Another playlist post. Today I decided to listen to my "Musical Achievement" playlist. This a very short list of songs that in my opinion rise above your typical rock/pop song in the manner that they are composed and executed. They are masterpieces of the rock 'n' roll genre. Every note tells a story and the stories are fantastic. Here is that list:
1. "Good Vibrations"; The Beach Boys
2. "Clocks"; Coldplay
3. "Layla"; Derek and the Dominoes
4. "Boys of Summer"; Don Henley
5. "Everlong"; Foo Fighters
6. "Bohemian Rhapsody"; Queen
7. "Baba O'Riley"; The Who
8. "Synchonicity II"; The Police
9. "In the End"; Linkin Park
10. "Little Wing"; Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
11. "Just Like Heaven"; The Cure
12. "Riders on the Storm"; The Doors
Showing posts with label idea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label idea. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Response #GBE2
This is partially a response to Beth's post here about the Occupy Wall Street protests: http://www.word-nerd-speaks.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-restoring-balance.html
But it's also a collection of my recent thoughts about the subjects that these protests have brought up. Just for background, I was brought up in a fairly strongly liberal household, and I share those liberal views for the most part, particularly when it comes to social issues. When it comes to government and economics, though, I am ambivalent. I have several years of schooling in Economics, which leaves me largely conflicted about the positives and negatives of both government and free market capitalism. One thing I can say is that I strongly disdain anyone who believes that a simplistic, one-answer-fits-all approach is the correct way to view either. For example, those that believe that the government should just "get out of the way" and let the free market provide all the answers to our society's problems. I am equally disdainful, however, of those that believe that having government solve all of our problems and direct the way our entire economy and society should function.
I tend not to be a protester, instead I always find myself taking on the role of the analyst. It's something I'm good at and something I enjoy. When I analyze the current situation, one factor jumps immediately to the forefront: leverage. Whenever we've had struggles between the rich and powerful and the masses, the best weapon the masses have ever had is leverage. For example, in the post war era there was a boom in factory and engineering jobs. The factories needed tons of reliable workers. The Unions were able to leverage this need into a negotiating structure that provided higher wages, better benefits and better working conditions for millions of workers. Today's unions have some remaining leverage, but the corporations have recently gained an extremely important advantage - geographic flexibility in placing their factories and thus their workers. The engineers had a different type of leverage - the rarity of their skill sets. They were the only ones who knew how to design and build all that stuff that needed to be built. Again, today's engineers have a problem of geographic competition - the millions of skilled college graduates being churned out of Indian, Chinese and other worldwide universities. Individuals and organized groups attempting to regain their power against the power of corporations and the wealthy no longer have anywhere near the leverage that they had fifty years ago.
If this protest movement has any one unifying theme that I can discern, it is that the rich and powerful, particularly corporations, have too much power and too much money. The protesters have a list of abuses a mile long that they want rectified. Again, I come back to leverage. Why are they able to get away with all the transgressions listed? Why bail out the corporations and not the individual homeowners? Why are the regulatory agencies for every industry dominated by CEO's and lobbyists from the corporations they're supposed to rein in? Why does it seem like regulations always make the job hardest on the smallest businesses and individuals, while leaving the largest corporations with an easy path to legality? Leverage. It's like a legal case where only one side is making an argument. The other side (the average person and average small business) doesn't even get to present their side, or if they do, no one is listening or no one cares.
So, how does the average man and average business regain leverage? Well, this blog is about ideas, and here's my idea: a demand union. This new type of union would have very specific demands and the numerical clout to make them known and to enforce whatever backlash remedy will be required to ensure that the corporations, the powerful, the government, whoever clearly get the message and are forced to take immediate and decisive action. I don't know that anything like that can come out of this movement, but it's possible.
