What I Am Reading - 8/8/2016

Haven't done one of these in a long time.  There are a few reasons:

1. I just lost interest when everything went to all Trump all the time - I am kind of over that now 
2. I was switching jobs and thinking I may move to California - I did switch jobs, but stayed in Vancouver, WA.  Still it was disruptive  
3. I let my RSS Feed grow way too big with way to much stuff - It's overwhelming - I am working on cleaning it up  
4. I am at heart, lazy, and you my imaginary readers don't matter enough to me to get out of bed in the morning - this is probably the largest and most important reason if I am being honest

okgiveup - Why I'm not a big fan of Scrum - I'm not a Scrum master, or really a Scrum novice.  I have worked a few places that use it (including my current job) and it never seems to work well.  There is something about the sprint mentality the seems to encourgae shitty software in my opinion.

WSJ - ‘No Empirical Evidence’ for Thomas Piketty’s Inequality Theory, IMF Economist Argues -

The evidence modern capitalism foments inequality, the former adviser to French Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal argued, was in capital’s rising share of income at the expense of labor’s contribution over the last four decades.

...

Mr. Góes tested the thesis against three decades of data from 19 advanced economies. “I find no empirical evidence that dynamics move in the way Piketty suggests.”

In fact, for three-quarters of the countries he studied, inequality actually fell when capital returns accelerated faster than output.

The book is three years old and pretty widely discredited so why is this important? Because... We are seeing a lot of echoes of Piketty in this election year.  Mainly in the defunct Sander's camp but a number of his positions have been adopted by Clinton, and even Trump is sounding somewhat like Piketty when he gets on his trade rants.

Gizmodo -  A Hacker's Tips for Overthrowing the Government -

Rock thinks that there’s a semblance of a coup taking place in America, although a very sloppy one. “You [Americans] are seeing a coup take place in your own country. It’s being leaked out very slowly, and it’s probably not the method I’d use.” Rock says he doesn’t know who’s propagating the supposed coup, and that you’d probably have to study it for a few years to figure out who is doing it. He cites the recent dump of Democratic National Committee emails from what US intelligence services believe to be Russian hackers as evidence. “The important part is the technique, that’s what I’m interested in. But they used the right target, Wikileaks will publish anything.” Which, Rock says, is great for someone attempting to stage a coup, as they don’t have to go through the process of fooling the media and verifying the documents.

I hadn't really thought of it in terms of a coup, just a series of attacks.  I'll have to give this more thought.

Backchannel - Uber and Under: China’s Hometown Advantage Claims Another Victim -

But Google found that even after a company agrees to go along with China’s censorship and data demands, regulation doesn’t stop. Put simply, China likes locals to succeed over foreign companies, and will act accordingly. Google was in direct competition with a local company, Baidu, which seemed to copy Google’s business plan and even its interface. China had an interest in seeing its hometown search engine win, and turned out to be less than scrupulous in playing the role as a neutral arbiter.

People need to really wake up to the fact that we are in an economic war with China, and they are in it to win.  American companies need to abandon this idea that they are transnational and start accepting the fact that the rest of the word is out to get them.


Ars Technica - No major US hurricanes in 11 years. Odds of that? 1-in-2,300. -

No great insights here, from the article that is - I never have great insights, I just thought it was interesting.