Category: Thinking (Page 6 of 13)

Who Isn’t Contributing

July 19, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

Given: It’s not working hard or being smart that allows you to build a business and create jobs. When I say “create jobs”, what I’m really saying is “create taxpayers who fund government programs that allow roads and bridges to be built/maintained and pay teachers”. What actually allowed you to build that business was your access to education (great teachers), roads, and bridges. Fair enough…let’s run with that.

Logical Conclusion: Since everyone in this country has equal access to public education, roads, and bridges, we should penalize (tax) people who don’t create jobs (taxpayers). Since they aren’t fully utilizing the resources government has provided to them by creating more taxpayers or at least paying in themselves, they aren’t doing their fair share for society.

I guess you could say that not everyone had great teachers, and that’s not their fault. So should we further penalize those not-great teachers for denying these people their opportunities to get out on the roads and bridges and make something happen for the rest of us?

I’m not sure I like the logical end to this argument.

July 17, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

What if, when the zombies do come, they attack and eat robots instead of people? That way, all of the robots that have cost people their jobs will be either eaten by zombies or too busy fighting the zombies to produce anything, freeing up those positions for people to go back to work doing robot tasks?

Robots will still be helping us, because they’ll be keeping the zombies in check.

Not any more outlandish than any of the other zombie scenarios you can come up with.

HT Instapundit.

Idea To Make Some Quick Cash

July 16, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

Lots of people have ditched cable and satellite in the last few years and are using Netflix/Hulu/Amazon to meet their home entertainment needs.

But that won’t cut it for the Olympics.

If he took a notion to, a man could make a quick buck or two installing directional antennas on the roofs of these people for $50-$75 a pop. A man who knows what he’s doing could easily use the web to find the right antenna for each address, buy them off the web with free two-day shipping, then climb up on the roof and point it in the right direction pretty quickly.

Some Things That Aren’t The Same

June 26, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

People seem to get a lot of things that are similar confused and are unable to differentiate between them. I’ve noticed what ends up happening is that there’s a lot of confusion, faulty political identification, and grammar errors as a result. In no particular order, here are some things I’m aware of that aren’t the same:

congruent and equal
there, their, and they’re
momentum and force
libertarianism and objectivism
your and you’re (I won’t even bother to include “ur”)
profit and profit margin
country and western
learning and taking a course
VAT and Fair Tax
Java and Javascript
rugby and Aussie Rules Football
Hitler and anybody else you can think of
rich and wealthy
deduction and rebate
parenting and having kids
revenue and income
needs and wants
scotch and bourbon
it’s and its
solutions and fixes

Feel free to add your own or correct any I’ve listed here in the comments.

June 5, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

Disney reported they are banning junk food ads on all programming directed at children, but…

All junk food marketing within theme parks will remain at the eye-level of a 4 year old.

<3 capitalism.

Why Some Twitter Threats Can’t Be Taken Seriously

April 24, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

Lots of the threats documented here seem to come from people who think when a defendant makes bail means a case is closed. I’d bet the majority of these folks fall into one of the following categories.

They’ve never been charged in the criminal justice system. If they had, they’d have a lot better understanding of how it works. So they probably aren’t the “violent criminal” type, despite what they try to portray themselves as on Twitter. Eazy E said it best, “I never met an OG who never did shit wrong”.
They were too lazy to get a free education when it was placed in front of them on a silver platter. If you’re too lazy to do that, you’re probably too lazy to get off the computer long enough to engage in any sort of physical altercation with someone. This is in line with my theory that you are perfectly safe running in the dark in the early mornings, when criminals who are too lazy to work for a living probably aren’t awake.

Carry on.

In The Best Shape Of My Life (Again)

April 18, 2012 / Scott / 3 Comments

I’m thinking that on May 20th, barring any unforeseen injuries or mishaps, I’m going to start the Ironman 70.3 race in Haines City in the best shape of my life. At least, it will be a new version of “best shape of my life”.

Being in shape is a very relative thing.

I’ve been (much) stronger than I am now in the weight room.

I’ve been able to run faster at every distance from 100 meters to marathon at one point or another than I can now.

I’ve probably been able to do a 40k time trial on the bike faster than I can now.

I’ve definitely been able to get knocked down and get back up faster and more times…rugby has a fitness nothing else can emulate.

As far as triathlon goes, I’ve probably been in better “sprint” shape than I am right now too. My best 5k fitness level probably correlates with that.

But I’m definitely approaching a new level of fitness for triathlon distances Oly and up. Not that I’m anywhere close to fit enough for 140.6 right now…I know my place in the hierarchy. But it doesn’t seem like an insane distance now. Definitely seems matter-of-fact-doable.

