Like so many cancers, small things can compound if not taken care of. While you can put it off for now, or another move or so, if the opponent catches your miss before you do about this small but vital matter, then you'll be in trouble.

Then, in a surprise move, it disappeared from the shelves. What?! Why did it go away? What happened to it? Thinking it was a momentary lapse in product on the shelves, I found that it never came back... until now! But, in a different form...

Introducing Tide with Febreze! What?? What about my standalone Febreze addition... ah! It all makes sense now.

P&G, Febreze and Tide's parent company, has essentially put the Febreze in Tide and taken it out of all my other laundry detergents. I buy whatever's cheap - Wisk, All, private label, whatever. Febreze worked well with those products. While it's a guess, maybe it worked too well.

Generalizing this strategy, whether P&G did this deliberately or not (rolls eyes), is that a feature can be a category killer. Think cup holders, think Oxi/Oxy/whatever. Because P&G owned the feature (smell reduction) of this category (laundry detergent), it could move it to its brand leader Tide exclusively.

Clever and annoying.

This map shows the vacant properties of the NC Coast as shown on an affiliate site. Data comes from HUD-USPS.

Go News - Japanese, but good site to see the tournaments trees that are active

Go, An Addictive Game is one of my favorites

Go4Go database http://www.go4go.net/v2/
Huge collection of Go game records, daily updates, pro commentaries from Alexander Dinershteyn 1p (who can also be found throughout the Russian Go Portal (site, mainly in Russian), but includes Russian news, clubs, pictures, tournaments, game records etc. or Alex's own page http://breakfast.go4go.net/... where he also offers lessons). Usually have games a bit earlier than the #1 mentioned site.

“Goama”, International Go Newsletter
Go news, commented games, stories, pictures etc.

I also occasionally browse rec.games.go, but there's a lot of non-Go discussions going on

Sensei's is a fantastic reference point: http://senseis.xmp.net/

I wish I read more from The Magic of Go but never seem to have the time to get into the deep content

If there's one you like that you think I should hit, please send me the link!

The Way of Go asserts that GO'S RULES make up the lion's share of strategic rules of thumb structurally. That is, there is hardly a rule of thumb for strategy that is not contained within GO'S RULES.

GO'S RULES are spectrums of planning or decision-making rules:

Global - Local: What's your perspective? 20,000 feet or a 1 foot view
Owe - Save: The spectrum of risk - Owe (debt, risky) to Safe (risk-free)
Slack - Taut: The spectrum of tension metaphorically
Reverse - Forward: Planning back from a goal or going step by step forward
Us - Them: Whose perspective to look from? Yours or the Competitors?
Lead - Follow: The spectrum of initiative.
Expand - Focus: Diversify or put all your eggs in one basket?
Sorry, there are no rules: Real life is not about set patterns

The key notion provided by GO'S RULES is that you can't just bank on one side of the spectrum or you'll miss the other side of the coin. If you're favorite saying is "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and strictly follow it, you're bound to be less successful than someone who can also, when appropriate, follow the rule "out of sight, out of mind."

Why are GO'S RULES important to the Way of Go MBA? Here are four reasons:

1. Much of what you learn across disciplines - Finance, Operations, Strategy, Economics, Marketing, etc. - stem from the same root rules that power The Way of Go. That is, when you strip off their meanings just within their subject matter, you'll find that the rules can apply to other topics. Take Finance. "A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow." In Sports, a sure pitcher, QB, or center now is worth more than some unsure draft picks. While subject matter experts from both fields suggest that you take risks on the dollar/player tomorrow, there are chances that Sam Bowie may not become the next Michael Jordan. But, if you learn the Finance rule and don't cross-pollinate to Sports, Go, and other fields, you're bound to lose out on its teachings.

2. People dogmatically fight for one side or the other, despite the coin being two-sided. The classic Lead-Follow example is from Sony in the Betamax years. Having invested in the Beta technology, they wanted to control the market for devices that played back Beta movies (where they also led studios to go somewhat forcibly). If they would have followed the demand for their product, instead of forcing it and leading it, they could have licensed production of Beta players so that there could have been more Beta players by others (and extracted rents from them), created more simple channels to get movies out of studios (not leading studios through them), and perhaps taken a ride on their leadership in the market to its possible conclusion. So, the key learning before embarking on a MBA is to think when you hear a maxim or proverb or rule, to look for the other side. Think: would the opposite advice also be good in some instances.

