A friend sent me a link to a USA Today article about a decline in trust
Of course, people say one thing to survey questions and do another. Just using the internet requires a lot of trust, whether it is to make transactions, or to share stuff with people that we barely know.
Here's a quote from the article:
The best-known analysis comes from Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam's nearly two decades of studying the United States' declining "social capital," including trust.
Putnam says Americans have abandoned their bowling leagues and Elks lodges to stay home and watch TV. Less socializing and fewer community meetings make people less trustful than the "long civic generation" that came of age during the Great Depression and World War II.
I disagree. People stay at home more because there is a greater entertainment choice at home now than there used to be. When we were growing up, there was little to see on TV. Now people are using the internet. The TV has become a medium for broadcast and cable channels, for YouTube videos, videos on demand (for free), games, etc. My grandson plays video games live with his friends yet they are all in separate houses. This is all possible because of the internet, sophisticated software and powerful hardware.
People are socializing more than ever - thru Facebook, gaming sites, interactive gaming platforms, email, text messaging, live photo sharing sites, etc. Authors like Putnam may be stuck in an old way of looking at things, in a world that doesn't exist anymore. That is the problem. Most people old enough to have the discipline to write a book are too old to be aware of what younger people are doing with the available technology.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même choses - Understanding that underneath the myriad motions of change, the core nature of people remains the same, enables insightful innovators to make a lot of money.
On the subject of trust is another interesting link to a Gallup article on the changing trends of people's trust in politicians and government institutions.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Age Of Discovery
December 15th, 2013
As a kid, my brother Tom got a boogie board that he used to ride along the beach as the outgoing waves leave a film of water on the sand at the ocean's edge. Now if there was some way to magnetize the board, he once theorized, and the ocean was magnetic, and one was positive and the other was negative, then he could boogie board all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, from Jones Beach to Europe.
Being the older and wiser kid, I immediately saw the problem in this hare brained scheme. What are you going to do about the sharks in the middle of the ocean, I asked?
I don't think sharks can eat you when you're magnetized, he answered.
Yeh, but they could bite you, I answered.
No, he replied, the shark is the same polarity as the water so as his teeth started to close on my leg, the different polarities would repel and the shark's teeth couldn't clamp down.
I had to admit this was true. How would you magnetize the whole ocean, I asked?
Well, you wouldn't need to magnetize the whole ocean, just sections of it, he answered. Run a cable like the Transatlantic Cable across the ocean except that it would have to be a lot bigger. The magnetic field around the cables would then magnetize the ocean above the cable and it would be like a highway across the ocean.
The late 1950s and the decade of the 1960s was a time when people thought that almost anything was possible. A trip to the moon was feasible. So too was the idea that people could one day fly to work in their own personal plane. I wanted to say that I miss the days when we had grand schemes and big dreams but I realized that I am typing on a computer that is connected wirelessly to a global network called the internet. This year physicists confirmed the discovery in 2012 of the theorized Higgs boson, the "God" particle that gives matter in the universe its mass. My smart phone is far more capable than the wristwatch communications device that Dick Tracey wore.
Still, we have not solved the problem of traffic congestion during rush hour. We have not cured cancer, poverty, death or the debility of old age. These were the "holy grail" discoveries that we thought possible a half century ago after the discovery of DNA and the invention of jet engines.
As a kid, my brother Tom got a boogie board that he used to ride along the beach as the outgoing waves leave a film of water on the sand at the ocean's edge. Now if there was some way to magnetize the board, he once theorized, and the ocean was magnetic, and one was positive and the other was negative, then he could boogie board all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, from Jones Beach to Europe.
Being the older and wiser kid, I immediately saw the problem in this hare brained scheme. What are you going to do about the sharks in the middle of the ocean, I asked?
I don't think sharks can eat you when you're magnetized, he answered.
Yeh, but they could bite you, I answered.
No, he replied, the shark is the same polarity as the water so as his teeth started to close on my leg, the different polarities would repel and the shark's teeth couldn't clamp down.
I had to admit this was true. How would you magnetize the whole ocean, I asked?
Well, you wouldn't need to magnetize the whole ocean, just sections of it, he answered. Run a cable like the Transatlantic Cable across the ocean except that it would have to be a lot bigger. The magnetic field around the cables would then magnetize the ocean above the cable and it would be like a highway across the ocean.
