Charlie's Incidentals

Google alerts led me to this interesting blog post (due to it mentioning DRBD), which includes this interesting graph of how Web hosting server needs often grow relative to requests per month:


LAMP Growth Plan


Very cool!

Compiz has something called a Widget layer, which is very much like the OS X dashboard. Enable it in the Compiz Settings Manager, and set the hotkey to F4 if you want to emulate OS X behavior:



Next, you need to select some screenlets to run. Run the 'screenlets' program, select something like the calculator, then click Launch/Add on the left:



You will notice that it's on your desktop, not in the widget layer. If you activate the widget layer, it is blank.

Go back to the Compiz Settings Manager, Widget Layer plugin, and this time open the Behavior tab. Click the plus symbol by Widget Windows, then change the Relation to OR:



Then, click Grab, and then click on the calculator that is running. After you click Add, it should disappear and appear in the widget layer. There are many ways to do this, but this works just fine. Repeat for any new apps you wish to add to the Widget Layer. After you have a few, the Widget Windows line will look like this:



If you accidentally select AND instead of OR, the Widget Layer will be blank - because it's unlikely the window class will ever be any combination of multiple values

This is what my Widget Layer looks like:



Yes, it's really hard to take a screenshot of this when you configure compiz to close the widget layer upon a click (using super-click & drag that I talked about in my last post).

Enjoy!

I figure I should use Linux on the desktop again, given that I just accepted a job at LINBIT USA..

Been playing around with compiz all day, and the tiniest thing is the awesomest. The ability to annotate, then quickly take a screenshot. If you enable 'annotate' and 'screenshots' without changing the defaults, holding alt-super will allow you to draw red lines all over the places (alt-super-k to delete all).

Like this:


Then to take a screenshot, just hold super and click-n-drag a box around what you want (like meta-shift-4 in OS X).
So handy

Why do I even keep a blog when there's facebook and twitter? I suppose for more lengthy posts, wandering thoughts, and rants.

Anyway. As I'm finishing up my MBA degree some time in August (depending on how long The Project lasts), I'm also given my 30-day layoff notice at work (department that I manage is being eliminated), which is a mixed blessing. I've been looking for a new job, but not seriously, for the last 6 months or so. Now I can't take my time, but that is probably a good thing. I've had a few really great interviews lately, but none have yet led to a job offer. If my past experience is any indicator, I'll probably have 2-3 to choose from all at once after months of nothing.

I'll hopefully be posting an update soon, cheerfully describing my new and exciting job

http://hire.charlie.schluting.com

Living in Portland is interesting. Liberals preaching ignorant sustainability and green practices, buying ridiculous hybrids, protesting things they don't understand, etc, etc. In the MBA program we had a class that is supposed to be about operations management, but ended up being a tree-humping festival about sustainable business practices. The central theme was: "how the business practices you are taught contradict the ability of the earth to replenish and sustain life."

My final paper follows. I got an A, with the comment:
"Charlie: A very interesting paper. I find little in what you say to agree with, but I feel the passion with which you say it. Keep up the good work and keep asking the unasked questions."

Sustainability… Isn't: How Globalization and Growth is the Only Path to Sustainability

The definition of sustainability varies, but the unifying spirit of sustainability lies within the root word. Sustaining all life, none would argue, is the end-goal. When applied to the precepts in this class, however, we must narrow our focus. Business is not an ecosystem; it exists within many, and often destructively. The real question at hand, however, is not how we can stop harming the environment, it is: how can we sustain human life at a declining rate of cost to other species and the ecosystem as a whole.

Save All Species, or Humans?
Recent sustainability movements focus on preserving “endangered” species and reducing carbon footprints. While we spend economic resources and human energy supporting rare owls and woodpeckers, millions of humans are starving to death and suffering from illnesses. While it is important to ensure we aren’t damaging the earth’s ability to support our own life, defending insignificant species is highly questionable. Humans did not destroy the dinosaurs, and we’re better off without them. Some species are important members of the overall ecosystem and without them other species could die. Often, however, there are substitutes, and even more often, species in questionable fitness for survival are non-critical.

An ecosystem cannot support every form of life that develops within it. Yes, we humans are growing too fast and certainly need to implement procreation restrictions, but we still need to be able to support the current levels. If we require paper and wood-based products, is it so bad to replace forests with tree farms? Do we need the species that lived in the natural forests? The overall oxygen replenishment capability has not changed, but some species have declined.

