Technology and schools…rookie mistakes

Last night I saw a special on the OLPC computers in our area, and whether they’re making a difference. The results seemed to be disappointing.

Then today I saw this article today about how a school board had made a bad hardware decision and had to void a contract. It contained this quote at the end:

“Some parents weren’t happy about the program, judging by comments left on stories at local news outlets. Some kids’ grades have slipped, one comment said, “because it has become TOO important to socialize on the netbook and not turn in assignments or even do the required work.”

Read more: Indiana school district fights HP over netbooks – San Francisco Business Times “

When I was in 6th grade, our middle school had a big room full of TRS-80 computers. It was impressive, but for the most part the school had no idea what to do with them. We would do these little math quizzes and such, but a few of us spent most of our time hacking them to give us arbitrarily good grades on the quiz.

Thus, there seems to be an built-in rookie mistake in most school systems, which is to place the strategic technology thinkin’ on the hardware and not the software. They seem to be buying these things with very little strategic thought with regard to what they’ll be used for.

If the students are using them for facebook, games, etc. It’s not because they’re slackers. It’s because the slacker software is very well spec’d, designed, written, and implemented. Facebook has scads of developers. I’d wager that most of the educational software is either non-existent or just plain bad in these “every kid gets a laptop” plans.

(In many business organizations, technology is seen as a supporting role. Maintain the printers. Replace a bad network card. Implement software some other department decided on. Personally, I see technology as a huge strategic advantage. A company that integrates tech knowhow into it’s strategic thinking and decision making can absolutely whollop competition through better performance and cost savings. Technology shouldn’t be seen as the cost of doing business, it should be seen as a way to outthink your opposition.)

This is not to say that all schools are like this. While touring my alma mater for our 20 year reunion, it was clear that the rooms full of macs were being used for a purpose (multimedia, etc), and that there was an agenda at work.

It seems to me there needs to be a strategic role for technology in educational planning. Otherwise a ton of money is being wasted and alot of folks are getting rich gaming the system.

The E-Reader Wars

The e-reader wars have begun. Apples iBook/iPad combo is the media darling, but the rest of the world is rapidly comoditizing in response.. B&N’s nook, Amazon’s Kindle, and Sony’s ‘something’ have all had prices slashed lately. (I would say the name of Sony’s reader except they’d probably require a royalty on the intellectual property.) B&N takes the threat so seriously that they’re basically selling out to the e-future, losing millions to make sure their reader is prominent.

Since I’m paid to be a strategic I.T. person, I see a huge potential for the corporate world. I’d love to use these readers in our various board and committee meetings, which would avoid all that paper and make a more effective meeting. So we’ll be purchasing a demo unit of all the popular readers to see how they would display these documents.

Well, we’ll try all of them except the Kindle. The Kindle doesn’t support the formats we need. It’s basically a one-show pony and only really works with the Amazon store.

Which gets to the first major problem with all these e-readers. They are not conceived and produced as e-readers. They’re primarily e-storefronts for the various companies that make them. There is some notion of an interchangeable product, but it’s still locked down to the whims of the “content providers”.

Media players (iPods, etc) took off because the companies had no choice. People were going to be making mp3′s and playing no matter what. These mp3′s would play on anything that supported the format, and if you wanted to catch that wave you had to make an mp3 player. In this way, Napster set the stage for the iPod.

There is no such analog in the book world. There are not hordes of book lovers loading their paperback collection into book readers. You can download bootleg books, but the majority of folks will be building the collections via purchase…and the occasional Gutenburg freebie.

This will severely curtail the growth of the e-reader market. And you have to wonder how much time they have to capture the imagination of readers. Even with the price cuts, you can buy 15 books and an e-reader….or 30 books. That decision is going to be way too easy for most folks.

And what about libraries? Are you going to be able to borrow an e-copy of a book? Nah, there’s just still too much retail design in the e-reader market. I wonder if anyone has even thought of the corporate document angle?

I do like the Nook so far. I’ll post a full review later after I’ve had a chance to look at the other options. But no matter what people say it’s not going to surpass regular books any time soon.

Meanwhile, I have been going through a couple thousand comics at home. I did this about the time I saw the Marvel comic app for the iPad. Which led to some further thoughts about digital formats…but that’s for another post.

Requiem of the Blue Chair

There was a funny routine in interactions with my father-in-law. It is funny to me now because of how consistent it was. It happened after most visits where we had a sit-down lunch or dinner.

First, we’d go into the living room and sit in front of the TV in the two blue recliners. Many times we’d have ice cream and/or coffee. Golf would be on. Recliners would be engaged.

Then we’d talk about what was going on with jobs (or college, back in the day). He’d always be interested, with the sly implication that he was making sure that I was taking care of his daughter. As such, there was always some advice or input. Some of it was a bit too conservative for my taste, other times it was really excellent guidance particularly with regard to management and career strategy.

When the ice cream was finished, I’d set my empty bowl down on the coffee table in between the blue chairs. My intent was to return it to the kitchen in a few minutes, but my father-in-law would usually take both his and mine in before that.

About this time I would pick up the paper, which was always lying on the floor in front of the chairs. My father in law would say “hey, you need some light, don’t you?”

I’d say that I was fine, but he’d go turn on the light anyway. Over the years, in the houses where there were several switches, he’d hit the ceiling fan or other lights at random until the right one came on. Isn’t it strange that no matter how long we’ve lived in a house, we still have to hunt for the right switch when there are more than two?

Then after reading some newspaper and perhaps discussing the electronics in the Best Buy ads, he’d give me the TV remote and we’d both either doze off or keep talking about things for a little while longer. If a golf tournament was on we’d discuss golf, even though I’m a terrible golfer. Other times the kids would lobby for Spongebob which meant naptime for the adult males.

This routine occurred in some variant from the time I was 17 years old, which is almost 20 years.

