A new perspective

SFA goes on strike: Attendance for NY v Boston, 324

2010-08-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

Image via WikipediaI was listening to sports radio this morning as they were discussion the NFL Owners Association meeting to be held this weekend. It was interesting to hear the analysis on what the owners were going to be discussing and then the follow up on what it would take to save the 2011 NFL season. As a fan, you ultimately want the game to be played as always, but you end up taking sides and wanting one side to win or the other side to give in so we can play football.

One of the issues being discussed is the 18 week season. This players don't like this because it leads to more fatigue, more injuries, and frankly, more work for them. The owners like this because it allows them to charge full price for two more games without fans getting upset with having to pay for two more pre-season games. Then I thought: What would the fans want? I imagine fans would want two more weeks of regular season football!! But who is representing the fans? Nobody!!!

Hence the creation of the Sports Fans Association! This will be union of fans across America that will form a governing body, vote on specific rules and issues, and if things don't go our way, we will STRIKE!! Can you imagine how quickly we would get owners and NFL players to agree on a specific deal or compromise if 0 fans attended the next big game? Can you imagine going online and voting for whether you wanted replay on foul balls in baseball? We could get specific rules in the sports changed, request pricing caps on tickets, or really start affecting the game in almost anyway we wanted. I know there would be negotiation of sorts, but if it were to take off, the SFA would have more power that both the Overpaid Players Associations and the Greedy Owners Clubs.

Anyone not think this is the best idea ever? I think I might have to wright to Bill Simmons on this to see if he'll be NBA chair for me. And once we figure out American sports, we can get something going for the World Cup and get something done about the excessive crying and horrible officiating. We've got 4 years before the next one, let's get going.

Traffic is Infuriating

2010-08-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Image via WikipediaI just can't imagine a bigger waste of time than sitting in traffic. And this is a waste of time that spans socio-economic status, race, gender, and country of residence. I just can't believe a world as advanced as ours isn't doing a better job of solving this problem.
Here's what I would do if someone handed me $50 million dollars tomorrow (give me a call). Find an urban area with a large commuting population (almost any urban area). Build a single PRT line from a remote area into the downtown of the urban area. This line would consist of parking lots around stations every 10 or 20 miles. A commuter could get into a vehicle at any of the stations and ride directly to the downtown (or other stations) at speeds of no less than 100 mph and possibly up to 200 mph with zero stops in transit. Hopefully there would be a city/area that would donate at least some of the land to the cause.
Once this initial line is established and people realize the potential for this kind of system, we could expand these initial stops to other area stops. The eventual goal would be to have a stop within .25 of a mile of all residences, or even a personal stop at each house/business.

I am Happier than Tiger Woods

2010-08-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Image by Richard Carter via FlickrFor all my complaints and the difficulties in my life, all I have to say is that I am happier than Tiger Woods right now.

Phew, 5 Americans survived a plane Crash!!

2010-08-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

There's a story out of Columbia today where a plane crashed and of the 130 passengers, only 1 died. While this is generally a good story with a favorable outcome, it really bothers me that the media has to point out the nationalities of the people on the plane. "130 other people aboard, including at least five American citizens." I just don't see why that is important. Would it be a bigger story if they were all American citizens? Why are American lives more important than lives of the other 125 people on the plane?

This happens with a lot of disasters that are reported by the media. Maybe the problem isn't with the media, maybe we as a people actually DO value American lives more than other lives. Do other countries have this same kind of bias for their people?

The other time this comes up and annoys me is when War breaks out somewhere. One of the big things that's reported on is how the U.S. is sending war ships and military personnel to evacuate Americans. I can understand that if someone is working for the U.S. in that country that we may have some kind of obligation to ensure their safety, but if someone's there voluntarily outside of government business, why should we use our resources to save them? What about the people who live in that country, do they not deserve to be saved?

In the end, I believe this worlds problems with war, immigration, and racism all stem from the fact that we consider "our own people" to be more important than "them". Those people who were lucky enough to be born within an arbitrary political boundary, regardless of any merit they may have, are special, protected, and god forbid they get killed in an airplane crash. I wish the people of this world could open their eyes and see how exactly the same people in other countries are to you. The last part that amazes me is how proud our country is for the civil rights movement that occurred here. We're so just, and good, and we treat everyone like equals. The shame is that for some reason, an imaginary line at our border makes it okay for us to forget the lessons of the civil rights movement and hang on to a "we're better than them" mentality that does nobody any good.

Ending Life Humanely

2010-07-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

I read this article on Letting Go. It's a very long article, but worth the read. I believe this is starting to address one of the areas of our society that we have just not been able to address. The author is a doctor who is struggling with the conflict between trying everything you can for a terminally ill patient no matter the cost, and letting that patient go so they can enjoy the last days of their life rather than be tied up to machines or be worsened by treatments. It's a hard topic and I think the author does a good job of presenting both sides of the issue. I think the take away from the story is: "What are your end of life scenarios?"

The more we think about our end-of-life scenarios now, the better chance we have of making a good decision once we're in that situation. Are you willing to suffer for a week for a 5% chance at living 2 years longer? Are you willing to suffer for a month for a 1% chance at living 10 years longer? What is your break even point? What are the things that you want to live for? Would you rather spend 1 more week comfortably with your family, or fight to the bitter end hoping for a miracle? These are hard questions.

I believe that in an advanced society, we would not find it so hard to let go of the dying. It's a certain shortfall of who we are. Whether this is because of religion or an evolutionary need to preserve our own, our tendencies are misguided and we should work on this. Figure it out for yourself. Talk to your family. Make a small step toward improving your end-of-life scenarios.

The problem with the UN

2010-07-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I know, just one? Well, this is the most important one.

