Random thoughts

I have been working a lot of hours the last couple of months, so I am having trouble with deep thoughts at the moment. So let's try some random ones.

Why are people surprised when something doomed to failure fails? Stock prices can't continue to go up, they must eventually fall - yet people are surprised when they do. Housing prices can't continue to go up, yet people were surprised when they fell. I have seen several companies try to implement software that their own tech people say can't work, yet they are shocked when it doesn't work. Sometimes I wonder what these people use for brains.

Speaking of failure why do people continue to build houses in flood plains? Why do the local governments let them? Sooner or later there will be a flood. Why set yourself up for a disaster?

Gun prices have become more than extravagant since Obama was elected. Everybody is expecting another assault weapons ban so they are stocking up. The price of ammunition is up too. It is indeed possible that there will be another weapons ban or restriction. Another silly piece of legislation. Even if the government went totally Hitleristic and banned all guns and ammunition people would still be able to have them smuggled in from other countries. It would just cost more. They outlawed cocaine and you can buy it on any street corner. If they outlaw guns it will be the same story. Every time we outlaw something people want we just make more opportunity for criminals to profit.

The Detroit Free Press will soon stop home delivery of papers every day. They will instead deliver on weekends and give subscribers access to an online version. Since I can get the same information from MSNBC or any of several other free sources I will be cancelling my paper soon. Which will of course mean they will cut back even further, which means even more people will cancel, and eventually they will either stabalize or go out of business. I expect some people will continue to get the paper just to line their bird cages.

I think I have run out of randomness for the moment. Maybe my next post will be more coherent. I have hopes that the frantic work pace will slow back to normal, while still keeping me employed.

Individuality

Having been in the workforce for 30 years I have been in and out of quite a few companies. One of the things that constantly amaze me is that all of these companies want people to think of new and innovative ways save money, solve problems, etc. and yet at the same time they punish individuality and independent thought. One of the more ironic things that I see is when companies celebrate their ethnic diversity, at the same time as they are trying to eliminate all intellectual diversity.

Part of the problem of course is that uniformity is easier to manage, so managers want uniformity even if that is at odds with the long term growth of the company. As I have said before, managers are paid for short term results and not long term.

Another part of the problem stems from the animal part of the human brain. In a herd/troup/gaggle of animals different often means diseased, so the different animal is kept apart from the group for the long term good of the group. So while the upper levels of our minds know that different is good the lower more animal parts still view the different individual with suspicion.

I have seen small but good companies fail because during the growth process they shed themselves of all of their harder to manage people. These were of course the very same people that had made the company a success. In most cases the company went on for another year or two then failed. One company did continue longer, but without its innovators it became yet another mediocor company, surviving but not growing.

I often hope to find some company that looks to the long term, one that recognizes the worth of individuals that are different. I haven't found it yet, but I keep hoping.

Ethics

I have been doing a lot of thinking about ethics lately, and haven't come to any solid conclusions. I think treating others fairly and as nicely as possible is the ideal, but it is also a concept that is at odds with the "natural order" of things (survival of the fittest and all that).

I need to do some more thinking, and will update this post when I can. I have been a bit busy surviving lately.

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Well after a great deal of thought on the subject I can't find any absolutes. It all comes back to do the best you can.

I had hoped to be able to find some universal way of looking at things, but the only way to know that you are doing the right thing requires perfect knowledge and that is impossible.

So I guess I will have to give up on this subject and move on to others.

Swear words

Close on the heals of acronyms comes swear words. I rarely swear. Not for any particular religious reason but because the point of rude words is to express a negative emotion and I find I can do that very well with tone of voice or ordinary words. Actually I find it funny to hear some people swear because similar to acronyms the words themselves have lost their original meaning. If you reconstruct what they have said with the literal meaning of the words they are using you realize they are speaking total nonsense. Emotially loaded nonsense, but nonsense none the less.

Why acronyms are a bad thing

I work in computer systems so I deal with lots of acronyms. I hate them, because they soon stop having a meaning other than "the name of that thing over there". How many times have you heard someone talk about their GPS system? What they are really talking about is their global positioning system system. It is nonsense when you spell out the words, but because GPS usually means "that navigational thing" to most people they don't realize they are talking nonsense.

In addition, because they are typically short acronyms often have very different meanings depending on who you talk to. When somebody says OTC do they mean over counter or order to cash? When they say STD do they mean short term disability or sexually transmitted disease? Do they even know what they are saying or is the acronym just a buzz word they learned somewhere? I have often sat through meetings where people use acronyms that are wrong in the context are using them in.

When I work I often prefer to take the long route and avoid the use of acronyms. It makes things more wordy, but far clearer.

The arts

The problem with staging a performance of "Dancing the Dance of a Thousand Deaths" is that after act one the other 999 dancers don't come back from intermission.

Tired of Michigan

I have lived in Michigan my whole life and I am getting rather tired of it. Every 10 years we have a recession and Michigan gets it first, gets it worst, and is the last to recover. Plus we have very cold winters, and as I get older I like winter less and less.

I don't think I would mind it as much if all the jobs weren't clustered around Detroit. I am more of a small town person and metro-Detroit is huge. A few years ago I lived out in the country and commuted, but when my wife passed I had to move closer to work to better take care of my son. Being a single parent with a one hour commute just doesn't work.

So what am I going to do about it? Nothing for now. With the recession in full gear and house prices down I can't afford to move. But I have decided that the next time I move it will be out of state. I don't know when it will be or where I will move to, but it will definately be out of Michigan.

I have considered moving out of state several times before but have always stayed because of family. But as my family gets older I see less and less of them. Some have died, some have moved out of state themselves, and some have become reclusive. So with less family to consider the only thing I have to worry about is my son. Depending on when the move happens and where he is with his life then (high school, college, or working) I will either move closer to him or he will move with me.