Politics, by its very nature, has zero-to-few objectively right answers. Sure I think guns are rampant and abortions are ok, but reasonable people can disagree with me and have valid points. And then we have to come together and someone's perspective has to lose.
As such, politicians are rarely trying to find the "truth" or "correct" outcome. They too have opinions and steadfastly defend those. The key difference here is there's no progress towards an ideal outcome, there's just progress towards convincing others their individual outcome is right. In other words, "I want to win the argument", not "I want to get it right".
In an environment like that, there's little incentive to allow another's perspectives to come in play, and any attempt by another to challenge a fundamentally subjective opinion will trigger reactions of personal attack. And it's fair, an individual's opinion is being attacked, thus it is, to some degree, personal.
And that is why political debates and discussions devolve into shouting matches and name-calling.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
I hate analogies
"As my mom told me, a cop is like a cheetah in pack of gazelles. It's going to catch the slowest one it can!" ... said someone I knew once, explaining why the last slowest offender will be the one to get the ticket. That makes sense, except for the part where that's totally not what would happen. The analogy breaks down because the cop's motivation is not the same as the cheetahs. However, if someone misses this, they will leverage the analogy to make the wrong conclusion.
Why even have an analogy at all? Analogies are a transformation to a familiar set of concepts that are similar enough to drive home the point. This can be useful for very abstract ideas (electricity, theoretical physics, ... ) but really it's best to just talk about what the topic really is. There's no opportunity for creating a distorted frame of reference, and usually it's not a big deal to just talk about the actual concepts. In fact, if you get an analogy perfectly right, you're really just calling things by different names!
I think people like to spout off analogies to show off how deeply they understand a topic, ironically, each subtly wrong analogy shows their lack of detailed understanding of the original topic.
Why even have an analogy at all? Analogies are a transformation to a familiar set of concepts that are similar enough to drive home the point. This can be useful for very abstract ideas (electricity, theoretical physics, ... ) but really it's best to just talk about what the topic really is. There's no opportunity for creating a distorted frame of reference, and usually it's not a big deal to just talk about the actual concepts. In fact, if you get an analogy perfectly right, you're really just calling things by different names!
I think people like to spout off analogies to show off how deeply they understand a topic, ironically, each subtly wrong analogy shows their lack of detailed understanding of the original topic.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Home-made floating shelves
Delicious! And a fairly extensive recipe. We wanted some shelves to go above our nice new sideboard to give a little more balance (and functionality) to that wall. We had considered putting some art there, but decided that fit better on the opposing wall that was going to serve no other purpose.
I estimate I put 25-30 hours into this project between concept, finding the right lumber, developing the techniques involved to get it all mounted straight and finished, and then actually applying those steps. Once we figured out that we wanted floating shelves, here's how I did it:
The lumber:
This is the least deterministic piece of the puzzle. We figured out (and mocked up with some plywood) that we wanted shelves that were about 2" thick, about 8-10" deep and 4 feet long, with the slight overlap as you see in the final result. We debated several types of wood as well but then settled between maple (matches the floors) or cherry (matches the table). Anything in the dark wood family was out for color reasons, and other light hardwoods didn't quite fit the bill (poplar is too green-toned, ash and hickory didn't have the right types of grain and typical embellishments). Of course this is all personal taste. We then looked at possible sources. It's easy enough to buy a cherry or maple board, but most of them are milled to something like 1"x10"x6', which is really only 3/4" thick. Your typical lumber store may not have anything thicker. Since I have a table saw and miter saw, it's no big deal to shave the depth down to spec or cut the board to the length we wanted, but the thickness is not something I wanted to mess with. I floated the idea of gluing two boards together, but Marisa vetoed the resulting grain disruption along all the edges where the glue line would go. I agreed too. I then looked to the internet, and found www.thelumbershack.com. They have a huge, searchable, inventory and I found some candidates, but Marisa said she preferred to see it in person so we committed to finding some specialty stores. That weekend we happened to be visiting her parents in Spokane and we took a quick trip to Windsor Plywood. I didn't really have my hopes up (based on their name, primarily), but they turned out to have the best selection I've ever seen (out of the 3 stores I've been to). We found a great, 9'-long cherry board, had the store chop it in half and brought it home. We then cut it to two 4-foot lengths, keeping the interesting features of the boards.
The mounting approach:
This was the hardest part to conceptualize, and we always had the backup plan of getting corbels and doing a traditional mount. I figured there'd be some ready-made solution somewhere but I couldn't find anything that was a) invisible and b) substantially strong. I went to a hardware store and pored over a catalog to find what I really wanted, which was basically a metal dowel with a screw tip. They actually had them, but after I received them it became quickly apparent they wouldn't be up to the task. The bolt bent under 5-10lbs of weight, and the shelves alone weigh about 20 apiece. I returned the hardware and decided I probably needed to make my own solution from basics I could get at Home Depot. My first attempt was to go with some 1/2"x10" lag bolts, though they had the complication that they have the big hex heads on them and I didn't want to deal with hiding that in the wood anywhere. But, if I cut them off, I have to find another way to drive them into the wall studs. A solution to this is to thread two nuts onto the bolt and use a wrench to turn the one farther from the wall towards the wall. It will then butt up against the other, seizing together and gripping the bolt instead. Unfortunately the lag bolt's unthreaded diameter is too large and those nuts would have to stay, thus forcing me to cut additional diameter into the shelf boards to hide those. Not a huge deal, but annoying. It then occurred to me that I could just use threaded rod instead, be able to remove the nuts AND it has the added benefit that the threads should grab into the shelves a bit and help keep it in place. Some prototyping showed me that 1/2" was the right diameter, anything less would be too flexible under a typical load.
The actual mount:
A lot has to go just right here. For starters, the holes in the board and the wall must line up exactly, and they need to yield a level shelf. To solve this, I cut two 4'x2" strips of plywood (table saw is handy here!) which I then mounted to the wall with screws exactly where the shelf would go, checking that it was level as well. I then used a stud finder to find where the 3 studs in the 4' stretch were. I then drilled 1/8" pilot holes through the plywood, into the drywall, using a drill guide to make sure they were exactly perpendicular. I marked the visible side of each plywood to indicate which shelf they corresponded to. Then I removed them from the wall, placed the marked face of each up against the back of the shelf it belongs to, lined up the corners and attached it with some screws. I then repeated the pilot hole process into the shelf. Without the guide, the holes may not be exactly in the right spots, leading to a shift or tilt in the shelf, or worst case, not all the holes lining up with the wall. Then, I needed help. There's probably some other way to do this alone, but I couldn't come up with an effective way to drill exactly perpendicular with a big speed-bore bit (the guide just shakes around too much to be useful). I used a square to draw lines straight down the face of the board, one lined up with each hole, that I could visually align the bit with. This solved one of the free dimensions, so I had Marisa sit there with the square against the back of the shelf as I drilled with a 1/2" bit, telling me when I was aligned or not. The ideal tool here would be a drill press, but I didn't have one of those. I used a spare threaded rod to make sure the holes were straight and to scrape them out slightly, essentially using the threads like a file. I tried using the guide when drilling into the all with a 7/16", but that didn't work so well. A similar line+sqaure+help process would have been better. Once all the holes were drilled (I went about 5" deep into the studs, the shelves are on an outer wall so they're going into 2x6s; fully into a 2x4 would be perfectly fine as well), it was time to drive the threaded rod into the studs. I did this using the two-nuts trick I mentioned before. Drilling the holes in the stud to be the same size as the core of the threaded rod allows the thread to twist nice and snugly into the wood. Use a hacksaw to cut the rods down to a length that will fit inside the shelf. I had them go most of the way through the shelf (~7 of the 8.5" depth), though I'm not sure that's needed structurally).
The finish:
This was another big unknown when we started. I was fairly certain that a Danish oil finish was the way to go, but we used the leftover foot of board to practice and try techniques on. Step 1 is definitely sanding. I used a powered orbital sander for all the steps. 80 grit got the mill marks and my doodles out of the wood, then 150 smoothed that out, and a final pass with 400 polished everything to a nice glass-like shine. I then found a great trick to clean out all the saw dust and snag any remaining loose splinters, etc: super fine steel wool. It's like $3 for a 12-pack and its texture pulls out and captures all the dust as well as essentially filets off any last loose tidbits. Running it along the edges between faces gives a great tiny-radius softening, just so the edges aren't literally sharp. However, when I applied the Danish oil, we liked the color but were surprised at how much it brought out the stripes (perpendicular to the grain, below right) in the wood. Using the leftovers as the practice was perfect here because it responds exactly like the shelf itself will. We nixed the Danish oil and went with just a buffed paste wax finish (left) instead. We had decided against a urethane-type coat because it's a clearly visible layer instead of just looking like richer wood. The other options provide less protection, but we're not planning on putting anything wet/sticky/etc on the shelves. I repeated the sanding and waxing on the actual shelves, and they came out great! Note: I also used the steel wool to gently smooth down the artfully split edge, which was quite splintery in its original state.
Mounting the shelf:
So now I had a wall full of threaded rods and complementary-drilled, finished shelves. The last step is to simply slide the shelf onto the rods! I knew the rods weren't exactly perpendicular though, so I wasn't expecting an easy step here. Both shelves lined up pretty well, but neither just "slid on". I ended up having to get out a hammer to get the shelves all the way to the wall. To avoid mangling my handiwork, I used a piece of smooth hemlock to cushion the blows from a large hammer. I broke my hemlock cushion into several pieces, but the mission was accomplished: the shelf wiggled on, bit by bit, until it was snugly up against the wall. Great success!
I estimate I put 25-30 hours into this project between concept, finding the right lumber, developing the techniques involved to get it all mounted straight and finished, and then actually applying those steps. Once we figured out that we wanted floating shelves, here's how I did it:
The lumber:
This is the least deterministic piece of the puzzle. We figured out (and mocked up with some plywood) that we wanted shelves that were about 2" thick, about 8-10" deep and 4 feet long, with the slight overlap as you see in the final result. We debated several types of wood as well but then settled between maple (matches the floors) or cherry (matches the table). Anything in the dark wood family was out for color reasons, and other light hardwoods didn't quite fit the bill (poplar is too green-toned, ash and hickory didn't have the right types of grain and typical embellishments). Of course this is all personal taste. We then looked at possible sources. It's easy enough to buy a cherry or maple board, but most of them are milled to something like 1"x10"x6', which is really only 3/4" thick. Your typical lumber store may not have anything thicker. Since I have a table saw and miter saw, it's no big deal to shave the depth down to spec or cut the board to the length we wanted, but the thickness is not something I wanted to mess with. I floated the idea of gluing two boards together, but Marisa vetoed the resulting grain disruption along all the edges where the glue line would go. I agreed too. I then looked to the internet, and found www.thelumbershack.com. They have a huge, searchable, inventory and I found some candidates, but Marisa said she preferred to see it in person so we committed to finding some specialty stores. That weekend we happened to be visiting her parents in Spokane and we took a quick trip to Windsor Plywood. I didn't really have my hopes up (based on their name, primarily), but they turned out to have the best selection I've ever seen (out of the 3 stores I've been to). We found a great, 9'-long cherry board, had the store chop it in half and brought it home. We then cut it to two 4-foot lengths, keeping the interesting features of the boards.
The mounting approach:
This was the hardest part to conceptualize, and we always had the backup plan of getting corbels and doing a traditional mount. I figured there'd be some ready-made solution somewhere but I couldn't find anything that was a) invisible and b) substantially strong. I went to a hardware store and pored over a catalog to find what I really wanted, which was basically a metal dowel with a screw tip. They actually had them, but after I received them it became quickly apparent they wouldn't be up to the task. The bolt bent under 5-10lbs of weight, and the shelves alone weigh about 20 apiece. I returned the hardware and decided I probably needed to make my own solution from basics I could get at Home Depot. My first attempt was to go with some 1/2"x10" lag bolts, though they had the complication that they have the big hex heads on them and I didn't want to deal with hiding that in the wood anywhere. But, if I cut them off, I have to find another way to drive them into the wall studs. A solution to this is to thread two nuts onto the bolt and use a wrench to turn the one farther from the wall towards the wall. It will then butt up against the other, seizing together and gripping the bolt instead. Unfortunately the lag bolt's unthreaded diameter is too large and those nuts would have to stay, thus forcing me to cut additional diameter into the shelf boards to hide those. Not a huge deal, but annoying. It then occurred to me that I could just use threaded rod instead, be able to remove the nuts AND it has the added benefit that the threads should grab into the shelves a bit and help keep it in place. Some prototyping showed me that 1/2" was the right diameter, anything less would be too flexible under a typical load.
The actual mount:
A lot has to go just right here. For starters, the holes in the board and the wall must line up exactly, and they need to yield a level shelf. To solve this, I cut two 4'x2" strips of plywood (table saw is handy here!) which I then mounted to the wall with screws exactly where the shelf would go, checking that it was level as well. I then used a stud finder to find where the 3 studs in the 4' stretch were. I then drilled 1/8" pilot holes through the plywood, into the drywall, using a drill guide to make sure they were exactly perpendicular. I marked the visible side of each plywood to indicate which shelf they corresponded to. Then I removed them from the wall, placed the marked face of each up against the back of the shelf it belongs to, lined up the corners and attached it with some screws. I then repeated the pilot hole process into the shelf. Without the guide, the holes may not be exactly in the right spots, leading to a shift or tilt in the shelf, or worst case, not all the holes lining up with the wall. Then, I needed help. There's probably some other way to do this alone, but I couldn't come up with an effective way to drill exactly perpendicular with a big speed-bore bit (the guide just shakes around too much to be useful). I used a square to draw lines straight down the face of the board, one lined up with each hole, that I could visually align the bit with. This solved one of the free dimensions, so I had Marisa sit there with the square against the back of the shelf as I drilled with a 1/2" bit, telling me when I was aligned or not. The ideal tool here would be a drill press, but I didn't have one of those. I used a spare threaded rod to make sure the holes were straight and to scrape them out slightly, essentially using the threads like a file. I tried using the guide when drilling into the all with a 7/16", but that didn't work so well. A similar line+sqaure+help process would have been better. Once all the holes were drilled (I went about 5" deep into the studs, the shelves are on an outer wall so they're going into 2x6s; fully into a 2x4 would be perfectly fine as well), it was time to drive the threaded rod into the studs. I did this using the two-nuts trick I mentioned before. Drilling the holes in the stud to be the same size as the core of the threaded rod allows the thread to twist nice and snugly into the wood. Use a hacksaw to cut the rods down to a length that will fit inside the shelf. I had them go most of the way through the shelf (~7 of the 8.5" depth), though I'm not sure that's needed structurally).
The finish:
This was another big unknown when we started. I was fairly certain that a Danish oil finish was the way to go, but we used the leftover foot of board to practice and try techniques on. Step 1 is definitely sanding. I used a powered orbital sander for all the steps. 80 grit got the mill marks and my doodles out of the wood, then 150 smoothed that out, and a final pass with 400 polished everything to a nice glass-like shine. I then found a great trick to clean out all the saw dust and snag any remaining loose splinters, etc: super fine steel wool. It's like $3 for a 12-pack and its texture pulls out and captures all the dust as well as essentially filets off any last loose tidbits. Running it along the edges between faces gives a great tiny-radius softening, just so the edges aren't literally sharp. However, when I applied the Danish oil, we liked the color but were surprised at how much it brought out the stripes (perpendicular to the grain, below right) in the wood. Using the leftovers as the practice was perfect here because it responds exactly like the shelf itself will. We nixed the Danish oil and went with just a buffed paste wax finish (left) instead. We had decided against a urethane-type coat because it's a clearly visible layer instead of just looking like richer wood. The other options provide less protection, but we're not planning on putting anything wet/sticky/etc on the shelves. I repeated the sanding and waxing on the actual shelves, and they came out great! Note: I also used the steel wool to gently smooth down the artfully split edge, which was quite splintery in its original state.
Mounting the shelf:
So now I had a wall full of threaded rods and complementary-drilled, finished shelves. The last step is to simply slide the shelf onto the rods! I knew the rods weren't exactly perpendicular though, so I wasn't expecting an easy step here. Both shelves lined up pretty well, but neither just "slid on". I ended up having to get out a hammer to get the shelves all the way to the wall. To avoid mangling my handiwork, I used a piece of smooth hemlock to cushion the blows from a large hammer. I broke my hemlock cushion into several pieces, but the mission was accomplished: the shelf wiggled on, bit by bit, until it was snugly up against the wall. Great success!
Saturday, November 16, 2013
So about that stack rank ...
Microsoft recently announced that they are changing their review model. Several outlets have passed this on and added anecdotes about how "many current and ex employees say the stack rank is the single most destructive process to the company" and that "maybe doing away with the stack rank will finally get Microsoft out of its lost decade".
Let's start with the basics. Microsoft has had over 500,000 employees, past and present. It's trivial to find a handful of them to align with any viewpoint. In other words, any speculation about the effects of the stack rank are easy to 'support'. I haven't looked hard, but I've yet to hear about a counterpoint (though stories about 'company does things right' tend not make anyone's must-read list).
Now another basic: the new policies say nothing about getting rid of the stack ranking, they just remove the forced curve. These are separate things. Without a stack rank, there's no ability to create differentiated compensation. Take it for what it's worth, but when I worked at IBM the lack of differentiated compensation was the single most destructive aspect of the job. The good people get fed up and leave for greener pastures, or get sick of trying harder when there's no motivation and become burnouts.
There's a slightly annoying conflation of "stack rank" with "forced curve", and somehow we decided that both of these are terrible things, cause in-fighting and back stabbing, and take up everyone's mental faculties with trying to get ahead. Lost in this is that this only really applies if within the small group I work with, my success can only come at the cost of someone else's failure. In reality, the populations that the ranks are done over are big enough that we can both succeed more by helping each other. I'd never even talk to the guys we're both trying to surpass, therefore I have no ability to sabotage them.
