Eschew Obfuscation: Category Random Thoughts

How Not To Hire

Max Dunn — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:16:00 -0800

The other day, I was talking to my friend Bill Keller about the best way to hire people. He mentioned that it was important to have a defined company culture and to hire people that fit in with that culture. I thought this was a good idea. We also agreed that the normal process of interviewing people across a desk was almost worthless and only proved whether people had interviewing skills, but not whether they had the necessary job skills.

Another thing we agreed on was that most people will only hire people that are not as good as they are. Generally this is a self confidence issue because people worry that the person they hire could take over their job.

I certainly have fallen into this, in particular in a job a had right before I graduated from college. I had to hire a programmer to continue my work while I went home to fulfill a summer obligation. I was very conscious to hire someone that was good, but not too good so that I would have a job when I got back!

So if this is how most people behave, what happens when you allow a large group of people to decide who to hire? You end up with someone that is less capable than everyone making the decision!

So while it is good to involve other people in the hiring process and get their feedback, the worst thing to do when hiring someone is to do it based on the consensus of a group.

Surfline's April Fools Joke?

Max Dunn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:23:00 -0800

The Surfline report said this morning about 38th Street:

Pretty much flat this morning

and about Pleasure Point

Maybe you could get up on a longboard but its pretty desperate.

Well Mark and I went anyways and were rewarded with a fantastic day of surf. For the first 40 minutes, we were the only two out at 38th Street. Then a few other people came, but it never got crowded. The waves weren’t big, lots of 2 and 3 foot waves, but they had nice shape and Mark and I caught a ton of waves and had a great time practicing walking on the board. The water was still a little cold, but the sun was out and the weather was nice and warm. I am not sure if Surfline meant this as an April’s Fool joke, but the bad report sure kept away the crowds and made it a fantastabulous day for us!

Trouble In Tibet: Rumors and Facts

Max Dunn — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:48:00 -0800

It is amazing how distorted a story can be when you hear only rumors about it. For instance, it was my impression that the recent trouble in Tibet was caused by the Chinese cracking down on the Tibetans, and this was also the impression of several people I talked to. But then I read “Trashing the Beijing Road” in the March 22nd, 2008 edition of The Economist and got quite a different picture.

It turns out that it wasn’t the Chinese security forces that started the trouble – the Tibetans started rioting after hearing rumors that the police beat a couple of Buddhist monks. The Tibetans smashed into non-Tibetans shops, pulling merchandise from the stores and lighting it on fire. Many Han Chinese were quick to flee, otherwise the death toll might have been much higher than the 13 people the government reported were killed by rioters, mostly in fires. Shops owned by Tibetans were marked with traditional white scarves – almost every other one was wrecked. During the night, fire trucks were sent in, backed by armored personnel carriers with riot police, to put out the biggest fires. But the police did not immediately move into the alleys where rioting continued for a second day.

Overall, the efforts of the security forces appeared relatively measured. Rather than going in with guns blazing, which was the tactic used in the last outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in Lhasa in 1989, they chose to let the rioters vent their anger, then gradually go in several days later. The government’s decision not to declare martial law showed its concern about the Olympics, since the Olympic flame is due to arrive in Lhasa on June 20th.

While the rioting was started by the Tibetans, the Chinese government is not completely blameless. The surge of spending in Tibet and the region’s high growth rate has been seen as benefitting mostly the Han Chinese. Tibetans also resent the hardline tactics of Tibet’s party chief – a Han – who is seen as harassing the Tibetans and stepping up the official criticism of the Dalai Lama. Nonetheless, whether or not it was true the the monks were beaten, it was the Tibetans that started the riots and the security forces that showed restraint.

So here is an example where the real facts of a story were quite different from the initial impression. We should all keep this in mind when hearing rumors and wait for the full story before making any judgments.

CUSD Teachers' Raises

Max Dunn — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:51:00 -0800

Previously we looked at Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) teacher’s compensation. What about salary raises? Over the last 7 years, the CUSD teachers have received a cumulative raise of 38%:

2006-2007 8.39% increase in salary
2005-2006 5.00% increase in salary
2004-2005 3.07% increase in salary
2003-2004 0% (district funding was cut mid-year 1.2% during this year)
2002-2003 2.04% increase in salary
2001-2002 3.87% increase in salary
2000-2001 11.02% increase in salary

Reference: Negotiation Questions from the Community II

Cupertino Teacher's Compensation

Max Dunn — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:31:00 -0800

Most people assume that teachers make very little money. In some parts of the country, this is very true. However, in the Cupertino Union School District in California (CUSD), teachers are paid some of the highest salaries in the country.

