Category: Uncategorized

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Uncategorized

The Big Daisy Chain

Before civilization, life alone was hard, probably impossible. You were safer being part of a group, not only was it easier to “go along to get along,” it was necessary for survival.

A group looks for signals that you’re a reliable member of their group and can be trusted. Think of a politician wearing a hard hat and a cheap, shiny nylon AFL-CIO windbreaker while touring a factory, or Lance Armstrong with a crucifix swinging like a metronome from his neck while he pedaled up alpine passes in the Tour de France. The politician has probably never done physical labor and Lance isn’t religious, but both are sending signals to the groups they want to be part of – that they’re reliable members.

Religion does a good job of using our need, to belong to a tribe, to their advantage by using  rituals and symbols. If you see someone who’s at church every Sunday, or who wears a yarmulke most days, or who dances for rain when there’s no rain you begin to feel like that other person shares some fundamental beliefs with you. You’ll be willing to help them out and they’ll likely help you out too.

We believe in lots of things for which there’s no evidence. For example, a yoga instructor says that a certain pose “wrings out” the kidneys, does it really? The instructor probably just heard it from her instructor, who heard it from his instructor…

Religion becomes attractive because faith is easier than critical thinking. Being skeptical just takes more brain cycles, more effort. So there’re more religious folk than nonreligious folk. The rituals and symbols in religion take the place of evidence. And people want to belong. So it became a big daisy chain. But I think it’s starting to unravel a bit.

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Health Ideas Uncategorized

Personal Science

Sometimes it’s a plastic spoon that you need. And sometimes just washing a spoon can be the best solution.

A couple of weeks ago I said some people taking vitamin D noticed that if they took it later in the day it disturbed their sleep. Because vitamin D mimics sun exposure (which triggers vitamin D production), taking it soon after waking up returned their sleep to a more normal pattern. Possibly, that’s the time of day our bodies evolved to receive sunlight and so sunlight or its substitute, vitamin D, acts as a trigger for our bodies’ clocks.

Personal science tries to make discoveries by tracking results of simple experiments using yourself  as a guinea pig (as a sample group of one). Tracking how dose/timing affect sleep when taking vitamin D is a good fit for personal science.

Big science is done by big labs or companies that generally won’t bother doing research on things that are simple to do or have inexpensive fixes. The more money professional researchers spend the more important and attention grabbing it seems. So for example, looking at how your sleep is affected by when you take vitamin D, is something more suited to personal science because it’d be tough getting funding for research into an inexpensive solution, such as changing the time you take it.

Personal science is not strict science in the sense that there aren’t control groups or disinterested clinical observers, but the results of good personal science can help the experimenter personally and maybe spur others, with the same issues, to replicate the results. For example, Seth Roberts, a university professor, has been doing personal science for some time and picked up on the vitamin D thread and then added his personal findings to the discussion.

And of course, the ideas and results of personal science can always be picked up and pursued by big science practitioners, a trickle up model.

Besides picking a problem you’re interested in and trying to cut down on the number of variables all you need to do personal science is a pen and a notebook to track your daily observations. You may be able to sort out some of your health questions (or not) and maybe have fun too.

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Ideas Uncategorized

What Are the Hidden Costs?

There’re hidden costs in everything we do. The idea should be to keep these costs to a minimum, to do as little harm as possible.

For example in the picture to the right, twice as many soldiers died by their own hand as were killed in the Iraq war during 2009! In 2010 there were 468 suicides and 462 combat deaths.

All of the US combat troops in Iraq should be out by the end of this year. A symbolic end to a war that’s gone on for eight and a half years. I said symbolic because we’ll still have some presence in Iraq in the form of trainers and the like.

We’ve spent lots of blood and treasure in Iraq and a real hidden cost is the suicides which will hopefully come way down after the war is over. Soldier suicide is the ultimate and most tangible manifestation of the mental distress caused by war.