Evaluation is a totally standard part of all perf-based endeavors. For example, we get grades in school. We are evaluated, given a rating. Those ratings more-or-less conform to an ordering of students, or a stack rank, if you will. Sure, there can be some ties here and there, but whatever. The better the evaluation, the better the reward. The big difference between school and work is that school doesn't have a fixed budget: the teacher can give everyone an A if they want. At work, there's a fixed budget. If I give someone an A, someone else has to get an F. Or 2 people get Ds. Etc. This would be the forced curve, which some teachers employ...and even in those classes, students study together instead of trying to undermine each other.
The interesting aspect of a forced curve is that it eliminates the ability for a manager to inflate reviews on an absolute scale (or go easy on their low performers) because they know their own people. Furthermore, how can we have any semblance of consistency across a company of 90,000 people. The forced curve combined with a stack rank is an external function that at least in some ways aligns evaluations across the whole company. It can also apply a large-scale statistical model over the company that sheds light on what percent of the workforce is doing at least a satisfactory job and what percent could likely be replaced by a new hire. In the soon-to-be-past system, my review would indicate clearly roughly what percent of people with my same title were better than me. And, that's valuable. Most of us do a fine job, and the best way to know we can improve is to know that, in fact, some non-trivial percent of people were deemed better.
People worry about the degenerate cases of the entirely all-star team or the entirely bad team where people get artificially low or high reviews. These are theoretically possible, and certainly some people end up on the wrong side of a curve boundary. However, in practice these degenerate scenarios don't exist and the monetary impact of being on one side or the other of a review boundary isn't monumental. Without getting into the details, the differentiation is big enough to be worth working for, but not so big that it's life-changing.
Without tangible incentives, workers will learn what their minimum passable effort is.
I believe that differentiation compensation is a must.
To assign differentiated compensation, there must be an ordering of employee performances that is in correspondence with the assigned rewards.
Let's start with the basics. Microsoft has had over 500,000 employees, past and present. It's trivial to find a handful of them to align with any viewpoint. In other words, any speculation about the effects of the stack rank are easy to 'support'. I haven't looked hard, but I've yet to hear about a counterpoint (though stories about 'company does things right' tend not make anyone's must-read list).
Now another basic: the new policies say nothing about getting rid of the stack ranking, they just remove the forced curve. These are separate things. Without a stack rank, there's no ability to create differentiated compensation. Take it for what it's worth, but when I worked at IBM the lack of differentiated compensation was the single most destructive aspect of the job. The good people get fed up and leave for greener pastures, or get sick of trying harder when there's no motivation and become burnouts.
There's a slightly annoying conflation of "stack rank" with "forced curve", and somehow we decided that both of these are terrible things, cause in-fighting and back stabbing, and take up everyone's mental faculties with trying to get ahead. Lost in this is that this only really applies if within the small group I work with, my success can only come at the cost of someone else's failure. In reality, the populations that the ranks are done over are big enough that we can both succeed more by helping each other. I'd never even talk to the guys we're both trying to surpass, therefore I have no ability to sabotage them.
Evaluation is a totally standard part of all perf-based endeavors. For example, we get grades in school. We are evaluated, given a rating. Those ratings more-or-less conform to an ordering of students, or a stack rank, if you will. Sure, there can be some ties here and there, but whatever. The better the evaluation, the better the reward. The big difference between school and work is that school doesn't have a fixed budget: the teacher can give everyone an A if they want. At work, there's a fixed budget. If I give someone an A, someone else has to get an F. Or 2 people get Ds. Etc. This would be the forced curve, which some teachers employ...and even in those classes, students study together instead of trying to undermine each other.
The interesting aspect of a forced curve is that it eliminates the ability for a manager to inflate reviews on an absolute scale (or go easy on their low performers) because they know their own people. Furthermore, how can we have any semblance of consistency across a company of 90,000 people. The forced curve combined with a stack rank is an external function that at least in some ways aligns evaluations across the whole company. It can also apply a large-scale statistical model over the company that sheds light on what percent of the workforce is doing at least a satisfactory job and what percent could likely be replaced by a new hire. In the soon-to-be-past system, my review would indicate clearly roughly what percent of people with my same title were better than me. And, that's valuable. Most of us do a fine job, and the best way to know we can improve is to know that, in fact, some non-trivial percent of people were deemed better.
People worry about the degenerate cases of the entirely all-star team or the entirely bad team where people get artificially low or high reviews. These are theoretically possible, and certainly some people end up on the wrong side of a curve boundary. However, in practice these degenerate scenarios don't exist and the monetary impact of being on one side or the other of a review boundary isn't monumental. Without getting into the details, the differentiation is big enough to be worth working for, but not so big that it's life-changing.
Without tangible incentives, workers will learn what their minimum passable effort is.
I believe that differentiation compensation is a must.
To assign differentiated compensation, there must be an ordering of employee performances that is in correspondence with the assigned rewards.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
LinkedIn's Dilemma
I wrote a while back about Facebook's dilemma: that while they're sitting on a treasure trove of personal information, exploiting that information will likely alienate their user base because Facebook is supposed to be a somewhat safe place, a sandbox of sorts.
LinkedIn is in a similar pickle since going public. They're sporting a nearly 1000 P/E ratio which is propping up a market cap of 27B. In contrast, Facebook's is a mere quarter of that, suggesting that if LinkedIn can't do something drastic, they stand to lose about 20B of company value. Ouch. Clearly there is pressure for them to monetize, but they need to be very careful about how they do it. They recently announced a service called Intro that would re-route users' emails through LinkedIn's email servers and append the sender's LinkedIn profile data to all mails. They note that this will allow people to connect more with others, perhaps even adding those people on LinkedIn.
I don't know that this is valuable though, or at least not to anyone other than recruiters. LinkedIn should instead consider acquiring services like Angie's List and aggregating various reviews to create a sort of uber profile. Make a person like me want to have LinkedIn, because through it I can really assess the professional qualifications of someone I interact with. Appending profile data to every email is simply overkill because most people I send most emails to are my family and coworkers who I already know plenty well. Most mail I receive is corporate ad mail. For every one of these cases, additional profile data is just in the way. I also need to now worry that if I send someone something sensitive, it may go through LinkedIn's servers as well. Imagine if I send my mom an email that I'm thinking about looking around for other jobs ... now maybe I get promoted to recruiters suddenly as a higher-value target? And suddenly I start getting calls? I'm not sure I like that.
Finally, a note on the irony of LinkedIn's social graph. Promoting more connections actually weakens the information LinkedIn provides. Connections are supposed to be a sort of partial endorsement. If everyone endorses everyone, we get no new information. Same goes for skills endorsements: everyone has seen plenty of cases where someone with no understanding of a field endorses their friend in that field.
Instead of working on spamming and ad features, LinkedIn needs to work on relevancy. The end.
LinkedIn is in a similar pickle since going public. They're sporting a nearly 1000 P/E ratio which is propping up a market cap of 27B. In contrast, Facebook's is a mere quarter of that, suggesting that if LinkedIn can't do something drastic, they stand to lose about 20B of company value. Ouch. Clearly there is pressure for them to monetize, but they need to be very careful about how they do it. They recently announced a service called Intro that would re-route users' emails through LinkedIn's email servers and append the sender's LinkedIn profile data to all mails. They note that this will allow people to connect more with others, perhaps even adding those people on LinkedIn.
I don't know that this is valuable though, or at least not to anyone other than recruiters. LinkedIn should instead consider acquiring services like Angie's List and aggregating various reviews to create a sort of uber profile. Make a person like me want to have LinkedIn, because through it I can really assess the professional qualifications of someone I interact with. Appending profile data to every email is simply overkill because most people I send most emails to are my family and coworkers who I already know plenty well. Most mail I receive is corporate ad mail. For every one of these cases, additional profile data is just in the way. I also need to now worry that if I send someone something sensitive, it may go through LinkedIn's servers as well. Imagine if I send my mom an email that I'm thinking about looking around for other jobs ... now maybe I get promoted to recruiters suddenly as a higher-value target? And suddenly I start getting calls? I'm not sure I like that.
Finally, a note on the irony of LinkedIn's social graph. Promoting more connections actually weakens the information LinkedIn provides. Connections are supposed to be a sort of partial endorsement. If everyone endorses everyone, we get no new information. Same goes for skills endorsements: everyone has seen plenty of cases where someone with no understanding of a field endorses their friend in that field.
Instead of working on spamming and ad features, LinkedIn needs to work on relevancy. The end.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Minimum Wage
My cousin recently asked me what I thought of this article talking about how the USA's minimum wage leaves many below the poverty line and needing assistance. I didn't think much of the article, actually. I'm not an economist and there are undoubtedly many subtle points to raising a minimum wage, but none of those were explored. The article never goes beyond gut-level reactions, slapping around a few ominous, but not so meaningful, stats and then a silly judgemental statement about McDonald's (and btw, how is this problem fundamentally related to McD's??). Let's explore the framing of the article:
1. New research shows more than half of low-ware workers at fast-food restaurants rely on public assistance to survive - a rate double that of the overall workforce.
Why yes, people who make less money will get more assistance. Also, this isn't unique to the fast food industry. Other minimum- or low-wage jobs are equally affected. Why is this article only talking about fast food? Why not be more powerful and generalize to all such workers in the country? Is it because it's easier to make McDonald's look like the evil lord of just the fast food industry instead of all low hourly wage jobs? And while we're at it, if we make the highly plausible assumption that need for assistance is heavily correlated with lack of income, it's simply a matter of choosing what "low" wages are defined as to get the above result. It's basically meaningless, other than to say "there is a segment of the population that needs twice the assistance as the rest". Duh.
1a. According to the research, low wages in the fast food industry cost the tax payers $7B a year, more than the entire budget of the CDC!!
Math time: $7B divided into 300+M people, factoring out those are poor, let's say ... no more than $40 per person per year? So $40 of the $15,000+ I paid in taxes last year go to help the needy. I'm pretty ok with that. I'm happy to make that $80. $7B sounds like a tremendous number, but it's not really very much on a national budget scale. I'm frankly far more concerned about the several hundred billion a year that heart disease and diabetes (which is at least partially tied to the fast food industry) costs us in medical care, and that doesn't even include lost productivity, disability, etc. Again, what does the CDC have to do with anything here? This is just a sensationalistic comparison. Most people have heard of the CDC, so they assume it's something huge. I just ate an orange, which has more vitamin C than all 3 of the cars I've owned, combined!!
2. A study has found that McD's alone costs Americans 1.2B a year by paying insufficient wages.
Finally something concrete! I do wish they'd gone ahead and just presented a table of wage-vs-average-assistance-needed, but that'd be too nice of them. Let's keep this number in mind as data is brought up about the fast-food labor strikes and McD's profits.
Now we move into a transcript of hosts Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman, along with guest Jack Temple, a policy analyst from the National Employment Law Project. We'll notice that Amy and Juan are already pretty well in agreement with Jack, so the entire conversation is really just an echo chamber. There are no hard questions (or really questions at all). I usually associate this kind of setup with a person attempting to leverage another organization to legitimize their position, or in some cases to have both sides co-legitimize each other.
Juan: [same as framing] and the top 10 fast food companies made $7.4B in profits last year.
Amy: While CEOs are raking in record profits, fast-food workers protested to be able to form a union and make $15 an hour. National minimum wage is $7.25.
This is a conflation. CEO wages are certainly higher than ever before, but the largest companies are also larger than ever and more global than ever. This is simply market response. If a company has revenue of $10B, a 1% better CEO is worth $100M and is easily worth $10M more per year. While lots of people complain about the ratio of CEO-to-average employee going through the roof, company sizes are also increasing. Each employee relies on the CEO and senior management for their job to persist, so some fraction of their earnings should be allocated there. More employees = more company = more the CEO's value is. Amy's statement also implies that McD's employees are making $7.25, but this may or may not be the case. Again, all definitions of "low wage" and "poverty level" and similar are missing.
Amy then quotes Shantel Walker, a fast-food employee: I've had numerous jobs, and each starts back at $7.25. It doesn't matter where you work. That's the irony: that it's not just fast food, but other industries as well.
Shantel calls out that this issue is not limited to fast food, yet our panel continues to focus on fast food only, and mostly McD's at that. Shantel's quote also implies an important truth: these are not skilled jobs. These jobs can always be filled by an employee with no experience. This is the crux of an issue I'll elaborate on later, but basically there's no reason to give them more money. They are easily replaceable.
Jack: my report is really important and it shows that no matter what, this industry is costing you money, and therefore significantly affecting the economic growth of the country.
Well Jack, that's a bold statement. The GDP of the USA is $16.6T, and assuming this assistance money could be magically eliminated, we'd save ourselves a burden of $7B. Again, I'm no economist, but this isn't even a tenth of a percent of the economy. I'm now going to be cross-checking all your claims more carefully.
Juan: Jack, counterarguments include that McD's and BK's restaurants are franchises and are therefore effectively small businesses and that the wages are low because these are entry-level jobs from which employees are expected to move on.
I believe what Juan is referencing is that small businesses are less likely to have cash to invest in a higher-skill workforce. Since McD's locations are actually operated semi-independently by a franchise owner, they are effectively a conglomerate of very small businesses. Also, it's less about people moving on to other jobs and more about ease of replacement. There's little incentive to invest more in an employee and keep them longer when their skill-set is easy to replace for cheap.
Jack: Facts refute both of those. for all the talk about small businesses in the industry, McD's made $5.5B profit last year ...
Well, that's entirely ignoring the fact that each McD's location is a franchise, but continue ...
Jack, cont: McD's corporate exercises a lot of control over locations. They determine just about everything, but suddenly they don't determine wages? They infer wages by the control the exercise.
Sort of ... there's definitely some truth to this. McD's corporate controls all aspects that would affect their brand. This includes the food, the machines ('process'), logos, etc. However, some franchises operate in great locations and others in less-great locations, which certainly affects the volume of business each location does. It's not like McD's corporate has an equal-outcome consequence on every restaurant location.
Jack, cont: Regarding entry-level workers, this industry actually employs much older people than we'd expect. 70 percent of workers are over the age of 20, 30 percent of those** are supporting children, which adds to the public support cost.
I don't like this statement for a few reasons:
1. "Entry-level" does not mean "high-school job". It means "job with no prior experience or training needed. He's confusing age with skill set. It's a reality of the world that plenty of people old enough to have gone to college haven't, and haven't gained any other skills either.
2. Even if "entry-level" was tied to age, his stat has a cutoff at age 20. This is still in the very early phases of career development and includes kids in college trying to make money on the side, etc. Why not a percent of people over 25? over 30? This makes me feel like he cherry-picked this stat because it sounds bad.
2a. "30 percent of those" is vague. Is that 30 percent of workers? or 30 percent of the 70 percent? It's just a sloppy phrasing, but it's not really clear what we're to do with these numbers anyways. It's just statistical pseudo-support.
3. "adds to the public cost": we already agreed that the public cost is $7B. That's a final number and discussing the composition of it with no other reference to the composition makes me feel like he's trying to artificially inflate the value in people's heads. I ran into something similar while house hunting. The seller's agent was adamant about the added value of the brand new elementary school nearby, but was already in the comps because the houses that sold a few blocks away already had that factored into the price as well, so it's really just a bullet-pointing of something that's already been covered. Why emphasize this if the bottom line is already set?
Amy: how much do these franchises make and how much do the CEOs make? How much do the workers make? Justify the disparity.
Despite my claim before, this is actually a solid question. Good job Amy.
Jack: the CEOs at the 7 largest publicly traded fast-food companies made $53M combined.
McD's CEO Don Thompson made $13.7M alone last year. The median hourly wage of a fast-food worker is $8.69. It's one of the lowest wages in the economy today for the occupation. So you see the stunning disparity between workers and CEOs.
So the top 7 companies make $7.4B in profits and pay their CEOs $53M to get there. This is less than 1% to get the result they want. Also, consider the risk to replace a CEO. This is a company's right: they need to determine how much someone running the company well and with vision should be valued. Really, who cares. McD's employs 440,000 people world-wide. Don Thompson's income is about $30 per employee. Is it worth $30 to make sure they continue to have a job? Is that more or less than union dues they'd be paying? I'd also bet that most of that compensation is in company stock which comes from the fact that (shock!) the company is doing well. The CEO makes about 1000x a low-wage worker. This seems like a big number, but really, why does this ratio matter so much to us? These ratios get flung around the media like they're a definitive statement of guilt, wrong-doing, corruption, greed or something. But, it's just global capitalism at work. If McD's tried to keep CEO pay at, say, $1M per year, maybe Don would still be the boss. Maybe not. Since every other company would be willing to pay more, McD's would be left with either an unknown or a known mediocre person to run the company. Is that preferable through the lens of the 440,000 jobs they are supporting?
Amy: the demographic of the workers?
Huh? Not sure what she's referencing with this question. I guess it's a prompt to talk about that aspect.
Jack: the median age of workers is nearly 29. Many are supporting children. We've seen a real shift away from industrial jobs that supported the middle class to service jobs today, which are defining the American economy. This is a problem because the wages are so low.
This is a reasonable sounding statement. I suppose the implication is that industrial jobs have shifted to service jobs? I imagine that we had lots of service jobs decades ago as well, so I don't really know what concrete conclusion to take away from this. I guess this funnels into the 99% chatter, that it's a symptom of the hollowing out of the middle class? At any rate it seems the issue is not inherently that service jobs make little money, but that there's a lack of blue-collar jobs that require some skill and specialization.
