I was looking at Very Best of sabra girls the other day. I got to the pages featuring 松金洋子 (matsugane youko). I said "Damn!" and I said it out loud. I don't have that kind of reaction, usually. I couldn't help myself. If you see the pictures, you'll know why. (O.O) I'm not sure if you can find a copy since it's a few years old... Well, just look her up on Google. I'm sure you'll find some images.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
[SOAPBOX] Corporate Responsibility
I'm not sure if I should call this a [SOAPBOX] piece... Oh well, I don't really care. Keep in mind that this is a condensed version of a Reader's Digest version of an executive summary. You could write a thesis or a dissertation on the subject, but I really don't feel like writing that much about it. If you want to know more, do some research. Now, without much ado, here's my thoughts on corporate responsibility.
This relates to corporate responsibility as it applies to publicly held for profit corporation.
A corporation's responsibility is to the shareholders. It's not responsible to other factors and people outside the scope of doing business legally. It's not a corporation's responsibility to worry about the environment and such. (More on this later.) Corporations are responsible for the bottom line. They must try to maximize the ROI for the shareholders. Regardless of what people may think, CEO's do not own the corporation unless they got some stock in it. (I don't think there's any that don't own stock in a business they are running.) But still, they usually don't hold the majority of the shares and must put the interest of majority before their own, but if that was the case this would be a perfect world and I wouldn't be sitting here writing this. I'm sure you're all heard about Tyco, MCI, and Enron to name a few. This is serious violation of corporate responsibility and fiduciary duty. It's the corrupt few that are screwing up for the rest of us. Human beings being what they are, I guess this is something that is unavoidable.
I remember when I was living in Japan, there was a big scandal with Snow brand milk. They recycled their expired milk. (>.<) I remember people getting sick. I don't remember if anyone died from it. I remember seeing the president apologizing, twice. They said they cleaned up their act and cleaned all their equipment, but it happened again. (Thus the second apology.) Japan is supposed to be better then US in terms of planning and such since they look toward the long term goals (100+ year plans) while US corporations want a quick buck and the CEO's want a quick buck more than the corporations themselves and a lot of boards are in bed with the CEO and/or don't care enough, thus we get all these problems.
Corporations are entities that are theoretically immortal. Even if the CEO changes, the corporation lives on unlike a proprietorship that might come to an end if the owner decided to call it quits or have gone to meet his/her maker. So theoretically corporations should look at things more of an extended timeline and the Japanese do have 100 year plans and such. But as I've said these things would only work out in a perfect world. A corporation's drive for profit sometimes lead it to it's own ruin. There are a few things you must understand about how things work. Planned obsolescence and cost of doing business are two things that stick out in my mind.
Planned obsolescence is where the end of a product is designed into the product. It's more than the product life cycle. You might see Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) listed on a product. It's telling you how long the product is going to last. This is something that is taught in design schools and something that leads to creep and bloat in other more immaterial industries. Take a simple mechanical alarm clock as an example. How do you get a person to buy a new one? Better features? Perhaps, but one way to guarantee a purchase in the future is to design failure into the product. According to my industrial design instructor, his old alarm clock died the culprit was a plastic gear. The alarm clock was made with all metal gears except one plastic gear that got eaten away. Now this would be accomplished by a metal gear eating away at plastic gears around it. (It's cheaper this way.) He also mentioned Singer sewing machines were originally built like tanks. People didn't upgrade, because there was nothing wrong with their original purchase. So the company started a trade up program and had the consumers trade in their tank of a sewing machine for something less sturdy and destroyed all those solidly built machines to take them out of circulation and guarantee future sales. Fun, huh?
