Insight into Flight Attendant Mindset

My flight from Maryland to Washington today stopped in St. Louis, Missouri.  Few passengers were continuing on and of those I was the only one that elected to remain on the plane during the layover, which was a bit over an hour.  The reason I didn't get off the plane is that security regulations no longer allow you to leave any of your belongings on the plane, but rather, you have to take everything off with you.  Since on this flight I decided to bring my second bag (the one without the laptop) on the plane as carry-on instead of checking it like I did the other way, I further decided it was too much trouble to load up and carry off my carry-on.

 

Anyway, I got to overhear some conversations between flight attendants.  Very informative.  The most interesting took place in the aisle not four feet from where I was sitting.  "So, is this one the only one on during the layover?"  I felt distinctly like cattle or some kind of inanimate object, not worthy of even the anthropomorphism accorded to say, a small cell phone.  ("Oh, look it's so cute and adorable!")  They continued talking in much this way until I looked up at them and caught the eye of the one female of the group.  Without a word, they moved down the aisle about eight rows and continued their conversation in low tones from there.

 

Later, I asked one of the flight attendants a couple questions about flight times and number of passengers expected on the next flight, and got the distinct impression that such questions were entirely unwelcome while not in the air.  Suitable cowed by this exchange (ha, ha, cowed, cattle!) I returned to my seat and took my revenge.  They have been pwn3d!  (By my blog.)

 

[For those not versed sufficiently in 733+, the language of hackers and other online denizens, pwn3d is pronounced "poned" and was a partially mistyped and partially alternate version of "owned" meaning "beat you in competition."  That would be, "In that game, I owned you!" or "I won without you really getting to even compete to a level I consider significant!"  But of course, "pwn3d!", especially when said loudly while pointing is just really way too much more funny.  I will henceforth use pwn3d without explanation whenever the situation warrants, such as when people act in ways I find less than desireable.]

[Politics] Life Imitates a Clancy Novel

I have been reading a lot about the latest liberal attempt to bring George Bush's National Guard service into question in attempt to deflect attention away from the hard questions being posed to their own candidate that they don't seem to want to answer, and it's fascinating.  Frankly, I think it's fascinating totally independently of my own views on which candidate will make a better president.  The latest go-around reminds me of the various Tom Clancy novels I've read.

 

Look at it - CBS runs a report about some newly discovered memos that are supposed to somehow impugn Bush's service record despite his honorable discharge.  The high-tech internet crowd starts digging into the facts and the memos turn out to be pretty badly forged.  CBS stands by their story, but the idea that the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry campaign put this stuff in their hands to make them do the heavy-lifting around making such a story stick and damage their opponents.  Now CBS feels duped.  But the DNC doesn't want to fess up to it, so they start talking about how they had doubts.  But then, others in the DNC and the Kerry campaign starts floating this idea that somebody put the forgeries in their hands on purpose to get them to raise a stink and look bad when the forgery was discovered.  Who?  Why, the diabolical Karl Rove!  That's right, it's all an idea hatched and carried out by the Republicans to ultimately discredit the Democrats, the Kerry campaign, and the partisan media!

 

Personally, I think that anyone that could come up with that kind of coolness to discredit opponents is probably actually demonstrating the kind of thinking I want focused on enemies that want to kill us, so if Karl Rove and the Republicans started this, then they are more awesome than I thought.  But setting that aside, what a cool storyline that would make in a work of fiction.  I don't remember the title of the specific Clancy book (Executive Orders?), but in one of them there's a subplot where the vice president is trying to get the courts to declare Jack Ryan's presidency as illegitimate, and it involves documents that are destroyed (ooh, a Sandy Berger connection!), forgeries, lawsuits, and more.

 

That was a huge book and I read in very little time because it was exciting, detailed, interesting, and you could really see such things happening.  Now, I say we don't even have to imagine, it's going on right in front of us.  How cool is that?

 

Before I ever used to listen to politics, my friend Bobby used to tell me that he'd keep stuff like C-SPAN on in the office all the time because it was far more interesting to hear what was going on, who was doing what to whom, and listen to all the posturing as politicians try to get the upper hand and hide their real agendas.  At the time, I was unconvinced.  It seemed boring.  No more.

