Hey you, get a team of 20 people to work on the next great piece of software. You want the 20 best people you can find, right?
I don't think so.
Given a project of sufficient size, there will always be areas that "just need to get done" and have relatively straight-forward solutions. It's best to have people who don't wish to be the top dog on these: they will do solid work, not cause turmoil with egotistical design discussions, and simply just get things working.
The simple truth is: there isn't enough interesting/novel stuff to go around to warrant an All-Star at every spot.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Monday, May 5, 2014
Voting combine
The NFL draft is one of my favorite events of the year. For those unfamiliar, it's where NFL teams pick from former college players. Before the draft is the NFL Combine: a battery of tests performed on the top 80-90% of players most likely to be selected in the draft. Independent testing provides physical attributes (height, weight, wingspan, etc), physical skill measurements (40 yard dash, vertical jump, etc) and a medical evaluation. Most of the press goes to the first two groups of data, but the teams care most about the latter (because they watch hours of tape on players, so the actual numbers from these tests aren't all that meaningful). Sometimes an otherwise highly ranked prospect has an unknown chronic medical issue, or gets busted by a drug test, or is just in the process of healing from a known surgery/injury and that progress is evaluated. Teams can then factor in this data when deciding if a player is worth an early pick.
Occasionally in presidential campaigns, a candidate's health comes up as an issue (is Ron Paul too old? is McCain too old? is Chris Christie too fat?). Perhaps we need a congressional combine (or call it something else ... ). Candidates would be tested by an independent panel on awareness of facts around current talking points, given a test to establish roughly where they fall on the political spectrum and given physicals and assigned a health risk score on some scale (from "totally fine" to "imminent risk of blown pupil"). This would go into their portfolio of data along with their observed behavior and voters can decide who to back based on slightly more complete and less manipulated information.
Occasionally in presidential campaigns, a candidate's health comes up as an issue (is Ron Paul too old? is McCain too old? is Chris Christie too fat?). Perhaps we need a congressional combine (or call it something else ... ). Candidates would be tested by an independent panel on awareness of facts around current talking points, given a test to establish roughly where they fall on the political spectrum and given physicals and assigned a health risk score on some scale (from "totally fine" to "imminent risk of blown pupil"). This would go into their portfolio of data along with their observed behavior and voters can decide who to back based on slightly more complete and less manipulated information.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
The other 99%
Usually the 99% (or 1%, if you prefer the other side) invokes an economic divide. Perhaps the rise of easy money has amplified the difference between those who can generate it and those who can't.
I think a similar trend has happened in entertainment due to the internet. I really have no idea if "kids these days" are different from those "back in my day", but it certainly seems like they spend more of their time being digitally entertained.
"Back in the day", a person couldn't access as much entertainment. In fact, entertainment didn't scale. Unless you were big enough to make a major TV channel's program, you were stuck peddling your skills to people more in person, or local radio, etc. As such, the number of possible consumers you had was limited. Conversely, people had limited options for entertainment. Since necessity is the mother of invention, more people needed to generate entertainment possibilities.
Since moving to a connected digital model, content scales trivially (copies over the internet are free, after all) and outlets like youtube allow anyone with an idea to become accessible to everyone. The few of these people who are any good get consumed by the entire nation, or world. As such, the necessity from before is remove and "kids these days" don't need to generate unique content.
In effect we've gone from a multi-tier weakly connected model to a something closer small-large bipartite graph. For those not in the know, that means lots of people all consuming a much smaller number's creations.
I think a similar trend has happened in entertainment due to the internet. I really have no idea if "kids these days" are different from those "back in my day", but it certainly seems like they spend more of their time being digitally entertained.
"Back in the day", a person couldn't access as much entertainment. In fact, entertainment didn't scale. Unless you were big enough to make a major TV channel's program, you were stuck peddling your skills to people more in person, or local radio, etc. As such, the number of possible consumers you had was limited. Conversely, people had limited options for entertainment. Since necessity is the mother of invention, more people needed to generate entertainment possibilities.
