Training for the New Corporate World

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A new cottage industry (here, the cottages are mansions) is springing up.

US companies are turning to programs aimed at preparing women and people of color for corporate board roles in a bid to comply with calls from regulators and investors to diversify their directors.
Law firms, universities, and current directors of companies have launched new or expanded programs over the past few years to coach prospective board candidates, offering training on topics from corporate governance to committee work. Some programs are free or sponsored by companies, while others can cost thousands of dollars.
Sponsors are hoping to broaden the pool of people who are ready to fill board roles….

What are these folks doing to improve things from the ground up—improving the quality of K-12 education (real education, not CRT garbage or other “equity, diversity, inclusive” claptrap)? That’s where the real preparation for the world occurs, and preparation for the peaks of the corporate world will fall out of that.

Absent any of that basic prep aid, all these wonders are doing is virtue-signaling so they can feel good.

Woke DoJ

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A Portland ANTIFA…person…has had all Federal criminal charges dismissed, with prejudice, after doing a whole 30 hours of “community service.”

Eva Warner of Beaverton, Oregon, who police said was also known as Joshua Warner, was charged in September 2020 with felony civil disorder.

Her deeds, during the Portland Summer of Riots:

Portland Police said Warner directed a high-powered laser into the eyes of law enforcement officers trying to disperse the crowd. Warner resisted arrest, prompting officers to use force, the DOJ said. A laser pointer was found on Warner.
…
About a week later, Warner was arrested again and charged with second-degree criminal mischief in connection with another riot.
…
A week after that, Warner was arrested a third time in connection with yet another riot and charged with interfering with a peace officer and second-degree disorderly conduct.

Each time, too, she was released, with those violent crime charges pending, without bail so she could do those things again.

Then,

Scott Erik Asphaug, acting US Attorney for the District of Oregon, filed a motion December 21, 2021, asking the court to “dismiss with prejudice the indictment against (Warner), in the best interests of justice.” The motion noted that the defendant had performed “at least 30 hours of community service.”

Which the court did.

In the best interests of justice? Whose justice? Where is the justice for the victims of Warner’s actions?

This what Biden-Harris/Merrick Garland are doing to our Justice Department.

A SpaceX Dyson Sphere?

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No, but something related to it. A Dyson sphere is a structure built around a star (our sun, for instance) that captures the star’s energy output for the use of the civilization that built the sphere.

Elon Musk, and his SpaceX company, are building a constellation of satellites—some 42,000 of them by the end game—in Earth orbit for the purpose of producing a global Internet, and one that’s separate from the terrestrial net.

Which brings me to my speculation.

Imagine a similar-sized collection of satellites in higher orbit, say just above geosync, so as to avoid interfering with the satellites already there and which have their own critical purposes. Of course, at those altitudes, there’d be room for a much larger constellation of satellites.

These satellites, though, would be solar collectors, whose purpose would be to…capture our sun’s energy output for our use. It’s straightforward and well-established technology to convert the sun’s output to electricity or to microwave energy or to energy of any wavelength we might find useful; although, it’s always useful to increase the efficiency of the conversion.

It is too early to know we can safely beam all that energy to Earth’s surface for terrestrial uses (even neglecting atmospheric- and weather-related losses). We don’t yet have a good handle on the effects of pumping all that energy through the atmosphere on that atmosphere, much less on what it does to animal or plant life that happen to be in or pass through the transmission beams. We also haven’t assessed the effects of those energy transmissions as they pass through orbiting satellites.

However.

We’re returning to the moon, and that body has lots of industrial potential, which will have lots of energy needs. Might it be cheaper to build such a constellation and beam the energy to the moon’s environs than to build collectors on the moon’s surface or in orbit around the moon?

The concept works for Mars, too, only we’d want the constellations in orbit around Mars.

And the asteroid built….

Happy New Year

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Originally published in 2012, I repeat it here.

This blogger hopes for increasing prosperity for all in the new year just begun.  Following are some additional thoughts, from those better than me.

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
–William Makepeace Thackeray

New Year’s Resolution: to tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
–James Agate

Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution.  Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise, and thou art happy.
–Akhenaton

Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
–Cavett Robert

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass’d
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury –
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
–Thomas Hood

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential.
–Ellen Goodman

New Year’s Day: now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
–Mark Twain

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve.  Middle age is when you’re forced to.
–Bill Vaughn

This bit of ’70s-style wisdom:

A year from now, you’re gonna weigh more or less than what you do right now.
–Phil McGraw

And finally,

Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.
–Goran Persson

It’s the End of the Year

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And it’s time for some humor.

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up for New Year’s. Middle age is when you’re forced to.

A woman took an afternoon nap on New Year’s Eve. When she woke up, she told her husband, “I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond ring for a New Year’s present. What do you think it all means?” He replied, “Aha, you’ll know tonight!” At midnight, her husband handed her a small gift-wrapped present. Excited, she opened it quickly, but was even more surprised: In it was a book titled The Meaning of Dreams.

A man who had too much to drink decides to walk home on New Year’s Eve. A policeman stopped the man and asked where he was going. “I’m on my way to a lecture,” the man replied. The cop scoffed, “Who gives lectures on New Year’s Eve?” The man answered: “My wife.”

I was going to quit all my bad habits for the New Year, but then I remembered that nobody likes a quitter.

My resolution was to read more, so I put the subtitles on on my TV.

How you elect to spend New Year’s Eve will depend on your:
1. age
2. remaining levels of optimism
3. threshold of pain
– Joseph Connolly

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
– Bill Vaughan

Wait a second, there’s ANOTHER year? I have to do it all over again???
– Jake Vig ‏@Jake_Vig

Finally, some few readers might wonder why I don’t do a retrospective of the year just concluding. Why I don’t are illustrated as follows:

That great American philosopher, Satchel Paige:

Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.

And this, from Italian racing (or so I’ve heard), but that has wide applicability:

What’s behind me is not important.

Finally, finally, this bit, counter-tenor, from Michael Jordan:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.