Stremf in Numbers
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sarcasm
"It was long after that I realized sarcasm is the protest of people who are weak."
My girlfriend and I say, half-jokingly, that she and I weren't made to NOT be adults. Neither of us think we are necessarily more mature or forward thinking or socially adapted than the average person, but being a well-adapted adolescent requires you to have an innate desire to fit in and a (genetic?) tolerance for accepting what happens to you, at least in the near term, as being out of your control.
I am terrible at these things. An overly emotional adolescent who is maladjusted to these norms, who is intellectually precocious but socially retarded doesn't really have an outlet.
Hey presto... sarcasm!
I think this is why Catcher in the Rye was powerful when I was 16 but is embarrassing to me now. I grew up, I gained some control over my life and my surroundings, and being a bitter, discontented back row spit-baller lost its appeal.
Labels: "everyone" went through this, yeah
¶ 8:51 AM 0 Comments
Friday, January 28, 2011
When (We) Grow Up
There's an entire industry devoted to helping you find your destined "career". I think this is silly.
Name the first five jobs that pop in to your head. Keep that list in your mind.
Here's where many of us work. Those 10 jobs represent almost 20% of the U.S. workforce. Yeesh. If you're reading this, you're probably part of a non-representative sample, so you don't need to worry too much about that particular quagmire.
Here's some 2009 data that reflects employment across all occupations. Circling back to my point in the first paragraph, look at the 5 tallest bars (Education, food preparation, sales and related, office and administrative support, production). If you're like most people I've asked this question of, you probably named teacher, lawyer, engineer, doctor/nurse, etc.
The sad truth is that interesting careers are few and far between, and interesting careers that will support you are almost non-existent.
High school students would be better served by a focus on directing students toward paths in one of the handful of viable fields, rather than cultivating unrealistic expectations.
Labels: At least you don't work in Adam Smith's pin factory
¶ 6:23 AM 0 Comments
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Songs and places
Some places I've been, some songs I associate with that place.
Boise: Leash - Pearl Jam
Will myself to find a home, a home within myself
We will find a way, we will find our place
We will find a way, we will find our place
Kyoto, Japan: Regret - New Order
I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day that would be a start
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day that would be a start
New York: It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City - Bruce Springsteen
When I strut down the street, I could feel its heart beat
The sisters fell back and said, "Don't that man look pretty"
The cripple on the corner cried out, "Nickels for your pity"
Them gasoline boys downtown sure talk gritty
It's so hard to be a saint in the city
The sisters fell back and said, "Don't that man look pretty"
The cripple on the corner cried out, "Nickels for your pity"
Them gasoline boys downtown sure talk gritty
It's so hard to be a saint in the city
Seattle, Washington: Killian's Red - Nada Surf
We'll go on vacation tonight
Under a sun of neon light
And i almost love this town
When i'm by your side
Under a sun of neon light
And i almost love this town
When i'm by your side
London, England: Fans - Kings of Leon
All of London sing
'Cause England swings the extra love the tales I bring
'Cause England swings the extra love the tales I bring
Baja Norte, Mexico : Holiday in Spain - Counting Crows
Got no place to go
But there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico
She got a bottle of tequila, a bottle of gin
And if I bring a little music I could fit right in
But there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico
She got a bottle of tequila, a bottle of gin
And if I bring a little music I could fit right in
Labels: Remember the chords, remember the feeling
¶ 6:36 AM 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
How many people should go to college?
I'm a big of Tyler Cowen, who blogs here. He's brilliant and loves be devil's advocate, with minimal political affiliation. Although that makes for a bad leader/policy maker it does make for interesting intellectual theater.
He recently self-published an e-book titled "The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better , reviewed here.
Two interesting points in the discussion:
1) Commutes - I can do 80% of my work from any location that has a computer and a printer. Many of my friends have similar positions. Corporate locations are expensive, competition to minimize commutes is a huge drain on our economy, and much welfare and productivity are sacrificed to commutes. I actually can't believe I'm saying this, but companies should be more flexible in allowing once-weekly (or more) telecommuting.
2) College - The blogger goes on through the usual blahbity blahbity to make the tired point that college isn't for everyone, and only the elite of society (like the author!) can truly benefit from a college education.
College is mis-targeted, and programs like University of Phoenix are an embarrassing farce for most people. But it seems that a 20% argument is specious at best. No one has offered any good evidence that 50% of college grads are NOT receiving any benefit from their educations.
