Pem’s Tech Blog

My primary interest in career focuses more on learning (advancing my skills, knowledge, engineering, Computer Science) and development (ie, creating software).  I don’t have any special background or goals in terms of business or finances, outside of getting opportunities to advance my learning and chances to develop projects in my preferred specialization area(s).  Of course there are indirect practical enablers like having money and time and a better environment.

However, my day job exists in a business environment, and I realize that business and the free market is a great pragmatic way (and liberty-centric way) to enable me to advance my knowledge and do software development by working on things that are hopefully of value (at least by some marketplace).  Of course it also creates an environment where I can work with (and learn from) other engineering teammates, and of course earn an honest income.

Since I was doing some posts relating to Election 2012, I decided to waste some time watching some government and politics stuff on youtube.com, including the White House’s youtube.com channel.  I ended up watching a 2+ hour video, which I guess called “President’s Management Advisory Board Session”, which I guess is supposed to advise the President on managing the government and its employees as a business.  I took some notes, which I’ll paste here.

The first section of notes was more interesting, since they talked about using IT (computers, software, etc) more effectively for the USA federal government.  However, for some reason, I have longer notes for the second, imho much less exciting topic, which was about employee management, employee performance reviews, making (and dealing with) changes in a company.  It’s interesting to compare a business-centric meeting like this to political debates and political ads and public speeches.

President’s Management Advisory Board Session I, talked about IT:
* many of the people there were executives from IT companies (like IBM, Motorolla, Sprint) and hired contracts from IT companies like Cisco and Symantec
* create a work culture that encourages employees to be less afraid to take risks, to encourage innovation
* improving IT to enable huge improvements in efficiency and replace legacy systems with more efficient systems (such as moving backlogged Veteran’s benefits from paper to an efficient digital / computer / IT system, moved from 21 email systems to 1) (want to think of IT as less of a service and more of a core enabler)

President’s Management Advisory Board Session II, talked about Senior Management:
* talked about new employee performance review system; executives were all rated too high, didn’t have much relative performance rating, higher exec asks each of his/her managers to privately confidentially rank their people with 1on1 discussion (no made-in-advance PowerPoint or paper slides, just focused discussion) (and they get a color: green, red, or black) (and an action: develop, promote, move, or exit); the Motorola guy’s visibility was top 100 executives
* every other week, 90 min mtg, discuss 6 categories: financials, customers, competition, people, issues, announcements/events (example, moving away from SAP to some other system; make it less about sequential/event-driven)
* Red Cross (she was also at Fidelity) used to have no centralization, each Red Cross reported to its local board (650 financial systems, 650 HR policies, 650 IT groups, 650 websites, 200 online stores, decentralized procurement, etc); needed to make huge efficiency changes, become more cost-conscious and better stewards of the donor’s dollars; so they consolidated all of IT, all of HR, one treasury account and financial system, one website, etc; most employees care about the mission rather than the details of business, which is impractical, but they cared a lot when shown how much more efficiently they could use donor’s dollars for the Red Cross mission; some performance appraisals had too much emphasis on are they nice good decent vs. are they getting results; a culture of humanitarian aid where everyone loves each other needed to change to allow more honest performance discussions and critical feedback for improvement; they did 10% layoffs and claim 92% of every dollar goes to aid (to the people the Red Cross serves)
* funny fidelity customer service metric: they had a metric to track how fast the phone was answered, so a phone rep would quickly go "fidelity investments, can I put you on hold" as quickly as possible; so the metric wasn’t really measuring how well or fast they were answering customer questions
* obstacles to letting go and moving on to a new way of doing things (such as not wanting to move to a new employee performance review system)
* talked about how to evaluate/discuss to share and move employees across groups
* three simple questions: what did the person do well, where can they improve, what’s their development opportunity; also, ask them what they think they can do better; results matter more than effort or personal traits
* good CEO will both (have had experience in multiple different areas relevant to the specific company’s leadership) and (of course be able to manage leaders of the less familiar areas too)
* good employee should especially take notice/notes on advice for areas for development
* to galvanize genuine enthusiasm about change, need to clearly communicate the case (reasons, goals) for the change

Pem (Admin) :: 2011/11/08 (Tuesday, November 8, 2011) :: Other, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

If you’re naive like me, and assume that candidates for the President of the United States must be really smart and educated and sane people, then some of the views of the actual candidates might, at a times, look like a bit of a circus!

