Chuqui 3.0

Recalling Yellowstone National Park's Historic 1988 Fire Season | National Parks Traveler

Recalling Yellowstone National Park's Historic 1988 Fire Season | National Parks Traveler:

No one realized it at the time, but when a lightning strike ignited a single tree in Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley 20 years ago, it was a dire harbinger of what would become a historic fire season in the park. The resulting fire, baptized the "Rose Fire" in honor of a nearby creek, went out on its own after flickering briefly in June. Though it burned just that one tree, the fire was ominous nonetheless. You could say that the 1988 fire season in Yellowstone was surprising in that it followed a spring that saw precipitation levels range 150-200 percent above normal. The problem, though, was that when May turned to June the precipitation abruptly left -- it was almost as if Mom Nature twisted the garden spigot closed -- leaving behind lush vegetation that quickly dried out and would soon serve as incredible kindling when the high, dry heat of summer in the Rocky Mountain West set in.

We visited Yellowstone a few years after the fires and were stunned by the damage. It's been on our list for a couple of years to get back, but life hasn't cooperated (yet). But what struck me reading this is that this explains -- almost exactly -- what's going on in California this year. Early wet winter, and then it stopped. And now the fires, which have been scary in their number and intensity. I remember watching the foothills around the bay area go golden, weeks earlier than usual, and thinking to myself "this is not good". Unfortunately, I was right. And it looks to me to be something that'll get worse before it gets better this year.

Two for Elbowing: Saying "Thanks" to Peter Magowan

Two for Elbowing: Saying "Thanks" to Peter Magowan:

We interrupt the hockey talk for a minute to thank Peter Magowan for everything he's done for the Bay Area Sports fan.

And for those that don't normally read it, over on Two for Elbowing, I say thanks to Peter Magowan, retiring from his position with the Giants, for all he's done over the years.

BERKELEY / Professor rips Caltrans over maze rebuild / He says work was too hasty and costly

BERKELEY / Professor rips Caltrans over maze rebuild / He says work was too hasty and costly:

But Astaneh said Caltrans should have taken the time to do the job right. Instead of simply repairing the fire-damaged portion of a concrete column, he said, all four support columns should have been torn down and rebuilt from scratch. And, said Astaneh, the work could have been done in 21 days for $1.5 million instead of the $5.9 million it cost, including bonuses for early completion, to get it done in 17 days.

and I wonder what four days of the traffic disruption and the economic cost of that disruption would be worth... Just looking at the cost of the repair exclusive of the costs of not having the repair in place is a biased analysis.

Microsoft Needs Immigrants, Facebook Doesn't

Microsoft Needs Immigrants, Facebook Doesn't - Silicon Alley Insider:

But not every tech company relies on immigrant labor. Google has just 416 H1-Bs -- 2.5% of its staff -- on board, and Facebook has just one. According to Clemson University's helpful database, he (we're guessing, here) makes $105,000. A sampling of tech companies and their H1-B rolls:

Microsoft (MSFT): 4,452 employees, 5.6% of workforce. Average salary: $87,261

Apple (AAPL): 149, .7%, $105,388

Facebook: 1, 0.2%, $105,000

There's a hidden problem with these numbers.

Apple, for instance, may only have 149 H1B's on staff, but it uses contracting houses like InfoSys extensively; there are likely at least 1,000-1,500 InfoSys people within Apple's IT world from InfoSys (or one of the other contracting houses Apple IT uses) -- and most, if not all, of those people are imports from India on visas of some sort.

On top of that, a lot of work is done through houses like InfoSys offshored to India and other places, even if it's not done by a facility owned by the company. There could easily be 4,000 Indian engineers involved with Apple projects today, none of which show up on Apple's ledgers because of this.

