Today at work a small group of us were talking about birthday’s and the birthday paradox.
Comparing birthdays, someone asked me mine, “October 15th”, I replied.
“You know what’s funny, is two guys here actually had the same birthday.”
“What date?”
“I don’t know, but one of them was Rob. Oh, here he comes. Rob, when’s your birthday?”
“October 15th.”
There are roughly 130,728,360 taxpayers in the United States.
25,000,000,0000 divided by 130,728,360 is 191.23.
So what Detroit is asking is that every American taypayer, rich or poor, be forced to give them $191.23 so they can continue to make shitty cars.
And now Nancy Pelosi is saying it’s going to happen. To quote: “I think it’s pretty clear bankruptcy is not an option.”
Can someone please explain why?
Chapter 7 is when you liquidate a company. So far, nobody is talking about that.
Chapter 11 is for reorganization of a company. It’s been in place for ages. Instead of talking down to the public, perhaps Ms. Pelosi could explain why it’s so obvious it’s not an option?
… when you read this and think to yourself, “Wow, that’d be so much more efficient with a simple reference counting scheme.”
Obviously in the last few weeks I’ve been spending time thinking about my career. One factor I’ve learned that greatly influences happiness at work is the boss. And one factor that made it hard to walk away from TM was I had a pretty good one. Which lead me to recall one one at the other end of the spectrum.
At one of my first jobs, whenever I had something I thought we should do, my boss would ask me to write up a proposal. Not a big deal, but as I was fresh from academia, I would put a lot of effort in making sure it was correct. All of it — the write-up, the spelling, the details, big & small.
This wasn’t for a grade after all, this was The Real World. Things Mattered Now.
But even though grades weren’t issued, I still thought of things that way. So if my boss changed 10% of it, I saw myself as getting a 90%, a “B.”
(Side rant: those of you would consider 90% an “A” are WEAK and were coddled as children. As is grading on a curve. An “A” is 93%-100%, end of story.)
Anyway, each time he’d change it, I’d head back to my desk & attempt to figure out why. He was the boss after all. And the only way you get to be the boss, is you know better, right? In a lot of cases I was confused by the changes, as they looked really wrong, but again, he was boss. My professors knew better, so too must the boss.
Right?
At that point I didn’t really stop to consider his background, or that he wasn’t really technical. He was a nice guy, and liked geek chatter, but his background was HR & finance. I reported to him because it was a small organization, and there really wasn’t a better option.
So this goes on for about six months. Not only does he continue to changes things (which was driving me nuts), but with time, the changes he made proved to bad. Every time.
And finally, I’m starting to catch on. It dawns on me. His background, the geek chatter that often didn’t really make sense, the constant changes regardless of my effort, and so on… he didn’t change things to correct them… he changed things so he’d feel involved!
If you know me well, you’ll know how much the thought of that annoys me. But now knowing the reason, at least I could figure out a way to control it.
I’d complete my proposal to what I thought was perfect. Then I’d find a few small details I didn’t really care about & change them to something completely retarded. I’d take that version to my boss, call his attention to the retarded areas, and ask what he thought. As I left I’d throw out a few ideas, always being sure to close with the ones I’d thought was right.
Invariably, he’d give me back the proposal as expected: the retarded areas changed to what I more or less had in the original & the the rest of the proposal unmolested. The first time it worked I was elated! He was happy, I was happy.
That was my first experience in managing upwards, and for the rest of my tenure we had an excellent working relationship.
After 44 years in America, now that she has her citizenship, my mom voted in her first presidential election yesterday!
I love finding little details that show someone else’s forethought. In the my early PC laptop days, when packing up at the end of the day, I hated that music would come blasting when I pulled my headphones out before stopping my mp3 player. I’d curse myself, attempt to wake my laptop out of its half-sleep state, usually plugging my headphones back in so that my music would stop bothering everyone in earshot.
One day I noticed that never happened with my mac. I wondered why, grabbed the cable for my headset, and yanked. The volume indicator dropped to zero. I plugged them back in & the volume jumped back. I unplugged again, set the volume to low, plugged in, watched it restore, yanked, and the volume dropped back to low.
So somebody at Apple realized the volume you want with headphones isn’t necessarily the same thing you’d want without headphones. So it detects if headphones are plugged in, and sets the volume to the respective level. It’s a small thing, but it just works. In a lot of ways, that represents what I love about Apple.
As I mentioned on twitter a few days ago and alluded to the other day, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave Ticketmaster. My last day will Halloween, Friday, Oct. 31st.
(Rumor has it a horrible surprise will await that day. I am roughly aware of the plan & the parties involved. To those foolish enough to contemplate such an endeavor, I only remind you of 1) my history with pranks is longer than all of yours combined, and 2) my willingness to always go one step further than the other guy. You have been warned.)
