Wow, you can get lost on YouTube. The airline marketing fail post's United ad led me to the museum of outdated airline TV ads.
I couldn't find the British Air Out of my way - I'm a British Air stewardess! ones, which is a real shame. This one is pretty good, though.
This one is a hoot. I guess kudos to them for the "Golly, some business flyers are businesswomen" moment. It felt like looking at a museum exhibit, though - you just know that someone was really, really excited at how cutting-edge it was, but time waits for no businesswoman.
Mercifully short (no pun intended), this can almost make you understand how Gloria Steinem ticks. Almost.
As for this, it's the 1960s equivalent of today's advertisers using the word "shizzle." Watch it at your own risk.
And this is #2 Son's favorite. Nancy is a bit of a ditz, but gosh, she's nice!
One of the most interesting collaborations that Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle produced was Inferno, a modern day recreation ofDante's Inferno. Populated with modern-day villans, Hell contains a special place for advertising executives. Specifically, the ones that created the "Fly Me" campaign.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Danielle Peck - Findin' A Good Man
January is Hot Country Lady month here, and so offered for consideration is Danielle Peck. She is part of the recent wave of women who write as well as sing their own music (others include SheDAISY, Miranda Lanbert, Kelly Pickler, and Taylor Swift).It's a good time to be a country music listener.
Nashville is the place to go if you're a songwriter, and her first break wasn't singing, it was songwriting. It led to singing, and her 2006 album Danielle Peck.
Red Sox fans will recognize her as having briefly been pitcher Josh Beckett's girlfriend. She's an Ohio girl, so the Indians brought her to sing the National Anthem in the American League Championship Series game in October, 2007. Maybe they thought they'd get under Beckett's skin. It didn't work, and Beckett is reported to have said "Thanks for flyin' one of my friends to the game so she could watch it for free".
Lookin' For A Good Man is the selection of the day, because the video makes me chuckle.
Findin' A Good Man (songwriters Casey Kessel, Brian Dean Maher, Jeremy Stover)
Here's to finding a good man
Got a bucket of Corona,
Enough stories to last all night,
About the trials and tribulations,
Of findin' Mr. Right
Of findin' a good man.
Here's to the liars and the cheaters
And the cold mistreaters
To the mama's boys who can't make a stand.
Here's to the superficial players
The I love you too-soon sayers
If you hear me girls raise your hand
Let's have a toast
Here's to findin' a good man.
Blind dates and horror stories
Pushy guys and fast movers
Let's dedicate this girl's night out
To big talkers bad losers
It's so hard findin' a good man.
Here's to the liars and the cheaters
And the cold mistreaters
To the mama's boys who can't make a stand.
Here's to the superficial players
The I love you too-soon sayers
If you hear me girls raise your hand
Let's have a toast
Here's to findin' a good man.
Julie, I know you want perfection
Angie, you wanna listener.
Lisa, your list is gettin' long,
And girls, you know me, I just want a good kisser.
Here's to the liars and the cheaters
And the cold mistreaters
To the mama's boys who can't make a stand.
Here's to the superficial players
The I love you too-soon sayers
If you hear me girls raise your hand
Let's have a toast
Here's to findin' a good man.
Here's to findin' a good man.
Here's to findin' a good man.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Dude! You're getting a Dell!
And the ultimate in Airline Marketing fail:
Feel free to leave your own fail example in the comments.
UPDATE 17 January 2009 10:35: Brigid left a comment that leads to this monument of fail. watch it, and then look at her punchline in the comments.
Superworm gonna getcha
No, it's not a Blaxploitation film, it's modern day haxploitation:
The best thing that you can do is make sure that each of your Windows computers has been patched for the vulnerability that the Worm exploits. A lot of folks haven't.
Downadup, the superworm that attacks a patched vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, is making exponential gains if estimates from researchers at F-Secure are accurate. They show 6.5 million new infections in the past four days, bringing the total number of machines it has compromised to almost 9 million.This is bad - really bad.
So what do you do? Well, if you use Macintosh or Linux, you can kick back and have a beer. Windows users, not so much:A confluence of factors are responsible for the growth of Downadup, which also goes by the name Conficker.
For one, the underlying vulnerability allows for self-replicating attacks in the 2000, XP, and Server 2003 versions of Windows. And for another, the malware authors have cleverly designed exploits that spread via flash and network drives, online trojans, and social engineering features that allow it to spread like wildfire within a local network once a single machine is compromised.
- Your antivirus is very unlikely to stop this. Antivirus is shooting at a moving target, and it probably hasn't caught up to this one yet.
- Microsoft's Windows Update malware removal tool doesn't grok Downadup. Removal tools from antivirus vendors (for example, Symantec) are old and out of date.
The best thing that you can do is make sure that each of your Windows computers has been patched for the vulnerability that the Worm exploits. A lot of folks haven't.