3. It's helpful to have a structure for these rules before embarking on one's MBA. If you get the structure later, then you don't get as much out of it as you could have. If you know to look for, and note all the times where similar things occur, it's easier to track them down and summarize your understanding. Moreover, you're bound to find things in your pre-MBA experience that will line up well with what you'll soon be learning.

4. Taxonomies are cool.

At times, I feel compelled to just say, "No! You haven't thought through your own requirements of what you need, what you are trying to solve..." Just as I'd recommend in GO'S RULES - Reverse, I want to ask the client to solve the maze backwards instead of forward. But, at other times, I think there might be some value, if low cost and easy to exit (GO'S RULES - EXPAND), to just doing it for them.

On most occasions, when I do go the easy to exit and do route, the product sits on a shelf and remains harmless. Occasionally, however, a client will do something really excellent with the tools provided; albeit, this is far from the norm. But, it proves to be a nice way of proving the point - if you don't think about what you're trying to solve, technology, the latest buzzword, etc. won't help you. Which brings me to why I was thinking of this at all.

Thornton May, preeminent futurist to the CIOs of the world, asked "What's the future of all this (Google Maps, Location Intelligence, Where 2.0, etc.)?" I didn't have a good answer until I thought about the above.

Societally, I think the toys we build are like these stray requests without much thinking. While a lot of the toys were built with real Reverse thinking to them, the key was never the toy, but what they were trying to solve. Yet, there's huge fascination with the toys (read analysts - equity and industry) that powers their building.

At the end of this span of Web 2.0, Internet 2.0, Maps to the Hilt, etc. you'll end up with the Library of Alexandria at everyone's fingertips (or maybe a direct connect to the brain), but you'll still just have toys, their toymakers, and a lot of money flowing here and there.

Just as the clients who ask for X, Y, or Z, without thinking through their own requirements, society will end up with A through Z in products, services and information, but you'll still have the same basic problems that were around at the time of Aristotle and the development of the game of Go (some 4000 years ago).

Point is, humans are like monkeys at times. Chasing this and that, maybe even strategically, to get at something that still eludes them. To play the game right, you need to transcend this monkey-like set of aspirations and goals. As depicted in the Way of Go, the point is not to necessarily win more games, but perhaps to become a better person, or even a better world/universe.

Perhaps the way to get society to realize that there are no answers in the toys we keep building is to give in to all the requests, to get to a point where even they can see there's no point in making/requesting these toys. The fundamental questions and problems, that have lurked since time immemorial, are still the fundamental questions that they were looking to solve deep down anyway.

But, oh, more toys... couldn't I get one more first?

Look at the difference between 01003 and the rest of Hampshire County.

Global vs Local

Owe vs Save

Slack vs Taut

Reverse vs Forward

Us vs Them

Lead vs Follow

Expand vs Focus

While these chapter headers don't go into great depths, if you want to know more, click on the header of this page to get the book. ;)

Take Harley Davidson, the company. Harley has to make choices about what it's going to do with its brand. It has to decide things like who it will go after: latte drinkers or hard-core bikers. If latte drinkers, perhaps the right thing would be to show shiny new hogs with riders in the latest fashions. If hard-core bikers, then you probably want to do exactly the opposite. But, if you can get away with marketing to them differently, and not having the others find out (or find out strategically), then even disparate goals can work. Think airline pricing - vacation vs. business fares.

The other thing to figure out, from the company side, is what can we be? There are umpti-odd books on core competencies, competitive advantage, and so on that look to explore what you can do as a company versus what you cannot do. The thought being that most any company can do anything, but what can a company do well or best? So much so that it can do it better than others. Go some place where others cannot go. If you have patent protection, you've got some competitive advantage if people want your product. Without intellectual or regulatory advantage, sometimes it's just how well you're able to do something relative to others.

