Displaying 31 To 60 Of 1,384 Comments Can’t argue the point, I was just… surmising. If they ever turn up a memo or an email I wouldn’t be in the least surprised, other than these guys having basic ignorance of the first principle of business and politics: “If it isn’t on paper, it never happened.” So, these guys are really, really stupid if they send emails or write memos. At some level, all this stuff is verbal, and I just think it’s unlikely to stick to a guy like Christy. Rich, REALLY rich, people like him too much. And that’s all I need to know about him. » Posted By PocketWatch On January 9, 2014 @ 4:26 am Honestly, I think that every self-important blowhard of a politician (and they are not all like that, just many of them) have a “posse” around them. Old friends, operators that got them elected, a kid or two of high roller donors… like that. These guys are put in positions that may pay not a whole lot, but they CAN do things. This stinks of one of those things. One of his HS buddies was made the head of the NJ Port Authority. A nice cushy job. Great title. And the Port Authority around NY and NJ is a power not to be sneezed at. My guess is that his buddy tried to do his buddy the guv a little favor. Maybe a little payback for something other than this non-endorsement thing. Could be the mayor didn’t supply his favorite whiskey at a conference or something. Who knows? These guys think like that. Christy may not have known (or maybe he just made a verbal offhand remark and someone took it all the way), but, as the captain of that particular ship, the State of New Jersey, he IS responsible for what goes on. Now if only someone would actually hold him responsible… Naw! Never happen! » Posted By PocketWatch On January 9, 2014 @ 3:36 am What no one has reported on yet, and I can’t imagine why it isn’t mentioned, is that the GW bridge is ALSO under ICC regulation. I lived near NYC and used that bridge a lot. There is a massive amount of commercial traffic across that bridge every day of the year. And it bridges between two states. Interstate commerce. I’d say the feds have reason to investigate. Taxes are charged for every mile of travel in any state. A fuel surcharge. That’s part of the reason for the logbooks drivers have to fill out. Hinder that, and you better have a good reason. » Posted By PocketWatch On January 9, 2014 @ 3:05 am I started out in the early-to-mid 70s at $24,000 a year as a Service “Engineer.” Did that for 14 years, getting raises along the way, of course. I never, EVER, thought of myself as anything other than “working class.” Even as the Business Manager of a $40M market research firm in NYC, I always felt like a working stiff, not some sort of “suit.” Ultimately, it was my best weapon in the usual intercompany politics. Key people, NOT in suits trusted me and confided in me. I knew what was going on all the time, and no one really knew how, and I never betrayed a confidence, ever. I was famous for it… LOL. Because I was always on the side of the “troops,” not the suits. I knew who did the real work. Even as a Business Consultant, ‘parachuting’ into businesses to try and save them, it was still always just a job, on some level. I cared deeply about what I was doing, but, in the end, I didn’t call the shots in any meaningful way on a company level. Just a cog. Anyway, while I accept the premise that the author poses in his article, that of middle class guys in cubicles that are called “managers” and sort of think of themselves that way, therefore they would never conceive of forming a union. I think mere fear is simpler and just as valid. There is a certain security in corporate work… somewhere in the middle. Top managers change positions faster than your average porno star, and with just about as much authentic emotion. They are just happy to be able to stay. It’s probably the best job any of them will ever have. Ever. If you are not the owner, that’s your lot in life, and you are whim to many things out of your control, including and especially group think. Many dumb ideas come out of groups like that, but they all know how to push the blame. At the bottom, there is a lot of churn in employees because these are the minimum wage or temp guys, and they come and go all the time. It’s the middle managers and their troops that actually do the company’s work, and, as long as the company is doing what it has always done, produce a good or service it was designed for, they are usually pretty good. There will be the occasional thinning of the herd, but that is a question of numbers. You might lose one or two out of a group of 20, but the rest are safe. For now. See what happened there? Fear. A quest for the personally most-safe position. For suits, its favors, relationships, and positioning. For the rest of us, its fear. We generally hate the place anyway. A job loss means scrambling to find another, late payments, a huge hassle all around, even if we’re lucky to find something right away. IN all other circumstances, it’s