What purpose does the UN serve? Well, it SHOULD be able to enforce treaties, peace, prevent attacks on smaller nations. It has not been successful with this. Why? Problem is that the UN has no power. Even if it decides a country is our of compliance, or flat out defying UN rules, the UN will not do anything, especially if that country declares that any sanctions will be considered an act of war. Not that sanctions ever help anyway. They hurt the people and usually give the rebellious leaders added resolve. It's not a good system.

We need a UN with teeth. First, I'll take this to the extreme. What if the UN had a host of Nuclear bombs and every time a country did not follow UN resolutions, that country's capital was bombed with a nuclear bomb with the intent on destroying that country's leadership. I can think of a few problems that probably wouldn't have happened. Once the UN drops one bomb, I can't imagine there would be a lot of countries causing problems. We would still have gorilla type problems, but that's not what I'm addressing here. So, once the UN establishes itself as having some teeth, then countries should feel more confident in reducing their armies, weapons, and other wasted resources so they can focus on growth, human rights, and anything else they might spend $800 billion dollars on annually. Ok, so that's the figure for the whole world, but still, it's a lot of money.

So, it seems like the end goal could be beneficial, but we can't bring ourselves to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people for the sake of world peace. Would it be worth it, or possible if it was just one bomb and it gave us world peace forever? Still a questionable thought and almost impossible to do. I get that. So lets consider an alternative.

Alternative: Are nuclear weapons so completely unacceptable that it's just not a reasonable policy? Maybe. So instead, put into place a policy of complete destruction of central political establishment, central political symbols, and some high end residencies. The ideal situation would be to kill the leadership, but this comes close to the goals of using a Nuclear bomb. I think especially, the idea of going after high end residencies is especially interesting as money buys influence no matter where you live and if you give enough of the rich a reason to put pressure on the government to change, then you may just get peace.

Why isn't the post office a business?

2010-07-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I just don't understand government organizations that can't be run by businesses. There are many departments or organizations within government that actually take in money to provide a service. The DMV for example as well as the post office. News is out now that the US Post Office is requesting a 23% increase in the price of stamps. http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/07/07/standard-mail-prices-for-parcels-to-increase-23/

The problem here is that the post office is not improving it's services, should be making money off of us, and still continues to lose money and charge unreasonable rates to deliver mail.

I think it's about time there be a rival created for the USPS. One of the large freight companies should start delivering mail door to door like a business would and see if it can't improve on how the USPS operates. Here is a short list of some of the improvements I think could be made:
- Create an opt-in system for junk mail.
- Does the post office make extra money by delivering junk? How much time would be saved if there was no junk mail? What if companies had to pay the recipients in order to send mail to them?
- Provide ways for consumers to provide information so that junk mail could be targeted better. This would increase the value to the advertisers as well as provide junk mail that may actually be interesting to the recipient.
- Establish accounts associated with sender's addresses. Instead of stamping mail, just charge each account for the mail that is delivered from that address.
- Create different classes of mail delivery. Have standard mail delivery every other day and have urgent or 1st class delivery every day for a higher charge.
- Instead of charging people for P.O.Boxes, make it cheaper for people to receive mail at a main postal office. Saves on delivery time and expenses and may be more convenient for some people.
- Offer a fax to mail service. Fax the post office, or bring it in, and we'll deliver a physical printout of your fax to the address specified.

I bet a serious competitor to the USPS could not only make money, but they could probably improve on service, reduce junk mail, and reduce prices for end consumers.

Other people's creativity

2010-06-28T08:53:00.001-07:00

I wish I would have been this creative. Why are other people always doing things that are so much cooler than what I could come up with? Even if I would have gotten this idea, I never would have been able to execute on it. So sad.

Real Reviews

2010-06-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

Image by pierre pouliquin via Flickr

The online social economy these days is very dependent on the reviews of others. What do you think? Would you stay there again? Does the shoe make you feel well dressed? These are all important opinions that can help a prospective buyer make a decision. Are you getting real reviews from previous consumers?

On Amazon, I've tried to leave negative reviews a couple of times. Once, I objected to paying almost $16 in shipping charges when the two items I purchased were combined and weighed less than 1lb. I also mentioned in the review that one item was not as great as I'd expected. Overall, the review wasn't terrible, but I tried to be honest. After trying to reach the seller with no response, I posted my review. At that point, the seller contacted me and was offering "anything" to get me to retract my review. He was going to send me new items and refund all of my money. It was unreasonable. I removed the review and told the seller not to worry about it.

I also recently had a review opportunity for a b&b I stayed at in Paris. The experience was really nice and the host was personable and provided a great experience. However, there were some things about the stay that could have been better and because of how the overall review process is, some of my comments would have made the experience seem worse than I would like to specify. I decided to not leave a review instead.

Am I the only one that does this? Are there scores of untrue, or omitted reviews that could be helpful to us in our search for better products? If someone walked into my house and asked me about this specific b&b in Paris, I would unashamedly tell them everything I think. The prospect of putting those thoughts in writing and having those thoughts affect people I don't know is overwhelming. Knowing the audience (my friend in my house) I tailor my comments for that person with the understanding of how they might use those comments.

How do you get around the fact that online reviews are too broad a stroke? How do you also get around the fact that anything less than 5 stars is a harmful review? How can consumers get the truth about experiences according to their own views and use of them?

Cheeting the clock

2010-06-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin wrote an interesting article on cheating the clock:

I have found this same thing to often be true. If I know that I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, I can easily get my work done for the week in the first 3 days. However, if I try to work that hard and get "Extra" things done in an entire week, I might end up burned out. My solution is to show up to work 30-60 minutes early. In that time, I get my intense work in, accomplishing the important tasks and setting up the rest of the day to accomplish what I want to accomplish. What I end up with is a very successful morning, and in the afternoon I get to choose between going home early because I've done what I want, or sticking around to finish stuff up that isn't as important. Either way, I end up feeling great about my job!