After some more of the same, there's finally a concrete statement that it's the growth of the service industry relative to the rest of the economy that's going to perpetuate our issues because they get paid so little. Let's get to the final conclusion.
Amy: Companies argue that costs associated with increasing wages will have to be passed onto the consumers.
Jack: This is a multi-billion dollar industry. There's no reason to suspect companies can't afford higher wages.
Let's do a little more math using McD's as the example. Suppose we trust that McD's causes $1.2B of public assistance. Suppose McD's decides to foot that bill. This would drop McD's earnings to $4.3B. Assuming the same P/E ratio, McD's market cap would drop from $109B to about $85B. It would remove $24B of value from the economy, which is a 20-fold impact. That's no good. Fast-food is highly competitive and highly commoditized, meaning returns on investment and operating margins are not great. Thus, any hit to the bottom line would be magnified in stock value. Just because a company has large revenue doesn't mean it's got money to burn. This is a gross mistake from a guy who's involved with employment and financial matters here.
Now that I've ranted about the format and exact content of the discussion, there was also some talk about the fast-food workers wanting $15 an hour. I'm not really sure what to think of that one. I know other countries believe in much higher minimum wages and it works for them. My gut reaction is that it would really just escalate all wages a bunch, and there'd be a "cost of work" wash across the economy. It would likely lead to a compression in wages across the board, but you can't just raise a burger-flipper's pay to $30k a year and expect a teacher to stay happy at that same income. It'd necessarily push other wages up because otherwise other industries would lose people to easier jobs. This is all hand-wavy and vague, but I don't think it's quite so simple. What I do know is this discussion has left me with nothing new to think about.
1. New research shows more than half of low-ware workers at fast-food restaurants rely on public assistance to survive - a rate double that of the overall workforce.
Why yes, people who make less money will get more assistance. Also, this isn't unique to the fast food industry. Other minimum- or low-wage jobs are equally affected. Why is this article only talking about fast food? Why not be more powerful and generalize to all such workers in the country? Is it because it's easier to make McDonald's look like the evil lord of just the fast food industry instead of all low hourly wage jobs? And while we're at it, if we make the highly plausible assumption that need for assistance is heavily correlated with lack of income, it's simply a matter of choosing what "low" wages are defined as to get the above result. It's basically meaningless, other than to say "there is a segment of the population that needs twice the assistance as the rest". Duh.
1a. According to the research, low wages in the fast food industry cost the tax payers $7B a year, more than the entire budget of the CDC!!
Math time: $7B divided into 300+M people, factoring out those are poor, let's say ... no more than $40 per person per year? So $40 of the $15,000+ I paid in taxes last year go to help the needy. I'm pretty ok with that. I'm happy to make that $80. $7B sounds like a tremendous number, but it's not really very much on a national budget scale. I'm frankly far more concerned about the several hundred billion a year that heart disease and diabetes (which is at least partially tied to the fast food industry) costs us in medical care, and that doesn't even include lost productivity, disability, etc. Again, what does the CDC have to do with anything here? This is just a sensationalistic comparison. Most people have heard of the CDC, so they assume it's something huge. I just ate an orange, which has more vitamin C than all 3 of the cars I've owned, combined!!
2. A study has found that McD's alone costs Americans 1.2B a year by paying insufficient wages.
Finally something concrete! I do wish they'd gone ahead and just presented a table of wage-vs-average-assistance-needed, but that'd be too nice of them. Let's keep this number in mind as data is brought up about the fast-food labor strikes and McD's profits.
Now we move into a transcript of hosts Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman, along with guest Jack Temple, a policy analyst from the National Employment Law Project. We'll notice that Amy and Juan are already pretty well in agreement with Jack, so the entire conversation is really just an echo chamber. There are no hard questions (or really questions at all). I usually associate this kind of setup with a person attempting to leverage another organization to legitimize their position, or in some cases to have both sides co-legitimize each other.
Juan: [same as framing] and the top 10 fast food companies made $7.4B in profits last year.
Amy: While CEOs are raking in record profits, fast-food workers protested to be able to form a union and make $15 an hour. National minimum wage is $7.25.
This is a conflation. CEO wages are certainly higher than ever before, but the largest companies are also larger than ever and more global than ever. This is simply market response. If a company has revenue of $10B, a 1% better CEO is worth $100M and is easily worth $10M more per year. While lots of people complain about the ratio of CEO-to-average employee going through the roof, company sizes are also increasing. Each employee relies on the CEO and senior management for their job to persist, so some fraction of their earnings should be allocated there. More employees = more company = more the CEO's value is. Amy's statement also implies that McD's employees are making $7.25, but this may or may not be the case. Again, all definitions of "low wage" and "poverty level" and similar are missing.
Amy then quotes Shantel Walker, a fast-food employee: I've had numerous jobs, and each starts back at $7.25. It doesn't matter where you work. That's the irony: that it's not just fast food, but other industries as well.
Shantel calls out that this issue is not limited to fast food, yet our panel continues to focus on fast food only, and mostly McD's at that. Shantel's quote also implies an important truth: these are not skilled jobs. These jobs can always be filled by an employee with no experience. This is the crux of an issue I'll elaborate on later, but basically there's no reason to give them more money. They are easily replaceable.
Jack: my report is really important and it shows that no matter what, this industry is costing you money, and therefore significantly affecting the economic growth of the country.
Well Jack, that's a bold statement. The GDP of the USA is $16.6T, and assuming this assistance money could be magically eliminated, we'd save ourselves a burden of $7B. Again, I'm no economist, but this isn't even a tenth of a percent of the economy. I'm now going to be cross-checking all your claims more carefully.
Juan: Jack, counterarguments include that McD's and BK's restaurants are franchises and are therefore effectively small businesses and that the wages are low because these are entry-level jobs from which employees are expected to move on.
I believe what Juan is referencing is that small businesses are less likely to have cash to invest in a higher-skill workforce. Since McD's locations are actually operated semi-independently by a franchise owner, they are effectively a conglomerate of very small businesses. Also, it's less about people moving on to other jobs and more about ease of replacement. There's little incentive to invest more in an employee and keep them longer when their skill-set is easy to replace for cheap.
Jack: Facts refute both of those. for all the talk about small businesses in the industry, McD's made $5.5B profit last year ...
Well, that's entirely ignoring the fact that each McD's location is a franchise, but continue ...
Jack, cont: McD's corporate exercises a lot of control over locations. They determine just about everything, but suddenly they don't determine wages? They infer wages by the control the exercise.
Sort of ... there's definitely some truth to this. McD's corporate controls all aspects that would affect their brand. This includes the food, the machines ('process'), logos, etc. However, some franchises operate in great locations and others in less-great locations, which certainly affects the volume of business each location does. It's not like McD's corporate has an equal-outcome consequence on every restaurant location.
Jack, cont: Regarding entry-level workers, this industry actually employs much older people than we'd expect. 70 percent of workers are over the age of 20, 30 percent of those** are supporting children, which adds to the public support cost.
I don't like this statement for a few reasons:
1. "Entry-level" does not mean "high-school job". It means "job with no prior experience or training needed. He's confusing age with skill set. It's a reality of the world that plenty of people old enough to have gone to college haven't, and haven't gained any other skills either.
2. Even if "entry-level" was tied to age, his stat has a cutoff at age 20. This is still in the very early phases of career development and includes kids in college trying to make money on the side, etc. Why not a percent of people over 25? over 30? This makes me feel like he cherry-picked this stat because it sounds bad.
2a. "30 percent of those" is vague. Is that 30 percent of workers? or 30 percent of the 70 percent? It's just a sloppy phrasing, but it's not really clear what we're to do with these numbers anyways. It's just statistical pseudo-support.
3. "adds to the public cost": we already agreed that the public cost is $7B. That's a final number and discussing the composition of it with no other reference to the composition makes me feel like he's trying to artificially inflate the value in people's heads. I ran into something similar while house hunting. The seller's agent was adamant about the added value of the brand new elementary school nearby, but was already in the comps because the houses that sold a few blocks away already had that factored into the price as well, so it's really just a bullet-pointing of something that's already been covered. Why emphasize this if the bottom line is already set?
Amy: how much do these franchises make and how much do the CEOs make? How much do the workers make? Justify the disparity.
Despite my claim before, this is actually a solid question. Good job Amy.
Jack: the CEOs at the 7 largest publicly traded fast-food companies made $53M combined.
McD's CEO Don Thompson made $13.7M alone last year. The median hourly wage of a fast-food worker is $8.69. It's one of the lowest wages in the economy today for the occupation. So you see the stunning disparity between workers and CEOs.
So the top 7 companies make $7.4B in profits and pay their CEOs $53M to get there. This is less than 1% to get the result they want. Also, consider the risk to replace a CEO. This is a company's right: they need to determine how much someone running the company well and with vision should be valued. Really, who cares. McD's employs 440,000 people world-wide. Don Thompson's income is about $30 per employee. Is it worth $30 to make sure they continue to have a job? Is that more or less than union dues they'd be paying? I'd also bet that most of that compensation is in company stock which comes from the fact that (shock!) the company is doing well. The CEO makes about 1000x a low-wage worker. This seems like a big number, but really, why does this ratio matter so much to us? These ratios get flung around the media like they're a definitive statement of guilt, wrong-doing, corruption, greed or something. But, it's just global capitalism at work. If McD's tried to keep CEO pay at, say, $1M per year, maybe Don would still be the boss. Maybe not. Since every other company would be willing to pay more, McD's would be left with either an unknown or a known mediocre person to run the company. Is that preferable through the lens of the 440,000 jobs they are supporting?
Amy: the demographic of the workers?
Huh? Not sure what she's referencing with this question. I guess it's a prompt to talk about that aspect.
Jack: the median age of workers is nearly 29. Many are supporting children. We've seen a real shift away from industrial jobs that supported the middle class to service jobs today, which are defining the American economy. This is a problem because the wages are so low.
This is a reasonable sounding statement. I suppose the implication is that industrial jobs have shifted to service jobs? I imagine that we had lots of service jobs decades ago as well, so I don't really know what concrete conclusion to take away from this. I guess this funnels into the 99% chatter, that it's a symptom of the hollowing out of the middle class? At any rate it seems the issue is not inherently that service jobs make little money, but that there's a lack of blue-collar jobs that require some skill and specialization.
After some more of the same, there's finally a concrete statement that it's the growth of the service industry relative to the rest of the economy that's going to perpetuate our issues because they get paid so little. Let's get to the final conclusion.
Amy: Companies argue that costs associated with increasing wages will have to be passed onto the consumers.
Jack: This is a multi-billion dollar industry. There's no reason to suspect companies can't afford higher wages.
Let's do a little more math using McD's as the example. Suppose we trust that McD's causes $1.2B of public assistance. Suppose McD's decides to foot that bill. This would drop McD's earnings to $4.3B. Assuming the same P/E ratio, McD's market cap would drop from $109B to about $85B. It would remove $24B of value from the economy, which is a 20-fold impact. That's no good. Fast-food is highly competitive and highly commoditized, meaning returns on investment and operating margins are not great. Thus, any hit to the bottom line would be magnified in stock value. Just because a company has large revenue doesn't mean it's got money to burn. This is a gross mistake from a guy who's involved with employment and financial matters here.
Now that I've ranted about the format and exact content of the discussion, there was also some talk about the fast-food workers wanting $15 an hour. I'm not really sure what to think of that one. I know other countries believe in much higher minimum wages and it works for them. My gut reaction is that it would really just escalate all wages a bunch, and there'd be a "cost of work" wash across the economy. It would likely lead to a compression in wages across the board, but you can't just raise a burger-flipper's pay to $30k a year and expect a teacher to stay happy at that same income. It'd necessarily push other wages up because otherwise other industries would lose people to easier jobs. This is all hand-wavy and vague, but I don't think it's quite so simple. What I do know is this discussion has left me with nothing new to think about.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Social Change and Hyperbole
150 years ago, our President would have been owned by someone. 100 years ago, our First Lady couldn't vote. And 60 years ago, they would have had to ride in the back of the bus together. Today, they lead our country. Social change happens, and it's slow and hard. Mere decades before each of these events, these outcomes were unthinkable, frightening. And here we are today. Let us not think that other major social change would, as some say, "ruin the foundations of our country" or similar. To make such statements is clear hyperbole: ridiculous, not applicable and desperate.
It is our right to disagree, and to have our own opinions. It is good that we have disagreement: it drives change and improvement while keeping checks and balances in place. However, we are a democracy and we need to let the majority speak and then respect that outcome. Sometimes you get your way, sometimes you don't. If you don't like it, go be the dictator of a small country and see how well that works out for you. Or start small as the overbearing head of a household and see just how happy others under your roof are.**
** - Don't be the overbearing head of a household. Or small country.
It is our right to disagree, and to have our own opinions. It is good that we have disagreement: it drives change and improvement while keeping checks and balances in place. However, we are a democracy and we need to let the majority speak and then respect that outcome. Sometimes you get your way, sometimes you don't. If you don't like it, go be the dictator of a small country and see how well that works out for you. Or start small as the overbearing head of a household and see just how happy others under your roof are.**
** - Don't be the overbearing head of a household. Or small country.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Hacking a phone
Phones are rapidly moving to the forefront of our electronic connectedness (or really, they are already there), as opposed to being a sort of auxiliary device that can also do some things. The super-fast hacking of the iPhone's fingerprint scanner security feature got me thinking about some of the assumptions we make.
First, more ways to log in, perhaps unintuitively, makes a platform less secure. This is exactly analogous to having multiple doors into your house, all with different types of locks. A thief only has to figure out how to exploit one of those, and they are in. The key here is that any one door gives full access, as opposed to multi-factor authentications (ex: voice+fingerprint+passcode) where the thief has to go through ALL of the doors to get in. But really, let's assume a good thief can break through any of these doors and therefore we have to have a backup plan.
A technique to help users mitigate the loss/hacking of their phone is remote-wipe. Since we're talking about Apple, we'll keep using them as the example (though the concept should apply equally for any phone maker). I was debating if a thief could do something like:
1. Steal phone, turn it off
2. Turn on the phone in their underground lair where there's no cell signal
3. Take as much time as they want to hack the fingerprint reader using a print left on the phone by the original owner (** - what are the odds, actually?)
4. Connect to a firewalled internal network that blocks attempts to communicate with Apple's services (and therefore presumably could avoid the remote-wipe instruction)
5. Go party with data on the phone (email, pics, texts, ...), syncable by the phone (email, ... ), pushable by the phone (bank account app, perhaps ... ).
Turns out the iPhone can be put into airplane mode in iOS7 without even unlocking the phone, so steps 1 and 2 converge to "put phone into airplane mode". In this particular vein, the fingerprint is only valid for 48 hours after the last successful login (seems a pretty long time ... ), so the thief would have 2 days to replicate the fingerprint. At any rate, the remote-wipe may be easier to block than desired. At that point a user would have to resort to changing all their passwords, but that still leaves a thief access to anything cached on the phone (which would be quite a bit of personal data ... ). Hmm. Perhaps security features should be left as simple as possible?
** - I don't know how clear a print needs to be for a thief to be able to reproduce it. Just looking at my phone, I think there was one "good enough" one after I pulled it out of my pocket. For the scanner feature to be useful, it seems like a user would have to use their thumb, which is also a finger they are most guaranteed to place all over the rest of the body/screen as well.
First, more ways to log in, perhaps unintuitively, makes a platform less secure. This is exactly analogous to having multiple doors into your house, all with different types of locks. A thief only has to figure out how to exploit one of those, and they are in. The key here is that any one door gives full access, as opposed to multi-factor authentications (ex: voice+fingerprint+passcode) where the thief has to go through ALL of the doors to get in. But really, let's assume a good thief can break through any of these doors and therefore we have to have a backup plan.
A technique to help users mitigate the loss/hacking of their phone is remote-wipe. Since we're talking about Apple, we'll keep using them as the example (though the concept should apply equally for any phone maker). I was debating if a thief could do something like:
1. Steal phone, turn it off
2. Turn on the phone in their underground lair where there's no cell signal
3. Take as much time as they want to hack the fingerprint reader using a print left on the phone by the original owner (** - what are the odds, actually?)
4. Connect to a firewalled internal network that blocks attempts to communicate with Apple's services (and therefore presumably could avoid the remote-wipe instruction)
5. Go party with data on the phone (email, pics, texts, ...), syncable by the phone (email, ... ), pushable by the phone (bank account app, perhaps ... ).
Turns out the iPhone can be put into airplane mode in iOS7 without even unlocking the phone, so steps 1 and 2 converge to "put phone into airplane mode". In this particular vein, the fingerprint is only valid for 48 hours after the last successful login (seems a pretty long time ... ), so the thief would have 2 days to replicate the fingerprint. At any rate, the remote-wipe may be easier to block than desired. At that point a user would have to resort to changing all their passwords, but that still leaves a thief access to anything cached on the phone (which would be quite a bit of personal data ... ). Hmm. Perhaps security features should be left as simple as possible?
** - I don't know how clear a print needs to be for a thief to be able to reproduce it. Just looking at my phone, I think there was one "good enough" one after I pulled it out of my pocket. For the scanner feature to be useful, it seems like a user would have to use their thumb, which is also a finger they are most guaranteed to place all over the rest of the body/screen as well.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Cracking the code
In this case, the NSA cracking various encryptions ...
Let's assume the media has the details right (which can be a pretty big if) and take a looksey.
"U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show." - USA Today.
They then go on to say that they actually mean individual keys. This is very different. There's no question that given enough effort, the NSA could reverse engineer a private key. Really, lots of people could ('people' here means those with access to serious computing power, though I wonder if you could successfully run cracking codes on Azure, EC2, etc?)
