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.
Triumph of the idiots
Abstract Generator Factory: Triumph of the Idiots
Intelligent people get squeezed out of organisations, given time. For some reason the combination of intelligence and ladder-climbing almost never co-exists. Senior executives of large companies often get described as being intelligent, but this is just mistaking outward signs of achievement with intelligence. Anyone can make money in a rising market, it’s only those who seem to make a company grow when the odds are against them (e.g. Steve Jobs’ return to Apple) are worthy of praise; the rest were just fortunate to be sitting on a boat in the rising tide.
Evidence of this can be seen in the competition between any large companies, this phenomenon explains why Microsoft can never quite do what Google does. It explained why IBM could never quite catch up with Microsoft. Etc. It’s not that they became too large, or too complacent, it’s because they became too stupid. They are collectively idiots. It’ll happen to Google too, given time.
Women prefer men with stubble for love, sex and marriage - Telegraph
Women prefer men with stubble for love, sex and marriage - Telegraph
Writing in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the researchers conclude: “Facial hair, or beardedness, is a powerful sociosexual signal, and an obvious biological marker of sexual maturity.“Facial hair may have been sexually selected by females on the basis of associated male success, despite its threatening appearance. Clean-shaven faces therefore may suggest appeasement, as well as being an obvious sign of sexual immaturity.
Men prefer being solo over a bad marriage: study
Men prefer being solo over a bad marriage: study - Yahoo! News
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage.
ADVERTISEMENTWeisman, 49, conducted a survey of 1,533 heterosexual men to research a book aiming to give women an insight into why some smart, successful men opted to stay single — and help lifelong bachelors understand why they are still the solo man at parties.
Gender gap: are women choosing to be where they are?
The freedom to say ‘no’ - The Boston Globe
Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.
10 Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work
10 Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work - Harvard Business Online’s Tammy Erickson
I’m worried about Generation X and corporations. As far as I can tell, these two have a tentative relationship at best – and are likely headed for some rocky times ahead.
Corporations really need Gen X – folks in their 30’s to early 40’s, who should begin to serve as our primary corporate leaders over the next couple years. But I fear many current corporate executives are taking this small and therefore precious group for granted.
Porn can be good for you - Peter Tatchell
Porn can be good for you - Red Pepper
Any opposition to consensual sexual violence and humiliation is based on many ifs and maybes and it seems unfair to penalise the majority of mature, responsible SM lovers on the grounds of what an aberrant minority of viewers of this extreme imagery might do subsequently.
Aging effects
Not very relevant to the content of this blog, but interesting nonetheless. Every time I see this graphic effect, it reminds me of the impermanence of all things…us included. A bit depressing, really…
Men-women differences: the key is in history
Believe it or not, women chose to be where they are, because they’re biologically programmed to act different to men. What is so difficult to understand about this?
The glass ceiling in women’s heads | Camilla Cavendish - Times Online
This book in fact gives powerful support to Larry Summers’ remarks that produced rage on the Harvard campus two years ago. He was the first President of Harvard to suffer a no-confidence vote, for having the temerity to suggest that there are fewer female geniuses than men and fewer women prepared to devote crazy hours to a single topic.The book raises intriguing questions. If Pinker is right, then women who have the luxury of making career choices may actually increase, not decrease, the sexual division of labour. That is certainly what happened in kibbutzes that were studied over four generations, where all choices were freely available to men and women but where, in each generation, men chose to do progressively less childcare and women less construction work.
Mother’s diet may affect the sex of her baby
How much a mother eats at the time of conception may influence whether she gives birth to a boy or a girl, a new report shows.
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About Javier Marti
As an independent strategy consultant, futurist, speaker and founder of Trendirama.com Consulting, 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"
When not consulting for clients, Javier shares his knowledge and experience through information-packed, yet entertaining presentations in a wide range of subjects in English and Spanish.
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