a decrease--or smaller increase--in fatty food consumption relative to places where Wal-Mart doesn't do business. That is, people might consume more fatty foods, but consumption of those unhealthy goods increases more slowly than it does for the rest of the population."

This goes against prevailing "wisdom" and this is why doing science the right way is so important. Sure, there are lots of studies that confirm the obvious, and we laugh at the scientists. But when the counter-intuitive happens then you have something really important.

Coding Horror: I Stopped Reading Your Blog Years Ago

2009-06-02T22:41:00.000-06:00

Coding Horror: I Stopped Reading Your Blog Years Ago: "there was a strange punishment the parents doled out to their children when they seriously misbehaved. For a period of a week, or longer -- depending on the severity of the misbehavior -- nobody in the family would talk to, acknowledge, or address in any way, that particular boy. It was called 'The Silent Treatment'. This didn't seem like much of a punishment to me. In fact, as an introverted kid who loved solitary activities like computers and reading more than anything, it seemed kind of like a .. reward"

And that is the biggest difference between an extrovert and an introvert. For extroverts that more they are around people the more energized they get. They live on the outside of their skin flitting from topic to topic and group to group fast and easily.
An introvert on the other hand does need social interaction but on a completely different level. They need to go deep on something. I would much rather spend an afternoon talking, discussing, and arguing some major idea. Small talk will drive an introvert insane fairly quickly. We live inside our heads slightly to one side and we like it.
We are more like Spock while extroverts are more like McCoy.

The Case for Working With Your Hands - NYTimes.com

2009-05-26T11:40:00.000-06:00

The Case for Working With Your Hands - NYTimes.com: "One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement."

This is the thing. It is really rather hard to put much effort into something you know has little to no value. This also is obvious to pretty much everyone, but for some reason things don't change. There is something the matter here and so everything is distorted. I wonder what is causing it?

Amazon fails Marketing 101

2009-05-14T21:19:00.000-06:00

Amazon losing money on $9.99 e-books | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "Amazon has to pay the same wholesale price to the publishers for e-books as for print editions of those books—more or less half of the print edition price. (So do other e-book vendors; this is why even Fictionwise must charge excessive rates for books from publishers such as Random House, though they do they best they can to bring the prices down with discounts.)"

Wait the idea is to give away the razor and sell them the blades, not the other way around. I think someone just failed their Marketing 101 class. Not that they should give away Kindles but they could drop the price way down. The loss-leader is supposed to be the hardware not the content. I still think that idea of the newspapers offering a free Kindle with a year's subscription would at least forestall the end of the newspaper. I saw that the New York Times is working on a ereader of their own but they don't have a lot of time left, just use the Kindle to stop the bleeding.

Amazon also just announced that they are going to be publishing books on their own under AmazonEncore. Actually what they should do is offer an Apple App Store split with authors who sign up for that for the Kindle version, a dead-tree version would be different of course. They would be flooded with authors and books and that is fine Sturgeon's Law holds in any case, most of it will be junk but so is what we have now. But Amazon makes it a lot easier to find in their store compared to the App Store so they have the advantage.

Sure the other publishers and the Author's Guild won't like it but when you realize that you can't win the game you are playing you just have to change the game that is being played.

With E-Readers Comes Wider Piracy of Books - NYTimes.com

2009-05-12T11:16:00.000-06:00

With E-Readers Comes Wider Piracy of Books - NYTimes.com: "“If iTunes started three years earlier, I’m not sure how big Napster and the subsequent piratical environments would have been, because people would have been in the habit of legitimately purchasing at pricing that wasn’t considered pernicious,” said Richard Sarnoff, a chairman of Bertelsmann, which owns Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer titles."

This is an interesting problem. Amazon is not really helping here. Most Kindle books are $9.99 not a bad price in general but it is higher then that of the paperback version, which is often a couple of dollars less. An ebook has a storage and delivery and duplication cost measured in fractions of a penny.
So that feels wrong to pay more for an ebook then a paper book with all the printing, transportation and storage costs.