pretty bleak. THAT’S why we stay. Fear of a false security. But we all have played that math in our head, and few have been brave enough to step away from it and try something else. » Posted By PocketWatch On January 3, 2014 @ 8:39 am Nirek and I were talking a little bit about contractors, and what’s at stake, cost & benefits… I ran into this article about an attack on a California electric substation back in April. I don’t know if this hit anybody’s radar, but what I found interesting in relevance to the aforementioned discussion was the following quote in regards to a possible solution to the problem of physical attacks on this kind of infrastructure versus what the government is paying for, prevention of cyber attacks. The person being quoted is suggesting a solid metal wall instead of existing chain link fences in order to limit visibility into the substations. Basically, if you can’t see it, you can’t stand 200 yards away and basically shoot a transformer dead, which apparently you can. The cost? A “couple hundred bucks.” A lot cheaper than the billions the administration has spent in the past four years beefing up cyber security of critical infrastructure in the United States and on government computer networks. – See more at: http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/24/power-station-military-assault#sthash.FUSdlPM8.dpuf Think about this… which is more lucrative? Spending a couple hundred bucks per station using local businesses and contractors, or spending millions and billions on a threat that is much harder to do, is complicated to attempt, and less effective? And who benefits? A couple of local small businessmen and a guy, or a couple of enormous preferred-list contractors that can keep the imagined threat going for years, and, by the way, are huge campaign contributors? Hmmm? » Posted By PocketWatch On December 28, 2013 @ 4:55 pm IOKIYAR Nothing more to be said, apparently. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 28, 2013 @ 2:21 pm I’m just waiting for a movement to repeal the 13th Amendment. Can’t be far from around the corner. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 27, 2013 @ 6:24 pm We can all relax now. We know that many people think that blacks were happy under slavery now. Phil said it, after all, and a major corporation apparently supports his hard-earned knowledge. And, considering the support that this cretin received, it looks like we are headed back there. Pack your bags, black folks! They need you down on them plantations! (I swear… this stuff makes me nuts!) » Posted By PocketWatch On December 27, 2013 @ 4:30 pm IN the case of soldiers, I believe the thinking is like this: If you have a corporal driving a truck for, say, $30K a year, you have to also train him/her, feed, clothe, shelter, and all the stuff that goes along with “owning” a soldier. Hiring a contractor, even by paying the driver $100K a year, you have flat costs, and can stop at any time. Of course, it never seems to work out. I suspect that the costs are higher by using contractors, but the initial cost estimates are lower, making the policy makers look good. No one seems to look at the downstream costs. In addition, it’s a real nice way to pay off contributors. Haliburton is making BILLIONS off of government contracts. I can’t think of who made out on that personally…. it’ll come to me… » Posted By PocketWatch On December 26, 2013 @ 5:11 pm Thanks. I didn’t know diddly about market research when I was hired. I was the Business Manager, handling contracts, leases and operations, really. It’s actually a fascinating subject. The origins, BTW, were from WWI. The US needed to know how the British populace were going to handle having hundreds of thousands of Americans dumped on them, and they sent a lieutenant over to see if he could figure it out. His name was Daniel Starch. The company I worked for, before it expanded, grew, and was absorbed by the German GfK Custom Research, was named Roper Starch. That company basically invented market research, and some of it’s demographic tracking goes back nearly 75 years. Very valuable stuff, used by governments, universities, and others to figure out long-term trends. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 26, 2013 @ 2:26 pm I know… the time of day thing is always an issue. If you are doing a phone interview (from the interviewing company’s POV), you need to get people to pick up the phone and talk to you. During the day, that’s almost impossible, so yes, they DO go more for the evening hours. If it sounds like a legit thing (and there’s nothing wrong in asking who the interviewing company is), you may want to ask if they could call at a more convenient time. Any MR company that’s legit will set that up for you if they can because they know they have a “hot one” and won’t turn down a chance to get the interview. Sleazy pollsters will just move on. At Roper (and later, GfK Custom) we toyed with the idea of offshoring the call centers to India, and after looking into it, decided not to. Lack of positive quality control, loss of income due to thrown out surveys, misunderstandings on methodology, and bad customer relations as a result of all that spoke against it. I don’t know what other MR companies did, or even what GfK is doing now, but at that time, we took a pass, and I always thought it was the right decision. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 26, 2013 @ 12:49 pm I need to say from the start that there are reputable firms and there are… well… let’s just say that they masquerade as market research firms. A reputable firm like Roper (now GfK Custom Research, the one I worked for when it was Roper, Harris, Neilsen, and others) does NOT allow the client to dictate the questions asked, other than in a broad way (For instance, the client wants to know which package design the target group likes, or what color the product should be, just to give a couple simple examples…). There is a science and an art to designing a questionnaire to give accurate data. That includes how the question is asked, the order of the questions, questions to verify earlier responses, and so forth. They have people on staff that do nothing but that for a living. The questionnaire should also include basic demographic information to identify if the respondent qualifies for the interview, i.e., sex, age, income level, etc. As long as respondent qualifies, all answers are recorded and used in the final analysis of the survey. None are thrown out. By the way, reputable firms also have staff mathematicians that develop sophisticated tools to slice and dice the results in very distinct ways so the customer can see what all the various breakdowns are, and also calculate the error margin. Those guys get paid a LOT and are VERY smart. Online or telephone polls done by groups that have an agenda are pretty much worthless. The questions are made to lead a respondent to a specific set of answers and the results are generally never subjected to any rigorous mathematical analysis. They have no real value whatsoever. I have a feeling that these are what Mitt and his boys were looking at and being told they were legitimate polls. It’s clear they were not. It should be said that if you see a poll by Quinnipiac or Marist, they are generally excellent. These are two universities in Connecticut that have MR departments, and these polls are commissioned and paid for, and are designed and run by graduate students and supervised by professors as training tools as well as income for the schools. Those guys don’t mess around. As far as false respondents are concerned, that can’t happen in face-to-face (or at least it is minimized), whereas telephone and online pols are very…. loosey goosey, shall we say. I’d never trust them when making a critical decision of any kind. A reputable firm not only will take you off it’s call list, but there is usually a 30 day, 90 day, or 6 month restriction from using the same respondent again until that time has lapsed. On a legit interview, that’s the first question that’s asked. And we kept lists we checked people against. (I was in charge of QC, among other things, and I had no sense of humor about it… we didn’t get paid if we had to throw out interviews if someone messed up and allowed ineligible respondents to be interviewed. People got fired for that shit.) What those interest groups do is outside the realm of actual market research, and I don’t doubt they do the same thing that spammers do when you click on “unsuscribe.” » Posted By PocketWatch On December 26, 2013 @ 12:39 pm pinkpantheroz says: Now that Facebook, Google, Twitter and the like have thoroughly mined us for all the info they can squeeze out of us, it is depressing that ‘Market research’ companies still insist on interrupting our weekend/dinner/free time with miles long questionnaires about all sorts of stuff. ————– I wanted to post my response to this comment here on top in order to restart the subject, if anyone is interested. I worked for an international market research company for 10 years in NYC, and wanted to give everyone a little bit of information from the other side of this issue. First of all, let me be, if not the first, at least another voice to say I completely understand the frustration and feeling of intrusion that phone calls at home engender. And it is absolutely true that market research companies make money from completed interviews. That’s what they get paid for. Consider this, however… if you have the time and are so inclined, it is an interesting exercise to go through one of these interviews, assuming that is for a product you actually use or for general demographic data. In doing so, you end up representing literally millions of people. That’s something very few people get to do. Here’s how it works: A company like Proctor & Gamble is looking at putting a new product on the market, or maybe a newer version of what they already have. P&G hires a market research company to investigate the