All posts by clinhart

Zusätzliche Ideen zur Beendingung der Covid-19 Pandemie

Covid-19

Idee 1: Ansteckungsgefahr in Innenräumen durch Lüftungstechnik minimieren ( Frischluft-Lüftungsanlage mit Wärmetauscher, Umluft-Anlage mit UV-Licht-Desinfektion innerhalb der Anlage )

  • Arbeitsgruppe aus Virologen, Lüftungstechnikern, Phsyiker, Chemikern soll technische Anforderungen definieren.
  • Kosten mit Lockdown vergleichen.
  • Volkswirtschaftliche Auswirkungen ansehen im Vergleich zu Lockdown.
  • Evaluieren, was die Regierung tun kann, das zu unterstützen: zB mit so einer Anlage darf auch während eines Lockdowns geöffnet werden, Förderungen (Direktförderung, Kreditgarantien)

Es ist kürzlich schon etwas ähnliches umgesetzt worden: Frischluft-Lüftungsanlage mit Wärmetauscher kombiniert mit Umluft mit Hepa-filter.
Ich gratuliere dazu!

Idee 2: Prophylaxe gegen schwere Verläufe durch allgemeine Stärkung des Immunsystems ( Vitamin-D Gabe im Winter, gesunde Ernährung, ausreichend Schlaf, Rauchen aufhören, gesunder Lebensstil, … )
Das könnte beitragen, die Hospitalisationsraten und Todesraten zu senken.
Ist natürlich kein Allheilmittel, aber wohl eine sinnvolle Massnahme im Massnahmenmix.
Ausgewählte Massnahmen (wie Vitamin-D Gabe) in Studien untersuchen.

Idee 3: Wirkung von Gamma-Linolensäure Supplementation bei Covid-19 Erkrankten untersuchen, bzw Wirkung als Prophylaxe.
Gedanke dahinter: Es gibt ein Paper, das zeigt, dass der Virus die Linolsäure bindet.
Durch den lokalen Mangel an Linolsäure kann der Körper weniger Gamma-Linolensäure bilden.
Gamma-Linolensäure ist aber relevant für die Synthese von Stoffen, die für das Immunsystem wichtig sind, zB Arachidonsäure. Siehe auch den englischsprachigen Wikipedia Artikel zur Linolsäure.

Idee 4: Aussagekräftigere statistische Kennzahlen unter Einbeziehung des Ct-Werts der RT-PCR-tests.
Dadurch bessere Entscheidungsgrundlage für zielgerichtete Massnahmen. Das kann sowohl helfen, direkte Schäden durch Covid-19 als auch Kollateralschäden der Massnahmen zu reduzieren.

Idee 5: Regelmässiges Durchführen einer Prävalenzstudie mit zufällig ausgewählter repräsentativer Stichprobe. (Wie sie Österreich ein paar mal durchgeführt wurden.)
Dadurch kann ebenfalls ein bessere Entscheidungsgrundlage für zielgerichtete Massnahmen erzielt werden.

Idee 6: Verwendung von mehreren Primers in den PCR-Tests um die Falsch-Positiv-Rate zu reduzieren, und das standardisieren. Das ergibt Zahlen mit höherer Qualität, wodurch Trends früher erkannt werden. Damit kann man Massnahmen zielgerichteter und frühzeitig setzen.

Möglichkeit 7:
Medikamente, die bei einer akuten Covid-19 Infektion helfen, den Verlauf milder zu gestalten und die Heilung zu beschleunigen.
Gegenüber Impfungen haben Medikamente den Vorteil, dass sie nur im Akutfall eingesetzt werden müssen, und in Summe für viel weniger Menschen.
Dadurch ist die Risikoabwägung für Medikamente grundsätzlich vorteilhaft im Vergleich zu Impfungen, denn hier wird dem Risiko des Medikaments eine bereits schwere akute Infektion gegenübergestellt, die ja auch mit erheblichen Risiken verbunden ist. D.h. durch das Medikament werden Risiken reduziert.

