An Open Letter

Greetings,
As I am now in a condition that allows me to do so,  I, Gregory Zambo welcome anyone who might have a question, greivance or complaint about me or my past actions to contact me and we can discuss the matter and compensation if the matter deserves such.  

This offer is open to anyone past, present or future and I will keep all messages private so there is no chance of any matters related becoming public.

Contact me here please.

The truth about addiction and poverty

Digging through Boing Boing today I found this: The first time I have seen anyone state what always seemed bleeding obvious to me. The real problem is that some in our societies don't care about the poor or even worse attack them as if they were criminals just for not being born into a rich family.
 The real horror of this is that I still see this kind of Nazi attitude in people, typically the same people who have never gone without a meal or a home in their lives.   I have been on the recieving end of this kind of crap myself more than once. Now that I am out of the "hole" of poverty it is still amazing to see people who really should know better mouthing off at "the lazy dole bludgers" etc. etc. 
No, there is no easy way out of poverty, and as pointed out in this article, the dope just softens the misery a little.  Crime is something else again : but obviously (almost*) no-one is going to be robbing people if they have money and a worthwhile job.
Better that you read it yourself though, especially the conclusions.
Thanks, Carl Hart and NY Times.
(*Does not include persons such as Bernie Madoff {He "madoff" with a lot!})

Survivorship Bias

Coming courtesy of the You Are Not So Smart blog (which I have just discovered thanks to Boing Boing) : today's clever and funny article about success and failure . . . . .
Here's a meaty exerpt:

"If you spend your life only learning from survivors, buying books about successful people and poring over the history of companies that shook the planet, your knowledge of the world will be strongly biased and enormously incomplete.

As best I can tell, here is the trick: When looking for advice, you should look for what not to do, for what is missing as Phil Plait suggested, but don’t expect to find it among the quotes and biographical records of people whose signals rose above the noise. They may have no idea how or if they lucked up.
What you can’t see, and what they can’t see, is that the successful tend to make it more probable that unlikely events will happen to them while trying to steer themselves into the positive side of randomness. They stick with it, remaining open to better opportunities that may require abandoning their current paths, and that’s something you can start doing right now without reading a single self-help proverb, maxim, or aphorism.
Also, keep in mind that those who fail rarely get paid for advice on how not to fail, which is too bad because despite how it may seem, success boils down to serially avoiding catastrophic failure while routinely absorbing manageable damage."