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Random Quotes - 2

This is a bunch of interesting quotes I’ve collected over the past few months. Maybe they are connected to each other, and maybe they are not:

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent
- John Maynard Keynes

Source: Wikipedia. See also this relevant article, about the US government bailout of financial institutions in September 2008.

Quotes of Kenneth Boundling, economist, which sound strangely more relevant after the global financial meltdown:

Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis

Nothing fails like success because we don’t learn from it. We learn only from failure.

Source: Wikipedia
Switching a little:

There you have it. Admiration for raw, undirected cleverness winning over a questioning of fundamental importance. I wish there’d been someone in the room like Fight Club’s Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), who responds to a smart remark by Edward Norton’s narrator character with, “Clever. How’s that working out for you, being clever?”

Source: RibbonFarm.com

But let’s not worry so much about the crisis. Paul Graham points out that now is the best time to start a startup. However, many people think of doing startups, but not are not willing to quit their current job yet:

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.
- Marcel Proust

Source: BrainyQuotes

But where do ideas for startups come from? Proust again:

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Enough about money. Let’s focus on love and happiness. Here’s Proust again:

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

We only really think when distressed, we shouldn’t worry about striving for happiness so much as “pursuing ways to be properly and productively unhappy.”
- Publisher’s Review weekly paraphrasing Proust

Source: How Proust can Change your life

Random Quotes - 1

Some random quotes that I collected from the web:

Reflecting on the misinformation, half-truths, and weasel-words that form the bulk of political-campaign speecifying, I conclude that listening to politicians’ campaign speeches yields about as much information as listening to insects buzzing: in both cases you’re made aware that annoying, and possibly dangerous, pests are nearby.

Source: Cafe Hayek

“Faith is Hope given too much credit.”

– Matt Tuozzo

Source: Overcoming Bias

NBC Universal, which is trying to block a public bike path from traversing its property along the waterway…
One bike advocate said Universal executives told him they feared that people would use the path to lob unsolicited screenplays onto the studio’s nearby production lot — something that apparently happens at other spots when a Universal film scores big at the box office.

Source: boing-boing.

Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying.

Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

Source: Seth Godin.

As usual, the idealists are 100% right in principle and, as usual, the pragmatists are right in practice.

Source: Joel on Software

In a relationship, you are not meant to make someone else happy; you want to be happy *with* that someone else.

Source: Solitary Dreamer (3rd comment)

J.K. Rowling on the power of failure

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeHarry Potter creator J.K. Rowling talked about what failure taught her at a recent commencement address she gave in Harvard:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.

So, how many of you are working on an area that you succeeded in easily, but is not necessarily your primary passion? Co-incidentally, I had a similar discussion with a bunch of friends yesterday - i.e. those who did well in college and found well paying and mildly challenging jobs have the least motivation to do something truly interesting with their lives. It is the ones who did not do well who are now doing well.

Ever since I quit my job (six months ago) and started “goofing off” (i.e. working on a bunch of things that I feel passionately about), I’ve met more and more people who wish they could be doing the same, but are still unable to take the leap of faith required. I’ve also met more and more people who did take the leap of faith and are doing quite well. I’m fairly convinced that a lot of people in the first category should just bite the bullet and make an attempt at grabbing their dreams. Financial insecurity is often cited as a reason for not doing so, but I am not convinced. I think it is more of a comfort zone thing.

Think about it.

What causes the smell after the first rain?

Do you remember the distinctive smell of the earth when it rains for the first time. (Marathi readers will be reminded of the song aala aala ga sugandh maaticha.) Ever wondered what causes it? Ever wondered what this smell is called? Obviously not.

But, by now you should know that if there is one thing I enjoy, it is to take a poetic concept and kill it by introducing the prosody of science.

Anyway, the smell is called geosmin. And, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, here are the gory details, from howstuffworks.com:

As it turns out, the smells people associate with rainstorms can be caused by a number of things. One of the more pleasant rain smells, the one we often notice in the woods, is actually caused by bacteria! Actinomycetes, a type of filamentous bacteria, grow in soil when conditions are damp and warm. When the soil dries out, the bacteria produces spores in the soil. The wetness and force of rainfall kick these tiny spores up into the air where the moisture after a rain acts as an aerosol (just like an aerosol air freshener). The moist air easily carries the spores to us so we breathe them in. These spores have a distinctive, earthy smell we often associate with rainfall. The bacteria is extremely common and can be found in areas all over the world, which accounts for the universality of this sweet “after-the-rain” smell. Since the bacteria thrives in moist soil but releases the spores once the soil dries out, the smell is most acute after a rain that follows a dry spell, although you’ll notice it to some degree after most rainstorms.

Why all religions have bizarre/stupid beliefs

Paul Graham has an  essay on the “Lies we tell kids”. The whole essay is pretty interesting, but one of the sections contains this startling insight (a little long, but worth it):

Some parents feel a strong adherence to an ethnic or religious group and want their kids to feel it too. This usually requires two different kinds of lying: the first is to tell the child that he or she is an X, and the second is whatever specific lies Xes differentiate themselves by believing.

Telling a child they have a particular ethnic or religious identity is one of the stickiest things you can tell them. Almost anything else you tell a kid, they can change their mind about later when they start to think for themselves. But if you tell a kid they’re a member of a certain group, that seems nearly impossible to shake.

