jkraker

While I agree with some of this, there's a hubris in it that I find a bit distasteful. It seems to claim that there's only one type of person needed for society to thrive. Not surprisingly, it's the type that most aligns with who he identifies himself to be.

I think that the article is using caricatured descriptions of two categories that are more broad (people who are oriented toward change and those who are oriented toward stability) and highlighting only the good of the preferred group (his own) and the bad within the "other". The truth is, there are beneficial and destructive individuals in both groups, and there are perspectives from each that we need. I would argue that what society really needs is not the ascendancy of one group above the other but mutual respect and discussion of ideas between groups.

Which is kind of where he was going with the discussion of ideas. He just didn't have a big enough tent.

My experience does not include microloans, but I can clearly see the gap that they could fill in some of the situations I work through.

In many circumstances I encounter, financial need is a symptom of a deeper need that's harder to address and might even be exacerbated by financial gifts that aren't paired with something else to address the deeper need. Don't misunderstand. The financial needs in these cases are formidable with compounding impacts to be sure, but the root problem cannot be solved just by providing financial resources in the cases I'm describing. Satisfy a cash need and you can be only providing a bridge to essentially the same situation in the near future along with the despair of not being able to get out of the cycle yet again. By deeper needs I mean things like habits that need to change, mindsets that disadvantage, relational deficits, medical issues, etc. I also don't want to imply it's always primarily the person that needs to change. There are very real systemic issues in our society that need to be addressed for all to flourish.

Poverty is debilitating. Hope is important. When we can in our help identify real assets a person has (talents, passions, non financial resources, etc.) and empower them to be a part of the solution, there's hope there--they can act in a way that gets them to a better place. It might be assisted, but they're doing it. This is very important in many cases. If I take that same person and just impersonally satisfy their need, that can communicate they have nothing to offer, and it may reinforce problematic mindsets that are keeping them down.

Ultimately, microloans are just tools. All tools needs to be employed in the right way to be effective.

I personally think that this article is really just skimming the surface in the area some people broadly refer to as development work. Helping people toward sustainable, more independent situations is really difficult work, and there are a multitude of examples where even people with the best intentions did more harm than good, particularly when they blindly follow their own designs without paying specific attention to the people they're helping and the complex web of circumstances and history they live within. As the article detailed in the area of microfinance, there are unfortunately many people who shamefully further their own interests (money, reputation, etc.) in the guise of charity.

I really do think that applied correctly, microfinance is one tool of many that can be effectively applied for real good if it is not abused. The reason I think that is that in contrast to just giving someone something, microfinance can be more empowering in certain circumstances. In some development work, empowerment is a key ingredient to moving toward lasting change. I absolutely agree that there is potential for and are many examples of microfinance being used in harmful ways, but I think the same is true for just about every tool of development work. Even simply giving a person cash can be bad in some circumstances. This comes from my personal struggles in working a bit in the area of development as part of an organization that attempts to help people in lasting ways by leveraging a very limited pool of resources.

All that to say that I agree that microfinance is used to abuse people, but I don't think its use as such disqualifies it as a potential development tool.

I moved some of my high yield savings account into a 12 month CD recently to maintain a more tolerable interest rate for the next 12 months while the savings account interest rate inevitably tanks. That means I can't touch it for 12 months if I want the interest, but I was careful with the amount I put in the CD so that I will most likely not have to touch it.

This should in no way be construed to be advice because I'm unqualified to give it. It's just an option.

If you want to go down the rabbit hole on cool old school woodworking techniques, check this out: http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/

This might be a really interesting read for you in your quest:

By Hand and Eye by George Walker and Jim Tolpin https://lostartpress.com/products/by-hand-eye-1

It's by a couple woodworkers who have been learning about fundamental design principles that used to be used extensively before the introduction of tape measures, calipers and tools that have served to drive design almost entirely into imperial or metric measurement systems. I don't think it can address all of it (e.g. kerning), but some of the things I saw in the guide relate directly (1.2x/1.5x spacing, typeface sized in multiples, etc. I found it fascinating. They have a couple other books about it now too.

