52 Things I Learned in 2019

I would like to think that I learned more than 52 things last year. Nevertheless, here are 52 notable ones.

1. "The British Empire At Its Territorial Peak Covered Nearly The Same Area As The Moon".

2. Manhattan reached its peak population about 100 years ago.

3. The Millennial Generation exhibits preferences for consumption that are very similar to previous generations. This includes a demand for cars, work preferences, and where to live (suburbs versus the high-density urban core).

4. Army ants "commit" suicide.

5. A quantum physics experiment suggests that objective reality doesn't exist. (categorize my "learning" this as superficial at best)

6. The average state prisoner's time served in prison is surprisingly low.

7. The asteroid that about sixty-six million years ago struck the Yucatán peninsula killed over 99.9999% of all living things and unleashed the energy of about 1,000,000,000 Hiroshima bombs.

8. "The vast majority of roads in Sweden and Finland are operated by the private sector and maintained by local communities".

9. Speaking of socialist paradises, Sweden sharply rejected socialism decades ago in favor of capitalism.

10. All perching bird species, about 60% of all birds, may have come from Australia.

11. "Books don't work".

12. Pork Bellies Futures stopped being traded in 2011. Better tell The Dukes.

13. Girl's comparative advantage in reading can explain the math gender gap. I learned a lot from Alex Tabarrok this past year.

14. Adding to the number of whales in the oceans could significantly help reduce CO2.

15. Speaking of whales, the Soviet Union illegally killed over 180,000 whales simply to say they did it.

16. It is overall faster, safer, and more efficient for people to stand rather than walk up the escalator.

17. A great use case for blockchain is insurance markets.

18. Total energy use in the United States is essentially flat for the last decade. And this amazing trend is true of many other resources despite the economy bring much larger today.

19. Mathematicians actually have a system to rate how "crackpot" a theory is.

20. I knew it is false that we only use about 10% of our brain, but I did not know a lot of these neuromyths including that it is false that Individual learners show preferences for the mode in which they receive information (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic).

21. There are perhaps "600 new academic philosophy articles and books written per week in the English-speaking world, or over 30,000 a year".

22. Breathalyzers should not be trusted.

23. Rod Stewart is into model trains.

24. Injuries should be moved (not rested), allowed inflammation (don't ice)--RICE is a myth. More here.

25. You CAN yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. This has never been a First Amendment exception in the law.

26. Converting "dog years" to "human years" is not dog age in years times seven, but there is a way to do the conversion.

27. Pasta should be made starting in cold water--not dropping it into boiling water like so many recipe boxes say.

28. The Eiffel Tower, the tallest building in the world for more than 40 years, was built in 2 years and 2 months at a 2019 cost of only about $40 million. There are more amazing speeds of things being brought to life at the link.

29. About 30,000 people each day escape poverty.

30. Turkeys (birds) are named after the country.

31. The main benefit of circumcision is a potentially significant reduction in the risk of penile cancer.

32. The magnitude of personality differences between males and females is large and significant.

33. Sydney, Australia has more foreign-born residents than all of mainland China.

34. Germany owns no nuclear weapons itself, but it does have U.S. nukes that it can use at a moment's notice.

35. The Pilgrims' first encounter with a Native American was him asking if they had any beer.

36. The cost of a standard Thanksgiving dinner was virtually unchanged from 2018 to 2019 rising just one penny.

37. Blind people can hear at an extraordinarily high speed.

38. U.S. life expectancy peaked in 2014, and the death rate of middle-aged Americans has risen for three straight years.

39. Andrew Garrido learned to play the piano without a piano and is now at one of the world’s leading conservatoires.

40. The finest chocolate should be eaten by letting it melt in your mouth never chewing.

41. The placebo effect works even when you tell people they are using a placebo.

42. The nuclear ban in Japan following Fukushima killed more people due to higher electricity prices than the nuclear accident itself.

43. It is a myth that Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime.

44. "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" is about a single woman who loves baseball and is bucking societal norms. As such, it should be celebrated for its pro-feminist message.

45. It is NOT true that failing to take an entire prescribed antibiotic course risks antibiotic-resistance in bacteria.

46. Brazil has more than 60,000 murders per year--more than a good share of the rest of the world combined.

47. The average age for founding entrepreneurs at companies that go on to hire at least one employee is 41.9.

48. World War I was not the deadliest war up to that point--the Taiping Rebellion some 50-years before it was much worse.

49. In 2003 a group of young artists built a secret apartment inside a mall in Providence, RI and lived in it for days at a time for years.

50. Most modern practices and rules of dentistry have very weak to no scientific basis.

51. Hundreds of American cities are (thankfully) abandoning recycling efforts.

52. And finally:

Canning of food began as early as 1812

The can opener was not invented until 1855

In between, cans were opened with hammer & chisel (!) pic.twitter.com/kteOTA3g6o

— Jason Crawford (@jasoncrawford) December 26, 2019

I'm already well into learning things in 2020. I hope you are too!

Keep Looking Until You See It

Once you have a guess, scroll below for the answer . . .

Like A Boss: Universal Rules For Looking The Part

Robin Hanson & Kevin Simler may understand this... 

