Corporate deeds, misdeeds and everything else.
There’s a map of where the billionaires are these days on Forbes. It’s interesting to see them all crammed into the same places, relatively speaking
And of course, no Billionaires Club is complete without Steve Jobs on its list.
Here’s the American version of the map.
Long live capitalism.
via [Mark Chu]
I guess we are in the “diaper phase” of the parenting experience now — trying out different ones when they are on sale, comparing them for various quality and dissing them if they don’t work…
In search for a diaper that will let Bryan truly sleep through the night, I started reading on diapers again. Apparently Consumer Report just recently did a fairly thorough review on them and named their top picks. It’s a good read for you new or soon-to-be parents.
I also found some discussions (here, here and here) on the controversy of whether one diaper brand was made for one gender or the other.
I guess Google will provide plenty of other related information on diapers if one spends enough time looking for it. It seems like how leaky the diapers are vary from child to child. Even though rumors have it that Huggies are more suitable from boys and Pampers for girls, the opposite is true with Bryan and a couple of our friends with baby girls.
After weeks of trial and error, our top choices remain to be:
Pampers Baby Dry (sizes new born – 3)
Safeway Supreme (sizes 2 – 3)
In response to Mark’s comment on my last entry on biodegradable diapers, I thought the issue deserves a longer entry to discuss the issue of corporate ethics (or lack thereof).
The government site I included in that entry did have links to a couple of companies that make biodegradable materials for diapers. I think the materials are just too expensive to manufacture for mass consumers right now. But then again, the economics of scale… Hello, chicken and the egg…
As for longer lasting and better quality diapers (or products in general), what the market really needs is competition to keep it healthy and technologies advancing. When there are only two or three really big players cornering the market, that’s when innovation will slow to a halt. Case in point — Wintel PC industry. Nobody is innovating. The market is full of cloners with Dell being the top dog. To give the diaper manufacturers where credit’s due though, Proctor & Gamble, Kimerly-Clark and others have introduced better and longer lasting diapers. The diapers today weight less and absorb a lot more than diapers from 10 years ago.
Since I am on the subject of diapers, I might as well mention our latest discoveries… We found that the generic supermarket brands don’t absorb quite as well as the name brands. Bryan now sleeps through the night when he’s wearing Pampers during the night. But he will demand for a diaper change in the middle of night if he sleeps with the generic stuff from Safeway. Other than that, the generic stuff is more than sufficient for day time use.
Coming back to the economics and ethics of companies, consumers have a lot more power than they realize. The manufacturers sure as hell aren’t going to invest in the R&D if there’s no demand for it. Corporations exist to maximize profit for their investors with little to no concern to anything else, including ethics and the environment.
Take another example, everything in the United States seems to be disposable. In some cases, that’s just good hygiene. But I have a hunch that in most cases, it’s good business. Something that needs to be replaced brings ever flowing revenues to the manufacturer. Sure, more innovative products can also drive sales, but why investing in the research for innovative products when a product can secure people’s spending by making them coming back for the same thing over and over? The shaving blades is a good example. But in all seriousness, I am not sure if the blades are actually so dull that they need to be replaced every six months. Maybe it’s the psychology that every time you cut yourself, you think it’s the fault of dull blades?
As a consumer, when I am making purchasing decisions, I try to bear in mind the issues above. I know that every time I reach for my credit card/cash in my wallet, I am excercising the power of choice with which company I want for them to profit off of me. I am sure Brian would agree with me… He’s the one started all this “consumer power” stuff in my head… Hah!
Just for the record, I say no to the following products as much as possible:
Microsoft (software division; way too many bugs)
Dell (leeching off of others’ innovations)
Disney (except when it comes to Pixar movies)
Sony (their electronics break way too frequently)
Huggies (leaky diapers for boys)
Simon sent me an article (free registration required) from the New York Times about toilet training infants. The idea is to train the babies to go potty without using the diapers. Diaper Free Baby, a nonprofit organization with members all over the world, has been a driving force behind the cause. While many parents who succeed in trying the techniques have sworn by them, I am just not sure about the long term implications of subjecting young infants to such activities when they are not cognitively ready.
On the other hand, I do feel bad about contributing to part of the 18 million diapers that ended up in the landfills every year. Some researchers have talked about the promise of biodegradable diapers. But others are not quite as optimistic about prospects of such products being cheap and available enough to make an impact.
Through a website maintained by the State of California, I found some companies that make it a business plan to deliver/recycle reusable diapers. The idea is the service provider will provide resuable diapers, collect the soil ones and deliver the fresh ones on a monthly basis for a fee. But here’s the catch, I wonder what the impact is on the environment with all the gasoline, clean water, electricity and detergent used to provide such service on a regular basis. The research figures on the environmental impacts of disposable diapers are daunting. But I’d also want to find out, like wise, what the total cost/environmental impact is for reusable diapers. In addition, just how hygienic is it to share reusable diapers with potentially hundreds of other babies?