Social media gives a lot of people the platform to do this and some use it quite heavily. It would be interesting to see the correlation between something like "ferocity" on Facebook and real life actions.

Here's the full series run by Facebook (2014):

https://www.facebook.com/data/posts/10152217010993415

The four dead ideas according to the article: 1) Business is more competitive that ever. 2) We live in an age of entrepreneurialism. 3) Business is getting faster. 4) Globalization is inevitable and irreversible.

There's something subtle behind this that I think is more powerful than the details of the housing. It's someone taking time to interact and treat them like a person. I believe that interaction and showing others we value them as people is one of the most important things for those living in isolation from society like many homeless people do.

There's no easy way to do this. It's hardly ever convenient. It isn't a foolproof means of turning situations around. It is, however, extremely powerful and desperately needed.

Do I practice what I'm saying? Sadly, not enough.

I used to obsess over muscle mass back in college and that being "all natural." Creatine and citrulline malate? I black listed them in my quest, and my personal experience is that these are not needed for the goals stated in the article. I also did not use protein supplements, but then again I had access to an all you can eat cafeteria with sufficient variety to support a (mostly) healthy protein rich diet.

A disciplined training program and diet got me what the article promises (over 20 lbs of muscle mass and significant strength gains) without buying any supplements. I can't remember how long it took, but it wasn't that much longer than 3 months. As long as you're not going for the unusually bulked up look, a disciplined training program and diet will get you where you want to be.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

A fair point. I assumed with the article that the communication is working to some extent. I have no way of knowing whether that is indeed the case.

If you have various groups working a problem and they don't communicate, they are significantly disadvantaged relative to groups that talk. Each of these groups have their particular specialties, and it could only be beneficial for them to communicate. Now whether this communication is THE standout factor preventing attacks...that seems a stretch.

Summary: Apple is proposing a per stream rate rather than the current rate structure, a percentage of revenue. This would unquestionably benefit subscription services [Apple] because the proposed structure would be more expensive than the current structure for free streaming services [competition].

A fine point in an ideal world. The problem is that as traffic increases, the number of people that drive in a way that doesn't respect the safety of the neighborhood increases. There's a distribution of types of drivers at play here--more samples necessarily results in more observations of people driving poorly even if they are outnumbered. People who have a tendency to look at their phones rather than the road due to their use of an app probably skews the distribution a bit as well.

I'm all for utilization of public infrastructure, but I'm also sympathetic to the homeowners who observe the safety of their neighborhoods decrease as a result of increased traffic volume.

Good question. If they actually figured out a strategy to do this, it seems to me that it would be a maddening job. Oh look! A free lunch!

My take: If institution of a basic income is not accompanied by development efforts within a population to create meaningful opportunities to work, it's not really doing what the population really needs. I don't see a difference between charity and basic income in an environment where extensive economic development is really what is needed. If I don't have an opportunity to work even if I want to work, what difference does it make what the money that is given to me is called?

I feel like it's more war than assassination. I may be looking at it incorrectly though.

I don't think anyone would argue that at least some of these individuals who are targeted are really bad people who are trying to do orders of magnitude more damage other populations.

So here's the key question: How to you best neutralize the threat of that person? The US has settled on killing them with drones as the "best" solution and its leaders I think truly believe that this minimizes collateral damage. Is there a better course of action besides just letting these people work toward their horrific goals? I think that history has proven that you can't just leave people like this alone and expect them to chill out, so what do you do?

I agree, and I've observed this on multiple products. The most recent was a hair trimmer that I replaced with the same brand and model.

It's unfortunate how there's an ever quickening velocity of consumption. Not sure who exactly is to blame, but I think both consumers and companies play their part.

These problems definitely are not specific to big data. They apply to statistics in general. The author is right, though--many people tend to be overly ready to draw overly confident conclusions from their analysis of big data just because...big data.

This will show my age a bit, but am I the only one that had a rush of memories about Juno email seeing this headline? Good old dial up email...

I'm probably just weird. At least the general population probably has no such associations with primitive email services.

Not only is it jewelry essentially, but it's jewelry with a relatively short shelf life.