The Reservation

The Reservation by Rebecca Kauffman

John Grisham has made a reservation at a fine dining restaurant in a small college town. Everyone is already a little uptight, and then things get worse. A number of steaks are missing. It seems like an inside job and the manager is trying to get to the bottom of it. Then the dishwasher breaks requiring dishes to be washed by hand. As everyone goes through challenges, we learn more about the past history of the various employees. There are plenty of rough circumstances, but there are people that care for each other. At the last minute Grisham's group cancels the reservation. They discover it was due to bad online reviews (which appear to be part of a smear campaign.) Later a mysterious guy shows up right before closing time and has some conversation with the bartender. He thinks it may have been Grisham. The book ends with the manager granting one of the most loyal employees a big raise. (He has had mental and physical issues, and wants to use it for health care.) The book is loaded with actions, despite spending just one day in one location. You can't help but fall for the many different characters.

The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor

The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor by Ken Silverstein

A boy is interested in chemistry and elements. He does all sorts of crazy chemical experiments at home. He eventually decides to make a breeder reactor. This required him to obtain appropriate radioactive material. He tried hunting for some naturally and ordering from suppliers. However, is best sources were from small quantities in items such as antique radium clocks and smoke detectors. He ended up producing significant radiation. The EPA came in hazmat suits to clean up the shed. However, his parents threw away many of his materials and his log books.

The home life of David was quite miserable. His parents were divorced with mental illness in the family. His father had intelligence and scientific experience. They encouraged his pursuits to some extent, but fought them on other grounds. He had the drive and desire to pursue scientific pursuits, but was stuck in a culture that did not adequately support him.

Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity

Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity by Dr. Ronald Epstein M.D.

Medical school can focus heavily on knowledge and procedures. However, medicine involves personal interaction with patients in intimate areas of life. Successful doctors understand the humanity and work to build appropriate relationships. This can help uncover true health problems as well as their solutions. A surgeon must balance the time in the zone following the process, with time breaking and responding to anomalies. Being assertive, humble, and a good communicator are all skills that are needed to be a successful doctor.

The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are

The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are by Michael Slepian

Why do people keep secrets? How do secrets differ from private items? Often secrets have some significant perceived impact in sharing. Somebody may keep a secret because they fear retribution or embarrassment. A secret may also be kept to spare somebody else. (One anecdote told was the elaborate steps that a family went through to protect a family member from knowing her terminal diagnosis.) 

The keeping of secrets does differ by society. Societies that are tightly knit with minimal social mobility tend to have more secrets. Societies with more mobility tend to have more sharing. (If there is a bad outcome from the secret, a person could just adopt a new social group.)

There can be benefits to sharing secrets. Writing in a journal can provide some benefit. However, greater benefits are seen by sharing with others. There can be negative impacts by ruminating on secrets. Getting them out often appears to be less constly than people initially anticipated. 

The Physics of Everyday Things: The Extraordinary Science Behind an Ordinary Day

How do the things that we use everyday work? We have some solid science behind many things, from toasters to airplanes. However, there are parts that we just "know work", without fully understanding the details of why. This book goes through a "day in the life" of a person as they encounter various technology in their daily activities. I had listened to it as I was going out to the airport on a trip. It so happened that the book uses an airport trip as a key event for many of the activities. (After all, there is a let of tech involed in travel.) It did make for an interesting listen.

Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment

Noise is a random deviation from the norm. This differs from bias, which is a uniform differentiation. They both lead to bad results. Noise in different directions does not necessarily cancel out, but is additive. (If you end up 10 feet north of the target once, and 10 feet south the other time, you are equally inaccurate both times.) Eliminating noise and eliminating bias are key to making good decisions.

A challenge with many decisions is that we don't know what the "correct" answer is. Job interviews and prison sentencing are particular cases where there are bad amounts of "noise". Some small nuances in behavior can help. A number of distinct observations is likely to more accurately lead to the correct outcome. However, that only works if they are truly independent. When people meet together to talk, there is a desire to have consensus. Thus people are likely to alter their opinions to meet the first stated view. This can often lead to settling on a more extreme view. Independently collected feedback can provide a better outcome. In interviews, it also helps if interviewers have a distinct area to focus on rather than a general feel.

Computer algorithms can help with noise. They tend to apply rules much more accurately and reduce noise. Many times they are better than humans. However, this can sometimes be seen as negative, especially if there is not an equal distribution throughout society. There can also be challenges of handling rare outcomes. (A rare outcome that is missed by computers will get a lot of publicity, even if there were a great many more successes.)

People want perfection. However, they don't want the sacrifices to get it. People will complain about wildly different sentences for similar crimes. But then they will complain about fixed sentences guidelines that take out judicial discretion. Do we mandate rules or simply have guidelines? Noise can be nice in leading to different outcomes. However, most often it just leads to things being worse than expected.

San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

Liberal west coast cities like to act very compassionate towards  the homeless population. Unfortunately, these cities have also seen a steady increase in people living on the street along with a decreasing quality of life for all. There are a multitude of reasons given. Some see it as just a problem of lack of housing. Others point to mental health or drug use. Alas, solutions are hard to find.

