Steam boats 'r' us

Yesterday, I had the crazy idea of making a steam boat with my kids.  It all started the night before, when I told my two boys a bedtime story about James Watt and his invention of the steam engine.  I thought it would be cool if they could see a real working steam engine.  Even better - if they could build one themselves.  Well, I discovered that with a little work and perseverance I could build one and they could enjoy watching it run.

Around 9:30 this morning, I found this great set of instructions online.  And by great, I mean so super awesome, that I can't say enough about how useful they were.  There are written instructions, video instructions, printable cut outs, history lessons, and more.   The instructions were so well done that I made a working putt-putt boat on my first try!  Since this was supposed to be a project with the kids, I rounded up my three little ones and dragged them to 3 different stores to find all the materials.  The materials weren't that expensive, especially since some of the things could have been recycled - soda cans, soda bottles, and orange juice boxes (I didn't have any of those handy so I bought some soda and orange juice which were enjoyed later).  Other things you need around the house - scissors, epoxy, hot glue gun, ruler, marker, small candle (either birthday or tea candles will do), a stick for spreading epoxy, and straws.

After lunch we set to work.  I downed a can of diet Dr. Pepper so that we could build the engine.  After lots of cutting, folding, and gluing, we finally had a working aluminum engine.  My two eldest kids (6 and 4 years old) helped for the first hour or so, but wandered off after they realized it was going to take a long time.  And as much as I wanted them to participate, I also recognized that most of the steps required skills beyond their capabilities (but then again, I've under estimated their skills before).  Now that I know the steps, I would be more comfortable helping them complete their own engines next time.

The technology behind a putt-putt engine is pretty simple.  Essentially, it's a steam engine.  As the water heats up inside the metal engine, it turns to steam.  The pressure from the steam becomes so intense that eventually a bubble is forced down the straw and out the back of the boat, pushing the boat forward. When the bubble escapes, cool water rushes back in providing fresh material heating material for more steam.  Since the water flowing out is moving faster than the water flowing back in, the boat moves forward.  The "putting" or "popping" noise comes from the expansion and contraction of the flat aluminum side as the steam expands and contracts.  There are silent versions of this engine using coiled copper tubes, but I could not find the right sized tubes at Lowes.  Maybe next time.

As you can see from this video, the kids loved watching it run.


Just another fun activity dads can do with their kids!

Confirmation bias

Recently, I read an article about confirmation bias that made me realize that this is major impediment to being productive.  So, what is confirmation bias?  According to Science Daily, confirmation bias is "a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study."  Wikipedia lists some of the traits of confirmation bias to be:

• Interpretation - When giving evidence both for and against your belief, the bias tends to focus only on the evidence for your belief and ignore evidence against your belief
• Search for information - You seek evidence from someone you know agrees with you and do not seek evidence from those that disagree with you.
• Memory - you tend to remember evidence that supports your argument and forget evidence that contradicts your position

Let's unpack this concept.  Confirmation bias seems to be misappropriation of evidence, leading to incorrect inductions.  Most often, confirmation bias is an automatic response.  These automatic responses are based on heuristics.  People use heuristics (rules of thumb) to quickly make evaluations. Without heuristics, we would never have time to make all the decision necessary in our lives. We would spend all of our time re-hashing the same evidence, the same logical steps, and the same conclusions.  Where heuristics go wrong is when they are applied to emotionally charged ideas.  The pain at looking at contrary evidence leads many individuals to ignore that evidence in favor of positive evidence that confirms our original ideas.  Individuals do not like dissonance in their thoughts.  They want certainty.  Unfortunately, that certainty comes at the expense of objectivity, leading to ill founded beliefs.

There are two times confirmation bias can be observed, when you first develop an idea and when you are presented with new evidence that contradicts one of your existing ideas.  If confirmation bias can be avoided in the former, the easier it will be managed in the latter.  However, many people, myself included, have adopted ideas without fully evaluating all the evidence for and against when initially presented to them. Young kids are particularly susceptible. This may require re-evaluation of ideas that were once closely held.  I have done this before when I reevaluated my belief in God and my interaction with The Objectivist Center, both of which led me to reject my earlier decisions based on new evidence.