The article goes on to say that the NSA has maintained control over international encryption standards. I don't think that's actually true, that's NIST's job (and it's not 'control'). The NSA weighs in on the quality of new algorithms, etc, but they don't set the "rules" ... after all, people can use whatever they want. So we already have some bad info.
So far the NSA has done nothing that anyone else isn't trying to do. Then there are the allegations of back doors (either by hacking or pressure). Hacked back doors are, well, possible by anyone. China hacks stuff all the time. So does the USA. Nothing novel going on here.
The only allegation that's interesting is the possibility that backdoors are being added as a result of pressure from government agencies. This I like a lot less .... for obvious reasons.
Let's assume the media has the details right (which can be a pretty big if) and take a looksey.
"U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show." - USA Today.
They then go on to say that they actually mean individual keys. This is very different. There's no question that given enough effort, the NSA could reverse engineer a private key. Really, lots of people could ('people' here means those with access to serious computing power, though I wonder if you could successfully run cracking codes on Azure, EC2, etc?)
The article goes on to say that the NSA has maintained control over international encryption standards. I don't think that's actually true, that's NIST's job (and it's not 'control'). The NSA weighs in on the quality of new algorithms, etc, but they don't set the "rules" ... after all, people can use whatever they want. So we already have some bad info.
So far the NSA has done nothing that anyone else isn't trying to do. Then there are the allegations of back doors (either by hacking or pressure). Hacked back doors are, well, possible by anyone. China hacks stuff all the time. So does the USA. Nothing novel going on here.
The only allegation that's interesting is the possibility that backdoors are being added as a result of pressure from government agencies. This I like a lot less .... for obvious reasons.
Delicious places to eat in Tucson
Beyond Bread
BisonWitches
Rosa's
No Anchovies
Magpie's
Well, these are all very college-y (in that they all cost under $10). I have no idea about fine dining because it's really not my thing (even now that I make lots of money).
BisonWitches
Rosa's
No Anchovies
Magpie's
Well, these are all very college-y (in that they all cost under $10). I have no idea about fine dining because it's really not my thing (even now that I make lots of money).
School is real life
I spent a big part of this week doing recruiting-related stuff around UofA. It was a really great experience to (re)connect with professors, see what's going on, and get a different perspective on the department and job hunt process. I've talked about some of the good and bad versions of applicants before, so I'll skip that here. Instead I'll focus on the realities that I basically refused when I was a student in their shoes.
I heard in multiple classes that difficult group members happen, that projects require testing, that I probably suck at writing. I didn't believe any of it. However, all these things translate directly. Let's take a look, one by one.
You can't write:
I never ever believed this one until I started working at IBM and one day read a bug report:
"when I put the RDP in, it flashes then gets stuck" it read. What? Huh? There's like 100 versions of this. I wandered over to check it out, and on the way over grumbled about how this person is not considering that I have no idea what they are looking at. And then I realized that I was guilty of the same. This was a mini epiphany, and I suddenly got much much much better at writing effectively. And yes, most people suck at this. It takes practice. Not only do you want to be effective, but also concise. There's a big difference between a colloquial ramble like this and a well-composed, tight piece of prose. Opt for the latter in formal situations.
Sloppy testing:
As devs we want to believe that our code will always be perfect. Tests prove this. Unit testing is growing in popularity. I don't believe it's the be-all-end-all, but it's certainly a good way to help organize. If you're having a hard time creating unit tests, you probably don't have good units. Having good units leads to clean code with clear boundaries. These have clear roles with clear expected behaviors. It's just good policy.
But my teammate dropped the ball, give me a break!
Yeah, this happens. And guess what? You're at fault too. But you can't be expected to make them do their work, right? Well, true, sorta. The key here is to develop the ability to manage a project. Establish the pieces you need. Figure out the dependencies. Make sure the deep dependencies get taken care of first. Look at the pipeline here. If a piece is critical, make sure it gets done. If your assigned person isn't delivering, prod them, take over, whatever, make it happen. Understand the downstream effects of any particular piece slipping. Clearly N-1 people can do less than N, but you can mitigate the damage of the missing person by making sure that critical pieces roll off them. You may still not love the outcome, but you should be able to avoid getting burned.
Awesome possum. Go rock'em.
I heard in multiple classes that difficult group members happen, that projects require testing, that I probably suck at writing. I didn't believe any of it. However, all these things translate directly. Let's take a look, one by one.
You can't write:
I never ever believed this one until I started working at IBM and one day read a bug report:
"when I put the RDP in, it flashes then gets stuck" it read. What? Huh? There's like 100 versions of this. I wandered over to check it out, and on the way over grumbled about how this person is not considering that I have no idea what they are looking at. And then I realized that I was guilty of the same. This was a mini epiphany, and I suddenly got much much much better at writing effectively. And yes, most people suck at this. It takes practice. Not only do you want to be effective, but also concise. There's a big difference between a colloquial ramble like this and a well-composed, tight piece of prose. Opt for the latter in formal situations.
Sloppy testing:
As devs we want to believe that our code will always be perfect. Tests prove this. Unit testing is growing in popularity. I don't believe it's the be-all-end-all, but it's certainly a good way to help organize. If you're having a hard time creating unit tests, you probably don't have good units. Having good units leads to clean code with clear boundaries. These have clear roles with clear expected behaviors. It's just good policy.
But my teammate dropped the ball, give me a break!
Yeah, this happens. And guess what? You're at fault too. But you can't be expected to make them do their work, right? Well, true, sorta. The key here is to develop the ability to manage a project. Establish the pieces you need. Figure out the dependencies. Make sure the deep dependencies get taken care of first. Look at the pipeline here. If a piece is critical, make sure it gets done. If your assigned person isn't delivering, prod them, take over, whatever, make it happen. Understand the downstream effects of any particular piece slipping. Clearly N-1 people can do less than N, but you can mitigate the damage of the missing person by making sure that critical pieces roll off them. You may still not love the outcome, but you should be able to avoid getting burned.
Awesome possum. Go rock'em.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Another fucking Chevy
This trip's rental car is the bare-bones Chevy Cruze. While it solves many of the shortcomings of the Chevy Equinox, there are different random issues instead. Let's explore!
For starters, the car is just as impotent in the acceleration department (barring stomping the gas and doing the whole hunting for a gear, etc, thing), its 138 peak hp engine not exactly getting all its power down to the wheels easily. This is again due to the crappy tranny configuration. Why is this so hard to adjust and make not suck?? Is Chevy still putting trannies from the 60s in their cars?
The B pillar is absolutely right smack dab in the middle of my vision when looking left. I can barely see oncoming traffic during a right turn, and I can't peek behind (at my 7-8 o'clock) while making the turn. All I see is a metal bar.
The A/C controls are goofy. There are two knobs, one for the temp and another for the fan speed. In the middle of each of those are buttons for the heated seats. Separately elsewhere is the button for turning on the actual A/C. Reaching the fan control requires snaking around the shifter doodad (whatever you call that in an automatic). Despite all these buttons, the car doesn't remember what volume the radio was set to and always starts off at the same very low volume when turned on.
The seats are terrible. The lumbar protrudes like one of those bad orthotic desks that make half your lower body fall asleep. I'm not relishing the 1.5 hour drive to Tucson tomorrow. Also when I left the car out in the sun for a couple hours, it started to smell like used snorkel gear. Yeah, that slightly rotting rubber smell.
The headlight does that annoying thing where it's always fully on, including for a good 30 seconds after turning the car off. Why must the car try to be smarter than me? Why can't the light just turn off? In related news, I couldn't even find a control for turning the light on/off. How do I turn the headlights on without turning the car on? Is this possible?
The trunk is a marvel of energy conservation. Unless I gently stop it at the top (when opening it), it will quickly bounce back and fall down upon my unsuspecting arms/head. The key on the other hand likes to get stuck halfway out (on a car with < 1000 miles on it).
There are so many controls and buttons in the car, each backlit, that the lower half of my field of vision on a dark night is filled with a glow. Quite a distracting glow. I haven't looked to see if the backlighting can be made less intense, but given the headlight control situation I'm gonna bet no. Seriously, it's like the Milky Way in my lap in here.
For starters, the car is just as impotent in the acceleration department (barring stomping the gas and doing the whole hunting for a gear, etc, thing), its 138 peak hp engine not exactly getting all its power down to the wheels easily. This is again due to the crappy tranny configuration. Why is this so hard to adjust and make not suck?? Is Chevy still putting trannies from the 60s in their cars?
The B pillar is absolutely right smack dab in the middle of my vision when looking left. I can barely see oncoming traffic during a right turn, and I can't peek behind (at my 7-8 o'clock) while making the turn. All I see is a metal bar.
The A/C controls are goofy. There are two knobs, one for the temp and another for the fan speed. In the middle of each of those are buttons for the heated seats. Separately elsewhere is the button for turning on the actual A/C. Reaching the fan control requires snaking around the shifter doodad (whatever you call that in an automatic). Despite all these buttons, the car doesn't remember what volume the radio was set to and always starts off at the same very low volume when turned on.
The seats are terrible. The lumbar protrudes like one of those bad orthotic desks that make half your lower body fall asleep. I'm not relishing the 1.5 hour drive to Tucson tomorrow. Also when I left the car out in the sun for a couple hours, it started to smell like used snorkel gear. Yeah, that slightly rotting rubber smell.
The headlight does that annoying thing where it's always fully on, including for a good 30 seconds after turning the car off. Why must the car try to be smarter than me? Why can't the light just turn off? In related news, I couldn't even find a control for turning the light on/off. How do I turn the headlights on without turning the car on? Is this possible?
The trunk is a marvel of energy conservation. Unless I gently stop it at the top (when opening it), it will quickly bounce back and fall down upon my unsuspecting arms/head. The key on the other hand likes to get stuck halfway out (on a car with < 1000 miles on it).
There are so many controls and buttons in the car, each backlit, that the lower half of my field of vision on a dark night is filled with a glow. Quite a distracting glow. I haven't looked to see if the backlighting can be made less intense, but given the headlight control situation I'm gonna bet no. Seriously, it's like the Milky Way in my lap in here.
I guess I should say something good about the car too. It... goes? It.... turns? It.... stops? I can have it display the speed digitally right next to the analog dials for double confirmation? I guess I'll go with "good turning radius", though my bar's pretty low. I'm pretty sure my RSX is about the worst turning small car on the planet. However, it has zero of the issues that the Cruze and Equinox have, combined. Get it right, Chevy.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
The power of estimation
I remember the day I learned to estimate.
We were in 4th grade computer lab, and the lab teacher was showing us a math game. We clicked through a couple frames and then got to a hard problem. She asked the class who would be the guinea pig. I had already made my mark as the math kid, so everyone volunteered me. The teacher clicked Next.
Within an accuracy of 5, how many fish are in this picture? You have 10 second. Go.
It was a cascade of a-HA! moments for me. I realized, first and foremost, that I didn't have time to count each fish and I needed a different strategy. I then looked at the image and noticed that the fish were distributed pretty evenly; I could mentally divide the screen into a 2x4 grid and could pretty quickly assign 5 fish to each grid. I saw that this wasn't absolutely accurate, but it seemed close enough. I typed in 40. Success! Everyone else (even the teacher) marveled.
"How did you count them so fast?"
"I didn't. I estimated."
The key takeaways positively impact me all the time. The notion of assessing what's needed and when a solution is good enough help me apply the right level of effort/thought to problems and then just move on. The actual strategy of bucketing and being comfortable working with imprecise quantities ties into this. I'm redoing the deck, how many pounds of screws do I need to buy? We're mulching the backyard, how many bags do we need? How much will it cost? I don't need a quote to the cent, just an idea if it's $50 and we should just do it now, or if it's $500 and we should think about other options.
Estimation gives the power to quickly and cheaply assess options and formulate a plan.
We were in 4th grade computer lab, and the lab teacher was showing us a math game. We clicked through a couple frames and then got to a hard problem. She asked the class who would be the guinea pig. I had already made my mark as the math kid, so everyone volunteered me. The teacher clicked Next.
Within an accuracy of 5, how many fish are in this picture? You have 10 second. Go.
It was a cascade of a-HA! moments for me. I realized, first and foremost, that I didn't have time to count each fish and I needed a different strategy. I then looked at the image and noticed that the fish were distributed pretty evenly; I could mentally divide the screen into a 2x4 grid and could pretty quickly assign 5 fish to each grid. I saw that this wasn't absolutely accurate, but it seemed close enough. I typed in 40. Success! Everyone else (even the teacher) marveled.
"How did you count them so fast?"
"I didn't. I estimated."
The key takeaways positively impact me all the time. The notion of assessing what's needed and when a solution is good enough help me apply the right level of effort/thought to problems and then just move on. The actual strategy of bucketing and being comfortable working with imprecise quantities ties into this. I'm redoing the deck, how many pounds of screws do I need to buy? We're mulching the backyard, how many bags do we need? How much will it cost? I don't need a quote to the cent, just an idea if it's $50 and we should just do it now, or if it's $500 and we should think about other options.
Estimation gives the power to quickly and cheaply assess options and formulate a plan.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Personally identified shoppers
Recently, there was a blurb about Nordstrom following people through their stores by tracking them using NFC or wifi or whatever. I think they were trying to see what shopping patterns users had, what order they looked at things in the store, etc.
Now, suppose we tracked who each of these people were and have their shopping histories.
Let's also suppose we add some facial recognition tech so sales consultants know who they are talking to. In Marisa's case, the sales person could know to recommend new purses or jeans, and even the price range to focus on.
Seems like a win, right?
Now, what if each interaction were analyzed to see how well sales techniques, pressure (or lack thereof) translate into sales. Now, what if instead of Nordstrom doing this themselves, they bought this information from pesky magazine salesmen and so on. Now, they would know which shoppers to focus on and who they can pressure into sales.
I don't mean to pick on Nordstrom here, this could be anyone. But, this is a new arena of privacy that could be exploited to tangible, dollar benefits ... and not one that we really think of. Is my personality private? Is it something that I need to protect?
Now, suppose we tracked who each of these people were and have their shopping histories.
Let's also suppose we add some facial recognition tech so sales consultants know who they are talking to. In Marisa's case, the sales person could know to recommend new purses or jeans, and even the price range to focus on.
Seems like a win, right?
Now, what if each interaction were analyzed to see how well sales techniques, pressure (or lack thereof) translate into sales. Now, what if instead of Nordstrom doing this themselves, they bought this information from pesky magazine salesmen and so on. Now, they would know which shoppers to focus on and who they can pressure into sales.
I don't mean to pick on Nordstrom here, this could be anyone. But, this is a new arena of privacy that could be exploited to tangible, dollar benefits ... and not one that we really think of. Is my personality private? Is it something that I need to protect?
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Joys of home ownership
I bought my Tucson home in November 2006, then promptly moved to Seattle. I rented it to a steady stream of intertwined people through May 2013 at which point they left and the house was vacant for the first time. I was busy with other stuff so I lapsed a bit on showing it and getting it ready. That's when the fun began.
1. A burglar! I got a call one morning that someone had hopped the back fence and started hacking off copper piping from the yard. Ugh. Seriously, this is like the meth-head moment of the day. The mount of copper taken might net $10-20 in scrap. Of course it caused hundreds of dollars of damage to my house (and also to the water bill). And to prove his brilliance, the guy came back a few days later to finish the job. The neighbor saw him, called the cops, and hopefully he's now in jail.
2. After getting the burglar damage fixed up, I called in a property manager to handle the house. She told me there were a large number of issues with showing the house. It wasn't really clean, there was a broken window, there were a number of other issues and so on. She wasn't willing to handle coordinating all this, so I had to ask my dad to help. Bit by bit, we got the big stuff handled, but that ate up most of July.
3. I called her back to let her know we'd gotten it in pretty good shape. She checked back, confirmed this, then told me that she couldn't represent the house because she'd noticed a bow in the floor. She hypothesized that it was a tree root pressing up against the laundry room. While in town I looked, and it was pretty obvious that there really is an issue. So, now I need to have my dad go back and babysit yet another contractor and hope there's not a huge cost associated with this. Ugh.
In short, I've spent the last 2.5 months not getting the house rented out.
Updates:
4. Finally tracked down a new property manager. I talked with them on Monday (Aug 19). They then took over the keys from the previous person, checked out the house, noted some issues and sent me a pile of paperwork to sign. This is as much as we've accomplished in 6 days. No concrete work list yet. No concrete dollar amounts yet.
1. A burglar! I got a call one morning that someone had hopped the back fence and started hacking off copper piping from the yard. Ugh. Seriously, this is like the meth-head moment of the day. The mount of copper taken might net $10-20 in scrap. Of course it caused hundreds of dollars of damage to my house (and also to the water bill). And to prove his brilliance, the guy came back a few days later to finish the job. The neighbor saw him, called the cops, and hopefully he's now in jail.
2. After getting the burglar damage fixed up, I called in a property manager to handle the house. She told me there were a large number of issues with showing the house. It wasn't really clean, there was a broken window, there were a number of other issues and so on. She wasn't willing to handle coordinating all this, so I had to ask my dad to help. Bit by bit, we got the big stuff handled, but that ate up most of July.
3. I called her back to let her know we'd gotten it in pretty good shape. She checked back, confirmed this, then told me that she couldn't represent the house because she'd noticed a bow in the floor. She hypothesized that it was a tree root pressing up against the laundry room. While in town I looked, and it was pretty obvious that there really is an issue. So, now I need to have my dad go back and babysit yet another contractor and hope there's not a huge cost associated with this. Ugh.
In short, I've spent the last 2.5 months not getting the house rented out.
Updates:
4. Finally tracked down a new property manager. I talked with them on Monday (Aug 19). They then took over the keys from the previous person, checked out the house, noted some issues and sent me a pile of paperwork to sign. This is as much as we've accomplished in 6 days. No concrete work list yet. No concrete dollar amounts yet.
