Scott Adams's Blog, page 378

Heaters

[Warning: This post uses vulgar language because it involves the manly activity of assembling mechanical devices.]

The other day I tried to assemble two outdoor heaters that Shelly and I bought online. This is exactly the sort of project I would pay someone else to do, if such a person existed. Specifically, what I need is a man with four testicles so that when we team up we have, on average, enough to get a job like this done.

Did I mention that the heaters use liquid propane? Or that the...

Labels

I'm always fascinated when society decides to label some type of behavior as a mental problem. For example, Tiger Woods is allegedly being treated for sex addiction while his real problem is some sort of unusual blindness to risk and consequences. The common name for that is optimism. That optimism is probably a big part of what makes him a spectacular golfer. No one would practice as much as he did from an early age without some sort of crazy optimism that he was The One. And it has to hel...

United States of Insurance

Today we will consider a model for replacing our current form of government with an insurance-based model.

In step one of this hypothetical future, the government of the United States buys every insurance company in the country at estimated current values. In this imagined future, the government becomes the insurance provider for the country, and perhaps the rest of the world. The profits from selling insurance will eventually replace taxes. Our government would become a for-profit enterprise...

Borrowing from our Children

Last night I heard on television for the millionth time that our national debt is like borrowing from our children. Millions of viewers from around the country were probably nodding their heads in agreement. That saying has been around so long that we accept it as a simple statement of fact.

But are we borrowing from our children or investing in them? Suppose we decide to stop spending money so our children will have lots of money for themselves. That would be generous of us, right?

I don't t...

Happiness Button

Suppose humans were born with magical buttons on their foreheads. When someone else pushes your button, it makes you very happy. But like tickling, it only works when someone else presses it. Imagine it's easy to use. You just reach over, press it once, and the other person becomes wildly happy for a few minutes.

What would happen in such a world?

You could imagine that everyone in the world would be happy just about all the time. People would make agreements with each other to push each othe...

Morality Question

Suppose an unfriendly country is suspected of building nuclear weapons. In reality, it isn't even trying, and it officially denies any nuclear weapons ambitions.

For the sake of discussion, assume this is NOT Iran or it will bias the exercise. Most of you think Iran looks a bit too guilty at the moment to fit this hypothetical situation. So put Iran out of your mind for this exercise.

Let's say the accused country chooses to not allow full inspections for some reason, and you don't know for ...

Runners, Watchers, and Squatters

You're reading this blog, and that means there's a good chance that people ask you to help them solve computer problems. There are three types of users who ask for help: Runners, Watchers, and Squatters.

Runners are all too happy to abandon their workstations for as long as it takes you to solve their problems. When the runner is gone, you can think through a variety of potential solutions, try some things, and really dig in to the problem. Personally, I don't mind runners, although it make...

Budget Projections

I wonder how accurate the government budget projections are for the next 20 years. You need to look out that far because any reckoning of the national debt will be over a long period. If you don't consider such a long view to the future, there's no way to know how much of a budget deficit is too much today.

Back in my banking days, one of my jobs was "budget guy." I was in charge of forecasting the costs of our individual projects as well as predicting expenses for the department as a whole. ...

Brain Architecture

I was amused by the story of the crooks who tried to buy office supplies using the charge code of a local prison. The purchases included computers, speakers, iPods, and apparently whatever was expensive. They came back three times. My favorite part of the story is "...the store manager grew suspicious."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Laval+cops+bust+office+supplies+fraud+ring/2718495/story.html

I can see how crooks would consider it hilarious to rob a jail. But I have to think the corre...

Worst Boss. Ever.

Did you hear about the Bangladeshi brick company that beheaded an employee to improve the color of its bricks?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/bangladesh/7493874/Bangladeshi-man-beheaded-to-redden-bricks.html

This tragic incident raises many questions. The article is vague, but I assume a supervisor or some sort of boss was leading this strategy. So I wonder how the employee was chosen? Was he the worst worker, the biggest complainer, or the guy who looked the most like a bri...