Heroes
We need heroes. Not personally, I mean - somebody to save us individually when we're in a jam, although that's very nice indeed (if you're in a jam).We need heroes. Us. Society. Psychologically, they are a basic and deep seated need.
Captain Chesley ("Sully") Sullenberger is one. He saved a bunch of people who were in a jam, which was very nice indeed.
He's not the only one, which is the important part. It's been quite some time since we've heard "women and children first," and it's good to see it back, unmocked. It was the passengers who uttered these words, and well done to them. Boats in the area swarmed to the rescue - one captained by a Vince Lombardi, no less, and while that's what you're supposed to do, it takes guts anyway.
Heros. Joseph Campbell described their function in his masterpiece, The Hero With A Thousand Faces:
The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, and normally human forms. Such a one's visions, ideas, and inspirations come pristine from the primary springs of human life and thought. Hence, they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through which society is reborn.Campbell's book title refers to the universal need for heroes - all societies, in all times and places honor the hero. Gilgamesh. Horatio. Child-of-the-Water. Sam Woodfill. Someone who look into the abyss, and who does what needs to be done to save those who need saving.
Their greatest service is to remind us that we are that man, if we let ourselves dare. Campbell again:
It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.Thank you, Captain Sully. And Captain Vince. And the good men and women on the plane that walked the "women and children first" walk.
May I be that man, if I am called to that duty.
UPDATE 16 January 2009 22:30: ASM826 has some thoughts on how to be that man.
Logorrhorea
I haz it.
Usually my posts run a hundred or two hundred words. The three recent posts on the Second Amendment, Tragedy of the Commons, and machine politics weigh in at a cool 3400 words (!). That's a month's worth of posting, right there.
See y'all in February.
Usually my posts run a hundred or two hundred words. The three recent posts on the Second Amendment, Tragedy of the Commons, and machine politics weigh in at a cool 3400 words (!). That's a month's worth of posting, right there.
See y'all in February.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Thanks, Venice FL
A visitor from there was pageview number 20,000. When I started blogging six months ago, this would have seemed (ahem) over-optimistic.
And for the other 19,999 page views, thanks Mom. I love you, too.
And for the other 19,999 page views, thanks Mom. I love you, too.
A Gator In The Desert
Ricardo Montalbán, R.I.P
Ricardo Montalbán has died, at age 88. What struck me about his life was this:
God speed, sir. You will be missed.
He married Georgiana Young, an actress, in 1944; they had four children. She was half-sister of the actresses Sally Blane, Polly Ann Young, and Loretta Young, who nicknamed her "Georgie". After 63 years of marriage, Georgiana Young de Montalbán died on November 13, 2007, at the age of 84.So a man as good looking as Montalbán, as successful as Montalbán, and living in the Hollywood culture - that man was married for 63 years to the same woman, until death did them part.
God speed, sir. You will be missed.
Welcome my son, welcome to The Machine
This is the third (and last) of a series of three posts on the Health Of The Republic. The first post is a review of Stephen Holbrook's book on the Founders' view of the Second Amendment. The second post is about the Tragedy of the Commons and why it leads to larger, more intrusive government.
It's also pretty easy to see why government would like this game, too. The government - more correctly, some people in the government - gains, even if the public loses through a Commons Effect.
So what's the gain, and who benefits? It's not the GS-11 bureaucrat that benefits, at least in any meaningful way. The gain certainly isn't enough to drive the big government regulatory machine. Gator in the desert has a suggestion that is pretty hard to argue with:
To make sense of the mechanics of The Machine, we need to know what drives it - what its energy source is. As it turns out, there is a stunningly useful analysis framework for this, developed by Geoffrey Moore and first introduced in his book Living on the Fault Line: Core vs. Context.
Gator nails the end goal: money, power, and social status. This has been the goal since King Sargon beat King Lugal and tore down the walls ot Uruk. We congratulate ourselves on being more sophisticated today, and so the world's first professional army has been replaced by the modern regulatory bureaucracy as the means to this end. But there's a necessary control element, the component that keeps The Machine continuously running, and without which it would sieze up. It's also the explaination for why Hizzoner keeps getting reelected. For politicians, it's what's core. It's what allows The Machine to graze the Commons to the roots.
Patronage.
The pols don't care about the voters. They care about the Ward Bosses, who get the right voters out on election day. The care about the big donors, who provide the campaign contributions that let incumbents carpet-bomb the airwaves in the days before the election. They care about shutting up opponents who bring up uncomfortable subjects in the weeks immediately before the election - out of sight, out of mind. And most of all, they care about how they can use their power to provide patronage to the army of campaign contributors and Ward Bosses who keep them in Washington, D.C.
Exhibit A for the Prosecution is Senator Dodd (D, Banking Committee). Anyone think that silly questions about what did he know and when did he know it about his mortgage will sway the Ward Bosses? And oh by the way - his father was also Senator Dodd.
