Year: 2012

Death and Taxes

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Tax Day is coming April 15… This news should be unsettling for more than the obvious reason of the yearly deadline. According to a new study, deaths from traffic accidents around April 15, traditionally the last day to file individual income taxes in the U.S., rose 6 percent on average on each of the last 30 years of tax filing days compared with a day during the week prior and a week later. The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What’s more curious is that even allowing Americans to file their taxes electronically hasn’t negated the crash trend, lead researcher Donald Redelmeier said. The findings suggest stress, lack of sleep, alcohol use, and less tolerance to other drivers on tax deadline day may contribute to an increase in deaths on the road.

They say death and taxes are two certain things in life. Seems like they also go hand in hand.

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(via Bloomberg)

Mitt Romney: A Quantum Leap Forward

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A recent remark by Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom, that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views “like an Etch A Sketch,” has become a national sensation. David Javerbaum seizes upon the opportunity to write this awesome piece on the quantum theory of Mitt Romney. As you’ll see, the Romney candidacy represents (literally) a quantum leap forward. It is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense, which can be narrowed down as follows:

Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation. It isnot that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.

Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms oflikelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.

Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romney’s current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the “principle uncertainty principle.”

Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.

Noncausality. The Romney campaign often violates, and even reverses, the law of cause and effect. For example, ordinarily the cause of getting the most votes leads to the effect of being considered the most electable candidate. But in the case of Mitt Romney, the cause of being considered the most electable candidate actually produces the effect of getting the most votes.

Duality. Many conservatives believe the existence of Mitt Romney allows for the possibility of the spontaneous creation of an “anti-Romney” that leaps into existence and annihilates Mitt Romney. (However, the science behind this is somewhat suspect, as it is financed by Rick Santorum, for whom science itself is suspect.)

As a huge physics nerd, I love this.

Tyler Cowen: New Rules for Foodies

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In his new book, An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies, Tyler Cowen argues that while Americans often pay to eat well, expensive food isn’t always the best. Cowen shares his tips on eating food that’s better for you, your wallet, and the environment:

1. Embrace imported food

“The locavore movement claims local food is better for the environment, but food from far away is often transported by boat, which actually costs very little in terms of energy. If you purchase something from a farmer who has to drive hours to reach distant markets that call themselves ‘local,’ that’s not very fuel efficient.”

2. Break your habits.

“After a certain age, most people have a very set supermarket routine that keeps them from trying new foods. For one month, try an ethnic or new supermarket. Even the simple act of learning a new store layout will force you to change your habits and consider alternative products–which can actually end up helping you save money.”

3. Eat regional, not local.

“Consider what your environment is good at. For example, the United States is very good at mixing–cultures, workers, ideas, and food. Composition-intensive dishes will be most satisfying. In contrast, simpler is better in places such as Italy, where recipes have been the same for years. Less immigration can mean less innovation in food.”

I am not much of a foodie, but the book looks intriguing. The second tip is something I am going to put into action.

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(via Fast Company)

Facebook Acquires Instagram for $1 Billion

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Well, this is huge news in the tech world today. Facebook acquires the photo app Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. Here is Mark Zuckerberg with the announcement:

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

This is the pivotal reaction from Instagram’s founders:

It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.

Based on the above statements, the Instagram app should still remain the same. I hope that’s the case. Something I value deeply is ability to post items on Instagram unaffiliated to my Facebook timeline/stream. I feel the same way about discovering other photographers using the app.

World War 3.0

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Michael Joseph Gross, in Vanity Fair, writes on the inevitable war for the internet:

The War for the Internet was inevitable—a time bomb built into its creation. The war grows out of tensions that came to a head as the Internet grew to serve populations far beyond those for which it was designed. Originally built to supplement the analog interactions among American soldiers and scientists who knew one another off­-line, the Internet was established on a bedrock of trust: trust that people were who they said they were, and trust that information would be handled according to existing social and legal norms. That foundation of trust crumbled as the Internet expanded. The system is now approaching a state of crisis on four main fronts.

The first is sovereignty: by definition, a boundary-less system flouts geography and challenges the power of nation-states. The second is piracy and intellectual property: information wants to be free, as the hoary saying goes, but rights-holders want to be paid and protected. The third is privacy: online anonymity allows for creativity and political dissent, but it also gives cover to disruptive and criminal behavior—and much of what Internet users believe they do anonymously online can be tracked and tied to people’s real-world identities. The fourth is security: free access to an open Internet makes users vulnerable to various kinds of hacking, including corporate and government espionage, personal surveillance, the hijacking of Web traffic, and remote manipulation of computer-controlled military and industrial processes.

On boundaries on the internet:

Freedom in human society, by definition, includes some concept of bound­a­ries. Freedom on the Internet has, thus far, lacked any real concept of boundaries. But boundaries are being invented. It seems certain that nations, corporations, or both will create more zones on the Internet where all who enter will have to prove their real-world identities. Google and Facebook are already moving in this direction. The most heavy-handed suggestions entail a virtual passport or ID, which could include biometric data.

Some see stringent, universal, and mandatory authentication of identity as a commonsense solution to a number of the Internet’s biggest problems. If all of our alter egos were brought into line with our analog selves, wouldn’t we all behave better? Wouldn’t online criminals stop using the cloak of anonymity to steal from and spy on people? Wouldn’t people pay for the books, music, movies, and newspapers that many now take for free?

A thought provoking read.

Can Men and Women Just Be Friends?

