More 'Millennial' madness

Had enough of mindless Millennial drivel? Too late, I've got more... and the bottom line is that "we", the non-Millennials, "should" know and identify these Millennials, and somehow expect them to be different from other humans. And of course they somehow deserve 'different' treatment because of that. Heck, they may not even be human!

So take a read of this, from BNET: "The teens entering college over the next few weeks were probably born around 1990. Here are five observations that jumped out at me from the “mindset list”:

1. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available
2. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib
3. Caller ID has always been available on phones
4. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born
5. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.

According to Benoit, 'The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are ‘wired’ and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.'"

OK there's good stuff here. The ever-decreasing size of Western 'family units' will show up in a larger proportion of kids who have never shared a room with a sibling. It may shape some attitudes about sharing, although I have seen no research on that. And there are also more blended families, so what does that mean with regard to attitudes? And although they may be living somewhat different lives from people born 10, 20 or 50 years ago, what evidence is there that it actually makes a difference?

As for the rest of it, whether you are familiar with computers, cell phones and whatnot all of your life or whether you have adapted to it as it has evolved is of little concern, surely? We all live in the same world and have embraced gizmos to greater or lesser extents, irrespective of age. Yes, to be older (on average) affects our uptake of new stuff. So does relative wealth, culture and religion, amongst many other things. It's a continuum, a sliding scale of influence and uptake - not the black and white of the dime-store demographers. Plenty of Millennials actually don't care for the latest and greatest stuff, and plenty of so-called Boomers do. 

Now we can try to analyse it to death, but people are people, and should not be labelled just for the heck of it. But humans love to label, and having labelled them we should not try to second-guess how we should treat them, or ascribe values based on untested theory. It's so easy to say that young people 'these days' prefer part time work, shifting careers and lower levels of loyalty when we have brought them into a world that has created exactly that environment. There are fewer full-time jobs, more service-oriented jobs and entirely new careers that didn't exist even 5 years ago.

On the one hand we say 'they want this stuff' but on the other we didn't give them a choice - it's how it is!     

What about faster trains on shorter routes?

Given that I think I convincingly debunked the economic and environmental wisdom of a fast train between Sydney and Melbourne (even if I do say so myself), what about the proposals for fast trains from Penrith and Gosford to Sydney?

Well these proposals are not necessarily for fast trains, but certainly faster. A fast train is one that travels above 200kmh, at least in my book. To reach that speed requires enormous torque to get it rolling, low drag, high-end power and good, strong brakes to bring it back to a stop. You also need few if any curves, easy grades, strong and smoothly jointed track and big enough centres of population to justify the investment. In Japan in the 1960s and 70s, for several reasons, no problem. However in the cases of Penrith and (especially) Gosford, big problems. Penrith to Sydney CBD may generate enough passengers if the train stops at Parramatta, and especially Strathfield, but each stop kills the average speed. With Gosford the problem of attracting passengers at premium rates is compounded by the need for truly massive tunneling. On the plus side you could stop at Hornsby or perhaps Chatswood, but again the average speed falls dramatically.

If we want a fast train to go anywhere it must have its own track. It can't share, because sharing will slow it down, even if it gets priority. It also increases complexity and imposes risks. Existing train services will be slowed, and the track will of necessity be improved to cope with the fast train's needs. In any event the grades and curves will need to meet fast train specifications, which existing rail cannot do. So it's tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, new stations, new track and new trains, along with the anciliaries like maintenance areas.

You could perhaps design a big arc from Gosford to Penrith that takes in Chatswood, the CBD, Hurstville, Liverpool and Parramatta, which may offer some benefit - but the cost would be extortionate. With a finger in the air you'd say that's 200km of track. At least half of that would cost $2billion per 10km, say $20 billion and half that price for the "easy" bits. So $30 billion. If you add Newcastle as well you could pay around $40billion for the track but at least please some more commuters. Wyong would want in and you'd have an argument about time lost in stopping but you'd flip a coin and see what happens. And remember, for that bargain price you still don't have any trains, just the bare infrastructure.

You would have trains accelerating and then decelerating quite quickly, but the savings in time would still be substantial, even if your maintenance costs will be high. And on some sections you may have a ready market, but how ready will they be to pay premium fares? With a $40billion price tag you'd hope to get most of the existing commuter market, but even so you aren't going to approach Japanese levels of passenger volume, especially if you price to recover cost.

And many commuters change trains (and buses), so you need convenient interconnects. Get that and the pricing wrong and commuters may as well keep driving rather than drive to the fast train station. Or just stay on the now-slightly-less-full existing 80-100kmh trains and save some money.