What's good for you and me is irrelevant. What's good for the country is irrelevant. What's relevant is keeping the top guys on top:
So can we at least slow The Machine? If we can't get rid of the ravenous herd of public ruminants, can we make it less damaging to the Common Weal?
Ronald Reagan tried, sort of. He didn't reduce the size of government, and probably just showed The Machine that the opportunities for plunder were even larger than they had imagined. We're seeing the same thing today with Trillion dollar deficits. The Thanes overwhelmed even as visionary and gifted a leader as he. So a Reagan Revolution seems a poor choice as a strategy. So is electing a different set of bums. Power attracts the corrupt, and the corruptable.
An Engineering solution is to assume that components will fail, and to limit the scope of damage that will result. This is one reason that I like Linux so much more than Windows. Linux will have security vulnerabilities, just like Windows does. What's different, though, is that the applications rarely run with system-level privilege. My browser simply isn't allowed to change the Operating System, so it's much more difficult to get the really nasty spyware.
George Will proposed just such a limit-the-damage strategy years ago in his book Restoration. Hes argues for Congressional Term Limits, for a number of good reasons. A reason he does not describe, but which to me is the most interesting, is that Term Limits would change the dynamics of The Machine. By making turnover so rapid, it would reduce the overall benefit accruing to those at the top (I'm talking to you, Chris Dodd). It would also break down the internal discipline that keeps the Ward Bosses in line, because the benefits to a Boss of a successful revolt would massively outweigh the benefits of remaining a good soldier in The Machine.
As a Public Service, I propose what would be the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
God Save This Honorable Republic.
UPDATE 6 April 2009 20:47: Shoothouse Barbie linked. Thanks! Just to point out, though, I'm not a conservative. But her point is an excellent one.
A congressman has two ends,The Tragedy of the Commons happens because benefits are private and costs are shared. It's easy to understand why a private citizen would be interested in this - in Economics jargon, this is an Externality, and cost-benefit analysis won't work correctly. Indeed, this is the classic argument for government controls to reduce pollution - to account for costs that were otherwise not accounted for.
A thinking end and a sitting end,
And since his job depends upon his seat,
Why bother friend?- Yip Harburg
It's also pretty easy to see why government would like this game, too. The government - more correctly, some people in the government - gains, even if the public loses through a Commons Effect.
So what's the gain, and who benefits? It's not the GS-11 bureaucrat that benefits, at least in any meaningful way. The gain certainly isn't enough to drive the big government regulatory machine. Gator in the desert has a suggestion that is pretty hard to argue with:
Politicians don't care about the real cost-benefit analysis. Cost isn't the issue, and the only benefit they're concerned with is how many votes this program/law/regulation will get (e.g. buy for) them in the next election. They may start out with good intentions. But if they stay in office long enough, most will become drunk on the money, power, and social status.Unlike the opening quote of this post, the politicians are indeed using their heads. Votes are part of the equation, a necessary goal. But votes don't explain the mechanics of the Big Government Regulatory Machine - it's quite a diffuse argument to make to the voters that the politicians will make someone else pay for the benefits offered the voters. Sure, the politicians say this all the time, but none of the promises are remotely plausible enough with a big enough group of voters to explain the political situation in, say, Chicago. The voters know that the system - and the pols - are corrupt. There just isn't enough swag to bring a majority around. Voters in 2006 and 2008 supposedly were in a mood to "throw the bums out" - why is Mayor Daley still called "Hizzoner"?
To make sense of the mechanics of The Machine, we need to know what drives it - what its energy source is. As it turns out, there is a stunningly useful analysis framework for this, developed by Geoffrey Moore and first introduced in his book Living on the Fault Line: Core vs. Context.
When investors look at management's use of their capital, they have but one wish: please use it in activities that have at least a chance of increasing stock price. From the investor's view those are the activities that are core to the company's operations. Everything else is context.Consider a company like Microsoft, for example. No matter how well run the company cafeteria is, it will never add a penny to the share price of MSFT. Moore's book is a fascinating view into the business of high tech, but we're looking at The Machine. What's core for it?
Gator nails the end goal: money, power, and social status. This has been the goal since King Sargon beat King Lugal and tore down the walls ot Uruk. We congratulate ourselves on being more sophisticated today, and so the world's first professional army has been replaced by the modern regulatory bureaucracy as the means to this end. But there's a necessary control element, the component that keeps The Machine continuously running, and without which it would sieze up. It's also the explaination for why Hizzoner keeps getting reelected. For politicians, it's what's core. It's what allows The Machine to graze the Commons to the roots.
Patronage.
The pols don't care about the voters. They care about the Ward Bosses, who get the right voters out on election day. The care about the big donors, who provide the campaign contributions that let incumbents carpet-bomb the airwaves in the days before the election. They care about shutting up opponents who bring up uncomfortable subjects in the weeks immediately before the election - out of sight, out of mind. And most of all, they care about how they can use their power to provide patronage to the army of campaign contributors and Ward Bosses who keep them in Washington, D.C.