Then there is the payment structure. Amazon gets 70% of the unit price and the publisher AND the author get to split the remaining 30%. Actually the author usually gets their typical 3% and the publisher gets 27%.

What does the publisher do with that 27%, they say they do marketing but every time I read about an up and coming author it translates into diddly-squat. As an author you have to do your own marketing or you'll sell nothing.

Now look at what Apple is doing with iPhone.apps they also do a 70/30 split but the developer gets 70% and Apple gets 30%.

Now how should I spend my time? Selling on Kindle nets me $0.30 per $9.99 book or on the iPhone where I net $0.69 for each $0.99 app I sell and it can be an ebook. An interesting problem, eh.

Swine flu strikes the downsized newsroom - LA Observed

2009-05-01T22:09:00.000-06:00

Swine flu strikes the downsized newsroom - LA Observed: "Editor-in-Chief: (Staring at CNN coverage of Swine Flu outbreak) We need something good and local on this swine flu thing. Get someone at the university to explain how this god damned thing jumped from pigs to people, how are they tracking it, what the hell does it all mean? Get that guy who did that piece on the flu vaccine shortage a couple years ago, remember that sidebar he did on the 1918 flu? That was great.
City editor: Koprowski?

Editor-in-chief: Yeah, Koprowski!

City Editor: Corporate laid him off. Health care reporter. Non vital."

Ahahahahahah!

This is just apocryphal but you can be sure a conversation very much like this actually happened in a newsroom somewhere. Read the rest.

Father delivers baby son after watching YouTube childbirth clips |

2009-04-30T16:09:00.000-06:00

Father delivers baby son after watching YouTube childbirth clips |
Society |
guardian.co.uk: "A father managed to deliver his baby son after watching DIY baby delivery video clips on YouTube."

The awesome power of the Internet.

How cost-effective is it to make pantry staples from scratch? - By Jennifer Reese - Slate Magazine

2009-04-28T09:14:00.000-06:00

How cost-effective is it to make pantry staples from scratch? - By Jennifer Reese - Slate Magazine: "While packaged food is mostly lousy, some of it can be spectacularly inexpensive. Out of work and increasingly obsessed with our grocery budget, I decided to test my intuition and run a cost-benefit analysis on how much I'd save—if anything—by making from scratch six everyday foods that I usually purchase from Safeway and my local bakery."

All it takes is time.

The Bride Was Beautiful

2009-04-23T10:50:00.000-06:00

The Bride Was Beautiful

Katie Kirkpatrick, 21, held off cancer to celebrate the happiest day of her life. [...] Her organs were shutting down but it would not stop her from marrying Nick Godwin, 23, who was in love with Katie since 11th grade.

via kottke

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers

2009-04-22T09:46:00.000-06:00

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers: "The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.
There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time."

This is a problem for amateur radio as sunspots charge up the ionosphere that allows us to transmit over worldwide distances. The radio manufacturers have geared up for more hams coming in for the solar maximum but it isn't appearing.

This is also a problem for the AGWers.

Obama’s Spending vs Obama’s Spending Cuts — in Pictures � The Foundry

2009-04-22T09:32:00.000-06:00

Obama’s Spending vs Obama’s Spending Cuts — in Pictures � The Foundry: "According to reports, President Barack Obama plans to convene his Cabinet for the first time today, where he will order members to identify a combined $100 million in budget cuts over the next 90 days."

Go check out the graphic it is beautiful in simplicity. I am betting it is going to show up on a lot of Tea Party signs next time.

Gizmodo - New Bleach Paint Could Actually Make Hospitals Sterile - Bleach paint

2009-04-20T19:34:00.000-06:00

Gizmodo - New Bleach Paint Could Actually Make Hospitals Sterile - Bleach paint

This could save many lives.

They laughed at her when she walked on stage but then she started to sing.

2009-04-16T19:38:00.001-06:00

Britains Got Talent 2009 Susan Boyle 47 Year Old Singer
by kj1983

Don't judge a book by its cover and never, ever give up on your dreams.

Tax Analysts: Tax History Project: Tax History Project

2009-04-15T09:18:00.000-06:00

Tax Analysts: Tax History Project: Tax History Project

Cool!

