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Gus Van Horn blog

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Everything posted by Gus Van Horn blog

  1. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner runs meetings in a radically different way than I have ever seen or heard of: At LinkedIn, we have essentially eliminated the presentation. In lieu of that, we ask that materials that would typically have been presented during a meeting be sent out to participants at least 24 hours in advance so people can familiarize themselves with the content. [bold in original] Weiner notes that meetings at LinkedIn start off with five to ten minutes of time for attendees to familiarize themselves with or review the background information. This practice, along with a few other rules, has resulted in shorter, more useful meetings. (e.g., "Define the objective of the meeting.") I was impressed with the kind of thinking behind Weiner's meeting protocol. He neither takes the way meetings are usually run as a given nor buys into any number of faddish ways (like making everyone stand) to remedy the problem. Rather, he asks what meetings are for and how they can better achieve that purpose. It follows from Weiner's thinking that the best way to use what he has learned is not to ban all presentations all the time, but to include them, perhaps in modified form, when it is clear that one is needed or desirable. If the purpose of a meeting is to help a team get up to speed on new data or a new method, it could well be that some of the background information cannot be adequately conveyed by written material alone. Also, a roomful of people watching, say, a demo video, all at slightly different times on their laptops or tablets would be less useful than simply having everyone paying attention to a presenter at once. Weiner's insights should be applied, and not simply imitated. I hate aimless, interminable meetings. I'll keep Weiner's advice in mind the next time I have the chance to run one or influence how one is run. -- CAV Link to Original
  2. Replacing Google Reader John Cook notes: Google Reader is going away on Monday. ReplaceReader.com lists many alternatives, sorted by popularity. Another RSS reader I didn't see on their list that looks promising is Yoleo. Also, Digg Reader is supposed to be released soon. And, if Google's ending Reader makes you uncomfortable with relying on the Internet giant's other free services, you might be interested in "Leaving Google's Silo". Weekend Reading "[T]elling someone they're 'too sensitive' suggests that their thoughts are 'too intense' or that they're 'thinking too much.'" -- Michael Hurd, in "How Sensitive Are You?" at The Delaware Wave "There's a world of difference between, 'I sacrificed for you, so give back!' and, 'I did a good job; please give me some credit.'" -- Michael Hurd, in "Should Kids Be Grateful to Their Parents?" at The Delaware Coast Press "If someone touts the enhanced 'coverage' under ObamaCare, ask if that's the same as actual medical care." -- Paul Hsieh, in "4 Questions to Ask During the Upcoming ObamaCare Public Relations Blitz" at Forbes "[M]edia shield laws are a mistake, because they treat freedom of speech like a privilege to be doled out by politicians like so many special interest perks." -- Steve Simpson, in "We Don't Need A 'Media Shield' Law For Fox And AP, We Already Have The First Amendment" at Forbes "Nonprofit status is no more a gift to social welfare groups than it is a gift to you for the government not to tax every one of your bank accounts every time you deposit money into them." -- Steve Simpson, in "Speech Laws and the IRS" at The American Spectator My Two Cents In his discussion of sensitivity, Michael Hurd draws an important distinction between people who merely express their feelings and those who go overboard. I think that this distinction is often overlooked, and that it is necessary one to make to understand how accusations of being "too sensitive" are so insulting. Charge® Card Paying homage to three "small ideas that make a difference" David Pogue describes one that can put an end to "Battery Death Anxiety": The cleverly named ChargeCard ($25) was a Kickstarter.com success story. It's a replacement charging "cable" shaped like a black rubber credit card; you're supposed to carry it in your wallet. At one end is the connector for your gadget; in the middle is a flexible rubber tongue with USB contacts on the end. [link in original] It's the thickness of two credit cards: That might be thin enough even for this All-Ett fan. --CAV Link to Original
  3. 1. The good news: Our newborn son seems to do well in thisbaby carrier, provided he is in a reasonably deep sleep when I put him in. The bad news: His sleep cycle is currently inverted, meaning that he is predominately awake at night (and almost continuously during my writing time!) and asleep during the day. He loudly objects to it if he is awake. As our daughter has transitioned into toddlerhood and, over the past couple of months, sleeping through the night most of the time, I'd managed to forget just how demanding the needs of early infancy are. By contrast, with all the things I was starting to be able to accomplish, it had felt as if I were finally beginning to breathe again. Once our son establishes a normal circadian rhythm, the carrier will help a lot with keeping up with chores during the transitional time between when I write and when everyone else gets up for the day. 2. If my check of Urban Dictionary this morning is any indication, I may well be the only person who uses the term "terraform" to mean something like, "clean up someone else's unworldly mess". (e.g., "When I started the job, I had to terraform my part of the office off and on during my first week.") This needs to change! Of course, my normal blogging topics suggest to me another possible slang meaning for the term. 3. If you subscribe to this blog via RSS, remember that Google will kill Google Reader on July 1. John Cook posted about alternatives some time back at The Endeavour (as did a few commenters there). I use Netvibes as my RSS reader. If anyone has an alternative they like, feel free to extol its virtues in the comments. Similarly, if there is one you did not like, you could save fellow readers some time by explaining why you did not like it. 4. Where should I live?That's an important question, and too few professionals seem to give it enough thought. Cost of living is a major concern, but I agree with Louiville resident Ernie Miller that control of one's own time is a greater one. That's one that many people miss. It's often said that "time is money," but nothing could be more misleading. Time is most definitely not money. Some of us have much more of the latter than others, but everyone has the same 24 hours in their day. Therefore, I value my time, and I protect it. When I do decide to "waste" time, I try very hard to do so on my terms. Here, again, Louisville helps me. I already mentioned that I crave peace and quiet to recharge. If having that place to recharge meant dealing with an hour-long commute each day, or long drives every time I wanted to do anything even remotely entertaining, I don't think I'd make the trade. He's right that small, but "respectable" cities such as his offer a great chanceto make time and money go as far as possible. -- CAV Link to Original