Renting the Chevy Equinox
We had reserved a Chevy Impala or similar, but upon arrival to Sky Harbor were told that they were out of all full-size cars and we would be upgraded to a crossover for free. We got to know this beast over the next 5 days and 800 miles. There were no markings on it otherwise, so I'll assume it was the front-wheel-drive, 2.4L model.
Pros:
1. Lots of space for water bottles. The Equinox has lots of nooks and crannies which seem just about correctly sized for standard plastic bottles.
2. Very good A/C. This was particularly vital in August, in Arizona.
Cons:
1. Not materially larger than a VW Jetta. Sure the whole thing was up higher, but the interior height, legroom and trunk space weren't noticeably bigger that Marisa's 2007 Jetta.
2. Bizarrely deep center console. Like, down into the bowels of the car deep. Like, you can lose stuff into it deep. Why?
3. Very non-responsive gas pedal. This seems to be a hallmark of GM vehicles in particular. The transmission seems to divert all power to some mystery vortex, in effect giving the gas pedal 3 modes: off, hold speed and full throttle. This was particularly bad when driving up hill because "hold speed" actually translated into "slowly bleed speed", meaning I had to go back and forth between that setting and full throttle to keep my pace roughly constant.
4. Bizarre brake pedal placement. The pedal was at least 8 inches up from the floor of the car, meaning that if I had my heel on the floor, I could barely reach the brake pedal with my toes. Huh? Why? I literally had my foot slip under the pedal once when I was trying to brake.
5. Not very good seats. Everyone mentioned that the seats weren't exactly supportive or comfortable for longer periods of time.
6. Once I got up to highway speeds, I realized that the steering wheel is too low and obstructs the view of the top the speedometer. No idea how fast I was going unless I ducked down. I've noticed this in other GM cars (Saturn Sky, for example) as well.
7. At highway speeds, we noticed some rattling. This was not road noise, just poor construction quality in a car with 18,000 miles on it.
8. The car's suspension was also quite soft. This is expected from a soccer mom car, but the resulting bobbing and swaying did not play well with passengers prone to motion sickness.
9. Rolling the window down at highway speeds resulted in a very loud, throbbing WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP sound I'd never heard in any other car before. Unfortunately a lower volume variant of this was present even at 40-45mph, which is a totally normal speed at which to have the windows down.
10. To get the window back up (or down), I had to hold the lever the whole way.
11. When it turned to night and I flipped on the headlights, I had to find the inch-wide ring on the control stick to twist, instead of being able to grab any part of the end of the control stick and twist the whole thing. Why? The remaining, non-moving, end piece of the stick served no other purpose.
12. The dials to control things like the A/C fan had no physical settings, they were like a radio knob that lead to a digital readout (which was only shown right after a change in knob setting). Hence, we never knew what setting it was on. Not a huge deal, just kinda curious.
13. The rear visibility was poor. This is expected, and it does have a rear camera. However, that camera has no overlay so it's not really clear how wide said view is, what I may or may not hit while turning, etc.
14. Odd seat fabric. It has an overlay similar to a drawer liner, so every time you sit on it in shorts you leave with a fine fishnet pattern imprinted into your legs.
15. Easily left in the dust by a Honda Odyssey. Minivan soccer mom kicked our ass!
Rant:
While many of the above are quibbles and not really a big deal, I'd like to sound off about a few of these.
The brake pedal is flat-out unsafe. If my size 10.5 foot can occasionally slide under it, imagine what happens with your wife or daughter's size 6 feet.
The gas pedal issue is just bizarre. Every non-American company (Ford has gotten better) has figured this out. It's not a matter of how much power a car does or doesn't have, it's about actually putting it responsively to the road. Ideally (and with many other car makers' vehicles) a slight press of the gas pedal would result in a slight acceleration. Instead, the gas pedal has to be pressed pretty far down before the car actually downshifts and starts to accelerate at all. The Equinox has a 6-speed automatic transmission, which in some sense just makes the problem worse because on even a slight uphill the car has to downshift twice. The car is 3800lbs and has peak power of 182hp, so even in an ideal world it's not going to haul ass. On top of this, peak torque is at 4900rpm, which is a speed the engine really doesn't like to make it up to. This is just bad engineering. Bad GM, bad.
There's really no incentive to buy this car over, say, Marisa's Jetta. I don't think we would have been noticeably less cramped in it, would have gotten better overall gas mileage and could have actually accelerated. GM needs to wake up and realize that better engineering and driving characteristics are not something a lot of people ask for, but it's something they notice when they do drive.
Pros:
1. Lots of space for water bottles. The Equinox has lots of nooks and crannies which seem just about correctly sized for standard plastic bottles.
2. Very good A/C. This was particularly vital in August, in Arizona.
Cons:
1. Not materially larger than a VW Jetta. Sure the whole thing was up higher, but the interior height, legroom and trunk space weren't noticeably bigger that Marisa's 2007 Jetta.
2. Bizarrely deep center console. Like, down into the bowels of the car deep. Like, you can lose stuff into it deep. Why?
3. Very non-responsive gas pedal. This seems to be a hallmark of GM vehicles in particular. The transmission seems to divert all power to some mystery vortex, in effect giving the gas pedal 3 modes: off, hold speed and full throttle. This was particularly bad when driving up hill because "hold speed" actually translated into "slowly bleed speed", meaning I had to go back and forth between that setting and full throttle to keep my pace roughly constant.
4. Bizarre brake pedal placement. The pedal was at least 8 inches up from the floor of the car, meaning that if I had my heel on the floor, I could barely reach the brake pedal with my toes. Huh? Why? I literally had my foot slip under the pedal once when I was trying to brake.
5. Not very good seats. Everyone mentioned that the seats weren't exactly supportive or comfortable for longer periods of time.
6. Once I got up to highway speeds, I realized that the steering wheel is too low and obstructs the view of the top the speedometer. No idea how fast I was going unless I ducked down. I've noticed this in other GM cars (Saturn Sky, for example) as well.
7. At highway speeds, we noticed some rattling. This was not road noise, just poor construction quality in a car with 18,000 miles on it.
8. The car's suspension was also quite soft. This is expected from a soccer mom car, but the resulting bobbing and swaying did not play well with passengers prone to motion sickness.
9. Rolling the window down at highway speeds resulted in a very loud, throbbing WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP sound I'd never heard in any other car before. Unfortunately a lower volume variant of this was present even at 40-45mph, which is a totally normal speed at which to have the windows down.
10. To get the window back up (or down), I had to hold the lever the whole way.
11. When it turned to night and I flipped on the headlights, I had to find the inch-wide ring on the control stick to twist, instead of being able to grab any part of the end of the control stick and twist the whole thing. Why? The remaining, non-moving, end piece of the stick served no other purpose.
12. The dials to control things like the A/C fan had no physical settings, they were like a radio knob that lead to a digital readout (which was only shown right after a change in knob setting). Hence, we never knew what setting it was on. Not a huge deal, just kinda curious.
13. The rear visibility was poor. This is expected, and it does have a rear camera. However, that camera has no overlay so it's not really clear how wide said view is, what I may or may not hit while turning, etc.
14. Odd seat fabric. It has an overlay similar to a drawer liner, so every time you sit on it in shorts you leave with a fine fishnet pattern imprinted into your legs.
15. Easily left in the dust by a Honda Odyssey. Minivan soccer mom kicked our ass!
Rant:
While many of the above are quibbles and not really a big deal, I'd like to sound off about a few of these.
The brake pedal is flat-out unsafe. If my size 10.5 foot can occasionally slide under it, imagine what happens with your wife or daughter's size 6 feet.
The gas pedal issue is just bizarre. Every non-American company (Ford has gotten better) has figured this out. It's not a matter of how much power a car does or doesn't have, it's about actually putting it responsively to the road. Ideally (and with many other car makers' vehicles) a slight press of the gas pedal would result in a slight acceleration. Instead, the gas pedal has to be pressed pretty far down before the car actually downshifts and starts to accelerate at all. The Equinox has a 6-speed automatic transmission, which in some sense just makes the problem worse because on even a slight uphill the car has to downshift twice. The car is 3800lbs and has peak power of 182hp, so even in an ideal world it's not going to haul ass. On top of this, peak torque is at 4900rpm, which is a speed the engine really doesn't like to make it up to. This is just bad engineering. Bad GM, bad.
There's really no incentive to buy this car over, say, Marisa's Jetta. I don't think we would have been noticeably less cramped in it, would have gotten better overall gas mileage and could have actually accelerated. GM needs to wake up and realize that better engineering and driving characteristics are not something a lot of people ask for, but it's something they notice when they do drive.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
23 and Me
Marisa and I sent in our samples, but we're still waiting on the analysis. In the meantime I've been filling out various surveys from which 23 and We can do correlation studies. One of them asked me to self-identify my ethnic background. At the conclusion of the survey, they show the aggregate data from all surveys:
What's interesting here is that both Hispanic and black are about half-represented compared to the national demographics. I wonder why this is?
The knee-jerk reaction would be to say that these demographics have less money to spend on genetic tests. Or is it that they have less interest in science-y things? Ideas?
The knee-jerk reaction would be to say that these demographics have less money to spend on genetic tests. Or is it that they have less interest in science-y things? Ideas?
Hippo-critical!
Most of us have probably seen the Fox interview with Reza Aslan where the anchor repeatedly asks him why, as a Muslim, he would want to or could properly write about a character in Christian religion.
It's "fitting" that the following cases have likely never been questioned in the same way:
1. Straight congressmen deciding what rights gay Americans get
2. Men deciding how a woman should be medically treated
3. White guys talking about the background of a black president
4. .. get creative.
The very idea that someone from one background couldn't/shouldn't have interest in someone from another background, or that they could possibly credibly understand something about them is disturbing. Are we to believe that ignoring the "others" outright is ever a way forward in the world?
** - the title is taken from one of my favorite forum comment mis-spellings.
It's "fitting" that the following cases have likely never been questioned in the same way:
1. Straight congressmen deciding what rights gay Americans get
2. Men deciding how a woman should be medically treated
3. White guys talking about the background of a black president
4. .. get creative.
The very idea that someone from one background couldn't/shouldn't have interest in someone from another background, or that they could possibly credibly understand something about them is disturbing. Are we to believe that ignoring the "others" outright is ever a way forward in the world?
** - the title is taken from one of my favorite forum comment mis-spellings.
Friday, August 2, 2013
If, then, otherwise
In reading more and more about the anti-vaccine movement (and observing it on media and social media), I kept coming across description of parent after parent who said "I don't want to give my kids a vaccine that might harm them".
Suppose we allow that some vaccines are, in fact, harmful (this is generally found to be untrue, though some reactions can occur, sometimes with bad results like encephalitis, which can lead to permanent injuries). We are then faced with the following:
If I give my child a vaccine, they might be irreversibly harmed.
We've allowed the causation in this case, so let's go ahead and allow this statement. Now, what happens after you don't give them the vaccine? What's that you say, you didn't think about that one? Let's fill it in for you:
If I give my child a vaccine, they might be irreversibly harmed. Otherwise, they may contract a deadly disease.
Doesn't sound so great, does it. We can now argue that by living in the bubble of the USA they won't be exposed to a lot of the things we now vaccinate for, but given the amount of international travel people do it's a safe bet that measles, mumps, rubeola, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, etc are alive and well and have made it past our comprehensive TSA and immigrations screenings. If your child is the only one not getting vaccinated, maybe they're ok. But as a parent, do you want to 100%, for sure, feel (and actually be) responsible when they come down with one of the above? And when your neighbor also skips vaccines, when both your kids are now sick? Or when you convince lots of people to not get vaccines and an epidemic explodes?
Given the rare of births in the country and the frequency of settled suits in vaccine court (where the plaintiff doesn't even have to prove fault, it's really just a catch-all streamlined compensation system), we can conclude that there's 1 in somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 chance your kid has an unfortunate, seriously bad reaction. That's slightly better odds than your kid being involved in a fatal car crash (and certainly way better than the odds of being injured or killed in a crash). In other words, you should stop allowing your kid in a car. Ever.
For the record: before broad vaccination programs, somewhere between 1 and 2 million people a year died in America from diseases that we now vaccinate against (that number is now under 10,000 per year if I remember right - that's right, vaccines as a whole are only something like 99% effective). That's something like 1 in 100. Put that in the otherwise clause above and see how you like it!
People in general are bad at looking at the other option; they tend to just look at choices in a vacuum. Every choice not only means you go down one road, but you simultaneously don't go down the other road. If, then, otherwise. There's always an otherwise.
Suppose we allow that some vaccines are, in fact, harmful (this is generally found to be untrue, though some reactions can occur, sometimes with bad results like encephalitis, which can lead to permanent injuries). We are then faced with the following:
If I give my child a vaccine, they might be irreversibly harmed.
We've allowed the causation in this case, so let's go ahead and allow this statement. Now, what happens after you don't give them the vaccine? What's that you say, you didn't think about that one? Let's fill it in for you:
If I give my child a vaccine, they might be irreversibly harmed. Otherwise, they may contract a deadly disease.
Doesn't sound so great, does it. We can now argue that by living in the bubble of the USA they won't be exposed to a lot of the things we now vaccinate for, but given the amount of international travel people do it's a safe bet that measles, mumps, rubeola, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, etc are alive and well and have made it past our comprehensive TSA and immigrations screenings. If your child is the only one not getting vaccinated, maybe they're ok. But as a parent, do you want to 100%, for sure, feel (and actually be) responsible when they come down with one of the above? And when your neighbor also skips vaccines, when both your kids are now sick? Or when you convince lots of people to not get vaccines and an epidemic explodes?
Given the rare of births in the country and the frequency of settled suits in vaccine court (where the plaintiff doesn't even have to prove fault, it's really just a catch-all streamlined compensation system), we can conclude that there's 1 in somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 chance your kid has an unfortunate, seriously bad reaction. That's slightly better odds than your kid being involved in a fatal car crash (and certainly way better than the odds of being injured or killed in a crash). In other words, you should stop allowing your kid in a car. Ever.
For the record: before broad vaccination programs, somewhere between 1 and 2 million people a year died in America from diseases that we now vaccinate against (that number is now under 10,000 per year if I remember right - that's right, vaccines as a whole are only something like 99% effective). That's something like 1 in 100. Put that in the otherwise clause above and see how you like it!
People in general are bad at looking at the other option; they tend to just look at choices in a vacuum. Every choice not only means you go down one road, but you simultaneously don't go down the other road. If, then, otherwise. There's always an otherwise.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
NSA == Vaccines?
There's been a lot of hoopla around Edward Snowden's leaked slides which suggest that there's a massive NSA data gathering scheme in effect. But, what do we really know? So far we have the following primary data:
1. Edward Snowden's claim that these projects exist. He's an NSA contractor.
2. Edward Snowden's leaked slides about PRISM (there are supposedly 41 slides, and so far I think 8 have been leaked - why only 8??)
3. Edward Snowden's leaked slides about X-Keyscore
We then have independent reporting from The Guardian and The Washington Post based on this information, referencing nothing more than "top secret documents". We then have a bunch of me-too articles that basically rehash the above info and add conjecture based on quote snippets.
Let's start by examining the provided data for a moment. We have one whistleblower's claims and a subset of slides. The only slide that actually indicates the program exists is the one about signup dates of the various key players (interestingly, Skype was on a Sunday ... seems a touch odd, also why are the copies in the The Guardian and The Post different??). All other slides just have high-level descriptions of a system. These could be a report to higher ups about a working system, or a high-level spec used to get buyoff on or evaluate a project. Hell, for all we know the whole thing could be fake (also randomly curious: why are two of the leaked slides shown with a red-bordered logo, while the others are not like this - these things tend to come from a template). Why is there stuff redacted in the slides? Did Snowden do this? Who knows if these slides were produced by a conglomerate of people, but the slides show two different composition styles (granted this is very fuzzy): some are fairly polished looking, others look like a high schooler's first attempt at PowerPoint. Most importantly, if he has all the slides, why not release them all? What is he saving them for? Or what's he not wanting to share with us?
Now let's examine additional data. The biggest quote bundle is coming from Henry Clapper, who has stated that a) the reports contain numerous inaccuracies and b) that it's absolutely awful that data about programs was leaked. This could be taken in several ways:
1. It's awful that people now know about PRISM. The report was inaccurate because we actually call it BANANAS and it actually involves every company on earth.
2. It's awful that we can't trust people to keep secret things secret that they promised to keep secret. By having a lack of trust, how can we continue any clandestine programs safely? Also, the report is inaccurate because it's not about broad data collection, but rather a streamlined process by which we request targeted data about specific users (for which we have broad, bilateral confirmation). Also, it's called BANANAS.
The knee-jerk reaction to a lack of total denial is "ah, see, they are hiding stuff!" Of course they are, they're the freakin' NSA. Everything they do is secret. Hell, people who work for them aren't even supposed to tell people where they work. Also, definitive statements give information to the outside world. Less specific comments don't. The general policy here is "we don't comment on such matters", right?
There are striking similarities to the anti-vaccine movement that gained steam about 10 years ago. It all started with a "whistleblower" (Andrew Wakefield) who presented "evidence" (a very poor piece of research) that MMR vaccines and/or the thimerosal in some vaccines could be directly linked to the rise in autism. The media, in general, blew this story up. Not being able to find any other scientists to take Wakefield's side, they relied on "debates" and "perspectives" involving angry moms of autistic kids (guess which side they took). They took an immensely complicated scientific topic and tried to boil it down; they boiled too far and too fast, leaving only charred ashes in the bottom of the pot. They neglected to check Wakefield's background (attention seeker), his study's background (funded by a law firm to specifically go prove this link) and the scientific reaction to the study (total rejection - that it was published to begin with is some bizarre miracle). They also seized on the technically correct, but awkwardly worded, statements from the CDC and other scientific bodies who refused to say "there is proof of no causation or correlation", because scientists never say that. They can't, technically, be sure that there never has been, isn't, or never will be a causation in every single case, ever. The story, built on fear, emotion and knee-jerk reactions to bad information, spiraled out of control until the public had no idea what to believe anymore.
