Mechanization vs Employment

To kind of piggy-back off of Tom's post wrt Amazon's mechanization of their processes, here is an interesting little video and explanation showing how the Amazon warehouses work.  This is an example of why the unemployment rate has stayed so stubbornly high.  Humans are being phased out of just about anything that involves physical movement and much that doesn't.  I see in my industry that the diy tax return preparation software is getting smarter and more user friendly every year. 

I always thought that if I did have to retire I would take my guitar and find a bar to play in every night and play for tips. Oh No!!!!  Computers do that too.  They even write their own songs.  AND they take requests.

Maybe I could become a plumber.  I had one out yesterday to replace the fill valve and flapper on two toilets and he charged me $120 in labor.  Which reminds me of the old joke where the lawyer has a plumber come out and do some work and when the plumber hands the lawyer his bill the lawyer gasps and says "I'm a lawyer and I don't make this much."  The plumber says "yeah, I didn't make that much when I was a lawyer either."  rim shot!

http://www.chonday.com/Videos/how-the-amazon-warehouse-works

"Choices" by Alan Jackson

This is my favorite George Jones song in which he argues for responsibility over self indulgence.  

Apparently he inspired Alan Jackson to make a choice as well.

The following was taken from the first website below:

Published on Apr 10, 2012

At the 1999 ceremony, George Jones, just months removed from a near-fatal car accident, was nominated for Single of the Year for his autobiographical ballad "Choices." When CMA executives asked for Jones to sing a shortened version of the nominated song, he opted to stay home as a sign of his irritation at their request. Jackson, prompted by his admiration for Jones and his frustration with the CMA, quietly but rebelliously shifted into "Choices" halfway through his scheduled performance of his current single, "Pop A Top."

After finishing the song, he silently walked off stage while and industry executives and artists alike rose to their feet with a standing ovation. Jackson would exit the Opry house and not return for the rest of the evening. When asked later about Jackson's decision, Jones said, "What he did [at the CMAs] meant more to me than I could ever say. I was watching the show, and when he began singing 'Choices,' it moved my wife Nancy and me both to tears. He made a huge statement on my behalf, and on behalf of traditional country music, and didn't worry about what the consequences might be." In the war of art and commerce, Jackson chose to honor the humble beginnings of the genre when those values were compromised, and was justly rewarded with positive press as a result of his indignant, yet popular, actions that evening.

see it here

click here for the full Jones version

Prodigies

I am told that there are only three areas of human endeavor in which prodigies arise and those are music, mathematics, and chess.

The three activities which have been the loves of my life have been music, mathematics, and chess.

Why could I not even have approached being a prodigy in any of them?

Oh, well.  

Teach your children

I am choosing my favorite one hundred song playlist.  Why?  I guess because we have ten fingers and use base 10.  I'm having a little trouble getting it down to that so maybe I'll use 100(base 12) and I'll only have to get it down to 144 - that is 12 squared to those of you who do not watch Big Bang Theory.  (Yes, I know that there was a possible alternative question back there, but I don't have an answer for the other one.)

A number of them will be from the sequence Buffalo Springfield - Crosby, Stills and Nash - Deju vu - Harvest from the late sixties and early seventies which (as everyone knows) was the golden age of R&R.

I enjoyed an extended youth and perhaps that is why I appreciate the following description of the hard time on both sides of that transition.

From the album Deja Vu  (1970) by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, 

and Dallas Taylor and Greg Reeves

Hear them sing it here.

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

Charlotte Church

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Listen and watch Charlotte sing What Child is This?

Charlotte Church

Before the holiday season is completely over try Charlotte Church's version of What Child is This?

Beatles

John was the smart one.
Paul was the cute one.
George was the quiet one.
And Ringo was the luckiest SOB that ever lived.