How to Lose Time and Money

It's hard to spend a fortune without noticing. Someone with ordinary tastes would find it hard to blow through more than a few tens of thousands of dollars without thinking "wow, I'm spending a lot of money." Whereas if you start trading derivatives, you can lose a million dollars (as much as you want, really) in the blink of an eye.

In most people's minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn't. Luxuries seem self-indulgent. And unless you got the money by inheriting it or winning a lottery, you've already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence leads to trouble. Investing bypasses those alarms. You're not spending the money; you're just moving it from one asset to another. Which is why people trying to sell you expensive things say "it's an investment."

The solution is to develop new alarms. This can be a tricky business, because while the alarms that prevent you from overspending are so basic that they may even be in our DNA, the ones that prevent you from making bad investments have to be learned, and are sometimes fairly counterintuitive.

A few days ago I realized something surprising: the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. When you spend time having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Alarms start to go off fairly quickly. If I woke up one morning and sat down on the sofa and watched TV all day, I'd feel like something was terribly wrong. Just thinking about it makes me wince. I'd start to feel uncomfortable after sitting on a sofa watching TV for 2 hours, let alone a whole day.

via paulgraham.com

Great essay by Paul Graham; In my mind this is the biggest pitfall of the 40 hour work week. I believe I'd be far more productive if I was given objectives and deadlines, but wasn't required to be at my desk 40 hours a week.

Posted via email from johnweldon4 - posterous

Fighting Oil with Nature | NYU-Poly

What if cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t a matter of choosing between harsh chemical dispersants, labor-intensive skimming and potentially dangerous burns? Dr. Richard Gross, professor of chemical and biological science and Herman F. Mark chair at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly), claims nature has already provided the ideal weapons in the fight against the millions of gallons of oil still spilling into the Gulf.

via poly.edu

It seems to me that now is the time to get funding to turn this research into a production ready solution.

It appears that it's too late to effectively apply this to the Gulf Spill, but I'm sure it will still be a good place to do the research and proof of concept work.

Where can we start. Is there a fund that people can contribute to? A place to drive links with answers, action opportunities, and organization.

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Plan - Sleep - Do; FTW

People who sleep after processing and storing a memory carry out their intentions much better than people who try to execute their plan before getting to sleep, say psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis.

The researchers have shown that sleep enhances our ability to remember to do something in the future, a skill known as prospective memory.

Moreover, researchers studying the relationship between memory and sleep say that our ability to carry out our intentions is not so much a function of how firmly that intention has been embedded in our memories. Rather, the trigger that helps carry out our intentions is usually a place, situation, or circumstance—some context encountered the next day—that sparks the recall of an intended action.

via futurity.org

This is interesting and useful research. It sounds like common sense.

My reaction is to try and plan my days work the night before, and to specifically plan 'triggers' to maximize the effect.

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Ignoring stress detours steps to recovery

The researchers found that how addicts cope with stress—either by working through a problem or avoiding it—is a strong predictor of whether they will experience cravings when faced with stress and negative mood.

“Whether you avoid problems or analyze problems not only makes a big difference in your life but also has a powerful impact on someone who has worked hard to stay away from alcohol and other drugs,” explains Cleveland.

“When faced with stress, addicts who have more adaptive coping skills appear to have a better chance of staying in recovery.”

via futurity.org

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Untitled

Excellent hour long video where Don Norman talks about the business of software, and user experience.

 

 

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The Low Road - Marge Piercy

Thanks to Fred Wilson; this poem is amazing.

I only included part of the poem here, the full poem is a must read.

 

What can they do  to you? Whatever they want.  ...  Alone, you can fight, you can refuse, you can  take what revenge you can  but they roll over you.  But two people fighting  back to back can cut through  a mob, a snake-dancing file  can break a cordon, an army  can meet an army.  Two people can keep each other  sane, can give support, conviction,  love, massage, hope, sex.  Three people are a delegation,  a committee, a wedge. With four  you can play bridge and start  an organisation.   ...  It goes on one at a time,  it starts when you care  to act, it starts when you do  it again after they said no,  it starts when you say We  and know who you mean, and each  day you mean one more.

