Letters Remain

Month: February 2009

  • Evaluating Decision-Making

    With a hat tip to Robin Rubin’s commencement speeches at NYU (1999) and Harvard (2000), Venture Hacks implores us to evaluate decisions by the decision-making process itself, rather than the results produced. Decisions tend to be judged solely on the results they produce. But I believe the right test should focus heavily on the quality of…

  • Get Your Own Eponymous Law

    Always wanted to achieve intellectual immortality? Now it’s possible thanks to Samuel Arbesman—a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School—who shows us how to get a theorem, formula or law named after yourself, in a few easy steps. Of course, before you go out and begin to grace the world with your newly minted eponymous idea,…

  • What Should I Do With My Life?

    In a follow-up to his previous article on the same subject, Po Bonson asks, ‘What should I do with my life, now?’ Don’t tell me you don’t know what you want from your life. Don’t ever say that, don’t ever fool yourself into that stupor. Of course you know what you want — you know the feeling you…

  • Complex Concepts, Explained Better

    “Learn Right, Not Rote” is the tag line for Better Explained; a site explaining concepts in mathematics and programming intuitively in order to make learning easy and—God forbid—fun! For example, the explanation of natural log is excellent. via SMBC

  • Underschedule and Make Your Free Time Count

    If you underschedule you achieve time affluence, the ability (time) to master something you are not required to, and the freedom to expose yourself to ‘positive randomness’ (unexpected opportunities). Cal Newport then goes on to suggest simple but effective advice on how to make your (newfound) free time count (I paraphrase and generalise): Once a week do each of…

  • Warren Buffett’s Letters to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders

    Warren Buffett’s letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway are read and quoted widely, coming to be regarded as one of the most important annual publications in the business and investing world. Over the years the letters have covered, in quite some detail, almost every important aspect of investing. The (incredibly lacklustre) Berkshire Hathaway website provides…

  • Genomics and Determinism

    In 2008 Stephen Pinker’s genome was sequenced and publicly released as part of the Personal Genome Project. In light of this, Pinker argues that even though our genes greatly influence our behaviour, they don’t determine who we are, concluding that “even when the effect of some gene is indubitable, the sheer complexity of the self will…

  • The Anatomy of Gullibility

    In the aftermath of the Madoff Ponzi scheme, psychologist Stephen Greenspan writes in The Wall Street Journal on why we continuously fall for financial scams—and in the process describes the ‘anatomy’ of gullibility. Gullibility is a sub-type of foolish action, which might be termed “induced-social.” It is induced because it always occurs in the presence…

  • Gel Conference Videos

    The Gel Conference (“Good Experience Live”) bills itself as an event “exploring good experience in all its forms — in business, technology, art, society, and life”. I hadn’t heard of Gel before but the videos of past talks are captivating and educational.  Another set of videos to add to the collection (TED, Seed Salon, FORA.tv, etc.),…

  • The Myth of Moral Hazard

    The economic theory of moral hazard is “the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk” (e.g. holders of car insurance may engage in riskier behaviour than non-holders, investors may take unnecessary risks if they expect to be bailed…