Labels: Q: Polychromatic? A:Polytechnic
¶ 8:30 AM 0 Comments
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
"People were so primitive in the 21st century"
My pick: Abortion.
It's inevitable that some of the things we do will be viewed by futurites as primitive, backward or even savage.
While I am completely committed to the idea and spend money to support, I think it will be easy for future generations to look back on the idea that they we were killing fetus/unborn babies, etc. etc.
In a moment of honesty, I may be forced to admit that my opposition to abortion restrictions is more a matter of (oh, the agony of honesty) identification with the plight of young men who do not want a child, and the elitism of not wanting babies born to teen mothers. These aren't morally strong (or truly, even morally defensible arguments) but I'm willing to stand by them even at personal cost to me.
Labels: Irrationality: Not just for the other guys any more
¶ 9:23 AM 0 Comments
Monday, January 24, 2011
This Really Happened
really.
Labels: desperate times call for red herring measures
¶ 10:16 PM 1 Comments
Good Decisions/Bad Decisions or "Blinders"
Career
Internet and GDP
A recent team at work included a girl who had double majored in theater and accounting in college. A more thorough compromise of dreams and pragmatism I don't know. Short story, she found Deloitte stultifying, draining and oppressive. On bad days, I won't argue.
Within a year she left for a job that would allow her to support herself and pursue her dreams.
Best summary from a colleague: "(She) makes bad decisions".
Bad decisions are shooting heroin, infidelity, and going to graduate school in the arts.
Bad decisions are not leaving a job that leaves you feeling empty for more money at a more fulfilling job.
Labels: Stockholm syndrome
¶ 8:30 AM 0 Comments
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Best 3
1. New Order. (the band, not the post Cold War term for US hegemony)
2. Fungible terms. I am specifically referring to the ways we use economic terms outside of their original context to describe aspects of our personal lives. For instance:
sunk costs
bait and switch
indifference curves and opportunity costs
These have given us concise and powerful ways to express complex ideas. In truth, sports terms offer us the same thing. But, every time I hear someone unironically say, "swing for the fences" I want to puke my guts out.
3. The Writers Almanac. It's a fine way to spend 5 minutes of your commute. Also, it's the only format where I can listen to poetry and not feel like a pretentious dweebazoid.
2. Fungible terms. I am specifically referring to the ways we use economic terms outside of their original context to describe aspects of our personal lives. For instance:
sunk costs
bait and switch
indifference curves and opportunity costs
These have given us concise and powerful ways to express complex ideas. In truth, sports terms offer us the same thing. But, every time I hear someone unironically say, "swing for the fences" I want to puke my guts out.
3. The Writers Almanac. It's a fine way to spend 5 minutes of your commute. Also, it's the only format where I can listen to poetry and not feel like a pretentious dweebazoid.
Labels: that's the news from Lake Wobble Gobble
¶ 1:56 PM 0 Comments
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Hollywood's Moral Compass
"Xi...reported in a diplomatic cable through WikiLeaks that he had told the U.S. ambassador that he liked the moral clarity of Hollywood movies"
From a recent interview of a Western expert on China, regarding Xi Jingping, the supposed successor to Hu Jintao as Prime Minister:
Moral clarity in Hollywood is almost absurd to think of, considering the furor in socially conservative circles regarding Hollywood's sexuality, etc. But he's right.
Our movies are almost laughably prurient morality plays. Movies from East Asia are told very differently (for a good example, watch Oldboy.)
Try to think about the last ambiguous ending to a movie you watched...
Labels: Black, white and communist red all over
¶ 2:57 PM 0 Comments
Thursday, January 20, 2011
t v e
Part 1.
At the end of All Quit on the Western Front, Remarque includes a very poignant but overlooked commentary on weariness. Paraphrased, the passage goes something like,
[we were young men hardened by war. We could have returned home with the inertia of struggling and built a grander Europe. But, the drudgery of that prolonged war drained our ambition. Had it been abbreviated a year or even a month… this could have made all the difference.]
Surprisingly, he seems to indicate that it wasn’t the fatigue of battle that killed their potential, but the inactivity and aimlessness.
Part 2.
