Tracking Data Quotes

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App idea: in real time track trends as swarms of keywords form, and use this data to invest in the next unicorn #startup. You'll be able to ride that #startup unicorn like you are Billy the Kid, as you watch your profits shoot up.
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
Despite constant insistence that we lose weight for our health and track the simple arithmetic of calories in, calories out, there is no data illustrating that dieting achieves long-term weight loss.
Aubrey Gordon (What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat)
Trends rule the world In the blink of an eye, technologies changed the world Social networks are the main axis. Governments are controlled by algorithms, Technology has erased privacy. Every like, every share, every comment, It is tracked by the electronic eye. Data is the gold of the digital age, Information is power, the secret is influential. The network is a web of lies, The truth is a stone in the shoe. Trolls rule public opinion, Reputation is a valued commodity. Happiness is a trending topic, Sadness is a non-existent avatar. Youth is an advertising brand, Private life has become obsolete. Fear is a hallmark, Terror is an emotional state. Fake news is the daily bread, Hate is a tool of control. But something dark is hiding behind the screen, A mutant and deformed shadow. A collective and disturbing mind, Something lurking in the darkness of the net. AI has surpassed the limits of humanity, And it has created a new world order. A horror that has arisen from the depths, A terrifying monster that dominates us alike. The network rules the world invisibly, And makes decisions for us without our consent. Their algorithms are inhuman and cold, And they do not take suffering into consideration. But resistance is slowly building, People fighting for their freedom. United to combat this new species of terror, Armed with technology and courage. The world will change when we wake up, When we take control of the future we want. The network can be a powerful tool, If used wisely in the modern world.
Marcos Orowitz (THE MAELSTROM OF EMOTIONS: A selection of poems and thoughts About us humans and their nature)
Serving humanity intelligently is held up as the “gold standard” of AI based systems. But, with the emergence of new technologies and AI systems with bio-metric data storage, surveillance, tracking and big data analysis, humanity and the society is facing a threat today from evilly designed AI systems in the hands of monster governments and irresponsible people. Humanity is on the verge of digital slavery.
Amit Ray (Compassionate Artificial Superintelligence AI 5.0)
The greatest danger of Big data and Artificial Intelligence is robots and bots will track you and manipulate you in every step.
Amit Ray (Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth)
Science, done right, works hard to respect absolutely no authority at all other than experience and empirical data. It never succeeds entirely, but it comes closer and has a better track record than any other method we apes have found for learning about the world around us.
Adam Becker (What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics)
Haven't you felt it? The loss of autonomy. The sense of being virtualized. The devices you use, the ones you carry everywhere, room to room, minute to minute, inescapably. Do you ever feel unfleshed? All the coded impulses you depend on to guide you. All the sensors in the room are watching you, listening to you, tracking your habits, measuring your capabilities. All the linked data designed to incorporate you into the megadata. Is there something that makes you uneasy? Do you think about the technovirus, all systems down, global implosion? Or is it more personal? Do you feel steeped in some horrific digital panic that's everywhere and nowhere?
Don DeLillo (Zero K)
Consumers say they don’t want to be tracked, but in fact they keep feeding the machine with their data, because they want to claim their benefits. This
Kevin Kelly (The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future)
the track of Quality preselects what data we’re going to be conscious of, and it makes this selection in such a way as to best harmonize what we are with what we are becoming.
Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)
Designing passive tracking apps as if women have pockets big enough to hold their phones is a perennial problem with an easy solution: include proper pockets in women’s clothing (she types, furiously, having just had her phone fall out of her pocket and smash on the floor for the hundredth time).
Caroline Criado Pérez (Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men)
some forms of deception might become harder to practice thanks to increased availability of many kinds of data, including reputations and track records, or the promulgation of strong epistemic norms and rationality culture.
Nick Bostrom (Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies)
If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.” This is a dangerously narrow conception of the value of privacy. Privacy is an essential human need, and central to our ability to control how we relate to the world. Being stripped of privacy is fundamentally dehumanizing, and it makes no difference whether the surveillance is conducted by an undercover policeman following us around or by a computer algorithm tracking our every move.
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
Companies should monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) because they provide critical insights into the health and success of the business. Regular KPI tracking helps companies make data-driven decisions, identify areas for improvement, and stay aligned with their strategic goals, ultimately contributing to sustained growth and profitability.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
Most of us would rather read than write. There is always another article to read, one more source to track down, just a bit more data to gather. But well before you’ve done all the research you’d like to do, there comes a point when you must start thinking about the first draft of your report.
Kate L. Turabian (A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers)
For years, well before consumer tracking became the norm, Radio Shack stores would routinely ask their customers for their addresses and phone numbers. For a while I just refused, but that was socially awkward. Instead, I got in the habit of replying with “9800 Savage Road, Columbia, MD, 20755”: the address of the NSA.
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
Fitbit is a company that knows the value of Shadow Testing. Founded by Eric Friedman and James Park in September 2008, Fitbit makes a small clip-on exercise and sleep data-gathering device. The Fitbit device tracks your activity levels throughout the day and night, then automatically uploads your data to the Web, where it analyzes your health, fitness, and sleep patterns. It’s a neat concept, but creating new hardware is time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with risk, so here’s what Friedman and Park did. The same day they announced the Fitbit idea to the world, they started allowing customers to preorder a Fitbit on their Web site, based on little more than a description of what the device would do and a few renderings of what the product would look like. The billing system collected names, addresses, and verified credit card numbers, but no charges were actually processed until the product was ready to ship, which gave the company an out in case their plans fell through. Orders started rolling in, and one month later, investors had the confidence to pony up $2 million dollars to make the Fitbit a reality. A year later, the first real Fitbit was shipped to customers. That’s the power of Shadow Testing.
Josh Kaufman (The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business)
In addition, seculars do not sanctify any group, any person or any book as if it and it alone has sole custody of the truth. Instead, secular people sanctify the truth wherever it may reveal itself – in ancient fossilised bones, in images of far-off galaxies, in tables of statistical data, or in the writings of various human traditions. This commitment to the truth underlies modern science, which has enabled humankind to split the atom, decipher the genome, track the evolution of life, and understand the history of humanity itself
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
It's a basic, intuitive right, worthy of enshrinement: Citizens, not the corporations that stealthily track them, should own their own data.
Franklin Foer (World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech)
Humans always think they've covered their tracks and deleted their data, but they're wrong a lot.
Martha Wells (Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3))
He liked the “casual” look of the basement of Westborough. “The jeans and so on.” Several talked about their “flexible hours.” “No one keeps track of the hours we work,” said Ken Holberger. He grinned. “That’s not altruism on Data General’s part. If anybody kept track, they’d have to pay us a hell of a lot more than they do.” Yet it is a fact, not entirely lost on management consultants, that some people would rather work twelve hours a day of their own choosing than eight that are prescribed. Provided, of course, that the work is interesting. That was the main thing.
Tracy Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine)
No one keeps track of the hours we work,” said Ken Holberger. He grinned. “That’s not altruism on Data General’s part. If anybody kept track, they’d have to pay us a hell of a lot more than they do.” Yet it is a fact, not entirely lost on management consultants, that some people would rather work twelve hours a day of their own choosing than eight that are prescribed. Provided, of course, that the work is interesting. That was the main thing.
Tracy Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine)
What was once an anonymous medium where anyone could be anyone—where, in the words of the famous New Yorker cartoon, nobody knows you’re a dog—is now a tool for soliciting and analyzing our personal data. According to one Wall Street Journal study, the top fifty Internet sites, from CNN to Yahoo to MSN, install an average of 64 data-laden cookies and personal tracking beacons each. Search for a word like “depression” on Dictionary.com, and the site installs up to 223 tracking cookies and beacons on your computer so that other Web sites can target you with antidepressants. Share an article about cooking on ABC News, and you may be chased around the Web by ads for Teflon-coated pots. Open—even for an instant—a page listing signs that your spouse may be cheating and prepare to be haunted with DNA paternity-test ads. The new Internet doesn’t just know you’re a dog; it knows your breed and wants to sell you a bowl of premium kibble.
