Update on the Folding@Home

The Protein Folding grid computing project that I recently joined (see earlier post "Well I did it" from Friday March 27th) has kept my PC very busy this month. My PC was assigned the task of calculating how the proteins of a virus attach to a host cell wall. Though my PC's part was probably one millionth of the total calculation, it still took my computer nearly a month to compute its part at 2-4 hours a day but its all done ready for the next assignment.

Star Trek

WSJ article: Hollywood Starts Over

For you Trekkers out there, here's another article about the new movie.

I think the movie and acting looks very well done but the exerpt below from the article concerns me a little bit for continuity.

Through a plot device involving time travel, "Star Trek" wipes clean the history of the franchise to create an alternative universe which re-imagines the early life of Kirk (played by Chris Pine) and his time at Starfleet Academy, where he encounters Spock (Zachary Quinto of TV's "Heroes"), and later sets off on the Enterprise. By going back in time, the film effectively changes the course of "Trek" history, so anything can happen.

I thought one of the early critiques of the movie below was funny.

Fans didn't like how parts of the Enterprise looked in early screen shots, he adds, and many thought the bridge resembled the inside of an Apple store.

First U.S. President

Who was the first U.S. President to invade a Muslim country and overthrow its leader. I'll give you a hint. He was a Republican.







If you guessed Thomas Jefferson then you would be correct.


President Thomas Jefferson sent U.S. Marines into Tripoli in northern Africa and replaced the leader with his brother. The purpose was to stop piracy on American ships in the Mediteranean and the paying of tribute.

Years before, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had spoken to the Ambassador from Tripoli as in the excerpt below from the Wikipedia article First Barbary War

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:

It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

"History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme" - Mark Twain

Age of the Bean Counters

Will the age of the bean counters ever be over?

The last 15 years have seen companies move from great employees making great products to how much can we reduce costs to show a great profit for this quarter. Keeping costs reasonable of course is one of many facets of balancing a business for growth and profit, but over the last 15 years cost containment became the driving purpose for companies.

Having a long term vision for the company and its products paled into insignificance. Products became commodities. Employees became commodities. Everything became a commodity to be manipulated by the bean counters even down to the company sponsored cafeteria, getting that last penny of cost savings. In the process these companies damaged themselves and their futures.

There are few of the old style companies left. Steve Jobs at Apple knows how to have a vision for products and the company. His only flaw is that he's from the 1970's when companies tried to make everything proprietary. Google founders have a vision of where they want to go and they don't treat their employees as commodities.

When employees at most companies finally realized they were commodities they started acting as commodities. They now do the work requested no more no less. Any ideas they have that might really advance the company are kept to themselves. After all they'll probably only be there a few years and move on. The only goal is to advance their career and income. The company is incidental.

Occasionally, a few employess will want to do something worthwhile. That's what happened many years ago with the Motorola RAZR phone. A small group of engineers led by a charismatic leader said what if we could design a phone incredibly thin. They wanted to do it just to see if it could be done. They had to do it in secret because the bean counters would have crushed the project because the phone would be too expensive to build and the project would waste resources that could be used to do incremental improvements to their existing products. At that time Motorola wasn't doing all that well as a company. Well the engineers succeeded in their design, the company started selling the phone, and the bean counters were shocked that people would pay so much money for a phone. Unfortunately, the charismatic leader died, the bean counters took over and then tried to incrementally keep changing the heck out of the RAZR design. As time went on, the bean counters managed the profit for the next quarter and never realized when the RAZR phone was starting to lose relevancy in the phone market. They were a one trick pony. As the RAZR era faded, sales started to fade, and now Motorola is once again a company that is rapidly becoming irrelevant in the cell phone market.

I worked for one of these companies that went from vision to bean counting. The company I worked for had a vision 15 years ago to produce products that would have the maximum performance but the least impact on the environment and would move fastest through testing and acceptance through the EPA. After many mergers, this vision was lost as bean counting became the main focus. The results were chemical products that damage the tanks containing the product and chemical products that require the dealer sites to make sure the product is stirred daily or else it won't work correctly when they sell it to the customer. The company actually setup a weekly sampling from every dealer site, lab testing of those samples and IT designed an automatic reporting systems of the lab test results because the customer business sites weren't keeping the product stirred. How's that for a bean counting vision. The company is still making money, but you have to wonder should there be major shift somewhere by a competitor would they have the employees that could respond to the challenge.