Exhibit A for the Prosecution is Senator Dodd (D, Banking Committee). Anyone think that silly questions about what did he know and when did he know it about his mortgage will sway the Ward Bosses? And oh by the way - his father was also Senator Dodd.
Welcome my son, welcome to The Machine.Oh, and Republicans are no different. Exhibit B for the Prosecution is President Bush (R, Big Government), son of President Bush (R, Big Government). The only thing that changes is which cast of characters the patronage rewards flow to.
What's good for you and me is irrelevant. What's good for the country is irrelevant. What's relevant is keeping the top guys on top:
The king must be a generous "ring-giver" too -- that is, he must dish out the spoils of war to his thanes rather than hoard the treasures won in tribal warfare ...We're more sophisticated today, but we still have our Thanes. They keep The Machine running.
So can we at least slow The Machine? If we can't get rid of the ravenous herd of public ruminants, can we make it less damaging to the Common Weal?
Ronald Reagan tried, sort of. He didn't reduce the size of government, and probably just showed The Machine that the opportunities for plunder were even larger than they had imagined. We're seeing the same thing today with Trillion dollar deficits. The Thanes overwhelmed even as visionary and gifted a leader as he. So a Reagan Revolution seems a poor choice as a strategy. So is electing a different set of bums. Power attracts the corrupt, and the corruptable.
An Engineering solution is to assume that components will fail, and to limit the scope of damage that will result. This is one reason that I like Linux so much more than Windows. Linux will have security vulnerabilities, just like Windows does. What's different, though, is that the applications rarely run with system-level privilege. My browser simply isn't allowed to change the Operating System, so it's much more difficult to get the really nasty spyware.
George Will proposed just such a limit-the-damage strategy years ago in his book Restoration. Hes argues for Congressional Term Limits, for a number of good reasons. A reason he does not describe, but which to me is the most interesting, is that Term Limits would change the dynamics of The Machine. By making turnover so rapid, it would reduce the overall benefit accruing to those at the top (I'm talking to you, Chris Dodd). It would also break down the internal discipline that keeps the Ward Bosses in line, because the benefits to a Boss of a successful revolt would massively outweigh the benefits of remaining a good soldier in The Machine.
As a Public Service, I propose what would be the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the House of Representatives more than thrice, and no person who has held the office of Representative, or acted as Representative, for more than one year of a term to which some other person was elected Representative shall be elected to House of Representatives more than twice. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of Representative when this article becomes operative, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of Representative, or acting as Representative, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of Representative or acting as Representative during the remainder of such term.You're welcome.
Section 2. No person shall be elected to the Senate more than once, and no person who has held the office of Senator, or acted as Senator, for more than three years of a term to which some other person was elected Senator shall be elected to Senate. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of Senator when this article becomes operative, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of Senator, or acting as Senator, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of Senator or acting as Senator during the remainder of such term.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
God Save This Honorable Republic.
UPDATE 6 April 2009 20:47: Shoothouse Barbie linked. Thanks! Just to point out, though, I'm not a conservative. But her point is an excellent one.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Guitar Hero III sells $1 Billion
That's "Billion" with a "B".
Personally, I prefer the kids to play Guitar Hero rather than Halo, for two reasons:
Personally, I prefer the kids to play Guitar Hero rather than Halo, for two reasons:
- Congressman Joe Baca hates it when they play Halo.
- Now the music they listen to is Teh Awesome.
The Internet: not dangerous to children after all
Who'd have seen that coming?
You mean it was all overblown by the media (for ratings) and mouth-breathing politicians (for cheap media exposure)?
Via Slashdot, where the comments are interesting.
A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.Well then.
You mean it was all overblown by the media (for ratings) and mouth-breathing politicians (for cheap media exposure)?
Via Slashdot, where the comments are interesting.
Weep for the Republic
Halo 3 blamed because teen kills parent who took it away from him.
Let's play the "Word Substitution Game"!
A ha! How about this:
God save this honorable Republic.
Let's play the "Word Substitution Game"!
Car blamed because teen kills parent who took it away.Doesn't scan, does it?
Girlfriend blamed because teen kills parent after he was grounded.No? There has got to be something that the media would report ...
A ha! How about this:
Gun blamed when teen kills parent.Man, being a reporter is hard. Oh, and California Congressman Joe Baca could not be reached for comment.
God save this honorable Republic.
News Flash: Congressman doesn't know what he's talking about
In other breaking news, the sun is coming up here in Massachusetts. Unexpectedly, it's rising in the east.
Congressman Joe Baca wants video games rated "Teen" to carry a warning:
El Reg cuts to the chase:
For the benefit of humanity, let me just say that Congressman Joe Baca is a moron.
Congressman Joe Baca wants video games rated "Teen" to carry a warning:
WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.As The Register points out - in detail - the studies that the congressman relies on don't say this. RTWT for details on a number of studies that - surprise! - don't back this up.