Government Propaganda

2010-06-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

As I was driving from Las Vegas to Colorado a few days ago, I passed a large road sign that talked about a project being completed along I-70 that was paid for by the Recovery act. I have no idea how much the sign cost, but even if it was only a few dollars, the purpose of the sign seemed to be to make me appreciate how the current government was spending my money. It seems to me like a complete waste of my money. It's bad enough that we're throwing money into wasteful projects, but then spending more money to convince me that it was a good idea just makes me bitter. Shouldn't this fall under campaign financing somehow?

Cruelty to Animals

2010-05-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

Image by Ghost-Rider via Flickr

I recently read this story discussing the miniaturization of horses. I don't understand why more people aren't appalled by this. Breeding for specific traits is very unnatural and leaves many animals with genetic dispositions for diseases, pain, and discomfort. It amazes me that we as a people can be so cruel without even thinking about it. This would be intolerable if we were to do this with humans.

Related note 1: Kind of weird that we are okay with breeding programs for animals, but yet we don't let them suffer when they are dying.

In people, we won't tolerate breeding programs, but will actually prolong suffering as long as possible when they are dying.

Related note 2: I actually do think some genetic filtering in humans could be beneficial. I'll write about this later in a "Meaning of life" post if I haven't done that already.

Related note 3: We need a term for a tangent of a tangent. Tangents in stories usually break things up and make the story interesting. Tangents within those tangents, if done well, are also interesting, but often get confusing. Mathematically speaking, a tangent is actually a straight line, and by definition, a straight line can't have a tangent. Okay, I don't really know the definition, but I still think it's true. Anyone help me out here?

Economies and the collapse of civilization

2010-04-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

Over the history of the Earth, there have been many great civilizations. Many of these great civilizations like the Romans, Mayans, and Mesopotamians, grew to greatness and then crumbled. There are many theories as to why, but none of them are really satisfying. I'll put forth my own unsatisfying theory here:

Capitalistic economies will eventually cause all civilizations who partake in them to fail.
This is true for these ancient civilizations where their currencies and economies were fairly isolated, but also true for today's world where the economy consists of the entire world. The reason for this is that the way capitalism is setup, the system must grow in order for institutions or individuals to make money. If the economy becomes stagnant, then the economy fails. I'm not sure I understand this completely, but it does seem to hold across different times and cultures who have some sort capitalistic economy. Economies can't
possibly grow indefinitely. In modern times we have become creative and have used technology to increase output. We've created fancy financial packages that somehow generate revenue from nothing. It's great, and it's fun and profitable while growing, but what happens when there is no more growth to be had, or people are getting too creative with their financial instruments.

Our world is now seeing signs of problems to come. These days, instead of hitting the peak of our growth and crashing, our governments are artificially propping up, or applying cpr to the economy. How can borrowing billions of dollars and spending them on questionable projects across the country be a good idea? The fixes for our current problems are a boom in population, or a real crash. Let the big banks fail. Let Greece go under. Once we work through the really tough times following that, the economy will pick up again and find a way to grow. Otherwise, we're just delaying the inevitable.

Government and Religion

2010-04-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Supreme court ruled yesterday on a memorial cross in California that had been erected on public land. I don't think the ruling was important, but I do think there are some important issues here that people don't seem to grasp.

Why are we wasting millions of my money to argue about whether a cross in the middle of the desert should be taken down or not? Aren't there more important things to be worrying about?

I want to examine the role of government in respect to religion. If we look at our caveman ancestors establishing government for the first time, why would they have anything to do with religion? I would argue that religion was likely a form of government for these cave men. What can you wear, how do you have to be to hunt with the men, how do we treat the women, who is a valid sacrifice, what is sacred. The problems start as soon as you end up with a real government as well as a religious government. How do they handle disagreements? If there are multiple religions, which one is more important for the government to side with? I think in matters where separation of church and state questions come up, the litmus test should be: are we trying to govern by religious principals?

For this particular case, the cross is a memorial for fallen soldiers of foreign war. It was not commissioned by the government. It does not play a part in actually governing the people. It does not tell people that they must worship Jesus in order to remember these fallen soldiers. If I'm in a foreign land and I see a shrine commemorating an ancient disaster, I don't have to understand, or agree with, the religious significance of the shrine in order to appreciate the memorial.

The next case I want to repeat here is the one involving gay marriage. Again, the fact that so much money is being wasted by government on this issue is sickening. I think the federal government needs to come to it's senses and provide leadership to the states on how to handle this so that we can move on.

The resolution: Government's role in marriage is to enforce a contract between two people. That's it. If that contract is between two men, a man and a woman, a woman and three men, it doesn't matter. As soon as government starts dictating what marriage is, they start governing by rules established by religion. It doesn't make sense. In my caveman days, a small government created to take care of community issues would be worried about clean water, protecting the land and food they depend on, and mediating and deciding conflicts amongst the people. There's no reason my caveman community would need to declare that only certain people could live together. There would be no point in that.

Speedo Training I: Day 3

2010-04-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

We're on day three now of this competition and I weighed in at 181.5 lbs this morning. Not exactly on pace for my 2lbs this week. I'm especially worried about this because I'm leaving for Las Vegas Sunday morning and I'm not sure if weight is one of those things that's supposed to "stay in Vegas". I'm going to try pretty hard, but I don't know if there will be opportunity to eat well and I don't know how much time I'll have for exercise. If I can come back Wed at 180, I will be very happy.

Plastics and Buildings

2010-04-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a story on NPR this morning on the effort required to fix the dome of the State Capitol building in Denver. Seems like years of rust and corrosion from whether are making it unstable. So now the taxpayers are looking at a significant bill to repair the thing.

