Malpractice isn't a major reason for healthcare costs in the US, but there is a lot of other stuff that is

Fake Geek Girls Vs. Real Geek Girls? Really, this??

An interesting meme is making its rounds on the Internet. There seems to be a bunch of hoopla about “fake geek girls”. What’s a fake geek girl? Apparently Urban Dictionary doesn’t have an entry for it yet (as of today, anyway). Umm, I did find a definition at some site called Geek Feminism Weekly (whatever that’s supposed to mean…kinda sounds like random words thrown together that only vaguely represent what it really is, similar to California Pizza Kitchen.) Anyway, their definition for fake geek girl is:

Fake geek girls - allegedly women who show up at geek events, possibly while hot, with not enough geek cred for you.

This all seems to have started with an article on Forbes (Really, Forbes? Yes, Forbes.) called Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away. In this article, the author talks about being a “geeky girl” growing up and how she now sees “pretentious females” now posing as geeks when they haven’t put the time in to justify the claim.

What’s with all the hate? In fact, why are girls singled out as being fake geeks (especially by other woman) for being posers? I think a commenter on a recent article by @Mikeynerd says it well (article: Fake Geek Girls),

The Fake Geek Girl thing bugs me. Because I do feel there is an underlying sexism at play.

If someone is a poser, then it doesn’t matter if they are a woman or man. But, is it even bad to be a poser? Isn’t a poser just someone whose trying to figure out what everyone else already knows? Aren’t they really an outcast too? As outcasts trying to fit it, doesn’t that make them more geeky (since being a social outcast is technically a major component of geekdom)? The answers to this series of rhetorical questions are as follows: no, yes, yes, and yes.
May your journey to higher geekdom find much success!

Who are we calling producers and who are those who refuse to produce?

One of the sad sign of our times is that we demonize those who produce, subsidize those who refuse to produce, and canonize those who complain. --Thomas Sowell

This is a particularly disgusting statement.  First, those who produce and those who do not is a matter of perspective.  What do you tell the father of 3 who has relied on a job for most of his life, who then lost his job because the company who he worked for was mismanaged by executives and had to shut down?  What do you tell that same father when the same guys that ran his company into the ground got huge bonuses "so they wouldn't leave" before operations were completely shut down?  If the father had stock in that company, he lost on two fronts because of those executives.

Given Sowell's statement above, I would ask, who is he calling the producer?  Who is he calling "those who refuse to produce"?  Would it be the executives that drove their company into the ground, not only losing value in the company, but also within the greater economy?  If anything, they are anti-producers.  This makes them worse than the supposed people who "refuse to produce", whoever they are.  The producer is the father who worked his entire life at his company, making the goods and services that found their way into homes all across America.

Fed has spent trillions to keep a dying financial industry on life support, who in turn gave huge bonuses to the very people the caused the last melt down of our economy.  What did those people do with the rest of the taxpayer's money?  Most of it is locked away, being kept out of the economy (likely for good).

Are we really all that worried about giving a few pennies (comparatively) to people who are likely already not putting enough food on the table because they believed in this very system that eventually let them down?  It's this kind of nonsense that makes communism start to look good to the starving masses.  We would not need to raise taxes had it not been for the massive problems that we, the voters, allowed in Wall Street by putting congresspersons in office that are more worried about the next big donor than they are about the solvency of our system.

How badly do we want to lower taxes?  Well, let's consider something.  Out of the last three crashes of our economy, two were caused by real estate financials games that started happening as a direct result of deregulation of particular financial institutions.  The games these institutions were playing eventually stopped working, but the corporations still needed to pretend they were making money (when, in fact, they were losing massive amounts of money).  So, they created paperwork fantasies to keep showing profits on Wall Street in order to convince everyone that nothing was going on until it was too late.  The third economic crash was caused by too much speculation on Wall Street. The common thread here is Wall Street and all the money that the taxpayer is continuously asked to pay to keep these guys rich when really they should be in jail.

