It Rises To The Top

So one of my friends who is dealing with some bad people in his work told me about his situation using a very interesting descriptive phrase:

“Cream may float to the top, but other things float too!”

Ah yes, in many cases the best (“the cream”) climbs/rises to the top of the corporate ladder and extraordinary people are recognized with positions of leadership and influence to progress things. 

But in other cases, some really bad people (i.e. the sh*t) floats to the top based on lies and baloney promises and payback, malevolent power grabs, undermining of the competition, nepotism, or plain old corruption in the leadership suite. 

Yes, both the cream and the crap float to the top.

It is important to recognize who is who, and what is what. 

Not everyone who occupies the corner office belongs there. 

In some cases, they should never even be allowed in the building. 

In the end, you gotta believe that the stars shine, and the sh*t stinks and that’s how you know who is at the top when. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

My Ashley Madison

So Ashley Madison is now a well-known adulterous website, particularly after hackers stole 37 million records on the site participants, and have released that information to the public.


These tens of millions of users seek companionship for loveless or sexless marriages or perhaps are just plain liars and cheaters–who knows? 


But yikes, now everyone knows!


Huffington reports that divorce lawyers are anticipating a deluge of new clients seeking divorces. 


And BBC reports that two people have already taken their lives in Canada as a result of the release. 


What is incredible as well are the 15,000 people who used their .gov or .mil accounts presumably to hide their infidelity from their spouses, but now are in potentially huge trouble with their government agencies.


I assume that Ashley Madison prided themselves on their discretion in handling their clients accounts, but lo’ and behold the discretion is for naught compliments of some very naughty hackers. 


Privacy is becoming a very lonely and meaningless word whether you are faithful or a cheater–it’s all open fodder on the net. 😉


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Why Can’t We Just Stay As Superman?

So when we’re young, we think we’re Superman, Batman, or whatever superhero comes to mind. 

Our bodies are beautiful, supple, strong, and heal quickly. 

We are taught by our helicopter parents and philosophic teachers that “You can do anything you set your mind to!“

In our fantasies, we surely can do amazing things–we lift unbelievable weight, fly around at the speed of light, do karate better than Bruce Lee, outthink Einstein, save the world, and then make off with the beautiful damsel to boot.

Kryptonite is no problem–we are (seemingly) invincible.

Then we hit middle age–40 something–and all of a sudden what do you know?

Oh, this doesn’t work right and that doesn’t feel right.

The Yiddish expression, “Oy vey” seems about it.

And off to the doctors we go.

After the exam and tests, doc says, “Mr. (or Ms.) [whatever], you have [fill in the blank].”

You respond, “Is that normal–at my age–already?”

Doc says, “Absolutely, this is what happens as you get older.”

I say, “Doc, does anything good happen when we get older.”

“Of course not”–we both laugh. 

This reminds me of when my dad used to sing this song in this funny mock Irish accent, “You’re not as young as you used to be you’re getting old and gray!” 

This week, a colleague was coming down with something–possibly something not good. 

I told him how I hoped this turns out well for him and how sorry I was for what he was going through.

Writing off the illness, he says to me, “We all end the same anyway” (i.e. we all end up dead!)–ah, another unhappy notion that is. 

I joked back, “But we all don’t end up in the same place.”

I got a few laughs at that too (some of my father in me). 

Well anyway, I thought about this after–about some of the special subhuman beings out there–and the very special place that I am certain G-d has in store for them:

– Serial murders and other violent criminals

– Rapists and child abusers

– Terrorists and their sponsors

– Megalomaniacs, bullies, and corrupt officials

– Thieves, cheats, and liars.

And guess what about these schmendricks–they get old too, they go to the doctor too, and then they are going somewhere warm, very warm, and it’s not to the Caribbean. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Not Bias, Just Plain Old Hatred

I read a book review in the Wall Street Journal on Profiles in Denial by William Storr about David Irving the notorious Holocaust denier.

He is a “‘revisionist’ of all things World War II,” but apparently is particularly keen on Holocaust denial, as someone who according to Wikipedia is an “anti-semite, and racist who…promotes neo-Nazism.”

The Holocaust denial goes deep for Irving and even upon visiting Majdanek concentration camp, he tells his group “This is a mock-up of a gas chamber. Those cylinders are carbon dioxide not carbon monoxide…There are handles on the inside of these doors,” so the prisoners could let themselves out.

Actually, the door was locked with huge bolts right on the outside and was sealed airtight, but to Irving it’s as if these didn’t exist.

The book discusses how cognitive biases such as confirmation biases help people “find confirming evidence for our beliefs, ignoring or rationalizing away all discriminating evidence.”

But I think this is really beyond the point with someone like Irving, who according to The Guardian is a discredited British historian and Nazi apologist” and was actually jailed for a “three-year prison sentence in Vienna for denying the Holocaust and the gas chambers of Auschwitz.”

The State Prosecutor said of Irving “He’s not a historian, he’s a falsifier of history…this is about abuse of freedom of speech.”

