Very interesting article. Some of these statistics are surprising. Only 1% of Times readers comment and only 3% of Times readers read comments? Only a third of Times readers visit the homepage? Those numbers are far smaller than I would have expected (an expectation based solely on my own experience; I enjoy reading the comments on Times articles and I always access articles through the Times home page).
David Leonhardt (of NYT's The Upshot) was on Charlie Rose the other night discussing the Times's approach to digital [1]. The leaked memo complements the interview nicely.
The conclusion that you have drawn is based on a misinterpretation of what constitutes as "capital". If "capital" meant "government debt", then the rate of return on capital would indeed equal the interest rate on government debt. However, when economists refer to capital, they are referring to the market value of the cumulative stock of a nation's capital.
What is "capital"? Piketty defines capital as:
"the sum total of nonfinancial assets (land, dwellings, commercial inventory, other buildings, machinery, infrastructure, patents and other directly-owned professional assets) and financial assets (bank accounts, mutual funds, bonds, stocks, financial investments of all kinds, insurance policies, pension funds, etc.) less the total amount of financial liabilities (debt)."
Furthermore, national capital can be broken down into public capital and private capital:
"[National capital is] the sum of public capital and private capital. Public capital is the difference between assets and liabilities of the state (including all public agencies), and private capital is of course the difference between the assets and liabilities of private individuals."
...and can be broken down into domestic capital and net foreign capital:
"Domestic capital is the value of the domestic capital stock (buildings, firms, etc.) located within the borders of the country in question. Net foreign capital...is the difference between assets owned by the country's citizens in the rest of the world and assets of the country owned by citizens of other countries."
The rate of return on capital:
"...measures the yield on capital over the course of the year regardless of it's legal forms (profits, rents, dividends, interest, royalties, capital gains, etc.), expressed as a percentage of the value of capital invested. It is therefore a broader notion than the 'rate of profit', and much broader than the 'rate of interest', while incorporating both."
You practice, thats how. You practice eliminating subvocalization and regression. You practice focusing on multiple words at a time rather than a single word. And - once you get a hang of those skills- you practice moving your eyes across a page at a faster pace.
I have been practicing for a little under a year with the help of a speed reading app (not Spritz). It was frustrating at first; I won't pretend that I internalized even 50% of what I was reading when I started learning how to speed read. But as my eyes assimilated to reading larger chunks of words at faster speeds, I incrementally increased the speed of the text. Eventually, I was able to increase my reading speed AND understand what I was reading.
I can't attest to the effectiveness of this specific app, since I have never used it. But when you write "its way more fun & time saving to be able to imagine, drift-away in thought and understand what you are reading...", you suggest that one can only understand (and enjoy) what he is reading by reading the way you do.
Yea I noticed that too. You initially scroll down to see the rest of that sample chat inbox, which provides a smooth transition between the div with the background video and the div with the main content (since the first chat inbox spills into the second div). Looks good.
Over the past year, I have dedicated hundreds of hours towards improving my reading speed. I usually use Acceleread on my iPad; most recently I used it to read D.H Lawrence's Sons & Lovers at around 750-800 wpm. I also use Beeline -a different type of reading tool with some additional functionality for dyslexics- when reading web pages.
I've learned that certain types of prose make for poor speed reading material. Without a "rewind" option, there is no way that I can use these apps to read anything instructional or anything involving a high level of detail (such as a mystery novel). I understand that allowing the user to rewind would sacrifice speed, but speed can't always take precedence over clarity.
Also - in terms of the text- there needs to be a better method for handling quoted text. With speed reading apps that give the user the option of seeing chunks of words, it is far too easy to lose track of who is speaking when one chunk of words has an opening quotation mark and the next chunk of words [may or may not] have a closing quotation mark. I'm guessing that this problem is exacerbated by the fact that - in Spritz's case- words are only presented one at a time.
Here are some things I would I would like to see adopted by speed-readers:
Rewind functionality
Punctuation-based text color:
If the text is in between quotation marks, parenthesis or brackets, this text should be shaded a slightly different color than the rest.
Contextual deceleration:
I would love it if a speed reading app would automatically slow down at the end of a chapter. The last few sentences of a chapter are usually crafted with especially deliberate care and are meant to be savored.
More customization options for dyslexics:
For example, Beeline allows users to chose a specific type of font that is specifically geared towards dyslexics. In the future, I'd like to see speed readers enable these types of fonts (as well as customization options for line height and letter spacing).
For the punctuation-based text color, it would be great if the software was able to keep track of, or at least attempt to keep track of, what character was speaking and assign a specific color to that characters' text.
For speed reading something like a novel, this would help the brain quickly associate a color with a character and avoid the need to catch the text that makes it clear who is speaking.
Yea, this is probably when [otherwise cautious] people are most susceptible to falling for these scams.
When applying for jobs, there is nothing more irritating than seeing a missed call, getting excited/anxious, and calling back...a #%*@^ telemarketer. On the flip side, I briefly forget that I am unemployed, since all I think about for the next 5 minutes is inflicting the most sadistic forms of torture on every telemarketer that has ever lived.
Seriously though, googling unknown numbers does help.
> In a age if great socio economic inequality very few people at the top of the society get to have ' significant accomplishment', it is more of an indicator of you socio economic status than your actual capabilities.
The "significant accomplishment" that the interviewer is looking for is one that the interviewee had to work relentlessly towards achieving. Not one that the interviewee "[got] to have" as if it were placed under his christmas tree with a red bow on top.
How does the interviewer know that the interviewee REALLY struggled with the issue? By having the interviewee go into great detail. The author of the article suggested discussing the accomplishment for 15-20 minutes, and he outlined over twenty questions that the interviewer should ask with respect to the accomplishment.
There's a short clip where Elon Musk outlines a similar approach to interviewing applicants:
"...I ask them to tell me about the problems they worked on and how they solved them. If someone was really the person that solved it, they'll be able to answer multiple levels, they'll be able to go down to the brass-tax. And if they weren't, they'll get stuck and you can say 'Oh this person was not really the person who solved it'. Because anyone who really struggled hard with a problem never forgets it."[1]
So, in this sense, I don't believe that the quality of the interviewee's answer hinges on "socio economic status". In fact -in my opinion- the less you have handed to you, the BETTER equipped you are to answer this question in a satisfactory manor.
Of all the reasons to be suspicious of "learn to code" bootcamps, your aversion to women-only programs has me confused.
"Why female only...?": Probably because the founders of those programs would like to see more women coding. Same reason organizations like "Girls Who Code" exist. The fact that those programs are geared towards an underrepresented demographic shouldn't raise any red flags.
David Leonhardt (of NYT's The Upshot) was on Charlie Rose the other night discussing the Times's approach to digital [1]. The leaked memo complements the interview nicely.
[1] http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60387818