Not my main idea here, but it's really frustrating to me that our lawmakers need these ornate buildings to work in. It says we're all about appearance and not so much about substance. I want to see some state build a capital building that is purely practical.

Okay. So since we've already inherited old buildings that we're not likely to tear down. Why not protect some of them with a layer of clear plastic. Wouldn't it preserve a lot of buildings in whatever state they're in? I know this isn't practical for entire buildings, but things like a dome seem like they could have their life extended by a coating to keep the weather and other elements away. Also, would a coating like this add strength to buildings that may not be very strong? What about coating buildings in earthquake prone areas like this?

Speedo Training I: Day 1

2010-04-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

Ok. I weighed in at 181 this morning. I have 8 weeks to basically get down to 175 or 170. I'm pretty sure if I get down to 170 I'll win and I'll be at a great weight for me. I think the Overweight label goes on me when I get to 180 as a 5'10" male.

I'm planning on completing 5 weightlifting and 5 cardio workouts each week. Some days I will combine these and some days I may have a dedicated weight lifting or cardio workout.

I'll also try to eat "reasonably". I don't think I need to actually diet and I think that often leads to bad things. Usually my biggest problem in losing weight is that I'll eat ridiculous amounts of food. I would be embarrassed to actually publish what I ate some days. I'll try to keep a log of what I'm eating.

Just for some background on my current health state:
- I feel athletically better than I have in years.
- Bench Press: 110 lbs for 3 sets of 12.
- Squats: 110 lbs for 3 sets of 12.
- Pullups: 4 (this is twice as good as the 2 I could do a year ago.)
- Running: I ran 1 mile in 9:50 seconds. This is better than I have ever run a mile.

Speedo Training I

2010-04-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

The gauntlets have been laid down. My best friend Isaac and I have decided to try and lose some weight together.

The stakes:
The loser will have to buy a jersey of the winners choosing. This will likely be a Broncos jersey for me and a Chargers jersey for him. The loser will then have to wear that jersey for the entire day both times the Broncos and Chargers play. There will be pictures to document this. In addition, the loser will have to change their Facebook profile image to be one with the jersey on.

The rules:
- We are starting with a weigh in April 7, 2010.
- Final weigh in is May 29, 2010.
- A loss in weight of more than 2lbs in 1 week will reset the initial weight down by the amount over the 2lbs lost.
- The competition will be void if the winner does not get below 175 for me or 199 for Isaac.

I have setup a shared Google spreadsheet to track our progress. It's rather unimaginative now, but maybe it'll improve as the competition goes on.

Fundraising in Schools

2010-04-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I remember having to do fundraisers for my elementary and middle schools. I'm not sure what exactly that taught me, but now that I have kids of my own, the subject is really irritating to me.

I think in general education is a very important subject to Americans. There is an ideology at work that I think most Americans would agree with. Everyone should have access to education, and no publicly funded schools should receive more or less money based on their social status, race, or any other factor. I think many people would even say that children of illegal immigrants should receive education even though opinions as far as other services for illegal immigrants are usually negative.

The problem I have is that you still end up with public schools that are much better off than others. One reason for this is that schools are constantly asking kids to participate in fundraising activities. The money these kids raise is not coming from a general pool of people that is available to everyone. This money is coming from those kids families and friends. This generates a distinct advantage to schools in affluent or upper middle class areas as their families and friends are likely to shell out more cash for that child's fundraising. In effect, this process is creating a social structure amongst our public schools that ensures that rich kids will grow up better educated and poor kids will receive a poorer education.

I believe that either this practice should stop, or that we should require all fundraising to schools to be put into a pool for the district or state. I believe this is the same practice used for property taxes.

Immigration and the Economy

2010-04-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure none of what I'm saying here is ground breaking, but I'm surprised people don't talk about this more often.

It seems to me that economies are built from the ground up. So, you need tons of minimum wage workers, then you need a lots of trade workers, and then some specialized technical workers, and then a very few executive type workers. I know I'm oversimplifying here, but the point is that you need to make sure your base is solid or the rest of the pyramid will not fill out.
What I see in the US historically is that there has always been a healthy level of immigration to our country, whether that is legal or illegal. This immigration produces a large number of minimum wage workers that help support our economy. I think that because of this historical immigration, the US economy has always been one of the strongest in the world. The funny thing is, that as soon as the economy shows signs of weakness, the government goes after illegal immigrants and tries to deport as many as possible to theoretically improve the job market for US employees. My theory is that many of the people who are deported are not actually replaced and overall, this hurts our economy. In addition, when economies are down, it's not the minimum wage jobs that we really care about, it's the trade jobs and specialized technical jobs that are most important to us.

Company Travel Policies

2010-03-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I'm curious about what other people do for this, but from what I can tell, my company is pretty normal as far as sending people on trips and then reimbursing expenses.

I recently went to Europe and then spent at least an entire day compiling receipts, organizing them, entering them into spreadsheets, and requesting reimbursement. What I find interesting about this is that my wasted time in requesting reimbursement is valuable, and I can only imagine how many people across the company are doing this every day. Are we saving money? Is the employee stress and attention to expenses worth the effort?

The Solution: I think instead of worrying about every little expense, receipt, and justification, set a per diem for employees for meals, and then have them keep track of major travel expenses and hotel only. This way, the costs for the company are set as far as meals go before the trip is even taken, and the employee should not end up spending much time working on expense reports instead of making the company money. Each destination should have a specific per diem and if an employee can eat cheaper than that, then they benefit. It's a win-win.

What does your company do?

