assumptions

We make assumptions all the time, about everyone. Mostly, we assume people are like us, share our beliefs, our interests, our tastes, our background, our likes and dislikes, and our sense of humor.Just the other day, I wrote about assuming an audience member is adversarial based on a challenging question. Frequently, we assume the audience understands our big words, jargon and acronyms, so it does

To continue the TOEFL discussion.. Every once in a while some one would come up to me on the street, usually Taiwanese males in their 30s or 40s, and ask me to give them private English tutoring. I find that extremely peculiar that : They assume, just by looking at me, that I have good [...]

Culture Change Letter #186, Written by Jan Lundberg. There are several major assumptions blinding most of those who try, within the confines of the dominant culture and “The System,” to grasp trends and glimpse the future: 1) Oil supplies will diminish gradually now that peak extraction has arrived. 2) Alternative fuels and renewable energy can replace [...]

Today's edition of the New York Times includes a column from its Public Editor Clark Hoyt regarding a recent Op-Ed published in the Times written by Edward Luttwak and titled "President Apostate?" In his original piece, Mr. Luttwak argued that under Islamic Shariah law "as it is universally understood,” were Barack Obama to be elected president, he would be spurned by countries in the Muslim

As a person who writes blogs, sometimes I find myself making 2 very contradicting assumptions. One is that people read my blog, the other is that people don't read my blog. The first assumption about people reading my blog, is something like you assume people know what is happening to you. Take for example, recently I was bedridden and I received many messages asking me stuff like where's

To assume a loan means you are legally taking over responsibility for its payment. In other words, you are agreeing to take on someone else's loan, transfer the obligation to you, and make the payments from that point forward. When available, assumable loans are just about an investor's best friend!The Good Old Days!There is an issue, however. Prior to the mid 1980’s all government loans were as

Coverity has been scanning open source projects' code for two years with its defect-detecting tool, Prevent. It's found that the quality of the code is improving, and also that some favorite, long held assumptions about software development may not be true. For example, it's assumed for any commercial or open source project, the larger the code mass, the more frequently defects will be

The Euston Moment by Alan Johnston Two years ago a 3,000-word political statement, the Euston manifesto, argued that much of the left had suffered a theoretical collapse and a collapse of sensibility. In the words of Nick Cohen's bestseller, the left had "lost its way". We called for a realignment of progressive politics. By reducing the complexity of the post-cold war world to a single great contest in which "imperialism" or "empire" faced "anti-imperialism" or "the resistance", parts of the left had transformed themselves into a reactionary post-left that took its enemy's enemy for its friend. We were "all Hizbullah now"as the placards had it. Listen to John Rees, a leader of the Stop the War Coalition and Respect: "Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed a

1. Non-environmental factors explain some of the exponential increases in rates of autism diagnoses.2a. Therefore non-environmental factors are responsible for the entire increase in autism diagnoses.and2b. Environmental factors do not and have never caused autism alone or in combination with other factors.autism

McClatchy reports on this report from the National Defense University which calls the Iraq war “a major debacle.” They write that, “The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played [...]

Oh no doubt you guessed this one already. Done by Picasso in 1932, it is called "Girl before a Mirror." It can be seen at MOMA. It is said that the "model" was Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso's mistress at the time. The Artsy people claim that the reflection in the mirror is a death mask and that the painting is a confrontation with mortality. Also it can be seen as daytime and night time and her reaching out an attempt to integrate the two.I am always suspicious of art critics and their psychological interpretations, but I sure know that I feel like this some mornings when I look in the mirror. Well, it looks to be a long post today so we better get at it. It's raining steadily here in Iowa and I have chili on the stove simmering and cornbread ready to begin its final incorporation for bak

In my work as an executive coach I have found that the single biggest mistake that people make is assuming that competence and performance are their ticket to success; when in fact they are merely the price of admission. Most people are good performers. It’s a huge mistake to think that good performance is the [...]

If you're the victim of racial discrimination, harassment and/or retaliation at work, you should be careful about making assumptions about the trustworthiness of your coworkers. Don't assume that you can or can't trust someone based on their race/color, speech/behavior, level of afrocentricity or any other superficial factors. People have all sorts of reasons for engaging in certain actions and these motivations may supercede any of the other factors. That's why you need to be really careful, when sharing your issues in the workplace and details about your next steps.For instance, I had Black coworkers who loved to talk about "keeping it real" and being outspoken. They also loved talk about "those White people" being this, that or the other. But, as soon as their Black manager and close co

We're all guilty of making assumptions about our customers. It's a fact of life - we often jump headstrong into situation after situation with certain expectations and end results in mind - and we get disappointed time and time again....

We're all guilty of making assumptions about our customers. It's a fact of life - we often jump headstrong into situation after situation with certain expectations and end results in mind - and we get disappointed time and time again....