This speaks to the competition and the concept of a value proposition. Value is determined in the customer's mind. Price to Earnings ratio is an example. People think Google earns a P/E of around $94 (as of today), while Yahoo earns a P/E of $38. People buy Google shares at a higher price than Yahoo, not because the earnings are more than Yahoo's, but because they feel that Google's earnings are worth more than Yahoo's. They feel the stock, maybe, will climb higher, that earnings will rise faster, among other attributions.

Starting with the customer's idea of value, and business's need to recoup investment and expense, you can start to chart the relativity of value to cost.

Take a toothbrush. If it costs $2.50 and people pay $2.50, then that's the toothbrush's value. What's the value if no one buys it at $2.50? Less than $2.50. Again, value is in the customer's mind. What if I price the same toothbrush at $1.00 and no one buys it? What if I offer it for free? If no one wants it, then it has no value! Likewise, if I price the same toothbrush at $10 and someone buys it, then the value to that person is $10. Key thing for marketers to understand is how many people will buy something, in what circumstances, for how much.

If most customers value our toothbrush at $2.50 and a competitor offers a toothbrush at $2.00, what will happen? That all depends! What is the value of the competitor's toothbrush? That is, is the competitor's toothbrush one of those that's worth $10 in the customer's mind or one that's worth $0. You cannot tell just because they priced it at $2.00! If it's worth $10 to the customer, and your toothbrush is worth $2.50 to customers, then the competitor's toothbrushes will sell out before you sell even one. Likewise, if the competitor's toothbrush is worth $0 in the consumer's mind, then yours will sell out before they even sell one.

Now, these are extreme examples between very different brushes, but in the real world toothbrush competition, the stakes are higher and the similarities between values in brushes dominate the competitive landscape. It also becomes harder for the customer to determine which brush has a higher value.

Let's look at some attributes of the physical toothbrushes:
- bristle variation
- angle of the brush
- compactness of the bristles
- hard, medium, soft
- grip
- color
- head geometry
- and so on

Different customers going to the supermarket to buy a toothbrush may value these physical attributes differently. Your competitor might make a diamond shaped, compact bristle, angled brush, with serrated bristles that will appeal to 10% of the buying public. But, if your research showed that oval shaped toothbrush heads sell better than diamond, then you can make the same toothbrush as the competitor, but with more valued head geometry; therefore, a more valuable toothbrush in the customer's mind.

However, the physical attributes of a toothbrush are NOT the only attributes customers buy. Consider the following:

- Performance attributes (how long a brush will last; how "effective it is")
- Packaging
- Where on the shelf it is at the supermarket (collaborator)
- and so on.

This makes the toothbrush competition even more complicated. If you have a $2.50 valued toothbrush and the competition has a $2.00 valued toothbrush, but your brush is on the bottom shelf almost buried next to the shaving cream, and the $2.00 brush is at eye level, within easy reach, and has big arrows point to it, that $0.50 of effort the customer might make to reach your brush might not seem worth it.

However again, the process is not even that simply complicated. Factor in the following:

- Brand name (Colgate, Crest, Oral-B, and so on)
- Advertising (collaboration with supermarket)
- Word of mouth
- Dentist recommendation

If Crest goes on a rampage and advertises how other toothbrushes are more fit for canine than human toothbrushing and does it convincingly, and shows that only their new brush is really fit for humans, then, as long as everyone remembers the ad when going into the stores, and remembers it's Crest, not Colgate, that made this claim, then they can expect that you'll buy their brush over the others. Of course, they won't do this and even if they did, it would be remarkable to have people believe it en masse.

Go to your supermarket and check out the toothbrush racks. You'll see a variety of toothbrushes. Most brushes belong to the major brands. Most of the smaller brands are at the bottom or top of the shelf, far away from most strolling customers. Now, how would you pick? Is your current brush working for you, but needs a replacement? Want to ditch the standard brush and go for an electric model?