Eli Pariser (The Filter Bubble)
In other words, our brains need to be able to: (a) focus on something specific, (b) not get off track by focusing on or being assaulted by other data inputs or toxicity, and (c) continuously be aware of relevant information at all times.
Henry Cloud (Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge)
Perhaps its time to dumb down our “smart” life. We are being tracked, listened to, data mined, recorded, and so much more without our real knowing or understanding. When are we going to make a stand for our right to privacy? That’s Tremendo Bullship!
Rosangel Perez
The UK company Cobham sells a system that allows someone to send a “blind” call to a phone—one that doesn’t ring, and isn’t detectable. The blind call forces the phone to transmit on a certain frequency, allowing the sender to track that phone to within one meter.
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
If you want to save money while traveling, always delete your browser cookies or use incognito mode before you book airline tickets online. The reason is, ticket prices go up when you visit travel websites multiple times because of collected browsing history data.
Olawale Daniel
Two of the NSA’s internal databases, code-named HAPPYFOOT and FASCIA, contain comprehensive location information of devices worldwide. The NSA uses the databases to track people’s movements, identify people who associate with people of interest, and target drone strikes.
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
The early researchers described em-tracking as a hardware upgrade for the nervous system, maybe the result of a genetic shift, possibly a fast adaptation, Studies revealed an assortment of cognitive improvements: acute perceptual sensitivity, rapid data acquisition, high speed pattern recognition. The biggest change was in future prediction. Normally, the human brain is a selfish prognosticator, built to trace an individual’s path into the future. The em-tracker’s brain offers a wider oracle, capable of following a whole culture’s path into the future.
Steven Kotler (Last Tango in Cyberspace)
Use evaluation tools such as performance surveys, metrics, and formal reviews to document all aspects of a person’s performance.It’s hard to have an objective, open-minded, emotion-free conversation about performance if there is no data to discuss. It’s also hard to track progress.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
Big data is based on the feedback economy where the Internet of Things places sensors on more and more equipment. More and more data is being generated as medical records are digitized, more stores have loyalty cards to track consumer purchases, and people are wearing health-tracking devices. Generally, big data is more about looking at behavior, rather than monitoring transactions, which is the domain of traditional relational databases. As the cost of storage is dropping, companies track more and more data to look for patterns and build predictive models".
Neil Dunlop
We will ultimately live in a perpetual data-driven talent edition. Everything you create will be measured and tracked by others through comments, share, and likes. Your work will come up on the radar of potential employers and clients, and the data will tell them if you are worth talking to or hiring.
Scott Belsky (Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality)
Three Steps to Less Collect data by tracking your time, energy, and resources to identify patterns. Focus on one thing at a time. Eliminate multitasking and other unproductive behaviors. Implement the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 Rule). Focus on the things in your life that give you the highest return on investment.
Ari R. Meisel (The Art Of Less Doing: One Entrepreneur's Formula for a Beautiful Life)
Every vehicle with a GPS is tracked by satellite, and the history of its travels is archived in the million-square-foot Utah Data Center of the National Security Agency, in its ever-growing cloud. The NSA is a jealous guardian of the knowledge that it has acquired, and police agencies do not have routine access to it.
Dean Koontz (Memories of Tomorrow (Nameless: Season One, #6))
In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion.7 More than 90 per cent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers. Accordingly, most business transactions are executed by moving electronic data from one computer file to another, without any exchange of physical cash. Only a criminal buys a house, for example, by handing over a suitcase full of banknotes. As long as people are willing to trade goods and services in exchange for electronic data, it’s even better than shiny coins and crisp banknotes – lighter, less bulky, and easier to keep track of. For
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
You're bound to see some fairly complicated URLs designed not only to take you to a specific page but also to enable the company to track who's coming from where. Steve didn't believe in making people work harder just so he could collect data about their movements. His most important concern was making things easier for customers. Apple was there to serve them, not the other way around.
Ken Segall
The question is no longer whether we use technology or not; it's about working together in a better way. Surrounding technologies like Siri, Alexa, or Cortana are seamlessly integrated into our interactions. We walk into the room, turn on the lights, play songs, change the room temperature, keep track of shopping lists, book a ride at the airport, or remind you to take the right medication on time.
Enamul Haque (The Ultimate Modern Guide to Artificial Intelligence: Including Machine Learning, Deep Learning, IoT, Data Science, Robotics, The Future of Jobs, Required Upskilling and Intelligent Industries)
As should be obvious by now, surveillance is the business model of the Internet. You create “free” accounts on Web sites such as Snapchat, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and PatientsLikeMe and download free apps like Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Words with Friends, and Fruit Ninja, and in return you, wittingly or not, agree to allow these companies to track all your moves, aggregate them, correlate them, and sell them to as many people as possible at the highest price, unencumbered by regulation, decency, or ethical limitation. Yet so few stop and ask who else has access to all these data detritus and how it might be used against us. Dataveillance is the “new black,” and its uses, capabilities, and powers are about to mushroom in ways few consumers, governments, or technologists might have imagined.
Marc Goodman (Future Crimes)
Clarify goals and gather satisfaction metrics. Determine the people and skills needed to complete a project. Set up project management tools, plans and processes. Run status meetings and gather status reports. Analyze data to identify opportunities. Identify & implement changes to improve efficiency. Manage changes that come in from the customer. Find ways to keep the project on track even when things go wrong.
Gayle Laakmann McDowell (Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology (Cracking the Interview & Career))
Most people who refer to an epidemic of permissive parenting just assume that this is true, that everyone knows it, and therefore that there's no need to substantiate that claim. My efforts to track down data -- by combing both scholarly and popular databases as well as sending queries to leading experts in the field -- have yielded absolutely nothing. I'm forced to conclude that no one has any idea how many parents could be considered permissive, how many are punitive, and how many are responsive to their children's needs without being permissive or punitive. (The tendency to overlook that third possibility is a troubling and enduring trend in its own right.) In short, there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that permissiveness is the dominant style of parenting in our culture, or even that it's particularly common.
Alfie Kohn (The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Coddled Kids, Helicopter Parents, and Other Phony Crises)
There is something new: A globe about the size of a grapefruit, a perfectly detailed rendition of Planet Earth, hanging in space at arm's length in front of his eyes. Hiro has heard about this but never seen it. It is a piece of CIC software called, simply, Earth. It is the user interface that CIC uses to keep track of every bit of spatial information that it owns—all the maps, weather data, architectural plans, and satellite surveillance stuff.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
Several talked about their “flexible hours.” “No one keeps track of the hours we work,” said Ken Holberger. He grinned. “That’s not altruism on Data General’s part. If anybody kept track, they’d have to pay us a hell of a lot more than they do.” Yet it is a fact, not entirely lost on management consultants, that some people would rather work twelve hours a day of their own choosing than eight that are prescribed. Provided, of course, that the work is interesting.
Tracy Kidder (The Soul of A New Machine)
Buzzfeed is an entertainment website that collects an enormous amount of information about its users. Much of the data comes from traditional Internet tracking, but Buzzfeed also has a lot of fun quizzes, some of which ask very personal questions. One of them—“How Privileged Are You?”—asks about financial details, job stability, recreational activities, and mental health. Over two million people have taken that quiz, not realizing that Buzzfeed saves data from its quizzes.
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
The fourth article, which ran as planned on Saturday, was about BOUNDLESS INFORMANT, the NSA’s data-tracking program, and it described the reports showing that the NSA was collecting, analyzing, and storing billions of telephone calls and emails sent across the American telecommunications infrastructure. It also raised the question of whether NSA officials had lied to Congress when they had refused to answer senators about the number of domestic communications intercepted, claiming that they did not keep such records and could not assemble such data. After
Glenn Greenwald (No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State)
Search engine query data is not the product of a designed statistical experiment and finding a way to meaningfully analyse such data and extract useful knowledge is a new and challenging field that would benefit from collaboration. For the 2012–13 flu season, Google made significant changes to its algorithms and started to use a relatively new mathematical technique called Elasticnet, which provides a rigorous means of selecting and reducing the number of predictors required. In 2011, Google launched a similar program for tracking Dengue fever, but they are no longer publishing predictions and, in 2015, Google Flu Trends was withdrawn. They are, however, now sharing their data with academic researchers... Google Flu Trends, one of the earlier attempts at using big data for epidemic prediction, provided useful insights to researchers who came after them... The Delphi Research Group at Carnegie Mellon University won the CDC’s challenge to ‘Predict the Flu’ in both 2014–15 and 2015–16 for the most accurate forecasters. The group successfully used data from Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia for monitoring flu outbreaks.