  4. Economist Barry Poulson, commenting at Forbes, drew me in this morning with the following rather inspiring title: "It's Well Past Time to Scrap the Federal Student Loan Program". But then he lost me when he noted that, "Milton Friedman challenged this social benefit argument and questioned whether government subsidies to higher education are a good investment". At this point, it became apparent that Poulson was merely engaging in a cost-benefit analysis, and was not using his careful documentation of the damage wrought by this federal program as part of a broader argument for limited government. The rest of the piece bore these suspicions out. For example, rather than noting that such gimmicks as loan forgiveness and federal guarantees constitute redistribution of loot, Poulson takes the looting as a given and merely advocates a different means of fencing the goods: If the federal government is to subsidize college students it should replace the student loan program with a voucher plan. All direct federal subsidies to higher education could also be redirected to a student voucher plan. With devolution of the voucher plan to the states much of the federal bureaucracy in higher education would be eliminated. I pass over such questions as whether fifty bureaucracies are better than one, whether a voucher plan would do anything to eliminate the perverse incentive for people to attend college when they shouldn't, and how the chance for students to invest "their" "voucher funds" is any better than investing their own money has proven to be. These are all irrelevant since the government would still be picking our pockets and would still remain in a position to dictate how colleges are run. --CAV Link to Original
  5. Michael Hurd takes a look at the leftist campaign rhetoric behind Hillary Clinton's presumptive 2016 candidacy for President and finds both dishonesty and insults. Regarding the latter, he says, after noting that someone like Margaret Thatcher would never enjoy such support: Why does Hillary Clinton insult herself, and other women of all political points-of-view, by making one's gender the centerpiece of fitness for office? Transgendered people aside, you don't choose your sex organs. Why is being a woman any more an accomplishment than being a man? It seems to me that it's what you do with your masculinity or femininity--more importantly, your humanity and your intellect--that really counts. The question is rhetorical, and its answer is as simple as asking what this tack is supposed to accomplish. Leftists want to be able to tar Mrs. Clinton's opponents as sexists, as if opposing her could only be due to misogyny. This is just a typical example of the intellectually bankrupt default "debating" tactics of the left. (A commenter here once called an example "a typical [leftist] non sequitur".) Another example can be observed in the push for draconian government controls of the energy sector in the name of staving off global warming. Even if human activity were causing the climate to become warmer, such a conclusion would not justify their legislative agenda. (Too many of their opponents fail to grasp that it violates the proper purpose of government, as protector of individual rights.) But they act like it does, and that anyone who opposes it for whatever reason is scientifically illiterate, anti-science, or in "denial". They don't really give a damn about "the science": They just want to be able to smear opponents. Package-dealing support of Hillary Clinton with the view that women have rights equal to men -- or a central planning scheme with a pro-reason, pro-science outlook -- fails to provide actual reasons for supporting either, and actually epitomizes the opposite point of view. Or, as Ayn Rand once put it, package-dealing employs "the shabby old gimmick of equating opposites by substituting nonessentials for their essential characteristics." -- CAV Link to Original
  6. I have not been following immigration "reform" closely, but I am aware that there is talk of the Senate voting on it without bothering to read it. After reading Mona Charen's piece about the immigration bill, I have a pretty good idea about why that might happen. I also see lots of reasons to oppose the bill, which are related to why the Senate is so keen on delegating so much responsibility (read: blame) to bureaucrats: It should be axiomatic that if a bill is 1,190 pages long, it is full of mischief, and this one is. Just as Obamacare hands lots of discretion about everything from medical school admissions to antibiotic ointments to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the immigration law hands many crucial decisions to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor. Labor would be empowered to question the personnel decisions of any firm that hired even one high skilled immigrant. The law further requires that immigrants be paid significantly more than native-born hires -- supposedly to prevent companies from replacing Americans with foreigners. But as Shikha Dalmia notes in Reason magazine, the more likely result will be that firms will choose to locate abroad. Byron York reports that the bill sets pay scales for "Animal Breeders; Graders and Sorters; Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse; and Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch and Aquacultural Animals." There are probably more wage controls in this bill than we've seen since the Nixon administration. [format edits, bold added] We need a bill that removes illegitimate roadblocks to immigration, and we need to reform the process of acquiring citizenship. We don't need to merely tweak illegitimate controls, or dump enormous numbers of voters onto the rolls, or have the government running even more of the economy. -- CAV Link to Original
  7. Back in 2006, security expert Bruce Schneier wrote an excellent post on the value of privacy. Here's an excerpt: Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time. Schneier is addressing one of the more common "retorts" against people who value their privacy, "I have nothing to hide." The above quote puts in concrete terms something I noted some time ago about comunications being taken out of context. (And maleveloent intent isn't even necessary for this to be a problem.) When I hear, "I have nothing to hide," the best I can conclude is that the speaker hasn't given much thought to the value of privacy or the problem of widespread surveillance. However, I can often infer from the context that I am hearing a little dictator, or someone indulging in what I call the "dictator fantasy", or just a plain old bully who is trying to belittle my concerns. -- CAV Link to Original