I mentioned to a friend earlier this year that I thought it was interesting to watch the Republican Party tear itself in two thanks to the Tea Party movement, which I think is a natural reaction to the Republican tendency to campaign on small government and then, once in power, to rely upon big government spending and debt financing. I have also felt that the Democrats were likely to go through a similar restructuring because there is a growing realization that the New Deal programs and the Labor Unions that dominate the politics of the Party are anachronisms. I suspect that this movement, if it coalesces around anything, will begin that process. One can only hope.
But it's also a collection of my recent thoughts about the subjects that these protests have brought up. Just for background, I was brought up in a fairly strongly liberal household, and I share those liberal views for the most part, particularly when it comes to social issues. When it comes to government and economics, though, I am ambivalent. I have several years of schooling in Economics, which leaves me largely conflicted about the positives and negatives of both government and free market capitalism. One thing I can say is that I strongly disdain anyone who believes that a simplistic, one-answer-fits-all approach is the correct way to view either. For example, those that believe that the government should just "get out of the way" and let the free market provide all the answers to our society's problems. I am equally disdainful, however, of those that believe that having government solve all of our problems and direct the way our entire economy and society should function.
I tend not to be a protester, instead I always find myself taking on the role of the analyst. It's something I'm good at and something I enjoy. When I analyze the current situation, one factor jumps immediately to the forefront: leverage. Whenever we've had struggles between the rich and powerful and the masses, the best weapon the masses have ever had is leverage. For example, in the post war era there was a boom in factory and engineering jobs. The factories needed tons of reliable workers. The Unions were able to leverage this need into a negotiating structure that provided higher wages, better benefits and better working conditions for millions of workers. Today's unions have some remaining leverage, but the corporations have recently gained an extremely important advantage - geographic flexibility in placing their factories and thus their workers. The engineers had a different type of leverage - the rarity of their skill sets. They were the only ones who knew how to design and build all that stuff that needed to be built. Again, today's engineers have a problem of geographic competition - the millions of skilled college graduates being churned out of Indian, Chinese and other worldwide universities. Individuals and organized groups attempting to regain their power against the power of corporations and the wealthy no longer have anywhere near the leverage that they had fifty years ago.
If this protest movement has any one unifying theme that I can discern, it is that the rich and powerful, particularly corporations, have too much power and too much money. The protesters have a list of abuses a mile long that they want rectified. Again, I come back to leverage. Why are they able to get away with all the transgressions listed? Why bail out the corporations and not the individual homeowners? Why are the regulatory agencies for every industry dominated by CEO's and lobbyists from the corporations they're supposed to rein in? Why does it seem like regulations always make the job hardest on the smallest businesses and individuals, while leaving the largest corporations with an easy path to legality? Leverage. It's like a legal case where only one side is making an argument. The other side (the average person and average small business) doesn't even get to present their side, or if they do, no one is listening or no one cares.
So, how does the average man and average business regain leverage? Well, this blog is about ideas, and here's my idea: a demand union. This new type of union would have very specific demands and the numerical clout to make them known and to enforce whatever backlash remedy will be required to ensure that the corporations, the powerful, the government, whoever clearly get the message and are forced to take immediate and decisive action. I don't know that anything like that can come out of this movement, but it's possible.
I mentioned to a friend earlier this year that I thought it was interesting to watch the Republican Party tear itself in two thanks to the Tea Party movement, which I think is a natural reaction to the Republican tendency to campaign on small government and then, once in power, to rely upon big government spending and debt financing. I have also felt that the Democrats were likely to go through a similar restructuring because there is a growing realization that the New Deal programs and the Labor Unions that dominate the politics of the Party are anachronisms. I suspect that this movement, if it coalesces around anything, will begin that process. One can only hope.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
These Songs should have been hits #GBE2
One of my favorite things to do, especially in summer when I have a little Itunes money to spend (someone always gives me Itunes money these days for my birthday, which is in July), is to come up with lists of songs. These can be playlists for my Ipod, or just lists of songs that fit some theme.