I never realized it was a routine until a couple weeks ago when I sat down in that blue recliner with ice cream in hand and a paper at my feet. While the quiet noise of NickJr. echoed through the dim room, I ate ice cream alone.

Latest economic numbers are in

Kinda sad…if you’re one of those people into thriving economies of liberty and democracy.

I maintain that all of this talk about “when things get better” and “when the economy improves” are missing a key component: how?

I believe our economy is:

* Too dependent on government spending (Thanks Dems!)
* Way too biased toward established mega-business (Thanks Reps!)
* Gutting it’s manufacturing base (which results in over-dependence on consumption and debt)
* Way too engineered by elected officials. (Thanks everyone!)

All of these characteristics work toward one result–”bye bye growth”.

Now granted, growth has it’s own set of problems. But our economic model currently depends on it, and before you change that you better understand the implications. But it’s kinda hard to get that picture when several generations have only had half the pieces to the puzzle.

It looks like the Rep’s are going to make significant gains in Congress, partially due to this mess and partially due to the President’s Quixotic health care efforts.

This will not improve anything. It will just result in more anti-growth policies of a different tact. Meanwhile, the sea keeps receding towards the debt tsunami just over the horizon.

When Al met Tipper

So this is kind of old news. But I’ve been thinking about it for awhile.

Because if you value marriage (your own, or in general) it’s important to think about why a 40 year marriage would end. I look at my wife and I know I want to be with her rockin’ on the front porch, or wheelin’ around an old folks home, or doing whatever it is that the elderly will do when we’re old. Which is in…um….a few years. Unless you count our recent date to Cracker Barrel and Hobby Lobby, in which case the future is now.

After examining family history and current trends, I’m pretty sure she’ll be in some sort of scooter and I’ll have completely lost my mind. Hopefully her scooter will be the levitating kind and I’ll have a genetically engineered cyborg service monkey to remember things for me. If not, then we’re going to need each other. If so, then holy crap…I want her to be there when I say “I told you so!”

Either way, it’s us until the end.

This might be something specific to my generation or just folks I know, but many of us have seen that careers, money, politics, houses, cars, etc. are really dumb things to get married to. And yes, people try to do that. Over-commitments to these are temporary and in the meantime they enslave you.

When the proverbial stuff hits the fan (or just ends up in a pair of Depends), you have your relationships–with God and with each other–and whether or not you believe there’s anything after that, those are far more rewarding.

So why do long term marriages end? We’ve all seen short relationships fueled by emotion and feeling that dissipate pretty quickly in vague I-don’t-love-you-anymore’s. But what can terminate a relationship that was by appearances based on commitment and by fact endured for decades?

I have no idea about any of the specifics regarding our former VP and his wife. But I do know that whatever happened is probably the result of decisions and behaviors over those years and decades. These things don’t just suddenly happen.

As you start to examine the lives of yourself and others, it’s amazing how decisions early on can drastically affect the years to come. Often decisions with negative consequences are made when things are going really well. Song of Songs 2 speaks of the “little foxes” that attack a garden when things are in bloom.

Proverbs 5 contains a pretty heavy set of warnings about consequences. These warnings are generally regarding the disasters from infidelity (loose cars, fast women in particular). These are big things, and obviously when you take a hammer to commitment it can fail suddenly. But what about little day-to-day things?

Proverbs 5, does say one thing that I have taken to heart in regard to this. When the Verse 18 says “may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.” I think it’s saying something regarding consequences of day to day behaviors. Early in our relationships, just about everything is about the other person. Generally we’re out to impress them, cater to them, and show them our best. We want to hang out with them. We bathe. We buy stuff and write things to them and let them know we’re thinking about them.

In short, we were youth and we were rejoicing like a Bryan Adams song. We were probably a bit cheesy and over-the-top.

Yet these are the behaviors of our youth. Why would we abandon them? Have we gotten so busy with kids, jobs, and life in general that we didn’t even realize they stopped? Have we equated maturity with a more stoic interaction? Are we avoiding problems that are much more serious than we want to admit? Have we devolved into desperate security?

There could be many reasons, but it’s a worthwhile exercise to take stock of our daily investment in our marriages. Is it rejoicing?

After consideration of these, I believe that a long term marriage doesn’t end at the end. It ends in the middle and just takes that long to ultimately wind down. The way to prepare for weeks, years and decades ahead is with decisions now. Take some time and/or money each day and week to devote it to your marriage. Make the decision to put some joy in it.

Because a cyborg service monkey is no comfort to an old man, no matter how awesomely cool!

The Approaching Hope of Habakkuk

So I’ll admit, the last post was a bit of an exercise in tone. Some of the most informative sites I’m reading seem to specialize in a cynical and pessimistic tone. Unfortunately, most of these sites have been an excellent predictor of the increasingly wobbly economy. Certainly better than the commoditized status quo of CNN/Fox, and just about anything is better than the Rah-Rah of CNBC. So I wanted to try my hand a bit.

However, “to the bitter end” conveys an excessively worldly approach on it’s own. So I figured I’d round it out with a little absolute Truth. Fortunately, Chris’ sermon on Sunday provided excellent material.

Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls,18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation! 19 The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! For the Chief Musician; with my stringed instruments.

Personally, I think “the bitter end” of what we’re doing is going to ultimately a good thing. Our failed experiment in government-god, fueled by cheap debt and energy, has left us much worse off than we know. It’s time to end it and start being human again, for better or worse.

And, no..this is not some nihilist view that it’s all about to go to crap and never come back. It’s not even a Christian view that we’re in the end times and that it’s all going to crap in preparation for the second coming (although the blood red oil in the gulf, frogs in Greece, earthquakes, etc. do look very end-times-ish).

