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What’s in it for me? Put algorithms to use in your own
life.
Let’s take a second to think about that smartphone or tablet in front of you.
How does it “think”? For instance, how does it “know” how to handle a heap of
data and present it to you as the blinks you’re reading – or listening to – right
now? The answer, of course, is that a series of instructions – or, in other words,
an algorithm – enables it to do this.

But, as you’ll learn from these blinks, it’s not only computers that use
algorithms. They also play a part in your own thinking, in your gut feelings and
decisions. And here’s the best part: when your own algorithms aren’t up to the
task of solving a difficult problem in your life, you can turn to simple but
powerful computer algorithms for help.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how math can tell you when to stop dating and settle for the partner
you’re with;
how algorithms can help you sort your collection of zombie books; and
why that mess on your desk isn’t half as bad as it looks.
Algorithms help both humans and computers to solve
problems.
If you’re someone who tries to stay abreast of today’s technology, you
probably already know that computers use algorithms all the time to solve
problems. But you may have asked yourself, “What exactly is an algorithm?”

The word actually dates back to the ninth century, when it was first used by
the Persian mathematician Muhammad al-Khwarizmi. But the use of algorithms
can be traced roughly four thousand years back, to the Sumerian civilization.

Simply put, an algorithm is a finite series of steps that help solve a problem –
and it’s a technique we use all the time.

Even a recipe can be thought of as an algorithm: you follow a series of

instructions to get the desired result, a delicious meal. The same can be said
for the pattern you follow to knit a scarf or put together some Ikea furniture.

And when you’re putting together a list of pros and cons to decide whether or
not to accept a job offer or to make a big decision, you’re also following what’s
known as an intuitive algorithm.

By their very nature, the intuitive algorithms that humans use aren’t precise.
We use them in times of uncertainty to make the best decision we can, like
weighing the potential benefits against the risks of jumping into a new business
investment.

Therefore, these intuitive algorithms may seem rather subjective and random
compared to the mathematical algorithms a computer uses, though they
basically provide the same solution.

Take the unpleasant task of apartment hunting. Most people go into this
process with a set of criteria in mind: a minimum amount of space, a certain
distance from school or work, a maximum amount of rent. When these
conditions are met, that’s when you take the next step and sign the lease.
This is essentially the same method that computer algorithms use, and in the
next blinks we’ll explore how these methods can work for you.
 “Science is a way of thinking much more
than it is a body of knowledge.” - Carl Sagan
Most of the time, algorithms can tell us when to stop
pressing our luck.
If you’ve been out searching for an apartment in a competitive market, you
probably know how difficult it can be to decide when to take an offer and stop
searching.

Our judgment is often clouded by the first thing that comes along, which we
tend to perceive as the best option available. And, just as easily, the second
option can seem like the next best thing.

These problems are exactly what the optimal stopping algorithm is designed to
help solve.

Mathematically speaking, if there are 100 options, optimal stopping says to

look at the first 37 without taking any of them. Instead, look at them to
establish a standard, such as excluding apartments that are on the ground floor
and have small bathrooms.

Then, after the first 37, you should jump on the first one that meets these
standards. While this strategy doesn’t guarantee that you’ll end up with the
best, these optimal odds are far better than just making a guess.

And it doesn’t just apply to apartments; whether you’re looking for a car, a job
or a potential mate, the magic number is always 37 percent.

Unfortunately, math doesn’t always tell us the right time to stop.

Let’s look at a simple coin flip. Say you want to bet on the outcome using the
“triple or nothing” strategy, meaning you triple the bet with each flip but also
risk losing everything you’ve won so far.

So, if you start with four dollars, and your odds are 50/50, half the time you’ll
end up with nothing and the other half with twelve dollars, so, on average,
you’d expect to have six dollars in your pocket. In the next round, with a
twelve-dollar starting bet, the odds stay the same, but you can expect to end
up with eighteen dollars, and so on.

With these odds and averages, pure mathematics would suggest that you keep
on betting due to the increasing amount of money you can expect to win. But
of course, sooner or later you’d lose everything and the game would be over.
So, a purely mathematical algorithm doesn’t work in every situation.
Mathematical algorithms can help you decide when it’s
time to explore something new.
Let’s stick with gambling for a minute and look at one of the most popular
games at any casino: the slot machine, or “one-armed bandit.”

While some people are happy to sit at a single slot machine all day in the hopes
of eventually hitting the jackpot, others prefer to explore their options, gather
information and try to use it to their advantage. This same basic dilemma of
how long to stick with a losing option before moving on applies to a number of
situations in life, such as dating or investing. But what’s the winning strategy?

In math, questions like this are called multi-armed bandit problems, and they
have several different answers.

