super busy lately. free time will mostly now be devoted to studying.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
so this is interesting...
childless by choice: my parents made me do it.
i'm fairly close to cutting this particular blog off (the good men project, not this. i'm just too busy/uncaring to post here often). but every once in a while there is something interesting.
as i read through it, i was surprised at how well the results of the research dovetailed with my own experiences:
I was a serious kid and became aware of political, social, and environmental issues at a young age. My parents loved us, and sometimes struggled to provide the materials things that kids need. I did not want to feel these kinds of pressures.
but then again, only 40% of the respondents in question (male halves of childless couples) mentioned their fathers; the majority didn't. it's interesting how much the human brain seeks to make connections that affirm one's own choices. after all, humans aren't rational creatures, merely rationalizing ones. even me. at least i recognize it, which, i think, is main reason i've done well in my profession. i realize my shortcomings and work to mitigate or eliminate them.
anyhow, it's not even true. i'd love to have kids. i daydream about being a father sometimes. i'd love to have a son, particularly, and teach him how to be a man. i don't have daydreams about being married, though. i've not forsworn the institution, though i see it for what it is. if i happen to meet someone wonderful with whom i could raise a family, then sure. but i'm not holding my breath. i'm happy now, and i can take care of myself. i'll make the world a better place, no matter what.
i'm fairly close to cutting this particular blog off (the good men project, not this. i'm just too busy/uncaring to post here often). but every once in a while there is something interesting.
as i read through it, i was surprised at how well the results of the research dovetailed with my own experiences:
I was a serious kid and became aware of political, social, and environmental issues at a young age. My parents loved us, and sometimes struggled to provide the materials things that kids need. I did not want to feel these kinds of pressures.
but then again, only 40% of the respondents in question (male halves of childless couples) mentioned their fathers; the majority didn't. it's interesting how much the human brain seeks to make connections that affirm one's own choices. after all, humans aren't rational creatures, merely rationalizing ones. even me. at least i recognize it, which, i think, is main reason i've done well in my profession. i realize my shortcomings and work to mitigate or eliminate them.
anyhow, it's not even true. i'd love to have kids. i daydream about being a father sometimes. i'd love to have a son, particularly, and teach him how to be a man. i don't have daydreams about being married, though. i've not forsworn the institution, though i see it for what it is. if i happen to meet someone wonderful with whom i could raise a family, then sure. but i'm not holding my breath. i'm happy now, and i can take care of myself. i'll make the world a better place, no matter what.
Friday, January 7, 2011
even i'm impressed
and, believe me, it's hard to impress me with stupid. i see a lot of it in my line of work.
i don't know what's worse, this:
According to a recent Vanity Fair article, the Wikileaks founder threatened to sue the The Guardian for—wait for it—publishing leaked documents from Wikileaks itself.
or this:
Bill O'Reilly waxes theological:
O'REILLY: I'll tell you why [religion's] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.
SILVERMAN: Tide goes in, tide goes out?
O'REILLY: See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in, and always goes out. You can't explain that.
fucking magnets, man
i don't know what's worse, this:
According to a recent Vanity Fair article, the Wikileaks founder threatened to sue the The Guardian for—wait for it—publishing leaked documents from Wikileaks itself.
or this:
Bill O'Reilly waxes theological:
O'REILLY: I'll tell you why [religion's] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.
SILVERMAN: Tide goes in, tide goes out?
O'REILLY: See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in, and always goes out. You can't explain that.
fucking magnets, man
exactamundo
there really isn't much more i can say, so click here.
or, you could just read the last section. i think i'll have to keep it handy.
A Market Alternative
Today’s Army requires a similar philosophical shift if it is to generate more-entrepreneurial leadership and start retaining its most talented officers. When presented with 10 proposed policy changes, the panel of West Point grads was strongly in favor of five, marginally in favor of three, split on one, and strongly against the last. Dead last was reauthorizing the draft instead of the all-volunteer force, a proposal that drew support from only 14 percent of respondents. So what did they think would help?