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This was a timely piece for me, as this was on my mind over the weekend: can men and women just be friends? In an op-ed for The New York Times, William Deresiewicz writes:

There’s a history here, and it’s a surprisingly political one. Friendship between the sexes was more or less unknown in traditional society. Men and women occupied different spheres, and women were regarded as inferior in any case. A few epistolary friendships between monastics, a few relationships in literary and court circles, but beyond that, cross-sex friendship was as unthinkable in Western society as it still is in many cultures.

From his own personal experience, the author concludes:

Consult your own experience, but as I look around, I don’t see that platonic friendships are actually rare at all or worthy of a lot of winks and nudges. Which is why you don’t much hear the term anymore. Platonic friendships now are simply friendships.

The one portion I disagree with:

Friendship isn’t courtship. It doesn’t have a beginning, a middle and an end.

Friendships can begin and end as easily as romantic relationships. Your thoughts?

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Related: a must-read on solitude and leadership, also by William Deresiewicz.

The Problem with Buying Sports Experiences

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Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier argue that when people are buying a sports experience, they let emotions get in the way, and end up making poor judgments. Their examples:

    • A fan goes to StubHub to buy a ticket to a big basketball game and shells out $125 for the best seat she can afford. The logic here is understandable: More money seems like it should give you a better view of the action and a better fan experience. But in practice, the worst seats in the highest-priced section are often no better, or are even worse, than the best seats in the next lower-priced section. But the seller is not going to tell you that.
    • When customers sign up for a gym, they’re typically given two options: an all-inclusive membership or pay-by-the-visit. Studies from economists Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier have shown that even though it would be cheaper for most customers to pay by the visit, they almost always choose the unlimited plan, losing (on average) $600 for their trouble. Gym owners do not advertise this proudly, nor do they usually encourage you to take the cheaper deal.
    • A fan scans the upcoming schedule of his local (lousy) NBA team and has to pick an upcoming game — so naturally he goes for one featuring a star team or a star player. (Our editor-in-chief has been known to do exactly that when, say, the Thunder come into town to play the Clippers.) But more often than not, an unbalanced game results, one with little drama and that sees the star play only 27 minutes, much of it at half-speed. You expect a ticket agency to point that out before you shell out hundreds of dollars? Yeah. We thought not.

When I visit a new city and if there is a sports event that I can attend, I do my best to get tickets. I am surprised the authors purely focus on the experience of the game, when it’s so much more than that. It’s the walking to/from the event, interacting with the fans, trying out the food at the ballpark. Often, these other experiences more than compensate if one observes a lackluster game.

Living Like a Billionaire For a Single Day

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Kevin Roose is a writer for the Dealbook blog at The New York Times. For his most recent story, he wanted to see what it would be like to live like a billionaire for a day…

First, you’ve got to appreciate this introduction:

As a reporter who writes about Wall Street, I spend a fair amount of time around extreme wealth. But my face is often pressed up against the gilded window. I’ve never eaten at Per Se, or gone boating on the French Riviera. I live in a pint-size Brooklyn apartment, rarely take cabs and feel like sending Time Warner to The Hague every time my cable bill arrives.

And then we get to Kevin’s reporting:

Really, I wondered, what’s so great about billionaires? What privileges and perks do a billion dollars confer? And could I tap into the psyches of the ultrawealthy by walking a mile in their Ferragamo loafers?

At 6 a.m., Mike, a chauffeur with Flyte Tyme Worldwide, picked me up at my apartment. He opened the Rolls-Royce’s doors to reveal a spotless white interior, with lamb’s wool floor mats, seatback TVs and a football field’s worth of legroom. The car, like the watch, was lent to me by the manufacturer for the day while The New York Times made payments toward the other services.

Mike took me to my first appointment, a power breakfast at the Core club in Midtown. “Core,” as the cognoscenti call it, is a members-only enclave with hefty dues — $15,000 annually, plus a $50,000 initiation fee — and a membership roll that includes brand-name financiers like Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group and Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point.

And the key takeaways:

One thing I’ve noticed so far is that when you’re a billionaire, you’re never alone. All day, your life is supervised by a coterie of handlers and attendants catering to your whims. In the locker room alone after my workout, I feel unsettled. Where’s my bodyguard? Where’s my chauffeur? Why is nobody offering me an amuse-bouche while I shampoo my hair?

I feel bad admitting it, but my billionaire day has been stressful. Without an assistant, just keeping up with the hundreds of moving parts — the driver, the security detail, the minute-by-minute scheduling — has been a full-time job and then some.

Writing Advice from C.S. Lewis

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In June of 1956, a young American fan named Joan Lancaster sent C.S. Lewis a letter. Lancaster received a letter back in which C.S. Lewis offered the following writing advice:

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’timplement promises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

A lot of these tips appear in Stephen King’s On Writing. But it’s good to know when/how writing tips are recycled and offered as wisdom time and time again.

Earliest Human Use of Fire: One Million Years Ago

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An international team led by the University of Toronto and Hebrew University has identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors. Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

The analysis pushes the timing for the human use of fire back by 300,000 years, suggesting that human ancestors as early as Homo erectus may have begun using fire as part of their way of life…

This research was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. From the paper’s abstract:

Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

From this Boston Globe article, a note on the surprising finding:

The BU team wasn’t looking for evidence of fire. The discovery was so unexpected that Francesco Berna, a research assistant professor who led the work, found himself trying to poke holes in his provocative observation. But he ruled out that the fires could have been caused by the spontaneous combustion of bat droppings, or that the signal he was seeing was due to the age of the burned bones, by comparing them with 8-million-year-old bones.

Sounds like history books need to be rewritten…