Pat Robertson

I have to agree with PJ Onori's response to the whole Pat Robertson fiasco -- "I find it sad that one must resort to a news broadcast on Comedy Central for the most sane coverage of our nation's news." Yup. It does say something when Jon Stewart has relevancy, and the media that is relied upon for news no longer does.

Game Shelving

Inhabitat has a posting on some cool Tetris inspired shelving from Brave Space. It's shelving in the shape and proportions of Tetris blocks. With the shelves, you can assemble, reassemble and play with your furniture. The pieces are sold individually, and are friggin' expensive. However, if you have the money, there's nothing that says cool like being able to assemble your own furniture from Tetris pieces.

When you really think about it though, there is no reason why you couldn't just build the pieces yourself. It looks easy enough. Be sure to check out the other posts at Inhabitat, for some really cool designs that could make your living that more interesting.

Droogle.ca

Droogle Canada -- this is amusing site -- slightly drunk, but that's what happens when you're a search engine that has sampled over 25,000 drinks. Enjoy! And remember, drink responsibly!

CIO Evolution

CIO Magazine is carrying an article by process guru, Michael Hammer, on the evolution of CIOs from being the head of technology, to becoming the process evangelists, process owners, and in the jargon of IBM -- who Hammer uses an example -- business transformation executives. Hammer points to process focus as a role well suited to the IT executive, and one that IT needs to adopt in order to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving business landscape that sees the classic role of IT going into extinction. IT functions are becoming commoditized; outsourcing opportunities loom large for businesses that view their IT organization as an expense; and new applications are giving power to tech-savvy business users to serve themselves. It's change or die.

Relevancy -- that is what IT can gain from becoming process focused. And IT is well suited for the task. IT already has a view across organizational boundaries via the systems they support -- visibility that is required, as processes tend to cross organizational units, or are leveraged from one unit to the next. IT has already encountered processes via systems development and project management methodologies, and via the implementation of ERP packages. Hammer uses IBM as an example of a company that has embedded the process owner role within the IT executive function. Process ownership doesn't mean the execution belongs to the owner -- it means the owner is responsible for ensuring the processes in place add value to the business -- and has accountability for improving those processes or drive adoption across business units. While IT has many process strengths, it does have one weakness however -- change management. IT professionals are not natural change management practitioners. To succeed, "IT will have to change its style. Collegial, creative and flexible -- rather than defensive, pedantic and rigid -- the key word for the new IT organization is collaboration."

This issue of CIO magazine also has a pretty good article that harks back to my previous life in the Supply Chain industry. Check out the Perfect Order: Achieving the Holy Grail of "perfect orders" involves more than just plugging data into software. Companies must also restructure their supply chain processes from end to end. Now you understand my enthusiasm for Hammer -- having lived in Supply Chain for most of my career, I've become quite a believer in business process adoption.

Kaena: The Prophecy

Finally saw Kaena: The Prophecy -- and it was a superb movie. It is a French produced, SciFi, CGI-animated movie, that uses classic themes to deliver a nice adventure story. The visuals are spectacular -- graphically rich, with constant, fluid motion -- it's a feast for the eyes, and can probably only be appreciated on a large screen. The imagery is so intense, that it will bear watching multiple times -- even without sound.

The plot: Kaena is a young girl living with a tribe of humans on the Axis -- a world above the world -- a world that is a huge entanglement of vines, supporting an entire ecosystem. The human tribe harvests sap from the vines for offerings to its gods -- gods that hide a terrible secret and will kill to keep it so. Things are not well with Kaena's world -- the vines are drying up, and there are constant quakes. Where are the gods that the people, led by their priest, pray to? Kaena doesn't believe the gods care about her people. She keeps dreaming of a blue world, beyond the Axis, that waits for her. The dreams lead her to escape from her village in search of the blue world. Along the way she will meet the last of an alien race that crashed into the Axis over a hundred years ago. She will meet worms that are far more intelligent and advanced than anything from the village she came from. She will find her destiny -- given charge of vast knowledge, the future of her people and the Axis.

A truly marvelous film, with a great story that will keep you watching. Definitely worth the rental.

The Prophecy: Uprising

The movie wasn't bad, as I was expecting -- it did go direct to video, but I'm not sure why. The movie can stand alone from the other Prophecy movies, as it is set in Europe, with new characters, that doesn't build on the characters already explored. (That's me saying that only having seen two of the previous movies.) It's the usual mumbo-jumbo with the good angels trying to prevent the two warring groups of bad angels from destroying humanity. What's good about the movie is the mystery, the pulling together of the pieces to solve the puzzle. I won't bore you with the details. There is some violence, some blood, but not the cool factor of the first movie. The atmosphere was missing, and that made it less scary. Worthwhile rental for a slow night.