I've only been gone 18 months! #49ers Stadium

OK, so I've only been gone like 18 months!  The house that we owned is in the Rivermark area, practically in the shadow of the future home of the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, CA.  When we sold the home, there was nothing more than a proud sign and a parking lot at the site of the planned stadium.



Eighteen months later?



I don't think I've ever seen this much progress on a project in California in such a short time! Supposedly, the stadium is scheduled to be completed in time for the 2014 season, followed by opportunities for Super Bowls and other events.

Parking is a big weakness for this stadium.  There is almost no parking on the stadium property.  But let's not bother with details right now.

The jury is still out as to whether this will improve home values near the stadium.  Some say it will bolster values, and other say it will drag them down.  If this project is handled like AT&T Ballpark by the San Francisco Giants, values will soar due to ongoing redevelopment efforts nearby.  If the project is handled like the Oakland Colosseum, eh, watchout!  I already know the 49ers wanted to avoid the AT&T Ballpark model, so a bit of concern is appropriate.  It all depends on how Santa Clara City itself handles things.

Walking around Philidelphia

On a recent trip to Pennsylvania, I had a chance to briefly explore Philidelphia.  The day I was there, it happened to be some celebration as taking place in front of the First Bank of the United States. 

Merchants' Exchange Building was kinda strange.  It is a bit boring on the front ,but the back is round.  Or is that the other way round? :)

Independence Hall from the backside (again, really, is this the back?).

Manhole cover in front of the Independence Hall...wait, I mean, to the building's rear...oh never mind.  I thought this would make for an interesting angle of a shot.

Maybe I'll get more time to explore this city and its long history at some later date.

No clouds come

For whatever reason, when there's not a cloud in the sky in Massachusetts, there really isn't any cloud, even contrails. That always seems wierd to this California transplant.

The President has a plan to destroy the economy! Really???

So, I got this thick package in the mail. In it, there was a detailed list of predictions about how the president was acting out a plan to ruin the economy. Predictions were grandiose and far reaching. A lot of money was spent creating this package. I'm sure thousands, if not millions were sent out. The point of the package was to scare everyone into investing into gold.

The year that I received this package (and several others like it)? Circa 1995 all the way to 2000. What happened to gold during this period? The value was depressed nearly the whole time. It fell well behind inflation.

I started getting advertisements more recently about gold again. This time, similar predictions are being made out the current president. Again, the timing of this promotion happens to coincide with the value of gold falling behind inflation. Coincidence?

Under Bush Sr., the economy continued to falter and the value of gold raised. Under Clinton, the economy roared ahead of even the most optimistic predictions. All that value was lost under Bush Jr. and the value of gold raised again, even more radically (but still behind inflation when averaged across history). Poor handling of the economy almost plunged us into a Great Depression II, but instead was forestalled to become Great Recession due to quick actions by Obama. Actually, presidents only marginally have impact on the economic state, but entities like Fox News seem promote the idea that presidents are all powerful.

If you listen to gold pumpers, they sound a lot like Fox News, but even further extreme. Wild predictions about how bad things "will be" under Democratic presidents and their diabolical plots. Really? OK, yeah, let's ignore the fact they have been 100% wrong due to their predictions' poor timing. Let's ignore the facts that they own substantial amounts of gold and stand to profit from its promotion. Let's ignore the facts that these people promote fanciful scenarios as guaranteed facts. The fact is that the economy is now picking up (more quickly than expected by many) meaning that gold is now a poor investment again (generally, gold falls when the dollar strengthens). Yet, now these gold pumpers are heavily promoting ideas of an immediately impending disaster, as though the economic disaster of 2007/8 didn't even happen and is still waiting to happen.

When the economy as does fail (and it will one day, but who knows when, ...it will be some time near the end of the entity of the "United States of America"), at that time, gold will be the least of most people's concerns.