  8. Wrong Debate During a news break on a jazz station I sometimes listen to when I'm driving, I heard about a contentious debate between President Obama and congressional Republicans. Too bad that when I checked the news later on, I found no such thing: Differences between the two sides involve when the rate on a loan gets locked in, with Obama calling for it to happen right away while the House measure would allow it to rise until a student graduates. Another difference concerns maximum rates. The House measure would cap interest rates at 8.5% for student loans while the Obama proposal would contain no such cap but would include a program to limit a former student's annual expenditures on the loan to no more than 10% of discretionary income. In other words, both sides agree that the goverment should be in the business of dictating how some banks and college students do business with each other. They're just quibbling over details. Weekend Reading "Question: How many other businesses in Fortune's top ten have been recently subjected to some kind of antitrust enforcement? Answer: all of them." -- Tom Bowden, in "Why Is Apple Inc. On Trial? For Good Behavior, It Turns Out" at Forbes "Her pleasure makes him feel so good that it's clearly in his self-interest to ensure her happiness every chance he gets." [links dropped] -- Michael Hurd, in "Can 'Single-Think' Become 'Couple-Think?'" at The Delaware Coast Press "If someone is your friend, doesn't it make sense to try and stop her from making a mistake?" -- Michael Hurd, in "Care Enough to Have an Opinion" at The Delaware Wave "By not seriously considering what the minimum wage demands from such business people, we are treating them not as human beings with rights, but as pack animals that must obediently carry whatever additional weight is piled on their back." -- Doug Altner, in "The Forgotten Man of the Minimum-Wage Debate" at The Daily Caller My Two Cents As one can see from the Bowden piece, many antitrust actions against technology companies have been, at least in part, attempts to legislate against vendor lock-in. I hate vendor lock-in, but oppose such efforts. First of all, I think more people should look before they leap, and either find alternatives that permit them to avoid lock-in -- or at least recognize that they gain something (e.g., convenience) in return for accepting it. Second, the government has no business re-writing contracts (e.g., by forcing companies like Apple to "unlock" their phones) just because some people don't like some of the terms that they agreed to. Heh! I can't see how this idea could work profitably, but I like the idea of a "Get Rid of Crap Every Month Club". --CAV Link to Original
  9. 1. My wife went through lots of Greek-style yogurt during each of her pregnancies. I wasn't a fan, as I found its odor to be ... unappetizing. In fact, on several occasions, upon entering a room where, unknown to me, she was eating some of this, I thought it might be time to change our daughter's diaper. Then one day I tried it out of curiosity. Now, I often have some as part of breakfast. As a bonus, it is interesting to read about the rise of Chobani from nothing to leading national brand. 2. I usually put our daughter in a diaper and pajamas after her bath, but my sister-in-law often lets hers run around naked afterwards. They were visiting this week and, after the two two-year-olds had had their second bath together in our large tub, my daughter wanted to do this. She had skipped her nap that day, and so was extra cranky. "I want to go naked!" she said to me, crying. This was so cute I went ahead and let her. More baby-talk fun came when I was snacking on some pork rinds by the grill yesterday. I let her taste some a few months ago, but the spices put her off. On a later occasion, I offered her one, and she demurred, but decided to call them, "Daddy fries". I loved it, and so, yesterday, I asked her in front of company what I was eating. "Pork rinds," she said. This wasn't the particular cute answer I thought I'd get, but it was correct, and I didn't think she knew it! 3. We never signed up, but each week, we get a copy of the West End Wordtossed into our yard. I had Pumpkin pick it up for me a few days ago. The next day, I pulled it out of its plastic sleeve and asked her what it was. I expected to hear, "book", which seems to be her generic term for "something with writing on it", but got "mail". That's a pretty clever guess, coming from someone who is just shy of two. 4. Have scientists made a significant advance against the problem of infectious bacteria acquiring antibiotic resistance? I sure hope so. -- CAV Link to Original
  10. Columnist Ron Hart takes note of yet another misuse of government power by the Obama Administration: A high school buddy sent me an e-mail saying the EEOC was suing Dollar General for performing criminal background checks on prospective employees. I thought it was such outlandish Internet misinformation and did not even try to verify it via Snopes. It turned out to be true. ... The EEOC suit alleges that, by performing background checks for convictions for murder, assault and battery, rape, child or spousal abuse, and manufacturing of drugs, Dollar General is "racist." It says because African-Americans have higher conviction rates than whites, background checks are discriminatory. Hart frames the story as yet another example of the Obama Administration going after political opponents. That is alarming enough, whether or not it is true. Nevertheless, the fact that such laws remained on the books for so long without serious efforts at repeal is what alarms me. Not only has the government no business telling people -- even racist scoundrels -- whom to hire, but such laws have also always presented the potential for abuse through selective enforcement. So-called anti-descrimination laws, like our tax code, routinely violate everyone's rights, set the precedent for further abuses of government power, and provide a ready-made means for government officials to intimidate people who are merely minding their own business. They should be repealed, and ought to have been long ago. It shouldn't have taken their blatant abuse by a political opponent to cause anyone to see that. -- CAV Link to Original
