Who wants to be a millionaire?

Original post:  Sep 17, 2014

Everyone, it seems.

While it doesn't purchase what it used to (thanks to inflation), it certainly meets an emotional threshold of "rich". Think of all those crazy reality TV shows where people will do just about anything to win that amount of money. It's certainly still a great deal of cash.

This chart from the Economist discusses how long it takes the average person in various countries around the world to earn $1,000,000. Here in the US, we have one of the shortest average paths. Sadly, our neighbors in Mexico have one of the longest average paths.

Here is the link to the full article:  Daily chart: How long to be a millionaire | The Economist

Very superstitious

Original post:  Sep 5, 2014

Have you ever had a belief that was not founded in fact?

When I was a boy, I always found it odd that many people didn't like the number 13. I was born on a 13th. At least it was a Saturday....

Many people are afraid of black cats. We still have one.

I've been told not to walk under ladders. To me, that's less of a superstition and more common sense.

Superstitions are one way to help bring order to a world where order is often lacking. While most are harmless, a few of them can actually cost you money. This article explains how investors in Taiwan penalize themselves by insisting on investing according to a mysterious belief that there are special powers in the number 8.

In Chinese, the word for the number four sounds like the word for "death". The word for the number eight sounds like the word for "wealth". Because of this, many Chinese people studiously avoid anything to do with the number four and gravitate towards the number eight.

....cultural attitudes about certain numbers can have surprising economic consequences. In the U.S., it was once estimated that Friday the 13th accounted fornearly $1 billion of lost business. After their IPOs, Chinese firms whose new listing codes contain one or more eights are traded at a premium. Chinese people are willing to pay less than they otherwise would for apartments whose unit numbers end in four. And Taiwanese consumers were more likely to purchase a radio priced at 888 dollars than the same radio priced at 777 dollars.

Investors might fancy themselves immune to logical fallacies like these, but they can be just as superstitious as everyone else: A recent study focusing on the Taiwanese stock market revealed that individual investors are more than 50 percent more likely to order stocks in quantities ending in eight than in quantities ending in four (for example, preferring to order 1,408 shares instead of 1,404). And on top of that, according to a calculation by The Economist, the annual returns of the most superstitious traders trailed those of their coldly rational counterparts by nearly 10 percent.

Here is a link to the full article:  Taiwanese Investors Favor the Number Eight—and They Pay for It - The Atlantic

Breaking the procrastination doom loop

Original post:  Sep 2, 2014

Now that the summer is "officially" over, it may be time to start tackling those difficult projects that we delayed again and again. Procrastination is a tenacious combatant. Inertia inevitably exerts its undeniable force and we end up doing something like this:

You may be surprised to learn about some of the more recent research into procrastination:

In the last few years, however, scientists have begun to think that procrastination might have less to do with time than emotion. Procrastination "really has nothing to do with time-management,” Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, toldhttp://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2013/april-13/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination.html Psychological Science. “To tell the chronic procrastinator to just do it would be like saying to a clinically depressed person, cheer up.”

Instead, Ferrari and others think procrastination happens for two basic reasons: (1) We delay action because we feel like we're in the wrong mood to complete a task, and (2) We assume that our mood will change in the near future.

The best way to cut through the loop is to apply external pressure. This usually requires a deadline of some sort.

To hack your way to productivity, you could schedule one-shot reminders as late as possible—even slightly after you were supposed to start the project. Not only will the last-second reminder and looming deadline break the doom loop and shock you into action, but also it won’t give you time to put off—and, potentially, forget about—the task.

For pathological procrastinators, recognizing that we need deadlines to bind ourselves to our responsibilities is the first step. The second step is recognizing that our own deadlines are less effective than other people's deadlines.

Perhaps we may need to change the way we think:

A more theoretical approach, from Yanping Tu and Dilip Soman writinghttp://www.jcr-admin.org/files/pressPDFs/081414081253_677840.pdf?utm_source=Recent+Findings+from+the+Journal+of+Consumer+Research%3A+August+2014&utm_campaign=Constant+Contact&utm_medium=email in the new Journal of Consumer Research, aims to change "the way consumers think about the future." Tu and Soman point out that people have a habit of managing goals and tasks in specific time categories—we plan activities by the day, expenses by the month, and resolutions by the year. This way of thinking can separate us from future selves. When we say “I’ll start that project next week,” or “I’m starting my diet next month," what we're really saying is "I hope that after an arbitrary amount of time, I will be in a better mood to bind myself to this task."