(Das gilt insbesondere auch bzgl des Themas der unbekannten Langzeitnebenwirkungen, das ja beim Impfungen einer großen Anzahl von Menschen sehr relevant ist.
Jedoch bei einem Medikament aufgrund der anderen Risikoabwägung und der viel geringeren Anzahl von Menschen, die es bekommen, nicht so relevant ist.)

Beispiele für Medikamente in Entwicklung

Decentralization of Internet services — back to the roots?

Democracy, Open Source, Technology

When I started to use the Internet in 1990, most of the service were decentralized:

  • Global discussion forums where on Usenet which was operated by a loose network of admins, without central control.
    Decisions about creating new news-groups where done democratically. (The “alt” hierarchy had a lower barrier to create groups)
    Of course admins had the freedom to create new hierarchies with their own rules.
  • Instead of search engines there was the archie service.
  • Chatting was done with the “talk” application on Unix. (and later on IRC)

Back then I could not imagine that services like these would be centralized, run by corporations, and use the Web as a platform. I could not imagine that anybody would want to use that and give up democracy.
I rather imagined that new services would be implemented as a distributed service, too.
(If I could have imagined the centralization and commercialization of services, I would have created one by myself and would have become rich.)

Recently, several events happened which showed us the downside of centralized Internet services. (and much more happens unnoticed)

  • It became clear that corporations like Facebook and Google can influence election results.
    Either by allowing third parties to abuse their platform for doing so, or by themselves by slight changes of the config of their algorithm which selects the information that is displayed in feeds or on the first page of search results. Even subtle changes can have sufficient effects to move a few percent of voters. Which is often sufficient to change the result of an election. (People who have knowledge in direct marketing and Internet marketing understand that.)

    This gives too much power in the hand of too few people. And without democratic control. Rather these few people can undermine democratic control which is crucial to the survival of our democracies.

  • Recently, Google started to effectively censor information that they don’t like or that their biggest customers don’t like. The most visible example is the removal of alternative medicine information when conducting health related searches that don’t explicitly mention alternative medicine. E.g. the information from http://mercola.com, see also https://www.perrymarshall.com/training/google-canceled-his-traffic/

    This is dangerous because it violates the foundation of free speech.
    One of the foundations of free speech is that humans should be able to come to their own conclusions about topics based on the free flow of information. This is a lot more democratic than central institutions deciding what the truth is and what thoughts are permissible. Even the science community can be wrong, and can be corrupt, so it should not have the final say of what information shall be accessible.

This all makes me wonder whether the centralization of Internet services was a mistake that will be corrected.

Maybe decentralization is the next big trend on the Internet?

Or maybe it’ll be some middle ground?

The technology is there for sure. (e.g. distributed databases using distributed hash tables or similar technologies)

For example with search engine technology, there’s an open source project that provides a completely distributed search engine that does not have central control. It uses the computing power, storage and network bandwidth of the search users.
It is called YACY and has been around for a while: http://yacy.net.

I am not sure whether YACY will make it to mainstream.
But it is a proof of concept that it is possible to undo the centralization of Internet services.

Maybe my company will be involved with some decentralization project. Stay tuned.

Why developers and meetings don’t go well together

Management, Psychology

Reason 1

Different people have different preferred modes of communication.
If they operate in their preferred mode, they are efficient and lose very little energy.
If they operate in a mode that’s not preferred, they are inefficient and they lose energy.

One of the dimensions of that is “recorded” versus “live” communication.
Software development is an extreme form of recorded communication.
Therefore, good software developers are usually not suited for meetings.
They’ll lose a lot of energy in meetings and it distracts them big time, even way before and after the meeting.

Also, recorded communicators need time to think before they say something.
So, developers often remain silent in meetings. (Which creates problems with energy feeding, see further below)

(Casual conversation at lunch or so is a different thing…)

Or software developers are actually live communicators, so they
have a very hard time to switch back to software development after a meeting
because the meeting is much more in their groove than software development.

Reason 2

Some developers are high empaths.
This may be a surprise, but it makes sense.

