http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/01/future.online.news.hyperlocal/index.html?iref=t2test_techtues
Moreover, I think the family calendar is the organizing principle into which all external information should flow. I want the kids' school schedules for sports and plays and even lunch choices to automatically flow into the home calendar. And when I want to decide what to do on the weekend, I want to click on the date for next Saturday and have all the relevant choices of plays, movies, and events pop up.
Everything you do has a time dimension. If you are looking for a new home, the open houses are on certain dates, and certain houses that fit your needs are open at certain times. If you are shopping for some particular good, you often need to know the store hours. Your calendar needs to know your shopping list and preferences so it can suggest good times to do certain things.
Time is closely related to distance. On a typical night, for a typical family, there is much driving to and fro to deliver people and goods to where they need to be. Sometimes it is more complicated than a Fedex route. It would be nice if the family calendar helped us plan the shortest routes to accomplish all goals. The calendar just needs to know what I need and when, then plan which family member with a car is nearest.
Perhaps your calendar could suggest some carpooling as well, all automatically. I don't need to know my friends' business, but if their calendars and mine spoke to each other and found some common driving patterns it could shoot us both an offer to carpool, assuming we had approved those friends in advance for such offers. My phone would get the offer and I could confirm with a simple text message response.
When I read the news, I'm generally most interested in how stories have unfolded across time. I want to know the "new news," as in the topics that have never been reported until today, but I also want ongoing charts and graphs about the "old news" such as wars and the economy. My understanding of the war in Iraq, for example, has little to do with what blew up today and a lot to do with the trend lines over the entire war. In other words, I see the news in terms of time.
In most families, everyone keeps their own calendar and does a spotty job of sharing what's on it with everyone else. In time that calendar coordination will happen electronically. And most of the information will come from external sources, such as your schools, clubs, and organizations to which you belong.
Some time ago I blogged that advertising belongs in your electronic calendar, for your benefit more than for the advertiser. That's because my interest and desire in certain products and services is linked to timing. If my calendar has a certain birthday coming up in a week, and I've checked the boxes saying the person is a certain age and gender, or has certain hobbies, my calendar can start giving me gift suggestions and recommending online flowers and e-cards and the like. In other words, advertisements can move from nuisance to valuable service just by adjusting when you see them.
I think the biggest software revolution of the future is that the calendar will be the organizing filter for most of the information flowing into your life. You think you are bombarded with too much information every day, but in reality it is just the timing of the information that is wrong. Once the calendar becomes the organizing paradigm and filter, it won't seem as if there is so much.
An old joke that works as its own punch line goes "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Most people in this country reflexively believe the government will screw up anything it touches. There's plenty of evidence for that view.
But I wonder if government can be more efficient than the free market in specific situations, specifically in situations where the service is more about software than headcount, and where nothing needs to be invented.
Imagine a situation where you are deciding if a particular service should be handled by the government or by a hypothetical free market dominated by three players. The government's incentive is to provide the service as cheaply as it can. Any company's incentive is to transfer the greatest amount of money from consumers to stockholders. And to do that in a competitive industry you usually end up with what I call confusopolies. A confusopoly is a situation in which companies pretend to compete on price, service, and features but in fact they are just trying to confuse customers so no one can do comparison shopping.
Cell phone companies are the best example of confusopolies. The average consumer finds it impossible to decipher which carrier has the best deal, so carriers don't have normal market pressure to lower prices. It's a virtual cartel without the illegal part.
The advantage of a free market system is innovation. The market has an incentive to try new things. Governments prefer to avoid risks. If you need innovation, you want the free market.
In the case of national healthcare insurance, I ask myself these questions:
- Is it more about software than headcount?
- How important is innovation?
- Is the free market for this service a natural confusopoly?
Before you call me a socialist, I don't have an informed opinion on national healthcare. But I also don't have an automatic bias in favor of a free market that gave us Enron, WorldCom, Madoff, derivatives, and mortgages to hobos. I think you have to look at the specifics.
But I topped it yesterday. I was working out at the gym and felt a powerful thirst. The gym provides large paper cups near an ice and water dispenser. I filled my cup, slapped on a plastic lid, and inserted the straw. So far, so good.
As I was happily slurping away, I entered the locker room and the first person I saw was a man in his mid sixties with a towel around his waist, blow drying his hair. Suddenly, to my horror, he put the blow dryer under the towel and started drying his junk. . . while I was sucking on a straw. I was temporarily blinded and I forgot most of my childhood.