Bad Marketing and Pharmaceuticals

2010-01-29T11:26:00.000-08:00

Ok, really what I'm talking about is clever marketing, but I also consider it somewhat evil. What I'm referring to is cholesterol lowering drug makers.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I was recently diagnosed with high cholesterol (very surprising since I'm vegetarian, but that's a different story). I start searching around for how to lower cholesterol and I mention it to a few friends. And you know what I hear over and over again? "High cholesterol is in my genes." "You might not be able to do anything about it if it's genetic." I understand that this may be true in some cases, but what the marketing departments
at these big drug companies have done is instill a belief that cholesterol isn't your fault. You are probably pre-disposed to having high cholesterol so you'll probably need medication. I think this also has the effect of dissuading some people from trying too hard to lower their cholesterol through eating right and exercising. Overall this is brilliant advertising and these drug companies are probably making $Billions as a result, but I think they're doing us a disservice and are being somewhat evil. Pay attention to what you believe, it could be marketers giving you your opinion.

Good Quotes

2010-01-26T10:42:00.000-08:00

I've always wanted a site where I could find great quotes that are well organized. I've also wanted a way for me

Image via Wikipedia

to submit my own quotes that other people could rate and use and that I would get credit for. Someday I'll build that site. Until then, here's my quote of the day:

"All those not in favor of world peace please raise your hand so the rest of us can beat the crap out of you!"
- Ben Gomez 1/26/2010

Democracy fails us

2010-01-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

So, I generally like democracy and I love living in the US, but there are some things that Democracy is very slow to fix or do right.

One good example is the way the US deals with the global warming problem. Because of the self serving nature of Democracy, it is really slow going in fixing any problems we might be causing. People are generally concerned and want to fix things, but it seems like nothing is really happening. I believe that if we really wanted to do something, we could.

If we were to add a $2 or $3 tax to each gallon of gas in the US, I would wager that our emissions as a country would plummet to the levels we need very quickly. However, politicians are not going to support this because they care about being re-elected (self-serving) and the people that vote all care about not having to pay too much (again, self-serving).

I know we would need support from the rest of the world to really solve the problem, but at least we could do our part and be a leader in the world.

Advanced Space Travel

2010-01-21T22:45:00.000-08:00

In thinking about the heat that we have in the center of the Earth, it seems as though we have a huge supply of energy that isn't going away any time soon. The gravity from the Earth causes all the matter in the world to compress towards the center creating large amounts of heat.

Eventually this is going to be useful as we figure out how to use it. One way that may be especially interesting is for space travel. I know, there's no way to take the energy with you. But really, what we could do is actually make the entire Earth a space ship and use the energy that it creates by it's own gravity to drive the ship. Some day this may become a reality, and while taking Earth to distant galaxies may not work out or be advisable, it might be a good idea for a nearby planet.

Sexuality in the United States

2010-01-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

This is probably my most uncomfortable post so far, but I have an idea and I want to put it out there for people to help me with it.

So, I find it interesting that we have Gyms in the US where people are okay being naked in front of other people. And if you think about it, many of those people could very well be homosexual, but I don't know many people that are bothered by that. There probably are, but I haven't met them. My theory is that everyone is comfortable with the fact that checking out other people in the locker room is completely inappropriate, so it's just not done. Same thing with underage sexuality. Men, or at least decent men, have a built in switch that just doesn't allow for the chance of checking out underage women because it's accepted as inappropriate.

The thought is that if we can trust some segments of the population to not be inappropriate, then it seems like co-ed locker rooms would be an extension of this thought. In addition, it would go against, rather than support, the idea that it's okay for Men to check out or look at women inappropriately whenever they get a chance. Right now it's assumed that a heterosexual male will stare, if not closely examine, and enjoy seeing women naked. What if our society could get beyond that? What if we got to the point where it was never acceptable to "check out" a woman? Imagine the implications for social interactions, fashion, advertising (media generally exploits the fact that men will drool over any half naked woman they see), and any other aspects of public sexuality.

Maybe it's not possible, but it's an issue that I think a modern society should think about and possibly address. Not that I think locker rooms should go co-ed tomorrow, but just thinking about it brings up some interesting ideas.

What's Wrong with America

2010-01-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

I just got done reading a length article on the "decline" of America. Very interesting but quite long. I'll try to summarize here and then provide some analysis.

The article's main points:

America has been thought to be in decline at many times throughout it's history and America continues to respond with resilience, flexibility and rebirth to drive it forward into growth and vitality while people continue to lament the impending doom of the country.
America has specific and significant advantages over other countries around the world: Attracting talent, our University system, and resources.
Our infrastructure is getting older and is hardly sufficient for the needs of today, much less the needs of future generations.
Our government system is old, inflexible, and cannot accomplish significant projects. He also mentions specific problems with the system such as the fact that California has 69 times more representatives in the House than Wyoming yet they both have the same power in the Senate.
Everything can be fixed if all decisions are made by thinking about that decision as if you would wake up tomorrow and it would be 75 years later.

The sections on the constant doom and gloom and how America responds to it is interesting. One thing I noticed from my own life is that people in my company seem to have this same view of how the company is doing. Yet the company keeps getting stronger. Maybe my company, and possibly many others out there are microcosms of the entire American culture.

On declining infrastructure: It may be true that our current systems need maintenance, but I believe in some cases, a collapsing infrastructure might give us a good opportunity or possibly motivation to invent something better, more efficient, less expensive, or easier to maintain.

He never really makes a good point about how the House and Senate are setup. I believe they were setup with the balance as it is for a reason, and it still seems to make sense to me. You want higher populations to get more say, but not to be able to dictate the course of this country. It seems like a good setup. In addition, he talks about states containing 12 percent of the population having enough votes in the Senate to block a bill. However, the states are mostly irrelevant since the important affiliation is whether those Senators are Democrats or Republicans. I'm not sure I've ever hear anyone discuss the possibility of Wyoming and Montana gathering a few more states together to block a specific bill. It seems to always be a party vote.