May 21st, or maybe a day or two after that, I’m going to have some thinking to do. I’ll worry about it then, but it seems like a shame to miss the opportunity to start at this point and build into something bigger.

March 5, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

How can you hate the free market on a Wednesday when it is the very existence of the free market that allows you to successfully pressure for-profit entities to remove their advertising dollars from someone who says something you don’t like on Thursday?

This isn’t commentary on what was said, who said it, or whether it was right or wrong.

But doesn’t this prove (yet again) that free markets are a good thing.

What’s Missing From Every Help Desk App

March 5, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

If I were designing a Help Desk application from the ground up, there’s one feature I’d put front and center: Requester Competency Rating.

Every time help desk personnel handle a call or request, they should be able to rate the technical competency of the person on the other end of the phone. Right now, the default position for every support call is that the person asking for assistance is a pre-schooler, and you build up from there.

Case in point: a month and a half ago I registered a request for help with a vendor. I’d already spent a couple of weeks identifying a problem and eliminating as many possible causes as I could think of, documenting every step with data and including this information in my request. I was finally granted my request for a remote session today, where the person helping me spent over an hour performing the exact steps I’d already performed and included in my request.

The problem is that I have logged several requests with this vendor in the past, and each request has been in regards to an actual problem with their system that I’d identified and isolated. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a system that can flag any new requests I make in the future? Shouldn’t the default position be “incoming request from a guy who it’s safe to assume has already read our manual, read the community support forums, and still has a problem”?

Help desk people who deal with internal users (behind the firewall) probably develop a pretty good idea of who has technical skills and who doesn’t already, but there should be an easy way for them to share this information among themselves and for any new people who join the support team. Every time the phone rings or a ticket is submitted, the person who will be handling the request would have a huge leg up if they already knew what kind of user they are going to be dealing with.

And that’s not meant as an insult to non-technical users either. They need (and deserve) to have their hands held a little more than a tech savvy user, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that. It just doesn’t make sense to waste the time of someone who has already done half of the help desks work by isolating the issue for them. Why not leverage them to help provide better service to everyone?

What I’d Do To Make Triathlon Participation Explode

February 8, 2012 / Scott / 2 Comments

There aren’t that many high profile professional triathletes, and I don’t think there necessarily need to be. But I have a few ideas that could really make amateur triathlon participation grow by leaps and bounds. I think what is needed is the introduction of a team concept, and maybe some rule tweaking.

I think triathlon clubs membership would grow tremendously if there was a really compelling reason to belong to a club. I mean, I like to train alone because I have to race alone. So outside of some seminars here and there, what does a tri club really have to offer me? Training programs? I can find those for free or buy them online. I think I can get more for my money by joining a masters swim group and take a coaching beat down there a couple of times a weak.

But if the idea of triathlon “Club” was changed to triathlon “Team”, things would be different.

What if every race had a Team division, and it awarded points not just for the top 3 overall times a team turned in, but within age groups. For example, a race could award 10 points to the team with the top overall men and women finishers, 8 points for second, and 6 points for third. But beyond that, why not award 5, 3, and 1 points respectively for the top three age-groupers in each division? This would push clubs/teams to invest into the performance of members on race day.

It would also encourage clubs to go out and pursue age groupers and keep them in top shape to earn points for the Club throughout the season.

Everybody wins

Age groupers could really benefit from this type of setup. By paying to be a member of a club, they’d actually get something very tangible in return for their money. First of all, they get to be on a team. Not every age grouper is going to race every weekend, so there’d be chances for multiple folks to represent their club within a division over the course of a season. Secondly, the age groupers could gain a lot of tips from the “Overall” members of their club–that means training and racing tips along with what will most likely be a higher level of passion and intensity that will be contagious.

What about the “Overall” team members? Well, aren’t most of those types doing stuff like coaching and personal training on the side? The top level members of a club could actually be paid by the other club members’ dues to coach and pass along their knowledge. Worst case–they can use the club as a way to introduce themselves to potential clients. Even if there was no money involved, I can imagine some people would be happy to be one of the top dogs in a club for nothing more than a complete or partial reimbursement of race fees by the club if they place in the overall division.

Pros win too. First of all, they’d be in high demand by the more elite teams. Imagine a team made up of a few guys with some real jack…they just want to win. So the pro would not only get money from their sponsors, but also by team members and sponsors to wear their jersey.

