Form Design in the Digital Age

 An experience with the Massachusetts online application for an ID (just testing) got me to thinking.

Back in the day, that is the early 1990s', we got PC's with Wordperfect 5.0 at work. One of the things I played around with then was using its table tools to create Wordperfect versions of our printed forms. A good part of the motivation was just the challenge in seeing how far I could get and what was involved in getting as close a facsimile as possible.  IIRC sometimes I was able to create a version where you could enter data.  And I think the ASCS/FSA forms shop followed a similar path for some years, replacing the IBM composers they were using in the 1960s with PCs and Wordperfect.

The next step seems (when I retired I no longer was involved on the creation side) to have been creating online forms with data entry. I don't know the software behind those forms, but over the years I've run into them.  

But when you look at that process, it's a survival, like an appendix or wisdom teeth, left over from prior times.

Currently I seem to be encountering the interview process--a series of windows which ask for data piece by piece, with "back" and "continue" options and often with the data entered determined the next sequence of windows to be displayed.  That seemed to be the case with the MA application, also with the Kaiser Permanente appointment process I just completed, and in a modified form with TurboTax's process.  TurboTax is interesting because the end result of your interview entries is a completed set of tax forms for the user, although it looks as if the data sent to the IRS and VA tax people is stripped down to the data elements. 

Perhaps 50 years from now we'll no longer be using forms? 

Essence of Decision-- II Then and Now

[I belatedly checked and saw I'd already posted on this book, so I'm changing the titles of the two posts so they make a series. ]Part of a planned series on Essence of Decision, a very interesting book using the Cuban missile crisis as the core example of three modes of analysis of how organzations work and act.  

 I'm struck by how much Kennedy got into the weeds during the crisis.  Even so, as Allison/Zelikow describe, there were still disconnects where State, Air Force and Navy were doing their thing unaware of or misunderstanding his orders and desires.

Thinking about that presidency and the one completed on Jan 20, 2021, it's like night and day.  Kennedy both by experience in the Navy and by inclination was hands-on; the former guy is hands-on only when it comes to furnishing his buildings or painting his airplane. LBJ, Nixon, and Carter would, I think, have been similarly involved, though with different perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses.  Ford I don't know well enough, but I have my doubts. Reagan and GWBush no.  

So America was lucky that the former guy never had a real crisis.

Another observation--the Soviet Union's communcation network between Moscow and Dobrynin in DC was marginally better than the 1941 network between Gen. Marshall and the Hawaii command (telegram delivered by Western Union).

And one more--Kennedy didn't have the option of a "surgical strike" on Cuba--dumb bombs on jet planes were too inaccurate.The authors say the decision to go with the blockade was due to that lack.  Maybe with today's missiles he would have quickly gone to a strike.  Then again, maybe Khrushchev wouldn't have  decided to install his weaponry.

Essence of Decision--I : Models of Decision Making

[Updated to reflect that it's the first post of a series.]  Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow published a second edition of Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisi s in 1997. Some have called the first and second editions "classics", but it's not in print.  

Anyhow, just started reading the library's copy--they described three decision making models:

• Rational decision-maker: Model 1. What strikes me here is describing the nation as the decision-maker--i.e., why might the Soviet Union have decided to install missiles, etc.
• Organizational decision making. Model 2.  Where the focus is on the organizations involved in the decision makers, their processes, etc.--for example, DOD's perspective versus the Combined Chiefs versus the National Security council.
• Political decision making.  Model 3. Where the focus is more on the political maneuvering among the parties.

It's early days--looks as if I can renew the book a time or two. A couple things strike me already.  

1. We actually need a Model 0.5--the Black Box decision maker, also known as essentialism.  The Soviet Union was aggressively taking over the world, etc.
2. Not sure how the models relate to historians' descriptions of events--the narrative model.

We'll see. 

Amish/Mennonite Dominance in Farming?

 

Read this tweet today:

Young Mennonites posh with cash from selling in high priced areas are stopping at random farms around here trying to buy the farmers out. Fastest growing sector of farmers in my area, along with young Amish.

— NYFarmer (@NYFarmer) April 24, 2022

Back in the day it seemed as if the "Pennsylvania Dutch" and Amish were the same, with the majority living in PA.  In the 60+ years since I'm aware that Amish communities have been established in many states in the Northeast and Midwest.  I assume the Mennonite pattern is somewhat similar.  I know not all Amish are dairy farmers, or even farmers of any type.  And I don't know how heavily they're represented among those leaving dairy farmer.

 So my question is--are close are the Amish/Mennonites to establishing a dominance in dairy farming above the Mason-Dixon line?  How about the organic and traditional (i.e. pasture/silage) types of dairy? 

I assume the statistics aren't readily available from the government. 

Legacy College Students

This Atlantic article pushing for colleges to stop giving priority to applications from children of their graduates had a tantalizing sentence:  "Johns Hopkins abandoned it in 2014, reducing the percentage of legacy students from 13 to 4 percent."

If we like meritocracy, we should end legacies.  

News Flash

Daniel Drezner who wrote a book on the infantile former guy, has some kind words for him: "Trump ... can move down a learning curve..."

His argument is that Trump spent most of the first term learning the basics of the government, so in a second term he could be more effective in implementing his policy goals, such as withdrawing from NATO and our alliances with South Korea and Japan.

Global Warming

 Bits from today's media: 

• Charlestown SC sees "sunny day" flooding of streets about once a week.
• Since then, temperatures in Fairbanks have shifted so much that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially changed the city’s subarctic designation in 2021, downgrading it to “warm summer continental.”

Rights and Duties of "Natural Persons"

 Apparently there's an environmental/legal movement to grant/recognize rights of natural features, such as rights.  I'd guess it's an attempt by lawyers to sue on behalf of such entities against pollution, etc.  There's controversy, as might be expected, including conflicts with the LBGQ community, which seems to be the subject of this politico post.

But what intrigued me was the phrase in the post--"natural persons".  I thought of the granting of rights to "legal persons"--corporations which has recently been expanded.

Why couldn't we have a constitutional amendment to the effect that nothing in the Constitution requires that "natural persons" and "legal persons" be treated the same?

Taxes Done

It's not procreastination, really, or so I tell myself.  But we finished our Federal and VA taxes today and filed them.  Our tax rate isn't as high as the Bidens or Harris/Emhoff but we're close.   What we pay for civilization.  

Inflation and Greed

 Newshour is doing a program on corporate profits now.

There was a piece in the news today that mentioned the "rockets and feathers" effect, at least with respect to oil and gas. Crude oil prices can soar--the rocket effect--because the markets for crude are pricing the future.  Gas stations are slower to raise prices because of slack in the supply chain--current inventories were bought at lower prices.  

But while crude prices can fall quickly gas stations are likely to be slower to drop prices.

The wikipedia article also used crude/gas in the example.   I wonder about whether the effect applies much more widely.