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20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes

2012-02-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery.

As someone who slings red ink for a living, let me tell you: grammar is an ultra-micro component in the larger picture; it lies somewhere in the final steps of the editing trail; and as such it’s an overrated quasi-irrelevancy in the creative process, perpetuated into importance primarily by bitter nerds who accumulate tweed jackets and crippling inferiority complexes. But experience has also taught me that readers, for better or worse, will approach your work with a jaundiced eye and an itch to judge. While your grammar shouldn’t be a reflection of your creative powers or writing abilities, let’s face it — it usually is.

Below are 20 common grammar mistakes I see routinely, not only in editorial queries and submissions, but in print: in HR manuals, blogs, magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and even best selling novels. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve made each of these mistakes a hundred times, and I know some of the best authors in history have lived to see these very toadstools appear in print. Let's hope you can learn from some of their more famous mistakes.

Who and Whom
This one opens a big can of worms. “Who” is a subjective — or nominative — pronoun, along with "he," "she," "it," "we," and "they." It’s used when the pronoun acts as the subject of a clause. “Whom” is an objective pronoun, along with "him," "her," "it", "us," and "them." It’s used when the pronoun acts as the object of a clause. Using “who” or “whom” depends on whether you’re referring to the subject or object of a sentence. When in doubt, substitute “who” with the subjective pronouns “he” or “she,” e.g., Who loves you? cf., He loves me. Similarly, you can also substitute “whom” with the objective pronouns “him” or “her.” e.g., I consulted an attorney whom I met in New York. cf., I consulted him.

Which and That
This is one of the most common mistakes out there, and understandably so. “That” is a restrictive pronoun. It’s vital to the noun to which it’s referring. e.g., I don’t trust fruits and vegetables that aren’t organic. Here, I’m referring to all non-organic fruits or vegetables. In other words, I only trust fruits and vegetables that are organic. “Which” introduces a relative clause. It allows qualifiers that may not be essential. e.g., I recommend you eat only organic fruits and vegetables, which are available in area grocery stores. In this case, you don’t have to go to a specific grocery store to obtain organic fruits and vegetables. “Which” qualifies, “that” restricts. “Which” is more ambiguous however, and by virtue of its meaning is flexible enough to be used in many restrictive clauses. e.g., The house, which is burning, is mine. e.g., The house that is burning is mine.

Lay and Lie
This is the crown jewel of all grammatical errors. “Lay” is a transitive verb. It requires a direct subject and one or more objects. Its present tense is “lay” (e.g., I lay the pencil on the table) and its past tense is “laid” (e.g., Yesterday I laid the pencil on the table). “Lie” is an intransitive verb. It needs no object. Its present tense is “lie” (e.g., The Andes mountains lie between Chile and Argentina) and its past tense is “lay” (e.g., The man lay waiting for an ambulance). The most common mistake occurs when the writer uses the past tense of the transitive “lay” (e.g., I laid on the bed) when he/she actually means the intransitive past tense of “lie" (e.g., I lay on the bed).

Moot
Contrary to common misuse, “moot” doesn’t imply something is superfluous. It means a subject is disputable or open to discussion. e.g., The idea that commercial zoning should be allowed in the residential neighborhood was a moot point for the council.

Continual and Continuous
They’re similar, but there’s a difference. “Continual” means something that's always occurring, with obvious lapses in time. “Continuous” means something continues without any stops or gaps in between. e.g., The continual music made it the worst night of studying ever. e.g., Her continuous talking drove him crazy.

Envy and Jealousy
The word “envy” implies a longing for someone else’s good fortunes. “Jealousy” is far more nefarious. It’s a fear of rivalry, or a suspicion that someone might want what’s yours. Jealousy is also used more often in sexual situations. “Envy” is when you covet your friend’s good looks. “Jealousy” is what happens when your significant other swoons in the presence of your good-looking friend.

Nor
“Nor” expresses a negative condition. It literally means "and not." You’re obligated to use the “nor” form if your sentence expresses a negative and follows it with another negative condition. “Neither the men nor the women were drunk” is a correct sentence because “nor” expresses that the women held the same negative condition as the men. The old rule is that “nor” typically follows “neither,” and “or” follows “either.” However, if neither “either” nor “neither” is used in a sentence, you should use “nor” to express a second negative, as long as the second negative is a verb. If the second negative is a noun, adjective, or adverb, you would use “or,” because the initial negative transfers to all conditions. e.g., He won’t eat broccoli or asparagus. The negative condition expressing the first noun (broccoli) is also used for the second (asparagus).

May and Might
“May” implies a possibility. “Might” implies far more uncertainty. “You may get drunk if you have two shots in ten minutes” implies a real possibility of drunkenness. “You might get a ticket if you operate a tug boat while drunk” implies a possibility that is far more remote. Someone who says “I may have more wine” could mean he/she doesn't want more wine right now, or that he/she “might” not want any at all. Given the speaker’s indecision on the matter, “might” would be correct.

Whether and If
Many writers seem to assume that “whether” is interchangeable with “if." It isn’t. “Whether” expresses a condition where there are two or more alternatives. “If” expresses a condition where there are no alternatives. e.g., I don’t know whether I’ll get drunk tonight. e.g., I can get drunk tonight if I have money for booze.

Fewer and Less
“Less” is reserved for hypothetical quantities. “Few” and “fewer” are for things you can quantify. e.g., The firm has fewer than ten employees. e.g., The firm is less successful now that we have only ten employees.

Farther and Further
The word “farther” implies a measurable distance. “Further” should be reserved for abstract or hypothetical lengths. e.g., I threw the ball ten feet farther than Bill. e.g., The executive climbed further up the ladder of success.

Since and Because
“Since” refers to time. “Because” refers to causation. e.g., Since I quit drinking I’ve married and had two children. e.g., Because I quit drinking I no longer wake up in my own vomit.

Disinterested and Uninterested
Contrary to popular usage, these words aren’t synonymous. A “disinterested” person is someone who’s impartial. For example, a hedge fund manager might take interest in a headline regarding stock performance with which he has no money invested. He’s “disinterested,” i.e., he doesn’t seek to gain financially from the transaction he’s witnessed. Judges and referees are supposed to be "disinterested." If the sentence you’re using implies someone who couldn't care less, chances are you’ll want to use “uninterested.”

Anxious
Unless you’re frightened of them, you shouldn’t say you’re “anxious to see your friends.” You’re actually “eager,” or "excited." To be “anxious” implies a looming fear, dread or anxiety. It doesn’t mean you’re looking forward to something.

Different Than and Different From
This is a tough one. Words like “rather” and “faster” are comparative adjectives, and are used to show comparison with the preposition “than,” (e.g., greater than, less than, faster than, rather than). The adjective “different” is used to draw distinction. So, when “different” is followed by a preposition, it should be “from,” similar to “separate from,” “distinct from,” or “away from.” e.g., My living situation in New York was different from home. There are rare cases where “different than” is appropriate, if “than” operates as a conjunction. e.g., Development is different in New York than in Los Angeles. When in doubt, use “different from.”

Bring and Take
In order to employ proper usage of “bring” or “take,” the writer must know whether the object is being moved toward or away from the subject. If it is toward, use “bring.” If it is away, use “take.” Your spouse may tell you to “take your clothes to the cleaners.” The owner of the dry cleaners would say “bring your clothes to the cleaners.”

Impactful
It isn't a word. "Impact" can be used as a noun (e.g., The impact of the crash was severe) or a transitive verb (e.g., The crash impacted my ability to walk or hold a job). "Impactful" is a made-up buzzword, colligated by the modern marketing industry in their endless attempts to decode the innumerable nuances of human behavior into a string of mindless metrics. Seriously, stop saying this.

Affect and Effect
Here’s a trick to help you remember: “Affect” is almost always a verb, and “effect” is almost always a noun. e.g., Facebook affects people’s attention spans, and the effect is usually negative. “Affect” means to influence or produce an impression — to cause hence, an effect. “Effect” is the thing produced by the affecting agent; it describes the result or outcome. There are some exceptions. “Effect” may be used as a transitive verb, which means to bring about or make happen. e.g., My new computer effected a much-needed transition from magazines to Web porn. There are similarly rare examples where “affect” can be a noun. e.g., His lack of affect made him seem like a shallow person.

Irony and Coincidence
Too many people claim something is the former when they actually mean the latter. For example, it’s not “ironic” that “Barbara moved from California to New York, where she ended up meeting and falling in love with a fellow Californian.” The fact that they’re both from California is a "coincidence." "Irony" is the incongruity in a series of events between the expected results and the actual results. "Coincidence" is a series of events that appear planned when they’re actually accidental. So, it would be "ironic" if “Barbara moved from California to New York to escape California men, but the first man she ended up meeting and falling in love with was a fellow Californian.”

Nauseous
Undoubtedly the most common mistake I encounter. Contrary to almost ubiquitous misuse, to be “nauseous” doesn’t mean you’ve been sickened: it actually means you possess the ability to produce nausea in others. e.g., That week-old hot dog is nauseous. When you find yourself disgusted or made ill by a nauseating agent, you are actually “nauseated.” e.g., I was nauseated after falling into that dumpster behind the Planned Parenthood. Stop embarrassing yourself.

http://litreactor.com/columns/20-common-grammar-mistakes-that-almost-everyone-gets-wrong

Opposing Views - Japan

2012-02-04T20:13:00.001-08:00

The Myth of Japan’s Failure

By EAMONN FINGLETON

Tokyo

DESPITE some small signs of optimism about the United States economy, unemployment is still high, and the country seems stalled.

Time and again, Americans are told to look to Japan as a warning of what the country might become if the right path is not followed, although there is intense disagreement about what that path might be. Here, for instance, is how the CNN analyst David Gergen has described Japan: “It’s now a very demoralized country and it has really been set back.”

But that presentation of Japan is a myth. By many measures, the Japanese economy has done very well during the so-called lost decades, which started with a stock market crash in January 1990. By some of the most important measures, it has done a lot better than the United States.
Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.

How can the reality and the image be so different? And can the United States learn from Japan’s experience?

It is true that Japanese housing prices have never returned to the ludicrous highs they briefly touched in the wild final stage of the boom. Neither has the Tokyo stock market.

But the strength of Japan’s economy and its people is evident in many ways. There are a number of facts and figures that don’t quite square with Japan’s image as the laughingstock of the business pages:

• Japan’s average life expectancy at birth grew by 4.2 years — to 83 years from 78.8 years — between 1989 and 2009. This means the Japanese now typically live 4.8 years longer than Americans. The progress, moreover, was achieved in spite of, rather than because of, diet. The Japanese people are eating more Western food than ever. The key driver has been better health care.

• Japan has made remarkable strides in Internet infrastructure. Although as late as the mid-1990s it was ridiculed as lagging, it has now turned the tables. In a recent survey by Akamai Technologies, of the 50 cities in the world with the fastest Internet service, 38 were in Japan, compared to only 3 in the United States.

• Measured from the end of 1989, the yen has risen 87 percent against the U.S. dollar and 94 percent against the British pound. It has even risen against that traditional icon of monetary rectitude, the Swiss franc.

• The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, about half of that in the United States.

• According to skyscraperpage.com, a Web site that tracks major buildings around the world, 81 high-rise buildings taller than 500 feet have been constructed in Tokyo since the “lost decades” began. That compares with 64 in New York, 48 in Chicago, and 7 in Los Angeles.

• Japan’s current account surplus — the widest measure of its trade — totaled $196 billion in 2010, up more than threefold since 1989. By comparison, America’s current account deficit ballooned to $471 billion from $99 billion in that time. Although in the 1990s the conventional wisdom was that as a result of China’s rise Japan would be a major loser and the United States a major winner, it has not turned out that way. Japan has increased its exports to China more than 14-fold since 1989 and Chinese-Japanese bilateral trade remains in broad balance.

As longtime Japan watchers like Ivan P. Hall and Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr. point out, the fallacy of the “lost decades” story is apparent to American visitors the moment they set foot in the country. Typically starting their journeys at such potent symbols of American infrastructural decay as Kennedy or Dulles airports, they land at Japanese airports that have been extensively expanded and modernized in recent years.

William J. Holstein, a prominent Japan watcher since the early 1980s, recently visited the country for the first time in some years. “There’s a dramatic gap between what one reads in the United States and what one sees on the ground in Japan,” he said. “The Japanese are dressed better than Americans. They have the latest cars, including Porsches, Audis, Mercedes-Benzes and all the finest models. I have never seen so many spoiled pets. And the physical infrastructure of the country keeps improving and evolving.”

Why, then, is Japan seen as a loser? On the official gross domestic product numbers, the United States has ostensibly outperformed Japan for many years. But even taking America’s official numbers at face value, the difference has been far narrower than people realize. Adjusted to a per-capita basis (which is the proper way to do this) and measured since 1989, America’s G.D.P. grew by an average of just 1.4 percent a year. Japan’s figure meanwhile was even more anemic — just 1 percent — implying that it underperformed the United States by 0.4 percent a year.
A look at the underlying accounting, however, suggests that, far from underperforming, Japan may have outperformed. For a start, in a little noticed change, United States statisticians in the 1980s embarked on an increasingly aggressive use of the so-called hedonic method of adjusting for inflation, an approach that in the view of many experts artificially boosts a nation’s apparent growth rate.

On the calculations of John Williams of Shadowstats.com, a Web site that tracks flaws in United States economic data, America’s growth in recent decades has been overstated by as much as 2 percentage points a year. If he is even close to the truth, this factor alone may put the United States behind Japan in per-capita performance.

If the Japanese have really been hurting, the most obvious place this would show would be in slow adoption of expensive new high-tech items. Yet the Japanese are consistently among the world’s earliest adopters. If anything, it is Americans who have been lagging. In cellphones, for instance, Japan leapfrogged the United States in the space of a few years in the late 1990s and it has stayed ahead ever since, with consumers moving exceptionally rapidly to ever more advanced devices.

Much of the story is qualitative rather than quantitative. An example is Japan’s eating-out culture. Tokyo, according to the Michelin Guide, boasts 16 of the world’s top-ranked restaurants, versus a mere 10 for the runner-up, Paris. Similarly Japan as a whole beats France in the Michelin ratings. But how do you express this in G.D.P. terms?

Similar problems arise in measuring improvements in the Japanese health care system. And how does one accurately convey the vast improvement in the general environment in Japan in the last two decades?

Luckily there is a yardstick that finesses many of these problems: electricity output, which is mainly a measure of consumer affluence and industrial activity. In the 1990s, while Japan was being widely portrayed as an outright “basket case,” its rate of increase in per-capita electricity output was twice that of America, and it continued to outperform into the new century.

Part of what is going on here is Western psychology. Anyone who has followed the story long-term cannot help but notice that many Westerners actively seek to belittle Japan. Thus every policy success is automatically discounted. It is a mind-set that is much in evidence even among Tokyo-based Western diplomats and scholars.

Take, for instance, how Western observers have viewed Japan’s demographics. The population is getting older because of a low birthrate, a characteristic Japan shares with many of the world’s richest nations. Yet this is presented not only as a critical problem but as a policy failure. It never seems to occur to Western commentators that the Japanese both individually and collectively have chosen their demographic fate — and have good reasons for doing so.

The story begins in the terrible winter of 1945-6, when, newly bereft of their empire, the Japanese nearly starved to death. With overseas expansion no longer an option, Japanese leaders determined as a top priority to cut the birthrate. Thereafter a culture of small families set in that has continued to the present day.

Japan’s motivation is clear: food security. With only about one-third as much arable land per capita as China, Japan has long been the world’s largest net food importer. While the birth control policy is the primary cause of Japan’s aging demographics, the phenomenon also reflects improved health care and an increase of more than 20 years in life expectancy since 1950.

Psychology aside, a major factor in the West’s comprehension problem is that virtually everyone in Tokyo benefits from the doom and gloom story. For foreign sales representatives, for instance, it has been the perfect get-out-of-jail card when they don’t reach their quotas. For Japanese foundations it is the perfect excuse in politely waving away solicitations from American universities and other needy nonprofits. Ditto for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in tempering expectations of foreign aid recipients. Even American investment bankers have reasons to emphasize bad news. Most notably they profit from the so-called yen-carry trade, an arcane but powerful investment strategy in which the well informed benefit from periodic bouts of weakness in the Japanese yen.

Economic ideology has also played an unfortunate role. Many economists, particularly right-wing think-tank types, are such staunch advocates of laissez-faire that they reflexively scorn Japan’s very different economic system, with its socialist medicine and ubiquitous government regulation. During the stock market bubble of the late 1980s, this mind-set abated but it came back after the crash.

Japanese trade negotiators noticed an almost magical sweetening in the mood in foreign capitals after the stock market crashed in 1990. Although previously there had been much envy of Japan abroad (and serious talk of protectionist measures), in the new circumstances American and European trade negotiators switched to feeling sorry for the “fallen giant.” Nothing if not fast learners, Japanese trade negotiators have been appealing for sympathy ever since.

The strategy seems to have been particularly effective in Washington. Believing that you shouldn’t kick a man when he is down, chivalrous American officials have largely given up pressing for the opening of Japan’s markets. Yet the great United States trade complaints of the late 1980s — concerning rice, financial services, cars and car components — were never remedied.

The “fallen giant” story has also even been useful to other East Asian nations, particularly in their trade diplomacy with the United States.
A striking instance of how the story has influenced American perceptions appears in “The Next 100 Years,” by the consultant George Friedman. In a chapter headed “China 2020: Paper Tiger,” Mr. Friedman argues that, just as Japan “failed” in the 1990s, China will soon have its comeuppance. Talk of this sort powerfully fosters complacency and confusion in Washington in the face of a United States-China trade relationship that is already arguably the most destructive in world history and certainly the most unbalanced.

