I've had this for years. The tool I primarily use is called Friends(tm) and this amazing tool offers restaurant suggestions, movies, musics - you pretty much name it. You see, Friends(tm), have a number of different algorithms that make selections that are quite different from mine in music, movies or whatever.
There are other tools available too - Advertising(tm), Newspaper Critics(tm), Book Reviewers(tm), Magazines(tm), Festivals(tm) and so forth. People with good taste often use more than one.
Joking aside, why do people make things so much harder than they really are? Every new thing that comes down the pike doesn't mean we have to remake the world.
Not really. Fatal collisions is only one metric out of dozens you could use - such as total collisions, collisions causing injury, etc. You also do not know if there is causal relationship between recklessness and accidents. Perhaps it is because teens are all talking on cell phones, driving older cars, have more people in a car at a given time, the fact that more teens live in metropolitan areas than other places, etc.
You cannot say anything conclusive about how the risks that teens pose stack up against other risks - such as cell phone use and driving - and how other factors contribute. Perhaps if you had a lot of data from insurance companies you could build a workable model - but without such a model you would have to argue based on an unsubstantiated prejudices on our part. This is my point.
More than 3,800 young drivers age 15-20 are killed every year in traffic crashes. More than 326,000 young drivers are injured.
Now, lets go to the cell phone issue - using the same site I used before:
A 2003 article published by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA) estimated that cell phone use by drivers may cause approximately 2,600 deaths, 330,000 moderate to critical injuries, and 1.5 million instances of property damage in America per year. The report cautioned, however, that because information on cell phone use by motorists is limited, the effects are difficult to gauge. HCRA concluded that fatalities could range from 800 to 8,000 per year, with injury estimates ranging from 100,000 to 1 million per year.
There is not enough data either way to say which is more dangerous. But I think we can say that just being young is not more of a source of risk than other behaviors many adults engage in - such as talking on a cell phone while driving.
I recently read (Fall 2005) an interesting article in Dissent magazine from Gary T. Marx on this issue called: "Soft Surveillance Mandatory Voluntarism and the Collection of Personal Data."
He makes a number of interesting observations on how DNA as a soft means for the collection of personal data - for example, where police go in and ask everyone in a community for a mouth swab "in order to solve a crime" or in airports as the poster suggests. Marx argues for a system based on clearly defined rules based on meaningful consent. These rules could center around questions like: Would the information collector be comfortable being the subject, rather than the agent, of surveillance if the situation were reversed?
Imagine for a moment a community database of DNA information and the potential for abuse. For example, a criminal might collect hair from a hair brush and plant it at the scene of a crime. Perhaps a swab might be a precondition for health insurance? Etc.
On the whole, this is good advice. However, I would like to provide more detail here:
"It's just suicide to try to contract that out to someone else. It's one thing (and highly recommended) to outsource ANCILLARY business functions (accounting, legal, etc.) that to you are basically a commodity. But not your crown jewels. Did Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, or frankly ANY successful startup start by outsourcing/offshoring the development of their core IP?"
You can do this if you core IP is marketing and after you have been established. Nike would be one classic example where the company thinks of itself as a marketer of shoes not a maker of them. Tom Hilfiger use to be a bunch of upscale shops in New York - and now they make their money licensing the name.
The key wrinkle is start-up companies. I think it is possible to have management be your core competency. The fact that you are taking the chance, approving the specs, and bringing something to market that hasn't existed before (and fills an important need) is something of value. The problem with this is two-fold: 1. It is difficult to do and 2. Once you prove it is possible, you will spawn copy-cats (let's face it, management is not a specialized skill). Neither puts you in the position for the long term success of a Google, Yahoo or whatever.
Presumably, people with profiles at a dating site want to date - not recieve a brief note from an email pal once a week. The economics break down if you assume any of the following: dating would be necessary, email would actually have to respond and remember details of previous conversations (and not mix them up), or people are filtering the email they are getting trying to determine that it is from an authentic (or nice) person or not.
The only way your model works is if you assume that you can just fire off emails and not respond or engage people. It might work for a brief time - but it wouldn't last. The culture would evolve so that people didn't take you seriously until two or three major emails - kind of the same way Slashdot allows you to compensate and give newer people a lower score. I would be surprised if that isn't the case already on online dating sites because people are trying to get a sense of whether talking to someone is a waste of their time.
Realistically, the framing you have put on this just doesn't add up.
You would have thought The Guardian could have sprung for the $19.95/month to get a thousand responses a month for a few months. Posting anything about 100 responses is weak. Anyone a subscriber to Surveymoney (or similar) and willing to post a more realistic survey?
