Sunday, November 30, 2008

busy busy busy

I worked on the Philadelphia Marathon last week(end). I also told my friend Johnathan that i would do the Philadelphia Triathlon with him in June. Right now I'm leaning toward doing the sprint triathlon, but in the back of my mind i'm thinking that the sprint triathlon is for suckers, i might just do the whole thing. The thing i've got going for me is that i'm a decent swimmer, and apparently that's where people's weak points are. Since i only have to quicken how i swim, i think i might be able to remotely place, nothing significant cuz my running and biking would be sub-optimal, but still, nice prospects. I even bought goggles!

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What else? I'm committed to writing articles for my website. I set my pace at one per day. I've got tons to say, so i might as well get writing. I also realize that this is a little slow, i should be aiming for like 2-5 per day since i don't have anything else to do. I wrote one this morning on communication. umm. And i want to scrap the whole thing and rebuild it. i don't know why, i just do.

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I'm starting to talk more to my fiancee. I realize (after she tells me of course) that i don't talk to her a lot about the things going on in my head, so i'm making more of an effort to be in communication with her about things. It's not as hard as i thought. Though secretly i don't want this communication to get her into my decision-making process, just more of a sounding-board. That's because i'm a man, and men are more comfortable making solitary decisions . . . or at least that's the story i'm sticking to.
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Monday, November 17, 2008

no overtime for you

Hey, i like the idea of spreading the wealth around. In the upcoming weeks, there will be tons of discussions about how to bail this economy out. It will center heavily on rebuilding the physical infrastructure of the company, and promoting green jobs. I have something to add to this to make sure that everything is cool:

1. that no one person can recieve from a company more than 30 times the amount of the lowest paid and third-tier subcontractor. That means that if the lowest paid person in the company (janitor or secretary) makes $10 an hour, no other employee can make in total compensation more than $300 an hour.

Now, when people get government contracts, they usually subcontract out a lot of the work to other companies. What we don't want is shell corporations being created so that the second-tier suppliers do the real work, the requirement for second tier suppliers (including lawyers and accountants) makes sure that the money isn't sitting at the top of the foodchain.

2. that there are percentage limits on overtime. That is to say that no one person can work more than 50 hours per week. Why this? because i'm afraid that you'll have the skills and work hogged by a, though competent, few people. by limiting the overtime, what companies will have to do is to hire more people.
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been workin hard for no money

I've been working hard on my website Keystone Business Systems. I'm building it so that i can create a community of professionals, business-owners and non-profit organizations that will create a black business class in philadelphia.

When looking around at the state of Philadelphia politics and economics, we're drastically behind the curve. What i want to do is create a centralized location that aggregates the different organizations and 'movements' around black Philadelphia so that it is easy to find people, communicate with them and of course to plan and cooperate with them.

It's a hard job being a web developer. I'm installing, updating, migrating and doing all kinds of things. I'm also working on a book on networking that i put down for a week cuz i went headlong into this. On the book note, i did get a book that i've been wanting for a good while: Emergence: the connected lives of ants, cities, software and brains. I read it a few years ago and loved it. On its current second read, it's funny how i'm appreciating his writing style a lot more than the first go-round. Hopefully i'll be able to pick a few things up for my own book.
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

America's New Weapon, the slingshot

Apparently, people are saying the Pentagon's budget is bloated. You don't say! in a relatively detailed article that i read on reference from another article i realized that Obama can really cut the budget deficit down by shedding overly-expensive, and frivolous military spending. Though the article says that a lot of the budget is for personnel, there's still gonna be a lot of cost-cutting for experimental weapons programs.

I think that the army will eventually have to downgrade its advanced weaponry to the slingshot. Well, maybe not that much, but you can bet your AR'15s that joe soldier won't be getting any new toys for xmas next year.

What has me delighted about this is that our military spending is the highest per-capita on the planet, unless you count Waco back in the 90's, and needs to be reduced. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be equipped for wars that we should be fighting, i'm saying that sometimes the hottest technologies don't beat old-fashioned know-how.

I read in the book Moving Mountains by the Quartermaster in the Gulf War that he won a mock battle against high-tech weaponry using uninterceptable messages and orders written on 3x5 cards! The high-tech part of the army got routed. So there's room for non-high tech weaponry if our strategy and execution is novel.

I also read in the Pentagon's new map by Thomas Barnett which predicted the tranformation of the American fighting forces towards more of a peace-keeping and nation-building force. Granted, this was dismal since the third year in Iraq, but was glimpsed in India after the Tsunami when the Aircraft carrier came into port and was cheered by the indian populace, and commenced to produce massive quantities of clean water for the people whos water supply was now mixed with millions of gallons of salty ocean water.

So when i say the slingshot, i both mean the reduction in the complexity of vehicles, and a reduction in the government-financed research into them as well as the predilection for America to avoid fighting a war, armed with more of a pitchfork (for farming) and a slingshot than a cannon
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Sunday, November 09, 2008

Obama-lovin' late

I bumped into some people and they asked why i haven't blogged in a while. I stared at them with disbelief that they knew i had a blog, much less read it.

Well, i'm almost stunned that Obama won. I thought that when he beat Hillary, he had it in the bag. So that's why i'm not stunned. But i get the shivers at thinking that he actually won. A facebook friend of mine, which means he knows people i know but i don't remember the dude, Khari wrote a wonderful article about how and why i'm awe-struck. Couldn't have said it better myself, and i think i'm a good writer.

Recently, also on the Obama wagon, i read that Obama will have 48 appellate court seats to fill. The reason there were so many was that Bush couldn't push through his ultra-conservatives, and Clinton dropped the ball. you can find the rehashing of the same article if you search for 'obama' 'court' and 'fill'. This, i am excited about.

I wrote earlier here about Obama's thinking about the courts and strategy, which basically said that civil rights movements should look to creating legislation, and not the courts, to get their way, much like the conservative movement. I also told people that i was excited to have Obama as president, not only because he's black but because he brings to the presidency the subtle and profound thinking of a constitutional-law professor.
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