🏴‍☠️ 004 Pirates, Pete, and Black Bezels

🏴‍☠️ The Streisand Effect is the name for when someone tries to say move along nothing to see here only to have their actions draw more attention. This one is from Reddit.

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💿 I need your help.

It’s about tracking the transition…well…actually…let me see if this quote explains it better.

“OK,” Brogan said. “Which cleaner’s?” Milosevic shook his head. “Don’t know,” he said. “She always went on her own. I always offered to do it for her, but she said no, every time, five straight Mondays. OK if I helped her out on Bureau business, but she wasn’t about to have me running around after her cleaning. She’s a very independent type of a woman.” “But she walked there, right?” McGrath said. “Right,” Milosevic said. “She always walked. With maybe eight or nine things on hangers. So we’re safe to conclude the place she used is fairly near here.” Brogan nodded. Smiled. They had some kind of a lead. He pulled the Yellow Pages over and opened it up to D.

That’s from the 1997 Die Trying, the second book in the Jack Reacher series.

They used a phonebook.

So in 1996 when this was written, it was the norm. In 2020 it would not be the norm.

In 2006/7 I remember driving to Connecticut with printed MapQuest directions. But I can’t remember the first time using Google Maps.

I need your help with examples of things that have gone from physical to digital. Earlier the better.

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🎾 “Look in the mirror, you’re not Pete Sampras” That’s from Brad Gilbert’s Winning Ugly.

One really good way to make decisions is to rank-order actions. Then remove all the low actions. For instance, in little league baseball, it’s really hard to get the mechanics right but it’s not so hard to pitch less. In golf, it’s really hard to nail birdies but it’s less difficult to avoid bogies.

Gilbert’s advice is to the recreational pickleball (neé tennis) player: it’s really hard to hit winners, but it’s not so hard to hit conservative shots.

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🔲 Rory Sutherland is great. His book is great. His podcasts and YouTube talks are even better.

Rory Sutherland’s advice boiled down to a simple point is: what’s a cheaper way to have a similar effect?

It’s a simple question but it’s often hard to answer because it often relies on things that are difficult to measure. Famously Sutherland suggested that rather than making trains faster, give them Wifi, charging ports, ledges for tea, and good seating. Journey times are easy to measure but costly to improve. Journey quality is difficult to measure but less costly to improve.

Here’s an example from the Kindle 3, released in 2007.

Via TechCrunch

This is one of the kinds of examples you can let me know. In 2007 I bought this Kindle and since then I now read mostly on e-devices.