Author: Tim

EXTRA! EXTRA! SENSATIONALISM INACCURATE!

Last year we saw, in one instance, how sound-bite reporting can go wrong. Among the 12,830 words in the annual letter was this sentence: “We are certain, for example, that the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 – and probably well beyond – but that conclusion does not tell us whether the market will rise or fall.” Many news organizations reported – indeed, blared – the first part of the sentence while making no mention whatsoever of its ending. I regard this as terrible journalism: Misinformed readers or viewers may well have thought that Charlie and I were forecasting bad things for the stock market, though we had not only in that sentence, but also elsewhere, made it clear we weren’t predicting the market at all. Any investors who were misled by the sensationalists paid a big price: The Dow closed the day of the letter at 7,063 and finished the year at 10,428.

2009 Berkshire Hathaway Letter to Shareholders

Don’t trust outrageous claims from anyone.

Conservative

In its current incarnation, conservatism has taken on an angry crankiness. It is caught up in a pseudo-populism that true conservatism should mistrust — what on Earth would Bill Buckley have made of “death panels”? The creed is caught up in a suspicion of all reform that conservatives of the Edmund Burke stripe have always warned against.

…

First, conservatives are suspicious of innovation and therefore subject all grand plans to merciless interrogation. Their core question goes something like this: Maybe you think this new health (or education or environmental) plan is a great idea, Mr. Liberal, but will it really work?

What are its unintended consequences? Can our governmental institutions carry it off? Not all progressive ideas pass the test. In the health care debate, conservatives were at their best when they shelved the demagoguery and asked practical, focused questions.

Three points for conservatives

I really like this article. Conservatives should be playing Devil’s Advocate to Progressive ideas. Political party fighting is crap. Focused, insightful, and thoughtful questioning of another’s ideas is a compliment. “I take you seriously enough to consider your ideas”

Scientists find how relaxed minds remember better

Synchronization in the brain is influenced by “theta waves” which are associated with relaxation, daydreaming and drowsiness, but also with learning and memory formation, the scientists explained in the study in the journal Nature.

While scientists already know that relaxed minds are better at receiving new information, this study pinpoints a mechanism by which relaxation neurons work together to improve memory.

“Our research shows that when memory-related neurons are well coordinated to theta waves during the learning process, memories are stronger,” said Adam Mamelak, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Scientists find how relaxed minds remember better

How I Judge Investors

I don’t want you to confuse being happy with being soft. One can be both happy and hard-nosed at the same time. In fact, I like to consider myself a happy warrior. I love life and relish in the entreprenurial adventure, but yet I am (or try to be) ruthless in how I judge and execute that which is important around me and my baby.

How I Judge Investors

Why Flattery is Effective

In their study, participants (students) were shown a flyer complimenting them for being stylish and chic and were asked to imagine that it had come from a clothing store. The participants knew perfectly well the compliment wasn’t aimed specifically at them, and the ulterior motive was plain — the leaflet contained a message asking them to shop at the store. There was nothing subtle about the attempt to flatter — its obviousness was “over the top,” Sengupta says.

On a conscious level, the students discounted the value of the compliment because of its impersonal nature and the ulterior motive. But careful assessment of their implicit attitudes revealed that they felt more positively about the store than participants who hadn’t seen the flyer. These positive feelings could have an impact on a company’s bottom line, the researchers found: Given a choice, participants were more likely to choose a coupon from a store that had complimented them than from one that hadn’t.

Why Flattery is Effective

Threshold of Care

The winners in the new time-compressed age will be the producers of content that stretch the boundaries by marketing products beneath the Threshold of Care and over-delivering on content in the bubble of time we’ve deemed acceptable and then stretching that bubble of time from within. You log in to Facebook to check a quick message and before you know it you’ve messaged, poked, posted, and spent an hour consuming content on different people’s walls.

A culture of stolen time – http://culturewharf.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/a-culture-of-stolen-time/

When a Draft is not a Draft

Ah, at least we have that. The one thing that reliably helps make sense of a world in chaos, or at least makes it briefly more tolerable. But this is where the news gets worse. This comforting crutch of man has crossed over into the chaos.I am referring, of course, to draft beer in a bottle.

In a nutshell, or in a bottle as the case may be, draft beer in a bottle represents everything wrong with the world today.

This man is passionate about his beer. Sir, I raise my glass to you.

If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.

In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.

— Richard Feynman