I mentioned in my last post that one reason why rapid prototyping would work for life is that “very little in life is irreversible”. Some people might disagree with that assumption. For example, I just moved all the way across the country, leaving behind friends and family, which is a fairly drastic move. But, as […]
Category: thoughts
Rapid prototyping of life
As I mentioned in the last post, I spent a few hours talking with my coworker and her friend after seeing a show together on Friday evening. Her friend is also a software developer, and is, like me, a big fan of rapid prototyping (as I mention in my reviews of books like Experimentation Matters […]
Thoughts on manipulation
After finishing the Dale Carnegie a couple days ago, I started reading the Cialdini. I have somewhat mixed feelings about these books. These techniques take advantage of all sorts of triggers that have been implanted into us by society. And in the large scale, such triggers are what have enabled human society to exponentially advance. […]
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
Amazon link I read this book once long ago, but Joel insisted I re-read it after starting last week. So I took it home for the weekend and read it while taking breaks from unpacking. It’s a quick read, with short chapters. And it’s excellent. What’s interesting to me is that I totally didn’t appreciate […]
Self branding
I was walking down the street on my way back to the hotel this evening, and saw a guy wearing a Cubs t-shirt. I instantly felt a bit of kinship with him. I’ve commented on the way sports provides an instant community before, but it was a little bit bizarre, honestly. Maybe it was because […]
Rules and people
I’m feeling kind of braindead after dealing with logistics for two or three weeks straight, but I’ve got tonight off from socializing so let’s see if I can cobble together an actual post. This is mostly built off of a conversation I had with a friend recently where we were discussing different management styles. I […]
Persistence of Muscle Memory
I went skiing yesterday. It was awesome. Fresh snow, knee-deep powder in places, and no lift lines despite it being Saturday of a holiday weekend. The part which never fails to astonish me is that I can still ski. I hadn’t been skiing in probably close to three years. And skiing is not like any […]
Repetitive Blindness of Meaning
Jofish recently pointed me at a recording of Cry If You Want To, a song performed by the Holly Cole Trio. I really liked it, and started listening to it regularly. Interestingly, the more I listened to it, the less I appreciated it. It became a song I listened to as a whole, without listening […]
Rules as thinking substitutes
[ed. note: I’ve been mulling this post over for a while (I wrote about half of it last week), and it hasn’t quite come together yet (probably because it’s more like two or three posts), but I figure the only way to get it done is to just post it.] This line of thought was […]
Douglas Hofstadter at Stanford
Douglas Hofstadter, of Godel Escher Bach fame, gave a lecture at Stanford this evening. I happened to hear about it, and convinced DocBug to go with me (which worked out great when I didn’t allow enough time for traffic because he was able to save me a seat despite a standing-room-only crowd). Hofstadter’s a great […]