Of the 10 Republican candidates listed on wikipedia, I’ve X’ed out 4 of them based simply on being Creationist whack jobs. By Creationist whack job, I don’t simply mean they believe in some form of Creationism or Intelligent Design or Evolution with some form of religion or god(s) or spirituality involved. I mean something that is anti-science, or at least borders on anti-science.

PASS: Jon Huntsman: call him crazy, but he’ll go with science instead of politics/religion on both Biology Evolution and Global Warming. Great answer.

PASS: Newt Gingrich: he says Evolution can be taught in science/biology class, while Intelligent Design can be discussed in philosophy class. In other words, we can all keep our religions and our faiths and our cultures or whatever, but we need to modernize it to be compatible with science and logic. Educated answer from a history professor.  Great answer.  By the way, I had an Intelligent Design special topics class as part of my Philosophy minor in college.

PASS: Mitt Romney: God designed the universe and the laws of physics etc, so he created humans through evolution. Similar to Gingrich’s answer, but sounds less educated. Good enough.

PASS: Gary Johnson: I didn’t see the quote, but apparently he is pro-Science, leans Libertarian (limited government, fiscally conservative, socially liberal)

FAIL: Rick Perry & Michele Bachmann: whack job creationist, social conservative extremists. Too uneducated, non-intellectual. Rick Santorum: Genesis 1:1 biblical literalist, 2005 said schools should only teach the [alleged] holes in evolution.

FAIL / GONE: “We’ve said in Minnesota, in my view, this is a local decision. Intelligent design is something that, in my view, is plausible and credible and something that I personally believe in but, more importantly, from an educational and scientific standpoint, it should be decided by local school boards at the local school district level.”.  Regardless of whether this is a bad enough answer, he withdrew from the race Aug 13th 2011, so I’ll X him out now.

NOT SURE: Herman Cain: Apparently he hasn’t commented. Clever.

NOT SURE: Ron Paul: One, doesn’t accept evolution, pretty logical, but no absolute proof yet. Two, a creator created us, but the precise manner isn’t important (implied => the manner could be evolution). Three, Ron Paul wants to fight for freedom, and although evolution is an interesting science philosophy religion discussion, he doesn’t think it’s an important Presidential issue. Technically he failed my litmus test, but at least he argued that my litmus test is bad. Also, he did used to be a doctor, well not a medical science researcher, and obviously he doesn’t have a deep and up-to-date background in biology. And I think he at least didn’t come off as a total moron, which I can’t say for Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, or Tim Pawlenty.

That’s four PASS, four FAIL, and two NOT SURE.  Since I’m not quite X’ing out the NOT SURE’s yet, this leaves six left.  If the Republican nominee is one of the FAIL’s, then I’ll be very worried, and probably have to hope for Obama’s success – even if it’s just as the lesser of two evils.

Pem (Admin) :: 2011/11/07 (Monday, November 7, 2011) :: Other, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

In my next post, I’m going to skim the internet to find out what the 10 Republican candidates listed on wikipedia say about science, such as the Evolution vs. Creationism in schools controversy. In case your reaction is "science is not an important Presidential issue"… Consider that we live in a society where science and technology are extremely (and increasingly) important and significant. We’re at a point where our entire population should have a much higher level of basic scientific literacy than they do.

It’s relevant to politics, because many social conservatives take anti-science stances based on politics and religion and emotions, rather than on science and logic – and this can lead to a lot of harm. One, it spreads ignorance and stupidity. Two, fundamental ignorance in a topic as important as science suggests lower education and intelligence, and we want smart educated people running the government.  Three, government makes policies in terms of how to regulate or prohibit or fund specific areas of science or issues that require science to accurately evaluate. A few recent examples include stem cell research, abortion, environment issues, global warming, homosexuality, military research, medical issues, technology issues, university funding, tax breaks, education, evolution in education. In fact, since science and scientific thinking is so far reaching, and our entire society relies so heavily on science, it’s reach is probably a lot further than the small list of obvious examples I just gave. It’s my opinion (well, to be honest, I don’t think it’s really "just an opinion") that the person we elect President should not be an idiot, should not be uneducated, and should have a reasonable level of basic scientific literacy. At least enough that he/she could appoint find advice from good science-technology advisors, and be able to evaluate the advice.