Your own thoughts about how to pick a toothbrush are cloudy enough. Toothbrush manufacturers and competitors have to think through all your value issues, juxtaposed with all the various value markers mentioned above and more for how to compete for your business. Why? Because they have to CHOOSE how they are going to compete. (I'm surprised we haven't yet seen the Sleep Number toothbrush yet, or the build your own toothbrush, but imagine they're coming... at least now that I've mentioned them)

In the Way of Go there's an entire chapter on focus versus diversification labeled Expand Focus. I've heard time and again from people saying, "I'm going to market this to everyone!" That's usually always a bad move. People value things differently. And, there often are discrenible segments of people that value things the same way. Gain a beachhead with a segment that you can really attack with your product's best value proposition first, if the numbers pencil. Cross the chasm and get into the rest of world from there.

So, how does this relate to you?

If you're a Go player, then you have to make choices between moyo or territory; influence or territory; many positions or one position; leaving aji or not. Goal: to obtain more territory ("board value") than the opponent.

If you're a politician, then you have to make choices between a clean campaign or a dirty one; anti-choice or anti-life; gun control or not; death penalty or not. Goal: to raise your value above the competitor's in the most constituents' minds.

If you're a general, then you make choices between troop levels, positioning, timing, air land or sea, time of day, among myriad others. Goal: obtain the objective at the lowest or no cost.

Brushing up on Marketing or the Way of Go should help.

What I did not realize, however, is that terrorists know the laws better than I do. I suppose that’s part of the terrorist training curriculum. I can imagine the syllabus entry: “FISA’s Too Slow! Relax! You Can Make Calls Inside the US to Foreign Countries Without Getting Wiretapped.” (I suppose it doesn’t have to be part of the training program… maybe if you grow up in a terrorist friendly village, you learn it by osmosis (Hard to tap osmosis… Hmmm)). Now why, you say, do I now know that this must be part of every terrorist’s internal mindset? I came to this realization when President George W Bush got really mad because someone disclosed the secret wiretaps.

Before I actually read through the paper on this breaking story, I heard about these secret wiretaps on my local news radio and just shrugged it off. “Secret wiretaps, humph!” I said to myself, “Major movie studios have been telling me about them for years.” But the President knew, as all those terrorists knew, that secret wiretaps were illegal. Therefore, because of the lengthy, onerous procedures of FISA, terrorists could operate willy-nilly. I mean if terrorists weren’t FISA-savvy, why would the President be mad?

Let’s say that they weren’t FISA-savvy. If some of the card carrying members of ______ (your least favorite terrorist organization here) thought the Bush/Cheney government would eavesdrop on their conversations, they would have not relied so heavily on transmitting their secrets over the phone lines, would they? They would have figured out how to carry out operations by phone or other means so that they wouldn’t be caught if wiretapped. If this were the state of the terrorist thinking, then secret wiretapping would reveal little to no info. Terrorists must have been confident in the law-abiding President and FISA, in order to conduct such operations by phone, and we know this because Bush is so angry at the disclosure of this now not-so-secret wiretap program and his telling us of how this is helping terrorists (Might also be possible that potential illegalities are exposed, but that’s another topic).

It must be the case, since Bush is angry and believes that this was not illegal, that terrorists knew about FISA, knew that America wouldn’t break laws to try to prevent another attack, and that they would phone each other with reckless abandon, knowing the law on wiretaps, or at least slowness of FISA, was on their side. They had to believe this or they wouldn’t be using their phones to conduct terrorist business.

Bush, therefore, tricked the terrorists for the last few years. He convinced the terrorists that the USA was a law-abiding country (let’s ignore prisoner treatment for now) and was therefore going to not interfere with even the questionable-public’s phone conversations. There must have been some weighty conversations going on given how the terrorists must have believed in FISA.

Potential Terrorist Phone Conversation
Ted (terrorist #1): “Bill, I have this secret plan to blow up something. Can you help me get $1,000,000 in C4?”
Bill (terrorist #2): “Ted, aren’t you worried that the US Government is listening to our call?”
Ted: “No dude, remember our training on FISA?”
Bill: “Oh yeah, it’s so lengthy and onerous to hear our calls; we can speak freely about our plans.”
Ted: “Right on. Now about our evil plot and the C4…”

To have some yahoo inside blow the entire secret wiretapping gambit is a travesty.

