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All Quotes tagged Notes To Self(30)

UPC (Universal Product Code) is the standard for general products and is used by almost all barcode systems. Although, for books ISBN is more often used in addition. Amazon also its own system called ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), although it’s not prevalent outside of Amazon.

SKU (Stock-keeping Unit) is another identifier that is often used, however, it is generally not universal for a particular product. For instance, each vendor for a particular product may assign its own SKU to that product. On the other hand, a product may have a MPN (Manufacturer Part Number, or a model number) that is assigned by the manufacture. While this number is unique, it is not very universal because each manufacturer uses it’s own numbering conventions.

— Kurt Heinrich, So what's the difference between a SKU, MPN, and UPC? - HubLogix

Notes to selfIdentification Numbers

...we also have internal clocks, governed by less understood metabolic, hormonal, and glandular processes. We listen to those inner rhythms while simultaneously responding to external cues, from daylight and moon phases to the cycle of the seasons. Still other evidence suggests a complex set of relationships between all these clocks. Body temperature rises during the daylight hours, but some people's rise faster than others, making them morning people, while those whose temperature rises more slowly over the course of the day reach their most effective state of consciousness in the early evening. Meanwhile, when our body temperature rises, we perceive of time as passing more slowly. This is because our internal clocks are counting faster, while time is actually passing at the same rate as always.

— Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

HealthNotes to selfPresent ShockTime

For [Stewart] Brand, the solution is to expand our awareness of the larger, slower cycles. He is working with inventor Danny Hillis to build a 10,000-year clock—a clock of the 'long now' that changes our orientation to time. His hope is that by beholding this tremendous time-keeping structure in the desert (itself the product of a multigenerational effort), we will be able to experience or at least perceive the bigger cycles that evade us in our daily schedules. In addition, instead of writing our years with four digits, Brand encourages us to use five, as in 02020 instead of 2020, keeping us aware of the much larger timescales on which important activity is still occurring. We could still operate on the timescale of seasonally changing fashions or TV schedules while remaining cognizant of the greater cycles binding humanity to the cosmos.

— Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

Notes to selfPresent ShockTime

...the survival of a species depends on adaptation and learning on six distinct timescales. On the shortest, most immediate scale, species must exist from year to year. The unit of survival for this year-to-year existence is the individual life form. Over decades, the unit of survival is the family, whose multiple generations last much longer than any single individual's life span. Over centuries, it's the tribe or nation. Over millennia, it is an entire culture. Over tens of millennia, it is the species itself, slowly evolving or surrendering to an evolved competitor. And over eons, the unit of survival is 'the whole web of life of our planet.' Human beings have endured as a result of our ability to adapt on all six scales of being and to balance the conflicting demands of each.

— Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

FactsNotes to selfPresent ShockTime

When a bank wants to move a big quantity of shares, for example, it doesn't want everyone to know what it is doing. If news of a big buy leaked out before the big buy could be completed, the price may go up. To hide their motions, they employ the same technique as stealth planes: they use algorithms to break their giant trade into thousands of little ones, and do so in such a way that they look random. Their sizes and timing are scattered.

In order to identify this stealthy algorithmic movement, competing banks hire other mathematicians to write other algorithms that monitor trading and look for clues of these bigger trades and trends. The algorithms actually shoot out little trades, much like radar, in order to measure the response of the market and then infer if there are any big movements going on. The algorithms are, in turn, on the lookout for these little probes and attempt to run additional countermoves and fakes. The algorithmic dance—what is known as black box trading—accounts for over 70 percent of Wall Street trading activity today.

— Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

FactsNotes to selfPresent Shock