Gus Van Horn blog

Over at Life Hacker is a post on cutting brain-storming time by half. Now, let me attempt to save some of my readers a little trouble with a spoiler: This post is aimed at brain-storming by groups, contrary to the reason its title piqued my interest. Nevertheless, I the the post offers value, because it compliments other advice I have encountered on cutting down the amount of time wasted in meetings. (Indeed, it may even circumvent the problem of largely ineffective group brainstorming by shifting the creative work to individuals and having such meetings be mostly evaluative and collaborative.) That earlier advice on short meetings centered around having everyone familiarize themselves with background material beforehand. That still applies, but brainstorming is a little bit different, in that there is a further creative element. Mark Miller of Inc. suggests that the meeting organizer, "[P]rovide a pre-work, individual assignment first that spurs the thinking." This step gets lots of the individual thinking done and eliminates some of the pitfalls of doing that part of the work at the meeting: ... The problem with long brainstorming sessions is that ideas get recycled with minor tweaks because once everyone has heard a good idea, they anchor themselves to it. On top of that, people grow attached to their ideas, causing them to become defensive and destroying true collaboration... The article does indirectly save an individual time, by cutting down on meeting time. But what about more effective brain-storming on one's own? Probably the best single source of ideas I have encountered for this remains Jean Moroney's "Tap Your Own Brilliance" course, which I took a few years back. That said, I am always looking for new ideas in that area, so if you have a favorite, feel free to leave a comment. -- CAV Link to Original

The newly-elected, far-left Prime Minister of Greece once asked Wall Street Journal columnist Brett Stephens why bribery isn't more common in the United States: The OliveShop tale is a case study in what it takes to start a business legally. Yet the whole purpose of these peculiar regulatory roadblocks [including a requirement for stool samples of each shareholder, of all things -- ed] is to create opportunities to grease the skids with a fakellaki -- the little envelope, stuffed with cash -- that gets you the necessary certificate, or the government contract, or the timely medical appointment. When I interviewedSyriza leader (now Prime Minister) Alexis Tsipras in New York two years ago, his first question to me was: "Here in the United States, why do you not have this phenomenon of passing money under the table?" Stephens's answer is on the right tracl: "[Y]ou're less likely to seek a bribe if you can make an honest profit instead," but I'd add something like this: If you weren't constantly in danger of violating illegitimate, unreasonable laws, you wouldn't feel the need to pay protection money at every turn. That story, of ridiculous regulations that are made for abuse, reminds me of a new ordinance in Seattle, which imposes fines for seting out trash that includes over ten per cent food waste: So, the collectors not only have to examine your trash, but examine it closely enough to determine if 10 percent of it amounts to food. NPR's reporting disputes my assumption, but what the collector is really saying below is he's either painstakingly rifling through trash cans or ignoring the 10-percent rule and profligately offering tags and fines. Neither is good[.] I can't see how this won't corrode respect for rule of law, cause people to use money as part of the "truce" between the "citizens of Seattle and trash collectors" the Hot Air blogger wrongly hopes will result, or both. Regardless, this law is just as wrong, and only a little less intrusive than the scatological example above. The Greeks discarded freedom long ago, if they ever had it. Brett Stephens unsurprisingly says that the Greeks have just "voted [themselves] down the toilet". We're doing little better, treating food scraps like gold while discarding our freedom one stupid rule at a time. -- CAV Link to Original

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Brad Feld has an interesting idea for scheduling the day: Feld's reasoning and flexible implementation make compelling reading for anyone with control over large blocks of time. (Implementing his advice will be more challenging for people whose employers schedule much of their time.) I particularly like his use of walks for meetings he thinks might take longer: He has made himself able to adjust their lengths on the fly. Interestingly, his advice seems to me like it might dovetail well with the Pomodoro Technique (scroll down) for those on what Paul Graham calls a "maker's schedule", although for reason Graham discussed, the thirty minute slots for creative work would best be consecutive. -- CAV Link to Original

A news article about a home-grown (but apparently self-surveiling) computer network in Havana raises some interesting questions about the effectiveness of our longstanding trade embargo against the communist regime as well as the wisdom of ending it. Early in the article, we learn that the powers-that-be there blame the embargo for the unavailability of Interent access to most Cubans. Our own Nomenklatura wanna-bes seem to agree with them, as do their media lapdogs, as we see in the first and third paragraphs of the below excerpt: Cuba's status as one of the world's least-wired countries is central to the new relationship Washington is trying to forge with Havana. As part of a new policy seeking broader engagement, the Obama administration hopes that encouraging wider U.S. technology sales to the island will widen Internet access and help increase Cubans' independence from the state and lay the groundwork for political reform. Cuban officials say Internet access is limited largely because the U.S. trade embargo has prevented advanced U.S. technology from reaching Cuba and starved the government of the cash it needs to buy equipment from other nations. But the government says that while it is open to buying telecommunications equipment from the U.S., it sees no possibility of changing its broader system in exchange for normal relations with the U.S. Outside observers and many Cubans blame the lack of Internet on the government's desire to control the populace and to use disproportionately high cellphone and Internet charges as a source of cash for other government agencies. What the Cuban government claims, some opponents hope, and its imitators here claim to hope is put to the sword by a quote buried, epitaph-like, at the very end of the article -- just as the "outside observers" (Cuban diaspora?) would expect (in more ways than one): "It's proof that it can be done," said Alien Garcia, a 30-year-old systems engineer who publishes a magazine on information technology that's distributed by email and storage devices. "If I as a private citizen can put up a network with far less income than a government, a country should be able to do it, too, no?" Translation: The line about why most Cubans lack decent Internet access is a lie. The government publishing this lie will be the main beneficiary of any increase in wealth a lifting of the embargo will bring, and will do what it can to control the flow of information, should the embargo (aka, its favorite all-purpose excuse) come to an end. Our sanctions plainly haven't driven the Cuban regime out of power, but they obviously haven't inspired a revolution, either. (People have free will, and deprivation will not make them pursue any particular course of action. Plenitude, as if that would happen, won't, either.) What the sanctions have done is prevented a nearby country with such a ruling class, whose people tolerate it to a degree, from becoming any more powerful, at least with our help. At the same time, Cuba's rulers, haven't been able to line their own pockets quite so effectively. It is not the proper purpose of our government to spread freedom around the world, but to protect it here. (This could include aiding a rebellion in Cuba, should that ever come to pass.) I don't regard embargoes as a substitute for war, when it is called for. However, embargoes can be a proper response to tin-pot dictatorships that don't respect individual rights and would cause us problems if we were foolish enough to treat them like ordinary nations. -- CAV Link to Original

