Anyone who has worked in any fairly large organization will sooner or later be confronted with metrics to measure performance. The idea of metrics, setting out measures to see if one is meeting one’s goals, is not in itself bad. What is problematic is when metrics are created whose purpose is not to provide valuable feedback but are used almost exclusively to determine rewards and punishments. Then one frequently finds that metrics distort performance as people game the system to meet the requirements of the metrics even if the actual results of doing so are deleterious. Badly designed metrics also focus on the things that can be measured easily rather than on the things worth measuring.
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In this video Sasaki Fumio, who has been described as Japan’s most famous minimalist, describes why he reduced the number of things he has to just 150 and what made him change to a life of minimalism. Although we may think that minimalists have to be highly organized to live as they do, paradoxically he thinks that most people who are minimalists are like him, people who are unorganized and untidy and if they have a lot of things, they are just surrounded by mess. Minimalism is their way of getting control over their immediate environment by not having a lot of stuff to deal with.

I am a pretty organized person who puts things away and keeps track of things and that is maybe why I have not felt the urge to adopt minimalism in this extreme form, though I do try to minimize the number of things that I buy and own. I do share with Fumio being quite content to eat the same or almost the same food day after day. The same with clothes. That simplifies life considerably.

Some people like to get vanity license plates for their cars to send some message. I have never quite seen the appeal of this nor of putting bumper stickers but it is a harmless enough practice. But states that issue these plates have to be constantly on their guard to ensure that people are not slipping past them some plates that have an underlying message that violates the state’s requirements that the plates be in good taste and not offensive. This is not an easy task since people are quite imaginative.
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Like pretty much everyone in the US (is this a problem in other countries too?) I am so plagued with robocalls that I have stopped answering the phone and wait to see if I know the person who is leaving a message before picking up. But very often, the phone rings, the answering message picks up, but then the call is immediately cut with no message left. That puzzled me because I assumed that these calls were entirely automated and a computer would leave a recorded message. Was the computer able to distinguish between an answering machine message and a real person in a matter of a second or two? That seemed pretty sophisticated. Sometimes I do get a recorded message but that is rare.
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The U.K. brexiting pic.twitter.com/9MYXSjLGMo

— Rupert Myers (@RupertMyers) March 16, 2019

This same video can serve as a metaphor for any action that is initiated because it seems like a quick and easy solution to a problem that turns into a mess because the person did not really think things through about the possible consequences.

I am retired. However, I am extremely busy with my writing and my study of those areas of physics that I did not pay much attention to during my active career. Right now, I am studying general relativity in all its mathematical complexity and finding it enormously challenging but fun. These things keep me very busy and so I do not find time hanging heavy on my hands and thus do not need to find ways to fill the days. I am so busy that I do not have time to read all the books or see the films that I thought I would be able to catch up on when I retired.
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Today the temperature in Cleveland reached about 75F (24C), way higher than the normal average temperature for this day of 45F (7C), and was the first day that we spent a long time outside in the back yard. This is the earliest in the year that I can recall doing this. Baxter the Wonder Dog had a great time and even posed for a photo.

Via Carla Sinclair I came across this heartwarming story of a dog rescued in Scotland whose presence in the snowy region was first picked up by infra-red cameras.

It was a routine winter training mission in northeastern Scotland until the Maritime and Coastguard Agency crew spotted a stranded dog on the snowy Cairngorms mountains below.

They couldn’t fly away and leave the dog in trouble, so winchman Mark Stevens on Wednesday was lowered to the ground, scooped up the cold and frightened animal, and both were raised back to the helicopter.

The dog, named Ben, was cuddled and warmed on board before being rushed to a veterinarian.
It turns out Ben had been missing for two days in dangerous weather caused by Storm Gareth.

Officials say Ben has recovered from exposure and has been reunited with his owner.

Here’s video of the rescue.

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A little dog got stuck in a heavy snowdrift and could not make it back to the house. So a big dog came to the rescue, beating down the snow and creating a path for the little dog.

One obvious question is how the little dog got stuck in the first place. It may be that it was placed there to show off the big dog’s rescue.

But it is still a nice example of canine friendship.