The actual cause of the suicides is hard to figure out according to the military. For example, more than half of the National Guard suicides last year were committed by soldiers who had not left the US. Maybe we’re getting the number of US combat deaths down so low that the suicide number takes on a greater significance than it might have in past wars.

I’m just glad were finally getting out of Iraq and I hope the hidden costs come way down.

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Uncategorized

Edited Imitation

Occasionally, when I read something I like, I’ll try to put it in my own voice by editing and rewriting it. It’s not to change the writing for the better. I’m really just experimenting, trying to say the same thing a little differently and shorter, a writing exercise. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? I think it’s a good way to improve my writing… by pretending to be an editor.

Here’s an example. This is my revision of a Seth Godin post I like (his original is below mine):

———————————————-Price and Value—————————————–

For decisions about things, we consider price:

“How was your hotel room?” Compared to the Ritz-Carlton? Not so good. But compared to Holiday Inn, it was great.

For decisions about content we don’t usually consider price:

After a bargain matinée, moviegoers won’t cut the movie slack just because it was half price. Finding an old movie for ninety-nine cents doesn’t matter if we hate the movie.

It seems that regardless of price, if we’re going to spend our time, the experience better be perfect, the best ever.

A quick analysis of the top 100 titles on Amazon (movies, books, music, doesn’t matter what) shows zero correlation between the price and the reviews. Try to imagine a similar disconnect if you were talking about things like cars, computers, or clothes instead of content. When it comes to content, we rarely compare the experience with other content that has a similar price. We compare it to perfect.

A low price might increase negative feedback; because the work will be exposed to people who might not be raving fans.

Free is a valid marketing strategy because it’s almost impossible for an idea to have mass impact without some sort of free (TV, radio, webpages, online videos). But, it’s not clear that cheaper content outperforms expensive content in many areas. As the marginal cost of delivering content drops to zero (all digital content meets this definition), there’re valid marketing reasons for doing the opposite of what economists expect.

Price can be a signalling mechanism, especially in the area of content. Free enables your idea to spread. But price sends a signal, and can put your idea in the right place.

Mass shouldn’t always be the goal. Impact may matter more.

___________________________________________________________

Here’s Seth Godin’s original version:

Compared to perfect: the price/value mismatch in content

“How’s the wine?”

You really can’t answer that question out of context. Compared to what? Compared to a hundred-dollar bottle? Not so good. Compared to any other $12 bottle… great!

“How was the hotel?”

“How’s the service at the post office?”

In just about all the decisions we make, we consider the price. A shipper doesn’t expect the same level of service quality from a first class letter delivery than it does from an overnight international courier service. Of course not.

And yet…

A quick analysis of the top 100 titles on Amazon (movies, books, music, doesn’t matter what) shows zero correlation between the price and the reviews. (I didn’t do the math, but you’re welcome to… might be a good science fair entry). Try to imagine a similar disconnect if the subject was cars or clothing…

For any other good or service, the value of a free alternative that was any good would be infinite–free airplane tickets, free dinners at the cafe… When it comes to content, though, we rarely compare the experience with other content at a similar price. We compare it to perfect.

People walking out of the afternoon bargain matinée at the movies don’t cut the film any slack because it was half price. Critics piling on to a music video on YouTube never mention the fact that HEY IT WAS FREE. There is no thrift store for content. Sure, we can get an old movie for ninety-nine cents, but if we hate it, it doesn’t matter how cheap it was. If we’re going to spend time, apparently, it better be perfect, the best there ever was, regardless of price.

This isn’t true for cars, potato chips, air travel, worker’s comp insurance…

Consider people walking out of a concert where tickets might be being scalped for as much as $1,000. That’s $40 or more for each song played–are they considering the price when they’re evaluating the experience? There’s a lot of nuance here… I’m certainly not arguing that expensive is always better.

In fact, I do think it’s probably true that a low price increases the negative feedback. That’s because a low price exposes the work to individuals that might not be raving fans.

