No Man is an Island

Imagine the first fax machine: A machine of which we know the capabilities today. What about the first one, though? What is the usefulness of this machine that can send a facsimile to other fax machines…when there are no other fax machines?

The point of a single fax machine is moot.

Now…add another fax machine. What is the usefulness of your fax machine now? Common sense indicates that it would double. This isn’t exactly true: The effect of these two fax machines is directly proportional to the number of fax machines—instead of being an arithmetic proportion, it is a geometric proportion. In other words the net result of the utility of these two fax machines is not 1+1, but rather 2^2, or 2 squared. The increase is so great because each user can either send or receive a document instead of the fax machine offering just a single purpose in relation to each other fax machine in the world.

In fact, there is a mathematical formula depicting this relationship: n * (n − 1) / 2 whereas n is the number of fax machines in the network.

Network. Networking. Networks. Thirty years ago this word meant much less than it does today. The man behind the power of this simple word, Robert Metcalfe, was half the man behind the technology called Ethernet. Ethernet, in short, is the largely the technology behind our home and business networks and the entire connectivity of the “wired” portion of the Internet (in contrast to the “wireless” portion). In selling his wares, Metcalfe grasped to his background as a trained engineer and businessman to inform his customer of the simple economies of scale involving his new networking peripheral. While their work may be able to take their businesses to a certain point, in order to grow past this point of critical mass, they would need something revolutionary—a force multiplier—to realize any newfound value.

This brings us to a more generalized definition of the network effect. From Wikipedia: “A network effect is a characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer which depends on the number of other customers who own the good or are users of the service. In other words, the number of prior adopters is a term in the value available to the next adopter. One consequence of a network effect is that the purchase of a good by one individual indirectly benefits others who own the good — for example by purchasing a telephone a person makes other telephones more useful. This type of side-effect in a transaction is known as an externality in economics, and externalities arising from network effects are known as network externalities. The resulting bandwagon effect is an example of a positive feedback loop.”

How does this apply as wisdom? Think about applying such economics to your daily life. As I’ve said before, we can each consider ourselves a good wishing to perform services with other people (some more than others, sure) and from whom we look to offer our services—exchanges in the free market economy of life. Just as the 17^TH century poet John Donne wrote “no man is an island, entire of itself,” as individuals we have little value to anyone but ourselves, if that is to be of any real value at all. When we are able to offer our services to another, then our value as an individual increases because we are able to both offer of ourselves and receive what things of value the other person in this exchange can offer. The more people that we have in our lives, to whom we are able to offer something of value, the more we are able to use the networking effect—those things which we can accomplish, thusly, can grow as a square of the people in our lives with whom there can be reciprocating value.

At a glance, it might seem like a complex concept, but think of it in this way: It is often said that a fraction of total jobs available in a given market are advertised through traditional sources—newspaper, Internet, radio, job service, etc; whereas most jobs are assumed through “connections” that a person might have. This is a direct result of the networking effect.

Ever get a tip from a friend? Can you say that you’re a better person because of the people in your life? How about what you are able to offer to other people?

This falls in line with a quip of wisdom I’ve held for several years. Take two ice cubes: One in the shape of a cube, the other with the same amount of mass in the shape of a thin sheet. Which will melt first? Why? Certainly the ice sheet will melt before the cube because it has more surface area exposed to the environment. If we make the assumption was the preferred result of this process, wouldn’t your preferred result of your life be the success that you’d like from it? Increasing your “surface area” to the world, that is to increase the potential for interactions which you have, can thus increase your potential for reaching critical mass and, with help of the networking effect, geometrically grow into and past your hopes and dreams.

Warren Buffet Quote

He's been called "The Oracle of Omaha," but by many accounts his personality is just that of a farmer or other tradesman from the Midwest. Money has not inflated his ego at all. For a man who has been as liberal as he has, though, he certainly has a fiscally conservative view. Interesting.