For instance, a first year teacher starts at $51,071 per year. After 7 years, they can make $62,321. After 15 years, it jumps to $80,836. (These last two salary brackets require additional semester units be completed.)

What about work hours? Their contract requires teachers to work 6.75 hours per day (7.25 hours with a 30 minute lunch) for 187 day s a year. However, teachers will often spend more time preparing lesson plans, having parent conferences, coaching a team or working on a school play. So let’s assume most teachers work a 40-hour week. But teachers only work for 187 days a years, less than the average of 225 days that most Americans work.

This means that teachers work about 20% less days. Factoring this into their salary gives the equivalent (using the figures above) of about $61,000, $74,000 and $97,000 respectively.

Reference: CUSD Teacher Salary

What is Web 3.0?

Max Dunn — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:08:00 -0800

Even while we continue to work on and define what Web 2.0 really is, many people have started to ask what is next; what is Web 3.0? Here is the answer: Web 3.0 is when all the Web 2.0 applications can start working together.

Ready, Fire, Aim

Max Dunn — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:35:00 -0800

I was having breakfast with my friend Bill Hyatt the other day, and we were talking about how important it is for startup businesses to have a very narrow focus, but also to be flexible about new opportunities. Bill called this “Ready, Fire, Aim”, which I found amusing.

However, this reminded me of the first business I started, Micro System Designs. I started this business with the idea that it would be cool to write software to backup a hard drive onto floppy disks using a disk auto-loader, because it was such a pain to have to keep changing the disks by hand when backing up a hard drive. I developed the software and got a little bit of interest, so then I needed to duplicate the disks. At that time, the duplication software that worked with an auto-loader cost around $500 and there was no way that I was paying that, so I wrote a duplication program myself.

It then turned out that my backup program wasn’t doing very well, but there was a lot of interest in my duplication program. Voila! I changed directions and had a successful business.

So I do believe that a startup should have a very narrow focus but be willing to change it when a better opportunity presents itself – just like Ready, Fire, Aim.

Bike Riding for Errands

Max Dunn — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:30:00 -0800

I should ride my bike more. It is good exercise and saves the environment. However, I don’t like to ride my bike on everyday errands.

I was reminded of this today when I got new tires for our car. Like usual, I threw my bike in the back and rode home after dropping off the car. It isn’t far, about 2.5 miles, but I was hot and sweaty when I got home. I was smart this time and brought a piece of string to wrap around my pant leg. Usually I forget this and wind up getting chain oil on my pant leg.

When the car was ready, I rode back to the shop to pick it up, and I was a bit tired.

So it certainly worked out fine to ride my bike, but it isn’t something that I would normally do. Also, for the same reasons, I don’t think we can expect many Americans to forgo their cars and start doing a lot more bike riding either. Good thing I have my electric scooter to scoot around on!

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) Cure and Theory

Max Dunn — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:51:00 -0800

I had my first bout of chronic fatigue in 1983. Back then, it was thought to be Ebstein Barr virus and I had to drop out of school for 6 months to get back to the point where I could function. Since then, I have continued battling my chronic fatigue and found something that has allowed me to control it – Vitamin C.

If I take 1000 mg of timed release Vitamin C sometime before going to bed (9 pm seems to work well) and then wake up at 2 am and take another, I can get a good night’s sleep. Otherwise, I usually wake up at 3 or 4 am and can’t go back to sleep for at least 2 hours and then will be exhausted the next day.

Skinny versus Healthy

Max Dunn — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:32:00 -0800

When my kids ask if they are too fat or too thin, I tell them not to worry about their body shape or size. Instead, I tell them to eat healthy, get plenty of exercise and sleep, and let their body do whatever their body does.

Better Storm Drain Filters to Make the World a Better Place

Max Dunn — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:44:00 -0800

Do you know what would make the world a better place? Better storm drain filters! While this wouldn’t be as dramatic as solving AIDS or world hunger, clogged storm drains cause a surprising amount of damage. This point was made evident by the recent storms in California where clogged drains caused many road closures, flooding and water damage. We live in an advanced society where technology has solved many problems – why can’t we develop better storm drain filters that are able to filter out leaves and debris and still allow the water to flow through? Solving a simple problem like this would greatly reduce the economic storm damage in urban areas and make the world a better place.