This summer my song list idea was framed as a question, "What if there was a song that under the right conditions could be a hit? How would one get the ball rolling to turn that song into a hit?" The way I figure it, one way that could happen is if a blogger, and I guess I can call myself that now, decided to start a poll where he asked his readers to start a discussion of songs that should have been hits and then seeded the discussion with his own set of potential hits. His readers and himself would then vote on and discuss all the songs that were brought up. Then maybe one of those songs would catch on and actually could become a hit. Or maybe it would be another song that one of his readers suggested (hint, hint!).
So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Here is my starter list of songs I think should have or could have been hits, along with links to the song in Itunes so you can listen to snippets of them and get the idea.
1. "Dim" by Dada
2. "Seasons" by Chris Cornell
3. "For Celebrations Past" by Screaming Trees
4. "Donna Everywhere" by Too Much Joy
Now vote:
I will be monitoring the vote totals and also the comments and will rework this post and poll as other suggestions are made.
This summer my song list idea was framed as a question, "What if there was a song that under the right conditions could be a hit? How would one get the ball rolling to turn that song into a hit?" The way I figure it, one way that could happen is if a blogger, and I guess I can call myself that now, decided to start a poll where he asked his readers to start a discussion of songs that should have been hits and then seeded the discussion with his own set of potential hits. His readers and himself would then vote on and discuss all the songs that were brought up. Then maybe one of those songs would catch on and actually could become a hit. Or maybe it would be another song that one of his readers suggested (hint, hint!).
So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Here is my starter list of songs I think should have or could have been hits, along with links to the song in Itunes so you can listen to snippets of them and get the idea.
1. "Dim" by Dada
2. "Seasons" by Chris Cornell
3. "For Celebrations Past" by Screaming Trees
4. "Donna Everywhere" by Too Much Joy
Now vote:
Which of these songs should have been a hit?
I will be monitoring the vote totals and also the comments and will rework this post and poll as other suggestions are made.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Second Compost Bin #GBE2
This weekend I fulfilled a recent ambition, to put a second set of small creatures to work for me. A beehive didn't pass muster with the boss. Yeast culturing was a thought, but I'm not much of a beer or wine drinker. Instead I decided to mimic my original creature work program, my worm bin. I drilled holes in a former storage bin and loaded it with dirt and miscellaneous plant and food wastes to attract black soldier flies and their hardworking larvae. Next to curb my inveterate tinkering and let mother nature do her work.
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Sunday, June 12, 2011
Idea: New Character & Story/Blog – Best Dad Evar
I was reading a book recently where the author said something like “all the best writers write about what they know.” (Thank you, Ann Rule). As often happens when I read, this gave me an idea: to write about being a dad. At the same time, I’ve always wanted to see if I could write something funny. And I also liked the idea of writing something short that I could post piece by piece on the internet. So the idea of a Dad’s blog came to me. But not just a Dad describing stuff that happens. There are tons of those out there. Instead, I quickly came up with the idea of a Dad being interviewed by a Jeff Probst-like narrator who sees everything and asks the tough questions that Dad might not answer otherwise. So the Adventures of Best Dad Evar was born.
I’ve included a disclaimer at the top because I, like Eminem, will need to cuss in my stories to make them funny. Well, maybe that’s not true, but I find that when I write things the way they sound in my head, there are often swear words, and sometimes they’re disgusting and/or exaggerated from real life. So that’s what you’re going to get from Best Dad Evar. Enjoy!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Idea: Mashup of Credit Union and Park Service
Now that I'm working for a Credit Union, I've come to appreciate the value of the organizational structure of the user/member collective. I occasionally come up with ideas that involve applying the Credit Union concept to other areas of the economy. In this case, the problem that needs solving is the issue of the state of California closing its parks, particularly our own Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa.
My thought is that a user collective could be formed that could take over the operation of the park from the State in the case that the state follows through and closes the park. The idea would be that this collective would collect membership dues, solicit donations, provide employees to manage the park and coordinate volunteers to maintain the park in the absence of the state. I don't know who would start or manage this organization, but I have a strong sense that the community would come through with enough support to make sure Annadel stays open.
