Category: Learned Today

Abductive logic, Logic of what could be. I like the sound of that!!!

Does that mean we are doomed to live in world devoid of proof—that innovation must be consigned to a realm of cross-our-fingers hopefulness? No, it’s not so bleak. Instead, when facing an anomalous situation, we can turn to a third form of logic: abductive logic, the logic of what could be. To use abduction, we need to creatively assemble the disparate experiences and bits of data that seem relevant in order to make an inference—a logical leap—to the best possible conclusion.
via Innovation’s Accidental Enemies – BusinessWeek.

Why does the gunslinger who draws first always get shot?
Posted on: February 2, 2010 7:00 PM, by Ed Yong
In Western films, the gunslinger that draws first always gets shot. This seems like a standard Hollywood trope but it diverted the attention of no less a scientist that Niels Bohr, one of history's greatest physicists. Taking time off from solving the structure of the atom, Bohr suggested that it takes more time to initiate a movement than to react to the same movement. Perversely, the second gunslinger wins because they're responding to their opponent's draw.
Now, Andrew Welchman from the University of Birmingham has found that there's something to Bohr's explanation. People do indeed have a “reactive advantage”, where they execute a movement about 10% more quickly if they're reacting to an opponent. Of course, ethics committees might frown on scientists duelling with the pistols in the name of discovery, even if the people in question were graduate students. So Welchman designed a laboratory gunfight, played out using buttons rather than guns.
via Why does the gunslinger who draws first always get shot? : Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Universal time (UTC) is the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), give or take a second. It’s essentially the time in Greenwich, England except it ignores Daylight Savings Time.
The abbreviation UTC is an odd compromise. The French wanted to use the abbreviation TUC (temps universel coordonné) and the English wanted to use CUT (coordinated universal time). The compromise was UTC, which doesn’t actually abbreviate anything.
via Universal time — The Endeavour.

Hope I can test this while I still remember it, with something concrete that the technique get imprinted in my memory.

The 5 Whys is a question-asking method used to explore the cause/effect relationships underlying a particular problem. Ultimately, the goal of applying the 5 Whys method is to determine a root cause of a defect or problem.
The following example demonstrates the basic process:
* My car will not start. (the problem)
1. Why? – The battery is dead. (first why)
2. Why? – The alternator is not functioning. (second why)
3. Why? – The alternator belt has broken. (third why)
4. Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and has never been replaced. (fourth why)
5. Why? – I have not been maintaining my car according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, a root cause)
via 5 Whys – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This is actually cool to know, at least it makes a lot of the war movies we watch more believable in a not getting shot or killed by enemy fire viewpoint.

There may, however, be another reason. In his book On Killing, Lt Col Dave Grossman says that such behavior is typical of most armies. He quotes a US medic in Vietnam who had to crawl onto battle fields to help wounded soldiers, “What always amazed me is how many bullet can be fired during a firefight without anyone getting hurt.” Equipment can play a role, but there are also psychological factors, Grossman explains. Soldiers have an innate aversion to killing, he says, and will intentionally miss or just not shoot to avoid killing.
Might sound implausible, but there is quite a bit of data to back it up. During World War II, US General S.L.A Marshall interviewed soldiers after battles and found out that only 15 to 20 per cent even fired their weapons. Another amazing factoid: After the US civil war battle of Gettysburg 27,500 muskets were recovered from the battlefield. Ninety per cent of these were loaded, almost 50 per cent had more than one bullet and 25 per cent had 3-10 bullets in the barrel! In other words, instead of shooting, many soldiers just kept on loading. Another one: in World War II, less than 1 per cent of all US fighter pilots accounted for 30-40 per cent of all aircraft shot down.
Some of aversion could be defused through racism or prejudice – 44 per cent of Americans said they “would really like to kill” a Japanese soldier, but only 6 per cent said the same about Germans.
The US army has tackled this problem through socialization, conditioning and training. They now teach their recruits to kill, they desensitize them and dehumanize their enemies. Apparently, this has allowed them to boost firing rates from the 20 per cent in WWII to 50 per cent in Korea and 95 per cent in Vietnam. While I would be very careful about these stats, it looks like there is sufficient evidence there to be able to say that most people need copious coaxing and coercing to kill their fellow man/woman.
via Congo Siasa: Why are Congolese such bad shots?.

The most basic denominations were pound, shilling, and penny. The pound and shilling had the nicknames quid and bob respectively. The plural of “penny” is “pence.” The terms “quid” and “bob” are both singular and plural. A pound equaled 20 shillings and a shilling equaled 12 pence. Pound, shilling, and pence had the abbreviations “L”, “s”, and “d” which came from the Roman librae, solidi, and denarii.A florin was two shillings and a crown was five shillings. A guinea was 21 shillings. The reason a guinea was slightly more valuable than a pound had to do with precious metal exchange rates.A few more denominations were self-evident. For example, the half crown and sixpence were worth what you’d think.
via Currency in British literature — The Endeavour.