The late 1950s and the decade of the 1960s was a time when people thought that almost anything was possible. A trip to the moon was feasible. So too was the idea that people could one day fly to work in their own personal plane. I wanted to say that I miss the days when we had grand schemes and big dreams but I realized that I am typing on a computer that is connected wirelessly to a global network called the internet. This year physicists confirmed the discovery in 2012 of the theorized Higgs boson, the "God" particle that gives matter in the universe its mass. My smart phone is far more capable than the wristwatch communications device that Dick Tracey wore.
Still, we have not solved the problem of traffic congestion during rush hour. We have not cured cancer, poverty, death or the debility of old age. These were the "holy grail" discoveries that we thought possible a half century ago after the discovery of DNA and the invention of jet engines.
Fixing Spelling Problems
December 14, 2013
It could happen some day. *****************
As many native and fluent English speakers know, the language contains many irregular pronunciations which makes it difficult to develop speech synthesis programs for those with reading or speech impairments. A new Aural Standard is being formulated to aid developers of such programs. Examples under review with the International Standards Committee on Speech Synthesis include the following:
Enough will be pronounced "enowf"
Thought will be pronounced "thowt"
Bough will be pronounced "bow" (no change)
Brougham will be pronounced "browam"
Dough will be pronounced "dow"
In the example above, English speakers from the southern United States will have little difficulty making the transition because the new pronunciations closely resemble how they have always pronounced these words. However, it is not the Committee's intent to validate the pronunciations of any regional group.
Those English speakers with an instinctual familiarity with the customary pronunciation of these words may experience some slight difficulty in making the transition to the revised pronunciations but the Committee is confident that the context in which words are spoken will help clarify the meaning of the word.
The period for word submissions, as well as rule codifications to be included in the Aural Standard, will be open for 90 days from the publication date of this notice.
It could happen some day. *****************
As many native and fluent English speakers know, the language contains many irregular pronunciations which makes it difficult to develop speech synthesis programs for those with reading or speech impairments. A new Aural Standard is being formulated to aid developers of such programs. Examples under review with the International Standards Committee on Speech Synthesis include the following:
Enough will be pronounced "enowf"
Thought will be pronounced "thowt"
Bough will be pronounced "bow" (no change)
Brougham will be pronounced "browam"
Dough will be pronounced "dow"
In the example above, English speakers from the southern United States will have little difficulty making the transition because the new pronunciations closely resemble how they have always pronounced these words. However, it is not the Committee's intent to validate the pronunciations of any regional group.
Those English speakers with an instinctual familiarity with the customary pronunciation of these words may experience some slight difficulty in making the transition to the revised pronunciations but the Committee is confident that the context in which words are spoken will help clarify the meaning of the word.
The period for word submissions, as well as rule codifications to be included in the Aural Standard, will be open for 90 days from the publication date of this notice.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Questions
When I was 12 years old, my dad decided to refinish the basement and enlisted me as a helper. One day we were busting out the concrete floor to make a trench for the soil drain pipe to the new bathroom he wanted. My dad swung the big long handled sledge hammer while I handled the smaller sledge and chipping hammer. While he was used to this kind of physical work, I wasn't so we took frequent small breaks.
My dad had served in the Navy at the end of World War 2, but never saw any action. He was an aircraft mechanic with Lockheed (now part of Lockheed Martin) who sometimes worked on Air Force One, President Kennedy's plane.
"Would you put a plane up in the air that was not safe to fly?" I asked, sipping an iced coffee that was supposed to revive my spirits.
He chuckled. "Well, that's above my pay grade but of course not. Why would you even ask a thing like that?"
"I was just wondering," I replied. I did a lot of that.
After a moment, he mused, "I suppose that if an enemy plane were attacking and our only chance was for someone to go up in a plane that might have a weak wheel strut or some engine problem, I would do that."
"Would you tell the pilot?" I asked.
"Oh, sure" he replied.
"But what if the pilot was the only one who could fly the plane and he might not go up if he knew that there might be a problem? Would you tell him?" I asked.