My main takeaway is that if the evidence seems sketchy or convoluted, or has gaps, or is in any other way not a definitive piece of data with clear context, we should be extra careful before we believe it and the downstream analysis of it: there's still a very real chance that, as the author of The Panic Virus wrote, "it turned out that it wasn't a house of cards, but that there were no cards at all."
1. Edward Snowden's claim that these projects exist. He's an NSA contractor.
2. Edward Snowden's leaked slides about PRISM (there are supposedly 41 slides, and so far I think 8 have been leaked - why only 8??)
3. Edward Snowden's leaked slides about X-Keyscore
We then have independent reporting from The Guardian and The Washington Post based on this information, referencing nothing more than "top secret documents". We then have a bunch of me-too articles that basically rehash the above info and add conjecture based on quote snippets.
Let's start by examining the provided data for a moment. We have one whistleblower's claims and a subset of slides. The only slide that actually indicates the program exists is the one about signup dates of the various key players (interestingly, Skype was on a Sunday ... seems a touch odd, also why are the copies in the The Guardian and The Post different??). All other slides just have high-level descriptions of a system. These could be a report to higher ups about a working system, or a high-level spec used to get buyoff on or evaluate a project. Hell, for all we know the whole thing could be fake (also randomly curious: why are two of the leaked slides shown with a red-bordered logo, while the others are not like this - these things tend to come from a template). Why is there stuff redacted in the slides? Did Snowden do this? Who knows if these slides were produced by a conglomerate of people, but the slides show two different composition styles (granted this is very fuzzy): some are fairly polished looking, others look like a high schooler's first attempt at PowerPoint. Most importantly, if he has all the slides, why not release them all? What is he saving them for? Or what's he not wanting to share with us?
Now let's examine additional data. The biggest quote bundle is coming from Henry Clapper, who has stated that a) the reports contain numerous inaccuracies and b) that it's absolutely awful that data about programs was leaked. This could be taken in several ways:
1. It's awful that people now know about PRISM. The report was inaccurate because we actually call it BANANAS and it actually involves every company on earth.
2. It's awful that we can't trust people to keep secret things secret that they promised to keep secret. By having a lack of trust, how can we continue any clandestine programs safely? Also, the report is inaccurate because it's not about broad data collection, but rather a streamlined process by which we request targeted data about specific users (for which we have broad, bilateral confirmation). Also, it's called BANANAS.
The knee-jerk reaction to a lack of total denial is "ah, see, they are hiding stuff!" Of course they are, they're the freakin' NSA. Everything they do is secret. Hell, people who work for them aren't even supposed to tell people where they work. Also, definitive statements give information to the outside world. Less specific comments don't. The general policy here is "we don't comment on such matters", right?
There are striking similarities to the anti-vaccine movement that gained steam about 10 years ago. It all started with a "whistleblower" (Andrew Wakefield) who presented "evidence" (a very poor piece of research) that MMR vaccines and/or the thimerosal in some vaccines could be directly linked to the rise in autism. The media, in general, blew this story up. Not being able to find any other scientists to take Wakefield's side, they relied on "debates" and "perspectives" involving angry moms of autistic kids (guess which side they took). They took an immensely complicated scientific topic and tried to boil it down; they boiled too far and too fast, leaving only charred ashes in the bottom of the pot. They neglected to check Wakefield's background (attention seeker), his study's background (funded by a law firm to specifically go prove this link) and the scientific reaction to the study (total rejection - that it was published to begin with is some bizarre miracle). They also seized on the technically correct, but awkwardly worded, statements from the CDC and other scientific bodies who refused to say "there is proof of no causation or correlation", because scientists never say that. They can't, technically, be sure that there never has been, isn't, or never will be a causation in every single case, ever. The story, built on fear, emotion and knee-jerk reactions to bad information, spiraled out of control until the public had no idea what to believe anymore.
My main takeaway is that if the evidence seems sketchy or convoluted, or has gaps, or is in any other way not a definitive piece of data with clear context, we should be extra careful before we believe it and the downstream analysis of it: there's still a very real chance that, as the author of The Panic Virus wrote, "it turned out that it wasn't a house of cards, but that there were no cards at all."
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Dynamite Margarita
Delicious, and kicks your butt! Makes 2 servings:
3 oz tequila of choice (I use Sauza Hornitos Reposado, generally)
2 oz orange liquer (I use Patron Citronge, other good choices are Grand Marnier or Cointreau)
3 persian limes
4 squirts** agave syrup
lowball glass(es) with ice cubes
** - a quick pump of the bottle, not really sure how much comes out.
optional
pinch of black, flaky salt (I use Falksalt's black variety, but whatever)
5 sweet mint leaves
In a shaker, combine the tequila and orange liquer. If you want the mint, add all but 1 leaf and muddle. Hand-squeeze the limes into the shaker and add the agave syrup. Shake. If using mint, place one mint leaf decoratively between ice cubes. Pour over ice and crumble salt gently on top.
Please sip responsibly.
For a "Nor-Cal" alternative, use 4oz silver tequila, 3 persian limes, no orange liquer, no agave syrup and a few ounces of seltzer water.
3 oz tequila of choice (I use Sauza Hornitos Reposado, generally)
2 oz orange liquer (I use Patron Citronge, other good choices are Grand Marnier or Cointreau)
3 persian limes
4 squirts** agave syrup
lowball glass(es) with ice cubes
** - a quick pump of the bottle, not really sure how much comes out.
optional
pinch of black, flaky salt (I use Falksalt's black variety, but whatever)
5 sweet mint leaves
In a shaker, combine the tequila and orange liquer. If you want the mint, add all but 1 leaf and muddle. Hand-squeeze the limes into the shaker and add the agave syrup. Shake. If using mint, place one mint leaf decoratively between ice cubes. Pour over ice and crumble salt gently on top.
For a "Nor-Cal" alternative, use 4oz silver tequila, 3 persian limes, no orange liquer, no agave syrup and a few ounces of seltzer water.
Sailing west to the North Pole
"Shouldn't we take a right turn?"
"... well, we've been going West for a long time, we can't give up now!"
It seems to me that a lot of approaches get stuck going in one direction like that. People don't seem to like to re-evaluate. They don't even seem to like to consider re-evaluating.
I tend to believe that all options should be valid for evaluation, even those that are pretty much guaranteed to be dismissed. I think the win of laying out all options (even the dumb ones), is that a deliberate decision is reached for a reason, as opposed to just left nebulously behind.
Often during re-evaluation, we can realize that circumstances have changed and those reasons to not take a particular approach (or why the current was chosen) are no longer there. If we don't look around on a regular basis, we never get a chance to make better decisions.
"... well, we've been going West for a long time, we can't give up now!"
It seems to me that a lot of approaches get stuck going in one direction like that. People don't seem to like to re-evaluate. They don't even seem to like to consider re-evaluating.
I tend to believe that all options should be valid for evaluation, even those that are pretty much guaranteed to be dismissed. I think the win of laying out all options (even the dumb ones), is that a deliberate decision is reached for a reason, as opposed to just left nebulously behind.
Often during re-evaluation, we can realize that circumstances have changed and those reasons to not take a particular approach (or why the current was chosen) are no longer there. If we don't look around on a regular basis, we never get a chance to make better decisions.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tires
Exciting stuff, this is the rubber that meets the road! But with so many options, how can you choose?
For many people, tires are an afterthought. When they need to be replaced they either get what the dealer recommends for them, or whatever has the highest mileage warranty, or whatever is cheaper. For a few of us, tires are an agonizing decision between performance, versatility and value. I clearly fall in the latter bucket.
So, what do I care about in a tire? In addition to being round and the right size, it should 1. have excellent dry grip for braking and acceleration, 2. have excellent stability for cornering, 3. have at least good wet grip for the same reasons (and since Seattle is wet a good portion of the year, this represents a relatively large percentage of driving days). Additional considerations include road noise (though that's more of a bonus) and some ability to drive in light snow (since we get the occasional dusting).
Great, now to pick one ... this is a perfect place where brand loyalty comes in. Aside from reading reviews, there's really no way to try a tire out other than forking over a bunch of money, putting it on, and driving around a bunch. I had been happily using Pirelli P Zero Nero summer tires on my Prelude in Arizona, but after the factory tires on my Acura wore down, I decided maybe I should get something more all-season-esque. The guy at Discount Tire recommended the Bridgestone RE960, which sits in the "ultra high performance all season" category (highest performance for an all season tire). I figured Bridgestone makes pretty good stuff (their S-03 max performance tires seem to rate on par with Michelin's well-known Pilot line, for example), and their Uni-T technology uses magical hand-holding elves to help the tire stay closer to round despite uneven wear or slightly bent rims (an issue I was particularly sensitive to after a bad encounter with a pothole in Tucson). The price was ok, so I took the plunge. I didn't really like them. They seemed somewhat noisy, and most importantly they never seemed all the grippy. I didn't have the same confidence in turns, and definitely didn't have the same confidence on wet surfaces. I limped along on them until now. As of today, I'm back on Pirelli P Zero Nero summer rubber and already loving them more. They might not last more than 30,000 miles, but I'll enjoy every last one of them.
An aside about choices:
The sheer number of choices is overwhelming. I really like tirerack.com for their selection, prices and reviews/tests of tires. However, when I plug in my car and look for 215/45/17, I get almost 80 results. I know I'm only interested in the higher performance options and don't need runflats (I have a spare). Filtering only "ultra high performance" or better still leaves about 50 results. Reducing my choices down to the best-known brands who are consistently used by performance carmakers as OEM providers (Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, Michelin, Pirelli) still leaves 19 results. I'll remove Bridgestone because I've now had a sub-par experience with them. This leaves me 11 options ... and now I've concluded that maybe I should have tried the Michelin Pilot Super Sport instead. But I know I'm happy with the P Zero Nero. And here we are. Choice made, questions unanswered.
For many people, tires are an afterthought. When they need to be replaced they either get what the dealer recommends for them, or whatever has the highest mileage warranty, or whatever is cheaper. For a few of us, tires are an agonizing decision between performance, versatility and value. I clearly fall in the latter bucket.
So, what do I care about in a tire? In addition to being round and the right size, it should 1. have excellent dry grip for braking and acceleration, 2. have excellent stability for cornering, 3. have at least good wet grip for the same reasons (and since Seattle is wet a good portion of the year, this represents a relatively large percentage of driving days). Additional considerations include road noise (though that's more of a bonus) and some ability to drive in light snow (since we get the occasional dusting).
Great, now to pick one ... this is a perfect place where brand loyalty comes in. Aside from reading reviews, there's really no way to try a tire out other than forking over a bunch of money, putting it on, and driving around a bunch. I had been happily using Pirelli P Zero Nero summer tires on my Prelude in Arizona, but after the factory tires on my Acura wore down, I decided maybe I should get something more all-season-esque. The guy at Discount Tire recommended the Bridgestone RE960, which sits in the "ultra high performance all season" category (highest performance for an all season tire). I figured Bridgestone makes pretty good stuff (their S-03 max performance tires seem to rate on par with Michelin's well-known Pilot line, for example), and their Uni-T technology uses magical hand-holding elves to help the tire stay closer to round despite uneven wear or slightly bent rims (an issue I was particularly sensitive to after a bad encounter with a pothole in Tucson). The price was ok, so I took the plunge. I didn't really like them. They seemed somewhat noisy, and most importantly they never seemed all the grippy. I didn't have the same confidence in turns, and definitely didn't have the same confidence on wet surfaces. I limped along on them until now. As of today, I'm back on Pirelli P Zero Nero summer rubber and already loving them more. They might not last more than 30,000 miles, but I'll enjoy every last one of them.
An aside about choices:
The sheer number of choices is overwhelming. I really like tirerack.com for their selection, prices and reviews/tests of tires. However, when I plug in my car and look for 215/45/17, I get almost 80 results. I know I'm only interested in the higher performance options and don't need runflats (I have a spare). Filtering only "ultra high performance" or better still leaves about 50 results. Reducing my choices down to the best-known brands who are consistently used by performance carmakers as OEM providers (Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear, Michelin, Pirelli) still leaves 19 results. I'll remove Bridgestone because I've now had a sub-par experience with them. This leaves me 11 options ... and now I've concluded that maybe I should have tried the Michelin Pilot Super Sport instead. But I know I'm happy with the P Zero Nero. And here we are. Choice made, questions unanswered.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
UPS vs FedEx (vs USPS)
I recently posted on Facebook asking if people had a preference between UPS and FedEx. No one prefers FedEx, but several people threw in that they prefer USPS. I hadn't even considered them as a serious option. Perhaps I should look.
FedEx is curious though. They invented the notion of tracking, yet are being beaten at that game by UPS. UPS's tracking info is more up-to-date and if you miss your package you can immediately call it in and have them hold it at the station the same day (which, btw, stay open til 8pm or later as needed). FedEx seems to run two networks: FedEx "real" and FedEx Home. The home service is their regular parcel service and doesn't offer any of the above. The only effective way to communicate with them is through the tags they leave on the door. So, if you are regularly not at home because you, say, work, you have to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, sign tag to authorize drop or have them hold at the station.
Delivery day 2: get package. Unless a signature is required, in which case they will take above tag and act on it.
Delivery day 3: package is at the station. Go pick it up [during working hours].
UPS has managed to condense this to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, call UPS with tag number and have them unload package from truck when it returns to the station that day. That night you go pick up your package. Done.
The company from the northwest wins in customer service! What a surprise.
FedEx is curious though. They invented the notion of tracking, yet are being beaten at that game by UPS. UPS's tracking info is more up-to-date and if you miss your package you can immediately call it in and have them hold it at the station the same day (which, btw, stay open til 8pm or later as needed). FedEx seems to run two networks: FedEx "real" and FedEx Home. The home service is their regular parcel service and doesn't offer any of the above. The only effective way to communicate with them is through the tags they leave on the door. So, if you are regularly not at home because you, say, work, you have to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, sign tag to authorize drop or have them hold at the station.
Delivery day 2: get package. Unless a signature is required, in which case they will take above tag and act on it.
Delivery day 3: package is at the station. Go pick it up [during working hours].
UPS has managed to condense this to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, call UPS with tag number and have them unload package from truck when it returns to the station that day. That night you go pick up your package. Done.
The company from the northwest wins in customer service! What a surprise.
Does PowerPoint suck?
This is not a technical review. For full disclosure, I find designing a presentation in PPT to be a continuously annoying experience. However, others seem to be able to crank stuff out a lot faster and nicer-looking than I do, so maybe it's just fine on that front. My presentations, however, look like the art-analogs of stick figures and doodled speech bubbles.
Sometime in the late 90s, PowerPoint became the thing to use for presentations. It was to make presentations amazing, dynamic and infinitely informative....assuming the presenter had the vision to know what they wanted to put together and show. In reality, most presentations look[ed] like what I produce. And, PowerPoint ended up not being the answer and plenty of people say "PowerPoint kinda really sucks"
Most of its users never learned how to use it, or ever even figured out what they wanted to make with it. The users' shortcomings infected the impression of the product. Does anyone blame a drill and saw when Uncle Fred's homemade chair is ugly and doesn't work?
Gun proponents should be familiar with this: guns are getting the bad rap because enough of their users are stupid with them.
Sometime in the late 90s, PowerPoint became the thing to use for presentations. It was to make presentations amazing, dynamic and infinitely informative....assuming the presenter had the vision to know what they wanted to put together and show. In reality, most presentations look[ed] like what I produce. And, PowerPoint ended up not being the answer and plenty of people say "PowerPoint kinda really sucks"
Most of its users never learned how to use it, or ever even figured out what they wanted to make with it. The users' shortcomings infected the impression of the product. Does anyone blame a drill and saw when Uncle Fred's homemade chair is ugly and doesn't work?
Gun proponents should be familiar with this: guns are getting the bad rap because enough of their users are stupid with them.
Friday, May 24, 2013
About those tax "loopholes"
Getting mad at companies for taking advantage of tax "loopholes" is like getting mad at extreme couponers.
There's a common sentiment that companies are doing something wrong, unethical or even illegal by doing tax planning that involves multiple states or countries. Most large companies aren't going to do anything illegal in these scenarios. Beyond that, it's just a matter of finding the best deal. If that deal happens to lead to great savings, so be it.
When an extreme couponer manages to pay $3 for 4 grocery carts of food, who do we blame? No one, really, we just marvel that they were able to combine their coupons and store deals and everything. If anyone is at fault, it's the store for having double coupon days or whatever. Practically giving away hundreds of dollars of groceries would be the exploitatoin of a "loophole", and if anyone should shut that down, it's the store.
It's not a company's job to lobby for a state or country to change how they operate. Any preferential tax deals were created because there was a mutual benefit at the time: maybe a state got a company to set up shop there, etc. States and countries need to decide if they're getting a bad deal and change their tax laws if they are. Just keep in mind that changing the terms of the deal may turn off your big client... and then they take their money elsewhere.
There's a common sentiment that companies are doing something wrong, unethical or even illegal by doing tax planning that involves multiple states or countries. Most large companies aren't going to do anything illegal in these scenarios. Beyond that, it's just a matter of finding the best deal. If that deal happens to lead to great savings, so be it.