To extend the idea, my thought is that the membership in this organization would likely include at least three levels, one very inexpensive one (five or ten dollars) to allow those that can't afford much to participate, one middling one that would be say $75 or $100 and would include something of similar value like a state park pass, and a third higher level of $200 or more that would include some kind of commemorative like a brick or a bench with the member's name in the park.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Today's Idea: The Economy as a River
In school, they trained us to think of the Economy in terms of mathematical models. But in my own mind, I have an analogy for the economy that I think works really well. My analogy is that economies global, national and local can all be thought of as rivers (or one giant river). They're rivers of economic activity flowing past all of us individuals and companies.
Our job, as far as making a living anyway, is to divert some of that economic activity our way. The more of the activity you can divert your way, whether it be products, services or even just money itself, the more of the flow you can draw off for your own use.
Now, most of us, frankly, are content to sit by the shore or in the flow itself and take whatever activity comes our way and let the river determine our financial fate. Others take actions to divert some of the activity past them and/or their companies. Some people have talents or skills that place them in parts of the river where the flow is very large. Others work very hard and still never get much activity flowing their way. Others find themselves in economies where the flow is just a trickle. There's not much they can do as individuals but survive off the trickle.
There's not much you can say about the merit of what one person earns over what another earns. You can say that some do a much better job than others at diverting the river toward themselves than others. You can also say that some take a certain talent or skill and make the most of what the river passes through that ability. There's no one formula that works, and the scary part is that the river is ever-changing. So what worked in one era and made tons of money won't work at all even a decade later (or even less!). That goes for both companies and individuals (employees). It's a little scary. But it also means that there's no long term sentence that says you can't find a way to divert the flow to yourself in the future, whether you have before or not. Good luck!
Kyle
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Idea: the Grid Car
We've spent all this time on solar powered cars or electric powered cars which you have to plug in and charge up a huge battery to use. My idea (probably not a new one) is that instead it would make way more sense to build a road/grid system that your car could link into and draw power from. No battery, no gas (or only a very small amount of gas or battery power to allow the vehicle to go from home to the nearest grid-powered major road). Just electricity drawn directly from the grid to power that four seater with only one person in it. We all know that humans are way too attached to their vehicles for mass transit. And that's where road/grid systems have already been used. There's still one in place in San Francisco, in fact, but it only powers buses and smaller trains.
My thought is that the main missing piece is some technology which would allow cars to link up to the grid with two features 1) a person would have to be able to connect and disconnect from the grid easily and without exiting the vehicle and 2) it can't be an eyesore like the overhead wires we're used to in San Francisco. So that certainly suggests some system that would power up from below, embedded in the roadway.
I have no idea how any of this would work. I'm also well aware that, even if you could make it work, the infrastructure that would be needed to make it feasible for people to buy this type of car would take decades to install and probably a government to provide all the money and construction. Still, the idea strikes a chord with me, so I thought I'd pass it along.
I even have the beginning sketch of a story revolving around this technology. But that's an idea for another day.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Today's Idea - Affiliate Marketing Angle
There's quite a market these days for affiliate marketing - making a 2nd income or replacing your primary income by selling other folks' stuff online. Twitter is definitely full of these schemes. I'd been hoping to sell copies of my novel through Twitter with absolutely no success, despite developing a significant following. So I'm going to do something a little different with my Twitter feed (again). I'm going to continue to talk about my book and my blog. But I'm also going to talk about affiliate marketing.
If you're reading this blog now, you'll know a little secret that users of my Twitter feed who don't dig deeper into my history will not. That is that I am just getting started as an affiliate marketer and haven't made any significant money at it yet. My Twitter persona, will be a successful, money earning affiliate marketer. So @ckdane is morphing into a fictional character that happens to share my name and face and who is still trying to promote my science fiction novel Fortress Beverly Hills. But that will be secondary to his burgeoning online business.