Borrowing heavily from my memory of an article I believe I read in Fortune ("acting like a CEO" or something) about 15+ years ago. You can take this as advice, observation, criticism, or any way you like. I am not singling anyone out in particular, but if the shoe fits...

1. Laughter is poor form. Shows a lack of control. At best smirk with a "hmph", which could be mistaken for a throat clear. If a slight chortle escapes, shake your head as if to deny the appropriateness of it. Any accidental laughter should leave witnesses unsure if you thought it humorous or thought it humorous that one would think it to be humorous. Never, NEVER giggle.
2. Avoid any hint of sarcasm and give no indication of any appreciation or even perception for it. 
3. Refrain from eating sweets in front of others. Act as if to show the slightest attraction to a dessert is to yield to all childish pleasures and reveal a total lack of control. 
4. Your enthusiasm is just matter-of-fact support for those things self-evidently worthy of praise. You are a charter member of Team Winners. If "they" fail to succeed, it is simply due to some lack of confidence they shamefully did not possess--a concern you had all along. 
5. In circumstances when normal humans are overcome with visible worry or anxiousness, you are overcome with calm. Emotions are for the weak. You are a stoic. 
6. If asked to give a solution to a hypothetical problem, instead of a direct answer just reflect poignantly on how you would build a process for avoiding such dilemmas from the start. If asked to give advice, challenge the presumptions behind the question. Never waste an opportunity to obfuscate and go meta.
7. Never bring your own copies of materials to a meeting. If it is important enough for you to need it, it is important enough that someone will provide it. 
8. Play dumb if you can use that to your advantage to put an adversary or underling on edge. 

The Beary Best

Partial list of the best bears:

• Walter Payton (heroically)
• Winnie-the-Poo (philosophically)
• Fozzie Bear (comedically)
• Grumpy Bear (contrarily)
• Hair Bears (rebelliously)
• Baloo (fatherly)
• Da 1908 Cubs (aspirationally)
• Da 1985 Bears (musically)
• Smokey the Bear (dictatorially . . . err, maybe this one)
• Gummy Bears (deliciously)
• [updated to add] Water Bears (indestructibly)

My strange mind had thought of this some time ago, but it was Bearmageddon's appearance on The Remnant Podcast with Jonah Goldberg that inspired me to post it.

What Are You Signaling By Your Sport of Choice?

This is meant to be primarily tongue-in-cheek, but if the shoe fits...

• Football - I am in the tribe of macho
• Basketball - I am a socialite sports fan
• Soccer - I am worldly and sophisticated
• Baseball - I am in love with Americana and yearn for the ways of the past
• Golf - I am elitist (by desire/choice or caste)
• Hockey - I am accepting of violence to solve problems
• NASCAR - I am intolerant
• Formula 1 - I am tolerant, no really, I swear I am
• Horse racing - I am superstitious
• Boxing and MMA - I am accepting of violence as an ends in itself
• Wrestling - I am in the true tribe of macho
• Tennis - I am a true socialite sports fan
• Olympics - I am a fan of theater

I don't know enough to hazard a guess on these: Cricket, Rugby (probably the same as American football), Field Hockey, et al.

Ranking College Football Programs - 1970-2018

It is about time that I updated my previous work on ranking college football programs.

Recalling the methodology from before, I am attempting to answer who's better, who's best. I am limiting the data set to my generation (1970 through 2018) because it happens to coincide with what I believe is the modern era of college football. To rank the teams I use average margin of victory. Opinions could differ, but who are you to criticize? Join together with your like-minded brethren to create your own list. Just be objective rather than try to fool us again with some anyway, anyhow, anywhere to make your team come out on top.

The results are below and the spreadsheet with the full analysis is here.

Since 1970:

Since 1998 (BCS and College Football Playoff era):

Since 2014 (College Football Playoff era):

The State of Sooner Football

About nine months ago I began writing this post in rough form following a pair of painful and disappointing losses to begin the 2016 Sooner football season. I refined it a bit about midway through the season, but as prospects were improving, I put it back on the shelf not wanting to post something that seemed too critical during a season-comeback effort. The post is more about the long run trend than the short run noise (good or bad). With today's news it seems appropriate to consider the thought experiment...

Bob Stoops has chosen to retire. His contributions to OU have been tremendous. I am and always have been a very strong fan and supporter of Stoops--at times perhaps an apologist. I will miss him being on my team's sideline. He reawakened The Monster. He was an innovator. On the field and off the field he pursued and achieved excellence. Looking back at his tenure it is easy to pine for what could have been. But the fair reflection would be to consider that it is only because of what did happen are we as fans in a position to regret what could have been--his leadership brought OU to such heights that we could see mountain tops yet to climb. [sappy but true]

Here is the post I originally started last football season; the strong finish to the 2016 season, sadly Bob Stoops last, caused me to revise my priors somewhat...

Starting with the premise that OU's expectations of championship-level football have not been met during the last 8 years (2009-2016); what is the explanation? 

Make no mistake about it, the past 8 years have been at a VERY high level of success--what 95% of teams would consider completely satisfying and what >50% of teams could never dream of: 

• 81-24 overall record--77%.
• 5-3 bowl record (bowl game every year including 4 major bowls).
• 1 national championship competed for (lost to Clemson in semifinals).
• 4 conference titles; competitive (my view) 5 of 8 years (50%!!! but against a debilitated league).
• Record breaking performances by both the team and individuals including several players competing for top national awards--the Heisman among them. (My views on the Heisman reflect why this is an after thought in this list.)