issue, specifying the target group they are interested in. Let’s say it’s women, ages 25 to 55, middle income, suburban, married, have at least one child in the home, and use disinfecting soap. It can get that specific or even more so. Nationwide in the US, that group is millions of people. Obviously, you can’t interview millions, so you try and get a representative sample, maybe 2,500 from 25 cities and their suburban areas. Those 2,500 people end up representing the whole population of the target group, and their answers will determine what ends up on the shelves. There actually is something of power to influence what the rest of us have as far as choices, and that influence is real. The same thing happens for attitudes towards government, politics, advertising campaigns (our interviews ran up until the Saturday night before a SuperBowl one year to figure out what commercial was going to be aired… millions of dollars were at stake, for example). Now, having said that, there is a hierarchy to the effectiveness and veracity of interviewing methodology. From most effective to least effective (and most-to-least expensive), they are: Door-to-door (yes, that is still done, and that is an entire long issue by itself) The first three or four methods have been used since the early 1900’s, and are still being used today, of course. They can be VERY accurate. Phone and online are notoriously shaky in terms of accuracy because they are methods that have obvious limitations (the biggest is that they are “self-selecting,” so that you get minor subsets of the target group and there is a large probability of people answering who are not in the target group… how can you tell?). In any case, if you are asked to do a face-to-face, a door-to-door, or a focus group, there IS money in it for you. Sometimes just $5 for a 3 minute interview (more for longer ones), maybe $75 for an hour-long door-to-door, and $250 for a focus group. So, in the end, legitimate market research DOES serve a purpose in our lives, and you have the opportunity to represent literally millions of your fellow citizen/consumers. The next time you see a product, service, or ad that you hate, remember that someone did the research and the company decided on it based on the people that DID say “yes” to being interviewed. Something to think about. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 26, 2013 @ 6:12 am Well, of course, it’s an offshoot of the Devil’s bargain the political right wing made with the religious fundies years ago. They HAVE to pick a fight about something every now and then in order to keep those guys happy, and the “War on Christmas” is low-hanging fruit. Notice that nothing on the religious right ever really gets accomplished politically. The Republicans had control of all three branches of government for years and never did a thing about that agenda. They could have easily reversed Roe v Wade, eliminated the restrictions on prayer in schools, dealt with any number of issues the religious right wanted, but … nothing. Why was that? Answer: Remove the wedge issues, and you have nothing to rile up the base with. Simple! They are now getting some traction in statehouses around the country, courtesy of the crazies being elected, but people will soon realize what a nightmare they will be living in when those laws are affecting their daughters, wives, and friends. Sorry to give such a serious answer to a semi-light question, but this phenomenon is practically ignored by pundits and commentators, let alone what passes for “news people” these days. (Don’t get me started on THAT!) » Posted By PocketWatch On December 22, 2013 @ 6:39 am Yes, I have, and I promise not to rant about it. I lived in Westchester County, NY for about 10 years, and I met more than my share of these entitled, arrogant, selfish, self-centered, completely unaware teenagers with parents to match. Not surprised in the least. On the other hand, I also met some very nice folks. Interestingly, those folks were almost universally from REALLY old money. It was the newly-rich that infuriated me. And I’ll leave it right there. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 21, 2013 @ 5:54 am I buy lottery tickets (MegaBucks & PowerBall) once in a while when I can afford the $10. Here’s why… Regardless of the odds, SOMEONE will win. My mother used to do second-chance lotteries, sending in 3×5 cards on drawings for unclaimed prizes. There is a newsletter and method for doing this, and she did it as a hobby. We used to tease her that she was having an affair with the UPS driver, he stopped at her house so often to deliver prizes she’d won. She always said “You can’t win if you don’t play,” and that’s literally true. So, yes, the odds are astronomical, but sooner or later, someone wins. If your name isn’t in the pot, you will not win. It’s really a binary decision at that level. A dollar and a dream…. Besides, I could use a few million bucks! » Posted By PocketWatch On December 19, 2013 @ 7:49 am I tend