Optimizing humans for machine-like performance
Book Excerpt: The Numerati by Stephen Baker
Takriti confesses that he’s nervous. His assignment is to translate the complexity of highly intelligent knowledge workers into the same types of equations and algorithms that are used to fine-tune shipping or predict the life span and production of a mainframe computer. With time, he and his team hope to build detailed models for each worker, each one complete with a person’s quirks, daily commute, and allies, perhaps even enemies. These models might one day include whether the workers eat beef or pork, how seriously they take the Sabbath, whether a bee sting or a peanut sauce could lay them low. No doubt, some of them thrive even in the filthy air in Beijing or Mexico City, while others wheeze. If so, the models would eventually include this detail, among countless others. The idea is to build richly textured models that behave in their symbolic realm just like their flesh-and-blood counterparts. Then planners can manipulate them, looking for the most efficient combinations.
Complete monitoring to be proposed in the UK
AC Grayling: Safe in our cages | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
This Orwellian nightmare, additionally, is proposed for a world in which leading soi-disant liberal democracies run, and/or permit rendition flights to, Guantanamo Bay. How many steps separate an innocent British citizen from some misinterpretation or interference or error in the collected and ‘made accessible’ data of text messages and emails, and a forthcoming home-grown version of Guantanamo Bay for people whose pattern of phone calls does not fit the police definition of acceptable?
Phonetics and the English language
Alphabetic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I take it you already know,
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead - it’s said like bed, not bead,
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.
Who will make a killing this recession?
Knowyourmoney - Who will make a killing this recession?
The chatter of recessions and credit crunches is ubiquitous. It’s coming from every corner of the media, from the boardroom meetings at work, from the bloke at the bar down your local, even the teenage girl at the bus stop is shouting into her mobile about it. They’re all vying for our attention, telling us that an economic downturn could loom, is looming, or was looming and is now upon us like a huge, clichéd dark cloud on the financial horizon. The contradictory explanations, the myriad divergent predictions, the hackneyed myths and the timorous rumours tell us only one thing for certain: people are scared about the recession – some don’t even know why.
Large hadron collider rap
A black hole may take us down but we humans will go down laughing…
Italian mayor bans gatherings of three or more people
Italian mayor bans gatherings of three or more people as soldiers hit streets - Telegraph
He has also banned the consumption of alcohol at the city’s station after 6pm and closed a immigrant cultural centre.Opposition councillor Sara Paladini said: “There is no emergency situation in Novara - there is no need for such a Fascist edict. There are other better ways to tackle the city’s problems.”
But Mauro Franzinelli, the councillor in charge of security, said: “This is needed to limit public disturbance. The citizens of Novara asked for it. I understand opposition left councillors plan to gather and protest in groups of more than three - we will not fine them this time.
Rich-poor widening gap
From the marbled 20th floor of a glass tower in Canary Wharf the view of the river is breathtaking. It snakes down to the Thames barrier, glinting in the sunset. Close to the new city lie the serried ranks of East End estate blocks. The view is typical of London: glossy new wealth nestling close to old and persisting penury. Precious little money has trickled down from this gilded new town in the sky to its neighbours below.
10 Things to Understand About the Housing Bubble and the Debt Crisis
RGE - 10 Things to Understand About the Housing Bubble and the Debt Crisis
At first, the HELOC was designed to solve the problem created by the elimination of interest deductions on consumer loans. Simply grant a lender a second mortgage on your home and suddenly, as long as you had less than $1 million in total home loans, you could deduct all of the interest on what really was a personal line of credit. Better yet, because it was secured, the interest charges were typically lower than on credit card debt. A great solution to the problem from lenders’ and consumers’ points of view, HELOCs became very popular and – by the end of the 90’s – ubiquitous. Homeowners soon realized, however, especially as home values began to rise more rapidly beginning in 1996, that they could qualify for HELOCs far exceeding the amount of credit card lines and other consumer debt they used to have.
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About Javier Marti
As an Independent Strategy Consultant, speaker and founder of HypnoticSales.co.uk and SunshineHypnosis.co.uk, Javier is dedicated to help organizations, small businesses and individuals to optimize systems, increase profits and make better choices in business and in life. He is the author of the book "Mobile, Domains & The Future"
Javier also shares his knowledge and experience through information-packed and entertaining presentations in English and Spanish.
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