Yet the prior 10 years were stronger: 

• 109-24 overall record--82%.
• 4-6 bowl record (bowl game every year including 7 major bowls).
• 4 national championships competed for (won against Florida St.; lost to LSU, USC, and Florida).
• 6 conference titles; competitive 9 of 10 years (60%!!! against a very tough league)
• Even more record breaking performances and quite a few more awards won including two Heismans, FWIW.

The records are both great and quite close except for the nuance that OU's contention for titles (national and conference) was much stronger. 

So, given the premise, I can think of three possibilities and two alternatives:

1. The Sooners have simply been unlucky the past 8 years.

2. They were lucky in the beginning of the Stoops era (the first 10 years before the last 8 years) and the ability to reach OU's lofty expectations simply was never there.

3. They were up to fulfilling expectations at the beginning of the Stoops era but now they have faded in capabilities (the game as passed them by).

Alternatively we could say:

4. The premise is bad because they actually have been competing at a championship level--just less completely as might be possible/desired (i.e., too few championships achieved).

5. The expectation was faulty (i.e., they shouldn't expect to compete at a championship level).

I hope for 1, fear 2, and slightly suspect 3, but I highly suspect 4 and strongly reject 5. That puts me in possibility 1 assuming the premise and alternative 4 if I can question it.

Assuming the premise, my guess is about 70% of all Sooner fans fall into possibility 1, about 10% fall into 2, and about 20% fall into 3. But these answers would have been significantly different if looked at right after the loss to Ohio State and a 1-2 start to the 2016 season.

 

Allowing for the alternatives, I would then guess that the assignment of Sooner fans would be about like this:

Possibility	% of Fans
1	50%
2	7%
3	18%
4	20%
5	5%

The fans that don't jump from possibility 1 to possibility 4 once we allow the questioning of the premise probably have unrealistic expectations--they think their team should ALWAYS win. I am tempted to dismiss these folks as fans who think the winning team "just wanted it more". I am tempted to dismiss fans who jump to possibility 5 (presumably from possibilities 2 or 3) as fans who would be happier rooting for a much lesser team so as to increase the emotional gain from a win and decrease the emotional pain of a loss (i.e., no true Sooners).

All fans will make their own evaluations over the course of the Lincoln Riley era, though, probably not with the formality I bring to the matter. And the measure will be how does that era match up to all 18 amazing years under Stoops. I wish Bob the best and thank him for the happiness he brought me as a fan.

I wish Lincoln luck. I fully expect that he has what it takes to keep the Sooners' status as a contender, but satisfying The Monster takes more than ability. It takes luck.

Boomer Sooner!

Highly Linkable - Philosophy Edition

Rounding out our series of link posts to get us caught up we have this. Enjoy!

Begin with Bryan Caplan making a claim against animal rights. The brilliant Mike Huemer then replied. Caplan counters. Then Huemer. Then Caplan. Then . . . you get the picture. By the time I got to this one, I was surprisingly receptive to Huemer's position. But I think Caplan edges the stronger case. I learned something. Perhaps you will too.

And now two from Scott Sumner (Who incidentally was the keynote speaker at CFA Society Oklahoma's annual dinner held last week. He did a fine job as is no surprise.)

In the first you may be surprised at what "primitive culture" he is aiming his argument.

In the second we see how the possibility of surprising information makes all knowledge subjective where a probability spectrum rather than two realms (certainty and uncertainty) delineates what we know.

...writing post title...quit check of email and facebook...back to post - 2016 Resolution Fulfillment

For the longest time I have held myself out as a master multitasker. Part of this was probably because being able to do more than one thing well at one time simply has to be superior to being only a unitasker. I share Alton Brown's loathing of unitaskers in the kitchen. [bonus points if you know the one unitasker he allows in the kitchen]

But I have had a volte–face: I now believe that multitasking is a bug rather than a feature. (I still share Alton's view regarding kitchen gear.)

My wandering mind is not the juggling Jedi I hold it out to be. Rather it is a bungling, distracted toddler that needs to concentrate for best results. As with all things of this nature it is a matter of degree along a spectrum rather than an absolute dichotomy. And to that end I have moved decisively from the position that multitasking is desirable (i.e., good performance at multiple tasks done in concert is possible) to the position that unitasking is desirable.

How well something can be done is directly proportional to how singularly it can be focused upon. Adding complexity is not an efficient way to use up slack resources (spare brain power, excess stress aptitude, extra time, etc.). It is simply a way to make the success in the original task less likely.

And of course there are TED Talks on the subject. The Instant Gratification Monkey will make you laugh as it indirectly touches on my position. This one really gets to the multitasking points about the 6 minute mark--so feel free to shop on Amazon while it plays in the background until that point.

Welcome Back

So it is, I return. Been away awhile. Way longer than desired, but I found my way back. The names have changed since I hung around. My dreams might have been my ticket out, but they remained and turned me around. I have come home.

