Poor Hiring Practices

Article on how hiring practices are broken today. Paul Solmon does excellent stories for the PBS NewsHour.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/08/ask-the-headhunter-why-americas-employment-system-is-so-broken.html

Corporations and their Abandonment of Community

Article on how US corporations have given up on communities for the sake of stock prices. IBM used to be a cornerstone of many communities in the US. Since about the time Reagan came into office the focus has changed towards worship of the almighty dollar.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-goal-that-changed-corporate-america/2013/08/26/26e9ca8e-ed74-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html?hpid=z3

and some accompanying Tom Toles humor:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles/post/friday-rant-the-other-fast-train-edition/2013/08/15/ec8229b2-05d9-11e3-88d6-d5795fab4637_blog.html

Overworked and Underpaid

Story of an intern working for Merrill Lynch dying after working 72 hours straight.
Reminds me of while working for IBM, we worked mandatory 60-80 hour weeks for almost 2 years as an organization. Our bonus was being served dinner on-site (tins of food). Eventually someone died of a heart attack and management pulled back on the mandatory overtime. The project was cancelled shortly thereafter.
Has been talk of a 4-day work week since I was young. Has never happened and never will as long as the dollar is our god.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2013/0822/Bank-of-America-intern-a-culture-of-overwork-spans-many-countries

Sugar Study

Tom Toles discusses sugar. Enjoyed the part where he discusses territory.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles/post/just-a-spoonful-of-fructose-helps-the-medicine-come-back-up/2013/08/14/a9c6981c-050a-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_blog.html

Guantanamo and a history of Wrongs done

John Grisham speaking out on Guantanamo et al.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/12/john-grisham-guantanamo-bay-us-wrong

Elimination of Stop and Go Traffic

Interesting website on how one person can create a positive traffic flow.
I try to drive in such a way that I rarely ever have to hit my brakes.
Can never prevent others from cutting you off but if you move at the flow of traffic things do move more fluidly.

http://trafficwaves.org/

Tokyo

Amazing photography of Tokyo.

http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/

Dozier School for Boys

Story which has been whispered about for many years. Still so much unresolved.
Worse than Stand Your Ground?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/07/florida-exhume-remains-dozier-school

Related behavior:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States

Boeing and It's Failed Dreamliner 787

Boeing's demise as represented in the failed next generation Dreamliner 787.
They contracted out the majority of the program to save money but instead encountered a huge cost overrun and shoddy product.
I worked on some validation for one of Boeing's sub-subcontractors for a while. They got hostile when we reported issues. Bad sign for the program.

http://harpers.org/blog/2013/07/boeings-plastic-planes/