Critical Thinking
Been a while since I did one of these. Random links from around the internet.
Paul McCartney, Beck, and Taylor Hawkins denied entry at rappers post-grammy party. “How VIP do we got to get?”
2016 Underwater Photography Winners (yes, this has been sitting around for a while…)
Lost film from Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. Not that great, but interesting.
These always crack me up
The original performance of Purple Rain. This is a live show, the performance was edited down to be the version we know.
This post isn’t ready, but a friend was asking me, so… Here is a list of books that are vaguely about how we think and act. I covered a few of these back in 2009.
Oh, I almost forgot. I published this early because a friend asked me about game theory books. Many of these books touch on game theory, particularly Kahneman, but I haven’t read many that are specifically devoted to game theory. The ones I have read are mostly mathematical, sort of the opposite of a Malcolm Gladwell book. A good one is The Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling, which helped inform mutually assured destruction. Any others out there folks like?
I hate going to the doctor. But not because of the medical stuff. It’s the administrative part. The processes and systems are terrible. So much arrogance, so much stupidity. Let’s skip the endless forms, that’ll be a post for some other day. (Sample stupidity to whet your appetite: Enter both your birthdate and your age. Let that sink in.) We’ll just go through the visit itself.
I sat in the waiting room for thirty minutes past my appointment time. At no time was there any indication that there was a problem, this was considered normal. Anytime they could announce, “our apologies we’re running a bit behind”. Since they already had my contact information, they could have texted me that before I left the house. Delta texts me when they are running late, Home Depot delivery texts me, my son’s tennis team texts me… this is easy proven technology.
As it so happens, I had to miss my daughter’s talent show performance to make this appointment. As it so happens, I could have made it since this office was running thirty minutes behind. As is so happens, since there was no communication, I missed it.
The weigh-in. I had been weighed in six days prior at my primary’s office, and I have agreed to share all my information with this office. I weigh myself every morning. Nope, they have to weigh you personally. Shoes on or off – they don’t care, so it is obviously so imprecise to be pointless.
On to the standard examination room. There is no second chair, so I have to perch on that padded examination table even to have a simple conversation. And even though everyone here will end up half-naked at some point, there is no place to put your clothes. It wouldn’t be hard to throw in a plastic bin, but nope. Throw your clothes in the corner. How hygenic.
Now more questions. The assistant goes through a checklist. The questions are literally the same questions on the forms I just filled out. They are also the same questions my primary care physician has asked many times over (which they have permission to access). When I ask the assistant why I just filled out the forms to have the same questions asked, she looks confused and starts flipping through her papers. We move on to a blood pressure check, even though this is also on my record.
It has now been almost an hour. There is no added value yet. Literally nothing has happened that has improved anyone’s understanding of my medical condition. This is a waste of my time, their time, and our taxpayer money.
Now another nurse assistant of some variety tags in and asks me the same questions that I had filled out all the forms. Why? “To verify what your primary care physician sent over.” The sheer stupidity of this statement likely doubled my blood pressure.
Now the doctor finally arrives. The next ten minutes are sensible. He is focused, professional, knowledgeable.
On my way out, it is fifteen minutes more to find and get handed some forms that could have been assembled before I ever came in.
Doctors have a captive audience – every visit may be a variant of this experience, but no one will switch doctors because of it. This is what happens in a system riddled with perverse hidden incentives. In total – just under two hours at the office. Useful time? Five minutes for another EKG, and ten minutes with the doctor. And a very disappointed daughter.
What moron puts the final game of your sport on at 9:20 PM on a Monday? The NCAA basketball tournament, that’s who. Ridiculous.
I am dominant in the “shuffling like an old man and puttering around for an hour before anyone else is awake” event.
The Muttroxia household has had a Brita water pitcher for years. It’s easy to use, the water seems to taste better, it fits in the fridge nicely. And at 12 cups, it has generous capacity.
What is the downside? The downside is that our pitcher was bought somewhere around 2002. It just seems gross. Nothing you can point to, but after 15 years, it was time to replace it.
But I couldn’t. Because they don’t make our model anymore. The new standard ones are only 10 cups. With five family members, that’s not enough. There is a bigger model, but it’s more of a fishtank, takes up far too much room. I literally spent months trying to find a 12-cup model. I even called Brita headquarters (they were very understanding and polite). Finally I folded and bought their newer standard version.
I’m glad I did. It’s wonderful. Here’s a product that gets it right.
Three cheers for the new Brita water pitcher!
Update:
As requested, here is an explanatory video.
Linkedin has large elements of a social media platform. I was advised that liking and commenting on others folks posts would elevate my own profile, and I should also write papers and contribute original content.
They were right. Consider this graph. A few weeks ago, I started actively liking and commenting. Last week, I posted about Tom Brady and analytics.
Those searches include recruiters who are suddenly picking up the phone and calling. This is a real world outcome. You would think a recruiter would just want to see the most qualified candidate, but the platform biases them towards candidates who do stuff on Linkedin. Weird!
Many of the readers of this blog (okay, just about all the readers) are personally known to me. Since we all know one another, here are a few other blogs run by ‘us’. The only thing we all have in common is low readership and infrequent posting, so get in there and inspire the authors to write more often.
To end 2017, I predicted the results of Mueller investigation. Four months later, new angles and findings are coming out every week. Overall, I think those predictions are holding up well. People in Trumps close orbit were guilty as sin. They worked with the Russians and betrayed America. Trump himself is a dupe and a moron, but unlikely to have colluded. If he had underhanded relations with the Russians, it was about his business interests.
I stand by the outcome predictions as well. No matter what Mueller finds, there will be no serious impeachment hearings. I believe Lindsey Graham is the sole GOP Congressman not retiring/dying to state any kind of limits on Trump.
We haven’t done of one of these for a long time, this list has been percolating in the background for years while Muttroxia was on the shelf. There are so many good ones missing… I’m bad at book reviews, so just plug in “It was awesome!” for all of these.
Best know for his classic book Influence, Cianaldi returns with this very readable overview of how we are convinced. As clear as a Malcolm Gladwell book but with more science.
They are not the only ones to draw the analogy between the inventions of fire, bronze, etc. to how the Industrial age changed the world, to the age we are in now. What is unusual is how cutting edge the information is, how broad the scope, and how well they walk through some of the economic implications. If you as a parent have ever wondered what education is most likely to ‘hold up’ in the information age, this is mandatory reading.
Previous book recommendations:
Consider the following menu (from our default Chinese dining choice). Consider the incentives on that recurring question, “Should we pick-up or get it delivered?”.
The puzzle is this. Getting the food delivered is higher cost to the restaurant. They have to hire a driver to support delivery. There is no additional revenue, nothing but more cost. And yet, they reward that behavior with additional free food. Why? All it does is make me want to have them do more work for more cost to them. They won’t budge on this policy. I pointed out these perverse incentives to them and got nowhere, all the time feeling like I was Larry David getting angrier and angrier at the stupidity of the world.
Why do they have this system? After years of intermittent noodling on this, I believe I understand. Do you have an answer? Mine is below.
They don’t see the free food kicker as an incentive to switch from pick-up to delivery. They see it as an incentive to get delivery food from their restaurant instead of another one.
If that is the correct logic, I don’t believe the reasoning is justified. The percentage of customers that are newly acquired through this system is likely to be very small and the expense very likely outweighs the potential benefits.
What do you think?