Over the years I have heard and read about how big chain stores have been putting small local (a.k.a. mom and pop) shops out of business. I never really paid much attention to news like that as long as I was saving money at those national chain stores, and usually I was.
It didn’t really hit me until a few years ago Brian had casually mentioned how a newly opened Home Depot at his home town in Michigan was having a negative impact on his father’s gardening supplies business. I was embarrassed to have been so insensitive to the news, like millions of consumers.
Worst yet, now some experts are finding out how these every-day-low-prices-guaranteed national chains (ahem-WalMart-ahem) are really doing to the American economy. It’s turned a “need-based” consumer culture into a want-based consumer culture. There’s so much junk in most American homes that there’s now a growing trend in renting self-storages to store all the stuff that most people don’t need in the first place. It’s such an irony that Brian’s family decided to open a self storage facility after conceding defeat to competition with Home Depot.
Jib Jab is a site that used to create mostly political satire animations. But their latest work, Big Box Mart, accurately captured the economic and clutural trend in the United States. If you don’t agree with the underlining message, at least you’ll get a good laugh out of the silly animation.
According to this article at BloggingBaby, formula-fed babies are pretty much screwed for the rest of their lives.
Sulphurous bacteria, a harmful substance that could cause irritable bowel syndrome later in life, is more likely to be found in the stomachs of infants who are fed with formula, according to a new study. What’s more, these infants also have fewer probiotic, or healthy bacteria.
via [BlogginBaby]
It used to be that if you wanted to sell your hand crafts online, only a couple of real options were available: e-commerce by yourself (or through Yahoo Store), or say get cozy with eBay (or other garden variety of auction sites). Then there was Craigslist. Thankfully, now there’s a new self-serving online service called Etsy.
Etsy is like a flea market where hand craft sellers can list their items for buyers to browse and purchase. It has a few very cool and innovative search tools: search by color, geographic location, time posted and of course, good old categories.
Search by locale
Search by color
The service is very clearly targeted at eBay with simplified listing process and lower fee structures. Unfortunately it suffers lack of marketing and hype. But it shows a lot of potentials as an alternative to eBay.
I was at Valley Fair Mall, a trendy mall in the area, when I saw the logo of Clear Channel on one of the mall’s floor maps. Clear Channel controls a good number of radio and TV stations in the United States. And now, to my amazement, it also owns shopping malls.
Clear Channel is a conservative-run organization, kind of like Fox News. Media companies like them are especially dangerous because of their projected illusion to its audience as “fair and unbiased” choice of news sources. But in fact, they practice censorship and political biases so obviously that the practice just goes over the head of the American general public.
A couple of years ago, Brian convinced me that consumers have a choice of where they spend their money. If the consumer doesn’t believe in the practice of a certain corporation, he has the option of not giving them any business. My argument was, “right, they are really going to change because I refuse to give them my drop-in-the-bucket dollar.” But deep down, I know he’s right. It may not make a big difference individually, but at least I am not supporting an organization that does things against my moral fiber.
No more shopping at Valley Fair Mall then.
In the old days of school bullying, you gotta pay to get protected. Bullies don’t protect you out of goodness of their hearts. And that was just the way it was.
For years, Taiwan has been buying used, outdated and retired military equipment from the United States for almost the price of brand new ones.
A research report titled “Trade in Conventional Weapons by Developing Countries” released recently by a research department of the US Congress lists in detail stage by stage the amount of money spent on arms purchases by principal countries and regions of the world. The report shows that in the eight years from 1996 to 2003, the total amount of arms purchase by Taiwan approaches US$20 billion, ranking second in the world.
…
Statistics show that over 95 percent of various types of weapons purchased by Taiwan came from the United States.
…
Ku Chung-lien, Taiwan’s former “navy commander-in-chief” and current “legislative council member”, was indignant at this, saying that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities only know how to latch onto the Americans, thus turning Taiwan into the “Americans’ salvage station”.
The United States has been shoveling aging American military equipment down the throats of the Taiwanese people in the name of keeping the Taiwan Straight safe. At the same time, the military sales representatives never forget to tell the people of Taiwan to shove the peace, or, wait, democracy, up in their own asses if they don’t keep buying.
An excerpt from the Washington Post:
Richard Lawless, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for Asian and Pacific affairs, told a Taiwan television network Tuesday that if the purchase of planes, missiles and submarines is not approved before the end of this year, there will be “serious repercussions” for the United States and Taiwan.