One last example of bean counters run amuck. The current CEO of Chrysler last gig was at Home Depot. The founders of Home Depot brought in this CEO from GE because the business was getting bigger than they wanted to handle. This CEO implemented his bean counting vision. He replaced the employees who had good construction knowlege and great customer skills with low wage employees and with less employees. After all an employee is a commodity, why not get the least expensive employee. The profits for each quarter soared at first but then Home Depot sales started cratering. No one wanted to shop there any more because you couldn't find anyone to help you and when you did they didn't know any more than you did. Customers started taking their business to Lowe's. Home Depot was on its way out. Fortunately, this CEO was removed and the new CEO is reestablishing Home Depot's former customer service.

Its time to return to the vision of great employees making great products. After all the business knowlege, ideas, etc. are in the employees heads. Employees are not commodities. They are the key to a companies success. Amazon knows this. Google knows this. Companies like AT&T, Dupont, Corning, knew this back in the 1960. They had visions back then. AT&T did basic research. They wanted to know everything about communication and electronics. Dupont want to know everything about chemicals. Corning wanted to know everything about glass. For the last 20 years however these companies have been focused on merger, acquisitions, profit, etc. Those are not bad things, but they lost their vision along the way and actually hurt the profits they were trying to maximize.

Let's all return to the greatness of the past. Lets focus on doing great and wonderful things. Let's stop focusing on our stock options, 401K's, and how many years we have until retirement. Let's be alive again. The future is now not when we retire.

Let's return to vision! As Steve Jobs said, let's make a dent in the universe.

An American Student

I've noticed an interesting difference between an American student and a Chinese or India student.

If an American student gets a bad grade in math, he or she says I'm just not good at math.

If a Chinese or India student gets a bad grade in math, he or she says I didn't work hard enough.

Which one do you think will be more successful?

Regulation and Basketball

In finding a balance for regulation, I thought of basketball.

What if there were no rules for basketball at all. There were no rules about how long the game would last, how you would know who won, how many points a basket earned, etc. No one would want to play. On the other extreme, if there were too many rules such you must pass the ball after two steps, shots may only be taken from one location on the floor, the ball must not touch the rim, etc., then no one would want to play that kind of game either. It takes the right balance of rules to make the game exciting to watch and fun to play. The rules give you a framework to work within.

Laws and regulations are important but they should be kept to the minimum that will get the job done.

Social Complexity

I was reading the various theories on the fall of Rome and came across one that I think is very relevant. Let me quote some of it below.

-- Begin Excerpt from Wikipedia article Decline of the Roman Empire
Joseph Tainter

In his 1988 book "The Collapse of Complex Societies" Tainter presents the view that for given technological levels there are implicit declining returns to complexity, in which systems deplete their resource base beyond levels that are ultimately sustainable. Tainter argues that societies become more complex as they try to solve problems.

When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of or difficulty in gaining access to energy, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge.

For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses (metals, grain, slaves, etc). As a consequence of the growing Empire, the cost of maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. increased. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory. At that point, the empire fragmented into smaller units.

We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe for everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off (all but the elite, presumably.)[citation needed] Archeological evidence from human bones indicates that average nutrition actually improved after the collapse in many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome complexity of empire.
-- End Except from Wikipedia

I think this is a good warning as we consider regulation and bureaucracy in fixing our problems. We have to find a meaningful balance.

I've seen this in businesses. A small business can easily have a sales person, finance person, production person, etc. work together to achieve a solution for a customer, but as the business grows and the number of workers increase, the resulting complexity and increasing layers of bureaucracy turn informal flexible connections and solutions into rigid inflexible protocols of operation that are less likely to help the customer. Also, as often one time problems occur, policies are implemented to solve these problems but then create walls thwarting operations. Are the new policies for a one time problem worth the efficiency lost in day to day operations.

Risk is a part of life. You have to find a balance of safety versus risk. You can't make a policy for every single risk. For example, the safest way to never be in a car wreck is never to ride in a car, but that greatly reduces your options. The way to never have a financial melt down again is to encourage regulation that discourages lending. Your safer but won't have much.

Let's not over build complexity in our government. Its complex enough as is.

Solar Oven

CNN Article: Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven

While solar ovens are nothing new, the inventor mentioned above in the CNN article was able to create a very simple one out of some cardboard boxes and a pane of acrylic plastic for about a total of $5. This oven can bake casseroles and boil water. The beauty of it is the simplicity and costs. This oven could be easily mass produced for people in Africa and other areas to use for cooking without having to cut down trees for firewood.

Great job!

Some recent jokes

"According to the government, Rick Wagoner was forced to resign because of poor performance. That's embarrassing. You run an organization that loses billions of dollars and then get fired by a guy who heads up an organization that loses trillions of dollars." --Jay Leno

"President Obama is giving General Motors 60 days to come up with strategy of viability for the American taxpayers' money. You know what G.M. should have said? 'Hey, you first.'" --Jay Leno

"Barack Obama made his first trip as president to England. Here is my question. If the President is in England, who's running General Motors?" --Jay Leno

"As you know by now, the government is now taking an active role in the auto business. President Obama offering hope, change, and 0 percent financing." --Jay Leno

"And more embarrassment for the President. Just a few weeks after President Obama named Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his Health and Human Services nominee, she now reveals she owes over $7,000 in back taxes. Another one owes. See, that's the difference between the two political parties right there. Republicans believe in no new taxes. Democrats believe in no old ones." --Jay Leno

"President Obama also said if you do buy a new car, you will be able to deduct - that's right, I said deduct - the sales tax from your income taxes. Or you can just take a job with the White House and not have to pay taxes at all." --Jay Leno

"So the United States government is now running General Motors, because if there's anyone who knows anything about streamlining costs, it's the U.S. government, ladies and gentlemen." --David Letterman

Health care

There is a discussion that I never hear when people are discussing how to fix health care. Its a discussion based on economics.

If the price of something is always the balance between supply and demand, then the ever increasing costs of health care must mean that either we don't have enough supply of health care services available or the demand is too great.

If we add government health care for people who don't currently have health insurance then theoretically this should put even more demand on the existing health care facilities thereby driving the costs of health care up even faster. Of course then the government would put price controls in place just as it did for Medicare. This would then decrease the health care supply thereby creating shortages of service.

Why does current demand drive health costs up so fast? Why does the current demand exceed the supply? Its because people who are fortunate to have health insurance control a large supply of money for health care.

Let me give an example. Someone finds a lump. They have a doctor check it out and he determines its probably a cyst. It gives every impression of just being a cyst but the doctor can't guarantee its a cyst. If it is a cancerous tumor then its one of the worst. The doctor is sure its a cyst and says there is probably only a 2% chance it could be cancer. The doctor recommends not to worry about it. An MRI could give more confirmation but that's expensive and the lump is highly unlikely to be cancer. The patient who has health insurance decides they want to do the $3000 MRI. It doesn't cost them much. The health insurance will cover nearly all of it. If the patient had to pay the $3000 or a large part of it, they would probably not do it but when it seems nearly free why not be sure. That patient has just created a demand for an MRI because it seems to have no costs. The health insurance company is probably paying for an unnecessary service and that's how we get high health care costs. Too many dollars chasing too few supply.

I'm not saying I have a solution and I do want everyone covered by health care insurance, but any discussion of solutions needs to include a basic analysis of the economics.

At least we need to somehow increase the supply of health care services. We're not graduating enough doctors and nurses to meet the demand. We do need electronic records. We do need more competition to encourage efficiency. Hospitals are woefully bureaucratic. We need a 21st century redesign of how a medical institution should work.

Simply covering more people and not changing anything else will not make a healthy health care system. We will only make it worst.