What is the newest installment of 'Random Thoughts' on Physics Forums?

[fresh_42]

Yo mama so fat, when she goes to a nude beach -- they ask her for a receipt!

mama is close, mammae would have been closer.
Btw. did anybody understand this:
Lorna Cole (alias Rene Russo): "Close is a lingerie shop without a front window."

 

[WWGD]

mama is close, mammae would have been closer.
Btw. did anybody understand this:
Lorna Cole (alias Rene Russo): "Close is a lingerie shop without a front window."

Not really, but then again, I don't understand more than 90% of what _I_ say.

 

[fresh_42]

Not really, but then again, I don't understand more than 90% of what _I_ say.

You have to read your body language!

 

[WWGD]

You have to read your body language!

How can I read my own BL ? I can't film myself.

 

[WWGD]

Starbucks is jealous. When I go there often I have no trouble logging in and using their Wifi. When I go there after skipping a few days without going to one, I need to spend around 30-40 minutes trying to log in.

 

[WWGD]

I recently saw a recommendation that a backpack should be at most 6% of a person's weight.
I weighed my backpack at the post office * at 19 pounds.
Now I need to decide to either gain 115 lbs or make my back pack 7lbs lighter...

* Though they won't allow me to weigh myself.there . Not anymore.

 

[WWGD]

I was speaking to some Germans visiting here, telling they were surprised of how people in the US actually seemed to enjoy working, even if over time. They told me the reason why northern Europeans are so efficient is do they can work less and have more free time, vacations, not because they enjoy the search for more efficient ways of doing things.

 

[fresh_42]

I was speaking to some Germans visiting here, telling they were surprised of how people in the US actually seemed to enjoy working, even if over time. They told me the reason why northern Europeans are so efficient is do they can work less and have more free time, vacations, not because they enjoy the search for more efficient ways of doing things.

I'm surprised if I watch Gordon Ramsey or similar shows. There are always so many people in a normal, i.e. not specifically good or crowded restaurant. For every tiny job there seems to be a person doing just this. Restaurants here are run by roughly at most half or even less staff over here.

 

[WWGD]

I'm surprised if I watch Gordon Ramsey or similar shows. There are always so many people in a normal, i.e. not specifically good or crowded restaurant. For every tiny job there seems to be a person doing just this. Restaurants here are run by roughly at most half or even less staff over here.

Maybe that is why they are in Ramsey's show, bleeding money with the extra staff while implementing poorly. Edit : Meaning these restaurants may not be representative of the average US or UK restaurant, but more of the population of poorly run restaurants.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

Maybe that is why they are in Ramsey's show, bleeding money with the extra staff while implementing poorly.

I had to do a double take as I thought Fresh said Dave...

- - - -
Speaking of productivity, can you go solve a math challenge problem?

- - - -
edit: it does occur to me that these problems could be viewed as anti-productive because they can devour a ton of time, but still.

 

[fresh_42]

I had to do a double take as I thought Fresh said Dave...

Aga, aga!

- - - -
Speaking of productivity, can you go solve a math challenge problem?

Who said I can solve them?

- - - -
edit: it does occur to me that these problems could be viewed as anti-productive because they can devour a ton of time, but still.

Yep, exercising is always wasted time.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

Aga, aga!

Who said I can solve them?

Yep, exercising is always wasted time.

lol, no I was thinking what would gauss do ? He (/ WWGD) could go solve one

 

[StoneTemplePython]

I was speaking to some Germans visiting here, telling they were surprised of how people in the US actually seemed to enjoy working, even if over time. They told me the reason why northern Europeans are so efficient is do they can work less and have more free time, vacations, not because they enjoy the search for more efficient ways of doing things.

btw, I'm not finding quite the ideal charts but these 2 should give a nice look in combination:

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/20070804/CIN735.gif
https://www.economist.com/sites/def...size/images/print-edition/20161008_FBC568.png

Unfortunately most people have a habit of repeating things that aren't really true. It's extra bad because a lot people (most?) don't have an even vague idea of what productivity is, or why you would anticipate that the amount of stuff produced (per person) per hour would tend downward when you throw more hours at it.

