Getting beyond the OK Plataues with 'deliberate practice'

When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend. In fact, in every domain of expertise that’s been rigorously examined, from chess to violin to basketball, studies have found that the number of years one has been doing something correlates only weakly with level of performance....

Benjamin Franklin was apparently an early practitioner of this technique. In his autobiography, he describes how he used to read essays by the great thinkers and try to reconstruct the author’s arguments according to Franklin’s own logic....

The secret to improving at a skill is to retain some degree of conscious control over it while practicing—to force oneself to stay out of autopilot....

Unlike mammographers, surgeons tend to get better with time. What makes surgeons different from mammographers, according to Ericsson, is that the outcome of most surgeries is usually immediately apparent—the patient either gets better or doesn’t—which means that surgeons are constantly receiving feedback on their performance. They’re always learning what works and what doesn’t, always getting better. This finding leads to a practical application of expertise theory: Ericsson suggests that mammographers regularly be asked to evaluate old cases for which the outcome is already known. That way they can get immediate feedback on their performance.

-Foer, Joshua (2011-03-03). Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything . The Penguin Press. Kindle Edition.

Arnold Kling has an interesting discussion on the topic over at their blog.

Foer, citing Anders Ericcson and confirming with his own experience, says that what is happening at a plateau is that you are doing too much on auto-pilot. Instead, you have to jar yourself into engaging in the activity more consciously....

I wonder if there is an analogy with firms or even larger economic units. That is, a firm is bound to operate on "autopilot" to a large extent, but if it does so it will reach a plateau. And maybe firms or larger economic units sometimes have to cut back on autopilot and do worse for a while in order to escape a plateau.

Assorted Tools

Wikisummarizer Context Discovery Inc

Marketing Tips for Amazon

Have requested a lot of books to be available in Kindle- Amazon never seems to inform when that book is available on Kindle.

When two mathematicians, an anthropologist and a criminologist meet

In July the Santa Cruz Police Department began experimenting with an interesting bit of software developed by scientists at Santa Clara University. The researchers behind the software are like an intellectual “Oceans Eleven” team of specialists: two mathematicians, an anthropologist and a criminologist. They’ve combined their cerebral forces to come up with a mathematical model that takes crime data from the past to forecast crimes in the future. The basic math is similar to that used by seismologists to predict aftershocks following an earthquake (also a handy bit of software in southern California).

Large earthquakes are unpredictable, but the aftershocks that follow are not and their occurrence can be predicted with mathematical models. It occurred to Dr. George Mohler, one of the Santa Clara mathematicians, that criminal activity might not be random and that, similar to aftershocks, some crimes might be predicted by other crimes that precede them. The reasoning is based on the assumption that crimes are clustered – it’s what police call ‘hotspots.’ Burglaries will occur in the same area and at the same houses because the vulnerabilities of that area will be known to the burglars. Gang violence is also clustered. A gang shooting will often trigger retaliatory shootings.

Using the aftershocks-inspired algorithms Dr. Mohler and his team came up with a model, then sought to test it. In collaboration with the LAPD they plugged in data on 2,803 residential burglaries occurring within a block of the San Fernando valley 11 miles by 11 miles throughout 2004. For a given day the software calculated the top 5 percent of city blocks most likely to be burglarized. The results convinced the LAPD that, had they been using the program, they could have prevented a quarter of burglaries across the entire test region for that day.

The current, real world test of the software involves generating a map of the city areas most likely to be burglarized, the time of day they are most likely to get hit, and deploying personnel accordingly. The software is recalibrated every day when burglaries from the previous day are added to the dataset. They don’t actually expect to catch people in the act, but to deter more crimes with more effective patrolling. The test that is underway will be evaluated at six months, but already the data is encouraging. Zach Friend, crime analyst for Santa Cruz police, confirmed to the New York Times that the program led to five arrests in July. Even more impressive, compared to July 2010 burglaries, the number of July 2011 burglaries are down 27 percent. Whether or not that trend holds remains to be seen, but so far it appears that being in the wrong place at the right time works.

