How to Succeed In a Career

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly I
can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it.
- Theodore Roosevelt (1859-1919)

Mountain Locator Beacons - why not everywhere and for anything else too?

Mountain Locator Beacons are devices that can be taken by climbers to locate them - when manually activated - using radio triangulation so rescuers can go directly to them. Same function as an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) installed on all commercially aircraft.

With the high profile rescues in the news over the past three months on Mount Hood it has been noticed by a few in the Oregon Legislature and they want to legislate - mandate - that all people climbing above the 6,000 (10,000?)  foot level be required to take one of these along during their hike.

 Why  legislate just the mountain  climbers . Make it so that anytime anyone goes onto any park that is greater than 50 acres all MUST carry beacons? How many times have hikers gotten lost at Multnomah Falls? Lost picking mushrooms? Kids wandering away from their parents at a park?

Why not make it mandatory that all people with dementia must wear one at all times  which can be remotely activated by others? How many rescues do we have for these people? (Two in the last month I believe.)

Why not make it mandatory that anyone that goes onto any land larger than 50 acres that is regulated by the government (which would then include all the private forest land people hunt and look for mushrooms on) be included?

People could rent them for $10 a day (thus only 40 to 80 per outing it would cost a family) and we would get full employment by having to hire people to man the gates at any road where people could get onto the land.

Once done with this bit of safety enhancement we could then start on the rivers and oceans and mandate life vests be worn anytime someone gets within 20 feet of one. I could just see all the joggers wearing life  vests along the Willamette since they could fall into the river and drown and wearing life vests would save them as they job along Tom McCall waterfront park or the left bank esplanade. . Don't forget - making all drivers wear them also since they are crossing a river they could drive into it - that too has happened along airport way. 
There already is a law (not enforced) that requires people who do not have a locator to pay for the costs of their rescue. Oregon could require all drivers to carry one in their car as well as on them when on any State Road / and  (and all private roads) more than 5 miles from an Interstate. This would boost state income by some $200 million a year a people would have to rent them (or allow them to buy them but only from the State). 3 million people, 5 times a year, plus 100 million car trips it could reach a billion dollars a year extra income - and they can send all that money to schools.

It could have saved the Kim Family when they cut through an un-maintained road summer only shortcut during the winter.

Yea, put it down as a way to protect children from their foolish parents and it can easily pass.

 

 

Media "indroneation" effects over time

Both the left (liberal, communist, socialist --> hot button words) and the right (Conservatives, money hungry, Capitalists (note big C) Military-Industrial, International Corporate, stateless exploiters --> hot button words) say the media is biased against them. Pick a paper like the New York Times or the Washington Post and the Republican party members say that these papers are blatantly against them.

The Democratic members say the same thing - just about different papers.

However BOTH are right. The leaning of a paper toward one direction or another has always been there - but often more open in the editorial pages AND the rest. 

The current trend is that most people do not read editorials - but the news thinking that it is "un-biased." Which is -- and HAS - always been false. By the time you read anything there has been at LEAST 4 layers of filtering by PEOPLE on the article.

How a paper biases people is a LONG TERM project. The adjectives that a writer will slip into stories are very subtle. Words ARE powerful when used slowly over a long period of time. And when read over and over during these many years of reading it definitely influences people. I

f people start reading newspapers early on by the time they start to vote and pay attention in earnest - often around 34 years of age - they have been conditioned and have learned to believe rather than think.

People living around Washington D.C. have grown up reading the Washington Post and thus have been biased over the course of growing up to think in a certain pattern toward different parties. And since a LOT of them end up working for a government the hidden "indroneation " does affect how they work, write, and talk about the different parties.

That is why when you see any totalitarian government the first thing they do after seizing power is to yank all the kids from parental control and send them to school to be taught what they want them to believe. Chancellor Hitler, Chairman Stalin, Chairman Mao, President Castro ALL did this. Once through a generation then those are now in charge and believe what is told to them regardless of what they see.

When people are in school the GOVERNMENT is what sets the teaching criteria. No matter what local people may have wanted it has been the STATE or FEDERAL level of US government that really sets the tone of what is taught. The local people may think they have control but all they control is the amount of time the kid is to be in school and start / stop times of classes (and often not even that). The exact how and what is taught is controlled by the State. I may  look "transparent" but is really controlled by people who are in the system who were taught by the system.