 

[fresh_42]

btw, I'm not finding quite the ideal charts but these 2 should give a nice look in combination:

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/20070804/CIN735.gif
https://www.economist.com/sites/def...size/images/print-edition/20161008_FBC568.png

Unfortunately most people have a habit of repeating things that aren't really true. It's extra bad because a lot people (most?) don't have an even vague idea of what productivity is, or why you would anticipate that the amount of stuff produced (per person) per hour would tend downward when you throw more hours at it.

Yes, but that's also the problem with those charts. It depends a lot on how and what is measured and / or compared to what. It is even more difficult to measure in our modern service oriented societies, where less and less is actually "produced". E.g. are incomes from capital, which (I'm not sure but think they) are covered by the GDP figures, taken into account for the per capita calculation? And there are very differing costs of infrastructure and resources from country to country: if you don't have to pay or just a small amount for fresh water, then figures about farming are simply not comparable. It's far from easy to make sound statements.

 

[WWGD]

Yes, but that's also the problem with those charts. It depends a lot on how and what is measured and / or compared to what. It is even more difficult to measure in our modern service oriented societies, where less and less is actually "produced". E.g. are incomes from capital, which (I'm not sure but think they) are covered by the GDP figures, taken into account for the per capita calculation? And there are very differing costs of infrastructure and resources from country to country: if you don't have to pay or just a small amount for fresh water, then figures about farming are simply not comparable. It's far from easy to make sound statements.

The clearest definition of productivity of an effort towards a goal I have found is that productivity is the extent to which the effort takes you closer to the goal. But this is too abstract and the measurement can be defined in many different,
all reasonable ways.

 

[fresh_42]

It starts even with the hours of work counted: do you take the real working hours, or those scheduled as "usual" by law? E.g. I know that we have a decent amount of (unpaid) working hours: are they counted?

We have a federal office here which gathers all sorts of statistics. I once tried to figure out how many American immigrants we have each year and quickly ran into many details, even with such a simple question.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

Yes, but that's also the problem with those charts. It depends a lot on how and what is measured and / or compared to what. It is even more difficult to measure in our modern service oriented societies, where less and less is actually "produced". E.g. are incomes from capital, which (I'm not sure but think they) are covered by the GDP figures, taken into account for the per capita calculation?

GDP gets at how much 'stuff' is produced. You may be thinking of income here like GNI. I haven't gotten in the weeds of these figures in a while. And yes services can be tricky and yes some of these services (like healthcare in the US) have a lot of rot.

And there are very differing costs of infrastructure and resources from country to country: if you don't have to pay or just a small amount for fresh water, then figures about farming are simply not comparable. It's far from easy to make sound statements.

you'll notice that at least one of the footnotes specify the figures are done at Purchasing Power Parity. This is standard for inter-country comparisons. (You may want to look this up...) I also took it as given that The Economist computed the "average annual % change" correctly as a geometric mean not arithmetic or whatever other kind of mean.

It definitely is not easy. But there are standard tools and techniques that are used and do an ok job. When people say things that are not backed up by any credible data and in fact are directly in opposition to standard figures accepted figures... this is very close to alternative fact territory.

My point is technical-- the claims people make about "productivity" are not about productivity in any standard well defined sense. What they are actually saying is I like the lifestyle of what me (and my group) 'get' vs how many hours worked. This may have little to do with productivity and is a much more expansive topic than 'mere' productivity. For instance, if you think you are getting a great deal on lunch, it may be because someone else is paying for (most of) your lunch. There's also flavorings of inequality, sampling, inspection bias and a lot more. But the point is they say they are talking about "productivity" but in fact are talking about a much larger set of things.
- - - -

edit:

many of these conversations end up like this:

person: I know ____. (my country is amazingly productive or whatever)
me: Actually there are many organizations that track and analyze this. The data and analytics directly contradict your claim.
person: Oh well I want to talk about tons of details in that data because I'm not sure it's right.
me: excuse me, but you're the one who made a huge assertion. Do you have anything approaching evidence backing it?
person: well, no but I want to criticize your data.

