Alexander Chalkidis

Blog

  • Will this idea work?

     

     

    Some time ago I sat in a school committee meeting.  As usual they were wasting time talking too much.  For about half an hour they were discussing what to do about the graffiti on the wall.  I calculated that in that time we could have actually painted it over at least twice.   By doing we would have solved the problem we were thinking about.  It wasn’t about consensus, it was just that everybody was playing with “what if” scenarios instead of “just do it” solutions.

    I have done the same in big business meetings though too.  All too often you come out of a meeting with an idea.  The problem is that the idea that seems better has no data to back it up.  There is no way to differentiate between ideas when they are just blah blah over coffee and stale biscuits at a Monday morning meeting.  That to me seems like a big waste.  If I have spent an hour getting excited about an idea, why leave it to die?

    Business is essentially a series of experiments.  Every day you look for “solutions”.  Which means that essentially you are testing a hypothesis.  “Here is a situation we need to change.  Will this work?”   www.willthiswork.org is something I just started to help you with that.  How to test ideas quickly, cheaply and with little or no risk.  (Depends how you do it and what “it” is.)  I come out of that meeting and start the project.  That simple.

    Anyone who has commissioned a panel knows how frustrating it is.  8 or 10 people carefully selected and coordinated by specialists end up giving you pretty bad data.  You have no idea how accurate or useful it is really.  And it is way too expensive.  Instead of talking about “social media”, I think of them as cheap experiments.  There are ready made tools and keen audiences wanting to partake in your tests.  At worse you get a lot of feedback, maybe some new ideas.  At best you have launched the idea in a spectacular way and proved it works.

    It is pretty addictive.  Having done it thousands of times I have remnants of old ideas all over the place.  That product launch page which is still counting down to a launch that never happened.  That other site which just republished content but got us more than twenty thousand unique hits and saved the day with the search data it provided.  The other software idea which seemed fantastic but a month down the line seemed less fantastic as it would cost way too much.  Some of these ideas didn’t even wait until the meeting ended.  I have automated the procedure so much now, I can launch an idea website within five minutes of thinking of the idea.

    It’s not always that simple.  So www.willthiswork.org has just started from phase one, all rough and ugly right now as it is going slowly so I can explain some of the challenges at every step.  Try it out.  Just do it.

     

     

  • Nick Cave dies of an overdose

    The first time I saw Nick Cave live it was in a grungy basement club.  He was either too stoned or not stoned enough.  In any case the man showed very limited connection to anything happening around him.  Like for example the songs being played.  Truth be told it is amazing he recovered from that state back in 1980something when I saw him, even more so that he became a success.   And I am really really happy I have never listened to him since.

    I forced myself to listen to the entire album.  “Skeleton Tree” does not put me in a good mood.  Nick Cave reminds of a friend at high school who always wore way too smart clothes and insisted on painting only with black ink.  He refused to do anything normal.  If he painted something that looked recognizable he would mess it up.  If he said something approaching what you expected, he added something irrelevant.  This album is exactly that.  Cave drones like the failed poet that he is.  If you like Leonard Cohen you will love this.  He recites his prose and makes sure it doesn’t really rhyme or even fit in the rhythm.  As soon as it starts sounding normal he goes off on a tangent.  If we didn’t know better, we would assumed he is stoned silly.

    The real problem with this album is the music.  Or more specifically the completely boring background tracks to Cave’s rants.  Perhaps the only half decent attempt where he bothers to try and fit with what the rest of the band is doing is this:

    On a good day you will listen to that entire track and even half like it.  But the rest of the album is much much worse.  And on tracks like “Distant Sky” it is well, truly pathetic.  The man can’t decide if he is a devout Christian, a lost soul or a fanatic atheist.  The music is even worse in lack of positioning.    The choir and female backing tracks make your local school kids singing seem awesome.

    That friend of mine from school is now a famous composer and doing really well for himself.  Personally I find his music banal and generally ripped off from others.  But hey, like Nick Cave, he is a success and the women love him.  Just goes to show.   Some girls will go crazy about this verse or the other in the album, fans will look for references and try to figure out whether the supermarket he mentions is Heaven or just the local 7/11.    Nick Cave is not a “rock legend” as some describe him.  He is a second rate musician, a third rate poet and a terrible songwriter.  If you like the words . ask him to do performance art at some cultural event, accompanied by a tuna, a trombone and a tit.  He has no place on a CD or near a band.  It almost makes me wish that night in 1980something in the basement Nick Cave had decided to just give up.

  • Socrates on Greek debt

    “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; pay it and do not forget.”  The last words of the famous philosopher have been much discussed.  Maybe he foresaw the Greek debt situation!  Nietzsche of course turned it to metaphorically mean death.   Others say it was Plato who was ill and recovering, Socrates heard of this and wanted to thank the God.    Or maybe he had already started having dellusions due to the hemlock and remembered an old debt.

    But most take it literally.  Socrates, having eloquently stated his case in court, with cynical dryness and panache mentioned an actual debt to tidy over before he died.

