Jason M. Hanley :: Custom Software Developer

New Zealand and running a virtual company

2009-07-08T20:00:00.002-04:00

It's official! All of the paperwork for a one-year working holiday trip to New Zealand is now complete. Melissa and I will be leaving September 1st, and returning August 2010.

I'll be continuing to operate my web development company -- Syllogistic Software Inc. -- while I'm there. We have invested a huge amount of time and effort into "virtualizing" the company.

With clients in Toronto, London (Ontario), Vancouver, and Waterloo, plus employees in Kitchener, Montreal, and elsewhere, communication is paramount.

Our infrastructure spans the Internet, including a full virtual PBX phone system with multiple extensions and IVR via Trixbox. All company email, shared calendars, and documents are hosted on Google Apps. Source code is managed by Subversion.

The heart and soul of the operation is handled by an internal application we wrote, called simply the "Project Management System". This allows precise, simple collaboration between clients and programmers and ensures that no request ever falls through the cracks.

It is now finally possible for someone with a laptop and Internet connection to collaborate and run a software development business as effectively in one place, as just about anywhere in the world.

Exciting times indeed!

Side note: Much thanks to Tim Ferriss for helping to inspire this vision.

Banned Companies List

2009-07-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've often referred to my "banned companies" list. This is a list I keep of companies that have caused me sufficient harm that I refuse to do business with them.

A few companies have been put on the list and then taken off again, usually because they improve or enough time passes.

However, two have done me sufficient wrong to earn lifetime bans:

Rogers: These anti-competitive frackers have screwed everyone for so long that they have their own popular hate site: http://www.ihaterogers.ca -- That alone says something. My personal vendetta is for them cutting off my Internet years ago for "using too much bandwidth" back when they I had their "unlimited" plan.

Apparently they thought they could advertise "unlimited", then make a limit -- but not tell you what the limit was, or how much you had used -- just that you used too much and that you should cut back some amount, or your service will remain suspended -- with no refund.

Yes, this was really their policy back in 2003. And since then, they've just become worse and worse -- charging more money and offering less bandwidth and service. In 10 years, they've singlehandedly pushed Canada from being #1 in the world for broadband access to almost dead last. That's right, thanks to Rogers, Canadian Internet access is worse than some African countries.
CIBC: These jerks are the worst of a bad bunch -- the big 5 colluding Canadian banks. Aside from being involved in major shady deals like Enron and subprime mortages, they really pissed me off back in 2001 when my student loans became due. I had two loans -- one through the Ontario government, and one from the Federal government. Once I graduated, they both became due and I received two separate notices with the balances owed, which I promptly paid. What I didn't know was that through some sort of adminstrative procedure (supposedly due to how the program was administered) a portion of my Ontario loan had been split off into a separate account.

Even though I had faithfully updated my contact information over the years, this split account somehow managed to get outdated contact information associated with it and they apparently couldn't contact me to let me know it was due. So they let this separate account accumulate interest for a full year (almost exact to the date) and then sent it to a collection agency. The collection agency magically manages to find my up-to-date contact information right away, and informs me that I owe them the original balance plus 1 year's interest plus a collection fee.

Just an adminstrative screwup? Perhaps -- except that I heard the exact same story from several other students. Nice little scam they had going there, "losing" people's contact information for a year.

So that's my "banned companies" list. Only two at the moment, but they're both really, really awful. I'd encourage everyone to seek alternatives wherever possible. You've been warned.

What stresses you out?

2009-06-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

They say some of the most stressful things in life are:

Starting a new job
Moving
Major relationship changes

Maybe I'm weird, but these aren't even on my top ten list. Sure, there's some stress involved, but they're all well within my control, and that makes them seem manageable.

The things that tend to cause me the most stress are the ones that are beyond my control, like:

Traffic/construction/accidents
Long checkout lines at stores
Things not being ready/complete when promised

Am I really strange, or do others feel the same?

What stresses you out?

Conservation or Economics?

2009-06-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

There seem to be more and more calls to conserve and "save the environment" these days.

Now, I'm all for efficiency. I hate to see unnecessary waste, and I love nature. I pick up my trash. I own the most fuel efficient car in its class. I do what I can to keep things nice.

The environmentalists have one thing right. We can't continue to consume resources at our current rate. Something needs to be done, but I don't understand the current approach of advertising and trying to "shame" people into conservation.

Appealing to morality works in some cases, but it has absolutely no effect on the worst abusers -- corporations.