Here’s why:
High empaths pick up subtle energies and feelings of other people.
This creates a lot of information which can be quite overwhelming and stressful (also depending on what is received).
Therefore some empaths tend to chose work where they don’t have to deal with people all the time.
Software development fulfills that to some extent.

Meetings are often especially stressful for empaths because meetings tend

  • to get emotional
  • or feelings are covered (which is even more stressful energy than open communication)
  • or in extreme cases there is some form of manipulation going on
  • often there is energy feeding going on. Energy usually flows from the listener to the talker.

But even meetings in a positive, relaxed atmosphere can cause distraction later on.
After all, any form of emotional stuff (even positive) can distract from software development.

Reason 3

It happens quite often that managers require from developers in a meeting to
spontaneously give them answers that require extensive research (such as cost estimations for new requirements),
and insist on a spontaneous answer. (Which can only be given by lying, i.e., telling a random number)
This adds to the stress level.

Conclusion

If you want to destroy the productivity and motivation of your software developers, do as many meetings with them as possible.

The worst for productivity are daily meetings in the middle of the morning.
This is the worst because the morning is usually the most productive time,
and software development requires highly focused attention for long time-spans without interruption and distraction.

Personal note

Personally, I like the human connection in meetings (if there’s a good atmosphere).
But I don’t like the energy feeding and that I don’t have time and solitude to think or to listen to my intuition or to my inner wisdom before I say something.

Rules and Masters

Philosophy, Psychology

The following applies to many disciplines:

Rules are for apprentices so that they don’t stumble that hard.

A master doesn’t need rules.
A master will sometimes break the rules, and it leads to good results.

In fact, masters (or their disciples) write the rules.
But masters are aware that their rules are just a crude approximation of their wisdom.
(Disciples are not necessarily aware of that.)

These words came to me during my morning meditation.

The Inner Schizophrenia of Small Business Owners

Entrepreneurship, Humor, Psychology

One of the challenges of us small entrepreneurs is that we are our own investor, our own entrepreneur, our own manager and our own employee at the same time. And those four roles often tell us quite different things to do. And then there is our human side, which might also tell us different things to do. 🙂

Here’s a fictional example:

Inner Employee to Inner Manager:
“I need to go home now. My family needs me and it would be bad for my health to work late hours again.”
Inner Manager to Inner Employee:
“You know that we have a deadline today that’s of strategic importance for the company.”
Inner Employee to Inner Manager:
“Ok Ok, got it, I stay longer and finish it.
But this is an exception and the last time I do that.”
Inner Manager to Inner Employee:
“OK, thank you.” (to himself: “He’ll do that again and again. Ignore the whining.”)
Inner Investor to All:
“Hey guys, your business is a dog business. This will never get anywhere. That’s why you have to work so much. It’s time to exit and do something that makes real money.”
Inner Human to Inner Investor:
“My customers depend on me and count on me. They are my friends. I cannot let them alone.”
Inner CEO to Inner Investor:
“You have no idea about the detail work that’s necessary to get a new business off ground. If we close this “dog”-business we’ll likely be without any business. Investor, you don’t have enough money for us. We cannot start another business on a shoe-string capital like that.”
Inner Manager and and Inner Employee to the Investor:
“The CEO is right. It’s too much work to start another business. We don’t have enough capital for that. It’s even more work than the CEO is aware of.”
Inner Investor to All:
“There must be a way. What about cutting salary in half until this gets momentum?”
All others to the Investor:
“We are already working for half salary for 3 months now. We can’t go below that. Think about cost of living.”
Inner Wise Old Man:
“Let’s go to bed guys. Tomorrow morning we’ll meditate and think before any of these electronic devices, email and social media create fog in our brain. There must be solution to all of this.”

Next day in the morning

Inner Wise Old Man:
“Good morning guys. Listen to the Inner Human. He’s the most grounded of you guys. In our morning thinking-time we’ll find a way to make our already good business great for us and for our customers.

