brlittle

Mmm...yeah, I see your point about the 1/year. Hadn't thought about it that way. And

most of the annoying 14-year-olds wouldn't be our friends

That's definitely the case here. :)

So not only do you have a recipe for cripplingly slow growth, but you also fail to ensure improvement in the quality of submissions. It's not like people are invulnerable to "Dude, c'mon...invite me!" from their friends, hacker or otherwise.

Perhaps, in your hurry to condemn, you have misinterpreted.

When I can walk out the back door and speak directly to the head of the department in charge of our application programming team, or the guys running the servers, and so on, then I feel pretty good about guaranteed uptime. More importantly, I can blame someone when it fails.

Let's presume for a minute that my smallish enterprise was to move to Google Apps, and for some reason completely beyond the control of my people (Google failure, cable cut, whatever), the service goes out. Who do I blame?

You can call it "shit" if that makes you feel better about it. But it certainly doesn't cut any ice for me to walk into the President's office and say "But Google only had 10 seconds of outage in 2003-2004." I'm still fired. Imagine how much worse it would be for someone in a large installation.

When I control the gear, I control what I can and can't accomplish. Unless you can sell me on a serious guarantee of service and compelling functionality...no thanks.

:::looks at vote count:::

Is this a trick question?

<grin>

Actually, I sympathize.

The flaw I see in that argument is that you have no guarantee of service. Some people (my employer) care about that, and some don't. I'm not saying it's insurmountable. I'm just saying that the idea of a Boeing or a General Motors converting to Gmail isn't going to come to fruition under the current model.

What test do you propose, other than self-identification, that would cut across every possible definition of "hacker"?

Not a question I can answer. ;)

But I want one because the quality of Blu-ray (or whatever hi-def format) simply beats the snot out of anything I can get via download. So perhaps that's a subjective thing. I'm not ready to kick my physical media to the curb at this time, though I do wish I could rip the hi-def formats.

Let me know when you find that deal on 32GB flash drives...I'll be right in line behind you for 2 or 3!

Yes, I understand that.

I maintain that it doesn't support your argument that our economy is being dragged down. You may argue that it's not growing at the rate you think it would, and I can respond by arguing that the resulting society isn't one I'd want to live in -- that's a different discussion. But the general trend of growth year over in real GDP (http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/Macroeconomics/Data/HistoricalR...) is not evidence of being "dragged down." The trend is broadly up.

Regarding your second point, this is a canard. The fact that the 10 largest, most successful economies in the world (in fact, most if not all of the top 20) incorporate elements of socialism (most to a much greater degree than the US) demonstrates that mixed economies can, and do, succeed. Your initial argument at least implies that a mixed economy is not a successful one. If I read that incorrectly, please tell me, because by most metrics, mixed economies are not only surviving, but prospering.

Despite which, the US economy remains one of the largest and most productive in the free world. Your examples do not support your assertion.

According to both the IMF and the World Bank, the world's 10 largest economies in 2006 were, in order, the EU, the US, Japan, Germany, the PRC, the UK, France, Italy, Canada, Spain and Brazil. Very mixed economies, every one. I really don't see how this supports the idea that they're being "dragged down."

This is just my perspective as a parent, but I think the underlying premise is just fine, thanks. My daughter will have her entire life to learn how to deal with inequality by simple dint of being American. I don't need a playroom to teach her that particular lesson. Besides, there are outside forces to consider...if I pay for my child to have access to an after-school playroom, I have a right to expect her not to be unnecessarily or arbitrarily excluded from play. Again, just my perspective.

As I noted in my other comment, I think you can question the teachers' methods, certainly.

Please cite your evidence for how we are being "dragged down," and please cite a purely capitalist society that rivals our own (or those of Western Europe). I'm willing to consider evidence, but not an unfounded assertion like this.

It's interesting that the article's core attitude is based on the idea that eliminating inequality is (or should be) the main concern.

It would be appropriate at this point to zoom out a bit and remind everyone that we're talking about a playroom full of kids ranging from roughly kindergarten to third grade. Of course eliminating inequality (insofar as access to toys and play equipment is concered) is the point! As I stated in a previous comment, you can argue whether the teachers picked the best way to do it, but that argument does not change the underlying premise.

How is it, I wonder, that so many people get bent around the idea of making an economic analysis out of this? We're talking here about a playroom, the very nature and substance of which means that the teachers should be primarily concerned with making sure everyone has equitable access to the "resources" -- i.e. the toys.

I think one can argue whether or not the teachers are doing that in an effective and appropriate way, certainly. But I believe that this one underlying fact is nonnegotiable.