The Army should start by breaking down its rigid promotion ladder. The most strongly recommended policy, which 90 percent agreed with, is to allow greater specialization. Under the current system, company and platoon commanders are often “promoted” to staff jobs—that is, transferred from commanding troops in battle to working behind a desk on a general’s staff—even if they’d prefer to specialize in a lower-ranking position they enjoy. Rather than take an advancement they don’t want, many quit the Army altogether. Expanding early-promotion opportunities for top performers and eliminating year-group promotions also have strong support (87 and 78 percent, respectively). All of this might be hard to do while maintaining centralized management of rank and job assignments, but three-quarters of the panel favored ditching that system entirely in favor of an internal job market.
Indeed, an internal job market might be the key to revolutionizing military personnel. In today’s military, individuals are given “orders” to report to a new assignment every two to four years. When an Army unit in Korea rotates out its executive officer, the commander of that unit is assigned a new executive officer. Even if the commander wants to hire Captain Smart, and Captain Smart wants to work in Korea, the decision is out of their hands—and another captain, who would have preferred a job in Europe, might be assigned there instead. The Air Force conducts three assignment episodes each year, coordinated entirely by the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base, in Texas. Across the globe, officers send in their job requests. Units with open slots send their requirements for officers. The hundreds of officers assigned full-time to the personnel center strive to match open requirements with available officers (each within strictly defined career fields, like infantry, intelligence, or personnel itself), balancing individual requests with the needs of the service, while also trying to develop careers and project future trends, all with constantly changing technological tools. It’s an impossible job, but the alternative is chaos.
In fact, a better alternative is chaos. Chaos, to economists, is known as the free market, where the invisible hand matches supply with demand. The Strategic Studies Institute report makes this very point. “Giving officers greater voice in their assignments increases both employment longevity and productivity,” it concludes. “The Army’s failure to do so, however, in large part accounts for declining retention among officers commissioned since 1983.”
Here is how a market alternative would work. Each commander would have sole hiring authority over the people in his unit. Officers would be free to apply for any job opening. If a major applied for an opening above his pay grade, the commander at that unit could hire him (and bear the consequences). Coordination could be done through existing online tools such as monster.com or careerbuilder.com (presumably those companies would be interested in offering rebranded versions for the military). If an officer chose to stay in a job longer than “normal” (“I just want to fly fighter jets, sir”), that would be solely between him and his commander.
Each of the four military branches is free to design its own personnel system, with minimal Pentagon interference. Yet each uses a similar centralized-planning department. It would take only one branch to lead the way by adopting the best practices of corporate America—where firms manage vast workforces by emphasizing flexibility, respect for individual talent, and executive responsibility. During my study, I surveyed ex-military officers at Citi, Dell, Amazon, Procter & Gamble, TMobile, Amgen, Intuit, and countless venture-capital firms. At every company, the veterans were shocked to look back at how “archaic and arbitrary” talent management was in the armed forces. Unlike industrial-era firms, and unlike the military, successful companies in the knowledge economy understand that nearly all value is embedded in their human capital.
I traveled to Silicon Valley to learn about the organizational design of firms there, and also to learn about the talent ecosystem. Nowhere is there a military-style 20-year retirement framework that distorts career decisions, and no one offers the security of lifetime employment. Instead, Silicon Valley attracts talent because it knows the importance of flexibility. Companies, unlike military units, are born and die out constantly, and the massive flow of labor across and within companies is highly turbulent. Not only can ambitious visionaries become top executives in half a decade, but employees can do the one thing they love for decades without worrying about getting “promoted” to management positions they don’t want. In the glassy buildings of Menlo Park, “being all you can be”—whether it’s coding C++, designing Web campaigns, or excelling in some other niche—isn’t just a slogan.
One Silicon Valley executive I spoke with, whom I’ll call Captain Smith, contrasted his time as a Marine company commander with his current job leading hundreds of employees, from software engineers to sales managers. Like other veterans in corporate America, he credits his military training with sharpening his leadership skills. But the analytical mind he uses to devise business models is just as sharp in assessing the military’s inept talent management. What’s the impact of merit on promotions in the Marines? “Virtually none,” says Smith. “On average, the best officers got out; the worst officers got out.” There are notable exceptions, he said. “But the larger trend I observed drives any organization toward mediocrity.”
When I asked him about Silicon Valley’s lessons for the military, he mentioned his firm’s internal market for matching engineers and projects, where the bottom line is that engineers rule. Team leaders have to advertise their projects and try to attract engineers, and it’s uncommon for an engineer to be told what he or she will do. Happier workers mean higher productivity. “I don’t want to oversimplify,” he says. “But this is about incentives and control.”