How the Bratz Beat Barbie

Baseline magazine's August issue has a cover article chronicling the fist fight between Barbie and the Bratz dolls. The article is really about competitive intelligence. Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, had the information that showed Barbie's popularity was waning. Girls wanted "attitude and ethnicity, not pert and pale." Tweens "were losing interest in traditional Barbie, attracted to pop stars in heavy makeup and trendy clothes." For tweens, Barbie was a baby toy. Mattel knew the phenomenon called age compression was occurring in their consumers -- girls wanted to grow up fast -- and Mattel wasn't doing anything about it. MGA, the maker of Bratz dolls came along at the right time -- when the industry was making a shift -- and had the right product to capitalize on the shift. In the first six months of their introduction, MGA sold $20 million of Bratz dolls. It would take 14-months for Mattel to follow with My Scene dolls that matched MGA's racy dolls. Since then, new players have joined the market, feeding girls the grown up image they crave: Integrity Toys' Janay and Friends; Tolly Tots' Girls on the Go; and Disney's Princess.

Baseline as usual, does an excellent job at the technology deep dive -- going to details, while maintaining the business context so it all makes sense. I won't summarize their analysis of competitive analysis software and processes -- nor point out the specifics of how, despite having the data, Mattel's systems couldn't help the company extract information from it. As well, there were the psychological problems. Mattel was complacent, secure in their unassailable position in the industry. No one could take them on. Or so they thought. I won't go there -- instead, I'd like to turn to industry shift -- the fact that tweens are "growing up" faster today, than ever before.

This is going to become a huge cultural problem. Children coming rapidly of age, but being unprepared for the realities of being a grown-up -- both emotionally and physically. It is something that we as a society, have allowed to happen to the future generations. Obsessed as we are with going beyond selling, to capturing minds, we've targeted the least prepared for a marketing onslaught. Baseline chronicles the efforts Mattel takes in understanding its target market. There is something wrong with a society that preys on their young. Yes, I am placing guilt on all of us. It's not the corporations -- the big and mighty companies that are doing this -- they're simply the channel. It's not just complacency. It's choice. There are parents working in those big, bad companies. There are parents working in those marketing firms. There are child psychologists that were trained to heal, but are instead applying their knowledge for nefarious ends. They are all us. We have allowed it to happen by not stopping it. We've allowed it to enter our homes by not stopping it. We've allowed it to take over, by not parenting.

Where will this future take us? Maybe this will not have significant impact to the coming generations -- individuals may be scarred -- but not entire societies. But what will we become several generations from now? That future is being built today. Our every action shapes that future. Just how will we shape it?

Related reading:

TweenSpeak

Consumer Socialization of Children: A Retrospective Look at Twenty-Fice Years of Research [PDF]

Not of Whole Cloth Made: The Consumer Environment of Children [PDF]

The Impact of Pre-School Childrens Requests on Their Parents Choice of Brands:An Empirical Analysis [via Google]

Children as Consumers

Wake Up America

BushFlash presents: anti-George W. Bush propaganda.

On a completely unrealted front -- I just got there from BushFlash -- check out the sick and twisted animation of the Non-Livingtons.

Earth's Core Spins Faster Than Surface

Live Science is reporting that geophysicists that reported the Earth's inner core spins faster than the surface of the planet in 1996, will be confirming that results in the journal Science. Over 700 to 1,200 years, the Earth's inner core apparently gains one full extra spin over the surface of the planet. This knowledge could lead to a better understanding of how the Earth generates its magnetic field.

The Earth's core operates like a giant electric motor, in which the spin of the motor is driven by a magnetic field. In the Earth's core, liquid iron rise and fall from the liquid outer core onto the solid inner core. The rising and falling of the charged liquid iron generates a magnetic field that rotates the inner core "like a huge rotor in an electric motor."

The Lair of the White Worm

Just watched the Lair of the White Worm -- Ken Russell's adaptation of the Bram Stoker's novel -- which I've never read, but I may now put on my hit list. The movie is ... well ... funny. Intentionally so. The scene where Lady Marsh burns her snake and ladders game ... she gazes into the fire and whispers, "Rosebud." Hugh Grant plays a funny Lord James D'Ampton -- unintentionally, while sipping tea. Then there is Peter Capaldi Angus Flint, a Scott, who had to put on the outfit and play the bagpipes. And there were more like that.

The horror bits ... well, good vs. evil; the christian god vs. some snake god ... that's the white worm for you. The plot that's strung together is rather silly, and again, I think it was done intentionally so -- sort of a campy horror. Lady Marsh returns in spring to her village to bring back her long sleeping snake god with a virgin sacrifice -- a snake god that's been sleeping for some time since Lord D'Ampton's ancestor supposedly killed it -- the whole knight slaying the dragon thing. Lady Marsh is some kind of snake-vampire, whatever that is, and can infect people she bites with her venom. She loses her chance with her first virgin sacrifice, but then locates another. Unfortunately, she's the girlfriend of Lord D'Ampton, who isn't about to lose her -- and her sister, has a boyfriend who's a budding archeologist, and has found the skull of the white worm (ie. ancient snake god). Together the girls manage to get themselves captured to be sacrificed, and the boys must come to the rescue, all the while sipping tea, playing bagpipes and promising themselves that they should go down to the pub to get a pint. Very British.

The whole movie actually works on a campy, comedic-horror level -- never quite descending to B-movie status -- but never becoming really creepy or scary. As usual with a Ken Russell movie, there is blood, some nuns, and Christ on the cross. (And I'm purposely not going to explain that.)

The movie can be ordered from Amazon really cheaply! Amazon also got some good reviews of the movie.

