May 2007 Archives

My brother sent me this article that talks about "wasted" time at work and mentions a new approach to business: the "results-only work environment".

“The old thinking says ‘the longer it takes, the harder you’re working,” says Lynne Lancaster, a founder of BridgeWorks, a business consulting firm. “The new thinking is ‘if I know the job inside and out and I’m done faster than everyone else then why can’t I go home early?’ ”

A few companies are taking the concept of “watch what I produce, not how I produce it” even further. At the headquarters of Best Buy in Minneapolis, for instance, the hot policy of the moment is called ROWE, short for Results Only Work Environment.

There workers can come in at four or leave at noon, or head for the movies in the middle of the day, or not even show up at all. It’s the work that matters, not the method. And, not incidentally, both output and job satisfaction have jumped wherever ROWE is tried.

In other words, what looks like wasting time from where you sit, could be a whirl of creative thought from where I sit. And, with due respect to Mr. Gilbreth, all the energy that’s been poured into trying to force everyone to work at the same pace and in the same way — it seems that’s the real waste of time.

As the article notes, a product built from knowledge and creativity can't really be judged merely by how much time is spent directly producing it. Time that appears "wasted" is actually spent collecting thoughts and ideas, mulling them over, reconsidering, and finally deciding on implementation. A writer working on a novel might only write one or two pages a day, but the time he spends walking around the park is just as critical to the creative process as the time he spends on his keyboard.

More computer science vocabulary.

Can apes use language or do they just learn to correlate symbols with reactions from humans? The story below doesn't come close to convincing me that the "interviewed" ape understands the meanings behind the symbols it recognizes.

Sound beyond belief? During a visit to the Great Ape Trust, I sat down with Kanzi the Bonobo -- the first Ape I have ever interviewed.

I read Kanzi a series of words, and then without fail, he hit the corresponding lexigram symbol on a touch screen.

I said "Egg."

He pressed "Egg."

I said, "M and M."

He pressed "M and M."

Then Kanzi took control of the conversation and pressed the symbol for "Surprise!"

Needless to say, I was quite surprised, having never actually spoken to an ape before.

But Kanzi was pointing to a box of candy that I was sitting near. That is the surprise that he wanted.

Correlating sounds with pictures (e.g., "egg" with an egg) is a far cry from comprehending the symbolic, abstract communication of true language. John Berman's interpretation of the "surprise" symbol strikes me more as projection on his part than as communication by the ape.

The real difficulty I have believing the researchers in this case is one that is similar across many scientific endeavors: conflicts of interest. The researchers at the Great Ape Trust have a vested interest in demonstrating that the apes can learn language; if they spent millions of dollars studying apes for years and then concluded "nope, no language", they'd be out of a job. In contrast, news stories like these bring publicity and funding to their life work, stroking egos and provoking all sorts of non-scientific motivations.

Confirmation bias: the researchers set up a foundation to study ape language and to promote ape conservation, and lo-and-behold their sincerest hopes are confirmed by their own research! Apes can use language and must be protected!

Mark Steyn has a good perspective on the illegal immigration amnesty bill, rightly labeling the debacle nothing more than political theater.

So the question is: Why is enforcement of U.S. immigration somewhere between minimal and nonexistent? By some estimates, half of all illegals have arrived on George W. Bush's watch -- i.e., they broke into a nation at war with borders supposedly on permanent "orange" alert.

To return to the 72-virgin jackpot, even the looniest jihad-inciting imam understands that human nature responds to incentive, to the tradeoff between obligation and reward. But the immigration bill is all reward and no obligations. The only clause that matters is the first one: the mandatory open-ended probationary legal status the bill will confer the moment it's passed. All the rest -- the enforcement provisions on border agents and security fences that will supposedly "trigger" Z-visas and then green cards -- is nonsense, most of which will never happen. If you're "undocumented," you don't care about whether your Z-visa leads to citizenship 15 years from now: What counts is crossing the line from illegal to legal, which in this bill happens first, happens instantly and happens (to all intents and purposes) irreversibly. All the rest is Beltway kabuki.

Imagine if 20,000,000 burglers were not only instantly pardoned but also immediately given free reign to continue their theft legally. It's outrageous, and all the more so because of the American citizens who have aided, abetted, and profited from these thieves over the past decades.