In other words, that person shouldn’t believe in obvious pseudoscience like astrology, homeopathy, faith healing, astrology, flat earth society, ghost hunting, psychics, magnet healing, crystal healing, and other obvious medical quackery or science quackery. The President should be able to figure it out by doing a little research, or at least find some good science advisors to help him/her figure it out.

In the year 2011, Evolution (the scientific theory and scientific fact) has proven to be extremely valuable and productive in science, and the mountains of evidence (of proof) continue to pile. It’s a basic tenant of modern biology, and has very useful applications such as agriculture and medicine. Biology’s importance and ability to radically improve our future will only continue to increase.

Zero genuine serious biologists are studying Creationism as an alternative theory/law to Evolution. Because frankly, Creationism today in the USA is a religious and political movement – not an alternative scientific hypothesis. The only people pushing Creationism are social conservative politicians, sleazy scam artists, and backwards religious leaders.  And most of them just want your money (or your votes), and are glad to sell you their slogans (God, Patriotism, Family Values, the usual amorphous glib slogans and vacuous nonsense), and to profit off the confusion and emotions of their victims, even if it means harming science and reducing scientific literacy in America.

Of course some (or a lot of?) Republicans want to increase the privatization of American schools, and that might be one form of an answer to the Creationism in schools movement.  If schools were more privatized, at least the more educated parents would have more power to push for better schools that teach science (rather than pseudoscience).  Of course it might also be argued that less educated parents might have more power to push for schools to replace science with fundamentalist brain washing.  Of course I’m skeptical that a high percentage of parents would actually rather send their kids to a religion brain washing school than to an actual school, at least for Monday to Friday.  Then again, I’m also under the impression that science literacy is a lot lower than it should be among American adults.

Pem (Admin) :: 2011/11/07 (Monday, November 7, 2011) :: Other, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

Here’s the second paragraph from the 2011/11/06 wikipedia entry for social conservatism:

> The accepted goals and ideologies related to preserving traditions and/or morality often differs from group to group within social conservatism. Thus, there are really no policies or positions that could be considered universal among social conservatives. There are, however, a number of principles to which at least a majority of social conservatives adhere. The general ideas and philosophies social conservatives support are the nuclear family model as society’s foundational unit, public morality and what they call traditional family values, and they oppose secularism and militant atheism. As an application of these general principles, social conservatives in many countries generally: favor the pro-life position in opposing abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia; oppose both eugenics (inheritable genetic modification) and human enhancement (transhumanism) while supporting bioconservatism;[3] support defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, thus opposing same-sex marriage; support the continued prohibition of recreational or medically non-beneficial drugs; oppose prostitution, premarital sex, and non-marital sex; and object to pornography and what they consider to be obscenity or indecency.

And here’s a bullet list version of some common social conservative positions:
* pro-life for abortion
* ban embryonic stem cell research
* ban eugenics (genetic modifications) and human enhancement (transhumanism)
* bioconservatism (hesitant about any technology that might be perceived as a threat to the current social order)
* believes in creationism, teach creationism in science class
* opposes environmental issues (global warming, energy crisis) or other science issues, based on politics rather than on science
* nuclear family unit is society’s foundational unit
* legally define marriage as one male one female
* oppose civil marriage and child adoption rights to same-sex couples
* promote public morality, traditional family values, patriotism, the current social order
* support the continued prohibition of illicit and/or medically non-beneficial drugs (marijuana, alcohol)
* oppose prostitution, premarital sex, non-marital sex and euthanasia; likes abstinence only education
* support the censorship of pornography and what they consider to be obscenity or indecency, or other censorship (in places like China the censorship goes further)
* oppose secularism, wants to mix religion with government (corrupting both) and schools, and use the government to push Christianity; likes to discriminate based on religion (such as atheism, Muslims, Hindus, opposing Christian sects); the extreme is theocracy
* likes the death penalty (capital punishment), or even corporal punishment, or even torture, likes revenge and punishment (sometimes even if we assume it’s not a deterrent) (often at the expense of more than positive pragmatic goals like restraint and rehabilitation); likes war a little too much
* ban all forms of euthanasia (ie, the right for a terminally ill patient with no mental disability to choose to die to end the suffering faster)
* second amendment is awesome – everyone should have guns!
* America is better than everyone else; racial minorities, religious minorities, women, children, foreigners, inmates – they are all inferior and evil and inhuman! (note, this sort of stance is much less common today)
* public morality to replace logic with a monoculture; another excuse for oppression and persecution; specific examples of course varies widely per culture / place / time, a common problem with social conservative views since they follow the offense principal rather than the harm principal
* there’s probably others, but this is just for fun, and I have to limit how much time I spend on these rambling blog posts

