The Millenial Mentality and Work

WSJ had an article on the recent trend that businesses are doing less criticism of employees and more talking about the positives.  This reminds me of politics, where one comes off as negative when criticizing, even if true.  My hunch is that the reported shift in management attitude is because of Millennials.

Yeah, I know I'm harsh on Millennials.  As someone on the tail end of Gen X, I see a lot of people younger than me being totally vain and self-centered, expecting praise for every little thing they do, even if mediocre.  There are very few Millennials who I can say that I trust, simply because from what I've seen, they have a lame work ethic.  But yeah, they're the young people of today, so I can't totally shit on them.

Augh! Link Dump

Weapons

• Arms imports in China from 1960 to 2011 (I was probably looking for from China)
• Embargoed countries from the State Department website
• Lahti ammunition from Anzio Ironworks—would be neat to have!
• What are suppressors made of? (Shotgun News)

Other

• Making a dehydrator from the Ready Store
• Time perspective therapy on WSJ

Spring Link Dump!!

Some of these have been in my reader for a while.

Email from the Koch Institute regarding the Kochs' dispute with Cato: At first I was highly disappointed at the notice of the "takeover bid", but to be honest, I wasn't even aware of the history that Cato was originally the Charles Koch Foundation.  Now I'm not sure what to think.  It seems to be a trend that some of these advocacy organizations turn out to be driven primarily by the egos of their executives, e.g. Wayne LaPierre at the NRA.

So it turns out that extreme liberals don't really understand their opponents positions on the issues.  Surprise, surprise.  I've found empirically that they tend to not spend the time to educate themselves, preferring to wallow in their own poorly-formed, ill-considered ideology.  The study referred to is interesting.

From WSJ:

• Gardening tips for beginners.  I have dirt and seeds.  Now what?
• The end of the sophisticated playboy era.  The nouveau rich don't know how to live.
• How to tell when it's just another fight, and when it's over.  One can always make it work—it just depends on how much one is willing to sacrifice.  If both people are willing to sacrifice, that's a relationship that will survive.

Regarding the Trayvon Martin case:

• Thomas Sowell's Race and Rhetoric and some more commentary on "race hustlers".  Headline from the early '90s: "White-Black Disparity in Income Narrowed in 80’s, Census Shows"—what happened since the Reagan Era?
• John Lott's opinion on the relevance of Stand Your Ground to the case, and follow-up piece on Fox.

An opinion on the use of the term "gun culture": I disagree, because the extreme left has made this a culture war.  Nonetheless, it's an interesting point.

How to Save an Unproductive Day in 25 Minutes

Another interesting article from the WSJ.  The bullet points:

1. Carve out a time-oasis. (20 minutes) If possible, move something off your schedule for the remainder of the day, protecting just 20 minutes to focus – uninterrupted – on that meaningful project. More time is better if you can manage it, but 20 minutes can still make a difference.
If you have to, leave a non-essential meeting 20 minutes early, or stay at the office 20 minutes later. (You would use tactics like this if you had an urgent business call, right? Well, getting to your most important work is an urgent business issue.) Turn off your email and phone. Find an unoccupied conference room or cubicle where no one can find you.
2. Note your progress for the day. (Two minutes) Use a work diary to keep track of the progress you made that day.
It's natural to focus on what you didn't get done and what tasks remain; but, to get the boost of happiness and engagement, you should spend a minute taking stock of what you did accomplish. Even if you simply outlined next steps on that creative project, make note. And, if you weren't able to carve out that 20-minute time-oasis, then make note of any achievement you had during the day, however small. It may not have been work you planned, and it may have been solving someone else's problem, but – if you got anywhere on anything useful, that really is meaningful progress, so write it down.
Allow yourself to savor the sense of accomplishment, and recognize that you made a difference.
3. Set up for progress tomorrow. (Three minutes) Use a trick that Ernest Hemingway and other writers have relied on: Leave off in the middle. When you have to stop work for the day on your most important project, end in mid-paragraph, mid-sentence, mid-routine, whatever – as long as you have a pretty good sense of how you will finish that paragraph. That way, you'll be able to just slide back into the task the next day – even if all you get tomorrow is your 20-minute oasis.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs died today.  I liked his company's products, and although I didn't care for his politics, his philosophy, as quoted in the press, is something that I can appreciate.  On television:

When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

On work:

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

On death:

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

"An Interracial Fix for Black Marriage"

WSJ featured an article—by a black man, one Ralph Richard Banks—on the difficulties black women face in finding a spouse, and proposed that rather than looking within their race exclusively to consider marrying outside their race to broaden the base of eligible males in the near-term, but to ease the difficulties of finding in-race mates in the long-term.

From the article:

If many black women remain unmarried because they think they have too few options, some black men stay single because they think they have so many. The same numbers imbalance that makes life difficult for black women may be a source of power for black men. Why cash in, they reason, when it is so easy to continue to play?

...which perhaps describes the situation of a guy I know.

Others prefer black men because they don't think a relationship with a non-black man would work. They worry about rejection by a would-be spouse's family or the awkwardness of having to explain oneself to a non-black partner.

As one 31-year-old schoolteacher in D.C. told me, "It's easy to date a black man because he knows about my hair. He knows I don't wash it every day. He knows I'm going to put the scarf on [to keep it in place at night]." Discussions about hair may seem trivial, but for many black women, just the thought of having the "hair talk" makes them tired. It's emblematic of so much else they'd have to teach.

Interracial relationships aren't easy, since the downside is certain things you can't take for granted. But the plus side is that you can avoid the miscommunications that result from taking for granted things that weren't safe to assume.

By opening themselves to relationships with men of other races, black women would also lessen the power disparity that depresses the African-American marriage rate. As more black women expanded their options, black women as a group would have more leverage with black men. Even black women who remained unwilling to love across the color line would benefit from other black women's willingness to do so.

Interesting thesis, one that I as a "minority", if not a vested one, think valid.

The Oracle's Picks

WSJ ran an article on Warren Buffet's latest investment advice from the shareholder's meeting.

Previously I wanted to buy a share or two of the class B stock so I could go to the event in Omaha.  Then I found out in 2008 that Buffet is a Democrat.  And also after the B stock split, I sort of lost interest.

Anyway, his favorites: KO (thinking the dividend will double), SNY (cheap relative to what BH paid previously), KFT (depressed due to the takeover of Cadbury), JNJ (cheap stock, fair dividend), WMT (not interested in China-Mart, though), BRK.B (currently 1.3x book versus the 1.6 historical average), and WFC (not interested since they're anti-gun).

Contrarian Stocks

WSJ had an article a couple weeks back about how often the stocks that Wall Street likes at the start of the year aren't the ones that turn out at the end of the year to have performed well during the year.  The list:

The ones they like:

• Thermo Fisher Scientific
• Apple
• Agilent Technologies
• Compuware
• Halliburton
• Express Sprints
• EQT
• Celgene
• Google
• R.R. Donnelly & Sons

The ones they didn't like:

• AIG
• Apartment Investment & Management
• Brown-Forman
• Diamond Offshore Drilling
• Ameren
• Eli Lilly
• Nicor
• Berkshire Hathaway
• Cincinnati Financial
• Sears Holdings

Might be worth a look—if it's not too late.

Funky Eyeglasses

WSJ ran an article on some funky glasses that the wearer can change the focus on.  The company's now called Super Focus.  It'll be interesting to see how the market accepts their product.  If the glasses could correct for slight changes in vision, they'd make a good item to tuck away for emergency use....

Shove It

Apparently a Rhode Island Democratic candidate who failed to receive Obama's endorsement has said that Obama can "shove it".  Nice.

My comment:

Mr. Jones: Since WSJ was acquired, I've noticed that a number of more liberal viewpoints have been added. I don't particularly favor this change, but that's the way it goes. And I can't help wishing that WSJ would ditch their pervasive hoplophobic biases.

The comment under discussion was crass and definitely is a case of sour grapes. Funny? Yes. Newsworthy? Marginal.

 Is this the fable behind the expression "sour grapes"?  That's good to know....

Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked, ‘Oh, you aren’t even ripe yet! I don’t need any sour grapes.’

News Dump

Well, it's not news when it gets old. Maybe I should call my lingering browser windows "olds"....

Product review: Vibram Five-Fingers Classic [barefootrunner.com]
Why a Big Meal Makes You Hungry [WSJ]
Newly-Found Windows Bug Affects All Versions Since NT [Slashdot]
Why do we give to disaster relief? [CNN]
Boogie Board writing tablet [CrunchGear]
Understanding Race - Human Variation

Letter Regarding WSJ Article

In last Friday's WSJ, there was an article regarding the Alabama shooting incident. There were several factual inaccuracies that I felt I had to write in about. To wit:

I'm sure you've already heard from a number of gun owners regarding the your article "Gun-Control Calls Are Renewed" in the March 13th edition of The Wall Street Journal. As a WSJ reader and a participant in the so-called "gun culture," I similarly felt that I should point out a few things, and correct where necessary.

First of all, I think the WSJ is an exceptional publication. However, it still tends to not report on firearm-related topics in an entirely neutral fashion. Case in point, this article made mention of the expired "Assault Weapons Ban" in connection with the shooting incident, leading the reader to conclude that a renewed AWB should follow. There wasn't much of a counter-argument presented, which was highly unfortunate.

The use of the term "semi-automatic assault rifle" is an oxymoron. "Assault rifle" has a specific definition, being a selective-fire rifle with detachable magazine that uses an intermediate cartridge between handgun rounds, which would be termed a "submachine gun," and full-fledged battle rifle rounds. Examples: Submachine gun - H&K MP5, IMI Uzi, Auto-Ordinance Thompson; assault rifle - Colt M16/M4, AK-47; battle rifle - M14, H&K G3, FN FAL. You meant to use "semi-automatic assault weapon," which is a political term used in legislation such as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (HR 3355, Sec. 110102) and has no meaning in weapons technology.

As already corrected in the online version of the article, "unlicensed dealer" is a misnomer. (Though it reminds me of the pithy remark, "Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'.") The Gun Control Act of 1968 established the requirements of the current Federal Firearms License (FFL) system, requiring persons dealing in weapons for business obtain a license. Not doing so brings down the wrath of the ATF on one's head, which usually leads to imprisonment or death. Malum prohibitum, indeed. You meant "private sellers," not the politically charged and biased phrase used. Legally, I could sell any gun in my collection, since it doesn't (yet) include NFA weapons, to anyone not prohibited by law from possessing firearms, whether at a gun show or in a grocery store parking lot. (There are a few wrinkles in that, such as selling across state boundaries, and state laws mandating certain conditions for transfers.) The point is that "dealers" aim to make a profit, and such sales of firearms require a license.

Lastly, the article contained this statement: "Whether the expired federal law would have banned the particular semiautomatic assault rifles that Mr. McLendon is alleged to have used is unclear." This is in error. The text of the expired AWB specifically names the Colt AR-15 and clones. The typical SKS configuration is also banned, as it usually includes a detachable box magazine, bayonet, and grenade launcher mount. (SKSes with internal magazines are not affected.) However, regardless whether the AWB was in effect or not, transfer of affected items existing at the time of the ban was still legal. Such legislation simply makes guns more expensive, which is discrimination against low income individuals, who probably live in areas where they need weapons the most. Subsequent proposed AWB legislation specifically names the SKS in the ban list.

I find the mere prospect of a renewed AWB to be disgusting. Other than such legislation is in direct conflict with the Constitution, why truncate others' freedoms just because a few people can't handle it? Apparently, arrogance -- in certain legislators and their supporters presuming to know what's best for everybody -- knows no bounds.

Relevant links:

• Assault rifle
(Wikipedia)
• HR3355 (the expired AWB, Title XI, Sec 110102)
HR1022 (proposed in 2007)
• HR6257 (proposed in 2008)