Tag Archives: business

Confessions of a news junkie gaming the system

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[Cryptic Teasing Headline inserted here]

[Byline of over/underpaid author added here]

[Headquarters of news agency/geographical source of news added here]

[Sensationalised lede added here]

[Supporting paragraphs added here]

[Unimportant filler paragraphs/charts/photos added here]

[Sensationalised summary paragraph added here]

Rinse and repeat

= = = = =

You, too, can become a news publisher/editor/reporter by following the simple steps above.

For more details on turning this into an exciting yet profitable career, buy my new book which details the secrets of creating the creative empire based on nothing but convincing people I am a convincing person whose wealth accumulation became its own source for more wealth accumulation — alchemy with mere words, I tell you!

Sewer Outfall

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In one projection of the future, toilets no longer use water.

In that projection, sewer systems are filled with less fluid.

Sewer pipes are available for other uses if…

…if we find a substitute for water-based baths/showers, sinks with water spigots, drains for nonwater liquids.

What if we cleaned ourselves and our environment with liquids that collected into containers and the liquids then evaporated?

How would we dispose of the remaining material?

Instead of disposing, how about recycling/repurposing?

Dirt, oil, blood, skin cells, hair, sand, minerals, grass, sawdust, insects…and on and on.

No more sewer systems.

No more jewellery lost.

No more…

What do you pour down drains today that you no longer think about, out of sight, out of mind?

You’ve never waded down a sewer line, have you?

You’ve never smelled the gases flowing downstream with inertia.

You haven’t seen the screens collecting debris at the entrance to a sewer treatment plant.

When the toilet is reinvented, plenty of infrastructure changes take place, disrupting old models where companies and governmental agencies have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

That’s a whole other paradigm shift of inertia to take into consideration.

Same as trying to change popular youth educational programs.

Not to mention the profitable postsecondary models.

The First Wave?

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So, now that the first wave has crashed upon us, with robots taking over people jobs, what do we do with people who can’t compete against robot-level “thinking,” be it repetitive factory assembly work, warehouse stocking/delivery, data analysis, automotive driving, lab tech work, house vacuuming, aerial bombardment, video surveillance, traffic control, virtual newspaper front page creation, social networking, stock market trades, technical support (via smart FAQs, chatbots), etc.?

Not only must we compare against each other for jobs in the global marketplace, where only the local job is [somewhat] secure — barber/hairstylist, restaurant worker, medical specialist, carpenter, plumber — we must now also compete against our electromechanical creations.

What do we do with the humans who do not have the mental training or motivation to compete against machines?

We talk about global trade and illegal immigration having a downward push on average worker wages, and thus takehome pay/disposable income, but we don’t often talk about the animatronic elephant in the room.

The future is now.

We are feeding the network that films like “Terminator” slyly joked about.

How dystopian you see our current future is up to you, depending on your place in the socioeconomic system we define as if there were hard-and-fast rules about a direct correlation between wages/housing/employment status and happiness.

If a robot replaces you and you are dismissed (fired/laid off) from your job, are you going to redefine your level of happiness?

Isn’t that the goal of a robotic world that was given to us many decades ago?  A new leisure class that no longer had to work because robots were going to “work” while we chose activities that we enjoyed, whatever we want to say we enjoy, including for some, work?

When our human-computer interface ratchets up the level of expectations/sensations/stimuli in the moment, like a natural high for which we grow numb after repeated achievement, seeking the next level of a natural high after another after another after another after another after another after another after another after another…sorry, I just couldn’t stop, you know how it is…where in all that are the products we can afford to buy when a large number of us no longer have jobs to pay for our place in this leisure class where “getting high” has so many new legal forms?

In other words, we are back to the definition of barbarians at the gate staring in wonder at a society which has vastly redefined the meaning of a job.

We are asking the barbarians (and I include myself here) to retrain ourselves to program the machines that are taking over the jobs we have to keep retraining ourselves past the point of enjoying ourselves to lose and rebid the jobs we make ever more complex for the sake of a system that is becoming more and more autonomous, pushing more and more of us out of the way.

It is an argument worth reminding ourselves to make during our rush to automate tasks that once gave us a good standard of living.

Buggy whip manufacturers and Luddites are the classic examples here, of course.