Primitive Electrical Distribution in the US

Max Dunn — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:58:00 -0800

We like to think that we live in an advanced society where the miracles of technology provide a high quality-of-life. However, the recent storm in California proved what a primitive electrical distribution system we have.

This storm was nothing special; it didn’t have hurricane power winds or particularly spectacular lightning. It was just a run-of-the-mill winter storm that we expect every year or two. Yet it was able to knock out electric power for more than 1.6 million people, of which 420,000 people still didn’t have power after a few days.

It is not hard to see why our power system is so antiquated – just look up in any neighborhood. There you will see power lines strung on poles, the same as they were a hundred years ago. This system is very fragile and will continue to break down in high winds and lightning strikes. We do have a better solution – bury the electrical cables underground, which will make them impervious to these common elements of nature. But we live in a fairly backwards country where we would rather suffer through losses of power every year and frantically send out crews to fix problems after they occur rather than spend the money to solve the problem once and for all.

Sources of Scientific Bias: Both Money and Beliefs

Max Dunn — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:03:00 -0800

When trying to discredit a scientist’s work, critics sometimes simply note: “They received funding from XYZZY corporation.” It is interesting that often nothing more is said, as if it is apparent that taking any money from a party with a vested interest will inevitably skew the results. This seems like a pretty harsh position, but there is some basis to this claim.

For instance, new research looked at drug studies and found that while the results of the study were not likely to be biased, the conclusion from those results were. In particular, they found that studies funded by a single drug company have a 55% rate of favorable results that is transformed into a 92% rate for favorable conclusions, representing a 37% gap. The gap shrinks to 21% (57% to 79%) when two or more drug companies provide support. Yet the gap vanishes entirely for studies done by non-profit institutions alone or even in conjunction with drug companies. These findings suggest a disconnect between the data that underlie the results and the interpretation or “spin” of these data that constitutes the conclusions.[1]

So it is apparent that receiving funding from a particular source that has a vested interest in the outcome will likely affect the conclusion of a study.

But are there other biases besides funding sources that can affect the results or conclusions of scientific work? What if a researcher isn’t taking any outside funding but has a passionate belief about what they are researching – will this affect their work as well?

Beliefs and Global Warming

Max Dunn — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:36:22 -0800

When talking to people about religion, you have to be careful. Many people don’t want to hear facts or ideas that contradict their point of view; they are only interested in hearing things that reinforce what they already believe.

This same phenomenon also happens when talking about global warming – most people have their minds made up on this issue and aren’t willing to consider any evidence that would challenge their beliefs.

Presidential Candidate Discussion

Max Dunn — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:49:00 -0800

What makes a good president? Who should we vote for in 2008? Neither of these are easy questions. In this blog entry, J.R. Tozer and I will debate these questions and hopefully come up with some interesting insights.

Hap Jacobs Surfboard

Max Dunn — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:11:00 -0700

Surboards are a lot like your wife dressing up for a winter evening party: she will put on a beautiful dress and look really good but then wrap herself up in a coat so you never see the dress anyways. Surfboards are the same because you put a layer of wax on top, and then can’t see it again.

WoodyW loaned me this beautiful Hap Jacobsen surfboard and it needed new wax. So after I took the old wax off, I took some pictures of it before I re-waxed it. Isn’t it beautiful?

AccuRain Watering System

Max Dunn — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:13:00 -0700

Sprinkler systems are really dumb. The majority of the water gets blown away as mist, lands on the sidewalk or runs off. And since it is so difficult to get even coverage, most areas are over watered so the few drier areas will get at least some water.

After struggling with my sprinkler system and trying different heads and sprinklers to get even coverage, and fixing many leaks so water is not wasted, I realized that there must be a better way to water my yard. Here is the story of that quest.

Credit Card Foreign Fee Rip-Off

Max Dunn — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:28:00 -0700

It used to be that the best way to buy things in a foreign country was to use your credit card. Not anymore. The fees they are charging now are a big rip-off.

Bush vs Clinton

Max Dunn — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 09:57:40 -0700

Clinton in public was very impressive, but in private he did some stupid things. Bush on the other hand, appears stupid in public but impresses people in private.

The Right Amount of Airport Security

Max Dunn — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 09:34:00 -0700

What is the right amount of airport security? Some might say that airport security is useless and terrorists will always find a way around it, so why bother having much. Others might say that they don’t mind the inconvenience and cost and would prefer to have massive amounts of security in order to minimize the threat of any possible terrorist action.