to sidestep the whole issue of climate change or global warming when discussing this with anyone. What I try to do is make the point that we have to stop burning stuff for energy. Period. Nothing good comes from it. First of all, it’s centuries-old technology. I firmly believe that hydrogen fuel cells are the final answer, at least for the next 100 years or so. Water everywhere, hence a nearly unlimited source of hydrogen, catalyzed by methane, propane, or similar easily made substance, and easily refueled, plus hydrogen can be made using a unit in the home. It’s literally off-the-shelf technology, and the resultant effluent is… pure water (which can be recycled to make… hydrogen!). Other sources of energy like wind, solar, geothermal, and tidal are also parts of the solution, especially for power plants, but for transportable energy (think vehicles), hydrogen fuel cells seem the best way for now. Again, we really HAVE to stop burning crap for energy. We are drowning in our manufactured waste. » Posted By PocketWatch On December 17, 2013 @ 3:39 am Weekend Music Thread – Take Me Away Thanks, KT. Being involuntarily retired sort of gets your focus on other things, if you know what I mean. » Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 6:10 pm Hi all! I know it’s been a while. I’m working on getting ready for an important job interview on Tuesday. I’ve checked here nearly every day, though, and have been sort of keeping up. Anyway, from one of my favorite folk artists, Canadian Stan Rogers:
» Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 6:07 pm No kidding! Frankly, I would not mess with them myself. Even a Canada goose or a swan can mess you up, and they are smaller. » Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 9:47 pm [img]https://planetpov.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IMG_0148.jpg[/img] And here’s another… » Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 9:36 pm [img]https://planetpov.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IMG_0008.jpg[/img] Here’s a family of cranes from about 20 ft. in the backyard. The adults are about 4 ft. tall, and the chicks are growing daily. Maggie gets really excited when they come around…. can’t imagine why! » Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 9:32 pm :: mutter… mutter:: I need my stapler back, yeah, the red one.. they told me…. » Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 9:19 pm jkk – Hi there! I just got back and saw your post on the music thread. Maggie’s doing fine. It’s been a bit of a struggle with the other cats, though. Jasper, the male, has been territorial, and since he also has some “issues” due to surviving a house fire 6 years ago, well, let’s just say he’s conflicted. Bob, the female, is much better… very mellow… just a few hissing contests. It’s getting better, though. I’m house sitting this weekend and the three cats are getting along pretty well. I am not having to referee too much. Outside walks are rare right now. The bugs are ferocious. They don’t bother Maggie, but it’s nearly impossible to walk in the woods for me, even doused in repellant. However, it’s a real zoo outside. We have bears, deer, Sandhill cranes, hummingbirds, chipmunks, red squirrels, and raccoons all coming around day and night. We call it TV for kitties. Anyway, I’m still looking for work, and have an interview for a really good job lined up for Tuesday, so…. fingers and stuff crossed. » Posted By PocketWatch On July 23, 2011 @ 9:15 pm The way of natural things… only the strong survive, and rightly so. I sometimes think that humanity may not be a viable species because of this very thing. We, as a group tendency, try to keep the weak alive. As a species with a conscience, I consider this a good thing. As a species survival strategy, it may not be. I make no grandiose claims about right and wrong here, just trying to make an objective point. I DO believe that we have elevated the weak, venal, greedy, psycho and sociopathic, and stupid to high office and to the head of the corporatocracy, though. A VERY bad thing, IMO. Animals aren’t nearly so dumb. » Posted By PocketWatch On June 28, 2011 @ 12:51 pm On a contrary note… Most of you know I have moved back to my home “Stomping Grounds” in the wilds of Northern Wisconsin because of several reasons having to to do with the economy, the job outlook in the Houston area, and general homesickness after 40 years of wandering in the concrete deserts of New York city and Houston as well as traveling the world in my work. I have noticed a thing. There is more diversity now in these woods than there was when I was a kid. I never saw a turkey buzzard here… I’ve seen two. A black bear was a rare thing to see outside of town dumps… I count seven that come into the back yard nearly every day. There are fishers here (imported to battle the porcupine explosion that threatened whole stands of aspen and birch), and moose. No such thing before. Wolves have returned. I know coyotes were around, but