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The delay and uncertainty have become a sore point for the Bush administration, which first approved $20 billion to $30 billion in arms sales to Taiwan in 2001. Since then, with growing frustration, Pentagon officials have been urging the island to come up with the money to make a purchase.
So when America talks about spreading democracy to every corner of the world, it’s only valid if whoever they are helping to keep the “freedom” is willing to pony up the cash for it. After all, freedom and democracy always come with a “price”.
I don’t know a whole lot about international arms trade or politics around it, and I don’t mean to oversimplify, but it looks like unless Taiwan pays up, United State may be conveniently preoccupied with other things when Taiwan is in trouble. Is the freedom in Taiwan, in essence, bought? Without money, would United States have protected Taiwan in the name of protecting justice, freedom and democracy? If Taiwan spends 95% of its arms purchases with other countries instead of with the United States, would the United States still fuss about this whole issue about Taiwan not defending itself?
I may be biased. But something smells fishy about the Bush Administration being so pushy on something the United States obligated itself into doing, which at the time, was for the interest of truly protecting the freedom and democracy of Taiwan.
I accidentally bumped into a segment of The Daily Show. Jon Stewart discusses how major news media outlets these days are responding to blogs by not competing with them, but rather, by acting stupid reporting about the phenomenon. A must see.
Download the segment (~9.6MB)
Speaking of blogs, even Bush Jr.’s got his own blog of supporters. Jackasses Dumbasses.
via [Amy Campbell’s Weblog]
There’s just so much to extract from Jef Raskin’s book. Here’s something about how “attention” tend to ruin our “habitual competence” which Raskin is referring from another author, Lewis Thomas:
Working a typewriter by touch, like riding a bicycle or strolling on a path, is best done by not giving it a glancing thought. Once you do, your fingers fumble and hit the wrong keys. To do things involving practiced skills, you need to turn loose the systems of muscles and nerves responsible for each maneuver, place them on their own, and stay out of it. There is no real loss of authority in this, because you get to decide whether to do the thing or not, and you can intervene and embellish the technique any time you like; if you want to ride a bicycle backward, or walk with an eccentric loping gait giving a little skip every fourth step, whistling at the same time, you can do that. But if you concentrate your attention on the details, keeping in touch with each muscle, thrusting yourself into free fall with each step and catching yourself at the last moment by sticking out the other foot in time to break the fall, you will end up immobilized, vibrating with fatigue. (p.19)
I think this paragraph applies not only to habitual competence, but also to business leadership. I had a job where the boss(es) were constantly micromanaging the employees. The result was loss of creativity and willingness to perform. The boss(es) were micromanaging everything from employee behaviors down to how often managers should have meetings. By f*cking around with employee autonomy, sometimes the only result is in loss of effective management. Too bad the boss(es) weren’t (and still aren’t) big on being effective leaders. Someone told me their behavior matches what Malcolm Gladwell describes in his book The Tipping Point — when placed in positions of power, must people tend to abuse the power and think they are the sh*t. Sound familiar, my ex-coworkers?
It had been three years since I got my last eye exam. And Grace had always hated my glasses from the dot-bum days anyway. So we decided it was time for a “makeover”.
Contacts were originally considered briefly, but I simply couldn’t stand the idea of having foreign objects in my eyes. And plus somehow my eyelashes get into my eyes very easily (sometimes a few times a day), it’d really be a biatch to have to take out my contacts, cleanse it with a special solution which I’d have to bring with me, and then put it back on. So contacts were out.
Then we started shopping for best prices for eye exam, lenses and the frame. My requirements were simple: Transitions lenses, cheap but elegant frames, and preferably discounted/free eye exam.
We stopped by LensCrafters for pricing.
Transitions lenses: $300
UV/Scratch resistant coating: $70
Eye exam: $75
We didn’t even bother looking at the frames; we walked right out.
Next stop, Costco.
Transitions lenses: $140 (UV coating included)
Scratch resistant coating: $10
Eye exam: $45
Frame: $119
Not feeling like a jackass: Priceless
No brainer there. But I was annoyed that there was such a big difference in price discrepancies. Does Costco really do that much more business than LensCrafters that they can afford to cut such a bargain with Transitions lens? All I know is, I felt empowered that I didn’t have to be robbed.
Back to my eyes: As it turned out that my eye sight actually improved. I attribute my eye sight having stayed at almost exactly the same level for the past 10 years to my stubbornness on always using the best lenses available. Some people I know would get “lens + frame” deals for $99. Corrective vision is all about quality of light being passed through the lenses that help you see. Having the best lenses puts less strain on the eyes. The same principal applies in photography — skills and camera body aside, lens is the single most important investment for serious photographers. Bad lens = poor quality prints.