Judge Peter Liebtreau called Irving “a racist, an anti-semite, and a liar.”

So this is no simple bias or mind game for Irving, but apparently a convenient way for him to pursue his hatreds under the guise that everything was and is really okay.

So rather than “Never forget,” is is far more beneficial for those that would wish it to happen again that they lull people to believe that it never even was to begin with.

Interesting that another famous Holocaust denier is no less than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, was a “myth” (Washington Post).

By the way, Ahmadinejad also said “9/11 was an inside job.”

People like Irving and Ahmadinejad are not about confirmation bias, but rather about distortion of truth to further their own evil destructive aims.

In the case of Ahmadinejad, it’s that he wishes to see Israel be “wiped off the map” (New York Times).

And in the case of Irving, he has said, “there will…probably be another holocaust in the next thirty years…oh, and if the Jews are lucky, there will be a David Irving or Adolf Hitler [may their names be obliterated] to protect them” (The Independent).

Oh, G-d forbid!

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

To catch a terrorist, you have to think like a terrorist or at least be able to get behind their lies and deception.

Terrorist want to gain entry, surveil their targets, plan their attack, assemble their weapons and tactics, avoid their pursuers, and execute maximum human, economic, and political damage.

To succeed, terrorists have to use lies and deceit to make their way through all the obstacles that the good guys put up.

Wired Magazine (February 2013) addresses some new interrogation technology being tested by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to catch the lies and the liars.

First of all, “people are really good at lying, and it’s incredibly hard to tell when we’re doing it.”

Moreover, most people “lie 10 times a day,” so it is routine and comes naturally to them.

In terms of detecting lies, we are not very good at it–in fact, we’re just better than chance–able to tell when someone is lying only 54% of the time.
Apparently, even with polygraph exams–their success is dependent more on the experience and finesse of the examiner and less on the polygraph tool.

However, with new research and development, DHS has come up with an automated interrogator–that enhances the success of catching a liar by combining multiple detection technologies.

The “interrogator bot” has three different sensors in use by the Embodied Avatar Kiosk.

– Infrared camera–“records eye movements and pupil dilation at up to 250 times per second–the stress of lying tends to cause the pupils to dilate”

– High-definition video camera–“captures fidgets such as shrugging, nodding, and scratching, which tend to increase during a deceptive statement”

– Microphone–“collects vocal data, because lies often come with minute changes in pitch” as well as “hesitation, changes in tempo and intonation, and spoken errors”

In the future, a additional sensors may be added for:

– Weight-sensing platform–to “measure leg and foot shifts or toe scrunches”

– 3-D camera–to “track the movements of a person’s entire body”

Aside from getting better deception-detection results from multiplying the sensing techniques, the interrogation kiosk benefits from communicating in multiple languages and being “consistent, tireless, and susceptible to neither persuasion not bribery.”

Another very cool feature being tested is tan interrogation avatar that actually resembles the person being interrogated using a camera and morphing software and making it look uncanny and “disturbing” at the same time–this can be quite familiar, disarming and unnerving.

By aggregating data points from many types of sensors and using behavioral analysis as a first line of defense followed by human questioning of those found to be lying, homeland security can proverbially light a fire under the pants of would be infiltrators and terrorists–and catch them before they make it to their next target. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Cosmic Jans)

Innovation: Leaders vs. Liars

There’s a big difference between doing something and saying you’re going to do something.

Or as I learned early on–words are cheap, but actions speak loud and clear.

The Wall Street Journal (23 May 2012) reported this week about how many companies (and even academic institutions) overuse the word innovation–“the introduction of something new.”

It’s practically become cliche–“chief innovation officers, innovation teams, innovation strategies, and even innovation days.”

So is innovation just the buzzword du jour or is ultimately something more?

Of course, the more we use something like the term innovation, the greater the chance to dilute its meaning.

– “33,528–times [innovation] was mentioned in quarterly and annual reports last year.”

– “255–books published in the last 90 days with innovation in the title.”

– “43%–of 260 executives who said their company has a chief innovation officer.”

However, innovation is not just a word to throw around and use lightly–innovation is our bread and butter in this country; it is what differentiates us from our global competitors (i.e. its one of our main competitive advantages) and is a source of our economic strength.

Not all innovation is created equal–there is “innovation lite” (my term), where we take something and make it better, faster, or cheaper, and then there is “disruptive innovation”–where we really bring something new to the market.

“Everybody’s innovating because any change is innovation,” but not every innovation is transformative.

We can’t afford for innovation to lose its meaning, because leaders and companies that abuse it and dilute it–and don’t ultimately deliver–will end up losing their jobs and ultimately the companies themselves.

Real innovation is like condiments, use it sparingly and it can pack a huge punch–pour it on indiscriminately, and you might as well just throw away the whole dish.

What we need are innovation leaders that don’t just mouth the words and buy the toys, but champion it, invest in it, and empower and encourage their employees to make it happen.

Innovate or die is our reality–so be a true innovation leader–don’t lie to yourself if it isn’t the real thing. 😉

(Source Photo: herewith attribution to Seth Waite)