I mean look at just some of the quixotic odds that Bush had to ignore in order to make this secret wire-tapping a success. Below are the probabilities that:

- terrorists believed we were law abiding – 1,000,000,000 : 1
- terrorists, so believing, would give up good information over the phone, instead of speaking covertly or otherwise – 50 : 1
- our intelligence apparatus would be able to sift through the millions of phone conversations (including those of PETA and other anti-war camps) and find the various needles in the haystack that would thwart a terrorist attack – 10,000 : 1
- if we found the right needle from the right haystack that it would lead to the right action to prevent a terrorist attack – 500 : 1
- if the secret wiretaps were disclosed, it could bring a criminal case / probe – 1 : 100
- a case / probe would lead to impeachment – 3 : 1
- lessening of trust from Congress – 1 : 1,000
- lessening of trust of American people – 1 : 3
- making lawmakers less effective – 1 : 1,000,000

Even without baking in the jeopardy to the President, the odds of preventing a terrorist attack as stated above are about 250 quadrillion to 1. 250,000,000,000,000,000 : 1. Pretty low odds.

But, we also need to assume how the President looks at his decision analysis. There is a rationale to all of this. Here is what I imagine the President’s calculus must look like to justify such measures:

- a stem cell – nearly infinite worth
- a human embryo – infinite worth
- one American – infinite worth
- reinvoking 9/11 = priceless

When you look at it multiplying 250 quadrillion to 1 odds against priceless and infinity values, (namely, anything that supports saving those stem cells, embryos, non-captured Americans, and 9/11 memories) most any action is justified.

The problem lies with whatever alternatives there were (not just for this, but for Iraq, ANWR, etc.). Given the infinite values will always justify anything, you can still act more cost effectively if other measures improve on the 250 quadrillion to 1 odds you’ve set off with the secret phone taps. But, since we’re not the President, we can’t know what he knows until far after the fact, even if then.

So, relax about this whole FISA thing. At the end of the day, the President’s career, criminal record, and the Constitution may be in jeopardy, but for any chance of stopping terrorists, especially as the President must believe, savvy ones, we’ll always do the right thing as long as there’s some chance we’ll be right given infinite values for the above; however infinitesimal.

Intelligent Design, as I understand it, is the idea that “the Creator” designed the universe, not evolution. This isn't science; it's religion, faith, one's belief in “the Creator.” The intelligent part of the two-word rallying cry means divine intervention; the design part of intelligent design is what divine intervention created.

Evolution is about science, not about religion, faith, etc. It is the observation of facts about life in the world from a human standpoint. No one had to deliver tablets to tell us germs have gotten better at survival since the first days of penicillin. Germs susceptible to early strains of penicillin died and those resistant to it survived and had germ offspring. These germs have evolved to beat subsequent penicillin variations because they evolved. There’s less evidence for the move from apes to humans, or complex molecules to single celled organisms, but that doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands and say we don’t know anything or that we need to offer up theistic explanations.

If I understand the battle raging on now, it is about intelligent design being taught in school. As far as I know, intelligent design is already taught at many private religiously affiliated schools, so I imagine the question is to whether we should be teaching intelligent design at public schools. I think some of the debate is that intelligent design should be a viable alternative to teaching evolution in schools.

Should intelligent design be taught in schools? Yes and no. But, let me define what I am talking about.

Intelligent design is not based in science, so no, it should not be taught as a scientific theory with the likes of evolution. With regard to its being an appropriate study for social theories or religious studies, probably not a bad thing to do to introduce students to the likes of the world’s various religious and their thinking about creation. Teach Campbell’s work on the underpinnings of myth; a fine complement to social studies.

Anything more than this becomes problematic. This country shouldn’t support teaching one religion’s views over another in public schools. Given the variety of possible intelligent design courses and views from the various religions, it’s a hard question for how to think through what would be a good representative intelligent design curriculum.

Intelligent design curriculum, for what it was supposed to teach, however, would be a great topic to have in schools – how to teach one to be a better citizen. The Bible has been shown to match most people's view on what is good human behavior, principled action, etc. That the Bible, Dhammapada, Go, Koran, indigenous religions, etc. are largely NOT at odds, shows the universality of the message - no matter the religious/philosophical point of origination. If the intelligent design advocacy was for teaching ethics, principles, morals (getting shakier), and how best to behave, then I’d be for it.