My Solution: I think technology is opening up some new avenues for Democracy that could be interesting. One example is the idea that we could involve far more people in the process using the internet without increasing the costs a lot. This would be a good step toward a real Democracy instead of a Representative Democracy. Even if getting everyone to perform all the functions of legislators is too big a task to start with, it could be fun to build a system where many people could collaborate to write better bills to be presented to the legislature that come from the people. Imagine a bill authored and edited by 1000 people scattered across the country making it into the House for a vote. To extend that idea, what if we created a new pseudo branch of government made up of all the people in this country who had the ability to vote on a bill and send it to the White House, or to amend, or block a bill. I know, there are lots of details to work out there, but I think the details could be worked out. If I get much response on that I may expand on it in future postings.

Overblown reaction to terrorism

2009-12-29T15:12:00.000-08:00

I have long thought that we waste a lot of time and energy fighting terrorism, which is probably one of the end goals of terrorists in the first place. Reading the reactions to the attempted bombing on Christmas day is amazing. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/29/airline.terror.obama/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

The basic view of politicians and many Americans is: "Let's spend all the money we can and prevent 100% of all terrorist acts." I really want to know why the overreaction. Trying to prevent 100% of anything is a near impossible task. A more reasonable approach would be to try and prevent 80% of all attacks. This is much cheaper, more realistic, and doesn't cripple our systems. Besides, if the end result is to prevent American deaths, then there are areas where our money would be better spent. Car accidents still account for 30k American deaths each year yet we do not throw our resources into that. We are still wasting billions of dollars going after a cause of death that in the last ten years has claimed 3,000 lives. That is 1% of the car accident death total over the same period. In addition, the worst case scenario in this most recent attempt would have been the sum total of the passengers and crew on the one air plane. 300 people or so. Sometimes we have to be ok with casualties in order to run an efficient and intelligent system.

What other goals might we have in mind:
- The vague notion of protecting America's borders. If 1000 American's die this month in car accidents, it doesn't make are borders unsafe. If a foreigner kills 300 people, somehow that indicates that we are close to being invaded?

- We must prevent terrorism: This isn't an end goal. It is an ideal with no real purpose.

- Airplanes must be safe: Why? As long as they are really really really safe, as they are now, and they would be even with a couple planes being blown up every year, I still think they would qualify as really safe.

- We must protect the airline industry: Again, why? Any industry that needs protection should probably be dismantled anyway. Maybe we'd come up with something better if we weren't babying the airlines all the time.

Bill Simmons Interviews Tiger Woods

2009-12-08T14:12:00.000-08:00

Bill Simmons is by far my favorite sports writer. His contribution to the whole Tiger Woods disaster, reposting a like to an old interview with Tiger. Pretty good read.

Wine Snobs are a Fake

2009-12-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

Just read an article on wine tasting pointed out by TMQ from ESPN.com. The article from the Wall Street Journal reports on research done on Wine Tasting Judges over the years. Very interesting. The bottom line: Wine snobs are a fake and you should never fell "not good enough" to enjoy wine. Drink it and buy wine that is less than $10 a bottle. The article basically says that you have a 1 in 5 chance of getting a really good wine whether you're spending $5, or $100. Spend $10 and enjoy your wine.

Good Quote

2009-12-04T07:37:00.001-08:00

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know.
- Cullen Hightower

OnStar Subscription

2009-11-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

I'm not one to order extras in my car or phone or tv services. So when I watch the commercials about OnStar on TV where they describe an accident and OnStar being there for you, I can't help but wonder what would happen if I didn't subscribe to the service. It seems to me that OnStar would still know that my car was in a crash, and that I could be hurt. But since I haven't paid anything, the operators ignore the "crash alert". Is this ethical? Have there been any cases where people have died while OnStar sat by and did nothing?

The Future of Transportation

2009-11-19T15:29:00.000-08:00

A blog I've been following written by Tan Kin Lian just alerted me to the fact that a Personal Rapid Transit system is being built at Heathrow airport. This is really great and I hope it takes off and works correctly. I kind of see this as a first step towards better transportation for the world as well as the next big economic and productive revolution. If done well, this system should be able to cut down traffic deaths (30,000 in the US annually), reduce commuting times drastically, and reduce the costs of transportation for everyone.

The only problem I see with the proposed system is that it's on wheels instead of rails. I really think that a track system, similar to those used on roller coasters, or a maglev system would be magnitudes better than a wheel on road system. There's less friction on a track, higher speeds possible, improved safety, ability to power vehicles through the track, and I believe less expense.

While I'm very excited about the system, I hope a track system is considered soon after. I've sent a letter to the company asking about tracks, not really expecting much in terms of response, but I think it'll be interesting to hear what they say. I will post again when they respond.

Gays and Lesbians in a Church setting

2009-11-19T12:51:00.000-08:00

I am currently a member of a Lutheran Church in Colorado. I am not heavily involved, but I have been watching developments in the way churches treat Gay and Lesbian members. Our particular church has always been fairly conservative, so it is no surprise that when the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), decided to open up to Homosexuals that our church did not go along. Turns out quite a large number of churches are not in favor of this move and many are leaving the ELCA to form a new governing Lutheran body. I feel like I am the middle of a church separation. I can't imagine this happens very often, but it seems like down the road we may have two separate denominations of Lutheran churches and I was there when it happened.

Do I think the church is doing the right thing? Well, all churches are accepting of sinners into their congregation. They do preach against the practice and I imagine they request that those members repent and change their ways. However, very few, if any, homosexuals attend our church (as far as I know). The place where the churches seem to draw the line is in the appointment of homosexuals as clergy. I guess the reasoning would be that nobody who is actively and willingly committing what the church considers sin, should be allowed in the clergy. It's a fair point. However, I don't think it's right for the church or any of it's members to judge another. In addition, the church itself would likely admit that we are all sinners. So how can anyone be allowed into the clergy? I guess the distinction here would be those who are willing. So then let's look at a different example. What about people who get divorced? I know of many in the church who are and they don't seem to get preached against. Are they not willingly sinning in breaking their vows to their partner and to God? I think this is one case where churches should examine their bias against homosexuality and ask if they are being consistent, or simply bigots.