--Marge Piercy
Copyright 2006, Middlemarsh, Inc.

via margepiercy.com

 

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Web Application Exploits and Defenses

The codelab is organized by types of vulnerabilities. In each section, you'll find a brief description of a vulnerability and a task to find an instance of that vulnerability in Jarlsberg. Your job is to play the role of a malicious hacker and find and exploit the security bugs. In this codelab, you'll use both black-box hacking and white-box hacking. In black box hacking, you try to find security bugs by experimenting with the application and manipulating input fields and URL parameters, trying to cause application errors, and looking at the HTTP requests and responses to guess server behavior. You do not have access to the source code, although understanding how to view source and being able to view http headers (as you can in Chrome or LiveHTTPHeaders for Firefox) is valuable. Using a web proxy like Burp or WebScarab may be helpful in creating or modifying requests. In white-box hacking, you have access to the source code and can use automated or manual analysis to identify bugs. You can treat Jarlsberg as if it's open source: you can read through the source code to try to find bugs. Jarlsberg is written in Python, so some familiarity with Python can be helpful. However, the security vulnerabilities covered are not Python-specific and you can do most of the lab without even looking at the code. You can run a local instance of Jarlsberg to assist in your hacking: for example, you can create an administrator account on your local instance to learn how administrative features work and then apply that knowledge to the instance you want to hack. Security researchers use both hacking techniques, often in combination, in real life.

via jarlsberg.appspot.com

An excellent resource for learning about coding defensively. Nice work Google :)

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Mind Your Body: Going Through the Motions | Psychology Today

Athletes have long used mental imagery to complement physical practice, and research indicates that going through the motions only in your head can enhance performance just as well as—and sometimes better than—actually working up a sweat.

In one study at Texas A and M, medical students learning venipuncture received 30 minutes of guided physical practice followed by either 30 more minutes of practice, 30 minutes of guided mental imagery, or no more training. When tested, the first two groups performed better than the third, and just as well as each other. The same effect was seen in students learning to suture.

via psychologytoday.com

I wonder how this translates to programming? I mean, it's all mental already right? The physical acts of reading the screen, and typing words don't really contribute to the process much... it's just I/O :)

Of course there would probably be benefits in learning how to hold more information in your mind at once...

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Does 'Freedom' ipso facto mean less government?

Interesting argument; counter-arguments after the link...

 

If freedom involves having a decent set of alternatives available to us, then government action can enhance our freedom even if it involves restraints on conduct that would not otherwise violate anyone’s rights. Consider traffic laws. Those of us who drive are constantly subjected to government dictates telling us what we can and cannot do. We can only drive on one side of the street. We have to stop at red lights and stop signs even when no one else is around. If freedom means only that government should not tell us what to do, then the traffic laws are a massive intrusion on our liberty.

I suspect that most people don’t see things that way, though. They probably agree with Elizabeth Anderson, from whom I have taken this example:

To be sure, in a state of gridlock, one has the formal freedom to choose any movement in one's opportunity set -- which amounts to being able to rock forward and back a couple of inches from bumper to bumper, getting nowhere. Some freedom!

Normally, the point of driving is to get somewhere. The traffic laws enable us to get where we are going much more quickly and safely than we would if each of us had to decide for him- or herself which side of the street to drive on. The traffic laws do not tell us where to go. They leave the choice of destination, and for that matter the decision whether to drive at all, entirely up to us. They simply tell us which side of the road to drive on, that we should stop at various points, and so forth. By taking away our freedom to drive on the left, or to blast through busy intersections, they grant us much more freedom in the form of a greatly enhanced ability to get wherever we want to go quickly and safely.

Anyone who thinks that the traffic laws enhance our freedom should acknowledge that in some cases, including this one, government action can enhance our freedom, even if that action takes the form of restrictions on what we can and cannot do. An enormous number of questions about which (other) forms of government action might enhance our freedom would remain to be answered, but the fact that some government policy involves either a more active government or new restrictions on our action would not, by itself, imply that it diminishes our freedom.

via thedemocraticstrategist.org

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The Challenge of Indifference « Scott Berkun

I don't quite know what to make of Mr. Berkun yet (1), but I found this article very good.

Indifference, feigned or real, is such a pervasive part of North American culture (maybe just here in the Pacific Northwest, I don't know). I forget how surprising this was to me when I first came to the USA when I was 18.

Short excerpt follows, and the full article if you follow the link.

