I have just returned from my annual pilgrimage to Singapore and here are some interesting optics that caught my attention during this trip. I have seen this sign multiple times before at Pasir Ris Park from previous trips. But this trip is the first time I encountered a 3-D version when this lone ranger popped … More Interesting Singapore Optics
I am reading Robert Kuok’s autobiography and these two paragraphs from the chapter Vintage 1963 jumped out at me. “Success in futures depends on your feel for the market, your instincts and rhythm. I would talk to different brokers. Each company had bright, young English traders. One or two would be a little cunning, but, … More Robert Kuok’s Trading Algorithm from 1963
Blind carbon copy (bcc) in emails is one of those dangerous features that has significant potential to cause harm when used inappropriately, either by intention or by accident. There are actually not many good usage patterns for bcc, but one that is definitely good and quite under-utilised is its use in politely letting a person … More Email Etiquette: A Considerate Use of Bcc
Dan Ariely is always worth reading and I picked up The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty over the Christmas break and it did not disappoint. The key findings of Ariely’s work in this area are summarised in the following diagram, which lists some of the factors and forces that are shown through experimental studies to shape dishonesty, both … More Ariely’s Mental Model on Dishonesty
There are many gems in the book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement For a Complex World, written by General Stanley McChrystal and co-authors based on McChrystal’s experience leading the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting Al-Qaeda. One that stuck with me is a small section called The Need-To-Know Fallacy. … More The Need-To-Know Fallacy
Many of my most successful data science projects happen by accident. You know, the little skunkworks that arose from a serendipitous hallway conversation where an important and urgent business problem meets a half-baked analytical idea. With a suitable dash of data and the right mix of office politics and corporate kung fu, a baby data-science … More Agile Data Science: On Opportunism
I put together this simple mapping of corporate leaders as a half-joke last week. I think there’s something in it for everyone. (I’m an ex-consultant so naturally I think anything that requires more than two dimensions is unnecessarily complicating things. That’s another half-joke. :P) Joke aside, there is a serious dimension to the post. Much … More Organisational Psychopaths
Combating terrorist financing
My Irrational Life
Updates on my research and expository papers, discussion of open problems, and other maths-related topics. By Terence Tao