Since moving to a connected digital model, content scales trivially (copies over the internet are free, after all) and outlets like youtube allow anyone with an idea to become accessible to everyone. The few of these people who are any good get consumed by the entire nation, or world. As such, the necessity from before is remove and "kids these days" don't need to generate unique content.
In effect we've gone from a multi-tier weakly connected model to a something closer small-large bipartite graph. For those not in the know, that means lots of people all consuming a much smaller number's creations.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Invest in education!
I had this idea from poker:
A rich guy who may or may not be good at poker may 'stake' a good player who is lacking his own money to play with. Usually the arrangement is that the stakee plays with the money and the staker gets 50% of profits (and incurs all the risk). The stakee is incentivized because they can also make money and they are relieved of the mental overhead of worrying about losing all their own money. Win-win!
Could we do the same for education?
Suppose I am wealthy and wanted to invest in a way that directly benefits our future. I could give my money as stake "grants" to students who would otherwise be taking out student loans and, regardless of their prospects after, be forced to pay all those back (and even bankruptcy won't wipe student loans!). Putting the risk onto the student could be a barrier to entry for many (I really don't know these details off-hand, but it feels true) and have a set amount they need to pay back could negate whatever income they start to get. With a grant+comission system, I could take on the risk instead. The student would be free from the pressures of immediate payments and could better find the job/direction/entrepreneurship they really want to do. I just wait until they start making money, and depending on the terms of the grant get some cut. Naturally my return should be higher than for a standard loan, but it could really be a win-win. We both do better if they perform. Because the grant would be incentivized for both the staker and stakee, the stakers could make more money available for high-productivity fields. Conventional loans would still be in place for other fields.
A rich guy who may or may not be good at poker may 'stake' a good player who is lacking his own money to play with. Usually the arrangement is that the stakee plays with the money and the staker gets 50% of profits (and incurs all the risk). The stakee is incentivized because they can also make money and they are relieved of the mental overhead of worrying about losing all their own money. Win-win!
Could we do the same for education?
Suppose I am wealthy and wanted to invest in a way that directly benefits our future. I could give my money as stake "grants" to students who would otherwise be taking out student loans and, regardless of their prospects after, be forced to pay all those back (and even bankruptcy won't wipe student loans!). Putting the risk onto the student could be a barrier to entry for many (I really don't know these details off-hand, but it feels true) and have a set amount they need to pay back could negate whatever income they start to get. With a grant+comission system, I could take on the risk instead. The student would be free from the pressures of immediate payments and could better find the job/direction/entrepreneurship they really want to do. I just wait until they start making money, and depending on the terms of the grant get some cut. Naturally my return should be higher than for a standard loan, but it could really be a win-win. We both do better if they perform. Because the grant would be incentivized for both the staker and stakee, the stakers could make more money available for high-productivity fields. Conventional loans would still be in place for other fields.
Civil suits in Europe vs USA
I learned a fun fact recently: in Europe, if the plaintiff in a civil suit loses their case, they are required to pay the defendant's legal fees. In America, there is no such obligation. This leads to an ease of filing frivolous lawsuits in America.
I heard about one such case where someone sued, completely illegitimately, for damages of $1M. They knew they would probably lose in court, but they also projected that the defendant would have to spend over $1M to get that verdict. As such, it's cheaper for the defense to just settle with a no-fault clause or similar. Essentially, lawsuits are an opportunistic business. The case went to trial, but after years and over $1M in fees, it was settled because there was just no end in sight.
In Europe, this scenario would have lead to the complete ruin of the plaintiff. The European model discourages (or even prevents?) frivolous suits because there's an additional consequence of losing. Isn't this a great system?
Turns out it has the same exact problem (or at least I think it does), in reverse: it would significantly discourage 50/50 lawsuits because the plaintiff fears they could be on the hook. It also discourages a small entity from suing a big one because the defense fees for the big guy could completely cripple the smaller. I have no idea if there's more nuance here, but both systems run into opposite ends of the same issue spectrum.
Is there a better way? Could the judge just rule "ok come on, that was a frivolous case" vs "yeah, you had reason to believe you might really win"? Is that too arbitrary? We don't want to put barriers (especially financial ones) in the way of small entities seeking justice, but we also have to rein in frivolity. Where's the line?