There is a star-potential in most so-called “dogs”. And BTW, most of our businesses are question-marks with star-potential. No idea why the investor is so pessimistic and calls them “dogs”. Look at the niches that we are in, instead of looking just at the broader market. Our niches are growing between 12% and 22% per year.

Also, there is much more to business than just the investor perspective. What about the higher mission of a business? What about the spiritual aspects of running a business? What about creating something that matters and improves people’s lives?

And why stop something existing when you want to start something new? 2017 is about combining things which traditionally looked like being mutually exclusive. So we keep the existing stuff and start something new on the side. Once this makes money, we can add employees to the business to handle the additional work.

Please note that we already run multiple businesses. Time to educate the Inner Investor of everything that’s going on here, in his language. He might have interesting insights for us, then.”

You see how many complex thoughts and conflict are already going on in the head of a small entrepreneur. And that dialog illustrates just the tip of the iceberg.

That’s why we cannot afford to watch the news or surf on Facebook or watch TV. Or engage in small-talk for hours. Our brain cannot afford to process rubbish like that.

That’s why we need our Digital Insanity Index to be as low as possible. That’s why programs like “30 day reboot” are so important for us. Nobody else understands that. And that’s fine.

Do you have a Real Life and Time for Thinking? (Or do you live in the Matrix/Internet all day?)

Productivity, Psychology

Now, there is an index to measure this.

It is called the Digital Insanity Index.
Created by Perry Marshall who is a famous marketing and business consultant.

One of his recent creations is the “30 day reboot” program which helps you to get you in control of your life again.

I have taken the Digital Insanity Index and my score is 329/1000 which means “well-managed”. This is after doing Perry’s “30 day reboot” program.

I can definitely recommend 30 day reboot. It has life-changing potential.

The next round of 30 day reboot starts on February 1st.

Kolbe Test as Burnout Prevention Tool

Management, Psychology

The Kolbe test is primarily used as a hiring and team-building tool.
It measures the mode of operation of a person, which is the instinctive and natural way to do work (such as getting new ideas versus implementing existing ideas).

In team-building it is important to have people with different modes of operation in a team. This ensures that the team members complement each other, so that the team is optimally effective.

In hiring it is used to determine the roles which a person is best suited to.

But there is an aspect of Kolbe that’s equally as important:
One of the often overlooked aspects of the Kolbe mode-of-operation is that it costs a person a lot of energy to work outside his/her natural work instincts.
Often people are not aware of their natural instincts. So they just assume that it is normal that work exhausts them. After all that’s conventional wisdom about work in our society.

Especially young people have so much life-energy that they can work against their natural instincts for years in a row, without noticing it. And they even may produce great results doing so.

But when a person works against their natural mode of operation for too long, he/she drains him/herself of energy. This can lead to burnout or other severe health problems.

Of course burnout can have many causes, and most of the time multiple causes are at work simultaneously. Usually, working conditions, and mental health issues of that person are the first reasons that are named. Prevention usually focuses on working conditions. This is fine, and necessary, but it is only a part of the picture.

If people are unconsciously working against their natural instincts for a prolonged time, then even the best working conditions cannot prevent a serious drain of energy.

Therefore I suggest to measure the natural mode of operation of all employees, and let them work in their mode of operation most of the time. Even one hour per day in the opposite of the natural mode of operation can cause a severe energy drain. So, you need to let them work 95% or more of their time in their natural mode of operation.

If an employee already has a burnout, or is close to it, then doing a Kolbe test can reveal an important cause. Once you know the cause, it is usually obvious what has to change.

BTW, this does not only apply to employees. Entrepreneurs also should be aware of their natural mode of operation and make sure that they run their company such that they only work in their natural mode of operation. They can delegate the rest, or choose a business that only needs their natural mode of operation. This makes them more happy and energetic, and the grumpy boss syndrome will melt away fast. Which creates a better climate in the whole company.

High Level Software Project Consoluting Service

Old News

From now on, I offer a high level Software project consulting service.

This means that I take a role outside of the in-the-trenches work of your project.
My contribution is to provide guidance and supervision, mostly at the meta level.
Being outside of the in-the-trenches work enables me to keep an overview and really see the whole thing.

