Portfolio Life .net

As I headed out for something to eat, I pickup a book I’ve meant to read for some time…. Titled The Shelter of Each Other by Mary Pipher. Its ten years old but the topic is current.

Her family story is similar to mine, folks having grown up in farm communities then raising kids in the new world of suburbs and not knowing the neighbors.

Actually, while I grew up, we knew the neighbors, but then…

more on where this goes later…. Safe to say her phrase “Thirsty in the Rain” is a key turning point in perspective. And her linking family to the Sioux word, tiospaye, is key. It is the bridge to the families all kids need to know to grow up well and alive to possibility.

tiospaye means the people with whom one lives… and means more than a nuclear family.

Education isn’t mainly about signalling:

We find that employer learning about productivity occurs fairly quickly after labor market entry, implying that the signaling effects of schooling are small.

Here is much more.’ And here is more yet; this second paper estimates the speed of employer learning and uses that estimate to bound the value of the signal at no more than 28 percent of the value of education.’ I consider this devastating to the signaling hypothesis.’ How can ?? years of schooling be needed to signal your quality, if your employer often knows your quality within months?’

In my view education is mainly about indoctrination to give you more productive habits.’ So yes it is learning, but not in the way they might have told you, and that is why it so often does not feel like learning.

(Via Marginal Revolution.)

Given the context, I believe they mean “signaling” is about showing strengths in becoming a good employee - trainability.

But, as I mention in my other blog, work is returning to being about stints. Planning is about making decisions:

Then he returns to something mentioned earlier in the book - the future is jobs as stints. You are, as he states, fundamentally a business of one equipped with a portfolio of skills and experiences. Your stable skills will be applied in unstable settings. (and a large chunk of my career has been stints in unstable settings)

C/net news has an article - Elderly to benefit from ‘fuzzy logic’ research

…The technique has already been used in a number of applications, but Coupland said the project’s researchers will now focus on quality of life for the elderly.

he Centre for Computational Intelligence will work with the University of Missouri’s Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology, which has carried out extensive research on sensor technology.

Specially developed sensors can monitor people’s movements, capture sleep patterns, or measure pulse and respiration, making them useful in identifying medical emergencies or diagnosing health problems.

Using the information gathered by the sensors, for example, fuzzy logic will be able to distinguish between similar-sounding but disparate events such as someone falling over and a door slamming, therefore reducing the number of false alarms….

they go on to describe how the technique doesn’t use cameras or other privacy intrusive devices. It does include audio monitoring but is looking for key sounds like someone falling or a door slamming.

“One of the big things is to do this without impeding on their personal life,” Coupland said. “We’ve got to be careful how we use this.”…

Professor Robert John, director of the Centre for Computational Intelligence, said this kind of technology will play an important role in allowing people to lead more active lives in the future, with less dependence on social care….

It’ll be at least fives years before it is fully tested, approved and implemented. Sounds very timely given the boomer generation’s independent streak.

GenBetween posts about another site, Aging Parents and Elder Care.
I’m sure its good, given the recommendation. And I may post more about it later.

Being in a state where 60% of the population lives in one mega-city and 20% in another berg, I’m attentive to the medical issues facing the remaining 20%. Especially as they age. The key is letting them stay in place for the social support while getting quality specialist care when needed. Things like this from the American Academy of Family Physicians will help:

Virtual Office Visits: A Reachable and Reimbursable Innovation
They’re convenient, they’re efficient, and for a growing number of physicians, they pay….