“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” — [Attributed to] Mark Twain.
Warning: I didn’t understand…
A short catastrophic foray into community activism
“People invest their IQ in buttressing their own case rather than in exploring the whole issue more fully and evenhandedly.” — David Perkins. Learning to reason: The influence of instruction, prompts and scaffolding, metacognitive knowledge, and general intelligence on informal reasoning about everyday social and political issues.
“The restrictions were…
How many do you recognize in your own projects?
“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” — H.L. Mencken. 1880–1956.
I retired from the computer industry four years ago. I’ve continued to advise a few startups but, truth be told, I’ve spent more hours on a bicycle than behind a desk…
It’s time to move our elections online
As we live through one of the most historic elections in US history, I can’t help but return to a theme that has occupied me recently, namely that we are trying to keep this 250-year-old “house” up on its creaky stilts and we insist on doing so using not just…
A New Team of Rivals
Leaked transcript of upcoming Biden speech, copied from one of his rehearsals. Video forthcoming. This is big! Pass it around.
[Biden speaking to the camera]
Folks, here’s the thing. This is not a normal election year. We’re not going to be able to do things the way we’ve done them…
“We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on…
The invention of lying, the fallacy of multitasking, and an instruction manual for mind control
“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.” — The Elements of Eloquence. Mark Forsyth.
Complex…
We are the sum total of our decisions in life.
“Could I have been a parking lot attendant?
Could I have been a millionaire in Bel Air?
Could I have been lost somewhere in Paris?
Could I have been your little brother?
Could I have been anyone other than me?” — Dave Matthews Band. Dancing Nancies.
Rene Descartes, the French…
Nietzsche was right after all.
This is a story about my friend, Paul David, his cycling accident ten years ago, and his amazing recovery. But, to put his story in perspective, I first need to tell you a story about my own cycling accident.
Back in March of this year, I had a head-on collision…
“He was still too young to know that the heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” — Gabriel García Márquez. Love in the Time of Cholera.
I often mention to friends and family…