Cost of doing business gets even more fun. Let's say you make some product, but you found a defect in the design of it after you've started manufacture or perhaps after sales in the millions. Now what are you going to do? You have two choices, recall the product if it's already on the market or scrap the current design and throw out/recycle or whatever the current production and go with a safer design. Either way it's going to cost you. You have another choice which is to just ignore it and hope no one gets hurt or dies. Well, actually you do a little calculation. See what it will cost to rectify the problem and see what it cost you in legal/settlement fees if someone does get hurt or dies and you have to pay them off. You want to settle out of court with an NDA so other people don't hear about it also so you don't have regulators breathing down your throat. Sometimes, you might have to recall the product in the end. But you do your calculation and see which will cost less and that the road you take. Why? Because it's cheaper that way. If you calculate that payoff and legal fees would cost you $2 million over the life of the product and it will cost you $3 million to rectify the situation, which are you going to chose? Remember you're in business to make money not be socially responsible. Think of big tobacco. It didn't quite work the way they wanted to... It could end up costing you more in the end. As long as you stay within the letter of the law... Or if you can bribe your way out, oh well. Bribing is cost of doing business in a lot of places in the world and you see a whole mess of problems because of it. If you think bribery is something that happens in the other parts of the world, think again. As long as we have people like Jack Abramoff and Randy "Duke" Cunningham, we'll have bribery. No worries... (>.<)
If you take into account factors such as profitability, brand image, corporate image, cost of doing business, good will, and all tangible and intangible factors, it probably is better to be a responsibly corporate citizen in all aspects. But most corporations or their CEO are concerned more with profitability and growth in the short term. There are benefits to being environmentally responsible and whatnot. Also by taking longer term outlook on the future, you may hedge your bets on future trends and regulations and have time to implement solutions that may be legislated in the future and costly. By voluntarily doing these things at your own pace, the transition would be easier and perhaps less costly and there could be good will and other intangible benefits as well. (Don't ask me for figures and such, it's beyond the scope of this. It's too long as it is.) Just look at historic trends concerning environmental and labor laws. We used to have sweatshops and child labor in the States. We should to do a lot of things that were more environmentally destructive as well. A lot of this continues across the globe, but look at the cost. The corporation might be profitable in the near future, but what of the planet? Without the planet, you got no corporation. But like I said, it's a little beyond most of them.
So, will corporations be responsible. Some have been and some will. The rest, I doubt it. It doesn't matter if they teach ethics in business school. I heard some people cheat in their ethics class. Hahaha. Now, that's ethics for you.
This relates to corporate responsibility as it applies to publicly held for profit corporation.
A corporation's responsibility is to the shareholders. It's not responsible to other factors and people outside the scope of doing business legally. It's not a corporation's responsibility to worry about the environment and such. (More on this later.) Corporations are responsible for the bottom line. They must try to maximize the ROI for the shareholders. Regardless of what people may think, CEO's do not own the corporation unless they got some stock in it. (I don't think there's any that don't own stock in a business they are running.) But still, they usually don't hold the majority of the shares and must put the interest of majority before their own, but if that was the case this would be a perfect world and I wouldn't be sitting here writing this. I'm sure you're all heard about Tyco, MCI, and Enron to name a few. This is serious violation of corporate responsibility and fiduciary duty. It's the corrupt few that are screwing up for the rest of us. Human beings being what they are, I guess this is something that is unavoidable.
I remember when I was living in Japan, there was a big scandal with Snow brand milk. They recycled their expired milk. (>.<) I remember people getting sick. I don't remember if anyone died from it. I remember seeing the president apologizing, twice. They said they cleaned up their act and cleaned all their equipment, but it happened again. (Thus the second apology.) Japan is supposed to be better then US in terms of planning and such since they look toward the long term goals (100+ year plans) while US corporations want a quick buck and the CEO's want a quick buck more than the corporations themselves and a lot of boards are in bed with the CEO and/or don't care enough, thus we get all these problems.
Corporations are entities that are theoretically immortal. Even if the CEO changes, the corporation lives on unlike a proprietorship that might come to an end if the owner decided to call it quits or have gone to meet his/her maker. So theoretically corporations should look at things more of an extended timeline and the Japanese do have 100 year plans and such. But as I've said these things would only work out in a perfect world. A corporation's drive for profit sometimes lead it to it's own ruin. There are a few things you must understand about how things work. Planned obsolescence and cost of doing business are two things that stick out in my mind.
