Dec 31, 2009
Dec 30, 2009
The three most inspiritional paragraphs I've read
Somehow I missed this 5 years ago. In a 12/23 interview with Charlie Rose, Ken Auletta called Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement (15:00 video) the Gettysburg of commencement addresses.
Text of the speech.
I found the following profoundly wise and inspirational:
Text of the speech.
I found the following profoundly wise and inspirational:
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
[...]
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Dec 29, 2009
Getting married rationally
A 10 year old article from Psychology Today: (hat tip: Harrison Brookie)
Moral of the story: Pick a spouse who is fair and decent, but whom you are not madly attracted to? Better yet, to avoid the influence of hormonal irrationality, have your parents select your mate?
I wonder how effective is the strategy of selecting a mate based on minimizing the probability of divorce. Certainly divorce can have devastating consequences, but is it so bad that we should prioritize divorce probability above all else? (I am asking because I really want to know what people think, particularly married people, and people who have personally felt the consequences of divorce.)
My completely uninformed reaction is that marriage without love is lame. Love, according the the psychology literature, equals intimacy, passion, and commitment. What I think the above research is suggesting is that it is better to enter a marriage with a low quotient on the passion element. But without passion, it is not love -- just a good friend. Again I say marriage without love is lame.
If expectations are the problem, lower your expectations up front -- at least be realistic in knowing that your marital satisfaction is likely to decrease over time. Better yet, drop all your expectations.
Would greatly appreciate any feedback. If the comments section is not for you, please feel free to email justinwehr[at]gmail.com.
---
Earlier:
1. Divorce is extremely expensive according to happiness research, at least for men:
2. What price love?
First, contrary to popular belief, Huston found that many newlyweds are far from blissfully in love. Second, couples whose marriages begin in romantic bliss are particularly divorce-prone because such intensity is too hard to maintain. Believe it or not, marriages that start out with less "Hollywood romance" usually have more promising futures. Accordingly, and this is the third major finding, spouses in lasting but lackluster marriages are not prone to divorce, as one might suspect; their marriages are less fulfilling to begin with, so there is no erosion of a Western-style romantic ideal. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it is the loss of love and affection, not the emergence of interpersonal issues, that sends couples journeying toward divorce.
Moral of the story: Pick a spouse who is fair and decent, but whom you are not madly attracted to? Better yet, to avoid the influence of hormonal irrationality, have your parents select your mate?
I wonder how effective is the strategy of selecting a mate based on minimizing the probability of divorce. Certainly divorce can have devastating consequences, but is it so bad that we should prioritize divorce probability above all else? (I am asking because I really want to know what people think, particularly married people, and people who have personally felt the consequences of divorce.)
My completely uninformed reaction is that marriage without love is lame. Love, according the the psychology literature, equals intimacy, passion, and commitment. What I think the above research is suggesting is that it is better to enter a marriage with a low quotient on the passion element. But without passion, it is not love -- just a good friend. Again I say marriage without love is lame.
If expectations are the problem, lower your expectations up front -- at least be realistic in knowing that your marital satisfaction is likely to decrease over time. Better yet, drop all your expectations.
Would greatly appreciate any feedback. If the comments section is not for you, please feel free to email justinwehr[at]gmail.com.
---
Earlier:
1. Divorce is extremely expensive according to happiness research, at least for men:
To the average man, divorce hurts nearly twice as much as the combined happiness gains of marriage and the birth of a child. To the average woman, on the other hand, the combined effect of marriage and the birth of a child is more than twice as good as divorce is bad.
2. What price love?
Dec 28, 2009
Squibs from the notebook (part VI)
I think it's likely that the single most damaging human trait -- both economically and personally -- is the fear of failure (closely related to image maintenance, pride).
"Psychoanalytic theories are so preoccupied with biological questions of why, how, when, where, that they lose sight of the fact that the answers don't change anything." -Carl Hammerschlag
If Jesus were born in modern times, would he use Twitter, Facebook, and the like? Would he have a cell phone? Drive a car? If so, what kind? This is not a WWJD morality question, but an attempt to understand historical Jesus of Nazareth. There are all kinds of questions like this that fascinate me. Where would he shop for groceries? What would he eat? Would he "buy local" from the hippies at the farmers' market, or would he get bulk-sized packages of bagel bites from Costco? Would love to see the poll results on these questions.
"When people talk to you about why they believe, they are talking about an internal experience that they can't share with you. They just hope that you'll have a similar enough frame of understanding (bias), and similar enough internal experiences that it will make some sense to you." -Robert
The start up idea is a hypothesis, not a blueprint. Entrepreneurs must not be so in love with their idea that they are unwilling to change it. "Fast iteration is the key to success."
Just out of curiosity, I would like to see university and department rankings based on the aptitude of the professors. I do not mean their SAT or GRE scores from when they were students, but rather how they would perform on such IQ tests now.
We attribute others' actions too much to their personality characteristics, and not enough to the situation/context: "fundamental attribution error". Interestingly, attribution error does not appear until around age seven. It is most prominent in Western cultures because of the "we determine our destiny" meme. Eastern cultures see more role for fate and so attribute behaviors more to situation.
Just allowing people the opportunity to make decisions/control their environment makes them more engaged and leads to better results, regardless of whether they proactively change anything.
"Feelings are tools for understanding information we get. Our interpretation of them is both influenced by and contributes to our model of the Universe." -My friend Bob
---
All squibs
"Psychoanalytic theories are so preoccupied with biological questions of why, how, when, where, that they lose sight of the fact that the answers don't change anything." -Carl Hammerschlag
If Jesus were born in modern times, would he use Twitter, Facebook, and the like? Would he have a cell phone? Drive a car? If so, what kind? This is not a WWJD morality question, but an attempt to understand historical Jesus of Nazareth. There are all kinds of questions like this that fascinate me. Where would he shop for groceries? What would he eat? Would he "buy local" from the hippies at the farmers' market, or would he get bulk-sized packages of bagel bites from Costco? Would love to see the poll results on these questions.
"When people talk to you about why they believe, they are talking about an internal experience that they can't share with you. They just hope that you'll have a similar enough frame of understanding (bias), and similar enough internal experiences that it will make some sense to you." -Robert
The start up idea is a hypothesis, not a blueprint. Entrepreneurs must not be so in love with their idea that they are unwilling to change it. "Fast iteration is the key to success."
Just out of curiosity, I would like to see university and department rankings based on the aptitude of the professors. I do not mean their SAT or GRE scores from when they were students, but rather how they would perform on such IQ tests now.
We attribute others' actions too much to their personality characteristics, and not enough to the situation/context: "fundamental attribution error". Interestingly, attribution error does not appear until around age seven. It is most prominent in Western cultures because of the "we determine our destiny" meme. Eastern cultures see more role for fate and so attribute behaviors more to situation.
Just allowing people the opportunity to make decisions/control their environment makes them more engaged and leads to better results, regardless of whether they proactively change anything.
"Feelings are tools for understanding information we get. Our interpretation of them is both influenced by and contributes to our model of the Universe." -My friend Bob
---
All squibs
Dec 27, 2009
Tilt-shift time-lapse round-up
(Three hyphenations in a row -- how's that for a title?!)
Here are some of the best tilt-shift time lapse videos I've seen lately. See previous entries via the tilt-shift tag.
Alta Media Productions (7:36)
Atzu filming in Torino, Italy.
From ArtsyFartsyTim
Beached from Keith Loutit. (Love the music on this one.)
Hulkamania from Keith Loutit.
Here are some of the best tilt-shift time lapse videos I've seen lately. See previous entries via the tilt-shift tag.
Alta Media Productions (7:36)
Atzu filming in Torino, Italy.
From ArtsyFartsyTim
Beached from Keith Loutit. (Love the music on this one.)
Hulkamania from Keith Loutit.
Dec 24, 2009
Dec 23, 2009
Grad school advice, please? (part II)
Thank you so much to those who responded to my earlier cry for help. My investment in this blog paid for itself right there.
A couple of questions occurred to me that I would like to explore further. Please take 30 seconds to respond to the 4 questions below.
I plan to post a summary of my thoughts once I see the results and have some time to think about them.
---
Update 1/4: Survey results.
A couple of questions occurred to me that I would like to explore further. Please take 30 seconds to respond to the 4 questions below.
I plan to post a summary of my thoughts once I see the results and have some time to think about them.
---
Update 1/4: Survey results.
The peculiarity of (not) self-tracking
A prediction from Kevin Kelly:
Life-logging may become the default, but I still think it will be the unusual person who takes the next step from logging to summarizing or analyzing their data. To many people, self-tracking simply is not very interesting.
