Baltimore Burning, Why kids burn down their own community assets?

I’m amazed how some of us are “dazzled” on the burning just happening right now in Baltimore and happened some time ago elsewhere in US.
There are cases when people are willing to burn their own property, but I bet this is not it. This is different, this is deeper, this is something that if it is not well understood by as many of us, will only amplify over time. My guts are telling me that, these kids are burning down what they feel and regard as not being theirs. A society built on “dog eats dog” philosophy emerged from throat cutting business competition can easily breed these types of mentalities (this is not limited to US at all, is universal). At their age (as the video footages shown mostly youths) they are pressed by the crowd effect, to do “special” things and at the moment the “community” is only a far echo in their minds.

BaltimoreBurnig

Interesting enough way back in time on the time of the socialist Romania people used to say “What is everyone’s is no-one’s” and that society was supposed to be all about “community” and “sharing” and it did not work. Lesson learned? Seem not.

Lead by example they say. What example I say?

Let’s Think, or even better, let’s Think different…

Again I believe we have to start asking “why?” and continue the “why?” after each answer it comes in our minds, not stopping before we do this exercise at least 4 levels down. You’ll be surprised what you’ll discover.

My hero from law enforcement business

After (re) awakening to a crude reality of the injustice in the justice system, finally a break, one giving us hope, hope that we can hold our humanity high in most dreading conditions.

I’m saying re-awakening since I’ve seen first hand, back in the communist regime of Romania, what the injustice of the justice can be, and one of the reasons I’ve emigrated to Canada was the better justice system the occidental countries built over time. I still believe (or hope) I was not wrong.

Please view (or review) this CNN article and video on a US Richmond
Officer Jesse Kidder which did the right thing and shown a high regard for life in distress. This shows that officers do not have jobs like all of us. They have dangerous jobs which outline this: not any person can or should be a first line officer holding a gun and ready to take lives. We need people which can and will put their own life on the line to save another no matter if that entity cooperates or not. Second, for this type of high stake job I totally subscribe to pay these people much better. I want to know that when an officer points the gun at me (hopefully never) that he or she will only be motivated by high morale stakes and not by the need to “make a quota” for the day or simply chicken out or even worse “snap” an my (temporary) bad behaviour or mental state.

Unfortunately we see more and more evidence of some officers taking the stance of a “Rambo” or “Judge Dredd” type of characters, which tend to take short cuts and be all the justice system at once, (Cop,  Judge, Jury, and Executioner) all in a fraction of a second. This is a best recipe for disasters on both sides, as I’m sure you can’t take a life without being impacted. Someone being able to do so is a mental disordered killer having no place in this society let aside police.

I was stunned to see “experts” called by CNN to weight in on Officer Jesse bold action, saying he should have shot that person! This is scary, really scary, that these type of thoughts can exists in the minds of the people which you’d expect to cherish life as they market themselves as “life protectors”. Think of why all the Police cruisers have (or had at some point) the slogan “to serve and protect“? On that register I’d suggest making the slogan more precise as in “to serve and protect all life“. How about that? I’d be more than happy to have well paid high morale person working to protect life instead of the narrow view of “law enforcement”. I’m saying that because we have too much history of laws which were (and some are today) morally wrong which only serve narrow interests of the few being able to sweep those laws under the scrutiny of the overall society.

Until now we have been technically unable to solve those issues, as they need mastering a very difficult form of communication, the “many to many” case. Yet with the rise of the new information technologies we can now address this issue frontally and choose to build a better future!

 

Safe flying with Automation

Another 150 souls vanished in little pieces on the slopes of a mountain. Can we prevent such things in future? I believe so and here is how.

All new modern airliners can be flown automatically from take-of to landing. The pilots are there for backup reasons and mostly to alleviate our fear of machines (too intelligent machines maybe). So, how can we use this capabilities without alienating people and with high effectiveness.

We can use the idea of “kill switch” which other industries use where when something bas is spotted you can hit a button to stop a process or in this case to start one.

The main issue in those case is that you can never rely 100% on people. Ill minds can be anywhere as this disaster shown, passengers can go rogue, crew can go rogue and ground personnel can also go rogue. The only way we can solve this is to have anyone, I mean anyone on the plane as passenger, crew member of ground personnel be able to hit a “kill switch” and when that happens the aircraft computers will go in a “land on one of the closest known (pre programmed)” airports and until the aircraft is not safe on the runway nothing in the world can change that in any way.

The aircraft automation will simply land the plane and all the controls on board of the aircraft will simply be ineffective until the aircraft has safely landed on the runway.