One huge red flag I want to watch out for in any politician is extremist social conservatism. I don’t like it when people want to use the government in the name of culture or morality or tradition, to initiate violence and bring persecution and harm to innocent people, to impede progress in science, to arbitrarily restrict liberty, or to justify discrimination and bigotry. The role of government should be to protect individual rights – not to infringe them. The government’s goal should be to improve the economy (or stay out of the way if that improves it) and science-technology and education and human progress and human happiness and human civilization. The government’s goal should not be oppression or persecution of innocent individuals based on some arbitrary social norm, or to get revenge for the sake of revenge, or to prevent progress in the name of some vacuous amorphous ideal (society, family values, tradition, patriotism, etc).

According to the Libertarian Nolan Chart, Libertarians like freedom – both personal freedom and economic freedom; Left-wingers (Democrats) like to restrict economic freedom, and Right-wingers (Republicans) like to restrict personal freedoms. I imagine this is overly simplistic, but recall that I’m just a programmer. So this is part of my general basis for thinking that Republican candidates are a high risk for social conservatism.

So for my future posts, I’m planning to read some info about the GOP candidates in regards to social conservatism. Of course this is probably not the only important issue, and maybe I should be more worried about other issues, such as the economy and the debt. However, I chose to start with this issue for these posts, because for me it’s pretty black and white.

While an issue like economics can be complicated and might involve ideology and opinions, I think a lot of social conservatism is just anti-logic and anti-science, or falls into the category of let’s do something that causes harm for the sake of some vacuous amorphous ideal (society, family values, tradition, patriotism, etc) – rather than focus on things that actually matter, like liberty, science, progress, education, business, health, happiness, and other practical productive pragmatic goals.

And the other reason I’m focusing on GOP candidates is because the obvious Democrat candidate is Barack Obama (okay apparently there technically are others – Darcy G Richardson, Randal Terry).

Pem (Admin) :: 2011/11/07 (Monday, November 7, 2011) :: Other, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

With the 2012 presidential race coming soon, I’ve decided to finally do some posts in the politics (or political philosophy) category. Since this blog (or lack thereof?) is totally public, and politics is one of those sensitive emotionally-charged controversial topics, and there’s a risk that someone might read it and be offended by some difference of opinion… And that a reader might even be a perspective employer or coworker etc… I should start with a few cautionary comments.

I’m a software developer / programmer. My primary interests are in Computer Science and programming, and certain concentration areas, such as Graphics (and Games), GPU Hardware, C++ and other languages, algorithms. I also like all academics to some extent, especially STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) related and philosophy (especially logic and the historical roots of STEM) related.  Reading (or thinking or writing) about a topic like politics is only a break from my primary focus – ie, Programming and Computer Science.

So I’m not a politician or political pundit, and the daily activities of my job in my career so far has had pretty much nothing to do with politics – unless you mean in some indirect way relating to research funding or business/economy. There tends to be more than enough interesting work-related programming stuff to talk about with teammates, so I don’t typically talk much about things like politics in a work environment (as of 2011/11 anyway). That said, I think it’s responsible for educated people, including programmers, to pay attention to other issues, such as politics and voting, at least when they’re not writing code. In fact, there are some political issues that are specifically relevant to programming and to specific industries where programming is done (such as medical, military, games, research).

