Sunday, March 30
Thursday, March 20
The Advent of Generation Why
Quite a bit of research has been done on the workplace integration of Gen-Y.
There are those who say that Gen Y will be good for the workplace:
Five Ways Generation Y May Reinvent IT
Generation Y: They've Arrived at the Workplace with a New Attitude
Gen Y Myths Debunked
There are others who say that Gen Y poses new risks:
Beware a Generation of Risk Takers
Has Generation Y overdosed on self-esteem?
Generation Y: Too Demanding at Work?
I was born in 1983, which puts me squarely in Generation Y. While I won't speak for others close to my age, I do value entrepreneurship and flexibility in my career. I'm always confused by companies that expect to retain me indefinitely, unless they offer unlimited growth within their ranks in the form of easily expanded higher positions to make room for quality people. A 5% raise with a fancier title in my current position is not a promotion, it is a retainer.
There are those who say that Gen Y will be good for the workplace:
Five Ways Generation Y May Reinvent IT
Generation Y: They've Arrived at the Workplace with a New Attitude
Gen Y Myths Debunked
There are others who say that Gen Y poses new risks:
Beware a Generation of Risk Takers
Has Generation Y overdosed on self-esteem?
Generation Y: Too Demanding at Work?
I was born in 1983, which puts me squarely in Generation Y. While I won't speak for others close to my age, I do value entrepreneurship and flexibility in my career. I'm always confused by companies that expect to retain me indefinitely, unless they offer unlimited growth within their ranks in the form of easily expanded higher positions to make room for quality people. A 5% raise with a fancier title in my current position is not a promotion, it is a retainer.
Monday, March 17
Clean Energy Gets Cheaper
Business Week: Clean Energy: It's Getting Affordable
Wikipedia: Electricity Market
CBO: Prospects for Distributed Electricity Generation
For the last decades or so, activists and technologists have hoped and worked for a world where cheap clean power improved living conditions all over the world. Not to be melodramatic, Most technological innovation improves living conditions everywhere they're used, freeing resources to improve standards of living everywhere else.
There have been many breakthroughs in the past few years in the forms of 'more efficient' solar cells, that cost more per watt. A power generating floor, and other nifty gadgets that just don't take off. But the real test is in terms of $$$ per Watt. Because it's not really the cleanness that we want, or even the security of knowing that we will have resources for generations to come, but the raw power that keeps us from working in the dark. The environment is important, but it's not how we base our decisions.
One thing I would love our government to actually tackle however, is the legal mess it's already created preventing home owners from selling their own power back to the grid. A good power market should allow this and be transparent enough to permit real time power pricing. So that homeowners can reduce their power consumption when the price gets real high, or feel free to crank up the AC when the price gets real low. If families could MAKE money by selling the power from their solar cell when the price gets high, we might see a much higher adoption rate.
Wikipedia: Electricity Market
CBO: Prospects for Distributed Electricity Generation
For the last decades or so, activists and technologists have hoped and worked for a world where cheap clean power improved living conditions all over the world. Not to be melodramatic, Most technological innovation improves living conditions everywhere they're used, freeing resources to improve standards of living everywhere else.
There have been many breakthroughs in the past few years in the forms of 'more efficient' solar cells, that cost more per watt. A power generating floor, and other nifty gadgets that just don't take off. But the real test is in terms of $$$ per Watt. Because it's not really the cleanness that we want, or even the security of knowing that we will have resources for generations to come, but the raw power that keeps us from working in the dark. The environment is important, but it's not how we base our decisions.
One thing I would love our government to actually tackle however, is the legal mess it's already created preventing home owners from selling their own power back to the grid. A good power market should allow this and be transparent enough to permit real time power pricing. So that homeowners can reduce their power consumption when the price gets real high, or feel free to crank up the AC when the price gets real low. If families could MAKE money by selling the power from their solar cell when the price gets high, we might see a much higher adoption rate.
Wednesday, February 20
Idle chit chat with Ryan G
Ryan is a friend of mine from Mason who is currently studying graduate Econ at Oxford. This is a conversation we had a few minutes ago.
Ryan: I am writing a paper on market failure, government intervention, Coase Theorem, etc...
Now I need to do an applied section where I walk through a real case any good ideas? I would do the obvious, environemnt, or education, but I will be doing seperate papers on those two topics next.
me: tragedy of the commons is the most frequent real market failure. so overfishing?
Ryan: yeah, thought of that
me: logging on public lands?
Ryan: hmmm, ok, that would be interesting
me: information assymetry is also good. You could do healthcare.
Ryan: That is a whole nother paper. I am already at 10 pages, I had to leave out dynamic incapacities, and asymentric info otherwise it would have taken me 15 -20 pages just to define the different problems
I think I may do a paper on Health care later, so hopefully I can deal with those problems then.
me: dynamic incapacities, is that like, how electricty gets overconsumed because it's so hard to have live pricing? Google isn't turning up much.
Ryan: i think so, i dunno. He defined it, but we didn't really spend much time on it
and I didn't know where to research for it My other thought were to do big game animals again
I wrote a paper on that a while ago.
Or public financing of sports stadiums which I also did a couple years ago
Ryan: I am writing a paper on market failure, government intervention, Coase Theorem, etc...
Now I need to do an applied section where I walk through a real case any good ideas? I would do the obvious, environemnt, or education, but I will be doing seperate papers on those two topics next.
me: tragedy of the commons is the most frequent real market failure. so overfishing?
Ryan: yeah, thought of that
me: logging on public lands?
Ryan: hmmm, ok, that would be interesting
me: information assymetry is also good. You could do healthcare.
Ryan: That is a whole nother paper. I am already at 10 pages, I had to leave out dynamic incapacities, and asymentric info otherwise it would have taken me 15 -20 pages just to define the different problems
I think I may do a paper on Health care later, so hopefully I can deal with those problems then.
me: dynamic incapacities, is that like, how electricty gets overconsumed because it's so hard to have live pricing? Google isn't turning up much.
Ryan: i think so, i dunno. He defined it, but we didn't really spend much time on it
and I didn't know where to research for it My other thought were to do big game animals again
I wrote a paper on that a while ago.
Or public financing of sports stadiums which I also did a couple years ago
me: I thought public financing of sports was more of a public choice problem instead of a market failure. It's actually a market success that stadiums don't get built
Ryan: public choice deals with market failures. lol, true.
The usualy arguments for government intervention in markets is market failure
me: so the pub choice argument is that the lack of stadiums is a market failure, so spend public funds on them?
Ryan: Yes, becasue they give positive externalities to the city
such as increased jobs, city pride etc....
things the private world won't take into account
public choice would say rent seeking and government inefficiency would result so the stadium should be financed privately
me: I wonder how you would monetize city pride as a variable
Ryan: hard to
We still don't know too much about dynamic incapacities, so if you know anything, please leave a comment.
Friday, February 15
Wednesday, February 13
Project Lifeline, Legislating Reality After The Fact
I recently stumbled a wonderful new project by our wonderful government called Project Lifeline.
Thanks to this wonderfully brilliant contribution by our governing officials, banks will actually spend 30 days negotiating with borrowers to resolve their loans before foreclosing on them. This is such a great idea in fact, that banks have been doing this voluntarily for years with no government involvement at all!
This is basically the banks borrowing the governments credibility (imagine!) because for some reason people trust banks less than they trust our 'fiscally responsible' government. When the banks call the homeowners asking them to refinance, people avoid the calls like the plague.
Thanks to this wonderfully brilliant contribution by our governing officials, banks will actually spend 30 days negotiating with borrowers to resolve their loans before foreclosing on them. This is such a great idea in fact, that banks have been doing this voluntarily for years with no government involvement at all!
This is basically the banks borrowing the governments credibility (imagine!) because for some reason people trust banks less than they trust our 'fiscally responsible' government. When the banks call the homeowners asking them to refinance, people avoid the calls like the plague.
Posting Lull
I regret to inform my audience that my computer has died. :-(I will probably have substantially fewer posts for a while. I'll still try to make 5 posts a week, but it will be harder.
A little note, It's bad to run Laptops 24/7. They're cooling systems usually aren't good enough to handle it.
Also, if your computer randomly shuts down quickly and without warning, wait 20 minutes before restarting it. It's probably over heated and needs to cool down.
For those of you interested, my new system will probably be similar to this:
Sunday, February 10
Anon vs. Scientology UPDATE
Anon has released a new and particularly long video announcement.
The text can be found on Google Docs.
See my earlier post on this here.
The text can be found on Google Docs.
See my earlier post on this here.
Smurf Healthcare vs. US Healthcare
The Smurfs on Healthcare
My favorite part is how Jokey gets worse and worse as he gets more 'health care' from the other smurfs who 'just want to help.'
Here's Robin Hanson's take on health care at EconTalk. He talks a lot about the psychological effect about the act of providing health care. There's also a lot of research on information asymmetry, like donating a funny bone because the docter says your friend will need one.
Dr. Hanson talked about the RAND health experiment, where people who got free health care were compared to people who paid for all of their own health care. The comparison said that even though the free health care folks used 30% more health care, they got essentially zero health benefit. So all that extra money spent bought zero additional health. I recall Dr. Hanson asking class when I took his class at Mason,
My favorite part is how Jokey gets worse and worse as he gets more 'health care' from the other smurfs who 'just want to help.'
Here's Robin Hanson's take on health care at EconTalk. He talks a lot about the psychological effect about the act of providing health care. There's also a lot of research on information asymmetry, like donating a funny bone because the docter says your friend will need one.
Dr. Hanson talked about the RAND health experiment, where people who got free health care were compared to people who paid for all of their own health care. The comparison said that even though the free health care folks used 30% more health care, they got essentially zero health benefit. So all that extra money spent bought zero additional health. I recall Dr. Hanson asking class when I took his class at Mason,
"If you assume that some treatments are helpful, and on average, extra treatment buys no health, then doesn't that mean that some of that treatment hurts?"
Thursday, February 7
Reminder of How Science Works
DNA Puts Itself Together 'Impossible'
In case anyone forgot, the world we live in is a wonderful place that the totality of human knowledge barely understands. The world contains matter and energy, they interact in ways that we can see and in ways that we cannot. Science is the process of seeing as much as possible and creating the best possible ideas to understand how all those interactions occur. Compared to the totality of the world, we're barely scratching the surface.
In case anyone forgot, the world we live in is a wonderful place that the totality of human knowledge barely understands. The world contains matter and energy, they interact in ways that we can see and in ways that we cannot. Science is the process of seeing as much as possible and creating the best possible ideas to understand how all those interactions occur. Compared to the totality of the world, we're barely scratching the surface.
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