Free money for everyone.

A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.

This is an interesting solution to the Swiss income inequality problem. The cost of living in Switzerland is very high, which puts an extra burden on low earners.

I don't imagine many Swiss citizens would be able / content to quit work and live on $33,600 per year alone. Couples, on the other hand, could do just fine. "Earning" $67,200 per year for doing absolutely nothing is a huge incentive to quit working. With a bit of frugality, a family could do just fine on that income, even with the cost of living as high as it is.

Then there's the whole matter of paying for the program. I'm sure the well-off Swiss aren't champing at the bit to pay higher taxes.

Income inequality is a problem. I don't think this solves it the right way.

I was going to write up my thoughts on Vesper, but Dr. Drang¹ read my mind and beat me to the punch.

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine a new note-taking app written by an unknown developer. It’s has a nice, clean look and is easy to use, but it has no syncing, no TextExpander support, and no URL scheme. Assuming the app got any attention at all, how much effort would Apple bloggers put into defending that design choice? How often would the phrase “data silo” be used?

Many (Most?) of us work a day job - probably in an office setting. Working as part of a team in an office can be great, but it also has it's challenges. Being heard, even if you have great ideas, is one of those challenges. Your instincts may tell you to speak louder, and more often. After all, if you're always outspoken, always loud, people have to listen to you, right?

Not so fast, buckaroo.

In fact, the complete opposite is true. Think for a moment - you probably have that guy in the office who just won't shut up. He speaks up in every meeting, trying to take it over. He's constantly giving his opinion on things, even if they don't really concern him. Regardless of the subject matter, Mr. Chatty has something to say.

Do you listen to this guy?

I don't. And I'd wager to say that you don't either. This guy is talking all the time, and that dilutes his effectiveness drastically. You aren't likely to take his thoughts seriously.

Do you want to be heard? Shut up.

Don't voice your opinion at every opportunity. Keep your thoughts to yourself; let others take the stage. That is, unless you feel very strongly about the matter at hand. By keeping quiet in most situations, when you do finally speak up, everyone is very likely to stop and listen - really listen.

Choose your timing carefuly, and choose your words carefully. Make sure every time you speak, you have a clear purpose. Make sure your words are important, and that they will make a difference. Do that, and your coworkers will truly listen to you. Your words will matter - and all it takes it learning to keep quiet.

The Question. I hate The Question. Someone you know introduces you to someone you don't know. I'm not a fan of meeting new people, but I'll go with it. After exchanging names, The Question always pops up.

So, what do you do?

Do not ask this question. I hate it, and let me tell you why.

My first reaction to The Question is to ask questions of my own.

"Why do you care what I do? Will it make you think of me differently? If I say I'm a doctor, will you think better of me? If I say I'm a janitor, will you think less of me?"

"Oh I clean shit for a living."

Uncomfortable silence follows.

Well OK then; nice to meet you. BYE!

It's a good way to weed out people who you don't want to talk to. It's not a good way to meet people, though. No one wants to talk about shit.

Everyone wants to talk about being a doctor. Doctors save people's lives for crying out loud. Who wouldn't want to talk about that?

Hopefully you see my point. Within seconds of meeting me, this shiny new person has already decided that I am what I do. If I clean shit, I am shit. If I save lives, I'm the greatest person in the world.

This shiny new person doesn't know me, yet he has already formed a very strong opinion about me.

As for what I actually do, it's difficult to answer in a sentence. I like it, but it's complicated. It also sounds boring. I prefer not to answer The Question honestly because it's hard. It's also usually met with a blank stare.

I'm left with three choices.

1. Tell the truth and deal with the pain involved.
2. Tell people I'm a janitor to weed out the judgmental people who I don't want to know.
3. Make up something awesome.

Option 1 is out. I've been answering The Question honestly for too long, and I'm tired of it. Option 2 would be great, except the Person I Know is usually my wife, who I like. She's introducing me to people she knows, and I'm sure she doesn't want them to think she's married to a janitor.¹

Option 3 is the only reasonable choice. So here's my new answer to The Question:

I'm an assassin.

That's my new answer. When someone I just met asks me what I do, I say that I murder human beings for a living. That's an easier answer than the actual answer. It will also be interesting to see how people react. Disbelief? Repulsion? Interest?

My fingers haven't had any good words in them lately. I wonder if they're broken. Maybe I need to buy some new ones. Or maybe I can borrow someone's fingers.

That's stupid. No one is going to let me borrow his fingers. Besides, how would that even work? Even worse, what if the new, borrowed fingers have even worse words than my own?

No, no. There will be no borrowing of fingers. I'll have to figure this out with just the 10 fingers I have. I wonder though — if I had 11 fingers, would they have better things to say?

