A Path to Success

What is a #rootstriker ? Lawrence Lessig answers this question and much, much more...

An absolute must see video. A fundamental call to action for the 21st century citizen.

 

Being Hired by your Alma Mater - Since 2003

This is not really a success story in my opinion, although the visualization is amazing.  Check out this graph from LinkedIn on where graduates from your alma mater are working. On my U of Michigan graph, there is a disturbing trend:

Seems like since 2003 roughly, the graph has swung away from the auto company employers that dominated the Michigan economy towards the major universities themselves as the major employers in Michigan. So the major publicly funded institutions are now the top employers of university grads (who they hatched). Oy vey! That's some bubble.

 

 

2000 U of Michigan LinkedIn Stats (4 out of top 25 are public sector):

2010 U of Michigan LinedIn Stats (9 out of top 25 are public sector):

Update: I added a fake alma mater U of Toronto to my profile to check Toronto stats. They are even more startling. Look what happened to 2000 grads vs 2010 grads. They are all being concentrated as employed by U of T. Notice also that MANY less grads in 2010 are moving to the US for employment. It is startling -- the brain drain is practically gone!

2000 U of Toronto graduates:

2010 U of Toronto Graduates (more than two times as many as in 2000!)

Note I am depending on LinkedIn analytics to properly identify working vs going to school. It is possible that the idea of where they work... may mean for some where they are (continuing) going to school. It will be important to differentiate between working at an alma mater and just doing the next degree as "work".

Steve Jobs Autobiography on 60 Minutes

Fascinating piece on Steve Jobs -- via Walter Isaacson's biography that is in stores tomorrow.

 

The 6 Killer Apps of Western Civilization

I must say I have seen this TEDtalk now several times. It frames very much what concerns me about Western civilization. If we turn off these 6 killer apps one by one, Western civilization may very well go the way of the dodo. And others (eg Easterners) may morph these apps, nay hack them, into something very, very different. At 8:40 or so into the video Niall Ferguson discusses the 6 killer apps, which are self evident but framed and contextualized very nicely in this 20 minute video.

1. Competition: Europe was politically fragmented, and within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing corporate entities.
2. Scientific revolution: All the major 17th-century breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology happened in Western Europe.
3. Property rights and rule of law (government): This optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
4. Modern medicine: All the major 19th- and 20th-century advances in health care, including the control of tropical diseases, were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.
5. The consumer society: The Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.
6. The work ethic: Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labor with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.

They seem obvious in retrospect that Western civilization leveraged these killer apps to effectively dictate to the rest of the world their terms. Notice that "democracy" and "capitalism" are not really described in any way, short of property rights. Places like China and India may very well adopt some but NOT ALL of these killer apps, and introduce some new ideas that effectively make them more competitive than Western civilization (North America and Europe). And what happens when these killer apps are hacked and the idea of "work ethic" is turned on its heads and uses child labour to power Western civilization. What happens when we stop providing modern medicine to the needy? Western civilization must continue to continue to "rev" all these killer apps to continue to compete in the 21st century. It is imperative.

 

Save $700 per year - Get your own antenna and get free HD

UPDATE: Interesting article on the art of antenna installations and savings.

UPDATE 2: I have heard of people getting basic Rogers for $15.99/month + HST. To get HD you'd need the receiver so the best you could do is about $32/month! Also SunTV stopped HD broadcasting on November 1 2011, as Quebecor lost their over the air transmission license. We need an all day news channel to broadcast OTA - CP24 for example!

UPDATE 3: The Wall Street Journal describes the second wave of rabbit ears!

Rogers Digital Basic costs $36.01 per month. You must get an HD receiver at $12.95/month to actually GET the HD channels. So they're not really free are they as described: "Over 42 FREE HD channels and growing"? All Rogers is really doing is eliminating the physics of the physical world -- they eliminate the weird little issues that Over the Air (OTA) HD comes with (curvature of the Earth for example, and other physical obstructions like buildings).

To get OTA HD get a $20 aluminum outdoor antenna at any of the discount computer stores, or Futureshop or BestBuy. Or splurge and spend $50 for this one. The Clearstream 2 antenna for over $100 is a good bet in Northern Toronto. Of course, my friend S, tells me you will need a fairly long coax cable to plug into your coax cable plant or directly to your TV. This should cost you another $20 max. Note that many places you will find these items sold out, for good reasons, no doubt. Here are the pictures of my outdoor antenna connected to a "juliette" balcony about 50 ft off the ground. And a home made coax jack I made by stringing the coax from the antenna directly to this jack on the outside of the house. I did need to get a 12" masonry drill bit to make a hole on the outside of the house to get the coax into the jack. I also decided to ground this puppy to avoid lightning strikes killing my TV. YMMV.

Below is a grounding block connecting 2 coax wires. The black wire is grounding quality copper wire.

This picture shows the copper wire going to a 4 foot copper stake going into the ground. That's why it's called grounding!

Then make sure your HD TV has a digital tuner. Most TVs made in the last 3 years have a digital tuner, but make sure you ask before you buy your next flat screen. Here's the state of digital TV in Canada. And here are the channels you could get in Toronto.

I get 25% of the HD channels Rogers Digital Basic offers - FOR FREE. You're paying for free stuff, people. If I pointed my antenna south and mounted it properly as per tvfool.com indicates for my area, I'd get the American channels too! I'll do this soon and report back.

Here's a super deluxe installation with $200 worth of parts -- this install most likely is over $1000 to do professionally. Most people though will be fine with just $100 worth of parts and $250 worth of labour.

 

The 15 HD channels I get for free, in bold and red based on the Rogers HD lineup below the break...

Eric Schmidt at Zeitgeist 2011 - A word on economic creativity

The web is a platform for millions versions of vision and innovation from all of us. And that is why it works to make the best solutions win. Not suppositions, or worse - lies. Eric's advice - "Take the long view, not the short-term."