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July 31, 2006
A Nation of Wimps
We knew them growing up. We knew who they were on the playground. We knew who they were in the classroom, and on the sports field, and during gym class.
And we absolutely know who they are in the workforce. The ones who don't understand that managers correct behavior not because you're a total failure, but because they are trying to help. The ones who you dread giving performance feedback to. And (as I read recently) the ones whose parents call when their little one doesn't get the promotion or the raise. Why do these people exist?
Because we're raising A Nation of Wimps:
No one doubts that there are significant economic forces pushing parents to invest so heavily in their children's outcome from an early age. But taking all the discomfort, disappointment and even the play out of development, especially while increasing pressure for success, turns out to be misguided by just about 180 degrees. With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life. That not only makes them risk-averse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with anxiety. In the process they're robbed of identity, meaning and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real happiness. Forget, too, about perseverance, not simply a moral virtue but a necessary life skill. These turn out to be the spreading psychic fault lines of 21st-century youth. Whether we want to or not, we're on our way to creating a nation of wimps.Posted by PJ at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 26, 2006
Apperception
"I see only one move ahead... but it is always the correct one."
A man walks along the inside of a circle of chess tables, glancing at each for two or three seconds before making his move. On the outer rim, dozens of amateurs sit pondering their replies until he completes the circuit. The year is 1909, the man is José Raúl Capablanca of Cuba, and the result is a whitewash: 28 wins in as many games. The exhibition was part of a tour in which Capablanca won 168 games in a row.Posted by PJ at 04:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How did he play so well, so quickly? And how far ahead could he calculate under such constraints? "I see only one move ahead," Capablanca is said to have answered, "but it is always the correct one."
He thus put in a nutshell what a century of psychological research has subsequently established: much of the chess master's advantage over the novice derives from the first few seconds of thought. This rapid, knowledge-guided perception, sometimes called apperception, can be seen in experts in other fields as well. Just as a master can recall all the moves in a game he has played, so can an accomplished musician often reconstruct the score to a sonata heard just once. And just as the chess master often finds the best move in a flash, an expert physician can sometimes make an accurate diagnosis within moments of laying eyes on a patient.
But how do the experts in these various subjects acquire their extraordinary skills? How much can be credited to innate talent and how much to intensive training? Psychologists have sought answers in studies of chess masters. The collected results of a century of such research have led to new theories explaining how the mind organizes and retrieves information. What is more, this research may have important implications for educators. Perhaps the same techniques used by chess players to hone their skills could be applied in the classroom to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. [...]
July 24, 2006
Rentacoder
Interesting post from SlackerManager yesterday morning:
Rentacoder works wonders (or how I outsourced a bit of blog design to India)I had a simple bit of php/css coding that needed doing on the blog. Usually I just try to stumble through that stuff on my own, but I just didn’t have the time or inclination on this one. Plus, I’d been curious about using sites like Rentacoder, so this seemed like a good excuse. I set up an account, had my PayPal account verfied and submitted a project for bid.
I began getting project bids within about an hour and eventually racked up about a dozen or so bids, ranging from $8 to $50 (I know!). The first coder that responded was the one that I ended up using–devdive was super responsive and easy to work with. I ended up paying $25 via PayPal for a few modifications to a stylesheet and a php file. Easily worth the time savings for me.
I understand that the professionals on Rentacoder aren’t limited to coding, either. They’ll write whitepapers, ebooks, etc. Seems like if you need a digital bit of whatever, you can contract it out on Rentacoder (among other sites). I also understand that some folks who are bootstrapping businesses are actually outsourcing all of their software development to sites like this in order to cut down on initial overhead. Excellent idea.
Reminds me of something I ran across a while back, and posted about here: An Economic Shift Is Underway (20 March 2006)
Posted by PJ at 03:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJuly 21, 2006
One *GIANT* Leap for Mankind
“That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” [Audio] On 21 July 1969, four days after taking off from Cape Canaveral, and six and a half hours after landing Apollo 11 on the Sea of Tranquility, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon.
Without a doubt, the moon landing is one of the greatest accomplishments of mankind. For those who were alive thirty-seven years ago, the sight of Armstrong’s “small step” is one of the most iconic images of their lifetime.
Two interesting bits:
First, Mike Collins, the astronaut circling the moon in the second half of their ship, suggested the following to Armstrong: "If you had any balls, you'd say 'Oh, my God, what is that thing?' then scream and cut your mic." (Now THAT would have been an iconic image for all mankind!)