 

I just thought of another parallel - Roger Zelazney's Chronicles of Amber.  The main characters are a family of powerful immortals.  During the series, a given character will first seem like a bad guy, then later a good guy, then later a bad guy again.  All because the characters are complex and have motivations they hide from one another.  Truly intriguing stories.  That's what American politics is like, and probably the politics of many countries.

 

Maybe I should run for office, 'cause I'd love my job?

 

Flying on September 11

As I write this, I'm on a plane. I'm spending most of today on planes. I got up at 5am just to get to the plane on time, although due to a leak in the plane's hydraulic system, I'm not getting to Dallas until mid-afternoon and won't see National Airport in DC until around 9pm local time. Flying on September 11 is an interesting exercise. It's clearly something most people think twice about. A woman getting off the plane because the delay made her decide to just go home again instead of flying to wherever she was going even commented something to that effect to other passengers as she was getting off. That seemed pretty tacky, especially when the people you are saying it to are going to go ahead and fly on a plane you're currently abandoning. I wouldn't doubt we were all thinking about it anyway, but you just don't say it, right

Flying off on a complete tangent for a moment (ha, an airplane metaphor to launch my segue!) not saying stuff like that reminds me of a short story I have only read vicariously through Trevor. He was telling me about a story he read in an Asimov science fiction magazine where one guy is telling another guy that they have to be watchful for time travellers, but that they should be reasonably easy to spot because of all the unspoken, unwritten rules we have in our society. The time traveller would have no way of knowing them, because they aren't truly obvious, they aren't important enough for anyone to ever talk about, but when violated stand out like a sore thumb. His companion laughs at the idea, takes out a cigarette, and taps it on its case before lighting it. The first guy tells him he's now caught him, because people don't tap cigarettes because of how they are processed... and kills him. There was some context there as to why the time traveller would need to be killed that I didn't know, since I hadn't read the story, and still don't know because Trevor never explained that part and I still haven't read the story, so the killing came as kind of an extra shock in Trevor's rendition that made me laugh in surprise. So I have to wonder - did the woman getting off the plane come from another time where she'd been briefed on what 9/11 was, but had not internalization of what it would really mean to be an air traveller only three years later who actually lived through that day? I don't know, but I wasn't taking any chances, so after some explanation, I got the flight attendants to dump the body.

(For those of you far too serious minded, no, of course I didn't kill anyone. That you would even hesitate long enough to wonder, for shame

Getting back, though, to what I really set out to write about in this entry, it was interesting that I was able to get the cheapest round-trip ticket for a coast-to-coast trip I've ever purchased, $202, to make this trip. There were lots of black-out dates on which you couldn't fly at that fare, but September 11 was the only Saturday I recall being available and that made it possible for me to take a long weekend and not use up an extraordinary amount of my vacation time. That's important if I want to be able to take off the entire weeks around Thanksgiving and Christmas, which I do

I've never hesitated about flying on September 11 the last couple years, although this is the first year since 2001 that I've had any occasion to actually do so. Apparently, plenty of people agree with me, at least at these prices, as when the flight attendant was telling passengers about their options during the plane's repair delay, she mentioned that every American flight out of Seattle today was fully booked. The reason I don't hesitate and think the modestly improved security is all that's necessary if it's even necessary at all, is that I really think the kind of hijacking that took place on September 11, 2001 can't happen again. In fact, I think the opportunity to do such a hijacking was over even before that day was out

Why? Because the other passengers now understand that the stakes have been raised and are no longer likely to sit by complacently and allow something like that to happen. In the world pre-9/11, a hijacked airplane in the United States would have most passengers feeling resigned to the fact that they were now taking a side trip to someplace like Cuba where the plane would land and there'd be a pretty good chance of negotiation or daring rescue or something that would mean they'd eventually get home safely. As soon as the Jihadistan terrorists proved they were willing to kill themselves as well as everyone on board by slamming a plane into a building, as soon as they showed they weren't going to even try to survive, everyone else knew their own survival wasn't very likely at all around those kind of people

