At minimum, I spreadsheet my big decisions. I put in all my known factors: budget, TCO, alternatives, a weighted list of pros and cons (weights according to factors important to me or ability to solve the problem at hand), etc.

For really big decisions, I build a decision tree with dynamic branches. For example, when buying my most recent house, i had inputs for interest rate, points, house inspector rating, cost to move my sailboat to my house, average luminous flux received, etc. Data in these fields adjust other fields like TCO and budget, which then shift the decision tree one way or another.

It’s excessive, but I do it this way to help me avoid missing some big variable.

Motley Fool is such a streaming pile. “Buy these hidden gem tech stocks by purchasing a subscription to our market intelligence report!” Yeah, okay. Spoiler alert: it’s more stabbing in the dark, vaguely educated guesses, and day late/dollar short. MF actually has some interesting journalism analysis, and then they go and shit in their own mouths with their level 1 market analysis subscriptions disguised as inside information.

I just finished reading Neil Postman’s book last week. This is an absolute must-read for everyone. I can’t own a lot of hardcopy books because of space, but this is going to become one of them.

I had a bunch of Linux-loving, anti-ad, tinfoil hat employees in the early 00s. They tried to convince me of how bad things will become. It turns out that their tinfoil hats weren’t nearly thick enough.

How long before so much of daily life is governed by such algorithms, models, dark patterns? “Oh, you didn’t pay rapt attention to the entire chain of ads. Guess your car is going to have to break down this week and your egg prices will go up 25% at every grocery store.”

The idea of using computers to aid in medical diagnosis is older than you are, probably older than you and me put together. The field is called Medical Decision Support (MDS). The Department of Defense invested heavily in MDS, and last I knew, MDS was a key component in Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application.

Medical knowledge is collated by accomplished medical specialists, often surgeons and/or professors. The knowledge is weighted and encoded into modules using a specialized computer language. An engine runs a given module based on initial questions, then drops or engages modules based on how the questions/answers progress. Various tests are performed along the way, e.g. Bakody Sign for a cervical radiculopathy. At the end, the software spits out something like:

• 5/5 indications for C4/C5 nerve impingement
• 1/8 indications for COPD
• 8/10 indications for douchebaggery
• suggest the [X, Y, Z] for further testing

The same company (PKC) that first developed MDS was founded by the guy who also developed the Problem-Oriented Medical Record, an early form of EMR and an efficient means to quantify medical diagnoses. I worked for him at PKC and wrote the IIS version of the engine. You can see a deeply neutered version of the software at Sharecare (I think they now call it AskMD).

One that is UL listed. Don’t set your place on fire. I normally live on a sailboat, which tends to be a difficult place to line-dry clothing. A compressor dehumidifier will make short work of even dripping wet clothes.