Brown Motion

The world we live in has rules.  And the citizens are expected to obey those rules.  Without order we get chaos.  Fighting entropy is hard.  Very hard. There was an entire TV series based on this notion called Law & Order.  Recently though there have been a spate of incidents where the watchers failed us.  From the near collapse of the capitalist economic system back in 2008 where the rating agencies failed at doing their job to the recent Boeing disasters where the FAA did not do theirs and 400 people paid with their lives, we are facing a scenario where the watchers need watching.  'Collusion' is a word making headlines these days. Coincidentally (I have started listening to podcasts on the way to work) a new podcast by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis has a show about umpires.  Or referees.  It is titled 'Against the Rules'.  It covers the topic of 'referees losing their authority'. Fairness and how humans enforce ...

A multi part documentary on the origins and progression of comedy as a form of engagement in America is currently playing on CNN. I have watched a few early episodes that chronologically were not as exciting to watch but did build the curve to the more contemporary genre where situational comedy is king.  The 'Leave it to beaver' and 'Fawlty towers', even 'Cheers' and other sitcoms of yesteryear for which I have no perspective nor empathy were fast forwarded (thanks to DVR tech) till George Carlin made an appearance. To be a successful comic could mean a variety of things - and the show does justice to show those various facets.  Audience measurement, financial success for all involved in the making of the production, studio support to do more than one season are all various KPI that you could use to determine how good or bad an individual performance was. But ultimately some shows and their cast just click with the zeitgeist and make it look easy.  Both ...

I sat through 2 days of lectures on Attribution and Marketing.  Attribution is  the action of regarding a quality or feature as characteristic of or possessed by a person or thing. Well so that is the text book definition and it is essentially what I was there to learn about. In the context of identifying audiences to whom I might target an offer to.  An offer to spend at a restaurant or buy another shirt they do not need or something to essentially keep the conspicuous consumption theme alive. The gentleman lecturer was a veteran of having sold many a thing in his life - mostly media - which in today's lingo is anything that constitutes a message that reaches a variety of consumers.  His background as a salesman sort made him the father figure to preach the gathered flock (we were all employees of the same organization who signed up for this) about the nuances of what makes for good marketing and what was cutting edge today. Frankly a lot of the tried stories...

American businesses especially those that handle or prepare food make it a point to inform their staff through uniquitous signage urging the washing of hands.  Frequently. Cost of doing business can skyrocket if food borne illness is triggered due to unhygenic conditions caused by negligent employees visiting bathrooms for their business and not cleaning up after.  Therefore the signage.  Or employees who might knowingly or unknowingly harbor a pre condition or virus and share it with the guests through food prepared in the kitchen. "All Employees Must Wash Hands" is prominently displayed on the mirrors of the restrooms as an example. Yet in recent memory we had big and small restaurants in the US take it on the chin due to a variety of ills spreading through contaminated food as well as walking pathogen breeding humans that cooked the food or visited the restaurants. Seinfeld once captured this situation in an episode where the pizza maker returns from...