Personally, and as a parent, I find the repeated and forceful attempts to turn this into some kind of capitalist vs. socialist laboratory are both ill-conceived and ill-advised. Whatever else may be true of the situation, I believe it is certainly no place to institute a Lego-fied re-enactment of Lord of the Flies.

There have been several posts lately about "stupid" or "unlikely" ideas that make money. I could see this falling into that category. It's an interesting attempt, if not singularly creative.

Yeah, I noticed that shortly after submitting this. If there was a way to unsubmit, I would. :/

"Quite simply, the students established their own meritocracy, which the teachers replaced with a form of socialism."

That is emphatically not what happened. What the kids discovered was that the fastest and most aggressive kids (i.e. the ones who got to the bins first) got the most desirable bricks/pieces. The spin you (and to be fair, most of us, me included) are putting on it implies that children are miniature adults, which isn't the case.

The role of the teachers (and recall that this is an after-school program) was to create a place where all children had the opportunity to play and enjoy themselves...not to allow the creation of an environment where some kids were specifically excluded. Yes, they proposed a framework -- one entirely appropriate to the setting. But in the end, most of the rules were created by the kids themselves.

The end result was a more satisfying experience for _everyone_, not just the fastest, biggest or smartest. In short, everybody does better when everybody does better.

"We invited the children to work in small, collaborative teams to build Pike Place Market with Legos. We set up this work to emphasize negotiated decision-making, collaboration, and collectivity."

I'm hard-pressed to see how people find fault with this. Who doesn't want their children to learn how to negotiate decisions and collaborate with others?

"There were many better solutions to the problems developing in that game, but the teachers chose instead to teach the kids that regardless of your skills, interest, passion, or ability to barter, at the end of the day, everybody gets the same thing."

But at the end of the day, everyone _didn't_ get the same thing. The only thing everyone got was a chance to be a part of the play. Where they went with that was up to them.

"I probably would have been one of the central kids in the story, one of the ones establishing rules and hoarding (and bartering for) pieces."

Except you wouldn't have had to. By getting all the "cool pieces (windows and such) you would have set yourself in possession of what everyone wanted. Plain building bricks were not valued, simply because there were so many of them. You wouldn't have needed to barter except in a very limited way. In short, you'd be the one with all the marbles. That's not appropriate to the setting, regardless of what spin adults might put on it.

"Just because you weren't born into money doesn't mean you can't get there. That's the beauty of the free market, you have the OPPORTUNITY to succeed and get ahead."

This isn't always, or even usually, true. Millions upon millions are born into this world with _no_ prospects, and _no_ opportunity, and _no_ amount of hard work, inspiration or pure luck will change that. It may be more true in America than elsewhere, but it's certainly not the rule.

And the "free market" is a recipe for monopoly and domination as much as for opportunity. The goal of the players in a free market is the elimination of opportunity for anyone but themselves. The free market does not reward altruism, so there's no incentive not to crush anyone in your way, other than personal decency. Which also doesn't pay. The market we enjoy here is anything but free, for which I'm thankful.

"If everyone and everything is the same, then why even bother doing anything better or trying?"

That's a strawman.

"Socialism scares me to no end because it is way easier to scream for support and get it than it is to actually make something out of yourself."

Out of curiosity, what's your actual experience of socialism?

"I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to have to live in a world that is built for the LCD."

So raise the lowest common denominator. There are multiple paths to that goal, after all.

"The fundamental problem with their Lego trading game (and the original Legotown) is that they assume capitalism involves a fixed amount of resources that can only be traded. In reality, the resources are constantly growing. If it was really a fixed-resource system, it would always end like Monopoly, with one person owning everything, or owning enough to always be in power at the least."

I'm confused. Are you arguing that resources in the "real world" are not finite? So we'll never run out of indium, oil, fresh water, fertile soil, etc? Because if you are, that's a fascinating viewpoint, and almost completely at odds with reality.

"Surely all the wealth creation done by startups is evidence of that."

Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the "wealth" created by startups exists nowhere but on paper.

I don't see that that's what happened at all. Apparently a fair portion of the class was marginalized and basically kept from play. They were either subtly or directly told that they weren't welcome in Legotown. The "smarter" kids learned to hoard limited and valuable resources, and used that power to direct what other kids could do.

It might have been "peaceful" in that setting, but take the teachers out of the equation for an hour or so, and see how peaceful it is when the marginalized kids realize they can force their way into the game by pushing the hoarders around, or simply smash the buildings so _no one_ gets to play.

You think it wouldn't happen?

I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm still learning my way around...I'll take your comment under consideration for future subs.

Thanks!

"However, the suburbs that provide a balanced business, commercial, and housing ecosystem and have diverse transportation options to the main destinations outside will actually thrive and prosper."