 

And as I stood there, I started to feel weird. Why am I the only one listening? Even though I knew it was right in the sense this is something alive and real and I can spare at least 30 seconds for that – it felt weird simply because no one else was doing it. Had there been a crowd around any one of these buskers, more people would stop to listen, simply because they could do it without having to stand out.

via scottberkun.com

 

(1) I've read one of his books, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and thought it was good and worth reading, and I've been reading his blog for several months. Still not sure what to make of him though.

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The Secret of Great Bread - Let Time Do the Work - NYTimes.com

Mr. Lahey’s method is striking on several levels. It requires no kneading. (Repeat: none.) It uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques. It takes very little effort.

It accomplishes all of this by combining a number of unusual though not unheard of features. Most notable is that you’ll need about 24 hours to create a loaf; time does almost all the work. Mr. Lahey’s dough uses very little yeast, a quarter teaspoon (you almost never see a recipe with less than a teaspoon), and he compensates for this tiny amount by fermenting the dough very slowly. He mixes a very wet dough, about 42 percent water, which is at the extreme high end of the range that professional bakers use to create crisp crust and large, well-structured crumb, both of which are evident in this loaf.

The dough is so sticky that you couldn’t knead it if you wanted to. It is mixed in less than a minute, then sits in a covered bowl, undisturbed, for about 18 hours. It is then turned out onto a board for 15 minutes, quickly shaped (I mean in 30 seconds), and allowed to rise again, for a couple of hours. Then it’s baked. That’s it.

via nytimes.com

I'm going to try this out! It will be my first loaf of bread I've ever made, and I'm expecting it to ROCK! :)

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Brain-training games don't work

Alas, research published today in Nature indicates that the possibility of improving your general cognitive abilities by playing brain-training games is an empty promise. More than 11,000 volunteers were split into three groups: one who played brain-training-type exercises; a second practised more general cognitive tests; and a control group who just pootled around the internet answering random questions. They did this for six weeks, bookended by benchmarking tests of memory, reasoning and other standard tests of cognitive function.

All three groups displayed improvement in the tasks they were performing. But all three groups also showed only small and similar increases in the benchmarking tests, possibly simply the effect of repeating the test. Conclusion? Practising brain-training games will improve your performance on brain-training games, but that effect will not transfer to other aspects of brain function. They will not make you brainier, so you may as well just pootle around on the internet. As lead researcher Adrian Owen says: "You're not going to get better at playing the trumpet by practising the violin."

via guardian.co.uk

Ah... there goes that theory.

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Team Hanselman and Diabetes Walk 2010

Two months before my 21st birthday I started peeing a lot. A LOT. Like I was drinking four 2-liter bottles of Sprite a day and was still thirsty beyond belief. We'd just had a family photo taken and I was 130lbs on a 5'11" frame (for those of you outside the US, that's thin.) I was wasting away and looked like death. My father, a Portland Firefighter and Paramedic for thirty years smelled the sugar on my breath and sent me right away to the hospital where my blood glucose level was higher than the meter could read...and it's supposed to be under 100mg/dl.

I spent that spring learning how to give myself shots, four a day, along with a regiment of pills. Twelve years later I have no side effects, knock on wood. Not everyone is that lucky. I recently went to a funeral of a high-school friend who was the exact same age and succumbed to Type 1 Diabetes.

via hanselman.com

I knew a young man who was just starting out in life; young wife and an adopted kid. He began experiencing similar symptoms, but it took less than a couple days between him realizing there was a problem and being dead.

Diabetes is a dangerous killer, and I want to see it stopped too.

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Visual Studio 2010 C++ Project Upgrade Guide

Note that VS2008 has to be installed on the machine for the application to target 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5.

via blogs.msdn.com

Big gotcha; cannot use Visual Studio 2010 to target .NET versions prior to 4.0.

This means if you want to use the 2010 version, you have to either have Visual Studio 2008 installed also, or you have to target .NET version 4.0 and up.

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Coordination Is Hard

The key thing to understand is: governance is hard, especially in a democracy.  Fundamentally, this is because coordination is hard.

It can be very hard for even a single owner to coordinate with a dozen subordinates that each coordinate with a dozen employees in an ordinary firm to achieve a simple clear goal like making and selling a simple product at a profit. Organizations fail at this task all the time, and for thousands of different reasons.  Most new organizations attempting this fail, and most that are succeeding now will fail in a few decades.  When they fail, they will fail so badly that it will not be worth trying to save them; better to throw them away and start anew.