“I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die.”

Ever think that you might be better than most others on the road? You might be right.

A recent test administered GMAC Insurance indicates that most people wouldn't pass a driving test if they had to take it again.

• Drivers 35 and older were more likely to pass

• Illinois, Georgia, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were the least knowledgeable states overall, with average scores under 75 percent

• Fifty-five percent of the respondents didn't know how many feet before making a left or right turn to activate their turn signals

• The national average score was 77.1 percent

Monkey...Tuesday

Attack of the Monkeys!

Competence and Confidence

In our daily lives we tend to encounter all types of individuals. Some of them know what they are doing, some of them do not; others have the allusion of knowing something with great degree, but don’t necessarily have any competence to back it up.

The world is filled with all sorts of people with varying degrees of competence and confidence. Have you ever stopped for a moment to think of the relationship between these two things, though?

Competence: “The quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually.”

Confidence: “Assurance: Freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities.”

From our youngest years we either have skills forced upon us (learning to fold towels, clean our rooms, or take out the trash, for instance) or we actively seek them out (putting things together, taking things apart, drawing, etc). When I was in the military I became acquainted with the government model of assessment of one’s competencies: Knowledge, skills, and abilities; known simply as “KSAs.” The theory, I gathered, was that various bits of knowledge built upon one another towards the end of developing skills, combining to form greater abilities: The knowledge, for instance, of such things as telephony fundamentals work together to form the basis for skills to work with telephone platforms, switching equipment, and the like. These skills cohesively bind to form the ability to maintain, troubleshoot, and repair these systems.

In human resources the term “skill set” is thrown around to describe just that—particular sets of skills that go into various job domains or career fields. We seek education, training, and our own versions of the school of “hard Knox” to acquire the various skill sets which each of us possess.

Well, most of us, at least. Let’s look at the other side of the coin.

Confidence, as described above, is a function of assurance in oneself. Following this to a logical conclusion of “what happens if you have confidence, but no competence” we are left with a simple, glaring truth: Arrogance.

In a book in which he speaks about MBA graduates and their successes, Henry Mintzberg writes “confidence without competence breeds arrogance.” In this article he goes on to describe the relationship between confidence and competence:

“Imagine a 2 x 2 matrix of confidence and competence. The effective people have both, the sad ones neither. The unfortunate people have competence but lack confidence. They are worth worrying about, however, because a small boost in confidence can have great benefits. The dangerous people, especially in this hyped-up society, are the remaining group: those whose confidence exceeds their competence. These are the people who drive everyone else crazy.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

If you think Mr. Mintzberg has some good ideas, you can pick up the book here!

Programmer Search!

One of my side projects, The Phoenix Institute, is looking for volunteer programmers to program an open source game.

If you're interested, visit this page where you can submit your resume and qualifications.

Support This Website!

Instead of begging and pleading for your generosity this holiday season, I'm going to offer you some of the greatest deals of the season by offering you a link to the Black Friday deals of Amazon.com. In addition to some very, very cool things, you'll be helping me, this blog, and my website.

From Amazon:

Amazon.com Black Friday Deals

Next week is Thanksgiving, and Friday November 23rd is the biggest shopping day of the year - Black Friday. This represents a tremendous opportunity for you to earn referral fees by sending your site visitors to the deals and events available on Amazon.com. Your visitors are sure to find some great deals, and we have just released a brand new interactive Deals widget that will help you showcase the latest deals on your site in real time.

Black Friday Deals

On Black Friday Amazon.com won’t have a cold, dark parking lot to line up in, but we will have a bunch of great deals to help you and your site visitors get holiday shopping done for less. This year we’ve created a Black Friday page for holiday shoppers at www.amazon.com/blackfriday. Amazon.com will be offering hourly deals from 6am to 6pm PST along with thousands of products on sale for a limited time. Also, customers will get gift wrapping for $.99 per item. So, let your site visitors know that this year they shouldn’t fight the crowds when they can shop online at Amazon.com from the comfort of their own homes.

