A rating for the ability of a virus to spread. R of 1 would indicate each infected person infects one person. Anything higher than 1 has the potential to grow the number of cases exponentially (i.e. an outbreak or pandemic). For example, measles had an R value of 15. This is similar to big O notation in estimating computation complexity. R1 would be constant time and R1+ would be O(N^1+).
A shell holding company goes public with the intention of raising money to merge with a private companyβeffectively making the private company public without having to go through the listing process. While the fees tend to be higher than the private company going through the process of IPO-ing, they only need to make a deal with a single party (the SPAC) which significantly simplifies the process. See also:
In finance, the plutonomy is the small group of people that control most of the wealth. Plutonomy is also the study of production and distribution of wealth.
A framework for starting companies that focuses on better understanding of customers and markets by building minimum viable products to validate assumptions.
Just about anything that companies do can be considered securities fraud. There is a very wide definition and application of securities laws that make it seem like just about everything meets the definition. See also:
The understanding of knowledge and distinguishing between truth and beliefs. Knowing how we know what we know is vital to thinking clearly about problems and coming up with the right solution.
Knowledge that can not be transferred through words alone. For example, it won’t help someone learning to ride a bike to make them read an instruction manual and expect they can flawlessly ride a bike afterward. See also:
A mathematical function that produces an ‘S’ shaped curve when plotted and is used to transform a number into a value between 0 and 1 (also -1 and 1). This is useful in preparing data for machine learning models or linear programming where you need values to conform to a specific range.
Scientific change doesn’t happen because because people change their mind, but because the next generation of scientists have different views. This is similar to startups and larger companies. As new people come in, they bring in new ideas and change happens (both good and bad).
Thurgood Marshall made the comment that we have “substituted economics for race” in his dissent to the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. The Supreme Court ruled that the right to be educated was not covered by the 14th amendment and that school funding based on property tax was ok even though Black people were systematically pushed into low-income areas and therefore had no means to fund schools like the white neighborhoods. Thurgood Marshall’s comment calls out the veiled racism and attempt to legitimize segregation by reducing the matter to an economic issue.
A financial instrument that spreads the risk of corporate loans across many investors. The money is loaned to companies that typically can’t raise money otherwise e.g. through a traditional bank loan. This is similar to CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), but instead of mortgages it’s corporate loans. During the COVID-19 economic crisis, CLOs are starting default at the highest rates ever which leads some to believe banks are over levered (carrying too much risk) which could create a cascading effect similar to the 2008 financial crisis.
Thoughtful economist from George Mason University, author, blogger, and podcast host. See also:
A russian word with many facets to it’s meaning that roughly translates to depression and longing, love-sickness, and unbearable feelings. It’s also meant positively as truly living your emotions.
Racism that has been deliberately built into systems that govern and organize our lives including education, courts, laws, constitution, law enforcement, etc. that deprives and inhibits the progress of Black Americans from colonization to present day. This was the central theme of White Rage, that describes the numerous and horriffic acts taken at every level of society to enforce slavery, inhibit freedom, and systemically undermine progress of Black people even after events like the Emancipation Proclamation, passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and Brown v. Board of Education.
A victory that results in self-inflicted devastation equivalent to defeat. For example, in 1955 Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools had already shut down for four years rather than comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Then they enacted the Gray Plan to divert public school dollars to private schools for white children. Due to lack of budget both white and black students suffered throughout the sate and ~20% closed altogether while costing the tax payers dearly (totaling ~$1MM per 1% of student population). This resulted in tremendous damage to generations of Virginians who suffered from a poor education and were then unable to make the transition to knowledge work. (See White Rage).
A theory that states, the future of an idea or technology is proportional to how old it currently is so that every additional period results in longer life expectency. For example, the IRS use of Cobol–each year the systems written in Cobol exist, the greater the likelihood Cobol will stick around for many more years. In technology, this happens regularly. In the case of programming languages, once it has reached a certain age and has been used in some critical systems, it’s much harder to justify rewriting it. As it gets even older and the programming language ‘falls out of style’ the pool of workers shrinks, knowledge of the system is lost (e.g. the IRS lost the source code!) and the cost of replacing it with a new language means writing it again from first principles–including the now multitude of years of exception handling. Lindy’s Law: the article in the New Republic that first coined the theory. See also:
An illusion of a choice between two inequivalent options. Hobson ran stable filled with many horses. This gave customers the impression that they would have many to choose from. However, he required that customers can only buy the horse in the first stall or nothing at all. This was to prevent the best horses from being chosen repeatedly and overused. For example, White Rage describes the negotiations of school segregation as a Hobson’s choiceβthe state says you can either continue with segregated schools or have no Black schools at all.