Lots of jobs available, but no one with skills to fill them

With over crowded Universities, still only 30% of the total population with any form of a College Degree, and the high pay for tradesmen these days, I am amazed that so few people are going into the trades. To make matters worse, the high school drop out rate is as much as 30% in many areas now (and even much higher in particular areas). It's almost like people either go to college, or they don't bother trying to get a good start on a career at all.

We don't all need college degrees to have a lucrative career. In fact, the wrong college degree can stifle a career. There's a lot of money to be made in the trades. Good examples are Electricians and Plumbers. Plumbers are already making as much money per year near the start of their careers as many people with well positioned degrees from a University. (Some degrees will command nothing more than $30K/year for someone just out of college, which is much less than a Journeyman Plumber who spent the same period in an Apprentice program.)

I got my start in the trades as a Drafter. I was working my first professional job when I was 18 after graduating Trade School (I had been working since I was 13). I didn't get paid a whole lot at the start, but even as a kid, I was aware of the need to have a marketable skill set (though I would've never used those exact words as a teenager).

There is a tremendous and growing skills gap between available jobs and those available to fill them. A recent article by Rick Badie discusses this problem. The article points to a machine shop with positions to fill, a stack of resumes, but no one qualified to take the available positions. This problem is happening all over the country. It's even a little frustrating. There are availble jobs. By some estimates, openings are literally in the millions that aren't getting filled!

mikeroweWorks was started by Mike Rowe, who is also trying to raise awareness of the opportunities in the trades, but also working to improve respect for the job that these tradesmen perform.

I'm feeding Twitter with Mass Pike

The hashtag #masspike has some interesting tweets about the portion of I-90 that runs through Massachusetts, called Mass Pike.  So, since I'm driving on a section of Mass Pike on most days, I've started posting a semi-daily tweet attached to that hashtag which covers some experiences I've have while on that toll freeway.  The fact that I have something to complain about practically everyday should say something about a large minority of poor drivers that frequent this stretch of road. 

People swerving excessivly (worse than drunks, in my opinion) are quite common.  Even worse is when a big rig is actively swerving into adjacent lanes without the intent of changing lanes.  More than once, I've seen hapless cars have to veer, literally avoiding dangerous accidents.

Many drivers treat the road as their own ash tray, flinging cigarette butts out to bounce into the cars behind them.  Many butts have a well inflamed cherry.  Rather unsafe.

I'm sure many people aren't all that clear on the concept of what a lane is.  It seems a dashed line in the middle of the road is an invitation to drive on top of the line down the middle.  This is a particular problem with freeway exits.  A problem with freeway entrances is the opposite. If there is only one lane, lane splitting is employed.  See, here I thought lane splitting was only legal in California with a motorcycle and a car.  Massachusetts, it's illegal, so why not just completely break the law by lane splitting a big rig with another big rig!

These daily events aren't limited to Mass Pike, and they aren't even the half of what goings on.  So, keep an eye on the #masspike hashtag on Twitter to see what your missing. 

 https://mobile.twitter.com/search/%23masspike 

In flight maps

Many airlines have touch screens on the back of each seat. One of the tools to view on those screens is an actively updated map of where the plane's position is shown along its flight path. This usually includes data such as "ground speed", "distance to go", "altitude" and "outside temperature".

Ground speed is useful, because when dividing it into distance to go, the calculation well show how many hours remain for the flight. Altitude is interesting, but not so useful. The only metric that doesn't really have any value at all is outside temperature. Why show this? Am I going to open a window and pop my head out for a breathe of fresh air? No. The only function this serves is as a reminder of the cabin's warmth (even if air is a bit on the cool side).

What other useless information could be included? How about outside air pressure, so we can be reminded that the cabin pressure is moderately comfortable? Instead of altitude, why not provide "distance from outer space" to remind us of just how close we are to entering orbit?

Something that might be more useful is if the map provided information on the destination, like the "current ground temperature" so I know to pull the jacket out of my carry-on luggage.

BTW, I'm ranting this from the airplane. I'm glad wi-fi is now being included on many flights.