The Benefits of Being the Youngest Child

4 Comments

Photo: Joel Dinda

I recently came across a study that examined how two brothers who are both professional baseball players approach the game differently. The Berkeley researchers actually had a pretty good sample size to work with – over 700 brothers have played in the majors. Their hypothesis was that the younger siblings take more risk.

Stolen base attempts are the most obvious element of the game to inspect. The result? Younger brothers are 10.6 more times likely to steal. They also noticed the younger brother is more likely to be hit by a pitch which means they probably crowd the plate slightly more. The research paper even extends beyond baseball as well – younger siblings are more likely to engage in dangerous sports across the board like football and skydiving.

This study is not proposing any new theories – older siblings are generally more conservative and younger ones take more risks. So why is it cool? Well first, I appreciate that it relates this idea to baseball. More importantly, other studies have shown that risk takers are happier overall. Thus, through the transitive property of equality, younger siblings are happier. QED.

A Few Facts About the Netherlands to Share at Your Next Cocktail Party

1 Comment

The Netherlands is always listed as one of the happiest, most democratic, most liberal, and tourist friendly nations. Boring! Here are a couple interesting facts you probably don’t know:

  • Orange is not their official color even though that is all they wear at the World Cup and Olympics. The official colors? Red, white, and blue! So why do they wear orange? To honor the royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau.
  • Marajuana is actually illegal in Amsterdam (and all of the Netherlands), but the law is deliberately not enforced. – by leaving the law on the books they are in compliance with international drug agreements. What is the “unofficial” policy of their judicial system? A person can possess up to 5 grams and a “coffee shop” can have up to 500 grams as long as it doesn’t distribute more than 5 grams per person daily. Because it is technically illegal the government only receives income tax on the proceeds, rather than jacking up the tax rate like we do for cigarettes.
  • The Netherlands is possibly the country with the most to lose from global warming – a whopping 50% of its land is less than 1 meter above sea level. In only 200 years the portion of the Netherlands below sea level is expected to go from a fifth to a well over half. Maybe that is why the are kicking the worlds butt at making use of renewable energy?

The Top 3 Reasons Everyone Should Read Blogs

1 Comment

Photo: Marya

A couple of my friends have told me that Pedantic Posts is the only blog they read. I was shocked that these very intelligent people don’t take advantage of this relatively new communication medium. I personally only started reading blogs a few years ago (and thought the word “blog” moronic at the time), but since have come to realize how valuable they are as a source of information. Here are the top 3 reasons:

An opportunity to hang out with people much smarter than you
Some incredibly smart people are willing to share their thoughts online for everyone to enjoy. Individuals such as marketing guru Seth Godin, venture capitalist Fred Wilson, serial entrepreneur Marc Andreesen, and the capricious Tim Ferriss. No matter the subject that interests you, there is probably an expert blogging about it.

You may be blessed to hang around brilliant individuals in both your business and personal life. Even if this is the case, odds are you only discuss the same handful of things over and over again, which leads us to the next reason to read blogs.

Exposure to new ideas
One of the first things I learned about via blogs was polyphasic sleep (where you sleep 20-30 minutes every 3-4 hours). While I am not personally interested in drastically changing my sleep schedule, I enjoyed reading about this new idea. I realized there are people in this world doing interesting things and sharing them in the form of short posts that take less than 10 minutes to read.

Keep reading…

Answering the Question: Is Driving to the Airport More Dangerous than Flying?

2 Comments

Photo: Luis Argerich

A person with an irrational fear of flying is frequently told “you’re more likely to die driving to the airport than on the flight” – is this actually true or just calming words?

Let’s look at some statistics
From the perspective of a passenger in the car/airplane:

  • Driving = 1 fatality per 88 million miles driven (excluding motorcycles which have a 25 times higher death rate and any pedestrians/bikers killed by cars)
  • Scheduled flights (mainly airlines) = 1 fatality per 64 million miles flown

(These numbers would skew in favor of airplanes if you cared about how many people were transported. But, knowing my readers as well as I do, you only care about yourself.)

It looks like the expected value of death favors driving, but I would argue that you should be trying to avoid fatal accidents all together – if you are in one, it is a crap shoot whether or not you are the one that dies. This is definitely not a situation I want to be in, otherwise I would play Russian Roulette.

  • Driving = 1 fatal accident every 76 million miles driven
  • Scheduled flights = 1 fatal accident every 2 billion miles flown

What are the odds of surviving this so called Russian Roulette?
Each fatal plane crash averages over 30 deaths, which is only 42% of the passengers on the flights. On the other hand each fatal driving accident averages 1.15 driver/passenger deaths. Unfortunately it is harder to track the number of occupants or even cars involved in these collisions. My approximation is 3 people involved – most cars have only the driver aboard, and the ones that do not are offset by solo car crashes. If the number is 2.75, this would equal the 42% survival rate for being in a fatal plan crash. Pretty darn close!

Keep reading…

Is Outsourcing Jobs Overseas Really a Problem? Depends Who You Ask

Leave a comment

Photo: Till Krech

Thousands, if not millions of Americans have lost their job overseas. Due to the recently flattened world, companies are now able to find workers in remote countries eager to work longer hours for significantly less pay.

Why do companies outsource jobs?
It’s simple – money. Companies have the goal of making money, not employing the most Americans as possible. Sometimes these conflict. If the business can make more money by laying off unnecessary workers or outsourcing jobs overseas, we have seen time and time again that they will.

Is this wrong?
No, it is not wrong. The company is simply responding to incentives – specifically, the management of the company is responding to incentives. The more money the company makes, the more money the executives make. These executives are often extremely removed from the lowest paid individuals who see their jobs outsourced – the management sees the pros but not the cons.