Andrew Marvin on mastery:

But there is a prerequisite question that must be answered before we can start putting in our 10,000 hours: What do I want to be extraordinary at?

No one can master everything. Choose carefully.

Sometimes quitting something that you love is the only reasonable choice.

It's not ideal. It's not what you want. You want to keep doing the thing – you love it after all. But sometimes that thing lies. Sometimes that thing isn't good for you. Sometimes that thing is really getting in the way of the other thing. You know, the thing that's really important.

So. Thing One and Thing Two.¹ How do you know when the thing you think you love, the thing that you enjoy, is actually the problem? That's tricky, of course. It seems like the Right Thing. Maybe you're good at it. Maybe it feels right when you're doing it.

Deep down, somewhere... you know the truth. You know that Thing One is not the Right Thing. The thing you love is the Wrong Thing. Or, it's the wrong thing for now.

So.

How do we know when information is true?

We are far more trusting of information than we should be. We have to be trusting, of course. There's no time to verify every bit of information we come across in life.

If you read something on the Internet, do you believe it?

You're hopping around online, and come across a hard to believe statement — something like:

Polar bears eat as many as 26 delicious baby seals per day .

Crazy, right? ¹

Your instincts would probably kick in and tell you that something isn't quite right with that statement. We all have a bullshit detector built in, to some degree.

Now let's change that statement a bit. What if it read:

Polar bears eat as many as 4 delicious baby seals per day .

Now that seems far more believable. In fact, you wouldn't question this statement at all. You would accept it as fact and move on with the article.

Why do you accept this statement as fact?

Two reasons.

1. It's not outlandish and obviously questionable.

2. It takes far too much effort to verify the information.

Books

Let's change things up a bit. You're reading a book. The polar bear statement appears — the first one. The one about 26 delicious baby seals. Do you believe it this time?

I'd bet that you probably would. Books, for some reason, are inherently more trustworthy than words on the Internet. If someone printed it in a book, it must be true, right?

Oy.

Here's the thing. Most information we come across is difficult to verify. More specifically, it's far too time-consuming to verify. For me to unquestionably verify the polar bear statement, I would have to study polar bears. I'd likely have to dedicate years of my life and countless dollars to this effort. It's much easier to simply accept the information and move on.

What's the big deal?

So you mistakenly think polar bears eat much more than they do — who cares? In this example, you're right. This misinformation is hardly likely to cause you any harm.

But what if you based your opinions of other things on false information? What if you start a study with false information and end up with a result that shocks the world? An incorrect result, mind you, because the basis of the study was false.

We form opinions and make decisions every day based on information that we can't or didn't verify. Information that we just trust to be accurate. A tad scary, isn't it?

Send him status updates. Constantly.

Ooh look at me! Ooh ooh! Did you see what I did? I did exactly the thing you pay me to do! Did you see it? Aren’t I the best?

A least once a day, send your boss this email. Several times per day would be even better.

Maybe your boss is too nice to tell you, but if you do this, he hates you. He hates you with a white hot fury. When he closes his eyes, all he can picture is you. Suffering.

Occasional status updates are OK, in very specific situations. If you’re working on a big project that takes weeks / months to complete — feel free to send over a biweekly update. This is especially OK if there are other people waiting on you to finish your part of the project so that they can continue working.

That’s it, though. You are expected to do the thing you get paid to do. That’s why you get paid. There’s no reason to tell your boss that. Do you also tell him how you made it to work on time, didn’t embezzle money from the company today, and held the door for an elderly woman? Of course not. These are all basic expectations.

Don’t annoy your boss to death. If everything is going smoothly, there’s nothing to talk about. When promotion time comes up, he’ll remember who gets the job done, and who loves to annoy him to death.

The moral of the story? Business advice is bullshit. I was reading an article recently¹ about how to set yourself up for a promotion. The main point was exactly this — providing your boss with constant status updates. Terrible advice. If you’re doing good work, the right people will notice.

Dear Internet,

We have a problem. It’s not you, it’s me. Well, it’s actually you and not me at all. I can’t read you anymore. It’s getting tiresome. You really have to do something. Now would be super.

Size twelve typefaces¹ are not OK in 2011. They will be even less OK in 2012.

I’m twenty nine years old, and I cannot read 12px anything without getting so close to the screen that my breath fogs up the glass. I can’t imagine what it’s like for folks in their 40’s or 50’s.

Since the Internet isn’t a sentient being ², it’s up to you guys to fix it. If you have any control over text online, make it bigger. Start with 16px³ and work your way up from there. It will look so much better, and people will actually be able to, you know, read it.