The only reasonable way to affect this behavior is to adjust costs or make laws. So instead of subsidizing cheap, dirty energy, money needs to be forcibly redirected and invested in new research and technology.

"But we can't do that! The economy will crumble, and people will lose jobs!"

Fine, keep relying on cheap, dirty coal/oil/natural gas forever, and see what happens.

Yes, people will lose jobs in some industries. But jobs will be created in others.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep driving to buy groceries when it's raining, and I'll leave my kitchen light on at night -- even though they both "waste" energy.

Why? Not to be a jerk, but because I refuse to be bullied into acting irrationally by some environmental marketing campaign.

Individual/personal energy use is a drop in the bucket compared to industry and agriculture.

I'll "do my part" when it makes good economic sense to do so.

Rogers' infrastructure still sucks after all these years

2009-06-22T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've had the displeasure of using Rogers cable Internet at two different places I've been staying recently -- one in Guelph, and one in Breslau.

I remember back in the day (2003-ish, the last time I had Rogers myself) I had occasional, but persistent problems with one major thing -- any time I had a large outgoing transfer happening, all of my incoming transfers went slow and flaky.

For instance, my telnet connections will stay connected for hours -- until I send a big (10-15MB) upload through via FTP. Then it drops the connection.

Or if I do a big Subversion commit, all of the sudden all my DNS lookups start failing. This is something I remember from years and years ago, that they still apparently haven't fixed.

For the longest time, I thought this was just a problem with cable modem technology, so I bought Bell DSL and was reasonably satisfied (until they started capping and throttling, that is).

However, when I was in Texas, I had Time Warner cable Internet and I have to say that it was excellent! The speed was better than Bell's DSL, and I never had trouble with simultaneous incoming/outgoing transfers.

As far as I know, the underlying technology is nearly the same -- which leads me to believe that Rogers' problems are just incompetance, or more likely, laziness. With the lack of competition in Canada, people only have a choice between crap, or crappier.

By the way, I love how this site: http://www.ihaterogers.ca/ shows up on the first Google results page for the search "Rogers".

Different ways to spend $2,000

2009-06-17T19:00:00.002-04:00

For $2,000, I could buy:

One LG 47" LCD TV: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0770HDS0010121815

Or, all of the following:

Flight from Toronto to Los Angeles
Flight from Los Angeles to Fiji
4 days/3 nights in a resort in Fiji
Flight from Fiji to Auckland, New Zealand
13 months of world-wide health insurance (excluding USA)

That's right, everything above totaled only $1998.19, including all taxes, fees, etc. That seems like a really good deal somehow.

Driving in stop and go traffic

2009-06-14T19:00:00.001-04:00

Driving to Toronto one evening, I was very annoyed with how traffic was moving, and decided it might be therapeutic to rant about it. Here is the raw, unedited (but slightly censored) result:

People need to be taught how to drive in stop and go traffic. For some reason, people think that the most efficient way to drive through stop and go traffic is to accelerate as fast as possible, and then slam on the brakes.

And then, accelerate as fast as possible again, and then slam on the brakes all over again.

Now, countless studies have shown that the most efficient way to move traffic is actually everyone going at the same speed in a nice smooth, fluid manner. And, slowing down when you see the car in front of you slow down, and leaving enough space in-between the cars to act as a bit of a buffer.

And in fact, if people drove like this, you wouldn't actually have stop and go traffic. You would have always going traffic, just going a little bit slower.

But people insist on this, and they cut in and out of lanes, and then speed up and go thirty kilometers per hour -- for a second -- and then slam on the brakes and stop.

F#@!ing idiotic. Anyways, somebody has to teach people that that is not the right way to drive.

This is my first attempt at embedding audio in a blogger post, so I have no idea how it will work. Supposedly if you are reading in something like Google Reader or Bloglines, an embedded player will show up automatically.

If that doesn't work, you can download the audio directly here: http://jasonhanley.com/mp3/DrivingInStopAndGoTraffic.mp3

Great to see that people are doing!