What is the result?
A report by McKinsey showed for every $1 of labor outsourced overseas, the United States receives $1.12 back (in addition to 33 cents retained by the country that does the work). So by outsourcing we are able to boost our production 12% without actually working!

Overall this sounds like a win for the United States, but in reality maybe it’s not – those simple numbers do not tell the whole story. Instead of $1 being dispersed amongst the poorest, $1.12 goes into the pockets of the richest! Outsourcing is a very efficient way of redistributing wealth – the poor in the US lose $1, the poor outside the US gain 33 cents, while the rich in the US gain $1.12!

Why outsourcing will not be stopped
Corporate executives are the ones who make the decisions for the business. They are also the ones who benefit the most from outsourcing jobs. If we expect outsourcing to stop, we have to change the incentives so that the negativities of outsourcing are felt.

Of course, the people who have the ability to change economic incentives are politicians – politicians that are buddy-buddy with the corporate big wigs and the associated lobbyists. Thus, until outsourcing becomes a compelling issue, nothing will change.

American vs. British English – Two Versions of the Same Language

Leave a comment

Photo: Maurice

I considered writing a post on the differences between American English and British English, but then I realized I am not particularly qualified considering I have lived in California my whole life. Instead, here is a funny rant by a British man telling us how we are misusing the language:

Mentioned in the video – American vs. British (links go to audio):

Keep reading …

Translating a Free Online Education into a College Diploma

2 Comments

Photo: wohnai

Over the last couple years an exciting new trend has emerged amongst universities across the country – they are providing courses online for free! Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, Columbia, UCLA, and John Hopkins are just some of the schools that have lecture videos of entire courses online.

Why the heck are these schools doing this?
It is the free information movement. Just like there was a free love movement in the 1970’s, there is a similar free knowledge movement in the early part of the new century. Wikipedia is the epitome – its free information has become a part of the way we research just about everything. Another manifestation of this is the huge open source software movement providing free software to the masses. Examples are the Linux operating system, Mozilla Firefox web browser, and Android phone operating system. It is a cultural and economic phenomenon that deserves much more attention than a few sentences, but there is not room in this post so I will refrain – just be sure to take advantage of it!

What exactly are they offering?
It varies widely from school to school and even class to class. The organization OpenCourseWare currently has 200 schools with 13,000 courses offered online – some just have the lecture videos, while others also have the assignments and exams complete with solutions. Beyond what is posted you are on your own – there are no help resources such as teacher assistants or other class members to contact.

Keep reading …

Why Merle Haggard Out Travels Lady Gaga – What You Should Know About Radio Waves

2 Comments

Photo: Peter Megyeri

The radio is a perfect example of an old technology that we completely take for granted – do you know how it works or are you just cluelessly upset when all you hear is static? These older technologies are much easier to wrap my head around – if a some guy in the 19th century could figure it out, I should be able to understand the basic idea. I’m not going to focus on how a radio transmitter physically creates the signal or receiver is able to turn it into sound, but rather the basic theory and some interesting things to know.

What is the major difference between AM and FM?
AM stands for amplitude modulation. This means the sound determines the amplitude of the radio wave. FM stands for frequency modulation – the sound alters the frequency of the radio wave. The transmitter is able to turn the sound being created into the appropriate wave. Here is an example of a sound and how it would look as an AM and FM wave:

Source: Berserkerus

Another major difference is that AM radio waves are a much lower frequency than FM. Think of AM having the wavelength of a football field and FM the ball. In reality you can broadcast amplitude modulation or frequency modulation at any frequency, but high quality FM audio must be a high frequency to allow for the differences (or modulation) in frequency.

Keep reading…

Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies – A Warning that You’re in Danger of Being Compared to Hitler

3 Comments

Photo: MattGo74

In the early days of the internet, discussion boards were all the rage. These discussions took place on the Usenet long before chat rooms or blogs even existed. During this time Mike Godwin made a simple observation that people were being maliciously being compared to Hitler or the Nazis across a wide array of topics.

There are some discussions that practically beg for these comparisons – for example arguments pro gun control or censorship (both supported by Hitler). But no matter the topic, as the online discussions grew longer the participants resorted to attacking each others credibility. From there it is a only short and eventual hop to call someone a Nazi.

More generally, reductio ad Hitlerum (dog Latin term – made up Latin to make it sound official) extends this principle beyond the realm of the internet. Comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis show up in all types of debates – even if you think you are in a civilized discussion where such an immature comparison wouldn’t take place.

It was Godwin’s contention that these comparisons only serve to weaken the intended point and make the entire debate look like childish name calling. To quote the great Jay-Z – “A wise man told me don’t argue with fools cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who.”

Herein lies the problem: if you stay in the debate forever a comparison to Hitler will eventually be made and you will look like an idiot, even if you were not the one saying it. The takeaways: avoid YouTube comment debates at all costs, stick to areas of the internet where mostly intelligent people congregate, end the debate as soon as possible, and don’t be surprised if you still end up falling pray to Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies.

Read more:

Why You Should Be a Vegetarian – I’ll Let Someone Else Do the Talking

8 Comments

Photo: Zoha N.

I have been a vegetarian now for long enough now to consider it a permanent life decision. People ask me why all the time and I brush it off to avoid having a lengthy, serious conversation. I don’t enjoy conversations where I feel I am defending my choices or trying to convince someone else how to live their life.

I won’t do a lengthy post trying to convince my readers to give up meat either. Instead, here is a 4 minute TED talk that gives a great introduction and proposes a 70% solution for those who fear committing all the way – “Weekday Veg”. Hopefully this short video will pique your interest and lead you to further research the benefits of becoming a vegetarian.