It was a tough decision to leave the ticket mines, but I was approached with an opportunity that was just too tempting to pass up. I’m actually really excited about it, but I’ll save that for another juncture. The hardest thing in the type of situation is saying goodbye with the people you’ve been working with day-in & day-out for the past few years. A hardship/challenge can split a group apart or pull it tightly together. I’m really proud of how the team — both mine & Ticketmaster as a whole — rallied together to overcome anything put in out way, even in some pretty difficult spots. Bitch all you want about Ticketmaster service fees, but you won’t be able to find anything bad to say about its people.
One thing that does make it easier to move on is knowing everything will be in good hands. It’s hard to not get emotionally invested in things over the course of two years, and handing things to over to competent caretakers certainly helps physiologically.
There is one other thing that helps too: Any transition brings some pain & turmoil and most of mine will be cast upon one Khayman Walker. Yes, it will be the delight I can take in his suffering. His pain is my joy. I like to think of being a Kahn to his Kirk. (Only in a parallel universe where Khan wins, of course.)
Unfortunately, Khayman is sorta smart, so he has some idea of what he’s in for, but I still like to think that several months from now, he’ll be sitting at his desk, all of it fully setting in. He will lean back and scream “Bill! BIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!” Man, I’m getting all tingly just thinking about it.
If it’s not evident by now, I pretty hate every domestic airline, with the sole exception of Southwest. American is charging you $50 to redeem miles (each way), and of course, there’s the nonsense about checking bags. I know they’re having financial problems, but what they don’t realize is they’re making those problems worse with all these terrible policies. They’re making travel more painful, when they need to make it painless.
They are driving customers like me away. Straight into the waiting arms of Southwest.
I just booked my Thanksgiving flight through Southwest.
In this case, I don’t even know if they were the cheapest. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. I didn’t even check the other airlines.
Why? Well, I’ll be starting a new job, so I’m only about 80% sure of travel dates. I might have to move things a day or so, but I wanted to buy my ticket before Thanksgiving gets any closer, and prices go up even more.
If I do that on Southwest, they’ll let me change my flight as many times as I want. If the new flight costs more, they’ll only charge me the difference. No additional fees. In fact, if the new flight is cheaper, Southwest will even give me a credit.
More or less, over the last 10 years, they’ve built a lot of trust with me. Trust they’ll be reasonable & do the right thing. Yes, they are a corporation & they exist to make a profit. But they realize a key element is to build a loyal customer base, make it clear what you’ll offer, and stick to the expectations you set.
On any other airline, a change in flight would be the difference in fare, plus an additional $50-$100 for the flight change, potentially for each leg.
Imagine for a moment someone who’s contributed exclusively to the Republicans (and some $5,250 at that). Someone who contributed to George W. Bush in 2004, Republican Senator campaigns in & out of state, and numerous other Republicans, such as congressional leaders and so on.
Now imagine this person is somewhat notable, and a major media outlet comes along to write a story about his political involvement. He’s presented at someone not really involved in politics, but somehow draw to the McCain campaign. In fact, he’s really not even a Republican. He’s a moderate. There’s just some things that McCain gets right that he likes. And Barak… well, he looks off as he attempts to gather his thoughts, just… doesn’t.
Immediately you’re thinking it’s bullshit. It clearly a republican shill, coupled with the deception of Fox News and so on.
Only it’s not.
It’s not Fox News.
And it’s not even a Republican.
It’s the Washington Post & Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.
In a technology article, Kim Hart writes:
Newmark, the founder of craigslist, isn’t even a Democrat. He describes himself as a “Libertarian moderate.”
Which is fairly ridiculous. According to public data, Craig has made $5,250 in political donations to the Democrats. Donations to Barak Obama, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Al Franken, Dick Durbin, and Barbara Boxer.
And not a single penny elsewhere. Not a single penny to a single libertarian candidate. Not a nickel to Ron Paul. Nor a dime to Bob Barr.
Not a single donation to anyone but Democrats.
But he’s not a democrat. No, he’s moderate. You know, middle of the road. Just a middle of the road, undecided kinda guy, who just thought this Democratic nominee was unique. So special, that though he has “nothing to gain”, it was worth his open minded support.
Would you believe this for a second from someone who said they weren’t a Republican? Someone who said they weren’t a Republican, but had contribute over $5,000 to Republicans? To John McCain, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, and Pat Buchanan?
I don’t mind someone being a Democrats or a Republicans. I don’t mind people supporting either party or even choosing to donate if they have the means & the desire. Heck, that’s all part of the process.
But what I find deceptive is to the present yourself as something else. If you donate exclusively and in large amounts to the Democrats, just say “Yes, I’ve been a Democrat since XXXX. I’m really excited about Obama and here’s why…” If you donate exclusively and in large amounts to Republicans, jusy say “Yes, I’ve been a Republican since XXXX. I’m really excited about McCain and here’s why…”
There’s no need to lie, mislead & distort. I think we can all agree there’s enough of that in politics and it’s disappointing to see it come from Craig Newmark.