2009-06-09T12:59:00.000-04:00

I have been in touch with lots of people regarding my previous blog posting, and I'm very impressed to see that a lot of people are indeed aware of the problem, and actively working toward solutions. In fact, Michael Geist, who has been speaking and writing about this for much longer than I have, recently spoke in front of a Senate committee and explained things in very simple, precise manner. Here is a great excerpt (emphasis added by me):

"The truth is that there are ways, if we had unlocked devices and had a more open space, we would encourage this innovation without the gatekeepers that we see. Fundamentally, that is what we see taking place here. Certain gatekeepers exist in the chain; sometimes it is the device manufacturers; often — particularly in Canada — it is the carrier themselves who set limitations on what can come into the marketplace, precisely because it is to their competitive advantage to do so. We do not have enough competition to counteract that at the moment.

Who is to blame? I think there is plenty of blame to go around. We have the CRTC — to be honest — asleep at the switch, particularly on this wireless issue; they have not been involved at all. On net neutrality, for example, a complaint was brought against Bell Canada’s activities. They found for Bell in a manner that just last week was appealed asking for a reconsideration, noting that the CRTC itself has acknowledged in public statements that they may not have had all of the facts. Even when they do get engaged, the perception is that they may be overly cosy with some of the companies that they regulate, so there is ample reason to lay some of the blame at the CRTC.

It is not just the CRTC, however. I think we can blame the Competition Bureau as part of this. It was the bureau that, when we had two providers in the GSM space — Fido and Rogers — allowed a merger of those two services to go ahead, taking away the only competition we had in the GSM space and leaving us with just the one provider.

We can look to governments. This is not a partisan issue because this falls under both the watch of when we had Liberal governments and now, more recently, Conservative governments. In both instances, they let broadband task force reports sit there. There has been no digital strategy for Canada for more than 10 years now, while we see other countries move ahead more aggressively. I think we can look to all of these players to say that they have let us down, quite frankly.

The results are in the independent statistics. You can certainly get lobby groups or association groups to come in and spin the numbers any way they like, but if you take a look at statistics from the independent people — groups such as the OECD that no one will question — the numbers do not lie. We are falling behind other countries, and Canadian consumers know it intuitively. I suspect many of you know it, based on the experience you may have had just last week when you had a chance to compare what they have in Europe to what we have in Canada."

The full transcript is here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/40/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/tran-e/47244-e.htm?Language=E&Parl=40&Ses=2&comm_id=19

Keep it up everyone. We have a lot of work to do to reverse the damage done over the past decade!

Stop talking and start doing!

2009-06-07T14:22:00.000-04:00

People love to talk. It's in our nature. We're social creatures.

At some point, however, if you want to get anything done, you have to stop talking and start doing.

There is a big conference in Stratford this week called "Canada 3.0." One of the major sponsors apparently has something to do with the recent government spend of $10 million plus to "stimulate" things through creation of some sort of "Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR)."

The stated purpose is to "create jobs, improve the quality of life of all Canadians and strengthen the economy for future generations."

This is all fine and good. Every project needs a high-level/brainstorming phase. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be many (any?) specific goals about how this is all going to work.

You see, there are some severe, systematic problems in Canada that tend to destroy innovation in the early stages. Let's have a look at some pretty graphs.

In 2000, Canada was leading the way with broadband penetration:

Can you spot the difference in the 2006 graph?

Similarly, back in 1995, Canada was among the leaders in mobile technology:

But by 2005, something had changed:

Canada is behind many nations that have small fractions of our GDP. Keep in mind these are plotted logarithmically. So, for instance, Israel's mobile reach is more than double Canada's rate.

If you think these charts are scary, head to www.gapminder.org and run the animations. The most alarming thing is the speed at which we've been overtaken. I'm sure the more recent data will look far bleaker.

And don't give me the old "Canada is so big" argument. Most Canadians live in large, densely populated cities, just like everywhere else in the world. Plus, we used be to way ahead, despite our huge land area. And Russia is just as big and vast as our country, yet they have nearly twice as many cell phones per person.

Why have we fallen behind? Because the government has been asleep at the wheel, letting a few private corporations bleed everyone else dry charging premium rates for old, obsolete technology.

They have no incentive to invest in R&D, because there is no competition in the mobile phone or broadband internet categories. Meanwhile, the government keeps passing laws and making rulings to help these companies expand and protect their monopolies, killing any incentive for new or even existing international companies to take them on.

This is really freaking basic economics, folks. High-school economics. Maybe first year college.

If we want to "create jobs, improve the quality of life of all Canadians and strengthen the economy for future generations" it's going to take a hell of a lot more then some "center" with no clearly defined purpose.

Instead, let's allocate a couple bucks towards enforcing the Canada Competition Act, which supposedly "contains both criminal and civil provisions aimed at preventing anti-competitive practices in the marketplace."

