I suspect that some of my younger colleagues have never even heard of the Hindenburg. Having grown up in New Jersey (site of the disaster), and having learned about it just 25 years or so after it happened, it's something I've long been interested in.
Here's an article about a still-living member of the ground crew on that fateful day, and his recollections of the event. One thing that caught my eye: he lives very close to my parents, in Charlottesville, Virginia...
Monday, May 7, 2012
Bram Cohen is Whining...
...but I think he's got some reason to be pissed off, and you can read why in his post TCP Sucks. If you don't know of Bram, he's the inventor of BitTorrent, and he knows a thing or two about moving data over a wire. But he's most definitely not part of the academic and industry “good old boys” network that controls digital communications standards...
Paycheck Fairness Act...
Being against something named the .“Paycheck Fairness Act” sounds like being against motherhood and apple pie, doesn't it? Of course, that's the entire reason for the name in the first place.
This is such an obvious recipe for disaster that one hardly knows where to start. It's really a way of imposing the sorts of controls over compensation normally associated with unions on the rest of society – the productive part of society. The assumption underlying this act is that women are being paid less than men today for the same work. I don't doubt that there's some of this going on, but I also don't doubt that in certain workplaces and in certain professions, men are being paid less than women. The part of this that's very difficult to measure is the “same work” bit. In my own profession (software engineering), women are quite rare still. I don't know the exact numbers, but by my firsthand experience it's well under 10%. My profession's male skew is exactly the sort of thing that laws like this deal with stupidly. The assumption will be that the skew is prima facie evidence of underlying bias – and that pay differentials are the underlying reason.
Bottom line: if this law passes, eventually I will most likely be asked to take a pay cut. Because I am a male. Not because I'm incompetent, not because I've done something wrong. Just because of my genes.
We are roaring headlong down the road to cultural self-destruction. Remember that when you vote this November...
This is such an obvious recipe for disaster that one hardly knows where to start. It's really a way of imposing the sorts of controls over compensation normally associated with unions on the rest of society – the productive part of society. The assumption underlying this act is that women are being paid less than men today for the same work. I don't doubt that there's some of this going on, but I also don't doubt that in certain workplaces and in certain professions, men are being paid less than women. The part of this that's very difficult to measure is the “same work” bit. In my own profession (software engineering), women are quite rare still. I don't know the exact numbers, but by my firsthand experience it's well under 10%. My profession's male skew is exactly the sort of thing that laws like this deal with stupidly. The assumption will be that the skew is prima facie evidence of underlying bias – and that pay differentials are the underlying reason.
Bottom line: if this law passes, eventually I will most likely be asked to take a pay cut. Because I am a male. Not because I'm incompetent, not because I've done something wrong. Just because of my genes.
We are roaring headlong down the road to cultural self-destruction. Remember that when you vote this November...
Taxmageddon...
If the current tax laws aren't changed before this coming January 1, we face “Taxmageddon”, including the likely loss of 30% or so of the stock market's value. Such a thing is not in the interest of either major political party, so my bet is that the laws will be changed in time to avoid this. Given the current state of political polarization, the most likely scenario is a “kick the can down the road” sort of fix – one that lasts a year or so, well past the upcoming election. That's exactly how we ended up in the current position, thanks to our incredibly disfunctional government and its perverse political incentives...
You Can Stick a Fork in France, Greece...and Maybe Everywhere Else, Too...
Oh, this does not bode well. France and Greece both elected people with strong socialist leanings, who (quite explicitly) advocate solving their fiscal problems by taxing the rich. That isn't going to work, as any rational analysis will show. But that didn't stop the entitlement-sotted voters of either country.
That's bad for France and Greece. Unfortunately, the effects of their low voter IQ won't stay within their borders – our markets are poised to open lower on the news, the trade impacts will be keenly felt, and – worst of all – the probability of sovereign debt default just jumped dramatically higher...
These are the sorts of things that happened in the runup to past European wars. Let us hope that's not the case this time...
That's bad for France and Greece. Unfortunately, the effects of their low voter IQ won't stay within their borders – our markets are poised to open lower on the news, the trade impacts will be keenly felt, and – worst of all – the probability of sovereign debt default just jumped dramatically higher...
These are the sorts of things that happened in the runup to past European wars. Let us hope that's not the case this time...
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