If you look most often they will hold public hearings but will do whatever they want anyway. The public hearings to really more for show since NOTHING is binding concerning the testimony given. It is often "Yes we heard you, but we are going to do it this way anyway since we know better than you since. And in the background is the fact "you cannot do anything about it -- WE have the power not you."

The last 30 years this has occurred more and more as the State takes over control by granting itself rights under the guise of "its good for the children" in most everything.

So as you go read your newspaper of choice look for those subtle adjectives that precede nouns and see how writers superficially are writing about facts but are in reality influencing you as you read.

 

 

School Teaching - Which is it?

Listening to Thom Hartman's interview with Ralph Nader on February 13, 2007 on KPOJ in Portland this AM I caught only a few minutes of it before the interview ended but it was an interesting observation that Ralph Nader's DAD made way back when.

After a day at school Ralph came home and asked him the routine question of what did you learn in school.

The follow-up from his dad is more to the point

 

"Did you learn to believe or did you learn to think?" 

 

School systems (and it is a system) are more into teaching BELIEFS and rote learning and NOT thinking. Few teachers remain in schools when the system is geared for political correctness and indoctrination of students and not teaching them how to solve - think - problems out.

Add in the need to teach to the tests - since they get money based on scores - so anything that takes away time from the students from getting a good score on tests is NOT important.

 

If teachers are rated on how well their prior year students do on tests then it is only natural you TEACH the test so you can retain your job and get bonuses.

 

I know of no profession when they would go into an low achieving school and try and teach an all around education when their whole career is based on how well a student does on a standardized test so they MUST teach only the test to retain their job.

 

President's Bush idea of grading teachers and performance pay is fatally flawed in this respect. As are most performance plans - people will then only do work that helps them meet that goal and forget anything else.

 

Look to corporate bonus plans and see how successful those are. A company losses 150 million dollars and the CEO gets 30 million for meeting the goal of raising the stock 5 dollars. He worked to raise the stock since that HELPS him - and the company loosing 150 is not important to HIS goal. And if he fails and gets kicked out - he walks away with 20 million. Regardless, the company is out of 170 or 180 million since HIS performance is NOT tied to the overall health of the company.

 

Teachers would behave like a CEO - if the overall education of the kid suffers that is NOT their problem - they taught the TEST to them so they can get a good grade.

Doing the DRM Dance

DRM - Digital Rights Management - is nothing more than a way to ensure that people must buy the same electronic audio & visual products over and over again as technology - the equipment - changes over the life of a copyrighted material. Items can now remain under copyright protection in the USA (and worldwide via the treaty) from a minimum of 70 years to and effective average of 130 years for an individual. Companies can own it from 75 to 105 years.

 

Lets play their game - through Congress - to ensure that their "products" abide by the same rules that they put onto people.

 

1. All DRM enabled products must be fully supported by the copyright holder until the copyright runs out on the item.
a) authentication schemes, registration databases, methods of authentication used at time of initial disbursement must remain available though all  methods ever employed - including phone, e-mail, automatic (Internet), and other registration methods
b) Any company that fails to support past methods of DRM looses copyright to said material and item #2 is then invoked.
2. All DRM enabled products at the end of copyright period must be exchanged for a non-DRM item at that time by the copyright holder without any embedded advertisements, DRM, on the media choice of the returnee.
3. The manufacturer of DRM enabled products must support all the equipment till the end of copyright that it designed to be played on if it is specific to a technology which is required for it to play or operate on (be it players, computers, mechanical items).
4. Products advertised on DRM media (think of the ads on DVDs) must be sold at the price advertised on the original media until the copyright expires.
5. Companies that create DRM and subsequently go out of business without transferring rights to another company relinquishes all copyright protections immediately
6. Companies buying out other companies inherit all DRM obligations of the purchased company

 

How would big media companies like a liability trail of 100 years to support DRM of a corporate item? An individual can go LIFE of the individual PLUS 70 years - so if they distribute something it could be 150 years of maintaining DRM for one item!

 

If we could get everyone to write Congress who owns ANYTHING with a DRM embedded to pass a law that guarantees that any product MUST be supported by those same people until the copyright expires and must exchange them with NON DRM version - there would NOT be any DRM around.