Clearly the question of what has really happened to Japan is of first-order geopolitical importance. In a stunning refutation of American conventional wisdom, Japan has not missed a beat in building an ever more sophisticated industrial base. That this is not more obvious is a tribute in part to the fact that Japanese manufacturers have graduated to making so-called producers’ goods. These typically consist of advanced components or materials, or precision production equipment. They may be invisible to the consumer, yet without them the modern world literally would not exist. This sort of manufacturing, which is both highly capital-intensive and highly know-how-intensive, was virtually monopolized by the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and constituted the essence of American economic leadership.

Japan’s achievement is all the more impressive for the fact that its major competitors — Germany, South Korea, Taiwan and, of course, China — have hardly been standing still. The world has gone through a rapid industrial revolution in the last two decades thanks to the “targeting” of manufacturing by many East Asian nations. Yet Japan’s trade surpluses have risen.

Japan should be held up as a model, not an admonition. If a nation can summon the will to pull together, it can turn even the most unpromising circumstances to advantage. Here Japan’s constant upgrading of its infrastructure is surely an inspiration. It is a strategy that often requires cooperation across a wide political front, but such cooperation has not been beyond the American political system in the past. The Hoover Dam, that iconic project of the Depression, required negotiations among seven states but somehow it was built — and it provided jobs for 16,000 people in the process. Nothing is stopping similar progress now — nothing, except political bickering.

Eamonn Fingleton is an author who predicted the Japanese financial crash of the 1990s; he is working on a book about the end of the American dream.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 6, 2012

A previous version of this article included an incorrect figure for the increase in life expectancy in Japan. It changed by 4.2 years, not 3.1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html?pagewanted=all

Krugman Take on $12 Trillion Question Rings True: William Pesek

A fiery debate has broken out over an issue many thought had long been settled: Japan (JGDPAGDP)’s economy is sliding toward irrelevance.

The freshest evidence, reported earlier this week, is the first annual trade deficit in 31 years. It means, at the very least, that the huge pool of domestic savings that Japan uses to finance its staggering national debt might instead start going to support a trade deficit, an ominous sign.

Not necessarily a problem, says Eamonn Fingleton, a long- time observer who recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times headlined “The Myth of Japan’s Failure.” His argument that Japan is a model worth emulating generated a huge buzz. So much, in fact, that it prompted a rebuttal from Nobel laureate and Times columnist Paul Krugman, who’s considerably less enamored with Asia’s No. 2 economy. Fingleton then rebutted the rebuttal.

Who’s right? I’m more in Krugman’s camp than Fingleton’s. Japan’s toxic mix of too much debt, too little growth, too many old people and too few babies will end badly if Tokyo doesn’t get its act together.

It’s important, though, to highlight where Fingleton is right. Japan is pretty close to a model society. It is an incredibly safe, clean, efficient, predictable and consistently quirky place for an expatriate to reside. Japan is reasonably egalitarian, its people have one of the highest standards of living and enjoy the longest life spans, and its cities feature the best infrastructure anywhere. On a more superficial level, Japanese cuisine arguably blows away all others.
Japanization Myth

It’s worth noting that, in some ways, the U.S. only wishes it could become Japan someday. All the chatter about “Japanization” takes on apocalyptic tones: lost decades, debilitating debt levels, zero interest rates forever, financial chaos and existential despair. Although those worries are valid, Japan never unraveled the way skeptics expected.

Crime didn’t skyrocket, homelessness didn’t explode, Arab Spring-like social instability never materialized. Workers and companies merely adjusted, living off their savings. Japan brought a whole new meaning to the concept of muddling through.

Could the U.S. pull off what Japan has? I doubt it. The key to Japan’s ability to withstand 20 years of stagnation is roughly $15 trillion of household savings. Many Americans couldn’t live two months without a paycheck. Japan, by contrast, is anything but a basket case.

Yet here is where Fingleton’s argument falls apart. In 1995, he published “Blindside: Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. by the Year 2000.” Today, the real blindside among Japan bulls is thinking that what worked for Japan yesterday will work tomorrow.

Since its asset bubble burst more than 20 years ago, policy makers have worked frantically to keep the postwar boom alive. For years, pundits fretted about Japan’s zombie companies. The real zombie is Japan’s economic playbook.

The only reason Japan has any growth can be traced to its growing public debt, the world’s largest relative to the size of the economy, and the free money provided by the central bank. The economic equivalent of steroids is what holds Japan Inc. together, Krugman argues, not its organic vitality. To flourish, Japan needs to ease regulations, tap its female workforce and liberalize immigration. Lawmakers are doing none of the above.

There’s still a powerful aversion to change, and herein lies the nation’s Achilles’ heel. The Olympus Corp. (7733) scandal showed how corporate cronyism safeguarded an insular old-boys club. The radiation leaking from Tokyo Electric Power Co. reactors in Fukushima was a reminder of how dangerously top-down Japan is in a bottom-up economic world.
Japan’s Media

The Japanese news media are part of the problem. Change requires a vibrant and independent press policing leaders. Japan’s press is subject to a not-so-subtle form of control. If a reporter gets too enterprising and writes stories government ministries or companies don’t like -- say, by questioning Tepco (9501)’s radiation readings -- the sources dry up, making it hard to be effective. So, most play along.

Japan probably could keep its head down and its sense of uniqueness intact for a few more years were it not for China. Japan is now an incredibly expensive property in a poor neighborhood. Yes, it will be decades before China (CNGDPYOY) matches Japan in per-capita income, if it even can. Yet the competitive energy being unleashed by 1.3 billion incredibly industrious people means the status quo in Tokyo is no longer possible. Deflation is here to stay as developing Asia chips away at high-cost Japan’s market share and its prided egalitarianism.

Investors trying to predict the next debt crisis after Europe’s tend to look to Washington or Beijing. What about Tokyo? Those betting against Japanese bonds haven’t made much on the trade. Yet consider one inauspicious milestone reached this year.

On Jan. 9, youngsters celebrated Coming of Age Day, donning kimonos, visiting temples and partying the night away. This year, only 1.2 million Japanese turn 20, half as many as in 1970. A shrinking population complicates efforts to repay a $12 trillion debt, more than double the size of the economy.

It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize to know that paying off debt gets harder when you’re running out of people.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.

To contact the writer of this article: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this article: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net..

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/krugman-take-on-12-trillion-question-rings-true-william-pesek.html

How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work

2012-02-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

Companies and other economists say that notion is naïve. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.

To thrive, companies argue they need to move work where it can generate enough profits to keep paying for innovation. Doing otherwise risks losing even more American jobs over time, as evidenced by the legions of once-proud domestic manufacturers — including G.M. and others — that have shrunk as nimble competitors have emerged.

Apple was provided with extensive summaries of The New York Times’s reporting for this article, but the company, which has a reputation for secrecy, declined to comment.

This article is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former Apple employees and contractors — many of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs — as well as economists, manufacturing experts, international trade specialists, technology analysts, academic researchers, employees at Apple’s suppliers, competitors and corporate partners, and government officials.

Privately, Apple executives say the world is now such a changed place that it is a mistake to measure a company’s contribution simply by tallying its employees — though they note that Apple employs more workers in the United States than ever before.

They say Apple’s success has benefited the economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. And, ultimately, they say curing unemployment is not their job.

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

‘I Want a Glass Screen’

In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.

Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.

People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”

After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to Shenzhen, China. If Mr. Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere else to go.

For over two years, the company had been working on a project — code-named Purple 2 — that presented the same questions at every turn: how do you completely reimagine the cellphone? And how do you design it at the highest quality — with an unscratchable screen, for instance — while also ensuring that millions can be manufactured quickly and inexpensively enough to earn a significant profit?

The answers, almost every time, were found outside the United States. Though components differ between versions, all iPhones contain hundreds of parts, an estimated 90 percent of which are manufactured abroad. Advanced semiconductors have come from Germany and Taiwan, memory from Korea and Japan, display panels and circuitry from Korea and Taiwan, chipsets from Europe and rare metals from Africa and Asia. And all of it is put together in China.

In its early days, Apple usually didn’t look beyond its own backyard for manufacturing solutions. A few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, for instance, Mr. Jobs bragged that it was “a machine that is made in America.” In 1990, while Mr. Jobs was running NeXT, which was eventually bought by Apple, the executive told a reporter that “I’m as proud of the factory as I am of the computer.” As late as 2002, top Apple executives occasionally drove two hours northeast of their headquarters to visit the company’s iMac plant in Elk Grove, Calif.

But by 2004, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. Guiding that decision was Apple’s operations expert, Timothy D. Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive last August, six weeks before Mr. Jobs’s death. Most other American electronics companies had already gone abroad, and Apple, which at the time was struggling, felt it had to grasp every advantage.

In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

The impact of such advantages became obvious as soon as Mr. Jobs demanded glass screens in 2007.

For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. Apple had already selected an American company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.

Then a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

The Chinese plant got the job.

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

In Foxconn City

An eight-hour drive from that glass factory is a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. To Apple executives, Foxconn City was further evidence that China could deliver workers — and diligence — that outpaced their American counterparts.

That’s because nothing like Foxconn City exists in the United States.

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

Foxconn employs nearly 300 guards to direct foot traffic so workers are not crushed in doorway bottlenecks. The facility’s central kitchen cooks an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day. While factories are spotless, the air inside nearby teahouses is hazy with the smoke and stench of cigarettes.

Foxconn Technology has dozens of facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and in Mexico and Brazil, and it assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics for customers like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. Within three months, Apple had sold one million iPhones. Since then, Foxconn has assembled over 200 million more.

Foxconn, in statements, declined to speak about specific clients.

“Any worker recruited by our firm is covered by a clear contract outlining terms and conditions and by Chinese government law that protects their rights,” the company wrote. Foxconn “takes our responsibility to our employees very seriously and we work hard to give our more than one million employees a safe and positive environment.”

The company disputed some details of the former Apple executive’s account, and wrote that a midnight shift, such as the one described, was impossible “because we have strict regulations regarding the working hours of our employees based on their designated shifts, and every employee has computerized timecards that would bar them from working at any facility at a time outside of their approved shift.” The company said that all shifts began at either 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., and that employees receive at least 12 hours’ notice of any schedule changes.

Foxconn employees, in interviews, have challenged those assertions.

Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

In China, it took 15 days.

Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Some aspects of the iPhone are uniquely American. The device’s software, for instance, and its innovative marketing campaigns were largely created in the United States. Apple recently built a $500 million data center in North Carolina. Crucial semiconductors inside the iPhone 4 and 4S are manufactured in an Austin, Tex., factory by Samsung, of South Korea.

But even those facilities are not enormous sources of jobs. Apple’s North Carolina center, for instance, has only 100 full-time employees. The Samsung plant has an estimated 2,400 workers.

“If you scale up from selling one million phones to 30 million phones, you don’t really need more programmers,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, who oversaw product development and marketing for Apple until he left in 1990. “All these new companies — Facebook, Google, Twitter — benefit from this. They grow, but they don’t really need to hire much.”

It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

But such calculations are, in many respects, meaningless because building the iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans — it would require transforming the national and global economies. Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.

Manufacturing glass for the iPhone revived a Corning factory in Kentucky, and today, much of the glass in iPhones is still made there. After the iPhone became a success, Corning received a flood of orders from other companies hoping to imitate Apple’s designs. Its strengthened glass sales have grown to more than $700 million a year, and it has hired or continued employing about 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market.

But as that market has expanded, the bulk of Corning’s strengthened glass manufacturing has occurred at plants in Japan and Taiwan.

“Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China,” said James B. Flaws, Corning’s vice chairman and chief financial officer. “We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that’s 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas.”

Corning was founded in America 161 years ago and its headquarters are still in upstate New York. Theoretically, the company could manufacture all its glass domestically. But it would “require a total overhaul in how the industry is structured,” Mr. Flaws said. “The consumer electronics business has become an Asian business. As an American, I worry about that, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Asia has become what the U.S. was for the last 40 years.”

Middle-Class Jobs Fade

The first time Eric Saragoza stepped into Apple’s manufacturing plant in Elk Grove, Calif., he felt as if he were entering an engineering wonderland.

It was 1995, and the facility near Sacramento employed more than 1,500 workers. It was a kaleidoscope of robotic arms, conveyor belts ferrying circuit boards and, eventually, candy-colored iMacs in various stages of assembly. Mr. Saragoza, an engineer, quickly moved up the plant’s ranks and joined an elite diagnostic team. His salary climbed to $50,000. He and his wife had three children. They bought a home with a pool.

“It felt like, finally, school was paying off,” he said. “I knew the world needed people who can build things.”

At the same time, however, the electronics industry was changing, and Apple — with products that were declining in popularity — was struggling to remake itself. One focus was improving manufacturing. A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories: the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85. Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities. Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.

“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”

Modernization has always caused some kinds of jobs to change or disappear. As the American economy transitioned from agriculture to manufacturing and then to other industries, farmers became steelworkers, and then salesmen and middle managers. These shifts have carried many economic benefits, and in general, with each progression, even unskilled workers received better wages and greater chances at upward mobility.

But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees, today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.

Even Mr. Saragoza, with his college degree, was vulnerable to these trends. First, some of Elk Grove’s routine tasks were sent overseas. Mr. Saragoza didn’t mind. Then the robotics that made Apple a futuristic playground allowed executives to replace workers with machines. Some diagnostic engineering went to Singapore. Middle managers who oversaw the plant’s inventory were laid off because, suddenly, a few people with Internet connections were all that were needed.

Mr. Saragoza was too expensive for an unskilled position. He was also insufficiently credentialed for upper management. He was called into a small office in 2002 after a night shift, laid off and then escorted from the plant. He taught high school for a while, and then tried a return to technology. But Apple, which had helped anoint the region as “Silicon Valley North,” had by then converted much of the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare call center, where new employees often earn $12 an hour.

There were employment prospects in Silicon Valley, but none of them panned out. “What they really want are 30-year-olds without children,” said Mr. Saragoza, who today is 48, and whose family now includes five of his own.

After a few months of looking for work, he started feeling desperate. Even teaching jobs had dried up. So he took a position with an electronics temp agency that had been hired by Apple to check returned iPhones and iPads before they were sent back to customers. Every day, Mr. Saragoza would drive to the building where he had once worked as an engineer, and for $10 an hour with no benefits, wipe thousands of glass screens and test audio ports by plugging in headphones.

Paydays for Apple

As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived. Last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the combined state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since 2005, when the company’s stock split, share prices have risen from about $45 to more than $427.

Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’s and pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.

The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. Mr. Cook, Apple’s chief, last year received stock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings.

A person close to Apple argued that the compensation received by Apple’s employees was fair, in part because the company had brought so much value to the nation and world. As the company has grown, it has expanded its domestic work force, including manufacturing jobs. Last year, Apple’s American work force grew by 8,000 people.

While other companies have sent call centers abroad, Apple has kept its centers in the United States. One source estimated that sales of Apple’s products have caused other companies to hire tens of thousands of Americans. FedEx and United Parcel Service, for instance, both say they have created American jobs because of the volume of Apple’s shipments, though neither would provide specific figures without permission from Apple, which the company declined to provide.

“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”

What’s more, Apple sources say the company has created plenty of good American jobs inside its retail stores and among entrepreneurs selling iPhone and iPad applications.

After two months of testing iPads, Mr. Saragoza quit. The pay was so low that he was better off, he figured, spending those hours applying for other jobs. On a recent October evening, while Mr. Saragoza sat at his MacBook and submitted another round of résumés online, halfway around the world a woman arrived at her office. The worker, Lina Lin, is a project manager in Shenzhen, China, at PCH International, which contracts with Apple and other electronics companies to coordinate production of accessories, like the cases that protect the iPad’s glass screens. She is not an Apple employee. But Mrs. Lin is integral to Apple’s ability to deliver its products.

Mrs. Lin earns a bit less than what Mr. Saragoza was paid by Apple. She speaks fluent English, learned from watching television and in a Chinese university. She and her husband put a quarter of their salaries in the bank every month. They live in a 1,080-square-foot apartment, which they share with their in-laws and son.

“There are lots of jobs,” Mrs. Lin said. “Especially in Shenzhen.”

Innovation’s Losers

Toward the end of Mr. Obama’s dinner last year with Mr. Jobs and other Silicon Valley executives, as everyone stood to leave, a crowd of photo seekers formed around the president. A slightly smaller scrum gathered around Mr. Jobs. Rumors had spread that his illness had worsened, and some hoped for a photograph with him, perhaps for the last time.

Eventually, the orbits of the men overlapped. “I’m not worried about the country’s long-term future,” Mr. Jobs told Mr. Obama, according to one observer. “This country is insanely great. What I’m worried about is that we don’t talk enough about solutions.”

At dinner, for instance, the executives had suggested that the government should reform visa programs to help companies hire foreign engineers. Some had urged the president to give companies a “tax holiday” so they could bring back overseas profits which, they argued, would be used to create work. Mr. Jobs even suggested it might be possible, someday, to locate some of Apple’s skilled manufacturing in the United States if the government helped train more American engineers.

Economists debate the usefulness of those and other efforts, and note that a struggling economy is sometimes transformed by unexpected developments. The last time analysts wrung their hands about prolonged American unemployment, for instance, in the early 1980s, the Internet hardly existed. Few at the time would have guessed that a degree in graphic design was rapidly becoming a smart bet, while studying telephone repair a dead end.

What remains unknown, however, is whether the United States will be able to leverage tomorrow’s innovations into millions of jobs.

In the last decade, technological leaps in solar and wind energy, semiconductor fabrication and display technologies have created thousands of jobs. But while many of those industries started in America, much of the employment has occurred abroad. Companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple’s growth and profit margins, they won’t survive.

“New middle-class jobs will eventually emerge,” said Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist. “But will someone in his 40s have the skills for them? Or will he be bypassed for a new graduate and never find his way back into the middle class?”

