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guslInefficient queueing.
If someone is standing in the way of the food that you want, you should jump ahead of them. In this case, maximizing global utility requires you to be locally rude. But close to 100% of people choose to be locally polite and globally rude. Just now, we were having a lunchtime seminar, but the Chinese food came in late, and we were very pressed for time and the organizers told us this. I started spreading out the food, which probably saved a minute or two for our room of 50 people.
Stupid classroom design
(see my cartoon) How hard would it be to raise the floor a bit in the back rows? Usually the easiest thing to do is to raise the speaker and/or height where the overhead projector is mounted.
Mathematical notation
Every mathematician I've met forgets/neglects quantifiers sometimes. Also, the word "any" can mean "for all" or "there exists", so please don't use it when going for precision! I'm down with convenient mathematical metonymy, i.e. slight abuses of notation, if one translates this to the formal meaning at least once, but people rarely do. It would also be helpful to keep around a symbol denoting the formal context ("language") under which variables are to be interpreted. I have made some formalization efforts in my wiki.
Silly little things that won't get done unless you do them yourself, e.g. the PUSH/PULL signs I installed on the unintuitive doors to the department, prevent people wasting time being confused / fixing the door, and saves the doors from some damage.
People who have spoken conversations during talks. I'm ok with conversations online or on paper, but if you pollute my acoustic environment, I will resent it.
If someone is standing in the way of the food that you want, you should jump ahead of them. In this case, maximizing global utility requires you to be locally rude. But close to 100% of people choose to be locally polite and globally rude. Just now, we were having a lunchtime seminar, but the Chinese food came in late, and we were very pressed for time and the organizers told us this. I started spreading out the food, which probably saved a minute or two for our room of 50 people.
Stupid classroom design
(see my cartoon) How hard would it be to raise the floor a bit in the back rows? Usually the easiest thing to do is to raise the speaker and/or height where the overhead projector is mounted.
Mathematical notation
Every mathematician I've met forgets/neglects quantifiers sometimes. Also, the word "any" can mean "for all" or "there exists", so please don't use it when going for precision! I'm down with convenient mathematical metonymy, i.e. slight abuses of notation, if one translates this to the formal meaning at least once, but people rarely do. It would also be helpful to keep around a symbol denoting the formal context ("language") under which variables are to be interpreted. I have made some formalization efforts in my wiki.
Silly little things that won't get done unless you do them yourself, e.g. the PUSH/PULL signs I installed on the unintuitive doors to the department, prevent people wasting time being confused / fixing the door, and saves the doors from some damage.
People who have spoken conversations during talks. I'm ok with conversations online or on paper, but if you pollute my acoustic environment, I will resent it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 03:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-11 05:41 am (UTC)