The Iron Lady looked at me incredulously and demolished me, "Robert, surely you don't put any weight on last week's fish wrappings?" Thatcher's putdown of Wall Street's insights into the markets was very much on my mind this week while watching the four titans of Wall Street testifying before the special commission investigating the market meltdown of 2008-09.
The primary task in developing the booklet was recruitment of community authors with street expertise and insight.
The test called My Strengths, devised by Downing Street's behavioural insights or "nudge" unit, has been exposed by bloggers as a sham with results having no relation to the answers given.
Similarly detailed street-level historical insight might have easily been overlooked in a paper guidebook.
In the early 90s, I was knee deep in the streets, so my insight into Reasonable Doubt is different than most.
I'm also skeptical of its educational value: will a few hours on the street really yield much insight into the incessant grind of homelessness?
I chatted with people on the street and got some insight into Yam's life and what his passing means to the culture.
Wall Street analysts produce similar insights about what moves markets and then go home to much fancier apartments.
While other academic projects have used artificial intelligence to mine Google Street View for socioeconomic insights (such as Streetchange), this project is notable because of the vast quantity of images that its AI software processed.
August's book club is devoted to his most recent Rebus novel, Fleshmarket Close, which bears all of his customary hallmarks: a gruesome murder, vivid depictions of Edinburgh's seamier streets, and further insights into the brilliant, difficult, self-destructive mind of his troubled anti-hero.