In contrast, only one in five of the West Point graduates thinks the Army today does a good job matching talents with jobs. And nearly two-thirds agree that using an evaluation system that singled out the best and worst members of a given unit—for advancement or release—would yield a more entrepreneurial leadership. Such a system, popularized by Jack Welch of General Electric, would give commanders better information, and also make personnel ratings a lot more useful than the politically correct write-ups in abundance now. It would also recast the personnel officers as headhunters, focused on giving advice, rather than orders, to job-seekers and to hiring commanders.
I asked Smith—a supremely tech-savvy, gung-ho leader—whether he would consider rejoining if the Marines recruited him to serve as a general officer, perhaps to command their cyber-security efforts. I anticipated that his resolute willingness to serve would offer a vivid contrast to the military’s closed-mindedness. But he surprised me. He thought quietly for a minute. Then, shaking his head, he said something much more damning: “I can’t see it,” the Silicon Valley marine said. “Even if they made that offer … I have no confidence that I could pierce the bureaucracy.”
or, you could just read the last section. i think i'll have to keep it handy.
A Market Alternative
Today’s Army requires a similar philosophical shift if it is to generate more-entrepreneurial leadership and start retaining its most talented officers. When presented with 10 proposed policy changes, the panel of West Point grads was strongly in favor of five, marginally in favor of three, split on one, and strongly against the last. Dead last was reauthorizing the draft instead of the all-volunteer force, a proposal that drew support from only 14 percent of respondents. So what did they think would help?
The Army should start by breaking down its rigid promotion ladder. The most strongly recommended policy, which 90 percent agreed with, is to allow greater specialization. Under the current system, company and platoon commanders are often “promoted” to staff jobs—that is, transferred from commanding troops in battle to working behind a desk on a general’s staff—even if they’d prefer to specialize in a lower-ranking position they enjoy. Rather than take an advancement they don’t want, many quit the Army altogether. Expanding early-promotion opportunities for top performers and eliminating year-group promotions also have strong support (87 and 78 percent, respectively). All of this might be hard to do while maintaining centralized management of rank and job assignments, but three-quarters of the panel favored ditching that system entirely in favor of an internal job market.
Indeed, an internal job market might be the key to revolutionizing military personnel. In today’s military, individuals are given “orders” to report to a new assignment every two to four years. When an Army unit in Korea rotates out its executive officer, the commander of that unit is assigned a new executive officer. Even if the commander wants to hire Captain Smart, and Captain Smart wants to work in Korea, the decision is out of their hands—and another captain, who would have preferred a job in Europe, might be assigned there instead. The Air Force conducts three assignment episodes each year, coordinated entirely by the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base, in Texas. Across the globe, officers send in their job requests. Units with open slots send their requirements for officers. The hundreds of officers assigned full-time to the personnel center strive to match open requirements with available officers (each within strictly defined career fields, like infantry, intelligence, or personnel itself), balancing individual requests with the needs of the service, while also trying to develop careers and project future trends, all with constantly changing technological tools. It’s an impossible job, but the alternative is chaos.
In fact, a better alternative is chaos. Chaos, to economists, is known as the free market, where the invisible hand matches supply with demand. The Strategic Studies Institute report makes this very point. “Giving officers greater voice in their assignments increases both employment longevity and productivity,” it concludes. “The Army’s failure to do so, however, in large part accounts for declining retention among officers commissioned since 1983.”
Here is how a market alternative would work. Each commander would have sole hiring authority over the people in his unit. Officers would be free to apply for any job opening. If a major applied for an opening above his pay grade, the commander at that unit could hire him (and bear the consequences). Coordination could be done through existing online tools such as monster.com or careerbuilder.com (presumably those companies would be interested in offering rebranded versions for the military). If an officer chose to stay in a job longer than “normal” (“I just want to fly fighter jets, sir”), that would be solely between him and his commander.
Each of the four military branches is free to design its own personnel system, with minimal Pentagon interference. Yet each uses a similar centralized-planning department. It would take only one branch to lead the way by adopting the best practices of corporate America—where firms manage vast workforces by emphasizing flexibility, respect for individual talent, and executive responsibility. During my study, I surveyed ex-military officers at Citi, Dell, Amazon, Procter & Gamble, TMobile, Amgen, Intuit, and countless venture-capital firms. At every company, the veterans were shocked to look back at how “archaic and arbitrary” talent management was in the armed forces. Unlike industrial-era firms, and unlike the military, successful companies in the knowledge economy understand that nearly all value is embedded in their human capital.