So why even contemplate fast trains? Because there's a theory - and a pretty good one too - that if we can move around faster we can (a) do more work of economic value in any given time period and (b) increase our range of economic choice in terms of location, so we can work and purchase goods and services further outside of our regular "economic zone". In simple terms we increase our range and thus increase the overall level of competition. In that way companies can source good workers from further afield, potentially lowering costs of production; and purchasers can consider a wider range of sources for many commodities and services, driving down prices. Easily said - now go and measure it.

You could also say that commuting time saved can be "spent" elsewhere, perhaps in relaxation, and that too will be an economic (and social) benefit. However we choose to look at it, we still have to determine a value for the economic and social value generated and compare it with the total economic, environmental and social cost. And then consider the opportunity cost - what could we have done with that money had we spent it elsewhere?

In terms of carbon emissions, a fast train of any sort will release carbon in the construction phase - dramatically so - and will in day-to-day operation fair badly in comparison with slower, conventional trains. You can't accelerate a train to speed without consuming energy - and it's going to be coming from coal-fired power-stations for the immediate future. However these faster trains will still be more efficient than thousands of individuals in their wretchedly grid-locked cars - and it would be hoped that some such cars would be taken off the roads as a consequence, or the growth in car use avoided. If that's not achieved then we've done nothing for global warming, except taken a step back.

In this way the $40billion spent is just one part of the equation. In the end we may buy a less-fast train that stops at more stations but still needs its own reserved track. But let's not imagine that the sums are small or the calculations easy.

Does a fast train make sense in Australia?

It seems to be one of those "big ideas" that get put forward now and again. A project of vision that will simultaneously inspire and drive economic prosperity. It also sounds so good. But does it make any sense?

On one level rail must be better than air travel, as lifting a massive weight off the ground is energy-intensive beyond our normal ken. We accept it because we don't really think about it, but it's simply the worst way to move things around. It depletes energy resources far quicker than any other form of transport (short of rocketry), dumps greenhouse gases at higher altitudes (where they can do their worst) and imposes immense noise footprints on anyone nearby.

On the other hand air travel is unimpeded by geography, so the path is shorter and has far less impact on what's below. There is less disturbance to land, landholders and the environment overall. Plants and animals remain blissfully unaware of aircraft passing almost silently, high above them.

So it's actually not as simple as it seems. We have to do some sums here. Let's take a fast train proposal from Sydney to Melbourne and peel back some layers. What does a fast train really mean?

Well it's going to be a new line, or a partially shared line that's largely quarantined from the existing lines. To achieve fast speeds - and we are looking at 250-300kmh - it will have to be straighter than the existing lines with gentler curves. It will also need to be level, or rise and fall more gradually than current track. So it will need massive viaducts and embankments. And it must not intersect with roads or other, slower rail traffic, so it must go over or under any such obstacle.

So it's going to duplicate existing track with a higher-quality, impeccably welded, ballasted and maintained track that will displace existing landholders, both suburban and country, as well as probably pass through national parks. These are not insurmountable challenges but they are costs that must be factored into any assessment. We would have to be careful to allow plants and animals to traverse over and under these tracks and maintain our biodiversity. We would have to reimburse farmers and other landholders, or tunnel for extended distances at massive cost.

Indeed I can imagine massive tunneling works at both the Sydney and Melbourne ends, for starters. To put new above-ground track down in populated suburban areas would be impossibly expensive and the noise generated would not be tolerated. If you don't allow the trains to go near full speed right into the cities then the time advantage is eroded.

So what is the time advantage? Current air travel is roughly 3 hours CBD-to-CBD, but who actually travels that route? Presumably trips start from all over, and siting the fast train terminals would be an opportunity - and a choice. Do you replicate airtravel "convenience" of location and interchange, or site away from existing airports to attract different customers? Indeed are you seeking to reduce airtravel by direct competition, or looking to take cars and trucks off the roads? Depending upon how you answer those (and many other) questions you may end up with an 850km track and a 3.5hour journey time. So you are 'in the ballpark' but have an opportunity to be different as well.

Of course if you do manage to cannibalise airtravel you'd incur the wrath of the airlines and the airport owners. So I suspect you'll end up compromising somewhat.

And then there are the fares. Having built massive new infrastructure - let's face it, it's not going to be just a few billion, is it? - you then have to decide how you recover that cost. Let the government (ie you and me) absorb it as a project of national importance? Or charge a fee that actually recovers costs over say 20 or 30 years? Do we privatise the service and let the government carry the can on track costs?

