A Swift Kick in the Rear

I think that is exactly what our society needs sometimes in order to keep it functioning. It sounds harsh, but look at some of the normalities that have begun to form because of lust for power, lack of motivation, and greed.

If you make all A's I'll give you fifty dollars son!
If you would only do the dishes, I will give you an allowance of ten dollars a week.
Why improve the design when we can continue our current design and maintain profit?

These statements represent the country we live in today. The first statement, a common barter made between parent and child these days. It is seen that with a great enough incentive, people will do what is needed to receive it, especially when the incentive is monetary. So the parent exerts their power and receives results. On the other end, we have the child, who might not want to try harder in school, but will certainly do so if it means fifty dollars towards a new video game or a few movie tickets. So, in their greed, they do what is needed to receive the reward, disregarding the grade as only a means in which they can profit. This is the mindset that kills productivity and innovation.

All too often, we see the same scenario portrayed in many different fields, especially business. Nearly gone are the days when creating something new, exciting, or innovative is done for the sole purpose of never having been done before, or to solve a problem to it's fullest. Now we are left with people who are short-sighted and see only as far as a paycheck when it comes to a new idea. For example, in the mid 1950's we saw new and creative engines that could run efficiently enough on gas to achieve upwards of thirty mpg (miles per gallon), and weren't all too costly. Now, we are having a fuel crisis, and the new hit vehicles are achieving twenty to thirty-five mpg, sixty years later.

Why is this happening you ask? It's because there is profit to be made in the forgetfulness of America. At the time, gas was considered cheap, and the new thirty mpg cars were thrown to the side as unattractive and useless. So, the technology was forgotten, and was broken out again in 2001 as the brand new invention of the 21st century. We had hybrids and fuel-efficient technology thrown upon us in heaps, completely set up to bring in a huge profit. In turn, "Efficiency Aware" Americans everywhere flocked to purchase the fuel efficient cars, hoping for a less astonishing number at the gas station. However, now these cars were twice the cost of their non-efficient counterparts, and for no apparent reason. We chalked it up to costs for new parts and research work, but the fact is they are no more costly to produce than their counterparts, and the research has been here all along. What's more is the fact that we are capable of achieving even higher mpg ratings, in the sixties to seventies. But the defining factor is profit. If you are a company seeking to maximize their profits, and are sitting on the technology to produce cars with seventy mpg ratings, but will make the same profit with thirty mpg cars, where is the motivation to change the market? It's lost in the marketing scheme, left for ten years from now when everyone hopefully has thirty mpg automobiles.

It is so sad to think that we are falling victim to this mindset, but seeking understanding in this matter could prove useful in a variety of ways. The fact is that once we understand that the average American is influenced by money, we can solve various social, economical, and medical problems that stem from this mindset.

I think the treatment of diabetes patients illustrates my point. I watched a speech by a man who was talking of the "last mile" problem with innovatory ideas. He spoke of how we can create and revolutionize all we want to, but if we don't understand the way people think, we will never get them to fully maximize the potential of the product. He talked about insulin in treating diabetes, how all the research had been done and the problem has effectively been solved. However, when it came to treating the actual patients, it was found that as many as twenty-five percent suffered some sort of diabetes related harm, such as blindness, loss of a limb, or chronic pain. The problem, he said, was in getting people to use the insulin. This was solved by the cheap and effective insulin pin, which provided an easy injection of daily insulin to a diabetes patient. The harmful effects suffered by diabetes patients plummeted thirty percent. In understanding human mindsets, they had overcome a barrier in treating patients to the fullest.

So in closing, I ask you to be aware of the way people think, the way you think, because it is often crucial in understanding many of the growing and staggering issues in the United States, and even the World, today.

TED: Ideas worth spreading

During my daily stroll through the world of the internet, I happened upon a news report of a convention being held by a group called TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). TED brings together an enormously diverse population of inventors, innovators, and average thinkers that are believed to hold some sort of merit in their work. I read over a few of them, and slowly began to grasp the concepts that they showed.

For example, a man named Blaise Aguera presented a project that he and his team have been working on. It's based on an idea called Photosynth. This is an idea that combines two cutting edge technologies. One of these new technologies is based on taking such high resolution images that the need for multiple web pages will be irrelevant, as we can just zoom in further to get a more detailed version of the image. While this may not seem like an amazing idea in itself, the mechanisms behind it are linked to another possibility that they have shown with Photosynth. In a demonstration, Aguera uses a common photo uploading site, www.flickr.com, to compile images of Notre Dame Cathedral and morph them together to get a full physical representation of the subject. You can actually see Notre Dame, in full detail, based on thousands and thousands of pictures, from cell phone cameras to professional photos containing many mega-pixels. The possibilities of such a technology are endless, as this makes it possible for your photos to be tagged based on details someone else tagged in their own photo.

http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html

Another interesting presentation by Derek Sivers offers some insight into our culture, and its effects on our view of the world. For example, he explains a story in which you encounter a Japanese man on the street, and he asks you what the block you are on is called. You reply by saying the street name. But this won't suffice, he wishes to know the name that represents the entire block. You tell him that the blocks are simply the spaces that are divided by the streets. In the inverse of the situation, you ask a Japanese man in Japan what street you are on. He doesn't understand, and instead tells you that you are in block 17. Confused, you say you wish to know the street you are standing on. He tells you that the streets are simply the spaces that are left between blocks. Sivers shows by this simple story how different our views of the world can be, based on where we come from. For example, he tells of doctors in parts of Japan that feel it is their job to keep you healthy. So, for every day you are healthy, you pay them. If you become sick, you do not pay them, and they make you well at no cost, because they failed to keep you healthy. This goes to show how things can work one way, and when completely reversed, can continue to work.

http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_different.html

There are so many more stories and entertaining presentations on this website, but it would take ages to write about them all, and it would be foolish of me to do so, seeing as they are already there for anyone to view.

So, in conclusion, I'll leave you with a funny picture that illustrates my distaste for the new iPAD, and my recommendation to view this website.


                           

End of the WORLD! Or at least the part we like

Have you ever contemplated the end of human life? Who will do it? When will it happen? Where will it start? There isn't an answer for most of the questions that arise, but I think it would be a safe bet to say that human life may not make it much further than a few more centuries, if that. It's quite a sad subject, but it may be true.

Think about it. Over the past century, we have begun using fossil fuels, and subsequently have started to run out. That's 100 years of industrialization and we are already close to expending the last of the one resource that keeps the world running. OIL.

There really is no logic behind why we continue to use this resource the way we do. It kind of goes back to the thought that as an individual, we are smart, and as a society, we are stupid. We somehow cannot bring ourselves to come together and do something innovative, and instead keep delaying the inevitable. How is it that we can continue like this?

Well, enough of this depressing subject.

Canada: Neutral...ize

In this blog entry, I will be discussing the country of Canada. Up North in the Great Beyond, it lies in wait to wage massive war on anyone! Just kidding though, it really has no point, except to mooch off of the United States and use our diplomacy, while tweaking their foreign policy so as to remain as neutral to everyone as possible.

It comes to my attention that a possibility presents itself if you take into account the fact that Canada has no aggressive interaction with anyone. Perhaps they are biding their time, so that they can attack us when we least expect it. Well, we should be ready, because they could have crazy unmatched military strength, bred in secret and used for the sole purpose of our takeover.

But really though, I do believe that they will remain the most neutral of all countries, the only one to not participate in anything significant. And so we will continue to be friends, because they won't do anything to anger us. =]