My Fitbit won the prize for being the only hardware/software to blue screen my Windows computer in at least a decade. It actually took me a few hours to figure out what was happening because I never suspected simply plugging in that device could do it. Sure enough, after 5 minutes or less it would hard crash my computer. I promptly gave it away and will never buy another one. I read some Amazon reviews where people talked about being on their 8th Fitbit and decided they have a real problem.
It would be really interesting to see the same analysis for verified reviews only, and contrast it with the overall numbers and non-verified reviews. I would actually want to read that more than this (which was still interesting).
I agree. When I read GEB, it was clear to me after awhile that it wasn't about G, E, or B, it was really about how intelligence emerges out of self-reference. One of the best books I've read (though challenging). Not often that books in this genre win the Pulitzer.
Citizens Insurance is the insurance of last resort in FL and is paid by taxpayers to deal with this situation. You can always get it. The best you can hope for is the rates go up enough for Citizens Insurance to make these properties less valuable. Don't hold your breath though. Relevant link: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/consumer/fl-insurers-so...
Sure, but my guess is they will either let me remap or have an extension that doesn't look at and control all my browsing data to do it. I haven't looked yet, though, so I might be wrong (I just remember having more flexibility when I used Firefox).
Definitely the first thing I thought of as well. My experience with this change has been so negative I've actually been seriously considering going back to Firefox, all these years later.
Really great article. I think I had some kind of weird meta-experience reading it where I was reminded of Godel, Escher, Bach in the unfamiliar context of cooking. I'm sure the author of this article would've appreciated that (as well as the author of G.E.B.).
I'm quite surprised there's been so little focus on the shaving experience. I really wanted to like Dollar Shave Club. I went with them early. Their prices were great and I really enjoyed their marketing.
But after trying most of their razor models for months, they were far worse than even the Mach 3 razors I had. It was painful to shave with them, the handles had a bad design, the lubrication strips weren't working, etc. Maybe they're better now, but I get several months (or more) out of Mach 3 razor cartridges. I don't pay much at all for them and have little incentive to switch.
But is there data to support that these questions are effective in finding the types of people that you want? Without concrete and consistent answers to questions, you'll be exposing yourself to bias (subconsciously encouraging people like yourself or seeing their vague answers in a more positive light). You'll also make more of the interviewing experience dependent on what you happen to think of and the mood you're in at the time, increasing the inconsistency of your interviews.
I know the intuitive idea is that you'll get to see how the candidate reacts, but that can be done in a less arbitrary way (and in a job-dependent context) through behavioral interviews and the like. Brain teasers are also often poor candidate experience, since they can feel unfair and unrelated to the work. If estimation is a key feature for PMs, it should be part of the interview process with well-defined procedures.
This will give you the general idea of how they work. I'm sure there's classes and other resources, but we already have a training program at work so I haven't delved into them as much.
Google suggests doing behavioral interviews instead (which I've also been trained to do and have gotten good results). Technical interviews and such may be necessary as well, of course.
In Creativity Inc. they describe specifically going through story beats for maximum emotional impact. Disney movies apparently adopted Pixar's methods, so actually you're not far off with the Crying Department thing.
I read that book and it was so good I immediately read it again. Then I read it halfway through again before switching to another book. Really great read and, oddly enough, a great book on leadership (especially in creative organizations).
I have replaced uses of the Standard Deviation with the Mean Absolute Deviation at work on several occasions, for just the reasons described here. It often leads to substantial improvement in predictive validity, in some cases fixing a broken process.
They are, but in the process have created a serious song and hit generating machine. You have these hit factories that churn this stuff out at scales that were previously unseen through the division of labor described, among other things.
"Creativity cannot be scaled." Actually, in the book The Song Machine, they pretty clearly show otherwise, with teams of topliners, beat makers, etc. churning out hits in a machine-like format: http://www.amazon.com/Song-Machine-Inside-Hit-Factory/dp/039...
I actually used the Mean Absolute Deviation at work to good effect. When you're testing variance over very large sample sizes, it's a lot better than using something like Chi-Squared tests, which nearly always yield a significant result over a certain sample size (maybe 20,000 or so).
Spotify certainly allows self-uploaded tracks (I know, I use them daily), though it's certainly not obvious how you do so and may require a paid subscription.
My experience is pretty similar to yours and copperx's. I'm no faster or slower but my hands have felt a ton better and I haven't had hardly any RSI issues since. Been typing in dvorak for about 15 years now. It was pretty painful for two weeks but I'm glad I switched.
Merrill Lynch isn't a bank, it's more like a trading house. AVP is a somewhat inflated title, but that usage typically means something like "experienced employee" or "team lead". That's the highest a lot of people reach, in fact.
It's surprising they mention regulatory work (around data privacy) going offshore. I saw that happen at another company I worked for and it didn't go well. When the feds realized there's no one in person they can talk to and hold responsible, those jobs all came right back less than a year later.
One of my siblings is a major contributor to Nightscout, it's a great piece of open source software. The makers of the Dexcom software have been stonewalling their efforts, but at least that isn't killing the project. Hopefully something similar can be done for insulin, though that seems a lot more difficult.
Paul Ekman talks about the "Desdemona Problem" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello_error), which is always an issue with face-reading of emotions. Many facial expressions (especially those that express on the top half of the face) correlate very well with emotions. But you don't know the context of those emotions or what the person is thinking.
Hence the Desdemona Problem. She is fearful when accused by Othello, not because of infidelity, but because she's being accused. You see that already with the surprising finding that fear and disgust actually correlate with positive financial performance. Yet you see those same emotions in suicidal patients and they're undoubtedly negative.
In addition to the time needed for ACH, some or most of the lag may be due to fraud/money laundering concerns, even if it's low-risk. If that's true then it's a regulatory issue.
Some of the claims in this article are rebutted by the book A Kim Jong Il Production (http://www.amazon.com/Kim-Jong-Il-Production-Extraordinary-K...), an excellent read. There is a lengthy discussion on how the book was sourced and a dedication to fact-checking and information accuracy. In it, they describe how many people inside actually do recognize their situation and how they're forced to act against how they feel. The crying at Kim Jong Il's funeral, in particular, is addressed and the book mentions how North Koreans that didn't look sincere enough in their grief faced punishment.
It would seem there's a conflict of interest between Wikipedia and those that report on it, since there's some overlap there. Reminds me of the old Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
In my third semester of Calculus class, I had a Physics professor. True to his background, he would sometimes take the entire class elaborately explaining the geometric interpretation of complex 3D operations, something I greatly appreciated. The formal notation and theory was always there, but he made sure the intuition was there also (if possible). Best math teacher I've ever had.