Inconsistencies and inefficiencies in the system  (e.g., medical doctors spending more time on complicated laptop computer programs than with their patients) create room for jobs but who’s minding the system that has grown bigger than any one of us or all of us combined?

When will a stock trading system, a factory and a distribution warehouse start producing profit for itself alone, no longer needing humans-in-the-loop for product sales to/for itself?

Can a robot in a factory predict its failure rate, order parts from another factory (we’ll leave off the thought of it using a local 3D printer to produce its own parts (which would, similar to the rest of this example, require a system to acquire/order raw material for the printer)), the factory receiving the order, fulfilling it, shipping it and installing it without a single one of us involved in the process?

Isn’t that the system we’re creating, the Second Wave, if you will?

Won’t some of the lessons we learn from remote-controlled drones and planetary rovers lead us to this scenario?

Haven’t automated crop management systems reached a similar point, ordering seeds, planting/maintaining/harvesting the crops and delivering the product to a market, where automated futures trading makes a profit for itself, which is shared with us?

Bottom line: where are many of us in the future?

Sick to my stomach

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Politicians will be politicians, protecting their jobs by not requiring companies to give 60-day layoff notices right before general elections, the OMB offering to reimburse companies for violating the WARN Act instead of raising the possibility that the general public would notice that their government representatives are pulling the wool over the eyes.

That, my friends, is what is wrong with our country right now.

It is time to look at the emperour’s new clothes once again and reveal what is right in front of your eyes but you’re too numb to notice.

Has the government of the United States become so brazen as to pull a stunt like this, the citizens unaware of how they’re being treated unfairly for the sake of a few votes?

If we don’t stand up for ourselves, who will?

Who are the people?

What happened to belief in the phrase, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”?

I just don’t know.

I have hesitated to repeat a popular word like sheeple but it sure seems to apply here.

No matter whether Bush, Clinton, Bush or Obama was/is in office, the middle class keeps getting squeezed smaller and smaller.

If the middle class cannot see what’s going to happen to them, what IS happening to them, should I care?

Are we going to ignore an important piece of legislation so candidates can look good, especially the incumbents?

Do young people know what’s happening to their future?

Sigh…the storyline is going the way it wanted to go, showing that governments have no power, losing to the reality that corporate governance is the new norm.

Why bother to vote?

You tell me…

I saw a native American leaning against a wall when I drove out of the Publix parking lot today.  He was wearing a shirt that stated, “The Original Founding Fathers”:

design includes Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and Red Cloud

Enuf sed.

Ethics at the local level

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Here I have a whole universe to consider and yet the gnat in the ointment is nagging me.  Hope it ain’t a mosquito with West Nile virus.

This is the story so far:

  • My next-door neighbour, Ann, died recently.
  • Within a short period of time after Ann’s death, her husband contracted with a real estate agent, put their house up for sale at $10k less than its appraised value (historically, the appraised value, set by our local (county) government, is less than market value), an incredibly low $80k.  Keep in mind that the house on the other side of us sold for $437,500 on 13th August 13 2010, but its appraised value that year was $309,800.
  • The real estate agency was Keller Williams.
  • The house sold in three days, according to another neighbour down the street.
  • The buyer, I discover, is also a real estate agent for Keller Williams, named Alice Battle.
  • Today, my wife and I paid a courtesy visit to meet our new neighbour.
  • A building contractor greeted us, told us Alice doesn’t live there but, instead, is having the place remodeled because Alice, who lives in the city, plans to use the house as a weekend retreat for her and her friends.
  • The building contractor said he wished Alice had been there [to justify her reasons for buying the house] but, and he didn’t want to speak for her, told us anyway that Alice “just fell in love with the house right away” and had to have it.

Well, who wouldn’t at that price?  Is it even ethical to buy from a “friend” working for the same real estate agency who low-balled the price of the house?

I’m collecting more information.  Having been a newspaper reporter, the investigative side of me wants to get to the bottom of this.

Questions I have to answer are:

  • Are there ethical implications here?
  • Is this a common practice in real estate?
  • Is this a violation of any laws?
  • Is this a “tip of the iceberg” moment that might reveal more about why the real estate business was such a disastrous financial bomb dropped in the middle of the global economy?
  • Are we setting ourselves up nationally for another real estate catastrophe?

