Category: Uncategorized
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Google Interviews
Stories abound of bloggers going for interviews at Google and writing up their experiences (as a cursory search will show), but I’ve never felt the need to bookmark or share any of them: they’re all rather lacklustre affairs. However, Peteris Krumins’ account of his interview at Google is informative, indepth and unflinching. In short: worth a…
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On Wealth
When the Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig was accused of being “a coddled member of the silver-spoon generation” he decided to confront the accusation by retelling tales from his less-than-privileged upbringing. In doing so, however, he made some poignant remarks about wealth: The most important lesson that I learned, I believe, is that money…
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The Age of High Culture
The cover story for this quarter’s Intelligent Life is an article arguing that, contrary to most recent opinions, the population isn’t, in fact, becoming dumber and we are at the dawn of an ‘age of mass intelligence’. This quote from Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life, gets to the core of the argument…
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A German View on Tackling the Recession
Bertrand Benoit, the Financial Times‘ Berlin bureau chief, discusses why the US, French and British don’t understand Germany’s “refusal to tackle the recession head-on”. What is happening is a classic clash of cultures, and anyone puzzling to grasp Germany’s anaemic reaction to the financial crisis and its economic fallout could do worse than take a…
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Counterfactual Thinking and the First Instinct Fallacy
Counterfactual Thinking and the First Instinct Fallacy (pdf); a research paper on whether or not it’s better to change your answer when taking multiple-choice tests. The abstract: Most people believe that they should avoid changing their answer when taking multiple-choice tests. Virtually all research on this topic, however, suggests that this strategy is ill-founded: most…
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If a HDD’s Read/Write Head Were a Boeing 747
From an article discussing Seagate’s plant in Ireland (where 80% of the company’s read/write heads are produced): an impressive analogy of a HDD’s read/write head. The dimensions of the head are impressive. With a width of less than a hundred nanometers and a thickness of about ten, it flies above the platter at a speed of…
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The Anthropological Divide
Times Higher Education discusses the divide between evolutionary and social anthropologists. On one side are the evolutionary anthropologists. “(They believe) our behaviour is based on things that we did to find mates in our years of evolution,” says Alex Bentley, a lecturer in anthropology at Durham University. “Then we have the social anthropologists. Some of…
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Warren Buffett’s 10 Ways to Get Rich
Reprinted from Parade Magazine: Warren Buffett’s ’10 Ways to Get Rich’, written by Alice Schroeder; the author of Buffett’s authorised biography, The Snowball. Reinvest Your Profits Be Willing To Be Different Never ‘Suck Your Thumb’ Spell Out The Deal Before You Start Watch Small Expenses Limit What You Borrow Be Persistent Know When To Quit…
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The Lowball Strategy
Ryan Holiday on the military strategist John Boyd’s lowball ‘technique’: John Boyd had a rule that whenever he was using data as support for an argument, he’d deflate the numbers to understate his case. The idea was use lower number while making a strong case; when he was challenged and fact checked, it’d always be…
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A Perfect Memory
Hypermnesia is the condition—usually associated with a variety of mental illnesses—of having unusually exact, vivid memories. Spiegel interviews Jill Price, 42, a Californian woman with hypermnesic super-memory. In addition to good memories, every angry word, every mistake, every disappointment, every shock and every moment of pain goes unforgotten. Time heals no wounds for Price. “I don’t…