Men are Smarter than Women

According to a study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn, to be published in the British Journal of Psychology, men are smarter than women -- due to genetic differences in intelligence -- men have larger brains than women. This shows up in men having a slight advantage over women in IQ tests, getting more Nobel prizes than women, and having more chess grandmasters than women. People who are about to take this too seriously, should note that Lynn has in the past published papers arguing that there are differences in intelligence between different racial groups.

I'm not sure if these "researchers" have factored the environment, social or economic conditions into their study. It would seem to be the intelligent thing to do. It's also interesting to note that the researchers are both men. Psychologists no less.

Books I Want Cheap

Summary of summaries that I recently read.

MarketBusters by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan -- Marketbusting is described as an action taken by a company that gives it a decided edge on its industry peers. This book offers five core marketbusting strategies, and lists forty supporting moves that a company can take within those strategies to go gangbusters on the competition. It's aimed at the executive types that actually work on strategies that steer businesses -- but, as I was reading the summary, I was thinking of it from my perspective, and on how I can apply some of the thinking with respect to my internal customers. If you're a department within an organization, think of these strategies as proactive steps to prevent yourself from being outsourced.

The five strategies and related moves:

Transform your customer's experience. Moves: 1) Replace the existing consumption chain with an alternative. 2) Use technology to combine or replace links within a chain. 3) Make some links within the chain, smarter. 4) Eliminate bottlenecks in the links of the chain. 5) Monopolize the events that trigger the start of the chain.

Transform your offerings. Moves: 1) Improve the things your customers find positive. 2) Eliminate the things your customers find annoying. 3) Break up existing segmentation of customers. 4) Infuse offering with empathy. 5) Add a compelling parallel offering. 6) Make things simple. 7) Get the value you deliver.

Redefine key metrics. Moves: 1) Radical change to the unit of business. 2) Radical improvements to productivity. 3) Improve cash flow velocity. 4) Use assets differently. 5) Improve customers key metrics. 6) Improve customers personal productivity. 7) Help improve customers cash flow. 8) Help improve customers quality.

Exploit industry shifts. Moves: 1) Move beyond industry swings. 2) Capitalize on the effects resulting from industry cycle shifts. 3) Launch disruptive responses to industry cycles. 4) Exploit shifts in industry constraints. 5) Capitalize on the effects resulting from constraints. 6) Disrupt an industry during a shift in a key constraint. 7) Exploit industry structure for the next lifecycle stage. 8) Understand second-order effects of next stage. 9) Redirect, disrupt or alter the evolutionary trajectory. 10) Exploit a shift in the value chain. 11) Exploit second-order shifts in the value chain. 12) Reduce costs or constraints to disrupt value chain.

Exploit emerging opportunities. Moves: 1) Shift a dimension of merit. 2) Create market via cautious evangelism. 3) Build a better mousetrap. 4) Do inventive missionary work. 5) Make a land grab. 6) Create a niche to win. 7) Run the arms race. 8) Bet on blue-sky ventures.

I realize that a lot of these moves are going to be useless without the context -- for that, you'll have to read the book -- or if you're lazy, the book summary. And before you off half-cocked, realize that planning something, and doing it, are two completely different things. You can have the greatest plan and still fail with the execution.


According to Kotler by Philip Kotler -- This book is written by the supposed, "world's foremost authority on marketing." From the summary, it looks like it would be a very easy read, full of insights and relevant industry examples -- and would be a good start for someone getting into the marketing industry. I like Kotler's definition of marketing's mission: "to sense people's unfulfilled needs and create new and attractive solution." From answering some basics about marketing, he moves on to issue some forecasts on industry trends, then describing why brands and brand building is so important and concluding with short trestle on the importance of service. This book is definitely on my "get cheap" list!


The Loyalty Advantage by Dianne M. Durkin -- The premise of this book is rather simple: "Employee loyalty drives customer loyalty which drives brand loyalty." How very true -- and it's one of the biggest factors management could influence to allow their business to make more money. When people feel that they are contributing, making a difference, they're happier -- and happier employees are smarter -- basic biology -- which is quite the opposite when you look at employees working for pointy haired bosses and companies that don't value their contribution. Employees in those companies are unhappy, stressed out, make more mistakes and generally don't care.

The book offers five steps that a company can take to build loyalty in employees, customers and other stakeholders. Again, without the details in the book, some of this will be completely out of context -- the summary is helpful, but I think I will have to get the book. And again, this book talks to the executive types -- but the lessons in it can also be leveraged by anyone with employees reporting to them. The steps:

Assess your company's current situation and target your stress points. You don't actually have to wander far from your department to sense how things are going. Realize that at the department level, some things may be doable -- and some are just way outside your control.

Create focus and strategy through shared vision, values and positioning. At the department level, even if you don't agree with some of the crazy stuff going on, you can at least turn to the vision and values that are in place. Those are usually well thought out, and can hold their own despite the storms that may rage around them.

Use communication to develop credibility and support. I think it takes more than communication. It takes action, but you also have to communicate that action is happening. Too often there are a lot of words, but no proof in the pudding -- cause there's no pudding.

Establish an infrastructure for success. This is all about ensuring that the people, processes, tools, etc., that are in place, are the right ones. There's no need to marshal the troops to head into battle if there's an insurmountable wall in the way.

Foster ongoing success through continuous evaluation and feedback. This is so important. If you leave things, the environment will change and what was once the right thing may no longer work. You would never know unless you ask.