E.g, I can help you with the following things:

  • Which people/experience/skills you need on your team
  • Helping you to become aware of the risks you are really taking when starting a software project. (and therefore hopefully you will assess whether you are really willing and capable to take that risk)
  • Helping you to find out whether a software project really solves the problem you are trying to solve with it.
  • Helping you to find out what you need to do before starting a software project even makes sense.
  • Helping you to explore options when a software project is off-track.
  • When involved on a regular basis: Help you to recognize the state and health of your software project.
  • …

In many cases my role will be to ask provocative questions that make you think about things you might not have been aware of before.

I am very confident that I can provide a valuable service, because:

  • I have 30+ years of experience in software development.
  • Experience with leading software projects. Both in my company and outside. With up to 10 people on the team.
  • Being directly involved in requirements engineering, and corrected the course of that when needed.
  • Extensive psychological knowledge and experience from 17+ years of psychotherapy and other activities.
  • Highly trained intuition when it comes to software projects. Including the human aspects of it.
  • …

My hourly rate for this service is US$ 200. (I may rise that fee later. So engage me while I am still at this level.)

We can do the consulting via Skype or on-site.
For on-site consulting you’ll also pay for travel cost and travel time.

All consulting has to be paid in advance.

More details provided on request. Just ask me.

New focus in my Business: Own products, High-level consulting, Physical Inventions

Old News

I have been preparing my business for a transition for some time now.

In short, I’ll focus and strengthen those areas of my business that work well and that are compatible with my mission and with my soul.
And I’ll phase out or stop the rest.

In details this means that I’ll focus more on the following:

  • I’ll focus more on my DemoRecorder-24×7 product. Which is a screen recorder for mission critical systems. This product is a long term committment. It is on the market since 20 years now. And I am determined to provide long term stability and maintenance for my clients.
  • I’ll create a high-level consulting service. Part of my mission is to help people to get answers to seemingly hard problems.
  • I’ll work on physical inventions. I already have written down many inventions. Now is the time to bring them to light and reap the harvest
  • I have another software product / business in the pipeline. But I keep this secret until the time is right to publicly announce this

This also means that I’ll reduce or stop the following activity:

  • I’ll stop the consumer version of DemoRecorder. It doesn’t make sense anymore to offer that. There are free software alternatives. And the market is so small that it does not make any economical sense to try to compete with these free software alternatives on a feature level.
  • I’ll stop writing software that I don’t own, i.e., I stop offering a software development service writing software for others. The writing is on the wall since about August this year that I should stop offering this service, even though I am very good at it.

    It doesn’t make sense economically anymore given all the other higher-level things going on in my business.

    And it also doesn’t make sense personally anymore. I am a creative person with a never ending stream of high quality ideas. It doesn’t make sense to implement other people’s ideas while I cannot keep up with getting my own ideas implemented. And my soul is sending me very intense signals that I should stop implementing other people’s ideas.

    Of course I’ll finish existing, active projects writing software for others. Emphasis on “active”.
    (I might even take small projects from time to time from customers that have treated me with respect, are calm and trustworthy and do not exert time pressure.)

    For customers who want to reactivate projects that they have suspended or stopped prematurely: I can offer my high-level consulting service to get you going with other developers, if needed.

Just returned from a trip to the US

Old News

I have just returned from a great business trip to the US.

In Chicago I have done several things to get a good and spiritually founded direction for my business.

I have done the following in Chicago:

  • a Sozo session with Margaret Nagib, which was an amazing experience.
  • have attended Perry Marshall’s “Memos from the head-office” seminar which was a great great great experience. It finally helped me to know what my mission is.
  • and more great things… (which I may or may not write about)

Chicagoland is a great place on earth.
It feels like what they call a “thin place”. Where you are more connected with God than in most other places.

People show that they love each other in all everyday transactions.
Great place, great people.

Then I went to another place in the US and visited a customer.
This is confidential, so I won’t write any more details about this here.

I’ll post more of the consequences of this trip.