---
Earlier:
Why is self-experimentation rare?
Soon many people will be logging all their messages, either text, phone, email, or gestures and using them to recall and share with others. It won't seem strange at all. Strange will be those who opt out of life-logging -- at great expense and effort.
Life-logging may become the default, but I still think it will be the unusual person who takes the next step from logging to summarizing or analyzing their data. To many people, self-tracking simply is not very interesting.
---
Earlier:
Why is self-experimentation rare?
Dec 22, 2009
Ending aging [video]
~30m interview with Dan Buettner and Aubrey de Grey. I found some of Sanjay's questions awkward, but the interview is nonetheless interesting and insightful. (With these guys, I don't think it matters if the interviewer is a cardboard cutout.)
(Hat tip: Accelerating Future)
---
Some recent research on aging:
Science Blog 12/3: Why we outlive our ape ancestors
In spite of their genetic similarity to humans, chimpanzees and great apes have maximum lifespans that rarely exceed 50 years. The difference [...] is that humans evolved genes that enabled them to better adjust to levels of infection and inflammation and to the high cholesterol levels of their meat rich diets.
ScienceDaily 12/2: Why females live longer than males
Researchers in Japan have found that female mice produced by using genetic material from two mothers but no father live significantly longer than mice with the normal mix of maternal and paternal genes. Their findings provide the first evidence that sperm genes may have a detrimental effect on lifespan in mammals.
This last one gets under my skin. Pay close attention to the percentages...
Physorg 11/30: Study reveals people's thoughts on living longer
In a study in which people were given a hypothetical pill to make them live longer, 63 percent of participants said there would be personal benefits to life extension, including spending more time with family (36 percent); having more time in life to achieve ambitions (31 percent); and better health and quality of life (21 percent), according to a new study by University of Queensland researchers. Eighty percent also envisioned at least one downside: prolonging a state of poor health (34 percent); financial cost of living longer (16 percent); and outliving family and friends (12 percent). Half of the participants believed the benefits to society would include increased collective knowledge (26 percent); extended lifespan of 'important' people (15 percent); and more time to contribute (12 percent).
Thirty-seven percent of people see no personal benefit to living longer?! Half see no benefit to society of living longer?! And people are more worried about the financial cost of living longer than outliving family and friends?!
[Rant over.]
---
Earlier:
Life expectancy over time (with Aubrey de Grey's TED Talk)
Dec 21, 2009
This is your brain on God
May '09: A five part series from NPR (Thanks, Bob.)
The audio segments are about 8 minutes each, or you can read the transcripts.
I found these quotes particularly insightful:
From part 1:
From part 2:
From part 3:
From part 4:
From part 5:
The audio segments are about 8 minutes each, or you can read the transcripts.
I found these quotes particularly insightful:
From part 1:
Still, Griffiths says all the studies in the world can't answer his central question about spirituality: "Why does that occur? Why has the human organism been engineered, if you will, for this experience?"
From part 2:
Think about a man and woman who are in love. They look at each other, and in all likelihood, something fires in their temporal lobes.
However, does that negate the presence of true love between them? Of course not. When you get to spirituality, as a scientist I think it really becomes extremely difficult to say anything other than, 'It's possible.'
From part 3:
The more you focus on something — whether that's math or auto racing or football or God — the more that becomes your reality, the more it becomes written into the neural connections of your brain.
From part 4:
After running 36 couples through this test, the researchers found that when one person focused his thoughts on his partner, the partner's blood flow and perspiration dramatically changed within two seconds. The odds of this happening by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results.
From part 5:
Some researchers look at the data and say spiritual experience is only an electrical storm in the temporal lobe, or a brain gasping for oxygen — all fully explainable by science. Others say our brains are reflecting an encounter with the divine.
And almost invariably, where a scientist stands on that issue has little to do with the clinical findings of any study. It has almost everything to do with the scientist's personal beliefs.
Dec 20, 2009
The wild AFC playoff picture
With two games remaining in the NFL season, eight teams are vying for two AFC wildcard spots. The Ravens and Broncos are tied at 8-6, and the Jaguars, Dolphins, Jets, Steelers, Texans, and Titans sit at 7-7.
Undoubtedly, fans of these teams would be interested to know their team's playoff chances. Fortunately, (as I have blogged about twice before), there is a site for that: Sports Club Stats.
If you assume each team has a 50% chance of winning their games, the probabilities (estimated by markov simulations) look like this:
Ravens 65%
Broncos 54%
Jaguars 28%
Dolphins 20%
Jets 18%
Steelers 14%
Texans 6%
Titans 4%
However, if you weight the chances based on past performance, the probabilities look like this:
Ravens 87%
Broncos 67%
Jets 13%
Dolphins 12%
Jaguars 11%
Steelers 10%
Texans 3%
Titans 1%
Sports Club Stats tells you all kinds of other interesting things. You can see at which seeds teams are most likely to finish, and you can compare probabilities based on hypothetical records. For example, I know that if the Steelers win their next two games, they have a 48% chance of making the playoffs; but if they win only one, their probability falls to 1%. I also know that the games that matter the most next week are the Patriots vs. Jaguars and Steelers vs. Ravens.
---
Out of curiosity, I compared the probabilities above to the probabilities estimated by HubDub prediction markets:
Ravens 72%
Broncos 57%
Titans 34%
Dolphins 22%
Jaguars 16%
Jets 14%
Steelers 11%
Texans 9%
If you add these probabilities, you get 235%, which makes no sense when there are basically only two spots available. I was especially shocked at the Titans' inflated probability.
However, when you consider how few people are betting in these markets -- about 60 each over the lifetime of the bet -- it is remarkable how similar they are to the SCS probabilities.
---
On a side note, this morning I had a great breakfast with Ken, the founder of SCS. It was great to learn some background on the site and to hear some of his plans for improvements. Once he gets bored with SCS, I am hoping I can convince him to work with me on a new project.
Undoubtedly, fans of these teams would be interested to know their team's playoff chances. Fortunately, (as I have blogged about twice before), there is a site for that: Sports Club Stats.
If you assume each team has a 50% chance of winning their games, the probabilities (estimated by markov simulations) look like this:
Ravens 65%
Broncos 54%
Jaguars 28%
Dolphins 20%
Jets 18%
Steelers 14%
Texans 6%
Titans 4%
However, if you weight the chances based on past performance, the probabilities look like this:
Ravens 87%
Broncos 67%
Jets 13%
Dolphins 12%
Jaguars 11%
Steelers 10%
Texans 3%
Titans 1%
Sports Club Stats tells you all kinds of other interesting things. You can see at which seeds teams are most likely to finish, and you can compare probabilities based on hypothetical records. For example, I know that if the Steelers win their next two games, they have a 48% chance of making the playoffs; but if they win only one, their probability falls to 1%. I also know that the games that matter the most next week are the Patriots vs. Jaguars and Steelers vs. Ravens.
---
Out of curiosity, I compared the probabilities above to the probabilities estimated by HubDub prediction markets:
Ravens 72%
Broncos 57%
Titans 34%
Dolphins 22%
Jaguars 16%
Jets 14%
Steelers 11%
Texans 9%
If you add these probabilities, you get 235%, which makes no sense when there are basically only two spots available. I was especially shocked at the Titans' inflated probability.
However, when you consider how few people are betting in these markets -- about 60 each over the lifetime of the bet -- it is remarkable how similar they are to the SCS probabilities.
---
On a side note, this morning I had a great breakfast with Ken, the founder of SCS. It was great to learn some background on the site and to hear some of his plans for improvements. Once he gets bored with SCS, I am hoping I can convince him to work with me on a new project.
Dec 19, 2009
Underwater volcano eruption [video and pics]
NOAA 12/17
The eruption occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
Amazingly, a certain species of shrimp (photo) were thriving in the acidic vent near the eruption.
The eruption occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
Video 1: [39 seconds]
This is a sequence of explosive degassing events as bubbles of gas-rich magma burst, spewing lava fragments into the water. At same time, lava is being extruded out of the vent and down the slope. The area in view is about 6-10 feet across in an eruptive area approximately 100 yards that runs along the summit. Courtesy of National Science Foundation and NOAA.
Video 2: [25 seconds]
This spectacular sequence is a closer view of the eruption with violent magma degassing events producing bright flashes of hot magma. Lava is blown up into the water before settling back to the seafloor, and large plugs of lava flow rapidly down the slope. In the foreground is the front of the Jason remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) with sampling hoses. The area in view is about 6-10 feet across in an eruptive area approximately 100 yards that runs along the summit. Courtesy of National Science Foundation and NOAA.
Amazingly, a certain species of shrimp (photo) were thriving in the acidic vent near the eruption.