What's In A Name? - Marketing Mis-Conceptions by City Mayor Bloomberg

And Many other mayors.
There is a web site out there called Mayorsagainstillegalguns.
Think about that.
Only now have they signed up and started a campaign against illegal guns - what were they before that? Were for illegal guns?
Not really, they have created a name that appeals to the masses - a sound bite name - when the real intention is to ban all guns from everyone.
A Criminal using a gun? It is ALREADY illegal. They are not supposed to have them! You are not supposed to use a gun for criminal purposes.
How do they get them - they buy them from people who don't care that it is illegal to sell guns to them. They NEVER  buy them from gun dealers, these people check to ensure that people buying them are able to own them doing online or phone background checks (AND it costs anywhere from $15 to $50 a purchase to do so! And the BUYER has to pay for that.)
The vast majority of people are NOT criminals. Most people quickly realize when young that in order for them to survive they have to be good to others - and others will be good to them and let them survive too. A balance of power of mutual interest to live.
What happens is that some people decide that they are NOT going to let the others live - and they will therefore break the "rules" of society using any means necessary to take from others that they do not want to work to get. That is what a criminal is. Laws are merely FORMAL written methods to communicate this to all what the rules of that society is when it comes to allows everyone to live as best as they can.
Mayor Bloomberg is trying to disarm everyone so that people who decide to break the rules against other people do not have an "advantage." This, however, does not solve the problem of that person wanting to break the rules - it just makes forces them to go back to physical strength, and mechanical means to threaten people. The mechanical means they have to get closer than three feet. But then, most robbers who use guns are within three feet of the people they are robbing. They have to touch the money! (goods). You do not see robbers standing back 100' with a pistol telling someone it is a holdup.
Before gunpowder people used swords, and knifes. Mainly knifes since a sword is easily seen - and almost EVERYONE carried a knife. So it came back to physical strength between robber and victim. A robber has surprise on their side which enables them to rob - the victim cannot get to their knife in time to defend against it.
Then it comes back down to fight or run.
This false campaign against guns is being waged against the methods employed - not the problem as to why people are breaking the law. The people breaking the law are supposed to be rehabilitated ALREADY - so that they do NOT commit crimes and people are supposed to be educated as to why you DO NOT commit crimes. Both of those aspects is missing from all the anti-gun (Brady type) efforts.
To put it in a different perspective as to the fallacy that these types of people are trying to do look at illegal money contributions to candidates - why not outlaw money to stop that?

Panic in the Parks

The city of Beaverton (in Oregon) www.beavertonoregon.gov/ has decided to outlaw the display of toy guns in public. The intent is to ban people from public displaying of any toy that might resemble a real gun. This includes those that come with with orange tips (done by manufacturers to avoid these types of laws, Beaverton does not care about that), cap pistols, basically anything that to a law enforcement person may think is a real weapon in the middle of the night in pouring rain at 50 feet with lights shining in his eyes.

 

All people - from the 114 year old in a walker to a 1 year old - if caught along any public right of way - sidewalk, park, road, front yard, will be fined not less than $200 the first time, 2nd time $500 and thence on with other penalties.

 

The old same argument that it is safer to ban everything so that way anything that a LEP sees he will assume is real and act appropriately.

 

Course right now they always assume that EVERYTHING is real and act that way anyway - they are taught that.

 

It would be better if people are just taught that if a LEP tells you to do something you just do it - wait - they already teach / tell people that. 

Human nature is that if someone yells at you the FIRST thing you do is turn around and face the person yelling at you - and if you had a toy or real weapon you would turn toward them anyways to find out why they are yelling at you. And if you are NOT doing anything wrong then you would ignore them since you would not think they are yelling at you (but likely would turn around to see what all the commotion is about.)

 

Now what this does allow is that anyone can now walk around Beaverton with real weapons since it is NOT against the law to carry around real ones in public (that I know of). Concealed requires a permit.

 

So if every kid who can legally carry a rifle or pistol walked around in the streets and parks with real weapons displayed (but of course with no ammo and cable tied so they cannot be used) what would the city of Beaverton then do?

 

This is the first "sounds good" step toward banning of everything for "safety" of both public and LEP and people have a short memory that eventually nothing would be allowed and they cannot remember how that happened.

 

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms." -- March 18, 1938
 Adolf Hitler