Two weeks ago, during the remembrance of the 9-11 attacks 10 years ago, a leader in my church gave a thoughtful talk on the interplay of truth and tolerance.  It struck a nerve with me as it addressed a very difficult subject in a tactful way.

I encourage you to view or watch the full talk yourself, online.

Elder Oaks giving talk on 9-11-11

The backdrop for the discussion is how the western world increasingly drops its traditional moorings in absolute truth for less certain relative morality.  Evidence is presented for this in the recent “widespread rioting and pillaging in Britain and the scandalous widespread cheating by teachers on state-mandated tests in elementary and middle schools in Atlanta, Georgia [which] have caused many to wonder whether we are losing the moral foundation western countries have received from their Judeo-Christian heritage.”

With this backdrop, we who believe in God and the absolute truth of right and wrong have increasing challenges in the growing godless and amoral world.  As we stick to our moorings, some in the world cast our behavior as intolerant.  This is especially disturbing to the vast majority of believers who have as their highest goal the emulation of a virtuous Christ-like life, turning the other cheek, sharing of their substance with the poor, and lifting up the downtrodden.

“The weaker one’s belief in God and the fewer one’s moral absolutes, the fewer the occasions when the ideas or practices of others will confront one with the challenge to be tolerant.  For example, an atheist has no need to decide what kinds and occasions of profanity or blasphemy can be tolerated and what kinds should be confronted.  Persons who don’t believe in God or in absolute truth in moral matters can see themselves as the most tolerant of persons.  For them, almost anything goes.  ‘You do your thing and I’ll do my thing’ is the popular description.  This belief system can tolerate almost any behavior and almost any persons.  Unfortunately, some who believe in moral relativism seem to have difficulty tolerating those who insist that there is a God who should be respected and certain moral absolutes that should be observed.”

And so, the situation comes full-circle, with conflict between absolute and relative systems of truth and the need for increased tolerance all round.

How do you see the interplay of truth and tolerance in your experiences?

At a family gathering several years ago, I started brainstorming on ways to innovate in family history software. I was too busy to do anything with the ideas, but was excited about it nonetheless. My ideas were:

• Family history should be more social.
• Family history should be more scientific, based on hard evidence not consensus.
• Family history should happen in the cloud.
• Family history should be more Web 2.0 (or whatever the latest term is for a good-looking, user-friendly website).

For example, I should be able to login to the cloud, upload a scan of my great-great grandmother’s birth certificate, attach it to her record, and share this with whomever I wish. The same should be true for any other data, including photos, stories, anecdotes, etc.

Any aspect of a record’s data not verified by a scanned document should be marked, “Unverified.” Errors abound in family history records. Putting emphasis on original sources is the best way to clean it up.

PAF software circa 1997

In the late 1990s, I spent a lot of time with my nose buried in personal ancestral file (PAF) software, digitizing my parents and grandparents genealogical records. I grew an appreciation then for the massive amount of family history extraction work that has occurred over the years. It is phenomenal how much family history information is available.

I’ve not done much family history work in the last 10 years, consumed by school, family, and startups.  But I smiled recently when I saw the news that a new “stealth mode” startup, named youwho, raised $5 million to innovate in family history.

youwho SLC startup

I wish them luck. They’ll need it as they take on the 500-pound ancestry.com gorilla. They’ll also need it as they attempt to make family history more palatable for younger tech savvy segments, who aren’t naturally inclined to consume genealogy. Perhaps the youwho team will find this post and know that I’m “rooting” for them.

This is my first ever movie critique. I just got back from Atlas Shrugged Part 1.

I was disappointed. It did not do justice to the masterful book upon which it is based.

Character development was lacking. I just didn’t care. It is really tough to do good character development in under 2 hours, especially when also attempting to condense such a long book.

On top of that, the acting was pathetic, full of overly-dramatic dialog pausing, monotonic conversations, and forced facial expressions.  It seemed as though the producers went for looks over talent in actor selection.

Even the music was bad and often out of sync with the mood of the plot.

The visuals were great. Stunning views of the railroad. Nice capturing of the opulence on the one hand, and the raw work ethic on the other.

Overall, I think Ayn Rand would have been disappointed at the production.  Too bad.  A better production could have done a lot of good in popularizing the important principles Rand meant to convey.

What did you think of the movie?