Dec 18, 2009
The Universe in perspective [video]
Unlike the video I posted in August, this demonstrates the true scale of things. (Unfortunately, though, does not show how the moon looks compared to the Earth, or how the Earth looks compared to the other planets in our solar system.)
You can safely skip through the first 30 seconds. (The last 30 seconds are skippable, too.)
(Hat tip: Kottke)
---
Addendum: Thanks to Roy for pointing out this gem in the comments. It is one section of a program called Cosmic Voyage and is easily the best-constructed video I have seen on this topic. The first five minutes are zooming out to see the visible universe, and then from 6:00 on it zooms into a water droplet. Incredible!
You can safely skip through the first 30 seconds. (The last 30 seconds are skippable, too.)
(Hat tip: Kottke)
---
Addendum: Thanks to Roy for pointing out this gem in the comments. It is one section of a program called Cosmic Voyage and is easily the best-constructed video I have seen on this topic. The first five minutes are zooming out to see the visible universe, and then from 6:00 on it zooms into a water droplet. Incredible!
Dec 17, 2009
Squibs from the notebook (part V)
The four previous posts in this series can be viewed via the 'squibs' tag.
---
"[...] if you exercise self-control you can increase it a little bit over time. But the really sad thing is to really build up your self-control, outside of, you know, sleeping for the night and so on, is to consume sugar. So, for example, if you drink sweet tea with actual sugar rather than one of those artificial replacements, you all of the sudden rebuild your self-control." -Dan Ariely on Marketplace
Interesting example of irrationality: Testosterone actually makes people behave *more* fairly unless they think they are taking testosterone, in which case their prejudices cause them to behave unfairly. (Source)
Why is keyless entry to cars so common, but not keyless entry to homes?
"All rituals, all sacraments are ways of preparing us for the inevitable truth that shit happens." -Gregory Boyd
Most questions are statements in disguise.
"The openness and acceptance that there are things I will never "know" makes life's journey not only tolerable but allows us, again and again, to experience awe: that moment of insight into meaning other than ourselves, meaning in the small things." -Carl Hammerschlag
To what extent do questions about the meaning and purpose of life matter? Seeing as we will never *know* the answers, why not make something up and live accordingly? And why not deliberately change your answer every once in awhile?
"The person you are talking to is always more important than the point you are trying to make."
For language, vocabulary is high on the hierarchy of needs. Emphasizing vocabulary in education is misguided when it means kids infusing their sentences with smart-sounding adjectives.
---
"[...] if you exercise self-control you can increase it a little bit over time. But the really sad thing is to really build up your self-control, outside of, you know, sleeping for the night and so on, is to consume sugar. So, for example, if you drink sweet tea with actual sugar rather than one of those artificial replacements, you all of the sudden rebuild your self-control." -Dan Ariely on Marketplace
Interesting example of irrationality: Testosterone actually makes people behave *more* fairly unless they think they are taking testosterone, in which case their prejudices cause them to behave unfairly. (Source)
Why is keyless entry to cars so common, but not keyless entry to homes?
"All rituals, all sacraments are ways of preparing us for the inevitable truth that shit happens." -Gregory Boyd
Most questions are statements in disguise.
"The openness and acceptance that there are things I will never "know" makes life's journey not only tolerable but allows us, again and again, to experience awe: that moment of insight into meaning other than ourselves, meaning in the small things." -Carl Hammerschlag
To what extent do questions about the meaning and purpose of life matter? Seeing as we will never *know* the answers, why not make something up and live accordingly? And why not deliberately change your answer every once in awhile?
"The person you are talking to is always more important than the point you are trying to make."
For language, vocabulary is high on the hierarchy of needs. Emphasizing vocabulary in education is misguided when it means kids infusing their sentences with smart-sounding adjectives.
Dec 16, 2009
Advice on grad school, please?
I am in desperate need of some advice. I do not care whether your opinion is well-informed; if you have something to say, I want to hear it.
My specific questions are the following:
1. Is a Master's degree worth it if the long-term goal is to start a business?
2. Is a Master's degree worth it now, in this strange economic climate, with universities in budget crunches and a collapse of higher-ed-as-we-know-it looming?
3. What is the goal of graduate education if not learning? If that were the goal, I would do better to stay home and educate myself, right?
4. To what extent does the choice of school, choice of degree program, and choice of advisor (if I am given one) matter?
5. Where on the spectrum of extremely specialized to extremely generalized should I be?
6. Are online degrees a reasonable option?
7. Is it alright that I want to eventually start a business but am completely turned off by the idea of an MBA?
---
Below are some additional complicating factors. I would appreciate any thoughts on these as well.
8. The areas of study I am considering are the following: behavioral economics (my 2008 self hates me for this), social psychology, experimental economics, information economics, (health) analytics, information visualization, information design, genomics, and biostatistics. To me they seem closely related but there is slim chance of finding much overlap in a traditional setting. And none in particular stand out.
9. My long-term plan is to support myself primarily on the income from my investments, and the most important factor with investments is time. A Master's would be at least a two year set back, possibly more -- a big deal. One potential solution is to keep my job and do a Master's at night; plus, my company would subsidize the cost if it is work-relevant.
10. I am in a house. It is not much of a financial burden, but it means I am less mobile. I would basically limit myself to Duke, UNC, or NC State (I happen to be close to the geometric center of that triangle).
11. With the entrepreneurial aspect, I have heard mixed reviews. Some say a Master's would help in signaling to potential investors and employees that I am competent, but others say getting a Master's could actually hurt your prospects as an entrepreneur because it puts you in a very slow-moving non-entrepreneurial environment.
12. I have been spoiled by online learning. This is not to criticize my undergrad experience, but I truly believe I learned more the past year than I did in 4 years and 152 credit hours of undergraduate coursework. The reason, I think, is because I approach learning differently when it is not assigned to me. Plus, with online lectures like Academic Earth, I love the ability to watch whenever I want, pause, back up, speed up, and skip lectures if I so desire. It makes a big difference in the learning experience, and I am afraid I would be frustrated going back to a traditional classroom environment.
---
Maybe I am over-thinking this -- I am trying to remind myself that no matter what I choose, I will be fine -- but this seems like a decision deserving of careful consideration.
Thank you so much for your attention. If the comments section is not for you, feel free to send thoughts to justinwehr[at]gmail.com.
---
Update: Please answer this 4 question survey.
Update 2: Survey results.
My specific questions are the following:
1. Is a Master's degree worth it if the long-term goal is to start a business?
2. Is a Master's degree worth it now, in this strange economic climate, with universities in budget crunches and a collapse of higher-ed-as-we-know-it looming?
3. What is the goal of graduate education if not learning? If that were the goal, I would do better to stay home and educate myself, right?
4. To what extent does the choice of school, choice of degree program, and choice of advisor (if I am given one) matter?
5. Where on the spectrum of extremely specialized to extremely generalized should I be?
6. Are online degrees a reasonable option?
7. Is it alright that I want to eventually start a business but am completely turned off by the idea of an MBA?
---
Below are some additional complicating factors. I would appreciate any thoughts on these as well.
8. The areas of study I am considering are the following: behavioral economics (my 2008 self hates me for this), social psychology, experimental economics, information economics, (health) analytics, information visualization, information design, genomics, and biostatistics. To me they seem closely related but there is slim chance of finding much overlap in a traditional setting. And none in particular stand out.
9. My long-term plan is to support myself primarily on the income from my investments, and the most important factor with investments is time. A Master's would be at least a two year set back, possibly more -- a big deal. One potential solution is to keep my job and do a Master's at night; plus, my company would subsidize the cost if it is work-relevant.
10. I am in a house. It is not much of a financial burden, but it means I am less mobile. I would basically limit myself to Duke, UNC, or NC State (I happen to be close to the geometric center of that triangle).
11. With the entrepreneurial aspect, I have heard mixed reviews. Some say a Master's would help in signaling to potential investors and employees that I am competent, but others say getting a Master's could actually hurt your prospects as an entrepreneur because it puts you in a very slow-moving non-entrepreneurial environment.
12. I have been spoiled by online learning. This is not to criticize my undergrad experience, but I truly believe I learned more the past year than I did in 4 years and 152 credit hours of undergraduate coursework. The reason, I think, is because I approach learning differently when it is not assigned to me. Plus, with online lectures like Academic Earth, I love the ability to watch whenever I want, pause, back up, speed up, and skip lectures if I so desire. It makes a big difference in the learning experience, and I am afraid I would be frustrated going back to a traditional classroom environment.
---
Maybe I am over-thinking this -- I am trying to remind myself that no matter what I choose, I will be fine -- but this seems like a decision deserving of careful consideration.
Thank you so much for your attention. If the comments section is not for you, feel free to send thoughts to justinwehr[at]gmail.com.
---
Update: Please answer this 4 question survey.
Update 2: Survey results.
Signs you are boring
Gretchen Rubin names eight.
I liked this one (a sign you are *not* being boring):
---
I realize my level of boringness dramatically varies depending on whom I am speaking with. Small talk is one of my least favorite things in the world, but unless I am sufficiently comfortable with someone and they have shown at least a glimpse of interestingness, our conversation is not likely to go beyond the weather. I should work on that.
I liked this one (a sign you are *not* being boring):
3. Interruption. Although it sounds rude, interruption is actually a good sign, I think. It means a person is bursting to say something, and that shows interest.
---
I realize my level of boringness dramatically varies depending on whom I am speaking with. Small talk is one of my least favorite things in the world, but unless I am sufficiently comfortable with someone and they have shown at least a glimpse of interestingness, our conversation is not likely to go beyond the weather. I should work on that.
Dec 15, 2009
Avatar predictions
James Cameron's previous box office results:
'84 Terminator $38M
'86 Aliens $85M
'89 The Abyss $54M
'91 Terminator-2 $205M
'94 True Lies $146M
'97 Titanic $601M ...
'09 Avatar $[?]M
Hollywood Stock Exchange is a play-money prediction market, and the current projection for Avatar is $208 million. I shorted the crap out of that sucker.
But you probably should not trust my judgment seeing as I also own 5,000 shares of Zach Galifianakis stock.
---
Why Zach Galifianakis, you ask?
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B: Zach interviews Conan O'Brien (4:05). Don't make the mistake of watching this while at work. I could not stop laughing.
'84 Terminator $38M
'86 Aliens $85M
'89 The Abyss $54M
'91 Terminator-2 $205M
'94 True Lies $146M
'97 Titanic $601M ...
'09 Avatar $[?]M
Hollywood Stock Exchange is a play-money prediction market, and the current projection for Avatar is $208 million. I shorted the crap out of that sucker.
But you probably should not trust my judgment seeing as I also own 5,000 shares of Zach Galifianakis stock.
---
Why Zach Galifianakis, you ask?
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B: Zach interviews Conan O'Brien (4:05). Don't make the mistake of watching this while at work. I could not stop laughing.
Analyzing my exercise the past year
Minutes of exercise each day, January through October 2009.
Over these 300 days, I exercised an average of 28 minutes a day. The spikes between 60 and 90 minutes are typically days when I played racquetball. The larger spikes in August are from hiking in Alaska.
Unlike amount of sleep, amount of exercise does correlate with some of my outcomes of interest, but maybe not in the direction you would expect. Below are the outcomes where there is a significant or near-significant difference between days when I exercised for 20 minutes or less and days when I exercised for more than 20 minutes, ordered from most significant to least significant.
Only growth is significant at the 1% level. The others are not statistically significant but are close. Some ratings which do not appear to have any relationship to amount of exercise are mood, food quantity, and food quality.
The somewhat surprising finding is that exercise is harmful to all outcomes of interest except one: wakefulness. (And even then it is not a big difference.) More troubling still is that when I look at how exercise affects next-day wakefulness, the effect disappears. So exercise is associated with only a slight boost in my current day wakefulness, but does nothing for next-day wakefulness, and harms everything else.
A popular claim is that more exercise leads to better sleep. I do not track how quickly I fall asleep, but at least as far as total amount of sleep, yes, I sleep more hours on days when I exercised more. But that is a bad thing. I do not have trouble sleeping; I have trouble getting my ass out of bed. And if exercise does anything, it makes me stay in bed longer than I want.
If there is one outcome I care most about, it is the very subjective rating of the quantity and quality of all the things I learned and experienced combined into a single measure I call 'growth'. It turns out this is the only measure significantly associated with exercise, and not in the direction I would like. The negative direction of the relationship makes intuitive sense, but I was not expecting the magnitude of the difference to be so large. Here is my attempt to explain it: If I play racquetball for only an hour, the time investment is often more like two hours because there is the time to prepare, getting there, then coming back and showering, changing, etc. So right away exercise takes away a quality chunk of hours with which I could have been productive. But more than that, on days when I exercise I often have a greater desire to just relax, because "I owe it to myself".
Up until now, you might think I am making the case that exercise is a big time-suck to be avoided. I am not at all. Knowing how exercise relates to my other ratings is interesting, but I will not change my behavior as a result. Although racquetball might make me less productive, it has other benefits which I think more than compensate for that lack of productivity: I am healthier because of it, it is a social experience, I like the feeling of getting better with every match I play, and most of all it is just so amazingly enjoyable to strategize, adjust to opponents' weaknesses, enter a state of flow, and to hit the perfect 'Z' serve.
Bottom-line: At least for me, exercise is negatively associated with things like productivity, sleep, and even satisfaction, but I continue to do it either because I am stubborn and irrational or because the benefits are more than what is captured in my data.
---
Earlier:
Sleep
Weight
The evolution of tracking myself
Dec 14, 2009
Q & A with Seth Roberts
This is a pretty weird situation. Over on Seth Roberts’ blog, he published a somewhat re-worked Q & A I did with him (with me being the Q and him being the A).
The story:
So I wrote a fairly long post about Seth Roberts – a psychology professor and famous self-experimenter best known (I think) for developing the Shangri-La diet – and his research, bringing up some things about his work that left me unsatisfied. The bottom line was that I think Seth’s work is brilliant and people should be paying attention to it, but I am not always eager to self-experiment nor to use his research to adjust my lifestyle because I am not sure the health benefits are always worth the trouble -- certain ones are essentially costless to implement like getting more sunlight in the morning, but others, like standing on one leg, are not.
I shared the draft with Seth in case he wanted to respond to any points or correct any factual errors. Well, it turned out there were a lot of factual errors. I made a lot of wrongful assumptions about Seth’s research and about his intentions for doing it. I thought it best to scrap the post and try again in the form of a Q & A. That way, I do not have to assume anything and can allow Seth to respond himself.
Through no fault of Seth’s, he did not like some of the questions. 4.5 out of 10, to be precise. And of the ones he did answer, a few were short responses. Seeing as my introduction to the Q & A would probably be about as long as the Q & A itself, I decided not to publish it, but encouraged Seth to explore the topics on his blog.
This morning he published a somewhat re-worked version of the Q & A, re-phrasing some of my questions and adding bulk to some of his answers, and even answering some questions that were not directly answered first time around. It looks much better now, so I recommend checking it out.
Weird situation but I am glad I had the opportunity to ask him some questions. Thanks again, Seth, and I hope there are no hard feelings.
---
Previous posts mentioning Seth Roberts
The story:
So I wrote a fairly long post about Seth Roberts – a psychology professor and famous self-experimenter best known (I think) for developing the Shangri-La diet – and his research, bringing up some things about his work that left me unsatisfied. The bottom line was that I think Seth’s work is brilliant and people should be paying attention to it, but I am not always eager to self-experiment nor to use his research to adjust my lifestyle because I am not sure the health benefits are always worth the trouble -- certain ones are essentially costless to implement like getting more sunlight in the morning, but others, like standing on one leg, are not.
I shared the draft with Seth in case he wanted to respond to any points or correct any factual errors. Well, it turned out there were a lot of factual errors. I made a lot of wrongful assumptions about Seth’s research and about his intentions for doing it. I thought it best to scrap the post and try again in the form of a Q & A. That way, I do not have to assume anything and can allow Seth to respond himself.
Through no fault of Seth’s, he did not like some of the questions. 4.5 out of 10, to be precise. And of the ones he did answer, a few were short responses. Seeing as my introduction to the Q & A would probably be about as long as the Q & A itself, I decided not to publish it, but encouraged Seth to explore the topics on his blog.
This morning he published a somewhat re-worked version of the Q & A, re-phrasing some of my questions and adding bulk to some of his answers, and even answering some questions that were not directly answered first time around. It looks much better now, so I recommend checking it out.
Weird situation but I am glad I had the opportunity to ask him some questions. Thanks again, Seth, and I hope there are no hard feelings.
---
Previous posts mentioning Seth Roberts
Holy superlatives batman! This blog is a year old.
Hard to believe. On the other hand, I look back on it and say only a year?
Year one stats
365 days after my first post, this is post #667 = 1.8 posts per day.
Stats are publicly available at SiteMeter, Quantcast, and ClustrMaps.
Here is the year one traffic run-down:
54,000+ visits = 150 per day. 20% from returning visitors.
81,000+ page views = 222 per day = 1.5 page views per visit. 22% from returning visitors.
Average time on site = 1:11. 2:15 for returning visitors.
Roughly 1,075 hours spent on the site (= 45 days), and probably more than double that spent in feed readers.
255 feed subscribers = 1 new subscriber every 1.4 days.
And feed item use was as follows:
Visitors came from all over the place...
...But mostly from the US.
...Particularly from North Carolina and the Raleigh-Durham area.
36% of visits came from a Google search, and an additional 10% came from a Google images search. 11% came directly to the site, 7% from Google Reader, and 4% from Marginal Revolution.
The most viewed pages were the home page, the March archive, Overnight shipments visualization (Marginal Revolution referral), 3D population density map, Q & A with Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution referral), Directory of Indian buffets in the Triangle, Megacities world map, Traffic barrel monster artist arrested, Tax rates by country, Facebook growth chart, and NFL wildcat formation.
Can you tell I like traffic stats? I try not to be narcissistic about it, but I am a little. Sue me.
Stats are publicly available at SiteMeter, Quantcast, and ClustrMaps.
Here is the year one traffic run-down:
54,000+ visits = 150 per day. 20% from returning visitors.
81,000+ page views = 222 per day = 1.5 page views per visit. 22% from returning visitors.
Average time on site = 1:11. 2:15 for returning visitors.
Roughly 1,075 hours spent on the site (= 45 days), and probably more than double that spent in feed readers.
255 feed subscribers = 1 new subscriber every 1.4 days.
And feed item use was as follows:
Visitors came from all over the place...
...But mostly from the US.
...Particularly from North Carolina and the Raleigh-Durham area.
36% of visits came from a Google search, and an additional 10% came from a Google images search. 11% came directly to the site, 7% from Google Reader, and 4% from Marginal Revolution.
The most viewed pages were the home page, the March archive, Overnight shipments visualization (Marginal Revolution referral), 3D population density map, Q & A with Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution referral), Directory of Indian buffets in the Triangle, Megacities world map, Traffic barrel monster artist arrested, Tax rates by country, Facebook growth chart, and NFL wildcat formation.
Can you tell I like traffic stats? I try not to be narcissistic about it, but I am a little. Sue me.
Benefits of blogging
Blogging, for me, has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I don't plan to stop. I hope to still be blogging at eighty, if I am still around.
I feel that blogging is a productive and enjoyable use of my spare time (unless I spend too long slaving over how to phrase something, which happens). But really, what does it do for me?
The blog is like a public bookmarking tool because it gives me a directory of the most interesting and important things I have come across.
It is a place to grow and develop thoughts, and receive feedback on them.
It allows me to be more sensitive with people's time because I can share things without sending an invasive "look at me" email.
It gives me an excuse to ask interesting people questions.
Writing comes much more easily to me now.
It serves as a conversation starter with family and friends. (Beats talking about the weather.)
It is a memory aid.
It is a way to introduce myself to people.
The emails I receive from readers really do brighten my day. So do the referrals from other bloggers.
The greatest benefit of blogging has been the conversations and friendships it has led to outside of the blog. If I had not started blogging, I would have missed the invaluable exchanges with my new friends from the opposite side of the country, Robert and Bob. Nor would I have known Harrison -- a guy who lives right down the road and who is similar to me in so many ways -- and his wife Traci. I never would have had a great lunch with Nathan; never would have been invited to the Governor's announcement; never would have had the valuable exchanges with Nick and Hugh; never would have had the outpouring of support about the religion thing; and never would have known about so many blogs that I now read and enjoy daily.
---
Earlier:
This blog is about Me, dammit
I feel that blogging is a productive and enjoyable use of my spare time (unless I spend too long slaving over how to phrase something, which happens). But really, what does it do for me?
The blog is like a public bookmarking tool because it gives me a directory of the most interesting and important things I have come across.
It is a place to grow and develop thoughts, and receive feedback on them.
It allows me to be more sensitive with people's time because I can share things without sending an invasive "look at me" email.
It gives me an excuse to ask interesting people questions.
Writing comes much more easily to me now.
It serves as a conversation starter with family and friends. (Beats talking about the weather.)
It is a memory aid.
It is a way to introduce myself to people.
The emails I receive from readers really do brighten my day. So do the referrals from other bloggers.
The greatest benefit of blogging has been the conversations and friendships it has led to outside of the blog. If I had not started blogging, I would have missed the invaluable exchanges with my new friends from the opposite side of the country, Robert and Bob. Nor would I have known Harrison -- a guy who lives right down the road and who is similar to me in so many ways -- and his wife Traci. I never would have had a great lunch with Nathan; never would have been invited to the Governor's announcement; never would have had the valuable exchanges with Nick and Hugh; never would have had the outpouring of support about the religion thing; and never would have known about so many blogs that I now read and enjoy daily.
---
Earlier:
This blog is about Me, dammit
Why don't more people blog?
It is a familiar refrain in the blogosphere that "blogging is not for everyone" -- some people are not motivated, disciplined, or interesting enough to maintain a blog, they say.
I don't buy it.
Every person has interests; a blog is just a medium through which people can express those interests. And I believe that once people experience the benefits of blogging, passion will replace the need for discipline. The real problem is maintaining the discipline to get through those first few months when no one is reading. (It helps if you have a few close friends to read and comment while you are getting started; otherwise, it could get pretty lonely.)
And I don't buy the time excuse. Blogging needn't take more than 30 minutes a week; you do not need to post nearly as often as I do to see benefits.
I have yet to hear a good excuse for not blogging. Please let me know if you find one.
I don't buy it.
Every person has interests; a blog is just a medium through which people can express those interests. And I believe that once people experience the benefits of blogging, passion will replace the need for discipline. The real problem is maintaining the discipline to get through those first few months when no one is reading. (It helps if you have a few close friends to read and comment while you are getting started; otherwise, it could get pretty lonely.)
And I don't buy the time excuse. Blogging needn't take more than 30 minutes a week; you do not need to post nearly as often as I do to see benefits.
I have yet to hear a good excuse for not blogging. Please let me know if you find one.
Some thank you's
Thank you to those who sent traffic here when I had none including PSFK, 30THREADS, New Shelton, Ben Casnocha, and a special thanks to Craig Newmark who was there from the very beginning. Also thanks to Craig for graciously responding to all my unsolicited requests for advice.
Thanks to my lovely lady for reading every word on this blog, and for your encouragement and honest feedback.
Thanks to those people who put the 'A' in 'Q & A'.
Thanks to those bloggers who continue to provide inspiration every day. As I've said before, I use Scott Adams, Ben Casnocha, Craig Newmark, and Jason Kottke as models for what a blog should be.
Thanks to all for reading and commenting. I especially appreciate the thoughtful comments from Bob, Robert, John S, Nathan, Marlena, Dave, Phil, Kerry, Ken, and of course my lady. It is an honor to have so many interesting people donate their scarce time and attention to this blog. I hope you get from reading it at least 1/1000 of what I get from writing it.
Thanks to my lovely lady for reading every word on this blog, and for your encouragement and honest feedback.
Thanks to those people who put the 'A' in 'Q & A'.
Thanks to those bloggers who continue to provide inspiration every day. As I've said before, I use Scott Adams, Ben Casnocha, Craig Newmark, and Jason Kottke as models for what a blog should be.
Thanks to all for reading and commenting. I especially appreciate the thoughtful comments from Bob, Robert, John S, Nathan, Marlena, Dave, Phil, Kerry, Ken, and of course my lady. It is an honor to have so many interesting people donate their scarce time and attention to this blog. I hope you get from reading it at least 1/1000 of what I get from writing it.
Dec 13, 2009
60 Minutes on regenerative medicine this weekend [update with video]
I have not been this excited about a 60 Minutes segment since I can't remember when.
Sunday 12/13 at 7pm ET, Morley Safer will be interviewing Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine. (Teaser here. I would have preferred Leslie Stahl or Steve Croft over Safer, but I digress.) I trust that 60 Minutes will see the bigger picture relating to evolution and immortality, not just regrowing organs for our troops, but this quote makes me nervous:
Yikes. Please don't waste this opportunity, 60 Minutes.
I will be sure to update this post with the video once it becomes available.
Update: 12:38 video embedded below. Overall, I thought it was a good segment. I even learned a few things.
---
For a less soundbitey version of his research, see his presentation at the 2007 New Yorker conference.
Also, here is Juan Enriquez's TED talk which originally turned me on to regenerative medicine and Atala's research.
20 minute Steven Badylak presentation on regenerative medicine at PopTech 2008.
And here is a 52 minute video of Richard Dawkins touring Craig Venter's research lab.