No, dear reader, I don't mean this return to blogging; although it might equally apply. Rather the hiatus from blogging was largely driven by a return to where I live. Back around the time of the last post, we began searching in growing earnest for a destination home in Norman, OK. We found that home, just a couple blocks from campus and all the eclectic life that brings.

We always knew we'd make the move, but always found reasons to postpone. Until one day, we didn't. We let one thing lead to another and all of a sudden we stopped dreaming and started pursuing.

Financially we could have waited longer--way longer. We could have taken a stepping-stone path into a smaller place not quite so close and not quite so right. Remember that quote about playing it safe and letting life happen to you? I don't either.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Perfectly Unperfect

A new year begins, another challenge arises to fulfill my perpetual annual resolution. Here is how I achieved it (changing my mind on a strongly-held belief).

I have always had perfectionist tendencies. For a while when I was younger, they were quite strong. I beat them back. But the tendency remained. And I reconciled that with the belief that it was a positive quality. That striving for perfection, in good measure, was an enhancement to achieving my goals. 

The better I've come to understand failure, the more I have doubted perfectionism. I now no longer belief it is a positive quality. My aha moment came last year while reading Megan McArdle's book, The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success. (Imperfection confession: I haven't finished the book yet. My reading discipline is far from perfect.)

The better you are at something the naturally higher-quality your work will be. Trying to make it perfect is a waste of time. Striving to be perfect is a fool's errand. Generally if editing requires more resources than the original creation, then the endeavor was a failure to begin with.

Effective is underrated. "Easy to Fix" is generally far better in all respects than "Hard to Break". 

Don't get me wrong; working hard is a virtue. Striving for improvement even after much has already been achieved is a desirable quality--when well balanced against the cost. Perfectionism is a different animal. In fact it is an alien to both this world and this universe. It is simply the drive to get more than can be expected. It is alchemy masquerading as practice. 

PS. As a corollary I have also always had completionist tendencies. However, in that case I've known for quite a while that it is a negative quality, but I've struggled to have the resolve to fight it. Tyler Cowen is a role model to follow in this regard (check out the transcript (or listen) at 19:01). It was listening to Penn Jillette's podcast Penn's Sunday School last year that got me thinking a lot about completionism. Penn is a classic example as he will readily admit. He says visiting a museum with him is torture because he insists on reading each and every display fully. 

Not Exactly The Monty Hall Problem

This New Year's Eve is the opening round for this season's College Football Playoff. Oklahoma will play Clemson followed by Alabama playing Michigan State. The two winners will then face off for the National Championship 10 days later.

Since my Sooners are in the playoff this year, I've been thinking a lot about it. One random thought that crossed my mind was a bit of a logic puzzle. Read it through and answer quickly, and then think about it a while to see if you would like to revise that answer.

Suppose the following:

You are a fan of one of the teams in this year's playoff. One night while dreaming a genie with light-brown hair appears before you offering a choice among a few options*. The one you choose will be the future.

The options are:

A. Your team's total points scored in the playoff will be 75 points.

B. Your team's total points scored in the first game will be at least 50 points.

C. Your team's total points scored in the playoff will be 75 points, and at least 50 points will be scored in the first game. 

D. Your team's total points scored in the playoff will be 50 points, and you can choose how many to allot to each game.

Which do you take, and can the options be objectively ordered from best to worst?

My answers are below the jump.


*It is helpful to know a little bit about college football to fully appreciate this puzzle. The average points scored by winning teams is about 37 while the average points scored by losing teams is about 19. The lowest final score a team can have is 0 and the next lowest is 2 (a score of 1 is not possible). There are no ties in college football--overtime is played until a victor is determined. Last year out of 776 games played in the highest division of college football (the one of relevance here) a team scored 50 points or more 150 times and only 7 times did that team lose. Also last year a team scored 25 points or fewer 698 times and 564 times that team lost. Note that my data does not include the bowl and playoff games from last year.

Get Busy Living . . .

Sunday evening my grandfather passed away. Today was his funeral. I thought I would post the eulogy I gave as a memorial to him.

Ben Smith Eulogy

My grandfather, Ben Smith, was bigger than life. There is no better way to describe him. If you met him, you didn’t forget him. He was someone who always made a strong impression. This was in part because he was a strong personality but more importantly it was because he was genuine. He was honest to his core. Honest about who he was, who he was not, what he liked, what he did not, what he expected of you, and what you could expect of him. There was nothing fake, artificial, or put on about Ben Smith.

For a few moments I would like to give a small picture of this man relating a story to each of a few words that I believe aptly but not fully describe him. This is itself in veneration for him because he was such a wonderful storyteller. He had an amazing memory and a great ability to tell a story in a compelling manner. His knowledge of local history, immense wisdom, and unique way he experienced life for 93 years will be greatly missed.

FEAR: Like all of us, Ben Smith had his demons, but like him his were bold, and they shaped his life distinctly. Foremost among these demons was the hurt and confusion that came at age five when his father left the family never to be heard from again. He would cling to the few memories he had as the absence haunted him his whole life. Out of this came a principal he would firmly live and promote in his law practice—family was paramount and a man should always standby his family. That he did.