I heard about one such case where someone sued, completely illegitimately, for damages of $1M. They knew they would probably lose in court, but they also projected that the defendant would have to spend over $1M to get that verdict. As such, it's cheaper for the defense to just settle with a no-fault clause or similar. Essentially, lawsuits are an opportunistic business. The case went to trial, but after years and over $1M in fees, it was settled because there was just no end in sight.
In Europe, this scenario would have lead to the complete ruin of the plaintiff. The European model discourages (or even prevents?) frivolous suits because there's an additional consequence of losing. Isn't this a great system?
Turns out it has the same exact problem (or at least I think it does), in reverse: it would significantly discourage 50/50 lawsuits because the plaintiff fears they could be on the hook. It also discourages a small entity from suing a big one because the defense fees for the big guy could completely cripple the smaller. I have no idea if there's more nuance here, but both systems run into opposite ends of the same issue spectrum.
Is there a better way? Could the judge just rule "ok come on, that was a frivolous case" vs "yeah, you had reason to believe you might really win"? Is that too arbitrary? We don't want to put barriers (especially financial ones) in the way of small entities seeking justice, but we also have to rein in frivolity. Where's the line?
Friday, December 6, 2013
Politicians' thin skin
Politics, by its very nature, has zero-to-few objectively right answers. Sure I think guns are rampant and abortions are ok, but reasonable people can disagree with me and have valid points. And then we have to come together and someone's perspective has to lose.
As such, politicians are rarely trying to find the "truth" or "correct" outcome. They too have opinions and steadfastly defend those. The key difference here is there's no progress towards an ideal outcome, there's just progress towards convincing others their individual outcome is right. In other words, "I want to win the argument", not "I want to get it right".
In an environment like that, there's little incentive to allow another's perspectives to come in play, and any attempt by another to challenge a fundamentally subjective opinion will trigger reactions of personal attack. And it's fair, an individual's opinion is being attacked, thus it is, to some degree, personal.
And that is why political debates and discussions devolve into shouting matches and name-calling.
As such, politicians are rarely trying to find the "truth" or "correct" outcome. They too have opinions and steadfastly defend those. The key difference here is there's no progress towards an ideal outcome, there's just progress towards convincing others their individual outcome is right. In other words, "I want to win the argument", not "I want to get it right".
In an environment like that, there's little incentive to allow another's perspectives to come in play, and any attempt by another to challenge a fundamentally subjective opinion will trigger reactions of personal attack. And it's fair, an individual's opinion is being attacked, thus it is, to some degree, personal.
And that is why political debates and discussions devolve into shouting matches and name-calling.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
I hate analogies
"As my mom told me, a cop is like a cheetah in pack of gazelles. It's going to catch the slowest one it can!" ... said someone I knew once, explaining why the last slowest offender will be the one to get the ticket. That makes sense, except for the part where that's totally not what would happen. The analogy breaks down because the cop's motivation is not the same as the cheetahs. However, if someone misses this, they will leverage the analogy to make the wrong conclusion.
Why even have an analogy at all? Analogies are a transformation to a familiar set of concepts that are similar enough to drive home the point. This can be useful for very abstract ideas (electricity, theoretical physics, ... ) but really it's best to just talk about what the topic really is. There's no opportunity for creating a distorted frame of reference, and usually it's not a big deal to just talk about the actual concepts. In fact, if you get an analogy perfectly right, you're really just calling things by different names!
I think people like to spout off analogies to show off how deeply they understand a topic, ironically, each subtly wrong analogy shows their lack of detailed understanding of the original topic.
Why even have an analogy at all? Analogies are a transformation to a familiar set of concepts that are similar enough to drive home the point. This can be useful for very abstract ideas (electricity, theoretical physics, ... ) but really it's best to just talk about what the topic really is. There's no opportunity for creating a distorted frame of reference, and usually it's not a big deal to just talk about the actual concepts. In fact, if you get an analogy perfectly right, you're really just calling things by different names!
I think people like to spout off analogies to show off how deeply they understand a topic, ironically, each subtly wrong analogy shows their lack of detailed understanding of the original topic.
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