The pace of innovation, say executives from a variety of industries, has been quickened by businessmen like Mr. Jobs. G.M. went as long as half a decade between major automobile redesigns. Apple, by comparison, has released five iPhones in four years, doubling the devices’ speed and memory while dropping the price that some consumers pay.

Before Mr. Obama and Mr. Jobs said goodbye, the Apple executive pulled an iPhone from his pocket to show off a new application — a driving game — with incredibly detailed graphics. The device reflected the soft glow of the room’s lights. The other executives, whose combined worth exceeded $69 billion, jostled for position to glance over his shoulder. The game, everyone agreed, was wonderful.

There wasn’t even a tiny scratch on the screen.

David Barboza, Peter Lattman and Catherine Rampell contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 24, 2012

An article on Sunday about the reasons iPhones are largely produced overseas omitted a passage immediately after the second continuation, from Page A22 to Page A23, in one edition. The full passage should have read: “Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 22, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: How U.S. Lost Out On iPhone Work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Miniatur Wunderland

2012-02-04T19:53:00.000-08:00

This railway "model", an understatement, is bitchin'

"Life is not fair - get used to it." Bill Gates

2012-01-29T08:18:00.001-08:00

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

http://www.sodahead.com/fun/life-is-not-fair---get-used-to-it-bill-gates/question-118185/

China - 30-story building built in 15 days

2012-01-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

China's engineering marvel, or will it be marred by accusations of poor workmanship and construction? Who knows.

I Can’t Think!

2012-01-01T08:10:00.000-08:00

An interesting article, check it out -

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/02/27/i-can-t-think.html

WTF - World Champion Wanker!

2011-12-22T05:09:00.001-08:00

True Facts About Girls

2011-12-07T04:49:00.000-08:00

Chivalry Is Dead

2011-11-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

I don't normally re-post such stuff, but then again, this is rather interesting, so here goes:

--We tell the world we value our independence, some of us going so far as to scream at a guy for having the courtesy to hold a door open for us so it doesn't smash us in the face, and yet, when we get married, we expect to be taken care of financially, no matter how much money we ourselves personally make.

--In answer to the near domestic slavery of bygone eras, we have become hyper independent, with an I don't need no man attitude, that has started to make our valued partners feel like little more than a walking sex toy.

--We want equality, but the man has to pay for every date or he is looked down upon.

--We want to be put on pedestals, but frown on a woman who wants to do the same for her man.

--We want all our needs met, but when a man expresses a desire that is not feminine (because hey, they are men, not women) we scoff, demean them and make fun.

The largest of all these offenses has to be that we, more often than not, place the value of a man in his wallet and not in his soul.

Real life example:

Debra had quite the dilemma. Shed finally met her soul mate. The one! He was attractive, fun, kind and loving. On top of it all, he was a civic minded firefighter, beloved in his community, even liked kids and animals. She was falling and fast.

The problem? He had a low paying job.

I make eighty-thousand dollars a year I want a mate who makes at least that much, She sniffed.

Debra dumped him, but they remained casual friends.

Some time passed and he got engaged. He invited Debra to the engagement party, and when she arrived at his home she was astonished to discover he lived in a mansion he was a millionaire and only volunteered as a fireman!

He had kept his wealth a secret so he would be assured that the woman he was with loved him for him and not his money.

In the end, he found the woman who was perfect for him, the one who accepted him as a fireman.

Talk about a karmic slap in the face!

Sadly, many American women do just this sort of thing they toss aside the garbage man with a heart a gold for a surgeon who yes, makes a 100 K a year, but odds are when doctor Stud muffin gets bored, he will cheat on you with that blond hottie down in Cardiology. Meanwhile, a good man slips by quietly unnoticed as we cry and moan about the fact that there are no good men.

Another problem is that our men appear to have to place their emotional wants and needs on the back burner in relationships, when we should be more understanding of those needs.

A good example of this is how men have to have space.

They do.

It makes them feel independent and not chained--this is very important to the male psyche, however, when a man says this to us, what do we do?

Not a member? Sign up is free and easy. Get answers to your own questions.

We get all freaked out, call our girlfriends and make him feel like a jerk for a very legitimate male need.

I've even been privy to occasions where a man will tell his woman, "Baby, I am going to go up the street and see so and so"

And home girl exclaims, "No, hell you're not!

Okay. Let's back that up.

Say you told your man Hey, I am going to the store with so and so and I'll be back in a minute."

What would you do if he told you, "No, hell you're not!

The brother would be sleeping on the couch.

How is that fair, again?

Two grown people, who love and trust one another, should be able to make plans without constantly having to consult with their partner.

To be sure, no girl or guy should be out every night -- if that were the case, why be in a relationship? But, you should be able to have a guy or girls night out on occasion without having to check in.

What if he cheats on me, you ask?

If you married someone you cannot trust, whose fault is that?

We tend to know very early on if the partner we have chosen is trustworthy. I know a woman who married a man even after learning he once had a drug problem and had cheated on his ex wife. Now that he is abusing drugs heavily again and sleeping around she is pissed -- but she shares part of the blame in her own fix.

If you chose someone with whom you can give your whole heart and all your trust, they do not need a leash.

Men value their independence just like we do, and they should have a healthy outlet to express it.

Women often accuse men of double standards, and while this is true, we have a few of our own.

We want our men to be there emotionally for us, but if lets say, our man is going through a mid life crisis, we poke fun, ridicule and withdraw our affections, telling them to get over it.

If you were PMSing and your guy said, get over it well, the funeral would be lovely.

Not a member? Sign up is free and easy. Get answers to your own questions.

But we have no room for empathy or sympathy for male chemical emotional cycles and fluctuations, which is essentially what a mid life crisis (it is both psychological and physiological).

We are constantly wanting our men to reassure us that they love us, find us beautiful, attractive yet if a man reaches out for this same comfort, we tell him he is filled with testosterone, and wants his ego stroked.

Who doesn't want their ego stroked once in a while?

And yes, men are filled with testosterone so what? This isnt an inherently bad thing.

Yes ladies, our mens emotional needs matter too.

This is not to say that men are totally innocent in their portion of bad behaviors in the dating game (thats another article for another time), I am merely saying that women are not owning up to our portion of guilt in the ongoing battle of the sexes.

I made my personal realization a long time ago, after which, I was able to let down my guard and land an amazing man.

My husband and are I are both very independent natured and he knows that I trust and love him. He is free to do what he likes, all I have to do is know so I don't worry, but it's not like he has to consult with me.

I let him be him, and he lets me be me.

Byproduct? We are inseparable. He knows he is free, but he chooses to be by my side -- and I by his side.

It feels good knowing that, if he had a choice, he chooses to be with me.

In time, our dynamic may change, and that's okay too--nothing is static, we all evolve and grow -- but I will accept him as he comes to me, faults and all, fears and all, needs in all, whether he has money or not.

Sisters, I am not even implying that we should run after jobless crack heads or wife beaters, I am talking about giving decent, blue collar working gentlemen a chance. You may find in him, a man who will love you like there is no tomorrow and treats you like a Queen, which is something all the money in the world wont buy.

If we can accept that doctors and lawyers who look like Denzel Washington are not the only men worth marrying, maybe relations between the sexes will improve all around, but we have to come to the bargaining table willing to listen, willing to accept blame, and, in the end, willing to learn.

http://www.girlsaskguys.com/Articles/Flirting/Chivalry-is-dead--and-women-killed-it.html

Chen Show Mao’s speech (Debate on President’s Address)

2011-10-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

Mr Speaker, Thank you, and congratulations.

Following our two elections this year, some commentators tell us that Singaporeans’ political differences are rising to the surface. Many of our leaders have expressed their concerns about the differences. They warned of divisions and called for unity. I’d like to remind us that differences are not divisions. It is the intolerance of differences that will be divisive.

I would like to quote a man who is not able to join us here today. In a newspaper interview, former Minister for Foreign Affairs George Yeo related what a Roman Catholic cardinal told him about the late Pope John Paul the Second. The cardinal had drafted, “Even though we’re all different because we speak different languages, we are one”. The Pope corrected him. “No, it is not even though we’re different, we are one. It is because we are different, we are one.” Mr Yeo then said, “I thought that was so profound and beautiful. In my first speech to the United Nations, I repeated that story because in the UN, it is also because we are different that we are one. To be a human being is to be different. The whole logic and driving force of biological life is diversification. An imposed unity is a false unity; it’s a contradiction in terms. To me, that is a core position, and Singapore is an expression of that core position.”

Singapore is an expression of that core position of diversity, and this must include political diversity in this day and age. Let me state quite clearly how I see myself as an opposition member of this parliament. I may challenge government policy in parliament, but I do not by definition oppose government policy. It does not mean that I do not support the government in its work. It is very simple. I am an opposition MP and will perform my role to voice alternative and opposing views in the law-making process, based on my party philosophy. But I submit to laws properly made because I believe they express the sovereign will of our people. You see, I do not believe that Parliament is just form, and no substance. I have been elected to serve in this Parliament and will do what I can to help make it work for Singapore, make it a First World Parliament after our own fashion. As an opposition MP, I am not the enemy of the government, I am a Singaporean and a patriot.

I believe that our community will come out of robust debates stronger. Not just in Parliament but in larger society as well. Social cohesion will be strengthened when we give people, including our young people, room to voice their views and grievances and participate in community affairs. This is being recognized in households and at work places around us and is affecting how they are run. There is no reason not to learn from it. But we must start from a position of difference, not a forced unity.

How do we move forward from a position of difference?
A wise Singaporean wrote to me recently on Facebook, “the key is always to set our ‘devilish’ pride aside and for both parties to communicate.” He did not mean political parties, but any two parties in a position of difference. He goes on, “The aim is not to impose one’s view over the other but to find as much common ground as possible for the good of the common objective both parties have… And yes, I have always practised this in the office and with the wife…so far so good.”

How do we expand the areas of common ground to accommodate political differences? I believe it will be best done through strengthening institutions that are non-partisan and capable of commanding the respect and allegiance of all Singaporeans in spite of their political differences. The office of the Presidency, for example. President Tan clearly intends this. In his swearing in ceremony he said, “I will strive to strengthen our common bonds and our core values that underpin our society. …Whatever your political views,… I will strive to the best of my abilities to represent you.”

The government in the addenda to the President’s address said, “The building of friendship, understanding and trust amidst increasing diversity will be supported through organisations such as the People’s Association and grassroots platforms such as the Inter-racial and Religious Confidence Circles.” We welcome this.

Let us Singaporeans take our cue from the President. Look for what Singaporeans’ different visions have in common and take our next steps in these areas of common ground. Let us ask ourselves “is there more we could do?” I believe that it would always be possible to find common ground among Singaporeans, even if it might now take greater efforts on the part of those of us here in this House. But it is possible – they call politics “the art of the possible”.

HUMAN CAPITAL

Mr Speaker

In the addenda to the President’s address, the government announced its plans to, “significantly enhance the transport infrastructure, quality and opportunities in education, healthcare and housing”. We endorse the goal. And we will hold the government to it.

We believe that Singaporeans in recent years have been underserved by enhancements in these areas. We believe that most of these enhancements are best thought of, not just as increased expenditure, but as investments in the human capital of our country, with long term benefits to our society, such as the productivity increase that the government calls our “fundamental economic challenge”. Adam Smith wrote many years ago about investments in a person, such as by the acquisition of new talents, he wrote, “such acquisition of talents always costs a real expense, which is a capital realized in his person. [but] Those talents, as they make a part of his fortune, so do they likewise that of the society to which he belongs.”

Many economists have long regarded expenditures on education and healthcare as investments in human capital. They produce income and other useful outputs for the individual over long periods of time. They also produce external benefits for the rest of society. When growing disparity in wealth suggest that more and more households may not be able to make the investments that may be needed to give their children a place at the same starting line as their cohorts, it is even more appropriate for the government to increase public investments in the human capital of our young people.

This is one of the goals the government set in the addenda to the President’s address: “Through our investment in Education, we ensure that every child, regardless of family circumstances and background, has access to opportunities.” That access to opportunities has to be meaningful and available to everyone.

Similarly, for many expenditures we make outside the areas of education and healthcare, If we just take an expanded view of the returns from these investments, we will be able to see their long-term benefits.

Take elder care for example. Our investments in this area do not just benefit our elders alone. They enhance the productivity of working family members who worry about their care. They sustain and unlock the rich social and cultural capital embodied in our elders, which enhance the efficacy of our economic capital. More importantly, taking good care of our elders who built the nation is the right thing to do in the “fair and just society” that the President wishes for Singapore. It strengthens our sense of community. It is consistent with the values that we wish to impart to our children. These are all intangible but significant returns on our investments.

This is part of our nationhood: these are the bonds that will hold us together in times of trouble.

Our social harmony needs to be sustained and cultivated, carefully ministered. We must invest in these efforts.

“People are the real wealth of a nation”, declared the United Nations’ inaugural Human Development Report over twenty years ago. “People are the real wealth of a nation,” this is especially true for our nation. Let us put our people at the center of our government policies.

Let us invest in Singaporeans. Invest in the future of Singapore.

Significant investments cannot be made all at once. In addition to fiscal discipline, we would need to watch out for inflation, for effects on our currency and competitiveness. But the investments must be made. So we should start now and engage in a long term sustainable investment pattern for the good of our people.

CONCLUSION
Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister concludes in his National Day rally speech that “ours is an improbable nation”. I cannot agree more with his call for all Singaporeans to treasure and fight for our improbable nation.

I would like to add that an improbable nation will be made more probable for future Singaporeans by the politics of possibility.

Mr Speaker, sir, I support the motion. And now in Chinese.

在今年的两次选举之后，我们许多领导人都提到团结的重要。全国人民现在必须上下一心，步伐一致地向前迈进。

他们有人认为新加坡有政治分裂，不利於团结与将来发展。但是各位想想，这分裂是怎么造成的？是因为社会出现了不同的声音，还是因为不能包容不同的声音才会造成分裂？

“政者正也，子帅以正，孰敢不正”，“为政以德，譬如北辰，居其所而众星拱之”，“风行草偃”，这些都是孔子说的来形容好的执政者，意思就是，一个好的领导者，只要有信心，有正确的方向，有好的道德与能力把政绩做出来，人民自然会乐意跟著他走。不需要害怕国家分裂，强调团结。

爱国的权利不是任何一个政党可以独占的。一个党再伟大也只是国家的一部分而已，不是国家全部啊！陈独秀说过，＂党外无党，帝王思想。＂在民主社会里，有不同的意见，不同的建议，是很自然的事情。这也是好事。

其实孔子三千年前就已说过，“君子和而不同”。和谐，可却不尽相同。晏婴说过：乐团只演奏一个音符，谁听得下去？白开水上再加白开水，谁喝得下去？一个和谐的社会，不只有一种声音。而是每个人很和平的在法律的範围内发表他的看法，从事政治活动。我们不必防民如防贼。

在中国历史上最伟大的贞观之治就不是一言堂式的全民团结，就是有喜欢諌言喜欢说真话不怕被唐太宗讨厌的魏徵，才有了贞观之治。

在这国会的任期里，希望明理的执政党可以做唐太宗，而我们来做魏徵，开出太平盛世，而不是一个执政者独断，而小人唯唯诺诺的世代。

我屡次与国外的人接触，大家似乎有一种感觉，觉得新加坡守成有馀但开创不足，似乎欠缺了那创新的能力。在这全球化的竞争下，我们国家不是应该培养出更多有主见、有创造力的新一代吗？

李前总理在演说中也说了他担忧我们年轻人，生活太过安逸。可见李前总理也想过这问题。真正完整的人格、独立的精神，是不可能在一个凡事听从独大的执政党，凡事唯唯诺诺的环境下生成。我们要我们下一代有创新、有独立自主精神，就不能不在政治上、精神上给他一个自由竞争的环境。这要求及这深深的忧虑不安其实是隐藏在许多新加坡人心中，在全球化激烈的竞争下，我们的竞争力难道只能靠执政党的完全控制来达成吗？

所以我们在野党是为了国家的好，才提出建言与批判，爱国不是执政党的专利，希望我们能在各自的岗位上演好自己的角色，这样我们的国家才能有活力、创造力的向前进步。

最後我要提醒执政党除了对自己有信心以外，对国人也要有信心。但我也要感谢执政党，把新加坡建设成一个成熟的法治社会，让我们在野党，可以在一个合法的基础上与执政党并存，竞争,为人民服务。

谢谢。

http://www.wp.sg/2011/10/chen-show-maos-speech-debate-on-presidents-address/

Sexual Roleplay

2011-09-24T23:28:00.001-07:00

Interesting Read...

2011-09-22T08:10:00.001-07:00

An Obituary printed in the London Times: Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red ... tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: - Knowing when to come in out of the rain; - Why the early bird gets the worm; - Life isn't always fair; - and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge). His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights I Want It Now Someone Else Is To Blame I'm A Victim Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Customer Experience Lessons From Steve Jobs

2011-09-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO of Apple. That’s a big loss for Apple. Jobs transformed Apple from a niche computer maker to one of the most influential technology/consumer product companies on earth. Under his leadership, Apple developed iPods, iPads, iTunes, iPhones, Apple Stores, etc. That’s an incredible portfolio. Thank you Steve!

We can learn a lot about customer experience and design from Steve Jobs. Rather than write a bunch of things, I decided to pull together a collection of Jobs’ quotes. There’s a lot to learn from his words:

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

The bottom line: There’s always a market for simplicity, focus, and good design

http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/customer-experience-lessons-from-steve-jobs/

How One Man's Arithmetic Genius Changed Wall Street - Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street

2011-08-26T07:51:00.001-07:00

Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=1

Urban Explorers!

2011-08-22T07:19:00.001-07:00

Way Cool Photograph

2011-08-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/namibia-park/behind-the-photo

Blinded By BOOBIES

2011-08-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

Understanding America's Debt Problem in 4 mins

2011-08-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

I do not agree with everything he says, but he gives quite an accurate preliminary insight into America's current debt debacle.