April 10, 1815: Tambora Explosion Triggers 'Volcanic Winter'

2009-04-10T14:10:00.000-06:00

April 10, 1815: Tambora Explosion Triggers 'Volcanic Winter'

Qnd you thought AGW was bad.

The Simple Dollar � Establishing Positive Habits and Routines

2009-04-10T10:40:00.000-06:00

The Simple Dollar � Establishing Positive Habits and Routines

Mind like water.

gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": the white pebble

2009-04-10T10:39:00.000-06:00

gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": the white pebble

Yup.

Seven Productivity Tips For People That Hate GTD | Zen Habits

2009-04-10T10:37:00.000-06:00

Seven Productivity Tips For People That Hate GTD | Zen Habits: "When it comes to GTD and other systems, it’s often too easy to get into a habit of over-engineering your system. You “geek out” on your system and lose sight of the point of pursuing productivity in the first place."

Good tips.

Remember

2009-04-08T14:55:00.004-06:00

That is what our car looked like after we were rescued. The firefighters used seemingly every piece of equipment they had to get us out of that wreck.

Martha would be in my wife's Primary class now.

Today is a quiet day for us, trying to keep busy. The pain isn't so bad any more. I seem go for some time without thinking of her. Though sometimes I am cynical and think maybe its because after the loss of the house and the career, heck the industry I was in and getting lucky enough to ride 2 companies in a row that plowed into the ground, maybe I am just numb. But I know that my Heavenly Father loves us, cares for us and does good for us. We have been assured that thing will be better in His time. So I try to be patient.

I seem to run across a lot of atheist on the Web and the central reason, that I see, that they are is because of one question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

They are shallow thinkers when it comes to this question for some reason. Good things AND bad things happen to ALL people and it often isn't obvious what a good or a bad might be for that person. Your worst enemy winning the lottery may be suffering much worse then you losing your child. And don't confuse revenge for justice.

Human beings only grow when we overcome adversity. But it is up to us to decide if that adversity will be a stumbling block or a stepping stone. Jesus will give us peace. His peace not the worlds peace which is completely different and not as good. He is also a master of making lemonade. Not only will He make the bad a good in our life but also in the lives of others, often many others. If you can't see that you are not looking or listening.

John Rich "Shuttin' Detroit Down"

2009-04-03T19:53:00.000-06:00

Future Present | The Return Of Scipio

2009-03-31T13:19:00.000-06:00

Future Present | The Return Of Scipio: "Our archeologist, while rummaging among the ruins of our fallen civilization, met a ghost from the long dead race of Americans. The wraith boasted much about what we had been as a people."

It ain't over till its over.

History of Marshmallow Fluff - Part One

2009-03-31T12:37:00.000-06:00

History of Marshmallow Fluff - Part One: "On May 14, 1920, a small article appeared in the Lynn, Massachusetts, Daily Evening Item announcing that two young men, H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower, both graduates of Swampscott High and veterans of the United States Infantry in World War I, had formed a partnership in the manufacture of Marshmallow Fluff. The actual date that they started working together is hard to pin down, because they had been making candies together before they started making Fluff. The company numbered two men in those days, and they started out cooking their confections in the kitchen at night and selling them door to door in the daytime."

I haven't seen this in the local stores for a long time though there are others brands. We used to have to go to Walmart to get the one without extra coloring agents because of a cousin with allergies.

The best thing in the world is Fluff, Nutella, raspberry jam and honey (to balance the sweetness) but I had it in Europe when I was on a bike all the time.

Liberty Education Interview Series

2009-03-27T12:18:00.000-06:00

Liberty Education Interview Series: "Liberty Education Interview Series
Robert Ringer interviews top leaders on today's
most vital and controversial issues."

Cool.

The Simple Dollar � Most Time Management Is Rubbish. Here Are Ten Things That Work for Me.

2009-03-26T16:03:00.000-06:00

The Simple Dollar � Most Time Management Is Rubbish. Here Are Ten Things That Work for Me.: "Here’s the problem with productivity tips, though. Most of them don’t work. Some are simply inefficient. Others are only efficient in certain situations. Still others only work well for people with certain mindsets."

