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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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$107 Billion and Counting
terrywfrazier@gmail.com
The Threat Level Is Severe
27% of US Coffee Comes Through New Orleans
You Should be Reading Negrophile
On Jeopardy: What Is A Democrat?
Open Source Emergency Infrastructure
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Learning From Our Mistakes
Ex-Microsoft project manager Scott Berkun has written a very good article on how to learn from your mistakes. The article was written in July, well before the Katrina disaster, but is even more pertinent now:[...] An illustrative example comes from the book Inviting disasters Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the edge of technology. It tells the story of a floating dormitory for oil workers in the North Sea that rolled over during the night killing over 100 people. The engineering experts quickly constructed different theories and complex explanations that focused on operational errors and management decisions.Found via Denham Grey.All of these theories were wrong. It was eventually discovered through careful analysis that weeks earlier a crack in a support structure had been painted over, instead of being reported and repaired. This stupid, simple and small mistake caused the superstructure to fail, sinking the dormitory. Without careful analysis the wrong conclusion would have been reached (e.g. smacking the Atari) and the wrong lesson would have been learned.
Until you work backwards for moments, hours or days before the actual mistake event, you probably wont see all of the contributing factors and cant learn all of the possible lessons. The more complex the mistake, the further back youll need to go and the more careful and open-minded you need to be in your own investigation. You may even need to bring in an objective outsider to help sort things out. Youd never have a suspect in a crime lead the investigation, right? Then how can you completely trust yourself to investigate your own mistakes? [...]
Terry Frazier at 10:37 PM
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$107 Billion and Counting
According to the 2005 Dept. of Homeland Security Budget in Brief, the total expenditures for 2003-2005 exceed $107 billion. Let me repeat that:$107 billion
This does not include the special appropriations made for Katrina. It is just the operating funds for the largest bureaucracy in American history. If we were to demand that the governemnt calculate a Return on Investment (ROI), which is how most businesses determine if something is worth doing, I suspect we would be able to identify precisely one piece of tangible evidence for this massive expenditure - the Disney-like Homeland Security Advisory System.
But we do see enormous burdens on travelers, citizens, airlines, and airports, as well as enormous profit opportunities for bureaucrats, technology companies, and people with hare-brained ideas to sell to the government.
It is amazing what we have come to accept from our elected representatives.
Terry Frazier at 7:48 PM
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terrywfrazier@gmail.com
I have added a gmail and google talk account to my ever-growing list internet communications addresses (I think it's up to a dozen now.) The number of comm points is getting silly. Thank goodness for Trillian, the all-in-one chat client for Windoze. Otherwise managing all these things would be even more difficult than it is.I've had a jabber account for a year or so, terrywfrazier@jabber.org, but the public Jabber network has never achieved the reach or stability that the bigger services like AIM and Y! have. I hope google talk will bring both. We'll see.
Terry Frazier at 8:22 PM
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Friday, September 9, 2005
The Threat Level Is Severe
After four years, 3.7 million man/hours spent "thinking about bungling every day", and $62 billion dollars the Citizens Panel on Government Prevention has released its long-awaited Government Bungling Alert System. The current threat level is Severe.
Terry Frazier at 10:46 PM
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27% of US Coffee Comes Through New Orleans
Just a tidbit from my local coffee roaster who is having trouble getting beans since Katrina. As all our coffee is imported, we don't have any unless it comes through one of the sea ports. And pretty much all the coffee for the southeastern US came through NOLA.You Should be Reading Negrophile
George Kelly is an outstanding resource for pertinent news clips any time, but especially during this time. His approach is subtle, his style sincere. He won two Black Weblog Awards for 2005. He just does an all-round good job at making me think.
Really calls for reflection that is deeper than mere recrimination.
[...] Perhaps the closest historical parallel is the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. In 1927, hundreds of thousands of Americans in six states were made homeless when the rain-saturated river broke its levees at 145 places. My father was born...
On Jeopardy: What Is A Democrat?
More bad news for those lovingly adding to the cloud of vitriol and screed over the Katrina disaster and corresponding response/relief effort. According to a recent issue of Trends Magazine, the views of American youth on college campuses continues to move toward conservative postures:
- As recently as 1995, surveys found that 66 percent of freshmen wanted the wealthy to pay higher taxes. Today, only 50 percent do.
- Today, just 17 percent of students value taking part in environmental programs, half the number in 1992, according to the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.
- In the early 1990s, two-thirds of students supported the right of women to have an abortion. The figure today is just over half.
- Some 88 percent of male high school seniors, and 93 percent of females, thought it was extremely important to have a “good marriage and family life,” according to a survey done in 2001.
- College students have moved to the right along with the overall population, with 31 percent identifying themselves as Republicans, 27 percent as Democrats, and the rest unaffiliated, according to a 2003 study by the Harvard Institute of Politics.
- In a mock election run by Channel One, which broadcasts in public schools, 1.4 million high school students reelected George W. Bush in a landslide, with 55 percent of the popular vote and 393 electoral votes — a greater victory than the 51 percent of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes that he actually won.
- Just six years ago, there were only 400 College Republican organizations nationwide. Today, there are 1,148, with a membership of more than 120,000.
The magazine goes on to project what this means:
- First, in the short term, the pendulum will continue to swing to the right.
- Second, organizations like SAF (Students for Academic Freedom) will continue to grow and exert stronger influence, not only on the student body but also on college faculties and administrations whose [liberal] positions will become increasingly untenable.
- Third, as the "old guard" at these universities retires or dies off, newer professors will come to occupy those chairs, and they will be drawn from the very student bodies that are now protesting the oppressive intellectual climate they’ve had to endure. Within the next decade, we will start to see a major change toward openness to alternative [nee conservative] views in academia.
This does not bode well for a party whose mainstream relevance has already been in decline for two decades.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Open Source Emergency Infrastructure
This is a thoughful exercise, a prototype for what could be. Now the scenario planners among us need to figure out how this can be scaled, staffed, funded, and made permanent outside the foibles of government and bureaucracy. That innovative individuals have built this ad hoc solution is admirable, but it can't reach enough, fast enough, to make a significant difference. Who will take it from here so that the next disaster won't be starting over?Skype virtual call centre opens web to Katrina refugees
I've been taking turns manning the virtual call centre we have set up using Skype linked to KatrinaHelp, to help cover 24 hours of the day. I am beginning to understand what it feels like to be a call-centre operator :).
What amazes me though, is that I can volunteer my time, sitting in my living room at home in Mumbai India, and be of use to help those seeking information about their loved ones who are missing on that other side of the world. This morning, I was on a shift for a couple of hours, and I received about 8 calls on our Skypein number, and made a few on SkypeOut. It was really rewarding to be able to point the callers to resources and hook them up with those offering help. And they were so grateful someone was listening to them, and that they did not have to figure out how to navigate pages on websites and wikis.
Imagine how it would be to have a virtual Skype phone bank. One that is not just virtual, but ad hoc. Just-in-time emergent support. Always on when we have a bank of volunteers from all over the world, and at all hours. Our way of reaching out and helping those in distress.
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