In light of a few facebook comments and some confusion over what exactly the rules for road trips are, I present to you part one of The Official Rules for Road Trips with Friends.
Transportation costs are one of the most argued over and most easily defined set of rules for road trips. If a group of friends decide to go on a trip together by any mode of transportation that requires a ticket (such as by plane, ferry, train, etc), each individual purchases their own ticket, or one individual collects money from the rest of the group and purchases the tickets together (usually to save time, sometimes to save money when tickets cost less in bulk).
If a group of friends are traveling by automobile, the costs are split evenly using the following guidelines. Each individual on the trip takes a turn to pay for a full tank of gasoline, cycling through the entire party as the trip progresses. The person who’s automobile is used for the trip is the last person in the cycle to pay. If an automobile is rented or borrowed from some other person, the first driver is the last person to pay.
This rule is effective for a few reasons. Everyone fills up the tank, splitting the cost of the transportation between all the individuals in the group. Only one person at a time has to pay. There aren’t any of the hassles of attempting to collect payments or splitting the bill each time the group needs to fill up, or after the trip is over. As further distances driven equate to having to fill up the tank sooner, accurate navigation becomes a priority for the entire group. Suddenly everyone is working together to find the best possible route between destinations.
Additional destinations are also given an opportunity cost for the whole group. Each person wanting to take a detour weighs the costs of having it be their turn to fill up the tank sooner versus the benefits of the detour desired. They must then also convince the rest of the group that the benefits of the detour or additional destination outweigh the additional cost. This effectively weeds out the least beneficial destinations and detours, while allowing the group flexibility in the decisions to be made.
Patrick Lang’s recent post about Spies in Lebanon had me laughing, and thinking.
I worked in and around Lebanon for a long time. The country has some of everything. Pro-Western Christians, pro-Saudi Christians, Shia militiamen (lots of those), Sunni remnants of the old power structure, many of them in “bidness,” policemen in a half dozen different agencies created distantly on old French colonial models (round up the usual…), an army good for nothing except absorbing foreign aid, politicians striving mightily and conspiratorially for the imagined favor of foreign “‘forces” who are imagined to have the final decision making power over the Lebanese. Actually, they do have that power because the Lebanese believe that they have it. Oh, and beautiful women, they have lots of those.
In that “brew” there are bound to be lots of spies, spies for everyone and everything. What a fun game! And you can make a few “bucks” in it as well. One can always use another pair of handmade Italian shoes. The Lebanese are of the rentable class.
While the United States is currently dealing with its own minor crisis in the intelligence business, it is always interesting to have a tiny peak into how other countries handle being infested with spies.
First and foremost: It’s our fault. Yes. It’s our fault. WE, (as in the people of the United States), returned the very same people that voted for the TARP in September 2008, back to office in November. Even if I, myself, didn’t vote for the incumbents, I am willing to take the blame. If I had done more, talked to more people about how this is a make or break issue, if I had organized protests, if I had used my influence, however small it may be, to try and talk some sense into people who don’t have the courage to stand up for what they really believe, who don’t know what to believe, who seem to only care what’s on TV and what the celebrities’ dogs have for dinner, — I am willing to shoulder my portion of the blame because it’s there.
But, that doesn’t mean I can’t change, that I can’t put forth a greater effort, to get back up again and try harder, to protest louder, more effectively, to learn how to work the media system to my advantage, to do what is necessary to actually change the corrupt nature of the government.
So with that in mind here is what I, and many others are, and have been trying to do:
Hold our elected representatives (senators, house reps, and president, all local city, county and state reps) accountable for their actions ( or inaction).
The power and influence that this small group individuals have is tremendous and can be used for better or for worse.
These people are elected to represent us, to be the voice of the people in the government. When they act against the majority of people in their own states, they betray that responsibility. When they do that, it is our responsibility to hold them accountable.
However, in defense of those elected, they have to be able to know what the people want. If we don’t tell them, they can’t know. They’re not psychic. So we write letters, make phone calls, send faxes and emails, meet with them in person to express how we want them to represent us; and we encourage and pressure others to do the same things. After all, if they want their opinion to count, they have to voice it. So, we organize meetings to talk about what is going on, to allow people to voice their opinion to the community around them, to work within the community to activate those who aren’t, to use our influence to have people take a stand, and be informed and knowledgeable as possible. So we organize protests, to allow people to publicly call out their elected officials and let them know what they want, to set the record straight on what each of us thinks should be done. And we’ll continue to write letters, make phone calls, send faxes and emails, meet with my representatives, hold community meetings, organize protests, and everything and anything else that can be done to allow people to act knowledgeably, so that our representatives know what we want from them, and so that more people can be represented.
