Greek Complexity

The science behind snoozes

Came across a graphic in The Boston Globe that tells us how to nap. This isn't as frivolous as it sounds. Quite sciencey, in fact.

See How to nap for detail.

Something similar at NYTimes back in October: Really? The Claim: For a More Restful Nap, Avoid Caffeine

All of which reminded me of this fascinating book, which provides a look into the bigger theme of synchronicity in nature, napping being just one among several examples:

Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life

I highly recommend reading it.

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Separately, I read a lot but haven't really put much of this on the blog itself. Changing that from today. See new post category On Murli's Radar (LOTD). Meaning, "Link of the Day". I used to put this stuff on my On Murli's Radar feed but as you may recall, Yahoo decided that good enough ain't good enough. They seem to have fixed the problem since my post but I don't trust them.

Japan has outperformed the US over the last 20 years

Really? So says an op-ed in the NYT. The writer presents some strong arguments to bolster his case, including:

The fallacy of the “lost decades” story is apparent to American visitors the moment they set foot in the country. Typically starting their journeys at such potent symbols of American infrastructural decay as Kennedy or Dulles airports, they land at Japanese airports that have been extensively expanded and modernized in recent years.

America’s growth in recent decades has been overstated by as much as 2 percentage points a year. ... This factor alone may put the United States behind Japan in per-capita performance.

The Japanese are consistently among the world’s earliest adopters [of expensive, new high-tech items]. If anything, it is Americans who have been lagging. 

There are, I think, plenty of other facts he ignores, but this is still interesting to chew on. More: The Myth of Japan’s Failure

Google Maps's new 3D MapsGL feature is dizzying. Not that it's a miracle of engineering (I doubt it; maybe once upon a time). I mean that it literally made me dizzy! Serves me right for never being much of a gamer.

Entrepeneurs: please ignore these tips

Luke Johnson writes a piece in the FT piece titled "Ten pieces of advice that should be ignored". Every entrepreneur and, arguably, everyone else associated with a young business should read this list. Says Johnson, don't listen when someone tells you:

• "Never borrow money." What? Why wouldn't an entrepreneur want to borrow money? Equity is much more expensive than debt. Sometimes, much, much more expensive. (As you can see, I use very specific technical terminology like "much, much more"!) Given that I am in the business of providing equity capital, you might think I am making things hard for myself but I stand by this. Of course, best of all is funding yourself via internal accruals, but that doesn't sound very start-up-ish.
• "Profit is all that matters." As Johnson says, different situations call for different metrics of success. Accounting profits aren't the only thing to strive for. For example, one of my portfolio company CEOs has this slogan in his email signature: "Revenue is Vanity, Profits is Sanity but only Cash is reality".
• "Don’t worry about your competitors." The lay reader might wonder why an entrepreneur might even fall into this trap. Surely every business has rivals, you'd think, (and if it truly doesn't, consider the possibility that it isn't a very attractive business to be in), but you'd be surprised how often some entrepreneurs fall into the trap of complacency and ignoring their competitors. I'm not saying that entrepreneurs should be paralysed by the presence of rivals -- sometimes competition can even be a good thing, for instance if it helps educate prospective customers -- but razor sharp focus on who else is in the market is very important.
• "Don’t work with partners." Johnson doesn't say much about this but I cannot stress this enough. In contrast to the first point, where I talk about how some entrepreneurs unnecessarily dilute their shareholding, the same entrepreneurs sometimes don't like working with partners because it feels like they're "sharing" an opportunity with someone else or giving away control. This kind of thinking is a bit upside-down. 1 + 1 really can be more than 2 sometimes... subject to picking the right partner and forging the right partnership arrangement. I use the term "partners" broadly, whether these are formal business partnerships with another company or getting seasoned execs to join your team.

These are the four out of Johnson's ten tips that I have personal experience with and can assure current and aspiring entrepreneurs that they really can have a big impact on the success or failure of a business.

English Pronunciation

No, this isn't as tedious as the title sounds. In fact, I loved this! Wish I'd come up with it myself. Look at this poem:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

That's just how it starts. Gets much harder and much more fun after this. As the site says, "After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud."

click: English Pronunciation