"Sheesh, I don't know," he responded, getting a bit impatient with the twenty questions. "I'd have to tell him. If the pilot didn't want to go up, then we'd all die, including the pilot. But I'd have to tell him."
There was a simple clarity and pragmatism to my dad's moral code. There was an implied fraternity with other men who shared the same code. Many fathers in the neighborhood were about my dad's age - in their mid 30s to mid 40s - and seemed to subscribe to this unwritten, rarely spoken code that formed the foundation of some loose fraternity. I think they had all been in the service during the war, some seeing action, some not.
"Are we fixing up the basement so we can live down here if the Russians drop a bomb on us?" I asked. We lived in New York City, a prime target for the Russians, I had read. Life magazine regularly featured articles on bomb shelters.
"What? No, it's so we have a little more space for you guys." There were four kids. "We'll put a TV down here and a record player and you guys can listen to your own music or have some friends down here. We can have family over for the holidays and we can all eat together down here. Now come on, let's get back to it."
The Book of Knowledge was a multi-volume encyclopedia for kids. At our house, the pages were well worn because my parents' response to many questions from their kids was "go look it up in the Book of Knowledge." A few years earlier, I reasoned that if I read all the books, I could help people out with the answer to any question. Yet here I was at twelve years old with questions for which there were no answers in the Book of Knowledge.
For a short time in my life, my dad seemed to have the answers to even those more difficult questions.
My dad had served in the Navy at the end of World War 2, but never saw any action. He was an aircraft mechanic with Lockheed (now part of Lockheed Martin) who sometimes worked on Air Force One, President Kennedy's plane.
"Would you put a plane up in the air that was not safe to fly?" I asked, sipping an iced coffee that was supposed to revive my spirits.
He chuckled. "Well, that's above my pay grade but of course not. Why would you even ask a thing like that?"
"I was just wondering," I replied. I did a lot of that.
After a moment, he mused, "I suppose that if an enemy plane were attacking and our only chance was for someone to go up in a plane that might have a weak wheel strut or some engine problem, I would do that."
"Would you tell the pilot?" I asked.
"Oh, sure" he replied.
"But what if the pilot was the only one who could fly the plane and he might not go up if he knew that there might be a problem? Would you tell him?" I asked.
"Sheesh, I don't know," he responded, getting a bit impatient with the twenty questions. "I'd have to tell him. If the pilot didn't want to go up, then we'd all die, including the pilot. But I'd have to tell him."
There was a simple clarity and pragmatism to my dad's moral code. There was an implied fraternity with other men who shared the same code. Many fathers in the neighborhood were about my dad's age - in their mid 30s to mid 40s - and seemed to subscribe to this unwritten, rarely spoken code that formed the foundation of some loose fraternity. I think they had all been in the service during the war, some seeing action, some not.
"Are we fixing up the basement so we can live down here if the Russians drop a bomb on us?" I asked. We lived in New York City, a prime target for the Russians, I had read. Life magazine regularly featured articles on bomb shelters.
"What? No, it's so we have a little more space for you guys." There were four kids. "We'll put a TV down here and a record player and you guys can listen to your own music or have some friends down here. We can have family over for the holidays and we can all eat together down here. Now come on, let's get back to it."
The Book of Knowledge was a multi-volume encyclopedia for kids. At our house, the pages were well worn because my parents' response to many questions from their kids was "go look it up in the Book of Knowledge." A few years earlier, I reasoned that if I read all the books, I could help people out with the answer to any question. Yet here I was at twelve years old with questions for which there were no answers in the Book of Knowledge.
For a short time in my life, my dad seemed to have the answers to even those more difficult questions.
Monday, March 11, 2013
The Maze
Some people maintain the word for word accuracy of the Bible and go to great lengths to verify their belief. Do some Muslims take the same approach with the Koran? For two thousand years people have been disagreeing with each other over what "the breath of God" or divine inspiration means. To some it means that every word of the Bible is true. To others, it can mean that those who wrote the Bible could have made a gazillion little errors. If God were to come to someone with an average education and say "Write this down. I'm going to explain how the universe works," how accurate do you think that person would be?
Some ask the question, "Why didn't God just write down the Bible himself? What's with this divine inspiration stuff?" Muslims avoided the controversy, saying that God wrote the actual words in the Koran.