I try to take an educated science and logic view on everything, including political issues. If someone disagrees with something specific that I post, I apologize if I offended someone. If I say something in error, then please feel free to comment to explain your concerns, and to share any information or evidence or references. It’s entirely possible that I say or think something based on ignorance, and if/when that is the case, I’d love to learn more and understand the issue better and become more educated. As Carl Sagan said in Cosmos – whatever is inconsistent with the facts, no matter how fond of it we are, must be discarded or revised.

Without further ado, let the political ranting begin!  Warning, it may or may not begin soon, in fact this may or may not be my last post for Pem Tech Blog – I guess we’ll wait and see

Pem (Admin) :: 2011/11/06 (Sunday, November 6, 2011) :: Other, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

There’s a 40 min video of Jeff Bezos (amazon.com CEO / founder) with Charlie Rose (talk show) talking about the release of the Kindle 3.  I found the last 10 min (the part which isn’t about the Kindle 3) especially interesting:

1) Quote: We make it easy to try stuff on.  How do you make it easy to try stuff on?  By making it easy to return.  Oh, I see, yea.  And we try to make people not feel guilty about it.  You know, buy 3 pairs of jeans, and return 2 of them – it’s ok, don’t worry about it.  It’s okay with you?  Yea, it’s okay with us.  Keep the one that fits. End Quote.  So, there it is, from the horse’s mouth…  They want you to order 3 pairs of clothes, keep the one that fits, and mail the other 2 back.  Hmm, guess that attitude will keep both (mail package delivery) and (returns processing) busy <:-p

2) Talks about Bill Gates’s business vs. philanthropy theories (the basic idea is that business tends to be more productive, but philanthropy can address specific areas that the free market neglects) (and by people with excess savings).  Mentions experiment where they gave a random population of poor fruit farmers in India “the equivalent of winning the lottery” (uh, I guess $500 must have been worth a lot more in that specific part of India?), and it didn’t significantly affect their likelihood of getting out of poverty.

3) Often, people in our society love to argue about things before there is any data, or where they might be basing their ideas more on some arbitrary morality than on actual data and specific well-defined goals.

4) The internet and mass communication is shifting the amount of money that business spends to be a higher ratio of (actual value creation) vs. (excessive marketing fluff).

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/2618
-> It’s the 40 min video dated 2010 Jul 28

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/12/10 (Friday, December 10, 2010) :: Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

…

Rambling Comments:

It’s worth the disclaimer that this kind of environment / scenario probably at least deserves some amount of credit.  To grow up in a pleasant safe stable suburban environment, get into a university, graduate and start a well-paid stable career (such as doctor, lawyer, business executive) and lead a conservative non-controversial non-creative non-expressive conformist lifestyle, with a mortgage and a family, and hopes to repeat the same cycle with your offspring…  It’s better than a lot of the alternatives, both historically, and in today’s environment.

But it’s far from ideal – especially for people with a certain personality.

And obviously the emphasis on sameness and boxes and dull non-diverse repetition, is less about criticizing specific activities…  And more about criticizing things like conformity, constraints, one-size-fits-all lifestyles, living a banal existence, thinking we should all live a certain way just because our neighbors and/or previous generation did, putting a particular arbitrary non-controversial lifestyle as an ideal, aiming to only maintain the status quo without real change and growth, etc.

Anyway, this is one of those (I’m mostly just posting the lyrics quote) posts – so I didn’t spend much (time and thought) on my comments.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/06/06 (Sunday, June 6, 2010) :: Philosophy / Opinions :: 4 Comments »

I watched the presentation video here:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/livingproofproject/Pages/impatient-optimists-speech.aspx

> Gates said the generosity of the United States “has helped improve health and save lives and bring down population growth, so that money can be spent on all the other things that need investment – economic growth, jobs, and so on.”
– http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28794.html

Here is an embedded link:

The rest of this post is my notes while watching the video:

Child Deaths: Bill Gates said this chart is the most beautiful picture he has ever seen.  A chart shows that the number of children dying went down from 20 million children in 1960 to under 9 million in 2008.  This is less deaths, despite the 25% increase in number of births.  One of the great accomplishments of the last 100 years.  Bill claims two reasons: one is increase in standard of living and food / sanitation, the other is smart spending on global health.

2010 Federal Budget is $3.6 trillion, ~1% is foreign aid, and ~0.22% is for global health at $8 billion.  The Gate’s foundation puts in $1.8 billion per year, over half the foundation’s spending.