Of course spending money on a fast train means we can't spend it on existing rail, or education, or hospitals - or anywhere else. That's opportunity cost for you. We will have to think carefully about what we want here. Indeed, why not invest in improving our existing rail network, for example? Or site a new airport somewhere else in Sydney, to reduce congestion, travel time and cost in getting passengers to the current Sydney Airport?

My point? As seductive as a fast train sounds, we haven't even started to think about the costs and ramifications yet. Just look at volumes. Air travel between Sydney and Melbourne is roughly 90,000 people a week. If you grab 30% of that market (say 30,000 a week) you are spending umpteen billions to shift a relatively small number of people between 2 places. If the gods smile upon you and you grow the market, you may double that number. It still looks like a bad investment to me, given that you'll probably rob Peter to pay Paul here anyway. The airlines will compete with you and you will have even fewer people travelling on existing lines. Which will leave us where? With an immense white elephant?

Of course airtravel may just die a natural death anyway, with fuel costs going through the roof. But that doesn't mean we have to replicate what smaller-by-area and denser-by-population countries such as France and Japan do with their fast train networks. Just for comparison with our 30,000 passengers a week scenario, Japan's Shinkansen carries around 350,000 passengers per day. I may be totally wrong with my off-the-cuff analysis but I suspect that Australia has no truly compelling economic - let alone environmental - reason to even want to shift that sort of number of people between any 2 cities. But we may want to make some improvements to the rail infrastructure within our cities and improve our commute times between a much larger number of locations. Now there's a thought.

It's your money, spend wisely!

On the Olympics and all that jazz

It's bread and circuses on a monumental scale. It clouds real issues of social injustice and environmental degradation. It highlights specific people with specific sporting abilities and elevates them to celebrity status, or ignores them completely. It mirrors life, in that the rich (both financially and in terms of time) get the rewards and the poor come last.

On the other hand it's great television. At times, anyway.

So what about these Beijing games in particular? China's a repressive regime, sure, but gee they've come a long way in a short time. I can remember President Nixon (of all people) brokering the deal that sold them Boeing 707s for gold bullion back in what must have been the early 1970s... they were very much keeping to themselves before that and not open to change at all. To move such a large number of people from total state-control to a (yes, imperfect, but aren't we all) semi-empowered state is the remarkable and inspiring thing. That they haven't conquered their fear of letting strategic locations like Tibet "go" is certainly lamentable and oppressive. But full credit to the Chinese people for making a huge stride forward from obscurity to the world stage in just 30 years or so. That's me trying to be balanced about it!

And yes, let's keep the pressure on all nations to improve their care for and of their people, their rights and the planet and its non-human cargo as well. Maybe the showy excesses of big events like the Olympics cloud the real issues at times, but perhaps also it moves us all closer together in understanding. That's if we bother to think about it.

Porky GM Commodore admits fat problem

Yes, well, we all knew it. They have a weight problem at GM. They make fat cars. So rather than get creative, they are doing things they shoulda/coulda done 10 or 15 years ago!

Holden is looking at removing the spare tyre from the Commodore and instead fitting controversial run-flat tyres as part of a broader plan to improve fuel efficiency by more than 20 per cent and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Oh please. And the proposed use of aluminium will reduce carbon emissions, too, eh? Frankly we need to stop reporting this rubblish. The real story lies with smaller, lower-footprint cars, not sustaining the unsustainable beasts.

Birds may have a theory of mind

Well we do, so why not other animals? And so it seems that we, some other primates, the dolphin, the African Elephant and now a bird identified as a 'magpie' (I'm sure there are plenty of 'magpie' species around the globe) can not only see themselves in a mirror but actually 'get' that it's them. I've seen plenty of other birds fight with their reflected selves in a pane of glass, but this time the bird apparently recognised itself and acted like it.

When the birds with coloured neck spots caught a glimpse of themselves, they scratched at their necks - a clear indication that they recognised the image in the mirror as their own. Those who received a black sticker, invisible against the black neck feathers, did not react. Self-recognition was thought to reside in the neocortex, but birds don't have one. Franz de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta points out that the magpie does nevertheless have a big brain. "You need a large brain with a lot of connectivity," he says. "If it had been a sparrow, it would have been a problem."

So what? Well it's another species that understands that it is an individual. Increasingly we find that we are not as unique in our abilities as we thought we were. Surely that impacts on how we treat other animals? Apart from sparrows, perhaps. It looks like we still have a problem with sparrows.