Strange Time

Max Dunn — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:25:48 -0700

It is weird that a few weeks ago we were looking forward to our vacation, and now we are looking back on it. And we will never be able to experience any of this vacation ever again, except through our memories. This seems very strange to me.

Consuming and Producing

Max Dunn — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 08:35:11 -0700

Many times when a young person is trying to figure out what they will do with their lives, they are given the advice to “just do what you enjoy”, and are led to believe that if they do this, then the money will follow and they will be able to support themselves with this activity. However, I think that this advice falls short of the truth, and a distinction needs to be made between “consuming” and “producing” activities.

What To Do in a Foreign City?

Max Dunn — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:20:00 -0700

On this cruise, I am still trying to figure out what we should actually be doing in a foreign city.

Hermitage in 2 hours

Max Dunn — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 05:09:07 -0700

We went through the Hermitage Museum in two hours today. There are a thousand rooms in the Hermitage and you would probably need to spend two hours in each one to get the full impact. Even the ceilings in many of the rooms were so fantastic that I always made it a point of looking up when I first entered each room.

Tragedies

Max Dunn — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:50:27 -0700

In college, I went to see a Shakespearen tragedy with some friends. They thought it was depressing, but I disagreed. I said that it was depressing when a story had a happy but artificial ending because this was like saying that we can only be happy when everything goes right. But in a tragedy, when everything goes wrong and the characters still find the will to move forward and live, that is what I find to be the most encouraging and uplifting.

The Least Annoying Apps Will Win

Max Dunn — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:23:00 -0700

Back in the 80s and 90s when basic PC applications like word processors were being developed, there were a lot of holes in what they could do. Even rudimentary features like numbered lists, foreign character support and tables were often missing. So users frantically upgraded to each new release to gain new features they could actually use.

However, at some point, the new features stopped becoming useful to most people. Sure there would be a few esoteric new features that a small percentage of people would use, but for most users, these new features just made the programmer bigger, slower and harder to use. This was the age of feature bloat.

Why I Don't Use Credit Cards on the Internet

Max Dunn — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:00:00 -0700

Several years ago, I stopped using credit cards on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I still buy plenty of stuff over the Internet including almost all of my books, clothes, amusement park tickets, and more. However, I never give out my real credit card number. Instead, I give out a virtual credit card number that can be used only once. I didn’t do this because I was scared that some hacker was going to get my card number and misuse it; I did it because some of the merchants I bought stuff from misused it. Here are the tales.

Should Men Be More Like Women?

Max Dunn — Wed, 17 May 2006 22:08:00 -0700

In today’s age, the trait of being very senstive to our emotions is highly extolled. Books about boy’s problems usually boil down to the solution that boys would be better off if they were more like girls in this regard. So I recently poised the question to some friends “Are there any traditional “hunter” characteristics of men that are still useful in today’s world?” No-one could come up with an answer. But watching my son pitch at his baseball game today, I thought of one.

Why I post personal stuff

Max Dunn — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:11:00 -0700

A lot of people think it is a little weird that I put so much personal stuff in my web site and blog and I can understand their point. However, here are some reasons why I do this.

Marx was right - about open source

Max Dunn — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:55:00 -0700

Marx was right; he was just 150 years to early.

In the Communist Manifesto published in 1848, he outlined the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” as the next step in society’s development.

Of course we have seen how this principle has failed miserably when applied to anything that is resource limited. Who would work hard growing food if others would just take it all away? This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union during the grain crisis of 1928 when the Politiburo set too low a price for grain and, when not enough was sold at this price, they seized what they needed. The next year, the peasant farmers engaged in massive hiding of grain which resulted in an agricultural collapse.

However the situation changes greatly when dealing with software. Since distributing software over the Internet costs essentially nothing, making software available to whoever needs it doesn’t take anything away from the creator. So open source software is the perfect embodiment of this communist principle: those that are able to contribute do, and those that need it can take it at will.

Marx also envisioned a stateless society where there was no central power exerting control over its citizens. This is another stark parallel to open source.

So while the ideals of communism have not been successfully applied to society, many of these principles can be vividly seen in the open source software movement.

College Experience

Max Dunn — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 07:31:00 -0700

So what is the “college experience”?

This was a topic on this week’s O.C. that got me thinking that maybe some people had a much better experience in college than I did. Without going into too many details, here are some of the highlights of my Berkeley experience:

Foolishness

Max Dunn — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:25:00 -0800

None of us are right all the time. Even the smartest person is probably right only half the time. But the only people that are truly foolish are those that don’t know this, and think they are always right.