Am I the only person routinely afflicted by the proximity problem?
http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_12148055
As regular readers know, I lost my voice for several years thanks to a vocal condition called spasmodic dysphonia. I regained my ability to speak thanks to the one surgeon in the world who pioneered a fix for this problem.
I sound terrible on the video because I was drawing and talking at the same time, so you hear me mumbling and searching for the right words. I don't multitask well. So unfortunately that's my "normal" voice. The spasmodic dysphonia problem is 100% gone. When I'm not distracted, my voice is better now than it ever was, largely because I did so much vocal training before discovering the surgery. I actually came out ahead on this deal.
If you have read anything about my use of affirmations, you might be interested to know that the only affirmation I've employed for the past several years has been "I Scott will speak perfectly." This was a worthy test of affirmations since most voice experts said spasmodic dysphonia was incurable. I'd guess that 99% of the people with the same condition believe it can't be fixed, and that belief will make it true for them. I chose to believe the opposite. So while I still don't speak "perfectly," I'm already better than my old "normal" voice.
But it got me thinking that there must be a way for believers in global warming to profit at the expense of skeptics, assuming the believers are right. For investment purposes it doesn't matter what is causing global warming. All that matters is that it is happening and apparently already unstoppable according to a growing consensus of scientists.
The obvious stock plays have already been run up. If you invest now in solar, wind, and other green energy players, you might be getting in late. And some other better technology could overtake them. I'm looking for an investment that doesn't involve green technology.
For example, I already play soccer and tennis at indoor facilities. If there was a stock you could buy in some company that was building indoor sports clubs that would be a good play. You'll need them when it gets hotter.
Food supplies will be disrupted in some places and maybe improved in others. If you could find a way to invest in an agribusiness that has its operations in places likely to have improved growing conditions with global warming that might be a play.
Maybe real estate is the way to go, but it's harder to diversify. The idea is to find places that have just okay weather now that will have terrific weather later. That seems too risky. Real estate is influenced by too many other factors.
The best investment hedge might be as simple as a portfolio of sunscreen manufacturers.
What are your global warming investment ideas? And resist the urge to say, "beachfront property in Idaho."
I find this to be an inconvenient sort of knowledge. For the rest of my life, every time I talk to someone I will want to cheat my face toward the good side. I will never again make eye contact unless it by peripheral vision. In the interest of public safety I will only walk on the side of the street that puts my good side toward traffic.
I feel like a hunchback who doesn't want anyone standing behind him because he knows people will stare at his hump. I fear people will be looking at my ugly side and wondering if it is the first sign of swine flu.
I'm thinking of getting an eye patch for my ugly eye. Then I'll put in a Bluetooth headset to disguise my ugly ear hole. I considered wearing a hat to hide the upper part of my ugly head but it would be rude to wear a hat indoors. My best bet is to convert to a religion that requires a turban and doesn't have an issue with mutton chop sideburns on one side.
If I put it all together just right it will be a look. On one side I will be an unnaturally handsome cartoonist, just like always, but my ugly side will be transformed into an Elvis pirate Sikh theme with just a hint of douche bag cell phone user. I'm sort of an artist, so I think I can pull that off.
Or was it my other side that the photographer said was my good one? Shit.
http://caps.fool.com/blogs/viewpost.aspx?bpid=187982&t=01001019292467236494
Dennis Kneale interviewed me recently during a satellite media tour that I did for my Dilbert 2.0 book . I like him. But I laughed anyway.
Speaking of my big-ol'-coffee table book, Dilbert 2.0, the economy is your friend once again. Thanks to a worldwide slump in book sales, especially on the high end, you can scarf up the best work I have ever done for an embarrassingly low price: http://www.amazon.com/Dilbert-2-0-20-Years/dp/0740777351. It makes a good gift because people will assume it cost more. And when they buy their next gift for you, they might try to match what they think you spent on them and you come out ahead. It's like free money.
There are few times in history when you have a chance to create a new and lasting custom. I say we put our collective minds together and come up with a business greeting that involves no skin-to-skin contact and no exchange of bodily fluids. I will open the bidding by suggesting the forearm bump. I already use this method jokingly with my friend who has germ issues. It's like crossing swords except you cross your sleeved forearm. The cooties don't have time to penetrate two layers of sleeves. Or so he thinks.
This new swine flu greeting still needs something extra, such as both people saying, "Huzaaa!" when their forearms touch.