History is chock full of “bitter ends”, followed up with rebuilding periods of varying lengths and implications. If we are indeed about to see one as I think, it will be an extraordinary opportunity to build something better. And besides, no amount of socioeconomic junk has ever stopped the cause of Christ…even when people have tried to stamp His name on it.

Through it all, God is sovereign and we can and will rejoice in the Lord. No matter what happens we know who’s running the show. And our cup is always overflowing.

The Approaching Tragedy of Keynesianism

Just a refresher course: We are currently firmly ensconced in the loving shadows of a relatively recent economic theory called Keynesianism. In a nutshell, Keynesianism is a tacit rejection of free market economics, instead relying on government (or other monetary overlords) to actively jump in and out of an economy to make sure “Good Things” happen. By “Good Things” we mean people spend to oblivion to make sure the economy is moving….(these are all my definitions, not Keynes’)

It can be seen as a competitor to Supply Side economics which, while more recent label than Keynesianism, is considered by some to be the engine that built the (formerly) best economies in history–with the help of a whole lotta cheap energy. Supply side economics has slowly had it’s tail handed to it over the last few decades…

…because free market supply-siders sold their soul to wealth accumulation short cuts, trading the basic principles we learned in Henry Ford’s factory for policies that looked like supply side, but weren’t. Flattening out the tax curve does not mean that extra money at the top end will automagically build a factory. People figured this out pretty quickly and the Keynesians made wild progress by calling supply-siders “trickle-downers”.

Of course this only ruined the party for a little while. Trickle-downers soon realized it was a whole lot easier to accumulate gobs of money in a command style stimulating economy. They kept their supply side tattoos for nostalgia, but settled in to the cheap money party just as easy as everyone else…more easy, even.

So instead of building factories whose workers can afford to buy the very products it produces–you take those jobs, move them to factories with the overhead of Mola Ram’s Temple of Doom. Then give your former workers a “service job” and a credit card and convince yourself that the “information economy” means something. A few Ivy Leaguer’s and sharp country boys get rich on finance charges and naked body scanner patents. And when things don’t look so good, just tweak the “seasonal adjustments”.

It’s demand-side genius until the credit is used up.

Boom, everything grinds to a halt, the Keynesian Cult starts chanting “Stim-u-lus…Stim-u-lus…” We all buy iPhone apps that flash “when things turn around…..” on the screen while any true wealth producing industry crashes and burns in bubbles of increasing frequency. A generation that has grown up under this hollowed out debt feuled economy doesn’t see how insane this is. The stock market will go up. It always has.

Meanwhile, the intoxicating smell of free money becomes irresistable to politicians. Keynesian money injections get you elected, especially when they are legitimate, named applications of the economic theory. But hey…doesn’t really matter what you call it as long as they’re building a shovel-ready bridge or a jetfighter in the district.

And before you get to anti-politician, remember this is a completely rational response on their part. We vote that way.

Then slowly but surely the overall market realigns itself around the characteristics of Keynesian policies. No matter what fancy pants economists say, there is always a market. We saw it as our focus on consumption allowed huge swaths of manufacturing to be moved overseas. We see this today as the labor market is being converted to a great cinderblock warehouse of entitlements, defense contracts, and transfer payments.

And unfortunately because the government is the Great Decider in this market, lots of rich and powerful entities will latch on to the government to ensure that “Good Things” are the kinds of things that make them even more rich and powerful. Expect to see huge accumulations of wealth and income disparity as the government decides more and more. The hilarious thing about this is that they’re plowing that wealth into the very dollar they’re exploiting.

Contemporary liberals will mistake the gas for the brake pedal and attempt to remedy this with even more government control. Contemporary conservatives will all apply at Haliburton and Goldman Sachs in the hope of working for government one day. The citizens of the U.S., now primarily consumers, will continue to hang Chinese-made flags out on the 4th of July until grandmom’s social security check bounces. Then everyone will get all mad, go to a tea party meeting, and vote radically the same in the next election. Because no matter the rhetoric, we’re all dedicated Keynesians now. Dedicated to the bitter end.

Reflections on A Commute to Elementary School

So this morning I drove my daughter and son to school for the last time. No, not the last time, of course, but definitely the last time in this particular way.

For the last 6 years it’s been my daddy duty and joy to drive my kids to school. It started when it was just my daughter going to 5k.

It was a traumatic time for her, as little brudder had just arrived. She was faced with a completely changed childhood; 5 years old and driving off to “big school” while this new, invader baby got to stay home with mommy. During this time there was a certain point on the drive where she would softly start to whimper and cry…quietly because she didn’t want me to notice. By the time I got to carpool line it was nearly sobbing, and I had to let her leave the car with tears streaming down her face.

We had to reassure ourselves that she was going to be ok….that she wasn’t going to end up in prison someday telling Nightline about how her parents made her go to school. My wife and I were both first born, and we’d turned out ok….uh…didn’t we?

This lasted for a month or two until it slowly subsided. Fortunately by the time the year ended she was happily bounding off to kindergarten.

For the next couple years the drive ranged from quiet and pensive to loud and giggly. Sometimes she would stare out the windows or make shadows in the sunlight as it flickered through the trees. Other times she would quietly hum or sing loudly. And of course there were the times where she’d stream endless words at her dad about any subject in particular. Later on if she was quiet I knew she was studying for a test that day.

We’d often make up songs, some of which are long forgotten. Others will live forever, such as the Lamby Song, the Guinea Pig Song, and the Squeaky Mouse Song. There’s also a song about a renegade, law breaking bus driver we saw, but that one probably won’t make the cut!

In 4th grade, the drive changed–in a good way–as Brudder became old enough to ride to 4k at the same school. This added a whole new dimension of fun as the assertions of a strong willed 4 year old boy intersected with the reasoning of a dominant older sister. As before, any given day was different. Sometimes they wouldn’t say a word. Other times they’d have very in depth discussions. Sometimes they’d fight. Other times they’d sing.