-Pre-Cog Is Real – New Software Stops Crime Before It Happens

May the Algorithm Bless You

An interesting profile of Match.com;

The way the Match algorithm learns, he says, is similar to the way the human brain learns. “When you give it stimuli, it forms neural pathways,” he says. “If you stop liking something, those shut off. It’s learning as you go.” The same principles are powering the recommendation engines at popular sites around the web. Amazon uses similar -technology to recommend new products for people to buy, Pandora learns from likes and dislikes to customise its internet radio stations, and Netflix famously offered $1m to anyone who could improve the effectiveness of its algorithm by 10 per cent...

As a result, Match began “weighting” variables differently, according to how users behaved. For example, if conservative users were actually looking at profiles of liberals, the algorithm would learn from that and recommend more liberal users to them. Indeed, says Thombre, “the politics one is quite interesting. Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.” That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals....

...By evaluating your stated preferences, mapping your site behaviour and using triangulation, Match.com will get to know you, and what you want, better than you know yourself.

Competitiors:
eHarmony
OkCupid
Shadi.com
JDate

The Future of Printing- where Data is the Design Product

Freedom of Creation, based in Amsterdam, designs and prints exotic furniture and other fixtures for hotels and restaurants. It also makes iPhone cases for Apple, eye cream bottles for L’Oreal and jewelry and handbags for sale on its Web site.

Various designers have turned to the company for clothing that interlaces plastic to create form-hugging blouses, while others have requested spiky coverings for lights that look as if they could be the offspring of a sea urchin and a lamp shade.

“The aim was always to bring this to consumers instead of keeping it a secret at NASA and big manufacturers,” said Janne Kyttanen, 36, who founded Freedom of Creation about 10 years ago. “Everyone thought I was a lunatic when we started.”

His company can take risks with “out there” designs since it doesn’t need to print an object until it is ordered, Mr. Kyttanen said. Ikea can worry about mass appeal.

LGM, based in Minturn, Colo., uses a 3-D printing machine to create models of buildings and resorts for architectural firms.

-3-D Printing Spurs a Manufacturing Revolution

It's easy to learn a language

MyLanguageExchange.com just maintains lists of people who know certain languages and want to learn others. Anyone can search the database, but only gold members, who pay $24 a year, can send e-mail easily to others.

Each person sets up a profile and includes a short description of age, location and what he or she would like to talk about. There is a big demand to practice English, and I found many possible pen pals.

Marie, 40, was born in Spain but lives in France near the Bordeaux region. She wants to improve her English and “perhaps find a job in sales export.” Serge, a Parisian who is retired, studies genealogy and wants to improve his English, Spanish and Swedish.

MyLanguageExchange.com claims it has more than 1.5 million members studying 115 languages.

I find the right partner through what are essentially classified ads. If I wanted to study Luxembourgish, the Germanic tongue of Luxembourg, there were 11 people looking to study English. There are 32 willing people who are fluent in Tswana, a Bantu language generally spoken around Southern Africa, mainly in Botswana. An e-mail or two is all it takes to find a study partner.

Maria, one of 113 people ready to help with Uyghur, which is spoken in western China, says she is also fluent in Mandarin but wants to practice Russian, Hindi and English. It is a big database.

-Learning a Language From an Expert, on the Web

Other similar Language Learning Sites;
Livmmocha
RhinoSpike
RosettaStone.com
GermanPod101.com
ChinesePod.com

Skype Forums

Some sites, like UsingEnglish.com, englishcafe.com and Englishbaby.com, are devoted to helping people practice English but add the elements of sharing photos and interests like a dating service.

The Facebook Effect

The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World. By David Kirkpatrick

In the early days Mr Zuckerberg comes across as a mixture of programming prodigy and business neophyte (his initial business cards bear the memorable phrase “I’m CEO…bitch!”). But his leadership instincts are commendably sharp. By surrounding himself with experienced advisers, he manages to steer Facebook clear of hurdles that threaten to derail its growth and soon finds himself the object of fawning attention from companies and venture capitalists drooling over the firm’s fast-growing franchise. The pressure on the fledgling entrepreneur is intense. In one scene Mr Zuckerberg retreats to the bathroom of a swank Silicon Valley restaurant and bursts into tears during a stressful negotiation over funding.