Crazy Marriage Proposal - Guy falls off building

2011-07-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

Tony Awards 2011 - Hugh Jackman & Neil Patrick Harris - Dueling Hosts

2011-06-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

How A Proposal Should Be! Oh yeah!

2011-06-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

China's Ghost Cities

2011-05-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

Cautionary tales of over-building and expansion.

Bitch Be Tripping!

2011-04-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

A guy finds out that his girlfriend of 5 years is cheating. So, he calls a local radio station to dump his cheating girlfriend on the air. The girlfriend thinks she is being proposed to.

http://inspired-liplock.tumblr.com/post/3900298635/a-guy-finds-out-that-his-girlfriend-of-5-years-is

Cerveza Andes | Teletransporter (FULL)

2011-04-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

Sexy Sax Man (Careless Whisper Saxophone Prank!!) directors cut

2011-03-30T07:48:00.001-07:00

Naked Girls Get Interrupted

2011-03-01T08:24:00.001-08:00

Funny Bridgestone Commercial

2011-02-25T07:16:00.001-08:00

Voice Acting! For Porn!

2011-02-24T07:35:00.001-08:00

56 worst/best analogies of high school students

2011-02-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

Apparently the washingtonpost held a contest in which high school teachers sent in the “worst” analogies they’d encountered in grading their students’ papers over the years. (I place “worst” in quotes because many of these actually strike me as quite witty). The top 25 of these have been circulating around the “Sandra Bullock” (”net”, get it?) recently, but I decided to post all 56 that I was able to find. Here they are, in their order of objective funniness (in my opinion):

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at asolar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

Even in his last years, Grand pappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it hadrusted shut.

He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place that hunts dogs, I suppose.

She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
“Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually.

Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often.

They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.”

Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein’s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.

The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.

He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo.

The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747.

Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.

The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas.

I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.

She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can’t sing worth a damn.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in.

The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.
The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.

http://www.losteyeball.com/index.php/2007/06/19/56-worstbest-analogies-of-high-school-students/

35 Creative Examples Of Billboard Designs

2011-02-10T22:51:00.000-08:00

Worth a look,check it out!

http://inspirationfeed.com/2011/02/35-creative-examples-of-billboard-designs/

International 17 Jean Valjeans "Les Misérables"

2011-01-25T19:28:00.001-08:00

4theriders.com - AFM Banquet 2010

2011-01-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

Truth!

2011-01-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

***QUESTION***

Greetings,

I'm considering investing in your program, but I
have a question for you before I do. Essentially,
I'm no longer looking to hook up with women left
and right. In fact, I think I've met "the one,"
but I'm having trouble making her realize this.
I've been pursuing her for about five months
(during part of which time she was away at school,
but we kept in regular contact, at first through
e-mail and, later, over the phone), and I get the
sense that she's very guarded about relationships.
She's *very* goal oriented (which is one of the
many things I love about her, BTW), and therefore
very busy, and - I suspect - she's been burned in
the past, relationship wise. At any rate, on a
couple of occasions, it felt to me as if things
were moving forward, and then she backpedaled;
perhaps she "got spooked," and took a big step
back to protect herself. Most recently, we were
out for the first time since she finished school,
and - insofar as I was able to determine, I was
getting the green light all night: at a movie, I
slipped my arm around her and she leaned in,
resting her head on my shoulder; later, we were at
a club for a band, and when we were ready to
leave, she reached across the table and held my
hand for a while; on the way back to the car, it
was pretty chilly, and when she complained about
the chill, I stepped over and hugged her. She
responded by stepping into it: she pressed her
face hard into my shoulder, and stepped into full
body to body contact - hip to hip, shoulder to
shoulder and everything in between. When we got
back to her place, I moved to kiss her and she
shied away such that it would have been
*extremely* awkward for me to actually do so.

At any rate, we've gotten together since (in fact,
I offered to cook dinner for her, and she somehow
maneuvered it around such that I was *her* guest,
and she cooked for me) and we talked a while. As I
said above, I think she got a little spooked. She
specifically said that she thought the
relationship could've evolved into something
romantic, but that it hasn't, and she wasn't sure
why. At this moment, she says she doesn't believe
it will. We remain *very* close friends, but I
still believe she's the one, and I've told her
that I'm still going to pursue this, and she's
keen on still spending time together (for her, for
now, as close friends).

My question is this: do you believe your program
can aid me in turning her around on this? If so,
why?

Thanks,

B.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

OK, sit down for this.

Hold on to something tight, because I'm going
to yell at you for your own damn good...

YOU ARE TOTALLY MISSING WHAT'S GOING ON!

THIS WOMAN ACTUALLY LIKES YOU, AND YOU'RE
SCREWING IT ALL UP BY ACTING LIKE A NEEDY WUSS
BAG!

If you were closer, I'd slap you myself.

DUH!

Whew. Let me calm myself. As you know, I don't
usually get so worked up. That makes three
exclamation marks in one email, and I haven't even
started lambasting you proper yet. (What is
lambasting, anyway? And is that how you spell it?
It's such a great word. I really should look and
find out.)

OK, I'm calm.

NOW, let's have a little talk here...

The reason why this kind of situation bothers
me is at least twofold:

1) Because I've been in it myself about a
bazillion and a half times, and it sucks to be
screwing something up and not even realize that
you're doing it.

2) I can tell from your email that you actually
like this girl A LOT, and that she's probably a
fantastic woman... and I hate to see you working
so hard against yourself... and screwing this up
when it's right there in front of you for the
taking.

Before I tell you all the reasons why you most
DEFINITELY should invest in my Advanced Dating
Techniques program, let me give you a few pointers
that might help you STOP screwing this up in the
meantime.

OK, back to the basics.

Let's take this from the top...

At the very beginning of your email, you said
something that basically telegraphed EXACTLY what
was going on here...

You said "...I think I've met "the one," but
I'm having trouble making her realize this. I've
been pursuing her for about five months..."

You're having trouble making her REALIZE this?

You've been PURSUING her?

Do you assume that at some point within the
NEXT five months that she's going to wake up one
day and feel a powerful ATTRACTION for you because
you like to chase her around and tell her how you
feel about her?

Normally I'd make fun of you here, and tell you
that you don't get it... blah blah blah.

But for some reason I feel like I just have to
lay things out for you directly.

Look, man... the reason why she's telling you
that she "doesn't know why it hasn't evolved into
something romantic" is that she doesn't FEEL IT.

She doesn't FEEL IT.

Get it?

SHE DOESN'T FEEL IT!

She doesn't feel ATTRACTION for you.

And you can't CONVINCE her to feel it by
chasing her around and telling her how you "feel"
about her.

Attraction, as I always say, ISN'T A CHOICE.

You need to go and get yourself an IN-DEPTH
education on the topic of creating ATTRACTION.
Go read my new online eBook "Attraction Isn't A
Choice".

This book will take you "behind the scenes" and
show you how to communicate with women in a way
that TRIGGERS the attraction... instead of trying
to be a "nice guy" and CONVINCE her to feel it for
you.

You can download it right now, and be reading
it within a few minutes. Go download it here:

http://www.DoubleYourDates.com/AttractionBook/

Now, you're acting like most guys who think things
like: "If she only knew how I felt about her,
she'd feel the same way" and "If I keep pursuing
her, she'll eventually see how much I love her"
etc.

Well guess what?

AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, HOMEY.

Right now you are playing what is referred to
as a "losing game".

Think of it this way. If you stop on the way
home from work every day and buy a lottery ticket,
you'll win once in awhile. Hell, you might even be
lucky one day and win big.

But your chances SUCK.

You're probably going to lose a LOT more than
you win over time.

Like I said, you COULD win big. There is a
chance. But you probably won't. And I mean
probably with a BIG P.

I refer to the way that you're acting as "Being
a Wussy" (that's the technical term... made it up
myself).

When you act like a Wussy, you do things like:

-Pursue

-Cling

-Share "feelings"

-Act submissive

-Seek approval

-Pine away

This is WUSSY behavior.

It's distinctly FEMININE in nature.

When guys act like this, they're getting in
touch with their inner little girl (and she needs
a spanking in the worst way).

And are you ready for the WORST, WORST part?

When you act like this around a woman (and
ESPECIALLY a "goal oriented" woman who's probably
smart and powerful like yours) they CANNOT feel
the emotion of ATTRACTION towards you.

Women aren't attracted to Wussies.

This is a UNIVERSAL truth.

And by the way that you describe your
relationship with this woman, SHE REALLY WANTS TO
BE ATTRACTED TO YOU!

She's trying, man.

And she probably KNOWS that you'd be a great
guy to be in a relationship with... but she just
doesn't FEEL IT... so she holds back. I'm sure she
WISHES that she could be attracted to you. I'll
bet you money.

Look, you need to STOP acting like a nice
friend guy Wuss IMMEDIATELY if you want this to
turn into something.

You're probably beyond help with this
particular woman, but I'm going to give you a few
ideas JUST IN CASE...

1) Stop calling her all the time (if you do),
and stop spending so much time with her.

2) Start dating other women IMMEDIATELY, and
make sure she knows about it.

3) Stop being all lovey with her, and don't
tell her how you "feel about her" anymore. Stop it.

4) Accept that you will probably be friends
with her forever, and start acting that way.

5) Don't try to kiss her or be physical with
her at ALL anymore until you understand what you're
doing.

Remember, what you're doing ISN'T WORKING.

If you do these things that I've described, you
will probably have the best chance of turning this
around.

NOW, the next thing you need to do is what you
asked me about in your email... GET MY ADVANCED
DATING TECHNIQUES PROGRAM.

You need a new perspective on this entire
situation. And you need a new perspective on
women.

You're obviously a smart guy, and once you
begin to understand how ATTRACTION works for
women, you'll change how you behave COMPLETELY.

Total transformation.

And the best part is that you won't be changing
how you act and just "faking it". You'll change
how you act because you GET IT.

It's really fantastic to HELP a woman feel that
magical ATTRACTION for you that she REALLY WANTS
TO FEEL.

And it's also amazing to know exactly how to
get physical with a woman without having to deal
with the awkward "shy away from the kiss"
situation that you described in your email.

I guarantee that when you listen to and/or
watch my "Advanced Dating Techniques" program,
it will FOREVER CHANGE how you think about and
act around women. Period, end of story.

Here, let me give you the hard- sell...

I had to learn all of this stuff the hard way.
I've been right where you are many, many, MANY
times in my life. It sucks. I know it does.

The reason why my program will be good for you
is because it was good FOR ME FIRST. I teach what
I do.

And because I also believe that you should only
have to pay for something that you find value in,
I'll send it to you:

-At my risk.

-In a plain package so your mom doesn't know
what's inside.

-Free for you to try for a MONTH.

I'm betting that once you have it in your hot
little hands that I couldn't pry it away from you
with a crowbar.

I'm serious.

OK, enough of me trying to convince you of
something you already know. Go watch the newest
video preview clips and get it here:

http://www.DoubleYourDates.com/AdvancedSeries/

Now repeat after me: I WILL NEVER ACT LIKE
A WUSSY AGAIN!

If you want to make your dating life a whole
lot better and easier, then stop and think about
your behavior... and resolve right now to stop
acting like a WUSS for the rest of your life.

Being "nice" and "accommodating" and
"understanding" is great for friendships and
social relationships, but it's HORRIBLE for
ATTRACTION.

An interesting, attractive woman doesn't want a
guy that she can push around. She doesn't want a
guy who does what she wants him to do. She doesn't
want a little boy that she can train and raise.

An interesting, attractive woman wants a MAN.

This doesn't make LOGICAL sense, I know. But
it's the truth. These submissive qualities will
only work in attracting a woman IF SHE LIKES
DRESSING UP IN LEATHER AND WHIPPING HER MAN... AND
CHARGING $400.00 AN HOUR!

And my guess is that this isn't the kind of
woman that you're looking for.

If you want to stop ACTING like a WUSSY you
need to eliminate your INNER WUSS for good and
build a rock-solid confidence level that is
NATURALLY attractive to women. So you also
need to take a look at my "Deep Inner Game" program.

This program will eliminate inner challenges
like insecurity, fear and anxiety that are holding
you back from TRUE success with women. And as long
as you have those kinds of fears you're gonna
continue acting like a needy wussbag.

So go take a look at some of the video clips
from this program here:

http://www.DoubleYourDates.com/DeepInnerGame/

Now I've explained some of the important
qualities that you need to cultivate in yourself
if you want to attract women... and keep them
attracted. Now get out there and start working
on it.

...and if you're reading this right now and you
haven't yet downloaded your copy of my online
eBook "Double Your Dating", I have something to
tell you...

My eBook is the foundation for EVERYTHING that
I teach in these newsletters, my Advanced Dating
Techniques, and other programs.

And you need to read my Double Your Dating
ebook, because it contains a lot of valuable
material that sets the stage for everything else.
It's here, so go download it now:

http://www.DoubleYourDates.com/eBook/

Like I said, if you're just starting out, my
ebooks and programs will show you things that
you've never seen or heard before. You'll
get a completely new perspective on what it
takes to be successful with women and dating.

If you're already successful, my programs
will make you BETTER. There are a lot of very
advanced concepts included... and you'll get
to hear me interview guys who are AMAZING
with women in my Advanced Series. In other
words, no matter where you are with women,
you'll improve.

I'll talk to you again soon.

Your Friend,

David D.

P.S. Do NOT forget to add me to your email
whitelist. It's the best way to make sure you
get my dating tips each week. You don't want
to miss out on learning the secrets to attraction,
approaching women, and more.

Google Demo Slam: Epic Docs Animation

2011-01-02T06:29:00.000-08:00

See the presentation at http://goo.gl/6MJwH

From The Economist: The disposable academic - Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time (True or False, you decide)

2010-12-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

ON THE evening before All Saints’ Day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. In those days a thesis was simply a position one wanted to argue. Luther, an Augustinian friar, asserted that Christians could not buy their way to heaven. Today a doctoral thesis is both an idea and an account of a period of original research. Writing one is the aim of the hundreds of thousands of students who embark on a doctorate of philosophy (PhD) every year.

In most countries a PhD is a basic requirement for a career in academia. It is an introduction to the world of independent research—a kind of intellectual masterpiece, created by an apprentice in close collaboration with a supervisor. The requirements to complete one vary enormously between countries, universities and even subjects. Some students will first have to spend two years working on a master’s degree or diploma. Some will receive a stipend; others will pay their own way. Some PhDs involve only research, some require classes and examinations and some require the student to teach undergraduates. A thesis can be dozens of pages in mathematics, or many hundreds in history. As a result, newly minted PhDs can be as young as their early 20s or world-weary forty-somethings.

One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle. “It isn’t graduate school itself that is discouraging,” says one student, who confesses to rather enjoying the hunt for free pizza. “What’s discouraging is realising the end point has been yanked out of reach.”

Whining PhD students are nothing new, but there seem to be genuine problems with the system that produces research doctorates (the practical “professional doctorates” in fields such as law, business and medicine have a more obvious value). There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes.

Rich pickings

For most of history even a first degree at a university was the privilege of a rich few, and many academic staff did not hold doctorates. But as higher education expanded after the second world war, so did the expectation that lecturers would hold advanced degrees. American universities geared up first: by 1970 America was producing just under a third of the world’s university students and half of its science and technology PhDs (at that time it had only 6% of the global population). Since then America’s annual output of PhDs has doubled, to 64,000.

Other countries are catching up. Between 1998 and 2006 the number of doctorates handed out in all OECD countries grew by 40%, compared with 22% for America. PhD production sped up most dramatically in Mexico, Portugal, Italy and Slovakia. Even Japan, where the number of young people is shrinking, churned out about 46% more PhDs. Part of that growth reflects the expansion of university education outside America. Richard Freeman, a labour economist at Harvard University, says that by 2006 America was enrolling just 12% of the world’s students.

But universities have discovered that PhD students are cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour. With more PhD students they can do more research, and in some countries more teaching, with less money. A graduate assistant at Yale might earn $20,000 a year for nine months of teaching. The average pay of full professors in America was $109,000 in 2009—higher than the average for judges and magistrates.

Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching cuts the number of full-time jobs. Even in Canada, where the output of PhD graduates has grown relatively modestly, universities conferred 4,800 doctorate degrees in 2007 but hired just 2,616 new full-time professors. Only a few fast-developing countries, such as Brazil and China, now seem short of PhDs.

A short course in supply and demand

In research the story is similar. PhD students and contract staff known as “postdocs”, described by one student as “the ugly underbelly of academia”, do much of the research these days. There is a glut of postdocs too. Dr Freeman concluded from pre-2000 data that if American faculty jobs in the life sciences were increasing at 5% a year, just 20% of students would land one. In Canada 80% of postdocs earn $38,600 or less per year before tax—the average salary of a construction worker. The rise of the postdoc has created another obstacle on the way to an academic post. In some areas five years as a postdoc is now a prerequisite for landing a secure full-time job.

These armies of low-paid PhD researchers and postdocs boost universities’, and therefore countries’, research capacity. Yet that is not always a good thing. Brilliant, well-trained minds can go to waste when fashions change. The post-Sputnik era drove the rapid growth in PhD physicists that came to an abrupt halt as the Vietnam war drained the science budget. Brian Schwartz, a professor of physics at the City University of New York, says that in the 1970s as many as 5,000 physicists had to find jobs in other areas.

In America the rise of PhD teachers’ unions reflects the breakdown of an implicit contract between universities and PhD students: crummy pay now for a good academic job later. Student teachers in public universities such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison formed unions as early as the 1960s, but the pace of unionisation has increased recently. Unions are now spreading to private universities; though Yale and Cornell, where university administrators and some faculty argue that PhD students who teach are not workers but apprentices, have resisted union drives. In 2002 New York University was the first private university to recognise a PhD teachers’ union, but stopped negotiating with it three years later.