New Associates Deals Widget

We have launched a new interactive Amazon Deals Widget. Show your visitors exactly what the best deals on Amazon are at any and every time they visit your site. This widget lets you showcase Amazon.com's Gold Box Deals including Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals, and Our Best Deals in real-time on your site. We are offering Sidebar and Banner formats in a range of sizes to give you flexibility in placing this widget on your site.

On Black Friday the Amazon Deals Widget will pull in the hourly Lightning deals. But be sure to add this to your site as soon as possible to capitalize on the wave of shopping excitement that begins next week and runs through the rest of the holiday season.

Customers Vote - 6 rounds. 18 ridiculous deals.

Amazon Customers Vote is back for 2007. Each round of Customers Vote lets you and your site visitors vote for the deal you’d most like to have. Voting begins on Thursday, November 15th and continues through Monday, November 26th. There will be six rounds of voting this year with three products in each round. Beginning Thursday, November 22nd, each day the new winning product will be announced, and randomly selected customers will have the opportunity to purchase the item for which they voted at a great discount. Products this year will include:

• 1,000 Nintendo Wii Game Systems (see prices on Customers Vote page)
• 500 Panasonic 7.5MP Digital SLR Cameras, $499 (*normally $1,149.95)
• 1,000 Razor E100 Electric Scooters for $29 (*normally $89.99)
• 500 TiVo HD Digital Video Recorders, $89 (*normally $253.48)
• 500 Magellan Maestro 3140 Portable Auto GPS Systems, $99 (*normally $247.00)
• 200 Samsung 46” 1080p LCD HDTVs, $719 (*normally $1,899.98)

* “Normal” prices quoted above are accurate on release date but are otherwise subject to change at any time.

The other 12 products can be viewed on the Customers Vote page. To link directly to Amazon Customers Vote and earn referral fees on any subsequent qualifying purchases, use the following link, substituting your Associates ID:

We look forward to working with you to make this holiday shopping season a success. Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Sincerely,
The Amazon Associates Program

Just Give Up

Monkey Mondays: Clone the Monkey

For the first time, scientists have created dozens of cloned embryos from adult primates. But what are the implications of this technical breakthrough for the future of mankind?

A great breakthrough in cloning with monkeys!

I Will Hug It and Pet It and Call It Fuzzy Logic

We live in the era of the Fuzzy Logic Generation.

Throughout our educations in school we learned the mechanics of Boolean Algebra. It is the easiest of algebra to teach because it is linear: That is, with a few simple rules, one can logically see progressions that can easily be spotted and built upon: Two comes after one, positive numbers are greater in value than negative numbers, and odd numbers and even numbers are two completely separate things. Things generally make sense and the world is in order.

While Boolean Algebra is pretty great and wonderful, the real world can often not be described in such linear, or even binary terms. Enter fuzzy logic. In the real world where values don’t necessarily have a binary range of “true” or “false,” or “one” or “zero,” This form of Non-Boolean algebra can help in decision making with imprecise data.

With the background of a computer programmer, I can look at the world and give it a vast series of conditional formulas and craft it into a working model. However, the amount of formulas grows increasingly complex; while this isn’t impossible, the mandate of the wise engineer is to simply things as thoroughly as possible. When such a system hits the “real world,” unnecessary complexity tends to make things, well, more complex than they need to be. Fuzzy logic is great for being able to eliminate much of that complexity, solving problems with expert and realtime systems reacting in an imperfect environment that can be highly variable, unpredictable, and volatile.

In 1964 Lofti Zadeh, a former chairman of the electrical engineering and computer science department over at the University of California at Berkeley, was programming software to solve the handwriting recognition issue. Since traditional set theory didn’t work for him with the binary approach—“off or on—“that it applies, Dr. Zadeh needed something that applied more a “matter of degree” approach rather than the alternative.