Sunday 12/13 at 7pm ET, Morley Safer will be interviewing Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine. (Teaser here. I would have preferred Leslie Stahl or Steve Croft over Safer, but I digress.) I trust that 60 Minutes will see the bigger picture relating to evolution and immortality, not just regrowing organs for our troops, but this quote makes me nervous:
There are still some important hurdles to clear, but regenerative medicine may eventually help millions of people, especially amputees and victims of organ failure.
Yikes. Please don't waste this opportunity, 60 Minutes.
I will be sure to update this post with the video once it becomes available.
Update: 12:38 video embedded below. Overall, I thought it was a good segment. I even learned a few things.
---
For a less soundbitey version of his research, see his presentation at the 2007 New Yorker conference.
Also, here is Juan Enriquez's TED talk which originally turned me on to regenerative medicine and Atala's research.
20 minute Steven Badylak presentation on regenerative medicine at PopTech 2008.
And here is a 52 minute video of Richard Dawkins touring Craig Venter's research lab.
3D football experiment fails miserably
Ouch goes the Dallas Cowboys' experiment:
(Source)
---
Earlier: HD sports not good enough? Try 3D.
The game also featured the NFL debut of a 3D, in-house video, with fans given 3D glasses as they entered. It was supposed to be for the entire second half, but such few people bothered with it that the humongous video boards went back to plain ol’ 2D, HD just 6:50 after the experiment began. The change drew one of the largest cheers of the game.
(Source)
---
Earlier: HD sports not good enough? Try 3D.
Dec 12, 2009
You really should read this
NOVA: How did life begin? Q & A with Andy Knoll.
I will risk my credibility by saying that unless you are an evolutionary biologist, this is probably the most enlightening 5-10 minutes of reading you will do today. It took a lot of willpower on my part to avoid scattering this post with quotes from the article. Believe me when I say that it is really fascinating stuff.
Even if you believe in creationism, you will appreciate this article for its remarks about the mysteriousness of it all. This is by no means a "see, I told you so -- evolution is right!" type of deal. It is an intellectually honest look at the big questions surrounding the origin of life from someone who knows his stuff.
(The article, by the way, is a few years old but I highly doubt any of you have seen it before. Even if you have, it is worth another look.)
---
I found the article via NOVA's page devoted to evolution, which has all kinds of other interesting resources.
I will risk my credibility by saying that unless you are an evolutionary biologist, this is probably the most enlightening 5-10 minutes of reading you will do today. It took a lot of willpower on my part to avoid scattering this post with quotes from the article. Believe me when I say that it is really fascinating stuff.
Even if you believe in creationism, you will appreciate this article for its remarks about the mysteriousness of it all. This is by no means a "see, I told you so -- evolution is right!" type of deal. It is an intellectually honest look at the big questions surrounding the origin of life from someone who knows his stuff.
(The article, by the way, is a few years old but I highly doubt any of you have seen it before. Even if you have, it is worth another look.)
---
I found the article via NOVA's page devoted to evolution, which has all kinds of other interesting resources.
Dec 11, 2009
Two time lapse videos
I feel lame posting so many videos lately -- Wehr in the World is beginning to look more like a tumblr than a blog -- but these videos are too good to pass by, and I suspect not many people have seen them.
Both could stand a good bit of editing, but just sampling these two videos you will find imagery that I can only think to describe as stunning. I would recommend turning off the audio -- the slow violin and piano almost succeed in making vivid, high-speed images seem boring.
From 599 Productions. (The shots at 2:00 and 3:15 are incredible.)
From Continuous Shatter. (If nothing else, skip to the segment at 3:45.)
---
I found a time lapse of San Francisco tonight that might be the best time lapse I have seen, but I figure these are enough to occupy your attention for now. Look for it next week.
Both could stand a good bit of editing, but just sampling these two videos you will find imagery that I can only think to describe as stunning. I would recommend turning off the audio -- the slow violin and piano almost succeed in making vivid, high-speed images seem boring.
From 599 Productions. (The shots at 2:00 and 3:15 are incredible.)
From Continuous Shatter. (If nothing else, skip to the segment at 3:45.)
---
I found a time lapse of San Francisco tonight that might be the best time lapse I have seen, but I figure these are enough to occupy your attention for now. Look for it next week.
art,
nature,
tilt-shift,
video
Dec 10, 2009
Overcoming fear permanently
The trick, it seems, is timing.
~5 video from Nature: Erasing Fear Memories
---
This made me really curious about what exactly fear is, so I spent a few minutes hoping around Wikipedia pages and here is a bit of what I gathered:
Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat that commonly manifests itself through electrical resistance of the skin, heart rate, breathing, and muscle response. Fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, and is distinguished from anxiety which typically occurs without any external threat.
The amygdala is the key brain structure in the neurobiology of fear. Deactivating the amygdala can prevent the learning and expression of fear, but don't hurry to deactivate it because it could also lead to overreaction to all objects, hypersexuality, inability to recognize familiar objects, and a condition in which "inappropriate objects are placed in the mouth."
The fear response can be mitigated by consciously perceiving fearful stimuli.
Finally, here is a bit of neuro-parisitic awesomness: There is a parasite that inhabits a rat's amygdala, making it less fearful and sometimes even causing the rat to seek out the smell of cat urine thereby increasing the chance the rat will be eaten, giving the parasite a new, larger host for its offspring.
Wikipedia pages:
Fear
Fear conditioning
Amygdala
Extinction (operant conditioning)
---
A bit of wisdom from my friend Bob:
~5 video from Nature: Erasing Fear Memories
---
This made me really curious about what exactly fear is, so I spent a few minutes hoping around Wikipedia pages and here is a bit of what I gathered:
Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat that commonly manifests itself through electrical resistance of the skin, heart rate, breathing, and muscle response. Fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, and is distinguished from anxiety which typically occurs without any external threat.
The amygdala is the key brain structure in the neurobiology of fear. Deactivating the amygdala can prevent the learning and expression of fear, but don't hurry to deactivate it because it could also lead to overreaction to all objects, hypersexuality, inability to recognize familiar objects, and a condition in which "inappropriate objects are placed in the mouth."
The fear response can be mitigated by consciously perceiving fearful stimuli.
Finally, here is a bit of neuro-parisitic awesomness: There is a parasite that inhabits a rat's amygdala, making it less fearful and sometimes even causing the rat to seek out the smell of cat urine thereby increasing the chance the rat will be eaten, giving the parasite a new, larger host for its offspring.
Wikipedia pages:
Fear
Fear conditioning
Amygdala
Extinction (operant conditioning)
---
A bit of wisdom from my friend Bob:
Risk awareness seems necessary, but we don't have to be afraid in order to calculate and avoid risks. I'm not saying fear is a bad thing. Fear is good. When we feel it, we need to pay attention to it. Better still is to know where it's coming from within us and whether it's due to some real risk or some old experience that's no longer helpful.
Owl in super slow motion
I have played this many times, each time focusing on something different. And each time it has been thoroughly fascinating.
(Hat tip: Bad Astronomy)
(Hat tip: Bad Astronomy)
Dec 9, 2009
How personality predicts success
ScienceDaily 12/3: Personality predicts success in medical school.
Interpersonal aspects, I think, are the bane of education. Education rewards conscientiousness, intelligence, and self-discipline -- all valuable traits in the workplace -- but a college degree says nothing about a person's interpersonal skills. Even in my profession which traditionally employs some of the most introverted people on the planet (I am one of them), I have seen 4.0 students from Ivy League schools applying for an entry-level position get turned down for being off-putting in the interview, and people with much more humble credentials get hired with glowing reviews for being personable. Truthfully, I have no idea how I got hired.
Oh wait, now I do ... good looks predict success, too. :-)
---
Earlier: Hire ugly people
During the early, pre-clinical years, conscientious individuals do much better than those who display lower levels of this trait. However, as the curriculum changed over the years, interpersonal aspects (for example, performance during internships or patient interaction) became more important for success.
Interpersonal aspects, I think, are the bane of education. Education rewards conscientiousness, intelligence, and self-discipline -- all valuable traits in the workplace -- but a college degree says nothing about a person's interpersonal skills. Even in my profession which traditionally employs some of the most introverted people on the planet (I am one of them), I have seen 4.0 students from Ivy League schools applying for an entry-level position get turned down for being off-putting in the interview, and people with much more humble credentials get hired with glowing reviews for being personable. Truthfully, I have no idea how I got hired.
Oh wait, now I do ... good looks predict success, too. :-)
---
Earlier: Hire ugly people
Dec 8, 2009
Squibs from the notebook (part IV)
I am renaming this series from "Things I'd like to blog about" because I think the title is misleading: Few, if any, of these things will ever have a full post devoted to them. These are just some of ideas I found interesting or important enough to jot down in my notebook, and ultimately to share with readers.
