not sure if you meant to link a different chart - that chart is the electricity component of CPI-U (an inflation measure) meaning it's by definition not inflation adjusted - you'd probably want to find a chart of nominal values for electricity spending and adjust for inflation to see whether or not it's at an all time high. Which, recently it's run ahead of inflation because of the overall surge in demand and investment in upgrading aging infrastructure/adding new capacity, but long term it's pretty flat/down
I see both happened around the same time. Correlation requires showing that both increase together and both decrease together (and that it's not chance).
I live in Excel. This video was basic. I was hoping for more sophisticated instruction. But from reading the comments, it’s clear I need to learn a data analysis language.
I think Python and Julia are popular for this purpose, Python much more so.
You will probably want to use one of the “notebook” environments that make your Python easier to use interactively and display graphs and the like. Jupiter is the one I know but there are others too.
In terms of popularity I'd say Python>R>Julia
R might be closest in syntax to how excel works, especially with the ifelse functions. R also has dplyr, which is unmatched in how it makes data manipulation easy and streamlined
State dependent learning is a legitimate phenomenon.
This study didn’t test those who regularly took cognitive enhancers
It just looked at people who were not ADHD and then gave them a drug
No time to adjust or adapt
Would have liked to see four populations tested.
Then do the tests with placebos and cognitive enhancers
If you study for a test on medication you better take the test on medication.
And if you study unmedicated, you better take the test unmedicated
I think they should find “non-ADHD” populations who happen to routinely take cognitive enhancers and then perform the same test.
Would be willing to bet that there is an improvement over placebo group vs medicated group in this population
If coffee and nicotine are effective cognitive enhancers for general populations, regardless of ADHD or not, it’s silly to think that stimulants like amphetamines are ineffective
So the research conclusions are flimsy and incomplete
Don't have kids if your primary goal is avoiding loneliness. Decide if you truly want them and try babysitting kids of a few different ages first. It's a huge commitment, and not one that should be decided for selfish reasons
I work as a Client Partner for a $1B+ consulting firm that comes in and cleans up after these situations. We bring in seasoned, experienced consultants with the functional knowledge that these big consulting firms don’t have. And even though our consultants are more costly on a per head basis, we’re more cost effective overall, because we do more with less.
I always admired the big consulting firms until I realized how consistently they fail to deliver. It’s hard for the clients to fix it because they genuinely think they are getting the best. It’s sad and laughable. Eventually they figure it out. Usually when a firm like us comes in and exposes the dysfunction by getting a few consultants in there that know what they are doing and running things like it should. And it generally comes down to a lack of leadership— by both the client and the big consulting firm. They point the finger at each other. But also it’s just a lack of experience by those running/implementing the program. Staffed by consultants who read all the books and go to the trainings and classes but have never been in industry and been in the clients shoes.
Well lets say you're a guy who runs the 10-year-old analytics platform for your company; your team's job is to deliver a bunch of charts and data to the executive team on the performance of the company on a weekly basis.
That's not an easy job, because you've got a shitton of unstructured data, new data sources coming online all the time, and a patchwork of analysis tools. This work would be a hell of a lot easier and more accurate and maybe even cheaper in the long run if you had an analytics layer that was more modern - but you don't have time to make the case to the CIO, because you're too busy just running the reports and doing the job that you're paid to do.
However, maybe a guy like me is having a convo with his client the CIO and she says "Y'know, Eisenstein thinks we need a new analytics plat, but he's busy on five other projects – can I pay you $5k to take a look at it and make me some recommendations?"
So I can sit with you, get your hot take, maybe bring in one of my guys who is shit-hot on dozens of analytics platforms, show you and your boss the trade-offs, costs, etc. If I'm lucky maybe you'll even hire one of my guys for a couple of months to install it and train you and your team up on it.
Way cheaper than interviewing and trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison between a dozen different analytics companies who're all gonna lie to your face about how their product is the best, probably politically better that you don't miss a full quarter of you doing your job, and your boss also gets to look good when I ship a sexy deck that shows how we're going to integrate all her peers' pet systems and provide much more timely, accurate, and readable results.
