Scott Porad

My grandfather is 94-years old.  (Actually, 94 1/2, but he doesn’t think he should start counting halves again until he’s 95.)  He’s lost a step, but his mind is sharp as a tack.  As he often says, “if I knew I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself”.

The really sad thing, though, is that he’s losing is vision.

Losing one of your only five senses is tragic regardless, but the vision is especially difficult because my grandfather is a reader.  A Reader with a capital R.  That man reads everything.  Literally, everything, down to labels on the ketchup bottle at a restaurant.

Sometimes, when I call over to his house, and I’m talking to my grandmother, so I’ll ask, “what’s Grandpa doing?”  And, she’ll respond, “oh, I don’t know, he’s probably reading something.”  That makes both of us smile, though.

Anyhow, being me, I couldn’t just let Grandpa not be able to read, so I borrowed a Kindle from a friend to see if that could be the solution to our problems.  Based on some limited testing, here’s the feedback:

The good news is the font size increases to a size large enough that he can read it.  That was our main goal, but it turns out there’s more to it than that.

First, the navigation screens don’t adjust font size, really only the book pages.  So, he could sort of make it work with a magnifying glass, but it was tricky.

Next, the keys are too small.  There really isn’t a way to use the Kindle without typing, the most common use being searching for books in the store.  But, he couldn’t read what the buttons said, and even if he could, they were hard to press with his creaky, nonagenarian hands.

Finally, and this applies to folks old and young, you can’t skim through a book on a Kindle.  That really bugged him.  (I guess, when you’re his age, you feel like you need to get through things as quickly as possible.)

Quite honestly, it was the size of the keys that made it a non-workable solution.  Amazon, do you hear that?  Make a Kindle with big buttons and you’ll sell a whole bunch.

Postscript

Now, a few people suggested looking into the iPad.  I stayed away from iPad for a few reasons, all having to do with complication.

My grandparents don’t have a computer (nor do they want one).  The iPad requires a machine with which to sync.

Also, the iPad has a whole bunch of other stuff on it that I believe he would enjoy…have you heard of a little thing called The Internet?…there is sooooo much to read on that thing.  But, it and the other stuff is scary (seriously, computers are genuinely intimidating to most people) and would probably just confuse and frustrate him.

For this use case, a huge benefit of the Kindle is WhisperSync.  He could have bought a book on the Kindle and it would have magically just shown up.  There’s no having to deal with any network connectivity of any sort.  My plan was to simply setup an Amazon account for my grandparents…I’d create a Gmail account that forwarded to my e-mail, and put their credit card into the Amazon account.  After that, they really wouldn’t have to know anything about “Amazon.com, the web site”…they could just buy and enjoy!

My friend Lew and I share season tickets to the local college basketball team, and often talk about sports.  When the initial Tiger Woods scandal broke earlier this fall, we exchanged several long e-mails analyzing the situation.  Yesterday, Tiger announced his return to professional golf, and today I wrote the e-mail below to Lew.

With encouragement from my friend Arianna, I have published it here, however I must admit that I’m somewhat nervous about saying these things publicly.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Lew–

I read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/sports/golf/17rhoden.html and considered the possible outcomes for Tiger Woods at the 2010 Masters. I see five possibilities, although the story of Tiger’s Fall and my present place of employment leave me mindful that there are always things that happen which once seemed impossible.

1. Shits the bed, and slams the trunk.
This would be a pretty bad outcome both reputation- and endorsement-wise, although it’s a perfectly reasonable expectation given the recent distractions. On the other hand, Tiger is good at focusing, and he’s probably spent a lot of time thinking about golf instead of pretty much everything else. (Shoot, if I were Tiger I would have moved into the freaking greenskeeper’s shed.  Of course, if I were Tiger I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to cheat on my devoted wife and beautiful children.)  On the other other hand, lots of people would think this is what he deserves.

Odds: 10:1.

2. Makes the cut, but finishes in the middle-to-back of the pack.
In my view, this the best outcome for everyone involved. The bubble of his return is broken, but it avoids the complete media circus of either missing the cut or being in contention. Realistically, this is probably what he deserves…to get back into it, play respectably, but to not be a super-star just yet.

Odds: 3:1.

3. In play on Sunday, but not realistically close unless he shoots a 65.
I don’t like this outcome because TV will be compelled to keep him in the story line, and it will feel really awkward because he really doesn’t deserve to be in the story line, but he’ll a giant elephant in the room. I feel like watching this scenario on TV will be really uncomfortable because normally players in this case you want to root for…I don’t know how I’m going to feel about rooting for Tiger, so I’d prefer not to be forced into that decision yet.

Odds: 5:1.

