The Las Vegas Rules I: The Slightly Malevolent Universe

Update: Greg Rader pointed out over email that my diagram was messed up in Economics 101 terms: the production frontier is usually convex and the utility/indifference curves concave. I had things the other way around. Total sloppiness on my part. In fixing the picture, an additional insight struck me: the normal outcome of such diagrams usually the achievable optimum somewhere in the middle, where it can “kiss” the most valuable concave utility curve. The interesting thing is that it is much easier to gamble with a surplus of money or a surplus of time, than it is to gamble with an optimal mix. This suggests WHY lifestyle design may be hard: you have to move away from your current optimum in order to gamble effectively. The normal way is to work harder than you want to, in order to accumulate the surplus money to gamble with. Lifestyle design moves away from the optimum in a different direction.

I’ve been thinking  and writing about the idea of lifestyle businesses and lifestyle design for several years now, and attempting to actually play the game for a few months.  It is not easy, and I have not been satisfied with how others have been framing the subject. In particular, I have been disturbed by the “anyone can do this, guaranteed” attitude of cheery optimism around the subject. Unqualified optimism of any sort immediately makes me skeptical.  Perhaps this is because I am an engineer both by training and philosophical inclination. Engineering knowledge is usually expressed in terms of fundamental limits, conservation laws and constraints. So it was natural for me to frame the challenge of lifestyle design for myself with this time-money Pareto frontier diagram. 

I’ve been criticized in the past for talking a lot about lifestyle design, and critiquing others’ ideas, but never actually adopting a definite position myself. So I am about to start taking one. In honor of my new home and the central role of gambling and risk-taking in my model, I am calling it the Las Vegas Rules.

I am going to bite off one little piece at a time, and point out differences compared to other models as I go along. This time, I just want to talk about the role of gambling in lifestyle design.

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Review at Zenpundit.com

Mark Safranksi at zenpundit posted a review of Tempo.

TEMPO is in my view, an important book that deserves to be widely read in the community concerned with strategic theory, professional military education and operational campaign design. Not everything Rao discusses in TEMPO fits with the manner in which strategic discussions are commonly expressed or has immediate application to all questions of tactics or strategy faced by all ranks of soldiers or statesmen. No book could do that and Rao’s scientific background and interests preclude that kind of subcultural intimacy, but TEMPO will sharpen the reader’s awareness of their own thinking and the situational dynamics in which strategic and tactical decision making must occur. TEMPO seeks to clarify and succeeds.

Strongly recommended.

Dulce Domum

Post comments on the original post on the Tempo blog.

I haven’t liveblogged much of the last week of the road trip, primarily because I was doing broader ribbonfarmesque things, rather than meeting readers. Expect to see some blog posts out of my travels between Omaha, NE and Jackson, WY soon, both here and over at Tempo blog.

I am now in Vegas, and I’ll be here for a few weeks before hitting the west coast. All our stuff is currently in storage, and we are subletting a part of our in-laws’ house for a few months while we figure things out.  Arriving in Vegas felt strange. It wasn’t like coming home because it isn’t my home. Over the years, I’ve moved so many times (14 times in the last 14 years, across 5 cities, so an average of once a year) that my sense of place and home has mostly been about a few possessions that have traveled with me through all of them.  Getting used to true nomadism and living out of others’ homes for the last 3 weeks has deepened that sense of comfortable rootlessness. Now I am going to be living in limbo for about 6 months.

These thoughts reminded me of one of my favorite chapters in The Wind in the Willows, “Dulce Domum” (Sweet Home), which is about the sudden attack of homesickness that descends on one of the characters, the Mole, after he’s been on the road having adventures for way too long. Sample this chapter.  You don’t need to understand the plot or characters to appreciate this chapter. Here’s a particularly eloquent chapter.

Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the River! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morn ing he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness! Shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his day’s work. And the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back, and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger; only with plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him.

