Likelihood of Success

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It’s all about me

Posted by Ron Coleman on February 12, 2008

Drawing of me in old federal courthouse, NewarkThe New York Times reports on what everyone in the business of persuasion, such as people who try cases before juries, already knows: The more you can make yourself come across to the people you are trying to persuade as one of them, the more open they will be to your message.  The article discusses the extent to which actual, but subtle, mimicry is the key to persuasion.

Naturally this is easier to do if you’re a salesman, who interacts directly with his potential customer, than if you are trial lawyer. Jurors can’t talk to us during a trial, so we have to pick up other cues to figure out who they are. The idea is not to distort the message or to mislead, but rather to find that frequency at which other human beings are most likely to be receptive to what you have to say.

You still have to have a good case. But if you don’t, you shouldn’t be anywhere near the jury, anyway.

Posted in Homo sapiens, Scientificus, Stragety | 3 Comments »

Chilling truth from Pravda

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 27, 2008

Instapundit:

PRAVDA: Yuri Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut.

Just the first who lived.

Pretty creepy, but hardly surprising.

Posted in O Mores!, Oppression, Scientificus | 3 Comments »

Why even bother showing up?

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 24, 2008

Joel Waldfogel explains how Tiger Woods is so good, other golfers hardly even bother trying.

What does this mean for the nongolfing world? It’s generally agreed that people work harder when they are paid for performance. Anyone who has ever languished in a Paris cafe—where service compris translates roughly as “the Republic of France mandates a minimum 15 percent tip regardless of service quality”—can appreciate the power of incentives. But the effects of incentives appear to be muted when the incentives are based on relative performance and the competition is tough. We’re taught that quitters never win, but if the evidence from golf is any indication, it might be more accurate, if less pithy, to say that expected losers are more likely to quit, or at least not perform as well. If you’re running a business, and you have the opportunity to hire the Tiger Woods of office work, you’re not going to pass up the chance. But Brown’s study suggests you might want to consider its effect on your other workers’ performance. Steak knives might not cut it as second prize.

Everybody has to feel he’s got a fighting chance.

Posted in Heart and spirit, Scientificus, Sisyphus | 1 Comment »

Current events in research…

Posted by Casey Tompkins on January 19, 2008

Instapundit recently linked to this article about new battery research.

Apparently some nano-tech research done at Stanford’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering indicates that it might be possible to increase the life of a rechargeable lithium-ion batteries by a tremendous amount. The article mentioned the possibility of reaching a 40-hour life.

That’s fantastic compared to current (excuse the pun) batteries. I agree with Professor Reynolds: “Bring it on!”

Something else occurs to me; is it possible to scale this technology up? Forty hours at 40 mph could give an electric car a 1600 mile range. Forty hours might be unrealistic (at least at first) but the possibilities are intriguing.

This post originally published at the Gantry Launchpad.

Posted in Futurama, Scientificus | 5 Comments »

On your mind, on your blog, on your slide rule

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 9, 2008

Jonathan Gewirtz at Chicago Boyz writes about the “Perfect [Internet] Storm.” The whole thing should be read, but I was struck by this opening sentence:

A fascinating post by Wretchard on the dynamics of public events in the Internet age, and on the ways in which such events are now subject to quantitative analysis of the type that has previously been reserved for quantum systems and securities markets[.]

Not quite, I think. As Glenn Reynolds recently pointed out in an aside, there is plenty of reason not to be overenthusiastic about the proposition that the Web provides “razor-precise metrics.” Anyone who has a blog knows this, and for a guy with that big of a sample size in terms of readership, demographics, etc. to remind us of it is instructive.

The post at Chicago Boyz actually veers off in a somewhat different direction. But it’s worth considering this:  The phenomenon described there, which distinguishes between what people will say in virtual life versus and what they will publicly say in real life, is certainly complicated by what we may think they’re saying online and what we deduce that means in real life.

In fact, it’s only a matter of time before some massive, steam-driven, state-of-the-art “quantitative analysis” predicts or describes some extraordinary Internet phenomenon and turns out to be dead wrong. Considering that this is the presidential election season, that time could come very soon.

Don’t be fooled by predictions and analyses just because there are integers.

Posted in Nuvo-Techno, Scientificus, Stragety | 7 Comments »

By her own hand

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 7, 2008

Overlawyered asks, is it really possible — or, practical — to design a system that makes it impossible for suicidal psychiatric patients to kill themselves?

Most patients who are admitted to inpatient psychiatric facilities these days arrive there because they are either suicidal or psychotic. Short stays are the norm, and thus hospital staff are given the difficult task of caring for numerous patients who are very sick. Indeed, caring for the very sick is what hospitals do; but assuring safety for patients who are actively intent on hurting or killing themselves has always been a difficult task. Patients who are chronically suicidal often spend a great deal of time contemplating the method of their demise and it takes very little time to accomplish this goal once the final decision is made.

No psychiatric system, no matter how elaborately conceived, can assure us that a desperately depressed patient driven by suicidal thoughts will not harm himself. By seeking to hold someone responsible for the unfortunate events like those that occurred with Ms. Ferrell, our legal system drives the health care industry to spend inordinate amounts of monies to reduce patient risk to as close as zero as possible. Such pursuits invariably raise costs and limit services within our health care system which operates within a finite fiscal reality of uneven private and Medicaid reimbursements.

Ultimately, someone who wants out badly enough will find a way.