From the beginning Sister would help Brother (most of the time without prompting) by buckling his seatbelt, holding on to his backpack, and carrying it for a short time at school. But soon Brother was doing all of this himself, and one day sister exclaimed that he was faster than she was at buckling his seatbelt. They both figured out the exact time they needed to unbuckle, which was shortly after the real road but early enough to give them time to get prepared for departure. We’d all chant “uuuuunnn…..buckle!” as we passed this point.

One day we had to take a different route to school because of traffic, and once Brother knew about this route he would lobby for it in his simple style. “Can we turn left today, dad?” It became his way of making the drive ‘ours’. If we had enough time I’d usually take this route when he brought it up. Around this point of the trip I’d always ask them “what are you going to learn today?” Together they finally saw the flaw in this question. I can’t remember which, but the reply was “I don’t know because we haven’t learned it yet”.

As she’d slide out of the car I’d notice the little toys my daughter had clipped to her backpack….a small stuffed dog, an R2-D2 toy, all sorts of random things that I knew would soon be gone because they wouldn’t be “cool”. God had blessed us with the ability to give her a happy and carefree childhood. And I thanked Him every day for that.

Then when my son would leave the car (after sister because he always got in first), there was a little smirk on his face as all sister’s friends would come over and give him hugs. “He’s so cute!” they would say, and I realized that having an older sister was going to be a huge advantage for my son one day. After they left, I’d loop around and glance over as they’d happily walk in.

This routine has been one of the most fun and rewarding experiences of my life. I know that next year will start it’s own set of routines and joys, but they won’t be like this was.

As I’ve said before, we tend to think time flies and that the best things are ahead of us or behind us….but if we just pay attention to right now, we’ll see that the best is in the present. Time doesn’t go so fast when you slow down and realize that wherever you are, these are the best years of our lives.

C’mon…are we really socialist?

Not that Obama has violently overthrown the bourgeoisie with his rag-tag band of suicidal Democrat proletariat workers, it’s not uncommon to hear that we are now in a “socialist country”. I would submit that this is not the case.

First of all, a socialism and/or communism generally have a policy of seizure and redistribution that applies to people who have already been born. In our case, most of of the money we’ll be spending (over the long haul due to interest) will be paid by future generations (either directly or via inflation). This is not socialism. It’s a pretty brilliant new conflict theory, but not socialism.

Second, socialism generally has a plan. Our government is clearly making this stuff up as it goes along…although like soc/communism there are people getting mega-rich in the process.

So while I don’t think we’re anything close to a socialist nation, I do think we are definitely entering an era of a “Command/Control” style economy.

All cats are animals, but not all animals are cats. Similarly, socialist economies are generally command/control economies, but not all command/control economies are socialist. So it’s a fallacy to to think that just because our government is increasingly legislating the minutiae of our economy, that this style must be socialism.

But they are legislating the minutiae of our economy. And it won’t be long before everything is defined in the lawbooks.

Want an example? Check out the laws on credit/debit cards. That’s right, the same political entity that told King George to go jump, who wrote the Bill of Rights, expanded our country and enshrined our freedom in Constitution and Law…is now writing a law that will make it possible for merchants to require minimums for credit card purchases.

This is a law. Think about that….not a regulation. A law. And it’s digging down into the nitty gritty details of how even the most basic transaction can occur.

Everywhere you look, energy, healthcare, telecom, the automotive industry, banking….everything, is slowly being installed into an economic framework wholly defined by laws. Very soon (if not already) we will be working in an economy that is set up and functionally defined by politically designed laws that are very difficult to change, much less eliminate.

If this had happened earlier, by law we’d still be riding horses.

Back in middle school (during the cold war) we actually learned about how these command/control style governments were bad and how free market capitalism was going to kick their tail. Apparently not all middle schools were teaching this.

When you combine the looming energy crisis, the eventual debt disaster of the Federal Gubmint, and the collapsing market efficiency of our command/control economy, it’s pretty clear we’re headed for a really dark period of American history. Hey, it happens. Let’s just hope there is some sort of eventual rational response that doesn’t end up in a huge, terrible war.

Utopia = Broke

A decade or so ago, when comprehensive health care policy began to really take center stage, it was not uncommon to hear something like “well look at Europe, they have a centralized government sponsored health care system, and none of the doomsday scenarios have come true!”

This point was notably absent in the most recent healthcare debate. This was primarily because there wasn’t really a debate–more of a rapid expenditure of political capital to ratify a bazillion pages of text as law–but it was also because Europe had actually started wobble pretty badly economically.

One person on Facebook tried to use that argument a few months back, and I said something to the effect of “If you read what’s going on over there, actually it is starting to cause major problems…it’s starting with Greece and will continue to Spain, Portugal, and throughout Europe”. And here we are. Europe is facing it’s very own collapse, and there are rumors that they will announce their own massive bailout this week….a bailout that will rival the U.S. bailout in 2008.

Basically what’s happened is that European countries have bankrupted themselves due to Socialist utopian policies (with a little bit of corruption tossed in). And I’m not just shouting “socialist” for effect here…that’s the name of the ruling parties. They call themselves that. Over there they don’t mind the term.

Granted, such a collapse would not be completely due to health care. Health care is only one of the policies that is bankrupting them. But the lesson is clear. Populist/utilitarian and government-centric policies can use debt to skirt the economic concept of scarcity for awhile, but sooner or later debt won’t work. Then you have:

A) a bunch of people who lent money to a supposedly secure and trustworthy government who now have nothing to show for it
B) an economy dependent on government spending that suddenly disappears.
C) a bunch of people that require government to survive (literally)

Then everything goes crazy while the socioeconomic and political layout is up for grabs. Riots in Greece are just starting.