This isn't by any means a criticism -- the infoSys folks I worked with there were for the most part good, quality people (the occasional clinker didn't stick long), and the model Apple uses for outsourcing (unlike many companies) understands the concept of keeping institutional knowledge in the institution. but if you're talking about who's using visas, simply looking at how many visas a company has doesn't answer the question by any means, because there are companies built around dealing with visas and taking advantage of the laws and maximizing company flexibility around these issues.

The "No Laptop" Meeting Rule (by Jeremy Zawodny)

The "No Laptop" Meeting Rule (by Jeremy Zawodny):

I'm not about to call this a trend yet, but I've seen a few meetings at work in recent months that advertised and enforced a "no laptop" rule.

Part of me thinks that it's a great idea. There are meetings I've almost skipped or found fairly useless because a significant proportion of the people in the room were suffering from continuous partial attention and often seemed lost or constantly behind the curve.

There are a couple of problems here not being addressed. It's not the laptop, either.

There is the occasional person who tries to over-multitask; those people can be handled by quietly talking to them offline, or having their manager do so.

But I've seen two trends in meetings that cause people to multi-talk in them. If you're having these problems, perhaps it's not the person to be blamed, but the meeting:

problem 1: should the person be in that meeting at all? It seems everyone is scheduled for a full day's work (or more) -- and then find themselves in meetings while the amount of work isn't adjusted for being in all of those meetings. And do they really need to be there? The less a person is really involved in the meeting, the more likely they are to wander off and multi-task. This can very well be a symptom of "everyone in every meeting" mode. If their function in a meeting is secondary (at best), can you blame them for trying to keep busy? After all, the less they're contributing to a meeting and the less relevant the conversation is to them, the more likely it is they'll see the laptop as a better use of their time. And people are way too polite about saying "you don't need me there", and managers are way too willing to over-invite.

problem 2: even if a person needs to be there, do they need to be there the entire freaking meeeting? Are they sitting there for an hour (or two) so they can give a 10 minute update somewhere in the middle? So why blame them for trying to make the other 50 minutes (or more) useful to them? Good agendas, good time planning, and some thought can avoid most of this: If someone's giving an update, schedule it for, say, 10:15-10:30, and tell them they don't need to be there for the whole meeting. Let them come in, do their part, and leave again.

Reality: the larger the meeting, the more multi-tasking you'll see. Why? Not because multi-tasking or laptops are bad, but because more and more people are locked in a room not doing anything while the deadline monsters tick away back in their cube.

Instead of banning laptops, ban wasting people's time. Don't just invite folks to meetings. Invite the RIGHT folks, and the fewest number of people needed to actually conduct the business at hand. Don't invite folks "in case", get their thoughts ahead of time, or call them if something comes up and ask them to step in or offer comments over the phone. Once they realize this is saving them from being at a meeting they aren't finding useful, they'll love getting the occasional phone call.

My bottom line: if there's a focus problem in a meeting and people are using their laptops and not paying attention, it's not the laptop's fault. it's the meeting's fault. It's got the wrong people in it, too many people, or it's simply not useful enough for people to pay attention to what's going on. So fix the meeting.

One easy way to help solve this problem is for the meeting organizers to poll attendees afterwards and ask: is the meeting useful to you? do you need to be there? how can it be better?

But instead, too many meeting organizers are lazy: they invite everyone, they don't build a decent agenda (or any agenda), they don't schedule time, they don't keep the meeting moving forward or on focus, the don't drive discussions to resolutions, and they don't ask for suggestions on how to make things better. And then they wonder why people show their lack of interest in meetings by going onto the laptop...

Hint: it's not a laptop problem: if the right people are in the meeting (and only the right people), and the meeting is focussed and well-run, then multi-taking isn't a problem.

but banning laptops is easy, even though it does nothing about the underlying REAL problems.