Once one appreciates the difficulty of coordinating even small organizations, and that bigger coordination is harder, one can see why it can be extremely difficult to manage the vaster coordination required by government.  How can ordinary citizens continue over centuries to coordinate to support interest groups that coordinate to support politicians who coordinate to approve and manage policies that empower agency heads to coordinate to manage thousands of agency employees to achieve the vague incoherent goals of many millions of citizens?

via overcomingbias.com

This is from a new blog I've been reading. It's worth following the link to read the whole article.

Insightful perspective on governance, and the difficulty of concerted effort to achieve anything.

The author makes the compelling point that it would be wise for us to find ways to improve the effectiveness of our government, even if we believe in less government.

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Command Hierarchies and System Resilience

It seems obvious that centralized, autocratic management hierarchies are brittle and that decentralized, democratic management hierarchies are more resilient to change.

In fascinating research from Yale, it turns out that in organisms, the more complex the organism is, the more decentralized and 'democratic' the management hierarchy is.

 

In most organisms, he says, master regulators control the activity of middle managers, which in turn govern suites of workhorse genes that carry out instructions for making proteins.

Details of the study were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As a general rule, the more complex the organism, the less autocratic and more democratic the biological networks appear to be, Gerstein says.

...

In simple “autocratic” organisms such as E. coli, there tends to be a chain of command in which regulatory genes act like generals, and subordinate molecules “downstream” follow a single superior’s instructions.

But in more complex “democratic” organisms, most of these subordinate genes co-regulate biological activity, in a sense sharing information and collaborating in governance.

Organisms that have both qualities are deemed “intermediate.”

The interactions in more democratic hierarchies lead to mutually supporting partnerships between regulators than in autocratic systems, where if one gene is inactivated, the system tends to collapse.

via futurity.org

Amazing article.

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Psychopaths’ brains seek rewards at all costs

Fascinating look at the brains of psychopaths. I know that in addictions the consequences are often completely ignored by the addict while in the acting out phase of the addiction cycle. I would strongly expect that this hyper-reactive dopamine reward system is in effect at some level with addicts too.

 

The brains of psychopaths appear to be wired to keep seeking a reward regardless of the consequences, according to new research.

“Psychopaths are often thought of as cold-blooded criminals who take what they want without thinking about consequences,” says the study’s lead author Joshua Buckholtz, a graduate student in psychology at Vanderbilt University.

“We found that a hyper-reactive dopamine reward system may be the foundation for some of the most problematic behaviors associated with psychopathy, such as violent crime, recidivism, and substance abuse.”

The results were published in Nature Neuroscience.

Previous research on psychopathy has focused on what these individuals lack—fear, empathy, and interpersonal skills. The new research, however, examines what they have in abundance—impulsivity, heightened attraction to rewards, and risk taking. Importantly, it is these latter traits that are most closely linked with the violent and criminal aspects of psychopathy.

“There has been a long tradition of research on psychopathy that has focused on the lack of sensitivity to punishment and a lack of fear, but those traits are not particularly good predictors of violence or criminal behavior,” says study coauthor David Zald, associate professor of psychology and of psychiatry. “Our data is suggesting that something might be happening on the other side of things. These individuals appear to have such a strong draw to reward—to the carrot—that it overwhelms the sense of risk or concern about the stick.”

via futurity.org

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Are belly bacteria making us overeat?

Recent research suggesting that intestinal bacteria may actually change the host person's appetite and insulin resistance.

I'm curious what effect fasting and/or cleanse diets have on these bacteria colonies, and if foods like yogurt and other 'good bacteria' foods can have significant positive effect.

 

Intestinal bacteria also may play a role in human obesity and metabolic disease.

A new study shows that increased appetite and insulin resistance can be transferred from one mouse to another via intestinal bacteria.

Previous research has shown that intestinal bacterial populations differ between obese and lean humans.

“It has been assumed that the obesity epidemic in the developed world is driven by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and the abundance of low-cost, high-calorie foods,” says senior author Andrew Gewirtz, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.

“However, our results suggest that excess caloric consumption is not only a result of undisciplined eating but that intestinal bacteria contribute to changes in appetite and metabolism.”

