A lot of the discussion about COVID’s impact on the labor market (“Great Resignation” or “Great Reshuffle”) misses the longer demographic trend. The growth rate of the U.S. population is the lowest it has been in over 120 years. We have been losing workforce for years relative to the total population due to increasing average […]
Over the course of a few years I spent a lot of time in a secure environment in a DoD facility to which I had to travel multiple times for a project. The environment, a maze of cubicles filled with computers, had been installed inside a historic building. For historic preservation reasons, the exterior windows […]
A lot of technology products claim to use “blockchain” and “AI”. This is generally bullshit but they are expected to use these terms like adjectives on ketchup bottles (“23% spicier! With AI!”) to keep up with their competitors. I was recently pitched a startup that claimed to be using AI in a market that is […]
The recent boom in machine learning has led to a lot of misuse of the term “artificial intelligence“. This term was invented in 1955 when computer scientists were first starting to grapple with machine representations of human cognition. For decades, it meant trying to understand and render into algorithms what only humans could do. This […]
I attended a private Seventh-day Adventist Elementary School for 3rd-6th grade (1980-1984). I learned many things there. This is an incomplete list: Attending church on Sunday instead of Saturday, the true and proper Sabbath, is akin to deliberately celebrating someone’s birthday on the wrong day. Those who do so will likely not go to Heaven. […]
This was the final week of the annual school supply drive, Tools 4 Seminole Schools, in which my Rotary club participates. Being involved in the effort gave me another opportunity to think about how public school funding works in Florida. As I understand it, Florida funds public schools through a mix of money allocated by […]
If you use macOS, I have a little script that you might find useful. I use this at least a couple times every workday. The Mac has great PDF workflow functionality. I will often be editing a document and want to send it out via email (or chat) to others who just need to review […]
Today I encountered a clerk becoming annoyed with the behavior of a customer. I shared with him a technique that I have long been using in similar situations. It helps me maintain a pleasant attitude. When someone does something inconsiderate and annoying (e.g., as often happens when driving), it is easy to assume that the […]
A few weeks ago I ran across a post by someone who claimed that he had improved his productivity by installing a CO2 monitor in his office and opening the window when the reading went over 1,000 ppm. There are measured decreases in cognitive function at 1,000 ppm and lower. This made me curious, so […]
Every time I read the phrase “meteoric rise”, I think about how it is a dumb metaphor because when we see meteors, they are falling towards the Earth. We should instead use “meteoric descent” as a metaphor for things that dramatically catch fire and plummet to Earth in a violent crash (e.g., Theranos). I wondered when it started […]