The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and go. “Ratty!” he called, full of joyful excitement, “hold on! Come back! I want you, quick!”

“Oh, come along, Mole, do!” replied the Rat cheerfully, still plodding along.

Please stop, Ratty!” pleaded the poor Mole, in anguish of heart. “You don’t understand! It’s my home, my old home! I’ve just come across the smell of it, and it’s close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it, I must, I must! Oh, come back, Ratty! Please, please come back!”

The Rat was by this time very far ahead, too far to hear clearly what the Mole was calling, too far to catch the sharp note of painful appeal in his voice. And he was much taken up with the weather, for he too, could smell something—something suspiciously like approaching snow.

“Mole, we mustn’t stop now, really!” he called back. “We’ll come for it to-morrow, whatever it is you’ve found. But I daren’t stop now—it’s late, and the snow’s coming on again, and I’m not sure of the way! And I want your nose, Mole, so come on quick, there’s a good fellow!” And the Rat pressed forward on his way without waiting for an answer.

Dulce Domum

I haven’t liveblogged much of the last week of the road trip, primarily because I was doing broader ribbonfarmesque things, rather than meeting readers. Expect to see some blog posts out of my travels between Omaha, NE and Jackson, WY soon, both here and over at ribbonfarm.

I am now in Vegas, and I’ll be here for a few weeks before hitting the west coast. All our stuff is currently in storage, and we are subletting a part of our in-laws’ house for a few months while we figure things out.  Arriving in Vegas felt strange. It wasn’t like coming home because it isn’t my home. Over the years, I’ve moved so many times (14 times in the last 14 years, across 5 cities, so an average of once a year) that my sense of place and home has mostly been about a few possessions that have traveled with me through all of them.  Getting used to true nomadism and living out of others’ homes for the last 3 weeks has deepened that sense of comfortable rootlessness. Now I am going to be living in limbo for about 6 months.

These thoughts reminded me of one of my favorite chapters in The Wind in the Willows, “Dulce Domum” (Sweet Home), which is about the sudden attack of homesickness that descends on one of the characters, the Mole, after he’s been on the road having adventures for way too long. Sample this chapter.  You don’t need to understand the plot or characters to appreciate this chapter. Here’s a particularly eloquent chapter.

Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the River! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morn ing he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness! Shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his day’s work. And the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back, and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger; only with plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him.

The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and go. “Ratty!” he called, full of joyful excitement, “hold on! Come back! I want you, quick!”

“Oh, come along, Mole, do!” replied the Rat cheerfully, still plodding along.

Please stop, Ratty!” pleaded the poor Mole, in anguish of heart. “You don’t understand! It’s my home, my old home! I’ve just come across the smell of it, and it’s close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it, I must, I must! Oh, come back, Ratty! Please, please come back!”

The Rat was by this time very far ahead, too far to hear clearly what the Mole was calling, too far to catch the sharp note of painful appeal in his voice. And he was much taken up with the weather, for he too, could smell something—something suspiciously like approaching snow.

“Mole, we mustn’t stop now, really!” he called back. “We’ll come for it to-morrow, whatever it is you’ve found. But I daren’t stop now—it’s late, and the snow’s coming on again, and I’m not sure of the way! And I want your nose, Mole, so come on quick, there’s a good fellow!” And the Rat pressed forward on his way without waiting for an answer.

 

IARPA Starts Metaphor-Based Decision-Making Research

HT: Hosh Hsiao, Apple of my eye? US fancies a huge metaphor repository.

In the end the program should produce a methodology, tools and techniques together with a prototype system that will identify metaphors that provide insight into cultural beliefs. It should also help build structured framework that organizes the metaphors associated with the various dimensions of an analytic problem and build a metaphor repository where all metaphors and related information are captured for future reference and access, IARPA stated.

“For decision makers to be effective in a world of mass communication and global interaction, they must understand the shared concepts and worldviews of members of other cultures of interest. Recognizing cultural norms is a significant challenge, however, because they tend to be hidden.  We tend to notice them only when they are in conflict with the norms of other cultures. Such differences may cause discomfort or frustration and may lead to flawed interpretations about the intent or motivation of others. The Metaphor Program will exploit the use of metaphors by different cultures to gain insight into their cultural norms,” IARPA says.

The Metaphor Program is divided into two phases, totaling 60 months, and is intended to begin in November 2011.

Timepass and Boredom

HT Justin Pickard, Timepass and Boredom in Modern India.

This seems very similar to Robert Levine’s The Geography of Time in spirit, but more of a drill-down into a particular regional kind of time.

Boredom is experienced in relation to modern clock time.  Time drags because it seems to pass much more slowly than the clock or calendar says it should.  The ‘traditional’ time of pre-modern India is different, however, and Nita Kumar, who worked among artisans in Banaras in the 1980s, has captured it as well as anyone.  Banaras people, she says, are notorious for their unpunctuality and never care about waiting.  But that is not because ‘time has no importance for these people.  It is rather that time is too important; it cannot be sacrificed for this or that purpose arbitrarily; it has to be lived to the full, every bit of it …  There is no hurry, no sense of time slipping or flying by, or rushing by like a stream: there is no such thing as “time”.  It is not an external that controls you.  It is inside you in that it is a way of feeling.  The way you feel, what you are moved to do, is what time it is.’[11] At first glance, the Banaras artisans’ outings and recreations look like old-fashioned forms of timepass.  But they are not; not only is timepass about time dragging, rather than flying by, but more crucially it is about time as pointless, external and controlling – which is exactly the opposite of the traditional sense described by Kumar.

The article is about the idea of “timepass” in India, what Americans might call “killing time.” The author traces the term to around 1990, but I vaguely recall hearing it well before that. In Bombay at least, in the specific context of peanuts sold as an idle-munching snack (the street vendors call out, “timepass” so it is a synonym for roasted peanuts), I think it goes much further back.

My Competition?

Screen_shot_2011-05-16_at_8

HT, Deepak Jois (who works for Amazon incidentally). My favorite is the "Tempo Multi-Use Pest Control Insecticide."

“Ready, Fire, Aim,” with Wild Bill

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I started this road trip at John Boyd’s gravesite in Arlington Cemetery. Now I am at another cemetery, that of Wild Bill Hickock in Deadwood. After watching David Carradine’s brief but brilliant portrayal in the eponymous HBO show, I came to truly appreciate the cowboy archetype. Underneath the tackiness of pop American gunslinger lore is a much deeper decision-making doctrine. There’s a reason “Ready, Fire, Aim” has become a larger philosophy in areas like stock-trading and entrepreneurship. In another age, Wild Bill might have John Boyd or Jack Welch.

How Clock Time Replaced Narrative Time

A central idea in Tempo is that of “narrative time,” which used to be the default approach to time till the mid 19th century. In my research for the book, I read up on how railroads (American railroads in particular) helped drive us to a universal clock time standard. So it was particularly nice to find this exhibit on time and the railroads at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa (just over the state line from Omaha, Nebraska, well worth a visit. It’s free and in some ways way more interesting than the more popular Durham museum in Omaha). I am now in North Platte, Nebraska, four hours west of Omaha, for another visit to Bailey Yard. I was here last year and blogged about it, but I have slightly more ambitious photography plans this year.

Smalltalk with Gary and Harpreet

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Gary Overgard got in touch just as I was concluding I had no readers in Omaha. We had an excellent lunch along with Harpreet Singh, a quasi-reader (Gary forwards him my stuff on occasion; it’s been interesting meeting such 1-degree removed readers on the trip). Both are Smalltalk programmers, hence my amazingly clever joke.

Incidentally, Gary discovered my writing via his son. This might be the first two-generation reader family I’ve met.

Timing is everything. Apparently I do have a reader in St. Louis, but Akshita contacted me just a little too late, a few hours after I blew town.