4. In a legitimate position to win on Sunday, but doesn’t.
In other words, tees off in one of the final four pairings. This might be the best outcome for Tiger: he gets to show he still has his stuff, but also gets to be humble in losing. But, it has the drawbacks of a complete media circus and a really weird story line of TV. Also, it puts me in that position of having to choose whether to root for or against Tiger. As a fan, I do not like this scenario.

Odds: 7:1.

5. Tiger wins.
Either mass hysteria or mass confusion. Nobody knows what to do. Uncharted territory. A scenario like this has never happened before, never, ever, ever. Does the crowd on 18 cheer, applaud, golf clap, or sit quietly? Does his partner shake his hand? Who runs out to hug Tiger as he walks off the green? What on earth does Jim Nantz say to Tiger in the Butler Cabin? What on earth does Tiger say back? (Of course, there are two versions of this scenario: he wins close and he wins going away such that the last 5 holes of the tournament are what would normally be the coronation. Either way, crazeeeeee.) I’m very mixed about this scenario. On the one hand, it would be a sight to see. On the other, it would be amazingly weird.

Odds: 9:1.

Thoughts?

Scott

I live in Seattle about 40 minutes from the ski slopes. Every week in the winter I take my boys up for ski school, and many weeks I ski while they’re in class. I am extremely fortunate in this regard.

This week I’m not skiing; I am sitting in the chalet staring down my arch rival and nemesis, the Newman to my Jerry, Joker to my Batman, Evil Emperor Zurg to my Buzz Lightyear.

I am being taunted by a cup of hot cocoa.

But I haven’t caved yet.

For about a month, I’ve been ill. Not seriously ill in any sort of life threatening way. Please, do not worry about me one iota.

But, my doctor says that I really need to lay off a few foods that don’t agree with me, including sugar, milk and chocolate for a few months. I’m having a hard time with it.

Most of the time I can stay strong and avoid it, but inevitably one or twice a day I’m tempted by, say, my regular weekly ski chalet mug of hot chocolate. All to often, I cave in. For example, Kiki brought in cupcakes into Cheezburger on Friday, and they looked sooooo good, just one little cupcake won’t hurt will it?

But the thing is, it does hurt. Not a lot, but enough that my recovery is stunted…it’s taking me a lot longer than it should.

This whole thing has me thinking a lot lately about the fact that if you’re gonna do something, you gotta go all the way. I say “you”, but I really mean “me”.

In many cases, 90% is the same as 0%, so what’s the point in putting forth so much effort for no result? Of course, the last 10% is often the hardest.

My friend Mike Concannon often says, “a job worth doing is worth doing well”…a saying I never really internalized until now.

And, of course, Yoda says there is “no try, only do or do not do”. Same thing, I suppose.

And the Taoists say, “do without doing”.

That’s a mind bender.  I think what that means is best explained by my friend Ron who would say, paraphrasing, that you will never stop wanting hot chocolate (no duh!), so the only way to not have it is to want your health more.

Anyhow, the mug is still there, I haven’t has even a sip yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Should I go to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next week?   That is he question on my mind.  (You, my lucky readers, get a chance to help me decide in the poll at the end of this post.)

I live about two hours away, and I have a place to stay because one of my best friends lives in Downtown Vancouver.  So, I’m fortunate in that respect.

I don’t have tickets to anything, but this gives me the opportunity to trot out one of my pet economic theories: that any event that attracts ticket scalper will always attract too many scalpers.

For every event, there are professional ticket scalpers. These scalpers live and breathe in the market for scalped tickets, so they have a very deep understanding of what the market will bear for a ticket.  As events get bigger and bigger there are more and more people who think they can sell tickets and make a buck.  In other words, amateur scalpers.

As a result, The amateur scalpers, not knowing the market as well, invariably provide supply that isn’t demanded.  In addition, the “amateur scalpers” are more likely to fear losing money, so cut their prices earlier.  The net result is the theory I presented above; just checkout Craigslist…there’s thousands of tickets available.

Anyhow, on the con side of the ledger are these things: cost…I would imagine it’s not going to be cheap when you add it all up. Border traffic is going to be a headache; probably not the nightmare that is predicted, but it’s never a breeze.  And, apparenlty, transit within the city is going to be a nightmare.

On the other hand, how often does the Olympics come to the town next door?

What do you think?

I recently met Josh Knauer who is the founder of Rhiza Labs.  Rhiza has an amazing platform for rich data visualization, and one of their most well known products is FluTracker (http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com).

FluTracker is a user-generated mechanism for tracking outbreaks of the H1N1 virus across the country. If there is suspected case in your area, you can report it.  And, like any good UGC system, Josh’s team verifies the accuracy of the report before posting it.