To ensure there is loyalty there, that your business can thrive, is to have leadership. Without it, there's just a lot of floundering. I'm definitely going to have to get this book.

Amazon Women on the Moon

Saw this movie last night too. Yup -- three movies, one night. This one was a blast from the past, as I had seen it way back then. I think I actually saw it on TV in the late 80s -- it had it's theatrical release in 1987. I remember it being very funny. Maybe my tastes have been refined (honed?) over the years -- or memory is a lair -- either way, it wasn't as funny this time around. That's not to say it was without humour. It had its moments, and is definitely one of those movies you want to watch late at night when there's absolutely nothing else on.

This time around, it was interesting catching the many now familiar faces, when they were younger, and were desperate for a gig. There was Arsenio Hall, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joe Pantoliano (still without hair, but wearing a rug), Lana Clarkson, David Alan Grier (lacking any soul), B.B. King (trying to save Blacks without Soul), Rosanna Arquette, Steve Gutenberg, Robert Picardo (with hair), and the list goes on and on. The movie is a spoof of 1950s SciFi movies -- this one being played on TV, uninterrupted -- except the station keeps having technical difficulties. The technical difficulties are filled with comedy sketches like "Blacks Without Soul," "Titan Man," "Video Date," "First Lady of the Evening," "Son of the Invisible Man," and "Bullshit or Not" -- to name a few. Each had their moments, but aren't necessarily linked together.

Watchable, and will help pass the time.

The Passion of Darkly Noon

This is a very weird movie, starring Brendan Fraser, Ashley Judd and Viggo Mortensen. Fraser plays a guy raised by some religious fanatics -- they're killed by a mob and he gets away. He's found in a forest and is nursed back to health by Judd, who lives in the forest with her mute boyfriend, Mortensen. Mortensen has this habit of wandering in the forest for days. Fraser is nursed back to health when Mortensen is away -- and he slowly falls for Judd. When Mortensen returns, jealousy finds Fraser. Lots of weirdness ensues. Is Judd a witch? As some believe? Is the forest evil? Why is Fraser's dead parents talking to him? Enticing him to do the lord's murderous duty?

Atomik Circus

I just saw this French movie, starring Vanessa Paradis, Jason Flemyng, Benoît Poelvoorde and Jean-Pierre Marielle. It was hilarious. If you like b-movies, you'll enjoy this fine representation of the bad art. (Yes, I used art to describe the movie.) What's it all about? Well, Paradis plays a musician -- there's a stretch for you -- and Flemyng her boyfriend. Poelvoorde plays a sleazeball from the music industry who just wants to get into Paradis pants after they've first met. That's the setup. Now add a father who doesn't like the boyfriend, as he blew up his bar -- and is sentenced to prison. He escapes as hovering aliens with tentacles land on Earth and are hell bent on killing everyone. They decide to start in a small Frech hick town (is there even such a thing?). The music industry guy is infected by the aliens and becomes a bad ass who wants to do something not-so-nice to the girl. The boyfriend escapes from prison as the aliens start the killing spree. The boyfriend, the father and the girl now have some alien butt to kick. Read a complete review at Twitch.

Guess-the-google

A very addictive online game based on Google's image search. Enjoy!

The Marketing of IT

I just read a Forrester "Best Practices" report titled: The Marketing of IT. As the article introduced one of the biggest problems facing IT, I kept shouting (quietly, as I was on the subway), "Yes! That's what I keep facing!" Or telling people -- or something like that anyway. The report resonated with me. I'll spare you the details of the resonating -- and because going into the details will open some can of worms I'd rather not get into. Forrester summarizes the problem with:

IT's inability to market effectively cements its cost center role in the enterprise: communicating status but not value, fulfilling requests but not solving problems, and partially deploying technologies but not delivering expected results.

How's that for a loaded gun? IT stumbles -- and it's an industry wide problem. Long, the exclusive domain of the geeks -- and I mean that in with the utmost respect -- the role of IT has changed as business has grown in its dependence of technology. With business reliance of IT greater than ever as the pace of change increases, there has been movement in IT to become a business to serve the business. IT however, has adopted business practices close to home, such as, project management, accounting and other metrics driven processes. While there has been improvements, Forrester points to stumbling that continues:

IT fails to communicate how good they're doing, and so clients are left to form their own opinions.

IT continues to be order takers, delivering, but not necessarily delivering on what is most needed -- innovation and value.

When IT delivers new technologies, the rollout is so slow, if it's ever completed, that benefits are hardly ever realized.

If you buy it or build it, and implement it, they will come -- only a lot of times, they don't come and IT fails.

IT's solution to these problems -- as much problems of perception as they are of delivery -- communicate! Forrester points out that we in the IT industry have been communicating, only no one is listening, or they don't understand the gobbly-gook we're speaking. Guess what? You can yell through a megaphone, but you can't make them listen. Forrester's solution: Marketing. If Marketing can sell you so much of the crap you don't want, it can surely sell IT -- the good stuff organizations really do need. Every IT effort -- be it a project, or a KTLO initiative -- is an opportunity to market IT to its clients. But how often do any of us do it? How often do we tell our clients that we're about to do something, we're doing it, and we've just done it -- and there, things are better off now for our efforts? Hardly! As Forrester points out, we continue to allow ourselves to be a black box. We're our worse enemy. It's not the business fault for not understanding us, and not thinking we amount to much in IT -- it's our own damn fault.