My local grade school does this. They have the Five Bees. Each bee does its part in reminding students about the school’s various credos: Be(e) responsible, be(e) courteous, and so on. While it’s not part of the curriculum, it’s a code of behavior and the five are the prescribed mandates for student interaction. Now, imagine if no child left behind included requiring each grade level passing escalating degrees of difficulty with regard to the Five Bees!

Certainly corporations have been doing ethical rewrites with more frequency either by choice or force lately and probably would be better off with more attention to the Five Bees. If you look at many multinational corporations’ missions and leadership principles and you’ll find a near one-to-one correspondence with most of what’s included in religious teachings and the Five Bees. The point is that more principled companies tend to prosper versus those others that often get stung.

Religion might not be taught in the classroom, or be a valid scientific theory, but its principles and pervasiveness cannot be ignored. Which brings me to why I’d say yes, teach this brand of intelligent design in public school.

God’s word. The Bible. The Koran. The Dhammapada. The oral history and millennia of teachings of indigenous peoples throughout the world. All are not wrong. They all point at the same vital essences, core principles, that permeate throughout each religious point of view and for good measure the game of Go (c.f., The Way of Go), ethics, principled atheism, the Five Bees, and so on. Whether influenced by intelligent design or not, the religions do arrive at truths about proper behavior that most atheists would agree with once you stripped out their we’re-the-only-true-holders-of-truth dogmas.

A brief tangent on dogma and why it’s not needed from the side of Christianity. I think a lot of the folks in favor of intelligent design are arguing something they need not argue – that intelligent design is as scientifically valid as evolutionary theory. Why argue that? There’s no need. Take the typical view and let’s dissect it.

“God created the universe, Earth, humans, and all the beasts; therefore, evolution, being at odds with this, and because we don’t want our children being taught something at odds with the Truth, we advocate for intelligent design.”

First, that’s a rather narrow view of God. Most who argue to know what God is capable of even in the slightest, shouldn’t argue that God is incapable of both creating a universe and having evolution be a valid scientific theory. Human understanding, for those in most religions, is an iota of an entire universe of knowledge that God has. So, the need to come to God’s defense seems somewhat unnecessary with respect to evolution and in keeping with one’s religious beliefs. Why not: “Science is good for going to the moon, chaos theory, and combustible engines, but save the bigger stuff for God.”

Second, science is scary, but it’s how stuff works. Science gives us humans understanding about how things work so that we can do more stuff. If it’s championing a cause on the Internet, if it’s televangelizing, if it’s going to countries with opposing religious views, if it creating weapons of mass destruction; science makes it happen, not anything offered from knowing something about intelligent design. I suppose some people even doubt that science can explain LED or plasma TVs, but I believe that most would agree that science made those things possible. Intelligent design may have made science possible, but science does fine from there on for most things.

But, why then, am I also advocating the teaching of intelligent design (laying aside how to teach a more universalist perspective when it’s mostly Christians advocating their own brand of intelligent design)? I’m not advocating teaching intelligent design instead of evolution, but teaching intelligent design for what it is… well worn, dyed in the wool, time-tested and practically universally agreed upon rules of thumb for being better people; not for giving students a better perspective on how humans can understand today how the universe was formed.

Intelligent design’s prophets – Jesus, Black Elk, Mohammed, Buddha, ______ (insert your religious figure here) – brought you the mysteries of the universe not by their direct scientific explanation, but by their metaphor, parable, analogue, or story. The wonderment of God’s, Allah’s, The Great Spirit’s, ____’s creation was not something that really mattered when people had practically the same problems they have today. These guys (yes, most prophets were men) took great pains to focus their audience on what mattered most. How the universe was formed, what relationship man had to apes, or if there will be a Great Collapse or not, were not atop their lists.

