Why cyber security is not possible

Quinn Norton

Elites and class dominance

Revolt of the Elites

From 1994 and still relevant today.

The Archetypical Cycle of Internal Order and Disorder | LinkedIn

The Archetypical Cycle of Internal Order and Disorder | LinkedIn

class and power struggles

One timeless and universal truth that I saw went back as far as I studied history, since before Confucius around 500 BC, is that those societies that draw on the widest range of people and give them responsibilities based on their merits rather than privileges are the most sustainably successful because they find the best talent to do their jobs well, they have diversity of perspectives, and they are perceived as the most fair, which fosters social stability

Non annotated lists curated by John Henry

Econ reading list

From John Henry, brilliant scholar.

More:

history of economic thought

There’s yet more but not enough time to read it all.

I’m not an amateur crastinator...

Farnam street on the differences between amateurs and professionals 

Learning

Learning is valuable. It’s often difficult though, for many reasons.  As I’m learning to play guitar I find my brain is ahead of my fingers... the work/practice/“reps” just can’t be shirked 

From the Farnham Street blog

How To Speak by Patrick Winston - YouTube

It's important to be able to communicate.  There is a whole field, actually, multiple fields (rhetoric, e.g.) which study communication.   If you want to share information, or persuade, you have to be able to send a message that is comprehended...



How To Speak by Patrick Winston - YouTube:



Summary (from comments to the YouTube)



Start

1. Do not start a talk with a joke. [thank collaborators etc but save the joke for the end]
2. Promise - Tell them what they are gonna learn at the end of your talk. 
3. Cycle – make your idea repeated many times in order to be completely clear for everyone. 
4. Make a “Fence” around your idea so that it can be distinguished from someone else’s idea. 
5. Verbal punctuation – sum up information within your talk some times to make listeners get back on track. 
6. Ask an intriguing question

Place and Time

1. Best time for having a lecture is 11 am.
   (not too early and not after lunch) 
2. The place should be well lit. 
3. The place should be seen and checked before the lecture. 
4. The place should be at least half full.  Choose venue according to the amount of listeners. 

 Tools
For teaching.

Chalk Board, white board, or projector – it’s got graphics, speed, target.

Watch your hands! Don’t hold them behind your back, it’s better to keep them straight and use for pointing at the board.

Props – use them in order to make your ideas visual.
Visual perception is the most effective way to interact with listeners.



For a Job Talk. Exposing, Slides

1. Don’t put too many words on a slide. Slides should just reflect what you’re saying, not the other way around. Pictures attract attention and people get invested in finding out the explanation.
2. Make slide as easy as you can – no title, no distracting pictures, frames, points and so on. 
3. Do not use a laser pointer – you lose eye contact with the audience. Instead you can make the arrows just upon a slide. 

 Informing

 Show your listeners that your stuff is cool and interesting.
You have to be able to:

-show your vision of that problem

-show that you’ve done particular things (by steps)

All of that should be done real quick in no more than 5 min.
Persuade your listeners you’re not a rookie (Prof. Winston contrived to do that from the very first seconds of his talk)



Getting Famous
If you want to your ideas be remembered you’ve got to have the "5 S"

- Symbols associate with your ideas (visual perception is the best way to attract attention)

- Slogan (describing your idea)

- Surprise (common fallacy that is no longer true, for instance, just after you’ve told about it)

- Salient Idea (not necessarily important but the one that sticks out)

- Story (how you did it, how it works…)



How to End

Don’t put collaborators at the end, do that at the beginning.

• Taking Questions is the worst way to end a talk. 
• It’s good to end with a Contribution slide – to sum up everything you’ve told with your OWN decision. 
• At the very end you could tell a joke since people then will leave the event feeling fun and thus keep a good memory of your talk. 
• "Thank you (for listening)" isn’t good ending, it’s trite at least. 
• You can end with a quote of a prominent person (my own knowledge), 
• or with a salute to people (how much you valued the time being here, the people over here..., “I’d like to get back, it was fun!”  

Unconditional positive regard

Treat people with a positive view.  Even if they do bad things, act as though they are good humans who are trying their best.

Carl Rogers promotes empathy and compassion.

new view of compassion

Although it is important to distinguish acceptance of the person from acceptance of the actions 

The marketing flywheel

I’m past this but if I were young and ambitious I would take the flywheel concept to heart and build sustaining systems.

Policing in America

What has gone so horribly wrong and can the situation be repaired?

perhaps policies and training?

Evidence and data  often lose out to political considerations.

Crime has been falling but incarceration and frankly brutality are increasing.

Taibbi has some thoughts.

the Marshall project  curates articles on criminal “justice”.  Radley Balko has been on the beat for a decade and has great reporting and insights.  His blog, The Agitator, seems to be gone but he writes prolifically.

I’m saddened to see the devolution of so many institutions.

Health care

Legal system 

Education 

Postal service 

Politics in the era of citizens United (though that just codified existing practice...)

Privatization of public goods everywhere

Winner take all

Some thoughts on scientific theory

epistemology

Ultimately I find this link a bit empty but it did stimulate my thinking

Why did solar power get so cheap so fast?

solar is now much less expensive than forecasted 10 years ago.  Less than half.  And continuing to decline.

No Alternative to Sustainable Agriculture: How Community-Supported Farms Show the Way to Food Security in an Uncertain World | naked capitalism

No Alternative to Sustainable Agriculture: How Community-Supported Farms Show the Way to Food Security in an Uncertain World | naked capitalism



We've been getting CSA boxes for many years.  Sometimes it's a pain in the butt to figure out what to do with a bunch of, hmm, what are these anyway?  But in general it's great to get organic, in-season produce delivered to the doorstep!  We eat plant based generally.

Nutrition Related Topics

Having had a long journey learning nutrition and having been bamboozled by propaganda... I'm now (at age 65) reaching enlightenment.   



It's pretty clear that whole-food plant based diets are healthy.  Nutrition / diet is not simply weight management.  Body weight is mostly thermodynamics of calories consumed vs. calories expended.  Although there are complications on both sides.  Calories consumed are not all the same, and calories expended depends more on resting metabolism than the calorie expenditure of any specific exercise, although exercise (and weights to build muscle mass) does alter the metabolism, as do a variety of nutrients.  But.  Keto, low carb, paleo etc can produce weight loss.  However they many not be promoting health.



NutritionFacts.org | The Latest Nutrition Related Topics

Dr. Greger has a lot of phenomenal evidence based research.  He is the author of How Not to Die



There is some great documentary propaganda available; e.g. the Game Changers (Presented by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Lewis Hamilton, Novak Djokovic and Chris Paul — a revolutionary new film about meat, protein and strength.) and Forks over Knives



Pretty simply, as Michael Pollan puts it, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”



Blue Zones has slightly varied diet/nutrition advice (less vegan but mostly plants; pro "Mediterranean diet" including red wine [yay!]) as well as overall lessons from the Buettner journalism covering Okinawa, Nicoya (Costa Rica), Loma Linda, CA (Seventh day Adventist community), Ikaria, Greece, and Sardinia, which have large numbers (per capita) of healthy centenarians.  We are excited because Monterey County is a target of the Blue Zones project.