When an extreme couponer manages to pay $3 for 4 grocery carts of food, who do we blame? No one, really, we just marvel that they were able to combine their coupons and store deals and everything. If anyone is at fault, it's the store for having double coupon days or whatever. Practically giving away hundreds of dollars of groceries would be the exploitatoin of a "loophole", and if anyone should shut that down, it's the store.
It's not a company's job to lobby for a state or country to change how they operate. Any preferential tax deals were created because there was a mutual benefit at the time: maybe a state got a company to set up shop there, etc. States and countries need to decide if they're getting a bad deal and change their tax laws if they are. Just keep in mind that changing the terms of the deal may turn off your big client... and then they take their money elsewhere.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Public transport
I just returned from my second trip to Budapest in the last year, and one key reason the city is a great place to be is its public transport. Specifically, it's breadth and volume of transport options that share a key component: during the day, you never have to wait more than 3-4 minutes for anything. This is key because it reduces the penalty per line exchange and allows for lots of short lines that the user can combine as they need, without getting out a timetable and planning.
In contrast, Seattle's bus system has large gaps between successive buses. When I lived in Queen Anne, I could take the 545 to work from Westlake and be there in about 30 minutes. Not bad, right? I just needed to get to Westlake. Any of the following lines would do: 1, 2, 13, 15, 18. And since any of those would be around any minute, this worked great!
Correction: would have worked great, if that assumption held true. The 2 and 13 ran down Queen Anne Ave and stopped 2 blocks from my place, but only ran about every 15 minutes combined. If I just missed one, I'd have to wait a long time for the next one. The 1 came over on Olympic and also stopped about 2 blocks from my place, but ran equally infrequently. All these lines, however, stop at Mercer and Queen Anne Ave (the 15 and 18 came up Mercer, alternating every 10 minutes). So, to give myself the best shot at catching any of these, I'd walk slightly further and between the 15 and 18 would never have to wait more than 10 minutes (except when a bus would inexplicably never show up) and sometimes I'd get lucky with one of the others. However, there was a mass convergence: all lines were supposed to be at Queen Anne and Mercer at 9:31. If I showed up at 9:32 (after walking about 5 minutes), I'd have to wait 9 more minutes.
For reasons that baffle me to this day, these lines then stop every 2 blocks (are we to believe that asking people to walk one extra block is a big ask??), including through the ride-free zones where all the homeless people add to the bus-stop overhead. Every stop features people getting on one at a time and if you're lucky, tapping their ORCA card, otherwise fishing for change. God forbid a person in a wheelchair want to get on the bus: that's about a 2-minute operation (in contrast, transport stops in Budapest happen in about 10-15 seconds). In other words, these bits of time add up real fast. And somehow, the bus would always get to 3rd and Pine/Pike right as the 545 was leaving (wait penalty: 9-15 minutes, depending on time of day).
Let's recap: walk 5 minutes, wait 0-9 minutes, ride the bus for about 15 minutes, walk 1 minute, wait for the 545 (0-12 minutes), then add 30 more minutes. Getting to the 545 (and lacking control over when I get there relative to 545 departure times) costs me 21-40 minutes.
I lived 2.1 miles away from the 545 stop and after a while decided that walking was the best course of action. It takes 26 minutes to do so every single time, and I can plan my arrival time to line up with the 545 so I don't have to wait as long. Taking the bus from Queen Anne occasionally saves me a few minutes and works out better, and often causes me to miss my connection. Let's call it identical for this exercise. How big of a fail is it that the break-even point for distance where riding the bus becomes worth it is in the neighborhood of 2 miles?
In contrast, Seattle's bus system has large gaps between successive buses. When I lived in Queen Anne, I could take the 545 to work from Westlake and be there in about 30 minutes. Not bad, right? I just needed to get to Westlake. Any of the following lines would do: 1, 2, 13, 15, 18. And since any of those would be around any minute, this worked great!
Correction: would have worked great, if that assumption held true. The 2 and 13 ran down Queen Anne Ave and stopped 2 blocks from my place, but only ran about every 15 minutes combined. If I just missed one, I'd have to wait a long time for the next one. The 1 came over on Olympic and also stopped about 2 blocks from my place, but ran equally infrequently. All these lines, however, stop at Mercer and Queen Anne Ave (the 15 and 18 came up Mercer, alternating every 10 minutes). So, to give myself the best shot at catching any of these, I'd walk slightly further and between the 15 and 18 would never have to wait more than 10 minutes (except when a bus would inexplicably never show up) and sometimes I'd get lucky with one of the others. However, there was a mass convergence: all lines were supposed to be at Queen Anne and Mercer at 9:31. If I showed up at 9:32 (after walking about 5 minutes), I'd have to wait 9 more minutes.
For reasons that baffle me to this day, these lines then stop every 2 blocks (are we to believe that asking people to walk one extra block is a big ask??), including through the ride-free zones where all the homeless people add to the bus-stop overhead. Every stop features people getting on one at a time and if you're lucky, tapping their ORCA card, otherwise fishing for change. God forbid a person in a wheelchair want to get on the bus: that's about a 2-minute operation (in contrast, transport stops in Budapest happen in about 10-15 seconds). In other words, these bits of time add up real fast. And somehow, the bus would always get to 3rd and Pine/Pike right as the 545 was leaving (wait penalty: 9-15 minutes, depending on time of day).
Let's recap: walk 5 minutes, wait 0-9 minutes, ride the bus for about 15 minutes, walk 1 minute, wait for the 545 (0-12 minutes), then add 30 more minutes. Getting to the 545 (and lacking control over when I get there relative to 545 departure times) costs me 21-40 minutes.
I lived 2.1 miles away from the 545 stop and after a while decided that walking was the best course of action. It takes 26 minutes to do so every single time, and I can plan my arrival time to line up with the 545 so I don't have to wait as long. Taking the bus from Queen Anne occasionally saves me a few minutes and works out better, and often causes me to miss my connection. Let's call it identical for this exercise. How big of a fail is it that the break-even point for distance where riding the bus becomes worth it is in the neighborhood of 2 miles?
Rubber rubs me wrong
I hate rubber.
That's not entirely true, but I do think rubber is in far too many places. My primary issue comes with anything that I spend time gripping: kitchen implements and luggage come to mind. Oxo has unilaterally destroyed every kitchen implement they make by rubber-wrapping any part that might be touched. Seriously, why does an ice cream scoop need a rubberized handle??
What's so bad about rubber, anyways?
Rubber is soft. Therefore, it should be comfortable to grip (says marketing), not unlike a plush teddy or idealized cloud. But, most implements don't need this level of cushiness; the flexibility of the rubber actually causes it to move slightly no matter how hard you grip it, more likely leading to irritated skin and calluses. Hard surfaces are uncomfortable only when they cut into your hand. Your hand has plenty of padding in it already. As long as a hard grip doesn't have sharp-ish edges/corners, you don't need the rubber.
Physics aside:
The metal-rubber-hand progression has a contact between two soft surfaces. Mashing two soft surfaces together is inherently unstable and leads to uncontrollable shifting between the two. There is no scenario where this uncontrollable shifting is a good thing: it gives the gripper (the hand) less control.
In addition to it not providing the touted comfort advantage over a well-formed piece of stainless steel, rubber (unlike steel) is:
1. soft (remember?) and therefore pits easily
2. soft (remember?) and therefore wears down
3. grippy (remember?) and therefore picks up tons of dirt, which comes with associated oil, etc
3a. that you then can't wash off as easily
3b. which then accumulates to make your rubber grip gross and sticky
4. heavy, when compared to a replacement steel structure
4a. causing you to have to grip harder, leading to fatigue
Rubber may even have weird chemicals in it too (stainless steel is way on the safe side for those concerned about long-term toxic materials), but I'm not gonna bother looking that up.
I also have one suitcase that has a rubber handle. It's my fault for buying it anyways, but any of the following would be more comfortable and longer lasting:
1. nylon fabric
2. molded hard plastic
3. leather
4. bike chain
The issue is that, again, the additional friction doesn't help me support the weight of the suitcase, makes it harder to slide my hand in and out from the handle and squishes once picked up, guaranteeing that some skin on my hand is now compressed/stretched in an annoying way.
Please leave rubber where it belongs: as a cushion between two hard objects, usually out of sight.
That's not entirely true, but I do think rubber is in far too many places. My primary issue comes with anything that I spend time gripping: kitchen implements and luggage come to mind. Oxo has unilaterally destroyed every kitchen implement they make by rubber-wrapping any part that might be touched. Seriously, why does an ice cream scoop need a rubberized handle??
What's so bad about rubber, anyways?
Rubber is soft. Therefore, it should be comfortable to grip (says marketing), not unlike a plush teddy or idealized cloud. But, most implements don't need this level of cushiness; the flexibility of the rubber actually causes it to move slightly no matter how hard you grip it, more likely leading to irritated skin and calluses. Hard surfaces are uncomfortable only when they cut into your hand. Your hand has plenty of padding in it already. As long as a hard grip doesn't have sharp-ish edges/corners, you don't need the rubber.
Physics aside:
The metal-rubber-hand progression has a contact between two soft surfaces. Mashing two soft surfaces together is inherently unstable and leads to uncontrollable shifting between the two. There is no scenario where this uncontrollable shifting is a good thing: it gives the gripper (the hand) less control.
In addition to it not providing the touted comfort advantage over a well-formed piece of stainless steel, rubber (unlike steel) is:
1. soft (remember?) and therefore pits easily
2. soft (remember?) and therefore wears down
3. grippy (remember?) and therefore picks up tons of dirt, which comes with associated oil, etc
3a. that you then can't wash off as easily
3b. which then accumulates to make your rubber grip gross and sticky
4. heavy, when compared to a replacement steel structure
4a. causing you to have to grip harder, leading to fatigue
Rubber may even have weird chemicals in it too (stainless steel is way on the safe side for those concerned about long-term toxic materials), but I'm not gonna bother looking that up.
I also have one suitcase that has a rubber handle. It's my fault for buying it anyways, but any of the following would be more comfortable and longer lasting:
1. nylon fabric
2. molded hard plastic
3. leather
4. bike chain
The issue is that, again, the additional friction doesn't help me support the weight of the suitcase, makes it harder to slide my hand in and out from the handle and squishes once picked up, guaranteeing that some skin on my hand is now compressed/stretched in an annoying way.
Please leave rubber where it belongs: as a cushion between two hard objects, usually out of sight.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Email needs a like button
I periodically get large-audience mails at work. For example: "hey, we did a great job at some off-site presentation". I want to give the feedback that I, too, think this is awesome, but don't want to be the next in the reply-all chain of brief answers; I also don't want to spam the sender and have them miss the few potentially interesting responses in there. Facebook (and other social networks) solve this by allowing for a real reply and a like. So clean!
The success of Yammer shows that corporations are buying into a microblogging culture. I've tried this out and it's just awful. Good luck finding a thread from 5 months ago that has relevant information. Good luck even seeing all the things that are interesting to you. Most people try to target posts by tagging those they'd otherwise put on a To: line to ensure notifications, but that only solves half the problem. Newsfeed-based communication is only ok for content that is not critical. That's the whole point: I can pop in anytime and interact with recent content or disappear for a while and not care what flew by when I wasn't looking. And nevermind the separate experience around getting anyone's attention outside of my network or group of friends.
The end result is that newsfeed-based communications aren't much different from everyone sending messages to a group distribution list, and sometimes calling out specific names to avoid email filters shoving those messages out of sight. Yep, because that's where mass messages end up: out of sight. And the sender knows this. And wonders if anyone saw their announcement.
Therefore, email needs a like button.
The success of Yammer shows that corporations are buying into a microblogging culture. I've tried this out and it's just awful. Good luck finding a thread from 5 months ago that has relevant information. Good luck even seeing all the things that are interesting to you. Most people try to target posts by tagging those they'd otherwise put on a To: line to ensure notifications, but that only solves half the problem. Newsfeed-based communication is only ok for content that is not critical. That's the whole point: I can pop in anytime and interact with recent content or disappear for a while and not care what flew by when I wasn't looking. And nevermind the separate experience around getting anyone's attention outside of my network or group of friends.
The end result is that newsfeed-based communications aren't much different from everyone sending messages to a group distribution list, and sometimes calling out specific names to avoid email filters shoving those messages out of sight. Yep, because that's where mass messages end up: out of sight. And the sender knows this. And wonders if anyone saw their announcement.
Therefore, email needs a like button.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The Facebook Dilemma
Since Facebook has gone public and answers to the investors, I've seen a few annoying ad-related things creep in. First came targeted ads in feeds, styled to look like a post from a friend (except these would come from a brazilian clothing maker, or a psychology graduate school, or ... ). Then came elevation of a friend's post with a link to a business to the top spot in my feed for the better part of 24 hours (despite sorting my feed by 'most recent'). And most recently, I received a notification because a friend had checked in at a location near me. In the middle of the work day. 7 miles away. I imagine the new emotion verb in status updates is intended to help them parse reactions to places where I've checked in and so on.
Clearly they are trying to increase the level of interconnectivity between people and exploit that by pairing in businesses. This is how you become an ad firm. Unlike Google which does all the ad research and presenation somewhat on the sly, we give Facebook explicit information about us and see the ads only on facebook.com, thus we associate all of this with them, directly. How in-my-face can they get? Unless it's really useful, people will treat ads as malware and either leave or ad-block it, both of which are bad for Facebook. In either case it raises awareness that Facebook is mining me, trying to get as much out of me as possible. Should I feel creeped out? Should I worry they are hoarding too much info about me, even though I'm the one that placed it up there?
The common reaction of "you can just turn it off" or "just use ad-block" in an interesting reflection of "out of sight, out of mind". This works in Facebook's favor because it means at least some people don't really care that they are being used as long as they don't have to see the consequences right in front of them. They're not worried about the stockpile building in the background. I'm not sure if I am or not, and I feel like as long as it stays on facebook.com, I'm pretty fine with it. Once it starts spilling over and following me everywhere, fueling the giant ad machine, that's when it becomes a huge turnoff (and I suspect would have the same effect on others).
We've established people will not pay for a social network, so pay-per-use pricing models won't work. For advertisement to work, they need to get people to continue creating a rich influx of content. If they start turning away those who post the most (and therefore have the most obvious ad targeting), they run the risk of damaging their ecosystem. Everyone agrees they are sitting on a treasure trove of information, but to clearly exploit that to their gain loses our trust. It removes Facebook as our safe place, our friend, our site where we get to drive what's happening. It makes them into a stalker. By trying to do too much, they run a serious risk of damaging their brand, their user base and ultimately, their bottom line.
And in the meantime, the shareholders are knocking.
Clearly they are trying to increase the level of interconnectivity between people and exploit that by pairing in businesses. This is how you become an ad firm. Unlike Google which does all the ad research and presenation somewhat on the sly, we give Facebook explicit information about us and see the ads only on facebook.com, thus we associate all of this with them, directly. How in-my-face can they get? Unless it's really useful, people will treat ads as malware and either leave or ad-block it, both of which are bad for Facebook. In either case it raises awareness that Facebook is mining me, trying to get as much out of me as possible. Should I feel creeped out? Should I worry they are hoarding too much info about me, even though I'm the one that placed it up there?
The common reaction of "you can just turn it off" or "just use ad-block" in an interesting reflection of "out of sight, out of mind". This works in Facebook's favor because it means at least some people don't really care that they are being used as long as they don't have to see the consequences right in front of them. They're not worried about the stockpile building in the background. I'm not sure if I am or not, and I feel like as long as it stays on facebook.com, I'm pretty fine with it. Once it starts spilling over and following me everywhere, fueling the giant ad machine, that's when it becomes a huge turnoff (and I suspect would have the same effect on others).
We've established people will not pay for a social network, so pay-per-use pricing models won't work. For advertisement to work, they need to get people to continue creating a rich influx of content. If they start turning away those who post the most (and therefore have the most obvious ad targeting), they run the risk of damaging their ecosystem. Everyone agrees they are sitting on a treasure trove of information, but to clearly exploit that to their gain loses our trust. It removes Facebook as our safe place, our friend, our site where we get to drive what's happening. It makes them into a stalker. By trying to do too much, they run a serious risk of damaging their brand, their user base and ultimately, their bottom line.
And in the meantime, the shareholders are knocking.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Humans are the smartest!
But by how much? I just read a story about dogs taking the subway to scavenging grounds during the day, then going back to the suburbs for shelter at night.
I also heard a story about crows. One was given a test: A small bucket of food was placed in a tube, and several items were left lying around. Within one minute, the crow bent a pipe cleaner and used it to fish out the bucket.
Both of these stories make me think there are people I've met who couldn't figure this out. We like to think of ourselves as the smartest out there, but animals have solved problems we have trouble with (like turtles migrating across thousands of miles of ocean to a tiny island by magnetic fields alone). What is the net value of the intelligence/skills they have that we don't? Sure, as a race we can do things they can't, however, is there some serious overlap?
I also heard a story about crows. One was given a test: A small bucket of food was placed in a tube, and several items were left lying around. Within one minute, the crow bent a pipe cleaner and used it to fish out the bucket.
Both of these stories make me think there are people I've met who couldn't figure this out. We like to think of ourselves as the smartest out there, but animals have solved problems we have trouble with (like turtles migrating across thousands of miles of ocean to a tiny island by magnetic fields alone). What is the net value of the intelligence/skills they have that we don't? Sure, as a race we can do things they can't, however, is there some serious overlap?
Practical science
While using the toddler-height urinal at work yesterday, I remembered something odd I once heard from (or about) a girl: she could tell a man's penis size just by listening to him pee. The louder the noise, the longer the hose, she claimed. Why? Because the closer the stream starts to the bowl, the harder it hits the water.
