The Day the Muzak Died

According to reports the Muzak Corporation has filed for Chapter 11. In rosier times bankrupt companies were found it easy to borrow new money and to refinance their debt. Currently in the states even people and organizations with good credit are having problems borrowing money. What hope does a zombie corp have in getting brains, sorry I mean refinancing.

Forklift Driver Klaus

This begins as a training film and ends as blood soaked slapstick comedy.

(from adfreak)

Do Movies Make Money

Well do they? Here is a discussion about how the movie industry doesn't really make money. For the record it is only the industry besides aerospace where the damnyanks have a positive balance of trade.

19th Century Iron Casting for 21th Century

Here is a NY Times story and photo essay about how cast iron manhole covers are being made in India for New York City. I am trying to remember the name of a book I had about a Canadian who was hired to run a casting plant, much like the one describe, in China.

Working Hours and Ompimal Efficiancy, One slashdotter's view.

In the comments of an article on slashdot about the tendency of many to fall asleep at work, syntaxglitch has this comment on death marches and Karōshi in the business.

In France, we often do work less than 40 hours a week.Less work also means better productivity. There surely is a "balancing point", but if it exist, it is different for every person, and is not constant with the time.

Believe it or not, there is actual research done on this--not that anyone ever pays attention to the results. If I recall correctly, it boils down to something like this:

- Productivity is low for the first 1-3 hours of a day as people get into the swing of things
- Daily productivity mostly goes up, but drops toward the end of the day (possibly because people are consciously "winding down")
- Productivity per worker hour peaks somewhere around a 30-hour week.
- Total sustainable productivity per week peaks at around a 45-hour week.
- Around 50 hours and up, fatigue builds up over time until burnout kicks in. Sustained work weeks of 50 hours are likely to be getting less TOTAL WORK done than sustained 35-hour weeks.
- Work weeks of around 80 hours are sustainable for maybe a week or so before catastrophic loss of total productivity occurs
- Anything much more than 80 hours likely results in immediately LOWER productivity, as fatigued workers make mistakes that take more time to fix than the extra hours provide.

From this, one can conclude that European schedules are more likely to maximize individual productivity (more work per hour), while American schedules are more likely to maximize organizational productivity (more work per person). One can also conclude that any manager who demands sustained work weeks of 50 hours or more is incompetent and a fool; the management equivalent of the kind of programmer who creates so many bugs he provides a net negative productivity to the team.

In practice, actual work hours are lower than they appear; most salaried workers are prone to finding numerous ways to not work while at work, largely because in many office environments physical presence is seen as more important than actual productivity.

I suspect the best balancing point would be something like four 9-hour workdays per week. Longer days to minimize the productivity drain of mornings, but a shorter total work week to allow occasional bursts of extra effort without creating long-term burnout.

Unemployed Robots

On slashdot there is this slideshow of a visit to a motherboard factory in Taiwan, or as I like call it Free China. Many, especially those who have seen electronics factories over the years noted how unautomated the factory is compared to Califronian or Japanese electronic factories in the '80s. Many blamed globalization for making people cheaper than machines. Mechanization has historically happened when the capital and running cost for a machine is cheaper than the extra hands it replaces.

Animats pointed how the decline of low skill wages because of illegal immigration has deautomated some service jobs in the US.

It's discouraging. I've watched America go from robotic car washes to "100% hand wash" over the last 25 years.

The assembly line for the Macintosh IIci was more automated than this one. Back in the 1980s, when consumer electronics came from Japan, the Japanese makers were frantically trying to automated enough to keep their labor costs down. Seiko and Sony developed some beautiful technologies for making small consumer electronics items untouched by human hands.

Now everybody has those long lines of low-paid women in some low-wage area.

But denoir points out the dimishing return of automation.

Many of the things don't have to be made by hand, but it is simply cheaper. And it's not just in Taiwan.

A few years ago I worked on a project at ABB Robotics (largest maker of industrial robots) and had the chance to often see their production lines. Once upon a time their assembly lines were automated to a large degree, until they realized that their throughput wasn't big enough to benefit from robots doing the work. People were cheaper and needed less maintenance. When you built a new robot model, you could use the same people - with little extra education required. Robots on the other hand required expensive reprogramming and testing for each small change.

When I was there they were just dismantling the last robot in the line - the one that painted new robots. Instead they outsourced it and now three guys in gas masks spray paint them manually.

Clash of the Car Titans

We all should have seen this coming. General Motors were successful for a long time because of the way that Alfred Sloan organized the disparate auto and auto part companies that made up GM. Because of the example of Sloan management ability and bureacratic skills was more important than engineering. In de Lorean's book, On a Clear Day you can See General Motors, he describes how he was an unusual GM executive because he was a car nut. In recent years GM has made more money out its loan division than by making or selling cars. American car companies need to focus on cars and automotive engineering.