Telephone Piano - bizarre but cool

Certainly some talent and inventivness going on here - if it's real...

That generations myth again

Are we really so stupid as to put up with this sort of weak, sloppy analysis? (And I mean on BNET's behalf here - c'mon, please don't just repeat what's told to you, actually do some work here!) 

From BNET: Lack of authority and an inability to see where their contribution fits into the big picture is leaving Generation Y, or Millennials, disengaged and disenchanted with work, according to a report by BlessingWhite.

What's wrong with that statement? Well, first up, what is BlessingWhite and what axe do they have to grind? Unsurprisingly we find that they are "engagement" specialists, ie people who make money out of advising others how to "re-engage" and "re-align" a disenchanted workforce. So they are hardly likely to want to report a solid "engagement" situation, are they? (Not that I'd suggest they would distort the figures, but they may unconsciously ask the wrong questions of the wrong people, or simply leave out the good stuff.) 

Secondly, where is this report, how was the research conducted and how valid are the results? Well if you click on the link and look at the free summary reports (as against the $500 'full analysis') they do tell us that it was an online survey of employees (invited by email and broken up by the usual demographics)  backed up by manager interviews. BNET doesn't look into it, but one wonders (doesn't one?) what the (multiple choice) questions were and how the invite-only email addresses were obtained (randomly, or from prior interest shown in surveys?). Of course such surveys are only as good as the final sample size and distribution, and the questions posed; and only as accurate or truthful as the respondents care to be. Which is to say they probably mean little but look fabulously interesting when graphed.

One interesting takeaway from these reports was that the HR industry in North America was the most engaged of all - doesn't that suggest something? Either the HR industry is the most adept at engagement - what they'd suggest, I wager - or simply the best (or most "aligned") at answering "HR"-style surveys.  Groan.  

Anyway, to get back to BNET - it all revolves around generational labelling again. Like, somehow, it matters. Well it's interesting to label things - or in this case people - but what does it mean? Millennials or Gen Y are somehow, surprise surprise, the least engaged and empowered, the Boomers the most. Heck, guys, this isn't because of their birthdays - this is because Boomers have grown up, have had their kids, settled their affairs, saved some cash, travelled, gotten used to life and probably found their way into an "empowered" and respected role in their working lives. Whereas young adults are just starting their journey. Where you happy about starting at the bottom when you started out? Where you more likely to look around and try different things when you had no kids and no responsibilities except to enjoy your youth? Of course you feel less empowered doing "assigned" or "donkey" work - when you get into senior management and settle down a bit you may be a bit happier about it, eh?

Let's face it - just thinking of Western democracies now - we had 2 massive World Wars in a row that seriously distorted our demographics - robbed us of our sons, if you like. The generation after that was a release from fear and war and an opportunity to rebuild populations. Early 'boomers' really had to face some changes, some deprivations, and built some real prosperity out of it. That was a real thing, and those that came later lived off that prosperity and rapid post-war change. And whilst the aftershocks matter, that's all they are. To dream up correlations with "engagement", "technology" and "soccer moms" just for the sake of it, and to apply these funky X, Y and Z labels simply because we once had a real demographic post-War bubble... is just a convenience for the researchers, the marketers and the booksellers.

Get over it. 

Where was I?

Last time I checked I was looking at Le Tour de France on TV, and now I'm watching the Olympics from China. And I'm wondering where I - or perhaps we - all went...? Have we tuned out of our own lives and into vicariousness? Are we all simply living our lives through the lives and achievements of others? Well yes and no, of course. We do this all of the time - we work and play and grow as individuals, yet we fall into a collective stupor over "big events". Not everyone, nor all of us all of the time. But generally most of us fall at some time for the spectacular, the bright and colourful bells and whistles that surround our lives - be it sport, art, music, literature, organised religion, online computer games or new year's eve fireworks. We shrug off our own selves and look at another person's life, even to the extent of investing emotion into their success, or not. 

Which is all perfectly normal, but it does beg the old question, are we being used? Indeed it raises a few questions in my mind. Is this simply what the Romans called 'bread and circuses'? Are we left mildly amused and fairly satisfied by all of this "entertainment", or does it actually ring hollow? Is it all a nice diversion from harsh realities like the credit crunch, global warming, war and drought, or something more sinister and manipulative? Not that I'm suggesting there's a conspiracy, it just seems convenient sometimes that our economic system supports these massive "events" yet fails to look after the homeless, the impoverished, the starving or the oppressed.

Just my happy little thought for the day.