Let's bust up these old cartels that are cutting off the oxygen supply.

That's the only way we'll have even a small chance of keeping pace with the rest of the world.

So please - at some point in the near future, stop talking about "ways to innovate", and start doing something to make it happen!

Progressive versus Conservative

2009-05-22T10:36:00.000-04:00

Progressive versus Conservative. Us versus them. A battle waged in the media every day.

But how many people actually know what these words mean? People certainly have strong stereotypes that come to mind.

Here's some dictionary definitions to help out.

Progressive: "Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods."

Liberal: "Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have:

Conservative: "Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change."

Conservative: "Strongly favoring retention of the existing order."

So basically, Progressive = Change, and Conservative = Don't Change.

This is why the "Progressive Conservative" party name never made any sense. Somebody just stuck two words with completely opposite meanings together.

Meanwhile, there are some (mostly talk radio hosts) who work very hard to convince the public that:

Conservative (aka. Republican) = Small government, low taxes

Progressive (aka. Democrat) = Big government, high taxes

I'm not sure how this misconception started, but it is about as far from true as it can be.

In fact, Conservative politicians, by definition, strive to keep government more or less the way it is right now -- which is not small by any means.

Progressive politicians are the only ones who promote significant governmental change -- be it bigger, smaller, or different in other ways.

To sum up the topic, here's a not entirely accurate, but still cute little video I found when looking up dictionary definitions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nWIGarTCj4

Car Accidents... Aren't!

2009-04-17T14:12:00.000-04:00

Did you know that nearly 100% of drivers involved in accidents don't think it was their fault?

This is perhaps not shocking, but what might surprise you more is that nearly 100% of them are wrong!

Most accidents are completely preventable, if you just follow advice from a good driver training program.

The "T-bone"

Primary Fault: "T-bone-ee" mis-judges distance of (or doesn't even notice) oncoming car and turns left in front of them

Common Excuses:
"They came out of nowhere!" Cars do not randomly appear from spatial vortexes. It was barreling towards you the entire time.
"They were speeding!" If you could tell they were speeding, you sure as hell should not have turned in front of them.

Primary Prevention: Don't turn in front of cars unless you damn well know you're going to make it! (duh)

Secondary Fault: "T-bone-er" ran head on into a car that turned right in front of them! Never a good idea.

Secondary Prevention: Keep your foot over the brake and plan an avoidance when approaching an intersection with cars waiting to turn left.

The "Rear-end"

Primary Fault: "Rear-end-er" hits the car in front of them because they didn't stop in time

Common Excuses:
"It was snowing/raining/slippery!" Yeah, so drive according to the road and weather conditions and leave some extra space.
"They stopped too quickly!" Umm, NO -- YOU stopped too SLOWLY.

Primary Prevention: Always leave enough room ahead of you for an emergency stop, given current road and weather conditions.

Secondary Fault: The "Rear-end-ee" probably DID stop fast -- likely because they weren't paying enough attention.

Secondary Prevention: Avoid distractions (phone/texting/emailing) while driving and always look far ahead so you can anticipate problems before they "come out of nowhere."

Those are just two examples. There are many more.

So everyone -- please, pay attention and take responsibility when you're driving, because if you are involved in an accident -- it's probably, at least partially, YOUR FAULT!

Software Development: When Change is Bad

2009-04-10T00:26:00.000-04:00

As software moves into maturity, it becomes a delicate art to add features and fix bugs without screwing up stuff that already works.

I've worked on three 10+ year-old, massively-sized projects (CorelDRAW, Microsoft Access, and ERDAS Imagine) and let me tell you -- the older the code base, the tougher it gets.

In very mature projects, maintainability starts to become more important than optimization, and the prevention of introducing new bugs can trump fixing old ones. You’ll even see libraries where they decide to keep old bugs in place, since consumers up the chain rely on the buggy behavior.

If you’re a programmer, it's important that before you change any function that is used elsewhere in the system (a "core" function), you check each and every place it is called and understand the implications of your change. If there's any doubt, you need to either step through, or ask someone else who is more familiar with that code.

A safer alternative is to write a new function that caters to your specific needs. This may seem wasteful at first, but it actually pays off in the long run. This is because it usually makes for less complicated logic in the function, and simpler dependency chains.

Adding additional parameters and conditional branches in an existing function can introduce subtle changes that cascade to other parts, causing subtle bugs that are difficult to track down, and even harder to fix.

That said, there is a time and place for refactoring, but it needs to be done carefully. It should be done independent of other changes, and be extremely well tested.

Automated testing and regression tests help fight this war, but coverage is never 100%.

I've found it's often better to err on the cautious side and try not to break things in the first place :)

The real USA healthcare experience

2009-03-28T17:30:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of hearing Canadians complain about our healthcare system. You know what? We do have to wait longer for some types of treatment -- but not usually anything life-threatening. And you know what else? That's life. Resources are expensive, limited, and in Canada, they're allocated based on urgency of need.

I had to go to a clinic here in the States for a minor issue that I've visited several Canadian clinics for in the past. The experience was nearly identical! They had the same advice, and the same treatment. The setup was similar. I swear even the posters on the wall were the same.

However, there are a few major differences. See if you can spot them.

The Canadian Experience:

Realize you have a problem

Go to walk-in clinic

Present your health card

Wait (1-2 hours)

Get treated

Go home

The American Experience:

Realize you have a problem

Call insurance company

Explain problem

Get pre-approved and record claim number

Go to walk-in clinic

Attempt to have them bill the insurance company directly

Often have them refuse to bill insurance company directly

Wait (15-30 minutes)

Get treated

Go to cashier

Pay bill out of pocket (cash, visa, mastercard)

Get full detailed receipt for insurance

Go home

Fill out claim form

Fax or mail claim form and detailed receipt to insurance company

Wait for payment in the mail (1-4 weeks)

Optionally argue with insurance company about non-payment or co-pay amounts

Deposit reimbursment cheque (assuming they pay)

Can you see the difference?

I only had about 1/4 the wait time in the US clinic. The visit (which only lasted about 15 minutes) cost about $100, which I put on my credit card.

Meanwhile, I had to spend at least the amount of time saved in the clinic fussing around with stupid insurance paperwork.

But here's the big difference. While I "jumped the queue" and enjoyed quick treatment for my minor, non-life-threatening problem, millions of middle-class Americans suffered through their illnesses, got sicker, and some of them probably even died. Why? Because they had little or no insurance and simply couldn't afford it.

How to get people to respond to email

2009-03-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

People are getting busier and busier, and it is becoming somewhat of an art to actually get people to read and respond to emails.

Here are some quick tips to make the experience better for both the sender and receiver:

Make emails as short and concise as possible.

Important: Write a concise, relevant subject line!

Separate your short sentences into paragraphs with a space between them.

If you are making multiple points, or asking multiple questions, put them in a numbered list. Better yet -- write separate emails with different subject lines.

Make sure it will fit on one screen of a typical email program. (a lot of people don’t like scrolling)

Use bold and highlighting to draw attention to the really important parts.

Edit your emails multiple times, and cut out unnecessary words and sentences.

If your email requires a response, try summing up by asking one simple question at the very end of the email.

People are great at writing long, rambling emails, but seldom seem willing to read, understand, take action on, and reply to messages they receive.

If everyone started following a few of the above tips, we all might just understand each other a bit better :)

Healthcare: Canada vs. USA

2009-02-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

What are the facts?

Total health care spending per person / year:
USA: $6,717 USD (46% government = $3,089)
Canada: $3,678 USD (70% government = $2,574)

Fact: Americans pay almost twice as much per capita for health care even though 1/6 of their population lacks coverage.

Fact: The US government already subsidizes health care, and already spends more per person than Canada.

Fact: Of the 27 richest nations on the planet, the US is the only country without universal health coverage.

Fact: 16% of the US population (45 million people and growing) have no health insurance at all and are basically screwed if they incur a critical injury or sickness they can't sue for.

What's up for debate?

The overall quality of health care in the two countries has been widely debated, but the overall consensus -- of all scientific studies based on measurable data and facts -- is that the quality is roughly comparable.

I've written an article over at Google Knol exploring some of the debatable points. Have a look at:
http://knol.google.com/k/jason-hanley/healthcare-canada-vs-usa

Change or Die: Newspapers and Media

2009-02-09T20:20:00.000-05:00

I've recently been looking for an apartment to rent this summer, and have been amazed to find how useless the local newspapers have become!

In the days of old, classified ads were the only place you'd ever look if you were renting an apartment. This also used to be a major revenue source for papers.

I remember back when the Internet was all shiny and new. Smart people said that newspapers would either have to embrace it or be made obsolete.