One study in their paper asked consumers to open a savings account within six months. One group was given a December deadline in June and a second group was given a January deadline in July. Although each group presumably contained a similar number of procrastinators, significantly more people in the first group chose to open their account immediately. When the deadline was a calendar year away, people were more likely to rationalize that they could put it off.

Here is a link to the full article:  The Procrastination Doom Loop—and How to Break It - The Atlantic

I want my USB!

Original post:  Aug 21, 2014

Ars Technica recently posted an article giving the history of the USB. The Universal Serial Bus literally changed the way computers operate. They allow for (relatively) seamless integration between various devices (think of how much simpler it is to connect a printer than it used to be). It also has helped make file transfers and quick backup almost painless.

The newest version, called Type-C is expected soon. It will help eliminate the problem shown above because it will allow the connection to work no matter which side is facing up.

Here are some of the various styles of ports that USB replaced.

I'm sure many of us have never really had to deal with the frustration of having the wrong type of cable for our peripheral device or had to struggle with determining which one was for the monitor and which one was for the printer. That's all thanks to the foresighted individuals who contributed to standardizing the interfaces and making USB successful.

What will our version of USB look like?

Here is the link to the full article:  A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it | Ars Technica

Like herding cats

Original post:  Aug 20, 2014

We expect amazing things out of technology. One of the latest buzzwords is "big data". It refers to the large streams of collected information that can ultimately yield incredibly astute insights. When it's done right, it can almost feel like magic.

Google uses the power of its vast treasure trove of search requests to provide you with the autocomplete function. It can sometimes feel as if it's reading your mind. In point of fact, it's really using sophisticated algorithms to attempt to predict your desired goal based on what millions of others have requested in the recent past.

This recent article in the NY Times discusses how difficult it can be to get to the pristine data that can yield these types of results. Most of the work that falls under the umbrella term "big data" is actually something far less attractive:

Yet far too much handcrafted work — what data scientists call “data wrangling,” “data munging” and “data janitor work” — is still required. Data scientists, according to interviews and expert estimates, spend from 50 percent to 80 percent of their time mired in this more mundane labor of collecting and preparing unruly digital data, before it can be explored for useful nuggets.

“Data wrangling is a huge — and surprisingly so — part of the job,” said Monica Rogati, vice president for data science at Jawbone, whose sensor-filled wristband and software track activity, sleep and food consumption, and suggest dietary and health tips based on the numbers. “It’s something that is not appreciated by data civilians. At times, it feels like everything we do.”

It continues:

“It’s an absolute myth that you can send an algorithm over raw data and have insights pop up,” said Jeffrey Heer, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington and a co-founder of Trifacta, a start-up based in San Francisco.

One major problem is the proliferation of data sources. There are all types of information swirling around with very little in common. Think of the challenge in gathering your own information and then multiply it by millions (or billions) of users. There are sensors and probes and reports; e-mail and tweets. How can you create some semblance of order to help organize it properly without manual intervention?

Here is an example from the article from the world of healthcare:

Data formats are one challenge, but so is the ambiguity of human language. Iodine, a new health start-up, gives consumers information on drug side effects and interactions. Its lists, graphics and text descriptions are the result of combining the data from clinical research, government reports and online surveys of people’s experience with specific drugs.

But the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies often apply slightly different terms to describe the same side effect. For example, “drowsiness,” “somnolence” and “sleepiness” are all used. A human would know they mean the same thing, but a software algorithm has to be programmed to make that interpretation. That kind of painstaking work must be repeated, time and again, on data projects.

Data experts try to automate as many steps in the process as possible. “But practically, because of the diversity of data, you spend a lot of your time being a data janitor, before you can get to the cool, sexy things that got you into the field in the first place,” said Matt Mohebbi, a data scientist and co-founder of Iodine.

These are some of the issues we'll have to work through before we can attain the real promise of big data in healthcare.

