Generation Why

The Wall Street Journal has an article on the Facebook Generation and their relation with the Fortune 500, and the future of how business gets done. The article lists (and goes into detail on) 12 characteristics of business as usual for Gen Y:

• 1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
• 2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
• 3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
  
• 4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
  
• 5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
  
• 6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
  
• 7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
  
• 8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
  
• 9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
• 10. Users can veto most policy decisions.
• 11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.
• 12. Hackers are heroes.

Some of these items are more odious than most. For instance, I do not want to go to a hospital that's operated along the lines of propositions #1 and #2. It's a shame if you think this attitude describes an elite snobism, but the simple fact is that the janitor's opinion of how to treat kidney failure is not on an equal footing with a nephrologist's.

#6s claim that groups are self-defining is a gob of spit in the face of gay people who would like to define themselves as married, but can't. And I'm sure there are other groups all over the world who would like to define themselves as an ethnic minority that shouldn't be massacred, but can't. Tell them how wonderful self-definition is.

And as for #7: suppose we take a vote right now among the Facebook generation about whether we should allocate resources toward resurfacing 100 year old water mains in city cores, or something shiny, distracting, and above all, new. Which would win?

Every single one of these items is predicated on one thing: they're true only if someone else does the shit-work instead of you.

Every job has a certain amount of boring, uninteresting drudgery that can’t (yet) be fobbed off on a robot or piece of software. Of course it’s easy to say that you want a “fun” job, but those fun jobs only exist because they were built on someone else’s “not fun” job.

And, remember, there is some value to the not-fun job: I'm going to trust your opinion on my lawsuit a hell of a lot more if it can be backed up by the shit-work of your having slogged through law school where you actually learned something.

I understand that the Facebook generation are mainly in their early 20s, and so I don’t expect maturity from them. But I don’t get a sense of empathy for others from them either. They expect that all these things should be the way they want them because... well, because that's the way they want them. And that scares me.

And then the V train came into the station...

Coming back home last night on the subway, I caught one of the old F trains --those ribbed, stainless steel cars that are as old as I am. Lots of floor space, parallel lines of seats facing each other.

At Broadway-Lafayette, a tall, 20 something guy with a huge duffel bag got on. As the train started to pull out of the station, this guy LEAPED out of his seat, sprinted down the length of the subway car to the very end -- and pulled the emergency brake cord!!!

We heard a loud pneumatic hiss, and the train slammed to a stop. The guy yelled "SORRY! I'M SORRY!", and ran back to his duffel bag. He scooped it up, opened the front door of the car, squeezed between the two cars, and leaped onto the platform. We could see him run down the length of the station.

I am convinced that nearly every New Yorker wants to reach out and talk to the people around them, but they don't dare because they know that it just isn't done without a special dispensation. So we all sat there watching the guy or staring off into the middle distance. No one knew what had just happened, or why. We were startled and a little scared. But still we remained in our shells. Then someone from the front of the car, near where the guy had been sitting, said "He said he must have left his camera on the platform."

That remark was the absolution we needed. Instantly, the entire subway car became a committee of the whole, organized to debate the man's behavior, selfishness, stupidity, ancestry, and recto-cranial capacity:

"A camera? A CAMERA?"
"Who takes their camera out on the platform?"
"Who leaves their camera on the platform?"
"That better be a five thousand dollar camera."
"It's not just this train, you know! He's backing up the whole line."
"If he comes back on, let's throw his duffel bag on the tracks."
"I thought he was epileptic!"
"I thought he had Tourettes!"
"A CAMERA???"

When that died down we went back to just sitting there. I habitually sit in the last car of the F train. The first eight cars of the train were in the tunnel -- our car and the car in front of us were still on the platform. And thank the gods of every religion for that. If I had been stuck in the tunnel for 25 minutes, they would have pulled me out a drooling, babbling idiot good for nothing but a long visit at Bellevue.

Not unlike the guy in the wheelchair. It was St. Patrick's Day, remember, and the guy in the wheelchair had decided to drink himself legless. About five minutes after Camera Guy pulled the emergency cord, Wheelchair Guy started shouting. "HEY! Get me off this motherfucking train!" "Open this bitch up!!!" "Do you work for the CIA?" He slammed his wheelchair over and over into the front door of the subway car. His leprechaun hat fell off.

There was an elderly black man seated across from me. He looked at Wheelchair Man, let out a long, deep, sigh, and said in a Barry White voice, "I must be on the Crazy Train."

About 10 minutes after Camera Guy pulled the emergency cord, the conductor showed up, walking through the front door of the subway car (I should mention that the side doors of the car had remained sealed all this time). The guy in the wheelchair said "What took you so motherfucking long? We could have been dead back here!!", which was a completely reasonable observation. "You must work for the CIA!!! Now let me off this motherfucker!"

The conductor took out his special key and opened first side door. Wheelchair guy wheeled himself out. No one else took the option to flee. The conductor went back into the other car without examining the rest of our car. Had he stayed for another second, we would have pointed out that it was our emergency brake that had been pulled.

The PA system cracked to life. "Conductor," the voice said, "garble flurben flarben garble garble floogle boogle garble zim zam zooney." We all looked at each other expectantly: did anyone understand what we had just heard? The conductor's voice came on the PA system: "Yeah, he's on his way." Apparently the conductor did.

The entire 25-minute long event could be roughly divided into pre-conductor and post-conductor eras. Before the conductor showed up in our car, we passengers were relatively cheerful -- talking to each other and cracking sarcastic jokes about Camera Guy and the MTA. After the conductor came and went, the jokes ended, and our complaints became louder. Wheelchair guy's pronouncement -- that the train staff took a good 10 minutes to investigate what could have been a tragedy -- still hung in the air. We were growing disgruntled. And then the V train came into the station.

I had always thought that when the emergency brake is pulled, the signal lights in the tunnel turn red to prevent another train from entering the station. Barring that, I figured the motorman or conductor would radio the trainmaster to hold all trains in that particular part of the line. I was wrong both times. In less time than it takes to read, we heard a V train thunder into the Broadway-Lafayette station! Almost immediately, its motorman slammed on its brakes with a shriek of steel on steel. The V train came to a shuddering stop about three car lengths behind us. Not very close, I'll admit, but dammit, it shouldn't have been there at all!

Now, the people in the subway car were solidly pissed. Wheelchair Guy's observation still rattled around in our heads. And then the V train! What was up with that? How could such a thing happen!?!? Before anyone could work themselves into doing something stupid, the conductor re-appeared. He took out his special key and opened first side door of the subway car. Two MTA employees got on. The conductor led them to the control booth at the back of the car. The two men fiddled with some stuff in the booth for no more than 30 seconds, then came out and said "good to go". We were too disgusted to complain. The train started moving about 5 minutes later.

At Delancey Street a beautiful woman in her 40s got on. The PA system cracked "Lays and Gemmum, garble farble flooble garble floy floy be moving shortly." Eager to regain the lost camaraderie we used to have, I said to everyone, "I think this train has met its quota for getting stuck tonight." No one said anything. The crisis was over, and we had lost that magical dispensation that allowed us to speak to each other. Instead of people sharing an adventure, we were once more individual New Yorkers, back in our shells, brooding about how late this train was.

Then the beautiful woman piped up. "Is that why this train was so late? You were stuck in the tunnel?"

And we all got to tell her the story of the crazy guy who lost his camera and pulled the emergency brake.

...and kiss your ass goodbye

Planning Guidance For Response to a Nuclear Detonation(PDF), a report by the Department of Homeland Security.

Executive Summary: If a terrorist nuclear detonation occurs in your city, you're fucked.

Salient Points:

1. There will be no significant federal response for 72 hours.
2. You're fucked.

Professor Dumbledore stars in Pulp Fiction

Not Network

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

When Robot Programmers get bored

John McCain and the Overhead Projector

My friends, I'm betting it happened this way...

Just before the second debate, one of McCain's policy aides breathlessly rushes up to him.

"Chief," he says --you just know that McCain's staff is encouraged to call him something like 'Chief' or 'Boss'-- "we have evidence that BHO voted to provide three million dollars for a projector for a planetarium in his hometown of Chicago! You can really nail him with this!"

They can't bring them selves to say Obama's name out loud. They prefer to call him something like "BHO", in the way that the 9/11 Report called Kahlid Sheikh Mohammad "KSM" and Osama Bin Laden "OBL". It gives them a sense of comraderie -- a sense of mission.

McCain's eyes light up. Projectors? This is something he knows about. His post-POW years in the Navy were spent giving military briefings to politicians. He's worked with overhead projectors for years. He knows all about overhead projectors. He can even change the bulb in most models of overhead projectors; find another Senator who can do that. And who ever heard of spending three million dollars on an overhead projector? That's the kind of overspending even the Pentagon, his beloved Pentagon, which has turned overspending from an art into a science, couldn't manage.

McCain realizes he's got something good here. "Tonight, at the town hall debate," he says, "if _that one_ dares to mention wasteful government spending, I'll sock it to him with this!" McCain chuckles. "A three million dollar overhead projector!"

The aide is about to correct McCain when Cindy walks into the room. McCain's wristwatch beeps twice.

"Two thirty, Johnny", Cindy says. "Nap time."

McCain is happy. He looks in a nearby mirror. His seventh cranial nerve fires, pulling his risorius facial muscles back into something that looks like a smile. He's really going to hand it to that upstart tonight.

"Nap time." Cindy repeats.

-------------

"What the hell do you mean, wrong?" McCain thunders at his young science aide. The second presidential debate ended about an hour ago, and McCain was sitting in his suite at the Carleton in his US Navy bathrobe when this kid brought the news.

"Well, Chief, um, it wasn't an overhead projector that BHO tried to get for the planetarium. It was a planetarium projector. Different thing."

McCain will have none of it. "What the hell's a planetarium projector?" he thunders again.

"Well, sir, if you remember the last time you were in a planetarium, that big thing in the middle of the room. Looks like a giant insect. That's the planetarium projector.

"That thing? What does it do?"

"It projects the image of the stars onto the dome."

"I thought that was a pendulum to make the room spin."

"Uh, no sir, when you're in a planetarium and if feels like the room is spinning, sir, that's really the projector making the stars spin."

"Son, I'm an old fighter pilot and if the seat of my pants tells me that I'm moving, I'm moving. I know a spin when I feel one."

"Yes, sir." The young science aide pauses. "Chief, should I have Ms. Pfotenhauer issue another clarifying statement to the media, explaining what you meant to say?"

"Fuck 'em," McCain growls. "I'll bet not a single Warshington reporter knows the difference between this planetarium projector and an overhead projector, either.'

"Yes, sir," the aide says gamely. "But the blogosphere, especially the science bloggers; they're up in arms."

"Blogosphere?" McCain asks for the thousandth time.

The science aide wiggles his fingers in a typing motion.

"Oh, yeah, those geeks who write on the internet tubes," McCain says. "You told me they loved Sarah."

"Well, yes, sir. But there's a small group of science writers who really care about planetariums."

"Are any of them going to get to go on TV and complain?" McCain asks. This is something few young people understand about McCain -- he doesn't get modern technology, but when it comes to technology he grew up with, he's a master at using it for his ends.

"Not likely, sir" the science aide sighs.

"So fuck them too," McCain snaps. "Anything else?"

"Just next time, chief, if you could remember that it's a planetarium projector, not an overhead projector."

McCain just stares at him. "Anything. Else?"

The aide knows a dismissal when he hears one. "No sir, nothing else."

"Good night, then," McCain says, reaching for the tv remote.

"Good night sir."

----------------------------------------------------

Halfway through the third and final debate, McCain's young science aide makes the mistake of taking his attention off the screen for an instant as he gets another cup of coffee. Suddenly the Blackberry on his hip starts twitching and buzzing. The RSS feeds to the top science blogs have simultaneously started spewing. The aide rushes back to the TV.

"Did he?" the science aide asks.

"Yep," the foreign policy advisor says. "'Overhead projector' again."

The science aide's fingers start to go numb as his Blackberry continues to vibrate nonstop.