From a page that describes Fuzzy Logic:

“Fuzzy logic manipulates such vague concepts as "warm" or "still dirty" and so helps engineers to build air conditioners, washing machines and other devices that judge how fast they should operate or shift from one setting to another even when the criteria for making those changes are hard to define. When mathematicians lack specific algorithms that dictate how a system should respond to inputs, fuzzy logic can control or describe the system by using "commonsense" rules that refer to indefinite quantities. No known mathematical model can back up a truck-and-trailer rig from a parking lot to a loading dock when the vehicle starts from a random spot. Both humans and fuzzy systems can perform this nonlinear guidance task by using practical but imprecise rules such as "If the trailer turns a little to the left, then turn it a little to the right." Fuzzy systems often glean their rules from experts. When no expert gives the rules, adaptive fuzzy systems learn the rules by observing how people regulate real systems.”

Short of being a mathematician, what is the point of Fuzzy Logic?

Try having a conversation with anyone under the age of 30; certainly anyone under the age of 20: They have grammars and use sentence structures which are laced with “like,” “kinda,” and “sorta.” How difficult is it to get someone to give you a straight, firm answer about anything?

Fuzzy logic doesn’t dictate a world that belongs or doesn’t belong; in other words, it doesn’t dictate bivalent sets: Cannot belong to both a set and its complement set or to neither of the sets—preserving logic to avoid any contradiction that a number can and cannot simultaneously be a part of multiple sets. Instead, the multivalent sets of fuzzy logic break these laws to some degree. According to fuzzy logic, the number 5 (for instance) can belong to both “odd” and “even” number sets. Imagine an air conditioner: While you may consider the air coming from it to feel “cool,” another person might consider it “just right.” The air coming out of the air conditioner can be measured as belonging to multiple sets. The boundaries of standard sets, those able to be manipulated by classic algebra, are exact while those of fuzzy logic, Non-Boolean Algebra are curved and can taper off, creating partial contradictions: The air coming from that air conditioner can be 25 percent cool and 75 percent not cool at the same time.

I’ve long held to this belief: While many, many things in the world can be described in black and white, it is things like human emotion that add color to our worlds. If you can cut past all of that, you might very well be able to simplify the situation.

“We’d rather miss a good one than hire a bad one.”

It's tough to find good help these days. That is why these companies are changing their tactics for finding good workers in a national economy with less-than-natural unemployment.

Do you play well with others?

Effective Habit Change: Five Things to Know

The title says it all.

Read about it here.

Get Rid of "Brain Drain"

Here are some of the signs you might be suffering from brain drain.

1. Mental exhaustion.
2. Irritation or drowsiness when thinking about what you have to do.
3. Putting off certain tasks because they are "too hard to think about."
4. Snipping at others who are not moving fast enough.
5. Feeling as if the harder you work, the farther behind you get.
6. Feeling depressed, stressed out, or as if you can't keep up mentally with your task list.

Have these symptoms? Learn tools to get past them here!

College?

While I'm a very big proponent of a higher education, it should be kept in mind that a higher education, namely college, isn't necessary for success. What is in you, rather, is the key to success.

15 Successful Entrepreneurs Who Didn't Need College

(Belated) Monkey Monday: A Babysitter for Bananas a Day!

A babysitter...for bananas a day!

The Ineffectiveness of Labor Unions

Remember a few weeks ago when the United Auto Workers had their strike fiasco with Chrysler?

Now, just weeks after that, Chrysler is cutting 12,000 jobs and models from their inventory.

This is the effectiveness of irrational greed in the marketplace, or lack thereof.

10 Debunked Myths on Cognitive Science

A fairly quick read that describes...exactly what the title says it does!

Read the article.

Today’s Gamer, Tomorrow’s Strategic Leader

An interesting article caught my eye through one of my news aggregators over at myadsl.co.za. From the article:

“Video games have become problem-solving exercises wrapped in the veneer of an exotic adventure.”