El Reg cuts to the chase:
Whether video games are actually the cause of real-life violence or simply the subject of overblown controversy and fears like Rock and Roll or D&D was to previous generations — few would argue that young children should be readily exposed to violent material. But health warning label solving the problem of kids getting ahold of violent games is certainly rather questionable. Frankly, the bill smacks of easy political grandstanding. And most of this type of legislation tends to get struck down.Ignore the "Cowboys and Indians" and "Machine Guns and Dead Nazis" (non-video) games that my friends and I used to play as children. Let's just cue Mark Twain:
Friend, assume for a moment that I am a Congressman. And assume for a moment that I am an idiot. But I repeat myself.And no comment from our knuckle-dragging friend on how videogames are being used to treat ADHD.
For the benefit of humanity, let me just say that Congressman Joe Baca is a moron.
First major Safari security bug
Mac fanboys, prepare your empathy - usually it's the poor Windows users who have all the security pain, this time it's heading your way.
The good news is that there's a workaround. It's a Real Good Idea to do this right now. Yes, I'll wait.
Folks using Tiger (OS X 10.4) can stand down - you're not at risk.
Apple's Safari web browser for both the Mac and Windows suffers from a serious vulnerability that can expose emails, passwords and other sensitive contents of a user's hard drive, a researcher has warned.The good news is that this only effects Leopard (OS X 10.5) users. The badder news is it doesn't matter whether you use Safari or Firefox; you're still vulnerable. The baddest news is that there's not patch.
The good news is that there's a workaround. It's a Real Good Idea to do this right now. Yes, I'll wait.
Leopard users can protect themselves by opening Safari and selecting Preferences from the Safari menu, choosing the RSS tab, clicking on the Default Reader pop-up window and selecting an application other than Safari.Oh, and if you run Windows and use Safari, you should switch to a different browser until it's fixed. As both my readers know, I like Firefox because of its considerably better security profile.
Folks using Tiger (OS X 10.4) can stand down - you're not at risk.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
"I'm here to help."
This is the second of a series of three posts on the Health Of The Republic. The first post is a review of Stephen Holbrook's book on the Founders' view of the Second Amendment. The third post is about what motivates the government to act this way, and what to do about it .
Pretty much everyone recognizes this as part of what Ronald Reagan described as the most terrifying nine words in the English language:
Quite frankly, I think that I did help, back at Three Letter Intelligence Agency, during the Cold War. And while I didn't carry a rifle, SIGINT and ELINT are important. So is COMSEC. It takes a lot of people, who don't get recognized, or thanked, but without whom we never would have come out of that strange, twilight conflict right side up.
There's no doubt that most of what gets proposed - we're talking government now - actually has tangible benefit to society. Sure there's the overhead of earmarks and the rest of the graft, but the output is usually something that's worthwhile. For a while, I used to think that this was the actual problem - that this was why government was always pushed to expand.
I think that the problem is more subtle. Cost-Benefit Analysis is a well understood discipline in engineering. It's hard to get right, which is why so many businesses go out of business. It's doubly hard in the public sector. The costs are almost never estimated correctly: Exhibit A is Massachusetts' new "Universal" health care that doesn't remotely cover everyone, but which is so mind-numbingly expensive that the only thing "universal" is its unpopularity.
Benefits are always oversold, too, so the entire analysis needs to be taken with a healthy additional discount for elected official's posturing. For a while, I used to think that this was the problem. While it's closer, that's not exactly it, either.
Like the Founding Fathers, we can't see where things will lead. Economists have know about the Tragedy of the Commons for centuries, that common resources will be overused to the point of destruction. Each small additional use gives a tangible use, now. Any negative effect is hard to predict - how bad, when, or who will be hurt.
The Cost-Benefit analysis falls apart, and so we get completely unexpected, and completely horrible results. This is the problem with creeping government.
Gordon Clark revolutionized surfing in the 1960s, with a new type of surfboard that was fiberglass (for strength) built around a foam core (for buoyancy). Think Beach Boys (or The Challengers, if you want something less squeeky-clean). In a lot of ways, if you think "1960s California", you think of the surf scene.
Gordon Clark is out of business now. It's not that he made bad business decisions; Orange County, the State of California, and the Environmental Protection Agency put him out of business:
Didn't see that coming.
I've linked several times before to an old post by Megan McArdle that illustrates this. It's well worth your time, but the pertinent part is that the institution of marriage turned out to be much more fragile than anyone imagined:
Didn't see that coming, either.
It's important to reiterate: with the exception of the expected level of graft by elected officials (smaller) and inefficiency of the bureaucracy (larger), these are good people who want to do good things. They want to leave society a better place.
They also don't know as much as they think that they do. They will look at you blankly if you ask them what the unanticipated consequences of their proposal is:
Who gets hurt? This question needs to be asked any time someone proposes one tiny, incremental, almost unnoticeable further harvest of the Common Weal. Nobody is not an acceptable answer - someone always gets hurt, intentionally or not. Maybe this cost is outweighed by the benefits, maybe it isn't. But it's never zero.