Last week, the Senate farcically and near-unanimously voted that "climate change is real and not a hoax". The absence of a spine on the part of the GOP -- and the reason for it -- are painfully obvious from several aspects of this story. For starters, the climate is always changing, so, to a Martian, this would be about as ridiculous as the Senate wasting time and money voting on a resolution like, "The sky is blue." We Earthlings know that "climate change" is code for "scientific-sounding excuse for government intrusion into the energy sector cum cover for global temperatures eventually heading in a direction the excuses models don't predict". So the GOP members of the Senate have, at the outset, failed to question the propriety of said intrusions. But the fun isn't over, yet. We soon learn the following: Republicans backed [James] Inhofe's stance in a second vote, rejecting an amendment from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) that stated, "climate change is real and human activity significantly contributes to climate change." This can be taken as a reasonable expression of uncertainty about the origins of a change in climate, except, again, the wording of the resolution makes speculation about causes a complete joke. Why not vote that there will be a winning team on the Super Bowl, with a resolution about any one fan (the side doesn't matter) in the stands "contributing significantly" (whatever that means) to that outcome (whatever that might be)? Word something flexibly enough, and you're never wrong. So far as I can tell from this story, everyone went along with this kind of idiocy. But why? Perhaps Barack Obama's exploitation of a common Republican refrain on the issue of Massive Government Meddling in the Name of Global Warming or Cooling can give us a hint: ... President Obama, who has made climate change a central focus of his second term, turned the "scientist" response into a punch line in his State of the Union address. "I've heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they're not scientists; that we don't have enough information to act," Obama said. "Well, I'm not a scientist, either. But you know what -- I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities." Let's be clear about a couple of things here. First, it is honest to admit being uncomfortable with the idea of making pronouncements about questions requiring knowledge outside one's expertise. But second, some political decisions -- even about matters a government might legitimately concern itself with -- do require consultation with scientists. So, anyone who refuses to take a stand -- on the basis of a lack of expertise -- on the Political Agenda Being Excused in the Name of Warming or Cooling, is not only refusing to question whether this is a proper concern of government, he is also playing into the hands of his opponents by looking irresponsible. On top of all this, our Senators may not be scientists, but they are lawmakers. It is revealing that none spoke up against the propriety of our government dictating the actions of so many people regardless of what "the science" says. I am no parliamentarian, but it seems to me that someone could have proposed an amendment further defining "climate change" or even acknowledging that there are moral and constitutional limits on what a government can and ought to do about it (or anything else). But that would have entailed someone with a spine, and that would have demanded the moral certainty that could only come from truly understanding why he is there in the first place. All the talk about science in the world will do good among our leaders if there isn't even a peep about why they should do anything and, if so, what they ought to do. Indeed, great harm can and will result. Our new Congress isn't even starting off on the wrong foot. It is lying flat on its face. -- CAV Link to Original

1. The kids keep on cracking me up. This week, Little Man has taken to grabbing adults by the hand and leading them to things he wants or places he want to play. Pumpkin, on the other hand, continues speaking her mind, although not using my own words against me for a change. Her latest complaint about something she doesn't want to hear from me: "You're being a bad boy!" I couldn't help but laugh the first time she used that one. 2. FDR is famous for saying, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." One subject of a scientific study, "The Woman Who Can’t Feel Fear", might beg to differ. "SM", as she is known in the literature, does not have a functioning amygdala: "It's a little bit as if you would go to this region and literally scoop it out," Antonio Damasio, another neuroscientist who studies SM, told Invisibilia hosts Lulu Miller and Alix Spiegel. [minor format edits] At least one close brush with a thug might tempt you to see an advantage to her condition -- but for the fact that it got her into that encounter in the first place. 3. No sooner do I write about overcoming the limitations of blogging with a virtual keyboard than I hear about TextBlade, by WayTools, "a folding QWERTY keyboard the size of a pack of gum". For ninety nine bucks, you, too can have one by March. 4. Speaking again of time management for writers, a commenter pointed me to a post on the subject that I found to be both practical and encouraging. -- CAV Link to Original