I traveled to Silicon Valley to learn about the organizational design of firms there, and also to learn about the talent ecosystem. Nowhere is there a military-style 20-year retirement framework that distorts career decisions, and no one offers the security of lifetime employment. Instead, Silicon Valley attracts talent because it knows the importance of flexibility. Companies, unlike military units, are born and die out constantly, and the massive flow of labor across and within companies is highly turbulent. Not only can ambitious visionaries become top executives in half a decade, but employees can do the one thing they love for decades without worrying about getting “promoted” to management positions they don’t want. In the glassy buildings of Menlo Park, “being all you can be”—whether it’s coding C++, designing Web campaigns, or excelling in some other niche—isn’t just a slogan.
One Silicon Valley executive I spoke with, whom I’ll call Captain Smith, contrasted his time as a Marine company commander with his current job leading hundreds of employees, from software engineers to sales managers. Like other veterans in corporate America, he credits his military training with sharpening his leadership skills. But the analytical mind he uses to devise business models is just as sharp in assessing the military’s inept talent management. What’s the impact of merit on promotions in the Marines? “Virtually none,” says Smith. “On average, the best officers got out; the worst officers got out.” There are notable exceptions, he said. “But the larger trend I observed drives any organization toward mediocrity.”
When I asked him about Silicon Valley’s lessons for the military, he mentioned his firm’s internal market for matching engineers and projects, where the bottom line is that engineers rule. Team leaders have to advertise their projects and try to attract engineers, and it’s uncommon for an engineer to be told what he or she will do. Happier workers mean higher productivity. “I don’t want to oversimplify,” he says. “But this is about incentives and control.”
In contrast, only one in five of the West Point graduates thinks the Army today does a good job matching talents with jobs. And nearly two-thirds agree that using an evaluation system that singled out the best and worst members of a given unit—for advancement or release—would yield a more entrepreneurial leadership. Such a system, popularized by Jack Welch of General Electric, would give commanders better information, and also make personnel ratings a lot more useful than the politically correct write-ups in abundance now. It would also recast the personnel officers as headhunters, focused on giving advice, rather than orders, to job-seekers and to hiring commanders.
I asked Smith—a supremely tech-savvy, gung-ho leader—whether he would consider rejoining if the Marines recruited him to serve as a general officer, perhaps to command their cyber-security efforts. I anticipated that his resolute willingness to serve would offer a vivid contrast to the military’s closed-mindedness. But he surprised me. He thought quietly for a minute. Then, shaking his head, he said something much more damning: “I can’t see it,” the Silicon Valley marine said. “Even if they made that offer … I have no confidence that I could pierce the bureaucracy.”
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
the joys and hazards of being a nerd
i don't have much of a social life back in the states. i don't play video games. i don't watch very much television. when i do watch television, i'm either eating or hanging 10 on the internet, which is pretty much the only thing i do when i finally get home until my dog insists it's time to play again. since i spent quite a lot of my time on there, i've found a few things to simplify the whole affair.
google reader is definitely a good resource, and i'm stuck relying on it at work. it allows me to skim through the high-volume sites during the day so i'm not speed-reading every night just to get to bed on time.
the real money maker, though, is netvibes. with netvibes i can collect up all my feeds, including podcasts and even email, organize them according to their content/type/flavour into different tabs, and then either view the rss content (text, lite pics/vids) or pop open the article into a whole new window or tab.
after realizing that i had some content that i never read, and some that i did but didn't seem worth it, i decided to clean things up a bit. the only problem seems to be with my impending career change, i decided to go exploring on the internet, and now my netvibes page has swollen in size. i'm worse off now than when i started. i now have 9 tabs of content, whereas i had 7 before, one of which i didn't even check over here. my crossfit tab is ridonkulous, and it's bleeding out onto other tabs. i scope out 21 crossfit feeds, not including the two on the physical therapy tab (one of my new tabs) and 4 on the "solopsist" tab.