Right now, we all should require to be represented by the people who are elected to do so. If we are not, we will require the individuals that were elected to represent us, but have failed to do so, to resign their office and take a long vacation from public service. This isn’t small fringe minority groups ‘we’, this is the majority of the people of the United States. If the majority is not represented, there is a serious problem that must be corrected. For example, IF the majority of the people in a California voted for a president (Obama), and then when the electoral college came around time to elect the president, if they voted for someone different (say, McCain), that would be a problem – the majority has been failed by the people who are supposed to be representing them.
In my view, most people in the United States are good people, meaning even if they don’t agree with the laws, they follow the laws. When people break the law, we agree that the law is to be enforced. If we think a law is unjust, we work to change the law. If we think new laws should be made, we work to add new laws.
There are people, and corporations who have broken the law, yet, continue to walk free, continue to break the law. Our elected representatives have the ability to act against those who break the law, to enforce the law. Yet they do nothing. Some stay silent. Some talk a good talk, yet do not act. Some come out in favor of those breaking the law. Some are swayed by bribes and back room deals for more power. Very few actually do their job.
There is a growing group of people who have reached their own personal ‘no mas’ moment, the ‘last straw’ moment where they (finally) stand up and begin to do everything and anything that is in their power to put an end to the corruption, enforce the laws. This group of people is growing in numbers every day, and that scares the people who have failed us and the people who are breaking the law. Rightly, it should – they’re about to get caught ‘red-handed’, to be called out like Jim Cramer on the Daily Show, the con-games that have profited them so much are coming to an abrupt end.
But there is also problem for everyone: if it’s not done right, if the corruption and illegal activities continue to permeate our government despite the majority’s actions to change it, we risk the potential of having an active majority that the government has failed, that no longer has any faith in the laws to be enforced. We risk vigilante justice, we risk the rejection of our system of government, we risk destroying something that works, only because we do not use it. And so understanding that, we will do everything in our power to clean house without burning the house down.
This isn’t about political parties, despite the attempts by both of the two major political parties to turn it into something that they can use to their advantage. Those groups, those individuals will either fall away and want nothing to do with us, or they will recognize that they too want the laws upheld and to be represented correctly, and join us. We welcome those who wish to step up and take action in what is a core part of our society. We aren’t a political party, we aren’t a political organization. We don’t want to be. We don’t want a single leader to lead us, we don’t need it. We are all leaders, we stand up and lead the way for those who lack the courage and knowledge at this time. Many will follow, and become leaders in their own courage and strength, to act. We will not stop our actions, even when the house is cleaned, due to the very nature of power. Power corrupts. Those in power, if left unchecked, will seek to gain more, to attempt greater abuses without responsibility, as we have regrettably allowed in the past many years.
This is how I see it, and how I feel many, many other people see it as well, and I hope others will come to see it this way too.
Just a quick notice: Today (May 19th, 2009) at 10 AM (Eastern) there is a hearing on the matter of “The Science of Insolvency” by the Subcommittee on Investigations & Oversight, part of the Committee on Science And Technology, a Congressional Committee in the House of Representatives.
This should be on either CSPAN 1 or CSPAN 2, as well as any of the big business network channels, like BloombergTV.
The four individuals that have testimonies and will be answering questions are: Jeffrey Sachs, Dean Baker, David John, and Simon Johnson. As Zero Hedge puts it,
….shockingly intelligent people who will tell all the right things to all the wrong people.
This is well worth listening to, and then reading the individual prepared written testimonies. The written testimonies are normally brief (5 to 15 pages) but do go much further into detail than the hearing will allow, based on time constraints. I will link the testimonies later today when they are put online.
I read hundreds of posts and articles on the internet each day, usually through subscriptions using Google Reader. More often than not, on a busy day I will happen to accidentally pass over the posts from people who don’t post on a daily or weekly basis. More often than not, the posts that I miss are usually the most insightful. Luckily, these writers are so good that I will see or find someone else linking to either that same site and I will spend half an hour reading the archives of the site just to catch up on what I’ve missed.
Matt Haughey’s personal blog “A Whole Lotta Nothing” is one of those such sites.
On March 31, 2009, he wrote about his experience in finding and buying the right swingset upgrade for his young daughter. His conclusion struck me the most important.
So maybe instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends, you may not even need “social media marketing” after all.
A year or two ago, I was considering starting a company to help companies improve their brand and marketing through social media. My evaluation was that while there could be a market for this type of service, most companies don’t want to be told that their product isn’t exciting and their current point of view regards the customer as unintelligent enemies is losing them much more potential business. Matt’s conclusion is exactly my suggestion to every company that wants to have a successful business: just make awesome stuff that makes people excited about what they just bought.