Fortunately, there is a way to avoid confirmation bias - scientific inductive reasoning.  Two principle techniques to scientific reasoning are establishing reliability and validity.  Validity can be further sub-divided into both internal and external validity.  So how can these be employed to avoid confirmation bias?

1. For evidence to be reliable, new evidence should confirm older evidence.  If it contradicts it, chances are something fishy is going on or evidence is not being placed within its appropriate context.  Seek evidence from multiple, disparate sources, particularly in emotionally driven complex issues.  In highly controversial issues, its especially important to gather evidence from sources, both pro and con, and place that evidence within their proper context.
2. Internal validity looks at the internal logic of an argument.  Ask yourself if the evidence presented shows only part of the picture. Ask yourself if you have fully considered ALL of the evidence.  Ask yourself if the conclusions are as solid as claimed. It may help to break up the argument into all of its component parts and verify that evidence supports each part.  In short, play "devil's advocate" to establish internal validity.
3. External validity verifies an idea is consistent with the wider context of one's knowledge base. Ask yourself if this conclusion is true, what does it mean for other ideas.  Ask yourself honestly what the evidence means for my life.  The conclusion from the evidence should integrate with knowledge you already have without contradictions.  If it doesn't, either something is wrong with your new conclusion or something is wrong with your existing ideas.

By employing these methods consistently, you can avoid confirmation bias.  Take a step back from the emotional charged idea and be objective.  If you do this, you have a good chance at avoiding confirmation bias and achieving objectivity in your thoughts.

Thinking Your Way to Productivity

The popularity of Getting Things Done (GTD) system may have as much to do with its focus on efficient thinking as anything else.   The breakdown of conscious, slow, deliberate thinking is paired with subconcious, fast, inspirational thinking such that each process is performed at diffferent times and with different goals.  But when done in the proper order, leads to effective results.  The steps in GTD bare a striking resemblance to how Ayn Rand described the most efficient writing process in The Art of Nonfiction.  She broke up the steps to writing into clear functional processes that best utilize your conscious and subconscious thinking. Brainstorming what to write about is largely a subconscious and emotionally driven process.  Once a topic is decided, the conscious process begins with writing the outline.  Once the outline is completely thought out, Rand recommends letting the subconscious process take over while writing the content of the article, letting words flow from your mind on to the page without limiting yourself.  Lastly, Rand recommends a thorough edit, reverting back to a fully conscious process.

In many ways, the steps in GTD are similar.  David Allen recommends breaking your thinking up into descrete steps such that conscious and subconscious processes are in full effect at appropriate times.
While filling your inbox throughout the day, you are letting any brainstorm or inspirational idea that strikes you be saved for further review.  This process is subconcious oriented.  In fact, Allen strongly suggests spending zero time consciously thinking about the ideas - at that time.  Then, once or twice a day, Allen recommends you clear your inbox by engaging your conscious thinking - considering what to do each and every item in the inbox, identifying how to classify each item, breaking down projects into sub-tasks, and evaluating next action items.  The rest of the day is then spent performing tasks, which if fully thought through, should become more subconscious oriented where inspiration and flow drive your actions.  That's not to say all of your actions should be fully subconscious or emotionally driven, as there will likely be many times when completing tasks will require thoughtful, conscious engagement.  But by breaking projects into next action items, it is possible to fly through each action item with less deep concentration and fewer distractions because some of that thought has already been accomplished.  Lastly, Allen recommends a periodic review, which again engages the conscious process to evaluate whether you are still on track (or not) with your long term goals.

It would be interesting to discover if there are more similiarities between productive achievement and the deliberate usage of different thinking processes that best take advantage of each process's strengths and avoid each process's weaknesses.

Crash Proof 2.0 review

I recently finished reading Peter Schiff's Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit From the Economic Collapse.  In it, Schiff makes a prediction - in the next few years, the US dollar will experience a significant drop in value.  He makes this prediction based on huge trade imbalances and insurmountable governmental debt.  This debt bubble will eventually collapse causing a massive drop in the dollar's value, massive inflation, and possibly a full out depression in the United States. 