In some countries, such as Britain and America, poor pay and job prospects are reflected in the number of foreign-born PhD students. Dr Freeman estimates that in 1966 only 23% of science and engineering PhDs in America were awarded to students born outside the country. By 2006 that proportion had increased to 48%. Foreign students tend to tolerate poorer working conditions, and the supply of cheap, brilliant, foreign labour also keeps wages down.

Proponents of the PhD argue that it is worthwhile even if it does not lead to permanent academic employment. Not every student embarks on a PhD wanting a university career and many move successfully into private-sector jobs in, for instance, industrial research. That is true; but drop-out rates suggest that many students become dispirited. In America only 57% of doctoral students will have a PhD ten years after their first date of enrolment. In the humanities, where most students pay for their own PhDs, the figure is 49%. Worse still, whereas in other subject areas students tend to jump ship in the early years, in the humanities they cling like limpets before eventually falling off. And these students started out as the academic cream of the nation. Research at one American university found that those who finish are no cleverer than those who do not. Poor supervision, bad job prospects or lack of money cause them to run out of steam.

Even graduates who find work outside universities may not fare all that well. PhD courses are so specialised that university careers offices struggle to assist graduates looking for jobs, and supervisors tend to have little interest in students who are leaving academia. One OECD study shows that five years after receiving their degrees, more than 60% of PhDs in Slovakia and more than 45% in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain were still on temporary contracts. Many were postdocs. About one-third of Austria’s PhD graduates take jobs unrelated to their degrees. In Germany 13% of all PhD graduates end up in lowly occupations. In the Netherlands the proportion is 21%.

A very slim premium

PhD graduates do at least earn more than those with a bachelor’s degree. A study in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management by Bernard Casey shows that British men with a bachelor’s degree earn 14% more than those who could have gone to university but chose not to. The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%. But the premium for a master’s degree, which can be accomplished in as little as one year, is almost as high, at 23%. In some subjects the premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences and languages earn no more than those with master’s degrees. The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a master’s degree in engineering and technology, architecture and education. Only in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies is it high enough to be worthwhile. Over all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a master’s degree.

Dr Schwartz, the New York physicist, says the skills learned in the course of a PhD can be readily acquired through much shorter courses. Thirty years ago, he says, Wall Street firms realised that some physicists could work out differential equations and recruited them to become “quants”, analysts and traders. Today several short courses offer the advanced maths useful for finance. “A PhD physicist with one course on differential equations is not competitive,” says Dr Schwartz.

Many students say they are pursuing their subject out of love, and that education is an end in itself. Some give little thought to where the qualification might lead. In one study of British PhD graduates, about a third admitted that they were doing their doctorate partly to go on being a student, or put off job hunting. Nearly half of engineering students admitted to this. Scientists can easily get stipends, and therefore drift into doing a PhD. But there are penalties, as well as benefits, to staying at university. Workers with “surplus schooling”—more education than a job requires—are likely to be less satisfied, less productive and more likely to say they are going to leave their jobs.

Academics tend to regard asking whether a PhD is worthwhile as analogous to wondering whether there is too much art or culture in the world. They believe that knowledge spills from universities into society, making it more productive and healthier. That may well be true; but doing a PhD may still be a bad choice for an individual.

The interests of academics and universities on the one hand and PhD students on the other are not well aligned. The more bright students stay at universities, the better it is for academics. Postgraduate students bring in grants and beef up their supervisors’ publication records. Academics pick bright undergraduate students and groom them as potential graduate students. It isn’t in their interests to turn the smart kids away, at least at the beginning. One female student spoke of being told of glowing opportunities at the outset, but after seven years of hard slog she was fobbed off with a joke about finding a rich husband.

Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. One Ivy-League president, asked recently about PhD oversupply, said that if the top universities cut back others will step in to offer them instead.

Noble pursuits

Many of the drawbacks of doing a PhD are well known. Your correspondent was aware of them over a decade ago while she slogged through a largely pointless PhD in theoretical ecology. As Europeans try to harmonise higher education, some institutions are pushing the more structured learning that comes with an American PhD.

The organisations that pay for research have realised that many PhDs find it tough to transfer their skills into the job market. Writing lab reports, giving academic presentations and conducting six-month literature reviews can be surprisingly unhelpful in a world where technical knowledge has to be assimilated quickly and presented simply to a wide audience. Some universities are now offering their PhD students training in soft skills such as communication and teamwork that may be useful in the labour market. In Britain a four-year NewRoutePhD claims to develop just such skills in graduates.

Measurements and incentives might be changed, too. Some university departments and academics regard numbers of PhD graduates as an indicator of success and compete to produce more. For the students, a measure of how quickly those students get a permanent job, and what they earn, would be more useful. Where penalties are levied on academics who allow PhDs to overrun, the number of students who complete rises abruptly, suggesting that students were previously allowed to fester.

Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that.

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

I Just Had Sex

2010-12-20T05:21:00.001-08:00

Amazing Satellite Images Of The Ghost Cities Of China

2010-12-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

he hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash.

One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes.

We've tracked down satellite photos of these unnerving places, based on a report from Forensic Asia Limited. They call it a clear sign of a bubble: "There’s city after city full of empty streets and vast government buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. It is the modern equivalent of building pyramids. With 20 new cities being built every year, we hope to be able to expand our list going forward."

View the photos and Source at - http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-chinese-ghost-cities-2010-12?slop=1

Point Black @ NYP TEP Award!

2010-12-17T06:08:00.001-08:00

Call Of Duty: Black Ops - LEGO style

2010-12-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

Slip Of The Tongue

2010-12-03T04:06:00.001-08:00

SLIP OF THE TONGUE by Adriel Luis

My glares burn through her.
And I’m sure that such actions aren’t foreign to her
because the essence of her beauty is, well, the essence of beauty.

And in the presence of this higher being,
the weakness of my masculinity kicks in,
causing me to personify my wannabe big-baller, shot-caller,
God’s gift to the female species with shiny suit wrapping rapping like,
“Yo, what’s crackin shorty how you livin’ what’s your sign what’s your size I dig your style, yo.”

Now, this girl was no fool.
She gives me a dirty look with the quickness like,
“Boy, you must be stupid.”
so I’m looking at myself,
“Boy, you must be stupid.”
But looking upon her I am kinda feelin’ her style.

So I try again.
But, instead of addressing her properly,
I blurt out one of my fake-ass playalistic lines like,
“Gurl, you must be a traffic ticket cuz you got fine written all over you.”
Now, she’s trying to leave and I’m trying to keep her here.
So at a final attempt, I utter,
“Gurl, what is your ethnic makeup?”

At this point, her glare was scorching through me,
and somehow she manages to make her brown eyes
resemble some kinda brown fire or something,
but there’s no snap or head moement,
no palm to face, click of tongue, middle finger,
roll of eyes, twist of lips, or girl power chant.
She just glares through me with these burning eyes
and her gaze grabs you by the throat.

She says, “Ethnic makeup?”
She says, “First of all, makeup’s just an anglicized, colonized, commodified utility
that my sisters have been programmed to consume,
forcing them to cover up their natural state
in order to imitate what another sister looks like in her natural state
because people keep telling her
that the other sister’s natural state is more beautiful
than the first sister’s natural state.
At the same time,
the other sister isn’t even in her natural state,
because she’s trying to imitate yet another sister,
so in actuality, the natural state that the first sister’s trying to imitate
wasn’t even natural in the first place.”

Now I’m thinking, “Damn, this girl’s kicking knowledge!”
But, meanwhile, she keeps spitting on it like
“Fine. I’ll tell you bout my ‘ethnic makeup.’
I wear foundation,
not that powdery shit,
I wear the foundation laid by my indigenous people.
It’s that foundation that makes it so that past being globalized,
I can still vocalize with confidence that i know where my roots are.
I wear this foundation not upon my face, but within my soul,
and I take this from my ancestors
because I’ll be damned if I’d ever let an American or European corporation
tell me what my foundation
should look like.”

I wear lipstick,
for my lips stick to the ears of men,
so they can experience in surround sound my screams of agony
with each lash of rulers, measuring tape, and scales,
as if my waistline and weight are inversely propotional to my value as a human being.
See my lips, they stick, but not together.
Rather, they flail open with flames to burn down this culture that once kept them shut.
Now, I mess with eye shadow,
but my eyes shadow over this time where you’ve gone at ends to keep me blind.
But you can’t cover my eyes, look into them.
My eyes foreshadow change.
My eyes foreshadow light.
and I’m not into hair dyeing.
but I’m here, dying, because this oppression won’t get out of my hair.
I have these highlights.
They are highlights of my past atrocities,
they form this oppression I can’t wash off.
It tangles around my mind and twists and braids me in layers,
this oppression manifests,
it’s stressing me so that even though I don’t color my hair,
in a couple of years it’ll look like I dyed it gray.
So what’s my ethnic makeup ?
I don’t have any.
Because your ethnicity isn’t something you can just make up.
And as for that crap my sisters paint on their faces, that’s not makeup, it’s make-believe.”

I can’t seem to look up at her.
and I’m sure that such actions aren’t foreign to her
because the expression on her face
shows that she knows that my mind is in a trance.

As her footsteps fade, my ego is left in crutches.
And rejection never sounded so sweet.

Confessions Of A Professional Cheat

2010-11-20T22:28:00.000-08:00

A suggested piece for people to savor and ponder over...

Confessions Of A Professional Cheat

The request came in by e-mail around 2 in the afternoon. It was from a previous customer, and she had urgent business. I quote her message here verbatim (if I had to put up with it, so should you): "You did me business ethics propsal for me I need propsal got approved pls can you will write me paper?"

I've gotten pretty good at interpreting this kind of correspondence. The client had attached a document from her professor with details about the paper. She needed the first section in a week. Seventy-five pages.

I told her no problem.

It truly was no problem. In the past year, I've written roughly 5,000 pages of scholarly literature, most on very tight deadlines. But you won't find my name on a single paper.

I've written toward a master's degree in cognitive psychology, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a handful of postgraduate credits in international diplomacy. I've worked on bachelor's degrees in hospitality, business administration, and accounting. I've written for courses in history, cinema, labor relations, pharmacology, theology, sports management, maritime security, airline services, sustainability, municipal budgeting, marketing, philosophy, ethics, Eastern religion, postmodern architecture, anthropology, literature, and public administration. I've attended three dozen online universities. I've completed 12 graduate theses of 50 pages or more. All for someone else.

You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists.

I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.

In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company's staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.

You would be amazed by the incompetence of your students' writing. I have seen the word "desperate" misspelled every way you can imagine. And these students truly are desperate. They couldn't write a convincing grocery list, yet they are in graduate school. They really need help. They need help learning and, separately, they need help passing their courses. But they aren't getting it.

For those of you who have ever mentored a student through the writing of a dissertation, served on a thesis-review committee, or guided a graduate student through a formal research process, I have a question: Do you ever wonder how a student who struggles to formulate complete sentences in conversation manages to produce marginally competent research? How does that student get by you?

I live well on the desperation, misery, and incompetence that your educational system has created. Granted, as a writer, I could earn more; certainly there are ways to earn less. But I never struggle to find work. And as my peers trudge through thankless office jobs that seem more intolerable with every passing month of our sustained recession, I am on pace for my best year yet. I will make roughly $66,000 this year. Not a king's ransom, but higher than what many actual educators are paid.

Of course, I know you are aware that cheating occurs. But you have no idea how deeply this kind of cheating penetrates the academic system, much less how to stop it. Last summer The New York Times reported that 61 percent of undergraduates have admitted to some form of cheating on assignments and exams. Yet there is little discussion about custom papers and how they differ from more-detectable forms of plagiarism, or about why students cheat in the first place.

It is my hope that this essay will initiate such a conversation. As for me, I'm planning to retire. I'm tired of helping you make your students look competent.

It is late in the semester when the business student contacts me, a time when I typically juggle deadlines and push out 20 to 40 pages a day. I had written a short research proposal for her a few weeks before, suggesting a project that connected a surge of unethical business practices to the patterns of trade liberalization. The proposal was approved, and now I had six days to complete the assignment. This was not quite a rush order, which we get top dollar to write. This assignment would be priced at a standard $2,000, half of which goes in my pocket.

A few hours after I had agreed to write the paper, I received the following e-mail: "sending sorces for ur to use thanx."

I did not reply immediately. One hour later, I received another message:

"did u get the sorce I send

please where you are now?

Desprit to pass spring projict"

Not only was this student going to be a constant thorn in my side, but she also communicated in haiku, each less decipherable than the one before it. I let her know that I was giving her work the utmost attention, that I had received her sources, and that I would be in touch if I had any questions. Then I put it aside.

From my experience, three demographic groups seek out my services: the English-as-second-language student; the hopelessly deficient student; and the lazy rich kid.

For the last, colleges are a perfect launching ground—they are built to reward the rich and to forgive them their laziness. Let's be honest: The successful among us are not always the best and the brightest, and certainly not the most ethical. My favorite customers are those with an unlimited supply of money and no shortage of instructions on how they would like to see their work executed. While the deficient student will generally not know how to ask for what he wants until he doesn't get it, the lazy rich student will know exactly what he wants. He is poised for a life of paying others and telling them what to do. Indeed, he is acquiring all the skills he needs to stay on top.

As for the first two types of students—the ESL and the hopelessly deficient—colleges are utterly failing them. Students who come to American universities from other countries find that their efforts to learn a new language are confounded not only by cultural difficulties but also by the pressures of grading. The focus on evaluation rather than education means that those who haven't mastered English must do so quickly or suffer the consequences. My service provides a particularly quick way to "master" English. And those who are hopelessly deficient—a euphemism, I admit—struggle with communication in general.

Two days had passed since I last heard from the business student. Overnight I had received 14 e-mails from her. She had additional instructions for the assignment, such as "but more again please make sure they are a good link betwee the leticture review and all the chapter and the benfet of my paper. finally do you think the level of this work? how match i can get it?"

I'll admit, I didn't fully understand that one.

It was followed by some clarification: "where u are can you get my messages? Please I pay a lot and dont have ao to faile I strated to get very worry."

Her messages had arrived between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Again I assured her I had the matter under control.

It was true. At this point, there are few academic challenges that I find intimidating. You name it, I've been paid to write about it.

Customers' orders are endlessly different yet strangely all the same. No matter what the subject, clients want to be assured that their assignment is in capable hands. It would be terrible to think that your Ivy League graduate thesis was riding on the work ethic and perspicacity of a public-university slacker. So part of my job is to be whatever my clients want me to be. I say yes when I am asked if I have a Ph.D. in sociology. I say yes when I am asked if I have professional training in industrial/organizational psychology. I say yes when asked if I have ever designed a perpetual-motion-powered time machine and documented my efforts in a peer-reviewed journal.

The subject matter, the grade level, the college, the course—these things are irrelevant to me. Prices are determined per page and are based on how long I have to complete the assignment. As long as it doesn't require me to do any math or video-documented animal husbandry, I will write anything.

I have completed countless online courses. Students provide me with passwords and user names so I can access key documents and online exams. In some instances, I have even contributed to weekly online discussions with other students in the class.

I have become a master of the admissions essay. I have written these for undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs, some at elite universities. I can explain exactly why you're Brown material, why the Wharton M.B.A. program would benefit from your presence, how certain life experiences have prepared you for the rigors of your chosen course of study. I do not mean to be insensitive, but I can't tell you how many times I've been paid to write about somebody helping a loved one battle cancer. I've written essays that could be adapted into Meryl Streep movies.

I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America's moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked.

With respect to America's nurses, fear not. Our lives are in capable hands*—just hands that can't write a lick. Nursing students account for one of my company's biggest customer bases. I've written case-management plans, reports on nursing ethics, and essays on why nurse practitioners are lighting the way to the future of medicine. I've even written pharmaceutical-treatment courses, for patients who I hope were hypothetical.

I, who have no name, no opinions, and no style, have written so many papers at this point, including legal briefs, military-strategy assessments, poems, lab reports, and, yes, even papers on academic integrity, that it's hard to determine which course of study is most infested with cheating. But I'd say education is the worst. I've written papers for students in elementary-education programs, special-education majors, and ESL-training courses. I've written lesson plans for aspiring high-school teachers, and I've synthesized reports from notes that customers have taken during classroom observations. I've written essays for those studying to become school administrators, and I've completed theses for those on course to become principals. In the enormous conspiracy that is student cheating, the frontline intelligence community is infiltrated by double agents. (Future educators of America, I know who you are.)

As the deadline for the business-ethics paper approaches, I think about what's ahead of me. Whenever I take on an assignment this large, I get a certain physical sensation. My body says: Are you sure you want to do this again? You know how much it hurt the last time. You know this student will be with you for a long time. You know you will become her emergency contact, her guidance counselor and life raft. You know that for the 48 hours that you dedicate to writing this paper, you will cease all human functions but typing, you will Google until the term has lost all meaning, and you will drink enough coffee to fuel a revolution in a small Central American country.

But then there's the money, the sense that I must capitalize on opportunity, and even a bit of a thrill in seeing whether I can do it.

And I can. It's not implausible to write a 75-page paper in two days. It's just miserable. I don't need much sleep, and when I get cranking, I can churn out four or five pages an hour. First I lay out the sections of an assignment—introduction, problem statement, methodology, literature review, findings, conclusion—whatever the instructions call for. Then I start Googling.

I haven't been to a library once since I started doing this job. Amazon is quite generous about free samples. If I can find a single page from a particular text, I can cobble that into a report, deducing what I don't know from customer reviews and publisher blurbs. Google Scholar is a great source for material, providing the abstract of nearly any journal article. And of course, there's Wikipedia, which is often my first stop when dealing with unfamiliar subjects. Naturally one must verify such material elsewhere, but I've taken hundreds of crash courses this way.