The study is published online in Science magazine.

Emory faculty member Matam Vijay Kumar has been studying mice with an altered immune system that were engineered to lack Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), a gene that helps cells sense the presence of bacteria.

TLR5 recognizes flagellin, the main component of the apparatus (flagella) that many bacteria use to propel themselves.

The TLR5-deficient mice were about 20 percent heavier than regular mice and had elevated triglycerides, cholesterol, and blood pressure, and mildly elevated blood sugar and increased production of insulin.

TLR5-deficient mice consumed about 10 percent more food than their regular relatives. When their food was restricted they lost weight but still had a decreased response to insulin (i.e. insulin resistance).

When fed a high-fat diet, TLR5-deficient mice gained more weight than regular mice and, moreover, developed full-blown diabetes and fatty liver disease.

In short, TLR5-deficient mice exhibit “metabolic syndrome,” a cluster of disorders that in humans increases the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.

via futurity.org

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Selecting Talent: The Upshot from 85 Years of Research - Bob Sutton

Great article by Bob Sutton on hiring.

Most remarkable to me is how unpredictable on-the-job performance can be using:

• unstructured interviews (most common in my experience),
• reference checks (!), and
• job experience (!!)

 

 

The upshot of this research is that work sample tests (e.g., seeing if people can actually do key elements of a job -- if a secretary can type or a programmer can write code ), general mental ability (IQ and related tests), and structured interviews had the highest validity of all methods examined (Arun, thanks for the corrections). As Arun also suggests, Schmidt and Hunter point out that three combinations of methods that were the most powerful predictors of job performance were GMA plus a work sample test (in other words, hiring someone smart and seeing if they could do the work),  GMA plus an integrity test, and GMA plus a structured interview (but note that unstructured interviews, the way they are usually done, are weaker).

Note that this information about combinations is probably more important than the pure rank ordering, as it shows what blend of methods works best, but here is also the rank order of the 19 predictors examined, rank ordered by the validity coefficient, an indicator of how strongly the individual method is linked to performance:

1. Work sample tests (.54)

2. GMA tests ..."General mental ability" (.51)

3. Employment interviews -- structured (.51) 

4. Peer ratings (.49)

5. Job knowledge tests (.48) Test to assess how much employees know about specific aspects of the job. 

6. T & E behavioral consistency method (.45) "Based on the principle that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. In practice, the method involves describing previous accomplishments gained through work, training, or other experience (e.g., school, community service, hobbies) and matching those accomplishments to the competencies required by the job. a method were past achievements that are thought to be important to behavior on the job are weighted and score

7. Job tryout procedure (.44) Where employees go through a trial period of doing the entire job.

8. Integrity tests (.41)  Designed to assess honesty ... I don't like them but they do appear to work. 

9. Employment interviews -- unstructured (.38)

10. Assessment centers (.37)

11. Biographical data measures(.35)

12. Conscientiousness tests (.31)  Essentially do people follow through on their promises, do what they say, and work doggedly and reliably to finish their work.

13. Reference checks (.26)

14. Job experience --years (.18)

15. T & E point method (.11)

16. Years of education (.10)

17. Interests (.10)

18. Graphology (.02) e.g., handwriting analysis.

19. Age (-01)

Certainly, this rank-ordering does not apply in every setting.  It is also important to recall that there is a lot of controversy about IQ, with many researchers now arguing that it is more malleable than previously thought. But I find it interesting to see what doesn't work very well -- years of education and age in particular. And note that unstructured interviews, although of some value, are not an especially powerful method, despite their widespread use. Interviews are strange in that people have excessive confidence in them, especially in their own abilities to pick winners and losers -- when in fact the real explanation is that most of us have poor and extremely self-serving memories.

Original Article: bobsutton.typepad.com

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Hg Init: a Mercurial tutorial by Joel Spolsky

Hg Init: a Mercurial tutorial

Mercurial is a modern, open source, distributed version control system, and a compelling upgrade from older systems like Subversion. In this user-friendly, six-part tutorial, Joel Spolsky teaches you the key concepts.

via hginit.com

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Liberals and Markets, Arnold Kling

Arnold Kling takes an interesting topic and dissects it well.

Are Libertarians simply Liberals who like markets?

I've considered myself a Libertarian in many political views for a long time, and have been noticing an increasing 'leftward' slide in my general political views, except for a couple hot-button areas.