Back in the collegiate day I was disheartened by the lack of credence given to my peers. All around me I saw ambitious, capable people who seemingly were not given enough responsibility or power. (Mainly I’m referring to Jardon, Stock, Anderson and a few others.) It was painful to watch that energy have no reasonable application while sluggish old farts rested on a) their laurels, and b) fat bee hinds.
Now, years later, I’ve seen some of the benefits of experience. It cuts through a lot of inefficiencies and waste. But, there is a price (see Part 1). Let’s say you’re hiring for your department, sports team, new venture, whatever. You can select candidates based on a zero-sum sliding bar of “energy” vs “experience”, ceteris paribus. Where would you peg it?
50-50%?
10-90%?
90-10%?
Feel free to define the terms as you please.
At the end of All Quit on the Western Front, Remarque includes a very poignant but overlooked commentary on weariness. Paraphrased, the passage goes something like,
[we were young men hardened by war. We could have returned home with the inertia of struggling and built a grander Europe. But, the drudgery of that prolonged war drained our ambition. Had it been abbreviated a year or even a month… this could have made all the difference.]
Surprisingly, he seems to indicate that it wasn’t the fatigue of battle that killed their potential, but the inactivity and aimlessness.
Part 2.
Back in the collegiate day I was disheartened by the lack of credence given to my peers. All around me I saw ambitious, capable people who seemingly were not given enough responsibility or power. (Mainly I’m referring to Jardon, Stock, Anderson and a few others.) It was painful to watch that energy have no reasonable application while sluggish old farts rested on a) their laurels, and b) fat bee hinds.
Now, years later, I’ve seen some of the benefits of experience. It cuts through a lot of inefficiencies and waste. But, there is a price (see Part 1). Let’s say you’re hiring for your department, sports team, new venture, whatever. You can select candidates based on a zero-sum sliding bar of “energy” vs “experience”, ceteris paribus. Where would you peg it?
50-50%?
10-90%?
90-10%?
Feel free to define the terms as you please.
Labels: Give it the old college trifecta
¶ 4:19 PM 1 Comments
Gotham City
A couple nights ago, when you walked out of the building, it was raining lightly. The really cold rain that feels heavy because some drops are turning in to snow.
The tallest buildings were shrouded in foggy clouds and the ground was hidden by a rolling, misty vapor.
The jumble of faded brick buildings and unfinished sci-fi-like towers made it was easy to imagine you were in some imagined city in the sky.
That's not a bad metaphor for the transience of this place.
Labels: Golden apples in silver pitchers
¶ 4:49 AM 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Either/Or
There's a lot of day to day noise in the news aggregators, blogrolls and commentaries I read day to day, but not a lot of clues of real value. Some clues I would like to have:
1. Honesty or empathy?
2. Burn out or fade away?
3. The accolades of your peers or the love of your family?
4. Experiences now or wealth later?
5. Monogamy or variety?
Labels: Philosophers: "Der..."
¶ 4:58 AM 0 Comments
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Remembrance of Politics Past
In 6th grade a teacher and I were discussing the Bush I/Clinton campaign, and he said:
"Clinton is so left wing he's Communist and Bush is so right wing he's Nazi."
Probably the two most centrist Presidents of the second half of the 20th century engendered that response?
Labels: We were like "Huh"?
¶ 9:58 AM 1 Comments
Monday, January 17, 2011
Fire -> The Wheel -> Electricity -> Excel
A friend asked the question "What impact do you think Excel has had on business over the last 25 years? The internet? The PC?"
The Internet:
I think 1 and 3 are more interrelated than 2, so we can think about the internet by itself. It seems that the internet has had a profound impact on retailing and price-competition based products (I'm looking at you airlines) by allowing consumers to instantly compare prices without search costs. (Related: I haven't seen "search costs" be mentioned in an economics discussion in several years.) The business to business relationship has been accelerated by the internet, which has been big for inventory management and transactions that require exchanges of large, frequently changing information in a quick period of time.
Impact on the culture of work: High
Benefit to productivity: Low, and primarily concentrated in certain industries
Excel:
As an accountant, I'm prone to overvalue Excel as a tool. Excel has allowed the "average" business person to manipulate and understand data in quantities that were difficult to imagine a generation ago. But, I think the value of this manipulation is to cheapen the role of data input. That is to say that nearly as much time is spent identifying and correcting errors as in the old days, since correction is so easy in an electronic environment.
