Posts

Showing posts from 2012

It's All About the Presentation: Maps and Data Making Job and Life Simpler

Image
It's All About the Presentation: Maps and Data   Making Job and Life Simpler Maps are seen by their readers as neutral carriers of information, and thus have the power to persuade without appearing to do so "because the myths they contain are naturalized within the system of 'facts'." -- William Owen, quoting in part Denis Wood -"The Power of Maps" I have found that most people in the engineering and environmental industry tend to be map geeks. I don't mean "geek" in a derogatory way. The word "geek" can be considered a complement since geeks seem to be the richest and most powerful people in the world, these days. For people in the engineering and environmental  business, we know a well managed project starts with a good base map. Knowing where things are located in relation to other site features is critical. State of the art GPS survey technology is helping make very precise base maps. In addition, we "geeks" know

Moneyball: Out of the Box Thinking

Image
Moneyball: Out of the Box Thinking But if we win, on our budget with this team, we'll change the game. - Billy Beane,  Oakland  A's General Manager I saw the movie "Moneyball" the other day.  If you have not seen it, I recommend it. You can view a trailer to the movie  here . The movie is based on a true story. In  the movie the General Manager of the Oakland A's baseball team, a guy named Billy Beane, attempts to devise a strategy for assembling a competitive team for 2002, but struggles to overcome Oakland's limited player payroll.  They have one of the smallest payrolls in baseball and can't afford to compete with the big payroll teams like the New York Yankees.   In the movie, and in real life, he teams up with an Economist named Peter Brand and together they look at players and player statistics from a completely different angle than was traditional throughout the history of baseball.  The Economist  (as Economists do) looks at things from a comp

Environmental Industry: Deflation or Inflation - Which Will It Be?

Image
Environmental Industry: Deflation or Inflation - Which Will It Be?  I continue to believe that the American people have a love-hate relationship with inflation. They hate inflation but love everything that causes it.  -  William E. Simon "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."  -  President Harry S. Truman Inflation Wikipedia defines  inflation  as " A rise in the general   level of prices   of goods and services in an   economy   over a period of time.    When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services." I noticed the price of disposable gloves go went up  about $1 per box in the last year and the price of sampling tubing has gone up about $0.02 per foot.   I could pull out my old "Economics 101" book from my years at Western Michigan University (now about 28 years old) and go through the reasons behind this "inflation" of