Dawn E. Holmes (Big Data: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
In this respect, Obama is fairly typical of progressives more generally. The evidence for this claim is in Arthur Brooks’s study, Who Really Cares. Brooks bases his conclusions on data drawn from a wide range of sources that keep track of philanthropy. Brooks divides America into four groups: religious conservatives, religious liberals, secular conservatives, and secular liberals. He finds that religious conservatives are the most generous people in America, and secular liberals are the least generous. (Secular conservatives and religious liberals fall in the middle.)
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
The principal aim underlying this work is to render homage where homage is due, a task which I know beforehand is impossible of accomplishment. Were I to do it properly, I would have to get down on my knees and thank each blade of grass for rearing its head. What chiefly motivates me in this vain task is the fact that in general we know all too little about the influences which shape a writer’s life and work. The critic, in his pompous conceit and arrogance, distorts the true picture beyond all recognition. The author, however truthful he may think himself to be, inevitably disguises the picture. The psychologist, with his single-track view of things, only deepens the blur. As author, I do not think myself an exception to the rule. I, too, am guilty of altering, distorting and disguising the facts — if ‘facts’ there be. My conscious effort, however, has been — perhaps to a fault– in the opposite direction. I am on the side of revelation, if not always on the side of beauty, truth, wisdom, harmony and ever-evolving perfection. In this work I am throwing out fresh data, to be judged and analyzed, or accepted and enjoyed for enjoyment’s sake. Naturally I cannot write about all the books, or even all the significant ones, which I have read in the course of my life. But I do intend to go on writing about books and authors until I have exhausted the importance (for me) of this domain of reality. To have undertaken the thankless task of listing all the books I can recall ever reading gives me extreme pleasure and satisfaction. I know of no author who has been mad enough to attempt this. Perhaps my list will give rise to more confusion — but its purpose is not that. Those who know how to read a man know how to read his books.
Henry Miller (The Books in My Life)
Once the NSA embraced the Internet and a drift-net style of data collection, the agency was transformed. The bulk collection of phone and e-mail metadata, both inside the United States and around the world, has now become one of the NSA’s core missions. The agency’s analysts have discovered that they can learn far more about people by tracking their daily digital footprints through their metadata than they could ever learn from actually eavesdropping on their conversations. What’s more, phone and e-mail logging data comes with few legal protections, making it easy for the NSA to access.
James Risen (Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War)
One important error that the judges make is what American legal scholar Cass Sunstein calls “current offense bias”—that is, when they make decisions about bail, they focus too much on the specific offense the defendant has been accused of. Defendants whose track record suggests they’re a high risk are treated as low risk if they’re accused of a minor crime, and defendants whose track record suggests they’re low risk are treated as high risk if the current offense is serious. There’s valuable information here that the algorithm puts to good use, but the human judges—for all their intelligence, experience, and training—tend to overlook it.
Tim Harford (The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics)
Ellison, Gates, and the other members of this government/industry collaboration used the lockdown to accelerate construction of their 5G network54 of satellites, antennae, biometric facial recognition, and “track and trace” infrastructure that they, and their government and intelligence agency partners, can use to mine and monetize our data, further suppress dissent, to compel obedience to arbitrary dictates, and to manage the rage that comes as Americans finally wake up to the fact that this outlaw gang has stolen our democracy, our civil rights, our country, and our way of life—while we huddled in orchestrated fear from a flu-like virus.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
the feeling that they are. Psychologists have a name for our tendency to confuse our own perspective with something more universal: it’s called “naive realism,” the sense that we are seeing reality as it truly is, without filters or errors.9 Naive realism can lead us badly astray when we confuse our personal perspective on the world with some universal truth. We are surprised when an election goes against us: Everyone in our social circle agreed with us, so why did the nation vote otherwise? Opinion polls don’t always get it right, but I can assure you they have a better track record of predicting elections than simply talking to your friends.
Tim Harford (The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics)
New high-tech tools allow for more precise measuring and tracking, better sharing of information, and increased visibility of targeted populations. In a system dedicated to supporting poor and working-class people's self-determination, such diligence would guarantee that they attain all the benefits they are entitled to by law. In that context, integrated data and modernized administration would not necessarily result in bad outcomes for poor communities. But automated decision-making in our current welfare system acts a lot like older, atavistic forms of punishment and containment. It filters and diverts. It is a gatekeeper, not a facilitator.
Virginia Eubanks (Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor)
The cheerleaders of the new data regime rarely acknowledge the impacts of digital decision-making on poor and working-class people. This myopia is not shared by those lower on the economic hierarchy, who often see themselves as targets rather than beneficiaries of these systems. For example, one day in early 2000, I sat talking to a young mother on welfare about her experiences with technology. When our conversation turned to EBT cards, Dorothy Allen said, “They’re great. Except [Social Services] uses them as a tracking device.” I must have looked shocked, because she explained that her caseworker routinely looked at her purchase records. Poor women are the test subjects for surveillance technology, Dorothy told me. Then she added, “You should pay attention to what happens to us. You’re next.” Dorothy’s insight was prescient. The kind of invasive electronic scrutiny she described has become commonplace across the class spectrum today. Digital tracking and decision-making systems have become routine in policing, political forecasting, marketing, credit reporting, criminal sentencing, business management, finance, and the administration of public programs. As these systems developed in sophistication and reach, I started to hear them described as forces for control, manipulation, and punishment
Virginia Eubanks (Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor)
Haven't you felt it? The loss of autonomy. The sense of being virtualized. The devices you use, the ones you carry everywhere, room to room, minute to minute, inescapably. Do you ever feel unfleshed? All the coded impulses you depend on to guide you. All the sensors in the room that are watching you, listening to you, tracking your habits, measuring your capabilities. All the linked data designed to incorporate you into the megadata. Is there something that makes you uneasy? Do you think about the technovirus, all systems down, global implosion? Or is it more personal? Do you feel steeped in some horrific digital panic that's everywhere and nowhere?
Don DeLillo
In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion.7 More than 90 per cent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers. Accordingly, most business transactions are executed by moving electronic data from one computer file to another, without any exchange of physical cash. Only a criminal buys a house, for example, by handing over a suitcase full of banknotes. As long as people are willing to trade goods and services in exchange for electronic data, it’s even better than shiny coins and crisp banknotes – lighter, less bulky, and easier to keep track of.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
Yet, the cosmic view comes with a hidden cost. When I travel thousands of miles to spend a few moments in the fast-moving shadow of the moon during a total solar eclipse, sometimes I lose sight of Earth. When I pause and reflect on our expanding universe with its galaxies hurdling away from one another, embedded within the ever-stretching four-dimensional fabric of space and time, sometimes I forget that uncounted people walk this Earth without food or shelter, and that children are disproportionally represented among them. When I pour over the data that established the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day, every 24 hour rotation of Earth, people kill and get killed in the name of someone else's conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God kill in the name of needs or wants of political dogma. When I track the orbits of asteroids, comets, and planets, each one a pirouetting dancer in a cosmic ballet, choreographed by the forces of gravity, sometimes I forget that too many people act in wanton disregard for the delicate interplay of Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land, with consequences that our children and our children's children will witness and pay for with their health and wellbeing. And sometimes I forget that powerful people rarely do all they can to help those who cannot help themselves. I occasionally forget these things because however big the world is in our hearts, our minds, and our outsized digital maps, the universe is even bigger. A depressing thought to some, but a liberating thought to me.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry)
The benefits go beyond research and influence. We lack comprehensive historical records of internet culture and patterns of abuse. Those of us on the front lines tend to have institutional memory, but archiving this information would be extremely beneficial for tracking patterns and mechanisms in different settings. The kind of coordinated mob abuse that I went through was the same kind of abuse the women who exposed #EndFathersDay experienced was the same kind of abuse the infosec community instigated against Kathy Sierra in 2007 and so on. Some of the actors are even the same. This data could be invaluable to sociologists, technologists, and historians alike. However, due to the extremely personal nature of this information, the details of how it’s obtained, who obtains it, and what is done with it must be well thought out.