Or: When Fashion Thwarts Delegation Just because I mentionwanting to improve how efficiently I do something doesn't mean I haven't already tackled the problem in some way, the case in point being laundry. One way I have streamlined that process is by buying about a dozen pairs of the same kind of socks every few months. This greatly cuts down on the time I spend trying to match pairs -- although it doesn't eliminate it since I don't insist on my wife doing this, nor will I do this with the kids. (Interestingly, the variety of the kids' socks, coupled with their small size, means they practically sort themselves, if I save them for last.) I bring up the sock-sorting trick because it has paid off in other ways, one of them being by saving shopping time. Recall that I buy a whole new set of socks every few months. This practice grew out of my initial decision to standardizeon one kind of sock for most of the time. Eventually, some of those socks started wearing out. My initial impulse was to buy a few replacement pairs, but a few things occurred to me: (1) I might not be able to buy the same kind of socks again; (2) Even if I could, this would make me have to start sorting again, since the new pairs would be darker than the old; and (3) Perhaps all of the socks, having been bought at the same time, were about to wear out all at once. (I was right about the last two.) So I just bought the same number of identical socks and replaced all of them. I realized then that I probably also wasted less time shopping for socks as a result, too. So I now do the same thing for tee shirts and my casual khaki pants. I buy the pants mostly at Old Navy, and this has been pretty straightforward for the past few years. I find a few pairs in my size, which has been constant for decades, try them on, buy them, and go. In fact, a year or two ago, I realized that I could just delegate the purchase because, for the most part, men's sizes are pretty standard. (For a while, that went out the window during a period when baggy clothing was a fad. For example, I once found myself swimming in a "medium" shirt I'd received as a gift. I also vaguely recall having to buy "slim fit" khakis back then.) So, when my birthday or Christmas rolled around and someone needed an idea for an inexpensive gift, I could just suggest some Old Navy khakis and have them on hand and ready the next time a pair of pants got damaged or turned into highwaters after enough drying cycles. Well, that fell through this Christmas. I needed to replace my pants wholesale, so when my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I asked her for some Old Navy khakis. Once I tried on a pair of these, I noticed that it felt odd, but I couldn't put my finger on why. Over the course of wearing them for a day, I noticed, among other things, that my phone didn't quite fit in the pocket, and that the pants seemed too snug. I wondered if I'd put on weight, but I hadn't and also remembered that my older pants, which had presumably shrunk in more than one direction, felt fine. So I looked at the label, which read something like, "Classic Khakis, Straight Fit". "Oh, great. Demon spawn of skinny jeans and khakis," I thought. My wife had not ordered these, so I returned them, but ran into trouble again at the store. What was labeled as the regular cut -- like the old pair I was wearing -- was also more snug than I cared for -- but some loose-fit (or whatever they were labeled) pants on clearance fit like the pair I was wearing. So I bought a few of those. And then kept them even after I discovered about six more pairs of normal khakis squirreled away in my armoire at home: I need to ride out this fetish for uncomfortable, form-fitting clothing. (In any event, this is exactly the kind of fad that strikes me as something that men past a certain age should think twice about following. Or, to re-phrase that: I am not a teen-aged girl.) So the idea of having standard items on hand for easy maintenance and replacement has its limits. For casual pants, the whims of popular culture set some of those. There's no dodging the fitting room, at least for the next couple of years. -- CAV Link to Original

Today's post is the product of a few concurrent experiments in saving time or enhancing productivity. For my proof-of-concept, I am using Pinboard to store the location of a post, excerpted below, about finding time to write, along with a few comments of my own: But if you want to be a writer, then be a writer, for god's sake. It's not that hard, and it doesn't require that much effort on a day to day basis. Find the time or make the time. Sit down, shut up and put your words together. Work at it and keep working at it. And if you need inspiration, think of yourself on your deathbed saying "well, at least I watched a lot of TV." If saying such a thing as your life ebbs away fills you with existential horror, well, then. I think you know what to do. [minor edits] The comments I saved after reading this ended up making up most of the first paragraph of this post and most of the next. From here, I used a script to extract the bookmark and comments from my exported bookmarks, and save these as a markdown file for further editing before posting. I'm also testing an emacs customization to rid the post of "smartquotes". Both experiments have succeeded. I now have a good way to quickly write at least the rudiments of a blog post from any computing device. In particular, this is a much more effective way to blog from a smart phone than having to futz with inserting hyperlinks with a virtual keyboard, which is a pain even using markdown. The mobility of a smart phone would make it ideal for blogging, were its software better-suited to content creation. This is the next best thing: minimizing the obstacles said software presents. On a related note, I found the above inspirational post among a few others gleaned from a search for time management tips for writers whohave young children. (These links seem promising after a quick scan, but I won't vouch for any of them beyond that.) My kids are sleeping more reliably, thereby giving me more and better time in the morning. Nevertheless, I want to keep blogging daily even as I take on more complicated writing projects again. Taking better advantage of my phone when, say, I'm stuck in line, can only help. -- CAV P.S. One resource on time management for writers that I do recommend is the book Time to Write, which -- right before my son was born -- I briefly commented on here. I plan to go through it again in the near future. Link to Original

From an old Daniel Pipes review of Ibn Warraq's Why I Am Not a Muslim, comes something you'll never hear from a multiculturalist: Having thus dispensed with religion, Ibn Warraq takes up history and culture. Turning political correctness exactly on its head, he condemns the early Islamic conquests and condones European colonialism. " Bowing toward Arabia five times a day," he writes, referring to the Islamic prayer toward Mecca, " must surely be the ultimate symbol of . . . cultural imperialism" In contrast, European rule, "with all its shortcomings, ultimately benefited the ruled as much as the rulers. Despite certain infamous incidents, the European powers conducted themselves, on the whole, very humanely." [bold added] Multiculturalist folderol aside, one culture becoming dominant is not inherently bad. Indeed, when one culture is objectively superior to another, not only is there nothing wrong with cultural "imperialism", it is a good thing. That said, just as multiculturalists rant about alleged deficiencies of the West (but don't bat an eye about real problems in the Islamic world), so it is that huge numbers of people bowing towards Mecca five times a day gets a free pass. -- CAV Link to Original