There were other fears. When he was born, he had a heart murmur. The doctors’ and his family’s fears for his health would lead him to be held out of sports, not allowed to “play too hard”, and told he was sickly. Their fears led to Ben developing a fear of imminent, early death. Despite or perhaps in defiance of this, he proved it quite wrong.

Ben Smith . . . He was always “grandpa” to me, but I’ll say his name a lot because he used to put his name on everything he owned, which actually wasn’t a lot. He was . . . frugal. He was very careful with his money. VERY CAREFUL. He was not someone to spend money including on himself. By any reasonable measure he lived a life of material deprivation. Growing up in the Dust Bowl and the depths of the great depression gave him a fear of economic ruin. This was the source of his frugality. He would proudly tell you that he never signed a promissory note in his life. He was never in debt. He never, ever bought anything on credit.

There were other demons he fought. He was a horrible swimmer; so of course he joined the navy. The things he saw in World War II gave him nightmares that would wake him in terror the rest of his life. Despite an upbringing in an era that embraced racism and other forms of prejudice and himself being a child of that era, he grew up to be a lawyer whose clients were among the most vulnerable including racial minorities, single mothers, and disabled veterans. His clients were the poor, the downtrodden. He faithfully fought for the little guy. He showed kindness to those who needed it most.

Ben Smith wasn’t ruled by fear; he wasn’t conquered by demons. These stories aren’t about fear; they aren’t about demons. They are about defiance. Ben Smith was defiant.

DETERMINED: Visiting a wounded friend in the hospital during the war, he saw a beautiful nurse. She had recently lost her fiancé and had no desire for a relationship. But he was determined and told her he would sit on the stairs outside the building refusing to leave until she went out with him. She did. He was married to this nurse, my grandmother, for 66 years.

Determined . . . One might say hardheaded. At times that was indeed true. Once he set his mind to something, it happened—one way or another. He had a saying that he tried in vain to live up to: If at first you don’t succeed, try a few more times and then quit—no sense making an ass of yourself. Like, say, when the city was tearing out the interurban streetcar lines, he decided a piece of rail standing vertically in his yard would look nice. So he went down to the construction site, cut a 25-foot section of rail, tied it to the bottom of his car, dragged it 10 miles scrapping a gash in the street the whole way. Then he had to get it to stand up in the eight-foot hole he had dug. As he struggled to get this several-ton piece of iron into position, he decided to call a wrecker to help. The wrecker itself tipped over getting the rail into position. He cemented it into place, built a planter around it, put a weathervane on it, and it stands to this day. Ben Smith was determined.

HARD WORKER: Work was his drive and his lifeblood. He hated sports. He hated fiction. He hated television (except for Sesame Street, All in the Family, Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street Week, and perhaps a couple of others). He wasn’t interested in watching other people do things because he was a doer. He wanted to make things.

He built a house, basically by himself with the help of his wife, young daughter, and the occasional mailman who always just happened to be walking by when he needed to raise a wall. He built a law practice, a tax practice, and a real estate office. He built flower planters and storage barns. He carved wooden sculptures. He grafted pecans. He grew an orchard. He must hold the record for the most entries in the county and state fairs because he had no fewer than 100 blue ribbons.

And of course he had his farm where when most men are slowing down in life, he was just getting started. At age 63 he embarked on a series of projects at his Coal County getaway that included three log cabins, a stone cabin, several rock-retaining walls, and four stone bridges including one Roman-arch bridge strong enough to allow construction trucks to cross. All of them built by hand with no more machinery than a pickup truck and a chainsaw. I remember many trips as a child to those fun, spooky, challenging woods. I remember helping him on those many projects. I remember the dedication and expertise and incredible hard work. Ben Smith was a hard worker.

DARING: He was his own man. He charted his own course. This is a quality he had his entire life. At the age of 13 or so he would drive his grandmother from their home to downtown Enid. After he would drop her off, he was always to wait for her in the car. One day he decided he wanted to “see what this baby can do”. Imagine the sight of a young Ben Smith barreling down Main Street going 100 mph. Such was the way he lived life.

In the early 1980s inflation and interest rates were at all-time highs. Where many saw fear, Ben saw investment opportunity. They told him he was a fool to buy long-term U.S. Treasury bonds when 2-year interest was 17% and high-inflation looked permanent. We are now 35-years into the great bull market in U.S. Treasury bonds; Ben rode it all the way up. He still has bonds purchased at par value that command 50% premiums. Ben Smith was daring.

I’ll leave you with one story that he loved to tell that gives a glimpse into how he looked at the world. He would begin, “Let me tell you a story about my law school rival. He was always the sharpest guy in the room. The guy had always been great at whatever he did, and it always came easily for him. He was good looking, charismatic, smart, and humorous. He always got the top grade in the class and the girls always loved him. He was the big man on campus, and he knew it.” Ben would then ask, “Do you want to guess what happened to him after school was over and he got out in the real world? We’ll let me tell you: he got rich! He worked hard and was a big success. Won lots of big law cases. But do you want to know one other thing? I saw his obituary in the paper a few years ago. I OUT LIVED THE MAGNIFICENT SON OF A BITCH!”

Ben didn’t have to be the world’s greatest anything. He was his own world’s greatest doing great by his own measurement—not anyone else’s.