Small Pox: by 1977, small pox was eradicated: $130 million for US over 10 year period saved $17 billion (and also “untold human misery”).

Polio: has been eliminated in the US, and reduced by 99%, but still not completed eradicated.  It is still endemic in 4 countries: Nigeria, India (specifically Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Rotavirus: kills 500,000 per year.  In 1998 a rotavirus vaccine (RotaShield, by Wyeth) was licensed for use in the United States, but the manufacturer of the vaccine, however, withdrew it from the market in 1999, after it was discovered that the vaccine may have contributed to an increased risk for intussusception, or bowel obstruction, in one of every 12,000 vaccinated infants.  In 2006, two vaccines against Rotavirus A infection were shown to be safe and effective in children: Rotarix by GlaxoSmithKline and RotaTeq by Merck.  Paul Offit is credited as an inventor of RotaTeq.

They also mentioned how you have to invent, then manufacture, then transport (which requires refrigeration over plane, truck, then at the hospital / facility), then deliver to patients.

Many big diseases have gone down:

Cost of drugs: has gone down, which is a strong example of how economic development and increased standard of living can reduce cost of drugs, which is how they become available:

HIV/AIDS: since it has no vaccine yet, we need to focus on available treatment, and especially on prevention.  One thing that surprised me is the comment / claim that (male circumcision can reduce AIDS during sex with a partner by 60%) (this surprised me because in the developing world, we don’t have this issue, and circumcision is controversial and sometimes even compared to female genital mutilation).  And there are treatments such as retrovirus.  And alleged progress towards a vaccine.

Malaria: worldwide in 1900, eradicated from US / Canada and Europe in 1970, today in 2009 there is a plan to continue this progress:
  

Here’s a summary:

The US is the biggest contributor, but Europe is also big.

At 40 min, addressing some arguments about global health aid:

Corruption? accountability, auditing, measuring

Does aid discourage developing countries from developing?  Some countries like Brazil and Thailand used to be receivers of aid but are now givers of aid.  Tanzania doubled its health budget since 1990.

Improving health causes overpopulation, and thus actually makes global problems worse?  This one Bill and Melinda worried about a lot, which is why they started with a focus on family planning health issues.  But they referenced a TED talk from Hans Rosling:

  
Formerly poor countries like India in 1960 used to have Poor Health Large Families, and the worry was that giving them aid would just encourage them have larger families, and increase their need for aid.  But according to the data, between 1960 and 2007, the countries actually went up-left rather than just straight up.  Allegedly, because women choose to have smaller families, when they are to choose, and there’s a higher chance of their children surviving into adult years.
This is important, since small families means more resources (time, effort, money, education, health, freedom, etc) to focus on fewer children.  When people have smaller families: it’s easier to feed the kids, to protect their health, to have better nutrition, to send them to school and college or graduate college, to earn more income, to lead more productive lives, to lead less stressful lives, to keep the family life healthier and happier and less stressful and more civil, to better focus and enable the family (both children and parents) to continue to develop grow…  And the economy and standard of living in the country improves and life by every single measure gets better.
One unstated philosophy ethics premise I really liked in this presentation, is how they talked about deaths per year.  Not deaths per year per population.  This is important, and it’s definitely the right way to present it.  If the population triples, and the deaths triples, then the deaths still tripled.

Infant mortality and death of mother during childbirth: One are they said there has not been much progress until very recently.  4 million babies still die within the first 30 days, and 0.5 million mothers that die in childbirth – which of course can affect the entire family.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/10/28 (Wednesday, October 28, 2009) :: Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

Quote: You know, it’s such a peculiar thing – our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you’d feel big and solemn about? There’s nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual equivalent. As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they’re enjoying themselves? That’s when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they’ve slaved for – at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who’re rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That’s your mankind in general. I don’t want to touch it. — Dominique Francon, the Fountainhead, Page 143

Disclaimer: I’d say the same thing here as I would about Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.  If you get caught up in some unimportant detail.  Like asking “are Ayn Rand’s political philosophy ideas too extreme?”, or “is theism and biblical dogma rationally defensible?”.  Like asking “is there something inherently low-class about an amusement park or a housewife?”, or “is it inherently bad to have a sexual fantasy outside of a legal marriage agreement?”.  Or even “isn’t this just negativity based on non-realistic overly idealistic expectations?”.  Then I think you’d be missing the point, or at least getting side-tracked on what I might argue is a bunch of almost-unrelated tangents.  With that in mind, I’d encourage you to read the quote again.