Interesting:

 

To me, government is a mechanism that diffuses and dilutes accountability. If government does something wrong, does a bureaucrat get fired? Does an agency go out of business? Do legislators suffer financial losses?

If I shop for a coat, the store is accountable to me. If government decides on a policy, my affect on that policy is at best very indirect. Will my vote be determined by that policy, or by my feelings about the elected officials based on other factors? Even if I vote on the basis of a single policy, will others vote the same way? Will the elected officials understand what the voters want? etc.

via econlog.econlib.org

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What Truly “Wealthy” People Know about Money

This great article that I found via Seth Godin summarizes what I've been thinking and trying to actually do as far as generating value lately.

 

Look at the thing of value as what’s underneath the money.  If you want to generate more income, then think of how you can generate more value, not more money.  Also recognize that both value and wealth come in more forms than just money.  You can be financially wealthy but be bankrupt in true friendships, peer respect or health.

This observation is universal; applicable to anyone, anywhere in any business or organization.   It applies to the artist business, the management company and the United States Government.

In equation form it looks like this:

Wealth = Value Provided by Y *  Number of Entities that Directly Value Y

(Where Y is the product, employee or subject generating wealth).

via theartistfarm.com

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Attracting Talent, via Eric Lippert

Interesting summary of feedback by Eric Lippert, who was asking about factors that make a job description attractive (or not) to potential employees.

Factors that make a job posting attractive are:

• Required skills
  • relevant, focused, sensible
  • emphasis on ability to learn
• Format and style
  • well-written, self-aware, humble, enthusiastic
• Personality and culture
  • good work-life balance
  • corporate culture and values clearly expressed
  • evidence of programming methodologies, such as “Agile Programming”
  • opportunity to work with famous industry leaders or on famous products
• The job itself
  • described in detail: specific team, specific product, specific job
  • telecommuting possible
  • work is beneficial to industry and society
  • work has large scope -- “change the world”
  • work is challenging
  • product is innovative
  • tools/languages to be used are described and are current and familiar
  • good pay
  • autonomy to choose own tools, architectures, methodologies
  • details of the team stated – team size, for example
  • more than just typing in code – opportunities for UI design, DB design, troubleshooting user problems, and so on

via blogs.msdn.com

I highly recommend following the link and reading the whole article if you in any way participate in hiring, and/or drafting job requirements.

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“It turns out” « jsomers.net

“It turns out” became a favorite phrase of mine sometime in mid 2006, which, it turns out, was just about the time that I first started tearing through Paul Graham essays. Coincidence?

I think not. It’s not that pg is a particularly heavy user of the phrase—I counted just 46 unique instances in a simple search of his site—but that he knows how to use it. He works it, gets mileage out of it, in a way that other writers don’t.

That probably sounds like a compliment. But it turns out that “it turns out” does the sort of work, for a writer, that a writer should be doing himself. So to say that someone uses the phrase particularly well is really just an underhanded way of saying that they’re particularly good at being lazy.

Let me explain what I mean.

Suppose that I ...(continued after the link)...

via jsomers.net

This is an engaging post about the use (and abuse) of a rhetorical phrase that gives the user immense influence, without actually needing the weight of facts to substantiate it.

I've always found this phrase quite compelling, and reading this post was quite entertaining. (HT Ben Casnocha)

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Classy, Affordable, and Attractive Closet Space Solutions

 

Dave and Andrea Walker over at INeedClosetSpace.com have been doing some great work in organization and space management of garages and closets...

 

I especially like the classy and organized look of a few of their solutions:

 

 

They are located in Battle Ground, just north of Vancouver, WA

 

I highly recommend them!

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20 (More) Reality-Checking Questions for Would-Be Entrepreneurs - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review

In addition to the 20 questions Dan Isenberg asks, ask yourself if you can answer "yes" to this list of statements before deciding whether or not to become an entrepreneur:

1. I am willing to lose everything.
2. I embrace failure.
3. I am always willing to do tedious work.
4. I can handle watching my dreams fall apart.

via blogs.hbr.org

Well... the list starts off pretty light... I think I can do it :)

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Enter the World of Children at Risk Through a Great Book « Hope For The Nations

Say You’re One of Them is an awe-inspiring collection of stories that challenges you to look beyond the headlines and see an Africa full of both joy and despair.