Second, another aspect that's quite interesting to think about is the risk they took. They had no idea what would happen when they stepped onto the moon. I've read about parents who refused to let their children watch because of what might happen. A decade and a half later, this took place:
Carter [an astronaut who was investigating the Challenger loss] next informed everybody that the flight surgeon's office was going to archive a clip of our hair and a footprint to facilitate our identification in the event of a future shuttle loss. That comment suggested how difficult identification of the Challenger crew remains had been. Even dental records hadn't been enough. [Astronaut] John Young sagely observed, "When extranordinary methods are being taken to make sure you can be identified after you're dead, everybody ought to think twice about the job they're in." He was right.
(From "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane, page 247)
Nixon even recognized this, and had a speech prepared in the event something happened to Apollo 11 and they couldn't save them:
Nixon Had Speech if Moon Trip FailedPosted by PJ at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack.c The Associated Press
By CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - When man first landed on the moon 30 years ago, President Nixon had a speech all ready in case man could not get off again.
A contingency statement was prepared for Nixon, an eerie, poignant tribute that he would deliver while the astronauts were still alive but when there was no longer any hope for them.
"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace,' says the statement, incorporated in a memo entitled "In Event of Moon Disaster.'
The memo is dated July 18, 1969, two days before the moon landing.
Nixon never had to act on it. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin made it safely off the moon, back into the command module with Michael Collins, and home. The words were drafted by William Safire, then a Nixon speechwriter and now a columnist for The New York Times.
The memo ended up in the National Archives and was reported this week by the Los Angeles Times. Safire did not return a phone call.
According to the memo, in the event of disaster Nixon was advised to call each of the "widows-to-be' before reading the statement to the nation.
Then NASA would cut off communication with the stranded astronauts and a clergyman would "adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to 'the deepest of the deep,' concluding with the Lord's Prayer.'
It has long been rumored that astronauts landing on the moon carried suicide capsules in case their return became impossible.
The Apollo XI astronauts spent more than 21 hours on the moon, watched by millions around the world on TV. Nixon had the happy duty of putting in a phone call to them while they stood on the dusty lunar surface.
But had something gone terribly wrong, these words were prepared:
"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
"These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
"These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
"They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
"In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
"In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
"Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
"For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."
July 19, 2006
Happy Birthday, Album Chart!
50 albums that changed music: Fifty years old this month, the album chart has tracked the history of pop. But only a select few records have actually altered the course of music. To mark the anniversary, Kitty Empire pays tribute to a sublime art form, and our panel of critics argues for 50 albums that caused a revolution...
A longside film, the pop album was the defining art form of the 20th century, the soundtrack to vast technological and social change. Once, sets of one-sided 78rpm phonograph discs were kept together in big books, like photographs in an album. The term 'album' was first used specifically in 1909, when Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite was released on four double-sided discs in one package. The first official top 10 round-up of these newfangled musical delivery-modes was issued in Britain on 28 July 1956, making the pop album chart 50 years old this month.
Singles were immediate, ephemeral things. Albums made pondering pop and rock into a valid intellectual pursuit. Friendships were founded, love could blossom, bands could be formed, all from flicking through someone's album collection. Owning certain albums became like shorthand; a manifesto for everything you stood for, and against: the Smiths' Meat is Murder , Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
Before lasers replaced needles, albums had sides. They were a game of two halves, building towards an intermission; more than the sum of their constituent songs. At least, the good ones were. Some of them still are, except they can now last 70-plus minutes, over twice as long as their vinyl forebears. Is this bloat, or value for money? The debate rumbles on.
The list itself can be found here.
I was quite happy to see that Blue Lines by Massive Attack made the list. I've long said that the album, and specifically Unfinished Symphony, was one of the best pieces of music every made.
37 Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991)
Obliterators of rap's boundaries, Massive Attack pioneered the cinematic trip hop movement. After graduating from one of Britain's premier sound systems, the Bristol-based Wild Bunch, Andrew 'Mushroom' Vowles and Grant 'Daddy G' Marshall joined forces with graffiti artist 3D. Massive Attack's debut LP spawned the unforgettable 'Unfinished Sympathy' and remains a modern classic.
Without this ... no Roots Manuva, no Dizzee. In fact, there would be no British urban music scene to speak of.
It's interesting to see how one innovation in music impacted others, and the Guardian was wise to note that. It's one thing to say "hey, that was a great song/album" but it's something else completely to say "this was so influential that it caused this, this, and this."
Posted by PJ at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJuly 18, 2006
Time is Money
Think you're ready to enter into a global market? Think about this:
There's a big difference between making the sale and collecting the cash. For decades, companies have been telling their customers that they have to pay up in 'net 30 days.' But in the United States, the average age of outstanding receivables is 53 days. In parts of Europe, that number climbs to 77 days, and in Japan, companies sometimes take more than 180 days -- 6 months -- to collect.
You can have all the infrastructure you need. Doesn't mean that the bills are going to get paid any faster...
From Time Is Money in Fast Company
Posted by PJ at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
