February 10, 2011
Workplace diplomacy
An aside to an email discussion we were having provoked DarkWaterMuse to post his thoughts on the matter:
Diplomacy is a major cause of workplace inefficiency. Mostly, it doesn’t actually matter how things get said.
dwm tends to say whatever is rattling around at the top of his head. Too often what rattles around up there then manages to roll down mysterious passageways carved throughout his brain before it tumbles off the tip of his tongue.
Sometimes the words that escape just lay there, stunned and motionless on the floor, as other people in earshot simply glare at them.
Even worse though is when dwm doesn’t say anything at all. That probably means either there’s a log jam of words building up pressure inside his head, a clear sign of imminent unbounded and unpredictable cranial flatulence, or he’s mentally undressing one of the women who happens to be trapped in the same meeting room.
dwm has never really appreciated the need for diplomacy. Especially when there’s clearly work to be done. He subscribes to the notion that people like to be part of success, however it manages to manifest.
As it turns out, diplomacy isn’t necessary for success. It’s just necessary to manage the people who aren’t focused on it.
I’m not convinced, as I’ve found diplomacy to be one of the most frequently used “tools” in my arsenal. I suspect DarkWaterMuse, as primarily a “producer” of essentially original content has less functional need for the social lubricant of careful wording than someone like me (a “consumer” if you will), who generally requires the active co-operation of others to provide me with the raw material I happen to need to accomplish my tasks.
His point about diplomacy being “a major cause of workplace inefficiency” would more closely hit the mark if he were using it to describe weasel wording rather than diplomacy. As Sir Humphrey Appleby says “A good Civil Servant must be able to use language not as a window into the mind but as a curtain to draw across it.” What is ideal for a civil servant is toxic for good working relationships in non-bureaucratic environments.
No more manned fighters?
As I said the last time this topic came up, “This is not a repost from 1957”. We may actually be looking at the last generation of manned fighters, if this update from Strategy Page is true:
On February 4th, the U.S. Navy X-47B UCAV (unmanned combat air vehicle) made its first flight. It was three years ago that the navy rolled out its first combat UAV; the 15 ton X-47B. This pilotless aircraft has a wingspan of 20 meters/62 feet (whose outer 5 meter/15 foot portions fold up to save space on the carrier). It carries a two ton payload and will be able to stay in the air for twelve hours. The U.S. is far ahead of other nations in UCAV development, and this is energizing activity in Russia, Europe and China to develop similar aircraft.
[. . .]
All of these aircraft are stealthy and can operate completely on their own (including landing and takeoff, under software control). The UCAVs would be used for dangerous missions, like destroying enemy air defenses, and reconnaissance. Even air force commanders are eager to turn over SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) missions to UAVs. SEAD is the most dangerous mission for combat pilots. But until quite recently, all these projects had either been cancelled, or were headed in that direction.
Now, the U.S. Department of Defense wants the new UAV combat aircraft in service by the end of the decade, some twenty years ahead of a schedule that was planned in the 1990s. The F-35 is expected to cease production in 2034, more than a decade after the first combat UAVs, that can match F-35 performance, enters service.
Unable to buy new aircraft designs (because they are too expensive, or simply take too long to get into service), and facing the prospect of unmanned aircraft (UAVs) displacing more and more manned ones, the American military is spending a growing chunk of its budgets on upgrading and refurbishing the combat aircraft they already have. This was not a deliberate, long term plan, but simply a reaction to shortages of new aircraft. A lot of the new electronics and weapons involved in these upgrades can also equip UAV designs still in development, so such efforts are a double win.
More and more, it looks like the new 36 ton F-22 and 27 ton F-35 are the end of the road for manned fighter-bombers. Not just because the F-22 and F-35 cost so much to develop, but because so much new tech has arrived on the scene that it simply makes more military, and economic, sense to go with unmanned aircraft. Meanwhile, the existing F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, A-10s and all American heavy bombers are being equipped with new targeting pods and combat Internet connections, along with new radars and all sorts of electronics. Older aircraft are having worn out structural components rebuilt or replaced. This buys time until the unmanned aircraft are ready. F-35s will also fill the gap, which may be a very small one.
Usual caveats apply of course, and you could do worse than reading the comment thread on that original post for some of the caveats spelled out.
