Two Numbers

75,105 and $3.27

The first, is the number of miles on my car odometer. The second, the price of unleaded gas at my regular station in San Mateo this morning.

Days like this, I start wondering whether it might be time for a new, more fuel efficient car.

But on the other hand, here’s another number: 31.5.

That’s the average MPG my 2000 Saturn SL2 has been getting recently. And that’s not at all bad for a 7-year-old automatic transmission car.

I could certainly do better. if you look at the Top 10 Most Fuel-Efficient Cars of 2007 (as rated by Edmunds.com), it’s clear that as good as I’m doing with my current car, there’s room for improvement in my MPG. The fact that I don’t know how to drive stick shift does limit my options, though. I’d have to go hybrid to see a significant MPG improvement.

With my student loans starting to kick in, I’m not very enthusiastic about taking on a new car payment, though. So perhaps it’s just as well that my old Saturn is merrily chugging along.

I Wouldn’t Do That If I Were You

It’s hardly unusual to read a news item about corporate downsizing. This one caught my eye, though: Circuit City to cut more than 3,500 jobs. Here’s why: The company is downsizing by laying off their highest-paid employees. Not the ones with the worst performance ratings, not the ones who’ve been there the shortest amount of time. They’re firing their best-paid retail employees.

I don’t know the details of Circuit City’s employment practices, but generally speaking, you have to either be good at what you do and/or have been with the company a longer amount of time in order to get better paid. So if that holds true here, then Circuit City is deliberately dumping the cream of their retail workforce in order to save money.

In other words, they are firing the people who actually know where stuff is in the stockroom, or how to get it if it’s not there. Laying off the ones who know how to ring in a return on the register without having to ask for help and take 10 minutes doing it. Getting rid of the people who actually know something about their products and can talk intelligently about them.

That sounds like an incredibly boneheaded move to me.

But what do i know? After all, I only managed a retail store. I wouldn’t know anything about how much more productive a seasoned employee is than someone who’s still learning how to do their job. Nope, I must be completely wrong.

Or maybe not. Even Home Depot seems to know better:

Circuit City’s cuts come at a time when other retailers are trying to put more knowledgeable workers on store floors. Home Depot Inc., whose new chief executive is struggling to re-ignite sales growth at its stores, said it has raised pay to attract skilled tradespeople, such as carpenters and electricians.

Good luck with the layoffs, Circuit City. I think you’re going to need it.

It’s All Connected

I know I said at the end of my last post that perhaps we should have a ‘blog against sexism in technology’ week, and strictly speaking this isn’t a post about that, but I think it’s relevant anyway. Check out this anecdote from Anthony Bourdain:

I will careful tell you of an equally horrifying episode. At a recent event, I was introduced to the incoming (Beard House honcho whose position I will not describe here). Suffice to say it was a high position. Very high.

When she inquired about the possibility of my involvement in some tandem Beard event with my friend Eric Ripert, I declined, saying it would be hypocritical of me–given what I’ve said and written–to take part. I explained that I would be an enthusiastic supporter and participant of all things Beard when and if I saw some kind of an effort to acknowledge the people who are actually doing the cooking in this country–the between 30 and 70% of restaurant employees of Mexican and Latino origin–of varying legal status. I was thinking a few bucks set aside for free para-legal advice. Maybe a widely accessible library. English lessons.

Her response? She looked at me with an expression of absolute sincerity and said, “Oh..we’re very aware of the important contribution of our Lateeeno population.” Then, proudly boasted about the good works Beard House has been doing on their behalf: “Why…just last week at a dinner at the House, 7 out of 10 of the waiters we hired were Lateeno!” She looked at me, guilessly, as if expecting a pat on the head.

Here, it’s Latino workers in the food industry instead of women in technology, but the unthinking cluelessness is all too familiar. “The extreme carelessness of the very rich” is how F Scott Fitzgerald put it, and that sounds just about right. The real prerogative of being in a position of power is that you don’t have to care. You can slide through your comfortable, privileged life without ever once having to think about how food gets on a table, or why everyone else in the boardroom looks just like you.

I was raised to believe that there’s a responsibility that comes with power, though. No one person can do something about all the problems in this world, but you can have an impact if you set a goal and make a real effort to do something about it. Some people like to make fun of Hollywood stars who so earnestly champion their pet causes. I don’t. There’s few enough people in this world who both want to do something good and are in a position to have that kind of an impact. As far as I’m concerned, the more the merrier.

On Female Bloggers and Threats

Kathy Sierra writes a blog – Creating Passionate Users – that anybody who is in the business of creating technology products should read. And today she’s running scared from a string of death threats and sexually-explicit online harassment.

Misogyny in the technology business is hardly new. And despite considerable advances for a lot of us women in the field, it’s still an issue — for just one fairly tame example, witness some of the comments about women in this thread posted over this past weekend on the widely-read ‘Joel on Software’ forums. There’s plenty more where that came from; I just don’t have the stomach to Google up examples right now. It sucks, and it needs to change, although sometimes I wonder if that change will come in my lifetime.

In the unlikely event that you’re reading this, Kathy, all I can say is, hold onto your loved ones for support, and keep your chin up. You’re right to be angry, and you’re right to be afraid. But don’t let that fear run your life, either. It just gives the people who do this kind of crap more power. It’s like net trolls. They live and gain power by generating response. Ignore them, and they wither on the vine.

That’s easy for me to say, of course; it’s been more than 8 years since anyone has seriously harassed me online. Plus, I never got death threats, and I didn’t have to worry about children. So perhaps her response is the right one for now, or at least for her.

UPDATE 7:11PM

Robert Scoble weighs in:

So, since she doesn’t feel safe. I’m going to stop blogging in support of Kathy, who I consider a friend and someone who’s voice would be dearly missed here. I’ll be back Monday.

The Internet culture is really disgusting. Today when I was on Justin.TV the kinds of things that people were discussing in the chat room there were just totally disgusting and over the top.

We have to fix this culture. For the next week, let’s discuss how.

And, Kathy, Maryam and I love you and are there for you. Don’t let these jerks get you down.

It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me. I take those attacks in stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man.

It makes me realize just how ascerbic this industry and culture are toward women. This just makes me ill.

Great response, and I can’t say how much I appreciate some A-list recognition that this IS a big problem for women in technology. But taking a week off in support of Kathy? I’m not so sure about that. How about a ‘blog against sexism in technology’ week instead?

WiiMashup

Craig pointed out a cool mashup site today: MapWii.

One of the clunkier aspects of the Wii is the multi-step process necessary to get a friend’s Mii on your console. The result is that although our Mii Parade is well-populated, it’s 98% random Miis and only a couple from people we actually know.

UPDATE 3/26: Hello, Digg users.