Ben Smith, my grandpa, went to sleep last Sunday night . . . I like to believe he woke up in his cabin to a bright dawn, kissed his wife, and walked down the hill to work on his bridge.

Choice: When Less Is More

Last week I attended the annual Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Of course, I didn't wear my sunglasses (a little inside money management humor).

Just a brief observation. At breakfast the second day I commented to my colleague who had made the trip with me, "Not to channel Bernie Sanders, but I appreciate the limited selection of this morning's breakfast. At free-buffet-style events like these too many choices allow my eyes to be bigger than my stomach--and I tend to over eat."

To be sure it wasn't Venezuela-level restriction. There were the typical bran, blueberry, and banana-nut muffins, a combination of egg with cheese on an English muffin by itself, with bacon, and with sausage, a little bit of fruit, and yogurt. All coupled with juice and coffee. This breakfast was thorough and well thought out.

So it wasn't vast choices I truly wanted to avoid. I just wanted someone else making them. I wanted curation, and to my estimation that is what I received. That said, as I approached a trash can to discard my empty plate, another attendee converged with me upon the same task only his plate was mostly full. Despite not knowing me, he made plain his opinion of the meal, "What a shitty breakfast!"

Capitalism can't win. If the consumer has to make the choices, they are overwhelmed (according to the likes of Sanders). If someone makes the choices for them, some leave unhappy--no doubt spoiled by the unrealistic cornucopia that other experiences in a capitalistic system have brought. One man's curated meal is another man's shitty breakfast.

Wedding Industrial Complex

"It's wedding season, kid!" 

People amply agree it is out of control until it is their little princess going through the rite of passage. At that point they rush headlong into all the trite and sometimes ridiculous traditions including songs, bouquet tossing, and smashing cake in faces not to mention all the apes in tuxedos riding in limos. The nonsense starts with an arms race in diamond rings and doesn't end until the honeymoon on the International Space Station catered by the Food Network. But is it really that out of bounds? Despite going from something around $6,000 in the 1930s (inflation adjusted to 2013) to around $30,000 (or over $31,000 according to this), this growth does not outpace the growth in real GDP per capita. 

The importance of de gustibus non est disputandum must be invoked here. Yes, these expenses would nicely make a down payment on a home [or insert your own favorite worthy cause], but it is not your (the outsider's) decision to make. In fact one shouldn't look back with second-guessing regret about their own decision years ago to spend all that money on a wedding and reception they can scarcely remember. You are a different you than you were then. You're not better now or were better then. You are just different. And in most cases the preferences you have now are not relevant to the decisions you made then.

WWCF: Ultra-Luxury Shopping Malls or Widespread, Pervasive Free Samples?

Which will come first?

Ultra-Luxury Shopping Malls

or

Widespread, Pervasive Free Samples

We've been hearing about the death of malls for some time.

Evolution of shopping: It used to be an expensive luxury to go shopping--imagine Christmas shopping downtown in the big city in a black and white movie. The economies of scale both in production (better machines allowing low-cost labor to be more productive) and marketing (a big umbrella venue in the form of the traditional mall) worked for decades to make shopping more and more affordable. Malls couldn't exist until these factors reached a critical threshold. Then they became prolific. But something funny happened on the way to the Ridgemont Mall stereo store. 

Now shopping is again becoming too expensive for malls to provide it but not because of resource limitations but because of better alternatives. In both cases (the pre-mall and soon post-mall eras) opportunity cost are high (remember, opportunity cost is the only economically meaningful way to look at cost). It used to be that one needed to purchase a lot and purchase wisely given one's time investment in going shopping along with the goods offered for sale being a relatively big sacrifice. In steady progression the falling cost of goods and the improved experience meant that malls could command our shopping attention because they lowered the opportunity cost. Malls generally offered a more efficient alternative; although, the entertainment value of the mall cannot be overlooked. The mall was a big tent, bundled package much like a newspaper. It had a little bit of everything and could afford to accommodate nearly every taste because of the volume. Certain high-margin sales, which translated into profitable leases for the landlords, created opportunities for many low-margin sales--the marginal cost of adding costume jewelers and Orange Julius is pretty low once the mall is built and being paid for by anchor department stores.

However, today we have reached a state in which the alternative method of shopping, ordering online, dominates the efficiency of physical shopping by many orders of magnitude.* Compounding this problem for malls is the fact that there are many alternative forms of entertainment that make hanging out at the mall seem fairly dull. Hence, today the resource limitation is the ever-growing value of our time.

Are malls dead? Only malls as we knew them and in such numbers as we knew them. I predict a resurgence of destination shopping with and because of vastly enhanced luxury experiences. The retailer or landlord who masters this will enjoy rewards some will find surprising. These may not be the one-stop shop where "this mall has everything" and "the people of today's world hang out," but they will attract our time and wallet in a way that today's shopping malls cannot. I am thinking the magnitude of these differences will approach the differences between a day at Harrod's versus a trip to Wal-Mart and the experience at Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's versus the local bait shop. 

To be clear a qualifying "luxury mall" would have the following qualities:

1. It would be a destination unto itself not just a shopping trip--many customers would go for the experience with no expectation of buying anything.
2. It would offer a large variety of goods rather than a single theme.
3. It would have a significant common space independent of any particular retailer.
4. It would make past generations of mall goers feel completely out of the shopping league.