Last I checked, athlete was defined as: a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina. While you can make arguments that there is a physical component to gaming, it isn't their central feature. I'd be included to agree with the parent on this one.
Convenient but also on topic. Whether you use Match.com, a community website like myspace.com or whatever, they do have some decided benefits. You should at least give it a try - last I checked posting a profile costs you nothing. It's more passive, but it can give you a bit of its flavor.
I'm in my mid-thirties. Square that with your comment.
Try doing a little research. I believe there are no conclusive studies but the general number I have seen is that cell phone use makes you four times more likely to be involved in a crash. Check out how many accidents where it is a factor - in those states that track it. I don't know how different this is for the probablity in being in an accident and being a teenager (not using a cell phone) - but I'd wager it is not much higher.
My point is that adults have other weaknesses - like an over-estimation of their competencies due to their experience - that are as bad as those teens have. Thanks for helping me illustrate my point.
Match.com has millions of people on the service. In order for this to be a policy, what size work force would they need to create positive word of mouth? Further, would people say positive things if they dated someone for a time or two and then never heard from them again - or were strung along? Please. I'm not buying it. Sounds like someone pissed off that his fairy tale fantasy didn't come true.
I disagree. I was not any more naturally foolish and oblivious now than I was as a child. My sense of morality didn't just come upon me as an adult. It was there all along.
I can think of many things that I've done that were much more dangerous as an adult. For example, I had to drive what typically takes two hours in a blizzard to catch a flight. It took closer to six. I saw several dozen cars, semis and other vehicles in ditches at the side of the road. Half the time my car had no traction at 20mph or less. Lots of ambulances, etc. There is no way I would have done anything like this as a child - and it is a direct function of complacency. I needed to make that flight, and I did. In the process I did something far riskier than I ever did as a child.
I can think of many other examples where adult responsbilities put you into a position to take risks - moreso than you would take as a risk loving teen. Haven't you had the same experience?
I've seen this too. However, I think there is a difference between being predisposed to take more and bigger risks and having bad judgment. I guess the argument I was making that complacency is more frequently a cause of bad outcomes and poor judgment than risk taking. Let's not be be patronizing just because of a teenagers stage of development - especially without taking a cold, hard look at the problems at being fully adult and how they actually compare.
I call B.S. This is a convenient story that people that are no longer kids like to tell themselves. I'd bet if you reflected on your entire life, jumping from a tree pretending you were He-Man probably wouldn't make your top 25 of all time stupid things you have done. If you were to make a top 25 list, probabilities would have that most of these happened while you were an adult.
I used to do flips off my roof into a pool. Stupid? Yeah. Top 25 stupid? Probably not. Kids are testing boundries - and there is inherent risk in doing so. Adults more frequently do stupid things out of complacency. There's a reason why people take notice of a kid jumping off a tree and killing themselves. There's also a reason why people don't think twice about people that kill themselves (or worse, another) because they were driving and talking on the cell phone - or some other "normal" activity. Which do you think is more common?
Your post reminds me of The Story of Mel. Everyone has some notion of what it means to be a geek - and then when time moves along and it changes they make comments like, "well, that may be what it means to be a geek in the age of lite beer..."
I think people are coming to realize that we are all "geeks". One might be able to tell you about the history of [insert music of choice] with every major band, development and so forth. Another might be able to identify every make and model of car ever made and the problems they have (Car Talk, for example). Today, it might just be that your level of geekiness is a function of how many things you have an expertise in and how rare that expertise is.
For example, I know a surgeon. She is essentially a wetware hacker. She talks about fixing human bodies with the same passion I hear grey beards talk about fixing computer systems. She's a true geek - but by your standards wouldn't even qualify.
I don't know what company you work for. I work in an advertising agency. If you looked at average salary of employees by department - outside of executives and creatives - IT would be at the top of the list.
Control may happen. The simple fact of the matter is that control only lasts so long. It is a matter of perspective. Whether you talk about civilizations, forms of government, economies, business models, controls only work so long as there are no disruptive variables in play that subvert the system.
Controls also can be useful. Monopoly control for infrastructure for electrical power and telephone services fueled their adoption. Some argue that the centralized economy of Communist Russia was instrumental in their rapid industrial development.
However, a controlled system rarely had good mechanisms for evolving itself to changing circumstances. As a result, you have a systems Darwinism - for lack of a better expression - that eventually subverts the system of controls and forces it to transform itself to the new environment. The idea is there in Polybius and others.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had this for years. The tool I primarily use is called Friends(tm) and this amazing tool offers restaurant suggestions, movies, musics - you pretty much name it. You see, Friends(tm), have a number of different algorithms that make selections that are quite different from mine in music, movies or whatever.
