China's fast follow model

These photos from an abandoned Disneyland-like construction project in China caught my eye, in part because they were familiar yet not.

This is in contrast to many of China's more famous undertakings which are outright knockoffs, rather than inspired modifications. Of these, some of the most fascinating are its recreations of actual places. ​Notable recent examples include a full replica of the popular Austrian lakeside vilage Hallstatt and the Tower Bridge of London, and Beijing has an entire theme park, the World Park, filled with recreations of landmarks from all over the globe. China even copies itself; the wealthy village of Huaxi has knockoffs of the Tiananmen rostrum and The Great Wall.

Some might find it tacky, and that's hard to argue. However, it's likely harder to  innovate than copy, and thus it's a very rational economic and business model, especially when applies to areas that might improve the livelihood of the largest population on earth.​ The fast follow model works when an entity like the government can protect the efforts of the copycats, outsourcing the innovation costs to other countries.

This matters less when you're talking about global landmarks and more when discussing business models, especially Internet companies, of which China has cloned many:

It works well until the point at which ​the costs of negative sentiment towards China outweigh the benefits of hoarding the benefits of copying. Since the political and economic costs of the international community's retaliation are likely more difficult to quantify than the financial success of Chinese companies like the ones listed above, it will be a long time before the practice slows.

Why Bane and Joker are Batman's toughest foes

​Suspend your suspension of disbelief for just a moment, and this article by E. Paul Zehr on why Bane and Joker are Batman's toughest opponents is impressive in its logic. Zehr, a movement researcher, was at the receiving end of this Q&A which I read years ago, titled Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long.

Zehr explains that Bane and Joker exploit a flaw in Batman's crime fighting strategy. Whereas police officers always respond with one level of force above that used by criminals, Batman responds in kind. Also, Batman does not like to kill but instead exploits involuntary human responses to pain.

To avoid killing, Batman uses his opponents’ bodies against them to evoke protective reactions. Nociceptors are receptors detecting actual or impending tissue damage. They relay this information to the spinal cord where they evoke very powerful defensive responses. If you have ever stepped on a very sharp rock while walking barefoot or accidentally touched a hot stove top you will remember the rapid pullback you had of your foot or hand. These signals also arrive in the brain where they may be interpreted as “pain.”

Batman, in the tradition of martial artists the world over, uses those defensive responses to manipulate his opponents. He hurts rather than harms and tries to intimidate rather than inflict permanent damage. Making a use of force continuum work requires extreme skill, poise, and confidence. It also requires an intact and normally functioning nervous system in your opponent.

Said normally functioning nervous system being something that Joker and Bane lack.

Hedonic marriage

It's common to say that people marry for love than pragmatism in the modern age, but this article gives it an economic grounding, drawing on work from Gary Becker, and argues that another reason for the rising acceptability of same sex marriage, beyond the endorsement of one Shawn Carter.

Rather than "opposites attract" being the dominant marriage model (opposites referring to the optimal productivity of having one parent working full time and one being the full time child rearer), now both spouses can work and lead similar lives.

Viewed through an economic frame, modern partnerships are based upon “consumption complementarities” -- the joy of sharing things and experiences -- rather than the production-based gains that motivated traditional marriage. Consistent with this, co-parenting has replaced the separate roles of nurturer and disciplinarian.
 
We have called this new model of sharing lives “hedonic marriage.” These are marriages of equality in which the rule “opposites attract” no longer applies in the same way, because couples with more similar interests and values can derive greater benefits. So likes are now more likely to marry each other.
 

If hedonic marriage is the predominant model, same sex marriage isn't much different in structure.

Perhaps not the most suitable material for a wedding vow, but another source of momentum for what seems to be the inevitable acceptance of gay marriage in the near future.

Still fast

Since the full-bldy LZR swimsuits that won 98% of the medals at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing were banned in 2010, I assumed swimming records would not fall as easily this time around.

It turns out, though, that Speedo found new ways to continue to help swimmers cut through the pool. They developed a new fabric called Fastskin-3, along with new caps and goggles, to help Olympians minimize turbulence and drag through the water.

In the end, Fastskin is Spanx on steroids, compressing a body three times more than the LZR. The suit constricts the stomach the least and the chest, buttocks and hips the most, attempting to mold swimmers into an unblemished tube.

Speedo has applied for nine patents for the Fastskin-3. The company says only six machines in the world are capable of producing the compression fabric; it owns all of them.

So this most recent batch of Olympic swimmers may not have been at much of a disadvantage at all versus the swimmers who competed in Beijing, if at all. Many swimmers, including Phelps and Lochte and Adlington, posted recent career bests in the new system leading up to London, and more than a few records did topple.

I would love to see a lab-tested measurement of what % of the time improvement an athlete gains from advances in their equipment and what % comes from their environment. How much of the improvement is advances in the human body (nutrition, training, genetics), versus human R&D (equipment) or environmental tuning (facilities)?​ As noted in the WSJ, this Olympics committee did everything possible to tune every facility to be as conducive to breaking records as possible. Viewed strictly as a for-profit TV spectacle, that's not surprising. Records toppling makes for good television, and an Olympic games in which very few or no records fell would be a disappointment in some ways, neutral environments be damned.

So the next time you see an Olympic record being measured down to the hundredths of a second, know that the margin of error from factors exogenous to the athlete likely account for differences that render such precision overkill.