  11. I ran into a lengthy cost-benefit analysis of nuclear power this morning by someone who has a "passion for creating a low-carbon future to address the threat of climate change". (I do not share his passion.) The author raises a good point that advocacy of a given power source should be based on good accounting. That's a good start, but as I skimmed his article, I noticed a couple of points. First, he notes the following about nuclear power, which he claims is on its way out: Even while the nuclear industry is able to externalize its costs for insurance (which are federally limited), loan guarantees (which are federally backstopped), decommissioning (which is pushed onto ratepayers) and waste handling (which is pushed onto taxpayers), it still lost. If it had to stand on its own and pay its full insurance costs like every other energy source, we could never build another nuclear plant in America, because no private investors would be willing to take that kind of risk. It's hard to imagine how the economics could be more tilted in nuclear's favor (although I'm sure its proponents have ideas on that). I am no fan of the government handing out favors to any industry, but I am likewise not a fan of the government imposing higher costs through regulations on any industry, either. I didn't have time to read this article thoroughly, but I can think of any number of ways (e.g., environmental impact studies) that the government is making the production of nuclear power more expensive than it should be. Setting aside the faulty premises of such cost-benefit-analyses, regulatory hurdles (and their unintended cosequences) immediately make the numbers suspect. Later in the article, the author states that "[t]he reason nuclear is dying is economics", and that: Meanwhile, outside the fantasy world inhabited by the [breakthrough Institute] the real energy market has moved on. The US installed 13,200 megawatts of wind capacity in 2012, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Furthermore, the author notes that the amount of wind generation capacity installed last year more than replaces the combined output of four nuclear plants headed for retirement. How much of this industry is being propped up by the government? Again, I haven't read this article thoroughly, but it raises a couple of good points: (1) It could be entirely correct: Nuclear power -- in the context of our government-distorted economy -- could well be a more costly way to produce power than, say, solar or wind (regardless of what might hold in a free economy); and (2) The very fact that different forms of power have "promoters" based on their desire to influence government control of the economy, and who have agendas other than what form provides power the most inexpensively shows us just how far from capitalism (and a culture that values individual prosperity) we have come. We shouldn't be trying to persuade each other of what public utilities should be using to create electricity, but individually weighing how to get power at the least cost and the greatest suitability for our own purposes, whether that involves buying it from a company or obtaining the equipment to generate it ourselves. This article at best provides data that is of mainly diagnostic value with respect to how badly distorted our economy is. -- CAV Link to Original
  12. A reader emailed me a link to an article about drowning, writing that he finds that it has "interesting epistemological undertones". The article is titled, "Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning", and it debunks the widespread belief that someone who is drowning is obviously fighting for his life. How did this captain know -- from 50 feet away -- what the father couldn't recognize from just 10? Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that's all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, "Daddy" she hadn't made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn't surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life. I agree that the article has interesting epistemological undertones, but I think the focus on television as the cause of the misconception is misplaced. The dramatic portrayals are technically wrong, although they may mimic the related phenomenon of aquatic distress, but they are not the only reason drowning doesn't "look like" drowning to the untrained eye. (Aquatic distress may precede drowning, and there may be more time to save the victim, who can often play a role in his own rescue.) Television is only perpetuating a stereotype that seems reasonable. After all, wouldn't you fight for your life if you realized you were drowning? I think that last question holds the key to understanding what's really going on: We are misapplying introspection to a situation in which it cannot be used to understand the actions of others. I have not thought deeply about this topic, but I think I would probably prefer a different name than "Instinctive Drowning Response". Nevertheless, it is clear that the characteristic actions of someone who is drowning are limited by his inability to breathe adequately or are involuntary. This means that the actions a drowning person takes will not be the same that a fully conscious, rational person might take. This is a very unusual situation, and the observations of experts have shown us that "What would I do?" is the wrong basis for forming a notion of what someone drowning would "look like". This is a case where applying our introspective knowledge of ourselves to understanding the actions of others is the wrong approach and will lead us to the wrong conclusion. Fortunately, we can learn from the observations and thinking of experts to recognize what drowning really looks like, and react appropriately if the necessity ever unfortunately arises. -- CAV Link to Original
  13. Despite its common misuse of the word sacrifice, I like the following passage from Kelly Stone's Time to Write: I also found the earlier discussion in Stone's book about goal-setting quite helpful. While I disagree with calling the choice of something more important over something less important a "sacrifice", I wholeheartedly agree with Stone's overall approach to finding time to write, which is actually the exact opposite of sacrifice. Stone's approach entails forming a clear vision of success and creating goals designed to realize that vision. She also suggests that the goals should be: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-limited (which can be remembered as "SMART"). Stone not only outlines a good basic approach, but she also draws on the experiences of numerous successful writers to provide specific advice and helpful tips for implementing her approach. I strongly recommend the book. -- CAV Link to Original
  14. "It's not QEs that are keeping T-Bond yields down but rather the Fed's ZIRP (zero-interest-rate-policy), which invites bond traders to profit by borrowing cheaply in the short term and investing longer term at higher yields." -- <b>Richard Salsman</b>, in "<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardsalsman/2013/06/13/the-feds-qe-schemes-have-raised-not-lowered-t-bond-yields/">The Fed's QE Schemes have Raised, not Lowered, T-Bond Yields</a>" at <i>Forbes</i><br /><br />"There's a difference between abandoning what's important simply because the going gets tough, versus realizing that what you're seeking just isn't going to happen." -- <b>Michael Hurd</b>, in "<a href="http://www.drhurd.com/index.php/Life-s-a-Beach/Published-Columns/Don-t-Be-a-Quitter-Valid-or-Not.html">'Don't be a Quitter' -- Valid or Not?</a>" at <i>DrHurd.com</i><br /><br />"n many states a microbrewer is forced to use a third-party distributor to take a few cases of beer to a convenience store down the street..." -- <b>Doug Altner</b>, in "<a href="http://politix.topix.com/homepage/6493-why-delivering-beer-isnt-easy">Why Delivering Beer Isn't Easy</a>" at <i>Politix</i><br /><br />-- CAV Link to Original