 

[WWGD]

btw, I'm not finding quite the ideal charts but these 2 should give a nice look in combination:

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/20070804/CIN735.gif
https://www.economist.com/sites/def...size/images/print-edition/20161008_FBC568.png

Unfortunately most people have a habit of repeating things that aren't really true. It's extra bad because a lot people (most?) don't have an even vague idea of what productivity is, or why you would anticipate that the amount of stuff produced (per person) per hour would tend downward when you throw more hours at it.

How so? They are efficient, I never made any claims on what specific way nor comparisons to other countries here.. And, do you object to the definition of productivity I offered? EDIT: Besides, the RT Forum is, by construction, intended to be informal. If I had wanted to make a more technically-precise statement, I would have done so in another forum.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

How so? They are efficient, I never made any claims on what specific way nor comparisons to other countries here.. And, do you object to the definition of productivity I offered? EDIT: Besides, the RT Forum is, by construction, intended to be informal. If I had wanted to make a more technically-precise statement, I would have done so in another forum.

I read a direct comparison between northern europe and US in the post. The pictures are informative. But yes you're right these forums are informal.
- - -
I thought about doing a callback "die Touristen, d..."

but couldn't get myself to do it

 

[fresh_42]

Purchasing Power Parity

But what is purchased? Different goods have very different prices. E.g. energy in Norway is cheap, beer is not, and EU citizens dream of American gas prizes. PPP doesn't say anything, if I look it up or not. The best purchase index is probably still the Big Mac index.

But there are standard tools and techniques that are used and do an ok job.

Sure, but they are not explained with those charts. Even a simple issue as unemployment isn't by any means comparable. As long as the figures are given without an explicit link to the measurement methods, they are as worthless as any unproven statement. It's politics, not sound science.

When people say things that are not backed up by any credible data and in fact are directly in opposition to standard figures accepted figures... this is very close to alternative fact territory.

Which I haven't done. O.k. I mentioned the figures of unpaid work, but this is a fact and easy to support. Quite the opposite is true: I request a proper description of the data taken. A bar diagram is not even close to it. I asked whether capital earnings are part of the data or not, which is a valid question. I assumed they are, and concluded by this assumption, that productivity in terms of GDP per capita might not necessarily result in the same data as without them, and this in return makes comparisons questionable. Alternative facts start with hidden assumptions and ends with diagrams without references.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

But what is purchased? Different goods have very different prices. E.g. energy in Norway is cheap, beer is not, and EU citizens dream of American gas prizes. PPP doesn't say anything, if I look it up or not. The best purchase index is probably still the Big Mac index.

so the spirit of the Big Mac Index is the spirit of PPP. Yes. The Economist came up with the Big Mac index as something of a joke a few decades ago but it proved to be unreasonably effective. It also has a merit of being simple and pretty transparent.

Sure, but they are not explained with those charts. Even a simple issue as unemployment isn't by any means comparable. As long as the figures are given without an explicit link to the measurement methods, they are as worthless as any unproven statement. It's politics, not sound science.

Which I haven't done. O.k. I mentioned the figures of unpaid work, but this is a fact and easy to support. Quite the opposite is true: I request a proper description of the data taken. A bar diagram is not even close to it. I asked whether capital earnings are part of the data or not, which is a valid question.

It definitely is a valid question. However I feel different on estimates of "stuff" being produced in countries that don't have massive grey market economies. (Note unemployment is tricky and overly technical about whether people 'want' to be in the labor market -- this seems to be necessary but frequently gives the wrong impression unfortunately.)

Further, the bar charts have footnotes for sources. In particular, one of the two bar charts explicitly cites the "Bureau of Labour Statistics" for the 2006 GDP per hour worked numbers (which they cutely misspelled as British). I presume this page is what you'd want to comb through: https://www.bls.gov/ilc/intl_gdp_capita_gdp_hour.htm#table01

per that BLS page

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the market value of goods and services produced by labor and capital in a country, regardless of nationality (see table 4).

in general you wouldn't want include capital earnings, just the amount of stuff being produced. (And yes 'production' includes services.)