not only that, i've got 23 news feeds spread out across 3 tabs along with 2 podcasts. on the humor page, i've slid in fail blog, lolcats and some nerd comics, along with the ubiquitous onion. i read 75-90% of this content, every day. thank god videos are blocked, as that keeps me from watching two hulu streams, one of the podcasts and a good chunk of content from reason.
i am going to need a droid when i get home, because there is no way i can afford to spend 3 hours every night sitting in front of a computer. i've pretty much given up on trying to learn much more dari or pashtu, let alone reading the majority of the 20 or so books i have up on my shelf.
anyhoo, i'm not complaining that much, because i get to read good stuff every day.
first up, from the ever-excellent blog free range international comes more spot-on analysis. it's amazing what a man can do with intelligence, common sense and a moral calling to do seriously hard work the right way. it's depressing reading his thoughts as he watches us spoil it all over here, but i'm a born cynic so i enjoy that sort of thing. the world needs more men like him. reading his article reminded me that i need to keep researching kiva.
kiva is a different kind of charity, in that it's not charity at all. kiva connects lenders (i.e.: you and me) with entrepreneurs all around the world who are looking for a small loan to improve their business and their lives. it's not an intergovernmental 'aid package' that will merely be disbursed among the country's political elite and it's not some elaborate and expensive project that, at best, will marginally increase the quality of life for a small portion of an impoverished nation that won't be able to build on those gains anyway.
you are loaning your money to a name, to a face. you read their story and decide whether or not you feel like investing in that person. loans are as small as $25, and so far it appears repayment rates hover just above 98%. i'm going to keep looking into it, but i've heard that these micro-finance institutions have done a lot to spread development into the lower-class areas in india. the best part is you get your money back, so you can keep on lending while reserving your charity for strippers named charity. win-win!
but sometimes i read stuff that really grinds my gears. usually, it's radley balko that makes me want to yell at my computer, but today it's the folks at popehat: leash your policeman, it's the least you can do. this is, if you haven't figured it out already, a story about a cop shooting a dog. this happens a lot, which you would know if you recognized 'radley balko.' perhaps i'm a bit sensitive because the first dog that was really 'my dog' was put down by my father after a combination of my brother's puzzling incompetence around animals, despite having grown up on a farm, and my step-family's hypochondria in all things. plus, i've got a scary-looking dog back in the states, if you haven't interacted with him for more than a second. i guess an exception would be if you're an asian tourist. it will take me carrying my dog past you, lest he sniff you and beg to be petted, and mocking your terrified screams at the horrifying sight of a domesticated animal on a wilderness trail in ALASKA.
here are my thoughts on dogs: humans have evolved to become the apex predator of all of Earth. if you are scared of a dog, a breed we domesticated from wolves millenia ago (how badass did we used to be?), you've come a long way back down the totem pole and could use the healthy motivation that a mauling would provide.
most dogs are harmless EVEN IF THEY ARE ACTING AGGRESSIVELY. there are numerous breeds of dogs, a substantial amount of which were useful, and still are, as guard dogs. they vocalize and posture when an unknown entity is on or near their turf. they will almost always back down when approached directly. being scared and running away is inviting further aggression, as it triggers a predator instinct in dogs.
some dogs, like the australian sheppard i used to have, are herding dogs. they have been bred to herd large animals. part of their resume is nipping at the heels of these animals to direct them where they ought to be running. even if they bite you, they are not attacking you. there is a huge difference between a nip and a bite.
there is a huge difference between a happy/inquisitive dog and an angry dog when they are running towards you. if you've spent a marginal amount of time around dogs, then you know the difference. if you haven't, go to a dog park. take your kids.
oh, and that reminds me, kids need to learn this stuff early. dogs telegraph their attitudes in ways children should be able to pick up. take your kids to the dog park, keep them close, but let them interact. then take them to somebody's house who has an aggressive dog and show them the difference.
finally, most importantly, if you actually are getting attacked: remain calm and keep your forearm horizontally in front of you between your neck and the dog. it's not a particularly vital part of you, you can club the dog with it if it goes low, and you can absorb an impact if the dog goes high for it, then turn and drive the dog down to the ground, pinning it beneath you. most human weigh more than a dog, so it's a fairly simple matter to take a bite or two before subduing the thing. then you can get another human to help you remind the dog that humans are the apex predator.