There are other tools available too - Advertising(tm), Newspaper Critics(tm), Book Reviewers(tm), Magazines(tm), Festivals(tm) and so forth. People with good taste often use more than one.
Joking aside, why do people make things so much harder than they really are? Every new thing that comes down the pike doesn't mean we have to remake the world.
Should I cue the crickets chirping? =)
Not really. Fatal collisions is only one metric out of dozens you could use - such as total collisions, collisions causing injury, etc. You also do not know if there is causal relationship between recklessness and accidents. Perhaps it is because teens are all talking on cell phones, driving older cars, have more people in a car at a given time, the fact that more teens live in metropolitan areas than other places, etc.
You cannot say anything conclusive about how the risks that teens pose stack up against other risks - such as cell phone use and driving - and how other factors contribute. Perhaps if you had a lot of data from insurance companies you could build a workable model - but without such a model you would have to argue based on an unsubstantiated prejudices on our part. This is my point.
Better yet, you could use the National Safety Council:
Now, lets go to the cell phone issue - using the same site I used before:
There is not enough data either way to say which is more dangerous. But I think we can say that just being young is not more of a source of risk than other behaviors many adults engage in - such as talking on a cell phone while driving.
I recently read (Fall 2005) an interesting article in Dissent magazine from Gary T. Marx on this issue called: "Soft Surveillance Mandatory Voluntarism and the Collection of Personal Data."
He makes a number of interesting observations on how DNA as a soft means for the collection of personal data - for example, where police go in and ask everyone in a community for a mouth swab "in order to solve a crime" or in airports as the poster suggests. Marx argues for a system based on clearly defined rules based on meaningful consent. These rules could center around questions like: Would the information collector be comfortable being the subject, rather than the agent, of surveillance if the situation were reversed?
Imagine for a moment a community database of DNA information and the potential for abuse. For example, a criminal might collect hair from a hair brush and plant it at the scene of a crime. Perhaps a swab might be a precondition for health insurance? Etc.
There are many potential problems with the widespread availability of DNA technology. It is also an issue many of us have not given a great deal of thought. Gary Marx has some material available online like Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet.
If you know of other people addressing this issue that would be worth reading, please reply with a citation or link.
On the whole, this is good advice. However, I would like to provide more detail here:
You can do this if you core IP is marketing and after you have been established. Nike would be one classic example where the company thinks of itself as a marketer of shoes not a maker of them. Tom Hilfiger use to be a bunch of upscale shops in New York - and now they make their money licensing the name.
The key wrinkle is start-up companies. I think it is possible to have management be your core competency. The fact that you are taking the chance, approving the specs, and bringing something to market that hasn't existed before (and fills an important need) is something of value. The problem with this is two-fold: 1. It is difficult to do and 2. Once you prove it is possible, you will spawn copy-cats (let's face it, management is not a specialized skill). Neither puts you in the position for the long term success of a Google, Yahoo or whatever.
Presumably, people with profiles at a dating site want to date - not recieve a brief note from an email pal once a week. The economics break down if you assume any of the following: dating would be necessary, email would actually have to respond and remember details of previous conversations (and not mix them up), or people are filtering the email they are getting trying to determine that it is from an authentic (or nice) person or not.
The only way your model works is if you assume that you can just fire off emails and not respond or engage people. It might work for a brief time - but it wouldn't last. The culture would evolve so that people didn't take you seriously until two or three major emails - kind of the same way Slashdot allows you to compensate and give newer people a lower score. I would be surprised if that isn't the case already on online dating sites because people are trying to get a sense of whether talking to someone is a waste of their time.
Realistically, the framing you have put on this just doesn't add up.
You would have thought The Guardian could have sprung for the $19.95/month to get a thousand responses a month for a few months. Posting anything about 100 responses is weak. Anyone a subscriber to Surveymoney (or similar) and willing to post a more realistic survey?
Last I checked, athlete was defined as: a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina. While you can make arguments that there is a physical component to gaming, it isn't their central feature. I'd be included to agree with the parent on this one.
Convenient but also on topic. Whether you use Match.com, a community website like myspace.com or whatever, they do have some decided benefits. You should at least give it a try - last I checked posting a profile costs you nothing. It's more passive, but it can give you a bit of its flavor.
I'm in my mid-thirties. Square that with your comment.