  15. I don't agree with everything Brendan O'Neill says in his essay about the increasingly common elevation of whistleblowers to iconic status, but he makes a number of valuable points, such as the following: The cult of the whistleblower also casts a harsh light on modern-day radicalism. The reliance of everyone from anti-war activists to civil liberties agitators on the revelations of One Brave Man, and their acceptance of the idea that there's "wilful ignorance" among the public, speaks to an increasingly elitist, almost Vatican-like politics, which treats social change as something to be brought about by tiny numbers of brave individuals in the face of general stupidity. [minor format edits, bold added] The idea that the man on the street is an idiot reveals a lack of appreciation for the role of philosophical ideas in shaping a culture (and thus, history) and a lack of confidence (at best) in reason. I would also say that, based my encounters with this and similar phenomena, the contempt for the man of the street exemplified by such terms as "sheeple" and the facile use of the term "wilful ignorance" to smear opponents is an example of psychological projection. Being in the know isn't a result of whom one listens to, but of how much mental work one does, and its quality. Effecting cultural change is likewise a process of winning minds, one at a time, and not of winning instant converts via "revelation". -- CAV Link to Original
  16. Early Sunday night, Mrs. Van Horn went into labor, and a little after noon yesterday, she gave birth to a healthy, handsome little boy. This has caught your author a little off-balance: Our son was due ten days from yesterday and everything from my wife's last trip to her doctor indicated that, if anything, he would be late. (He did couch what he said, with words to the effect of, "I gave up on predicting delivery dates long ago.") Oh, and thank goodness my mother-in-law was already here! It was good to be able to leave our almost two-year-old daughter at home that night. That said, we had thought we had a few days to prepare for guests, including my daughter's two-year-old cousin, and a few after that to (1) get the house ready for the newest member of the family, and (2) make some changes for my daughter, such as putting her toddler bed together. Obviously, my presence here will be irregular and minimal for about the next week, until I catch up a little bit. Thanks as usual for stopping by, and for your patience over the next few days. -- CAV P.S. A few relatives and friends follow this blog. Pictures will have to wait a little: Thanks to the latest moronic Gmail interface change, I was unable to attach pictures to correspondence or find some addresses while on my phone. (If Google isn't good for search, as I recall someone saying, what's it good for?) When the dust settles, I'll put something together on a real computer. Thanks again for your patience. Link to Original
  17. Why the Surveillance State? I ran across the following quotefrom a Mark Steyn piece on Instapundit this morning: The same bureaucracy that takes the terror threat so seriously that it needs the phone and Internet records of hundreds of millions of law-abiding persons would never dream of doing a little more pre-screening in its immigration system -- by, say, according a graduate of a Yemeni madrassah a little more scrutiny than a Slovene or Fijian. It is interesting to think about this new addition to the Leviathan state in light of the fact that it is staffed by human beings who admittedly can't process all this allegedly vital information. It plainly isn't achieving its stated purpose, after all -- not that having any of this is the proper business of the government. Given that this data is wrongfully obtained and is also not suitable for its stated purpose, it is best to consider two things: (1) What is the track record of the Obama administration regarding the use of similar types of information? and (2) What, as Ayn Rand's arch-villain, Ellsworth Toohey might ask, does this folly accomplish? Intimidation. Terrorists expect the government to be chasing them, but ordinary citizens should not. Unlike terrorists, we thought we were operating with a reasonable expectation of privacy, and so were not busy covering our tracks. (Why would we?) Now, we all know that if we catch the attention of the Obama regime, they can easily dig up dirt -- or something that they might deem to be dirt -- or that they can make look like dirt. This won't necessarily happen to everyone, all the time, but the goal is to threaten anyone who might want to rock the boat. Weekend Reading "[Government 'scrutiny' of virtual currencies is] the kind of 'scrutiny' that a mobster gives to a rival gang cutting in on his territory." -- Harry Binswanger, in "Don't be Silly, the Entitlement State Won't Allow Bitcoin" at Forbes "The fatalism spawned by our victim-oriented culture is much more damaging than any disorder." -- Michael Hurd, in "Disorders are not a Free Pass" at The Delaware Coast Press "If [Chef Robert] Irvine's approach could speak, it would say: 'Think, think, think!'" -- Michael Hurd, in "Food Network's Cognitive Therapist" at The Delaware Wave My Two Cents I have always regarded Bitcoin as a sort of virtual "Libertarian island". Binswanger shows here that it will have essentially the same practical result. We can't make an end run around the government. We must change it for the better. Oops! I remember getting partial credit on high school and college math exams for answers that contained such errors. (Perhaps for that reason, I remained prone to them for longer than I should have.) But the Spanish navy can't so easily blow off the consequences of a misplaced decimal point for the design of its new submarine. --CAV Link to Original