The three previous posts in this series can be viewed via the 'squibs' tag.
I will probably do around one post like this a week -- sometimes more, sometimes less. I look forward to your continued feedback.
---
Strategies to immortalize oneself:
Woody Allen: "I don't want to be immortal through my work; I want to be immortal through not dying."
Maybe the three most influential human biases: 1. believe everyone notices you, 2. you are better than average, 3. what you do makes sense.
Studies of people who predict the end of world at an exact time, then that time passes: They often prepare for the end through some elaborate ritual, but then once the time passes, instead of saying "I'm a moron" they say "I did just the right thing; my actions delayed the end." (This is an example of bias #3 above.)
One of the most robust findings in the field of psychology is that if you reward kids for doing some task like drawing, in the absence of the reward, they will like drawing less than they originally did and do it less often. Related: Get people to work for you for free because then they tell themselves they must really like you. (This is also an example of bias #3.)
~56% of people say they would like to start a business, but few ever do. Why?
The stages of competence.
"Businesses are islands of conscious power in an ocean of unconscious cooperation."
Empathy is a neutral capacity; torturers need it to know what will be painful. Empathy can become sympathy and turn into altruism, which is the action.
'Don't be a dick': Simple, not always easy, a good plan.
The three previous posts in this series can be viewed via the 'squibs' tag.
I will probably do around one post like this a week -- sometimes more, sometimes less. I look forward to your continued feedback.
---
Strategies to immortalize oneself:
- through work
- through having something named after you like a building or a new species
- through doing something worthy of the history books
- through memories
- through documentation (photos, writing, etc.)
- through tombstone
Woody Allen: "I don't want to be immortal through my work; I want to be immortal through not dying."
Maybe the three most influential human biases: 1. believe everyone notices you, 2. you are better than average, 3. what you do makes sense.
Studies of people who predict the end of world at an exact time, then that time passes: They often prepare for the end through some elaborate ritual, but then once the time passes, instead of saying "I'm a moron" they say "I did just the right thing; my actions delayed the end." (This is an example of bias #3 above.)
One of the most robust findings in the field of psychology is that if you reward kids for doing some task like drawing, in the absence of the reward, they will like drawing less than they originally did and do it less often. Related: Get people to work for you for free because then they tell themselves they must really like you. (This is also an example of bias #3.)
~56% of people say they would like to start a business, but few ever do. Why?
The stages of competence.
"Businesses are islands of conscious power in an ocean of unconscious cooperation."
Empathy is a neutral capacity; torturers need it to know what will be painful. Empathy can become sympathy and turn into altruism, which is the action.
'Don't be a dick': Simple, not always easy, a good plan.
Putting a monetary value on your time
The Rational Entrepreneur's quick and free guide to 'time is money'.
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Up until a couple of years ago I was a complete slob with my time, zombie-ing out in front of the television most nights watching sports, Nat Geo re-runs, and who knows what. I think a big part of what got me away from that lifestyle was thinking of my time as valuable. If we conservatively say that an hour of your time is worth $18, then even ignoring the opportunity cost, a 3.5 hour football game costs you $63 (not to mention the cable bill). I am too cheap for that. I now try to use my time on things, like blogging, where the benefits are compounding and not limited to myself.
Putting an explicit monetary value on your time has the advantage of ironing out certain irrational habits. (Of course, if taken too far it could be a source of stress, for example if you were to constantly interrupt your leisure time with thoughts of how much it's costing you.) Here's some advice for putting a ballpark dollar value on your time...
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Up until a couple of years ago I was a complete slob with my time, zombie-ing out in front of the television most nights watching sports, Nat Geo re-runs, and who knows what. I think a big part of what got me away from that lifestyle was thinking of my time as valuable. If we conservatively say that an hour of your time is worth $18, then even ignoring the opportunity cost, a 3.5 hour football game costs you $63 (not to mention the cable bill). I am too cheap for that. I now try to use my time on things, like blogging, where the benefits are compounding and not limited to myself.
Dec 7, 2009
Probability of finding the 'God particle'
Intrade currently has the probability of finding the Higgs Boson particle at 2% by the end of this year, and 18% by the end of next year, down from a high of 74% in 2008. (But note that the volume of trading is, unsurprisingly, extremely low at 166 trades.)
Finding the 'God particle' is the most publicized purpose of the Large Hadron Collider, but it is one of many. Plus, the particle might not be as important as the name implies:
Wikipedia lists the other purposes as the following, almost none of which I understand:
Finding the 'God particle' is the most publicized purpose of the Large Hadron Collider, but it is one of many. Plus, the particle might not be as important as the name implies:
The Higgs boson is often referred to as "the God particle" by the media, after the title of Leon Lederman's book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. While use of this term may have contributed to increased media interest in particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider it is disliked by scientists as overstating the importance of the particle.
Wikipedia lists the other purposes as the following, almost none of which I understand:
Is supersymmetry, an extension of the Standard Model and Poincaré symmetry, realised in nature, implying that all known particles have supersymmetric partners? These may clear up the mystery of dark matter.
Are there extra dimensions, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we detect them?
Are electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force just different manifestations of a single unified force, as predicted by various Grand Unification Theories?
Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?
Are there additional sources of quark flavour violation beyond those already predicted within the Standard Model?
Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter?
What was the nature of the quark-gluon plasma in the early universe?
Selfishness of Economists
The abstract of a new paper co-authored by the Stand-Up Economist:
Personally, I think I became less generous since studying economics in small part because it taught me that selfishness is not inherently bad but mostly because I now have a greater appreciation of incentives and trade-offs. Rarely will I give money away in the form of a hand out; microloans are about as charitable as I get. But for reasons similar to those mentioned in this post, I think investing is possibly the best way to do social good.
A substantial body of research suggests that economists are less generous than other professionals and that economics students are less generous than other students. We address this question using administrative data on donations to social programs by students at the University of Washington. Our data set allows us to track student donations and economics training over time in order to distinguish selection effects from indoctrination effects. We find that economics majors are less likely to donate than other students and that there is an indoctrination effect for non-majors but not for majors. Women majors and non-majors are less likely to contribute than comparable men.
Personally, I think I became less generous since studying economics in small part because it taught me that selfishness is not inherently bad but mostly because I now have a greater appreciation of incentives and trade-offs. Rarely will I give money away in the form of a hand out; microloans are about as charitable as I get. But for reasons similar to those mentioned in this post, I think investing is possibly the best way to do social good.
Dec 4, 2009
The Google Operating System [video]
I am already using Chrome as my primary web browser, and it sounds like the Chrome OS will not be much different. The OS is basically just the web browser with all data stored to the cloud. This allows for your machine's boot-up time to be reduced to 7 seconds. I am intrigued, but it sounds like Google does not intend for this to be used on desktop PCs. At least not yet.
Max PC has more.
Dec 3, 2009
Comparing interests of economics graduate students
A piece of the abstract from a paper called How Do Median Graduate Economic Programs Differ from Top-ranked Programs?:
The math part surprised me.
(Hat tip: Geary Behaviour Centre)
Median students [i.e., students in median economics graduate programs] have more interest in econometrics, history of thought and economic literature than do students at top programs, although after the fifth year, their interest in any field drops significantly. It also finds that students at top schools are much more likely to be involved in writing scholarly papers, and that students at top schools give far less emphasis to excellence in mathematics as a path to the fast track than do students at median schools.
The math part surprised me.
(Hat tip: Geary Behaviour Centre)
My best guess on healthy diets
As I remarked last week, the paleolithic diet theory is growing on me, but I still have some doubts. Below I discuss my current thoughts on what constitutes a healthy diet.
There is no particular reason you should listen to me except maybe that I have read and synthesized a wide variety of expert opinions. I think you would be surprised by how much experts disagree -- I would say the level of disagreement among nutritionists exceeds that of economists. So if everyone has a different opinion I figure adding mine won't hurt.
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First and most importantly, there is no optimal diet. There are a wide variety of healthy diets. However, the typical American diet is not one.
As a general rule, it is a good idea to eat foods like our ancient ancestors did, meaning foods that are naturally occurring and can be easily digested without being cooked. One thing to consider is that most (all?) of the foods that we can find in the grocery store and think of as naturally occurring look and behave nothing like what our ancestors would have eaten. Corn, bananas, grapes -- seriously I cannot think of an exception -- are bigger and juicier than they were because they have been selectively bred over many generations. Some are not only bigger and juicier but fundamentally different from the plants our ancestors would have known. So the advice "eat like your ancestors" is not as straight-forward as it first appears.