I never heard them. I do now. The bald eagles are flourishing (their numbers were coming back before I left), and the loons are taking over (is that a sign or a reflection in nature of what is happening in our politics?). At any rate, even though some towns have grown and expanded as would be expected, the wilder parts of the whole place seem to have gotten wilder, much to my delight. I wish that people could live closer to nature and realize that they ARE a part of nature, not a separate thing. Our language and word usage even reflects that notion. We talk of nature as a different thing than people. If I could remake the world, I would wish that we lived in villages and small towns, connected by benign technology, not in large cities and sterile high rises. It is my belief that humans function best in small and medium sized groups, not in huge aggregate numbers. At any rate, I’m glad I’m back to the place I love, and hope to make my independent way here. I like the fact that there are new things to discover and learn, as well as most things continue unchanged (old fishing holes, favorite parts of the woods to hunt in, small businesses still in existence and flourishing after all this time). They say you can’t go home again. Maybe, but it sure feels familiar. » Posted By PocketWatch On June 28, 2011 @ 4:51 am Why You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About ADONAI – As a practitioner of martial arts, I can relate to this idea. It has been a centuries-long idea in the martial arts that, as a beginning student, you already have everything you need to perform any of the movements or “moves” in whatever martial art you are studying. Failure is your consciousness convincing you that you cannot ‘break the board.’ So, it takes years of training to remove your consciousness from the equation. I can attest to the fact that when I am sparring for real with an opponent that is very skilled, I have a real out-of-body experience. I more or less watch myself move through the 4 dimensions (three physical and then there’s time) involved without any intervention of conscious thought. It’s a strange feeling the first time it happens. You see everything coming and react without reacting. Weird. Anyway, regardless of what that is or how it comes about, it is a real thing, and I’m happy that it’s saved me a few split lips, some bruises, and more than one or two broken bones. I think I read somewhere that really good major league batters can actually count the laces on a fast ball as it comes into the plate from the same phenomenon. I believe it. » Posted By PocketWatch On June 19, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The Insanity Defense for Trickle Down And here’s a link to see the basis for the fact that tax cuts DO NOT PAY FOR THEMSELVES… http://speakingofdemocracy.com/2010/07/do-tax-cuts-increase-revenue/ » Posted By PocketWatch On June 16, 2011 @ 9:20 am wts – Apparently, actors are better than directors when talking about political office. At least on the conservative side of things. My take has always been that actors are better at taking direction from their bosses and are better at reading their lines. » Posted By PocketWatch On June 16, 2011 @ 8:51 am Hi AdLib… And yet the discussion points about privatization and deregulation (which regulations, BTW?) are totally unchallenged at all turns and are tacitly assumed to be true in every modern discussion of governmental roles. When are people going to ask these simple questions and demand answers in the form of actual examples? I have another one: When I was studying for my degree a few years back, I had courses in Economics. As a result, I happened to catch a Congressional hearing at which Alan Greenspan was testifying. The subject was taxation and tax breaks for the rich and for corporations. Amongst the answers, Greenspan admitted in clear language (which surprised me no end) that the Fed and he himself could not account for 20% of the tax money redistributed to the wealthy. In other words, for every dollar in tax breaks given, only 80 cents found its way back into the economy. Say what? So, according to the trickle upon us guru himself, we are netting a NEGATIVE 20% Return on Investment when applying such tax breaks. NICE! Now THERE’s a return every businessman in America can get behind! Why, we’d all be rich if we could lose 20 cents on the dollar! And these people claim to know everything about money and business, economics and investments? My tired patootie! » Posted By PocketWatch On June 16, 2011 @ 8:48 amComments Posted By PocketWatch
12/22/2013 at 7:03 PM
Face-to-face intercept (think people in malls with clipboards)
Focus groups
Telephone interviews
Online polls
Second, burning anything pollutes the air, land, and water.
Third, we have replacement technology, we just don’t want to use it. (This point is because, of course, corporations make too much profit from burning things, so politics goes along.)
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