After I've gathered my sources, I pull out usable quotes, cite them, and distribute them among the sections of the assignment. Over the years, I've refined ways of stretching papers. I can write a four-word sentence in 40 words. Just give me one phrase of quotable text, and I'll produce two pages of ponderous explanation. I can say in 10 pages what most normal people could say in a paragraph.

I've also got a mental library of stock academic phrases: "A close consideration of the events which occurred in ____ during the ____ demonstrate that ____ had entered into a phase of widespread cultural, social, and economic change that would define ____ for decades to come." Fill in the blanks using words provided by the professor in the assignment's instructions.

How good is the product created by this process? That depends—on the day, my mood, how many other assignments I am working on. It also depends on the customer, his or her expectations, and the degree to which the completed work exceeds his or her abilities. I don't ever edit my assignments. That way I get fewer customer requests to "dumb it down." So some of my work is great. Some of it is not so great. Most of my clients do not have the wherewithal to tell the difference, which probably means that in most cases the work is better than what the student would have produced on his or her own. I've actually had customers thank me for being clever enough to insert typos. "Nice touch," they'll say.

I've read enough academic material to know that I'm not the only bull**** artist out there. I think about how Dickens got paid per word and how, as a result, Bleak House is ... well, let's be diplomatic and say exhaustive. Dickens is a role model for me.

So how does someone become a custom-paper writer? The story of how I got into this job may be instructive. It is mostly about the tremendous disappointment that awaited me in college.

My distaste for the early hours and regimented nature of high school was tempered by the promise of the educational community ahead, with its free exchange of ideas and access to great minds. How dispiriting to find out that college was just another place where grades were grubbed, competition overshadowed personal growth, and the threat of failure was used to encourage learning.

Although my university experience did not live up to its vaunted reputation, it did lead me to where I am today. I was raised in an upper-middle-class family, but I went to college in a poor neighborhood. I fit in really well: After paying my tuition, I didn't have a cent to my name. I had nothing but a meal plan and my roommate's computer. But I was determined to write for a living, and, moreover, to spend these extremely expensive years learning how to do so. When I completed my first novel, in the summer between sophomore and junior years, I contacted the English department about creating an independent study around editing and publishing it. I was received like a mental patient. I was told, "There's nothing like that here." I was told that I could go back to my classes, sit in my lectures, and fill out Scantron tests until I graduated.

I didn't much care for my classes, though. I slept late and spent the afternoons working on my own material. Then a funny thing happened. Here I was, begging anybody in authority to take my work seriously. But my classmates did. They saw my abilities and my abundance of free time. They saw a value that the university did not.

It turned out that my lazy, Xanax-snorting, Miller-swilling classmates were thrilled to pay me to write their papers. And I was thrilled to take their money. Imagine you are crumbling under the weight of university-issued parking tickets and self-doubt when a frat boy offers you cash to write about Plato. Doing that job was a no-brainer. Word of my services spread quickly, especially through the fraternities. Soon I was receiving calls from strangers who wanted to commission my work. I was a writer!

Nearly a decade later, students, not publishers, still come from everywhere to find me.

I work hard for a living. I'm nice to people. But I understand that in simple terms, I'm the bad guy. I see where I'm vulnerable to ethical scrutiny.

But pointing the finger at me is too easy. Why does my business thrive? Why do so many students prefer to cheat rather than do their own work?

Say what you want about me, but I am not the reason your students cheat.

You know what's never happened? I've never had a client complain that he'd been expelled from school, that the originality of his work had been questioned, that some disciplinary action had been taken. As far as I know, not one of my customers has ever been caught.

With just two days to go, I was finally ready to throw myself into the business assignment. I turned off my phone, caged myself in my office, and went through the purgatory of cramming the summation of a student's alleged education into a weekend. Try it sometime. After the 20th hour on a single subject, you have an almost-out-of-body experience.

My client was thrilled with my work. She told me that she would present the chapter to her mentor and get back to me with our next steps. Two weeks passed, by which time the assignment was but a distant memory, obscured by the several hundred pages I had written since. On a Wednesday evening, I received the following e-mail:

"Thanx u so much for the chapter is going very good the porfesser likes it but wants the folloing suggestions please what do you thing?:

"'The hypothesis is interesting but I'd like to see it a bit more focused. Choose a specific connection and try to prove it.'

"What shoudwe say?"

This happens a lot. I get paid per assignment. But with longer papers, the student starts to think of me as a personal educational counselor. She paid me to write a one-page response to her professor, and then she paid me to revise her paper. I completed each of these assignments, sustaining the voice that the student had established and maintaining the front of competence from some invisible location far beneath the ivory tower.

The 75-page paper on business ethics ultimately expanded into a 160-page graduate thesis, every word of which was written by me. I can't remember the name of my client, but it's her name on my work. We collaborated for months. As with so many other topics I tackle, the connection between unethical business practices and trade liberalization became a subtext to my everyday life.

So, of course, you can imagine my excitement when I received the good news:

"thanx so much for uhelp ican going to graduate to now".

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/

On The Ground

2010-11-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

I've always liked SNL's shorts, so here goes.

An interesting read

2010-11-18T03:53:00.000-08:00

FINDING AND KEEPING A LIFE PARTNER
by Dov Heller, M.A.

When it comes to making the decision about choosing a life partner, no one wants to make a mistake. Yet, with a divorce rate of close to 50%, it appears that many are making serious mistakes in their approach to finding Mr./Miss. Right!

If you ask most couples who are engaged why they ' re getting married, they ' ll say: ' We ' re in love ' ; I believe this is the ..1 mistake people make when they date. Choosing a life partner should never be based on love.
Though this may sound ' not politically correct ' , there ' s a profound truth here.

Love is not the basis for getting married. Rather, love is the result of a good marriage. When the other ingredients are right, then the love will come. Let me say it again: ' You can ' t build a lifetime relationship on love alone ' ; You need a lot more!!! Here are five questions you must ask yourself if you ' re serious about finding and keeping a life partner.

QUESTION ..1: Do we share a common life purpose?

Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you ' re married for 20 or 30 years, that ' s a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog together? You need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a common life purpose.

Two things can happen in a marriage: (1) You can grow together, or (2)you can grow apart. 50% of the people out there are growing apart. To make a marriage work, you need to know what you want out of life! Bottom line; marry someone who wants the same thing.

QUESTION ..2: Do I feel safe expressing my feelings and thoughts with this person?

This question goes to the core of the quality of your relationship. Feeling safe means you can communicate openly with this person. The basis of having good communication is trust i.e. trust that I won ' t get ' punished ' ; or hurt for expressing my honest thoughts and feelings. A colleague of mine defines an abusive person as someone with whom you feel afraid to express your thoughts and feelings. Be honest with yourself on this one. Make sure you feel emotionally safe with the person you plan to marry.

QUESTION ..3: Is he/she a mensch?

A mensch is someone who is a refined and sensitive person. How can you test? Here are some suggestions. Do they work on personal growth on a regular basis? Are they serious about improving themselves? A teacher of mine defines a good person as ' someone who is always striving to be good and do the right ' ;. So ask about your significant other: What do they do with their time? Is this person materialistic? Usually a materialistic person is not someone whose top priority is character refinement.

There are essentially two types of people in the world: (1) People who are dedicated to personal growth and (2) people who are dedicated to seeking comfort. Someone whose goal in life is to be comfortable will put personal comfort ahead of doing the right thing. You need to know that before walking down the aisle.

QUESTION ..4: How does he/she treat other people?

The one most important thing that makes any relationship work is the ability to give. By giving, we mean the ability to give another person pleasure.

Ask: Is this someone who enjoys giving pleasure to others or are they wrapped up in themselves and self absorbed? To measure this, think about the following: How do they treat people whom they do not have to be nice to, such as waiters, bus boys, taxi drivers, etc.. How do they treat their parents and siblings? Do they have gratitude and appreciation? If they don ' t have gratitude for the people who have given them everything; can you do nearly as much for them? You can be sure that someone, who treats others poorly, will eventually treat you poorly as well.

QUESTION ..5: Is there anything I ' m hoping to change about this person after we ' re married?

Too many people make the mistake of marrying someone with the intention of trying to ' improve ' them after they ' re married. As a colleague of mine puts it: ' You can probably expect someone to change after marriage for the worse ' If you cannot fully accept this person the way they are now, then you are not ready to marry them.

In conclusion, dating doesn ' t have to be difficult and treacherous. The key is to try leading a little more with your head and less with your heart. It pays to be as objective as possible when you are dating; to be sure to ask questions that will help you get to the key issues. Falling in love is a great feeling, but when you wake up with a ring on our finger, you don ' t want to find yourself trouble because you didn ' t do your homework.

Another perspective...There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance.. It ' s amazing what you can accomplish when you let go of or at least minimize your time with draining, negative, uncompatible, not going anywhere relationships. Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention...Which ones lift and which ones lean? Which ones encourage and which ones discourage? Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill? When you leave certain people do you feel better or feel worse? Which ones don ' t appreciate you? Which ones make you feel good, praises you, boosts you with loving and caring words or annotations.

The more you seek quality, respect, growth, peace of mind, love and truth around you...the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the front row and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.

An African proverb states, ' Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye ' ; Before you get involved and make a commitment to someone, don ' t let lust, desperation, immaturity, ignorance, pressure from others or a low self-esteem make you blind to warning signs. Keep your eyes open, and don ' t fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults isn ' t really that important. Do you bring out the best in each other? Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare and control? What do you bring to the relationship? Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain? You can ' t take someone to the altar to alter them. You can ' t make someone love you or make someone stay. If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and ' a life ' ; you won ' t find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain. Seeking status, sex, and security are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship.

WHAT KEEPS A RELATIONSHIP STRONG IS:
1. TRUST
2. COMMUNICATION
3. INTIMACY
4. A SENSE OF HUMOR
5. SHARING TASKS
6. DAILY EXCHANGES (meal, shared activity, hug, call, touch, notes, etc.)
7. SHARING COMMON GOALS AND INTERESTS
8. GIVING EACH OTHER SPACE TO GROW WITHOUT FEELING INSECURE
9.GIVING EACH OTHER A SENSE OF BELONGING AND ASSURANCES OF COMMITMENT
10. CONCERN AND CARE FOR YOUR LOVER IN YOUR OWN WAYS.

If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment withdrawal, abuse, neglect, and dishonesty; and pain will replace.

Autodesk University - Zebra Imaging's mind-blowing holographic sheets

2010-11-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

Ark Hotel Construction time lapse building 15 storeys in 2 days

2010-11-13T06:55:00.001-08:00

Black Ops Ad

2010-11-12T06:51:00.001-08:00

Hate Weird Facebook Guys (Love The Way You Lie parody)

2010-10-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

All because of a bet

2010-10-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Some commercials

2010-10-05T06:25:00.001-07:00

Pokémon Apokélypse: Live Action Trailer

2010-09-28T06:23:00.001-07:00

someone stole her pancake mix?!

2010-09-24T10:19:00.002-07:00

夫妻相處之道

2010-09-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

3 lessons from Nokia's downfall

2010-09-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

3 lessons from Nokia's downfall

They are: Never rest on your laurels, be willing to challenge yourself and be in the mix of innovative ideas

by Matthew Lynn
05:55 AM Sep 15, 2010

What was the most successful European company of the 1990s? Easy. The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia.

And the most disappointing one of the 2000s? Easy again. Nokia. A company once held up as an example of how Europe could still compete in technology and create new industrial giants, Nokia has been in steep decline - a point emphasised last week by its decision to hire the first non-Finn as chief executive officer, charged with turning the business around.

And just as the company's rise held lessons about how Europe could succeed, its downfall tells us much about why the region so often fails. Nokia rested too comfortably on its laurels. It was never willing to re-invent its business, even if it meant completely changing its products.

It was never located at the heart of the information technology industry, among competitors who might force it to keep innovating. Other European companies should study Nokia's fate to make sure they don't repeat it.

A decade ago, Nokia was the most successful business Europe had produced in a generation. It captured the emerging market for mobile phones and built the industry's most powerful brand.

Politicians lined up to praise the company as an example of how Europe could still prosper in the 21st century. No less a figure than Mr Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, drew attention to the success of Nokia and its rival, Sweden's Ericsson, in a speech in 2002.

"Their achievement in mobile telephones helped to create two vibrant clusters, around Oulu in Finland and Stockholm in Sweden, which have attracted a large number of startups as well as investment from foreign companies," he said. "These examples demonstrate that European regions are capable of developing new, high-tech clusters."

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

It doesn't look so good now. In the last three years, the news out of Nokia has only been bad.

Since Apple introduced its iPhone in January 2007, Nokia shares have fallen by 47 per cent. The company's brand, once one of the coolest in the world, is battered.

In a ranking of global brands by Millward Brown Optimor this year, Nokia ranked No 43, dropping 30 places in 12 months. Its profit margins have been shrinking, along with the average price of its phones and its market share.

True, it still has more than one-third of global mobile phone sales. But it looks stranded in the middle of the market.

Korean electronics manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics are leading the main consumer market. Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry dominate the upscale, smartphone industry.

Last week, Nokia recognised the scale of its challenges, hiring Mr Stephen Elop, the head of Microsoft's business unit, to turn the company around.

Can he succeed? Everyone will wish him well. But if the guy knows so much about phones, he's kept it a secret. Microsoft has never made any progress in that industry.

The cruel truth is that, for all its residual market share, Nokia looks like a has-been. It misread the way the mobile phone industry was merging with computing and social networking. It is probably now too late to turn that around.

There are uncomfortable lessons here for European industry.

First, never rest on your laurels. Nokia got to the top of its industry quickly. But once there, it became complacent in an industry where laziness is fatal.

It worried too much about hanging onto its market share, rather than creating new products to excite customers.

Second, Nokia was unwilling to challenge itself. The company clung to the model that mobile phones were mainly about calling people.

It failed to notice that they were just as much about checking your e-mail, finding a good restaurant nearby and updating your Twitter page.

Finally, it wasn't located near a cluster of similar companies. Building a technology giant in Finland was a great achievement.

But Nokia wasn't surrounded by Web companies or consumer-electronics manufacturers. That meant it wasn't in the mix of innovative ideas, which would have forced it to question its assumptions every day.

The company should have relocated to California. Sure, that would have caused an outcry at home. But that's better than watching its slow decline into irrelevance.

It may be too late for Nokia to turn itself around. But Europe still has companies that dominate industries such as oil, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and financial services.

They are all prone to similar missteps. Are the auto manufacturers doing enough to prepare for the arrival of electric cars?

Are the drug companies ready for the merging of computing and biotechnology? Are banks positioned for a decade when debt is steadily reduced, not increased? Probably not.

Politicians and business experts spent a lot of time praising Nokia and trying to learn from its rise. They should devote as much time studying the lessons of its downfall. If they don't, much of the rest of European industry will repeat its mistakes. And Europe can't afford to lose many more world leaders. Bloomberg

The writer is a Bloomberg News columnist and the author of Bust, a yet-to-be-released book on the Greek debt crisis. The opinions expressed are his own.

http://www.todayonline.com/Commentary/EDC100915-0000048/3-lessons-from-Nokias-downfall

It Only Takes A Moment

2010-09-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

The song that Wall E listens to all the time..

Heartbreaker - An awesome movie!

2010-09-06T06:35:00.001-07:00

We break relationships, but don't break hearts.

Inception Parody

2010-08-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Are Smart People Overrated?

2010-08-12T08:17:00.001-07:00

July 22, 2002
DEPT. OF HUMAN RESOURCES

Are smart people overrated?

1.

Five years ago, several executives at McKinsey & Company, America's largest and most prestigious management-consulting firm, launched what they called the War for Talent. Thousands of questionnaires were sent to managers across the country. Eighteen companies were singled out for special attention, and the consultants spent up to three days at each firm, interviewing everyone from the C.E.O. down to the human-resources staff. McKinsey wanted to document how the top-performing companies in America differed from other firms in the way they handle matters like hiring and promotion. But, as the consultants sifted through the piles of reports and questionnaires and interview transcripts, they grew convinced that the difference between winners and losers was more profound than they had realized. "We looked at one another and suddenly the light bulb blinked on," the three consultants who headed the project--Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod--write in their new book, also called "The War for Talent." The very best companies, they concluded, had leaders who were obsessed with the talent issue. They recruited ceaselessly, finding and hiring as many top performers as possible. They singled out and segregated their stars, rewarding them disproportionately, and pushing them into ever more senior positions. "Bet on the natural athletes, the ones with the strongest intrinsic skills," the authors approvingly quote one senior General Electric executive as saying. "Don't be afraid to promote stars without specifically relevant experience, seemingly over their heads." Success in the modern economy, according to Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, requires "the talent mind-set": the "deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels is how you outperform your competitors."

This "talent mind-set" is the new orthodoxy of American management. It is the intellectual justification for why such a high premium is placed on degrees from first-tier business schools, and why the compensation packages for top executives have become so lavish. In the modern corporation, the system is considered only as strong as its stars, and, in the past few years, this message has been preached by consultants and management gurus all over the world. None, however, have spread the word quite so ardently as McKinsey, and, of all its clients, one firm took the talent mind-set closest to heart. It was a company where McKinsey conducted twenty separate projects, where McKinsey's billings topped ten million dollars a year, where a McKinsey director regularly attended board meetings, and where the C.E.O. himself was a former McKinsey partner. The company, of course, was Enron.