  18. 1. Wired explainswhy three MIT grads want to send you an empty box: "Buying online is really awesome. People have become very accustomed to one-click buying. The confidence is there, and with mobile that's only growing," Blackshaw says. "The inverse isn't true. Selling online is really awful. It hasn't progressed to the same frictionless transaction that buying has." Sold, as the new company is called, handles only a few small, upscale items now, but I hope they really can work with a greater variety of products down the road. I have a couple of small boxes of things I'd rather sell than simply toss into the trash. Time to deal with those things has been the big obstacle for me. 2. For the curious, and pursuant to last week's post, here's a crucial robbin update: 3. I wouldn't say that Americans speak English totally differentlyfrom each other, but I enjoyed going through this set of twenty-two maps showing such things as the geographical distribution of you/you all/y'all and the words used for what the folks on the West Coast call freeways. My favorite part came in the form of the following update on a map showing how people across the country pronounce the first word in "Bowie knife": From a Texan: "It's pronounced Boo-wie because it's named after Jim Bowie (pronounced Boo-wie), who played a major role in the Texas revolution. That explains why we're the only ones who pronounce it correctly." He's mostly right -- except that Texans aren't the only ones: There is a pocket of people in Maryland who do the same. 4. This article on how crackers guess difficult passwords definitely falls into the "interesting" category of things, and not the "good news" I include in my Friday posts. Here's the most interesting/troubling/possibly-useful-to-know quote: "This is an answer to the batteryhorsestaple thing." [link added] -- CAV Link to Original
  19. I'd thought I'd already read all I needed to about the failure of "austerity" declared by the left, but I took a look at John Stossel's column anyway. I didn't expect to blog it, but here I am. The following concretization is brilliant: Consider this family budget: Annual Income ---- $24,500 Annual Spending ---- $35,370 New Credit Card Debt ---- $10,870 Existing Debt ---- $167,600 When I show that to people, they laugh and say the family is "irresponsible." They are dismayed when I point out that those are really America's budget numbers, with eight zeros removed With the same alacrity that he explains the extent of our national debt, he explains how easily we could tackle the problem. After reading his column, one would think that Americans would snap to and demand that our national budget be fixed. This won't happen, and by coincidence, Michael Hurd has recently posted a quotation from Ayn Rand that helps us understand why: "The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." Mathematically, our budget deficit is an easy problem. Culturally, it is Mount Everest. The mountain can be climbed, but it will require what the abolitionists called "moral suasion". People overspend because they accept the idea that we are our brothers' keepers (or worse, are entitled to being kept). At least Stossel's clarity makes the underlying problem far easier to see. People must be persuaded that it is bad (in the moral and practical senses of the word) for everyone for the government to run the economy, be it by the outright passing-around of looted wealth or the folly of central "planning". -- CAV Link to Original
  20. Were it not for the bad punchline, the following, from a blog post by a fan of electric cars, would be quite amusing: Texas is one of those states where it is actually illegal for an automaker to sell its products directly to its customers. They are forced to go through a dealership network, which is fine for the big, established players, but is a huge barrier to entry for startups like Tesla [an electric car manufacturer --ed]. It's amusing for a moment to see that government interference with the economy has greens (of all people!) in a tizzy. But the above raises a good point, intentionally or not. Texas is, after all, one of the few states in the nation that has seen an increase in the number of available jobs during the economic depression, and has a reputation for being pro-business. Those last two things do not mean, however, that Texas is a shining example of capitalism. This silly example of the state meddling in commerce is hardly the only one . Worse, while one government hand is in your pocket, religious conservatives there are working around the clock to put the other government hand straight into your pants. Texas does not have a capitalist economy: It is merely among the less-completely government-run ones in the United States. It is as revealing to see anti-capitalists admit the advantages of free markets (when they imagine that they have a superior product) as it is to see allegedly pro-growth politicians give us "sales tax holidays" instead of repeals or even so much as floating a propoal for sunsetting them. Either capitalism is good, in which case why aren't they embracing it, or it isn't, in which case why complain about government meddling and theft? In any event, things like this are worth remembering the next time some anti-capitalist (admitted or not) blames "capitalism" (i.e., our mixed economy) for some economic debacle or the failure of some pet cause to set the populace on fire. We don't have capitalism, and there are some ideas that are so bad that they would fail in any scenario in which individuals have even a modicum of personal freedom. That being the case, it's too bad that Tesla can't sell directly in Texas: We could watch Tesla flounder amid spectacular prosperity. -- CAV Link to Original
  21. Thanks to its claims that a federal educational database is collecting information about parents' political affiliations, a column by Arnold Ahlert linked at Jewish World Review caught my attention this morning. In attempting to verify this claim, I discovered that there is a great deal of justifiable concern among Tea Partiers regarding such an effort. Here is part of the list of things Ahlert claims the state will be collecting in its attempts to compile data on students: Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or parent; Mental and psychological problems of the student or the student's family; Sex behavior or attitudes; Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning behavior; Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships; Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers; Granted, I am rushing, as I usually do, to put something together to post this morning, but here is all I have been able to verify about what is being collected: An unique identifier for every student that does not permit a student to be individually identified (except as permitted by federal and state law); The school enrollment history, demographic characteristics, and program participation record of every student; Information on when a student enrolls, transfers, drops out, or graduates from a school; Students scores on tests required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; Information on students who are not tested, by grade and subject; Students scores on tests measuring whether they're ready for college; A way to identify teachers and to match teachers to their students; Information from students' transcripts, specifically courses taken and grades earned; Data on students' success in college, including whether they enrolled in remedial courses; Data on whether K-12 students are prepared to succeed in college; A system of auditing data for quality, validity, and reliability; and The ability to share data from preschool through postsecondary education data systems. This list sounds less disturbing, and it would be under capitalism. A private educational institution would have to tell parents up front what they wanted to do