A duality, having two different and opposing faces. Comes from the Roman god of beginnings.
A non-fiction book by Carol Anderson that describes the structural racism of the United States. Lincoln tried to get all black people to move to Panama placing the blame on them for the war rather than the confederate traitors. Andrew Johnson pardoned many confederate leaders and plantation owners and undid programs to re settle former slaves. Confederate leaders made it back to office and vowed to recreate slavery–which they did with the Black Codes. Johnson overtly proclaimed a government for white men and created the conditions for genocide at the hands of southern states embittered. Whites even complained about the Black Codes for driving down the wages for workers. Mississippi delayed ratifying the thirteenth amendment until 2013 (it was ratified 1995, but not made official by notifying the U.S. Archivist, source). The Supreme Court systematically nullified the 13th 14th and 15th amendment by asserting the federal government has no rolein preserving rights and protecting people and the states must do that. However, the states were the ones actively circumventing rights of Black people and inflicting harm by using laws to incarcerate, force conscription of labor, allow violence and murder against black people, and segregation. Only because labor was in short supply due to ww1 in the north. The South was content thinking Blacks were ok with their current station and immediately blamed outside forces I.e. labor agents from north when Black Americans moved in the millions. Southern states countered with oppressive licensing fees while cracking down on the exodus to keep their no-cost labor force that was the engine of their economy, wealth, and power. Under the guise of legal and economic policies the south consistently undermines and enslaves. To stop the migration they went after labor agents, Blacks with train passes, a newspaper in Chicago (the Chicago Defender, also an example of the Streisand effect), then they delayed trains to stop transport while WWI desperately needed supplies. Vagrancy laws targeted Blacks to put them back into peonage (slavery by another name) or coerce they into staying in the south when they attempted to leave for north. Arriving in the north caused immediate reaction from Northern whites. Race riots which were actually white people mass killing black people occurred in major cities. Real estate agents confined black populations to slums and when moving into white neighborhoods met with more mobs. States rights is intertwined with slavery, segregation, and disenfranchisement. When states like Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina didn’t like the Supreme Court ruling on Brown, they changed they argued it was unconstitutional and I grinned on states rights. Really they just wanted to maintain the institutions of Black subjugation and so states rights is a farce to dress up White southerner’s desire to enslave Blacks. The playbook repeats throughout the book, use the courts to legitimize and dress up racism, disenfranchise with violence and block Black voters, prevent education by budget spending, argue that its a ‘states rights’ issue as a cover, prevent mobility to shut down economic access and free market wages, look the other way when it’s white on Black crime. Stall and deny, stall and undermine. Prince Edward county did everything they could to prevent desegregation. Repeatedly the Supreme Court ruled against them but found ways to keep schools closed, busing, privatize and find white private schools, and eventually black students just dropped out after missing critical years of schooling. Southern states like Alabama went after the NAACP, banning it with laws, then taxes, forced to reveal a list of members so they to could be banned from jobs and subject them to violence. Linked them to communism and made up citations from HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee). Racism was redefined to mean seats on a bus and voting. It was reduced further to mean KKK radicalism and shift the blame away common white people. Resentment grew from policies like affirmitive action and racism was recast as a zero sum game for jobs (losing jobs to Black people despite Black employment rates and wages drastically lower than white), welfare (medicaid and food stamps), and education (affirmitave action). Nixon embodied this with a dog whistle campaign of law and order and anti liberalism (very reminiscent of Trump). Laws targeted Black voters using gerrimandering, literacy requirements, and changing elected positions to political appointees. This further disenfranchised Black voters using a political process they had no representation in. Nixon appointed four supreme court justices that pushed the court in an even more conservative to the detriment of civil rights laws. The new supreme court found Texas practice of school funding through property taxes which resulted in far less funding per pupil for poor districs was perfectly constitutional. The justices stated that class did not require strict scrutiny like race. However this allowed racial descrimination as most of the white people lived in the rich districts and black people lacked the economic means to move to them. A tactic used by the Texas lawyers was to present instances of children that succeeded in poorer neighborhoods proof that the system was fine. But as Thurgood Marshall put it, “[it’s] to the credit if the child not the State.” Regan made it worse. He “oozed racial innocense” despite furthering the Southern Strategy. He affirmed states' rights and pushed budget cuts that diproportionatly