Monday, May 19, 2008
How do you Spell GPS in Cyrillic?
Economists often jest about the Law of Unintended Consequences--a kissing cousin of Murphy's Law, and a concept that dates back to the Scottish Enlightenment. I only throw that last little tidbit in because I'm amused by the thought of enlightenment with kilts. I digress. It's a simple idea, if you try to do a task that produces output "A", output "B" will show up as well, and not only will it be there, but it will be something that never occurred to you when you undertook project A in the first place. Which leads me to Russian GPS.
GPS tracking is one of those businesses that actually benefits from the ills of society: car theft, lazy/fraudulent workers, etc. Much like private security, it's a measure that a person or business can take in order to protect one's own assets against, well, crime. Typically, you associate crime with a bad economy, but that's not always the case.
Take a look at Moscow. Right now, they're in a construction boom, but the supply of construction equipment can't keep up with the demand. Consequently, bulldozers and backhoes (et al) are highly valuable in Moscow and are being stolen at an alarming rate. So construction companies are starting to equip them with GPS tracking devices, so if you're in Russia and in the GPS business, this should be a good time for you. It may not last, if the production of bulldozers and excavators increases dramatically or if people decide to suddenly stop making new buildings. But here and now (and by "here and now" I really mean "over there and for the foreseeable future"), GPS is a good Muscovite industry, if only totally as an unexpected consequence of a spike in construction-related crime.
GPS tracking is one of those businesses that actually benefits from the ills of society: car theft, lazy/fraudulent workers, etc. Much like private security, it's a measure that a person or business can take in order to protect one's own assets against, well, crime. Typically, you associate crime with a bad economy, but that's not always the case.
Take a look at Moscow. Right now, they're in a construction boom, but the supply of construction equipment can't keep up with the demand. Consequently, bulldozers and backhoes (et al) are highly valuable in Moscow and are being stolen at an alarming rate. So construction companies are starting to equip them with GPS tracking devices, so if you're in Russia and in the GPS business, this should be a good time for you. It may not last, if the production of bulldozers and excavators increases dramatically or if people decide to suddenly stop making new buildings. But here and now (and by "here and now" I really mean "over there and for the foreseeable future"), GPS is a good Muscovite industry, if only totally as an unexpected consequence of a spike in construction-related crime.
Labels: business, GPS, technology, theft
Friday, May 9, 2008
This Car Has Been Jacked
True Story.
They say you can tell a lot about a person by the type of car that they drive. A coworker was downtown and saw a car that had writing in the back windshield. It read:
"Attention police. If an old white guy isn't driving this car, it's been jacked again."
For the moment, let's ignore the potential age-ist/racist/sexist implications and assume that "old white guy" is purely descriptive. What, then, can we tell about the driver of this car?
Well, for starters, the owner is going to be elderly, caucasian, and male. That's sort of a gimme. What else is there? The car has been stolen before and recovered. Possibly, it's been stolen and recovered more than once (hence "again"). So the owner probably lives or works in a not-so-great neighborhood. Maybe the neighborhood used to be better, but has gone downhill and the man, who's lived there all his life, doesn't want to move. Or maybe he's on a fixed income and can't afford to move.
So that's what we can get from content, but what about the language? Use of "jacked" instead of "stolen" implies that the car was taken at gunpoint, rather than disappeared from a lot. If that's the case, the owner would have seen the thieves, and that probably inspired him to put a description of himself on the vehicle. We can surmise, then, that the thieves were probably youthful and non-white, and that the owner doubts that future thieves would be elderly and white. "Attention police" might indicate that, even though the car was recovered, he had trouble dealing with the cops.
And what can we say about the fact that he wrote a message at all? It's clever, but it's not very dignified. Clearly the value of the vehicle is more important to him than the embarrassment of driving around with that sign on the back. Of course, I say all this without knowing anything about the make, model, or condition of the vehicle.
And, to be fair, this is all conjecture. It could just as easily belong to an African-American woman whose neighbors have a wicked sense of humor.
Have a good weekend.
They say you can tell a lot about a person by the type of car that they drive. A coworker was downtown and saw a car that had writing in the back windshield. It read:
"Attention police. If an old white guy isn't driving this car, it's been jacked again."
For the moment, let's ignore the potential age-ist/racist/sexist implications and assume that "old white guy" is purely descriptive. What, then, can we tell about the driver of this car?
Well, for starters, the owner is going to be elderly, caucasian, and male. That's sort of a gimme. What else is there? The car has been stolen before and recovered. Possibly, it's been stolen and recovered more than once (hence "again"). So the owner probably lives or works in a not-so-great neighborhood. Maybe the neighborhood used to be better, but has gone downhill and the man, who's lived there all his life, doesn't want to move. Or maybe he's on a fixed income and can't afford to move.
So that's what we can get from content, but what about the language? Use of "jacked" instead of "stolen" implies that the car was taken at gunpoint, rather than disappeared from a lot. If that's the case, the owner would have seen the thieves, and that probably inspired him to put a description of himself on the vehicle. We can surmise, then, that the thieves were probably youthful and non-white, and that the owner doubts that future thieves would be elderly and white. "Attention police" might indicate that, even though the car was recovered, he had trouble dealing with the cops.
And what can we say about the fact that he wrote a message at all? It's clever, but it's not very dignified. Clearly the value of the vehicle is more important to him than the embarrassment of driving around with that sign on the back. Of course, I say all this without knowing anything about the make, model, or condition of the vehicle.
And, to be fair, this is all conjecture. It could just as easily belong to an African-American woman whose neighbors have a wicked sense of humor.
Have a good weekend.
Labels: theft
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