And of course there's always the War on Terror angle.

Kathryn, that Cornyn amendment is a good example of the kind of final "bipartisan compromise" Congress may settle for: The 12-20 million illegal immigrants will get legal residency in the United States by the end of the next business day (and, incidentally, I'd love to see a list of other US agencies which guarantee full service within 24 hours - or is the express line only available to lawbreaking foreigners?), but terrorists will have to be subjected to what Sheila Jackson-Lee described to me as an "ongoing background check".

The more you look at this bill the more it seems just the usual Beltway kabuki. Secretary Chertoff says in a time of war we need to know who's in the country. Okay. But is dumping a gazillion new applications on a sclerotic immigration system the way to do that? Mohammed Atta was the second most famous terrorist in the world and on the front page of every American newspaper but the then INS still sent him a valid US visa six months to the day after he died, and without even updating his address from that Florida flight school to Big Hole In The Ground, Lower Manhattan. And the excuse the agency made was, oh well, we're only issuing visas to dead terrorists not living ones - which Americans pretty much had to take on trust and which seems a distinction far less likely to be maintained once there's another 15 million in the system entitled to next-day service. If I were Mullah Omar, I'd apply for a Z-visa. The odds have got to be better than even.

It's just insane. Truly.

It makes me very nervous when Supreme Court Justices blatantly put themselves above the law rather than simply taking it as it is written by our elected representatives. At least the majority on the Court made the straight-forward and correct judgment on this matter:

A Supreme Court once again split by the thinnest of margins ruled yesterday that workers may not sue their employers over unequal pay caused by discrimination alleged to have occurred years earlier.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that Lilly Ledbetter, the lone female supervisor at a tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., did not file her lawsuit against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in the timely manner specified by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ...

A jury had originally awarded Ledbetter more than $3.5 million because it found "more likely than not" that sex discrimination during her 19-year career led to her being paid substantially less than her male counterparts.

An appeals court reversed, saying the law requires that a suit be filed within 180 days "after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred," and Ledbetter could not prove discrimination within that time period. ...

Alito wrote for the majority that "current effects alone can't breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination." He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Thomas is a former chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"We apply the statute as written, and this means that any unlawful employment practice, including those involving compensation, must be presented . . . within the period prescribed by the statute," Alito said.

That seems fair, right? The law says 180 days, so what's the argument? Well, apparently some Justices think they know so much better than Congress that they should be able to rewrite the law as they see fit.

The decision moved Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to read a dissent from the bench, a usually rare practice that she has now employed twice in the past six weeks to criticize the majority for opinions that she said undermine women's rights.

Speaking for the three other dissenting justices, Ginsburg's voice was as precise and emotionless as if she were reading a banking decision, but the words were stinging.

"In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination," she said.

Justice Ginsburg is wrong; if she doesn't like the text of the law then she should take it up with Congress. If she thinks there's a lack of comprehension she should quit her job as a Supreme Court Justice and get elected to Congress where she will be legally empowered by the Constitution to propose whatever laws she wants. It doesn't matter whether or not the law is "fair", it is the Court's job to apply it as written. Unelected judges have no business changing laws that were created in a democratic fashion. They don't have that power under the Constitution, and they have no extra-legal moral standing to undermine the will of the majority.

As for the plaintiff, if she believed she was being paid unfairly she should have found another job. That's what the rest of us do. Newsflash: we'd all like to make more money, but few of us have the self-important nerve to sue for it.

Ledbetter, like Ginsburg a woman in her 70s, said she was "disappointed, very, very disappointed" with the decision. "I worked a lot of years doing the hard work and not to get paid as much as the men will affect me every day in the future" in the form of lower retirement benefits, she said.

She knew what she was getting paid, she agreed to it, she did the work... what does she have to complain about? If she didn't like the offer she didn't have to take it. It's called a free market. Instead of whining to the courts, Ledbetter and other women who face this issue should learn to deal with it through negotiation.

JV sent me a link to a post claiming that lobbyists buy votes based on data from MAPLight showing the correlation between donations and votes by various legislators.

If you click the “Video Tour” button on the home page, you’ll see a six-minute video that illustrates the point. You find out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, special interests in favor of this bill (including pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill (such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up only $38,000 per senator.

Surprise! The bill passed.

If you click “Timeline of Contributions,” you find out that — surprise again! — contributions to the lawmakers surged during the six weeks leading up to the vote. On this same page, you can click the name of a particular member of Congress to see how much money that person collected.

Another mind-blowing example: from the home page, click “California.” Click “Legislators,” then click “Fabian Nunez.” The resulting page shows you how much this guy has collected from each special-interest group — $2.2 million so far — and there, in black-and-white type, how often he voted their way.

Construction unions: 94 percent of the time. Casinos: 95 percent of the time. Law firms: 78 percent of the time. Seems as though if you’re an industry lobbyist, giving this fellow money is a pretty good investment.

Of course, correlation does not equal causation, as the first commenter on that post points out. Do legislators vote in certain ways because money is given to their campaigns, or is money given because of how the legislators vote? To put it another way, which came first, the money or the votes? In reality, the answer is neither -- money and votes are symbiotic.

Legislators don't pocket this money, they spend it to get reelected. It's a cycle, like how water cycles through the environment as clouds, rain, rivers, oceans, and then clouds again. "Special interest groups" get money from voters who want to pool their resources to achieve some political goal; the groups give the money to politicians who have and will vote the way the group wants; the politicians spend the money to convince voters that they should be reelected.

Does this political-money cycle always work perfectly? No, because money is not a perfect proxy for votes -- that is, everyone gets one vote, but some people have exponentially more money than others. Still, it's the best system I can think of other than making me king-for-life. The last thing we need is the government "elite" regulating our speech or telling us how we can spend our own money.

If the federal government followed the same accounting rules that corporations, states, and local governments use the truly astounding extent of our national debt would enrage the public.

Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.

The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.

Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.

Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.

These numbers are obviously unsustainable and demonstrate why social security is doomed and young workers would be foolish to expect anything from it for their retirement. It is disgraceful for our government to hoodwink us like this, and I hope that the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Board will follow through with its proposal and force the feds to accurately count the costs of our "entitlements".

I'm not fond of Hillary Clinton's politics -- her recent cry for a "we're all in it together" society is pure socialism -- but I think she's right on the nose when she points out that too many Americans are going to college.

Clinton spoke at the Manchester School of Technology, which trains high school students for careers in the construction, automotive, graphic arts and other industries. The school highlighted one of the nine goals she outlined: increasing support for alternative schools and community colleges.

"We have sent a message to our young people that if you don't go to college ... that you're thought less of in America. We have to stop this," she said. "Our country cannot run without the people who have the skills that are taught in this school."

Of course government policies are part of the reason that so many adults are over-educated for their jobs (but under-trained).

Check out SeatGuru before you travel and find the best seats on whatever type of aircraft you're flying on.

Happy memorial day. Amidst all the barbecuing don't forget the men and women who died to give us these precious moments of peace and tranquility.

The doors on my house have old knobs with deadbolts built into them. The knobs are old and I'd like to replace them, but all the doors have only a single bore and I don't want to drill new holes for deadbolts. (They're storm doors, and very hard to drill.) However, I can't find the hardware I need because I can't figure out what this type of door know is called! Google searches for "door knob with deadbolt" just turn up sets containing standalone knobs and deadbolts. Can anyone tell me what these knobs are called or where I can buy some? Maybe they just don't make them anymore.

Please help me find out what this is! Read the extended entry for pictures.

Here's a long article by an employee of Edmunds.com who went undercover as a car salesman to learn the ins and outs of the trade. Basically, yes, car dealerships really are trying to rip you off.

Here's a great series of posts on frugal living. Anyone who knows me knows how important it is to me to save money! I don't mind spending money on important things, but I hate wasting money on frivolous items or spending more money on something than is necessary. The My Money Blog is going onto the sidebar!

I've written about Dubai a few times, so here's another crazy engineering project they're financing with our petrodollars: a ski resort in the desert. Check out the pictures.

(HT: JV.)

Mind-reading toys. What could go wrong?

A convincing twin of Darth Vader stalks the beige cubicles of a Silicon Valley office, complete with ominous black mask, cape and light saber.

But this is no chintzy Halloween costume. It's a prototype, years in the making, of a toy that incorporates brain wave-reading technology.

