Web Excursions 2021-10-23
How the Supply Chain Broke, and Why It Won’t Be Fixed Anytime Soon by nytimes.com
What happened to all the giant container ships?
In the first phase of the pandemic, as China shipped huge volumes of protective gear like masks and hospital gowns all over the world, containers were unloaded in places that generally do not send much product back to China — regions like West Africa and South Asia.
In those places, empty containers piled up
just as Chinese factories were producing a mighty surge of other goods destined for wealthy markets in North America and Europe.
Before the pandemic, sending a container from Shanghai to Los Angeles cost perhaps $2,000.
By early 2021, the same journey was fetching as much as $25,000.
Meanwhile, at ports in North America and Europe,
where containers were arriving, the heavy influx of ships overwhelmed the availability of docks.
At the same time, truck drivers and dockworkers were stuck in quarantine,
reducing the availability of people to unload goods and further slowing the process.
How to Get Useful Answers to Your Questions by jvns.ca
Often when I ask a vague or underspecified question, what happens is one of:
the person starts by explaining a bunch of stuff I already know
the person explains some things which I don’t know, but which I don’t think are relevant to my problem
the person starts giving a relevant explanation, but using terminology that I don’t understand, so I still end up being confused
my 2 favourite question-asking tactics again – asking yes/no questions and stating your understanding.
ask yes/no questions
there’s a much lower chance that the person answering will go off on an irrelevant tangent – they’ll almost always say something useful to me.
The answers to yes/no questions usually aren’t just “yes” or “no” –
for all of those questions my friend elaborated on the answer,
and the elaborations were always useful to me.
get me answers faster because they’re relatively easy to answer quickly.
state your current understanding.
[doing so] states my goal, states my understanding of how rkt and docker work, and makes some guesses at the goal so that people can confirm/deny
I also find the process of writing down my understanding is really helpful by itself just to clarify my own thoughts
be willing to interrupt - If someone goes off on a very long explanation that isn’t helping me at all, I think it’s important to interrupt them. - This can feel rude, but ultimately it’s more efficient for everyone - If someone finishes a statement that doesn’t answer you question, it’s important not to leave it there! Keep asking questions!
ask a much more specific question
ask them to clarify some terminology you didn’t understand take a minute to think
If this happens in a real-time conversation sometimes I’ll literally say something like “wait, that’s surprising to me, let me think for a minute”
and try to incorporate the new data and come up with another question.
it takes a little bit of confidence how to give useful answers
It’s especially important to check in if:
You haven’t explained a concept before
You don’t know the person you’re talking to very well