Google Insights (Post Millennial Tension)

It's that time of the year where I need to revisit my Google insights topic on how the search term 2012 is trending.  So far there's nothing to back up my still unarticulated hypothesis apart from a minor blip around the time of the Chile earthquake on February 28th, so there's nothing to say apart from perhaps introducing the 'Jakarta complex' (catchy name huh?). Or is it?

It's worth of course noting that Indonesia provides the most volume for the search term 2012 but it's a classical mistake for the quantitatively obsessed bloggers to attribute national scale when the latest data suggests it's Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka that are more interesting for analysis. The reason why 2012 is one of the few metrics I can use is that it uses numbers so it gets a truly deeper look at national trends than local languages. By that I mean "Revelation" probably has a different name in the Ukraine, though that is one search term I'd like to add for context and analysis. But 2012 it is so let's proceed with that and see what occurs. This might all end in tears since Misentropy pointed out to me the Baader Meinhoff complex but so far so good in my estimation. It's always a bit lonely out on the edge and ahead of the curve but it's been eventful thus far and that's what I'm banking on.

Inbox

Some days my email inbox is one thick Smuckers chocolate fudge jar leaking pure intellectual indulgence of sweet but lucid and illuminating thinking. This morning's paragraph is from Thomas in the UK as we're having a discussion about music and Jaron Lanier (who I think we're in violent agreement on, is punching above his intellectual weight with his latest book).

Thomas writes:

As a perhaps superficial example, the 50's seem utterly distinct from the 60's which seem fairly distinct from the 70's. The 70's have a soundtrack that is distinct from the 80's. But 90's from Millenial? The sharpness of the contrast is becoming more and more attenuated. Perhaps this is because I didn't live through those periods but we've been to the Moon and now we've stopped bothering because it seems so pedestrian. The wide eyed wonder and mystery has become implicit and uninteresting, so full scale shifts in our cultural attitudes seem less likely, and thus there will no be soundtracks to accompany those shifts.

Is good yes?

Cognitive Biases

This is just as much for me as you which is why I'm embedding it some weeks after I first saw it. I am however slightly in love with all cognitive bias nomenclature if only because it's utterly humbling how little room there really is to be right. I could use a little humility more often. I even caught myself saying 'I don't know' to some French tourists requests for advice on some options the other night. I mean I think I knew what they were looking for but deep down I knew my ability to project what they were looking for was way more powerful than actually knowing. So I gave them both options.

Come to think of it I could have blown my cheeks and done the whole 'bof' thing too. Anyway cognitive biases; worth raising if it all gets a bit subjective as it often does in the worlds most subjective business. Yes I'm talking about advertising.

And while we're using Scribd just now. There's another document I wrote over a year ago, floating on the net that I neglected to proofread and edit myself. Some of you have written whole blog posts about it but I see that as asymmetric love for my writing as I don't read your work. I will however be editing it so you can see that the biggest howlers have nothing to do with paradoxical oxymorons but simple logic. If it was really important I'd have fixed it a long time ago but lesson learned. If  you want a job doing properly it's best done etc.

Cognitive Biases - A Visual Study Guide