The EU is a little different in that no individual state controls the money. This forces the situation to resolve more quickly because the country can’t just print money to pay the debt. Thus they have to either restructure their entire worldview or find someone else to foot the bill for a little longer.

The UK will last a bit longer with the pound because it’s their own money. They’ll try to fix things internally and it won’t be so obvious.

Like the U.S. bailout, a European bailout will simply kick the proverbial can down the road with more and more debt. The clock is ticking on all this. The can will hit the wall.

Really? A note?

Today at lunch someone had left a very nasty note on my wife’s windshield about her parking job.

What made it amusing was that the parking job was fine. I’m very OCD when it comes to parking, and in this case it was almost perfect other than being a few inches closer on the left side.

Just makes you wonder, what kind of terrible life must a person lead to take the time to write such a mean spirited note? And how bad would it have to be to try and ruin someone’s day for little or no reason? What kind of issues must they have?

Today is national day of prayer. Send one up for that poor soul.

Our DTR Story

So this morning our pastor preached again on Ruth, and brought up the concept of a “DTR” between Ruth and Boaz. When he said this, my wife started nodding her head in recognition, which usually means that I’m completely clueless on whatever’s being preached on.

In this case, this was absolutely true. DTR stands for Define The Relationship–an episode in which one person (usually the lady) looks at the other and says “ok….where is this relationship going!?!??!” It can also be a friend who snaps a Z and says “girlfriend, when’s he gonna put a ring on that finger?”, and possibly if she’s evil “what has he done for you lately?”

My wife then reminded me of our own DTR experience, which I will now log for eternity on the Internet. Enjoy, grandchildren.

Our DTR occurred in 1993 at Cheeburger Cheeburger in Auburn, AL.

In this episode of Great DTR’s in History, a sweet, blonde, freckled type A girlfriend looked at her helpless oblivious boyfriend and basically said “so are you ever going to ask me to marry you?”. The boyfriend, clearly not prepared for the conversation, simply started laughing. Experts in human behavior would compare this action to a caveman accidentally charging a mastodon. Or maybe setting himself on fire. Or setting himself on fire and charging a mastodon.

The conversation escalated while the girlfriend became more and more agitated. Meanwhile, the boyfriend just kept on chuckling. Finally, the girlfriend left in disgust while the boyfriend went home and tried to figure out what to do.

Why would an otherwise intelligent boy engage in such suicidal behavior?

The problem facing the boyfriend was that he had just recently made the large purchase of a diamond engagement ring. He had done this after going into a bank with his father (as cosigner) to commit a couple years of minimum wage labor to finance the goods. Additionally, he had gone up to the workplace of the girl’s father to ask the man’s blessing on a marriage engagement (which the boy received).

The ring for various reasons was being shipped to his grandmother’s house. So there was no flexibility in popping the question.

In short, this poor guy was so worried that he would somehow spill the beans or otherwise telegraph his master plan that his little brain could just muster a laugh. It was all he could do to hide his emotions!

Eventually she forgave me, and we got engaged in February 1994 on the way to a sting concert. The rest is history.

Thinking of the Oil Rig Explosion

A little over a week ago, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform asploded in the gulf, and two days later (on Earth Day) it collapsed and sank. This left several people dead, as well as a large tube in the bottom of the ocean presumably looking like an out of control garden hose–bleeding large amounts of oil into the gulf of Mexico.

The initial reports downplayed this leak, but I initially thought “is *any* amount of oil ok? Turns out, it’s much worse than initially reported.

If you’re in your mid thirties or so, the Exxon Valdez is the benchmark for oil-related accidents. In sheer volume of oil, this disaster will match the Valdez very quickly.

Valdez: 11 million gallons of oil
Deepwater Horizon will hit that in roughly a month and a half.

And to put it in perspective, Prince William Sound is larger than the gulf: 3000-5000 miles of shoreline vs about 2000 miles of US Gulf Coast.. 500-800 miles of PWS were affected by the Valdez. In other words, this will be more oil in less space.

The well is 35,000 feet deep, and 4000 feet of that is in the water. (for a comparison, the Titanic is 13,000 feet deep). It’s unclear how long it will take to ‘fix’ this problem. But if it takes several months this will be one of the worst disasters of any kind…ever.

Personally, all of this freaks me out. My mothers side of the family is from the panhandle of Florida, and beach trips have been a staple my whole life. It’s sickening to think of those environments being exposed to tens of millions of gallons of crude oil.

But from a general analysis…a few things are interesting to me about this. First, it’s interesting how such an epic disaster could sneak up on us like this. In two days oil will be washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico. Wha? With all of our information-age bells and whistles, how was the potential for disaster not immediately apparent?

Second, this illustrates that not all oil is created equally. It’s very difficult to get some oil, very easy to get other oil. Most of the “easy” oil is going away. So when some company says they’ve found a huge reserve, this doesn’t necessarily mean our thirst for oil-based energy will benefit. It used to cost a couple bucks per barrel in Saudi Arabia. Now some places are spending 50-60 and more. 35,000 feet under the Gulf can’t be cheap.

Third thing is a test of “Oil Pollution Act of 1990″, passed as a result of the Exxon spill in Alaska. I’m all for low regulation and pro-business policies. But liability and risk should be a part of those calculations. Will this and other laws extract substantial enough amounts of cash from BP? Will it be severe enough so that spill prevention tech is a worthwhile investment? Will BP try to avoid it’s responsibility, or will it be “too big to fail”.

Lastly: the explosion. While this platform had a history of problems, it was not some minor facility. It had just drilled the deepest oil well ever. It was presumably well known in the industry. Now there’s a huge unexplained explosion that:

a) kills people
b) halts some rather significant policy initiatives regarding domestic oil drilling
c) creates a huge natural disaster of historic proportions
d) will result in substantial financial losses for large multinational company

Doesn’t that seem strange? I know there will be plenty of response to the disaster, but I hope there are some Federal agencies taking a keen interest into the cause of that fire. Sometimes a platform explosion is just an explosion. But it does seem a little too worst case.

