Sample fact: The time American’s spend watching television commercials every weekend is approximately equal to the entire time spent in creating Wikipedia to date.

Rule of thumb: “Doing anything is better than doing nothing.” “It’s better to do something than to do nothing.”

Via Jason Sutter who lives in New Zealand but shows up in my feed of blogs local to my zip code.

Update – 28 April 2008 Here (via Gruber) is a link to the text of the talk. Also, the quoted rule of thumb is corrected.

• It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
• If a prospective presidential approach can’t be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn’t been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won’t “sail” anyway. Send it back for further thought.

For an examples of these rule in action any standard history of the Iraq fiasco, although the second sentence of the second rule was obviously violated. The operative principle there was, “If you have some half-baked idea with absolutely no evidence to support it that you want to ‘sail’, get someone with a national reputation to tell a tale of outright lies.”

Perhaps that rule should be attributed to Rove (or Orwell.)

[Comments closed March 7, 2007. Spammers seem to love this topic.]

[Fixed a typo, August 20, 2007. On the plus side, I am the first result when you search for prospecIftive.]

Keep going the way you were going.

Since this situation may depend entirely on the boundary conditions, here is the example that I am considering. You are walking down the street and arrive at a crossing with a four way stop. You can continue in the direction you were headed, or you can cross the street running parallel to your direction of travel. Either choice will bring you closer to your destination. This case isn’t covered by the previous rule, because both turns are available.

The reason that you keep going the way you were going is that doing that allows you to retain the option to turn in the future. You retain the option of applying the first available turn rule.

Is this still true if I relax the constraints of the rectilinear grid of city streets and traffic signals? I don’t know.

What about if I remove the constraint of navigation?

When your doctor resorts to anecdotal evidence, it is a bad sign.

You can’t argue with an anecdote.

Demand data. It you can’t get data, get a new doctor. If you can’t get a discussion, run. Your doctor is not living in a culture of truth. They have become accustomed to people believing what they say without challenge and they have stopped learning. Whatever the outcome in your case will be filtered through their preconceptions to reinforce their existing opinion.

Press for real data and actual research.

Clockwise depends on your point of view.

If you tell me that you rode your bike clockwise around Lake Tahoe, starting from South Lake Tahoe, I don’t know whether you went along the east shore from North to South or vice-versa. It depends on your point of view. Are you looking down on the lake from above, or up from below.

Everyone assumes a point of view looking down. Why? I don’t know.

Take the first available turn.

Easiest example: You are on the corner of a city sidewalk, at an intersection controlled by a traffic signal, headed for some destination on the catty-corner block. To reach your destination the most quickly, you should cross the first way that becomes available.

There are corner cases where this isn’t the fastest way to your destination – trivial example, there is no crosswalk at the second crossing in one direction – but generally, this rule will get you to your destination the fastest.

Easy example: You are traveling, on foot, across town. Assuming your town is based on a rectangular grid, and that there are no known street closings. You should always take the first available crossing that is on your way.

There are a number of assumptions that are forced on the problem by the city streetscape. 1) The two turnings are equivalent – the streets are regular, whether I walk west on Walnut, or north on 12th, I can proceed at the same velocity toward my goal. 2) The rectangular grid of the city streets means that I travel the same distance whether I walk west first and north second, or vice-versa. 3) The traffic signals introduce a waiting period when I am not moving toward my destination.

The waiting time is the only difference between traveling north or west. I travel a constant distance and my speed while moving is fixed. To reach my goal the fastest, on average, I seek to minimize waiting. At each street corner, I take the first available turn.

Hard example: Remove the grid, remove the regularity, and consider only that I am constrained to move so that some component of my movement is toward my destination. (I can’t go past it or away from it. I know no particulars of what streets are closed, what streets are clogged with protesters, which road curves around the mountain, or which rises over it. To reach my goal the fastest, on average, I seek to minimize waiting. At each corner, I take the first available turn.

Hardest example: Remove the walking, remove the roads, and let the destination be anything – a hope, a dream, any goal at all. I know nothing except the direction from my current position. To reach my goal the fastest, on average, I seek to minimize waiting. At each decision point, I take the first available turn.

Can I prove this? Well, no. I think I could prove the easiest case, I might be able to work for a while and prove the easier case, I might be able to simulate the hard case, and the hardest case – no.

Still this is a pretty reasonable rule of thumb.

This rule applies to those of us who lose our socks. If you always wear each pair out at the heal or toe (and don’t know how to darn) then get another rule.

Why it works for me. I buy two pair, call them pair A and pair B. Sometimes I will wear sock A1 with sock B2, sometimes A1 with A2, sometimes B1. It doesn’t matter. The socks are identical.

Inevitably, I will lose one sock. This is 1 sock life. If I had only bought a single pair, I would throw the remaining sock away. As it is, after 1 sock life, I have three remaining socks.

Repeat. After 2 sock lives, I have two remaining socks, a whole pair. These 2 socks are a bonus pair, one full sock life.

If buy 3 identical pairs, you get two bonus lives, etc. I usually buy 3 pair, any more, they don’t fit so well in my drawer and I don’t necessarily want to wear the same pattern every day.

Don’t thank someone for actions that they have taken on their own behalf and for their own reasons.

This isn’t the crispest expression of what I am going for so here is an example. There was one member of the group who would always thank me. He would thank me for showing up and thank me for working hard. He would thank for what I had done with him last week and thank me for doing someone else a favor.

I found this insulting. He didn’t have more ownership of the group than I did. I didn’t show up or work hard for him. I didn’t work with him for his benefit and I didn’t do someone else a favor for him. I did it for myself and for the personal satisfaction that I derived from the doing.

My mother insisted that I always say “Please” and “Thank you.” I want my children to do the same. The difference between “Water” and “Water, please” is enormous. I believe in etiquette. I worship Miss Manners. I don’t want to be thanked for doing what I want to do.

There was something distancing about these thanks. The thanks implied that he had more ownership of the group than I did. This was insulting.

I have often thought about this phenomenon. I don’t think that this precise situation comes up that often, but it does come up and I am not confident that I know how to handle it. When in the little man’s classroom the parents cooperate to fulfill some school need, do I thank the parents that contribute? Does it matter if I was the organizer? What about getting an anouncement in the school newsletter thanking all the parents?

I think no when all parents cooperate and yes to a mention in the newsletter. I am not sure about what to do when I was the organizer.