The Netherlands go nuke, downplay wind power
Of all the EU states, the last one you’d expect to give up on wind power would be the one that everyone associates with windmills:
In a radical change of policy, the Netherlands is reducing its targets for renewable energy and slashing the subsidies for wind and solar power. It’s also given the green light for the country’s first new nuclear power plants for almost 40 years.
Why the change? Wind and solar subsidies are too expensive, the Financial Times Deutschland, reports.
Holland thus becomes the first country to abandon the EU-wide target of producing 20 per cent of its domestic power from renewables. This is a remarkable turnaround from a state that took the Kyoto Agreement seriously and chivvied other EU members into adopting renewable energy strategies. The FT reports that instead of the €4bn annual subsidy, it will be slashed to €1.5bn.
I did a quick Google image search for a typical Dutch windmill image, and decided that this one was too amusing to pass up:
XM-25 man-packable artillery piece takes the field
Lewis Page has some information on the first field use of the XM-25:
First reports are emerging on the performance of the futuristic, Judge Dredd style XM-25 computer smartgun, which went into combat with frontline US troops in Afghanistan in December. The hi-tech rifle — almost a portable artillery piece — is said to have been dubbed “the Punisher” by soldiers who have used it.
The US Army news service reports that the existing five custom-made prototype XM-25 weapons, which have long been trialled and tested in the States, arrived in Afghanistan in November and were first used in combat on 3 December. Since then, as of the army report, some 55 explosive smartshells have been fired in combat and hundreds more in practice.
“We silenced two machine-gun positions — two PKM positions,” said Major Christopher Conley, describing some of the firefights in which the XM-25 has been used. “We destroyed four ambush locations, where the survivors fled.”
Earlier post on the XM-25 here.
Update, 1 April: The XM-25 program is now under contract:
The US Army’s futuristic Judge Dredd style computer smart-rifle project, the XM-25, is moving ahead. Developer ATK, which has so far made just five prototype weapons, inked a $65.8m deal this week to move the weapon into manufacturing.
[. . .]
US troops in Afghanistan, who are trying out the initial five prototype weapons, apparently don’t favour Judge Dredd references. They have reportedly chosen to dub the new smartgun “the Punisher” instead.
Feedback from these users has apparently been positive, with the AM-25’s ability to strike out accurately and speedily at Taliban snipers or machine-gun teams lurking in cover at long range highly prized. The soldiers don’t much care for the gun’s battery system, however, which reportedly has the same flaws as an iPhone’s: it can’t be swapped for a new one and must be plugged in to charge up. ATK are apparently to sort this out as the design develops.
The new engineering and manufacturing development deal is to run for 30 months.
I’m not sure what the change from XM-25 to AM-25 in that report means . . . that is, if the weapon’s designation has changed with the switch to production, or if it’s just a typo in the write-up.
Re-interpreting the theme to “The good, the bad, and the ugly”
H/T to Nick Packwood and Paul Jané.
Some basic sense about mergers
Megan McArdle thinks back to the great fiasco that was the AOL/Time Warner merger:
Austan Goolsbee (now the head of the CEA) spent a class getting us to describe all the reasons that the deal was a good idea — and then systematically demolishing all of our rationalizations. Mergers are not a good idea merely because one company has an asset the other company can use (in the case of the AOL/Time Warner deal, the idea was that AOL’s content and Time Warner’s delivery mechanism were two great tastes that taste great together.) AOL had a perfectly good way to get access to Time Warner’s cable network: the companies could contract to share space. When you buy a company, the price the owners will want you to pay is going to be at least as much money as they could make by holding onto the stock, so there’s no way to generate profits by buying some company simply because it has assets you want to use. In order for the merger to make sense, there has to be something that you can’t do as a separate firm, but can do together.
And that thing has to be pretty profitable in order to make up for the costs of the merger. Acquiring firms usually pay a premium for the companies they buy, which means that the new entity needs to exceed the combined profits of the old just to break even. Beyond that, mergers are extremely costly to the organization. Integrating redundant departments takes up enormous managerial time, involves most of the company in vicious internicene battles to protect their turf, and often involves sacking some of your most talented people simply because there’s an equally talented person already doing their job. Unless it’s a really hands-off acquisition — in which case, why bother? — the conflict between corporate culture often saps morale.
The couple of times a former employer of mine got “merged”, the pattern just about exactly matched what Megan describes. In neither case did the merged entity reap the expected scale of benefit that must have motivated the acquisition in the first place.