Planned obsolescence is where the end of a product is designed into the product. It's more than the product life cycle. You might see Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) listed on a product. It's telling you how long the product is going to last. This is something that is taught in design schools and something that leads to creep and bloat in other more immaterial industries. Take a simple mechanical alarm clock as an example. How do you get a person to buy a new one? Better features? Perhaps, but one way to guarantee a purchase in the future is to design failure into the product. According to my industrial design instructor, his old alarm clock died the culprit was a plastic gear. The alarm clock was made with all metal gears except one plastic gear that got eaten away. Now this would be accomplished by a metal gear eating away at plastic gears around it. (It's cheaper this way.) He also mentioned Singer sewing machines were originally built like tanks. People didn't upgrade, because there was nothing wrong with their original purchase. So the company started a trade up program and had the consumers trade in their tank of a sewing machine for something less sturdy and destroyed all those solidly built machines to take them out of circulation and guarantee future sales. Fun, huh?
Cost of doing business gets even more fun. Let's say you make some product, but you found a defect in the design of it after you've started manufacture or perhaps after sales in the millions. Now what are you going to do? You have two choices, recall the product if it's already on the market or scrap the current design and throw out/recycle or whatever the current production and go with a safer design. Either way it's going to cost you. You have another choice which is to just ignore it and hope no one gets hurt or dies. Well, actually you do a little calculation. See what it will cost to rectify the problem and see what it cost you in legal/settlement fees if someone does get hurt or dies and you have to pay them off. You want to settle out of court with an NDA so other people don't hear about it also so you don't have regulators breathing down your throat. Sometimes, you might have to recall the product in the end. But you do your calculation and see which will cost less and that the road you take. Why? Because it's cheaper that way. If you calculate that payoff and legal fees would cost you $2 million over the life of the product and it will cost you $3 million to rectify the situation, which are you going to chose? Remember you're in business to make money not be socially responsible. Think of big tobacco. It didn't quite work the way they wanted to... It could end up costing you more in the end. As long as you stay within the letter of the law... Or if you can bribe your way out, oh well. Bribing is cost of doing business in a lot of places in the world and you see a whole mess of problems because of it. If you think bribery is something that happens in the other parts of the world, think again. As long as we have people like Jack Abramoff and Randy "Duke" Cunningham, we'll have bribery. No worries... (>.<)
If you take into account factors such as profitability, brand image, corporate image, cost of doing business, good will, and all tangible and intangible factors, it probably is better to be a responsibly corporate citizen in all aspects. But most corporations or their CEO are concerned more with profitability and growth in the short term. There are benefits to being environmentally responsible and whatnot. Also by taking longer term outlook on the future, you may hedge your bets on future trends and regulations and have time to implement solutions that may be legislated in the future and costly. By voluntarily doing these things at your own pace, the transition would be easier and perhaps less costly and there could be good will and other intangible benefits as well. (Don't ask me for figures and such, it's beyond the scope of this. It's too long as it is.) Just look at historic trends concerning environmental and labor laws. We used to have sweatshops and child labor in the States. We should to do a lot of things that were more environmentally destructive as well. A lot of this continues across the globe, but look at the cost. The corporation might be profitable in the near future, but what of the planet? Without the planet, you got no corporation. But like I said, it's a little beyond most of them.
So, will corporations be responsible. Some have been and some will. The rest, I doubt it. It doesn't matter if they teach ethics in business school. I heard some people cheat in their ethics class. Hahaha. Now, that's ethics for you.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
I'm a Lemming with a Pair of Pansy White Earbuds
The first electronic device to bite the dust this year is a Sony MD player. It lasted me about three years. The longest of any recently deceased electronics. I bought an extended warranty when I got it. So I've replaced my "Assembled in Malaysia" portable music player with an "Assembled in China" one. It's a black iPod nano. And it has WHITE earbuds and USB cable. (O_o) WTF!! This from a man who wears black turtlenecks. When it's a black model, shouldn't the accompanies parts match in color? The white one comes with white earbuds and white USB cable. Shouldn't the black one come with black earbuds and black USB cable? (Yeah, yeah, I know it's cheaper, but I don't care. It's an affront to good design. And these guys are supposed know something about ID? Ha, I laugh @ their design sense.) So I'm using my black Sony earbuds that match my VAIO. It clashes a little, but I think it's better than the pansy white earbuds. If I wanted white earbuds, I would've gotten the white one. Pansy ass company with mismatched accessories...