when approaching aggressive dogs, i offer my forearm as i close the distance and talk to them soothingly but confidently. as i get close, if they act as if they're cornered, i'll stop. if not, i'll look slightly away (eye contact intimidates dogs), crouch slightly, and slide my hand out, palm down, for them to get a better smell and get acquainted a bit. if they let me make contact, i'll briefly scratch near their chest or along their flank. they prefer their chest but that leaves me more vulnerable than i care to be.
now, if you are an armed policeman and you think it's acceptable to shoot a dog that is approaching you just because you think it's a threat, you are a giant pussy. you do not exhibit the kind of judgement that would make it permissible for you to own firearms, let alone employ them professionally. and if you shoot my dog, i'm likely to make sure your heartbeat stops before my dog's does.
i may be a nerd, but i'm also an old school man with a loyal dog. and unlike the army, our loyalty runs both ways.
google reader is definitely a good resource, and i'm stuck relying on it at work. it allows me to skim through the high-volume sites during the day so i'm not speed-reading every night just to get to bed on time.
the real money maker, though, is netvibes. with netvibes i can collect up all my feeds, including podcasts and even email, organize them according to their content/type/flavour into different tabs, and then either view the rss content (text, lite pics/vids) or pop open the article into a whole new window or tab.
after realizing that i had some content that i never read, and some that i did but didn't seem worth it, i decided to clean things up a bit. the only problem seems to be with my impending career change, i decided to go exploring on the internet, and now my netvibes page has swollen in size. i'm worse off now than when i started. i now have 9 tabs of content, whereas i had 7 before, one of which i didn't even check over here. my crossfit tab is ridonkulous, and it's bleeding out onto other tabs. i scope out 21 crossfit feeds, not including the two on the physical therapy tab (one of my new tabs) and 4 on the "solopsist" tab.
not only that, i've got 23 news feeds spread out across 3 tabs along with 2 podcasts. on the humor page, i've slid in fail blog, lolcats and some nerd comics, along with the ubiquitous onion. i read 75-90% of this content, every day. thank god videos are blocked, as that keeps me from watching two hulu streams, one of the podcasts and a good chunk of content from reason.
i am going to need a droid when i get home, because there is no way i can afford to spend 3 hours every night sitting in front of a computer. i've pretty much given up on trying to learn much more dari or pashtu, let alone reading the majority of the 20 or so books i have up on my shelf.
anyhoo, i'm not complaining that much, because i get to read good stuff every day.
first up, from the ever-excellent blog free range international comes more spot-on analysis. it's amazing what a man can do with intelligence, common sense and a moral calling to do seriously hard work the right way. it's depressing reading his thoughts as he watches us spoil it all over here, but i'm a born cynic so i enjoy that sort of thing. the world needs more men like him. reading his article reminded me that i need to keep researching kiva.
kiva is a different kind of charity, in that it's not charity at all. kiva connects lenders (i.e.: you and me) with entrepreneurs all around the world who are looking for a small loan to improve their business and their lives. it's not an intergovernmental 'aid package' that will merely be disbursed among the country's political elite and it's not some elaborate and expensive project that, at best, will marginally increase the quality of life for a small portion of an impoverished nation that won't be able to build on those gains anyway.
you are loaning your money to a name, to a face. you read their story and decide whether or not you feel like investing in that person. loans are as small as $25, and so far it appears repayment rates hover just above 98%. i'm going to keep looking into it, but i've heard that these micro-finance institutions have done a lot to spread development into the lower-class areas in india. the best part is you get your money back, so you can keep on lending while reserving your charity for strippers named charity. win-win!
but sometimes i read stuff that really grinds my gears. usually, it's radley balko that makes me want to yell at my computer, but today it's the folks at popehat: leash your policeman, it's the least you can do. this is, if you haven't figured it out already, a story about a cop shooting a dog. this happens a lot, which you would know if you recognized 'radley balko.' perhaps i'm a bit sensitive because the first dog that was really 'my dog' was put down by my father after a combination of my brother's puzzling incompetence around animals, despite having grown up on a farm, and my step-family's hypochondria in all things. plus, i've got a scary-looking dog back in the states, if you haven't interacted with him for more than a second. i guess an exception would be if you're an asian tourist. it will take me carrying my dog past you, lest he sniff you and beg to be petted, and mocking your terrified screams at the horrifying sight of a domesticated animal on a wilderness trail in ALASKA.