Writing at the New York Post, Nicole Gelinas directly takes on the "They had it coming," post-Charlie Hebdo crowd, ending with the following: Blaming the dead for their own murders is dangerous in another way, too. Nobody with power likes free speech. If you write for a living, you learn that important people will try almost anything to get things in print or keep them out of print. Today, it's maybe irresponsible -- and therefore should be illegal? -- to print a Mohammed cartoon. Tomorrow, maybe it'll be irresponsible to criticize a wartime president or prime minister. To get an idea of how tempting it is for power to censor, consider that more than half of American colleges restrict campus speech, vaguely prohibiting things like "inappropriate expression." The dead cartoonists, in the end, were right. If you can't put pen to paper without risking death, you can't do anything freely. To make one exception means to make them all. Now let’s see how many supposed defenders of speech will just stop there ... instead of adding the "but, but, but" that shows they don't believe in free expression when it really counts -- when people just died for it. [minor format edits, links in original] Gelinas is completely right. That said, as I thought about her rebuttal of the "yes, but-ers", I was reminded of a nagging doubt I have had about her response and others like it that I have seen. Thanks to this, I believe I can now address it. One can, without being a cad, suggest that someone should take reasonable precautions against rape -- or any other crime. While it is unreasonable to suggest that a woman walking alone at night in a dangerous area "had it coming", it isn't to suggest that it might be imprudent to do so. This is the cover that false defenders of free speech and the jihdists alike crave. But what makes it cover? In other words, how do freedom of speech and other actions, like walking about, differ? Quite simply, there is no hiding what one has said once one has said it. One can choose to walk in safe areas at night, or not go out at all. One can lock the doors to his home at night or install a car alarm. And one can, say, insult the mother of a thug like the Pope, when one is out of arm's reach. But speech can't be contained or revoked. Once you go out for your walk, or drive home, or wake up at home in safety in the morning, you're done. But once you say something, it's out there. And saying something that displeases a thug may well be used as an excuse by the thug to retaliate. Nevertheless, suggesting that the bounds of prudence include not just avoiding speaking with thugs in one's immediate vicinity, but what one can say would be analogous to suggesting that, say, a woman who wants to walk outside treat all neighborhoods as equally dangerous at all times; or that homeowners who lock their doors are skimping if those doors aren't made of steel; or that an alarm isn't enough when he could hire an armed guard for his car. That is, the nature of speech, which is the expression of one's thoughts, puts limits on saying what those thoughts are beyond the realm of the prudent and into the realm of surrendering to one's enemies. The thugs and their appeasers, well aware of how different and powerful speech is, hope that we will forget that difference and that power as they liken speaking one's mind to daring some criminal to harm them. Ironically, there is truth in the idea that, if we wish to speak our minds, we must take precautions to protect our lives: But the precaution is, in fact, to take exactly the opposite of their advice and use our freedom of speech to resist these thugs and to insist on our governments doing their job, which above all includes ensuring that we remain free to speak. For, as Gelinas points out, if we can't say anything freely, we can't do anything freely, either. One cannot live a life proper to man, the rational animal, when one is forced -- by a dictatorial government or by thugs in a de facto anarchy -- to pretend that one doesn't have a mind of his own. -- CAV Link to Original

Legal Lacuna A prominent legal scholar warns us that anyone could finds himself in the Kafkaesque situation of being publicly (but falsely) accused of numerous crimes and unable to do anything about it: There is a gaping hole in our legal system that allows lawyers to bring irrelevant accusations against innocent nonparties in court papers that insulate them from any consequences, and to deny the falsely accused any opportunity to respond. Fortunately, this has come to the attention of someone who has the ability and desire to start changing this state of affairs. Weekend Reading "[W]hat happens if you sincerely have a person's best interests in mind and somehow need to get a point across?" -- Michael Hurd, in "No Matter What You Think: Controlling Others Will Not Work" at The Delaware Wave "The next time you find yourself wondering if you're normal, remind yourself that 'normal' is nothing more than a statistical average." -- Michael Hurd, in "So You Want to be 'Normal'" at The Delaware Coast Press Your Firstborn, Please! Someone in the academic science pipeline makes an interesting argument about the unseen costs of that career path: The average PhD, who doesn't make Margaret's choice to "sell out" and attain a reasonable standard of living, does a postdoc for four years. If Margaret stayed that long, her postdoc would've cost her $220,000. Incidentally, raising a child costs about $200-250,000. That's right: the price of your postdoc is your firstborn child. Please do note that the government funds many, many people in this pipeline. Market distortion isn't the author's focus, although his data show that in spades. By apparently removing some of the up-front costs of such a career path, the government has induced a glut of scientists, who suffer financial losses later, not to mention other costs, such as lost time or skill sets that may not line up with what the non-academic market demands. -- CAV Link to Original