hurt Black people such as grants for higher education and loans. He even cut school lunch programs. Unemployment of Black people rose, widening the gap with Whit people. Youth unemployment was 45% and Regan cut training and employment services by 70%. He induced mass layoffs in government jobs in agencies disproportionately Black. Reagan set the stage for a huge drug influx from the Contras who were trying to raise money to fight back after being overthrown by marxists in Nicaragua. Regan was obsessed with helping them fight a shadow war. The CIA and National Security Council ran interference on customs, DEA, FBI to help the contras flood the US with cocaine. Crack quickly spread through Black neighborhoods to a population with high unemployment. It was the spread through gangs throught America. The CIA, then directed by George H W Bush, funneled money and guns to the Contras. They enlisted the help of Noriega to funnel money through Panama corporations. Noriega, with partnership with the Medellin cartel, used the planes being flown in from the US Black Eagle for drug trafficking! Instead of cracking down, the US agreed that as long as they use a percentage of the drug money for funding the Contras it was ok. This resulted in cocaine imports increasing by 50 percent in three years. Although the administration actively supported drug trafficking under the guise of national security, even reducing sentences to build a relationship with Noriega, at home they began the mass incarceration of crack users. Worse, Reagan and the media made made crack the enemy threatening their way of life. However, crack was largely associated with Black people furthering a racial divide. Crime increased as a result of the crack boom decreasing the life expentency of Black youths. Then the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed introducing harsh sentences, minimum sentences, even the dealth penalty setting the stage for even more mass incarceration. This also damaged the communities as more people fell victim to the war on drugs. Race became criminalized. Tulia, Texas there was a mass arrest of 10% of the black population for drug posession and trafficking. However, the lead investigator made baseless allegations with no evidence while the attorney general and judge enabled it. Later they found no proof, but clearly there racism was at the heart if it. In 2008 when President Obama won the election, Republicans turned to disenfranchisement to surpress minority votes that turned out in record numbers. They introduced legislate that required certain kinds of voter ID that Black people are significantly less likely to get. They blamed ACORN, an organization that helped register voters for stealing election after some employees fabricated some voter registration cards. Even though widespread voter fraud was a complete fabrication, they pushed legislation changes to make it harder to vote under the guise of voter fraud. They cut down on early voting, essential for hourly workers who already faced lengthy lines at polling places. On Florida, they eliminated voting on the sunday before the election day knowing that Black churches help organize voting. In Arizona, they purged voter rolls by sending mass mail to minority neighborhoods and using any return to senders as grounds to remove them. The supreme court in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights Act and said it was discriminatory to the South and did not meet “current needs” despite numerous voter supression legislation in numerous counties. Immediately following, 9 states passed similar voter suppression laws. Not only that, voter supression could only be fought after the fact. In Texas a voter ID law made hundreds of thousands of Black voters ineligible. It went to the Supreme Court that ruled in favor of the State because it was too close to the mid-term elections. They later found that it was in violation of the VRA, but only after the election took place.Reconstruction
Great migration
Segregation
Rolling Back Civil rights
A loop with a twist in it that is non-orientable. If you were to travel from a starting point on the strip and moved the full length of the strip you would end up moving along both sides without crossing an edge. See also:
The day that marks proclaiming that slaves in Texas are free, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It highlights the enormous difference between an event marked by history as the end of slavery and the resistance to change, not just in Texas, but everywhere that exists to this day. It’s a reminder that we are still in that transitionary period and racism and injustice remain unaddressed. See also:
When your mind keeps wandering out of control and fixating on things is like a puppy trying to walk on leash for the first time. This is a useful framing for starting to learn about mindfulness.
It’s difficult to remember every detail about people you know and who you want to build a relationships with. A personal CRM is a place to record contacts and context so you can build up relationships over time. Automate reminders to reconnect with people and be useful to them so you can grow your network. See also:
Sometimes it’s useful to work through a management challenge by drawing a graph of actions based on a particular event. For example, someone is having a performance issue that needs to be addressed, you could graph the next action you are going to take and when. From there, think through the different possibilities and branch off of the next action. This helps you better prepare for all eventualities which might reveal something you should be doing today to prevent or mitigate it.