The Enron scandal is now almost a year old. The reputations of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, the company's two top executives, have been destroyed. Arthur Andersen, Enron's auditor, has been driven out of business, and now investigators have turned their attention to Enron's investment bankers. The one Enron partner that has escaped largely unscathed is McKinsey, which is odd, given that it essentially created the blueprint for the Enron culture. Enron was the ultimate "talent" company. When Skilling started the corporate division known as Enron Capital and Trade, in 1990, he "decided to bring in a steady stream of the very best college and M.B.A. graduates he could find to stock the company with talent," Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod tell us. During the nineties, Enron was bringing in two hundred and fifty newly minted M.B.A.s a year. "We had these things called Super Saturdays," one former Enron manager recalls. "I'd interview some of these guys who were fresh out of Harvard, and these kids could blow me out of the water. They knew things I'd never heard of." Once at Enron, the top performers were rewarded inordinately, and promoted without regard for seniority or experience. Enron was a star system. "The only thing that differentiates Enron from our competitors is our people, our talent," Lay, Enron's former chairman and C.E.O., told the McKinsey consultants when they came to the company's headquarters, in Houston. Or, as another senior Enron executive put it to Richard Foster, a McKinsey partner who celebrated Enron in his 2001 book, "Creative Destruction," "We hire very smart people and we pay them more than they think they are worth."

The management of Enron, in other words, did exactly what the consultants at McKinsey said that companies ought to do in order to succeed in the modern economy. It hired and rewarded the very best and the very brightest--and it is now in bankruptcy. The reasons for its collapse are complex, needless to say. But what if Enron failed not in spite of its talent mind-set but because of it? What if smart people are overrated?

2.

At the heart of the McKinsey vision is a process that the War for Talent advocates refer to as "differentiation and affirmation." Employers, they argue, need to sit down once or twice a year and hold a "candid, probing, no-holds-barred debate about each individual," sorting employees into A, B, and C groups. The A's must be challenged and disproportionately rewarded. The B's need to be encouraged and affirmed. The C's need to shape up or be shipped out. Enron followed this advice almost to the letter, setting up internal Performance Review Committees. The members got together twice a year, and graded each person in their section on ten separate criteria, using a scale of one to five. The process was called "rank and yank." Those graded at the top of their unit received bonuses two-thirds higher than those in the next thirty per cent; those who ranked at the bottom received no bonuses and no extra stock options--and in some cases were pushed out.

How should that ranking be done? Unfortunately, the McKinsey consultants spend very little time discussing the matter. One possibility is simply to hire and reward the smartest people. But the link between, say, I.Q. and job performance is distinctly underwhelming. On a scale where 0.1 or below means virtually no correlation and 0.7 or above implies a strong correlation (your height, for example, has a 0.7 correlation with your parents' height), the correlation between I.Q. and occupational success is between 0.2 and 0.3. "What I.Q. doesn't pick up is effectiveness at common-sense sorts of things, especially working with people," Richard Wagner, a psychologist at Florida State University, says. "In terms of how we evaluate schooling, everything is about working by yourself. If you work with someone else, it's called cheating. Once you get out in the real world, everything you do involves working with other people."

Wagner and Robert Sternberg, a psychologist at Yale University, have developed tests of this practical component, which they call "tacit knowledge." Tacit knowledge involves things like knowing how to manage yourself and others, and how to navigate complicated social situations. Here is a question from one of their tests:

You have just been promoted to head of an important department in your organization. The previous head has been transferred to an equivalent position in a less important department. Your understanding of the reason for the move is that the performance of the department as a whole has been mediocre. There have not been any glaring deficiencies, just a perception of the department as so-so rather than very good. Your charge is to shape up the department. Results are expected quickly. Rate the quality of the following strategies for succeeding at your new position.

a) Always delegate to the most junior person who can be trusted with the task.
b) Give your superiors frequent progress reports.
c) Announce a major reorganization of the department that includes getting rid of whomever you believe to be "dead wood."
d) Concentrate more on your people than on the tasks to be done.
e) Make people feel completely responsible for their work.

Wagner finds that how well people do on a test like this predicts how well they will do in the workplace: good managers pick (b) and (e); bad managers tend to pick (c). Yet there's no clear connection between such tacit knowledge and other forms of knowledge and experience. The process of assessing ability in the workplace is a lot messier than it appears.

An employer really wants to assess not potential but performance. Yet that's just as tricky. In "The War for Talent," the authors talk about how the Royal Air Force used the A, B, and C ranking system for its pilots during the Battle of Britain. But ranking fighter pilots--for whom there are a limited and relatively objective set of performance criteria (enemy kills, for example, and the ability to get their formations safely home)--is a lot easier than assessing how the manager of a new unit is doing at, say, marketing or business development. And whom do you ask to rate the manager's performance? Studies show that there is very little correlation between how someone's peers rate him and how his boss rates him. The only rigorous way to assess performance, according to human-resources specialists, is to use criteria that are as specific as possible. Managers are supposed to take detailed notes on their employees throughout the year, in order to remove subjective personal reactions from the process of assessment. You can grade someone's performance only if you know their performance. And, in the freewheeling culture of Enron, this was all but impossible. People deemed "talented" were constantly being pushed into new jobs and given new challenges. Annual turnover from promotions was close to twenty per cent. Lynda Clemmons, the so-called "weather babe" who started Enron's weather derivatives business, jumped, in seven quick years, from trader to associate to manager to director and, finally, to head of her own business unit. How do you evaluate someone's performance in a system where no one is in a job long enough to allow such evaluation?

The answer is that you end up doing performance evaluations that aren't based on performance. Among the many glowing books about Enron written before its fall was the best-seller "Leading the Revolution," by the management consultant Gary Hamel, which tells the story of Lou Pai, who launched Enron's power-trading business. Pai's group began with a disaster: it lost tens of millions of dollars trying to sell electricity to residential consumers in newly deregulated markets. The problem, Hamel explains, is that the markets weren't truly deregulated: "The states that were opening their markets to competition were still setting rules designed to give their traditional utilities big advantages." It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that Pai ought to have looked into those rules more carefully before risking millions of dollars. He was promptly given the chance to build the commercial electricity-outsourcing business, where he ran up several more years of heavy losses before cashing out of Enron last year with two hundred and seventy million dollars. Because Pai had "talent," he was given new opportunities, and when he failed at those new opportunities he was given still more opportunities . . . because he had "talent." "At Enron, failure--even of the type that ends up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal--doesn't necessarily sink a career," Hamel writes, as if that were a good thing. Presumably, companies that want to encourage risk-taking must be willing to tolerate mistakes. Yet if talent is defined as something separate from an employee's actual performance, what use is it, exactly?

3.

What the War for Talent amounts to is an argument for indulging A employees, for fawning over them. "You need to do everything you can to keep them engaged and satisfied--even delighted," Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod write. "Find out what they would most like to be doing, and shape their career and responsibilities in that direction. Solve any issues that might be pushing them out the door, such as a boss that frustrates them or travel demands that burden them." No company was better at this than Enron. In one oft-told story, Louise Kitchin, a twenty-nine-year-old gas trader in Europe, became convinced that the company ought to develop an online-trading business. She told her boss, and she began working in her spare time on the project, until she had two hundred and fifty people throughout Enron helping her. After six months, Skilling was finally informed. "I was never asked for any capital," Skilling said later. "I was never asked for any people. They had already purchased the servers. They had already started ripping apart the building. They had started legal reviews in twenty-two countries by the time I heard about it." It was, Skilling went on approvingly, "exactly the kind of behavior that will continue to drive this company forward."

Kitchin's qualification for running EnronOnline, it should be pointed out, was not that she was good at it. It was that she wanted to do it, and Enron was a place where stars did whatever they wanted. "Fluid movement is absolutely necessary in our company. And the type of people we hire enforces that," Skilling told the team from McKinsey. "Not only does this system help the excitement level for each manager, it shapes Enron's business in the direction that its managers find most exciting." Here is Skilling again: "If lots of [employees] are flocking to a new business unit, that's a good sign that the opportunity is a good one. . . . If a business unit can't attract people very easily, that's a good sign that it's a business Enron shouldn't be in." You might expect a C.E.O. to say that if a business unit can't attract customers very easily that's a good sign it's a business the company shouldn't be in. A company's business is supposed to be shaped in the direction that its managers find most profitable. But at Enron the needs of the customers and the shareholders were secondary to the needs of its stars.

A dozen years ago, the psychologists Robert Hogan, Robert Raskin, and Dan Fazzini wrote a brilliant essay called "The Dark Side of Charisma." It argued that flawed managers fall into three types. One is the High Likability Floater, who rises effortlessly in an organization because he never takes any difficult decisions or makes any enemies. Another is the Homme de Ressentiment, who seethes below the surface and plots against his enemies. The most interesting of the three is the Narcissist, whose energy and self-confidence and charm lead him inexorably up the corporate ladder. Narcissists are terrible managers. They resist accepting suggestions, thinking it will make them appear weak, and they don't believe that others have anything useful to tell them. "Narcissists are biased to take more credit for success than is legitimate," Hogan and his co-authors write, and "biased to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their failures and shortcomings for the same reasons that they claim more success than is their due." Moreover:

Narcissists typically make judgments with greater confidence than other people . . . and, because their judgments are rendered with such conviction, other people tend to believe them and the narcissists become disproportionately more influential in group situations. Finally, because of their self-confidence and strong need for recognition, narcissists tend to "self-nominate"; consequently, when a leadership gap appears in a group or organization, the narcissists rush to fill it.

Tyco Corporation and WorldCom were the Greedy Corporations: they were purely interested in short-term financial gain. Enron was the Narcissistic Corporation--a company that took more credit for success than was legitimate, that did not acknowledge responsibility for its failures, that shrewdly sold the rest of us on its genius, and that substituted self-nomination for disciplined management. At one point in "Leading the Revolution," Hamel tracks down a senior Enron executive, and what he breathlessly recounts--the braggadocio, the self-satisfaction--could be an epitaph for the talent mind-set:

"You cannot control the atoms within a nuclear fusion reaction," said Ken Rice when he was head of Enron Capital and Trade Resources (ECT), America's largest marketer of natural gas and largest buyer and seller of electricity. Adorned in a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, Rice drew a box on an office whiteboard that pictured his business unit as a nuclear reactor. Little circles in the box represented its "contract originators," the gunslingers charged with doing deals and creating new businesses. Attached to each circle was an arrow. In Rice's diagram the arrows were pointing in all different directions. "We allow people to go in whichever direction that they want to go."

The distinction between the Greedy Corporation and the Narcissistic Corporation matters, because the way we conceive our attainments helps determine how we behave. Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Columbia University, has found that people generally hold one of two fairly firm beliefs about their intelligence: they consider it either a fixed trait or something that is malleable and can be developed over time. Five years ago, Dweck did a study at the University of Hong Kong, where all classes are conducted in English. She and her colleagues approached a large group of social-sciences students, told them their English-proficiency scores, and asked them if they wanted to take a course to improve their language skills. One would expect all those who scored poorly to sign up for the remedial course. The University of Hong Kong is a demanding institution, and it is hard to do well in the social sciences without strong English skills. Curiously, however, only the ones who believed in malleable intelligence expressed interest in the class. The students who believed that their intelligence was a fixed trait were so concerned about appearing to be deficient that they preferred to stay home. "Students who hold a fixed view of their intelligence care so much about looking smart that they act dumb," Dweck writes, "for what could be dumber than giving up a chance to learn something that is essential for your own success?"

In a similar experiment, Dweck gave a class of preadolescent students a test filled with challenging problems. After they were finished, one group was praised for its effort and another group was praised for its intelligence. Those praised for their intelligence were reluctant to tackle difficult tasks, and their performance on subsequent tests soon began to suffer. Then Dweck asked the children to write a letter to students at another school, describing their experience in the study. She discovered something remarkable: forty per cent of those students who were praised for their intelligence lied about how they had scored on the test, adjusting their grade upward. They weren't naturally deceptive people, and they weren't any less intelligent or self-confident than anyone else. They simply did what people do when they are immersed in an environment that celebrates them solely for their innate "talent." They begin to define themselves by that description, and when times get tough and that self-image is threatened they have difficulty with the consequences. They will not take the remedial course. They will not stand up to investors and the public and admit that they were wrong. They'd sooner lie.

4.

The broader failing of McKinsey and its acolytes at Enron is their assumption that an organization's intelligence is simply a function of the intelligence of its employees. They believe in stars, because they don't believe in systems. In a way, that's understandable, because our lives are so obviously enriched by individual brilliance. Groups don't write great novels, and a committee didn't come up with the theory of relativity. But companies work by different rules. They don't just create; they execute and compete and coördinate the efforts of many different people, and the organizations that are most successful at that task are the ones where the system is the star.

There is a wonderful example of this in the story of the so-called Eastern Pearl Harbor, of the Second World War. During the first nine months of 1942, the United States Navy suffered a catastrophe. German U-boats, operating just off the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean, were sinking our merchant ships almost at will. U-boat captains marvelled at their good fortune. "Before this sea of light, against this footlight glare of a carefree new world were passing the silhouettes of ships recognizable in every detail and sharp as the outlines in a sales catalogue," one U-boat commander wrote. "All we had to do was press the button."

What made this such a puzzle is that, on the other side of the Atlantic, the British had much less trouble defending their ships against U-boat attacks. The British, furthermore, eagerly passed on to the Americans everything they knew about sonar and depth-charge throwers and the construction of destroyers. And still the Germans managed to paralyze America's coastal zones.

You can imagine what the consultants at McKinsey would have concluded: they would have said that the Navy did not have a talent mind-set, that President Roosevelt needed to recruit and promote top performers into key positions in the Atlantic command. In fact, he had already done that. At the beginning of the war, he had pushed out the solid and unspectacular Admiral Harold R. Stark as Chief of Naval Operations and replaced him with the legendary Ernest Joseph King. "He was a supreme realist with the arrogance of genius," Ladislas Farago writes in "The Tenth Fleet," a history of the Navy's U-boat battles in the Second World War. "He had unbounded faith in himself, in his vast knowledge of naval matters and in the soundness of his ideas. Unlike Stark, who tolerated incompetence all around him, King had no patience with fools."

The Navy had plenty of talent at the top, in other words. What it didn't have was the right kind of organization. As Eliot A. Cohen, a scholar of military strategy at Johns Hopkins, writes in his brilliant book "Military Misfortunes in the Atlantic":

To wage the antisubmarine war well, analysts had to bring together fragments of information, direction-finding fixes, visual sightings, decrypts, and the "flaming datum" of a U-boat attack--for use by a commander to coordinate the efforts of warships, aircraft, and convoy commanders. Such synthesis had to occur in near "real time"--within hours, even minutes in some cases.

The British excelled at the task because they had a centralized operational system. The controllers moved the British ships around the Atlantic like chess pieces, in order to outsmart U-boat "wolf packs." By contrast, Admiral King believed strongly in a decentralized management structure: he held that managers should never tell their subordinates " 'how' as well as what to 'do.' " In today's jargon, we would say he was a believer in "loose-tight" management, of the kind celebrated by the McKinsey consultants Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman in their 1982 best-seller, "In Search of Excellence." But "loose-tight" doesn't help you find U-boats. Throughout most of 1942, the Navy kept trying to act smart by relying on technical know-how, and stubbornly refused to take operational lessons from the British. The Navy also lacked the organizational structure necessary to apply the technical knowledge it did have to the field. Only when the Navy set up the Tenth Fleet--a single unit to coördinate all anti-submarine warfare in the Atlantic--did the situation change. In the year and a half before the Tenth Fleet was formed, in May of 1943, the Navy sank thirty-six U-boats. In the six months afterward, it sank seventy-five. "The creation of the Tenth Fleet did not bring more talented individuals into the field of ASW"--anti-submarine warfare--"than had previous organizations," Cohen writes. "What Tenth Fleet did allow, by virtue of its organization and mandate, was for these individuals to become far more effective than previously." The talent myth assumes that people make organizations smart. More often than not, it's the other way around.

5.

There is ample evidence of this principle among America's most successful companies. Southwest Airlines hires very few M.B.A.s, pays its managers modestly, and gives raises according to seniority, not "rank and yank." Yet it is by far the most successful of all United States airlines, because it has created a vastly more efficient organization than its competitors have. At Southwest, the time it takes to get a plane that has just landed ready for takeoff--a key index of productivity--is, on average, twenty minutes, and requires a ground crew of four, and two people at the gate. (At United Airlines, by contrast, turnaround time is closer to thirty-five minutes, and requires a ground crew of twelve and three agents at the gate.)

In the case of the giant retailer Wal-Mart, one of the most critical periods in its history came in 1976, when Sam Walton "unretired," pushing out his handpicked successor, Ron Mayer. Mayer was just over forty. He was ambitious. He was charismatic. He was, in the words of one Walton biographer, "the boy-genius financial officer." But Walton was convinced that Mayer was, as people at McKinsey would say, "differentiating and affirming" in the corporate suite, in defiance of Wal-Mart's inclusive culture. Mayer left, and Wal-Mart survived. After all, Wal-Mart is an organization, not an all-star team. Walton brought in David Glass, late of the Army and Southern Missouri State University, as C.E.O.; the company is now ranked No. 1 on the Fortune 500 list.

Procter & Gamble doesn't have a star system, either. How could it? Would the top M.B.A. graduates of Harvard and Stanford move to Cincinnati to work on detergent when they could make three times as much reinventing the world in Houston? Procter & Gamble isn't glamorous. Its C.E.O. is a lifer--a former Navy officer who began his corporate career as an assistant brand manager for Joy dishwashing liquid--and, if Procter & Gamble's best played Enron's best at Trivial Pursuit, no doubt the team from Houston would win handily. But Procter & Gamble has dominated the consumer-products field for close to a century, because it has a carefully conceived managerial system, and a rigorous marketing methodology that has allowed it to win battles for brands like Crest and Tide decade after decade. In Procter & Gamble's Navy, Admiral Stark would have stayed. But a cross-divisional management committee would have set the Tenth Fleet in place before the war ever started.

6.