Well, it took over a decade, but it looks like the matter has been decided.

Some papers have been able to transition to the online world, but a lot haven't. Their classifieds business has been taken over by sites like Craigslist and Kijiji. There are probably blogs out there getting better advertising revenue than the average local newspaper. (I have no stats to back that up, but I'd still bet on it)

Newspapers will probably be around for as long as the Baby Boomers are, but I can't see Gen-X and younger having much need for them.

This is only the first of the major media industries to be wiped out. Music and movie distribution companies know that they're next. They've seen the writing on the wall for a long time, and have continued to refuse to change their business model.

Big media company execs are doing their best to use lobbying, law-making and litigation to squeeze out the last bit of money. That way they'll be able to retire on big pensions and go play golf as their companies self-destruct.

Like the websites that have displaced local newspapers, smart competitors that know how to leverage technology will eventually prevail.

It just might take a while.

Television is Toxic

2009-01-29T14:36:00.000-05:00

I’ve recently gone from a 5-year period without any cable television to a condo that has a tv in every room.

When I’m eating, I’ll often turn it on for a half hour or so, possibly getting sucked in for an hour show. I usually watch TBS, Discovery, Comedy Central, or Sci-Fi.

I had forgotten what constant bombardment from commercials feels like. The television is relentlessly telling me:

Eat more cheap, yummy fast food! $1 for burgers! $2.99 for a full, greasy meal complete with a 1 gallon soda!

But you’re fat, so take diet pills, and join Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig to buy “magical” food that will effortlessly make you lose weight.

You have to buy an American car or truck to make jobs and support the economy!

3 different companies have the absolute lowest car insurance rates. And people saved an average of $400 by switching from any of them to another.

Did you not pay your taxes? Were you deemed ineligible for government benefits? That’s not your fault! Sue them!

You need at least 5 different prescription drugs based on self diagnosis of vague symptoms. Talk to your doctor today!

…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Even though on a conscious level I know all of these things are ridiculous, I can’t help but wonder what effect they’re having on my subconscious.

No wonder North America is such a mess. Can anything be done to promote a more positive, proactive message?

Uncertain times breed opportunities

2009-01-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

Something to think about from Tim Ferris' blog:

"While many are wringing their hands, I recall the 1970s when we were suffering from an oil shock causing long lines at gas stations, rationing, and 55 MPH speed limits on Federal highways, a recession, very little venture capital ($50 million per year into VC firms), and, what President Jimmy Carter (wearing a sweater while addressing the Nation on TV because he had turned down the heat in the White House) called a “malaise”.

It was during those times that two kids without any real college education, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, started companies that did pretty well."

Also of note: Google grew substantially during the 2001-2003 recession.

Change or Die

2008-12-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

Every New Year’s people make resolutions to change. Few resolutions last.

In fact, research has shown that even if someone knows 100% for sure that their actions are endangering their life, only 10% would actually change their behaviour.

Yes, you read that correctly -- in the face of death, 90% of people will choose to die, rather than change their long-term habits.

Just about everyone in Western society knows that eating too much fat, salt, and sugar will kill them. They know that smoking and heavy drinking will kill them. This doesn’t seem to matter.

As a result, 80% or more of the health care budget is spent on diseases that are completely preventable. Have a look at the top five causes of death for developed countries:

Heart disease

Stroke

Respiratory infection

Lung cancer

Car accident

All of these are primarily behavioural. Meanwhile, they are draining critical resources from our health care system that could be focused on emergencies and other unavoidable issues.

So next time you’re complaining about the wait time at the emergency room, think about that greasy cheeseburger you wolfed down earlier, and the person that will be waiting in your spot once they’ve admitted you with blocked arteries.

This phenomenon applies to much more than health. It applies to technology, politics, and day to day life. See the original article from 2005 here: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change-or-die.html

The economics of selling everything you own

2008-12-23T19:37:00.000-05:00

In the process of selling all of my furniture for the move to a furnished condo in Texas, I’ve learned something very interesting about pricing. I had read about the effect before, but never experienced it so clearly.

It seems that for a lot of items, their demand curve looks almost like a cliff, where demand is near zero until you cross a certain threshold, then increases quickly to infinite.

For instance, I first posted some items on Kijiji at a high price since I wanted to continue using them right up until I moved. I then dropped the price, bit by bit to gauge demand. In every case, the first few drops did nothing and I had zero inquiries

Then, all of the sudden, I would cross a threshold where the emails started flooding in -- sometimes only a few minutes after I posted.