That the fourth plane of that day crashed in rural Pennsylvania is the first piece of evidence I have that such a change had happened. The people on that plane were communicating via cell phones with their families on the ground and once they understood what was going on, they stopped whatever they were doing that had them relatively contained at the back of the plane, and they surged forward to struggle with the terrorists. The plane still crashed, but not where the bad guys intended

Looking forward to the shoe bomber guy that we can all thank for needing to remove our shoes every time we go through security, he was subdued as soon as people around him caught on that he was up to something nefarious. We didn't even need armed air marshals to stop him (although I have no problem with the idea of armed air marshals on flights) because nobody was going to sit back and let him kill them all and nobody needed convincing that this was a potential or even likely outcome if they allowed themselves to be held at bay by threats. The stories a couple months back about the odd group of Middle Eastern men that kept getting up and using the restroom one after another and seemed so odd to the passengers, including a woman who very publicly wrote about the incident (Amy something? On plane, no Internet, very bad!) further showed that there wasn't going to be any hesitation about keeping a close eye on anything remotely out of the ordinary. So we've all been told they are some kind of musical band and that their odd behavior was just seeming odd because they were Middle Eastern? I have no problem with that. What's the opportunity cost of not reacting to your suspicions in this kind of case?

Granted, like in any war of technology, the technology keeps getting better on both sides. So the terrorists figured out a technology (get five guys with boxcutters on a flight, take over the plane, and fly it into a big building) and the passengers figured out a countering technology (keep an eye on your fellow passengers for weird behavior and err on the side of caution by subduing anyone that seems to get out of hand.) There's nothing that says terrorists won't come up with something more effective - thus the ongoing discussions by people thinking about these things, like whether terrorists could build a bomb out of a bunch of innocuous parts brought on by several of them. But I think we, the people that don't want to die at the hands of Jihadis, took a bigger technological leap the very same day they brought out their latest creation. My government may struggle with when it's okay to racially profile, but I sure as hell don't have such constraints. I start racially profiling the second I get near a plane

My only other thought is about why it's probably safer to fly on September 11 than any other day of the year is that we're all thinking in these ways far more on September 11 than any other day - passengers, security, flight attendents, everyone. Pulling something crazy off on this day is undoubtedly way harder than it would be on any other. It's kind of a "lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place" kind of view. And if you've read this, you've both devoted some pretty good time and I was right about at least my own plane.

No Place for the Personal in Business Email?

I had a distressing email exchange today, although it ended up working out okay. My skip level manager (meaning my manager's manager for those that don't understand Microspeak) returned this week from sabbatical and saw an email from me I'd sent around a month ago. The last paragraph told him I'd be happy to talk about the contents of the email in 2008 or so and that I hope he had a great sabbatical.

He was horribly offended. He assumed this was sarcasm and disrespectful. Thank goodness he told me how offended he was, though, as I was able to explain to him that, no, really, I really did hope he had a great sabbatical and I had only said 2008 because I was imagining the amount of email and higher priority tasks he must have after being out of the office for over two months. More fortunately, he did end up apologizing for taking it so wrong and retracted his sense of having taken offense.

I guess he's one of those guys I'll just never be able to communicate with smoothly, especially if I try to communicate with any attempt to be personable. He's consistently taken things I've said the wrong way. He's not alone, either. Other people I've dealt with here and elsewhere take things all the wrong way. I'm usually taken completely by surprise at the twists and turns that must have been imagined to get to the offensive interpretation.

Coincidentally, when I'd been frustrated with this particular guy in the past, I had talked to one of our HR people that I really respect and asked her how I should deal with the ongoing gulf in my interpersonal communication with him. She suggested that with him (and really anyone) I should think about things he said or did and ask myself if I thought his intentions were good or malicious. Since I don't think he's malicious, that has helped, and not just with him. It was good advice. But for some people, it often just doesn't help. Ack!

[Politics] John Kerry on Iraq

The ongoing accusations of the Swift Vets against John Kerry have a serious downside, in that that it continues to focus huge amounts of attention on the Vietnam War, a war that ended over forty years ago. Knowing what Kerry thinks about the current war is more important. This is a war which is not just Afghanistan or Iraq but rather against the kind of fundamentalist Islam that sees beheadings and child-killing as somehow acceptable and justifiable. The term "Jihadstan" seems to work well.