In a recent blog post, Princeton professor and EFF Board Member Ed Felten reminds us that one of the core "Darknet premises" -- that DRM systems on mass media content willinevitably be broken -- continues to prove itself true. The victim this year is AACS, the encryption scheme used to prevent the copying of HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. Despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry to change encryption keys and otherwise lock down content, AACS is broken time and time again.To many who follow DRM issues closely, this is hardly news; the regular breaking of DRM systems, followed by the steady leak of formerly-protected content into file-sharing channels, is now so common that it barely rates a mention in the tech press.But copyright policy-makers still haven't gotten the message that DRM does not slow piracy. Whether they get the message or not, this steadily mounting pile of empirical evidence continues to show that the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA (i.e., "thou shal

In the midst of Thanksgiving grocery shopping, I took a break at a favorite Mediterranean restaurant for lunch. The fragrant aroma of chicken marinated with cinnamon and other exotic spices hangs in the air. The place is casual, with self seating. After the staff brings your plate, you're left to yourself and the condiment bar. It's moderately crowded with a mix of ethnicities, but mostly white people munch their lunch. I sit at a small table on the periphery and settle in. There is a middle-aged white couple to my left halfway through their whole chicken special. The table to my right is empty. A few seats down, sit two dark-skinned young men with black hair and big, deep brown eyes. They speak loudly in their native language, which sounds like Malay or a Southeast Asian dialect to me. They wave their hands around as they speak and laugh, enjoying lunch. Both rip into their chickens with their hands and teeth. They wear flip-flops and soon each has kicked them off. They sit with one

In the midst of Thanksgiving grocery shopping, I took a break at a favorite Mediterranean restaurant for lunch. The fragrant aroma of chicken marinated with cinnamon and other exotic spices hangs in the air. The place is casual, with self seating. After the staff brings your plate, you're left to yourself and the condiment bar. It's moderately crowded with a mix of ethnicities, but mostly white people munch their lunch. I sit at a small table on the periphery and settle in. There is a middle-aged white couple to my left halfway through their whole chicken special. The table to my right is empty. A few seats down, sit two dark-skinned young... Please click over to the blog for the rest of the conversation. I'm trying to increase my page views and hope you'll help by visiting the blog. Thank you, Vivienne

By: Deon Melchior What sort of assumptions will promote and encourage acceleration within our schools?The first assumption that will promote acceleration is acceptance of the belief that all students should be allowed and encouraged to pursue active exploration and learning of all relevant course materials. Teachers who understand this are more likely to develop a more “interactive” curriculum that requires students to seek out information in a wide variety of ways not merely from a single text or workbook. By allowing students the opportunity to engage in the course material in a real and relevant way, educators will give them the opportunity to attach a deeper and more personal meaning to the curriculum itself, thus increasing the chance that the student will be able to recall it on his or her own later on.The continuing key elements open room for encouragement in accelerated learning: A second key element of encouraging accelerated learning within our schools is promotion of the

People are assuming in different ways regarding the condition of Srija. Some are saying that she would certainly come back knowing the bad background of Sirish Bharadwaj. Some say that Chiranjeevi is completely helpless. Others say that Srija would live with Sirish secretly some where.We have got number of mails from the public those make different assumptions about Srija's future."She would certainly come back from Sirish. His negative shades would come out only now. Things would settle in favor of Chiranjeevi's family, only when she voluntarily comes back", writes Aparna Varma from LA."Chiranjeevi's family cannot give police complaint, as it's not an elopement issue. It's a clear marriage that was telecasted on TV as well. So, Chiranjeevi's family members cannot go legally. The have to use only the force of fans to know the whereabouts of them if they want to", says Ramakrishna Murthy in Hyderabad."What are the intentions of Sirish in marrying Srija? Is that only out of craze

For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. We assume because we don’t know. We don’t know because we don’t ask. We don’t ask because we act as if we already know. Or, we are insecure and don’t want to appear stupid. So we make an assumption. Then we forget it is merely something we made up because we don’t know the truth, and we behave as if it’s a fact. If the other people in your life have a similar relationship with assumptions, drama abounds. Everyone acts as if their actions and reactions are based on reality when in fact, so many personal interactions are based on arbitrary fabrications, wishful thinking and fantasy. We have a name for this problem-prone, sloppy thinking: assumptions. Why do we do it? Mental laziness. With enough information, assumptions are unnecessary. When we know the real facts, we don’t have to make them up. How do we learn the facts? Ask questions. “He who fails to questio

I read somewhere that all of us have a set of underlying assumptions based on which we create a model of the world. This model involves all aspects of life, but I will restrict myself of investing.I am aware of a few assumptions on which my investing style or philosophy is based. These assumptions are not universal truths or applicable to others. Its just that I have developed these assumptions over a period of time. Some may be valid and some not. I constantly test these assumptions against my performance and try to discard those that work against my long term performance.So here goes my list1. Value investing is an extremely productive approach to investing for my circumstance. I have a regular job, a family and can devote only a limited time to investing. So for me value investing and an as an extension, buy and hold makes sense.2. Trading is time consuming, too stressful and not a game in which I can or want to excel. In addition, I have a mental block against trading (which must q

