Why the sky is blue and why soundbites make for a dumber planet.

When my daughter was younger, she was very curious about everything. She would ask questions like "Dad, why is the sky blue?" or " Why do the rain drops look like circles on your car, but not on mom's?"

When ever she asked those awesome questions my follow up question would be, would you like the short answer or the long one?  And then when she said "the short one" I would proceed with the physics explanation for the blue sky and why we see color (5 minutes) and then I would say but the short answer is ...the sky is blue just like the sea is blue, because they are deep, and our brains and our parents say that the color that we are seeing is blue. As for the rain droplets on my car, I would explain to her the effect of surfactants on the surface tension of fluids, and the short answer, "because I get the more expensive car wash".

My daughter is now in the sixth grade, and she is still curious. When she asks me questions she expects me to give her the long, and short answer to the questions she now asks, such as "Why are girls mean?" or "How can I tell if a boy likes me?"  To me, it makes sense to know the whole story, so that ones reaction to a specific challenge will yield sound attempts at a solution. And I believe that in teaching my daughter to expect more from an "expert" really helps her to become an expert.

I say all this because a very puzzling development in politics last week. The Department of health said, and I paraphrase, "all employers should pay for contraception as part of preventative care." The catholic bishops countered - why should we pay for something we consider a sin. Obama rebutted - well women will have to receive contraceptive care cost free, the insurance will cover it.

I listen to the debate, and I'm here rolling my eyes, thinking about my family's "separate but equal" checking accounts. We have two joint  checking accounts at the same bank that we both have access and signing rights to. Our salary's are deposited into our "own checking accounts."  Sure mortgage payment  comes from my salary, and my wife transfers some of her paycheck so I can cover my car-note, which gets paid from my checking account. I can ask who pays for my car? Is it me or my wife? Or does it really matter, as long as we have transportation to go to work?

The reality of health coverage, which Americans still insist on calling insurance, is that it is covered by many parties. They include individual, who pays a salary deduction, the employer who gets a tax deduction (i.e the government or the taxpayers, which means the individual pays twice), and the insurance company who invests the premiums of the young, and the healthy (and if the insurance company makes a loss on the investment they get another tax deduction)  so that they can have big returns to pay for the sick,  less healthy and elderly.  All of the money goes into a pool, which then pays for health coverage, which includes paying for contraception as part of preventative care.  And that is just the beginning of the long answer.  I suppose we should ask for an itemized version of our healthcare payments.

Still it seems that the Catholic church was happy with the presidents final offer, and people are still mad about Obama care, which is really an iteration of the healthcare coverage that we the taxpayers already pay for.

When my daughter was younger, she was happier with the short answer.  Now the short answers, to her are insulting her intelligence.

On flag runners and the art of persuasion.

In think tanks, where smart people brain storm about how a product or direction will have influence on a company, or a policy, it is easy to head down the path of crazy.  There are usually two types of influential people in these groups -the flag runners, and the logical ones.

Flag runners are emotional, fired up. They believe that their idea is the best thing since the iPhone. And no matter how much Siri does not work well with people with dialects, flag runners believe and promote their idea, and usually get support.  The logical ones, on the other hand sit around quietly pondering the theatrics, and quietly tries to explain the complexities of the problem at hand, but depending on how they communicate their ideas they often go ignored (The quiet ones also are good fire fighters, since they usually get tasked with  putting  out the fires caused by the flag runners).

Of course in that same room of high level thinkers, there are deciders.  Sadly, the deciders are too shortsighted by their limited MBA, or ME degrees that their decision is also based on emotion.  When people don’t understand a problem, they vote with their gut.  Understanding this dynamic, and transposing this limited understanding of the human element, I would like to make a huge leap to political elections. Here the deciders are supposedly more diverse. But they are also limited by their lack of information. Many voters have limited knowledge about how government works, how programs, or departments get built, and about the role of government in business, civics and society. Sure governments tend to decide these issues for themselves,  but implementation of an idea takes time, dedication and resources.

I used to think that government could be run by computers. But I have come to realize that computers are not smart enough.. yet. Governing is complex.  Leaders have to consider the billions of needs of individuals, towns, communities, businesses. It then has to prioritize the needs, take care of the ones that gets screwed by the big ideas, while sill appearing to care for all.  At the same time it has to be not for profit, make a profit and feed itself. Then, it has to pander to specific groups, (more to those that “donate” more, be legal, appear moral and like Google, make the bold statement that they will not be evil.  I wonder how many cores that computer would need, and how many Facebook timelines it would need to follow. Or both.