1. One of the fun things about being a parent is rediscovering all the little wonders the world holds during the process of showing some of its newest inhabitants around. For example, I make it a point to let my kids smell spices when I cook. Sometimes, doing things like this has yielded me the further dividend of amusing results. A case in point has been what I call my son's beer rating system. As with spices, I give my kids the chance to enjoy the aroma of whatever beer I quaff at the end of the day. Over time, I have noticed that my son has several distinct reactions, which I categorize below, from least to most favorable: Pushes glass away. Smiles, and then pushes glass away. Smiles. Laughs. Laughs, and claps his hands. During a recent visit, one of my brothers enjoyed this so much he sent video of it to the rest of the family. I recently taught him to raise his cup or bottle and clink it after I say, "Cheers!" His older sister also took to this with gusto at his age, but my happy boy surprised me one day as I picked him up from daycare: He raised his bottle in the direction of his teachers and waved! 2. Although it will probably be difficult for a parent to read, I recommend reading the storyof a man who, as a boy, spent over a decade trapped in his body while, for most of that time, he was fully aware of his surroundings: Eventually Martin found a way to reframe even the ugliest thoughts that haunted him. Like when his mother said, "I hope you die." "The rest of the world felt so far away when she said those words," Martin says. But he began to wrestle with it. Why would a mother say that? "As time passed, I gradually learned to understand my mother's desperation. Every time she looked at me, she could see only a cruel parody of the once-healthy child she had loved so much." Over time, Martin began re-engaging with his thoughts. And slowly, as his mind felt better, something else happened -- his body began to get better, too. It involved inexplicable neurological developments and a painstaking battle to prove that he existed. I found this bittersweet, but inspiring. 3. Also inspiring, but a little bit amusing as well is the story of Richard Drew, the inventor of Scotch Tape: His boss, William McKnight, the same man who'd initially ordered Drew to cease his inventing efforts, still didn't see the potential in this new tape, and refused to purchase a machine that would allow for its mass production. Instead of acquiescing, Drew got creative: as a researcher, he had the right to secure purchases of up to $100, so he bought the machine in parts in a series of $99 orders, then constructed it himself. When Drew's boss later found out what Drew he'd been up to, he rewarded him for his tenacity by establishing a new managerial mandate at 3M: "If you have the right person on the right project, and they are absolutely dedicated to finding a solution -- leave them alone. Tolerate their initiative and trust them." As Drew advanced to direct a research lab, he also pioneered a policy made famous again recently by Google: encouraging workers to spend part of their paid time conducting their own research, 4. What's life like in the coldest town on earth? Thanks to the curiosity of an intrepid photographer, we can get an idea: Oymyakon weather played hell with [Amos] Chapple's camera. He faced unending challenges while shooting. "There was a lot to learn, it took several days to figure out some tricks to be able to keep working," he said. "From the moment I left the hotel in the morning the temperature of the camera would begin to drop. Once the guts of the camera froze, that was it for the day." Needless to say, there are some pretty interesting pictures there, in slideshow form. -- CAV Link to Original

John Stossel writesabout how differently the free market -- and improper government regulation -- attack minor consumer complaints. Stossel's example problem is hired drivers who nickel-and-dime their customers by taking circuitous routes. The difference in how these problems are dealt with is farcical. For starters, the effective, free-market solution, "[G]o to a different one," takes only five words to describe. Over most of the rest of his piece, Stossel contrasts this to four different, expensive, ineffective bureacratic solutions. The fourth is especially amusing -- or it would be, if people didn't keep electing officials who want to make us live like this: On to Plan D: a PDF. Bureaucrats love PDF's. Las Vegas asks you to print out a witness statement for people who have been taken on an overly long route and "complete the sworn affidavit in view of a public notary." I like how [Firefox founder Blake] Ross sums up plan D. Just carry "a desktop computer, a printer, envelopes, stamps, a fax machine [and] notary ... note the driver's full name, permit number and physical appearance. If you don't have this information memorized for some reason, just ask the driver while you're locked in the car with him ... explain that you're trying to have him fired. Ross actually bothered to try out the government's complaint system when he was ripped off, but he never heard back from any Vegas official. That's how government consumer protection typically operates. Making a full case for limited government or considering why government responses in such cases usually end up looking like this are beyond the scope of Stossel's piece. Nevertheless, by highlighting such absurdity and reminding us that things don't have to be thus way, Stossel does us all a great service. -- CAV Link to Original

Jeffrey Anderson, in an article aptly titled "Wimping Out on Obamacare?" warns that the GOP is already hard at work to save the Affordable Care Act, something I feared might eventually happen (i.e., at least take some time). Referring to no fewer than three ACA-saving tweaks in the works, Anderson asks: Anderson isn't even writing from a consistently free-market perspective and he can see the folly in this approach. Will the GOP wake up? Anderson thinks it might. Had I not already set my bar so low -- only to be disappointed already -- I might feel more of the slight optimism Anderson ends his article with. -- CAV Link to Original

Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute considersseveral interesting questions, among them: [W]here was the solidarity nearly a decade ago for Jyllands-Posten, Flemming Rose, and the artists who were driven in to hiding after the Mohammad cartoons crisis? And before that, after the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh? Or, for Charlie Hebdo in 2011 when its offices were firebombed? By now people have many, many more data points. Now, as in the past, the pattern is blatant. The jihadists seek to extinguish the freedom of speech. At Charlie Hebdo, the killers declared that they were avenging the prophet. They voiced a standard battle cry, "Allahu Akbar." They executed the journalists during an editorial meeting. [link in original, minor format edits] An editorial at RealClear Politics, by Bill Scher, indicates that Journo is correct. Scher, notingthat the left is "grappling" with Charlie Hebdo, cites a few examples: [Jonathan] Chait elaborated in response , summarizing New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat's view that "Vulgar expression that would otherwise be unworthy of defense becomes worthy if it is made in defiance of violent threats." Therefore, the Charlie Hebdocartoons are no longer on par with [Glenn] Greenwald's examples of anti-Semitism "because nobody is murdering artists who publish anti-Semitic cartoons." Bill Maher went beyond the encouragement of sacrilege to criticize Islam itself, in the name of liberalism no less. During an interviewon ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live the day of the attack, Maher insisted, "I'm a proud liberal ... It's not my fault that the part of the world that is most against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world ... We have to stop saying, 'Well, we should not insult a great religion' ... we should insult them." Two days later on his HBO show Real Time, he was even more denigrating of Islam: "When there's this many bad apples, there's something wrong with the orchard." [links in original, minor format edits] Good data hardly guarantees correct conclusions, but it is heartening to see that the efforts of the jihadists may well backfire more easily than I had hoped. At least the idea that Islam, as a religion, is exempt from examination and criticism seems to be going by the wayside. -- CAV P.S. For clarity, let me add that I regard all speech, even the most vulgar and offensive, that does not actually cause harm (e.g., via incitement or slander) as an absolute right and deserving of government protection. This is a different issue from one's moral evaluation of the speaker. One can morally condemn, say, an anti-Semite or a mere provocateur, while still insisting that such a person has the right to speak his mind, however small it might be. Link to Original

