Month: August 2007

ATLAS experiment at CERN

China work rules

Chinese culture is set on rules and following the rules takes precedence over productivity, efficiency, and even plain old reason.

this will come home to roost once cost of business is high enough

All the News Unfit to Print

But too many facts can ruin a good yarn, so the encouraged their reporters to embellish a bit. The reporters complied and started spicing up stories with lovely details that came straight from their imaginations. Gradually, true stories became 50%-true stories, then 25%-true stories, then ..

Grammar

Years ago I was on the periphery of a massive standardization effort and very very late in the process a feature in the spec was found to be, well, unimplementable. So under the guise of a “grammar fix” the spec was revised to change a “will” to a “will not.”

Asymmetric Limbs

The asymmetry in our own paired limbs is in fact a primitive feature While the coelacanth has not retained this feature, other, more primitive living fish have.

Potter translator charged

fitting for something as retarded as harry potter

Excel geocoding adventures

The patterns here can serve as a model for any scenario that involves interactively querying a web service based on some cell in Excel, and then incorporating the results into companion cells.

Is TV good for Indian women?

The effects are large, equivalent to 5 years of education, and move gender attitudes in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas. These results have important policy implications, as India and others attempt to decrease bias against women.

Financial illiteracy

what do getting locked in with long term phone contracts and losing your shirt with subprime mortgages have in common? financial illiteracy, especially the lack of understanding what net present value means.
2013-06-07:

Many people who gave themselves high marks for managing their finances also were using non-bank borrowing methods, such as payday loans, or had overdrawn their checking accounts.

I always thought dunning-kruger explained people’s infatuation with “owning” real estate, but it turns out it also explains their general financial ineptitude.

Bulk Upload abuse

The interview is a case study in how a good idea can go bad without proper oversight and understanding, and ultimately how powerful a marketing tool Google Maps really is.