Update 05/08/2007
Edwin Black who noted the IBM technology behind the Holocaust has come some new research that links GM and Panzers. He has documented some ways that GM helped the Nazi war effort. However whatever help GM was able to give to the Nazi war effort was insufficant in overcoming a persistent lack of petroleum resources. Although there were armoured divisions, Panzers, most German even SS divsions were not fully mechanized or even motorized. Trucks had not completely replaced horses and horse drawn artillery were used until the end of WWII.

Still, I like a good muck raking as much as the next schadenfreuden addict.

Hitler's Carmaker: The Inside Story of How General Motors Helped Mobilize the Third Reich (Part 1)

Hitler's Carmaker: As the Nazis Amassed Power, What Did GM Know and When? (Part 2)

Hitler's Carmaker: From War Profiteering to Undermining Mass Transit (Part 3)

Bill Gates, Bully in Chief

Tom Evslin who briefly worked at Microsoft has reported on Bill Gates management style. Bill Gates managed with rudeness and bullying. The culture at Microsoft modeled itself on Gates' rudeness and bullying.

At some point in your presentation billg will say “that’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve heard since I’ve been at Microsoft.” He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can’t really let it faze you. Moreover, you can’t afford to look fazed; remember: he’s a bully.

In the comments a NonMSFTer gives his reaction to the Sleazeballs in Seattle:

Yes. I interviewed at Microsoft in about 1989, and it was VERY clear from the style of at least one interviewer that it was a confrontational, in-your-face kind of place, where rudeness seemed to be a kind of initial ante into being perceived there as being very bright and/or the kind of aggressiveness they were looking for. I called (quietly) bullshit and withdrew. But the author is right; it ripples down from the top. I won't forget the asshole I interviewed with (a 20-something Brit named Richard Tate), but the real blame goes with an environment that fosters that kind of hubris.

At slashdot where there is a link to this story there has been many interesting comments.

SheildWOlf has a parent take to dealing with bullies.

It was a test. And you failed. All of us.

Like I was telling my daughter yesterday, the appropriate thing to do when you meet such a person is to drill them in the nose with your knuckles as hard as you can, unless they outweigh you by a significant margin, in which case you should hit them with a chair until they crumple to the ground.

This is how you deal with bullies.

You certainly don't turn yourself one after another into his bitch and make him rich as reward for his antisocial behavior.

I bet Bill wears an "Everything I needed to take over the world, I learned from the bully in kindergarten" T-shirt to bed as a nightie.

Maestro4k has this reaction to MS Inhuman resources management and its costs.

There's a distinct difference between expecting someone to champion their project and being a bully and abusing them verbally. Telling every person that their project idea is "the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." is just being downright mean. Especially when you just glare at them coldly after they defend themselves (as the article points out).

And then you get people who'll imitate the behavior without the smarts to back it up, so it becomes nothing BUT abuse. (Middle management for example.) I think Bill's management technique explains a lot about Microsoft's behavior over the years and why they're so disliked in the technical community. In fact looking back at how MS acted during their two biggest trials (the US anti-trust and EU anti-trust) you can see this "bullying" all over the place. Acting like a bully when you're the defendant in court is not a good idea. It'll just piss the judge (and possibly the jury) off, and they're the ones passing judgment on you.

Besides, it's not like this technique has worked incredibly well for MS, especially in areas like security. MS has also put out some really lousy stuff over the years, like MS Bob, that were apparently "championed" all the way to release, then bombed. Maybe if Bill had developed a culture less focused on bullying they could have avoided some of those things, and saved money. When you force every one of your employees to defend their projects in such a manner then how many are going to be willing to listen when people point out problems with them? You can't have any second doubts if you have to defend your projects constantly, so people will stop listening to any criticism, leading to lower quality all around.

Beautiful Steel Plants

The Germans seem to really like industrial photography. This image is from Stahlseite. As well as categorizing its pictures by country it also groups them by type; Blast Furnace, Steel Works, Foundry, Forge, Rolling Mill, Coke Plant and Mine. I used to know of another German website devoted to industrial photography. Unfortunately I have lost its address.

Above is the Stelco plant in Hamilton

Humans as Parasites

Roman Roads Through the Alps

I have been following a devoted to trade routes called The Trade Routes Resources Blog. Here is a monograph on Roman roads in the Alps.

Things To Do in Jail

There was an episode of OZ that spent 5-10 minutes on all the different ways of creating shivs. It is a design problem because the raw materials are limited to what a prisoner has access to. Which leads to an arty site, now offline unfortunately. A shiv is a primarily a home-made stabbing tool. All the shivs in this exhibit were confiscated at a high security lifer prison.