This despite the fact that it can be one of the most premeditated lies parents tell. When parents are of different religions, they’ll often agree between themselves that their children will be “raised as Xes.” And it works. The kids obligingly grow up considering themselves as Xes, despite the fact that if their parents had chosen the other way, they’d have grown up considering themselves as Ys.

One reason this works so well is the second kind of lie involved. The truth is common property. You can’t distinguish your group by doing things that are rational, and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people, you have to do things that are arbitrary, and believe things that are false. And after having spent their whole lives doing things that are arbitrary and believing things that are false, and being regarded as odd by “outsiders” on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes must be enormous. If they aren’t an X, why are they attached to all these arbitrary beliefs and customs? If they aren’t an X, why do all the non-Xes call them one?

This form of lie is not without its uses. You can use it to carry a payload of beneficial beliefs, and they will also become part of the child’s identity. You can tell the child that in addition to never wearing the color yellow, believing the world was created by a giant rabbit, and always snapping their fingers before eating fish, Xes are also particularly honest and industrious. Then X children will grow up feeling it’s part of their identity to be honest and industrious.

This probably accounts for a lot of the spread of modern religions, and explains why their doctrines are a combination of the useful and the bizarre. The bizarre half is what makes the religion stick, and the useful half is the payload.

I am not sure I buy the whole logic of the argument. But it certainly made me think and possibly view religion in a different way.

I spent a lot of my teenage years thinking of religion as a load of crap for weaker minds. Later, I read about how Tilak used Ganesh Chaturthi very effectively to bring people together. That got me thinking about the social value of religion. Here I am using “social” in the “making friends” sense of the word (not the “charity” sense of the word). Religion is the mother of all social networks.

In grad school, I would have arguments with my friend Frank, who used to go ga-ga over religion. He pointed out to me how many major artistic and architectural achievements over the centuries have been achieved because of the backing of religion.

And now Paul’s idea of separating religion into things that make it stick and the payload resonates with my view of religion. Basically, instead of focusing on the silly rituals that are the most visible aspects of any religion or specific religious activity, think instead about the payload. Think about what substantial things can be (is being) achieved (intentionally, or unintentionally).

Dans le Noir?

Dans le Noir is a restaurant in London and Paris where you eat in complete darkness. Here is the motivation for the concept from their website:

Sensory experience

Dans le Noir? allows you to completely re-evaluate the notion of taste.
Without sight, other senses are offered a new sensation and emotions.
Darkness leads to truthfulness about taste, kills preconceptions and let you face the realities of ingredients and cuisine. Our chef elaborates a refined and sensorial cuisine with fresh ingredients to help our senses to enjoy the “truth” taste of food.

True conviviality

Dining in the total darkness represents a very unusual social experience. How many times have you ever had the chance to talk to people without any preconception that sight implies?
At Dans le Noir? there is no more pressure of other people’s visual judgment. You talk more freely and spontaneously. The absence of vision changes completely the way you act and react, both emotionally and socially. That’s why Dans le Noir? is far more than just a restaurant: it offers a social and convivial experience. Dans le Noir ? raises some questions such as the role of sight in the way we relate to others.

Empathy

In the dark room, you are guided and served by our blind staff.
A magic switch between sighted and blind people happens. For once, blind people actually become your eyes.
This reversal of roles implies a transfer of trust from the sighted person to the blind guide because without him we are just lost. Who actually feels the most Dans le Noir??
The experience is emotionally strong and this empathy really encourages mutual trust and respect.

See restaurant website.

Paul Graham’s Six Principles for innovation

See this post for Paul Graham’s philosophy for inventing something new and succeeding at it:

Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly

See full article.

Video of paper airplane launched from 300 feet

From fark:

New York City resident launches paper airplane from 300 feet up an apartment building. The resulting 55-second flight was caught on home video. That’s beautiful, man

What waterboarding feels like

Waterboarding is a torture technique that has been in the news recently because the United States Justice Department authorized the use of this technique by the CIA to interrogate suspects. This person on the Straight Dope message boards tried it upon himself and reports on the experience:

So much talk of waterboarding, so much controversy. But what is it really? How bad? I wanted to write the definitive thread on waterboarding, settle the issue. Torture, or not?

To determine the answer, I knew I had to try it.

[...]

So, here’s what I would do. First I would google waterboarding to understand the basic concepts than I would try it on myself. First, self inflicted and then, if necessary, inflicted by my wife.(she has no problem torturing me. We’ve been married almost 15 years.)

These are the results of my research and experience:

I am not going to give away the suspense - read the article yourself.

The secret science of restaurant menus

This is how restaurants get you to spend more:

Smart chefs (or their menu consultants) know that when most of you open a menu, your eyes go right to the top of the page on the right side. And, armed with that knowledge, chefs place the menu item that will give them the most profit at the top of the page. Hence, it soon becomes their biggest seller. Then, your eyes normally drift to the center of the page. That’s where many chefs place their absolutely most expensive item. They do that not because they expect you to buy that item, but because the psychology of menus indicates you’ll probably then look at the items immediately above and below the high ticket item and order one of those. Again, those two items rank second and third for generating profits.

I’ve tested this in a dozen different restaurants – and then asked the chefs about their menus. Sure enough, they’ve admitted the practice. “Millions of dollars have been spent to understand what makes a profitable menu,” one chef told me. “By rearranging the order and relaying it out, it can mean tens of thousands of dollars of additional revenue. It has to do with everything from wording or naming, length of description, the number of columns, visuals of icons and pictures, price points, and not using dollar signs.”

See full article. (Found on Shantanu’s blog.)