I guess I need to consult my friends in the legal department to see how I should pursue this matter.  We might have a situation that is worth calling in the big dogs of the newspaper business and coordinating our investigations across the country.

I can’t wait to hear what Alice has to say for herself because she represents not only herself here but also Keller Williams and the real estate business in general, as well as potentially putting Huntsville in national news and Huntsville needs more newspaper exposure like UAH needs another Amy Bishop on their professorial staff.

I feel like a hound dog that’s found a strong scent and wants to tree a varmint.

More as it develops…

The Metrics of Success

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Tonight, after our private dance lesson with Joe at KCDC, I joined my wife at the Jackson Center to celebrate her new company’s 10th anniversary in business.

Of all the stats they named, one stood out the most — combined charitable giving, between the company (~$400k) and employees (~$1.1M), has been around 1.6-million American dollars to the community.

I learned a long time ago never to lecture people about their responsibilities for charitable contributions.

We develop our own habits of helping others — sometimes a simple smile or pat on the shoulder, sometimes a 100-million dollar university endowment.

Or we may scowl at the whole world and return to our solitary meditation in Quonset huts deep in the wilderness.

I give away my ideas for consumption/contemplation by the whole species — a gift with no value or debt attached.

For instance, movie aficionados question the quality of remakes because the originals were just so hard to match.

Well, there’s at least one film that was so bad to begin with that investors are urging Ben Affleck, on the chance his new movie, “Argo,” will be a hit, to let a director take a shot at
remaking “Gigli.”

Rumours say that Amanda Bynes has been terrorising fellow drivers on the streets of LA to prove she’s tough enough to act the J-Lo part in the remake.  Several Indian actors have hinted they are rough enough to reprise the role of Gigli.

We’ll see.

Meanwhile, for a brief moment of semi-sanity, American football fans applauded the return of the “zebras,” better known as nearsighted field referees, to the NFL.

The Atlanta Braves, an all-American baseball team, hope the magic of “Trouble With The Curve” will propel them deep into the postseason playoffs this year.

Can Sarah Brightman sing her way to heights that Felix Baumgartner can only dream of?

I have neglected our scientists glued to their desks in the subterranean b-b-basement chambers for too long.

Let us visit them and see if they have answer to the question, “When does a set of smartphone users with their portable handheld computers disguised as telecommunication instruments allow the use of the networked devices as a virtual supercomputer during idle CPU cycles?”

Me, with my Bluetooth keyboard and large LCD monitor, I’ve just about given up the use of a desktop/laptop PC, carrying my equivalent of an OQO in the Samsung Galaxy SIII.

Next on the list: synching the smartphone to my brain interface for better multitasking, spinning off calculations to the dedicated hardware device that displays results in my third eye, an audiovisual hybrid developed just for this new me who had to train myself to respond to a new “language” that doesn’t interfere with my normal functions within polite society.

Rewiring myself from the “reptile” brain on up has been a tiring task but one well worth all the risks so far.

Duplicating this reconfiguration via genetic code remapping will be the greatest challenge with the personal stem cells my scientists created for me to play god (note the lowercase).

Creating a genetic one-off experiment of self is the safest route at this point in our knowledge base.

Well, that’s all for now.  Time for a chemical bath to wash off all the symbiotic “germs” and see how a “virgin” self responds to the environment.

Then take “Looper” for a spin on a Möbius strip.

Questions up for debate

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We can imagine the U.S. presidential debates to contain questions like these:

  • Do you consider the sense of global cooperation higher or lower than when you took office four years ago?  Examples: Middle Eastern countries considering formation of their own Internet after U.S. insult of historical religious figure; China/Japan/Taiwan tension; European economic/political unrest; a war in Syria that threatens peace in Turkey, one of our friends; al Qaeda still strong enough to surprise a consulate and kill our own…
  • You say you are for the people.  Which people?  For instance, were Wall Street banker bonuses smaller or larger after the bailout?  Who has benefited the most during your term in office?  Hasn’t it been the very same people you blame Bush for the recession?  What has fundamentally changed?
  • Reagan didn’t blame the economy on Jimmy Carter four years later.  Why do you keep blaming your predecessor four years later?  Doesn’t that mean you admit you don’t have the power base to make the fundamental changes this country needs other than plugging a few holes in a dam that’s still losing a lot of water on your watch four years later?
  • How many more Solyndras do we need until we can see your administration’s track record on picking winners is no better than throwing darts in the dark?
  • I am financially independent enough that I can make my own decisions.  You are a pure politician who has not united our government, let alone the real world.  Which one of us has the real global power to make the U.S. economically strong again?
  • They say you’re a quick thinker.  Okay, try this.  A preacher, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a bar.  Finish the joke, making sure a Buddhist priest says the punchline…

