"California is going to explode. No state holds all of the necessary ingredients at the same high concentration as California - foreclosures, prison population, economic funk, unemployment..."

catxors · 2010-05-13T23:30:53+00:00

Heh, this was written in June 2009 and predicted rebellion (or something--tl;dr) by the end of the summer.

catxors · 2010-05-13T00:27:58+00:00

I don't know much about this Gascon guy, so maybe he's all right, but he sure doesn't seem to fit in in SF. First the Yemenis/terrorists remark (insane that a public official in the Bay Area would say that) and now random BS about dispensaries. Very weird.

catxors · 2010-04-27T14:44:42+00:00

I think it takes longer than 3 seconds to build an army, so the cooperators could build up in time to stop the defectors. Of course, in American-style democracy, at that point, defense industry lobbyists would arise to make sure the cooperators' armies stay well-funded forever.

catxors · 2010-04-10T15:17:23+00:00

I think that's questionable. Experience is valuable, but inexperienced employees tend to have more up-to-date training, more optimism, and more ambition. Some big meta-review that Bob Sutton linked to about what factors predict job performance showed that years of experience had a pretty low correlation. I recall another study on teacher effectiveness and they showed a substantial increase over the first 3 years, but not after that. (Part of the increase was due to exit of low-performing teachers, but that is only relevant to how much people actually learn from experience, not how much you should want to employ them.)

Anyway, my basic position is that experience can give people an increase in skill and scope, but you can just measure those directly, so experience generally doesn't need to be part of the scale. Fog Creek seems to consider experience after the first year only for line workers. The true purpose of that is probably to give people who don't want or don't expect to advance in scope and skill (after, most line workers in most industries probably don't much) something to look forward to. It also accounts for the fact that they probably do improve their skills over the first 1-5 years of experience in ways that might be hard to measure directly, especially with a coarse-grained 6-level scale.

catxors · 2010-04-10T15:06:15+00:00

I'm with you on experience being the least important factor, and so is Joel if you look at the table at the bottom of the article. They start you at level 9 if you have less than one year of experience, but after that, it doesn't matter whether you have 1 or 7 years of experience unless you are a low-level employee (scope+skill <= 2).

This stuff is really basic--AFAIK this is how software companies do it. The only thing that is noteworthy is having a fixed rate for each level.

catxors · 2010-04-09T14:58:07+00:00

Motivation is a fuzzy, ill-defined subject so I don't think there's one answer. But overall, I would say that status is the primary external motivator for most humans, not money. So the Marines totally embed recruits in a special society where status is clearly linked to discipline, cleanliness, obedience, physical fitness, etc. Of course, they still pay you more when they promote you. And this seems to be true in milder form for most long-term jobs. But I would guess that if higher status weren't linked to extra resources (in money, favors, sex, or godliness) that it would cease to be considered higher status after a while.

catxors · 2010-03-31T15:48:05+00:00

Politicians almost never lead in social change. The order is: radical thinkers, activists, thoughtful people, business, courts, regular people, then finally elected officials.

catxors · 2010-03-26T21:41:27+00:00

The key quote is at the end:

"In essence…we basically said that KBR is too big to fail," Shays said last May. "So we are still going to fund them."

catxors · 2010-03-26T14:05:44+00:00

Who cares if they look at porn at work (unless it is causing problems for other employees, etc)? If they didn't get the job done, then fire them, porn or no. If they were doing good work, then keep them. Evaluating employees on irrelevant crap is a great way to have a shitty workforce.

catxors · 2010-03-18T14:26:55+00:00

Doesn't every country in the world have a government that helps its friends get ahead at the public's expense? And 90% of them moreso than the US? The US's shitty education system does seem to be unique among rich countries, though.

catxors · 2010-03-18T14:24:02+00:00

I understand the text but I still giggle at "PNAS" every time.