Hmm. So many routes to take on the how-can-you-be-so-wrong train ...
1. Anyone who's been in a pissing contest can tell you that their stream is not faster than a speeding bullet. In fact, a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation shows an approximate exit speed of 5mph. Water's freefall speed is 10-15mph - the stream would hit the bowl harder if gravity's allowed to act on it for a while (exactly contradicting the basis of her evaluation).
2. The noise is probably impacted by the flux of the stream (essentially, the cross-section of fluid) which could vary dramatically from man to man.
3. The noise is also impacted by where in the toilet he's aiming. Perhaps he's playing target practice against the side of the bowl?
4. Perhaps the man was not standing entirely straight up, thus decreasing the distance?
5. Perhaps the bowl was less full, thus increasing the distance?
6. Perhaps her estimate of just where the spout starts is a bit off ... we do have different length legs after all!
7. Perhaps there's different ambient noise, changing the perception of the stream impact?
The first point requires some physics knowledge and will therefore not be accessibly to most people. The second requires a realization about anatomy, that again, could be tricky. The third could be something women don't think about, but any man could clarify. The last several may sound jokey, but this is a scenario where being off by a few inches could lead to serious mis-evaluation (and surprise/disappointment) ... and these are also things that anyone should be able to come up with to realize their foolproof penis evaluation system is just foolish.
Teach science. Teach math. Teach logic. Teach critical thinking. Measure penises with a ruler.
Hmm. So many routes to take on the how-can-you-be-so-wrong train ...
1. Anyone who's been in a pissing contest can tell you that their stream is not faster than a speeding bullet. In fact, a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation shows an approximate exit speed of 5mph. Water's freefall speed is 10-15mph - the stream would hit the bowl harder if gravity's allowed to act on it for a while (exactly contradicting the basis of her evaluation).
2. The noise is probably impacted by the flux of the stream (essentially, the cross-section of fluid) which could vary dramatically from man to man.
3. The noise is also impacted by where in the toilet he's aiming. Perhaps he's playing target practice against the side of the bowl?
4. Perhaps the man was not standing entirely straight up, thus decreasing the distance?
5. Perhaps the bowl was less full, thus increasing the distance?
6. Perhaps her estimate of just where the spout starts is a bit off ... we do have different length legs after all!
7. Perhaps there's different ambient noise, changing the perception of the stream impact?
The first point requires some physics knowledge and will therefore not be accessibly to most people. The second requires a realization about anatomy, that again, could be tricky. The third could be something women don't think about, but any man could clarify. The last several may sound jokey, but this is a scenario where being off by a few inches could lead to serious mis-evaluation (and surprise/disappointment) ... and these are also things that anyone should be able to come up with to realize their foolproof penis evaluation system is just foolish.
Teach science. Teach math. Teach logic. Teach critical thinking. Measure penises with a ruler.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Red, Yellow, Blue and Green
I recently took Insights training at work. It's a system that assesses personality types. In case you're thinking "this is kinda kooky", the dimensions were referred to as "color energies", which made me think of Jane Lynch's character in A Might Wind explaining that they were part of WINC: Witches in Night's Colors. It's crazy to worship some man with a beard in the sky. They are simply just in tune with the 47th vibration of nature. Anyone who gives these things a thought would surely come to the same conclusion.
Each color represents a personality dimension; each color has a tagline as well.
Red: "Be brief, be bright, be gone". Alternatively, "let's get this done and move on"
Yellow: "Involve me"
Blue: "Give me details". Alternatively, "I want to consider all my options"
Green: "Show me you care"
A personality profile is the measured percentage each of these applies. I was red=75, yellow=67, blue=63, green=21.
As you may have guessed, engineers are heavily blue. Probably three quarters of our class (70 people) were at least 50 percent blue. Maybe a third of us were 50 percent red. This may be why I hate the 6 engineers order 3 pizzas scenario.
Surprisingly I found that people's colors really did line up with what I thought of them, and the recommendations the accompanying packet had for how best to and not to interact with me also made a lot of sense. I even cross-checked for the horoscope approach (put a little bit of everything in there, jumbled up and sliced this way and that so that everyone finds something they identify with) and didn't find it in there. The most interesting one of these was "do let him know he's in control." At first I resisted being portrayed as domineering, but then took it another way: don't involve me unless I have some control over the outcome. It's true! This is one of my pet peeves from both angles: why would you waste your time getting my input if you don't really need it? How does it help you get where you need to go? Yep, I'm red... and that other guy, clearly blue :)
Each color represents a personality dimension; each color has a tagline as well.
Red: "Be brief, be bright, be gone". Alternatively, "let's get this done and move on"
Yellow: "Involve me"
Blue: "Give me details". Alternatively, "I want to consider all my options"
Green: "Show me you care"
A personality profile is the measured percentage each of these applies. I was red=75, yellow=67, blue=63, green=21.
As you may have guessed, engineers are heavily blue. Probably three quarters of our class (70 people) were at least 50 percent blue. Maybe a third of us were 50 percent red. This may be why I hate the 6 engineers order 3 pizzas scenario.
Surprisingly I found that people's colors really did line up with what I thought of them, and the recommendations the accompanying packet had for how best to and not to interact with me also made a lot of sense. I even cross-checked for the horoscope approach (put a little bit of everything in there, jumbled up and sliced this way and that so that everyone finds something they identify with) and didn't find it in there. The most interesting one of these was "do let him know he's in control." At first I resisted being portrayed as domineering, but then took it another way: don't involve me unless I have some control over the outcome. It's true! This is one of my pet peeves from both angles: why would you waste your time getting my input if you don't really need it? How does it help you get where you need to go? Yep, I'm red... and that other guy, clearly blue :)
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Are Republicans more socialist than Democrats?
Probably not, in any commonly used sense of the word and I don't think any raw numbers quite bear this out ... but!
If we use Medicaid and Social Security as barometers of a socialist system, we could argue Republicans are actually more socialist, because they so steadfastly insist such systems are untouchable, because the party is buoyed by old people who rely on those services. I suppose it could really be more selfish than socialist .... it just doesn't jive with their "earn it" motto?
If we use Medicaid and Social Security as barometers of a socialist system, we could argue Republicans are actually more socialist, because they so steadfastly insist such systems are untouchable, because the party is buoyed by old people who rely on those services. I suppose it could really be more selfish than socialist .... it just doesn't jive with their "earn it" motto?
Friday, March 8, 2013
How to drive like an idiot
Would you randomly weave back and forth over a lane line on a straight road?
How about on a curved road?
No, and no.
Then why do it on the curved road that happens to pass through an intersection????
How about on a curved road?
No, and no.
Then why do it on the curved road that happens to pass through an intersection????
Engineers and driving
How long does it take 2 engineers to make a 5 minute drive?
15 minutes: 5 minutes to make the drive, and 10 minutes to argue the merits of reasonable paths, none of which would take more than 7 minutes.
There's something addictive about being able to be right just for the sake of being right.
15 minutes: 5 minutes to make the drive, and 10 minutes to argue the merits of reasonable paths, none of which would take more than 7 minutes.
There's something addictive about being able to be right just for the sake of being right.
Engineers and pizzas
How do 6 engineers select toppings for 3 pizzas?
They find all the ingredients everyone likes, then select variations of those for each.
Why? Because engineers love to "solve the problem perfectly", and what can be more perfect than everyone liking every pizza? Then the 24 slices can be split in any proportion, everyone has options, and so on.
In reality this approach just guarantees that no one is unhappy. Likely it means that people's favorite ingredients are left off. And now you know why Microsoft Office is ... so ... just there.
They find all the ingredients everyone likes, then select variations of those for each.
Why? Because engineers love to "solve the problem perfectly", and what can be more perfect than everyone liking every pizza? Then the 24 slices can be split in any proportion, everyone has options, and so on.
In reality this approach just guarantees that no one is unhappy. Likely it means that people's favorite ingredients are left off. And now you know why Microsoft Office is ... so ... just there.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Addicted to "Love"
Think of the worst couple you know ... yeah, those two.
What does the one see in the other? Why are they still together? How can they insist they love the other?
It actually makes sense. For that couple to have stayed together this long, [at least] one had to convince themselves they really love the other. They amplify that abstract ideal and cling more and more to it despite there being nothing substantial behind it. In a sense it's like a bad addiciton: bit by bit they delude themselves they are better off; ignoring all objective considerations that say otherwise.
What does the one see in the other? Why are they still together? How can they insist they love the other?
It actually makes sense. For that couple to have stayed together this long, [at least] one had to convince themselves they really love the other. They amplify that abstract ideal and cling more and more to it despite there being nothing substantial behind it. In a sense it's like a bad addiciton: bit by bit they delude themselves they are better off; ignoring all objective considerations that say otherwise.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Retire aggressively!
More and more we're moving away from a pension ("defined benefits") system to an individual retirement account ("defined contribution", ex: 401k) model. While many are unhappy about this, it's actually better: you are protected against your former company collapsing and no one paying your defined benefit anymore. Since you own your 401k funds, you are free to move between companies without fear of not building up "pension credit".
The downside is that you have to manage your 401k: decide how much to put away, how to invest it, and when retirement rolls around, how to disburse it. While I can't speak for the latter from personal experience, I've decided an aggressive approach is right for the first two options.
There is a federally defined maximum personal yearly contribution (somewhere around $17,000 currently). Get as close to that number as you can afford to do. Do that every year. Make it one of your known expenses, don't plan to use that money. Your employer may match part of your contribution, this is allowed to take your total over that defined limit (to repeat, only your personal contribution counts against the limit). Why do the maximum? Assume you work 35 years, and assume the limit stays the same. Even with zero growth and no employer contribution, you'll have stashed away almost $600,000 of pre-tax money, which you can disburse in smaller amounts and therefore get taxed less. Realistically the limits go up about $500 each year, so contributing the max and getting a typical match from your employer should get you around $1,000,000 into your fund.
Now for that growth component ....
You have lots of investment options and probably no clue what to do next. Your 401k fund's firm likely offers several "package funds". For example, I can invest in "large cap growth" or "European small cap" funds, as well as long-term plans like LifePath 2040 (which gets progressively less risky as 2040 and my planned retirement approach). Your best bet is probably something that tracks a major market index such as the Dow or S&P 500. These have reasonable returns each year and are cheap for the fund manager to run. In my case, "large cap growth" is roughly the same as the Dow, so that makes up a substantial portion of my portfolio. LifePath is likely to be less volatile, but has lower returns over time because it's more managed and more diversified... this is bad: a rate difference of a few percent per year, compounded by management costs can affect your final balance by a factor of 2 (in this case, millions of dollars!). If you have 30 years until retirement, let that "over time" work for you.
The rules for your 401k and your personal investment fund are very different. Your personal stock portfolio is at your fingertips anytime you want it. Ideally you buy a stock today, tomorrow it doubles in value and you cash out big. This is not an option in a 401k. You can't just cash out your winnings (or not as easily anyways), at most you can re-balance your invested assets. Also, you are contributing smaller amounts to your 401k each pay check instead of buying a big bundle of shares once and then maybe idling for 6 months. Pop quiz, which of these prices per share/unit over time results in the best outcome for your 401k when you retire:
1. Steady growth: $1.00, $1.10, $1.20, $1.30 ... $3.00, retire
2. Bust and boom: $1.00, $0.50, $0.50, $0.50, ... $0.50, $3.00, retire
3. Boom and hold: $1.00, $3.00, $3.00, ... $3.00, retire
Think hard about this, it's critical to understanding the aggressive approach to 401k.
But eventually, I want to retire and know how much money I have to live off of, right?
Yes. LifePath and similar funds do this by gradually shifting your money out of the stock market and into super-safe investments like bonds and cash. The issue here is that your money stops growing, and you still plan to live another 20, 30 or infinity years (or plan to pass down the money, or leave it for a spouse, ... ). However, leaving your investments in a stock index fund could lead to some pretty big swings that you no longer want to put yourself at risk for. Enter the Rule of 5.
An observant person noted that, approximately speaking, the major indices are always higher in value 5 years from now than today. This allows for arbitrary volatility in between, of course, but says that given a 5-year window, money invested in an index fund will not be worse off. While most how-to's recommend the uber-safe approach, I believe that only the next 5 years' worth of money needs to be conservatized. In other words, every year you can move the money you'll need to use in 5 years into a conservative portfolio, allowing the remaining money to continue working for you, over time! If the market takes a dive, just delay taking the next batch of money out until it recovers! We can look at 3 scenarios for the expected trends (a more complete look would bracket 'reasonable' upper and lower bounds, and of course you wouldn't want to follow a plan whose lower bounds put you at risk), assuming you have amassed $2,000,000 and wish to spend $100,000 a year:
1. all in cash: money will run out in 20 years.
2. all in low-yield bonds (3% per year): you have about $844,000 left after 20 years
3. all but the next 5 years' in an index fund (7%): you have about $2,305,000 left after 20 years! Your money has grown. Note that aside from an initial $500,000 earmark, the remaining $1.5M are generating slightly more than the next $100,000 you need to cash into your safe bucket.
Quiz Answer:
The answer to the pop quiz is 2. Bust and boom is ideal for you because it allows you to purchase the most units of fund over time. You'll have way more units than in steady growth or boom and hold. The opposite is true for conventional [buy-at-once] investing. Here, bust and boom is actually painful because you are stuck with underwater stocks, until the boom happens, and can't put that money to use in the meantime.
The downside is that you have to manage your 401k: decide how much to put away, how to invest it, and when retirement rolls around, how to disburse it. While I can't speak for the latter from personal experience, I've decided an aggressive approach is right for the first two options.
There is a federally defined maximum personal yearly contribution (somewhere around $17,000 currently). Get as close to that number as you can afford to do. Do that every year. Make it one of your known expenses, don't plan to use that money. Your employer may match part of your contribution, this is allowed to take your total over that defined limit (to repeat, only your personal contribution counts against the limit). Why do the maximum? Assume you work 35 years, and assume the limit stays the same. Even with zero growth and no employer contribution, you'll have stashed away almost $600,000 of pre-tax money, which you can disburse in smaller amounts and therefore get taxed less. Realistically the limits go up about $500 each year, so contributing the max and getting a typical match from your employer should get you around $1,000,000 into your fund.
Now for that growth component ....
You have lots of investment options and probably no clue what to do next. Your 401k fund's firm likely offers several "package funds". For example, I can invest in "large cap growth" or "European small cap" funds, as well as long-term plans like LifePath 2040 (which gets progressively less risky as 2040 and my planned retirement approach). Your best bet is probably something that tracks a major market index such as the Dow or S&P 500. These have reasonable returns each year and are cheap for the fund manager to run. In my case, "large cap growth" is roughly the same as the Dow, so that makes up a substantial portion of my portfolio. LifePath is likely to be less volatile, but has lower returns over time because it's more managed and more diversified... this is bad: a rate difference of a few percent per year, compounded by management costs can affect your final balance by a factor of 2 (in this case, millions of dollars!). If you have 30 years until retirement, let that "over time" work for you.
The rules for your 401k and your personal investment fund are very different. Your personal stock portfolio is at your fingertips anytime you want it. Ideally you buy a stock today, tomorrow it doubles in value and you cash out big. This is not an option in a 401k. You can't just cash out your winnings (or not as easily anyways), at most you can re-balance your invested assets. Also, you are contributing smaller amounts to your 401k each pay check instead of buying a big bundle of shares once and then maybe idling for 6 months. Pop quiz, which of these prices per share/unit over time results in the best outcome for your 401k when you retire:
1. Steady growth: $1.00, $1.10, $1.20, $1.30 ... $3.00, retire
2. Bust and boom: $1.00, $0.50, $0.50, $0.50, ... $0.50, $3.00, retire
3. Boom and hold: $1.00, $3.00, $3.00, ... $3.00, retire
Think hard about this, it's critical to understanding the aggressive approach to 401k.
But eventually, I want to retire and know how much money I have to live off of, right?
Yes. LifePath and similar funds do this by gradually shifting your money out of the stock market and into super-safe investments like bonds and cash. The issue here is that your money stops growing, and you still plan to live another 20, 30 or infinity years (or plan to pass down the money, or leave it for a spouse, ... ). However, leaving your investments in a stock index fund could lead to some pretty big swings that you no longer want to put yourself at risk for. Enter the Rule of 5.
An observant person noted that, approximately speaking, the major indices are always higher in value 5 years from now than today. This allows for arbitrary volatility in between, of course, but says that given a 5-year window, money invested in an index fund will not be worse off. While most how-to's recommend the uber-safe approach, I believe that only the next 5 years' worth of money needs to be conservatized. In other words, every year you can move the money you'll need to use in 5 years into a conservative portfolio, allowing the remaining money to continue working for you, over time! If the market takes a dive, just delay taking the next batch of money out until it recovers! We can look at 3 scenarios for the expected trends (a more complete look would bracket 'reasonable' upper and lower bounds, and of course you wouldn't want to follow a plan whose lower bounds put you at risk), assuming you have amassed $2,000,000 and wish to spend $100,000 a year:
1. all in cash: money will run out in 20 years.
2. all in low-yield bonds (3% per year): you have about $844,000 left after 20 years
3. all but the next 5 years' in an index fund (7%): you have about $2,305,000 left after 20 years! Your money has grown. Note that aside from an initial $500,000 earmark, the remaining $1.5M are generating slightly more than the next $100,000 you need to cash into your safe bucket.
Quiz Answer:
The answer to the pop quiz is 2. Bust and boom is ideal for you because it allows you to purchase the most units of fund over time. You'll have way more units than in steady growth or boom and hold. The opposite is true for conventional [buy-at-once] investing. Here, bust and boom is actually painful because you are stuck with underwater stocks, until the boom happens, and can't put that money to use in the meantime.
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