An NPR program, Talk of the Nation, is having a special this week on prison life. The first program was about solitary confinement, later programs will be about prison overcrowding, and from solitary to freedom. CBC's The Current had an segment today, 8/3/06, about managing sexual offenders.

Folk song about Mining found on SHWI

O come you young fellas
so handsome and fine,
and seek not your fortune
way down in the mine.
For the mine it will rot you
and seep in your soul,
'til the blood of your body
runs black as the coal.
Where its dark as a dungeon
and damp as the dew,
where the dangers are many and
the pleasures are few.
Where the rain never falls and the
sun never shines,
O seek not your fortunes in the dark
dreary mine.

--- some folk song about mining ---

from the thread Confederacy: Vicious Dystopia or Not?

Concrete, The Rock of Civilization

In one Dr Who episode The Tardis lands back on Skaro years after the Thal-Kaled war. The Doctor remarks that the rock around them is the rarest in the universe, concrete.

On NPR is discussion about safety and concrete in relation some rexent failures at Boston's "Big Dig". The Calvin and Hobbes explanation for figuring out bridge load limits was suggested. Oddly the roundtable of civil engineers were more hesitant in supposing that there is some sort of engineering perfection. The Uncertainty of the engineering professionals was reassuring.

How do they know the load limit on bridges Dad? They drive bigger and bigger trucks over the bridge until it breaks. Then they weigh the last truck and rebuild the bridge. Oh. I should've guessed. Dear, if you don't know the answer. Just tell him
Calvin and Hobbes 26-11-86

Atomic Power is Grrrrreat

NY Times magazine, Atomic Balm, has an article about the rebirth of nuclear power. Three Mile Island discouraged the construction of new plants. Now new plants are going through the developemnt and planning process. Speaking as someone who wore a radition badge I see this a good thing. A character from Repo Man has summed up some of the best argruments about atomic power.

J. Frank Parnell: Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end

Ship in Book and News the Same Day

I was reading a book about the history of oil, A Thousand Barrels a Second. The book details some the techniques to increase whaling yield among which was making a whalers search the seas for black fish rather then remaining inshore whalers. An whale oil merchant built a bigger and longer range "factory whaler" then previous models. The ship, The Charles W. Morgan, is in the news for using oak casualties of Katrina for renovation and repair.

Safety Regulations

Skyscaper Mania

The Economist has an interesting article about the Skyscapers. The Economist article repeats the way that skyscrapers are negative indicator of prosperity, the biggest are designed in boom times and by the time they are finished sit empty.

The article mentions the Skyscraper Museum, where the picture on the right is from. The Skyscraper Museum has a number of interesting web exhibits including this these images of a tower under construction. And a gallery of the favorite NYC towers.

Don't forget to look at James Lileks' archive of old, forgotten and never built towers.

History of Plywood

Years ago there was a seasonal ad campaign at Grand and Toy. The campaign obstensively advertised horrible gift ideas, with kicker that Grand and Toy had stuff that people both needed and wanted. One if the gift suggestions was a book set about construstion technology with one the books being The History of Plywood. I would amuse my friends and relations by asking for The History of Plywood at Grand and Toy in person and by phone. It was both joke and serious. Because I have a weakness for technology histories. I have read both The Natural History of the Screwdriver and an earlier and more obscure book whose name I have forgotten. Now I have come across a history of plywood at a trade association for the "engineered wood industry". And through this history is parochial, American patents are cited as proof of invention instead proof of the existence of American patent lawyers, and stilted it at least gives some sort of timeline.

The Plywood illustration come from a chichi yacht supply company.

The Panglossian view of Deindustrialization

Read an article in the Economist about the decline in manufacturing both as a proportion of the economy and as a share of the labour force. The argrument is that efficiencies in manufacturing and the increased importance of services makes the decline metal bashing no big deal. That is true all things being equals. A society that finds it is cheaper to build cars will spend more money on consumption than durables.

The reverse is also true. Societies/economies that find it to be increasing expensive to provide for durable goods, like austerity in wartime will spend less on consumption to provide human and material resources to feed factories. In Island in the Sea of Time, a small town is marooned in the Bronze Age. They find they don't have all the human, material and technological resources to maintain late 20th technology. One engineer calculates that entire population could spend five years building a hydroelectric dam to power an aluminium refinery. Of course they would all starve before dam is finsihed.

The problem with American deindustrialization is not that they have discovered they can produce the same material goods using few technological and human resources. The problem is that they have decided not to run their own factories better but increasingly to buy from Chinese ones instead. Blame Walmart the traitors, although, many people don't want to, like Slate, CIO Magazine, Robert Reich, and many other apologists, paid shills and the usual suspects.

For more information on the Philosopher Pangloss go his wikipedia page.