This video (yes, put out by the RNC and the Bush campaign) captures Kerry rather nicely, I think. Most illuminating is the hawkish talk Kerry puts forward right up until he actually started running for president. I really don't get how anyone could vote for this guy. I also have to wonder if Kerry is single-handedly responsible for the vast increase in the number of times people say "this administration," but I guess that's a different topic.

So here's the video: http://www.kerryoniraq.com/

The Political Machine

I think I absolutely have to get this game:

http://store.ubi.com/item.jsp?item=68213

You play as a campaign manager guiding your presidential candidate to victory or defeat. As a way to better understand the electoral college process and why candidates campaign in certain states rather than others, it sounds intriguing and educational.

David Robbins has done a review of the game on OpinionJournal, although it may require subscription to read:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005566

Travel to Alaska

My parents live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and this weekend I'm up visiting them.  The flight up was relatively uncomfortable, as many full flights are.  The guy next to me was already seated when I arrived at my seat, and he had claimed the armrest.  He didn't give it up for the entire flight.  While I worked on a couple things on my laptop during the flight, I spent almost the entire time kind of leaning over to my right in response to my neighbor taking up some my space without even asking.  My dad pointed out there's a highly appropriate political metaphor there.

 

Most interesting was that as we were coming into Fairbanks, the smell of burning wood was suddenly noticeable on the plane.  For those that don't specifically follow what's going on in Alaska, there's been raging forest fires that have already consumed roughly five-and-a-half million acres that has blanketed the area with smoke.  (Just to throw in a little gripe about environmentalists with a size comparison, the area potentially affected by the rejected Arctic National Wildlife Reserve access to Alaskan oil would have been about 1000 acres.)

 

I've often read that smells provide the most potent memories.  It certainly seems the case because I was immediately flooded with memories from my teenage years as a Boy Scout in Alaska.  The smell of a campfire and the way that smell was left on my clothes and camping gear was always very pleasant while I was growing up, mostly because some of my happiest times were while on camping, hiking, canoeing and boating trips with my Scout troop, but also because it's just a very nice smell.  There's definitely a haze over the area in and around Fairbanks, although I'm told it isn't the worst it has been.

 

Coming here is always a bit odd, anyway, as it's been so long and I've spent so much more time in big cities or pretty busy suburbs since moving out of town.  Even as the town progresses and grows and adds new streets and buildings, it's still so... small town.  Alaskans also have a fierce kind of state patriotism and pride in their state you don't see everywhere.  I don't see people go on about Washington state most of the time, certainly not like here.  Even many of the business names push being Alaskan - the Anchorage airport had the Mosquito Bookstore and Sourdough Traders right by the gates, and I saw a shirt for sale in one of them with a design I recall from childhood.  It has crossed salmons and a skull with the slogan, "Spawn 'til You Die."  Classic Alaskan humor.

 

Undocumented Expectations

A significant problem for a relative newcomer to a large organization (as I am still after under two years at Microsoft) is when you run into undocumented expectations. In my first annual review, my manager at the time wrote, "Aaron met expectations during this review period." That was a surprise to me at the time, as I had no idea what the expectations were or how to meet them, much less exceed them. In fact, my opinion was that if I met expectations without knowing what they were, that should be revised to be "exceeding all reasonable expectations."

I've run afoul of the undocumented expectation many times since coming to Microsoft. Another smaller example is not using the format for status meetings that an attending executive expects. In an attempt to have non-intrusive, efficient, and valuable status meetings, I would send out the status in advance, keep the meeting short, and not merely read aloud the status report to attendees. That reading aloud format is painful to sit through, encourages ridicule by others after the fact, and lets people basically disregard any preparation for the meeting. However, it turns out there is an undocumented expectation to spend at least part of every status meeting doing exactly that.

Another undocumented expectation I've run into multiple times is when presenting a report or slide deck or whatever that turns out to not be in the expected format, layout style, or presentation order. That format is rarely explained ahead of time, even when you ask about it. At best, you may be able to find it out by the tenth time you present to someone, unless they change it, of course, which happens all too often. You can also spend a lot of extra time running around consulting with others to try to figure out what's expected, but I don't consider that documented.

