“Connectendess — which is state of always being connected to the Internet and thus to people, things, life, work, commerce, love, hate and anger – is the single thought that dominates my mind, and it defines how I view everything, how I evaluate everything. It is my telescope and it is my microscope. I don’t see the world in silos called mobile, broadband, browser, app or television. Instead, it is all about being in the state of connectedness.”
From post by Om Malik
“Suppose you put the following proposition to two talented young people: You can be a CEO someday, but the price is that you will have two failed marriages and you will barely know your own kids. You will fire dozens or even hundreds of people over your lifetime. Your success will come at the direct expense of others. And your pay will have more to do with your weasel skills at manipulating the board of directors than the long term health of the company. You will move several times, to the distress of your family and friends. On the plus side, you will be rich and respected.”
“What kind of young person takes that deal? Is it the person with good mental health who wants a life of balance and meaning, or is it the risk-taking, narcissistic sociopath?”
Hopped in the MINI and took a little road trip to Nashville, IN on Thursday. The 368 miles took about seven hours. Nashville — a quaint little village in the hills of south-central Indiana– is the home of Mainland Ukes, owned and operated by Mike Hater and his charming wife Tootka. Tootka is the brains and Mike is “Artistic Director.”
Purpose of the trip was to swap my new soprano uke for a slightly larger “concert” model.
Mike and Tootka’s story is interesting. After years as a psychiatric nurse, Mike quit and moved back to Indiana where he worked in landscaping before throwing in with a guy who sold harmonicas. When that business tanked, Mike and Tootka took over and switched to ukes. Mike played and knew lots of folks in uke space, so…
Somewhere in this adventure Mike got snowed in for five days and used the time to meet (online) some people in Thailand (where he lived as a younger man). Mike and Tootka connected, corresponded for a while, and then he jumped on a plane to go meet the lady. After that it was love, marriage, and back to the US and Mainland Ukes.
They have a big uke festival in June and I’m thinking I might try to make it. Nice people, good ukuleles.
“Company culture is another area that I think the experts get backwards. The common belief is that you need a good company culture to create success. But isn’t it more likely that companies with awesome employees get both a good culture and success at the same time? A good corporate culture is a byproduct of doing everything right; it’s not the cause of success as much as the outcome. Success improves culture more than a good culture can cause success.”
The military (and many outside the military) consider Bradley Manning a traitor for leaking classified documents. Let’s imagine we’re in the latter days of World War II and a German soldier leaks thousands of documents related to concentration camps and the atrocities committed there. Is he a traitor? Probably. Did he do the right thing? Depends on who you ask? If the only difference between my hypothetical and the Manning case is whose ox was gored, that’s morally thin ice.
But the Manning leaks could have endangered American lives, goes one argument. No doubt, although I’ve not seen anything to suggest any lives have actaully been lost. Would it matter if some of the leaked documents revealed American actions were costing innocent lives?
I thought the Viet Nam war was a bad idea, primarilly because it could have gotten me killed. Turns out there were plenty of other reasons. Like the the mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians near the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers. Most of the victims were women, children, infants, and elderly people. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies were later found to be mutilated and many women were allegedly raped prior to the killings.
Would it be treason to tell the world about My Lai?
“My country, right or wrong!” was a popular slogan for those supporting that war. That did work for me then and it doesn’t work for me now.
Here’s my over-simplification of John Robb’s thesis in Brave New War: A few, dedicated “Global Guerrillas” can defeat the army of a nation state by disrupting critical systems. I thought he made a pretty good case. Not sure about his timing, however. The book, written in 2007, suggests a dire sceneria for 2016:
“Security will become a function of where you live and whom you work for, much as health care is allocated already. Wealthy individuals and multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies, such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, to protect their homes and facilities and to establish a protective perimeter around daily life. Parallel transportation networks—evolving out of the time-share aircraft companies such as Warren Buffett’s Netjets—will cater to this group, leapfrogging its members from one secure, well-appointed lily pad to the next. Members of the middle class will follow, taking matters into their own hands by forming suburban collectives to share the costs of security—as they do now with education—and shore up delivery of critical services. These “armored suburbs” will deploy and maintain backup generators and communications links; they will be patrolled civilian police auxiliaries that have received corporate training and boast their own state-of-the-art emergency response systems. As for those without the means to build their own defense, they will have to make do with the remains of the national system. They will gravitate to the cities, where they will be subject to ubiquitous surveillance and marginal or nonexistent services. For the poor, there will be no other refuge.”
I kept looking for “the good news” but this was the best he offered:
“The strikes of the future will be strategic, pinpointing the systems we rely on, and they will leave entire sections of the country without energy and communications for protracted periods. But the frustration and economic pain that result will have a curious side effect: they will spur development of an entirely new, decentralized security system, one that devolves power and responsibility to a mix of local governments, private companies, and individuals.”
Brave New War was only a couple hundred pages and well worth the read for those that share my sneaking suspicion a) our governments don’t tell us the truth, and b) we are not winning The War on Terror because it can’t be won.
“My solution is that all robots must be raised for their first few years in Minnesota, where everyone is kind and generous. I assume there are other spots around the world in which the culture evolved to be unusually friendly. Part of the value of your future robot is where it was imprinted with its base personality. Someday the Minnesota Series of robots will fetch top dollar.”
Back in the 70’s I took guitar lessons for a few months. In answer to the question, “You think I’ll ever learn to play?” my teacher (Hoyt Wooten) answered: “Depends on how long you live.”
While I won’t live long enough to learn to play the guitar, I might live long enough to learn a few chords on my new ukelele. I’ve got lots of support I didn’t have 30 years ago. Half the members of The Order of the Fez play the uke, including Professor Peter and Howlin’ Hobbit, who advised on this latest purchase.
YouTube is awash in instructional videos and the technology is much better. I’ve got a tin ear so keeping that guitar in tune was a bitch. I had a little pitch pipe that was all but worthless. This time around I have a little eletronic doo dad that clamps on to the uke and uses vibration to tell you if the string is sharp or flat.
I’m approaching this in the manner of Bill Murray learning to play the piano in Ground Hog Day. I have a long time in which to learn to play a few chords. Once I get a few thousand hours under my belt, I’ll share something here.