WWJD? Would Jesus tell a homosexual human being that they would have to cast down their lifestyle if they wanted to follow him? Or would he tell the person to follow and spread the word? What if a person was getting a divorce? Could that person spread the word of God along side Jesus? What's the difference? Is there a difference?

Describing people by their skin tone.

2009-11-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

Here in the United States, it is very common for people to describe their ethnicity, or really, who they are by their appearance. For example, if you take a person from England, or France, and move them to the United States, any children born in the US will be indistinguishable from any other American. These people when asked, which they usually aren't, will likely respond that they are white, or American, not French or English. Take instead someone from China or Mexico. After several generations, their appearance may be very similar to that of someone still living in China or Mexico. These people will likely associate with the group of people that looks most like them, Chinese, or Mexican, or possibly Asian or Hispanic. While I don't have a problem with this and believe that people can associate however they feel is most accurate, I believe that classifying a person by their appearance, even yourself, is racist and doesn't do anyone any good.

When someone associates with a specific group, saying "I am ", this appears to claim a lot when too many people use it in a shallow manner. I think that claim should come with requirements:
1. Speak the language.
2. Participate in cultural traditions.
3. Live with 1st generation immigrants from that area, or keep close contact and visit with relatives or friends from the origin country or area.
4. Visit the country.

I recently had a co-worker that I challenged on this. He claimed he was "Chinese". He didn't speak Chinese, had never been to China, and did not celebrate any Chinese traditions. In fact, his parents and grandparents did not do any of these things either. My claim was that he was no more Chinese than I was. He disagreed strongly. I believe he cheapens the term Chinese and uses it solely because of how he looks.

My children are very white with red hair and freckles. They are 1/4 Mexican. They will probably never describe themselves as Mexican even though they do speak Spanish, have visited Mexico several times and have close relatives that still live in Mexico that they visit. It really does come down to appearance.

The solution: Let's do away with these kinds of labels. If you claim "I am ", think hard about what that means. Is that really the single overriding characteristic you should use to describe yourself? When you describe others, are you assuming someone is from a specific area or are you labeling them based on appearance alone? My children have rarely heard us use labels the way many of our friends do. Because of this, we never hear them describe people by their appearance. I know this won't last long as it is a societal norm, but the more people we have thinking about this and trying to behave differently, the better we will be as a community. Learn about people. Describe them in words that really tell who they really are. And if you mean to describe their skin color, then by all means, say that instead of labeling them. "The tall sensitive man with the light skin..." or "An inquisitive older man sat next to me..."

Follow the White Moose

2009-11-11T14:42:00.000-08:00

Humans as a group are funny. We like to try and help the environment. We try and help animals that "need" helping. Often, we don't understand the implications or the possible outcomes, but we do what we think is right anyway.

One example: http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/albinomoose.asp. So, what is the right thing to do if we see a strange mutation in a species? The human reaction is to "protect" it. Lets preserve the white moose. What is really happening? Why is it important to preserve this rarity? I think that people have been conditioned to consider rarity as valuable. So, if we find something rare, we should treat it differently. Really I don't know what kind of effect we might have on the animal population as a whole, but if we're hunting brown moose and protecting white moose, doesn't that have an effect on the gene pool? Is that good for the species? Is it good for the ecosystem in general? What will the world be like 30 generations from now when 20% of moose are white instead of the small minority we have now?

Crowds and the News

2009-11-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading What Would Google Do, by Jeff Jarvis (I hope to write a full report later), but one of the things he talks about is giving consumers control over what a producer makes. One example he uses is the news. I think this is a bad example of the wisdom of crowds. (This topic fascinates me. At some point I might just have to change the title of the blog.) Ideally, news would consist of what is most important or historically relevant. Instead, the news gives us 2 weeks of a hoax about an over-sized helium balloon. The media caters to what the crowd wants and we get garbage. I want a system that denies people the garbage and reports on good "quality" news. I don't have a good idea for that yet or I'd write about it. I'm open to suggestions.

Suicide Problem in Japan

2009-11-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

This article is amazing: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33622388/ns/health-mental_health/

There are several things here that jump out at me.
1. 30,000 deaths attributed to suicide?
2. Installing blue lights with no research, no studies, just a "hope this helps".
3. There is an underlying problem here that Japan should be worried about.

Here's my first attempt at getting a "crazy" rating on a post: I really think there should be a suicide process to help people either commit suicide or not. Some people would probably be better off. Let's setup suicide centers where people go in and tell their story. Counselors are on hand to tell them whether or not they really have it bad. If they do, assisted suicide is available. If they don't, then counselors could point out a different strategy, help them get on with a relatively good life. I think worst case the suicide levels stay the same, but then we have a little more filtering on the people who do commit suicide and there's much less stress, cleanup, and delay.

Is there some other solution that would help more. The goals: fewer suicides, humane suicide, discrete suicide, counseling for people who are thinking about suicide.

A follow up on the wisdom of the collective.

2009-11-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

I get really frustrated when politicians run their office with the purpose of being re-elected. Deciding what policies to go with depending on the polling numbers just sounds wrong to me. I know that some of that is due to democracy, but in some cases, a leader just needs to forget about what your voters will say and fix the problem. If people weren't so worried about being re-elected, I bet we'd have a solution to health care and social security by now. The reason we don't is that there is no solution that will please everyone.