By tradition, the private sector accounting for 'stuff' produced is allocated to L and K (as in Labor or Kapital) as a nod to Marx.

- - - -

I don't view The Economist's reporting of data from BLS as being politics. And I do view BLS as being a pretty good data source.

Economics is not exactly on sound footing as a 'science' but I'm not suggesting predictive models or causation here -- just (economic) accounting. And yes even the accounting is difficult but it is a considerably more modest goal than predictive modeling.

The other picture cites conference board: https://www.conference-board.org/data/ and CERA. I have lingering concerns that CERA may be too political right now, though the chart and its data is a few years old.

- - - -
It may be that you're genuinely interested in the details underlying this data... there was a time when I was too. I've gone through some of this in detail a while back -- I find it rather unpleasant these days. You're certainly welcome to go through those links (BLS in particular) but it may warp your brain.

Unfortunately in the real world I observe an overwhelming trend where people only ask detailed questions about data when it makes them feel uncomfortable (cognitive dissonance). It's this bit of pattern recognition that I picked up on -- fairly or not. No offense intended. Es tuet mir leid if any was caused.

 

[WWGD]

I I don't know, for one , I hear and read the economy is booming ,unemployment is so low there aren't enough workers to meet demand, yet I I run into a lot of seemingly capable Edit : ,well-trained people who can't find jobs and I see a bunch of stores closing. I don't think of my life as being so unrepresentative, so I can't make sense of it.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

I I don't know, for one , I hear and read the economy is booming ,unemployment is so low there aren't enough workers to meet demand, yet I I run into a lot of seemingly capable, well-groomed eople who can't find jobs and I see a bunch of stores closing.

I actually get this sentiment. Unemployment is tricky in general.

And a simple technical accounting point is that corp profits are and have been at a very high % of GDP (relative to past history) for a while now... much longer than I would thought would have happened. It's not clear what that means for the experience of a lot of workers. (Or maybe it is clear...)

 

[kyphysics]

Is Domino's Pizza's pothole thing the greatest PR move in history?

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/dominos-pizza-came-idea-fix-americas-roads-195018525.html

 

[WWGD]

Is Domino's Pizza's pothole thing the greatest PR move in history?

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/dominos-pizza-came-idea-fix-americas-roads-195018525.html

I did not see in the link whether they would be allowed to advertise on roads they fix. Can they? Or is the advertisement just the general knowledge of what they are doing?

 

[WWGD]

I just found out my android phone has a personal digital assistant , when a recorded voice came out of my phone at random. I can imagine it going off at random when someone is driving or sleeping and freaking someone out.

 

[WWGD]

so the spirit of the Big Mac Index is the spirit of PPP. Yes. The Economist came up with the Big Mac index as something of a joke a few decades ago but it proved to be unreasonably effective. It also has a merit of being simple and pretty transparent.
It definitely is a valid question. However I feel different on estimates of "stuff" being produced in countries that don't have massive grey market economies. (Note unemployment is tricky and overly technical about whether people 'want' to be in the labor market -- this seems to be necessary but frequently gives the wrong impression unfortunately.)

Further, the bar charts have footnotes for sources. In particular, one of the two bar charts explicitly cites the "Bureau of Labour Statistics" for the 2006 GDP per hour worked numbers (which they cutely misspelled as British). I presume this page is what you'd want to comb through: https://www.bls.gov/ilc/intl_gdp_capita_gdp_hour.htm#table01

per that BLS page
in general you wouldn't want include capital earnings, just the amount of stuff being produced. (And yes 'production' includes services.)

By tradition, the private sector accounting for 'stuff' produced is allocated to L and K (as in Labor or Kapital) as a nod to Marx.

- - - -

I don't view The Economist's reporting of data from BLS as being politics. And I do view BLS as being a pretty good data source.