That was a long way to go to get to the first half of this WWCF. The second half will come quicker. Goods are getting fantastically cheaper as is shipping. Our time and attention continues to be scarce--in fact, it grows more scarce as our options of what to do with our time improve. One solution for marketers is simply giving the goods they wish to sell away for trial. Instead of targeted advertising to demographically attractive households, how about targeted distribution of the goods themselves? I am thinking a $100 purchase of household items from Amazon will come with a curated box of complementary items for free. The first of the month brings an unsolicited trial supply of "things you never knew existed and cannot possibly live without." Eventually, many households will come to expect this as the primary way to discover new, perishable goods. 

Which comes first? The adaptations to the mall experience have a bit of incumbency advantage being that the mall has a more symbolic and established position in our shopping lives. However, the sampling idea may have a faster ramp up. To make the competition more determinable I'll say the creation of the fifth luxury-type mall (new construction or massive renovation of existing space) competes against the regular delivery of unsolicited free sample goods to >500,000 households. These thresholds hopefully capture an established trend rather than a one-off beta test. I predict the free sample idea to come within 10 years and just before the luxury mall idea can qualify, but I believe both will spur along the other making it a quick finish. 

*Don't be misled by statistics that show only a small effect coming from online sales. I contend that heterogeneous-consumer, high-fixed costs businesses are generally very sensitive to small decreases in demand because they rely on a diverse, network-effect customer base that is harder to understand (hence, harder to regain once it begins to slip) and they cannot scale downward effectively. 

2014's Resolution Fulfillment

It is time again to check on how I did in fulfilling my annual resolution. One word: success. Let me explain exactly how I mean.

Ever since the first skybox suites were installed in Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, I've held steadfastly that they were not for me. My time as a student (7 years) solidified this belief as I wanted to feel and breathe the atmosphere. And even as a graduate, I continued for a season to sit among the students before migrating back to the upper-west side stands 14 years ago (the area in which I sat before college going back to the age of about 7).

While the upper-west seats were a bit sterile after my days in the student section, they were still in the elements of both weather and populace. Upgrades in recent years to include new, more glamorous suites did not sway my belief. It wasn't about a rejection of luxury per se; it was somewhat about staying true to the experience (I might as well be at home for being in a suite) and a lot about NOT being like or around those in the suites. On this latter point, there are three facets.

The first problem is these people tend to be snobs. This is perhaps the biggest single issue I have with the suites. The second problem is my perception that those in the suites don't actually watch the game much. It is easy to become distracted by the booze and the food and the conversation. The people in the suites might as well be at some pool party.

The first two problems relate to the third problem. Being in them is like playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up. You cannot have alcohol in the stadium at OU. In fact there are strict rules about alcohol throughout the publicly-owned, state university. But you can have it in the suites. So the guy sitting in the blazing heat or blistering cold can't have a beer, but the guy asking the attendant to adjust the thermostat can sip a bourbon.

Getting back to the resolution--what has changed? As surprising as it was for me, at some point this football season I reversed my position on where I would prefer to sit. This change of heart was gradual at first and then sudden in completion. To be sure I was not seduced by the lure of even better improvements to come. In fact there are perhaps as many amenities for the regular seats as their are for suite people in the latest plans. And it is not just that I can see the advantages of suites; I would actually prefer to be in one under certain conditions. Namely, those conditions include I don't have to endure the problems I still have with suite people.

But just as I don't want to associate with my stereotypical view of who frequents a suite, I have grown quite tired of being around the typical fan. So basically I want to watch a game in person with people of my choosing. What has soured me on those in the stands? One word: ignorance. I am tired of the following (to be sure, I have been guilty of each of these myself at one time or another):

• People who think the other team and their fans are evil, dumb, undeserving, rude, or any other negative quality rather than basically equivalent to themselves as a whole and on average. 
• People who indignantly and vocally question every thing short of perfect success.
• People who don't know the rules of the game--to a ridiculous fault. You do not have to be an expert, but appreciate what you don't know.
• People who always think they are getting screwed by the refs.
• People who think good coaching consists of yelling, getting mad, "giving them a good butt chewing" at halftime, etc.
• People who think that good player play includes never fumbling (the ol' try harder approach to solving a random phenomenon), never being out-manned or out-talented, and perfection in all its many other forms. 
• People who support concussions for players. Oh, they never say it that way. The way they express it is to become visibly irate when one of their players is flagged for an illegal hit. Apparently, dangerously injurious behavior is "part of football"--at least it is when one's own player is applying the hit.
• People who cheer this. It is theft in the least, and it is potentially criminal negligence that could lead to severe injury or death. For the unfortunate person on the ground the impact would be about the equivalent of having a football thrown at his head at 70 miles per hour from a few feet away.

I could go on and on, but it would get even more petty and unfair. Perhaps it is not them; it is me. But regardless it seems that after 176 home games attended in a row, I have changed my mind on where I would prefer to sit. Now to just come up with spare $100,000 a year or so to pay for my preference ...