Would you recognize these as corn and bananas?
Animal products should probably be a small part of the diet -- certainly not every meal, maybe not even once a day -- but there are cultures with good health and low rates of heart disease that subsist on basically meat alone, and I have a hard time explaining that.
Seth Roberts has convinced me of the value of fermented foods, so I have been trying to add those to my diet, mostly in the form of homemade yogurt. I am not sure how much it matters; I have not noticed any significant difference in the way I feel. (Switching from a typical American diet to a mostly vegan diet, though, I definitely felt a change for the better.)
On pesticides and preservatives and hormones and things, I am not really sure. Of course they are not good for your health but I have not been convinced that they are extremely bad either. There is probably some truth to the alarmists' claims, but the fears are probably overblown.
In the end, because I do not believe in an optimal diet, I am not sure diet matters much as long as you avoid eating crappy foods. I think bad foods probably kill you faster and lower your quality of life more than any mix of good foods make you live longer and raise your quality of life. So instead of going super-food crazy (acai berries, I'm talking to you) or stressing over the variety of foods in my diet, I live by the principle avoid crappy foods.
There is no particular reason you should listen to me except maybe that I have read and synthesized a wide variety of expert opinions. I think you would be surprised by how much experts disagree -- I would say the level of disagreement among nutritionists exceeds that of economists. So if everyone has a different opinion I figure adding mine won't hurt.
---
First and most importantly, there is no optimal diet. There are a wide variety of healthy diets. However, the typical American diet is not one.
As a general rule, it is a good idea to eat foods like our ancient ancestors did, meaning foods that are naturally occurring and can be easily digested without being cooked. One thing to consider is that most (all?) of the foods that we can find in the grocery store and think of as naturally occurring look and behave nothing like what our ancestors would have eaten. Corn, bananas, grapes -- seriously I cannot think of an exception -- are bigger and juicier than they were because they have been selectively bred over many generations. Some are not only bigger and juicier but fundamentally different from the plants our ancestors would have known. So the advice "eat like your ancestors" is not as straight-forward as it first appears.
Would you recognize these as corn and bananas?
Animal products should probably be a small part of the diet -- certainly not every meal, maybe not even once a day -- but there are cultures with good health and low rates of heart disease that subsist on basically meat alone, and I have a hard time explaining that.
Seth Roberts has convinced me of the value of fermented foods, so I have been trying to add those to my diet, mostly in the form of homemade yogurt. I am not sure how much it matters; I have not noticed any significant difference in the way I feel. (Switching from a typical American diet to a mostly vegan diet, though, I definitely felt a change for the better.)
On pesticides and preservatives and hormones and things, I am not really sure. Of course they are not good for your health but I have not been convinced that they are extremely bad either. There is probably some truth to the alarmists' claims, but the fears are probably overblown.
In the end, because I do not believe in an optimal diet, I am not sure diet matters much as long as you avoid eating crappy foods. I think bad foods probably kill you faster and lower your quality of life more than any mix of good foods make you live longer and raise your quality of life. So instead of going super-food crazy (acai berries, I'm talking to you) or stressing over the variety of foods in my diet, I live by the principle avoid crappy foods.
Dec 2, 2009
Who said it?
There are so many people, especially among our pals, who imagine that words are nothing. On the contrary, don't you think? It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint a thing.
All Things Considered (11/25) on the newly released six-volume collection of Van Gogh's writing.
"Life lessons from an ad man" [TED talk]
16:39 presentation from Rory Sutherland released last month:
Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value -- and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.
Dec 1, 2009
Things I'd like to blog about (part III)
Part 1 (with explanation)
Part 2
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Warren Buffet's advice: choose knowledge that is cumulative/compounding, not something like a programming language that will be obsolete in another couple of years. I think this is an extremely important idea and it can be used for determining if you are being productive by asking "are the returns to what I'm doing compounding?"
The search for truth represents a longing, not a destination. Not only are events often a roll of the dice, often the dice are rolled where you cannot find them.
Why is it that people care more about where they are going than where they have been? Why do we prefer our lives go from bad to good rather than vice versa?
I prefer people who, like me, are doubtful of their own beliefs, but I recognize that people who seem uncertain are at a disadvantage in the job market. I think a solution is not to recklessly feign certitude but to be certain of what you don't know, and to assign probabilities to your beliefs.
I want the purpose of health care to be to extend my life, not to prevent my death. This is a subtle but enormous difference. If everyone felt this way, our health care and budget problems would be solved. Related: The idea that a human can be healthy is an abstraction.
Living like you are going to die tomorrow: Probably not a good strategy for all life decisions because you will ignore long-term goals, but I think it is wise to live like you are going to die tomorrow for a certain subset of things like treatment of others, interest in the world, and expression of gratitude.
Will musicians, like chess players, eventually be defeated by a musical version of "Deep Blue"? One of my most absurd beliefs is that creativity can and eventually will be effectively mechanized.
Small efforts make a big difference. This is one of the most important principles for entrepreneurs to follow -- e.g., minimizing the number of clicks users need to make. But it can also be used for self-improvement purposes -- e.g., if you are dieting, place the food you are trying to avoid in a less convenient area.
Wikipedia has a fascinating page on the meaning of life and how it has been defined by so many religious and philosophical perspectives. In the end the question comes down to what should we be doing with ourselves? As I see it, one broad strategy is to eat, drink, and be merry. This is hedonism and it is the things you have a high chance of accomplishing. The other broad strategy is to aim for accomplishment. But aiming for accomplishment means a greater chance of failure. A third strategy is to get the right mixture of hedonism and accomplishment. But how do we find the right mixture?
Part 2
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Warren Buffet's advice: choose knowledge that is cumulative/compounding, not something like a programming language that will be obsolete in another couple of years. I think this is an extremely important idea and it can be used for determining if you are being productive by asking "are the returns to what I'm doing compounding?"
The search for truth represents a longing, not a destination. Not only are events often a roll of the dice, often the dice are rolled where you cannot find them.
Why is it that people care more about where they are going than where they have been? Why do we prefer our lives go from bad to good rather than vice versa?
I prefer people who, like me, are doubtful of their own beliefs, but I recognize that people who seem uncertain are at a disadvantage in the job market. I think a solution is not to recklessly feign certitude but to be certain of what you don't know, and to assign probabilities to your beliefs.
I want the purpose of health care to be to extend my life, not to prevent my death. This is a subtle but enormous difference. If everyone felt this way, our health care and budget problems would be solved. Related: The idea that a human can be healthy is an abstraction.
Living like you are going to die tomorrow: Probably not a good strategy for all life decisions because you will ignore long-term goals, but I think it is wise to live like you are going to die tomorrow for a certain subset of things like treatment of others, interest in the world, and expression of gratitude.
Will musicians, like chess players, eventually be defeated by a musical version of "Deep Blue"? One of my most absurd beliefs is that creativity can and eventually will be effectively mechanized.
Small efforts make a big difference. This is one of the most important principles for entrepreneurs to follow -- e.g., minimizing the number of clicks users need to make. But it can also be used for self-improvement purposes -- e.g., if you are dieting, place the food you are trying to avoid in a less convenient area.
Wikipedia has a fascinating page on the meaning of life and how it has been defined by so many religious and philosophical perspectives. In the end the question comes down to what should we be doing with ourselves? As I see it, one broad strategy is to eat, drink, and be merry. This is hedonism and it is the things you have a high chance of accomplishing. The other broad strategy is to aim for accomplishment. But aiming for accomplishment means a greater chance of failure. A third strategy is to get the right mixture of hedonism and accomplishment. But how do we find the right mixture?
Two interesting examples of testosterone research
1. Bob Sutton reports on a study comparing the testosterone effects of driving a Porsche Carrera versus a Toyota Camry. The study includes the chart below. (Hilarious, yes. Joke, no.)
2. WUNC's The State of Things 10/28: Testing Testosterone.
Interestingly, McCain supporters experienced a much bigger drop in testosterone levels than Obama supporters experienced a gain. It seems loss aversion is biologically wired in us.
2. WUNC's The State of Things 10/28: Testing Testosterone.
Forget fist fights. Even vicarious participation in a contest can affect testosterone levels in men. Duke post-doctoral researcher Steven Stanton and his colleagues at Duke and the University of Michigan discovered that young men who voted for John McCain in the 2008 presidential election suffered an immediate drop in testosterone when the election results were announced. Stanton joins guest host Janet Babin to explain the study and why events like elections and basketball games can generate physiological changes in men.
Interestingly, McCain supporters experienced a much bigger drop in testosterone levels than Obama supporters experienced a gain. It seems loss aversion is biologically wired in us.
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