IT marketing according to Forrester, is "the business activity of presenting IT's products, services, and capabilities to constituents in such a way that makes them eager to fund an utilize." The emphasis on "in such a way" is mine. Marketing is great, but if you screw it up, you just end up looking like an idiot at best -- worst, you won't even be noticed. Forrester suggests the following approach:

Develop a Marketing Plan -- Forrester lists the 4 Ps of Marketing. OK, it's Marketing 101 -- Product, Price, Place and Promotion. There are a few more: Participants, Physical Evidence and Process. But let's start with 101 before we head to grad school.

Execute on the Plan -- ie. rollout your marketing campaign. You'll need to know what your objectives, audience, channels, champions and metrics are. Remember that one size does not fit all, and customize your campaign accordingly.

Build Brand Equity -- your brand is the most valuable possession you could have, squander it at your peril. Your brand can be used to create awareness, build lasting trust and attract interest in your organization.

In IT, we're motivated to do the right thing. None of us go into work to be the pointy-hair boss -- yet, that's how we're perceived. We can be perceived for the value we add -- and we can add value. All we have to do is think of ourselves as a business. If we were an outsourced service provider, and not the entitled IT organization, how would we face our clients? You bet your ass we would face them differently -- either that or be out of business. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle ... to name a few ... ever wondered how they became the powerhouses they are? Simple -- they sell stuff.

Related link:

Seven Ways to Bridge Marketing and IT

Random Sites

Because I thought they were amusing, interesting, or otherwise, sites that you couldn't live without:

Vista Window Company -- not just another multi-billionaire's company. In fact, they probably don't even make millions.
Meet the World -- a Brazilian artist using the flags of the world to introduce you to the country's population.
GigPosters -- a site that archives the posters used promote shows and events. Check out some cool art by some happenin' designers.
Weight Watchers Recipe Cards, circa 1974 -- see a disgusting blast from the past. People actually ate that shit. (Some still do.)

Source: eWeek.

Blood Feud

I read this sad tale of racism in the most unexpected of places, in the latest Wired magazine [see Blood Feud, available online on Aug. 29th]. It all began a long time -- when blacks were freed of slavery in America with the 13th amendment to the US constitution. Natives, who had also kept some black slaves, freed their slaves -- and those blacks, continued to live as part of the native tribes they belonged to -- marrying, living and becoming part of the tribes. The black-natives voted in elections, sat on tribal councils and received benefits. Everyone got along. Then in 1906, US senator, Henry Laurens Dawes, in an attempt to "civilize" native territory, set up what became known as the Dawes Roll. A commission of white clerks from Washington descended on Oklahoma and set about to give 160-acre plots of land to natives. The commission was deluged by applicants -- and surprisingly, some were whites and blacks, claiming to have native heritage. The clerks, mostly by sight, determined who were natives and who were not, putting them into two distinct groups. There were the natives on the Dawes Roll, and those that looked African, labeled "freedmen" and were not considered to be native, on the Freedmen Roll -- even if they were of native descent. In some cases, siblings were placed on differing rolls.

The Dawes Roll eventually slipped into history and all was good for almost 90-years, when the US government granted the sovereign native nations, the rights to set up and govern casinos on their territory. Suddenly all natives were no longer equal. All natives were to benefit from the profits of the casinos, except those that were visibly mixed. The Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma -- the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole -- suddenly found history. They found the Dawes Roll and they changed their laws. If you could prove you were a descendant from someone on the Dawes Roll, you would gain citizenship in their nation. If you came from the Freedman Roll, you were no longer native, regardless of what you looked like, or how much native ancestry you had in you -- regardless of whether your family were considered natives for generations, and could trace your lineage back to the 18th century with your tribe. The descendants of the Freedmen that wanted back in turned to the courts for help, but the US judicial system decided they couldn't interfere in the native issues that were governed by native laws. So the Freedmen descendants appealed to genetics. DNA testing to be exact.

In a recent presentation to the Descendants of the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes conference, on genetic testing in a small sample of black-natives, there was a surprise. The Descendants didn't really get the undeniable proof they were looking for. The small sampling had 4-76% African ancestry, 0-62% European ancestry and 0-30% Native ancestry, averaging in at only 6% -- the same amount found in other African-American populations. Their native ancestry wasn't that unique. However, and this is where it really got surprising -- it may be the European ancestry that really matters. The Descendants averaged in at 18% with European ancestry, and that may be roughly the same amount of European mixing that could be found in the so-called pure-blood natives, who have had encounters with Europeans since the 17th century. Other black populations show a lower average European ancestry.

One thing that genetics keeps reminding us of is that we're all the same. We're no different from each other. Here's another example that topples another myth -- that of the pure-blood. Who is pure anymore? None of us are, especially those claiming to be pure -- and therefore having some level of superiority over another group. The shocker of this whole article was the stance taken by the Five Civilized Tribes. It amounts to nothing more than discrimination of their own people -- people who are genetically similar to them, but just happened to have looked different to a bunch of white clerks back in 1906.