What's even more exciting, and this has happened to me as well, is when the actual content of your presentation in an area where you are supposed to be the expert who has done the research and planning and is going to set forward strategy or policy is not what the recipient expected and it's your fault. There's been a time or two where I realize partway through a presentation that it's going south because it's not what the audience expected and they aren't happy about that. What I want to do is stop, shake them, and demand to know why they didn't just let me know what they wanted to hear in advance and save me a lot of work and them a lot of anguish.

I mentioned strategy, which brings up a related thought. I've had two annual reviews now, and in the first, my manager at the time brought up a criticism that said I was thinking too tactically and needed to think strategically if I wanted to succeed. In my second, my manager brought up a criticism that I was thinking too strategically and not paying enough attention to the tactics. Since my second review resulted in a better score and better accompanying compensation awards, more strategy and less tactics is better, but I still need to adjust. Apparently, the proper mix is another undocumented expectation.

Partisanship revisited

I received a very long comment in response to my last post, one that came from "Anonymous." I know who it is, of course, because only one person I know would have read the post and commented in such depth.

There's no need for me to repost the comment here, as it's on my blog anyway. But I did want to respond and make myself clear on one aspect of my last post. When I say I disregard or heavily discount a partisan viewpoint, it doesn't mean I reject it entirely, but rather that I consider the source as part of careful consideration. Yes, rejecting all partisan viewpoints and only seeking original sources would leave to a lonely, decisionless existence. Not considering the source of opinions and advice on subjects followed by further search for more information would instead lead to an often misguided and manipulated existence instead. I know that side from personal experience, having been misguided and manipulated by others to my lasting embarrassment, not to mention lasting debt. (For those that know me fairly well or better, remember Thom? Partisanship to the point of lies and theft. How about Craig, Esquire? That guy led me astray in other ways and I alienated certain relatives unnecessarily, although they are relatives I've done just fine without, so the damage has been more limited.)

I've become more careful and less trusting of the motivations of others, but I don't think I've swung so far that other way to become cynical, paranoid, or innately suspicious. With regard to the people I mentioned in the last message, I'll point out that I have far more respect of Rich than many that fall in his liberal camp because he comes to discussions with facts that back up his opinions - he can clearly lay out why he feels the way he does. I don't always agree with him (and in fact, don't always disagree with him, either - think tort reform) but I can at least understand where he's coming from, consider why he thinks as he does, factor in other things I know and believe and my own priorities, and then come to conclusions that may or may not vary from his. In other words, my views on things that differ from Rich's are usually about differing underlying values which I don't hold but do respect, rather than any real or perceived lack of depth in his thought. Frankly, I have more respect for a well-thought out opinion that disagrees with me than a shallow opinion that I agree with.

So understanding a partisan source is more about raising flags that I should consider more carefully rather than an out-and-out rejection, and I'm merely unlikely to act on partisan arguments without further discovery.

It's not that I don't respect you...

This weekend, I was at Adam's house on Sunday afternoon to play a few board games, all-in-all very relaxing. During the talk that goes along with such things, Adam pointed out to his liberal friends, Rich and Russ, that my "W" hat stood for "George W. Bush" and then went on to mention the bumper sticker and yard sign I have on my Jeep. They were, of course, duly horrified. I tried to stay out of that conversation as best I could, since there's rarely any point in discussing politics with those that don't agree with you, as they aren't going to change their minds any more than you're going to change your own.

What was really interesting, though, is that when they were saying something about the idea that the media is general very liberal, they were absolutely certain that wasn't true and that Fox News simply is a station full of liars. Then Adam brought up an article I had forwarded to him a couple months ago on that very topic, printed in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal, by Orson Scott Card. Card had also described most media as liberal and backed it up with yet another set of demonstrated facts. Card is the author of quite a few books, including the very popular "Ender's Game" that everyone present had read and really enjoyed. He also writes on a number of other topics, including religion, politics, writing, and history.

Bringing up Card's point of view stopped the discussion of whether the media is liberal or not. I think that's because it's much harder to disagree with someone you respect. However, that made me wonder, when I say the media is liberal and I'm told I'm just wrong no matter how much evidence I present, but then Card says it's liberal that gives the same person pause, is it because I'm not respected? Olympia will probably laugh at that question, as she has a similar complaint about me. She'll tell me that when she tells me what she thinks, it doesn't seem to make a difference, but when someone else tells me the same thing, I'll believe it or at least consider it more seriously. Do I not respect the opinion of my wife?

That's when I realized, it's not about respect. I respect others, but don't agree. I respect others, but don't just take their word for things blindly. But there are some that I listen to more carefully than others. The problem is that there are some that I respect, but I see as partisan. Partisan's the real word that applies here. If I view a person's opinion as partisan, then it detracts from the value I am willing to place in the viewpoint, although I may still respect that person in general. I don't think I'm alone in that, but rather I think I'm part of an overwhelming majority that rejects viewpoints they perceive as partisan.

Partisanship isn't just about politics, although that's the context in which it is normally used. If the loan officer trying to work out what mortgage you are going to take on a house is telling you that an interest only loan is best, he's partisan, in that he has a vested interest in your decision. If I'm told that I'm making a bad decision on a particular choice by someone that will benefit from my changing my mind, I perceive that advice as partisan and either disregard it entirely or at least heavily discount the value. At most, I'll go seek out someone I don't see as partisan to get an opinion I can accept.

Adam's friends were struck by the fact that they did not perceive Orson Scott Card as partisan, and yet he was taking a position contrary to their opinion. Because it's politics, I imagine that they will absorb this new information, reclassify Card as partisan on the topic, reject his opinion (and his facts), and go on believing what they were believing anyway. But for just a moment, there was a revelation that a respected, non-partisan individual disagreed with them, and that gave just enough discomfort that the topic was dropped.

So, do you, the reader, agree with me, or is my opinion on this entirely too partisan to be taken seriously?

Dreaming of Paralysis

I was at home today, feeling under the weather. Since my house is up for sale and there had even been a realtor that called this morning saying she would be by in the early afternoon, I had to be out of bed, though, dressed for visitors. (Nobody showed up, though. Very aggravating under the circumstances.) So despite being out of bed and dressed, I was still really tired. I tried laying on the sofa and reading, but soon fell asleep again.

I had a bizarre dream relating to the real situation, which made it even more bizarre. In part of it, I came down the stairs to where I could see the front door. A very small Indian child was slowly opening the door and coming inside. That's Indian as from India, by the way. I called to the child, telling him to come on in and look around and asking where his parents were. I don't know what really happened after that. It reminded me of those movies when you see an alien slowly coming through the door, first the hand, then the big head with the large, black eyes.

Later, it got even more weird. I was having all this disorientation and paralysis. My arms and legs just wouldn't work. I felt myself trying to get up off the sofa, but then would realize I hadn't actually moved. I got this feeling that there were people in the house wanting to look around who didn't know I was there and might be hesitant to look around upstairs if there was someone sleeping there. I was trying to get up, but couldn't. I saw a guy in a blue shirt slowing coming up the stairs, followed by a woman in a white jacket with blond hair. They were moving so slowly as I tried to struggle to get up and couldn't.

As they noticed me there on the sofa, I realized I just wasn't going to be able to move in time to show I was awake, so I tried to call out. No sound came out, though, and I realized my throat was incredibly dry. I wanted to get some of the water I had sitting next to the sofa (I really did have water) but again, I was thwarted by being unable to move. The visitors apparently decided not to look around after all, and slowly turned and went back downstairs.

A few minutes later, I really did struggle into wakefulness, and I got up and looked around the house. There was no sign anyone had been there, so I figure it really was a dream, but it was sure realistic. Kind of scary, really.

Visitor Badge

Yesterday, I saw a pregnant Microsoft employee walking out of building 25. I couldn't help but wonder, "Hey, did you get that kid a visitor's badge?"

Rise of Nations continued

I hit enter to start a new paragraph, and since I was using Hello to upload the image, it went ahead and sent that as a blog entry. Oops.