Disclaimer #2: I’m not against people having “well-balanced lives” or multiple interests, or enjoying more than one type of thing.  Maybe a person can be genuine and still enjoy both things that are “solemn, big and important” and things that are (shallow or inane or fleeting or comic relief or just senseless fun), or even a mix (such as a bad joke that tries to encourage thought about an underlying message or topic).  But I love the quote, and I think it can encourage a person to evaluate topics like: how you live your life, what you really care about, what things you focus on, how you spend your time and resources, what is genuine…  How rare is true passion? (What do people really enjoy and value?)

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/10/23 (Friday, October 23, 2009) :: Personal, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »

*** text from the magazine print ad, 1982:

Can a Computer Make You Cry?

Right now, no one knows. This is partly because many would consider the very idea frivolous. But it’s also because whoever successfully answers this question must first have answered several others.

Why do we cry? Why do we laugh, or love, or smile? What are the touchstones of our emotions?

Until now, the people who asked such questions tended not to be the same people who ran software companies. Instead, they were writers, filmmakers, painters, musicians. They were, in the traditional sense, artists.

We’re about to change that tradition. The name of our company is Electronic Arts.

Software worthy of the minds that use it.

We are a new association of electronic artists united by a common goal—to fulfill the enormous potential of the personal computer.

In the short term, this means transcending its present use as a facilitator of unimaginative tasks and a medium for blasting aliens. In the long term, however, we can expect a great deal more.

These are wondrous machines we have created, and in them can be seen a bit of their makers. It is as if we had invested them with the image of our minds. And through them, we are learning more and more about ourselves.

We learn, for instance, that we are more entertained by the involvement of our imaginations than by passive viewing and listening. We learn that we are better taught by experiences than by memorization. And we learn that the traditional distinctions—the ones that are made between art and entertainment and education—don’t always apply.

Towards a language of dreams.

In short, we are finding that the computer can be more than just a processor of data.

It is a communications medium: an interactive tool that can bring people’s thoughts and feelings closer together, perhaps closer than ever before. And while fifty years from now, its creation may seem no more important than the advent of motion pictures or television, there is a chance it will mean something more.

Something along the lines of a universal language of ideas and emotions. Something like a smile.

The first publications of Electronic Arts are now available. We suspect you’ll be hearing a lot about them. Some of them are games like you’ve never seen before, that get more out of your computer than other games ever have. Others are harder to categorize—and we like that.

Watch us.

We’re providing a special environment for talented, independent software artists. It’s a supportive environment, in which big ideas are given room to grow. And some of America’s most respected software artists are beginning to take notice.

We think our current work reflects this very special commitment. And though we are few in number today and apart from the mainstream of the mass software marketplace, we are confident that both time and vision are on our side.

Join us. We see farther.

…

*** text from the picture caption:

Software artists?

"I’m not so sure there are any software artists yet," says Bill Budge. "We’ve got to earn that title." Pictured here are a few people who have come as close to earning it as anyone we know.

That’s Mr. Budge himself, creator of Pinball Construction Set, at the upper right. To his left are Anne Westfall and Jon Freeman who, along with their colleagues at Free Fall Associates, created Archon and Murder on the Zinderneuf.

Left of them is Dan Bunten of Ozark Softscape, the firm that wrote M.U.L.E. To Dan’s left are Mike Abbot (top) and Matt Alexander (bottom), authors of Hard Hat Mack. In the center is John Field, creator of Axis Assassin and The Last Gladiator. David Maynard, lower right, is the man responsible for Worms?

When you see what they’ve accomplished, we think you’ll agree with us that they can call themselves whatever they want.

…

*** Notes:

In 1982, the newly formed company EA (Electronic Arts) released this magazine print ad.  This was referenced in the movie “Into the Night with Jason Rohrer and Chris Crawford”.

I copied it from here ( http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F )

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/10/12 (Monday, October 12, 2009) :: Personal, Philosophy / Opinions :: No Comments »