Hoover City Tax Extension?

Last night we went to our daughter’s future school for information on enrollment for next year. We were extremely impressed, and are really looking forward to our daughter’s experience there.

During the presentation we were asked several times to vote for a tax extension on April 27th.

The tax extension will extend a property tax from 17 to 36 additional years, which will enable them to refinance debt that was originally used to build a substantial chunk of very advanced (and apparently effective) educational infrastructure. They talked about the cash flow, and that refinancing would free up 6 million dollars for new teachers, etc.

So it seemed like a great idea as presented, but this is not the freewheeling, borrowing times of the 1990′s or early 2000′s where debt was no big deal. As our effectively bankrupt county illustrates, refinancing debt can get a municipal governments in a heap of trouble. The City of Hoover is obviously a tighter ship than the county, but it’s still a dangerous world for governments and debt.

There are plenty of things a government can do to raise cash and hire teachers. But are they all good things? I wanted to find out exactly what the numbers were with this refinancing. Are we being asked to make great short term choices at the expense of long term flexibility? Or is the rate environment so favorable that this is a no-brainer? Are we shoveling more debt on future residents or is it a wash?

Unfortunately there’s not much of information out there. The only number you see consistently is the increased cash flow (approximately 6 million dollars per year), and that’s troubling. In the world of debt you can easily make a boneheaded long term decision for increased cash flow.

The only numbers I saw were these from this article:

The school system spends about $16 million per year making payments on that debt. On a per-student ba­sis, Hoover schools spend more on debt service than any other system in the state, Craig said.

The school system’s debt now is scheduled to be paid off in 17 years. With an ex­tension of the 24-mill tax, the system could stretch out that debt over a 30-year term, lowering payments to an estimated $10 million to $13 million per year during tough financial times.

(first of all, that 10-13 million dollar figure illustrates some spin of the message. It looks like saving 6 million per year is the high estimate and 3 million is the conservative estimate).

Other than the sample ballot, I can’t find any further info on the tax at the hoover web site.

Using this info as a blunt estimator, the cost of refinancing is as follows:

Current total payments (17 years X 16 million) = 272 million dollars
Optimistic extension estimate (30 years X 10 millioin) = 300 million dollars
Conservative extension estimate (30 years X 13 million) = 370 million dollars

So there you have it….extending this debt will cost anywhere from 28 million more dollars to 98 million more dollars over the term. Assuming this info as presented is reliable.

One thing should be clear, the city wouldn’t be saving any money. They’d be lowering the payments.

The problem I have is that this is a pretty broad range of figures. And it’s a large amount of additional money at the conservative end of the estimate. I’m also not comfortable with the presented 6 million figure (which seems variable), since we really don’t know what the final cash flow will be.

Lastly, the assertion that the money will be used for teachers is questionable…it’s my understanding that the money can be used for anything the city wants. As I said, we were very impressed with the school and staff and clearly we should give them every tool we can to educate our chillun’s.

But are we taking tools away from future generations with this decision? I realize dumping junk on future generations is the American way, but if that’s what we’re doing we should at least know how and how much before we vote.

I guess this is just a large amount of money to be throwing around in a small municipal vote during a severe recession. It could have significant implications down the road, and I don’t think we’re being given complete information. We see the catastrophic results that can occur. I hope this choice is being made in an intelligent way.

Taming the Sinus Infection Beast

Yay! A positive post! A really positive post!

Over the last 10 years, I had developed a very bad sinus infection susceptibility. It had gotten so bad that I could count on at least 6 sinus infections all through the year. And these were bad…lasting a week or two with fever, loss of voice, etc.

Trips to the doctor really didn’t do much good. ENT’s basically said my physiology made it so that any problems would push me over the edge. When you depend on your voice, this life becomes a constant stress bomb. You start to plan out events and timeframes, watching the ‘event horizon’ of potential sickness and when you’ll be well again.

It also makes sinus surgery a risky proposition. You spend your whole life learning how to make things resonate correctly in your thick skull. Do you really want someone hacking away at it?

I was left to Z-Packs, Prednisone, and prayer….not in that order….and hope. I was hoping to just get them over with as quickly as possible.

Until this year. This year with the CD release concert I decided I was sick of living life in bondage to what was scientifically inferior organisms and theologically the product of sin and seperation. I was ready for my miracle, tired of payin’ my co-pays and just waitin’ for God to pull me through. I wanted to be more than a conqueror and claim these sinuses as echo chambers for victory.

And so far…it’s working! By now I would have had at least two major sinus events and misery. But I have had NONE. Zero. Nada. Not only that, but I feel great. Very little clicking and poping and icky feeling and general sinus ‘fliction.

Here’s how I’m doing it:

Alternating Zyrtec and Claritin. I’ve found Zyrtec to be more of a heavy hitter in the realm of antihistamines, but even that seems to wear off as your body builds up a resistance to it. Claritin is more hit and miss, but it works great as a buffer as you let your H1 receptors forget about that jerk Cetirizine molecule it used to date. After some time apart, “baby…I’ve changed”…..and Zyrtec is back in business.

A whole lotta Vitamin C. I like “Emergen-C”. The clever name never wears off, and it actually tastes like pop-rocks and Kool Aid. I’d probably drink it even if it didn’t have all that vitamin’y goodness. 2 to 3 doses of these a day seems to do the trick.

Sudafed. The real kind. On a day when my head seems determined to cause a problem, I hit it with a couple doses of red pills. The only problem with this is you have to go to the pharmacy counter and ask for it without looking like a meth head. So you try to get the 96 count packs that will last longer…which only makes it worse. Then you give in and start having fun with it. Jittery hands, darting eyes, and mumbling about the secret police will do the trick.