I have got to try some of these.

8 Common First Aid Mistakes And Myths That Make Things Worse � Health Watch Center

2009-03-26T13:49:00.000-06:00

8 Common First Aid Mistakes And Myths That Make Things Worse � Health Watch Center: "How much do you think you know about first aid and proper emergency response? Most people think they know quite a lot, but most of what they have learned consists of myths that could actually do more harm than good."

More First Aid lesson.

How Helmets and Quick Responses Save Lives - NYTimes.com

2009-03-26T13:47:00.000-06:00

How Helmets and Quick Responses Save Lives - NYTimes.com: "“This kind of blood clot we’re dealing with here almost never happens in helmeted sports — unless the helmet comes off,” said Dr. Cantu, a director of the Neurological Sports Injury Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston"

First Aid lesson.

My speech to Gordon Brown goes viral :: Daniel Hannan

2009-03-25T13:56:00.000-06:00

My speech to Gordon Brown goes viral :: Daniel Hannan: "When I woke up this morning, my phone was clogged with texts, my email inbox with messages. Overnight, the YouTube clip of my remarks had attracted over 36,000 hits. By today, it was the most watched video in Britain."

Remember when I said that newspapers have failed their responsibility so now politicians are going around them.

Little Red Riding Hood Redesigned

2009-03-24T21:02:00.000-06:00

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Now this is cool.

StillTasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - Save Money, Eat Better, Help The Environment

2009-03-24T13:00:00.000-06:00

StillTasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - Save Money, Eat Better, Help The Environment

This is handy.

Land Your Dream Job: Ditch School and Get a Library Card | Zen Habits

2009-03-23T11:20:00.000-06:00

Land Your Dream Job: Ditch School and Get a Library Card | Zen Habits: "It’s true that the average college graduate earns more than someone without a bachelor’s degree. However, a good chunk of the biggest innovators and multimillionaires in the world were either high school or college drop outs. (See: Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Johnny Depp, Bill Gates and Quinten Tarantino.)"

Don't forget those people started their own businesses and the average college grad works for someone who started their own business.

It's Not the Economy, Stupid - TCS Daily

2009-03-23T10:53:00.001-06:00

It's Not the Economy, Stupid - TCS Daily: "Many of us have taken shots at trying to explain to anyone who will listen that raining largesse from on high a la J. M. Keynes just ain't gonna work."

That reminds me of something. Now where was that, Oh, here it is.

Scott Adams Blog: Twelve Rules of Energy Efficient Building 03/23/2009

2009-03-23T10:38:00.002-06:00

Scott Adams Blog: Twelve Rules of Energy Efficient Building 03/23/2009: "A reader asked me to list the dozen concepts for building an energy-efficient house."

Just 12 things, huh?

A good list though it would have to be adapted to different parts of the country.

A commenter says something great:

The builder/contractor/whatever does not pay the recurring energy bill so they have no incentive to make your bills lower. They have to make the sale prices as low as possible to get people in the door.

and that is a big deal. This needs to change. Some kind of TCO (Total cost of ownership) rating would be useful. Energystar is a good start but only really talks about the appliances and not enough about the rest of the house.

I've also noticed lots of how homes that have all the features you are supposed to want but are so badly laid out that it makes it really hard to live in the house. A warning sign is if you are going through the model and there are doors not installed pay extra attention to the hinges, the doors probably clash and with the doors in place would severely darken the space.

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable � Clay Shirky

2009-03-21T12:34:00.000-06:00

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable � Clay Shirky: "The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?

I don’t know. Nobody knows. We’re collectively living through 1500, when it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it. The internet turns 40 this fall. Access by the general public is less than half that age. Web use, as a normal part of life for a majority of the developed world, is less than half that age. We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen."

This is a really important question.

The next questions is, how will you be able to trust what comes next?

Home Made Chicken Soup from Scratch

2009-03-12T22:14:00.001-06:00

We have colds right now and are not feeling very well. So I made some homemade chicken stock and chicken soup. Yesterday I cooked up the stock.

