I got off to a late start on election day, after staying up until 2am the night before working on the database with Ken. But I got over to HQ by 10am, and immediately left with Ken and Brian. It had been decided that Brian and I, as the out-of-towner carpetbaggers, should be running tech […]
Helping out
So, as mentioned last week, I decided to go to Ohio for the election this year. And, despite the national result, I’m glad I went. Brian and I ended up spending our time in Ohio helping out the local Oberlin effort, Oberlin Votes!, run by Rob’s friend Ken. Oberlin Votes! aimed “to identify every individual […]
Conservative selfishness
A couple weeks ago, I happened to hear Pat Buchanan on Fresh Air (scroll down). I don’t recall all of the details, and I don’t have the time to listen to the whole interview again, but I was struck with a thought while listening to him: the conservative viewpoint is all about selfishness. The things […]
The Animal Who Tells Stories
One of the issues brought up in response to my last post was that we, as humans, are really poor at statistically evaluating risk. We’re really good at remembering spectacular stories, or relevant anecdotes, but we’re really bad at taking numbers in the abstract and turning them into guides to behavior. And this isn’t just […]
The danger to ourselves
A flame war erupted on an email list I’m on when somebody decided to endorse Bush over Kerry, because Kerry wasn’t going to stand up to the terrorists. He went on to mention Kerry’s comment about 9/11 attacks being a “nuisance” (which is a mis-quote but never mind), and how awful an idea it was […]
Going to Ohio
After going to that political campaign training, I mentioned to my friend Brian that I thought it was neat that many of the participants were planning to vote absentee in California, and head to a swing state for the election itself to help get out the vote. I didn’t think anything more of it until […]
Participant statement for AC2004
As I mentioned before, I’m signed up to go to the Accelerating Change conference. One of the things they suggest doing is to put together a participant statement. Here’s mine. 1. Passions and Futures I am fascinated by the topic of how people communicate, whether it’s in the form of how a company makes its […]
Links of October 20, 2004
As usual, a couple links that I want to share. I really liked this San Francisco chronicle article describing Laura Cunningham, the manager of the French Laundry. In the account of my visit, I raved about the experience, and how everything was tuned so well for customer enjoyment. It turns out that Cunningham has trained […]
Sucker Bet, by James Swain
Amazon link I’ve liked Swain’s previous books, so when I saw this one in paperback at the used book store, I picked it up. Not as entertaining as the previous entries in the series, partially because Swain doesn’t spend as much time explaining various casino swindles. The centerpiece scam isn’t as interesting or intricate either. […]
Generalist
Beemer put up a thoughtful comment in response to my last post. To quote one part: Smart kids, especially the ones who go places like MIT, often get this idea that they need to be Einstein or Newton, which is frankly silly. Because that’s not how the world works — it’s the total contribution of […]