Wal-Mart Gives The New Yorker (And Forbes, Fortune, BizWeek etc) The Boot

Wal-Mart Gives The New Yorker (And Forbes, Fortune, BizWeek etc) The Boot - Silicon Alley Insider:

Good luck getting your hands on Adam Gopnik's latest treatise next time you visit your local Wal-Mart (WMT). The world's biggest retailer is pulling Conde Nast's pub, and more than 1,000 other mags, off its shelves. Some of these are small fry mags you've never heard of, but there are some big mass market titles here as well - notably the big three business mags: Forbes, Fortune (TWX), BusinessWeek (MHP).

No official word from Wal-Mart about the reasoning behind the move, but we don't need one. Wal-Mart is ruthless about maximizing every inch of its floorspace, and it's clearly decided that it's only worth keeping a handful of magazine titles on its racks.

A delusional magazine industry type rationalizes to the NY Post's Keith Kelly that this could be good for the business, since it will reduce clutter and give the remaining magazines it sells more prominence. But make no mistake - this is a disaster for the magazine world, which depends on Wal-Mart for an estimated 20% of retail sales.

It is also a prelude to what's about to happen to the music business, as Wal-Mart and the other big box retailers start to hack away at the retail space they devote to music. And it may also happen to Hollywood, which depends on the big boxes for DVD sales.

And should anyone feel a twinge of sympathy here, forget it. All of these industries -- music, magazines, publishing -- helped kill off independent stores that fed them by falling happily in bed with the large chains in search of larger volumes and economies of scale. Barnes and Noble was an 800 pound gorilla, but industries didn't only tolerate it, they married it.

Now maybe they couldn't have saved the indies, but by becoming so dependent on the large chains, they lost the options a diverse set of vendors gave them. And then their big vendor loses interest and chops back -- and now what? When two or three companies are such a large part of your revenue stream they can call the shots for you, you're only one board meeting away from disaster, and you aren't invited to the board meeting. Ask any divorced woman who never considered he'd leave for a trophy wife until after it happened...

Susie Bright has a good perspective of this from a personal view, of what the book industry being so tightly coupled to the big chains has done to the short fiction market. Combine that in SF with the devasting shrinkage in readership among the magazines and you realize short fiction isn't even really a niche industry any more, it's basically a hobby for novel writers (or amateurs). Sad, really.

And the companies being whacked now by the companies heading off for some new financial trophy wife should have not only seen it coming, they should have been able to predict the date years ago. And maybe they did, and knew there was nothing they could do about it... But in any event -- they were full partners in their own divorce here. It's hard for me to feel bad about it on an industry level, even as it potentially screws over a number of people I know fighting to make those industries work.

(hat tips: Andreessen, Ariel)

Nine state parks in Bay Area picked for closure

Nine state parks in Bay Area picked for closure:

Nine state parks in the Bay Area - including one that is the largest in Northern California - would be closed under the budget proposed today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The parks, which would not close until the governor and Legislature agree on a spending plan sometime later this year, would be off-limits until the state's financial situation improves, officials said.

Money will be spent for patrols to keep people out of the closed parks, officials said.

Statewide, the governor has proposed closing 48 sites.

Two of the parks chosen for closure here in the bay area have implications to groups I'm involved in: Henry Coe is a significant birding environment, and Fremont Peak is the big dark sky location for amateur astronomers. Would closing Fremont Peak cut access to Observatory?

And the cost savings for closing all of this is about 1/10th of 1% of the deficit, and visitation to the parks scheduled for closure had about 6.5 million visitors last year.

This is going to cause a big fight and fuss. Of course, it already is... And as one of my friend's who's been involved in politics over the years points out, whenever this kind of financial problem shows up, governmental agencies will always choose to cut the stuff that people care about -- because then they scream and whine and you get the money back. There's no advantage to the AGENCY to make cuts on internal functions people don't notice or see. That's why when the DMV cuts budget, it's the clerks that renew your license, becuase those longer lines will help restore their budget. It's never middle management or non-public-facing projects...

A thing to remember as the complaints over these cuts fire up. Unfortunately, there's no good oversight for forcing the government to cut the least important stuff. They know if it hurts enough, the public will let them find the money...

