My Tivo decided to record Animal Precinct and Animal Cops in the off hours, so I decided to give them a chance while cleaning my guns (yes, I’ve been a bad boy and just now got around to cleaning them from Friday’s range session).  I hate to see any animal suffer needlessly, but I’ve always had a soft spot for dogs.  Anyone who hurts a dog deserves to be hung by their toes and bled slowly.

I don’t see how the people in New York and Detroit can keep doing that job.  Seeing that much abuse, neglect, and depravity on a daily basis would drive me over the edge.  Nevertheless, I’m glad that they’re doing it.

Remind me not to get Rachel Lucas pissed off at me.  I don’t know the facts behind the situation she’s describing, but I know how she feels.  If she had comments going, I’d commiserate with her there, but I also understand how difficult the last semester of college can be (in my case I took 19 hours, 3 of which were for a project class that took every spare minute, and worked part time in the computer center).

I have a friend who is in a domestic abuse situation and I worry about her.  I’d like to grind the little bastard she’s seeing into the ground, but I keep it to myself most of the time because I don’t see anything I can do about it (at least without landing myself in jail).  It’s horribly frustrating to sit by and watch someone stay in that kind of situation (it’s even more frustrating to know that you can’t help until she is ready for it).  So far it appears to be mostly mental (which is bad enough), but I worry that it will escalate to serious injury.

I’ve always been a bit suspicious of unions.  As a strong proponent of free association, they got off on the wrong foot with me when I learned that you have to pay union dues at many workplaces even if you don’t join.  I certainly understand the conditions that spawned unions in America, and there are times when collective bargaining would be helpful.  But I am troubled by the “us versus them” mentality that many unions bring to any dispute.  There also seems to me to be an odor of socialism wafting from many involved in union organizing (which is the kiss of death as far as I’m concerned).

My profession has been pretty resistant to unions so far, and I am not a member of any union nor is one available in my workplace, so I don’t normally give much thought to them.  Two recent incidents have brought them back to the foreground for me, though.

Our local news media pays a good deal of attention to the situation with American Airlines, which is owned by AMR Corporation (based in Fort Worth).  American is losing money at an alarming rate and needs to make serious changes to stay in business.  They are trying to negotiate deals with the unions of the flight attendants and the pilots, and the last news reports were indicating that American could be in bankruptcy by May if something doesn’t change.  Instead of working to save the airline, though, the flight attendants’ union is trying to convince people to support more government assistance for American.  That really bugs me because the rest of us have to live with the economic viability of the businesses in which we work.  The rest of us would have to accept pay cuts or be out of a job.  Instead, they want to steal my money to prop up a private company.

The other thing that caught my attention was the strike by musicians on Broadway.  They are striking over the issue of mandatory minimum hiring.  The union currently requires each musical to hire 28 musicians, whether they are needed or not.  Mandatory hiring practices make everything less efficient.  There is no such thing as a free job.  Ultimately, the costs of those do-nothing employees are passed on to the ticket holders, driving up prices across the board.  Personally, I would be ashamed if the only reason I had a job was because of a mandatory minimum in the contract.

Perhaps unions made sense in the past, but the majority of what I’ve seen with modern unions has convinced me that I want nothing to do with them.

Update: (03/11/2003) This morning I heard that the flight attendants union is going to work with American now that they have realized how serious the situation is.

I went to the gun show in Fort Worth yesterday.  As usual, I was unable to resist making a couple of purchases, which I will photograph and write up in due course.  However, I noticed something interesting that I thought I should comment on.  There was a white guy who had on a FUBU shirt.  I guess he never got the memo about the meaning of FUBU.  It means For Us By Us, where the “Us” specifically refers to black people.  I don’t know what black people may think of such things, but I wouldn’t do it.  It somehow seems disrespectful, although on the grand scale it’s a minor thing (e.x. compared to white guys who use the N-word amongst themselves, which always makes me cringe, and which is truly disrespectful).

This is interesting.  I guess I hadn’t given that much thought to pricing before.  But with the ability of people to price shop in ways that haven’t been done before, businesses are having to become a lot smarter about their pricing strategies.

“Most retail companies still do a lot of things manually,” says Steven Schwartz, senior vice president of planning and allocation at the Casual Male Retail Group, a chain of 475 clothing stores. “Our buyers and planners got reports on sales and inventory weekly,” says Schwartz. “And they evaluated those reports, looking for what was selling, what to discount, and deciding the markdown. But they were going through paper 12 inches thick. We took a markdown. If it worked, great. If it didn’t work, we took another markdown.”