Where Will Advertising Dollars Go Once TV is Ad-Free?

Max Dunn — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 11:13:00 -0800

Here is an article that discusses how the advent of ad-free TV on video iPod is terrifying advertisers:

This provides support for my theory that the video iPod, PVRs and TV-on-demand will cause major and fundamental shifts in the way companies do advertising.

For years, advertisers have kept their heads in the sand when confronted with the reality that many viewers are simply not watching TV commercials. However, these new technologies will force them to confront reality when people start paying for their TV to be ad-free.

And where will companies put their billions of advertising dollars once TV is no longer a viable way of delivering their message? Why, the Internet of course!

It is already starting to happen. If you read your news on [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/) or [USAToday](http://www.usatoday.com/) you will see ads in many strategic places. And unlike TV, they can track exactly what you see and click on, or even force you to view the ad before showing an article or video clip. This provides a way to customize and target the advertising message that was never possible on TV.

Ads work. That is why billions of dollars are spent on advertising every year. And when TV is no longer a viable way to promote those ads, those dollars will shift, mainly to the Internet, causing a huge upheaval and tremendous opportunites for those Internet companies that can capture these ad revenue.

Anything Goes Everyday

Max Dunn — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 10:46:00 -0800

We have a tradition in our family that on our birthdays, we can do anything we want (within reason). We call this our “Anything Goes” day.

Maxie likes to spend his birthday playing video games and eating ice cream all day long and Claire likes to spend hers watching TV and eating ice cream all day long.

My birthday was yesterday and it was a little different from that. For breakfast, Suzanne made me eggs benedict and for dinner, flank steak rollups with a nice bottle of wine and chocolate torte for dessert. The kids were on their best behavior and didn’t fight during the day and offered to walk on my back. The day was a little rainy so I wasn’t able to go surfing and I couldn’t reach anyone to go go-carting. So the only special thing I did during the day was to get a massage.

In the afternoon, I started to get a little depressed because I wasn’t doing anything very special for my Anything Goes day.

But then in the evening, I thought about the fact that I was living in a nice, warm house, I had my pick of whatever food I wanted to eat and wine I wanted to drink, I had a wife and kids that loved me and were going out of there way to do whatever I wanted, and we were all healthy and happy.

So I started to realize how incredible it was that nothing particularly out of the ordinary needed to happen on my birthday to make it special, because God has blessed us in so many ways that everyday is very close to my ideal Anything Goes day.

No Work Sundays

Max Dunn — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 10:26:00 -0800

Our church (PBCC), has been doing a series on the 10 commandments. Several weeks ago, Brian Morgan talked about keeping the Sabbath a day of rest. This point really struck home for me because I tend to work all the time and especially since I have been retired, there is not much difference between the week and the weekend.

So I decided to give it a try and set my first goal to not turn on the computer on the weekends. And since most of the work that I do is on the computer, and I tend to get sucked into one thing after another when I am on the computer, not turning on the computer forces me to do other things, like relax.

I have done this for 3 weeks now, and I have to say it hasn’t been easy not to even check my emails on Sunday, but it has made my Sundays much more relaxing.

So I apologize if I don’t answer my emails or seem responsive on Sundays, but I am probably taking a nap on the couch, reading a book, or playing with my kids.

Gossip

Max Dunn — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 09:50:00 -0800

It is interesting that sometimes incredible portions of conversations are dominated by talking about other people. For instance, some dinner conversations consist entirely of lines like: “Did you know that so-and-so said that?” and “Can you believe that so-and-so did that?” Often these are not even people that we all know, but just “my daughter’s classmate’s mother” or “this guy I know at work.”

Now gossip is commonly thought of as talking negatively about other people, but it seems to me that this idle chatter about remote people qualifies as gossip too.

The biggest problem with this type of conversation is that it crowds out the possibility of really meaningful discussions. It is certainly easier to talk about other people’s problems and struggles rather than our own.

Not all discussions about other people fall into this category. For instance, if someone is having problems with a boss, teacher or acquaintance, it is often helpful to describe the situation in order to get advice. Likewise, if a friend is having a problem that is similar to one that has been dealt with successfully by someone else, it is helpful to describe what the other person did to overcome the situation.

But when the conversation turns to other people in an idle way, maybe we should pull it back to the people present and ask how the other person is doing and what challenges they are facing, or share our own fears, successes, shortcomings and challenges, in order to make our conversations truly meaningful.