The click wheel takes some getting used to, but it's not bad. It's an interesting way of navigating the menu. I'm not sure if it's the best, but it works. I do have one major grip about the usability. There's no frigging brightness control!! It's too frigging bright when it's dark. It's blinding!! I would have liked at least two different brightness settings for the backlight. On and off just doesn't cut it in the usability department. I guess I should google and see if I can find a hack... Oh don't get me started on the photo bit. You gotta go through iTunes to transfers the photos and it crashes all the frigging time while transferring photos and it keeps telling me it can't handle jpg's. Dumb machine. The file management (transfer) for the photos is a piece of crap!
I can see what people mean by getting the damn thing scratched up. The click wheel is scuffed up and the aluminum back and the plastic front show some scratches and this is after just a few minutes of use. Damn, and I thought my VAIO lid was a finger print magnet the way a PSP is. It's got nothing on the nano. This thing is like the ultimate scratch magnet. (At least my VAIO doesn't get all scratched up. ) I put a piece of a PDA screen protector that I had lying around on the clickwheel. (I still got several sheets around, so I figure it'll last longer than the nano. (^_^)) It should keep it from getting all scuffed up and probably loosing the navigational cues. I got the whole thing inside a silicone case so theoretically, it shouldn't get scuffed up. Imagine if you dropped it at the beach and got sand in the case. You'll get it all scuffed up just getting the case off unless you just cut the case away. Remind me to put it in a ziplock bag or something when I go to the beach with it.
Oh, I had a Fuji digital camera, Sony VAIO laptop, a Toshiba digital camera, Sony web cam, and a Sony wireless card die on me. The laptop and the Toshiba had extended warranties and got replaced. The others are just dead. I'm probably forgetting some others, but I don't remember. (>.<) Is it just me or a lot of Sony stuff die on me? Hmmm....
The click wheel takes some getting used to, but it's not bad. It's an interesting way of navigating the menu. I'm not sure if it's the best, but it works. I do have one major grip about the usability. There's no frigging brightness control!! It's too frigging bright when it's dark. It's blinding!! I would have liked at least two different brightness settings for the backlight. On and off just doesn't cut it in the usability department. I guess I should google and see if I can find a hack... Oh don't get me started on the photo bit. You gotta go through iTunes to transfers the photos and it crashes all the frigging time while transferring photos and it keeps telling me it can't handle jpg's. Dumb machine. The file management (transfer) for the photos is a piece of crap!
I can see what people mean by getting the damn thing scratched up. The click wheel is scuffed up and the aluminum back and the plastic front show some scratches and this is after just a few minutes of use. Damn, and I thought my VAIO lid was a finger print magnet the way a PSP is. It's got nothing on the nano. This thing is like the ultimate scratch magnet. (At least my VAIO doesn't get all scratched up. ) I put a piece of a PDA screen protector that I had lying around on the clickwheel. (I still got several sheets around, so I figure it'll last longer than the nano. (^_^)) It should keep it from getting all scuffed up and probably loosing the navigational cues. I got the whole thing inside a silicone case so theoretically, it shouldn't get scuffed up. Imagine if you dropped it at the beach and got sand in the case. You'll get it all scuffed up just getting the case off unless you just cut the case away. Remind me to put it in a ziplock bag or something when I go to the beach with it.
Oh, I had a Fuji digital camera, Sony VAIO laptop, a Toshiba digital camera, Sony web cam, and a Sony wireless card die on me. The laptop and the Toshiba had extended warranties and got replaced. The others are just dead. I'm probably forgetting some others, but I don't remember. (>.<) Is it just me or a lot of Sony stuff die on me? Hmmm....
Saturday, February 18, 2006
ike ike
For those of you that remember, ike ike is the ending theme to ichigo 100%. I had it stuck in my head when I was watching ichigo 100%. I came across it over at StepMania. If you want to listen to it, just download from the link above. It's a zip file and it has the mp3 inside. If you can't open it, just rename the smzip part to zip. You should be able to open it now if you couldn't. If you still can't open it, you probably need to go get 7-Zip or something. Have fun. I saw the music video of it on YouTube and it has para para in it. (>.<) My god, para para is alive. (O.o) I guess it made a comeback last year. (>.<) Since ike ike is from last year, it should come as no surprise... beats right for it... I guess I got that to look forward to if and when I head over to Japan. (>.<)
Oh, the diatribe on corporate responsibility is almost done. I think I spent like an hour and a half, at least, at the boba shop typing it. On the drive home I realized I forgot a few details. I was just typing it 'cause I didn't have an Internet connection @ the boba shop. I'll add the details and blog it in a day or so.