So, as I was saying, I played the other night, but I had made the victory conditions much more difficult. You couldn't win by building Wonders (which I often do versus the computer AI), you couldn't win by capturing territory, and even the winning by capturing the capital was turned off. That meant the only way to win was to capture all cities.

During the game, you also advance through the ages, from Ancient to Classical and a bunch of others, then finally the Information Age. I'd sat down to play a "quick" game, meaning I didn't expect to play for more than an hour or so. If you look back at the image in the last post, though, you may be able to make out the individual time markers on the graph. The red line is my territory, the blue line is the computer AI's territory. The vertical bars are each a half hour. That's right, I finished the game, thinking, "Wow, that must have take an hour and a half!" Then the time appeared on the screen. Four hours, fifty-two minutes! It was 2:30am, and I had no idea.

Another clue to the length of the game is that the circles on each line in the graph indicate progress to a new age. Usually, these are spread out through the game. Players may not even have one for every age if the game ends before everyone's in the Information Age. On this graph, though, both players have all the circles, but they are way over on the left side of the graph. I doubt this is the kind of timeframe the game designers intended.

Talk about addictive. I have to be much more careful. That's an even worse time sink than, say, checking email. However, I think I'll go play a quick game right now....

Rise of Nations

I really like this game by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft called Rise of Nations. It's a real-time strategy game, meaning you have to manage an economy, technological advancement, and military to defeat your opponents. Generally, you can win by taking and holding your opponent's capital, taking and holding a significant percentage of the territory, or building significantly more Wonders of the World.

ELO2

Just as I posted that last one, I noticed I'd entitled it "Electronic Light Orchestra" not "Electric Light Orchestra." Just so I don't seem quite so daft, I've fixed it and posted this entry before anyone can point out the problem. I was reading a review of the "Time" album and it was talking about how it was the second album by ELO with no orchestra and the first with lots of electronic manipulation of sound. The electronic word just kind of stuck for a few minutes.

Electric Light Orchestra

The first rock (or pop?) album I ever owned was a tape cassette of ELO's "Time." Why is this something to bring up now? I'm listening to it now, downloaded off Napster (the new subscription Napster that plugs into Windows Media Player, not the old copyright infringement Napster.) I think it had to be about 1981 or 1982 when Dad bought me the tape, and I listened to it endlessly. Later, when I got into buying vinyl records, I bought another copy of the album, since the cassette was no longer in very good shape.

Later, I converted much of my collection of records to CD, having bought my first stereo system, which included a Denon CD player, a Panasonic amplifier/core unit, and Bose speakers. I bought that stuff in 1986 as a junior in high school using money I made at the Pumphouse in Fairbanks, Alaska washing dishes - my first job. I still have the CD player and speaker, hooked up to the TV in the house in Maryland.

Something interesting about ELO, for those that have no idea who I'm talking about, is that the driving force behind the band is Jeff Lynne. Do you know who the Travelling Wilbury's are (or really, were?) Jeff Lynne is the one nobody seemed to know. The TW's were Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Tom Petty, although I bet this is the only time you'd see their names in that order. Lynne was friends with another Beatle, in that he and John Lennon were apparently pretty close. I read an article once that said John Lennon felt ELO was the pretty much what the Beatles would have become had they stayed together. I suppose that can be taken as good or bad, depending on how you feel about ELO and the Beatles.

I see this was a post pretty much entirely written for me rather than you, the reader. I hope you'll pardon my music-enduced trip down Memory Lane. I know every word of this album and have for over twenty years, and that just seems somehow odd.

Incompetence and Expectations

In his book, "The Effective Executive", and while discussing typical managerial development books and studies, Peter Drucker states the following on page eighteen:

What seems to be wanted is universal genius, and universal genius has always been in short supply. The experience of the human race indicates strongly that the only person in abundant supply is the universal incompetent.

When I first read this, I laughed out loud, even though I was reading while eating alone in a restaurant. However, in the past ten days or so since reading that passage, I've thought about it quite a few times. You see, I think I'm pretty good at stuff in general. When I try my hand at things, I tend to do an acceptable job at it, even if it's something to which I've had no previous exposure. But when I really thought about it more completely, there's really a huge amount of stuff at which I'm not only not exposed to, but wouldn't be able to perform at even if I tried. We all shield ourselves from our worst failures by avoiding the situations where we know we can't succeed.

