Recall? What recall?

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While getting my car serviced (at the MINI dealership in St. Louis) earlier this week I mentioned the Takata airbag recall and the young man at the part window got puzzled look on his face.

“You’ve heard about the exploding airbag canisters and the big recall, right?

Nope, he insisted. He hadn’t heard about any airbag recall. About that time another young man came up to the next part window so I asked him. Same response. Had no idea what I was referring to.

I’m certain they weren’t fucking with me. Somehow they had missed seeing/hearing/reading _anything_ about this long-running story. I find that amazing.

Unless I’m missing something here, this means these two men could not have watched a network or cable newscast, read a newspaper, or spent 2 minutes on an online news site for the past 6 months (longer?).

How is that possible? And what else is going on in the world about which these young men are oblivious? I assume they’re on Facebook and would have seem some reference to this story there. No?

Scott Adams: Management

“One of the interesting aspects of better global communications, better access to information, and better mobility is that collectively it reduces the risk of making hiring mistakes. When employers were limited to hiring people who lived nearby, and the only information at their disposal was lie-filled resumes, every growing company would necessarily absorb a lot of losers. But now that entrepreneurs can hire the best people from anywhere in the world, we have for the first time in human history the ability to create teams so capable they require no management structure. That’s new.”

“Management only exists to compensate for its own poor hiring decisions. The Internet makes it easier to locate and then work with capable partners. Therefore, the need for management will shrink – at least for some types of businesses – because entrepreneurs have the tools to make fewer hiring mistakes in the first place. Management won’t entirely go away, but as technology makes it easier to form competent teams without at least one disruptive or worthless worker in the group, the need for management will continue to decline.”

Virtual kidnappings; black-market online identities

From remarks by Eric Schmidt to audience at Cambridge University:

“We could see virtual kidnappings – ransoming your ID for real money,” Schmidt said. “Rather than keeping captives in the jungle, groups like Farc [in Colombia] may prefer a virtual hostage. That’s how important our online ID is.”

“But the future will be much more disruptive to terrorists than everyone else. I can’t see them operating out of caves in Tora Bora” – as al-Qaida did after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. […] Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad reportedly raised suspicions because it didn’t have any internet connection.”

“Our online identity will become such a powerful element. Laws to protect anonymity – we may even see rise in black market where we can buy pre-made or real identities, with all their shopping and background all completely ‘real’ – verifiable online, that is. […] Both drug smugglers trying to evade police and political activists looking to hide from repressive regimes would find those useful, he said: “you’ll be able to buy an identity with fake friends and a history of purchases.”

 

Larry Page Interview

“If you’re not doing some things that are crazy, then you’re doing the wrong things.”

“Companies fail because they do the wrong things or they aren’t ambitious, not because of litigation or competition.”

“Governments are now afraid of the Internet because of the Middle East stuff, and so they’re a little more willing to listen to what I see as a lot of commercial interests that just want to make money by restricting people’s freedoms.”

Larry Page