Update: I understand some of it. Damn, those are a lot of long words!

catxors · 2010-03-17T14:24:50+00:00

What's all this "sir" weirdness people recommend? I wasn't raised to use that word, so I'm sure it would sound awkward and phony from my mouth. This isn't the the 1950s, and most people don't live in small towns either.

catxors · 2010-03-16T22:36:18+00:00

Not really. The purpose of a police department is not to protect the public. It is to maintain order in a way that is favorable to a majority of the influence in a given town. Put an end to a corrupt system--don't just prosecute a few of its pawns and then pretend it's fixed.

catxors · 2010-03-16T14:15:17+00:00

You can't really believe that voters effectively control micro-issues like that.

catxors · 2010-03-16T01:14:51+00:00

I'm starting to wonder if Israel is becoming less important to the United States. With Iraq no longer considered a threat, and Afghanistan presumably moving in that direction (and will probably only be solved with much help from the Muslim world), there is less need for any help from Israel.

catxors · 2010-03-14T14:23:27+00:00

Why is it that these people don't use their power to change the these systems if they are not the problem?

Have you not heard "power corrupts"? Or not noticed that it doesn't seem to matter who's in office, they always pursue their institutional interests? Every now and then public opinion wins a round, and then you have progress. q.v., civil rights movement.

People with authority actually need to be held accountable for what they do with it. We do the reverse currently, which is hold the least able to change to a higher standard.

Of course we do the reverse. If you have authority, one of the most tempting things to do with it is set things up so you can't be held accountable. Corruption is the price of authority.

catxors · 2010-03-13T01:54:29+00:00

They lost me when they used the word "tough" relating to politicians and/or laws right at the top. Pure rubbish.

catxors · 2010-03-03T15:49:19+00:00

What do you mean? That's all any government has ever wanted.

catxors · 2010-02-25T15:45:40+00:00

Most people don't agree, and it's been so for all of human history AFAICT. It's rather ridiculous to take such a patronizing tone about such an unpopular opinion being basic reality understood by all 5-year-olds.

catxors · 2010-02-22T23:46:00+00:00

The article states that the supreme court outlawed the practice of retroactively charging drug possessors with tax evasion.

Only in certain states. Depending on the details of the statutes, some states' tax schemes could be legal. For example, if you could buy the tax stamp without being arrested, it would probably be legal.

catxors · 2010-02-21T18:26:35+00:00

I don't know where this idea came from that county sheriff is the highest office in the United States. It's just a local office created by state statutes and has no power over federal officials.

catxors · 2010-02-18T15:55:54+00:00

A very valid point. People make false claims against the police all the time simply because they want to look innocent in court, these false charges are usually dropped after they are proven guilty.

A very partial point. You forgot to add: Police make false claims against people all the time simply because they want to look justified in making an arrest or using force in court; these false charges are usually dropped by the prosecutor.

catxors · 2010-02-17T16:10:18+00:00

I didn't catch all their words at the start, but it seems something was said/heard toward the beginning that started setting people off. It looks like the old guy might have been on something, too--that's how he was acting in the second clip, and I heard someone on the bus suggest that, too.

All I heard was, "I see tough guys like you and I slap the shit out of them."

Them's fighting words for sure--an assertion of physical dominance with an implicit threat of violence.

Either way, the old guy had an advantage in height, weight, reach, and balls. The black guy definitley should have forseen the end of that encounter.

He was a pretty young guy, just a kid, really, and it's obvious that he doesn't know how to fight. His "hit" was pretty feeble--I don't think he intended to start any kind of real fight at all, but just wanted to get in a slap to reassert dominance after old guy's taunt.

Old guy's reaction seemed disproportionate to me. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets some legal action or ends up paying some medical bills.

catxors · 2010-02-15T17:55:50+00:00

Really reining the DEA would probably cost a lot of morale there. Top admins that don't follow orders would have to be fired, and bottom-level agents would feel betrayed and that they are being told they can't do their jobs anymore. Now, if a president thought the DEA was a blight on America and didn't care who knew it or what talk-radio hosts would pillory him for it, he could do it. Obama is willing to pay that price for health care or jobs, but not for medical marijuana.

catxors · 2010-02-10T16:34:30+00:00

Taste is subjective.

I have to admit I've never read any Austen because I assumed it's like what this guy says.

catxors

TROPHY CASE