(I made this all up out of whole cloth, but the bottom line is sometimes incentives are aligned as such that a middle man can help you get there faster, cheaper, and better than DIY. On the other hand, consultants can also make things WAY worse as this thread illustrates)
The big consulting firm runs a program/project to deliver a result. Perhaps implement a new business system or technology or integration, optimize or implement a new process, perform some organizational change in the way things are done, etc.
Companies don’t have the skills or experience or expertise or resources or time in-house to do it themselves, so they essentially outsource the initiative or objective to a consulting firm.
It’s seen as less risky to go with name brand big consulting firm. But companies think they can pay little and get a quality delivery team, and the big consulting firms usually find a way to make a profit at the expense of quality by leveraging inexperienced consultants or consultants overseas with no real world experience.
Agree with all of these except the “pay little.” Top consulting firms are crazy expensive to the point we could hire a team of several analysts and a manager for a few years for what we pay them.
Engagements are often around $100k a month and when I go looking for one of the consultants to help in an emergency, I often hear they are busy with something else (another client) and need a day to get the request started. When we’re paying 100k a month you better damn well have one person on deck or able to pivot immediately to us as if they are one of our employees.
$100,000 a month is nothing. That’s like 1-3 full time consultants, at like a $200-600 bill rate.
My current client is spending $300M+ a year on an implementation program, and they are going on their third year with 2-3 more to go.
When I say pay little, they need more people and/or more experienced people to actually get the job done right. But they end up off shoring to teams in India or green consultants with zero industry background and limited experience.
They choose the firm with the most compelling economics, but severely overlook quality. They forget that these are organizational changes that impact humans. That outsourcing to lower skilled or different cultural regions will impact communication and team dynamics and overall ability to get things done properly.
Compared to my peers, I am one of the most productive humans. (I know this because my career track, quarterly and annual performance ratings, manager feedback, KPIs and metrics against peers or industry standards)
I attribute this to my ability to convince reptilian brain that if I don’t successfully execute tasks and accomplish goals, that I will die.
I operate as if I have a gun pointed at my head. And at the head of everyone I love and cherish.
This allows me to fully engage all my faculties as if my life depended upon it. Hyperfocus.
The downside is stress.
I mostly operate in a flow state, but depending on the day/task/objective, my body has trouble disengaging this feeling that I will die if I don’t execute, so it can negatively affect sleep, as well as life outside of work, because I am always thinking about how to accomplish the goal.
But the ability to trigger my amygdala into this “fight” mode stimulates a daily adrenal response that allows me to perform with exponential productivity. I am often astonished at what I am able to accomplish over a period of time.
All this requires me believing in what I’m doing to some degree, but not always. For example, I just want the biggest bonus in the company history, and if I don’t get it, I will die. So this allows me to have some purpose.
I also need to believe that I’m good at what I’m doing, because that enables me to execute confidently and without hesitation from one task/goal to the next and enjoy the process.
Sorry you were downvoted but frankly I think the reptilian (as you call it) impulse for survival/not-dying is basically at the root of any real executive drive that yields the success stories we see (and also why people have a hard time shutting it off and stopping once they’ve made it).
I’m supporting a $30B companies ERP migration to S4 as a Client Partner providing project support and this resonates. Two years in, the program is so f’ed, morale is so low, the project plan and execution is so terrible, it’s inconceivable how a company can exist with so much pervasive dysfunction.
Go live is May. No chance that will happen. So many defects they can’t keep track. No business processing mapping or desktop procedures beyond L1. No data mapping. No requirements were ever submitted. Still processing change requests in UAT. Controls are laughable and do not meet PCAOBs criteria for completeness and accuracy. Still missing and adding reports. And a dozen other concurrent technology implementations happening in parallel with interdependent integrations that depend on this go-live, with the legacy platforms discontinuing by end of 2023 that will leave the business incapable of performing critical business processes.
None of my consultants want to be on the project. They think it’s professional suicide to be apart of a train headed off the cliff. I am still in disbelief and am hoping that somehow I will gain a unique wisdom by sticking it out and watching them pull this off. Or it will be a spectacular apocalyptic disaster that will make for a great story.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEHF01