plucky tree
It's the plucky ones that will surprise you most
wannabe housewife, foodie, pacifist, amateur chef & tennis player, libertarian, food rights & backyard chicken supporter, former software entomologist @ Apple, angel investor
didn’t we already have food freedom?
While this is a step in the right direction, it’s sad that anything like this needs to be proposed. It should already be 100% within our rights:
Just the title of the resolution itself points out the absurdity of the current laws on the books. Wow, we can now grow our own food and enter into private contracts with other people?
Again, it’s good to see something like this, but it’s likely that the State and the Federal government will likely continue to enforce existing laws (e.g. arresting Amish people for selling fresh milk).
And what’s up with this part of the preamble:
“While it is legitimate for government to see that producers are following the law in order to ensure the highest level of food safety for the public, there must be a distinction made between those farmers engaging in direct commerce with the public, as in the case of a farmer’s market or grocery store, and those individuals choosing to take part in a private herd share or community garden share.”
Why is it legitimate for government to do that? Let people decide what’s safe to put in their bodies. If the government wants to publish information on food safety inspections, that couldn’t hurt, but let the ultimate power reside with the people.
21st century philanthropy
I babbled about philanthropy in an earlier posting called “wealth now, philanthropy later”, so I was thrilled to see this blog posting on the Harvard Business Review website:
Steve Jobs, World’s Greatest Philanthropist
Try to ignore the hyperbolic title of the article and just absorb the content.
Making the world a better place means making decisions your whole life that either incrementally or substantially make people’s lives better. People dislike hearing that investing in a promising new company could potentially have more of an impact on the world that the more common charitable action of, say, donating food to starving children.
However, if your conscious investments create jobs for people who are treated kindly and with respect, and something is also created that benefits the customers of your company, it can have a huge multiplier effect.
This all fits nicely in with the concept of Slow Money. There are certainly wealthy people that have made their money in ways that cause suffering to people and give nothing back to the world other than charity-by-guilt or by giving to causes that exacerbate problems rather than solving them.
However, I believe there are many more that quietly have a profound impact on the world by taking risks that amplify the potential positive results.
the perils of watching time-shifted tennis
I record a lot of tennis on TiVo partly because it’s usually inconvenient to watch it live (time zone differences) and if I time-shift it, I can zap the commercials or skip through matches I don’t care about.
However (and this is where I begin to whine), it’s gotten increasingly difficult to not have the outcomes of matches I’ve queued up be spoiled before I’ve gotten a chance to see them. I almost need to cut myself off from the outside world during a tournament I’m watching. Here are the various ways matches can be easily spoiled:
arguments against ron paul
I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter on and off for 23 years now, casting my first ever Presidential vote for him in the 1988 election. Two things have remained 100% consistent since then:
- Ron Paul’s convictions and beliefs
- The arguments against Ron Paul as a potential President
For me, the arguments against him, however legitimate they may be, are an order of magnitude less significant than all the wars we are involved in and how many people die and suffer every day as a result of them. Here are the usual arguments against him:
- He’s supposedly anti-abortion
- He’s a Christian and/or creationist and somehow that’s the worst thing ever
- He’s a Libertarian, so that’s automically terrible or something
- He’s supposedly racist
how the government worsens income inequality
Let’s say you have some friends that are starting a small business. They set themselves up as a Corporation or LLC and are looking for investors. You decide, sure, why not, I’ve got a few thousand dollars saved, I’ll invest.
Well, turns out you probably can’t!
Unless you have a liquid net worth over $1 million or earned more than $200,000 in the last couple years. To buy any shares in a private company, you need to be an “accredited investor”:
If you find some already rich people, they can invest, that’s fine. So, this is one of the many ways that government actually worsens income inequality. When people are clamoring for the government to “do something” to fix this inequality, perhaps they should step back and look at all the ways they have caused it in the first place.
how can I provide you with excellent service?
It seems like almost every time I make a phone call to the customer service department of a big company, I get an email, a return phone call (gah!), or a tree is cut down to email me a survey asking how my customer experience was.
In other cases, I’m asked before I even talk to someone whether I’d like to take a survey later, which delays my forthcoming excellent customer service.
It’s hard to argue conceptually with the idea that you should ask your customers how they are doing. But how about this:
- Talk to your employees manning the phones. They probably have a good idea about whether customers are generally happy or not.
- Listen in on some phone calls and take notes.
- If you’re going to survey, try to do a very small random selection so it’s an uncommon occurrence.
When I think of companies that have outstanding customer service (Zappos, Apple, Air New Zealand, Charles Schwab, Sonic.net, American Express), I can’t recall ever getting surveyed.
Spending effort to make customer service great is far better than wasting money to find out if it’s great or not. If you don’t know already, then it’s not! :)
if only plastic canoes were our biggest problem
If only our biggest problem here in the US were the government potentially wasting money on a plastic canoe.
Only $2 million? I guess it wasn’t a no-bid contract!
Instead, we have to wonder what country we’re going to bomb next.
new tennis faces for 2011
The highlight of the Australian Open this year for me was seeing three very promising players that I’ve never seen before, two of which I’ve never even heard of:
- Bernard Tomic, who has a very unconventional style that really messes with people’s minds. You never know quite what he’s going to do. Does need to ditch his father as a coach.
- Alexandr Dolgopolov, who also has somewhat of an unusual style, but can surprise you with easy power.
- Milos Raonic was the most impressive of all, although he didn’t make it as far as Dolgopolov. He’s much more of a classic player, with an incredible serve.
All three clearly need more experience and to work on some things, but I was very impressed with their calm and collected attitudes and I will be very excited to see them play in 2011.
the seductiveness of net neutrality
It’s hard to be against something with such a benign and positive name like “net neutrality”. It’s like being against the Clean Skies Act, which, as it turns out, is one of many pieces of legislation whose name doesn’t accurately describe what it contains
Despite the seductiveness of net neutrality, I believe any government intrusion into the Internet would spoil the one place where true freedom still exists.
Here’s a great article by presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on the subject:
return trip to new zealand
Eric and I made a second trip to New Zealand this year! Even though we got back in mid-October, I just now finished sorting through all the pictures and uploaded them to Flickr:
We hope to back again two years from now for another visit.