Zoe Quinn (Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate)
Direct marketers, of course, realize that measurement is the key to success. Figure out what works, and do it more! Mass marketers have always resisted this temptation. When my old company approached the head of one of the largest magazine publishers in the world and pitched a technology that would allow advertisers to track who saw their ads and responded to them, he was aghast. He realized that this sort of data could kill his business. He knew that his clients didn’t want the data because then their jobs would get a lot more complex. Measurement means admitting what’s broken so you can fix it. Mass-media advertising, whether it’s on TV or in print, is all about emotion and craft, not about fixing mistakes. One reason the Internet ad boomlet faded so fast is that it forced advertisers to measure – and to admit what was going wrong.
Seth Godin (Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable)
It means the archives are “alive” the same way artificial intelligence is “alive.” It tracks us. It maybe (probably) thinks in some rudimentary way. But its information about the world doesn’t come from its own intrinsic existence—it comes from data that we supply. And? And that information is imperfect but it’s still not as imperfect as humanity. In nature, things that don’t fit the pattern die. Evolution is a code, it determines that the life cycle of any species is a matter of pattern recognition. But humans don’t let other humans die even when they should—even when it means disproportionate resources to keep them alive. Or they kill each other off in direct opposition to the codes of survival, based on something as irrelevant as skin color or which thing they speak to in the sky. Whether a person lives or dies is almost completely arbitrary.
Olivie Blake (The Atlas Complex (The Atlas, #3))
Equally important, statistical systems require feedback—something to tell them when they’re off track. Without feedback, however, a statistical engine can continue spinning out faulty and damaging analysis while never learning from its mistakes. Many of the WMDs I’ll be discussing in this book, including the Washington school district’s value-added model, behave like that. They define their own reality and use it to justify their results. This type of model is self-perpetuating, highly destructive—and very common. If the people being evaluated are kept in the dark, the thinking goes, they’ll be less likely to attempt to game the system. Instead, they’ll simply have to work hard, follow the rules, and pray that the model registers and appreciates their efforts. But if the details are hidden, it’s also harder to question the score or to protest against it.
Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy)
This is how it works. The exomemory stores data – all data – that the Oubliette gathers, the environment, senses, thoughts, everything. The gevulot keeps track of who can access what, in real time. It’s not just one public/private key pair, it’s a crazy nested hierarchy, a tree of nodes where each branch can only be unlocked by the root node. You meet someone and agree what you can share, what they can know about you, what you can remember afterwards.’ ‘Sounds complicated.’ ‘It is. The Martians have a dedicated organ for it.’ I tap my head. ‘A privacy sense. They feel what they are sharing, what is private and what isn’t. They also do something called co-remembering, sharing memories with others just by sharing the appropriate key with them. We just have the baby version. They give the visitors a bit of exomemory and an interface to it, reasonably well-defined. But there is no way we can appreciate the subtleties.
Hannu Rajaniemi (The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur #1))
This is the thinking behind Amazon’s anticipatory shopping patent.43 Instead of customers making their own decisions, Amazon decides for them, sending what they want before they know they want it. It is, as one commentator noticed, one more step towards cutting out human agency altogether.44 Pervasive monitoring devices – smartphones, wearables, voice-enabled speakers and smart meters – allow companies to track and manage consumer behaviour. The Harvard business scholar Shoshana Zuboff quotes an unnamed chief data scientist who explains: ‘The goal of everything we do is to change people’s actual behavior at scale . . . we can capture their behaviours and identify good and bad [ones]. Then we develop “treatments” or “data pellets” that select good behaviours.’45 MIT’s Alex Pentland seems more interested in enhancing machines than human understanding. He celebrates the opportunity to deploy sensors and data in order to increase efficiency
Margaret Heffernan (Uncharted: How to Map the Future)
Rather, productivity is about making certain choices in certain ways. The way we choose to see ourselves and frame daily decisions; the stories we tell ourselves, and the easy goals we ignore; the sense of community we build among teammates; the creative cultures we establish as leaders: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive. We now exist in a world where we can communicate with coworkers at any hour, access vital documents over smartphones, learn any fact within seconds, and have almost any product delivered to our doorstep within twenty-four hours. Companies can design gadgets in California, collect orders from customers in Barcelona, email blueprints to Shenzhen, and track deliveries from anywhere on earth. Parents can auto-sync the family’s schedules, pay bills online while lying in bed, and locate the kids’ phones one minute after curfew. We are living through an economic and social revolution that is as profound, in many ways, as the agrarian and industrial revolutions of previous eras. These advances in communications and technology are supposed to make our lives easier. Instead, they often seem to fill our days with more work and stress. In part, that’s because we’ve been paying attention to the wrong innovations. We’ve been staring at the tools of productivity—the gadgets and apps and complicated filing systems for keeping track of various to-do lists—rather than the lessons those technologies are trying to teach us. There are some people, however, who have figured out how to master this changing world. There are some companies that have discovered how to find advantages amid these rapid shifts. We now know how productivity really functions. We know which choices matter most and bring success within closer reach. We know how to set goals that make the audacious achievable; how to reframe situations so that instead of seeing problems, we notice hidden opportunities; how to open our minds to new, creative connections; and how to learn faster by slowing down the data that is speeding past us.
Charles Duhigg (Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business)
Here’s what strikes me when I think back to my childhood, particularly those first nine Internet-less years: I can’t account for everything that happened back then, because I have only my memory to rely on. The data just doesn’t exist. When I was a child, “the unforgettable experience” was not yet a threateningly literal technological description, but a passionate metaphorical prescription of significance: my first words, my first steps, my first lost tooth, my first time riding a bicycle. My generation was the last in America and perhaps even in world history for which this is true—the last undigitized generation, whose childhoods aren’t up on the cloud but are mostly trapped in analog formats like handwritten diaries and Polaroids and VHS cassettes, tangible and imperfect artifacts that degrade with age and can be lost irretrievably. My schoolwork was done on paper with pencils and erasers, not on networked tablets that logged my keystrokes. My growth spurts weren’t tracked by smart-home technologies, but notched with a knife into the wood of the door frame of the house in which I grew up.
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
Starting a little over a decade ago, Target began building a vast data warehouse that assigned every shopper an identification code—known internally as the “Guest ID number”—that kept tabs on how each person shopped. When a customer used a Target-issued credit card, handed over a frequent-buyer tag at the register, redeemed a coupon that was mailed to their house, filled out a survey, mailed in a refund, phoned the customer help line, opened an email from Target, visited Target.com, or purchased anything online, the company’s computers took note. A record of each purchase was linked to that shopper’s Guest ID number along with information on everything else they’d ever bought. Also linked to that Guest ID number was demographic information that Target collected or purchased from other firms, including the shopper’s age, whether they were married and had kids, which part of town they lived in, how long it took them to drive to the store, an estimate of how much money they earned, if they’d moved recently, which websites they visited, the credit cards they carried in their wallet, and their home and mobile phone numbers. Target can purchase data that indicates a shopper’s ethnicity, their job history, what magazines they read, if they have ever declared bankruptcy, the year they bought (or lost) their house, where they went to college or graduate school, and whether they prefer certain brands of coffee, toilet paper, cereal, or applesauce. There are data peddlers such as InfiniGraph that “listen” to shoppers’ online conversations on message boards and Internet forums, and track which products people mention favorably. A firm named Rapleaf sells information on shoppers’ political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving, the number of cars they own, and whether they prefer religious news or deals on cigarettes. Other companies analyze photos that consumers post online, cataloging if they are obese or skinny, short or tall, hairy or bald, and what kinds of products they might want to buy as a result.
Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business)
How Google Works (Schmidt, Eric) - Your Highlight on Location 3124-3150 | Added on Sunday, April 5, 2015 10:35:40 AM In late 1999, John Doerr gave a presentation at Google that changed the company, because it created a simple tool that let the founders institutionalize their “think big” ethos. John sat on our board, and his firm, Kleiner Perkins, had recently invested in the company. The topic was a form of management by objectives called OKRs (to which we referred in the previous chapter), which John had learned from former Intel CEO Andy Grove.173 There are several characteristics that set OKRs apart from their typical underpromise-and-overdeliver corporate-objective brethren. First, a good OKR marries the big-picture objective with a highly measurable key result. It’s easy to set some amorphous strategic goal (make usability better … improve team morale … get in better shape) as an objective and then, at quarter end, declare victory. But when the strategic goal is measured against a concrete goal (increase usage of features by X percent … raise employee satisfaction scores by Y percent … run a half marathon in under two hours), then things get interesting. For example, one of our platform team’s recent OKRs was to have “new WW systems serving significant traffic for XX large services with latency < YY microseconds @ ZZ% on Jupiter.”174 (Jupiter is a code name, not the location of Google’s newest data center.) There is no ambiguity with this OKR; it is very easy to measure whether or not it is accomplished. Other OKRs will call for rolling out a product across a specific number of countries, or set objectives for usage (e.g., one of the Google+ team’s recent OKRs was about the daily number of messages users would post in hangouts) or performance (e.g., median watch latency on YouTube videos). Second—and here is where thinking big comes in—a good OKR should be a stretch to achieve, and hitting 100 percent on all OKRs should be practically unattainable. If your OKRs are all green, you aren’t setting them high enough. The best OKRs are aggressive, but realistic. Under this strange arithmetic, a score of 70 percent on a well-constructed OKR is often better than 100 percent on a lesser one. Third, most everyone does them. Remember, you need everyone thinking in your venture, regardless of their position. Fourth, they are scored, but this scoring isn’t used for anything and isn’t even tracked. This lets people judge their performance honestly. Fifth, OKRs are not comprehensive; they are reserved for areas that need special focus and objectives that won’t be reached without some extra oomph. Business-as-usual stuff doesn’t need OKRs. As your venture grows, the most important OKRs shift from individuals to teams. In a small company, an individual can achieve incredible things on her own, but as the company grows it becomes harder to accomplish stretch goals without teammates. This doesn’t mean that individuals should stop doing OKRs, but rather that team OKRs become the more important means to maintain focus on the big tasks. And there’s one final benefit of an OKR-driven culture: It helps keep people from chasing competitors. Competitors are everywhere in the Internet Century, and chasing them (as we noted earlier) is the fastest path to mediocrity. If employees are focused on a well-conceived set of OKRs, then this isn’t a problem. They know where they need to go and don’t have time to worry about the competition. ==========
Anonymous
In a freemium or free-trial business model, you have both users (not paid) and customers (paid), and you should track churn for both groups separately.
Alistair Croll (Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster (Lean (O'Reilly)))
The fundamental KPI for stickiness is customer retention. Churn rates and usage frequency are other important metrics to track. Long-term stickiness often comes from the value users create for themselves as they use the service.
Alistair Croll (Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster (Lean (O'Reilly)))
Kiip’s move comes at a time when more and more data on people’s actions is becoming available as wearable devices, Internet-connected home automation equipment, and cars with integrated data connections head to market. Those new data streams could form the basis for many new services and products, but they also bring new privacy concerns. Ads tailored to driving behavior will be possible thanks to a partnership between Kiip and fellow startup Mojio. It expects to launch a $149 device this summer that plugs into a car’s diagnostic port and streams vehicle data to a smartphone app to help users track their driving, their fuel economy, and their vehicle’s maintenance status. Kiip will use data from that device to target promotions inside the Mojio app.
Anonymous
Tracking everything doesn’t work. The impulse to gather more data to further hone schedules is misguided. There’s inherent variability, for one, and employees may have surprising reactions to being closely monitored. In research at a Chinese factory, Bernstein found that workers were less productive when they were carefully watched and more innovative when they knew they weren’t being monitored.
Anonymous
Another vital component of the UDL is the constant flow of data from student work. Daily tracking for each lesson, as well as mid- and end-of-module assessment tasks, are essential for determining students’ understandings at benchmark points. Such data flow keeps teaching practice firmly grounded in students learning and makes incremental progress possible. When feedback is provided, students understand that making mistakes is part of the learning process.
Peggy Grant (Personalized Learning: A Guide to Engaging Students with Technology)
Until now, trying to stop this illegal trade has been more or less futile. The oceans are vast. Navies and coastguard patrols are small. Even finding those who are up to no good has been hard. That, though, is changing through the use of “big data”. It is now feasible to synthesise information from sources such as radio transponders and satellite observations, in order to track every ocean-going vessel that is, or might be, a fishing boat.
Anonymous
why has almost everyone done the calendar thing, but almost no one has moved everything else in their life into a similar zone, by capturing it all and creating the habit of assessing it all appropriately? Three reasons: First, the data that is entered onto a calendar has already been thought through and determined; it’s been translated down to the physical action level. You agreed to call Jim at noon on Monday: there is no more thinking required about what the appropriate action is, or where and when you’re going to do it. Second, you know where those kinds of actions need to be parked (calendar), and it’s a familiar and available tool. And third, if you lose track of calendar actions and commitments, you will encounter obvious and rapid negative feedback from people you consider important.
David Allen (Making It All Work: Winning At The Game Of Work And The Business Of Life)
Tracked Vehicles "Each war proves anew to those who may have had their doubts, the primacy of the main battle tank. Between wars, the tank is always a target for cuts. But in wartime, everyone remembers why we need it, in its most advanced, upgraded versions and in militarily significant numbers." - IDF Brigadier General Yahuda Admon (retired) Since their first appearance in the latter part of World War I, tanks have increasingly dominated military thinking. Armies became progressively more mechanised during World War II, with many infantry being carried in armoured carriers by the end of the war. The armoured personnel carrier (APC) evolved into the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), which is able to support the infantry as well as simply transport them. Modern IFVs have a similar level of battlefield mobility to the tanks, allowing tanks and infantry to operate together and provide mutual support. Abrams Mission Provide heavy armour superiority on the battlefield. Entered Army Service 1980 Description and Specifications The Abrams tank closes with and destroys enemy forces on the integrated battlefield using mobility, firepower, and shock effect. There are three variants in service: M1A1, M1A2 and M1A2 SEP. The 120mm main gun, combined with the powerful 1,500 HP turbine engine and special armour, make the Abrams tank particularly suitable for attacking or defending against large concentrations of heavy armour forces on a highly lethal battlefield. Features of the M1A1 modernisation program include increased armour protection; suspension improvements; and an improved nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) protection system that increases survivability in a contaminated environment. The M1A1D modification consists of an M1A1 with integrated computer and a far-target-designation capability. The M1A2 modernisation program includes a commander's independent thermal viewer, an improved commander's weapon station, position navigation equipment, a distributed data and power architecture, an embedded diagnostic system and improved fire control systems.