Certainly a first line that intrigues and piques one’s curiosity, let alone the affect the headline has on someone. Reading on:

“Video games have become problem-solving exercises wrapped in the veneer of an exotic adventure. In today's fast and rapidly-changing business environment, the strategic skills they teach are more important than ever.”

The article goes on to debate, through the perspective of the two authors of the book Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever. The authors state that instead of being like television where people are the bystander, gaming offers a suspension of disbelief and includes the gamer into the world of the game—they become a willing participant.

As such, the gamer must think strategically in interacting with their environment, propelled to win.

These skills, the article states, are indispensible to the business world. These traits are even more accentuated in multi-player online environments—the MMOGs like World of Warcraft—such that small team leaders need to leverage the abilities of their teammates in the execution of success.

This culminates in an important point:

“Games teach by trial and error. Consequently, gamers learn that failure is a necessary and unequivocal part of the path to success. This is a message that is often lost in the real world, because repetitions are few and far between and therefore the stakes are too high during each attempt. In games, repetition is high and immediate feedback is provided to the gamer. While failure in the real world is disheartening, in games it serves as an encouragement to try harder. This attitude towards failure eventually permeates life outside of the game. The result is that the gaming generation is willing to take more risks and be more entrepreneurial than previous generations.”

The kicker?

“80 percent of managers in the US under the age of 35 had significant video game experience and that gamers had a more positive outlook on life than non-gamers. Gamers tended to prefer multitasking to individual assignments, to stave off boredom.”

“Time Machine,” Two Races, and Spam

Ever get a spam email? Does the below sound like promises that they throw around frequently?

“Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises, according to Curry in a report commissioned for men's satellite TV channel Bravo.

Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts, according to Curry.”

According to an evolutionary theorist from the London School of Economics…in several thousand years, this could be you! That is, unless, you end up being part of that other race.

The Silicon Ball of Finance

Recently I posted a story here about complex algorithms being used to predict acts of terrorism and advise military and state leadership in the conduct of matters of diplomacy. An obvious extension of using such sets of mathematical formulas would be to predict how to win the lottery, as I mentioned in that post.

My view of the lottery, though, has changed since I devised my original concept on the matter: The lottery is a tax on poor people and those with a lesser amount of economic and financial knowledge.

What the lottery-winning seeking public should do, instead, is to use the stock market.

So, without further ado…who is better in the game of investments: A computer or a person?

Let’s start by defining a couple types of investing: There are those that believe in and practice the fundamentals: Observing P/E ratios and, essentially, applying a series of formulas to a company, an industry, their stock picks, etc. Fundamentals’ investing is in my opinion, just that: The fundamentals of investing.

Take a man like Warren Buffet: He is the epitome of someone who believes in behavioral finance. When I was much younger I remember a commercial for some large Wall Street Trading firm which stressed that after they looked at a stock, they would go and investigate it in-depth: Interview managers, examine infrastructure, and perform other in-depth activities which filled in the blanks that a fundamental stock pick couldn’t do.

The comparison and contrast is a simple one: Fundamental investing is a very logical, linear, rational method of investing. Behavioral investing, on the other hand, has a million shades of human emotion involved and, therefore, is open to the irrationalities which we are prone to as humans.

And that’s it: A computer program which attempted to account for the human aspect a investing would need to be exceedingly complex.

The odd part of this whole stock market thing? The irrationalities which incite risk in the system is why the stock market goes up as much as it does over time and is why any money put into the stock market as a portion of Gross Domestic Product adds to GDP by factor of 400 percent; in other words, when constructing the value of GDP if you put $100 into it as a form of investments—anything in the stock market—it is calculated to increase as a portion of GDP at a rate of 4 to 1, making that $100 investment worth $400 in terms of GDP; contrast that against the 1:1 ratio of government spending.