Personally, I'm not willing to believe that someone who hasn't thought through potentially catastrophic consequences is either nicer or smarter than I am.
UPDATE 14 January 2009 07:45: Welcome folks visiting via Lissa. Thanks for the link, Lissa. Feel free to take a look around.
Pretty much everyone recognizes this as part of what Ronald Reagan described as the most terrifying nine words in the English language:
I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.In a sense, this is unfair - there are a lot of solid folks working for the government, doing solid work. They do want to help. I know; I used to be one of those folks.
Quite frankly, I think that I did help, back at Three Letter Intelligence Agency, during the Cold War. And while I didn't carry a rifle, SIGINT and ELINT are important. So is COMSEC. It takes a lot of people, who don't get recognized, or thanked, but without whom we never would have come out of that strange, twilight conflict right side up.
There's no doubt that most of what gets proposed - we're talking government now - actually has tangible benefit to society. Sure there's the overhead of earmarks and the rest of the graft, but the output is usually something that's worthwhile. For a while, I used to think that this was the actual problem - that this was why government was always pushed to expand.
I think that the problem is more subtle. Cost-Benefit Analysis is a well understood discipline in engineering. It's hard to get right, which is why so many businesses go out of business. It's doubly hard in the public sector. The costs are almost never estimated correctly: Exhibit A is Massachusetts' new "Universal" health care that doesn't remotely cover everyone, but which is so mind-numbingly expensive that the only thing "universal" is its unpopularity.
Benefits are always oversold, too, so the entire analysis needs to be taken with a healthy additional discount for elected official's posturing. For a while, I used to think that this was the problem. While it's closer, that's not exactly it, either.
Like the Founding Fathers, we can't see where things will lead. Economists have know about the Tragedy of the Commons for centuries, that common resources will be overused to the point of destruction. Each small additional use gives a tangible use, now. Any negative effect is hard to predict - how bad, when, or who will be hurt.
The Cost-Benefit analysis falls apart, and so we get completely unexpected, and completely horrible results. This is the problem with creeping government.
Gordon Clark revolutionized surfing in the 1960s, with a new type of surfboard that was fiberglass (for strength) built around a foam core (for buoyancy). Think Beach Boys (or The Challengers, if you want something less squeeky-clean). In a lot of ways, if you think "1960s California", you think of the surf scene.
Gordon Clark is out of business now. It's not that he made bad business decisions; Orange County, the State of California, and the Environmental Protection Agency put him out of business:
All gone now, because of environmental and work place regulations. Was each regulation inspired by the desire to make things better? Sure. Nobody thought in 1975 that we'd end up here. Each individual regulation was a small nibble on the Common Pasture, the Town Green of a vibrant society. Now it's brown and barren.To sum this up no one in the United States or for that matter the rest of the world uses equipment and a process like mine. It is very unique and there was nothing on earth ever built this way before.
This is just an extension of the methods everyone used when the first foam boards were built. I continued merrily along assuming this was the way things worked. No one copied much of my process or equipment and it was very successful. I used no outside engineering firms or other experts for the majority of Clark Foam.
The Federal Environmental Protection Agency used lawyers to prepare their citation. They used the word “standards” a lot. I finally realized with shock that the EPA has determined that my equipment does not meet acceptable or accepted “standards”.
Didn't see that coming.
I've linked several times before to an old post by Megan McArdle that illustrates this. It's well worth your time, but the pertinent part is that the institution of marriage turned out to be much more fragile than anyone imagined:
Like the southern Californian surfing scene, it took a long time for the common pasture that was marriage's place in society to be trampled bare, and it was all done with absolutely the best intentions.Public housing [in the 1950s] was, in short, a place full of functioning families.
Now, in the late fifties, a debate began over whether to extend benefits to the unmarried. It was unfair to stigmatise unwed mothers. Why shouldn't they be able to avail themselves of the benefits available to other citizens? The brutal societal prejudice against illegitimacy was old fashioned, bigoted, irrational.
But if you give unmarried mothers money, said the critics, you will get more unmarried mothers.
Ridiculous, said the proponents of the change. Being an unmarried mother is a brutal, thankless task. What kind of idiot would have a baby out of wedlock just because the state was willing to give her paltry welfare benefits?
People do all sorts of idiotic things, said the critics. If you pay for something, you usually get more of it.
C'mon said the activists. That's just silly. I just can't imagine anyone deciding to get pregnant out of wedlock simply because there are welfare benefits available.
Oooops.
Didn't see that coming, either.
It's important to reiterate: with the exception of the expected level of graft by elected officials (smaller) and inefficiency of the bureaucracy (larger), these are good people who want to do good things. They want to leave society a better place.