Here is a link to the full article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/technology/for-big-data-scientists-hurdle-to-insights-is-janitor-work.html?ref=technol…

By any other name

Original post:  Aug 19, 2014

I work with departments all across the company. In the course of regular business, I find myself meeting new faces all the time. It gets especially hard in large meetings with lots of people or at receptions where there is a large crowd with lots of people mingling about. Unfortunately, my ability to remember names is not as strong as my ability to recognize faces. I know that I am not alone in this.

It seems that most of us will run into situations where we find it difficult to recall someone's name. While there are tricks that you can learn, it seems that the most critical thing you can do is to pay attention when you first meet someone. If you are like me, it's easy to get distracted with a thousand thoughts racing through your mind. It seems that remembering names is actually quite taxing mentally.

It doesn't just take a good brain to memorize names. It takes time and attention, neither of which you have in that situation. As each person is listed, we are waiting for the next person's name. This provokes what's known as the next-in-line effect.

The next-in-line effect happens when someone is waiting for their turn to speak during an organized event. Researchers tested it by having people in small, circular groups take turns giving out information, then testing them to see which snippets of information they remembered. Each participant's memory was just fine, right up until they got to the information imparted by the person who talked just before they themselves were "up." Suddenly, they remembered nothing. Yes, they were listening when the person before them was talking. They just weren't paying attention. Their mind was already on the next task.

When we see a group of people coming towards us with their hands out for handshakes, we're in a situation in which we know we'll have to take in a cascade of information, and we try to prepare for it. This is exactly the wrong thing to do. We try to simultaneously greet the person in front of us, and get ready for the next person in line. As it turns out, we can either take in and store information, or get ready for the next grouping of information. Since we try to do two things at once, we fail at both.

Another possible explanation is that we are trying to remember more details about a person. While we may believe the sound of our own name is magical to us, in reality it may not stand out in another person's mind. It may be far easier to remember exotic details about someone than it might be to remember their name.

The second article ends on a witty note:

So the next time you'd like to excuse yourself for forgetting someone's name without offending the person, just say something like, "Oh sorry, I was just overly concerned with telling you my own name to remember yours. But to be fair, your name isn't actually that interesting to me, and besides, it's inconsequential in the grand scheme of things."

Here is a link to the article on the next-in-line effect:  The Psychological Effect That Explains Why You Suck at Parties

Here is a link to the end quote:  Why Names Are So Easy to Forget - The Atlantic

We can now ship hot coffee across the country overnight

Original post:  Aug 18, 2014

Many of my projects sit at the intersection of the supply chain and information technology. To many people, there does not seem to be an obvious link between the two. It may or may not surprise you to learn that the shipping companies FedEx and UPS use some of the most sophisticated software packages in the US. They have the ability to track millions of packages with incredible accuracy to ensure that it arrives at your doorstep--in many cases, overnight. They have even invested huge sums of money to calculate delivery routes which eliminate inefficient left hand turns!

This article discusses a public relations stunt by Thermos. To drum up some publicity for their newest product, they came up with the idea of shipping hot coffee to various journalists across the country. In this particular case, Thermos shipped 40 oz. of hot coffee from Minneapolis to Washington, DC overnight. When the coffee arrived, it was still quite hot!

Here is the package:

Here is the temperature a few minutes after opening the thermos bottle:

That might even be hotter than what we get out of the Keurig in Mansfield!

I think the end of the article sums up the real magic in this stunt:

But there’s something that enables all of this, from my supping of the coffee to your reading this now: the global supply chain. The ability to fling ingredients and products from coast-to-coast and continent-to-continent makes not only Thermos’s contest but Spyhouse’s very business possible. It’s the supply chain that moves coffee beans from El Salvador to Minneapolis, where they can be roasted and sipped in days. It’s the supply chain—in the form of FedEx, which, remember, has the world’s fourth largest collection of aircraft—that performs the final stunt of getting coffee around the lower 48 in half a day.

Behind every ingredients list stand the movers and shippers of our world: each, like FedEx, possessing a private army of execution. I accepted Thermos’s coffee contest because it seemed a spectacle of logistics. But every single day of our lives is already that.

Here's the link to the full article:  I Drank a Cup of Hot Coffee That Was Overnighted Across the Country - CityLab