The easiest approach to improving your odds at the slot machines is called
“stay-win, lose-shift” – but it may not be the best strategy.

All you have to do is stick with one machine as long as you’re winning and shift
to another one once you lose. But this approach can be misleading since a
one-time loss isn’t the best indicator of how your luck will turn out.

A better method is the Upper Confidence Bound algorithm.

Here’s how you use it: First, find the machine that offers the best expected
value for playing. In this case, the only information you have is the jackpot
counter, so you pick the one with the biggest jackpot. As you’re playing, keep
track of the real outcome – in this case, how much money you’re winning – and
note whether it’s gradually getting better or gradually getting worse than you’d
expect. If the real outcome is continually disappointing you, that’s when you
move to the next machine with the second biggest jackpot. And so on.

Since this algorithm takes into account the fact that a good machine can still
provide an occasional loss, it increases your chances of winning.
Another source of inspiration for solving multi-armed bandit problems comes
from adaptive clinical trials in the pharmaceutical industry. When doctors are
testing different drugs for an ailment, they continuously evaluate their subjects
and make on-the-fly changes to their testing plan, even before the trial is over.
If a drug doesn’t seem to be working, they will immediately put a stop to it and
focus on other drugs that were helpful. They are always ready to exploit new
information before the final results are even in.
You don’t always need help sorting your files, but if you
do, algorithms can help.
Do you ever feel like you can’t find anything you’re looking for once your desk
or office gets cleaned up? Well, if you’re the kind of person who prefers a
certain amount of organized chaos, then you’ll be happy to hear this next bit of
advice.

Don’t worry about always keeping everything neat and tidy.

After all, the main reason to have everything sorted and in order is to make it
easy to find something when you need it. And sorting through your stacks of
paper can take a lot of time and energy that could be better spent doing other
things, especially if you already know exactly where everything is!

But let’s say your messy filing system is making you look like a hoarder and you
want a better way to sort things out. Luckily for you, there are algorithms just
for this.

Let’s start with the least efficient method, the bubble sort. This works by
organizing one pair of things at a time, over and over again, until everything is
sorted out.

Say you want to alphabetize your massive collection of books about zombies:
First, you go to the area of your disorganized shelves where books beginning
with A belong, look at the first two items that are already there and put those
two in order. Now you might have “Albatross Zombies” followed by “Alligator
Zombies.”

Now move to the next book – “Aardvark Zombies” – and sort it against the last
item from the previous pair, “Alligator Zombies.” Now, your shelf should
consist of: “Albatross Zombies” followed by “Aardvark Zombies” followed by
“Alligator Zombies.” Then you repeat this until you’ve gone through all your
books and start over however many times it takes until your entire collection is
sorted, meaning you no longer need to switch the places of any books.
Obviously, if you have a house full of books, this isn’t the easiest way to do
things. A better way to go is to use the insertion sort: Take all your books off
the shelf and simply put them back, one by one, always ensuring each one goes
in the right place compared to the books you’ve already put back.

Even better for massive collections is the merge sort method: divide
everything into multiple piles, sort those from A to Z and then merge the piles
together afterward.
When it comes to organizing data, there’s a lot you can
learn from computers.
Now that your shelves are in order, let’s turn to those stacks of paper on your
desk and all the notes and info that you keep close at hand. These are probably
important things, like pending bills or letters needing an urgent reply –
documents requiring easy access.

Computers have a pretty useful way of dealing with things that need to be
quickly retrieved. They store their data either in a hard disk drive or a solid
state drive. Each comes with its own advantages.

While hard drives can store more data, solid-state drives (SSDs) are quicker at
getting that data to you. Nowadays, many devices combine these drives,
storing important things in a fast SSD and using a hard drive to store big
archives.

But the most important and most frequently used information is stored in the
cache, the treasured upper layer of memory that can be accessed quickest of
all.

Computers use a simple algorithm to decide what gets stored in the cache. It’s
called Last Recently Used (LRU), and it basically stores whatever you used last
on top, in the upper layer of the cache.

This algorithm is a simple way for your computer to guess which file might be
needed in the future. Luckily, it also works well in the analog world for bills,
important letters and things you need to keep in reach and on your mind.

This means that all the clutter on your desk can stay where it is, because,
probably, your organized mess already has all your recently used items and
most important letters sitting right on top!

Our brains work in a similar fashion as well: if some information goes unused
for a long time, we have a hard time remembering it.
So, if you’re preparing for a big exam or meeting in the morning, read your
notes right before you go to bed. The information will be more easily
accessible when you wake up.
Algorithms can help us schedule our lives, but they also
have their limits.
Aside from getting files in order, another key to productivity is organizing your
time and figuring out how to get everything done. Every day has its challenges.
It can be difficult to find the time to meet all your deadlines – and not forget to
take the dog to the vet.

