Marlow’s Listener

“successful application of operations research usually results in improvements by factors of 3 or 10 or more….In our first study of any operation we are looking for these large factors of possible improvement….They can be discovered if the [variables] are given only one significant figure,…any greater accuracy simply adds unessential detail.”

The Google Way of Science: “Perhaps understanding and answers are overrated. ‘The problem with computers,’ Pablo Picasso is rumored to have said, ‘is that they only give you answers.’  These huge data-driven correlative systems will give us lots of answers — good answers — but that is all they will give us. That’s what the [...]

First a note about substituting ingredients or tools. Don’t. This method has been exhaustively tested and retested for excellence and the smallest variation can result in catastrophic and unintended consequences. See the ‘butterfly flaps its wings and causes hurricane’ metaphor from Chaos Theory. There is room for personal preference and improvisation in many things. This [...]

A total of 11020 scores submitted so far. The average score is 23 out of 34 points.

“‘Hemibel thinking’: (half of a an ‘order of magintude’ [factor of 10]). Look for hemibel improvements or difference. Any greater accuracy doesn’t really help. Hemibel ratios: log10(a/b) * 2.”

Recursion with memoization

The geometric mean of n numbers x1, x2, …, xn is the nth root of their product.