In his first collection of stories, Say You’re One of Them , Akpan brings to life the issues facing children in one of the most beleaguered places on earth, so that their voices will no longer go unheard.

In five separate narratives, each told from the perspective of a child from a different African country, Say You’re One of Them vividly portrays the horror and beauty to be found in both the history-altering events and the mundane details of everyday life. In these stories of family, friendship, betrayal and redemption, Akpan highlights the tenacity and perseverance of his young protagonists.

via hftn.wordpress.com

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Global gangs exploit blind spots for trafficking: U.N. | Reuters

"Technology has practically abolished time and space, so we should know what goes on around the planet at any moment. We don't," Costa said. "There are so many forgotten places, out of government control, too scary for investors and tourists."

"These are precisely the places where smugglers, insurgents and terrorists operate," he said. "Unperturbed and undetected, they run fleets of ships and planes, trucks and containers that carry tons of drugs and weapons."

Costa said that ignorance about what happens in those blank spots, one of which spans a large section of the Atlantic Ocean, "has deadly consequences."

In an interview with Reuters, Costa said the international community often learns of surveillance blind spots "by chance, such as when a plane crashes."

During a recent visit to West Africa, a minister in one country told Costa that the nation's authorities knew of 19 unregistered flights landing on their territory recently -- flights that could have been carrying illicit cargo.

In Sierra Leone, Costa saw a large Cessna plane that flew into the country from Venezuela in the middle of the night with 1,650 pounds (750 kg) of cocaine. In that case the drugs were seized thanks to the sharing of intelligence.

"It landed at night, at 2 o'clock in the morning," he said, when the airport was not illuminated. "Luckily they were informed, so they were waiting for them."

via reuters.com

Reuters report on a UNODC report about satellite, radar, and other surveillance 'blind spots' and how they facilitate international crime and trafficking.

Posted via web from johnweldon4 - posterous

Testing Minimax Play In The Field « Cheap Talk

Does game theory have predictive power?  The place to start if you want to examine this question is the theory of zero sum games where the predictions are robust:  you play the minimax strategy:  the one that maximizes your worst-case payoff.  (This is also the unique Nash equilibrium prediction.)

The theory has some striking and counterintuitive implications.  Here’s one.  Take the game rock-scissors-paper.  The loser pays $1 to the winner.  As you would expect, the theory says each should play each strategy with 1/3 probability.  This ensures that each player is indifferent among all three strategies.

Now, for the counterintuitive part, suppose that an outsider will give you an extra 50 cents if you play rock (not a zero-sum game anymore but bear with me for a minute), regardless of the other guy’s choice.  What happens now?  You are no longer indifferent among your three strategies, so your opponent’s behavior must change.  He must now play paper with higher probability in order to reduce your incentive to play rock and restore your indifference.  Your behavior is unchanged.

Things are even weirder if we change both players’ payoffs at the same time.  Take the game matching pennies.  You and your opponent hold a penny and secretly place it with either heads or tails facing up.  If the pennies match you get $1 from your opponent.  If they don’t match you pay $1.

via cheeptalk.wordpress.com

Fun article about game theory, incentives, and prediction.

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Mandate Team — Dan and Regina Bumstead

...words for mandate team members ...

• Nessa - Amy Carmichael - single minded devotion to Jesus, listening only to Him, content with nothing less, yet tender of heart - dying 2 self 2 live 4 Him.

via danandregina.org

Nice comments about our dear Nessa, and the Mandate School team that just returned from Zambia, where they completed a short term mission trip.

Way to go Nessa! Way to go team :)

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How to Have Better Dinner Conversations

Ask a second question. The most interesting conversations come after the initial answer. It takes extraordinary discipline to refrain from answering your own question and, instead. answer a second question. Yet this is where the deepest conversations occur. I like to ask questions like these as follow-up questions:

• How did it feel when that happened?
• Can you elaborate on that?
• Why do you think that is important to you?
• Do you think you would have answered the same way five years ago?
• What emotion do you feel when you describe that?

via michaelhyatt.com

This is just one of several excellent 'rules' for good conversation. Not just at dinner but at any event where a group of people are gathered and in close proximity.

I chose this point (#4) because I agree that the most insightful discussions come from the follow up questions.

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