Free is a valid marketing strategy. In fact it’s almost impossible for an idea to have mass impact without some sort of free (TV, radio, webpages, online videos… they’re all free). At the same time, it’s not clear to me that cheaper content outperforms expensive in many areas. As the marginal cost of delivering content drops to zero (all digital content meets this definition), I think there are valid marketing reasons to do the opposite of what economists expect.

Free gets you mass. Free, though, isn’t always the price that will help you achieve your goals.

Price is often a signalling mechanism, and perhaps nowhere more than in the area of content. Free enables your idea to spread, price, on the other hand, signals individuals and often ends up putting your idea in the right place. Mass shouldn’t always be the goal. Impact may matter more.

_____________________________________________________________________

 

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Ideas Uncategorized

Getting The Flavor Right

“Getting the flavor” of something isn’t the same thing as “getting it,” in the same way that dressing like a rodeo cowboy didn’t make John Voight’s character in “The Midnight Cowboy” a rodeo cowboy.

There’s a 1990 documentary film titled “Paris Is Burning” about drag competitions and it also introduced “vogueing,” the dance style that Madonna later brought out to the public. The film is focuses on disadvantaged Black and Hispanic New Yorkers who compete with each other by their style of dance and costumes. Some guys would even compete by dressing up as briefcase carrying Brooks Brothers clad business types and compete as to who was the most businessman-like acting and looking, something about as far removed from their lives as was naming their “houses” (clubs really) after equally distant fashion houses like Chanel.

Most surfers I know like to drool over the surfboards at surf shops. The old idea that humans are attracted to shiny things is at work here when surfers inspect new board shapes, designs, and colors. But as “lifestyles” become more of a focus, there are now lots of surf shops that don’t even sell surfboards. If you don’t surf you may not notice the lack of surfboards or that there’s only one – and it’s a prop mounted to a wall. I guess your sport has arrived as a lifestyle when the center piece of the sport isn’t necessary to have at the shop it’s named after; like having a golf shop that didn’t sell golf clubs.

There’re lots of examples out there like: suburban kids dressing like inner-city gangsters, a blue blood president wearing cowboy boots, middle-aged men adopting skate clothing, urban hipsters riding the single-speed bikes favored by bicycle messengers, Donald Trump wearing his hair in the style of… never mind him I don’t know what that’s about, professional types wearing black leather and riding chopped Harleys that they trailer instead of riding to the destination, I’m sure you can come up with lots of other examples too. Playing isn’t the same as being.

Playing is fun; but sometimes the people playing begin to think they are who they’re playing.

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Books Story Uncategorized

Four Guys And A Book

This is a hurricane Katrina story with a happy ending.

The story involves four guys and an old book. They’re all in the photo above taken this Thanksgiving while celebrating my father’s 80th birthday in New Orleans. From left to right are my brother-in-law, our family friend, the book, my brother, and my Dad.

When hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans my parents were luckily out of town. Luckily, because their house was flooded with five feet of muddy water. They didn’t return to size up the situation until more than a month later after authorities began allowing residents to come back.

But just a few days after Katrina, my brother-in-law who lives fairly close to New Orleans (in Baton Rouge), snuck (because civilians weren’t permitted into to the city) into my parents’ flooded neighborhood by canoe to sort out the situation in their house. He rescued what he could from the receding muck and got out not paying any attention to a pile of wet books ruined by the flooding.

My Dad had a small collection of antique books which were unfortunately stored within five feet of the floor in their house. His favorite was printed in 1597, an over-sized, heavily illustrated medical text written in Latin.

Our family friend is Dutch and has lived in New Orleans for 50 years and has known my parents for more than 30 years. Shortly after the Hurricane and my brother-in-law’s visit, he checked in on my parents’ wrecked home while they were we still away. There, he discovered the antique book from 1597, waterlogged and spread out in the mud like a  crow that had flown into the ground and exploded.

Our friend mentioned finding the book to my Dad who was overwhelmed with more pressing Katrina recovery issues and didn’t express much concern for a wrecked book. But having witnessed people’s reactions to traumatic life events as a young man in 1940’s war torn Europe, our friend retrieved the ruined book, put it in a plastic bag, and froze it in his freezer. My Dad might want to do something with it later, our friend thought. And so the book stayed in our friend’s freezer for four years!