Technically, then, it's not a suburb. Depending on population, it's closer to an edge city. The fact is that suburban sprawl like one of the examples specifically decried in the article (Windy Ridge is less that 45 minutes from where I live) consists of acre upon acre of packed chipboard-and-vinyl houses that aren't designed to last without extraordinary upkeep. It's predicated upon the notion of cheap, readily available energy, never-ending road construction, and a continual stream of both upwardly-mobile homebuyers looking to move up to something nicer, and first-time homebuyers looking for something cheap they can sell at a profit in a few years.

It's simply not a sustainable model. Sooner or later the market will bust, and in the interim, there's a good chances these cheap-and-cheery neighborhoods will come apart at the seams. They aren't built worth a damn, and they're miles from critical services and commerce. It's already starting to happen here. I hate to think what'll happen if gas spikes and sticks.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I skipped right over "suburban" to "exurban" living. I have over an acre on the outskirts of a small town about 25 miles from the nearest big city. So I'm happy out here, too. But gas bills are already putting a crimp in my lifestyle, so that might well change.)

"slums seem to need a combination of cheap housing and proximity to unskilled jobs that pay by the hour"

Actually, they need cheap, undesirable housing, and not much else. Slum neighborhoods are more often characterized by their _lack_ of job opportunities, pay-by-the-hour or otherwise. This is one of the things that makes escaping a slum so difficult -- the need to pay to get to any kind of work that enables you to live.

Reasonably astute summary of the situation. This is the gospel Jim Kunstler and others have been preaching for years now (http://www.kunstler.com/). If you accept the idea of peak oil, you can readily see where the intersection of PO and the re-urbanization trend will spell disaster for the suburbs.

Snarkless query.

"...all the other components are electrified as well. [...] There is not an established supplier community for this. It's a very complicated system with known technological solutions. But they've never been integrated in these forms."

Could someone familiar with manufacturing explain why this is a problem? I mean, if there are solutions, shouldn't it be just an issue of fitting them together? That doesn't _seem_ all that difficult, from a complete layman's perspective. Enlighten me, please.

Jacob is one of those people who can improve anyone else's appearance simply by standing next to them. They always look better than he does.

Also, how did I know just by looking at the thumbnail that this one would have "pensive" in the title. Isn't there another word we can substitute here? "Thoughtful," maybe? "Pensive" appears to be the favorite selection for such shots -- to the point of excluding alternatives. :/

http://www.useit.com/jakob/photos/jakob_pensive_big.jpg

Nice observation..and the situation is, I think, exacerbated by the often-cited "publish or perish" nature of things. I strongly suspect that this increases the tendency to adhere to the narrative, making it even more self-reinforcing.

Dangerous.

I agree that the post head is melodramatic. But I think perhaps you missed something in the article. As it pointed out, the kind of "easy guesses" you mention are far less likely to occur in broad fields, even if they are more likely in narrower fields. Besides, so long as the default "fail" state in a double-blind review is at least _no worse than_ the current "succeed" state of single-blind, I don't see why there would be an objection.

I confess that I've done a reasonable amount of graduate work, and I work at a well-known college (staff, not faculty), and I was genuinely surprised to learn that most reviews aren't double-blind. It seems to me to make more sense as the default option.

But again, I don't disagree that the submitter is hyping the situation with that head. The situation isn't necessarily "corrupt" -- but I can understand the inclination to interpret it that way.

Contrary to what I suspect was your intent, you aren't being clever. You're just reinforcing the point that every choice has consequences...some intended, some not. For instance, the net increase in CO2 from your "cycle to work" respiration would, I suspect, be less damaging than the total net consequences of building, maintaining and driving a car. It'd be cheaper, too. Eating more greens might well make you fart more, though that's less than certain, but it would surely be less than the methane produced by the beef cattle that less-healthy eaters consume so voluminously.

Perhaps with some expansion, your reply could have made a serious contribution. Instead, it comes off looking glib.

Fake. I know. But...

"10. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good."

This would, in fact, be rich coming from a Brit. Really. Hah!

That's probably a valid consideration, but whether you should take it into serious account depends upon your aims: Are you trying to shift the paradigm, and introduce something entirely new? Or are you simply trying to produce the best refinement of an existing process or technology.

Not every change is revolutionary, nor does it need to be. Constantly reinvent things, and you'll wear your market out. But customer-sensitive refinements are frequently welcomed by consumers (depending on what they cost), or at least accepted without complaint.

You can't simply blow your audience off, no matter how visionary Henry Ford might have been. Development of anything...a process, a product, an image, a brand, whatever...is a never-ending set of nested feedback loops from the target audience, or else it's eventually a failure.