Update 4/20/11:  Google Video is shutting down soon, so this video will probably disappear.  Too bad.

Cool video about improving productivity in a counter-intuitive way.  I am totally a mass production kind of person.  Perhaps I should reconsider.

Do you agree with one piece flow now?  Or will you keep sticking with your old mass production ways?

America faces a fiscal crisis.  Without a knowledge of the big picture, it is really hard to make heads or tails of various political sound bites.

This week, I ran across a wonderful infographic by Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins (the premier VC firm).  At a glance, it is possible to see the income and the expense side of the federal government balance sheet.

The full presentation is really good too.  It presents sound logic and a good assessment of our nation’s fiscal situation.  It is clear that the only way out is through tough decisions.  Enjoy the data!

Today, I needed to register a new employee with the Federal Government e-Verify system, which is the official way to check for employment eligibility. From time-to-time, the e-Verify system requires me to take a test to make sure I understand the rules. Here is one of the questions that I got wrong on the test today:

I had to read that several times to break out of my incredulous stupor.  I’m sure they anticipated this would be the case from the capitalization of the word “NOT”.

As an employer, I am NOT allowed to compare the photo in the passport of a new employee to the actual employee.

It’s like trying to catch a rabbit in the cabbage patch blindfolded.

In the race to raise kids with brains and brawn, it is nice to be reminded of the beauty in raising them good as well.  Enjoy!

Entrepreneurship is better taught in the home than at school. It’s hard to institutionalize the cultivation of entrepreneurship. Career teachers can’t relate.

Last summer, we helped our 6-year-old son sell tomatoes from our garden. He setup a tomato stand and some signage in a high traffic area. He learned hard work, marketing, and sales negotiations. The farming bug we caught has provided our family with rich teaching opportunities for our kids, such as making money from produce.

At its core, entrepreneurship is about production, creating value faster and better than the status quo. It carries with it a sense of belonging to a noble cause, not unlike the feeling that persuades many to pursue a career in medicine. It is full of excitement, terror, and a world of experience. It’s awesome!

The video below is fantastic. I love the childhood experiences that are shared. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I am currently working on a startup, raising kids, home schooling (wife is doing that), and reading Atlas Shrugged. No wonder I connected with this video

A friend forwarded this video today. It is a fascinatingly accurate prediction of the recession.

But what caught my attention even more was the feeling of wisdom that came as I listened to Peter Shiff, and the correspondingly jaded and fake feelings evoked by the other pundit and the anchor.

These feelings reminded me of a Peggy Noonan article from last year entitled, “Youth Has Outlived Its Usefulness.”  From that article:

You have to look hard for wise men. They’re not all over the place anymore. There’s kind of an emerging mentoring gap going on in America right now. You can see it in a generalized absence of the wise old politician/lawyer/leader/editor who helps the young along, who teaches them the ropes and ways and traditions of a craft. You walk into the offices of a great corporation now, look around and think: Where are the grown-ups?

In startup technology circles, it is even rarer to find the “grown-ups”. That makes it all the more important for youthful entrepreneurs to be proactive in seeking advice from thoughtful mentors.

Enjoy!

As we all know from recent headlines, the TSA has stepped up the invasiveness of already overly invasive pre-flight screening of passengers.  From the young boy in SLC to the urine spill incident, hundreds of stories have flooded youtube and the blogosphere  depicting a disrespectful display of big government stomping on private citizens, justifying actions in the name of “public safety”.

After all of the outcry, it floors me that the TSA does not relent.  I’m literally stunned.  Obama definitely needs that special assistant for reality.

The TSA costs taxpayers ~$7B/year.  From Bruce Schneier at the NY Times, “Exactly two things have made airplane travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers they need to fight back. Everything else has been a waste of money. Add screening of checked bags and airport workers and we’re done. Take all the rest of the money and spend it on investigation and intelligence.”  I highly recommend reading the full article.

How about we go back to pre 9/11 security, simply with enhanced intelligence?  We’d be just as safe, put a chunk of the $7B/year back in our pockets, and stick it to the bureaucrats that get a kick out of flexing state power.  How do you feel about this latest TSA power trip?  Are you surprised the TSA hasn’t backed down yet?

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PS:  Enjoy the Ron Paul video below on the subject.  “Groping people is not going to solve our problems”: