User:Nastley3

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: the 7 secrets of awakening the highly effective four-hour giant, today

The Grapes of Math - Alex Bellos

Alex Bellos

The Universe In The Rearview Mirror - Dave Goldberg

A Briefer History of Time - Stephen Hawking

A Briefer History of Time (Hawking and Mlodinow book)

Raise the Bar - Jon Taffer

Raise the Bar

Jon Taffer

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else." - Sam Walton

Dad is Fat - Jim Gaffigan 

Dad is Fat

Jim Gaffigan

"I may be a narcissist, but at least I am a very special, very important, very good looking narcissist."

"Raising kids may be a thankless job with ridiculous hours, but at least the pay sucks."

David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Malcolm Gladwell

Inverted U Curves - "There is no such thing as an unmitigated good" - for example the argument that there is such thing as too small of class size in schools (Not enough varying opinions in discussions, does not allow for enough social development, lacks peer to peer learning etc.)

Parenting vs Wealth - The difficulties of parenting when wealthy,and that a certain point becoming more wealthy actually makes parenting more difficult. "Immigrants to wealth" - concept that self made wealthy people can have trouble relating to their children in the same way that first generation immigrants do.

Relative deprivation - Downsides of being a little fish in a big pond, ex: bottom third of students at Harvard etc. Another example is that suicide rates are higher in "happier" countries than in "unhappy" countries - "Everybody else is smiling, and I feel depressed, so there is clearly something wrong with me"

Everything Is Obvious Once You Know The Answer - Duncan Watts

Duncan J. Watts

Prediction vs. Prophecy - Our predictions should be probabilistic, for example a coin flip: The best prediction is 50% heads, 50% tails. When the randomness is more hidden, people expect to be able to determine the specific outcome of what ends up happening. This would be like being able to specifically predict that the next coin flip will land heads, and is not a prediction but a prophecy.

"50% of all money I spend on marketing is a waste... the problem is I don't know which half"

Hindsight bias / Creeping Determinism

Superfreakonomics - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

SuperFreakonomics

Steven Levitt

Stephen Dubner

Ultimatum game People will reject offers based on pride, shows that homo economicus is an over simplification.

Capuchin monkey Monkeys and Money

The Naked Cartoonist - Robert Mankoff

Robert Mankoff

"No, Thursday's out. How about never-is never good for you?"

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it."

American on Purpose - Craig Ferguson

Craig Ferguson

American on Purpose

A Little History of Science - William Bynum

Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Predictably Irrational

Dan Ariely

Decoy Effect - If we are comparing A & B, and there is a third option similar to but worse than A, such as A-, we will then be more likely to take A over B. If the options are A, B, and B-, then we are more likely to take B than if the decoy (B-) was not offered.

Market Norms Vs. Social Norms - People are often more willing to do something as a friendly favor, as opposed to being paid for it. Favors are motivated by Social Norms, but once money is involved it turns into a Market Norm. You would not drive someone to the airport for $3, but would for free, which is "irrational" according to market-knows-best models.

Influence of Emotion/Arousal in Decision Making - Simply that our emotional state greatly influences our decisions. In high emotion situations we are "Not who we thought we were"

Fooling Houdini - Alex Stone

Born Standing Up - Steve Martin

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin

"Noses run in the family"

The Signal and the Noise - Nate Silver

The Signal and the Noise

Nate Silver

Thomas Bayes

Bayes' theorem

What the Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures

Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

Blink (book)

Malcolm Gladwell

Thin-slicing

Microexpression

Implicit Association Test

Paul K. Van Riper

Millenium Challenge 2002

Silvan Tomkins

Paul Ekman

Facial Action Coding System

Battle of Chancellorsville

The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Charles Duhigg

Henry Molaison

The Habit Loop: Cue -> Routine -> Reward, all driven by a craving

The Golden Rule of Habit Change: If we keep the same cue and same reward we can insert in a new routine. (Works best when the craving is identified, and when there is a belief that change is possible, which often comes from the help of a group.)

Keystone Habbits - Paul O'Neill at Alcoa focusing on safety / Small Wins "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.”

Rosa Parks - Strong and Weak ties - Interpersonal ties

The way we habitually think of our surroundings and ourselves create the worlds that each of us inhabit. “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ ” the writer David Foster Wallace told a class of graduating college students in 2005. “And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?'" (If we can identify the hidden drivers in our lives, then they are no longer hidden.)

Mortality - Christopher Hitchens

Mortality (book)

Christopher Hitchens

Outliers - Malcom Gladwell

Outliers (book)

Malcom Gladwell

Concerted cultivation

Matthew effect (sociology)

Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory

Favorite Math/Logic Puzzles and Concepts:

Monty Hall problem

Induction puzzles

"This sentence contains exactly _____ e's."

Knight's tour

Prisoner's dilemma

Simpson's paradox

Zeno's paradoxes

"The old man the boat" - Garden path sentence

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."