But behind the tears is toughness. Facebook’s boss turns down several Croesus-like offers to buy the company in spite of intense lobbying by fellow shareholders who think he should sell. And he pursues his vision of making the world a more open and connected place with single-minded determination. Some of the most interesting passages in “The Facebook Effect” describe how Mr Zuckerberg’s missionary zeal makes him ambivalent towards initiatives that would mint money for Facebook but fail to advance its agenda of “radical transparency”.

It is this zeal—and the company’s habit of suddenly revealing more of a user’s information in unexpected ways—that has repeatedly got it into hot water. Here Mr Kirkpatrick puts his finger on the contradiction between Mr Zuckerberg’s professed belief in the importance of protecting people’s privacy and his deep-seated conviction that people are rapidly losing interest in keeping their personal data hidden.

-Review of the book from The Economist

Related: Author's namesake blogger, David Kirkpatrick

Blog of the Day

Backpocket Coo

What should you teach Artists?

On five Saturdays this month and next, Mr. Barman, Mr. Hinojosa and 54 other artists are attending a class paid for by the City of New York that is intended to help them turn their creative works into money.

“Does everyone have Excel?,” Peter Cobb, a lawyer and administrator at the New York Foundation for the Arts, which runs the program, asked the class last Saturday. “For next week, your assignment is to make a list of all your expenses for 2009.”

The sighs and complaints that followed were proof of the challenging task Mr. Cobb and his colleagues have taken on: trying to teach people who like to color outside the lines about drawing up business plans, budgeting and making a sales pitch...

“Artists are not taught to plan,” said Jackie Battenfield, a painter and the author of “The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love.” Too often, she said, they’re “going in circles, and that’s very demoralizing.”

This is the first time the city has financed such a program, though others, like one at the Bronx Museum called Artists in the Marketplace, have long strived to help artists manage their careers.

-Creative Types, Learning to Be Business-Minded

Interesting Blogs

Artandads

Advertising is Good for you

Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog

edlieze.blogspot.com

Artist of the Day- Tsilli Pines

According to Pines, the piece she created for this issue of the magazine, above, titled, "Corporations," isn't just about the way accounting practices are "wacky on such a large scale for so many businesses." To her, "everything, from the way we are trying to make up for personal losses to the way the economy is being propped up, feels like it's being put back together imperfectly

This series is about the topography of money in human consciousness, the constant parade of numbers in everyday life. The figures are at once imaginary and very real. I’m interested in the power numbers have in our lives, and how much they dictate, both psychologically and actually.

Here's the artist on Flick

Artist of the Day- Matthew Willey, 'Not a day without a line'

Mr. Willey, who grew up in Virginia and Massachusetts and received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Tufts University, has done all sorts of painting: a rendering of the Last Supper for a juice stand, in which a smoothie occupies Jesus’s position and fruit stands in for the disciples; koi ponds on cement floors; and fallen flowers so lifelike that people stoop to pick them up.

“With murals, people think of the post office, they think of Diego Rivera and civil war and epics,” he says. “I paint on walls intimately within your home, whatever those needs are.”...

A few years ago, after he and a friend started a company called TellmeOmuse, which sells products related to Greek myths and epics, he finally did, painting the winged horses on his walls.

They are the horses of Helios, the Greek sun god, Mr. Willey explains. In Greek mythology, Helios leaves his palace in the east in the morning and charges into the sky, descending to his palace in the west at night.

“The part I love is that he gets up and does it again tomorrow,” Mr. Willey says. “That is what a painter’s life is like, it’s how arduous. There is a quote by van Gogh, ‘Not a day without a line.’ You don’t always know what is going to happen, but if you don’t get up and climb the horses out of the palace, how are you going to ever know?”

-In the East Village, a Muralist’s Tiny Sanctuary

Ancient Wisdom and Modern Solutions

Ancient Wisdom and Modern Solutions

Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Biz Stone
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Twitter's Business Model? Well, Ummmm...