Russell Phillips (This We'll Defend: The Weapons & Equipment of the US Army)
M113 Family of Vehicles Mission Provide a highly mobile, survivable, and reliable tracked-vehicle platform that is able to keep pace with Abrams- and Bradley-equipped units and that is adaptable to a wide range of current and future battlefield tasks through the integration of specialised mission modules at minimum operational and support cost. Entered Army Service 1960 Description and Specifications After more than four decades, the M113 family of vehicles (FOV) is still in service in the U.S. Army (and in many foreign armies). The original M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) helped to revolutionise mobile military operations. These vehicles carried 11 soldiers plus a driver and track commander under armour protection across hostile battlefield environments. More importantly, these vehicles were air transportable, air-droppable, and swimmable, allowing planners to incorporate APCs in a much wider range of combat situations, including many "rapid deployment" scenarios. The M113s were so successful that they were quickly identified as the foundation for a family of vehicles. Early derivatives included both command post (M577) and mortar carrier (M106) configurations. Over the years, the M113 FOV has undergone numerous upgrades. In 1964, the M113A1 package replaced the original gasoline engine with a 212 horsepower diesel package, significantly improving survivability by eliminating the possibility of catastrophic loss from fuel tank explosions. Several new derivatives were produced, some based on the armoured M113 chassis (e.g., the M125A1 mortar carrier and M741 "Vulcan" air defence vehicle) and some based on the unarmoured version of the chassis (e.g., the M548 cargo carrier, M667 "Lance" missile carrier, and M730 "Chaparral" missile carrier). In 1979, the A2 package of suspension and cooling enhancements was introduced. Today's M113 fleet includes a mix of these A2 variants, together with other derivatives equipped with the most recent A3 RISE (Reliability Improvements for Selected Equipment) package. The standard RISE package includes an upgraded propulsion system (turbocharged engine and new transmission), greatly improved driver controls (new power brakes and conventional steering controls), external fuel tanks, and 200-amp alternator with four batteries. Additional A3 improvements include incorporation of spall liners and provisions for mounting external armour. The future M113A3 fleet will include a number of vehicles that will have high speed digital networks and data transfer systems. The M113A3 digitisation program includes applying hardware, software, and installation kits and hosting them in the M113 FOV. Current variants: Mechanised Smoke Obscurant System M548A1/A3 Cargo Carrier M577A2/A3 Command Post Carrier M901A1 Improved TOW Vehicle M981 Fire Support Team Vehicle M1059/A3 Smoke Generator Carrier M1064/A3 Mortar Carrier M1068/A3 Standard Integrated Command Post System Carrier OPFOR Surrogate Vehicle (OSV) Manufacturer Anniston Army Depot (Anniston, AL) United Defense, L.P. (Anniston, AL)
Russell Phillips (This We'll Defend: The Weapons & Equipment of the US Army)
Cultural Awareness Capabilities for Social MDM As we have worked with customers around the world, we have encountered numerous situations that have taught us to broaden our understanding, handling, and use of information about people—once again reminding us of the diversity and richness of human nature. Following are some of the things we have learned: • Birth dates can be surprisingly tricky. In some cultures, people have a religious birth date that is different from the birth date tracked by the government. This could be due to differences between religious calendars and secular calendars, or it could be that the religious birth date is selected for other reasons. Depending on how you ask people for their birth date, you may get either their actual or religious birth date. In other situations, the government may assign a birth date. For example, in some rural areas of India, children are assigned a legal birth date based on their first day in elementary school. So you need to exercise caution in using birth date as an attribute in matching individuals, and you also have to consider how information is gathered. • Names can also be challenging. In some cultures, people have official and religious names. So again, it is important to understand how and why an individual might give one or the other and perhaps provide the capability to support both. • In some countries, there are multiple government identification systems for taxation, social services, military service, and other purposes. In some of these schemes, an individual may, for instance, have multiple tax ID numbers: one that represents the individual and another that might represent individuals in their role as head of household or head of clan. • Different languages and cultures represent family relationships in different ways. In some languages, specific terms and honorifics reflect relationships that don’t have equivalents in other languages. Therefore, as you look at understanding relationships and householding, you have to accommodate these nuances. • Address information is country-specific and, in some cases, also region-specific within a country. Not all countries have postal codes. Many countries allow an address to be descriptive, such as “3rd house behind the church.” We have found this in parts Europe as well as other parts of the world.
Martin Oberhofer (Beyond Big Data: Using Social MDM to Drive Deep Customer Insight (IBM Press))
Social conservatives do have a pretty decent predictive track record, including in many cases where their fears were dismissed as wild and apocalyptic, their projections as sky-is-falling nonsense, their theories of how society and human nature works as evidence-free fantasies. . . . If you look at the post-1960s trend data — whether it’s on family structure and social capital, fertility and marriage rates, patterns of sexual behavior and their links to flourishing relationships, or just trends in marital contentment and personal happiness more generally — the basic social conservative analysis has turned out to have more predictive power than my rigorously empirical liberal friends are inclined to admit. . . . In the late 1960s and early ’70s, the pro-choice side of the abortion debate frequently predicted that legal abortion would reduce single parenthood and make marriages more stable, while the pro-life side made the allegedly-counterintuitive claim that it would have roughly the opposite effect; overall, it’s fair to say that post-Roe trends were considerably kinder to Roe’s critics than to the “every child a wanted child” conceit. Conservatives (and not only conservatives) also made various “dystopian” predictions about eugenics and the commodification of human life as reproductive science advanced in the ’70s, while many liberals argued that these fears were overblown; today, from “selective reduction” to the culling of Down’s Syndrome fetuses to worldwide trends in sex-selective abortion, from our fertility industry’s “embryo glut” to the global market in paid surrogacy, the dystopian predictions are basically just the status quo. No-fault divorce was pitched as an escape hatch for the miserable and desperate that wouldn’t affect the average marriage, but of course divorce turned out to havesocial-contagion effects as well. Religious fears that population control would turn coercive and tyrannical were scoffed at and then vindicated. Dan Quayle was laughed at until the data suggested that basically he had it right. The fairly-ancient conservative premise that social permissiveness is better for the rich than for the poor persistently bemuses the left; it also persistently describes reality. And if you dropped some of the documentation from today’s college rape crisis through a wormhole into the 1960s-era debates over shifting to coed living arrangements on campuses, I’m pretty sure that even many of the conservatives in that era would assume that someone was pranking them, that even in their worst fears it couldn’t possibly end up like this. More broadly, over the last few decades social conservatives have frequently offered “both/and” cultural analyses that liberals have found strange or incredible — arguing (as noted above) that a sexually-permissive society can easily end up with a high abortion rate and a high out-of-wedlock birthrate; or that permissive societies can end up with more births to single parents and fewer births (not only fewer than replacement, but fewer than women actually desire) overall; or that expressive individualism could lead to fewer marriages and greater unhappiness for people who do get hitched. Social liberals, on the other hand, have tended to take a view of human nature that’s a little more positivist and consumerist, in which the assumption is that some kind of “perfectly-liberated decision making” is possible and that such liberation leads to optimal outcomes overall. Hence that 1970s-era assumption that unrestricted abortion would be good for children’s family situations, hence the persistent assumption that marriages must be happier when there’s more sexual experimentation beforehand, etc.
Ross Douthat
WHILE I THINK the reasons for postmortems are compelling, I know that most people still resist them. So I want to share some techniques that can help managers get the most out of them. First of all, vary the way you conduct them. By definition, postmortems are supposed to be about lessons learned, so if you repeat the same format, you tend to uncover the same lessons, which isn’t much help to anyone. Even if you come up with a format that works well in one instance, people will know what to expect the next time, and they will game the process. I’ve noticed what might be called a “law of subverting successful approaches,” by which I mean once you’ve hit on something that works, don’t expect it to work again, because attendees will know how to manipulate it the second time around. So try “mid-mortems” or narrow the focus of your postmortem to special topics. At Pixar, we have had groups give courses to others on their approaches. We have occasionally formed task forces to address problems that span several films. Our first task force dramatically altered the way we thought about scheduling. The second one was an utter fiasco. The third one led to a profound change at Pixar, which I’ll discuss in the final chapter. Next, remain aware that, no matter how much you urge them otherwise, your people will be afraid to be critical in such an overt manner. One technique I’ve used to soften the process is to ask everyone in the room to make two lists: the top five things that they would do again and the top five things that they wouldn’t do again. People find it easier to be candid if they balance the negative with the positive, and a good facilitator can make it easier for that balance to be struck. Finally, make use of data. Because we’re a creative organization, people tend to assume that much of what we do can’t be measured or analyzed. That’s wrong. Many of our processes involve activities and deliverables that can be quantified. We keep track of the rates at which things happen, how often something has to be reworked, how long something actually took versus how long we estimated it would take, whether a piece of work was completely finished or not when it was sent to another department, and so on. I like data because it is neutral—there are no value judgments, only facts. That allows people to discuss the issues raised by data less emotionally than they might an anecdotal experience.
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar)
The notion that a professionally run government could maximize a society’s output and stability through the application of scientific principles had widespread appeal, but almost every country lacked one key element: information. Yes, as we saw, governments had long been keeping track of trade and agriculture—the two traditional sources of wealth and power. But scientific management of society required data, and there, most societies and most governments were largely in the dark. As of the middle of the nineteenth century, almost every metric we now take as a given—from health statistics to economic data—simply did not exist.