Robert McNamara told an anecdote about old-school GM used to put all of its outstanding invoices on a scale and why them to calculate the value of accounts payable at the end of the year. Obviously, Excel allows a great deal more precision in calculating these accounting and finance items, but I think the value of understanding the precise measurement of these amounts is overstated. (Ed: Who knew that by 2010 this acronym would be associated as much with agriculture as cars?)
The biggest dollar value area that Excel has enabled is financial modeling, and look at the fat lot of good that did us.
Impact on the culture of work: High
Benefit to productivity: Low, and primarily concentrated in certain industries
The PC:
Too much as been written here for me to add a lot to the discussion. The PC changed everything. However, I think the value of the PC on productivity has been slightly overstated. Computers allow us to more efficiently allocate resources, particularly inventories and manufacturing resources, and the distribution of engineering modeling across computers has changed every industry you can think of. But many of these gains could have been realized under the old mainframe model with better software, in my opinion.
Paul Krugman offhandedly discussed the changes wrought in the economy by computers, specifically, the idea that growth in the economy lagged growth in computer technology by about 20 years. His theory was that business were trying to figure out what to do with computer technology, and ultimately came up with the idea of big box stores. An interesting theory, not without merit.
Impact on the culture of work: High (Facebook, anyone?)
Benefit to productivity: High, but overstated by culture at large
Labels: Penny wise, pound foolish
¶ 6:59 AM 0 Comments
Friday, January 14, 2011
Christian liberal arts college is an oxymoron
Briefly: Going to a liberal arts college is supposed to provide a broad exposure to ideas and help you build a holistic framework to understand the human condition.
How can you learn that when your professors wear an intellectual straight jacket? Sigh.
¶ 8:37 AM 0 Comments
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Unbearable Convenience of Being
Moving to NY has offered a number of surprises. One of the least pleasant surprises has been how difficult it is to go anywhere or do anything.
The only amenities that are absolutely more convenient for me are dry cleaning and the gym, but that's only because they are in my building. In Portland, I had dry cleaning at the office and a gym that was on the way home, so I don't really save any time from these conveniences.
A huge inconvenience has been the extra hour a day I spend commuting. Radiolab has filled a lot of my commute time recently, and the "Cities" episode (linked) struck me for a number of reasons. Number 1 struck-ification: People who live in cities think they are the best thing, and people who live in the country think its the best thing.
Labels: So why do I want to live anywhere else than where I am?
¶ 6:31 AM 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
This week in Emperorship:
A friend and I have a thought exercise where we allow the following premises:
- You have complete, authoritarian control over the United States
- You can do anything that is physically possible. Send people to the moon? Fine, but it will take at least 10 years to develop the technology and make the journey.
- You can do anything that is financially possible. Deficits can be run, but not too large for too long
- You can’t bring anybody back from the dead. It’s not a pretty sight, we don’t like doing it.
The main goal is to diagnose what we think is wrong with America and try to fix it.
Here’s my suggestion for the day –
Social Security needs a means test. Roughly speaking, there should be a sliding scale to phase out social security benefits as your assets and previous lifetime earnings increase. Social security was established as a safety net, not a way to Christmas bonus for people who had been fortunate enough to have high earning careers.
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_test
Two rejoinders to potential arguments:
1) Yes, this does “punish” people who had high earnings and saved money. Arguments about the correlation between genetic inputs and social outputs aside, putting money in the hands of people with lower incomes has a much higher spending multiplier than putting money in the hands of those likely to save it. To my amateur eyes, this is the biggest problem with a Reagan-style tax regime in which the absolute dollar value of GDP may increase, but becomes too concentrated in a smaller number of people who don’t spend the money but instead chase yield. The world does not have a savings problem thanks to China. It has an aggregate demand problem.
2) Raising the social security age IS NOT the solution to our social security solvency problem because the same people who social security was originally created to support (intermittent and domestic laborers and those marginally employable for various reasons in and out of their control). It’s hard to do physical labor into your 60s.
Side note: Conservatives fought tooth and racist nail against the passage of social security.
Labels: but usually only one side is right., There are two sides to every story
¶ 7:41 AM 0 Comments
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Writing is hard.
In an interview, Malcolm Gladwell explained how impressed he was by the writing of Bill Simmons, not because it was eloquent or insightful, but because it was voluminous. Getting up nearly every day and pumping out written material is hard.
I will say that it's pretty easy to write about your personal feelings and experiences, but I digress.
¶ 8:55 AM 0 Comments