Economics is not exactly on sound footing as a 'science' but I'm not suggesting predictive models or causation here -- just (economic) accounting. And yes even the accounting is difficult but it is a considerably more modest goal than predictive modeling.

The other picture cites conference board: https://www.conference-board.org/data/ and CERA. I have lingering concerns that CERA may be too political right now, though the chart and its data is a few years old.

- - - -
It may be that you're genuinely interested in the details underlying this data... there was a time when I was too. I've gone through some of this in detail a while back -- I find it rather unpleasant these days. You're certainly welcome to go through those links (BLS in particular) but it may warp your brain.

Unfortunately in the real world I observe an overwhelming trend where people only ask detailed questions about data when it makes them feel uncomfortable (cognitive dissonance). It's this bit of pattern recognition that I picked up on -- fairly or not. No offense intended. Es tuet mir leid if any was caused.

It would be nice, tho not likely, to have more granular data on productivity ,like a distribution. Interesting too, to see why Norway is a full third more productive than the us. Ireland and Belgium are up there with the us in GDP generated by hour-employee. But I givee you credit for making this more precise, and, yes, I misspoke.

 

[kyphysics]

I did not see in the link whether they would be allowed to advertise on roads they fix. Can they? Or is the advertisement just the general knowledge of what they are doing?

Right. It's the latter, WWGD. I loved the idea of helping cities fill potholes with a theme of benefiting their delivery drivers too to be able to ship out pizzas faster to customers.

It's a win-win sort of thing and great for communities. It's the public's knowledge of what Domino's is doing that is the best advertising they could ever do.

I love it! Before I became a secret shopper, I used to order Domino's to the dorm and library all the time. Now that I secret shopper in my spare time, I get free pizzas and get paid $7.00 - $23.00 (depending on time of month) on top of that to order from various pizza places and rate and evaluate their services. Domino's isn't one of them, sadly, and I don't want to pay for pizza anymore now that I get them free. But, I do like Domino's.

Pretty much Little Caesar's is the only major chain I refuse to buy from. Just dislike their taste.

 

[Psinter]

Didn't really know where to share this: https://imgur.com/gallery/SCCEd8f

It's funny. Take a look. Catto knows where loyalties lie.

 

[WWGD]

Missed Bloom's by two days. Difficult to transition to summer breakfast wise. I can't think of cold , filling foods for breakfast. Usual foods : eggs, bacon, etc. raise body temperature.

 

[fresh_42]

I just realized:

Earth is orbiting sun by $\approx 30\, km/s$
Sun is orbiting Sagittarius A by $\approx 3\, km/s$
Sagittarius A is closing in on Andromeda at $\approx 0.3\, km/s$

Where are the numerologists when you need one?

 

[CWatters]

Today while talking to my wife in the garden my voice suddenly sounded all weird for a few seconds. Most disconcerting. As I moved my head this weird effect came and went. Quickly discovered that I was standing right at the focal point of the small curved wall around my patio and it was reflecting the sound back to me. The sweet spot appears to be quite small, only about 1 square foot in area. Quite an amazing effect given the wall is only 4 courses of bricks high. My teenage kids were suitably freaked out when I got them to stand there.

 

[WWGD]

Today while talking to my wife in the garden my voice suddenly sounded all weird for a few seconds. Most disconcerting. As I moved my head this weird effect came and went. Quickly discovered that I was standing right at the focal point of the small curved wall around my patio and it was reflecting the sound back to me. The sweet spot appears to be quite small, only about 1 square foot in area. Quite an amazing effect given the wall is only 4 courses of bricks high. My teenage kids were suitably freaked out when I got them to stand there.

They may have burnt you at the stake if this was the 1600s or so.

 

[WWGD]

I am becoming (in)famous for my horrible puns: I asked for my coke today, and a glass with ice to come with it. The lady told me
I was lucky since it was the last of the ice she had left. I asked her to say " I only have ice for you".

 

[skyshrimp]

Did she laugh or cringe? :)