The real issue is: how do we improve the state of the ecosystem enough to sustain all human life without destroying the Earth in the process? These goals are certainly in conflict with our current way of conducting business around the world.

What is Green?
Recycling mindlessly leads to re-manufacturing products, often in a way that requires more natural resources than it would take to produce something new. Petroleum-based products, for example, require utilizing a semi-scarce resource, so the solution is not easy. Recycling to prevent landfill usage, however, is just a ploy by the companies that profit from recycling—we had the technology to prevent landfill leakage over 50 years ago.

Businesses really need to take a look at everything involved in their supply chain, and make decisions about what to use based on real sustainability instead of slanted perception. Luckily, truly sustainable solutions often cost less after some up-front overhead. Greenwashing or not, these initiatives are a step in the sustainability direction.

Globalization is the Answer
Wall Street says to grow while reducing costs. While it cannot be argued that this type of thinking often leads to scourges against nature, it may not be so black and white. The gray area is that growth, especially internationally, helps developing economies. When a manufacturer opens a new plant in Indonesia, they are providing jobs and kick-starting local economies, effectively raising the standard of living and helping human life flourish.

While shipping goods across oceans is certainly not desirable, globalization does do a large amount of good. Until companies are unable to manufacture in the third world cheaper, they should continue doing so, gradually providing economic improvements everywhere they go. It’s good for the company; labor at $1/hr (rich man’s wages in those areas) offset the cost of shipping. When those costs even out due to increased wages, it is time to move on to the next worst-off country and open plants, leaving behind an economy that can sustain itself. Because people were given great wages, ancillary industries and services opened up, and the general skill level of the population has increased. In reality, this is sustainability—at the local level. Large corporations, regardless of their foibles along the way, are effectively a global humanitarian effort.

The Globalization Cup Spilleth Over
While businesses need to grow to support all human life, they hopefully will continue paying attention to reducing their ecological impact at the same time. Even the most “green” company, in reality, is not green in a global economy; they are often quite the opposite.

At the point in time when there is no widespread large scale human starving and illness due to lack of economical resources, we are done with globalization. It is absolutely ridiculous, at that time, to ship anything but humans over an ocean. Local procurement and regionalized manufacturing makes sense only when every part of the world can support itself. We wouldn’t ignore baby seals because it takes too much fuel to reach them, and we should not do the same to humans.

Current Business Practices
Now, in addressing the matter of business practices we are taught being counter to sustaining life, let’s not forget what we just learned above. Certain aspects, such as seeking financial targets and insistence on growth play together in a weird way that actually supports human sustainability. The unfortunate part is that nobody is thinking about that, they are thinking about the financial targets, so the benefits are not a quick as they could otherwise be.

Furthermore, globalization and efficiency are not at odds with each other. Using the Toyota Production System, companies can become more efficient and less wasteful, while at the same time supporting globalization. Getting to the point where we can start producing regionally does not imply a path of destruction on the way.

Conclusion
The question of Wall Street induced growth being at odds with sustainability, therefore, is complex. We must grow more before we can sustain human life. In that regard, yes, the things we learn in business school are helpful. But we must not diminish the Earth’s ability to support us once we achieve that global standard of living.

This is where the Toyota Production System, in the most general sense, along with other sustainable business practices, can help. We do need to be mindful of depleting resource faster than the earth can replenish, and we need to reduce inputs and reduce manufacturing impact with real LEAN production.

Fortunately, doing that will likely become a matter of regulation; I see “greenness” as something that should be required. At the philosophical level, we are still not going to be in balance with Earth’s capabilities. We cannot, as we still need to grow. Constantly growing efficiently, but not too sustainably (we still want global expansion), should be the goal. If sustainability initiatives focused on low-impact humanitarian-based expansion, we could more rapidly get to a point where regionalized manufacturing makes sense.

The day after Christmas, and we've been snowed in for over a week now! Some snow is melting, but then it freezes overnight. This picture out my front door shows the snowy ruts in the road pretty well.. they're pretty deep, and lots of cars and trucks have been getting stuck in the street

Also, my new car (2009 335i sport) should be in California right now. It was supposed to arrive in a port north of LA on the 24th, which means I should have it in about 10 days. It's been too long without it. I did dig up some pictures, though. The first is a screenshot from a video I took at a rest stop in Austria. The second is a picture taken with my iPhone outside our hotel in Dolo, Italy (about 30 miles west of Venice).