Related links:

Trail of Tears -- the forced removal of the Cherokee tribe by the US Government.
Who Is a Seminole, and Who Gets to Decide? -- NY Times
Genetics, Culture and Identity in Indian Country [PDF]
Red Bird, Oklahoma: An Investigation of an All Black American Town [PDF]
The Cherokee Removal and the Fourteenth Amendment
Declaration of Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere Regarding the Human Genome Diversity Project

NASA Grounds Shuttle

Yet again, NASA's shuttle fleet -- or what's left of them -- have been grounded. This time until 2006, due to the continuing problems NASA is encountering with the foam insulation on the external fuel tank. It was a similar problem that caused Columbia to break apart as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere. NASA then went on to spend over $200 million in two years trying to prevent the foam insulation from coming off -- all for naught it would appear.

NASA's new focus on the shuttle is to ensure that the last components of the space station can be lifted to orbit before the shuttle fleet retires in 2010. Hopefully by then, replacements will be flying -- but don't hold your breath.

Gas Prices

It's not the ridiculous high gas prices that gets me -- although it contributes a bit to my distaste for oil companies, oil corporations and just about the entire industry -- it's the constant ups and downs. Tonight, I drove 15-minutes to pick up my daughter from the subway, and along the way, I saw the gas price change at one station from 90.5 to 89.5. A one cent drop in 15-minutes. Other gas stations along my route had different prices. It also makes me cringe when I see the massive line-ups when there is a one cent drop. The psychology of the masses is truly amazing. If people had to fill up with 50-litres of gasoline, then a one-cent difference would amount to 50-cents out of their pockets. People sustain brutal line-ups, tempers flaring, to save fifty-cents! Don't you get it people? The gas bars are aware of you psychological dysfunction, and are playing you. Don't bother going in there and harassing the clerk -- which I've seen some people do -- they don't have control, and their minimum-wage-ass don't give a shit that you're pissed with the ups and downs. You have a problem with it? Protest the oil companies -- or better yet -- screw the oil companies. Take public transport, or get rid of your gas guzzler and opt for a hybrid. Hit them where it hurts.

End of rant.

Car Battery

Today, I happened to look at the Charing System Gauge, otherwise known as the Battery Indicator, of my car and was in for a little bit of a shock. The indicator was down to low, sometimes dropping below low, and it wasn't indicating any charging as I was driving. We've had severe rainfall here in the last couple of days, and I'm not sure if that was a contributing factor. The battery isn't that old, so it can't be age.

Tonight I decided to lift the hood of the car to look at the mess of machinery under it. I'm mechanically challenged. The stuff under there scares me. The battery was sitting there with acid all over the terminals. So, I got a brush from my trunk and brushed off the acid, inhaling deeply of the resulting noxious cloud. Now I have this metallic taste in my mouth. I think I will gargle with some household chemicals later in an attempt to exhale fire. That feeble attempt at fixing the problem didn't really fix shit. The battery still won't charge.

So, I consulted the car's manual -- a couple of steps before the last resort, which would be asking someone to fix it for me. The manual says:

If you see any corrosion on the battery cables or terminals, remove the cables from the terminal and clean them both with a wire brush. You can neutralize the acid with a solution of baking soda and water. Reinstall the cables when you are done cleaning them, and apply a small quantity of grease to the top of each battery terminal to help prevent corrosion.

Tomorrow I plan on bringing this little adventure to conclusion. I don't have a wire brush, but I think some sandpaper should suffice. Just not sure what I will be using as grease. Just what can you use? Do they actually sell grease at the local Canadian Tire? I suppose after I get the cleaning done, I could go for a drive and find out. Before I demonstrate my ineptitude however, is there any advice? -- on the above and on safety -- just so I don't experience an ill-timed and humorous ending.

Lawful Access Legislation

In a speech to the Canadian Association of Police Boards, Canada's Minister for Justice and Attorney General, Irwin Cotler, revealed plans to introduce new lawful access legislation in the near future. The legislation will allow law enforcement officials to intercept internet communications and access data pertaining to internet usage, by Canadians. Disturbingly, discussion papers being circulated on the legislation by the government, points to a complete lack of oversight. Police would be able to request information from an ISP on a user, without having to obtain a court order, as is the case today. This legislation is highly suggestive of similar legislation that has been enacted in the US in the guise of combatting terrorism. Canada is following the US lead in not giving a damn about the privacy rights of its own citizens.

Future of Comics

Sarah Boxer writes about the evolution of comic books from the printed media to the digital, in the NYTimes. Comics haven't fully made it on the web. They're either limited by the necessitity to scroll to see the entire page, which makes the final product inferior to the printed page -- or, they've become inferior animation -- neither comic or full blown animation. It's clear that innovation hasn't reached the digital comic book as yet -- and to some degree, the digital comic book shares the same problems that other printed artform has in the translation to the web. The biggest problem is in the appreciation of the art by the end consumer. The digital world still hasn't given end consumers the touch, feel, smell -- the initimacy -- that printed on paper art provides -- be it a novel, a comic book or a piece of art. It's not tactile. It can't be savoured. It's just not real enough. There's something personal in appreciation of art that the digital doesn't convey. Digital paper may one day get us there, but it's going to take more than evolution to get us there. A revolution perhaps -- as the masses won't be easily converted.

