Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • Explanation of consensus seems right. More so since ’09. I think monetary has be

    Explanation of consensus seems right. More so since ’09. I think monetary has been settled. And Karl Smith was right. The remaining debate is only over what capital we gain and lose outside of production. ie: civ, culture, norms, genes. But it’s a forbidden subject – since 1945.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-12-24 01:21:57 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/944739891786731520

    Reply addressees: @petergklein

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/944447480741154817

    IN REPLY TO:

    @petergklein

    The rise and fall of debate in economics journals. The figure is informative, though I don’t agree with the particular explanation given in this 2014 blog post. https://t.co/1UhxhQp0aa https://t.co/HR9J4gdqfJ

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/944447480741154817

  • Is It Really True For A Person With Phd In Electrical Engineering Needs In Average 100 Job Applications To Get Accepted For A Job In Us?

    Electrical engineering has transformed from a profession to a ‘trade’ for the simple reason that the problems of electrical engineering at scale are for all intents and purposes solved (reduced to predictable algorithms that we call ‘code’), plus an oversupply of degrees. The other engineering disciplines still vary between profession and trade. I don’t track this discipline any longer but as far as I know, you need to scale up or scale down. Electrical is too ‘human scale’.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-really-true-for-a-person-with-PhD-in-Electrical-Engineering-needs-in-average-100-job-applications-to-get-accepted-for-a-job-in-US

  • Why Is There Such A High Degree Of Fascination Among Today’s Youngsters To Becoming An Entrepreneur?

    it is the only 100% guaranteed means of financial independence, and not having to work for someone ‘dumber’ than you are. 😉

    https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-such-a-high-degree-of-fascination-among-todays-youngsters-to-becoming-an-entrepreneur

  • Is It Really True For A Person With Phd In Electrical Engineering Needs In Average 100 Job Applications To Get Accepted For A Job In Us?

    Electrical engineering has transformed from a profession to a ‘trade’ for the simple reason that the problems of electrical engineering at scale are for all intents and purposes solved (reduced to predictable algorithms that we call ‘code’), plus an oversupply of degrees. The other engineering disciplines still vary between profession and trade. I don’t track this discipline any longer but as far as I know, you need to scale up or scale down. Electrical is too ‘human scale’.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-really-true-for-a-person-with-PhD-in-Electrical-Engineering-needs-in-average-100-job-applications-to-get-accepted-for-a-job-in-US

  • “What are the best UX Design firms in the SeattleBellevue region?”— (From Curt

    —“What are the best UX Design firms in the SeattleBellevue region?”— (From Curt) It depends upon the function of your site and how much functionality it provides. UX, no question, it’s Blink in Seattle, and has been for years now. UX and IA, information Architecture, are slightly different functions, with UX for functionality and IA for content and organization. Frankly, these services are bordering on a science today. Their primary limit is the technology efforts you are willing to pay for. UI Design. The dirty secret is that it’s not the firm, it’s the individual designer that matters. Design is very much like fashion. Large firms are highly constrained by branding standards so there is very little design to be done. Firms that do not have standards can be more adventurous and trendy with design. Do no overdo it with design unless all you are selling is aesthetics. Marketers are generally best at empirical measurement of design, content, messaging, and positioning approaches for target audiences – which matters farm more than design. Creative Directors and Art Directors at larger firms are far better providers of those services. In general it’s the creative director you’re paying for at the agency. Bet solution (always), is to make screenshots of the different features of the sites of your top 20 competitors in the field (or 50 if you have the energy), and not from your area, but from everywhere, and pick the best features from all of them. And pick the best designs. The purpose of doing this is to educate you, more so than your agency, because this is what your agency will do, and then have to educate you. Then pay for the Tech or UX or IA or Messaging and Positioning(‘creative’) or Design, or Marketing and Media Buying – or any combination of those that you need. (I tend to build companies that are heavy on the back end of that (tech, ux, ia, because I traditionally serve the very big, consumer tech companies where creative is limited but message, content, and usability are complicated – but other firms tend to build companies that focus on messaging, positioning, and design. And this is pretty common in the industry. Design small, Tech big. In general, organizations pay for the size agency they can afford. Any agency with more than fifty full time people is probably legit. It’s easy to find independent designers – they are everywhere, and it’s easy to understand their work. It’s not hard to find UX and IA, but it’s hard to judge their work. It’s hard to find independent creative directors. For marketing and buying it’s best to use an agency. It’s just expensive.