Now usually, I don't buy into these dooms day predictions.  However, there are several things about Schiff that made me pay attention.  First, he correctly predicted the housing bubble in 2006 when most other pundits were claiming a new era of prosperity.  In the first version of his book Crash Proof, published in 2006, he details his reasons why this bubble will burst soon.  And burst it did for exactly the reasons he stated. Second, Schiff predicted a rise of gold prices that in 2006 were already at all time highs.  Today, gold is almost 3 times higher.  Third, Schiff bases his predictions on the solid economic principles of Austrian economics.  He does not buy into the Keynsian approach that have shown time and again to be flawed.

So Schiff is certainly someone to take seriously when he makes a prediction about the imminent collapse of the dollar.  However, there are a few things that I found unsatisfactory with his overall argument.  First, I'm not convinced that the trade imbalance is as big a deal has he claims.  For every dollar lost in trade, a similar foreign dollar is invested in our economy.  This provides much of the capital he laments is missing from American savings' accounts.  I do not see it likely that foreign investors will quickly pull out that money as much of it is tied up in long term investments. 

However, the US government debt IS still a major problem.  And my understanding of his argument does seem legitimate.  My take is basically that with are growing debt, foreign governments are going to starting moving away from the US dollar as a reserve currency due to the danger of default.  As foreign governments stop subsidizing our currency, the dollar will start to fall in value.  This will encourage other governments to pull out, facilitating a crash.  Our Fed may try to buy all those bonds to keep the dollar afloat, but that will directly lead to sharp increases in inflation.  As far as this argument goes, I generally agree.  Schiff believes this crash to be imminent.  But this is my second problem with Schiff's book, it does not convenience me that such a crash will occur soon.  He seems to imply that it will occur sometimes in the next 5 years.  But why not 10 or 20?  That's a huge amount of time in investing.  What is it about the near term that he sees this collapse as something I need to be prepared for now.  It could greatly impact how I invest.

But probably the best thing about this book is that he gives good solid advice at the end of the book on what to do to make it through this crash in sound financial position.  If his predictions hold true, the advice is certainly logical and fuel for thought when considering investing strategies.  I know that I am reconsidering my investments to at least partially follow his advice.

GTD Habits

A friend of mine posted an article recently about the dangers of blaming technology for a failure in your productivity system.  In this case, the system is Getting Things Done (GTD).  What's more important is establishing the habits of GTD and using technology to supplement those habits.  This struck home for me a bit because I found myself recently fiddling with a couple different technology solutions for GTD and not being fully satisified with any of them.  I kept telling myself that if I could just find that right tool, everything would be honky-dory.  Well, that just isn't true. 

After reading about how to integrate GTD with Outlook and OneNote, I have optimized my technology solution as much as I care to for now and want to focus on improving my habits.  So here are the habits I'm currently focusing on and specific practices I've identified to help me with them.

Daily habits

• Adding to my inbox. Practice - I need to keep OneNote open all the time to help me improve my useage of it. I may also need to start creating items in my OneNote inbox from emails. I'm still struggling with capturing everything here and need to focus more on developing habits for centrally grabbing all thoughts.
• Clearing my inbox. Practice - My email inbox I will clear 2-3 times a day. My OneNote inbox will be cleared once a day.

Weekly habits - Perform weekly review every Monday morning

• Ensure my week's goals move me toward my month and year goals.  Practice - created pages in OneNote for monthly and yearly goals.  Created subpages under month goals for each new week.
• Ensure that I am making progress on each project.  Practice - where I am not waiting for somebody, verify that I have a next action item in the weekly goals

I am adding reminders in Outlook to keep reviewing my progress with these habits.

There are also some habits that I know I will eventually need to improve, but they are lower priority to the ones above.  Once the above habits are working and ingrained in my system, I will work on the following issues:

• How often should I review "Someday/Maybe" items?
• How can I use eletronic references most effectively?
• How can I best plan projects within this framework?

With a bit of applied focus, I am confident I can improve these habits and my overall productivity.