Will I ever run a four-minute mile? It seems very unlikely. Will I develop cures for previously devistating diseases? I don't think so. Will my artwork become treasured and fetch millions at auctions? It doesn't seem to be in my stars.

Notice, though, that I'm very much the optimist. Even though the real answers to the above questions are probably "no," I'm reluctant to rule them out. My recently acquired affirmation to "live as long as I want" plays a factor in that as well. (See my previous post on Kurzweil's estimates on how longevity improvements through technology suggest we may have the opportunity to live forever in our lifetimes to see why this is at least 50% believable to me.) However, even with enormous lifespan, there will be vast knowledge, including knowledge still not yet realized by others that is discovered even as I learn, that I will never acquire. My optimism halts (for now) at ever knowing all things but not at knowing any given thing.
But optimism and longevity aside, when looking at it honestly, I know I am basically incompetent within the scope of my potential as a human being. Fortunately, everyone around me is the same way. Drucker's point is that we are all, however, possible of great strength in at least one area and that focusing on that area and building on that strength is how we become effective. Working at the right task, a man with the right skills, talents, and experiences becomes a superhuman, undefeatable.

I saw a connection between this and another book I read quite some time ago. I don't recall the name of the book or the author, but it was a book that discussed the application of Sun Tzu's "Art of War" to business and management. A primary focus there was a limiting, or perhaps complete removal, of expectations. The obvious first conclusion is that by having no expectations, you can never be disappointed. I've tried to apply that, but it's very hard to do. Also, it may seem demotivating - if you truly have no expectations (of success, for example) why would you even both to try to do something? However, on closer examination it says to me that by having no expectations you are then also free to pursue unlimited success.

Think about jumping across a hole. If the hole is three feet across, you'll jump three feet, plus an inch or two. If it's four feet across, you'll jump just over four feet. That's true up until the point you just can't make it (and either don't jump or fall.) If you don't have any expectation of how far across you really have to jump but jump anyway, you'll jump the farthest you possibly can. Your expectations are irrelevant, so you don't limit yourself to what you expect. So expectations can be both an encouragement (you must jump this far) and a discouragement (you needn't jump any farther than this.) Removing them removes the limit and the disappointments at failure.

In fact, it occurs to me that expectations are why people almost fall when they go to step up at the top of a flight of stairs and step one too high. I hate that. It feels so awkward!

So combining these two arguably disparate thoughts, you end with eliminating your expectations and accepting your own general incompetence lets you focus on your strengths to experience wild success. That's a valuable insight.

I'm very happy to be reading Peter Drucker's book, and I've already picked up "The Essential Drucker," following Trevor's lead. If my first valuable insight from a Drucker book is on page 18 of 175, I could have eight or ten more by the time I'm done with the book. Now them's good readin'.

Emails in Passing

You know how you can sometimes get an email from someone just as you hit send on an email to that same person? I just wondered, while walking to a meeting, if the emails wave at each other as they pass.

Lost Posts

I am really aggravated. I had just typed one of the longest posts I'd ever done, based on a bunch of interesting thoughts I had reading this Peter Drucker book, and when I went to publish the post, my internet connection was down. The only bad thing I've found about Blogger so far is that when that happens, hitting your back button doesn't take you back to the input screen with you message in an editable mode where you can copy and paste it out to Notepad or something to save your work. The message is just lost.

Boy, that's irritating! I'll try to recreate the post again tomorrow. It won't be as good as it was - lost writing redone never is - but at least only I'll know that. Everyone else reading this will have to simply wonder how it could have possibly been any better.

Wilfred Bion

OK, I found where the "villifying enemies" came from - it was a British psychoanalyst named Wilfred Bion who wrote about social interaction in the mid-20th century. He broke down group interaction into three basic areas or topics:

• Engaging in flirtatious sex talk amongst pairs
• Identifying and villifying enemies
• Nominate and venerate a hero beyond critique

The next time you find yourself in a social group setting, take a moment to analyze what it is you're really talking about and see if it shows up in that very short list.