Greek scholars have argued for centuries what the "breath of God" actually means. In trying to give us a sense of what early Christians thought about it, one of my teachers likened a gospel writer to a deflated basketball. Pumping air into a basketball changes the way the basketball behaves but the basketball is essentially the same.
It is difficult for us to get into the heads of people who wrote so many years ago. Most everything happened because of gods or spirits. For example: Man has to do something to grain to make it alcoholic (beer) but wine becomes alcoholic on its own. How to explain this? The only explanation they could think of was that the breath or essence of a spirit or God came into the wine. People who drank wine were therefore drinking a spirit. This explained why people did foolish and crazy things when they had too much wine. It was the spirit, the god or magic force, that was acting inside their bodies.
Because everything that happens is done by a spirit, the concept of one God who does everything presented a lot of problems. If the spirit of this one God is in the wine, then this one God can do both good and evil things. That presented a problem for those believers who wanted one God who was all good. The concept of Satan, a fallen angel, solved that problem. Satan is not a god, preserving the concept of one God. Believers could say that it is Satan who is responsible for all the bad things that men do. But if Satan is not a god, then why can't God just annihilate Satan? After centuries of argument, a good explanation was that God allows Satan to exist as a test of our loyalty to God and His commandments. But then some asked why does God need to test us? If God is all-knowing, then he would know what we would do in the face of temptation. Well, maybe God isn't all-knowing, some said. But if God is not all knowing what distinguished this one God from the gods of other religions who had varying powers and knowledge?
I call it the God Maze. Some people get out of the maze by saying that there is no God or gods and that the whole concept of God is a bunch of hocus-pocus, feel good nonsense. The majority of people on this planet do not like that explanation. Without God, what is the purpose of existence? An atheist or existentialist might answer that life doesn't need to have a god-given purpose.
This is the Purpose Maze. Who gives our lives purpose? Each of us or God? Or is it our family, tribe or community? If we answer that one, a larger question follows: What is the purpose of the entire universe, of existence? If a creator God created the universe, why did he bother? Was He lonely or bored - does God get lonely or bored? Each answer brings up even more questions, typical of any maze.
This is the Time Maze. If God is all-knowing, then He knows the future so why bother playing it out? Amusement? If God is eternal and outside of time, can God have any contact with us in a temporal world?
Other people get out of these mazes with faith. Reason can only take a person so far, they say, and then one must leap in an act of faith to embrace God.
Some ask the question, "Why didn't God just write down the Bible himself? What's with this divine inspiration stuff?" Muslims avoided the controversy, saying that God wrote the actual words in the Koran.
Greek scholars have argued for centuries what the "breath of God" actually means. In trying to give us a sense of what early Christians thought about it, one of my teachers likened a gospel writer to a deflated basketball. Pumping air into a basketball changes the way the basketball behaves but the basketball is essentially the same.
It is difficult for us to get into the heads of people who wrote so many years ago. Most everything happened because of gods or spirits. For example: Man has to do something to grain to make it alcoholic (beer) but wine becomes alcoholic on its own. How to explain this? The only explanation they could think of was that the breath or essence of a spirit or God came into the wine. People who drank wine were therefore drinking a spirit. This explained why people did foolish and crazy things when they had too much wine. It was the spirit, the god or magic force, that was acting inside their bodies.
Because everything that happens is done by a spirit, the concept of one God who does everything presented a lot of problems. If the spirit of this one God is in the wine, then this one God can do both good and evil things. That presented a problem for those believers who wanted one God who was all good. The concept of Satan, a fallen angel, solved that problem. Satan is not a god, preserving the concept of one God. Believers could say that it is Satan who is responsible for all the bad things that men do. But if Satan is not a god, then why can't God just annihilate Satan? After centuries of argument, a good explanation was that God allows Satan to exist as a test of our loyalty to God and His commandments. But then some asked why does God need to test us? If God is all-knowing, then he would know what we would do in the face of temptation. Well, maybe God isn't all-knowing, some said. But if God is not all knowing what distinguished this one God from the gods of other religions who had varying powers and knowledge?
