A neighbour came back from a trip there recently. He is old enough to remember the last of the pea soupers we used to see in the UK before they cleaned up the air (a bit).
Air pollution is no joke. They publish the number of people who will die, who will die early, and who will suffer serious complications as a direct result.
I was wondering this weekend about an anonymous chat app, where abusive or nasty comments were changed by the service, in one of many ways, like reversing the focus of the comment, negating it, or simply changing it to something like "I like roses; they are pretty and smell nice". And the more someone tries to be obnoxious, the more it changes their comments. Almost like a chat version of the justice zone from the BBC comedy series Red Dwarf, where you were not able to do any wrong, as it came straight back to you.
Even better - installing java on the mac install the ask toolbar that actually adds garbage into my search results, let alone garbage collection. Howzabout then?
I think the article starts to highlight the real issue, when it compares with other industries, but then ducks out at the last moment. So I will try my best to fill in:
In all industries, in all professions, there are a range of abilities for those working within it. From the truly gifted, to the hard-working reliable folk who mostly deliver consistently, to those who need support and guidance to deliver well consistently, to those who deliver sometimes, to those who frankly cannot and will not deliver despite support time and guidance.
I have met incompetent doctors, unreliable engineers, lawyers you would not trust to compile a shopping list, and programmers you would not ask to develop any kind of program beyond hello world.
I have also met people I could always learn from, and they too remain fixed on the idea they too are always learning, improving, on a knowledge and experience journey, without a fixed endpoint.
A final point - no one is truly useless, you just cannot find a good match for their skills and experience within your team at that point in time.
Air pollution is no joke. They publish the number of people who will die, who will die early, and who will suffer serious complications as a direct result.