Race Against the Machine

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We don’t believe in the coming obsolescence of all human workers. In fact, some human skills are more valuable than ever, even in an age of incredibly powerful and capable digital technologies. But other skills have become worthless, and people who hold the wrong ones now find that they have little to offer employers. They’re losing the race against the machine, a fact reflected in today’s employment statistics. . . .

There is no economic law that says that everyone, or even most people, automatically benefit from technological progress.

— Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, Race Against The Machine

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In a Conference Room

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Stop being false just because you’re in a conference room. Start actively engaging. For example, when you think an idea someone states, or one a group adopts, is a poor one, investigate it. Either you don’t understand it, or it is a poor idea. Stop everything, and find out why someone would say such a thing at this time. What was the purpose? What is the meaning of the contribution? Your teammates will have to live with your inquisitive engagement. You will be present, and you will engage them. You will see them. You will hear what they say. You will seek information about their emotional states, beliefs, plans, and skills. You will connect with other team members to the maximum extent possible. They will have to adjust to your strategy and its results or else not invite you–which would be fine.

— Jim and Michele McCarthy, Software for Your Head

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First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users

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To design an easy-to-use interface, pay attention to what users do, not what they say. Self-reported claims are unreliable, as are user speculations about future behavior.

The way to get user data boils down to the basic rules of usability:

  • Watch what people actually do.
  • Do not believe what people say they do.
  • Definitely don’t believe what people predict they may do in the future.
— Jakob Nielsen

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Aside

Chaos is the new calm

Thank God for Coach K

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Without whom Duke would be known for nothing more than educating the idiot offspring of our nation’s tobacco barons.

Now that he’s broken the record, are there any grand jury reports waiting to be released?

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Educating Oligarchs

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Education not only increases the average income a person will earn, but it also changes the entire distribution of possible life outcomes. It does not guarantee that a person will end up in the top 1 percent, but it increases the likelihood. I have not seen any data on this, but I am willing to bet that the top 1 percent are more educated than the average American; while their education did not ensure their economic success, it played a role.

Let me give you a couple examples. I am comfortably in the top 1 percent. I believe that Paul [Krugman], with his Princeton professorship, regular Times column, speaking fees, and moderately successful textbook, is there as well. I suspect (although cannot prove) that if he and I had stopped our educations after finishing high school, we would not have been anywhere near where we are in the income distribution. If that is correct, might it be better to think of education as the key rather than focusing on the growing influence of oligarchs?

— Greg Mankiw

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Extensions to Logic for Common Sense

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It's time to travel

From some John McCarthy lecture slides on extensions to logic for common sense.

Problem

Find the height of a building using a barometer.

Intended answer

Multiply the difference in pressures by the ratio of densities of mercury and air.

Unintended common sense answers

  1. Drop the barometer from the top of the building and measure the time before it hits the ground.
  2. Measure the height and length of the shadow of the barometer and the shadow of the building.
  3. Rappel down the building with the barometer as a yardstick.
  4. Lower the barometer on a string till it reaches the ground and measure the string.
  5. Sit on the barometer and multiply the stories by ten feet.
  6. Tell the janitor, “I’ll give you this fine barometer if you’ll tell me the height of the building.”
  7. Sell the barometer and buy a GPS.

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Amy Chua > Dr. Spock

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Here’s a photo of some of the students who scored 800 on sections or subject tests of the SAT at Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights.

Wilson High School

What do they have in common? Does anything jump out at you?

Either Asian kids are just genetically superior with regard to intelligence, or Amy Chua should replace Dr. Spock on the parenting bookshelf . . .

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Herman Cain’s 9-9-9

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Herman Cain
Image via Wikipedia

By slashing the income tax rate, effectively, in half, he makes it that much more worthwhile to get up in the morning, take risks, work hard, take chances, and invest in progress. By eliminating the capital gains tax, he rewards investment and ownership and makes it possible for people to move up the economic ladder, not through phony teaser Fannie Mae mortgages, but by smart purchases and skillful investment. . . .

Herman Cain would establish America as a beacon for investors, entrepreneurs, inventors, creative business people, and all manner of upwardly mobile, ambitious men and women. He would give the U.S. the lowest personal and corporate tax rates in the world, and the only place where investment earnings are tax free. In the process, he and his plan would kindle decades of robust economic growth. He would make the next few decades a continuation of the American Century.

— Dick Morris

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