I call it the God Maze. Some people get out of the maze by saying that there is no God or gods and that the whole concept of God is a bunch of hocus-pocus, feel good nonsense. The majority of people on this planet do not like that explanation. Without God, what is the purpose of existence? An atheist or existentialist might answer that life doesn't need to have a god-given purpose.
This is the Purpose Maze. Who gives our lives purpose? Each of us or God? Or is it our family, tribe or community? If we answer that one, a larger question follows: What is the purpose of the entire universe, of existence? If a creator God created the universe, why did he bother? Was He lonely or bored - does God get lonely or bored? Each answer brings up even more questions, typical of any maze.
This is the Time Maze. If God is all-knowing, then He knows the future so why bother playing it out? Amusement? If God is eternal and outside of time, can God have any contact with us in a temporal world?
Other people get out of these mazes with faith. Reason can only take a person so far, they say, and then one must leap in an act of faith to embrace God.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
'Bama Bashin'
If you are a talk show host who doesn't like President Obama's economic policies, here are some tips: Repeat over and over again that this recovery is the worst in "modern history" and its all Obama's fault. Many of your viewers or listeners won't know that modern history starts after WW2 and does not include the 1930s Depression. This is the 2nd worst downturn after the 1930s Depression and yes, this is the 2nd worst recovery. Really bad depressions lead to really slow recoveries.
Repeat the mantra that higher taxes leads to slower growth. Don't bother your audience with facts or any comparative analysis. If your audience wanted that, they would read a book. Disregard the 1950s, 1980s and 1990s when a higher tax burden was accompanied by economic growth.
Constantly repeat that Reagan lowered taxes. Any tax increases - and there several of those - were what Reagan called "adjustments to previous tax cuts." If you repeat "tax cuts" and "Reagan" enough times and your audience does not do any research, they will believe you. Hopefully, most of your audience wasn't around or doesn't remember much of the 1980s. They remember only the hairstyles and the music.
**************
For those of you who want to know more about the tax cuts, increases and reform in 1986 - and like facts and a good story to boot - try Showdown At Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray. Written a year after passage of the tax reform act, the authors had access to many of the key players, providing us with first hand accounts of the wheeling and dealing, the political feints and parries by all parties involved. The authors thrown in a small amount of budget math, just enough to understand the drama. Although the topic of the book is tax reform, the story is about people, alliances and power.
Repeat the mantra that higher taxes leads to slower growth. Don't bother your audience with facts or any comparative analysis. If your audience wanted that, they would read a book. Disregard the 1950s, 1980s and 1990s when a higher tax burden was accompanied by economic growth.
Constantly repeat that Reagan lowered taxes. Any tax increases - and there several of those - were what Reagan called "adjustments to previous tax cuts." If you repeat "tax cuts" and "Reagan" enough times and your audience does not do any research, they will believe you. Hopefully, most of your audience wasn't around or doesn't remember much of the 1980s. They remember only the hairstyles and the music.
**************
For those of you who want to know more about the tax cuts, increases and reform in 1986 - and like facts and a good story to boot - try Showdown At Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray. Written a year after passage of the tax reform act, the authors had access to many of the key players, providing us with first hand accounts of the wheeling and dealing, the political feints and parries by all parties involved. The authors thrown in a small amount of budget math, just enough to understand the drama. Although the topic of the book is tax reform, the story is about people, alliances and power.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Computer Prices - Ye Olde Days
While cleaning up my hard drive, I found this gem from about sixteen years ago. It is astounding how much more bang for the buck we get in computing now compared to the mid nineties.
At the top of the list is a Gateway Pentium model with a CPU running at 200Mhz, less than a tenth of CPU speeds today. 16MB of RAM, the short term memory of a computer, seems insignificant to the 16GB and higher RAM found on many computers today. A 2.5GB, fairly large hard drive then, is less than most memory sticks today and a far cry from the 500GB hard drives sold with some computers. All of this in 1996 for the price of $3900.
At the top of the list is a Gateway Pentium model with a CPU running at 200Mhz, less than a tenth of CPU speeds today. 16MB of RAM, the short term memory of a computer, seems insignificant to the 16GB and higher RAM found on many computers today. A 2.5GB, fairly large hard drive then, is less than most memory sticks today and a far cry from the 500GB hard drives sold with some computers. All of this in 1996 for the price of $3900.
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