A couple of years ago, Schwartz began to look for a better way, and he found a half-dozen companies offering software to automate the markdown process. It works somewhat like airline-pricing software: The computers absorb several years’ worth of data, look at what’s in stores and how it’s selling, and spit out recommendations for prices on specific clothing items. Casual Male picked ProfitLogic, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that is also working with the Home Depot, JC Penney, and Old Navy. During the first year, Casual Male did a test across six departments in all of its stores. Schwartz’s buyers would tell the ProfitLogic software what inventory they wanted to move, what the price was, and, most importantly, when Casual Male wanted to be sold-out ( or when the chain wanted to have a certain amount left to be sold at its outlet chain ).

ProfitLogic’s system not only gave guidance on what to discount, and by how much, it also allowed Casual Male’s buyers to ask their own questions, like, “What happens if we mark down 10% instead of 20%?”

The software inspired one basic change in the Casual Male markdown world: Discount less, but discount a lot sooner. “Merchants tend to get emotionally committed to what they buy,” says David Boyce, ProfitLogic’s vice president of marketing. “Buyers pick styles, colors. In general, they get it right, but once in a while, they don’t. They always say, ‘Just one more week! It will sell!’ ”

At Casual Male, the results were immediate. “Sell throughs”—selling all of something—“were much faster, much sooner,” says Schwartz. The clothing was still on sale—but not as deeply discounted as it would have been a month later in the season. Schwartz is protective about the exact improvement in profitability. But in June 2002, the software was rolled out for all items at all stores—after Casual Male upgraded its national point-of-sale system.

Maybe this is why I could never find the pants I wanted in stock at any of their local stores (or even on their website at times).  Of maybe I was just using the most popular size at the time*.  The situation seems to have improved recently, though.

Link via Slashdot.

* Yep, Casual Male is a “big and tall” outfit.  But since I’ve been doing the Atkins Plan since September, I may be able to kiss them goodbye at some point this year.  I’ve still got a ways to go before I finish, but the results so far are promising.

“When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.”
     —Matt Groening

Cox & Forkum have started their own site.  It certainly looks to be off to a good start (be sure not to have any liquids in your mouth before clicking).

Link via Little Green Footballs.

I noticed last week that Glenn Reynolds gave blood.  I was reminded of it by this post over at Misha’s site.

When I was in college I tried to give blood, but it was not successful.  After a few minutes the blood flow stopped.  I had only filled a small portion of the bag.  The technician tried moving the needle, but it still wouldn’t flow right.  By that time I was tired of being stuck with the needle so I gave up and left.  A couple of years later I had a burst appendix.  During my two stays in the hospital (the first for the operation, the second for a bad post-op infection), I had a total of 14 IVs inserted.  The problem was that after a short time (ranging from a few hours to a day), the IV would infiltrate and have to be moved to a different location.  I suppose it’s good that I’m not afraid of needles.

The lesson that I learned from all this is that my veins don’t like having foreign objects inserted into them.  So, as much as I’d like to help out, I won’t be attempting to donate blood anytime soon.  They had enough problems just getting a vial of blood for the lab tests on my last trip to the doctor (and it left a festive purple bruise on my arm for about a week).

I’ve been working from home all this week, and I don’t see how people do it.  I’m about to go nuts here because there’s no one to talk to.  For all my curmudgeonly ways, I still find that having interaction with other people is necessary.  Maybe that’s the secret.  Most of the people I know that are successful at working from home are married (and most of them have children).

Even so, I may work from home more often in the future, since I still managed to get the work done.  I just won’t be making a habit of doing it for more than a couple of days at a time.  The main benefit is that I get back over an hour a day that I would otherwise spend driving (30 minutes each way).  This means that I can start at 7:30 and quit at 4:30 or so.  Of course, that may be overly optimistic.  The project I’m working on will be doing system and performance testing in March.  This phase is always an opportunity for copious amounts of (unpaid) overtime (I’m not going to complain much, though, because the job keeps me in guns and ammo ).

I’m going to take the opportunity to go back to East Texas for the weekend before things get too hectic on the project.  So I’m off tomorrow and I’ll be away for the weekend.  If the war starts in the meantime, I’ll keep a good thought for our troops and the Iraqi civilians.

See everyone next week.

This is interesting:

Shoppers with a nose for fashion will soon be able to buy perfumed clothes thanks to new technology that allows scents to be woven into fabric.

The technology, called Sensory Perception Technologies (SPT), will allow firms to weave particles of moisturisers, deodorants, fragrances and even anti-tobacco agents into fabrics.

“Early trials have proved SPT a success with many global clothing companies interested in a host of products from moisturisers and deodorisers to signature scents,” ICI, whose fragrances unit Quest developed the technology with marketing body, The Woolmark Company, said in a statement on Monday.

ICI said the technology will allow fabric makers to incorporate tiny droplets in miniature waterproof particles into fabrics that can be activated by movement or touch.

I can see plenty of uses for a fabric with a built-in deodorizer.  Perhaps we wouldn’t be forced to share other people’s B.O. in elevators and other confined spaces.

Link via Slashdot.