Why not save intelligent design then for churches and other religious activities and keep it out of the classroom? Because, science by itself serves no end. Math, physics, chemistry, history, engineering, economics, and most every other subject is about what and how in a sense, not why. Students with a lot of what and how can go on and live rather “productive” lives, tread the rat race treadmill faster, but no matter how good you get at what and how, you can still go hungry for why. And, there are students in our system who end up worse off than just wondering about why.

Sure, there are all sort of surface level whys like why does déjà vu occur or why is AIDS hard to kill, or why is the sky blue. But the harder whys are beyond science. Why should I care? Why am I here (no, not how did I get to be here)? Why should we produce weapons of mass destruction? Why should we be more concerned about others? There’s all sorts of game theoretic answers to these, but at some point, when the utilities for solving the equations end up being things like love, happiness, and peace, you start to leave the realm of the scientifically solvable and enter the neighborhood of those proposing to study intelligent design. Yeah, that’s not exactly advocating for intelligent design, but it’s where intelligent designs prophets could be helpful to today’s science taught adults.

This does not mean that intelligent design should somehow substitute for teaching of evolution as a science or even an alternative. It means that there SHOULD be such thing as intelligent design within science. Instead of asking if something can be done – clone humans organs for organ transplants in sheep, develop neutron bombs, or split a quark – we need to have the humanity to ask whether something should be done. Intelligent design can be a conscience for science and school in general, as opposed to an alternative to science. Science needs to be complemented, not supplanted.

Imagine a school system where no child left behind meant every student graduated with the best scientific education this country could conjure; with the best principles for how to govern themselves; with knowing how to ask why and learn how to come up with answers to why – why love, why peace, why happiness and so on; with knowing that intelligent design could come from humans, as best as humanly and humanely possible.

Imagine a world where if you hired someone from high school, you’d know that they were principled; where corporations wouldn’t need to champion their principles as if they were introducing them for the first time, where churches, synagogues, temples, shrines, mosques, and support groups were seen as practitioners of the principled arts where students could go to help themselves graduate.

That’s the kind of intelligent design I’d like to see in schools.

It's not the bag that does the magic. While the bag does perform an important function for a nearly stripped card, the real issue is one of distance.

Most of us, when something doesn't work, try to do things more, when we should do things less. If a foreigner doesn't speak our language, we should talk louder. No. If a credit card doesn't work in a reader, we should scan it closer to the the reader. Wrong.

I wondered about the bag trick for a while when I thought I'd best apply tewari - thinking through a problem backward (as one does in Go) - to see what I could see. What is a bag doing? It's changing the optics, but despite being a card "reader", it's not really reading anything optically. It's a magnetic strip and what the bag is doing is pushing your card away from the reader to get a better read on it.

If that's the case, do I need the bag? Turns out no. While the bag is a handy way of getting your card away from the reader and going against the usual desire to get closer, more, louder, etc. the actual thing the bag solves is distance. Moving my card away from the reader on my own, actually solves the problem. The card works. Without a magic bag!

So, the next time you've used your card too much and the stripe is down to its last legs and the check-out person says, "Sorry, you're card doesn't work" (and it's one of those annoying places where they won't enter your card), offer to try it for them. Be sure to move the card as far from the reader-side of the slide as possible, and if there's some stripe at all, it will work.

Then, feel free to pass along that you saw the solution on the Way of Go website so that they can tell others. :)

Here are some famous thesis/antithesis pairs:

* "Customer First!" and "Fire your Customers!"
* "Follow the rules" and "First, break all the rules"
* "Out of sight, out of mind" and "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"
* Put out a fire with water AND Put out a fire with dynamite

So, it's no wonder while watching the news or the latest advertising that the Reverse rule comes into play. With so many shows doing makeovers and other spruce up jobs, who would want to advertise another one. We're saturated with makeovers. Instead, the latest craze is a "Make Under!"

Sure, it's clever marketing and probably not too different from a make over in a way, but the direction is very important to throwing the dull movement toward makeovers into Reverse. You can hear the would-be customers already, "Yes, I have been trying to find the perfect makeover for years, but maybe what I needed was a make under!"

Simple, effective and bound to put a new spin on things, Reverse works. Take your favorite phrase or strategy and turn it on its head. It's bound to reveal things that were always thinkable, but under the surface waiting for a reversal of fortune.