Werewolves of London

I am back from my unintentional hiatus which included a jaunt across the pond to London town. Some thoughts and pictures follow:

• Definitely an amazing place worth many a return. So much to see. So much history. 
• An international city, which is not the same thing as a foreign city by any means.
• We left runway number nine in Houston about 6 pm and touched down about 10 am at Heathrow--a tremendous airport, very efficient, clean, accommodating, . . . oh, and it is privately owned for profit . . .  weird how that works. 
• The formula for eastern-bound international travel was in effect--sleep as much as you can on the plane and then hit the ground running. Don't stop to rest much less sleep or you'll never recover. We followed this advice taking the train to Paddington Station then the Tube to Waterloo Station finished with a short walk to the hotel to check in and then get out on our way. 
• The three of us, me plus April and 10-year-old daughter Eva, made our way across the Thames to Parliament, "Hey look kids, there's Big Ben", grabbed sandwiches "to take away" by Westminster Abbey, ate in St. James Park watching the locals, strolled up to Buckingham Palace to gaze at the nonsense that is royalty, went up The Mall to Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall to the horse guards, continued on to Churchill War Rooms, did a loop on the London Eye, then back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. We fancied a dip in the pool and sauna for a bit before calling an evening of it. A smashing first day. 
• Day two was a train ride to Bath. The Abbey was an incredible history lesson especially aided by the conversation with the volunteer guide. The Abbey has been in use for over a 1,000 years. Of course, if you want really old, you just have to go next door to the Roman Baths which date from 836 BC. There were many more things to see in this quaint town including the Pulteney Bridge, fine restaurants like Hall & Woodhouse where we ate, and a grocery store where we bought contraband. 
• Day three was limited since that is when the CFA conference began for me. We had a slightly eventful breakfast at the hotel where the manager was "being advised that" I was to eat breakfast with the conference downstairs while my "wife and daughter are quite welcomed to enjoy breakfast here in the restaurant". This polite little charade went on for a bit until he kindly relented, made sure I knew he was fine with the decision, curtsied, and left us to be. We had just enough time to take in Harrods. This place has everything including now my facial hair--I treated myself to a royal shave in the men's department. The rest of the day was conference for me, Hyde Park and Notting Hill for the girls. 
• Day four was solid conference for me. The girls took in Windsor Castle and environs. My evening did come with a gala event at the British Museum of Natural History. Dining under the diplodocus was interesting, but the tour getting there on the double-decker bus was just as good. 
• Day five was Saturday. The conference ended at noon. The three of us then made our way east along the Thames to Borough Market and past the Globe Theater and then Tower Bridge, which is not London Bridge. The new London Bridge is fairly nondescript and a few blocks away. Of course, the original London Bridge is in Arizona. I am one of what must be a small number of people who have been on both bridges within a three-month span. I can report confidently that neither is falling down. We walked around the Tower of London (lines were too long to get in), but we did get to see the impressive memorial (pictured below) that is on display using ceramic poppies to represent every British or Commonwealth soldier who died in WWI. We began a slow return through the financial district with an intermediate stop at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which has been going strong since it was rebuilt in 1667. Since that pub didn't have WIFI, we headed toward some other options with hopes to watch the OU-Tulsa game, which would start at 5 pm local time. Luckily, we walked right in to find it on the main screen in the third pub we came to. There I sat and watched it with the British doppelganger of Marshall from HIMYM. 
• Day six was a car ride to, have I told you how awesome Heathrow is?, where I was treated to a very well prepared and free Bombay and tonic. Gotta love to shop at the duty free shop. 

Other thoughts:

• I heard more cussing by strangers on the street than any trip I could remember. We walked in front of a particularly saucy group of teens in Bath (in school uniforms and all) who must have just discovered the F word. 
• The eighties are back in Britain--at least the clothes are. Lots of stockings and hose, denim, guys who look like they are about to be saved by the bell, and sheer. Everything is sheer. 
• They don't understand coffee. 
• They are somewhere confusingly between automatic gratuity added and tipping voluntary. The level of service didn't seem to correlate (it wasn't noticeably better in tipping-voluntary situations) nor did it rise to a level bloody-well deserving the automatic gratuity in those situations.
• They are a very orderly, rule-based culture and they expect you to follow the rules. For example, I noticed a distinct lack of car honking despite the congested, confusing roadways.
• We had several English to English translation problems. In their defense many of those came from what are probably not first-language English speakers. Nevertheless, it was amusing to see how many people couldn't understand me despite us speaking the same language. American idioms like answering a waiter's question "Can I be of any further service" with "I'm good" resulted in a blank stare. At breakfast we never quite got the egg orders right despite numerous morning attempts. Related to the rule-based item above, trying to get made-to-order scrambled eggs was quickly and kindly met with a corrective reply that scrambled eggs were available on the buffet line. Problem was we didn't want those watery eggs. I restrained myself from having a full-blown "Five Easy Pieces" moment by politely asking for an omelet with nothing on it. Just an egg.
• We flew home on a 787 Dreamliner. The window tinting technology is awesome. No window shades. Just an adjusting dial with an up and down button. There are six settings ranging from full transparency to nearly full opacity (it made broad daylight look like a moonlit night). I want this in my home. I want this in my office. No more dusting blinds or drapes.
• We didn't get to visit an ancient race of people called the druids, which is to say we left a lot undone for another time.