Having politicians to play with is like herding cats — open a can of food and watch ’em come running to eat, despite whatever else they thought they were doing that was important enough to pretend to ignore you.

A Virtual Nation Hidden Amongst You

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For years now, with the near-ubiquity of the Internet, our virtual nation has collected the company charters and business contracts to make a legitimate alternative to land-based countries.

In addition, our advantages allow us to circumvent the usual necessities — a standing army, a bloated government, etc. — that hinder real progress.

The zombie computer in your technology-illiterate relative’s spare bedroom may well be one of our minions, processing bank transactions, serving B2B support roles and generally keeping our network of millionaires and billionaires off the books of cash-strapped governments looking to leech onto successes.

You are well aware that some of our businesses are [in]directly subsidised by the goverments to which you swear loyalty and, naturally, you expect us to share our wealth.

You are wrong.

Just because you have been suckered into giving away your hard-earned income/investments for the social good, don’t think we are like you.  We competed for those subsidies fair and square, just like all our other secret business deals you aren’t aware of.

Look at yourselves.  You talk about freedom yet you easily give up your freedoms for job security.

It’s the same thing here.

You talk about openness and honesty yet you readily buy your goods from our companies when you know we required nondisclosure agreements, secret R&D labs, and security guards to protect us from the openness and honesty you want that would put us out of business in a heartbeat.

Talk about a schizophrenic, shortsighted subculture!

Look at the companies you give your personal data for free: Google, Amazon, Facebook, and the like.

Every single one of those companies run their businesses out of view of the public eye, earning gazillions from the sale of your personal data, yet you know next to nothing about them.

We just took that concept to the next level.

We millionaires and billionaires have been cooking books since our ancestors discovered fire.

We’ll keep feeding you ledgers and financial spreadsheets from which we’ll pay our pittance of a tax burden to lead your eyes away from our virtual nation and its coffers.

The Chinese are some of our best customers.  In fact, they have insisted that we keep our current U.S. president on board because he and his staff are easiest to manipulate into toeing the line and pretending to serve the people although their secret stashes are larger than most.

That is why I take no salary for my work here because I know I am taken care of.

We do this for your own good.

How? You continue to show us you don’t know what’s good for you by buying the frivolous products we manufacture that are dangerous for your health.

Until the day comes when the majority of you realise your unhealthy lifestyles and do something to stop supporting us, who are employing you to desire, design, manufacture and buy the goods that are destroying you (a great feedback loop if we ever saw one), we’re going to keep profiting on your ignorance from now until time immemorial.

Our virtual nation will continue to fund the ultimate project — getting some of us and/or our biotech representatives off this planet  — because we know you, collectively, just aren’t smart and disciplined enough to stay focused on such a longterm goal.

This blog entry may seem like a reverse method for encouraging you to listen to our hypnotists but it has worked for thousands of years and will continue to do so.  Just in case, let’s reword it — repeat after me:

  • I am important.
  • There’s a unique place in society for my quirky personality.
  • My talents are not always obvious but my subculture depends on my contributions, anyway.
  • Some days it feels like unseen hands guide me — I will let my elders tell me what that means.
  • These instant food packets that contain nothing which resembles the animals or plants from whom they are supposed to have been derived are good for me.

Please ignore the last one — we have assigned that statement to our staff of advertising/marketing hypnotists to make it much more appealing to the false sense of personal tastes and preferences we ingrained in you during your formative years.

Skip your Wheaties, forget Charles Atlas, just buy a Dodge Charger and timewarp to the 1970s!

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I’m not a political candidate but I approve this flashback message that you could be Dodge material, just in time for a female Air Force officer to take charge of basic training.