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:
- I am willing to lose everything.
- I embrace failure.
- I am always willing to do tedious work.
- I can handle watching my dreams fall apart.
Well... the list starts off pretty light... I think I can do it :)
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.
"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."
Reuters report on a UNODC report about satellite, radar, and other surveillance 'blind spots' and how they facilitate international crime and trafficking.
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.
Fun article about game theory, incentives, and prediction.
...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.
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 :)
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?
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.