  • “What are the best UX Design firms in the SeattleBellevue region?”— (From Curt

    —“What are the best UX Design firms in the SeattleBellevue region?”— (From Curt) It depends upon the function of your site and how much functionality it provides. UX, no question, it’s Blink in Seattle, and has been for years now. UX and IA, information Architecture, are slightly different functions, with UX for functionality and IA for content and organization. Frankly, these services are bordering on a science today. Their primary limit is the technology efforts you are willing to pay for. UI Design. The dirty secret is that it’s not the firm, it’s the individual designer that matters. Design is very much like fashion. Large firms are highly constrained by branding standards so there is very little design to be done. Firms that do not have standards can be more adventurous and trendy with design. Do no overdo it with design unless all you are selling is aesthetics. Marketers are generally best at empirical measurement of design, content, messaging, and positioning approaches for target audiences – which matters farm more than design. Creative Directors and Art Directors at larger firms are far better providers of those services. In general it’s the creative director you’re paying for at the agency. Bet solution (always), is to make screenshots of the different features of the sites of your top 20 competitors in the field (or 50 if you have the energy), and not from your area, but from everywhere, and pick the best features from all of them. And pick the best designs. The purpose of doing this is to educate you, more so than your agency, because this is what your agency will do, and then have to educate you. Then pay for the Tech or UX or IA or Messaging and Positioning(‘creative’) or Design, or Marketing and Media Buying – or any combination of those that you need. (I tend to build companies that are heavy on the back end of that (tech, ux, ia, because I traditionally serve the very big, consumer tech companies where creative is limited but message, content, and usability are complicated – but other firms tend to build companies that focus on messaging, positioning, and design. And this is pretty common in the industry. Design small, Tech big. In general, organizations pay for the size agency they can afford. Any agency with more than fifty full time people is probably legit. It’s easy to find independent designers – they are everywhere, and it’s easy to understand their work. It’s not hard to find UX and IA, but it’s hard to judge their work. It’s hard to find independent creative directors. For marketing and buying it’s best to use an agency. It’s just expensive.

  • Curt Doolittle’s answer: China is a very poor country. But it has more populatio

    Curt Doolittle’s answer: China is a very poor country. But it has more population than the Western world, more population than the African world, about the same or more than the Indian world, less population than the Muslim world, and perhaps most importantly, greater racial and cultural homogene…

  • How Valid Is The Claim That We’re On The Verge Of Economic Collapse Due To The Vanishing Supply Of Cheap Conventional Oil And The Declining Energy Return On Investment (eroi)?

    There is no validity to the crisis. There is a great deal of validity to the EROI.

    The problem is population.

    There are too many at the bottom.

    https://www.quora.com/How-valid-is-the-claim-that-were-on-the-verge-of-economic-collapse-due-to-the-vanishing-supply-of-cheap-conventional-oil-and-the-declining-energy-return-on-investment-EROI

  • Why Is Russia, With This Great Potential (140 Million Intelligent People, Large Country With Natural Resources, Great Geography And Climate Etc.) Still Relatively Poor?

    A) Um, all aggregate measurements are misleading. If in a country of 1M people, they make $1 a day and I make $1B a day, the GDP/Population will be 365M + 365B/1M, giving the impression that everyone in the country is making more than $300K per year.
    B) Resources are a curse, because they lead to corruption, rent seeking, subsidy, and a lack of innovation.
    C) Putin does not get credit for his expansion of rule of law. But corruption is pervasive. It is not like corruption in the states – which is invisible – it’s visible. And in some ways that’s more tolerable. But it is very hard to start and keep a business running, and it’s middle class and business that drives a people out of low income.
    B) Russia is a VERY big place. I mean, the USA is big. But Russia is 11 time zones big, and like canada, the population is largely along the borders. Imagine the cost of infrastructure in Belgium or Denmark vs the cost of infrastructure in Russia? For example, I spent some time with the founder and ‘president’ of one of the popular mega sports store chains. And what do you do when you run a business across that many time zones, and telephone, internet, and power, are often unreliable? What do you do when you must pay (bribe) people in the government just to get basic things done – not even privileges, but just to do their job? I tried to buy a company in moscow, and i literally couldn’t find one to buy. Not because there weren’t any. But because you can’t keep ‘legit’ books and survive. And it’s never clear who owns anything. Until the past few years it was difficult to trust the courts so contracts were difficult, and cash rather than credit slows the economy. So all of these ‘frictions’ add up.
    C) Moscow is a VERY expensive city (I wish I lived there, I love it and I love russian people). But people outside the major cities are still quite poor. (And Belarus and Ukraine are even worse.)
    D) Russians were virtually slaves 150 years ago. Under the soviets it varied quite a bit from murderous, to horrible to comfortable, to exceptionally good. And then they had a catastrophic event (collapse), and then dragged themselves out of it.

    The only difference I have found between ‘white’ russians and ‘white’ americans is that americans are foolishly optimistic and trusting, and russians are foolishly pessimistic and untrusting. The rest of the western world has turned effeminate in the french(postmodern) and jewish(marxist) and outside of Australians, White americans, and White Russians, Christendom is in a catastrophe.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Russia-with-this-great-potential-140-million-intelligent-people-large-country-with-natural-resources-great-geography-and-climate-etc-still-relatively-poor

  • How Valid Is The Claim That We’re On The Verge Of Economic Collapse Due To The Vanishing Supply Of Cheap Conventional Oil And The Declining Energy Return On Investment (eroi)?

    There is no validity to the crisis. There is a great deal of validity to the EROI.

    The problem is population.

    There are too many at the bottom.

    https://www.quora.com/How-valid-is-the-claim-that-were-on-the-verge-of-economic-collapse-due-to-the-vanishing-supply-of-cheap-conventional-oil-and-the-declining-energy-return-on-investment-EROI