Original Cin

Inspired by running across my old (pen and paper) journal last night, and by this post at the Happiness Project, I decided to create a list of things I’ve learned (draft version):

• Be cynically optimistic.
• There is a cost to everything.
• Location, location, location — the physical world and its arrangement are still important
• Words are not weapons.
• Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. This goes double for advice, boasts, and what you’re thinking. Don’t believe everything you hear, no matter who says it or how confident they are. Even, especially, if they’ve made a living saying it. Beware cognitive bias.
• The world is strange. Cthulhu Mythos level strange. We just don’t notice because we’re used to it.
• Small things can have a big impact, but the most obvious example, compound interest, may be overrated.
• If something you want doesn’t exist, create it.
• Despite the fact that talk is cheap, the crowd may have a point when everyone is doing, or believes, something.
• We regret virtue more than vice. No, really.
• The cost of not buying something can often exceed its price.
• People are very important.

I’ll be going through each of these and evaluating and explaining them as I get time.

It’s often been said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity. Here’s a fascinating thought:

If there are recurring outcomes of this kind in your life or relationships, perhaps you are being chosen, whether you know it or not.
- Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution, What if you always get the same outcome?

I just received an email from eBay about this:

[Soon] Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.

It’s about damn time. Too many rotten sellers were abusing the system, and getting away with retaliatory feedback. At one point, I had considered creating an automated feedback program for buyers, but I’m now glad I didn’t, since the point is now moot.

“Homo economicus never regrets ordering dessert–he has infallibly weighed the fleeting gustatory pleasure against the likely effects on his girth.” – Tim Harford, The Logic of Life

For anyone that’s interested in looking at it: My Scheduler, Source Code. Be forewarned: it’s ugly.

…or, at the very least, it’s usable. Here’s a screenshot:

The earlier screenshot that I posted was launched with window.openDialog, but I’m still having trouble getting Chrono to launch in its own window so that everything “just works” — so instead, I’ll be using it from inside Firefox, which I have open most of the time anyway. I even have a bookmark to go to it right away. I figured that I’d go over everything I’ve done, and describe what I’ve learned and what I could do to improve this project (but probably won’t). (more…)

I’ve been busy working on my 2008 theme, “Create it” — long fascinated by the power of XUL, I’ve decided to use it to improve my personal scheduling system. Here’s a screenshot of what I currently use, an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet:

And, here’s what I’m planning on replacing it with, a Javascript-automated, XUL scheduler:

Pretty spiffy. No, it’s not exactly Sunbird, but it could possibly make a decent Sunbird extension. One of the things I’ve had a lot of difficulty getting my mind around are the various security restrictions and variable scope oddities — I spent a lot of time trying to determine where my user settings (and by “extension” my chrome directory) actually were, since I’ve moved the same Firefox installation across three computers already.

I was thinking about recent posts on various blogs about the aging population in the American work force, and what it means for our economy. The very short version: things will be slightly difficult because the number of workers relative to the number of retirees will decline.

Way back when I was 15, I wanted a job. Alas, labor laws make it extremely difficult for a 15 year old to get a real job, even for the summer. The DOL of labor notes “During the school months of 1996-98, the CPS found that only 9 percent of 15-year olds were employed in an average month” and backs me up on the cause.

Let’s not pretend that teens benefit from being kept out of the labor force. Such restricts are the thinly-veiled economics of a bygone era, an attempt to increase wages by decreasing the size of the labor force, without any regard to the real activity taking placing under the surface.

There are roughly 20 million people in the United States between 5 and 9 years old. In five years, they’ll be between 10 and 14. If even 10% of them were involved in the labor force, with real jobs, we’d have another 2 million workers, easily. If they worked only for 5 hours a week at the 2009 minimum wage – slightly more than an hour after school during the school week and less than a single day a week during the summer – they’d still generate 3.7 billion dollars of additional gross wages (5 X 52 X 2000000 X 7.25). No, it’s not nearly enough — a mere drop in the bucket compared to the 18 trillion dollar projected medicare shortfall. But it’s no a small amount either.

Unfortunately, I’m not willing to make a prediction that it’ll be easier for teens in this country to get jobs. We do not have a history of well-thought-out labor law — it’s even possible that any coming crisis may actually lead to an outright ban on all teen labor.

Bizarrely, the Foresight Exchange still does not seem to have a claim for Obama…

Following the advice of the Chief Happiness Officer, I didn’t make any resolutions this New Year’s, but have chosen a theme for 2008. This year’s theme is “Create it.“

“Someday I want to be so powerful that I can defeat myself in a single blow.” – Scott, commenting on a character in Prism Ark who says that they want to be stronger.