They also don't know as much as they think that they do. They will look at you blankly if you ask them what the unanticipated consequences of their proposal is:
So if you were actually able to ban all legal guns, how would that reduce crime?Dead homeowners are part of the over grazed Common Pasture of society. Women and kids, too. So are higher levels of gun violence.
[Lots of over-estimated benefits and under-estimated costs redacted]
OK, what will this do to the rate of women killed by abusive boyfriends or ex-husbands, who can't get a gun to defend themselves. What does your study predict for numbers?
[Blank stare]
Who gets hurt? This question needs to be asked any time someone proposes one tiny, incremental, almost unnoticeable further harvest of the Common Weal. Nobody is not an acceptable answer - someone always gets hurt, intentionally or not. Maybe this cost is outweighed by the benefits, maybe it isn't. But it's never zero.
Personally, I'm not willing to believe that someone who hasn't thought through potentially catastrophic consequences is either nicer or smarter than I am.
UPDATE 14 January 2009 07:45: Welcome folks visiting via Lissa. Thanks for the link, Lissa. Feel free to take a look around.
UPDATE 14 January 2009 09:29: Holy cow, it's a Tamalanche! Thanks, Tam. Feel free to look around. If you're interested in this post, you might also want to look at this one. And then buy the book. And if you're using the Safari browser, you'll want to read this (really).
UPDATE 14 January 2009 09:51: Billy Ockham (great blog name!) linked. Thanks!
UPDATE 14 January 2009 11:00: SnarkyBytes linked. Thanks!
UPDATE 14 January 2009 11:35: Outrageous Malfunction linked. Thanks!
UPDATE 17 January 2009 18:41: Billy Ockham has a follow-up about the Dickensian workhouses that is worth your time.
UPDATE 17 January 2009 18:41: Billy Ockham has a follow-up about the Dickensian workhouses that is worth your time.
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Founders' Second Amendment by Stephen P. Halbrook
This is the first of a series of three posts on the Health Of The Republic. The second post is about the Tragedy of the Commons and why it leads to larger, more intrusive government. The third post is about what motivates the government to act this way, and what to do about it.
This Republic was forged in the fire of Revolution, and a fire it was. Nowadays people mostly get an airbrushed Morality Play, a sepia toned hymn of greatness-in-being, midwifed by a cast part Greek Chorus, part Einstein.
We've forgotten that. The idea that four of the Justices of the Supreme Court could describe firearms as limited to militia use in the dissent to Heller v. District of Columbia says that it's not just Joe Everyman who sees this past in sepia hues, but the intelligentsia. They should read this book.
The Constitution was originally drafted without a Bill of Rights, and the Federalists did not want one. Pennsylvania's James Wilson summed up the reason for the absence (p. 192):
Halbrook ably describes the heated debate that raged between these two groups. In some states (Delaware), there was no debate at all; the Federalists ran the show. In other states, the Constitution was either ratified with an explicit demand for a Bill of Rights (New Hampshire), or was explicitly not ratified without one (Vermont). In almost all, the debate was hot. He quotes (p. 202) Massachusetts Federalist leader Theodore Sedgwick, complaining an opponent:
They thought that the people would rise up in revolution, all over again (p. 235):
We've forgotten this.
Ultimately, consensus mandated the Bill of Rights. And while technically a defeat for the Federalists, history has shown that they were right. Bit by bit, encroachment by encroachment, the power of the government has expanded. The Anti-Federalists were right, too: the militia did not leave their farms and workshops, massing on the town green, to dispute a couple of marginal tax rate percentages with powder and lead. Sedgewick's opponent saw more clearly than he:
This book serves two purposes. It is exhaustive documentation to put to rest the (hopefully dieing) claim that the Second Amendment is a collective right, only intended for a Militia. Give a copy to anyone making this argument, or you'll make Baby Vulcan cry.
It's also a reminder to us - a Morality Play, after all - that even great men cannot see the future clearly, and what is casually assumed today can be under assault tomorrow. And that the small battles fought today are more important than a Gotterdammerung where nobody shows up.
UPDATE 13 January 2009 12:19: Welcome visitors from MArooned! Take a look around. More of this in the "Second Amendment" file.
Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. - George SantayanaWe've forgotten a lot. The years slide gracefully into a pleasant blur, old men's memories cloud, and then fail. Inconvenient truths are put out of the way, up on that high shelf in the back of the store room. It's such a pain to get the step ladder to look, are you sure that you really want to see?
This Republic was forged in the fire of Revolution, and a fire it was. Nowadays people mostly get an airbrushed Morality Play, a sepia toned hymn of greatness-in-being, midwifed by a cast part Greek Chorus, part Einstein.
All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds.The reality was different, and much, much more interesting. Stephen P. Halbrook reminds us of the crucible of our Republic, that it was a hot and turbulent debate. The book was designed to - and succeeds at - remind us of the assumptions about the necessity of an armed populace that was universal across both sides of the ratification debate.