An alternate move would involve making a fist and holding it up to your snout sideways, as if you are forming a pig's snout, snorting then finishing with a fist bump. That's still hand-on-hand contact, but at least it's the clean side.
Who has a better idea for a handshake replacement?
I've often used this method. I think I've mentioned these uses before, but I will reiterate to set up my larger point.
Guys tend to argue over who picks up the check after dinner. In cases where I know this situation is likely to arise, I prepare a ridiculous "because" reason that I trot out when the moment is right. After allowing the other guy or guys to make their ceremonial attempt at paying, I say something like "I'll pay today because this is the seven month anniversary of when you bought your car. Congratulations." I'm exaggerating slightly, but it isn't hard to come up with some trivial reason why you should pay. The funny thing is that any reason you offer will settle the discussion. It works every time.
Another situation in which the ridiculous reason works is when a large dinner group is being served and only half of the people have their dishes. Everyone sits there staring at their food as it cools, trying to be polite. In these cases I say loudly "According to etiquette, you can start eating as soon as three people have been served." Everyone instantly digs in. I think I read that rule of etiquette somewhere, but it's clearly a random number. There is nothing special about three. Ridiculous reasons win again.
I mention these examples because I think the world needs another ridiculous rule to solve some big problems. And it's no fair saying my new rule is ridiculous because that's exactly the point. The new rule would be this: Any land controlled by a country for 50 years straight is legitimately theirs. It's like a statute of limitations for armed resistance.
Obviously the people living in the disputed lands will reject this rule when it kicks in. It's really for the benefit of others who might be inclined to help the continued struggle for independence. Most struggles depend on outside help. This rule allows the outside helpers to withdraw without being dishonorable.
While the 50 year rule is clearly arbitrary and ridiculous, our minds allow us to accept such things as if they are real rules. So in time it might influence the inhabitants of the disputed lands to accept their situation. Realistically, if a country is controlled for 50 years, it's probably going to stay controlled. Continued resistance doesn't benefit anyone.
Consider all of the international struggles that involve lands conquered more than 50 years ago, or approaching that. The partisans need a reason to stop fighting that doesn't sound like they are a bunch of quitters. Honor is at stake. The 50 year rule is the non-reason reason.
I am aware that this rule, if followed, would sanction enormous unfairness, subjugation, apartheid, and worse. But those things would happen with or without the rule. The only difference is how many innocent people die trying to change a situation that is unlikely to change.
My comic on 4-21-09 featured an Elbonian pig that no longer needed to play fetch because of the economic downturn. Huh? That doesn't even make sense, does it?
The intended but failed joke was that in Elbonia their pets are pigs. Thus the pig was practicing his fetching. You see, fetching doesn't come naturally to pigs. They need to practice on their own. But that's not the joke. The joke was that in good times the pig is a pet and in bad times he's dinner.
This wasn't my best work, according to the comments online, and I am forced to agree. Some readers were confused. Others imagined a cleverer joke than I actually wrote, based on a strip years earlier where the pig was minister of finance for Elbonia. That theory held that his bad job performance was catching up with him.
My second failed strip of late involved Dogbert trying out the flash feature on the company's new cell phone. This one didn't work but it's only half my fault this time.
The problem this time is that the outside service that adds color to daily strips (mine and others) decided the dead guy should be Dilbert, and they colored his necktie to conform to that theory. The dead guy is supposed to be Ted. I never color anyone's tie with Dilbert's distinctive style for exactly this reason. (I only color the Sunday strips myself.) Correct coloring wouldn't have been enough to save this comic, but it didn't help either.
You might wonder why I go through patches where Dilbert comics mostly suck for a few weeks, such as this one, and patches where I seem to be on top of my game. Some of it is probably just a matter of diet, exercise and sleep. But the bigger part is that I try different ways to go at the comics for a few weeks at a time. Notice that both of the comics that failed are missing an action scene that is implied. In the pig strip you don't see the future dinner preparations, and in the camera flash scene you don't see the flash itself happening. In both cases someone expires, and in both cases the topic is more fantastical than the usual office happenings.
The comics I am drawing now, that will run in late June, are back to standard office material. If I did too much of either the fantastic or the mundane it would cause a sort of snow blindness for the material. And I've found that the best way to draw young males into reading the strip is to kill some characters now and then. So while the quality of the strip has been down for the past few weeks, young readership probably went up.
I might be crazy, but I'm crazy like a pig.
