Plans2Reality

Computer Glasses

OK, not very dramatic. But with monitors getting bigger and bigger, the top edge of a monitor is higher than it used to be. So 'specially for us older folks, computer glasses help with neck strain and posture.

They are basically progressive-lens bifocal, but they are "biased" - there is a big sweet spot in the middle, just right for the distance of a computer screen. At the very top, they let you see distance.

Try some!

Banished Word: "It's in our DNA"

It is not "in your DNA". You don't get to vote about what's "in your DNA." You certainly don't get to change, at the whim of the marketing department, what's "in your DNA".

There's a good chance that what is in your DNA is as lovely as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs's Disease, and sickle-cell anemia. Especially if you are a large organization.

So knock it off!

 

Banished Word: Seamless

Okay, folks, we have beaten this one to death. Your product? NOT seamless. Stop claiming otherwise.

Klein bottles are seamless. (Look it up). Lovely bolts of cloth from Britex are seamless. Your product is not seamless. It does not provide seamless coverage. It is not a seamless support experience.

Stop beating this perfectly innocent word to death!

The third industrial revolution begins: The gentleman manufacturer | The Economist

3D printing is not that new, but it appears we are at, or even past, the stage where laser printers were int he late 1980s - leaving the corporate world and becoming personal

 

via www.economist.com

The Lynching of John Derbyshire

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, several journalists have written about "the talk" - the talk black parents have with their kids about how to deal with racism, racist cops, profiling, etc. That problem is real, and the advice given is probably 99% correct. It ain't a perfect world.

John Derbyshire responded with the talk that non-black people have with their kids, and with foreigners visiting here, and such like. We all know what that talk is - what part of town is best to avoid, especially at night, what nightclubs and other places you might wish to pass on, etc.

John's taken it a little further - he has referenced some well-established if not terribly pleasant truths about the statistical distrubution of IQ as it is defined by certain standardized tests. But overall, most white people would have to agree, perhaps reluctantly, with his advice to his children, if not necessarily his rationale for why it is so. I'm not sure I agree with all of his rationale, either, but there is at least some truth in it.

But we are not allowed to admit, much less say such things. This is in part because in the past, various government policies that were based on the science of the day turned out not to be such good policies. In other words, eugenics hasn't worked well as a government policy. Nor should it have a role; we are all God's children, regardless of variations in our ability to score well on a test that measure, mostly, one's ability to handle certain types of abstract and symbolic thought.

The government's record of using the science of genetics to improve the human condition should serve as a cautionary tale when we consider having the government use other sciences to attempt to improve the human condition. I would not go so far as to say the government should _never_ do such a thing, but we do need to remember they get it wrong rather freqeuntly, particularly when the science is not well understood.

So, what can we conclude?

1. Have "the talk" with your kids - in whatever form works best for you.

2. Never admit you did.   ;-)

Old-Time Slang

This was created in 1811, as a compendium of then-current slang in England.....

Project Gutenberg's 1811 Dictionary in the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose

via www.gutenberg.org

Lumen Redundas

Sitting down all day is killing you • From The Register

A study of more than 220,000 people aged 45 or more has come to a startling conclusion: sitting down all day is killing you.

via www.theregister.co.uk

 

Of course, I read this article, and then blogged it, while sitting down.....

Manufacturing Jobs, Part 2

The second Atlantic article deals with the kids of people and processes we do need, and why we don't have them.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-the-united-states-will-never-ever-build-the-iphone/251837/

Manufacturing Jobs

In the past, I've said that people who think manufacturing jobs are great have never had one. 

There's more to it than that, of course, and The Atlantic has written an excellent article on why there will never be thousands or millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs. And it ain't the chinese; it's the robots.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/8844/

The online article omits most of the pictures in the print version. Too bad, as one pic tells the story. The factory is nearly devoid of people. Machines make everything. There's a joke that sums it up: A modern factory employs only a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machines.

Go read the article.

The Sixth Extinction Website - PeterMaas.nl

This web site has a great deal of information on more-recent animal extinctions, such as the passenger pigeon and the aurochs. Quite interesting!

via www.petermaas.nl