We've forgotten that. The idea that four of the Justices of the Supreme Court could describe firearms as limited to militia use in the dissent to Heller v. District of Columbia says that it's not just Joe Everyman who sees this past in sepia hues, but the intelligentsia. They should read this book.
The Constitution was originally drafted without a Bill of Rights, and the Federalists did not want one. Pennsylvania's James Wilson summed up the reason for the absence (p. 192):
A proposition to adopt a measure that would have supposed that we were throwing into the general government every power not expressly reserved by the people, would have been spurned at; in that house, with the greatest indignation ... If we attempt an enumeration, every thing that is not enumerated is presumed to be given.On the other side of the debate were the Anti-Federalists, who demanded a Bill of Rights. Benjamin Franklin was one of these skeptics, saying "this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it ..." (p. 176).
Halbrook ably describes the heated debate that raged between these two groups. In some states (Delaware), there was no debate at all; the Federalists ran the show. In other states, the Constitution was either ratified with an explicit demand for a Bill of Rights (New Hampshire), or was explicitly not ratified without one (Vermont). In almost all, the debate was hot. He quotes (p. 202) Massachusetts Federalist leader Theodore Sedgwick, complaining an opponent:
... is making every possible exertion & by the meanest and basest arts stimulating pub[l]ick passions. He says that it will be a government for great men & law[y]erss. That the people will be disarmed. That a standing army will be immediately formed &ca. &ca. &ca.Neither group trusted the government. We've forgotten that. The Federalists are sometimes painted as the "Big Government" party. They weren't. So why did they oppose the explicit limits on a federal government that they didn't trust?
They thought that the people would rise up in revolution, all over again (p. 235):
The New York federalists were led by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, who had argued in The Federalist No. 29 that military establishments would not be a danger where "a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms," were ready to defend their right.The book is filled with similar quotes. The casual reference to the armed defense of liberty is universal. Private ownership of firearms was not just thought A Good Thing by everyone, it was simply assumed.
We've forgotten this.
Ultimately, consensus mandated the Bill of Rights. And while technically a defeat for the Federalists, history has shown that they were right. Bit by bit, encroachment by encroachment, the power of the government has expanded. The Anti-Federalists were right, too: the militia did not leave their farms and workshops, massing on the town green, to dispute a couple of marginal tax rate percentages with powder and lead. Sedgewick's opponent saw more clearly than he:
He says that it will be a government for great men & law[y]erss. That the people will be disarmed. That a standing army will be immediately formedGod save this honorable Republic.
This book serves two purposes. It is exhaustive documentation to put to rest the (hopefully dieing) claim that the Second Amendment is a collective right, only intended for a Militia. Give a copy to anyone making this argument, or you'll make Baby Vulcan cry.
It's also a reminder to us - a Morality Play, after all - that even great men cannot see the future clearly, and what is casually assumed today can be under assault tomorrow. And that the small battles fought today are more important than a Gotterdammerung where nobody shows up.
UPDATE 13 January 2009 12:19: Welcome visitors from MArooned! Take a look around. More of this in the "Second Amendment" file.
UPDATE 13 January 2009 14:20: More on the difficulty in seeing the future here.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Why there is no antivirus for Linux
It's been all spyware, all the time here at Borepatch lately. This is all focused on Windows - so how come there's no spyware targeting Unix?
AZen Unix koan:
It's not that Unix is impervious, but architecture counts. A lot of what's happening is driven by market share, but it's quite hard to see how it could be remotely this much trouble if, say, Ubuntu Linux had 80% market share.
Of, and if you want to learn a lot about how computers developed. you could do a lot worse than to spend an hour (or twenty) on Raymond's site with the Jargon File. I used to have one of those paper editions, from (I think) 1991. (Actual Jargon file is here, but you should read the other link which is pretty interesting)
A
I won't spoil it by stealing the ending - RTWT. There's a reason that Eric Raymond has the reputation that he has. Make sure to read the Unix Koans while you're there. My favorite (obviously) is about the Black Hat h4X0R.There was a novice who learned much at the Master’s feet, but felt something to be missing. After meditating on his doubts for some time, he found the courage to approach Master Foo about his problem.
“Master Foo,” he asked “why do Unix users not employ antivirus programs? And defragmentors? And malware cleaners?”
Master Foo smiled, and said “When your house is well constructed, there is no need to add pillars to keep the roof in place.”
The novice replied “Would it not be better to use these things anyway, just to be certain?”
It's not that Unix is impervious, but architecture counts. A lot of what's happening is driven by market share, but it's quite hard to see how it could be remotely this much trouble if, say, Ubuntu Linux had 80% market share.
Of, and if you want to learn a lot about how computers developed. you could do a lot worse than to spend an hour (or twenty) on Raymond's site with the Jargon File. I used to have one of those paper editions, from (I think) 1991. (Actual Jargon file is here, but you should read the other link which is pretty interesting)
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