A Neti Pot. Yes, this is the weird one. But I think it’s the real deal, and probably the most effective part of my regimen. I actually poor salt water into my head and then let it drain out again. I do this every morning. It takes some getting used to but it has worked miracles. Once you get the temperature of the water right, it really doesn’t feel all that strange.

When you think about how much junk gets on our cars this time of year, imagine how much junk must be in our upper respiratory tract? It makes sense that this process helps. It’s a little weird, but it’s awesomely weird and I’ll take that any day.

So there you have it. Give this process a try, and maybe you’ll have success too!

Key point: The Operational vs. the Transformational

I’ve only been in the ‘official’ technology workforce for 15 years, but this is enough for me to sip a beverage, stare at the horizon and wax philosophical about the whole thing.

This involves pondering the patterns of the whole and of the parts, and the mechanics in which they interact. I’ve worked at no less than 8 companies (not including consulting) since 1995, and there has been much to see.

Here’s a key concept that, in retrospect, has shown itself many times. I doubt this observation is unique to me at all, but it’s fascinating to apply it to the world around. I’ll put it in italics so it looks real important:

The success of an organization depends on how it handles the difference and interaction between “operational” and “transformational” activities.

An operational activity is very simple. It involves doing the same tasks over and over very consistently and accurately. A bank teller, for instance, performs many tasks throughout the day….very accurately and consistently. A factory worker might assemble the same part over and over.

A transformational activity is deceptively simple. It takes something from one state, and changes it to another. A painter transforms. A car wash transforms.

These two aspects are very different. Yet they’re also very simple. Every activity can be labeled with one of these two categories. If it can’t, it can be broken down into sub-activities that fit.

..which is where most of the trouble begins. Activities are ‘nested’, which means that activities are made of sub-activities. From the atomic interactions of a cell in in a pilot’s arms, to the change in course of a bazillion ton 747, activities contain other activities.

Often activities contain radically different operational and transformational sub-activities. The car wash, for example, transforms many unique cars from dirty to clean. However, it does this very repetitively and with (hopefully) great operational accuracy.

This is important: Every time action passes from one nested action to the next, the different goals and traits must be seamlessly shifted. This shift routinely throws companies, churches, clubs, schools, banks, non-profits, and groups in general for a big loop.

It is not uncommon to see organizations ignore the shift altogether. Ever call customer support after a large company merger? Chances are that huge (probably individually profitable) transformation completely ignored the day-to-day operations involved in your call.

It is also common to watch organizations spend insane resources trying to make one type of activity act like another type. The federal government is great at operational concepts, but they’ll spend billions trying to transform in an operational way. It’s just not going to work. Instead of ‘nesting’ they just try to brute force it via reams of procedures.

You can also see this in how the government is trying to deal with terrorism. Shoe bomber? New operation: Check for shoe bombs! Liquid bomber? New operation: Ban liquids. If terrorists attack again, success will involve exploiting the disparity in transformational abilities and security operations.

When choosing leaders, management, or other decision makers (and we’re all leaders in some form or fashion), it’s important that they understand this concept. It’s also important to find people who understand their own personality and which way it leans. Most of us tend to find our comfort zone in one type of activity over another.

And that’s about it for a blog post. I could probably write a whole book on this concept alone, but I have some operational tasks to tend to.

April 15th – The budget deficit and why it is the end of (this) Democracy.

Just about every year around April 15th, I post my theory on why we have a national debt, and why that national debt will ultimately be the failure of theis particular grand experiment of democracy.

First things first, the cause of the uncontrollable national debt is the Congressional control and domination of the budgetary process. This started in the mid-1970′s with the creation of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as part of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

The Federal Budget was never meant to be a product of Congress. It was supposed to be produced by the Executive branch, then approved by Congress. Over the last few decades, this process has been replaced by the following process:

a) The president submits a budget.
b) Congress chuckles and cans the whole thing
c) Congress makes it’s own budget and submits it to the president with about 15 minutes to sign it.

Probably the last serious challenge to this fundamental change occurred with George Bush Sr. George went toe to toe with Congress, even threatening to shut the government down. He was slaughtered politically. It was clear at this point that Congress had secured a (probably permanent) political advantage with its control of the budgeting process. Couple this with the ability to borrow without consequence via self-regulated deficit spending, and the rest is (and will be) history.

The Congress was never designed (explicity or implicity) to control the kind of spending it does now, and as such it has developed this ability through political evolution. Those who spent, survived…those who saved didn’t.

Every politician has now learned that deficit spending is the way to get elected. So it really doesn’t matter who controls Congress at this point….it will spend freely to the maximum capability of our economy and beyond. As mentioned above, the office of the President has been made irrelevant so that doesn’t matter either.

Further, this mismatched functionality of the Congress has existed for so long that a majority of citizens were born after the presence of a systemic, increasing Federal debt in the mid 1970′s. It’s what we know, and there is no reason to see it as a problem.

For years the numbers have been rationalized as “percentage of GDP” and “constant dollars” etc. But all of these arguments failed to recognize or address the fundamental problem: Congress controls spending, and it is politically rewarded to spend more and take in less. There will be no change in this equation….ever….because there is substantial political dis-incentive to change it.

These arguments that the “debt isn’t that bad” make alot of sense, until they suddenly don’t. Most of the people who downplayed the debt/deficit are oddly quiet now. This should scare everyone. But it doesn’t because “hey…we’ve spent freely for decades without a problem…clearly it’s not going to hurt anything”.

Instead, we have a cultish, Keynesian analysis that ever increasing deficit spending is necessary for economic stimulus. I guess this is what happens when the consequences of policy occur generations after said policy is implemented.