The aircraft will send continuously its position parameters and intent to its ground personnel and new destination airport.

Looks a simple use case, but due to the current “psychology” of man must dominate machines some changes should be done to the aircraft in order to allow full automated flights.

Keep in mind that this system must be a specialized one to do one and one thing only, detect a abnormality in the flight path, or being “hinted” by the “kill switch” in order to take over and do a single task only, safely land the aircraft. From the moment it is triggered nothing in the world will be able to disable it or influence it in any way until the aircraft is safely on the ground.

Of course there will be resistance on such a system but I personally feel better if it would exists in the flight I’m on and there is a button just next to my seat which if I push I can get safely on the ground. and yes that will cost me a lot of money but not my life!

red_button

Emergency Automated Landing? or EAL?

About Gemanwings disaster: The Guardian

My today’s Hero Kaci Hickox and all frontline workers on Ebola

Kaci Hickox

A nurse, front line worker, who treated Ebola patients in Africa was put in isolation for 21 days in conditions close to the ones in a prison, because of our collective irrational fear.

CBS News Article and Huffingtonpost article

This irrational fear acted and reacted in many ways and as with any fear, it will only hurt us all on long term. So, why governor Cristie put Kaci in prison? Because he’s a rough politician? I’d say he did it as a response to the average street level citizen (like myself) who rushes to conclusions and uses ignorance instead of knowledge, to “demand action”, that’s it, “do something” we say, and politicians which are fearful of loosing their power (and being most likely as ignorant as any of us) rush to take populist decisions which in the end will hurt us all. So, in a nutshell we kick out own asses!

Hooray for the ignorance! Now all front line workers will thing more than twice, before going to battle the invisible enemies which we fight for long time. Next all people travelling from places where outbreaks happen will, take their chance and lie to avoid being treated as criminals and that my friends, is not going to make us safer.

Maybe, just maybe, we should pause and think. THINK DAMN IT! Before panicking. And… let’s get out of that TSS (Temporary Stupid State) we all find ourselves in, from time to time!

To the bureaucrats who took this decision, a suggestion, please subject yourself to the same conditions as you imposed to those people! I would normally include caring for an Ebola patient first, but it would be in vain, so just do the quarantine and use a tent to do your daily necessities. We will watch…

Kaci, Thank you!

To all workers putting themselves in harms ways for all of us, Thank you!

 

What it takes to be a leader…

Today my wife and I watched on YouTube the presentation from Simon Sinek about leadership (see bellow).

I found it very well thought and wanted to share it as it resonate with a lot of my own convictions in this area.

This presentation will help one to discriminate between “boss” or “manager” and Leader.

Funny but one can be a boss without being a leader. This realization surprised me and I was finally able to understand those wired feeling I had in the past when dealing with some of my former bosses.

Nigeria’s hurt is everyones problem

Its all over the news. More than three weeks ago in Nigeria around 300 girls were kidnapped from their school by people opposing women education. This may seem to be “out there” not in our vicinity so its just some news, it will pass.

The problem is this is not true, not any more, now we know and we have to do something about it. Question is what? Of course some people using some expensive gear will risk their lives to try to bring all those innocent souls back to their families. Then what? We all live happily… until next time. Because if we don’t do anything to understand the real reasons behind this event it is guaranteed that other of the same or equivalent events will happen again.

I believe everyone has its right to believe whatever they want, as much time as they don’t mess with the access to information and education of every single one of us, no matter where or who we are.

I hope all those souls will get back to their loved ones soon, but the work to disseminate knowledge, the type of knowledge which will set us free must start now.

Keep in mind that we produce a lot of information, but not all of it is knowledge and most of it will keep you chained to one narrow concept or another and that is not freedom.

“Freedom is not free!”

Info on the kidnapping

The technology and us

“New and enhanced abilities (a.k.a technology) combined with low level of understanding of those abilities will always lead to abuse. However the universe (a.k.a Mother Nature) does not care, it selects its future, its called natural selection…. And,… natural selection did not end when Darwin defined it, it still happens…. So better try understand what you hold in your hands before is too late. I’m a strong promoter of technology but the need for “profit without limits” combined with ignorance can be lethal for our society.”

I’ve commented not long ago, on the link posted by one of my FaceBook friends. It was liked to the YouTube video called “Look Up”. An excellent clip of video poetry but partially misguided in my opinion.
I hope to guide people on computer technology and its real abilities with the information I will publicize in the future in this blog and http://timenet-systems.com

In mean time I’m blogging this video clip for future reference.