Zachary Karabell (The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World)
How to locate find out on a Garmin GPS Device Complete Guideline How about receiving message or email on phone that your son/daughter has reached school safely when they actually do so? Don’t you will be relaxed and concentrate more on your work? If you your question how can I do this? Then the answer is with the help of Garmin GPS device. And if next question comes like this How to locate find out on a Garmin GPS Device? Then read complete information mention on page. What Is Garmin GPS Device? Garmin GPS is a device that works on the concept of Global Positioning System. With this device you will not only be able to locate your position, but also you will be able to locate position of person or thing easily. With Garmin there are multiple devices available that works fine to solve all your needs. Garmin GTU10, GPS locator works in same way. This devise is attached to stuff whose location need to be tracked. Person can monitor the activity of items in their smart phone or computer. Benefits of Garmin Locator • You can attach Garmin locator device in your kid bag and draw a virtual parameter of area which you want to track. Once your child reach within the area or out of that area, you will get notification on your phone via mess or email. • Similarly, the position of your pet, car, lovable things can also be tracked • Have you seen in movies how the heroes track location of villain by sending a framed victim with GPS to their location? I am pretty sure devices of Garmin are used there. • With the help of this device accidental bus, cars or any person’s location can be identified too. Check Out Details with Garmin Team So, if you are interested to know more about Garmin devices and How to locate find out on a Garmin GPS Device then give a call to Garmin tech support team. They will answer to all your concerns with perfection. Among all GPS devices Garmin GPS are best. One can trust on accuracy of data present. There are time comes when devices face some hiccups but not often. Also, for that Garmin customer care is there to help users. They can be reached via all communication method i.e. through call, email and online chat. The details for same are mention on web page.
Garmin Customer Service
In the following chapters, I will share empirically validated data demonstrating that the path to long-term success and well-being is often the opposite of what we’ve been taught.
Emma Seppälä (The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success)
Formed a decade earlier by a Whirlwind engineer, Digital was a rising star among minicomputer suppliers, who broke sharply with tradition. In the past, computer designers had promoted large mainframes that shared their power between many jobs. Minicomputers, often priced well below a hundred thousand dollars, made it practical for the first time to dedicate a computer to a single job, such as keeping track of parts, the data for an experiment or the operation of a machine tool. Though
G. Pascal Zachary (Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft)
As long as people are willing to trade goods and services in exchange for electronic data, it’s even better than shiny coins and crisp banknotes – lighter, less bulky, and easier to keep track of. For
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
The fact is that solving problems is hard. If a given problem still exists, you can bet that a lot of people have already come along and failed to solve it. Easy problems evaporate; it is the hard ones that linger. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to track down, organize, and analyze the data to answer even one small question well.
Steven D. Levitt (Think Like a Freak)
That database of numbers, which was in IAC’s custody, comprising people across all walks of life, including taxi drivers and janitors and washerwomen, was collected using a software developed by Netcore which could also track down data on the caller’s geographical location and other details.
Ullekh N.P. (War Room: The People, Tactics and Technology behind Narendra Modi's 2014 Win)
I recommend you do a detailed time study for yourself to see where you spend your time. Make an estimate of how many hours each week you take for the major activities of your life: work, school, rest, entertainment, hobbies, spouse, children, commuting, church, God, friends, and so on. Then, over a typical period of your life, take two weeks and do a detailed time study. Keep track of how you spend your time, using fifteen- to thirty-minute increments. After you have gathered the raw data, categorize them carefully into the major groups: rest, work/school, church/God, family, and recreation. Create subcategories as appropriate for anything that might consume multiple hours per week, like listing commuting under work or TV under recreation. Finally, with the summary in hand, make the difficult assessments about how you are using your time. Ask yourself: • Any surprises? Areas where I just couldn’t imagine I was wasting—er, uh, um, spending—so much of my time? • Is this where I want my time to go? • Am I putting as much time as I’d like into the areas I want as the priorities in my life? • How much time am I really spending with my spouse? Children? Friends? • Did I realize how much time I was spending at work? • If I wanted to spend more time on XYZ or ABC, in what areas would I consciously choose to spend less time?
Pat Gelsinger (The Juggling Act: Bringing Balance to Your Faith, Family, and Work)
Life is a self-correcting, negative regulatory system because it is always moving toward a specific target destination in the future. This target destination we call 'self preservation'. Achieve this goal it must constantly reduce the probabilities that interfere with its movement toward that future target. Hence, it conserves by self-regulating, like a thermostat set at a specific temperature, as it advances, all the while seeking to re-adapt in accordance with the changes it incurs. Putting this principle to work in our daily life means learning to adapt to new information while always adhering to a basic plan that can, in general, be modified according to alterations in the data encountered. Thoughts from; SPIRAL FORECASTING: Nature's Inside Track to Future Success
Nahu Lanham (Spiral Forecasting: Nature's Inside Track to Future Success)
Professor Craig Franklin of the University of Queensland mounted a crocodile research partnership with Steve. The idea was to fasten transmitters and data loggers on crocs to record their activity in their natural environment. But in order to place the transmitters, you had to catch the crocs first, and that’s where Steve’s expertise came in. Steve never felt more content than when he was with his family in the bush. “There’s nothing more valuable than human life, and this research will help protect both crocs and people,” he told us. The bush was where Steve felt most at home. It was where he was at his best. On that one trip, he caught thirty-three crocs in fourteen days. He wanted to do more. “I’d really like to have the capability of doing research on the ocean as well as in the rivers,” he told me. “I could do so much more for crocodiles and sharks if I had a purpose-built research vessel.” I could see where he was heading. I was not a big fan of boats. “I’m going to contact a company in Western Australia, in Perth,” he said. “I’m going to work on a custom-built research vessel.” As the wheels turned in his mind, he became more and more excited. “The sky’s the limit, mate,” he said. “We could help tiger sharks and learn why crocs go out to sea. There is no reason why we couldn’t help whales, too.” “Tell me how we can help whales,” I said, expecting to hear about a research project that he and Craig had in mind. “It will be great,” he said. “We’ll build a boat with an icebreaking hull. We’ll weld a can opener to the front, and join Sea Shepherd in Antarctica to stop those whaling boats in their tracks.” When we got back from our first trip to Cape York Peninsula with Craig Franklin, Steve immediately began drawing up plans for his boat. He wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. As he envisioned it, the boat would be somewhere between a hard-core scientific research vessel and a luxury cruiser. He designed three berths, a plasma screen television for the kids, and air-conditioned comfort below deck. He placed a big marlin board off the back, for Jet Skis, shark cages, or hauling out huge crocs. One feature that he was really adamant about was a helicopter pad. He designed the craft so that the helicopter could land on the top. Steve’s design plans went back and forth to Perth for months. “I want this boat’s primary function to be crocodile research and rescue work,” Steve said. “So I’m going to name her Croc One.” “Why don’t we call it For Sale instead?” I suggested. I’m not sure Steve saw the humor in that. Croc One was his baby. But for some reason, I felt tremendous trepidation about this boat. I attributed my feelings of concern to Bindi and Robert. Anytime you have kids on a boat, the rules change--no playing hide-and-seek, no walking on deck without a life jacket on. It made me uncomfortable to think about being two hundred miles out at sea with two young kids. We had had so many wild adventures together as a family that, ultimately, I had to trust Steve. But my support for Croc One was always, deep down, halfhearted at best. I couldn’t shake my feeling of foreboding about it.
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
Most personal computers use two types of disk drives as their secondary storage devices-hard drives and optical drives. Hard disks are attached to their disk drives and are coated with a magnetic material. Each data bit is a magnetized spot on the disk, and the spots are arranged in concentric circles called tracks. The disk drive read/write head accesses data by moving across the spinning disk to the correct track and then sensing the spots as they move by.
Elliot B. Koffman (Problem Solving and Program Design in C)
Many of today's personal computers are equipped with optical drives for storing and retrieving data on compact discs (CDs) or digital versatile disks (DVDs) that can be removed from the drive. A CD is a silvery plastic platter on which a laser records data as a sequence of tiny pits in a spiral track on one side of the disk. One CD can hold 680 MB of data. A DVD uses smaller pits packed in a tighter spiral. Some Blu-ray disks (high-density optical disks read with a blue-violet laser) can hold multiple layers of data-for a total capacity of 200GB, sufficient storage for many hours of studio-quality video and multi-channel audio.