and why. It would be bound by law to honor its word, and parents could always send their children to another school that did not collect such data. But this is a government program that parents who lack alternatives cannot escape. "[D]emographic characteristics", "does not permit a student to be individually identified (except as permitted by federal and state law)", and "ability to share data" are Orwellian enough in today's context of ever more meddlesome and invasive government. Does it really matter whether I can substantiate Ahlert's specific claims? Yes and no. I recall from one article I scanned that a parent felt "powerless" in the face of such a proposal. What I do not recall seeing one whiff of was opposition to the whole idea of the government operating schools and excercising so much control over education. Rather, Tea Party opposition seems focused on these particular, easily-dismissed or dicounted allegations. Is this, perhaps, an early warning sign of the "political equivalent of an epileptic seizure" that Tom Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute predicted a couple of years ago? Meanwhile, however, the tea party’s “left brain” harbors the same moral impetus that has justified bigger and bigger government since the Progressive Era. The basic idea is that some people’s needs constitute a moral claim on the lives and wealth of others. The list of needs is endless: economic stability, job security, housing, health care, retirement funds. To satisfy those needs, government concocts regulatory and wealth transfer schemes that coercively subject the individual to society. Over the years, each new program – from the Federal Reserve to Social Security, Medicare, and beyond – acquires an aura of moral dignity that renders it politically untouchable by later generations. The needs of others permanently displace the freedom of the individual. Add "education" to Bowden's list of needs. Opposing government education outright would remove from the government any excuse to compile a massive database of the personal information of schoolchildren, because educating them would be recognized, properly, as none of its business. Supporting it in any form opens the door for the government to collect whatever data it claims, as educator, to need. If Tea Partiers feel "powerless" in the face of such a government scheme, they should insist on ending the scheme, not "reforming" it. The idea that we can have government goodies without strings, or only with the strings we want, is pure fantasy. "Opposing" the strings to a government entitlement program will see the strings moved or replaced further down the road. Opposing the entitlement program is not (like any other effort) guaranteed of victory, but it is much a more promising way of getting untangled and staying that way. -- CAV Link to Original
  22. Following up on an earlier piece, George Will has written an informative column about several disturbing aspects of federal regulations. Kicking off with a railroad safety mandate that would cost as much as "the $11 billion combined capital investments of all U.S. railroads in 2010", Will focuses on the staggering expense that regulations incur: Concerning [Cass] Sunstein's sanguine conclusion, skepticism is permitted. Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has recently published his " Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State." This year's 20th-anniversary edition notes that regulation, the "hidden tax," costs almost $2 trillion not counted among the official federal outlays. Using mostly government data, Crews concludes: The cost of regulations ($1.806 trillion) is now more than half the size of the federal budget and 11.6 percent of GDP. This costs $14,768 per U.S. household, equal to 23 percent of the average household income of $63,685. Regulatory compliance costs exceed the combined sum of income taxes paid by corporations ($237 billion) and individuals ($1.165 trillion). Then add $61 billion in on-budget spending by agencies that administer regulations. Will also warns that, since our legislative branch has delegated most regulatory activity to unelected officials, there is little public accountabilty: "... 29 times more regulations were issued by agencies than there were laws passed by Congress." Will's further point regarding Congressional abuse of such delegated authority is well taken, but the kind of corrective measure he discusses would not solve the problem. This is in part because most people, wrongly suspicious of capitalism on moral and practical grounds -- but unable to plan an entire economy themselves -- are electing these officials for the purpose of ordering others around. It is also in part because most people confuse legitimate government activity, such as punishing fraud, with the illegitimate preventive law that so many regulations represent. It should come as no surprise that men elected to do something that they shouldn't be doing and that is impossible anyway would decide to slough it off. -- CAV Link to Original
  23. Journalist as Expose This story epitomizes Islam, the Western left, and their relationship with each other. An Australian media outlet uses easily-obtainable information to detail both the hypocrisy of the Iranian theocracy and the vacuousness of one of its western "reporters", Edwina Storie. The story notes that, "Her behaviour, all perfectly lawful here in Australia, would be sufficient for her to be stoned to death in the theocratic and tyrannical regime that pays her to propagandise on their behalf." First, from her resume: One modelling site has dozens of racy images of Ms Storie with "tags" describing her work that would have any Mullah reaching for his stones. The descriptions include "porn movie," "sex video," "call girl," "girl kneeling," "erotic," "sensual," "mistress," "affair," "laying back," "legs in air," "seductress," "sucking on finger," "married man," "office affair," "secret rendezvous," "cleavage," "buttocks in air," "arched back," "body in air," "busty," "boobs," "heels on bed," "afternoon delight," and "afterwork surprise." Certainly it would be something of a surprise for Ms Storie's work colleagues at PressTV. Second, regarding the regime for whom she serves as a willing accomplice, here is but an example of what Storie is helping along through her efforts: A 19-year-old pregnant Iranian woman , accused of adultery, or sex outside marriage, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, recently battled authorities over her death sentence, not over whether she was to be executed but whether she could avoid death by stoning and instead be punished by hanging. ... In the face of such obscenity, I am at a loss for words. Fortunately, reader Snedcat, who emailed me about this story, wasn't. This is, he says, a "[t]ypical leftie party girl cozying up to the Iranian regime, as if acting and believing really really fervently that ideas don't matter will magically make that true." Weekend Reading "f you don't keep track