Posted in Heart and spirit, Scientificus | Leave a Comment »

B.E.L.T.

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 1, 2008

This is a new (to me) blog I’m going to be checking in on. I like this kind of stuff. I found it while looking for random links criticizing the practical side of Frank Lloyd Wright (it was not at all hard) to contribute to this discussion.

Posted in Ars Longa, Scientificus | Leave a Comment »

Just too fat

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 1, 2008

Glenn Reynolds links to this article about the latest “key” to obesity. It says that “a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is critical in mediating satiety in adult mice,” so, naturally, it’s only a matter of time till someone finds a way to put the stuff in a brightly-colored pill, and then once again we’ll all be able to fit into those molded plastic seats on the subway, right?

Of course not. It’s a little more complicated than that. On the way home from afternoon shul that I heard this on NPR. Bear with me — it’s a little long, but really very interesting, and it hits all the notes:

Cox: This is Donny Wong. He’s a London-based pharmaceutical analyst who specialises in the obesity field. He says drug companies are throwing huge portions of their R and D budgets at obesity-related research.

Wong: “There are over 400 compounds that are listed in databases that are in some point of development.”

Cox: Pfizer and Merck are working on their own versions of cannabinoid receptor antagonists. Other companies are trying to improve on a drug that prevents fat absorption. There’s also research into a gut hormone that may control appetite.

But all these drugs come with concerns about side effects. In fact, Acomplia is not available in the United States because the FDA is concerned that the drug may cause psychiatric problems. In clinical tests, a handful of people on Acomplia developed depression or suicidal thoughts. Wong says those kinds of outcomes are a real risk for drugs that tinker with the brain.

Wong: “The centrally acting drugs oftentimes have centrally acting side effects, and that’s really a huge area of concern for physicians. “

Cox: Some day there may be a drug that that produces significant weight loss with no serious side effects. But Barry Popkin thinks that’s still many years off. Popkin heads a global obesity center at the University of North Carolina. He says a person’s metabolism depends on so many internal and external factors; pharmaceuticals will never be able to address them all.

Popkin: “These drugs, if we find them, are going to be very expensive and have to be targeted in very complex ways, possibly related to your genetic makeup and affecting small populations at a time. And the world can’t afford that. “

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Americana, O Mores!, Scientificus | 6 Comments »

The brains behind the operation

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 17, 2007

Pamela Meister explodes the myth of intellectualism as a (much less the) sine qua non of qualification for the job of President of the United States.

After Reagan — who was far wiser, and smarter than given credit for, but still not strictly speaking a heavy hitter in any sort of academic sense — how can we even still ask this question? One reason is that the elites in this country still consider Reagan not only an idiot, but a failure as a President; so, too, George W. Bush, despite all the facts.

One thing’s for sure: The number one brain in this campaign must be Barack Obama, the “one who got away” — one of the few people on the planet with a path opened to him to for a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship who simply walked away from it. I don’t know if that’s really “smart,” though it seems to have “worked out” for him; still in terms of being a testament to recognition for unusual intellectual gifts, the way he was regarded at that stage of his career is extraordinary.

Of course, he should not be President.

I’m glad Meister wrote the article and is wrestling with this issue, because it’s sure to come up again once the nominations are in and the Republican is automatically painted — regardless of who it is — as the dim bulb in the race. The idea that qualification for leadership correlates meaningfully with linearly-measured intellectual achievement is a preposterous position to take, and is a favorite of people, ironically, who are not nearly as smart as they think they are.

As for me, well, for a guy who’s always showing off his brains, I’ve been pretty humbled as time goes on about what pigskins on the wall can and can’t accomplish, and the humanity and wisdom a person with no academic credentials at all can teach, and then some.

Posted in Americana, Politics and Poker, Scientificus | 6 Comments »

Hotwired

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 17, 2007

The New York Times looks into why a lot of seemingly “with it” old folks have brains that look more or less the same as people with Alzheimer’s:

[W]hen these sharp old folks die, autopsy studies often reveal extensive brain abnormalities like those in patients with Alzheimer’s. Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas and Yaakov Stern at Columbia University Medical Center recall that in 1988, a study of “cognitively normal elderly women” showed that they had “advanced Alzheimer’s disease pathology in their brains at death.” Later studies indicated that up to two-thirds of people with autopsy findings of Alzheimer’s disease were cognitively intact when they died.

“Something must account for the disjunction between the degree of brain damage and its outcome,” the Columbia scientists deduced. And that something, they and others suggest, is “cognitive reserve.”

Cognitive reserve, in this theory, refers to the brain’s ability to develop and maintain extra neurons and connections between them via axons and dendrites. Later in life, these connections may help compensate for the rise in dementia-related brain pathology that accompanies normal aging. . . .

Cognitive reserve is greater in people who complete higher levels of education. The more intellectual challenges to the brain early in life, the more neurons and connections the brain is likely to develop and perhaps maintain into later years. Several studies of normal aging have found that higher levels of educational attainment were associated with slower cognitive and functional decline.

Dr. Scarmeas and Dr. Stern suggest that cognitive reserve probably reflects an interconnection between genetic intelligence and education, since more intelligent people are likely to complete higher levels of education.

This is fascinating and encouraging — especially for people who have had the opportunity for lots of intellectual stimulation, and hotwiring, so to speak, early in life.  Never underestimate the importance of good wiring!  It’s almost as important as a good heart.

Posted in Scientificus | 2 Comments »

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