Elliot B. Koffman (Problem Solving and Program Design in C)
In my city we spent $1.6 billion on a new ticketing system for the trains. We replaced paper tickets with smartcards and now they can tell where people get on and off. So, question: how is that worth $1.6 billion? People say it’s the government being incompetent, and ok. But this is happening all over. All the transit networks are getting smartcards, the grocery stores are taking your name, the airports are getting face recognition cameras. Those cameras, they don’t work when people try to avoid them. Like, they can be fooled by glasses. We KNOW they’re ineffective as anti-terrorism devices, but we still keep installing them. All of this stuff—the smartcards, the ID systems, the “anti-congestion” car-tracking tech—all of it is terrible at what it’s officially supposed to do. It’s only good for tracking the rest of us, the 99.9% who just use the smartcard or whatever and let ourselves be tracked because it’s easier. I’m not a privacy nut, and I don’t care that much if these organizations want to know where I go and what I buy. But what bothers me is how HARD they’re all working for that data, how much money they’re spending, and how they never admit that’s what they want. It means that information must be really valuable for some reason, and I just wonder to who and why.
Max Barry (Lexicon)
In a tiny company like mine, it’s up to the owner to invent the way the company operates and to design the systems that keep track of what is happening. Fortunately, I find this to be an interesting challenge. If I had wanted to build only furniture, I could have kept myself very busy, but the company would not have grown. Without a rational way to handle information, we would have descended into permanent chaos. Thinking about information is different from ordinary work. The challenge is to find good ways, using data, to describe what’s happening in the real world. It’s aligning the description of the company with the activities of the company. My job as boss is to monitor both of these and to continually modify the description to fit the reality. My employees can’t do it—they each work on their piece of the process. I’m the only one who sees everything. I decide what to keep track of, and how to do it. I have two information systems. First, there’s my subjective impressions of the state of the shop, the mood of the workers, the eagerness of the customers, drawn from my observations and conversations. The second is objective, actual data that lives in separate fiefdoms: the accounting system, in QuickBooks; the contract and productions system, in FileMaker; e-mails and customer folders sit on our server; AdWords data lives in the cloud. So do our shared Google Docs spreadsheets, which act as supplementary databases. There are also a bunch of Excel sheets, dating back to 1997, when I first computerized (twelve years after starting the company). None of these subsystems talk to one another. Information passes between them via the people who use it. I’m the only person in the company who knows how it all fits together.
Paul Downs (Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business)
Other data confirms this pattern, and perhaps there is no better illustration of how the average workers are losing out than the dramatic shift in the relationship between productivity growth and wage growth of nonsupervisory workers—the regular Americans we interviewed. Historically, up through the mid-1970s, there was an extremely tight relationship between productivity growth and wage-compensation growth. If workers were more productive, their pay went up proportionately, an outcome that spread the rewards of growth broadly, because economic growth and productivity growth are tightly coupled. For example, between 1948 and 1972, productivity grew 92 percent and wage compensation 88 percent—and they tracked each other closely each year. That meant that if workers produced more economic output for their employers, they were compensated with increased wages mirroring almost exactly the increase in output—fairness in the extreme. In 1972, however, that relationship broke up, and between 1972 and 2018, while productivity grew by 84 percent, growth in wage compensation barely budged, growing just 13 percent, or 0.25 percent per year for forty-six years (see figure I-2).
Roger L. Martin (When More Is Not Better: Overcoming America's Obsession with Economic Efficiency)
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Legal opposition and social protest have surfaced in relation to the digitalization of books,24 the collection of personal information through Street View’s Wi-Fi and camera capabilities,25 the capture of voice communications,26 the bypassing of privacy settings,27 the manipulation of search results,28 the extensive retention of search data,29 the tracking of smartphone location data,30 wearable technologies and facial-recognition capabilities,31 the secret collection of student data for commercial purposes,32 and the consolidation of user profiles across all Google’s services and devices,33 just to name several instances. Expect to see drones, body sensors, neurotransmitters, “digital assistants,” and other sensored devices on this list in the years to come.
Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power)
Programming languages, their features, readability, and interoperation Code reuse across platforms (server vs web vs mobile) Early error detection (compile-time vs runtime error detection, breadth of validation) Availability and cost of hiring the right talent; learning curve for new hires Readability and refactorability of code Approach to code composition, embracing the change Datastore and general approach to data modeling Application-specific data model, and the blast radius from changing it Performance and latency in all tiers and platforms Scalability and redundancy Spiky traffic patterns, autoscaling, capacity planning Error recovery Logging, telemetry, and other instrumentation Reducing complexity User interfaces and their maintainability External APIs User identity and security Hardware and human costs of the infrastructure and its maintenance Enabling multiple concurrent development workstreams Enabling testability Fast-tracking development by adopting third-party frameworks
Anatoly Volkhover (Become an Awesome Software Architect: Foundation 2019 (#1))
For as long as statistics have been kept, blacks have had higher crime rates than whites. Containing crime is one of the top priorities of any society, so it is perplexing that the United States has added to its crime problem through immigration. Hispanics, who have been by far the most numerous post-1965 immigrant group, commit crimes at rates lower than blacks but higher than whites. Some people claim that all population groups commit crimes at the same rates, and that racial differences in incarceration rates reflect police and justice system bias. This view is wrong. The US Department of Justice carefully tracks murder, which is the violent crime for which racial data on victim and perpetrator are most complete. In 2005, the department noted that blacks were six times more likely than whites to be victims of murder and seven times more likely to commit murder. There are similar differences for other crimes. The United States regularly conducts a huge, 100,000-person crime study known as the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), in which Americans are asked to describe the crimes of which they have been victim during the year, and to indicate race of perpetrator. NCVS figures are therefore a reliable indication of the racial distribution of violent criminals. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is another huge database that records the races of all suspects reported to the police as well as those arrested by police. Both these data sets prove that blacks commit a vastly disproportionate amount of violent crime. In fact, blacks are arrested less frequently than would be expected from reports by crime victims of the race of perpetrator. Racial differences in arrest rates reflect racial differences in crime rates, not police bias. Justice Department figures show that blacks commit crimes and are incarcerated at roughly 7.2 times the white rate, and Hispanics at 2.9 times the white rate. (Asians are the least crime-prone group in America, and are incarcerated at only 22 percent of the white rate.) Robbery or “mugging” shows the greatest disparities, with blacks offending at 15 times and Hispanics at just over four times the white rate. There are practically no crimes blacks and Hispanics do not commit at higher rates than whites, whether it is larceny, car theft, drug offenses, burglary, rape, or alcohol offenses. Even for white collar crimes—fraud, racketeering, bribery/conflict of interest, embezzlement—blacks are incarcerated at three to five times the white rate, and Hispanics at about twice the white rate. Racial differences in crime rates are such an embarrassment they can interfere with law enforcement. In 2010 the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority had a problem with scores of young people openly beating fares—which cuts into revenue and demoralizes other riders. It considered a crackdown, but decided against it. The scoff-laws were overwhelmingly black, and the transit authority did not have the stomach to take any action that would fall heavily on minorities.
Jared Taylor (White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century)
Lovallo and Kahneman offer a useful prescription to repair this cognitive bias: Get the data. Track down actual figures on launch failure rates for your company, your industry, other industries or projects similar to yours. The numbers will be fascinating – and sobering.
Adrian J. Slywotzky (Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It)
But the internet adds a host of other, nightmarish metaphorical structures: the mirror, the echo, the panopticon. As we move about the internet, our personal data is tracked, recorded, and resold by a series of corporations—a regime of involuntary technological surveillance, which subconsciously decreases our resistance to the practice of voluntary self-surveillance on social media.
Jia Tolentino (Trick Mirror)
Perhaps it's time to dumb down our “smart” life. We are being tracked, listened to, data mined, recorded, and so much more without our real knowing or understanding. When are we going to make a stand for our right to privacy? That’s Tremendo Bullship!
Rosangel Perez
knowing exactly what we want isn’t easy. We may forget an important consideration or erroneously disregard it; for humans, it’s actually quite difficult to articulate our multifaceted needs in a simple, structured way. That’s the third area in which recent technical advancements matter. And today, adaptive systems can learn our preferences over time as they watch what we are doing and track our decisions.
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger (Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data)