I took a couple of chicken backs and a couple of pounds of chicken wings and tossed them in the big pot with a moir poix and a handful of garlic and peppercorns. That simmered for 6 hours then cooled it in the sink with lots of cool water to get it out of the danger zone quickly. I then pulled out all the chunkys and got rid of those. The meat and vegetables had given their all and were dead again. I chilled the stock over night. It came out beautifully like chicken jello and skimmed off the fat and froze that for roux making later.

I finely diced up another moir poix and lots of garlic and sauteed that to get a little flavor on it and some parsley and marjoram. I also sauteed a couple of chicken breasts and diced them and returned them to the pot with everything else. I used about 1.5 cups of the stock and enough water to cover everything. I also added some spinach and ricotta raviolinni to round it all out. My wife says it completely blows Campbells and Progresso out of the water and was even better then Momma used to make. It certainly seemed to take the edge off for me.

The Future Now: Sixth Sense Technology May Change How We Look at the World Forever

2009-03-10T20:50:00.000-06:00

The Future Now: Sixth Sense Technology May Change How We Look at the World Forever: "The key here is that Sixth Sense recognizes the objects around you, displaying information automatically and letting you access it in any way you want, in the simplest way possible."

This is pretty cool but I want it to do one more thing. It should warn you and tell you what to do when an emergency occurs. I just read The Survivor's Club and there are a lot of people who die who won't have if they had just done something sensable like moving to the nearest exit. Oh, well I doubt they've thought of that since they haven't lived through anything traumatic yet.

25 Vintage Food Prep Tips: Timeless Wisdom : TipNut.com

2009-03-10T11:48:00.000-06:00

25 Vintage Food Prep Tips: Timeless Wisdom : TipNut.com: "This collection of vintage tips was gathered from books and magazines that were published in the 1940’s, most are still quite useful for today’s kitchen."

Some of these I haven't used but a few of them have been supplanted by better techniques.

For example the warm water egg trick is good but it is much easier to just start them in a cold pot of water.

There are lots of other good ideas on this site though.

Hacking Education (continued)

2009-03-09T19:57:00.001-06:00

Hacking Education (continued): "5) The education system we currently have was built to train the industrial worker. As we move to an information driven society it is high time to question everything about the process by which we educate our society. That process and the systems that underlie it will look very different by the time our children's children are in school."

School is going to have to change dramatically if it wants to stay relevant, though in all likelihood they'll take the typical totalitarian route and kill all the homeschool and other options and make it mandatory, all-day, even more high-stakes and even less useful.

Hacking Education (continued)

2009-03-09T19:57:00.000-06:00

Ricardo Montalban, TV's Mr. Roarke, Trek's Khan, Dead at 88 - E! Online

2009-01-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ricardo Montalban, TV's Mr. Roarke, Trek's Khan, Dead at 88 - E! Online: "Ricardo Montalban, who presided over TV's original Fantasy Island as the all-knowing, white-suited Mr. Roarke, revealed an impressive chest while provoking Captain Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and seduced potential car buyers with 'Corinthean leather,' died today. He was 88."

It was sad to hear that he did today. We remembered him by watching our favorite role of his, Khan in Star Trek II.

The chest, the hair, the one glove, the obsession of beating Kirk made him a fun villain. As Khan he had an elegant stye though the obsession made him relatively easy to defeat, he was very impressive.

He left quite a legacy.

Retromodo: Happy Birthday Saturn V, Still The Biggest Rocket of All

2008-11-09T15:50:00.001-07:00

Retromodo: Happy Birthday Saturn V, Still The Biggest Rocket of All

Save a life with your iPhone or iPod touch - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

2008-10-20T13:04:00.000-06:00

Save a life with your iPhone or iPod touch - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): "If you came upon someone who was injured or had suffered a medical emergency, would you know how to react? In the midst of a crisis situation, even citizens who have been trained in first aid sometimes forget what they need to do to help save a life."

Get this and hurry the offer ends this Sunday Oct 26

Hamburger is cuisine again.

2008-07-16T15:50:00.000-06:00

In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic - NYTimes.com: "“It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even,” said Helene Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. “Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.”"