Try doing a little research. I believe there are no conclusive studies but the general number I have seen is that cell phone use makes you four times more likely to be involved in a crash. Check out how many accidents where it is a factor - in those states that track it. I don't know how different this is for the probablity in being in an accident and being a teenager (not using a cell phone) - but I'd wager it is not much higher.
My point is that adults have other weaknesses - like an over-estimation of their competencies due to their experience - that are as bad as those teens have. Thanks for helping me illustrate my point.
Match.com has millions of people on the service. In order for this to be a policy, what size work force would they need to create positive word of mouth? Further, would people say positive things if they dated someone for a time or two and then never heard from them again - or were strung along? Please. I'm not buying it. Sounds like someone pissed off that his fairy tale fantasy didn't come true.
The only thing the music industry celebrates is more money in their pockets - which is not happening according to their traditional models.
I disagree. I was not any more naturally foolish and oblivious now than I was as a child. My sense of morality didn't just come upon me as an adult. It was there all along.
I can think of many things that I've done that were much more dangerous as an adult. For example, I had to drive what typically takes two hours in a blizzard to catch a flight. It took closer to six. I saw several dozen cars, semis and other vehicles in ditches at the side of the road. Half the time my car had no traction at 20mph or less. Lots of ambulances, etc. There is no way I would have done anything like this as a child - and it is a direct function of complacency. I needed to make that flight, and I did. In the process I did something far riskier than I ever did as a child.
I can think of many other examples where adult responsbilities put you into a position to take risks - moreso than you would take as a risk loving teen. Haven't you had the same experience?
I've seen this too. However, I think there is a difference between being predisposed to take more and bigger risks and having bad judgment. I guess the argument I was making that complacency is more frequently a cause of bad outcomes and poor judgment than risk taking. Let's not be be patronizing just because of a teenagers stage of development - especially without taking a cold, hard look at the problems at being fully adult and how they actually compare.
I call B.S. This is a convenient story that people that are no longer kids like to tell themselves. I'd bet if you reflected on your entire life, jumping from a tree pretending you were He-Man probably wouldn't make your top 25 of all time stupid things you have done. If you were to make a top 25 list, probabilities would have that most of these happened while you were an adult.
I used to do flips off my roof into a pool. Stupid? Yeah. Top 25 stupid? Probably not. Kids are testing boundries - and there is inherent risk in doing so. Adults more frequently do stupid things out of complacency. There's a reason why people take notice of a kid jumping off a tree and killing themselves. There's also a reason why people don't think twice about people that kill themselves (or worse, another) because they were driving and talking on the cell phone - or some other "normal" activity. Which do you think is more common?
Your post reminds me of The Story of Mel. Everyone has some notion of what it means to be a geek - and then when time moves along and it changes they make comments like, "well, that may be what it means to be a geek in the age of lite beer..."
I think people are coming to realize that we are all "geeks". One might be able to tell you about the history of [insert music of choice] with every major band, development and so forth. Another might be able to identify every make and model of car ever made and the problems they have (Car Talk, for example). Today, it might just be that your level of geekiness is a function of how many things you have an expertise in and how rare that expertise is.
For example, I know a surgeon. She is essentially a wetware hacker. She talks about fixing human bodies with the same passion I hear grey beards talk about fixing computer systems. She's a true geek - but by your standards wouldn't even qualify.
The people you are interacting within your company ARE your clients.
I entered Israel on a ship and had a similar experience. It's not just for airlines.
I don't know what company you work for. I work in an advertising agency. If you looked at average salary of employees by department - outside of executives and creatives - IT would be at the top of the list.
Unless you live somewhere like the United States where the hands of judges are tied with mandatory sentencing.
Control may happen. The simple fact of the matter is that control only lasts so long. It is a matter of perspective. Whether you talk about civilizations, forms of government, economies, business models, controls only work so long as there are no disruptive variables in play that subvert the system.
Controls also can be useful. Monopoly control for infrastructure for electrical power and telephone services fueled their adoption. Some argue that the centralized economy of Communist Russia was instrumental in their rapid industrial development.
However, a controlled system rarely had good mechanisms for evolving itself to changing circumstances. As a result, you have a systems Darwinism - for lack of a better expression - that eventually subverts the system of controls and forces it to transform itself to the new environment. The idea is there in Polybius and others.
Great idea. I'm sure the United States will get moving on that right after they are finished with their implementation of the metric system.
It is basically the same issue as with organic food. National standards mean that companies can lobby Congress to get the concessions they want. For organic foods, it can mean anything from allowing synthetics, factory dairy farms for "organic" milk or worse.
I think this quote captures the issue well:
If you think this is going to help people like you and I very much, you would be very optimistic.