Fortunately, there are plenty of algorithms that deal with these kinds of
scheduling problems.

For instance, if you’re juggling multiple tasks and not sure where to begin, use
the Earliest Due Date algorithm and always start with the task that has the
closest deadline.

If time is running out and you know that you’re not going to get everything
done, follow Moore’s Algorithm and skip the task that requires the most time;
this way, you’ll get more tasks done overall.

But whatever you do, beware of priority inversion. This happens when minor
tasks take up all your time and energy and nothing important gets done.

Unfortunately, there are no time-management silver bullets. Studies have

shown that the majority of the scheduling problems we face can’t be solved
with a quick-and-easy solution.

And of course, scheduling itself can eat up a lot of your day, so be sure to limit
the amount of time you devote to organizing your time.

This probably sounds pretty complicated, but when in doubt, there’s one
simple method you can use to get the most done in the shortest amount of
time:

Focus on one thing at a time and ignore any emails or other requests you
receive while doing so. Constantly switching your attention from the task to
your inbox and back is incredibly time-consuming and overwhelming, because
every switch burdens your working memory and requires you to start afresh.
So just focus on one task at a time, and ignore any and all distractions. Don’t
even worry about the length of your to-do list; it will all get done in due time.

With this in mind, you should be able to accomplish more and increase your
productivity without even worrying about where to start.
“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years
ago. The second best time is now.” - Proverb
The right algorithms can help you predict the future.
Most of us would love to be able to see into the future, but what about the
next best thing: predicting what will probably happen?

With the help of algorithms, predicting probable outcomes isn’t so far-fetched.

This kind of forecasting goes back to eighteenth-century England, when

Reverend Thomas Bayes figured out a basic method for predicting the
likelihood of future events, such as drawing a winning lottery ticket, given
certain prior events.

Let’s try applying Bayes’s logic to today’s lottery scratch tickets. Imagine you
bought three scratchers and want to use them to understand what proportion
of the tickets in circulation offer some kind of win. Bayes’s insight was that you
have to start by hypothesizing about the prevalence of winners among all the
tickets in circulation, and using this as an assumption, calculate the probability
of the results you actually see in your three tickets.

For example, if all three of your tickets are winners, you could reasonably
assume that all tickets in circulation offer a win. After all, if all tickets are
winners, then you should witness three out of three tickets winning 100
percent of the time. But if only half the tickets were winners, then your
threefold luck would have only had a 12.5-percent chance of befalling you. So
it’s far likelier that all the tickets are winners.

Of course, the more information you collect, the more precise your next
hypothesis will be.

But, over the years, math has developed and given us more precise tools to
make better predictions.

What significantly helps those predictions is to understand the distribution

pattern of a phenomenon.

For instance, there’s the famous “bell curve,” modeled on a normal

distribution, which applies to many phenomena. When predicting the average
age of a random group of people, you can assume that few people are
extremely young or extremely old; most fall somewhere in the middle of the
bell. This way, if you’re going on a blind date, you can be reasonably sure you
won’t be dining with a nonagenarian.

Other situations follow the power-law-distribution, which is quite different.

In these cases, we reach the median average by having most observations

falling below it and only a few enormous ones falling above it. An excellent
example of this is wealth distribution. Generally speaking, there are many poor
people and only a select few that own the lion’s share of the world’s wealth.
Algorithms help us to exchange messages and handle
data overload.
Here’s a classic thought experiment: Two generals are preparing to launch a
joint attack on a city located in a fortified valley. The only problem is that each
general is on a hill with the valley separating them, and before they can attack
they need to agree on the exact time. However, the only way to get a message
across is to send someone through the valley, where their messengers are
likely to be captured. So how can they determine a time and know that the
other has agreed to it?

This kind of problem is something computer scientists pondered in order to

come up with algorithms to help ensure messages get to their destination
safely.

The first method they devised is called retransmitted till breakdown. The idea
would be to send in messenger after messenger, hoping that one will
eventually make it through without being captured.

This is essentially what we do when we keep texting or calling a friend until

they finally reply.

But of course, these days we mostly face other problems than intercepted
messengers. Let’s say that every time you’re going to check your email you’re
getting an error saying the server is overloaded.

In this case, the Exponential Backoff method can help. Instead of frantically
hitting refresh, wait a couple minutes for the traffic to ease up. And if you’re
still getting the error after that, double the waiting time to four minutes before
trying again, and keep doubling until it gets through.

Ideally, everyone trying to use the server would follow this method, as it would
help ensure a quick resolution.

