Links – Page 8 – Sonya Ellen Mann

This website was archived on July 21, 2019. It is frozen in time on that date.

Sonya Mann's active website is Sonya, Supposedly.

Ambiguity = Opportunity

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Sonya Mann

Venkatesh Rao wrote an essay for his Breaking Smart newsletter about uncertainty versus ambiguity:

“High uncertainty tolerance requires you to develop analytical skills. High ambiguity tolerance requires you to develop insight skills. […] The risk of uncertainty wrangling is being wrong. The risk of ambiguity wrangling is seeing something where there is nothing, or vice versa.”

If we roll with Rao’s implied definitions, uncertainty is being unsure about facts, whereas ambiguity is being unsure about interpretation. (This is perhaps beside the point, but I’m not sure the distinction between the words “uncertainty” and “ambiguity” is actually so clear-cut.)

My guess is that most of Rao’s readers work in tech and probably a high proportion of them are aspiring startup founders (I’m not excluding myself from either of those categories). I can easily see how this uncertainty and ambiguity matrix applies to either investing or entrepreneurship.

Let’s say you’re examining a market. You don’t know how many people have XYZ characteristic. That’s an uncertainty problem. Or maybe you do know how many people have XYZ characteristic, but you don’t know what to do about it. That’s an ambiguity problem.

Rao’s proposed solution is free-form intellectual play — he encourages, “it’s not wasted effort because there is no concept of waste in true play.”

Are the Tintin Books Racist? Yes, Absolutely

Posted on June 3, 2016June 3, 2016 by Sonya Mann

The Tintin books are super racist, stuffed with offensive stereotypes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the parts of them that are heartwarming and hilarious. Krishnadev Calamur, a fellow Tintin aficionado, writes of the comics’ very obvious bigotry and his nevertheless unflagging enjoyment of them:

“There’s certainly irony in a child of the former colonies idolizing a character who might be dismissed by casual critics as a proxy for the white-man’s burden (and by more serious ones as a racist). But I couldn’t entirely disavow the series. What those comics taught me was that heroes, even boyish, never-aging ones like Tintin, are deeply flawed, and if you ruminate on something long enough, even a cherished childhood memory, you will inevitably see those flaws clearly. There were things that I loved about Tintin that made it easier to reject those things I did not — without ignoring them altogether.”

In other words, your fave is problematic.

A mashup of Tintin and Rey from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Artwork by Graphix17. — A mashup of Tintin and Rey from *Star Wars: The Force Awakens*. Artwork by Graphix17.

(If you’ve never read Tintin before, start here.)

Rasputin as Domestic Abuser

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Sonya Mann

“Rasputin had convinced [Tsarina] Alexandra of his holiness, and no amount of evidence could turn her against him. All warnings about Rasputin came to seem like attacks on the family, and further isolated them from the people who wanted to help.” — Keith Gessen

Classic abuser tactics. Per the University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center:

“An abuser may claim to be disliked by the friends and family of their partner and use this as a reason for not letting their partner associate with them. Often abusers will withhold phone calls and messages from family members and friends as a form of isolation. An abuser will generally attempt to gain control by cutting off supportive figures in their partner’s life.”

That absolutely fits how Rasputin blocked the Tsar and Tsarina from the rest of the Russian government (minus sycophants). Although it’s unclear whether the “Mad Monk” carried out his maneuvers intentionally, he successfully became the dominant figure in the Romanov family’s lives.

The most interesting unsolved mystery is how Rasputin soothed Alexei Nikolaevich, Russia’s young Tsarevich. The boy suffered from debilitating hemophilia, and apparently no one but Rasputin could alleviate his excruciating pain. Gessen addresses this in the Guardian article linked above:

“[Rasputin] was recommended to the family by their confessor, who had been impressed by his mixture of smelliness and religious fervour. Then it turned out that he seemed able to stop Alexis’s bleeding. Exactly what Rasputin did has been the subject of medical dispute. During bleeding episodes, Rasputin would talk to the boy, tell him stories, calm him down — this may have lowered the heir’s blood pressure, easing the bleeding. Contemporaries claimed that Rasputin could hypnotise people with his eyes, and it’s possible he hypnotised Alexis, with the same calming effect.”

I don’t find those proposed mechanisms convincing, to be honest. Is charisma really that powerful?

In conclusion, someone buy me Frances Welch’s biography of Rasputin.

Computing for Fun, Profit, & Mayhem

Posted on December 2, 2015September 9, 2016 by Sonya Mann

Internet Riot Police by Surian Soosay. — *Internet Riot Police* by Surian Soosay.

Brian Krebs, an investigative reporter who covers cybercrime, made this comment in his Reddit AMA last month:

“Whether we’re talking about security or some other beat, the most interesting stories are those that are essentially stories about people — who they are, their experiences, and their weaknesses and failings, etc. Most failures in cybersecurity are not failures in the technology, per se, but in the way the tech is implemented or not. […] Sure, there are software and hardware vulnerabilities, but from my perspective the vast majority of data breaches succeed because they exploit the person behind the keyboard, as well as organizational lethargy, disorder, neglect or incompetence.”

Yesss. I wrote a while ago that “Tech Is Only Awful Like People Are Awful”, and a related hypothesis is that tech is only interesting like people are interesting. Some readers and consumers love gadgetry for the sake of it, but I’m definitely more intrigued by the socioeconomic and/or sociopolitical machinations behind the scenes.

Stories about how humans make, use, and misuse computers are really just stories about how humans stumble through the world, bashing into every obstacle we possibly can.

The Entrepreneur’s Enemy Is Indifference

Posted on September 27, 2015June 3, 2016 by Sonya Mann

“Particularly when you’re early stage, your biggest enemy is indifference. You put a product out in the world and it’s not that people hate it, it’s like they don’t even notice, they don’t even care. And one thing that we are generally good at is making people care.”

Matt Lieber, co-founder of Gimlet Media — Via Gimlet.

Matt Lieber of Gimlet Media on starting a company and recording the process (in conversation with Alex Blumberg and Lisa Pollak). This, my friends, is why you need marketing! And access to that interview is part of why buying a Gimlet membership was worth it — I love discussions of the “new media” biz.

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program. If you click on an Amazon link from this site and subsequently buy something, I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you).