Rule Changes

How cool would it be if you were able to draft teammates in a race? Safety seems to be the biggest and most logical reason drafting isn’t allowed, but if it were limited to teammates, that wouldn’t matter as much. I mean, you are going to be much more careful to not cause a problem for a teammate, right? And penalties for drafting non-teammates could actually be increased at the same time to further encourage safety.

This may be a long shot to happen, and I realize that.

Series Instead of Single Races

There are some race series already out there, and they make up their own sort of mini-seasons. But what if there were State-level organizations that awarded championships? Clubs could simply pay yearly dues to participate. It wouldn’t even matter that there were multiple races in a state on a single weekend. Points available at each race could simply be determined by the number of finishers at each race. A small club could strategically rack up points on a big tri weekend by sending key age-groupers to multiple smaller races.

This isn’t all that different from what WTC does for rankings and qualifications, so why can’t it be done on a bigger scale? And why can’t it be across organizations?

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Newt or Mitt? So Many Missed Opportunities

January 30, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

There are a few things they could have done to help themselves gain votes with Floridians:

Campaigning here in August instead of January. Florida in January is a no-brainer. Who really wants it?
Participating in a spelling bee with only Spanish words.
Having a first name that isn’t a four-letter word.
Having a first name that sounds like a name instead of an inanimate object.
~~Lobbying~~ consulting with the National Hurricane Center to have the next devastating storm named after the other.
Attending a Marlins afternoon game. That would have almost doubled attendance.
Make a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives like the one below. It never gets old.

Florida Political Cage Match

January 23, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

If Mitt Romney had been thinking ahead, he could have put an ace in his pocket that he may just need. In rasslin’ terms, this would have been the proverbial foreign object or loaded boot. It may even be sneaky enough to be called an eye gouge.

Think about it–the guy’s been running for President pretty much continuously for the last 4 years. How shrewd would it have been to donate loads and loads of money to charities and err on the side of over-paying taxes for all of those years? Then, when his wealth/success became an issue and he was asked to release his tax information, he could reluctantly agree to release four years’ worth at just the right moment, showing just how generous and over-taxed he is.

And the obvious question to opponents would be, “how much have you given to charity and paid in taxes over the last four years?”

He’s spending money like mad anyway, and it doesn’t seem to be working. He probably could have donated his way out of his image as a one-percenter at a discount.

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Enjoying the Silence Once Again

January 19, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

I’m happy to say that Michael Silence is blogging once again.

For some of us who were (and still are) ~~D-list~~ Z-list bloggers, one of the first major milestones of our endeavors online was getting linked to by Michael. I’ve always appreciated the fact that he was out there bringing attention to the stuff us weeds growing among the tall trees of the internet had to offer to the blogosphere, specifically in East Tennessee. As if that isn’t enough, he’s a guy they bigger guys actually pay attention to. For example, I’ve received exactly two Instalanches in my blogging ~~career~~ ~~exploits~~ ~~efforts~~ time served, and they both came about because he was the first to bring attention to the posts.

Back a few years ago, there were several blogs in Tennessee aggregating smaller voices, and it fostered some great discussion. Slowly but surely, and with no small amount of drama, these all disappeared. The one thing that was different about Michael’s blog was that it was consistent, unbiased, and completely void of public drama.

Glad to have you back!!!

On Missed Swim Sessions

January 19, 2012 / Scott / 0 Comments

I know the general rule for missed short workouts is to just move on without worrying about picking them up. I usually follow this to a fault.

I’m rethinking this a little right now though, at least for the swim. I usually don’t place a huge amount of importance on the swim anyway…those are definitely workouts I don’t stress about missing since it’s the shortest leg of the race by far. This time around though, I’d planned on concentrating more on the swim for no other reason that it provides low-impact time training. I’m thinking of them as heart workouts as much as they are swim workouts.

But due to my inability to buy tickets for weekend youth hockey games in advance, I’m one week into a training plan with no access to a pool.

Long story.

What I’ve been doing instead is jumping on the spin bike and knocking out very light and short rides in place of the swims. My logic here is based on three ideas:

Swim workouts are short periods at low heart rate, so I can ride the bike for 20-30 minutes at this low work rate without burning myself up and still get the heart benefits I’d have gotten from swimming, even if I’m not getting the swim technique benefits.
The spin bike is available to me 24/7 and I don’t have to drive to it. It’s no problem to get on it at 2 am for 30 minutes if I have to.
I’ve never (Ever!, EVER!!!) reviewed my performance in a race and concluded I spent too much time on the bike in training. Ever.

I still plan on abandoning scheduled short rides I miss, and definitely short runs. Missed runs are usually the result of being so whooped and beat up that I legitimately need the rest.

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Gettin’ After It!