It looks like Alton Brown got his wish. Hamburger is cuisine again. It is being debated and discussed again... in France of all places.

It is fascinating to see what they think is essential and what isn't, where they are experimenting and what people say when they go too far.

What is great is that they aren't going nuts with the potion sizes, not like the HoJos in Hong Kong we stopped at with the 5 pound King Size burger, and the 2 pound King Size hot dog.

It is funny that they think the sesame seed bun is essential. They obviously have never encountered a patty melt, which is a whole different take on the same basic concept. For something more edgy, they can try the pulled pork and sliced brisket sandwiches and let's not forget the tamales and runzas.

It seems to me like these chefs have forgotten their roots; all food was once humble food at some point, but with some TLC and some creativity it becomes something much, much more. They need a Mickey Goldmill for their Rocky.

Alton, or staff, if you're reading this, here is an idea you can freely use. Take a couple of these chefs on a Feasting on Asphalt style tour of burger joints, greasy spoons and BBQ pits. Then sit around in afterwards and discuss and debate what they've learned and where they might go with it. Maybe even end up in Kitchen Stadium for the Mother of All Burger Battles.

Lost and found Find your user guide, user guide, instruction manual or owner manual instantly !

2008-06-12T12:04:00.000-06:00

Find your user guide, user guide, instruction manual or owner manual instantly !: "So much time wasted looking all over the place for the instruction manual to tune the tv-set, find the printer cartridge replacement how-to, the meaning of the blinking led on the dashboard. How many user manuals available only on cd-rom, on the internet ?"

Sometimes finding manuals online can be a real pain. This is really help.
via LifeHacker

Daring Fireball: Spaces in 10.5.3

2008-06-05T20:34:00.000-06:00

Daring Fireball: Spaces in 10.5.3: "If you turn this new checkbox off, however, activating an app, even one that has no windows in the current space, will not jump you to another space. Once you’re in a space, you stay there until you explicitly switch spaces, not just switch apps. This makes all the difference in the world for the way I, and others, want to use Spaces."

I have found an interesting behavior with Spaces. If you highlight some text or a URl and try dragging it to the desktop if you go all the way to the edge of the window it will slide to the next space and after a pause the next after that, in most directions.

I am not sure if I like this or even if this is a bug or a feature.

Drop 'middle-class' academic subjects, says schools adviser, and teach them PERSONAL SKILLS instead | Mail Online

2008-06-05T19:24:00.000-06:00

Drop 'middle-class' academic subjects, says schools adviser, and teach them PERSONAL SKILLS instead | Mail Online: "Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are 'middle-class' creations, a Government adviser will claim today.

Professor John White, who contributed to a controversial shake-up of the secondary curriculum, believes lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.

Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn skills such as energy- saving and civic responsibility through projects and themes."

This is the kind of thing that makes blood shoot out of my eyes. Not only does he say out loud that his goal is to make "his" students poor, ignorant and dependent on others, he says it like it's a good thing.

via Kim

Op-Ed Contributor - Put a Little Science in Your Life - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

2008-06-02T10:45:00.000-06:00

Op-Ed Contributor - Put a Little Science in Your Life - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "Like a music curriculum that requires its students to practice scales while rarely if ever inspiring them by playing the great masterpieces, this way of teaching science squanders the chance to make students sit up in their chairs and say, “Wow, that’s science?”"

That is what it comes down to. It takes a public school to drill and kill. I had a great high school physics teacher and we would actually build things like aluminum foil boats and balsa wood bridges to make up the drudgery of learning all the equations and constants and such like.

I need to remember this.

Phoenix Landing site with parachute and heatshield

2008-05-27T19:56:00.000-06:00

NASA -
Phoenix Landing Site, Labeled: "This enhanced-color image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera shows the Phoenix landing area viewed from orbit."

We have so much tech floating on and around Mars we are beginning to be able to do some amazing things.

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T10:10:00.000-06:00

The Other Side of Kim du Toit: "From him, I developed the saying, “The mark of a decent man is not how much he thinks about himself, but how much time he spends thinking about others.”"