I want to see politicians declare at what stage of their political lives they will decide to actually accomplish something and not worry about re-election or worry about how their party will do in the next election. Can you imagine if Obama decided now that he would not seek re-election in 2012?

Wisdom of the collective

2009-11-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

I know I said I would read the book and then post about it, but I have to write down my thoughts as this idea just doesn't seem like it should work. The problem I have is that the collective works selfishly. I guess this is why betting on ideas or predictions helps because it shifts the focus of gain from getting what you want to getting the decision right.

However, in the case of deciding on the right policy, or the right rules, or laws, I don't think selfishness can be overcome. One specific example I think of is the price of gas. When gas was at an all time high, near $4 a gallon, people were making a noticeable difference in their driving habits. I would argue that the best thing for people, and the world, as a whole is to drive up the price of gas so we are forced to use less. Can anyone argue that using less gas is bad? I think this is something that would be hard to decide as a collective because of selfishness. In our democracy, this would also be very hard to implement as any politician that proposes a $2 hike in gas tax would surely be replaced at the first opportunity.

Another example would be benefits given to employees. Could employees as a whole somehow come up with a benefit system that was good for the employees and yet would not drive the company into the ground?

How could we implement the "wisdom of crowds" and still get the "right" decisions?

Gambling put to good use.

2009-11-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

Check out this article on making decisions through gambling http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/09/01/8384339/index.htm

Pretty interesting. I wonder if this could be put to good use on a small team? I would also wonder why the actual stock exchange isn't a better predictor of a company's success. I suppose the stock market has other factors involved such as automated trading and more emotions. I think this topic needs more research. I wonder if there is a point where it becomes less accurate, like when your livelihood or retirement is at stake.

Population Growth

2009-10-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

It amazes me that the world population is growing with no plans from anyone on how we should handle it. I'm not saying that we should do something specific about it, but we should at least determine what a good population level might be and then put a plan in place to achieve that.

From reading articles on the web like http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Science-czar_s-support-for-eugenics-should-raise-eyebrows-7971354-50765207.html, the thought of population control is absurd. While I agree some of the recommended measures are extreme and barbaric, I also think leaving population growth up to the will of individuals is irresponsible. This is one of those problems that will be much better solved if we fix it BEFORE there is crisis.

Current world population is close to 7 bln. In 1950, world population was under 3 bln. I'm not saying that this is bad, but I think we need to be asking a lot of questions about what is right and where we should be.

The problem with "stuff"

2009-10-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, a friend of mine and I tried to start a business importing and selling eco-friendly crafts from rain forest areas. We thought we could help out poor countries and help the rain forest at the same time. We started with a $600 order from a women's shelter in Bolivia. It was perfect.

Then we got our "stuff"! 5 boxes of fragile, random, heavy, stuff. It was cool, but we soon realized we had to sort it, count it, take pictures of it, organize it, price it. Then when someone ordered it, we had to find it and ship it. This business was not going to scale, especially in our spare time and over the internet.

What we should have done is follow the Amazon model. Instead of creating a warehouse, we should have created a marketplace. Setup standards and guidelines for the kinds of things we would sell, and then tell people who were traveling to buy things from local artisans and sell them through our marketplace. Then, we have scale in that we have many sellers, we facilitate transactions so people might be encouraged to try to make money through us, and we have no inventory, nothing to do but make it easier to sell imports. This would have been much easier.

Be a part of a network by Blogging

2009-10-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've attempted several times to start blogs and I've failed. I get two or three GREAT posts out and then I never go back. I've discovered a couple of problems with my methodology that I'm trying to fix.

1. You can't blog in isolation. A blog without interaction might as well be a dead end web page. You need to read other blogs, interact with them, post responses to them. This is similar to linking to other web pages. You can't pretend that you're the be-all, end-all of blogs. You are just another blogger adding to the wealth of ideas, thoughts, and community on the web.

2. Build upon existing relationships, communities. While I have friends, and I've often discussed the topics I'm interested in with them, I never invited them to discuss these things on a blog. Why not? It's a great place for them to read through my ideas and respond with comments, or post their own blogs. Because of this, I forced my Friend to start a blog with this purpose. I know it's only one person, but if the thought is valid, I'll start asking other friends to do the same.

Welcome

2009-10-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

This is an attempt at creating a blog where I might create regular content that is interesting and maybe a little different in the way I approach thoughts, ideas, and solutions.

It is also a combination BLOG where my good friend is also writing a BLOG and will post responses to my ideas as well as writing about new ideas of his own that I may respond to.

A new perspective

SFA goes on strike: Attendance for NY v Boston, 324

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Traffic is Infuriating

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I am Happier than Tiger Woods

Phew, 5 Americans survived a plane Crash!!

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Ending Life Humanely

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The problem with the UN

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Why isn't the post office a business?

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Other people's creativity

Real Reviews

Cheeting the clock

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Government Propaganda

Cruelty to Animals

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Economies and the collapse of civilization

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Government and Religion

Speedo Training I: Day 3

Plastics and Buildings

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Speedo Training I: Day 1

Speedo Training I

Fundraising in Schools

Immigration and the Economy

Company Travel Policies

Bad Marketing and Pharmaceuticals

Good Quotes

Democracy fails us

Advanced Space Travel

Sexuality in the United States

What's Wrong with America

Overblown reaction to terrorism

Bill Simmons Interviews Tiger Woods

Wine Snobs are a Fake

Good Quote

OnStar Subscription

The Future of Transportation

Gays and Lesbians in a Church setting

Describing people by their skin tone.

Follow the White Moose

Crowds and the News

Suicide Problem in Japan

A follow up on the wisdom of the collective.

Wisdom of the collective

Gambling put to good use.

Population Growth

The problem with "stuff"

Be a part of a network by Blogging

Welcome