Among the most damning facts about Enron, in the end, was something its managers were proudest of. They had what, in McKinsey terminology, is called an "open market" for hiring. In the open-market system--McKinsey's assault on the very idea of a fixed organization--anyone could apply for any job that he or she wanted, and no manager was allowed to hold anyone back. Poaching was encouraged. When an Enron executive named Kevin Hannon started the company's global broadband unit, he launched what he called Project Quick Hire. A hundred top performers from around the company were invited to the Houston Hyatt to hear Hannon give his pitch. Recruiting booths were set up outside the meeting room. "Hannon had his fifty top performers for the broadband unit by the end of the week," Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod write, "and his peers had fifty holes to fill." Nobody, not even the consultants who were paid to think about the Enron culture, seemed worried that those fifty holes might disrupt the functioning of the affected departments, that stability in a firm's existing businesses might be a good thing, that the self-fulfillment of Enron's star employees might possibly be in conflict with the best interests of the firm as a whole.

These are the sort of concerns that management consultants ought to raise. But Enron's management consultant was McKinsey, and McKinsey was as much a prisoner of the talent myth as its clients were. In 1998, Enron hired ten Wharton M.B.A.s; that same year, McKinsey hired forty. In 1999, Enron hired twelve from Wharton; McKinsey hired sixty-one. The consultants at McKinsey were preaching at Enron what they believed about themselves. "When we would hire them, it wouldn't just be for a week," one former Enron manager recalls, of the brilliant young men and women from McKinsey who wandered the hallways at the company's headquarters. "It would be for two to four months. They were always around." They were there looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box. It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.

I Don't Want To Miss A Thing cover

2010-08-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Stephen Chow Impersonation... Really good

2010-08-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Epic - Woman wakes up to find intruder in bed PLUS a remix :S

2010-08-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

Deal With The Devil :)

2010-07-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

The Technician

2010-07-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Guy Walks Across America!

2010-07-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

Parking Spot WIN!

2010-07-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

Girl Who Silenced the UN For 5 Minutes

2010-07-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

Cardboard Warfare!!!

2010-07-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

Tu Vuo' Fa l'Americano

2010-07-04T04:54:00.000-07:00

and this is how you care for your leather shoes

2010-07-03T10:20:00.001-07:00

100 Greatest Movie Insults Of All Time

2010-07-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

How to shower: Men vs. Women

2010-06-24T05:42:00.000-07:00

way interesting

2010-06-04T07:23:00.001-07:00

Bohemian Rhapsody - Classical Guitar

2010-05-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite songs.

Kate Miller-Heidke - Are You Fucking Kidding Me? (The Facebook Song) [Live at the Hi-Fi]

2010-05-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

TOC 2009 Review

2010-05-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

Super sexy way to learn CPR, uber!

2010-05-27T07:05:00.001-07:00

Naked Girls Get Interrupted!

2010-05-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

The IRONING MAN! an ironman spoof

2010-05-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

Bad Romance!

2010-05-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Simpons REAL LIFE

2010-05-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRd6dMCP18c

Lady Gaga Telephone remake, by US soldiers :D

2010-05-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

Heineken's New Commercial: Man Has Talent! :D

2010-04-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

EPIC rap fail...

2010-04-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

their cantonese wins mine... but that's not the point :)

2010-04-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

real life Gambit, way cool

2010-04-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

Priceless moment

2010-03-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

Lizard Ballad: All For You

2010-03-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

a must read

2010-03-01T04:25:00.000-08:00

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful
(spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy.
I'm not from New York . I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at
least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind
that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think
I'm overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could
you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around
200 - 250. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won't get
me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married
to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as
I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I
get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars,
restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my
feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)?

- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east
side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have
nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I've seen drop dead
gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story
there?

- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment
banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they
hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for
MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest
way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front
about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't
able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a
nice home and hearth.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial
interests
PostingID: 432279810

THE ANSWER
Dear Pers-431649184:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully
about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.
Firstly, I'm not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your
bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here's how I
see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a
crappy business deal. Here's why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you
suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring
my money. Fine, simple. But here's the rub, your looks will fade and my
money will likely continue into perpetuity...in fact, it is very likely
that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won't
be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning
asset . Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation
accelerates! Let me explain, you're 25 now and will likely stay pretty
hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in
earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy
and hold...hence the rub...marriage. It doesn't make good business sense
to "buy you" (which is what you're asking) so I'd rather lease. In case
you think I'm being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were
to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It's
as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So,
I wonder why a girl as "articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful "
as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to
believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K
hasn't found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then
we wouldn't need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you're going about it the right way.
Classic "pump and dump."
I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of
lease, let me know.

Rob Campbell
J.P.Morgan
Diversified Industrials Investment Banking
277 Park Avenue , 16/F, New York, NY 10172

how a town got out of debt..

2010-02-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

It is a slow day in the small Minnesota town of Marshall , and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A rich tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Farmer's Co-op.

The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

Charlie Brooker - How To Report The News

2010-02-05T22:00:00.001-08:00

So true.

one of my favourite scene from one of my all time favourite movie - Scent Of A Woman

2010-01-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

Awesome, charming and scandalous!

Funny Thai Ad.

2010-01-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

Low cost but high impact. Dig it.

Li Sheng Wu Debate Speech

2010-01-07T07:15:00.001-08:00

A rough Synopsis:

the debate is about the use of graphically disturbing images(e.g war)

-use images to close this gap of feeling(rape,etc.)
- use of such images doesn't necessarily hurt the victim family
- victims want their story told so that can stop it from happening in future
- competition to report more graphical images is good, cause we all become more aware of such deeds(reporters in diff countries)
-False assumption that people commit atrocities to gain attention(picture in newspaper, welly famous)
-Reports of such atrocities can establish public opinion as a powerful tool to be used against such evil-doers
-he whack the fella: ur right to be offended from such disturbing images is much smaller than the world's right to know of such atrocities that is happening
-change public opinion on weapons of torture
-even tho got danger for journalist, is bo bian, cause got risk that can catch pics of atrocities
-such images is necessary to change world's policies
- counter viewpoint that such images cause unnecessary scares to public
- Media informs us to make decisions base on acts that are morally wrong to defend humanity

-> Conclusion; Lead to fewer atrocities, fewer tortures , fewer deaths

a short anecdote

2010-01-05T09:11:00.001-08:00

"Yeah, it is difficult to appreciate our abilities until we no longer have them... I have a neighbor who wrote his entire PhD thesis typing the keyboard via a pencil attached to his forehead (due to lack of hand-dexterity ... not just for fun), and he explained that he would find it much more exhausting to spend the rest of his life just doing nothing... That really got me out of my chair..."

Hedging against possible inflation , an interesting read

2009-12-11T04:37:00.001-08:00

Business Times - 10 Dec 2009

Hedging against possible inflation

THE tug of war between those who believe that higher inflation is a sure thing in the near-to-medium term and those who insist that it isn't gets fiercer with time. On the one hand, it would seem to be a given that low interest rates and massive government stimulus packages are inflationary. Yet, as a Morgan Stanley report recently pointed out, deleveraging is 'wildly deflationary'. The painful process of weaning governments and households in developed markets off debt has barely begun. In the US, total debt - including government and consumer debt - stands at a staggering 350 per cent of GDP. In Japan, the proportion is 340 per cent. The expectation that at some point in the future, the stimulus will have to be withdrawn and debt whittled down points to the prospect of more muted growth for economies and for asset markets. For now, the US market appears to be pricing in inflation of a relatively muted 1.3 per cent based on 10-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities.

Still, concern over inflation and the debasement of the US dollar has bid up prices of assets seen as hedges, such as gold and commodities. Gold, in particular, touched a high of US$1,226 an ounce last week, and prominent goldbugs are holding out for it to hit US$2,000. That is despite the fact that as an inflation hedge, it has a mixed record at best. Even real estate is stirring in some parts of the world. To be sure, near-zero interest rates and abundant liquidity have spurred renewed risk taking. But the lessons of the recently averted financial crisis should not be so quickly forgotten.

Those who are mulling an entry into gold or other real assets such as real estate would do best to evaluate their options from a portfolio point of view. Gold, for one, does not pay any income, and risks long, fallow periods where it simply goes nowhere. Real estate typically requires leverage, a double-edged sword. If the backdrop turns out to be inflationary, and even modestly so, taking on leverage could be very rewarding. But in an opposite scenario, as the events of 2008 clearly demonstrate, leverage is potentially debilitating.

That there is little consensus on inflation should not detract from the need for some inflation hedges for portfolios, particularly for the retail investor who needs to save for retirement and does not want to take undue risk. Arguably, a benchmark of inflation plus should be the starting point, with the goal of matching that against one's future income needs. The rub is the dearth of relatively safe inflation indexed instruments. Even insurance with its high penetration rate among Singaporeans does not have its benefits and payouts linked to inflation. Assets that could serve as hedges such as real estate and collectibles are relatively inaccessible for those with modest savings.

What Singaporeans need is inflation indexed bonds, whose issuance the government should seriously consider. Such issuance will surely find a ready market among those seeking a stable asset with real income and those with long term future liabilities, whether institutions or individuals.

Food for thought... hmm

2009-12-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

Austrian Theory

2009-12-05T05:34:00.000-08:00

Back to Austrian Theory, most of the jobs 'created' are govt jobs. Govt jobs do NOT create economic goods and services. It only serves to take away potential employment from beneficial private sectors and keep the wage rate at a fake high. Some may argue that the jobs created may be long term jobs and in previously private sector / similar to private sector jobs and that the agency is behaving like a private firm. It could be but we must understand a manager installed by a bureaucracy can never be the same as an entrepreneur who puts forth his money and time to invest. In this sense any jobs in this govt private firm only will steer people away from producing true goods that are demanded by the market. This kind of mal-investment will increasingly require support from govt and become a weight to the administration. And when the govt decides to stop supporting, those ppl in these jobs are already trained and have to be trained in other jobs again, thus creating structurally unemployment.

get laid before the world ends :S

2009-11-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

2009-11-20T00:10:00.000-08:00

There was once a small little lake, hidden deep within the mountains. There was no fishes, no plants within the small little lake, for he was just too small.

But everyday, he would smile when the mountain winds blew across his surface. And he would beam, when the day was fine and the sun to shine brightly. He would frown when gales got too fierce, and when the cloud hid the sun. But the small little lake was not sad, for he knows the gales will be gentle once again, for he knows the sun would come out yet again.

Every night, he would look at the moon and asked, "Oh beautiful moon, beautiful moon. Why do you look different every time I see you?"

And the moon would answer, "Do I?" And she would try to peer at herself ever so slightly. But of course, the moon can never see herself, for she was far too round.

But then, the moon would then always notice her reflection on the small little lake. "Indeed. I do look a trifle different from yesterday. But I don't feel any different."

The small little lake would then ask again, "Are you lonely?"

"Why would I be? I have the stars crowding all about me..." But the moon was lying, the stars were all so far, so far away. They just seemed so near. The moon was lying, for compared to the stars, she was just a tiny piece of rock.

She was sad. "Sorry small little lake, the stars are calling me. I got to leave."

But the small little lake pressed on, "Please don't go. I'm so lonely here. The mountains are always sleeping. The winds are so flighty. And the sun are just so warm but blind."

So like a kindly mother, the moon stayed and comforted the lonely small little lake," Don't worry, small little lake. Some day you will find some little girl who will swim in you, who play happily with you. Her laughters will make the sun shine brighter, the winds to play a beautiful melody and the mountains to repeat her joys."

But she forgot to tell the small little lake that the some day, the girl will grow up and maybe never to return again.

And so everyday the small little lake waited. But no one comes.

The small little lake asked the wind, "Oh mister wind, mister wind! Why did not one come and play with me?"

The wind was confused, he couldn't imagine why would the small little lake wanted someone to come and play with him. Couldn't he just blow and chase away the clouds? It was such fun playing with the clouds.

"Oh mister wind, mister wind. You have traveled far and wide. Can you tell me?"

Seeing that the small little lake was so sad, he hurriedly replied, "Maybe you are not pretty enough? I once saw another lake with a waterfall. She was so filled with people, people from all over the world."

"Oh thank you, mister wind." The small little lake was sad. He was not pretty.

For days and nights, the small little lake begged, pleaded with the mountains. "Oh please mister mountain, can you just move a little and let a stream to come to me? I really wished to have a waterfall."

For months and years, finally, the mountain woke up. The small little lake was so happy. He had a small little waterfall now.

"Look look, I've a waterfall!", the small little lake would exclaim to the moon.

Seeing that the small little lake so joyous, the moon was happy. She was not so lonely anymore. "I'm sure some little girl would discover you soon. And you will be a very special place for that little girl."

And indeed, several months later, a bubbly girl chanced into the small little lake. She was not as little as the small little lake had imagined, but still, he was overjoyed.

The not so little girl with her cute little ponytail screeched with surprise and joy when she saw the small little waterfall. "So pretty, pretty." She would exclaim before splashing into the small little lake.

Every morning the not so little girl with her short stubby ponytail would come and play with the small little lake. Some times, she would bring her brushes and sat beside the small little lake, painting.

The small little lake was very happy. He was contented to that the not so little girl had so much fun. He had become a special place for her.

The small little lake was shy. He dared not talk to the girl, until one day, the not so little girl sigh. "Oh small little lake, oh small little lake. How I wish you could talk. I think I had fell in love with you."

The normally calm surface of the small little lake rippled ever so slightly. He was confused yet happy. He was afraid yet he yearned to reply.

Finally, the small little lake replied, "I love you too."

The not so little girl hopped in surprise and joy, "You speak! Oh small little lake, I love you so much. I love your waterfall, you gentle ripples when I play in you. You are a very special lake."

Smiling happily, the small little lake too said, "I love you, not so little girl. I love your care free manner. I love your laughters. I love your painting. I love you."

And so the not so little girl visited the small little lake everyday, sharing gifts and stories. They were so happy then. The small little lake was soon filled with colorful fish, graceful water plants, that not so little girl had bought.

Everything seemed so beautiful, for even the mountains are filled with flowers planted by the not so little girl.

But after several years, maybe the small little lake had changed, or maybe the not so little girl had grown up, the not so little girl came to see the small little lake for the last time.

"I'm sorry small little lake. I thought I had loved you, but you are so different now. You have colorful fishes, graceful plants and pretty flower about you. And you have your little waterfall."

The small little lake was confused. Stunned into silence, the small little lake could not say a single word.

"Oh, small little lake, I truly sorry. But I thought I can be contented with a small little lake, but you are just too far away. So far up in the mountains. I'm tired, tired of coming up here. You always say the same things."

The small little lake sobbed.

"I very sorry. I was happy with you once, but I realized that I doesn't really like the way your waterfall gush about. I doesn't really like your water. It is too cold, too still."

The small little lake made no reply.

"It is not that i do not like you. But it is so tiring to come everyday."

If small little lakes have hearts, small little lake's broke into a million pieces. Fragments so small, that the not so little girl never saw it broke.

Tearful, the small little lake asked, "I can change. Please."

"I'm sorry. But you are just a small little lake. You can never change yourself. In my heart, you will forever be just a small little lake. Go find yourself another little girl.", the not so little girl replied.

"But I truly love you.", the brokenhearted small little lake cried.

"I'm sorry.", the not so little girl left.

And that night, the small little lake cried. The moon was so sad, she was filled with regrets. The winds was sad, he was worried, small little lake no longer smile or frown when he passes. The sun was blind, he never notice that small little lake never beam. The mountain was asleep, he never knew what happened.

The small little lake was sad. But ever so slightly, he smiled for he remembered what the not so little girl had said, "We are still friends, I will come back someday to visit you."

The small little lake waited, and waited. Maybe he was impatient, for he was a young little lake. He pleaded with the winds to bring the not so little girl a message.

Seeing the small little lake so sad, the winds agreed.

The small little lake waited, and waited for the not so little girl's reply. It never came. The small little lake begged the moon to whisper to the not so little girl. The small little lake pleaded to the sleepy mountain to tremble the message to her.

Finally, a reply. "I was busy."

The small little lake was so happy. A reply at last. Carefully, he nurtured the fish, the plants and the flowers, waiting for the day the not so little girl would come and visit him.

He put in a lot of efforts, it was not easy for a small little lake to look after so many things. But he was contented.

But the not so little girl never came.

Small little lake was devastated. Maybe he should had waited. But as rash young lakes were, small little lake threw himself down the mountains and made his way to where the not so little girl had lived.

He wanted to invite the not so little girl to his small little lake. He hoped that the not so little girl could change her mind. He hope that the not so little girl had missed him.

The small little lake had his heart broken yet again. He was angry, angry that the not so little girl was not a bit sad, angry that the not so little girl had not thought of him at all. The not so little thrown him away, just like the many toys she had.

That was the first time, small little lake had knew anger, rage. It was horrible, for lakes were never meant to have waves. The not so little girl was hurt and cursed and sweared at the small little lake.

The small little lake was very sorry. But he was very very hurt. The small little lake left and returned to his mountains, the not so little girl's curses ringing, echoing forever within his fluid body.

The fish died, followed by the plants and finally the flowers too died, for the curses had spread far. The small little lake was very hurt.

The small little lake was so sad, he still loved the not so little girl, regardless of the hurt. Small little lakes were never meant to have waves. But still, small little lake was so very sad.

He pleaded to the mountains to open a hole, so that he can hide himself forever. But the mountains refused. The moon objected. The winds said he will missed the small little lake. And the sun doesn't understand why would the small little lake want to hide from him.

And so the small little lake remained at his mountains, where there is no fish, no plant, no flowers. The small little lake doesn't understand. But still, he remained in the mountains, hoping someday, the not so little girl would return.

But small little lake knew it can never be. He was just a toy. A toy who hoped that the not so little girl can remember him as a toy she had happy times with. And not a toy that had hurt her.

The small little lake only hoped that he was a good toy. For there is nothing more for him, just a lonely dull small little lake in the mountains where no man ever walks.

The small little lake is very sad.

Michael Jackson VS Mr Bean! :D

2009-11-08T07:38:00.001-08:00