of what's in your head, then you're more subject to someone else's suggestions." -- Michael Hurd, in "Hypnosis: Fact or Fantasy?", at The Delaware Wave "The childhood 'rule' that we're either self-sacrificing or thoughtlessly 'selfish' is a false alternative." --Michael Hurd, in "Your Interests Must Come First" at The Delaware Coast Press "[W]e cannot evaluate GM's decisions without recognizing a wider context: the coercive nature of labor laws." -- Doug Altner, in "What Explains GM's Problems with the UAW?", in Forbes My Two Cents Since the left is all about context-dropping, I have to say that I like the tack Doug Altner took in arguing against one of Barack Obama's GM talking points. Zigging when Others Zag I found this list of "17 Counterintuitive Things the Most Successful People Do" at Forbes to be thought-provoking. Here's one I could have used when I was younger. Seek Out Rejection - to get desensitized to the fear of it. Once we lose the fear of rejection we more easily go after what we want, and thus get more of it. (TIP: more details in the 5 Steps Sales Process) Of course, I'd flesh out what any of these meant before trying them. Some of these, like "pick fights" could backfire very badly if done half-cocked. --CAV Link to Original
  24. 1. I enjoy thinking about philosophical issues, but my wife does not. That said, I was naturally intrigued to learn that Leonard Peikoff fielded the following questionnot too long ago: "If you are an intellectual, is it immoral to be in a relationship with someone who is not an intellectual?" I found not only that his answer indirectly reminded me of the many reasons I love Mrs. Van Horn, but also that his initial reaction to learning that someone is an intellectual is quite similar to mine. 2. If you find yourself stuck when trying to solve a problem, it could be because you're trying to do more than you need to solve it. In such cases, statistician John Cook asks himself, "whether I really need to do what I assume I need to do." 3. One of the things that mosts reliably amazes me as a father of a toddler is how much my daughter can remember, and sometimes, what, and in what detail. Here are a couple of examples. Some time ago, we went to a family gathering out of town and we raised our glasses at the beginning of a meal at a restaurant. Pumpkin wanted to join in, so we repeated the ritual. Naturally, she was raising her cup or bottle for the next day or so, and saying "Cheers!" until the novelty wore off. A few weeks later, after I'd poured her a milk and myself a beer one evening, she was holding her cup up, smiling, and saying ... something. After a couple of repetitions, I realized she was saying, "Cheers!" Pumpkin loves penguins, and one of her Christmas gifts last year was a Russian doll-like set of nested penguins. There are five, but the smallest one, a choking hazard, currently is nesting in one of my dresser drawers. So she was playing with four of the dolls one morning before daycare, and I thought it would be cute to liken them to our family. Pointing to them in descending size order, I called them, "Daddy", "Momma", "Pumpkin", and "Little Alphonse." (No. We won't be naming the baby Alphonse: I never use real names for family here. Also, I can have no idea what I will want to nickname him until he arrives.) I then corrected myself by opening up the Momma penguin and placing "Alphonse" inside, and saying, "But Alphonse is inside Momma right now." That evening, she was playing with her penguins again. I'd forgotten all about this -- We've been trying to prepare Pumpkin for Alphonse for some time. -- but I saw her open up Momma Penguin, place the smallest one inside, and say "Alphonse inside Momma." 4. We planted flowers and got robins. A few week ago, Momma Van Horn planted three yellow tin pots with flower seeds so we could entertain Pumpkin with how plants grow. One day, I saw that a couple of the pots had fallen down. I assumed that this was due to wind from a storm the previous night and placed them back. Later that day, two more pots were on the deck again, but upright. The remaining pot looked to have been tampered with. I figured that some kid was getting onto our porch and goofing around when we were gone. Being in a hurry at the moment, I left things as they were. Upon my return, I looked out and saw a robin sitting in the remaining pot, and what looked like the beginnings of a nest. As you can see from the image, Mrs. Van Horn isn't the only one around here expecting. I think the chicks will provide much more bang for the buck than plants, especially at her age and with how much she likes birds. As a bonus, although I think it exceedingly unlikely, I like to imagine that the mother bird is one that I found stunned on our doorstep one frigid day a few months ago. I let that bird rest in a box in our relatively warm basement. The bird was fine a few hours later and flew off after I took the box outside and reopened it. -- CAV Link to Original
  25. Judge Andrew Napolitano provides the following legal/historical summary to get us up to speed on one of the "so-called" (as the leftist media like to call it) scandals brewing within the Obama Administration: The answers to these questions are obvious and well grounded. One of [Attorney General Eric] Holder's predecessors, Nixon administration Attorney General John Mitchell, went to federal prison after he was convicted of lying to Congress. The same Attorney General who told Congress he had "not been involved" in the Rosen search warrant before the DOJ he runs revealed that he not only was involved, he personally approved the decision to seek the search warrant, must know that the Supreme Court ruled that reporters have an absolute right to ask any questions they want of any source they can find. The same case held that they cannot be punished or harassed because the government doesn't like the answers given to their questions. And the same case held that the if answers concern a matter in which the public is likely to have a material interest, they can legally be published, even if they contain state secrets. I have not been able to follow developments in this scandal at all closely, but a reader mentioned it to me at one point. That last sentence clears up a legal question I had that I did not know the answer to, and that had therefore made me reluctant to comment. Napalitano has made it clear that the Obama Administration has not just used the IRS to suppress political opposition ahead of an election, but has wrongly and illegally spied on at least one opposition reporter. That last turn of phrase makes this sound like something that would happen in a banana republic, but if the shoe fits... -- CAV PS: From the last link, to a video of college students signing a card thanking the IRS for suppressing the Tea Party: "I was kind of hoping people would look at my card and laugh, but not endorse it," [Caleb Bonham] said. "That was not the case." Link to Original
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