A friend sent me a link to this article over at Yahoo, describing how Bush has scored points by defining John Kerry with a series of negative ads since the end of the primaries. We then saw this article where Ralph Nader, of all people, tells Kerry to loosen up and be himself. As usual, […]
Category: thoughts
The Passion of the Christ
I went to see Mel Gibson’s new film The Passion of the Christ over the weekend, mostly because I want to see anything that engenders this much controversy so that I can form my own opinion. Plus, the Christ story (“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever […]
Constructing the self story
I was talking to a friend last night who passed along an interesting observation to me: that people actively seek out evidence to support their worldviews. I’ve always believed that our perceptions color our view of the world in a passive way; that we see what we expect to see. Where one person sees the […]
Team building
Several of the engineers based at our parent company in Toronto came down to our San Francisco site this week to sync up with us on the project that we are collaborating on. Our project manager thought this might be a good excuse for a team building exercise. Suggestions included going bowling or ice skating, […]
The perception of safety
I really liked Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point. When a friend of mine lent me an article that Gladwell had written in the New Yorker, I went looking for it on the web and found that Gladwell publishes all of his articles on his website (that article, entitled “The Talent Myth: Are smart people […]
George Lakoff and politics
I mentioned George Lakoff in my list of links a month ago, but somebody recently forwarded me a link to this interview with him, where I got a better sense of his thinking. That page also links to this other interview, which has some really great bits. Lakoff was the guy who said frames trump […]
Dean’s Last Stand
So I wanted to get one more entry in on politics before the Democratic primary race totally collapses this Tuesday when it looks like Kerry will take 5 of the 7 contested states. One of the things that I previously observed about this race is that it’s all about perception. In particular, I said a […]
Unions
Somehow the topic of unions came up at work yesterday, and, in particular, why unions have totally failed to become a force in the high-tech economy of the Bay Area. I had put some thought into this a few months ago when I made the mistake of deriding unions in front of a friend whose […]
Michael Moore endorses Clark
I’m on Michael Moore’s mailing list, and this morning he sent out his endorsement of Clark over Dean. Michael Moore, who most people know from his “documentaries” such as Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine, is a bit of a wacko, but I think he does genuinely care about this country and its people. […]
Community
I was reading an article by Phil Agre today, and was struck by a thought that I wanted to develop a little bit more. So I’m writing about it. One of the things I like about Agre’s work is that he is not a technological determinist; he believes that the use of technology is dependent […]