Although the GOP now controls both houses, I doubt it will take advantage of either of two golden opportunities. I hope I am wrong, but I expect that, by 2016, (1) The President, unimpeached, will be the same one we have now; and (2) There will have been no meaningful attempt by the GOP to offer a free-market alternative to ObamaCare. I suspect that Barack Obama shares my assessment of his opposition as less than weak, given that he has already proposeda new entitlement program -- two "free" years of college for anyone the government deems "responsible": In our growing global economy, Americans need to have more knowledge and more skills to compete -- by 2020, an estimated 35 percent of job openings will require at least a bachelor's degree, and 30 percent will require some college or an associate's degree. Students should be able to get the knowledge and the skills they need without taking on decades' worth of student debt. I can't see the Republicans, unableto attack ObamaCare on substantive grounds, offering any meaningful opposition to this proposal, which plays to the idea of America competing in the world marketplace, while, in fact, further undermining her educational marketplace. -- CAV Link to Original

1. My kids, respectively aged three and a half years and eighteen months, have been making me laugh (or want to laugh) for different reasons lately. The older is absorbing some of my speech mannerisms and using them on me. A few examples are in order: During play a few weeks ago, I did something -- I no longer remember what -- that must have mildly impressed her. Or she was joking, when she said, "I'm proud of you," half-laughingly. Another time, I had to go to the basement to start some laundry while I was home with just her. I always tell her before doing this so she'll know where I am, and I leave the door open, so I can hear her. This time, I heard footsteps approaching the door, so I asked, "What are you doing here?" "Just checking on you", she replied. Pumpkin also has tried "playing parent" a few times. I usually attempt to explain why I want her to do (or not do) something, so I wasn't too surprised when to hear her retort, "That's not a good idea", to something I told her to do that she didn't like. Little Man is learning to speak. His latest word I learned Tuesday as I carried him with me out the door to put out some trash. "Dog!" This he shouted at the top of his lungs when he spotted someone on the sidewalk walking his dog. 2. Assuming human trials go well, there is some good news on the bacterial drug resistance front. Scientists have discovered a new antibiotic for the first time in twenty-five years: The experimental drug, which was isolated from a sample of New England dirt, is called teixobactin. It hasn’t yet been tested in people, though it cured all mice infected with antibiotic-resistant staphylococci bacteria that usually kills 90 percent of the animals, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Bacteria appear to have a particularly difficult time developing resistance to the drug, potentially overcoming a major problem with existing antibiotics. [format edits, links dropped] Its discoverers believe that the new drug will prove difficult for pathogens to adapt to for several reasons. 3. Did you know that Americans and Germans once fought together during WW II -- to defend a castle? The battle for the fairytale, 13th century Castle Itter was the only time in WWII that American and German troops joined forces in combat, and it was also the only time in American history that U.S. troops defended a medieval castle against sustained attack by enemy forces. To make it even more film worthy, two of the women imprisoned at Schloss Itter—Augusta Bruchlen, who was the mistress of the labour leader Leon Jouhaux, and Madame Weygand, the wife General Maxime Weygand—were there because they chose to stand by their men. They, along with Paul Reynaud’s mistress Christiane Mabire, were incredibly strong, capable, and determined women made for portrayal on the silver screen. This comes from a book review of the first English book about the strange battle. 4. One of players who endured the infamous winless inaugural season of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers gives a riveting and humorous account, which ends with drunken revelers greeting a rag-tag group of players in the wee hours: Let me add "oddly inspiring" to my description of this story... -- CAV Link to Original

An academic researcher tackles a frequent question: "If [academics] have such freedom, why are they so overworked?" His answer is good, and applies equally well to anyone with a sideline like writing that doesn't pay the bills: Finally, when I'm done with all of the above and there are no urgent mails awaiting reply in my inbox, I could sit down with my own idea, write some code of my own, run my own experiments and write a paper with myself as first author. In other words, do some research of my own. This rarely happens, as I rarely get to this point and when I do I rarely have any energy left. The utility of that sixtieth work hour is so much higher than the tenth or twentieth because I can use it do my own research. If I work 60 hours rather than 40, I don't get 50% more of my own research done, but almost infinitely much more, as I would otherwise get almost none of my own research done. Given that I am interested in doing research of my own, there is a very strong incentive to work very long hours. It is not that I am uninterested in any of the other parts of my job - I enjoy all of them, except grant writing and meetings with management - but I am more interested in research. You could compare the job of an academic to having a teaching and administration job and having research as a hobby. Except that the "hobby" is the presumed core of the job as advertised, and the reason you applied for the job. It is interesting that a frequent complaint about the research orientation of many universities is that it causes the teaching to suffer. Based on this explanation, it would seem that the research suffers even more. It's too bad that most people do not question "how things are done" more often, as this type of arrangement seems ripe for re-thinking. -- CAV Link to Original