Behind the mask is a sensor that touches the user's forehead and reads the brain's electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating. The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.

Of course, the big question is whether or not these games are more fun.

It's also unclear whether consumers, particularly American kids, want mentally taxing games.

"It's hard to tell whether playing games with biofeedback is more fun -- the company executives say that, but I don't know if I believe them," said Ben Sawyer, director of the Games for Health Project, a division of the Serious Games Initiative.

Games are generally meant to be diversions, mental distractions.

In my opinion, the really cool application for this technology will be a device that allows two humans to receive feedback on each others' thoughts.

The Lost season finale last night, "Through the Looking Glass" completely rocked. Many of my Lost predictions were right, but the big shocker to me was that Penny wasn't involved with Naomi's boat. I predicted that the boat people were going to be bad -- in opposition to Ben's "good people" -- but I thought they might be working for Penny's evil dad and Widmore Labs. So who the heck are they?

The boat people must be somehow related to my wife's research into the wake Jack attended solo.

There have been several people blowing up the screenshots of the obituary Jack was so upset about.

The words we can make out are:

Man Found Dead in Downtown Loft

J---- ---anthem of New York was found shortly after 4 am in the --- block of Grand Avenue. -----The Towers ----- on a beam in --- loft. (There is lots more to the obit that hasn't been deciphered yet, but Lost Easter Eggs on Blogspot has some good screen captures)

So one may begin theorizing that someone killed themselves by hanging in their loft.

People have been suggesting that J--- ---anthem stands for "Jeremy Banthem" who was an 18th century philosopher who also had ties to John Locke (the philosopher).

I did some research on Jeremy Banthem and besides the Locke connection, Banthem had an experient called the Panopticon. Basically, it held that observing people without them knowing they were being observed is the greatest power over the human mind, or something like that. Maybe Panopticon was an influence for some Dharma hatches?

Going back to the obit, we can make out the words "The Towers" and in Los Angeles, there is a Panopticon-inspired prison called the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

Snap!

Also, apparently the obit was in the LA Times from April 5th, 2007. If they bring Walt back more it'll be in flash-forwards that allow the actor to look his real age.

I need more time to process the episode... but it was awesome.

I guess it should be obvious, but it's worth spreading the word: vegan diets harm babies.

Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run. ...

The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.

A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage. ...

An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.

Besides, if humans aren't supposed to eat animals then why are they made out of meat?

Am I the only one who loves semicolons? I try hard not to use them gratuitously, but I sprinkle them throughout my posts and emails when appropriate. One could certainly go overboard with semicolons, but if you neglect them entirely you're missing out on the subtle flavor of the language.

Rachel Lucas extols semicolons in a post discussing online dating, and I agree with her unspoken premise that exclamation points are their grammatical antithesis.

19. Severely curtail your use of exclamation points. For example: "I don't want to sound arrogant! But I'm a great guy! Are you a great girl? I love the outdoors! Talk to me! I'm looking to meet nice ladies for friendship and maybe more!" Good lord. Take a deep breath. By the way, I'd like to see MORE use of the semicolon; it can be pretty sexy.

I don't find that many people are particularly fond of semicolons, or even give them much thought! However, semicolons are obviously important to programmers, and there's even a Semicolon blog! Thanks to the internet I have finally found my kindred spirits.

Now if only we can get people to stop abusing the poor comma....

My wife tells me a new DNA test is going to be released soon that will determine what breeds are in your mutt. Could be interesting, depending on the cost involved. We've long wondered what the heck Monte is.

Orson Scott Card -- whose socio-political essays I normally enjoy -- has written a rant against the automobile founded on the myth of oil depletion. (Check out that second link so I don't have to re-explain why we'll never run out of oil.) Mr. Card longs for subdivisions designed around pedestrians:

Now imagine living in a house where your garage opens onto the alley in the back. You still have a deck or patio in back, and a small but decent grassy area with trees. Big enough for the barbecue. Big enough for toddlers to play in. Big enough for trees to grow and tree forts to be built.

Your front yard is small, too, but you can make it a garden spot and sit on the front porch and watch people pass by just beyond your picket fence, while the toddlers play inside that fence.

Across the street or just around the corner there's a