This is a really important lesson for anyone who sells a product or service. If you price it just slightly too expensive you might sell nothing, whereas only a small price drop could sell out your entire inventory.

Thinking about the big picture

2008-12-17T12:57:00.000-05:00

Dan Roam, aka. "the napkin guy" has a great recent post about proactive thinking about the big picture, instead of having simple knee-jerk reactions. Why do all of the "solutions" to the various economic problems seem like band-aid approaches doomed to fail?

"Wait a minute folks. What happens if we take just a couple minutes and look at the bigger picture? I'll bet a better set of solutions will appear." ... "It seems to me there is a lot more that makes sense when the pieces are looked at in concert rather than alone. All the sudden potential solutions that have a long-term impact emerge."

See the full article at: http://digitalroam.typepad.com/digital_roam/2008/12/fixing-the-usa-or-tilting-at-windmills.html

Ontario considering cellphone driving ban

2008-10-27T11:45:00.000-04:00

Ontario is consider a ban on "electronic communication devices" for anyone driving a vehicle. As much as I appreciate the convenience of being able to make a quick call to a friend, numerous studies have shown that the risk of driving while talking on a cellphone is close to that of drinking and driving.

Car accidents are the #1 non-medical cause of death in developed nations, so it only makes sense to try to make driving safer. Based on the statistics, and what I've seen on the road, I'd have to support a ban like this.

Reported various places, including a detailed article in the Globe and Mail.

Will the real jhanley please stand up?

2008-10-24T19:10:00.000-04:00

I signed up for Google's Gmail service in the early beta and was very happy to receive the nice, easy to remember jhanley alias. This has turned out to be a bit of a mixed blessing.

As Gmail has become more popular, I've started receiving frequent emails for John Hanley, Jessica Hanley, Jane Hanley, Joe Hanley, and many more. And for the most part, these people are entering the wrong email address themselves!

I've received funeral condolences, "pen pal" letters, very personal family information, personal financial information, login information for test scores, scads of logins for commercial sites. You name it, I've seen it.

I try my best to contact someone to let them know they have the wrong address, but sometimes there's no return address. In that case, the best I can do is cancel the account/subscription and hope they'll get a clue.

Please -- everyone -- take some time to learn what your email address is and try to enter it correctly! Otherwise, you might unwittingly send some very personal details to some poor confused stranger out there in Internet land.

Canada: A failure of democracy

2008-10-17T00:12:00.000-04:00

The election is over. Here are the results:

$300 million was spent to bring us “democracy”, but nobody is happy with the results. Because of our antiquated electoral system:

The Bloc received 20 more seats than they deserved

The NDP received 18 less seats than they deserved

The Conservatives received 28 more seats than they deserved

The Greens received no seats at all -- 21 less than they deserved

People had to resort to strategic voting instead of voting for what they actually believed in

More people didn’t vote at all than the combined sum of Liberal and Conservative votes

If the Left had united, as the Right did in 2003, they would have formed a majority government. Unless reformed, our electoral system will eventually devolve into something even worse -- a dysfunctional two-party system like the United States.

Before the next federal election, we need to adopt a proportional, progressive system, like most modern nations already have.

Want to find out more? Check out http://www.fairvote.ca/

Gas Price Conspiracies

2008-10-11T20:03:00.000-04:00

Now that gas prices are on the decline again, everyone has forgotten about them and moved on to the new crisis du jour.

However, we are in an election, and politicians love to fan the flames of the whole gas price conspiracy fire, alleging price fixing/gouging and the like.

I'm no fan of the big energy companies, but I've always known that retail gasoline prices were strongly correlated with crude oil prices. The constant rantings about gas prices over the summer made me curious about the nature of the correlation.

I plotted the last 10 years of gas vs. crude oil. (real dollars, both adjusted to an index of 100 in 1997, Weekly data from here, Oil is blue, Gas is red)

The prices are highly correlated, but the gas price fluctuations are actually "smoother" than the oil prices. You can see in the late 90s gas failed to fall as quickly as oil, and over the past year, how gas has not risen as quickly as oil.

The general trend, however, is strong correlation. As I can tell, there's no evidence to indicate any sort of conspirancy, price fixing, or price "gouging" that seems to be constantly implied by popular media.

What's your interpretation of the data?