Yet even the most conservative estimates on the debt rely on wildly outlandish wildcard figures (usually economic growth figures) that will send in the mathematical cavalry and save us all. Even if this did happen, Congress’ mismatched political goals will kick in and we’ll just spend more.

(And this doesn’t even take into account the amazing cheap energy benefits that are coming to an end).

So any honest look at the numbers shows that the U.S. will eventually outspend it’s ability to borrow, and will then be in a serious pickle as it either defaults on the debt or begins printing money to meet obligations. Either solution would result in a collapsed economy and Federal government due to hyper-inflation or the sudden disappearance of Federal dollars in the GDP, or both.

At that point it can be said that the grand experiment of American brand Freedom Democracy failed. Which is ok. Sociopolitical failure is part of history. Maybe our descendants will turn their minds toward divine providence again and build something better.

Cheery thoughts! I know. But human history is not generally a tale of long, blissful periods of stability. We’ve been very blessed to have avoided problems until now.

iPad….iStill don’t get it

OK, so this is not a slight to anyone getting an iPad. They’re very slick devices and obviously the conventional wisdom is that they’re awesome. But I gotta admit, they make no sense to me as a viable trend setting piece of technology.

Yes, the book reader is cool. Yes, you can stream movies. Yes, there will be cool apps for it. But all of these are true of a $300 netbook, which by Steve Job’s own criteria is the reason the iPad was invented.

So let’s look at some of the hardware comparisons. I’ll use an Asus Eee netbook from Best Buy.

Cost:
iPad $500
Eee $310

Screen:
iPad 9.7 inch – 1024×768
Eee 12.1 inch – 1366 x 768

Weight:
iPad 1.5 pounds
Eee 3 pounds

Ram:
iPad ???
Eee 1Gb

Storage (this is a big one):
iPad 16Gb
Eee 160Gb

GPS/Compass
iPad Yes
Eee No

Networking
iPad Wireless
Eee Wireless and wired

Camera
iPad No
Eee Yes

USB
iPad None
Eee 3

Battery
iPad 9-10 hours
Eee 6-7 hours (higher capacity available)

There’s more, but basically the only real hardware advantage is the cool touchscreen and the weight. And there are significant disadvantages in storage. Battery life is sorta an advantage, but you can get a high capacity battery for the Eee that will make it last 10-12 hours.

Then there’s the keyboard. Whereas people who use it say the iPad touchscreen keyboard is surprisingly good, it’s a pretty safe assumption that it’s not good enough to do a large amount of typing given the reviews. Then when you buy a bluetooth keyboard, all that convenience of a single touchscreen goes out the window.

Some people would argue that with the Eee you’re getting Windows, which is inferior to the iPad…but I completely disagree with this. We’re not talking Mac OS vs. Windows here. We’re talking iPhone OS vs fully featured Windows, and the iPhone OS has significant limitations that don’t impact phone usage–but are terrible for laptops.

The much-talked-about lack of multitasking is a big problem. You can’t run multiple programs at once.

The whole process of getting files in and out of the iPad is evidently a convoluted mess. If you type a document or make a presentation, you have to go through some procedures get the files out if you need to work on them somewhere else. The Eee supports thumb drives, external drives, etc. right on the laptop.

Also, with the Eee you can move files from your digital camera in less than a minute with the built in cardreader. I shudder to think of how long it would take to do this with an iPad without an accessory…and even if you have it I wonder how easy it is to move the files around. Ever tried managing photos on an iPhone? Good luck. This is only practical if they’ve done considerable re-engineering for iPad.

In short, iPhone OS is great for a little computer that fits in your pocket, and it soundly kicked the techno-hiney of any phone out there when it came out. But the shortcomings will make it very impractical for laptop-style computing over anything longer than the short term. I can just tell that any attempt to replace a laptop with an iPad would slowly fail through the attrition of convoluted inconvenience.

But it’s a great eBook reader. And it is. But that’s a pretty expensive eBook reader, and the jury is still out on eBooks with regard to how prevalent eBooks will be. Plus you can install several free ebook readers on a laptop.

Gaming will be awesome on the iPad. But it’s also awesome on a Nintendo DSi, which is much cheaper.

It just seems that beyond all the hype and whiz-bang, this device isn’t going to solve many of existing problems or be any better at critical, meat-and-potato tasks. It may create entirely new markets for certain software or media, and the nature of the interface may create some interesting new applications, but will these be big enough to justify huge numbers of sales that will “change computing as we know it”? That’s a tall order.

Double Good Friday

Today we went to two Good Friday services. One at our ‘old’ church and one at our ‘new’ church.

In a simple sentence: it was really great. Two completely different services with wildly different music and visuals. Yet Theology was identical, the topic was identical, and even the outlines of the service seemed to be nearly the same.

This week I have also enjoyed the richness of remembrance on the web via blogs, facebook, and tweets of people from other denominations and Christian groups. It’s been a true life study of Ephesians 4 and 5.

I know Good Friday can seem like an odd holiday for non-believers. But this is it in a nutshell: That God saw fit to save a hopeless people by sacrificing himself in our place. Today is the brutal and ugly part of that equation. But Sunday is on it’s way, and that’s when hope became clear.

It’s been awesome to observe and share that hope this week in it’s many facets yet singular purpose. How beautiful is the body of Christ!

New fuel standards

The latest directive from our command-and-control government is that vehicles should get 34 mpg by 2016.

Which makes me wonder if there will be a substantial aftermarket for increasing the ‘pep’ of cars after manufacture. Or if it will suddenly become economical to make wasteful electric cars.

In other words, there is clearly a market for people who want vehicles whose unique characteristics make it impossible to get 34 mpg. So make those things guzzle electricity instead of gas. All electric is green and efficient right?

It also means buy an SUV right now, because they’re gonna be golden in about 6 years.