Unintended consequences

I would like to mention one possible unintended consequence. I will throw out the idea, without any fanfare, to the blogsphere to see what you think.

The media is partially to blame for the successful adoption of CCW laws in the many of the States.

The news at 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00 shows all the bad things that have happened in you area today. They show the murders, robberies, and all the ultra-violence they can to get their ratings up. They have increased their coverage of crime, even though crime is lower than it was 10, 15, or even 20 years ago. You could believe that they had other motives, such as making the average person believe they need more police or to have some other unknown effect on the population. If that was the case, I doubt the coverage of crime would be so uniform, because producers would make widely different choices nationwide.

The result of bracketing prime-time with crime, has been the feeling that you must do something to protect yourself. Which most reasonable people come to the conclusion that a gun is a fine protection mechanism. I believe this is evidence of the interrelated nature of the media and the consumers of media. The concentration on crime by the news media is not the only reason for the success of CCW laws, but it is one influence. Of course the fact that CCW laws, at worst do no harm and at best save lives, probably has something to do with it.

In other news, there was a recent study linking sexual songs that teenagers listen to with teenagers that have sex. What if it is the other way around? Teenagers who have sex tend to listen to songs that talk about sex. I have no doubt, that both influence the other. The media you consume has an effect, those effects might be fairly predictable or they might even have some unintended consequences.

cube

Hindsight on information processes

We recently made it to the finial stages of a project at work. It was a major project, started before I arrived. It has been needed by the business for quite awhile and has already provided great benefit by giving the business better metrics on a core (I would say THE) business process.

As we are coming to the end, we are having problems achieving certain goals that were established for a key group. The reason we incorporated this group into the project in the first place is because they are on the front end and if their process was not rewritten, they would screw up the middle and end part of our process, thereby causing the entire project to fail. Essentially, scope creep.

Since their part of the project was an afterthought, we did not do as good of a job as should have been done. So we are going to have to rewrite their part of the process to meet their needs and the business needs. After the meeting with this group, that is when I realized that with strongly coupled information processes you should probably start with the first steps and work to the last steps, instead of starting in the middle. I also pointed that out to my boss.

cube

5th rule of gun safty

aka Jack Bauer's rule 5th rule of gun saftey.

tip of the hat to Texian Tattler

Red hot poker in the eye

Seen at Say Uncle's where he blazing says he will break the law. Specifically the McCain-Feingold act.

"Any organization* that wants to run a political ad criticizing any politician in that window can do so here. Not only will I run the ad free, I’ll do a post on the ad on the front page."

If you want to join drop him a line. I have no ads, though i probably will link if it really pisses off the goverment.

cube

Recent

Recently.......

I replaced the outside light, that was 60 watts with a 150 or 200 watt bulb, because light is the opposite of darkness and the more the better as far as I am concerned. The light is so hot, that it melted the plastic casing covering it. I am going to have to fix it this weekend.

A poor homeless hard working black man told me that all white people look a like. Then I gave him a led that apparently got him a job, because he came by at midnight to tell me. I slept through the knocking and my roommate got the door. The thing that I feel I really missed, was not congratulating him, but covering the door while my roommate opened it. My roommate said he turned on the light (150 watts or 200 watts, I forget) and the guy put his hands in the air...heh heh.



I paid off my truck, then I created a oil leak by dragging the oil pan off the side of the road when I was trying to make room for someone else to pass on my left. One step closer to being debt free.

I bought tickets to see Sandcastle get married. Stewardess and I will be spending a week in Germany, then we will finish the vacation by going to Sandcastle's wedding. I can honestly say, that will be the biggest event in this blog's history.

I changed the message on my cell phone to just my number, instead of saying. "You have reached so and so's number, please leave a message." I think it is more secure, if people are looking for you, they want know if they have the right number unless you call them back.

Oh, and Samuel L Jackson gave me a call.

cube