March 2026
- Mar 3, 2026ConceptsCognitive Biases Defined SimplyBiases explained as the predictable price of heuristics, grouped into six families from memory and belief formation to attribution. Stanovich's work indicates intelligence does not track bias avoidance and can make rationalization easier. The original anchoring experiment shows the mechanism plainly: participants who spun a rigged wheel landing on 10 estimated a median 25 percent of African countries were in the UN, while those who spun 65 said 45 percent.
- Mar 3, 2026ConceptsMental Models Explained in Plain LanguageChase and Simon found in 1973 that grandmasters could reproduce a real game position after five seconds far better than novices, but did no better than novices on randomly arranged pieces, which placed the advantage in pattern-based models rather than memory capacity. Klein's fireground commanders reported comparing options for fewer than 20 percent of decisions. Covers where models come from, how they mislead, and Munger's latticework argument for using several.
- Mar 2, 2026ConceptsKey Decision-Making Terms People MisuseWhy decision vocabulary changes the analysis. Knight's 1921 distinction holds that risk describes situations where outcomes are known and probabilities can be meaningfully assigned, while uncertainty does not permit that, so applying statistical tools to the second is a category error. The article also separates credence, a personal belief, from probability, and Simon's 1955 satisficing from optimizing.
- Mar 2, 2026ConceptsFrequently Confused Cognitive Terms ExplainedPairs that get used interchangeably but should not: intelligence and wisdom, knowledge and understanding, thinking and reasoning, logic and critical thinking, memory and recall, learning and memorization. Derek Muller's 2008 physics video study is the surprise: students watching clear, correct explanations rated them highly and felt they had learned, while their conceptual understanding barely moved. Videos that confronted misconceptions felt worse and taught more.
February 2026
- Feb 28, 2026ConceptsLearning Science Terms Explained ClearlyLoose vocabulary produces bad study habits: "reduce cognitive load" should mean cutting extraneous load, not the germane load that is the learning. This glossary draws the lines that matter, between fluency and real recall, blocked and interleaved practice, near and far transfer, activity and genuine engagement. Karpicke and Blunt (2011) found self-testers outlearned students who built concept maps and rated the maps as better.
- Feb 27, 2026ConceptsCommon Psychology Terms Explained Without JargonFestinger and Carlsmith paid participants $1 or $20 to call a dull task interesting. The $1 group rated it significantly more enjoyable, because they had no outside excuse for the lie and changed their belief instead. That is cognitive dissonance, properly defined. This sorts out introvert against shy, empathy against sympathy against compassion, the major defense mechanisms, and which clinical words get misused.
- Feb 27, 2026ConceptsMeasuring Success: Metrics vs KPIs in OrganizationsGoodhart never said metrics are bad. He said a measure used as a target ceases to be a good measure, and that distinction between a metric that informs and a target that carries consequences is the conceptual hinge. Google Flu Trends shows the cost of missing it: search volume was a defensible proxy for flu prevalence until media-driven searching broke the link, and the system kept reporting confidently. Covers vanity metrics, proxies, validity and reliability.
- Feb 26, 2026ConceptsWhat Does "Framework" Actually Mean?A framework is a flexible scaffold that orients attention and organizes information without dictating the answer, which separates it from a model that explains, a method that prescribes steps, and a theory tested for truth rather than usefulness. The article sorts frameworks into conceptual, analytical, decision and process types, lists five design pitfalls, and names the anti-patterns: framework worship, theater and rigidity.
- Feb 26, 2026ConceptsTechnology Concepts Defined SimplyPlain definitions for the vocabulary that shapes daily life: algorithms, internet versus web, IP and DNS, bandwidth versus latency, APIs, open source, the cloud, encryption, cookies, 2FA, machine learning, blockchain and IoT. Each entry ends with the question to ask when a company makes a claim. Cases follow, including ProPublica's 2016 COMPAS analysis of over 7,000 Broward County cases, where accuracy was similar across groups but error types were not.
- Feb 26, 2026ConceptsSystems Thinking Vocabulary ExplainedThe vocabulary that makes system behavior legible: stocks versus flows, reinforcing versus balancing loops, delays, emergence, resilience and Donella Meadows' leverage points, ranked from parameters up to paradigms. Cases include Lake Erie, where phosphorus accumulated for decades before algae blooms appeared, so cutting inflow to near zero would still take decades to drain the stock, and Elinor Ostrom's Swiss villages, sharing alpine grazing land since the 13th century.
January 2026
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