Government data only tracks outbreaks down to the county level, but FluTracker allows it to be tracked down to a specific location on a map.  So, for example, I was able to see that there haven’t been any outbreaks in my neighborhood.

One of the key takeaways from this data that Josh has learned is that “airports are the new waterways”.  In other words, when disease virality was first researched in the 1800′s the conclusion was that diseases primarily traveled along waterways.  In modern times, diseases travel through airports.

That caused me to think this: most airports are operated by state or county governments, and it is mainly county health departments that are working to control the spread of disease.  Why don’t county health departments put hand sanitizer (i.e. Purell) at the airport?

If cruise ships have figured out that asking people to use hand sanitizer before they eat reduces illness, why can’t we do the same when we fly?  For instance, as part of going through security you could be asked to sanitize your hands.  I bet that would reduce the virality of disease dramatically.

You may notice that my blog looks a bit different today.  That’s because I migrated it off of WordPress.com and onto my own hosting provider.

The reason for the change was that I wanted better analytics than WordPress.com offers.  I seriously love WordPress.com and the team behind it.  If they would have just allowed me to install my own Google Analytics I would have continued to use them.  Seriously, that was the tipping point and nothing else.  In fact, if they allow that one day soon I might even move back: the price is right and the stability is second-to-none.

That being said, when I moved it I had to choose a new theme because the old one didn’t work right.  I also added links to “Popular Posts” on the sidebar, so I hope you enjoy those.  And, I’m sure over time, I’ll find a bunch of WordPress plugins that will make this blog even better.

Of course, I have to be careful to use my time wisely.  I really try to focus on writing great blog posts, and don’t worry too much about how fancy the blog is.  Awesome content can overcome lousy technology, but the opposite is not true.

Nevertheless, if there are features that you’d like to see on my blog, leave me a note in the comments and I’ll do my best.  Also, if you see any problems on the blog, let me know as well.  Enjoy!

I was watching a documentary earlier this week which really didn’t seem to have any story.  As I watched I kept on thinking, “what is the story they are trying to tell?”  It seems like if you’re going to take all that time to make a movie that you should be really clear on the story.

My grandmother always says there are only two types of stories: “boy meets girl” or “what is the meaning of life?”  In other words, there’s Waiting for Godot and West Side Story.

Of course, West Side Story is a remake of Romeo and Juliet.  Supposedly, it started and ended with Shakespeare, and as I recall from literature class that there are only two types of stories: “comedy” and “tragedy”.

I don’t know who’s right–Shakespeare or my grandma–and I bet there are other types of stories also, I don’t know.  Either way, it seems like with all those stories out there, you oughta be able to find one that works.

That begs the question: what’s your story?

My son is really into robots, so I brought him down to Gnomedex checkout Bre Pettis’ “robot that makes things” called MakerBot.  Needless to say, he thought it was awesome (and so do I)!

Simply put, Bre Pettis is a man a vision.  Here’s how the story goes:

40 years ago computing was done on mainframes.  Over time, smaller, semi-portable “personal computers” were developed.  First, it was the domain of researches and hobbyists.  I’m sure the old guard said it would never work.  But, it did–now most computing is done on personal computers.

Same goes for manufacturing: everything is made in a big factory with big machines.  But, what if in the future everybody had a manufacturing machine at home to make stuff?  You need a new car key, so you make it in your own private factory…a little machine the size of your toaster that sits in the kitchen.  New sunglasses?  A part for your computer?

That may sound crazy now, but so did personal computers 40 years ago.  Bre is on the forefront: MakerBot is the first reasonably affordable (under $1000) “consumer manufacturing” machine.

Sure, it can’t make much now, but the first personal computers didn’t do much either.  Allow the time for the technology to develop, for collaboration and inventiveness to occur…it will happen.

Trust me, in 25 years, “Bre Pettis” will be a household name.

I was puzzled by something I read today in The New York Times about so-called “public option” in the proposed health care reform plan:

[Opponents] argue that a public plan would invariably drive private insurers out of business and prompt employers to drop private coverage, pushing people who are already insured onto a plan run by the government.

How would it drive private insurers out of business?  It would offer equal plans at a lower cost, that’s how.  I don’t see what’s wrong with that.  If we can get the same health care at a lower cost, isn’t that good?  Isn’t that one of the major objectives of reform…to reduce costs?

I suppose it could be argued that there would be job losses if private insurers closed, but wouldn’t the public system pick up a large portion of those jobs.  Plus, wouldn’t the dollars saved by consumers be spent elsewhere thereby creating jobs elsewhere?

What about the part where employers drop coverage thereby forcing their employees on to the private plans: what’s the problem with that?  Well, I suppose you could say that the public plan could be of lower quality than a private plan, so employees would suffer.