here are my thoughts on dogs: humans have evolved to become the apex predator of all of Earth. if you are scared of a dog, a breed we domesticated from wolves millenia ago (how badass did we used to be?), you've come a long way back down the totem pole and could use the healthy motivation that a mauling would provide.
most dogs are harmless EVEN IF THEY ARE ACTING AGGRESSIVELY. there are numerous breeds of dogs, a substantial amount of which were useful, and still are, as guard dogs. they vocalize and posture when an unknown entity is on or near their turf. they will almost always back down when approached directly. being scared and running away is inviting further aggression, as it triggers a predator instinct in dogs.
some dogs, like the australian sheppard i used to have, are herding dogs. they have been bred to herd large animals. part of their resume is nipping at the heels of these animals to direct them where they ought to be running. even if they bite you, they are not attacking you. there is a huge difference between a nip and a bite.
there is a huge difference between a happy/inquisitive dog and an angry dog when they are running towards you. if you've spent a marginal amount of time around dogs, then you know the difference. if you haven't, go to a dog park. take your kids.
oh, and that reminds me, kids need to learn this stuff early. dogs telegraph their attitudes in ways children should be able to pick up. take your kids to the dog park, keep them close, but let them interact. then take them to somebody's house who has an aggressive dog and show them the difference.
finally, most importantly, if you actually are getting attacked: remain calm and keep your forearm horizontally in front of you between your neck and the dog. it's not a particularly vital part of you, you can club the dog with it if it goes low, and you can absorb an impact if the dog goes high for it, then turn and drive the dog down to the ground, pinning it beneath you. most human weigh more than a dog, so it's a fairly simple matter to take a bite or two before subduing the thing. then you can get another human to help you remind the dog that humans are the apex predator.
when approaching aggressive dogs, i offer my forearm as i close the distance and talk to them soothingly but confidently. as i get close, if they act as if they're cornered, i'll stop. if not, i'll look slightly away (eye contact intimidates dogs), crouch slightly, and slide my hand out, palm down, for them to get a better smell and get acquainted a bit. if they let me make contact, i'll briefly scratch near their chest or along their flank. they prefer their chest but that leaves me more vulnerable than i care to be.
now, if you are an armed policeman and you think it's acceptable to shoot a dog that is approaching you just because you think it's a threat, you are a giant pussy. you do not exhibit the kind of judgement that would make it permissible for you to own firearms, let alone employ them professionally. and if you shoot my dog, i'm likely to make sure your heartbeat stops before my dog's does.
i may be a nerd, but i'm also an old school man with a loyal dog. and unlike the army, our loyalty runs both ways.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
hear hear
we need more men like the honorable robert gates.
Every new year is supposed to be an occasion for new hope, but 2011 hasn't even begun and already there is cause for regret. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is planning to step down next year, and his departure will leave the capital even more short of the kind of people it needs: grownups.
i just hope he goes down swinging.
target list:
amphibious tank for the marines
joint strike fighter v/stol variant
and how about a cap on the number of general officers, set a healthy amount below the current level?
give consideration to eliminating theater commands with the exception of northcom and removal of all combat units from europe within 5-10 years, korea in 10-20 years. DoS should be resourced for international diplomacy, not the military. extend the career timeline of all active-duty officers by two years and mandate overseas tours in an embedded liaison or training position with other countries to build relationships and provide international perspective to all officers, preferably during the captain/major timeframe.
the military needs more tooth, less tail, and a lot less overhead.
Every new year is supposed to be an occasion for new hope, but 2011 hasn't even begun and already there is cause for regret. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is planning to step down next year, and his departure will leave the capital even more short of the kind of people it needs: grownups.
i just hope he goes down swinging.
target list:
amphibious tank for the marines
joint strike fighter v/stol variant
and how about a cap on the number of general officers, set a healthy amount below the current level?
give consideration to eliminating theater commands with the exception of northcom and removal of all combat units from europe within 5-10 years, korea in 10-20 years. DoS should be resourced for international diplomacy, not the military. extend the career timeline of all active-duty officers by two years and mandate overseas tours in an embedded liaison or training position with other countries to build relationships and provide international perspective to all officers, preferably during the captain/major timeframe.
the military needs more tooth, less tail, and a lot less overhead.
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