People in your 20s...something for you to ponder on...for your retirement....====================================By Chuck Jaffe, MarketWatchCHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Everything you know about your financial future could be wrong. That's not a statement on listening to predictions of a dire market crash or following some new theory of the "best" way to invest. It's about what you think you know about stock market returns and how you have planned for them in the future. Paul McCulley, managing director at Pimco and author of the new book "Your Financial Edge," says that investors need to reshape their portfolios to reflect the returns they should realistically expect from the stock market for the next 25 years.It's not the first time someone has suggested that market gains will be lower over the long haul, it's just the rare occasion when someone with so much influence in the industry and such a long track record of being correct as an economist has called for such a dramatic shift

The government, Bank Indonesia and the Finance Commission of the House of Representatives (DPR), have approved the 2008 macro economic assumptions.The macro economic assumptions that were approved included which next year's economic growth of between 6.5 and 6.9 percent. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is of the opinion that the change in growth rate assumptions will influence the inflation rate, the Rupiah's exchange rate against the US Dollar and the three-monthly Bank Indonesia Certificate (SBI) interest rate. She also viewed that the growth assumption change will alter the three-percent SBI interest rate assumption to between seven and eight percent from the previous standard between 7.5 and 8 percent.

I just posted a few weeks ago a bunch of the articles I’d written for Relevant magazine. Not saying this had anything to do with my lack of writing in the following year, but my post concerning Relevant’s new women’s mag, Radiant, got some interesting attention. Basically I posted this advertisement from Relevant’s website: And I wrote about the trouble with the assumption behind “It’s Our Turn Now.” Radiant Magazine as you can see from the site is geared towards women. What’s so terrible about a magazine geared specifically towards women? Nothing; the terrible thing is that it implies, that Relevant was/is geared toward men. I am not saying Relevant was, or is, a men’s magazine, I’m saying their choice of wording implies that it was. Take a look at the ad for Radiant on Relevant’s homepage. It says, “It’s Our Turn Now.” Does this mean that Relevant was the “men’s” turn? Clearly the approach towards this new magazine does

One of the best practices to have with your financial model, something not often done, is to spell out your assumption separately, in its own assumption sheet in the file. Two things I generally see with assumptions in financial model: 1. The assumptions are buried in the individual cells. The reader has to dig through the model to pull out all the various individual assumptions. 2. Assumptions may be spelled out, but they're listed on individual sheets where the calculations are done. This forces the read to go through many sheets to see the various assumptions. Neither of these is as good as having all the key assumption laid out in one page. It makes it much easier to review when they're all together. It provides a check and balance, for you can see where certain assumptions out here out of sync with each other. However, there's an even greater blessing - two great additional benefits I see: 1. You can make all your assumption changes right from one particular sheet. 2. It is

Intercultural marriage adds an extra set of dynamics to relationships. Regardless of how those differing cultures met to love one another, the desire to marry comes with a need to merge two cultures into one. Many questions arise. Will our families understand? What about spousal roles? What differences will be encountered with food and meal preparation?Recently,we created a survey questionnaire about intercultural marriage and asked many such couples to respond to some of the positives and negatives within an intercultural marriage. The answers were eye-opening and helpful.Probably one of the biggest assumptions made within marriage is that the way we do things is the correct way. After all, "My family has always done it this way and it works quite well." This same assumption is found within intercultural marriages, but it's magnified.Assumptions about how we live come with each culture. All of our life experiences through family & cultural background teach us how to deal with life's

I've found that whenever I move to a new place and I eventually reveal my lack of belief to people, I'm greeted with a host of assumptions. It's as if what I lack a belief in speaks for all my other life experiences and beliefs. For example, I couldn't possibly believe in marriage and "proper" child rearing because I lack a belief in God. Additionally, because I am only in my twenties, my

Writes: Todd Follansbee Every day I work with people who manage their own or others’ small to medium business websites. Most make fundamental mistakes that leave money on the table. While owners and webmasters often pay lip service to modern web marketing practices, too often their sites tell a different story. If you really want to [...]

The One-Eyed Doe(Illus by Harrison Weir, John Tenniel, Ernest Griset)A Doe had had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and couldnot see any one approaching her on that side. So to avoid anydanger she always used to feed on a high cliff near the sea, withher sound eye looking towards the land. By this means shecould see whenever the hunters approached her on land, andoften escaped by this means. But the hunters found out that shewas blind of one eye, and hiring a boat rowed under the cliffwhere she used to feed and shot her from the sea. "Ah," criedshe with her dying voice,"You cannot escape your fate."Moral:Trouble comes from the direction we least expect it.Kidding me:Don't let people exploit your weaknesses. Hide them. Perhapsthat is one reason why the visually handicapped tend to weardark glasses. Nobody will notice their handicap on a brightsunny day. For the same reason, it will be strange for thehearing impaired to wear earmuffs as it is simply toonoticeable.Quotable