Boxer provides the following links in her article to give you a sample of online comics:

OnlineComics.net
Blank Label Comics
Coconino World
Webcomics Nation
Web Cartoonists Choice Awards

Lisa See Interview

I'm listening to a fascinating interview of Lisa See, author of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan." The interview, conducted by Dr. Moria Gunn, discusses See's discovery of an ancient Chinese written language, nu shu, known only to women in a remote Chinese province. [clip] The language has been kept secret for 1,000 years, and See's discovery, inspired her to write her latest novel. The interview also goes into some details of ancient Chinese practice of feet binding, in which, over a period of two years or so, a child's feet, at the toes, would be folded back to meet the heel. The bones would be broken, and basically the women would be left to walk on their big toes.

Google vs. Yahoo!

Yahoo! recently claimed that their search engine index had grown to 20 billion items, over twice as large as Google's 8.1 billion. Quite the bragging rights that gave Yahoo!. An independent study however, by the NCSA, has found that while Yahoo!'s claims can't be verified, Google remains the search engine with the most. Consistently, Google kept returning more results, especially for obscure searches, which this study focused on. (Both Google and Yahoo! truncates results after 1,000 results, so the researchers decided to look at obsucure searches.) Yahoo! only returned 37.4% of the results that Google did.

The Manager's Job: Folklore and Fact

I just read Henry Mintzberg's "The Manager's Job: Folklore and Fact" in the Harvard Business Review -- originally published in the July-August 1975 issue, and republished in 1990 -- but still, very true today.

Mintzberg recaps the classical understanding of the manager's job, as one that plans, organizes, coordinates, commands, and controls -- borrowing this definition from Henri Fayol. He cautions however that, "at best, they indicate some vague objectives managers have when they work." It is by no means what a manager really does. If you're a manager, think about this. Are those really the functions of someone in command? Mintzberg goes on to site research into what a manager really does on the job to create his own definition of what management is. He first introduces and dispels four myths about the manager's job, and in the process, laying to rest Fayol's definition.

1. Folklore: The manager is a reflective, systematic planner.
Fact: Study after study has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace, that their activities are characterized by brevity, variety, and discontinuity, and that they are strongly oriented to action and dislike reflective activities.

2. Folklore: The effective manager has no regular duties to perform.
Fact: Managerial work involves performing a number of regular duties, including ritual and ceremony, negotiations, and processing of soft information that links the organization with its environment.

3. Folklore: The senior manager needs aggregated information, which a formal management information system best provides.
Fact: Managers strongly favour verbal media, telephone calls and meetings, over documents.

4. Folklore: Management is, or at least is quickly becoming, a science and a profession.
Fact: The managers' programs -- to schedule time, process information, make decisions, and so on -- remain locked deep inside their brains.

Mintzberg then defines a manager's job in terms of ten roles or behaviours identified with the management position. These are:

Interpersonal Roles   Figurehead   Leader   Liason

Informational Roles   Monitor   Disseminator   Spokesperson

Decisional Roles   Entrepreneur   Disturbance Handler   Resource Allocator   Negotiator

The interpersonal roles, Mintzberg outline, comes from direct authority and involves interpersonal relationships. The informational roles arise from contacts both vertical and horizontal of the organizational unit, as well as internal and external to it. The manager by definition of this role, knows more than her subordinates does. The decisional roles arise from the informational and interpersonal roles -- the manager has formal authority, and also has the information to make decisions impacting the organization.

Hence Mintzberg's definition of management. It is these roles, working as "an integrated whole," that results in management. You can't have a manager without all of these roles, although an individual manager may use these roles to differing degrees. Mintzberg concludes with:

If there is a single theme that runs through this article, it is that the pressures of the job drive the manager to take on too much work, encourage interruption, respond quickly to every stimulus, seek the tangible and avoid the abstract, make decisions in small increments, and do everything abruptly.

... the manager is challenged to deal consciously with the pressures of superficiality by giving serious attention to the issues that require it, by stepping back in order to see a broad picture, and by making use of analytical inputs. ... the danger of managerial work is that they will respond to every issue equally and that they will never work the tangible bits and pieces of information into a comprehensive picture of their world.

The manager is challenged to gain control of his or her own time by turning obligations into advantages and by turning those things he or she wishes to do into obligations. ... First, managers have to spend much time discharging obligations that if they were to view them as just that, they would leave no mark on the organization. ... Second, the manager frees some time to do the things that he or she -- perhaps no one else -- thinks important by turning them into obligations.

Mintzberg crafts a great and thought provoking article -- an article that retains its relevancy despite being published 30-years ago. I recommend it as a highly informative and entertaining read.

BBS Documentary Collection

Before the Internet hit prime time, kiddies looking for some online action hooked up to a network of Bulletin Board Systems and made their world a bit smaller. Now, Jason Scott of TEXTFILES.COM and the Internet Archive, have teamed up to bring Scott's extensive interviews that were conducted for a documentary project on BBSes, online -- free, under a Creative Commons license for all to enjoy.

