Then again, a friend of mine did say “I’ve only gotten money from investors that I’ve gone to a concert or gotten drunk with.”
</tongue-in-cheek>
“Collapses are perhaps more apparent than real,” … A closer look demonstrates that complex societies are remarkably insulated from single-point failures, such as a devastating drought or disease, and show a marked resilience in coping with a host of challenges. … “The rarity of collapse due to the resistance of populations to environmental changes or disease is considerable,” …
From “Collapse Was Slow” at Overcoming Bias
Worth remembering next time you find yourself talking to a conspiracy theorist who says the US is going to collapse.
Let’s play a game. We’ll each name three consecutive outcomes of a coin toss (for example, tails-heads-heads, or THH). Then we’ll flip a coin repeatedly until one of our chosen runs appears. That player wins.
Is there any strategy you can take to improve your chance of beating me? Strangely, there is. When I’ve named my triplet (say, HTH), take the complement of the center symbol and add it to the beginning, and then discard the last symbol (here yielding HHT). This new triplet will be more likely to appear than mine.
The remarkable thing is that this always works. No matter what triplet I pick, this method will always produce a triplet that is more likely to appear than mine. It was discovered by Barry Wolk of the University of Manitoba, building on a discovery by Walter Penney.
Run Toppers, from Futility Closet
What makes this recovery different is that it follows a recession brought on by a financial crisis. A growing body of research has found that such recoveries tend to be slower than those after “normal” recessions. Prakash Kannan, an economist at the IMF, examined 83 recessions in 21 rich countries since 1970. In the first two years after normal recessions growth averaged 3.7%. After the 13 caused by crises, growth averaged 2.4%. America has been doing slightly better than this (see chart 1).
The Federal Reserve brought on most post-war recessions by raising interest rates to squeeze out inflation. When the Fed cut rates, demand revived. Financial crises interfere with the transmission of lower rates to private borrowers. People can’t or won’t borrow because the value of their collateral—in particular, houses—has fallen. Banks are less able to lend because their capital has been depleted by bad loans, or less willing because customers can’t meet tighter underwriting standards.
The great debt drag, The Economist
The constitution is a thing of wonder, all the more miraculous for having been written when the rest of the world’s peoples were still under the boot of kings and emperors (with the magnificent exception of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, of course). But many of the tea-partiers have invented a strangely ahistorical version of it. For example, they say that the framers’ aim was to check the central government and protect the rights of the states. In fact the constitution of 1787 set out to do the opposite: to bolster the centre and weaken the power the states had briefly enjoyed under the new republic’s Articles of Confederation of 1777.
The perils of constitution-worship, The Economist
Everyone’s seen the spy movie where the spy knows that it is 37 steps from the front door down the hallway, turn left at the hall with the painting of the old man, 14 more steps, through the door on the right, using the passcode ’61728′, and that he has 67 seconds to do all this and get back out before one of the two guards comes around the corner.
Much more impressive than the spy movie where the spy knows that he goes inside, turns left, and then goes through the door with the passcode ’617..something’. Oh and don’t get caught, there might be a guard.
Which spy do you have more faith in? The first, because that spy clearly has a better plan — it’s got more detail. He’s able to be specific about the instructions. You could probably step in for the first spy and pull off the first caper, but not the second.
Specifics are how high performers are able to perform — this isn’t some wobbly idea based on a bad spy movie.
A motorcycle rider does not just follow the track, turning when he sees the corner. He knows the course — he can be specific.
A good motorcycle rider knows that there’s a straightaway, followed by a left and a right, then another bit of straightaway, etc.
A great motorcycle rider knows that there’s a long hard straight, and when he comes up to the ’250′ marker, to be on the outside right, hard on the brakes down to 65, revs at 4500, through the chicane.
Specifics are good because they can be proven right or wrong, unlike vague statements which can be twisted moment-to-moment.
Every once in a while, take a step back and think about “What groups of things am I working with?”
For example, Twitter. You can follow lots of people, but it doesn’t always make sense with people from your different interests (work, friends, family, celebrities, bands, news, restaurants) to be intermashed. So, you’ve got lists.
Same thing happens in biology, “Hey these things all look/act the same”. From this simple idea, Darwin achieved fame and changed the world.
It’s an obvious thing, but people often don’t take that moment. Take the time to step back and say “what are the basic groups of things I’m seeing / activities I’m doing”.
It helps find larger trends, and as soon as you deal with groups, you can find shortcuts and optimizations. Imagine how little you would get done if your visual system identified every object in a group.
Assuming you are not Rainman, and also assuming you are not a gardener or landscape architect, you see “a house with a bunch of bushes in front”, and not “a house with 19 evenly spaced plants in front of the sidewalk, two on either side of the doorway, 7 around the lamppost…” Your visual system automatically groups objects to serve as a mental shortcut.
Of course, there are benefits to being specific, as well.
Great article from the SF Chronicle (although sometimes a bit too suck-uppy) on how the French Laundry runs. Well worth a read if you’re into food, or high performers.
Wow, Internet. You are fast. Specifically, Nina is fast. Good job also to Michael, Jason, and Jessica.
The other day I asked “Why is there a lobster carved into the Notre Dame Cathedral?“. Turns out that it’s not exactly a lobster — it’s a crab.
The door that they now use as the exit of the cathedral is called the Portal of the Virgin, and the panels around it represent the cycles of earthly life. The “lobster” is Cancer the Crab, and represents June.
One thing that came up often is the idea that the symbolism of the lobster might have something to do with the fact that it used to be a poor man’s food. It turns out that is true, but only in North America. When Europeans first started coming here, lobsters were everywhere along the coast. It was easy to harvest them, so poor families who didn’t have other options for food would go out to the water and bring them home. Over time, lobster became known as a food for the poor.
In Europe however, people were really into them. The Romans used them as subject matter in the arts and the Turks used their shells as inspiration for armor. Lobsters were widely used for treating inflammation of the eye, stomach aches, epilepsy, kidney stones, and other urinary conditions. In France, a type of lobster called the Royal Blue was eaten by the upper class families, and they even had artists depict them eating lobster.
So, when they were building the cathedral, people were really into Nature, which is reflected in the belief in Zodiac signs, and that’s why it surrounds one of the main doorways.
Learning is awesome!
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