On the effect of government inquiry.

I suggest the following experiments in response to this comment from a local city councilman:

Our silly senator Barbara Boxer as usual called for an investigation which always fails. The price of gas fell dramatically from 3 to 2 dollars in a short period and some people still believe this was due to the greedy oil execs deciding to avoid an investigation and lowering the price even below the previous low pre-Katrina.

Two experiments:
The first, a thought experiment only. Any(every)one can do this.
You are driving north on 280, and you pass a speed limit sign. It says
65MPH. You look at your speedometer which says 75.
Q: you do which of the following:
a: slow down
b: speed up
c: maintain speed

Suppose that your journey continues another two miles on 280, and you notice
a highway patrolman.
Q:you do which of the following:
a: slow down
b: speed up
c: maintain speed

The second can only be done fully by someone with access to
a police or traffic enforcement agency.

Stand at the intersection of a high volume traffic light controlled
intersection, such as Castro and California. Do this for a half hour on a
weekday between 11:30 am and 1pm. Count the cars violating the traffic law.
Next day, repeat with one change. Wear a police uniform and make yourself
visible. Count the violations. You could modify your visibility and increase
the impact by having a marked police car with lights flashing ticketing a
person in an unmarked police car at the intersection.
Q:do you expect there to be:
a: a decrease in traffic violations
b: an increase in traffic violations
c: no change in violations

Yesterday at a pake lecture on AI meets Web 2, Marty Tenenbaum presented a vision of people building their own systems. And it reminded me of a proposal put out by Borland visionaries about 20 years ago. The Borland demo was for a product that would permit “users to build their own spreadsheet program over a long weekend.” Any of your friends build Lotus over the weekend?

Marty laid out a convincing approach, but one that won’t succeed.

Programmers are the only people who have been working tirelessly, relentlessly, even doggedly for 50 years to get out of doing their work. Within five years of there being a programmer, they began working to get out of working.

No CEO, CFO, not any **O tries to work themself out of work.

Programmers are the hardest working lazy people.