But back to persuasion. One can be logical, but emotional.  But what flag runners need, like most successful people, is a good altruistic, logical, empathetic, introverted spouse.

A random ramble.

I just wanted to write something smart, but the words are just not coming to my mind.  Maybe I should read the paper for a while to start thinking out of my head.  But that's not working.  Seems like its going to be a long year.  I ready for it.

Happy New Year!

On having a world view, and why we probably don't need government.

I remember 2007.  The US was at war, business was booming and forward looking economists were shouting like crazy people in a downtown square: "this economical boom is unsustainable... are we headed for recession?" At the same the US was hated by many countries in the world because of  the Bush doctrine on foreign policy.  While these views were not the popular  in mainstream American media at the time, I was aware of it. The reason, I had a paper route, and listened to the BBC morning broadcasts on KGOU, our local NPR station.

I must say that this was not the easiest part of my life, and being a grad student with wife and kid, makes one do some pretty hard things, but as much as the paper route gave me about two hundred extra dollars per month, listing to international news helped to broaden my understanding of the world and helped me to keep an ear on the railroad of international business.

Seeing how the great recession of 2008 started, ended, and continues to affect the world economy, it is easy to see that many of our leaders have a very limited understanding about how the world works. Or that they are so caught up in their ideology that they are unwilling to get out of the box that is quickly turning into a coffin.  Let me try to explain this with my opinion of how four of the world's governments have dealt with economic policy since 2008.  I choose 2008 because it was a global economic resetting period, a view that many fail to admit.




China.  In 2008, China GDP growth was about 9.6%  and until now, China's government continued investing in the country's growth.

Germany. Through the recession years, the majority of the private sector stopped hiring, increased R&D spending. Government worked on making social nets stronger and cheaper. Invested in renewable energy especially solar.

US. Private business cut jobs at all levels to make business leaner.  Exported manufacturing to China. Invested in hydrocarbon exploration. Cut some R&D. Government applied stimulus, bailed out banking industry, tried to sure up social nets, government stalled.

UK. Austerity. Cut government spending.  Cut social net spending. Was unwilling to help financial sector for fear of "moral hazard"


As a scientist, my work is based on the belief that one point does not a trend make.  I won't even accept four points to make a callibration curve.  And while I am aware that the few macro econominc decisions made by the governments and business of these countries do not dictate the response of the economy as a whole. Normalizing the values and applying firm statistical functions to the data helps us to realize that we can learn from each other and make better economic decisions.

I can assume that policy leaders have access to the same data that I have. After all its free online.  But then again, most people get their information from The Daily Show and Fox News.  But I digress.

The point I am trying to make here is that we have a lot of data to drive our policy decisions, yet we govern on political ideology.  So why do we need government?

The 99 percent.

My wife the historian has a big Idea. She wants to prove that innovation and technology is not something that is created by a few, but actually the result of the collective and social response to solve a challenge. On the surface, it may seem that she is full of steam, but she is right.  Great ideas are the summation of the of many, yet only the great storytellers get the credit.

From an over simplified  standpoint, chemists use the knowledge that they gained in school and life to solve new challenges.  In the same way, engineers use their knowledge to make the world a more functional place.  To say that Steve jobs invented the iPhone is not a complete truth.  Instead, a more accurate statement would be that Apple Corporation invented the iPhone. Considering these examples, one could apply further analysis and make a more encompassing statement; the iPhone was the product of years of research that melded the concepts of accessing digital data on a relatively small handheld device. The fact that Steve jobs gets credit for iPhone discovery is simple.  He told the story.  He presented the Idea of a device that does all the stuff that the iPhone does, but he probably lead his designers to create a product that was beautiful.  And in this society perception is everything. The truth is tertiary.

iPhone was not the first smartphone, in fact before Apple's version of the miniature communication device, RIM ruled with their Blackberry for business (the 1%).  Apple made smartphones for the other 18 percent (relatively expensive) and then came Android for the other 30% (free to manufacturers).  What dictates availability of these technological leaps?  In my view it is utility.  Most people use their smartphone for playing games, communicating with their social circles, and for waking up in the morning.  Are there alternative ways to do all of these functions, sure.  But smartphones add the utility of mobility, and Steve made them seem cool.  And this leads me back to the original idea.  It is true that innovations are the culmination of the activities of the many.  Unfortunately, people are more concerned with the final product and its utility, and good storytellers are the ones who mainly get the credit.