January 31st: Don't Miss the Whiskey Tasting for Charity Benefit!

January 31st: Don't Miss the Whiskey Tasting for Charity Benefit! | Whiskey Bros:

Whiskey Bros. is pleased to announce our sponsorship of the Coastside Adult Day Health Center's (http://www.coastsideadultdayhealth.org) annual Texas Hold'em Tournament. We will be hosting a whiskey tasting event to benefit the CADHC, who will be using proceeds from this event to continue their work providing care for seniors.

Poker and whiskey -- does the world need anything else?

A friend of mine has founded Whiskey Bros., and this is his first fund-raiser he's gotten involved in. If you're able to be near Half Moon Bay, you can benefit a good cause while drinking some amazing whiskeys.

The worst product in the world

Church of the Customer Blog:

Its reason for being is simple: When citizens don't immediately cooperate or follow instructions, police officers or people in authority positions simply shock them into submission with a searing jolt of electricity.

You have to be careful about defining products by the way they can get abused, and using excessive hyperbole.

Yes, tasers get abused at times. But if a cop doesn't have a taser, he's more likely to pull out his gun. A copy with a gun out of a holster is a lot more likely to end up using it. Which do you think is the lesser evil? Getting tasered or shot?

Or if a gun isn't pulled, the cop's only real option is to close with the person and physically restrain them. Perhaps using his hands, perhaps using a baton. Many times, the person is restrained by multiple cops instead of a single cop with a taser. Not a small issue here, when a cop closes with a hostile person, that cop is putting their own safety at much higher risk, too.

Yes, taser abuse is bad -- but it's not the taser that's the problem here, it's the cop choosing to use the taser inappropriately. Remember Rodney King? That was before tasers; they just beat the crap out of him. Same problem, different technologies, same response; a taser, in fact, would likely do a lot less serious damage to a person than getting the crap beaten out of him by four pissed off cops with an attitude. And if it keeps that cop from deciding he needs to pull out the service revolver, then that's a blessing; tasers aren't fatal except in really extreme cases.

And abusive cops are abusive, with or without tasers. This is a classic case of not blaming the tool for the larger problem, which are those occasional people in a position of authority who abuse it. Or in some cases, a cop who feels their own personal safety is at risk -- and maybe makes a bad judgement call. Those are the real problems here.

Your Creation Museum Report

Your Creation Museum Report:

The guy who built the temple, satisfied that it truly represents his beloved load of horseshit in the best possible light, then opens the temple to the public, to attract not only the already-established horseshit enthusiasts, but possibly to entice new people to come and gaze on the horseshit, and to, well, who knows, admire its moundyness, or the way it piles just so, to nod in appreciation of the rationalizations for its excellence or to clap in delight and take pictures when an escaping swell of methane causes the load of horseshit to sigh a moist and pungent sigh.

When all of this is done, the fellow turns to you and asks you what you think of it all now, now that this gorgeous edifice has been raised in glory and the masses cluster in celebration.

And you say, “Well, that’s all very nice. But it’s still just an enormous load of horseshit.”

And this is, in sum, the Creation Museum. $27 million has purchased the very best monument to an enormous load of horseshit that you could possibly ever hope to see. I enjoyed my visit, admired the craft with which the whole thing was put together, and was never once convinced that what I was seeing celebrated was anything more or less than horseshit. Popular horseshit? Undoubtedly. Horseshit hallowed by tradition and consecrated by time? Just so. Horseshit of the finest possible quality? I would not argue the point. And yet, even so: Horseshit. Complete horseshit. Utter horseshit. Total horseshit. Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit, horseshit. I pity the people who swallow it whole.

Man, I've really come to enjoy John Scalzi's writings, even when he's just riffing on his blog.

If you haven't read him yet, then you won't go wrong starting with Old Man's War. More when I have a chance to catch up on book reviews...