Katrina hit in the Summer of 2005 and four years later our friend still had a rock hard, mud soaked book in his freezer when he talked to my brother about getting the book repaired. My brother who lives in New Orleans then transferred the book into his freezer.

Next my brother began researching restorers of antique books, eventually settling on an expert in Indiana. Once the book got to the restorer a year-long process of soaking, cleaning, page rebuilding, and rebinding started.

The resurrected book finally returned to my brother looking as fresher, I’d guess, than any other 400 year old book.

This year my Dad turned 80 and three generations of our family converged on New Orleans to celebrate. All of the people from Louisiana involved with the book rescue were there representing different links in a chain to the past.

At his Birthday party on Thanksgiving, my brother gave our surprised Dad the book he never expected to see again.

Happy Birthday Dad.

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Opinion Trends Uncategorized

You’re Welcome

If you’re able to, you should probably should use Andy Rooney’s voice in your head as you read this. It’s not because I’m writing about Andy Rooney but because this seems like the sort of thing he’d talk (complain) about.

No one seems to say “You’re Welcome” anymore. What’s happened to “You’re Welcome?” Why has it drifted away as the regular response to “Thank you?”

These days when one person says “Thank you” they get a “thank you ” as a response. As in “Thanks Andy for being in my post.” to which you’ll usually hear something along the lines of  “Thank you!” Now, a thank you seems to most often receive another thank you in response.

Over the past few years I’ve noticed a response shift with “thank you” replacing “you’re welcome.” Once I noticed the shift, I heard it all the time. Just like if your friend buys a Ford F-150 truck, you suddenly notice them everywhere. You’d never before realized how many of that type of Ford truck were out there on the street.

Of course, it’s really not a big deal to answer “thank you” with “thank you,” but it’s odd when you think about it.

I know English is constantly changing: adding, dropping, and modifying words. For example, we now use Google as a verb, interesting, since it’s only been on the scene a little over ten years.

So maybe with this “thank you” substitution we’re witnessing is the morphing of an expression and the current conditions, I guess, must be favorable to this mutation. Still, I’m not used to it. When I hear a radio interviewer thank the guest for appearing and the guest shoots back a “thank you” in response I feel like I’ve just heard a song I know being played but ending with the wrong chord.

Thanks for listening.

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Books Drink Heros People Uncategorized

An Atheist In The Foxhole

Christopher Hitchens has cancer. He thinks he won’t win and the cancer will take him.

Too bad. Of course it’s always too bad when someone dies from cancer. He’s been an enthusiastic, lifelong smoker and drinker and would no doubt say that he enjoyed the ride.

He’s a hero of mine. Not because of his lifestyle but because of his stances and defense of what he thinks is the way things are. A long time ago William Blake wrote “… create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” Good advice, I think. Hitchens has never been shy about pointing out the enslavement foisted upon most humans by religions large and small.

Hitchens is an atheist. And now that he’s dying and thinks he won’t make it, he’s still unrepentant.  He’s only 61. With esophageal cancer that’s spread to his lymph nodes and lungs, he says he’ll be very lucky to live for five more years.

He’s an atheist in a foxhole; and he plans on staying one. Hitchens has gone on record about this now, while he has all of his faculties. If he is said to have had a last-minute conversion while he lie dying,  it’ll be due to him having lost his ability to think due to the cancer or its treatment.  Any claims of sudden conversion at the end will be due to having a diminished mind and not a sudden switching of sides because he sees the light. Because he’d say that religion is darkness.

As a controversial figure because of his views and  his wide exposure from his prolific writings and speaking, Hitchens has been engaged in conflicts most of his life. The title of his 2007 book is “God Is Not Great,” that’s a pretty good way to draw fire. It’s a good book too.

Hitchens has lots of experience in holding his own against what he considers bad ideas. I hope he can keep it up.