This still does not answer the fundamental question, of the big Idea, which to me is: Why doesn't engineer X get credit for inventing the iPhone? Simple answer, because she was a drone, merly applying the concepts she learned in Engineering 2003, that  Engineer C, PhD. invented (or filed a patent on, or wrote a paper on) 100 years ago. As much as we humans believe that we are better and smarter than the animals, as we devise better ways of analyzing how the brain works and how organisms communicate, we will find out that they are as smart as we are... if not more.

We are all drones subject to the wills of the 50%, 10 %, 1%, 0.1% and the 0.001%.  But, what should be done to give credit to the ones that figure out the kinks in the big idea?  While we muddle through the problem, we need to get out of our line, take the unbeaten path, or become great story tellers.  After all, perception is everything, and humans mainly pay attention to the things that lie outside the line.

Still, I would like to thank the cell that makes up part of my epithelium, of my small intestine, that helps absorb the nutrients that I eat and keep me going... even though that cell died by the time I was done with this sentence.

Yes we can.

Americans were mesmerised by the entry of a young politician saying that American politics need to change.  That the typical Washington politics was bad for the nation, and that he could provide the "change we could believe in."  Well  he was right; and Washington is making this young man, now made old by the stresses of leading, doubt himself.

The question now is can we believe in change? What about the audacity of hope?  Will the pushback from the old boys club stop change?  Will the threats that austerity is more important than jobs win?  So many questions. So little answers.

I believe we can. I know its had. But the Libyan rebels did it.  And the market recovered. This too shall pass.  Yes we can.

Yea the right is up. And were spinning our wheels in snow, but the sun will come out. Yes we can.

I believe in the audacity of hope.  And I believe our president should stop being a politician, and be the man that made him become president in the first place. Now that's hope that I can believe in.

The US reminds me of the Roman Catholic Church and Microsoft

The diminishing relevance of the Roman Catholic church, can be attributed to a few causes, which can be summarized as such: When in the middle of a changing society, the insistance of the leadership on maintaing the status quo, leads to displeasure and the departure of the flock.

George W Bush, BinLadin and the Great Recession of 2008 changed the US. Deregulation of commerce, tax cuts, and funny accounting for the Iraq and Afganistan wars put the US economy in a bind. Then came Obama, and since 2008 he has been working diligently at fixing the economy, and so far he seems to be failing. This can be attributed to and I summarize, Obama is one of the few presidents that get it. He understands the plight of the American dream, and he wants to level the playing field so that more people can Dream big. But for those who never had a reason to dream BIG, they perceive life is just great, and that Obama is a dream killer. Unfortunately for America, Obama is going against other politicians who went grew up with their parents having already achieved the Dream. These politicians are Garders of the American Dream.

When one is a dreamer, she will fight against many odds to achieve it. Of course, depending on which theory one accepts, dreams can be figments of the imagination, or a glimpse into the subconscious. I believe that the American dream is both. People from many parts of the world congregate in the US and make imaginary things possible. Guarders of the dream, try to keep real things real. Society needs both dreamers and guarders. Dreamers create value and economic prosperity for their investors. Dreamers take problems and challenges, and create profits and solutions. Guarders put up road blocks, build walls, stage wars because of fear of new problems. Dreamers fail many times by not paying attention to the opinion that its a jungle out there. Guarders always fail by not realizing that life cannot exist in a vacuum. In a society that has a balance of dreamers and guarders, there is growth. However, only when the balance shifts to mostly guarders, does failure become imminent.

Regrettably, the US is becoming a society of mostly Guarders. Investors put their cash in ten year bonds at two percent interest, and purchase gold. And prosperous business pay the banks to keep cash. How is this different from stashing cash under ones mattress?

The catholic church failed to innovate when more people were able to read and interpret the bible. Microsoft failed to innovate when more people were using the internet. Thirty six percent of people between the age of 16 and 67 do not contribute to the labor force. These are a lot of idle dreamers, the devil can surely find work for about 110 522 358 hands. Additionally we need to pay attention to these 2241200 temporary dreamers and hope that they don't stop believing.

Many societies fail when the dominant forces listen not to the voices of the majority, and now in the US, we need the majority to dream big.