The latest study to show that red light cameras (RLCs) "nudge" motorists into having more rear-end collisions than they might otherwise have comes from Chicago: [R]ecently, administrators trotted out a seemingly redeeming statistic: that the introduction of the cameras had created a 47 percent reduction in the rate of right angle, or "T-bone," injury crashes. The Chicago Tribune in response commissioned a scientific study by two well-regarded transportation researchers, who found that the statistics promoted by the mayor's office were misleading. According to the Tribune, the authors of the study found a statistically significant, but still smaller, reduction in angle and turning injury crashes by 15 percent, as well as " a statistically significant increase of 22 percent in rear-end injury collisions." Overall, there was "a non-significant increase of 5 percent in the total number of injury crashes" that happened at intersections with red light cameras when comparing the injury crashes that occurred there before and after the cameras were present. On a more granular level, the researchers found that there were no safety benefits from cameras that are installed at intersections where there have already been few crashes with injuries, and occasionally, there was evidence that red light cameras actually increased injury crashes at such intersections. "When intersections experiencing fewer than 4 injury crashes per year are considered, there is a significant increase in all crashes by 19 percent after the installation of RLCs," the Tribune study found. The Tribunenoted that the red light camera program has raised more than $500 million off of the $100 tickets since 2002. "That program needs to be stopped. It needs to be frozen to give us time to re-evaluate everything," Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale, 9th, chairman of the council Transportation Committee, told the Tribune. "This is just more proof that this entire program is strictly to generate revenue and always has been." [bold added] The alderman is right, and one of his colleagues was explicit about it when he proposed an ordinance banning the use of RLC detectors in cars several years ago: "I don't think the goal is to allow the motorist to subvert the system we're spending so much money on....Why waste money on the cameras?" Imagine for a moment a private company running a road network like this. You'd be deafened by cries of "conflict of interest" from the news media, and probably by calls for more government "oversight" of the roads. Well, we already have that and more: outright government ownership. Free-market mechanisms, like competition and consumer choice driven by bad publicity -- and proper government mechanisms like, say, class-action lawsuits -- could more easily correct such an abuse, if not prevent it outright. Perhaps RLCs do have a legitimate use: They can remind us that the government is neither infallible nor incorruptible, and they can prompt us to consider whether there might be other solutions to our problems than running to the government for everything. (And we haven't even gotten around to discussing the proper role of the government...) -- CAV Link to Original

Following a link in a recent news story, I came upon an interesting notion that has been making the rounds in academia: pathological altruism. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal sums it up as follows: [barbara] Oakley defines pathological altruism as "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm." A crucial qualification is that while the altruistic actor fails to anticipate the harm, "an external observer would conclude [that it] was reasonably foreseeable." Thus, she explains, if you offer to help a friend move, then accidentally break an expensive item, your altruism probably isn't pathological; whereas if your brother is addicted to painkillers and yo u help him obtain them, it is. This is an interesting idea, but it is already in trouble, since there can be many reasons outside the ethics of altruism for helping others, such as friends. More precision is needed for such work to realize its full potential, and Ayn Rand's clarity regarding the nature of altruism would be quite helpful in that regard: What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice -- which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction --which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good. Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you door do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: "No." Altruism says: " Yes." One can see here that, while individual acts of altruism may or may not harm the recipient, they always harm the donor to some degree, and are always pathological in that sense. While I am glad to the altruistic academic establishment waking up to the potential their creed has for destruction, I must add that, to mimic the style of academia, more work is needed. -- CAV Link to Original

Over at Commentary Magazine is an article by Tevi Troy on the rough year facing the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka ObamaCare) in 2015. The article is valuable as an analysis of "the possible" the old saw on politics as an art tells us about. The good news, up to a point is that the law is very unpopular, faces serious legal challenges, and has become a public relations albatross for its supporters. Unfortunately, I see cause for concern in how these problems will likely shake out in the short haul: It is possible that none of these changes will get signed into law by President Obama. He has the veto pen, and both the House and Senate lack the two-thirds majorities necessary to override him. But the fact that these matters, and others like them, will be on the legislative agenda will keep ObamaCare on the defensive. President Obama can engage in a holding action to protect the ACA from legislative changes over the next two years. But he cannot hold off changes forever, and it is a near certainty that the next president, from whichever party, will be far more open to significant alterations. The problem lies with the kind of tinkering we are likely to see should a Republican vote to repeal the ACA be vetoed. Success at any pecemeal changes could, through masking, delaying, or appearing to solve some of the more obvious problems with the ACA, end up mollifying enough people long enogh to "fix" the ACA, saving it from oblivion. This would be ironic since part of the rationale for the ACA has been to "fix" other problems caused by government meddling (but blamed on capitalism). It would also leave a fundamental problem, that controls breed controls, unaddressed, practically guaranteeing that any lessening of government control would be obviated sooner or later by even more central planning. Unless those who favor freedom on principle remain vigilant to this threat, the "incremental strategy" for realizing socialized medicine will remain alive and well. This is a big part of why, as Paul Hsieh recently wrote, "The New Congress Should Propose Free-Market Health Care Reforms". -- CAV Link to Original