     

  • Greek on a soapbox

    Will try and keep this short and unGreek in drama.  I am a Germanotsolias according to many people here.  The term refers to the police collaborators with the Nazis and is very fashionable again.  Ι write in full knowledge that I am probably going to be pinpointed by this, already the Press is facing ridiculous inquisitions on political grounds.

    Europe I am sorry.   We just kept taking your money, lying through our teeth and spending it.  Even just before the referendum, our government was busy hiring more civil servants under various guises.  Even after the referendum, our ministers are lying to your face.  They are not going to make any proposals.  Even if you give away all our debt and accept all our terms, they won’t sign any agreement.  They don’t need to.   61% of half the voting age Greeks, voted No to the referendum.  Some of them were fooled.  Many of them truly believe that now is the time to start a global revolution against banks, the European Union and the shortcomings of the global economy from our country.

    I am sorry.  I know it sounds ludicrous.  It is preposterous.  Imagine what we feel like.  That 39% that managed to vote “YES”, despite all the pressure.  Despite seeing close friends suddenly lose touch with reality with a religious fervour that is truly frightening.  People that should have known better.  They studied abroad, they do business with other countries, they work with the European Union yet….somehow they manage to disregard reality.  For some it is a knee jerk reaction to being accused by others.  For some it is an indirect admission of guilt.  They feel we should be reduced to rumbles in order to work our way back up.  They imagine it as a quick musical interlude in a corny American movie, a dramatic song, our hero working overtime and then…everything is fine ten minutes later and the movie ends.

    On top of it all, our latest government has played the “Europe needs fixing” card in a way which is criminal.  Just as the Scottish referendum showed the UK how to move towards a more Federal model and things are moving in the right direction, comes the Greek bulldozer.  So let this be a warning to you all.  For too long, European politicians have blamed Europe.  It was the easy choice.  Be careful what sows you seed and by all means, don’t allow your current politicians to lead you to fanatical choices.

    Maybe Europe doesn’t “work” for you.  If you have a strong economy, reliable politicians and social cohesion maybe you can do something better on your own.  Just don’t rush into it.

  • Aristotle on sleeping with sheep

    It is warmer if you sleep with goats than it is with sheep.  Sheep are more nervous, whereas goat  snuggle up close to people in the night.

    History of Animals – Aristotle

  • Philosophy pays

    Thales of Miletus was often mocked for being poor.  Some said that this proved his philosophy was useless.  But while studying the stars one winter, Thales discovered that it would be particularly good weather that season for olives.  He subsequently leased all the olive presses he could.  Both in his home town of Miletus but also on Chios island.    The lease was cheap.  No one else made a bid.   Many months later, the time to harvest came.  It was indeed a great year, so they all needed oil presses.   Since their need was urgent and Thales controlled all the presses, he increased the price for his services and made a lot of money.

    This was how he showed everyone that if a philosopher sets his mind to it, he can indeed make money.  But he chooses not to.

    Politics – Aristotle 

  • Were Greeks always easy to sway?

    It is surprising that this trick worked.  Greeks have always been more intelligent than barbarians.  And Athenias even more so, they are the smartest of all Greeks.

    Yet Pisistratus the tyrant, got his position back with a very simple trick:  he found a pretty and quite tall girl from the peasants and dressed as if she were the godess Athena.  With full armor and other accessories the girl rode with him in a chariot.  And Pisistratus had heralds announce that Athena herself was bringing him back to power.

     

    (Herodotus – Histories, 1.60)

     

  • A dog, actually my best friend. For real!

    Xenophanes often mocked Pythagoras for believing in the transmigration of souls.   According to him, once Pythagoras heard a dog which was been beaten and shouted “Stop!  Do not beat that dog!  It is the soul of a dear friend of mine, I recognize the voice!”

  • Plagiarism detection tricks

    Heraclides amazingly proposed (back then) that earth has a 24 hour cycle of revolution on its axis.  However  he wasn’t as perceptive in other matters:

    “Dionysios had written a tragedy which he called Parthenopaeus.  As a practical joke, he put Sophocles as the author when it was written .   When Heraclides quoted as if it really was by Sophocles in one of his works.  Then Dionysius told him it was a joke but of course Heraclides didn’t believe him at all.  Then Dionysius told to look at at thethe opening eight lines.  The first letter spelled the name of his lover, Pancalus.  Then Heraclides said that this may have been coincidence.

    Then Dionysius told him that he could also find an acrostic which said “Old monkeys do not fall into traps.  Well, they do in fact but it takes a long time.”  He had also hidden in the manuscript as an acrostic the phrase “Heraclides is not ashamed that he doesn’t understand writing.”

    Lives of the Philosophers – Diogenes Laertius

     

     

  • Semen tic differences

    In Histories, Herodotus claims that Ethiopians (as he had also claimed about Indians elsewhere) produce black semen.  Aristotle however criticizes this view:

    “…as if a person of black skin is black in every part.  But the teeth of a black person are white.”