If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer like @ckdane, start here: http://bit.ly/i2kbIW
If you're reading this blog now, you'll know a little secret that users of my Twitter feed who don't dig deeper into my history will not. That is that I am just getting started as an affiliate marketer and haven't made any significant money at it yet. My Twitter persona, will be a successful, money earning affiliate marketer. So @ckdane is morphing into a fictional character that happens to share my name and face and who is still trying to promote my science fiction novel Fortress Beverly Hills. But that will be secondary to his burgeoning online business.
If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer like @ckdane, start here: http://bit.ly/i2kbIW
Friday, January 21, 2011
Today’s idea – Build Your Own Book Signing
Tweet
I know I need to schedule my next book signing event here locally in the North Bay Area, but I haven’t done any of the legwork to set up a place and time. So, what if, instead, I offered to make myself available to my readers to bring the signing to them. I’d offer up several windows of time that I could be available and give a general area within which I’d be willing to travel. Then if folks wanted to meet me after work, or get together on the weekend for a brief visit and quick signing, that might work well. I already did this for my friend Glen in Santa Rosa and it worked really well.
Of course, if I get a flood of requests or if people want me to go all over creation to deliver them a book, it could get complicated. I could end up saying no a few times. Still, I may do it but I may be careful about the parameters. Let me know what you think in a comment below!
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I know I need to schedule my next book signing event here locally in the North Bay Area, but I haven’t done any of the legwork to set up a place and time. So, what if, instead, I offered to make myself available to my readers to bring the signing to them. I’d offer up several windows of time that I could be available and give a general area within which I’d be willing to travel. Then if folks wanted to meet me after work, or get together on the weekend for a brief visit and quick signing, that might work well. I already did this for my friend Glen in Santa Rosa and it worked really well.
Of course, if I get a flood of requests or if people want me to go all over creation to deliver them a book, it could get complicated. I could end up saying no a few times. Still, I may do it but I may be careful about the parameters. Let me know what you think in a comment below!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Novel Idea
Okay, so I'm going to have to be careful about how much information I give away here, but I have recently had an idea for my next novel. It's a surprise to me, but it appears that (if I can get myself into the writing mode again and actually write it) it will be a sequel to Fortress Beverly Hills.
You see, I've been reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, a book about our food system. In the course of this book, I've read about this very cool farm called Polyface Farms in Virginia which does what appears to me to be about as close as you can get to sustainable farming. There's also a local farm here in Petaluma that is patterned on Polyface called Tara Firma Farms. We actually went for a visit to Tara Firma this weekend. But even before we went, the idea bubbled up in my head that a farm like Polyface would be a perfect place for my heroes to reappear - to figure out that their original ideas of what a sustainable farm looked like may have been wrong and that if they adopted the ideas and systems of a place like Polyface or Tara Firma, they could feed their populations off the land they already controlled and defended. And that they could impart this knowledge to the folks on the outside and help them get started as well.
Stay tuned. I used Stickk.com to keep my motivated and on task last time and I may need a herculean effort to do the same this time with all the different things on my plate right now.
You see, I've been reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, a book about our food system. In the course of this book, I've read about this very cool farm called Polyface Farms in Virginia which does what appears to me to be about as close as you can get to sustainable farming. There's also a local farm here in Petaluma that is patterned on Polyface called Tara Firma Farms. We actually went for a visit to Tara Firma this weekend. But even before we went, the idea bubbled up in my head that a farm like Polyface would be a perfect place for my heroes to reappear - to figure out that their original ideas of what a sustainable farm looked like may have been wrong and that if they adopted the ideas and systems of a place like Polyface or Tara Firma, they could feed their populations off the land they already controlled and defended. And that they could impart this knowledge to the folks on the outside and help them get started as well.
Stay tuned. I used Stickk.com to keep my motivated and on task last time and I may need a herculean effort to do the same this time with all the different things on my plate right now.
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