Google loses to GEICO

The Register is reporting that Google has lost an AdWords case to GEICO. Apparently, while not allowing the use of GEICO's name in the content of AdWords, Google had sold the trademarked name in keyword search advertising. That is, if you searched for GEICO using Google, then you would end up seeing advertising from whoever bought that term -- even though the name GEICO would not appear in the ad itself. I don't agree with the ruling. Google should be able to sell advertising against any search term if they so wish. Google search is not a public service -- it's a private business. In effect, GEICO is saying that Google has a responsibility to them to ensure that when an internet user searches for GEICO, they don't see advertising for other insurance companies. I don't think Google has such a responsibility. They haven't violated GEICO's trademark in anyway. I'm sure this loss is going to open a can of worms for Google.

China & India: Future Shock

BusinessWeek latest issue has a cover article on the coming global dominance of China and India. It's more of the same that has been making the rounds in the media lately, but this article provides a timely and updated summary. BusinessWeek explains that "in the coming decades, China and India will disrupt workforces, industries, companies, and markets in ways that we can barely begin to imagine." Those in the developed nations should take note. If companies adopt a wait and see attitude, they will find themselves surpassed by those that are today taking steps to leverage the might of the two emerging giants.

You can see the signs of China's success in their cities that are being systematically being transformed by gleaming, state of the art infrastructure. India on the other hand is grappling slowly with its change. The transformation is happening, but the infrastructure accompaniment is slow to change. In some ways, this has result in two countries that are uncannily playing off each other's strengths. China is focusing on mass manufacturing of just about everything, including technology. India on the other hand is mastering software, design, services and precision industry. Combined with both their untapped, cheap, and educated labour masses, their future is inevitable.

By 2050, according to some predictions, India will surpass Germany to become the third largest economy, while China will surpass the US to become the number one. Together, the two countries will account for half the global output. They will also account for a significant portion of the consumers of that output -- making them significant growth opportunities for many businesses from the developed nations. China and India will also push their interests on the global stage -- especially in areas like Africa and the Middle East. There's also likely to be military tensions between China and the US, and perhaps even China and India.

BusinessWeek paints quite the compelling future for China and India, and strive to deliver a message to the industrialized nations. Like it or not, China and India will be reshaping the current dominance of the global marketplace. It is inevitable. There's no fighting it. We have to learn to live with it, and make room for them. Along the way, the global economy will become ever more interdependent.

Related links:

For a little history of the region, click here for a BusinessWeek flash animation.

BusinessWeek also has a set of cool slide shows -- multimedia presentions on China & India, covering, "What's Cool," "A Day in the Life," and "China's Dirty Face."

China-India Entente Shifts Global Balance -- YaleGlobal Online

Terry Pratchett's Thud!

Terry Pratchett's new Discworld novel will be released in the second week of September. Thud! will chronicle the further mis-adventures of Commander Samuel Vimes and the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork. I'm looking forward to the novel, as there's always a dry spell between Pratchett books -- and he's an author that I am a little obsessive about. The man has wit and hilarity in his scribe. The teaser e-mail that brought the news of the forthcoming novel included the following descriptive:

  It started out as a perfect day -- the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch shaved himself without a single nick. And then he went to work.

  THUD!

  Suddenly, Vimes is in the thick of looming disaster -- he's got an unsolved murder to crack, an impending war born of age-old animosity to avert, a new recruit he'd really rather not hire, not to mention a pesky government inspector asking all the wrong questions.

So I looked the novel up at Amazon, and got an even better teaser:

It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player must take both sides to win ...

It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves a trollish cranium ...

It's the unsettling sound of history about to repeat itself ... THUD!

It's the most extraordinary, outrageous, provocative, insightful, and keenly cutting flight of fancy yet from Discworld's incomparable supreme creator ... Terry Pratchett

  Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch admits he may not be the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer -- he might not even be a spoon. But he's dogged and honest and he'll be damned if he lets anyone disturb his city's always-tentative peace -- and that includes a rabble-rousing dwarf from the sticks (or deep beneath them) who's been stirring up big trouble on the eve of the anniversary of one of Discworld's most infamous historical events.

  Centuries earlier, in a gods-forsaken hellhole called Koom Valley, a horde of trolls met a division of dwarfs in bloody combat. Though nobody's quite sure why they fought or who actually won, hundreds of years on each species still bears the cultural scars, and one views the other with simmering animosity and distrust. Lately, an influential dwarf, Grag Hamcrusher, has been fomenting unrest among Ankh-Morpork's more diminutive citizens with incendiary speeches. And it doesn't help matters when the pint-size provocateur is discovered beaten to death ... with a troll club lying conveniently nearby.

  Vimes knows the well-being of his smoldering city depends on his ability to solve the Hamcrusher homicide without delay. (Vimes's secondmost-pressing responsibility, in fact, next to being home every evening at six sharp to read Where's My Cow? to Young Sam.) Whatever it takes to unstick this very sticky situation, Vimes will do it -- even tolerate having a vampire in the Watch. But there's more than one corpse waiting for him in the eerie, summoning darkness of the vast, labyrinthine mine network the dwarfs have been excavating in secret beneath Ankh-Morpork's streets. A deadly puzzle is pulling Sam Vimes deep into the muck and mire of superstition, hatred, and fear -- and perhaps all the way to Koom Valley itself.

Oh, I'm quite looking forward to the book. And I may even have to pick up the the companion picture-book, Where's My Cow?, that will be released at the same time.