Oh, the diatribe on corporate responsibility is almost done. I think I spent like an hour and a half, at least, at the boba shop typing it. On the drive home I realized I forgot a few details. I was just typing it 'cause I didn't have an Internet connection @ the boba shop. I'll add the details and blog it in a day or so.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Count Zero
I skimmed through Count Zero today. Actually I read most of it... I came across it while cleaning stuff. I thought I gave away or donated all my sci-fi novels last time I went overseas, but I guess I missed one. (^_^);;
It was falling apart on me as I read it. That's planned obsolescence for you. Well, at least economics or greed or a bit of both... (I should really sit down and write that blog on corporate responsibility. I just don't feel like sitting here all that time to write it... soon...) It's all the acid in the cheap paper. The cover was falling off in chunks and it's all brown on the inside.
I've been messing with dual monitor set up this week and really getting into it. I got a few extra monitors... Anyone want a cheap monitor? I don't know how I lived without using this setup. It would have saved me some money if nothing else...
I also realized I'm dreaming bilingually... It usually doesn't happen, but this week, I counted three languages. I had an English/Japanese dream and an English/Korean dream. Go figure. It's not like I've been using either Asian language more than usual.
It was falling apart on me as I read it. That's planned obsolescence for you. Well, at least economics or greed or a bit of both... (I should really sit down and write that blog on corporate responsibility. I just don't feel like sitting here all that time to write it... soon...) It's all the acid in the cheap paper. The cover was falling off in chunks and it's all brown on the inside.
I've been messing with dual monitor set up this week and really getting into it. I got a few extra monitors... Anyone want a cheap monitor? I don't know how I lived without using this setup. It would have saved me some money if nothing else...
I also realized I'm dreaming bilingually... It usually doesn't happen, but this week, I counted three languages. I had an English/Japanese dream and an English/Korean dream. Go figure. It's not like I've been using either Asian language more than usual.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Jihad, Osama Bin Laden, and Al-Qaeda
We've been hearing about all the phone surveillance going on. I guess the system looks for certain words. If you put words like jihad, Osama Bin Laden, and Al-Qaeda, then would the government come check out and monitor your blog and/or website?
If that's the case... Welcome NSA, FBI, CIA, US Secret Service, DHS, and anyone else who might be visiting. Sorry, if you got left out. Leave a comment and I'll fix it right up. Since you're here, how about a little donation to help me out? Donation button is on the right side. Thanks to the US Secret Service, I could use the help. They are very slow. It's been over six month already. (x.X) If not, can you send some friends, acquaintances, or whoever? Like Jack Abramoff, Halliburton, or some such. I'm sure they could spare a few bucks. Some of you might be able to as well. Thanks.
If that's the case... Welcome NSA, FBI, CIA, US Secret Service, DHS, and anyone else who might be visiting. Sorry, if you got left out. Leave a comment and I'll fix it right up. Since you're here, how about a little donation to help me out? Donation button is on the right side. Thanks to the US Secret Service, I could use the help. They are very slow. It's been over six month already. (x.X) If not, can you send some friends, acquaintances, or whoever? Like Jack Abramoff, Halliburton, or some such. I'm sure they could spare a few bucks. Some of you might be able to as well. Thanks.
Give the Shaft to the Existing Customers
If you're an AT&T/SBC DSL customer, why don't you give them a call at the corporate office and give them a piece of your mind by offering new customers $14.99 pricing plan for 6 month while doing nothing for existing customers. The corporate number is 888.225.5322. Have fun. They won't give out their number. Damn bastiches!! Don't you just love how they work... but this is the company that wants to double charge for the Internet (tiered Internet). But we do get double charged for our mobile service. Incoming calls aren't free...
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