2017 Winter January 19 Thursday

48 degrees this morning, walk 35:05 minutes

Pace this morning was back to about my “new average”.  

I was rather shocked to read in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal an article about a “consultant”, who “weeded” people from job interviews due to their handshake, movement of their eyes and other non-job related actions.

When I first read it, I just thought it was one of those “cute” articles where someone charges a lot of money for something that a company should know anyway.

However, after thinking about it more, it seems it is more of a cover for stereotyping people and probably will create a lot of discrimination problems for the companies involved (as it should).  

The consultant didn’t seem to allow for different cultures or even personalities of people allowing for some of the “no go” actions persons interviewing for jobs display.

There is also the question of medical problems being the cause of some actions the are the reason the applicant is “weeded” which is illegal.  

I doubt if the consultant will be in business long.  I was shocked that the Wall Street Journal even ran such an article, but then the Wall Street Journal is rapidly deteriorating.  

Hard to believe January 2017 is more than half over.  I expect summer will be here before we know it and then 2018.  

Listening to the “Great Course” on science fiction.  This morning the spearker was discussing how much of science fiction involves urban landscapes.  

I hadn’t thought of it before, but both for good and bad, that is true.  He points out that many urban areas now include projects  envisioned by the early science fiction writers and films.  

Of course, you never know if reality follows imagination or if it was a matter of throwing up enough on the wall and some of it will stick!

Of course, I an remember Dick Tracy and his “wrist radio” and assuming it was inevitable that such a device would be reality.

On the other hand, as I have mentioned before, I an remember seeing advertisements of cars going down the freeway without a human driver and thinking that would be commonplace, certainly by 2016!  It is still a far off reality, as are individual “jet packs”, widespread use of individual helicopters and airplanes etc.

One thing that is a concern to me is how dependent we are on only several “hardback” infrastructure for most of our daily lives.

Electricity is the most obvious.  While we could technically “decentralize” electricity (individual wind generators etc.), it is unlikely.  

Actually, it seems to me that the day could come when “big batteries” (or something we haven’t even envisioned yet) are reality, and we just buy a battery to run the house for a year or so, no outages etc.  

Anyway, more to come on all of that!  

That’s it for now, Thursday, January 19, 2017.