But, wouldn’t that present a competitive disadvantage to the employer who doesn’t offer a private plan?  In other words, a company would be at a disadvantage in attracting the best employees if they didn’t offer a competitive plan, private or public.

From my point of view, hiring the best people is the number one indicator of success, so I don’t see why a company would choose to offer benefits that don’t ensure they get the best of the best.  (What about companies that don’t need or want to hire the best?  Well, I doubt they offer gold-plated benefits presently, so it’s unlikely that a public plan will be lower quality.)

Seems to me that there is an irrational fear of a public plan.  Yet, the fact is that almost half the country already has a public plan–it’s called Medicare–so I don’t see why we shouldn’t open it up to everyone.

My friend Todd and I had a discussion about healthcare reform today.

My understanding of Todd’s point of view was he believes that a) the only way to achieve both comprehensive coverage and cost control is to ration care, b) the government (any government) is not capable of rationing healthcare effectively because it is inherently a personal, not public, decision, and c) that the market is the best way to deliver healthcare because allows individuals to make their own healthcare choices.

1. Tragedy of the Commons

Fundamentally, the issue with healthcare is a Tragedy of the Commons issue. In other words, all the actors in the system know that it needs reform, but none of them individually have an incentive to actually reform it. Like all Tragedy of the Commons issues, a regulatory entity with the rule of law (i.e. the government) is the only entity with the power to cause reform to occur.

While on the one hand I’m not thrilled about government bureaucrats creating regulations that ration care, I am willing to make that choice because I believe that is actually the only scenario where change can occur.

Likewise, the market cannot solve this problem because in a market individuals have no incentive for change. In a market, individuals act in their own best interests which is how a Tragedy of the Commons occurs in the first place.

2. FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

The core of the rationing argument is FUD–Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Arguments based on FUD fundamentally smell fishy to me, but this one particularly doesn’t make sense to me. “Do I want a government bureaucrat deciding if I get <insert medical care here>?” goes the argument.

No, I do not. However, a government bureaucrat doesn’t get to make that decision–I do. If my doctor and I think <insert medical care here> is necessary, then I can choose to go to the medical provider of my choice to have <insert medical care here>. As they say, it’s a free country.

The real issue is not whether I can get the care I want, but who will pay for it. Really, we’re not talking about health care–we’re talking about health insurance which is an important distinction to keep in mind.

3. Rationing and Capitalism

When we talk about government-run health care we’re really talking about government-run health insurance. In other words, the government is going to get into the business of issuing health insurance policies just like private companies do now. (In fact, the government is already in this business in a very big way: 46% of health care is currently paid for by government insurance policies known as Medicare and Medicaid.)

Let’s consider how this works: when you go to your doctor for medical services, he or she charges for that service. Someone has to pay, right?

Most people have a health insurance policy, just like auto, home or life insurance, that pays a benefit against claims allowed under the terms of the policy. Your car gets hit, the insurance company pays to get it fixed. Your leg gets broken, the insurance company pays to get it fixed. Same, same.

Of course, other people, the minority of people, simply pay for their medical services. They break their leg, and since they don’t have a policy, they just pay for it.

Notwithstanding the FUD, here’s what doesn’t make sense to me about the rationing argument: if the government policy doesn’t cover the medical services you want, then a) you are still free to pay cash, and b) given that we live in a capitalist society, there will be private companies that will sell policies you can buy instead if that’s what you prefer.

Actually, this isn’t really so different than how health care works today. Many private policies don’t provide certain benefits. For example, recently I needed a test that my policy didn’t cover. I still wanted the test, so I paid for it myself; it cost $99 + tax. In addition, with respect to the existing government run health insurance programs, many private companies sell policies that cover the benefits where Medicare and Medicaid do not.

In other words, the argument about rationing is a complete red herring. There is no government entity rationing services, nobody is will tell you what health care you can or cannot have. These decisions are completely, 100% up to you and your doctor. You will be able to get whatever health care you want to get. Period. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

It’s simply a matter of who is going to pay for it–you, your private insurance plan or a government insurance plan.

4. Status Quo is Not Really an Option

My final thought is not in response to Todd, but a thought in general: the status quo is not really an option.

Yes, as a country, we could choose to continue down the current path, but that path is an illogical choice. Rising costs are a drag on our economy. Increasingly people cannot afford to pay for care or insurance which is a drag on our economy and morality. Per capita, we pay more and get less than any other industrialized nation. Our path is simply not sustainable.

The bottom line is that when you do the math, maintaining the current course is a certain disaster. Choosing to do nothing is a choice we are free to make, but it is an irresponsible decision, and as a society we cannot afford the consequences of that choice, both figuratively and literally.