Suggestions Welcome In the upcoming year, I plan to make some changes to my blogging routine, particularly to my Saturday "Hodgepodge" posts. I have two general, possibly irreconcilable objectives in mind for the post: (1) Spend less time writing it; and (2) Make it more interesting to general readers. Among the ideas I am toying with are: Be less structured, making the post more like a regular post. Occasionally hosting guest posts. Keeping some elements of the current format, like "Weekend Reading" (the list of Objectivist commentary that appears in popular media), but adding a variety of other rotating types of sub-posts, such as, say, a link to a blog post of the week, or mention of the best reader comment of the week here. Link dumps (i.e., Items I encountered during the week that were interesting, but didn't interest me enough to inspire their own posts.) Simply reducing the Saturday post to "Weekend Reading". I'd hoped to have spent more time thinking about this during my holiday break, but various unexpected demands on my time basically wiped out writing time. But even so, I draw quite a few perspicacious readers, if I say so myself, so why not delegate some of the brain-storming? If you have an idea, feel free to leave a comment or email me. Weekend Reading "You can't resolve to do something just because it happens to be January 1 -- or any date, for that matter." -- Michael Hurd, in "Why New Year’s Resolutions Crash & Burn" at The Delaware Wave "Rational judgment empowers us to acknowledge reality, accept our feelings and then get on with our lives." -- Michael Hurd, in "Can Forgiveness Ever Be Unhealthy?" at The Delaware Wave "I'd never sacrifice my personal space to mindless platitudes like, 'Waste not; want not.'" -- Michael Hurd, in "The Joy of 'Regifting'" at The Delaware Coast Press "In my experience, three factors generate respect: (1) following through on what you say you’re going to do, (2) being the same way to a person’s face as you would behind his/her back, and, (3) facing reality rather than avoiding it." -- Michael Hurd, in "To Like/Love Someone, You Have to Respect Them" at The Delaware Coast Press "As far back as the 1970s [experts] predicted that if we did not dramatically reduce fossil fuel use then, and use renewables instead, we would be experiencing catastrophe today -- catastrophic resource depletion, catastrophic pollution and catastrophic climate change." -- Alex Epstein, in "Making the World a Better Place -- by Using More Fossil Fuels" at The National Post "My greatest moments of clarity came whenever I discovered an author or speaker who, instead of giving his particular answer to the question of global warming, would try to clarify the questions." -- Alex Epstein, in "Wrapping Our Minds Around Climate Change" at The National Post "Resources are not taken from nature, but created from nature." -- Alex Epstein, in "The Sustainability Myth" at The National Post "The good news is that there is no shortage of good alternative plans to ObamaCare that Congress could rally behind." -- Paul Hsieh, in "The New Congress Should Propose Free-Market Health Care Reforms" at Forbes "So buy yourself that new suit, get those presents for your family, exchange cards with your friends, convey goodwill to people you meet -- and celebrate Christmas as an occasion for affirming, not sacrificing, all that makes life enjoyable." -- Peter Schwartz, in "Objecting to the ‘Season of Giving’" at The Washington Post "What must be operating in the minds of those who hold this view is a premise that too much success, too much acumen, and too much foresight with the goal of maximizing revenue and minimizing costs must be wrong." -- Amesh Adalja, in "Too Big to Profit?" at Forbes My Two Cents There is lots of great commentary linked above, but if I had to read only one article, it would definitely be the Schwartz piece on Christmas. I think Peter Schwartz did a superlative job of showing the reader the importance and humanity of selfishness. How They Crank 'Em Out A writer confronted with the new task of writing scripts for a comedy series tells us what he learned from his initial research: This structure is so formulaic that you’d think it would suck the fun out of writing and watching such shows, but it does nothing of the sort. While knowing the code it changes the way I watch TV, it only increases my admiration for the good writers who do so much within relatively strict confines. Just as interesting is how Noah Charney reached his conclusion, -- CAV Link to Original

1. Have you made -- or are you thinking about making -- a new year's resolution? If so, Jean Moroney of Thinking Directions offers some excellent advice in that department: Moroney's subsequent advice reminds me of the general goal-setting acronym, S.M.A.R.T., as well as of why, until recent years, I regarded the whole practice of making such resolutions with a jaundiced eye. Most people get caught up in an emotion and basically wish some problem away in the form of a resolution. But real change takes planning, which requires attention to specifics informed by one's actual values. Once I contrasted the usual approach with occasionally taking stock, and adjusting one's actions accordingly, I realized that New Year's resolutions could have real value. 2. One of the more bizarre exports of American pop culture that I have ever heard of is how Colonel Sanders became Father Christmas in Japan: Once I got over the strangeness of this, I marveled at what a marketing success this has been for KFC. 3. This is an oldie, but a goodie: Signature of a Medieval Illiterate. 4. I enjoy the Q&A sessions podcast by Leonard Peikoff, but my routine makes it difficult for me to follow podcasts. That's why I was excited to learnrecently that there is now a searchable index to these podcasts. -- CAV Link to Original

As my wife finishes her medical sub-specialty training, we each face a job hunt during the coming year. Along with that pursuit come the usual concerns about cost-of-livingand quality of life, along with the increased difficulty of two professionals coordinating a job hunt. Viewed in that light, the thought of telecommuting is tantalizing. Unfortunately, it is still largely ... just a thought. Few companies take advantage of the new technologies that make remote employment possible -- including those located in one of the most expensive places on earth to live, California's Bay Area: If 95% of great programmers aren't in the US, and an even higher percentage not in the Bay Area, set up your company to take advantage of that fact as a strength, not a weakness. Use WordPressand P2, use Slack, use G+ Hangouts, use Skype, use any of the amazing technology that allows us to collaborate as effectively online as previous generations of company did offline. Let people live someplace remarkableinstead of paying $2,800 a month for a mediocre one bedroom rental in San Francisco. Or don’t, and let companies like Automatticand Github hire the best and brightest and let them live and work wherever they like. As tech blogger Matt Mullenweg indicates, the idea is controversial despite the advantages he stresses. Indeed, Marissa Meyer had her reasons for ending Yahoo's popular work-from-home policy shortly after she took the helm. Sooner or later, innovations in management will catch up to those in technology, but we're clearly not there yet. -- CAV Link to Original

Bluntly speaking of "white liberals us[ing] black people", Walter Williams likens the relationship between the left and black Americans to that between a hunter and a stalking horse: Williams then walks us through a few examples, each already outrageous taken alone, before concluding: I agree with everything in Williams' timely article except his adoption of the conventional label "liberal" to describe leftists. That term once referred to pro-capitalists, and derives from the Latin for "free". Even if pro-capitalists deemed the term too ill-used to save, it remains too good for the left to use without protest. -- CAV P.S. Speaking of leftists and protests, and as further proof for something I relayed recently, Jim Holt reportsthat many of the signs carried by the various anti-police protesters across the country are being supplied by an outfit called the "Revolutionary Communist Party". Link to Original