The progressive mentality often is too focussed on trying for the best rather than making improvements. People are allowed to live in squalor because very nice housing is not available. Shelters are shunned as inferior to a nice apartment. While this is true, it is also true that shelters are much better than a spot on the street. The advocates pushing for the housing end up diverting funding from providing basic shelter for a many to the hopes of providing fancy shelter for a few. Similarly, limited psychiatric services are available. Mentally ill were removed from inpatient treatment and integrated into society - often on the streets. Huge amounts are then spent to provide for emergency services for them rather than provide a long term solution.

There is also a strong desire to see homeless as victims. They are seen as incapable of controller their situation. They may be left out due to racism, poverty or some other problem. Laws are seen as part of the police/prison complex and not enforced against them. They are allowed (and even encouraged) to engage in drug use. Generous public assistance is given without strings. People learn how the system works and how to get food, drugs and place to sleep. Many are on their way to die rather than get better. People from other locations seek out the "progressive" locations that will let them engage in their antisocial behavior.

Many progressive western cities have a case of "pathological altruism". There is heavy criticism against anything that takes away from the ability of the homeless to do whatever they want. This goes together with a western belief in extreme individualism. The "altruistic" can feel that they are helping because they put up a Black Lives Matter sign and support funding for homeless. At the same time, they will advocate for nimby positions against more housing near them. Even cleaning up "skid row" is seen as a negative form of gentrification.

Many cities provide huge amounts of homeless services. However, they don't require anybody to use it. Many homeless people would rather take advantage of the abundant vices than struggle to get their life in order. With a little push they would be willing to be helped, but that is not easy. Other countries, such as Netherlands and Portugal have decriminalized drug use but also limited their availability. They have built new housing and helped get people off the street. While the south may have a "prison-industrial complex", the west has a "homeless-industrial complex". In each case huge amounts of money are spent while people suffer and families are torn apart. 

Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It

We have a lot of very complex system in the world today. We also want things to be as efficient as possible. This can make them more susceptible to failure. In one simple case, older airplanes have joysticks for the pilot and copilot. If one is moved, the other is moved in the same direction. This redundancy allows erroneous maneuvers to be quickly caught and corrected. Modern fly-by-wire aircraft do not have this. This has resulted in some crashes where one pilot did something improper and the other did not notice in time to correct it.

Sometimes, we try to engineer ourselves out of possible errors. However, this can produce errors that may be harder to catch. As an example, a hospital set up an automated computer system to dispense medication. The doctors accidentally proscribed a huge dose. (They entered the total desired amount in the "amount per pound" section.) Most people just assumed the system was doing what it should and blindly followed it. 

If there are too many safeguard, then people get in the habit of blindly going through them, making it harder to catch errors when they do occur. We do need to have the proper amount of safeguards structured in a way that we can really follow them. It is also important to account for unexpected results. A system that automatically adjusts based on sensors will have issues if the sensor returns erroneous data. More automatication can be useful, but we still need people to make sure things don't get too crazy.

The Triple Package

Mormons, Chinese and Nigerians all have been disproportionately successful in America due to the "triple package". This package includes, the paradoxical mixture of a superiority complex and a chip on the shoulder together with delayed gratification. The package is something that is held by and indicates success in a group. Individuals members of the group may or may not achieve success. However, as a whole, the group will have greater economic success than the population at large.

The success of the groups also seems to run contrary to common American culture. The groups tend to drive their children hard. They also tend to treat people in different ways (both within and without of the group.) These differences with American culture, help the groups to succeed, while also isolated them somewhat from the country at large.

The United States itself once had the "triple package". However, after the end of the cold war, the inferiority and the delayed gratification have faded away and the country as a whole has lacked the drive. (Luckily, there are plenty of immigrants and other subgroups willing to take the work upon themselves.) Some subgroups have also seen the package fade away. Jews have dominated many industries and academia as "outsiders" through their hard work. Today, however, they have been more closely incorporated in mainstream American culture. The degree of "new achievement" has been reduced. (However, the inherited legacy of past achievers is still present.) Some groups have had the "triple package" sucked out of them through discrimination or other areas. Slavery helped remove the group identity of the slaves and also encourage a culture of instant gratification.

While the book focuses on groups, it seems to simply identify some common characteristics for success. When people have grown up in an environment that encourages hard work and delayed gratification, they will have a greater opportunity to succeed. A family group could have the "triple package" within themselves. It would be difficult to tease out these individuals from the group at large. Is this something that people should strive for? The book is cautious with this regard. There are some downsides to the package. It does lead to a degree of isolation from mainstream culture. (However, in some sense, this is just the same as the kid that studies is "isolated" from the slackers at school - until he graduates.) The triple package also encourages success in the bounds of "known success". People can work hard to follow the direct path to the top. Society needs these people. However, it also needs the risk takers and innovators that are willing to try something different (and fail doing it.) The triple package does not encourage this. However, it can provide some basic principles and work ethic that can be beneficial for people willing to go out and do it on their own.