The Obsession With Twitter’s Business Model;

Twitter’s venture capitalists say they are not worried about when the microblogging start-up will start making money. And why should they be? The techies in the blogosphere are taking care of that for them.

Twitter watchers are so obsessed with how the company will make a buck that they jump on every hint of a business plan and spread it across the Web.

Income of an escort in Singapore

If you have youth, glamourous looks and finesse, we want you. Join us in entertaining our world wide clientele. Do not hesitate to contact us immediately. Selected applicants can expect to earn between US$10K to US$15K per month

Our Requirements: Age: 18-23 Height: 5’5" & above.

Not bad, given that 'the average monthly earnings in Singapore in the first quarter of 2008 is $4,316'

Find a Toilet anywhere in the World

SitorSquat;

Sitorsquat.com is a site that is dedicated to telling you where the closest place to relieve yourself is and whether or not that place is worth even sitting or squatting (or standing) at. We all find ourselves needing a public restroom every once in a while, whether it's walking down a city block or driving on a highway with a few whining kids in the backseat. This application is designed to be viewed either on your computer or your mobile device.* It functions worldwide as it is based on Google Maps. The toilets on Sit or Squat are submitted by anyone The site can be personalized for each member based on their needs and preferences. A member is also able to create a list of their favorite toilets as well as share them with their friends. As time goes by and more data is recorded, the site will continue to get more accurate in ratings as well as more options in places to go. We all need to relieve ourselves everyday, so the chances of it being somewhere other than your home are pretty high. So for that reason alone, we bring you sitorsuat.com.

Creative Defense Contractors

The Brothers Karzai

The older brother of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Mahmoud Karzai has major interests in the country’s only cement factory, its dominant bank, its most ambitious real estate development, its only Toyota distributorship and four coal mines.

He and a business partner run Afghanistan’s national Chamber of Commerce — which has far more clout than its American counterpart — allowing him to broker deals and lure foreign investors. For executives with problems with the Afghan government, he is the man to see. One prominent Afghan critic describes him as a “minister maker” with sway in hiring and firing top officials.

An unabashed advocate for money-making in the country his brother runs, Mr. Karzai attributes his success to having big ambitions and taking on ventures that others saw as too risky. “I’m investing in projects that require real work,” he said in an interview. “I’m in love with the idea that Afghanistan can become a Singapore, a Hong Kong.”

Mr. Karzai, though, clearly has exploited his connections, both in Washington and Kabul, to build his business empire. He has collected millions in American government loans for real estate developments in Kandahar and Kabul, capitalized on a friendship with Jack Kemp, the former Republican congressman, for introductions to American officials and international business executives, and benefited from what his rivals charge were sweetheart deals with the Afghan government.

-Another Karzai Forges Afghan Business Empire

Advice of the Day- Turkey's jewish business tycoon

ISHAK ALATON, a prominent member of Turkey’s tiny Jewish community, has a secret to living more intensely: He built his house next to a cemetery.

“You remember every day that you’re going to end up there,” he said.

Mr. Alaton is 81 and one of Turkey’s leading businessmen. He started with heating systems in the 1950s and expanded into construction, gyms and resorts. He has built roads in Kazakhstan, airports in Uzbekistan and a hospital in Moscow....

He also got some advice he never forgot from the father of a girlfriend at the time.

“I know you will be successful,” he recalled the man saying. “But don’t let your money muzzle you or stop you from expressing your thoughts.”...

As for worries that the current government is going to bring hard-line Islamic rule to Turkey, Mr. Alaton does not share them.

“We are too open a society for that,” he said. “They are using this to create a new scarecrow. Our history has been full of scarecrows.”

Turkey has been a democracy for years, and, unlike in Russia, which tried to erect the structures of democracy overnight after the Soviet Union’s collapse, cramming democracy down people’s throats in one painful gulp, the adjustment in Turkey has been much more gradual.

“We’ve been able to digest our democratic values,” he said. “You should be very hopeful.”

-A Businessman’s Enterprise: Cajoling Democracy Into Full Flower