But the best solution would be to prevent the overload problem in the first
place, a method called Additive Increase, Multiplicative Decrease (AIMD).

This algorithm helps you determine the maximum amount of data a network
can handle. It starts by sending just one package of data; then it sends double
the amount each subsequent time until it reaches the point of overload.

Then it tries to pinpoint the limit by sending the highest amount before the
failure occurred and increasing the subsequent packages by a tiny amount
until the limit is reached.
There are algorithms to help figure out what people will
do and guide them when making decisions.
Have you ever heard of the prisoner’s dilemma? Imagine you and a partner
have successfully robbed a bank. Later, you’re both brought in for questioning
by the police and placed in separate rooms. You know they don’t have
sufficient evidence to convict either of you for the robbery, so if you keep your
mouth shut, all they can do is give you a one-year sentence for a lesser charge.
After that, you will get out and can enjoy your loot.

But here’s the twist: the cops offer both you and your partner a deal: If you
testify against your partner and he stays silent, you’ll go free and he’ll go to jail
for ten years. However, if you both turn on each other, you’ll each get a five-
year sentence. What do you do?

This is a classic strategic question that represents game theory, which explores
how rational people would respond to such a situation.

In the case of the prisoners, they would almost certainly turn on one another,
in which case they’d each get a sentence of five years.

In this scenario there is a clear maximum reward – incriminate the other

person, face no jail time and have a chance of keeping all the money. Even if
your partner also talks, a five-year sentence is still better than the ten years
you would get if you stay silent.

But, in the end, since each person would end up testifying against the other
one, it’s the cops who win.

Another branch of game theory is the more straightforward mechanism

design. Rather than setting options in the hopes of getting a certain reaction, it
forces people to behave in a desirable way.

For example, many employers face the problem of employees not using their
vacation time. And employers know that well-rested employees perform much
better than overworked ones. The company Evernote went so far as to offer
its staff a thousand-dollar bonus for taking time off, but even this didn’t work.

When you apply mechanism design to this problem, you don’t need to figure
out ways of convincing your employees. All you need to do is ask yourself how
to make them take their vacation.

And the answer is simple: Make vacations mandatory!

As you can see, algorithms have applications in many fields. Finally, in the last
blink, let’s discuss their limitations.
It’s important to know that algorithms have their limits.
When you’re trying to model something complicated, complex models are
generally better than simple ones.

For example, if you’re developing a model to explain the cause of obesity, you’ll
want a complex one that takes many factors into account, from a poor diet to
genetics to lack of exercise. A simple model might focus solely on diet, which
would be insufficient.

However, problems also arise when models grow too complex. This is a risk
when considering real-world problems, where there’s always going to be
uncertainty and errors in the data. Most likely, you’d start with a sample data
set and would try to build an algorithm that makes predictions based on it. The
temptation is to add variables to the algorithm until it explains everything in
data perfectly, including the errors. This is known as overfitting, and it creates
problems when you try to apply the same algorithm to different data. Basically,
the model has been so rigorously adapted to the sample data that it has lost all
flexibility and will not work well with any other data.

For example, when considering obesity, in your sample data you might notice
that certain areas of the country have more obesity than others. But this could
well be a coincidence, and if you tweak your model to emphasize the
importance of a person’s location, it will worsen the predictive power of the
model when you apply it to new data where location is inconsequential.

When you realize that perfect algorithms don’t exist, you can relax your
standards a bit and go for good enough instead of perfect.

Consider the travelling-salesman-problem, which asks: How can you find the
single best route between multiple points without having to go anywhere
twice. If you expand this problem to a whole state or country, it gets
unspeakably complex.

In a situation like this, the most efficient solution is to relax your standards. Let
your salesman visit different locations at least twice. You’ll end up close to a
good solution in a reasonable time, even if it might not be a perfect one.

As you’ve learned from these blinks, if you understand their limits and
possibilities, algorithms can be applied in many areas of life.
Final summary
The key message in this book:

Algorithms are not incomprehensible things that only exist to help

mathematicians and computers. In fact, we use them every day, even if we’re
unaware of it. Algorithms contain a lot of problem-solving wisdom that can
help you make good decisions, predict probable outcomes and become a
more productive individual.

Actionable advice:

Do the simple stuff first.

The next time your to-do list gets too long and you want to check off as many
things as possible, go for the Shortest Processing Time algorithm: List your
tasks in order of what can be done the fastest. This enables you to get lots of
things done in a very short period of time.

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Suggested further reading: How Not to Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg

How Not to Be Wrong gives us an intimate glimpse into how mathematicians

think and how we can benefit from their way of thinking. It also explains how
easily we can be mistaken when we apply mathematical tools incorrectly, and
gives advice on how we can instead find correct solutions.
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