i read a good cry so you don't have to

A Good Cry by Nikki Giovanni (January 2018)

Giovanni's short collection of essays and poetry was my introduction to the work of one of America's most distinguished and celebrated poets. One thing I noted throughout A Good Cry was the immense value Giovanni places on using words with precision – she is a great poet, after all, and ‘using words with precision’ is one of the many ways to define the craft. There are examples of this lesson all throughout A Good Cry.

In one essay, she writes that when one person hits another in a domestic violence incident, it isn’t a fight or an argument. It’s one person hitting another. The words we’ve become accustomed to using to describe such incidents fail those who need precise definitions – they fail those who seek the truth and they fail those who need the understanding truth brings. The way we describe violence without describing the violence fails its victims and, in the process, make us all a little smaller as human beings.

She also uses verse to demonstrate the importance of using words with precision. In one poem, she rejects the idea of justice - ‘There can be no Justice / only Revenge’. In another, she takes aim at how we turn death into a taboo topic - ‘A friend was not / Lost nor did she / Transition she / Died’. Again, the way language intended to protect can lead to harm is plainly evident. Some words that shield us from the causes of our suffering also work to prevent us from healing. They make the darkness comfortable when what we really desire is the light. It’s vital to know the difference between what we can bear and what we don’t want to – language that obscures this distinction quickly loses its protective value.

I liked her point about how school and education are often confused. Many are quick to criticize ‘the education system’ or point out the need to reform ‘our failing schools’ without clarifying the difference between the two. The danger of failing to do so is to lose the strengths of each in the process of lazily combining the two concepts together (1). Like with the distinction between fact and truth, casually using two things so closely related as substitutes for each other makes things more difficult when knowing the difference between similar ideas really counts.

My favorite idea from this collection came as Giovanni wrote about Maya Angelou. She cited Angelou’s ability to find the good and praise it as among her most important qualities. Without it, she would never have been able to derive the great power that comes to a voice that always speaks to everyone in the same way.

Footnotes / no, I’m not writing about college admissions again

1. The difference between school and education…

Schools build community and teach students how to get things done on time. Education is a larger idea in the sense that people should try to educate themselves continuously throughout life. It encompasses school but includes more - all of school is a part of education but not all of education is limited to school.

leftovers: on-time performance

A problem with using a binary performance measurement like 'on-time performance' is the incentive it creates for companies to accept massive lateness so long as it improves the chances for others to arrive on time. To put it another way, what I'm suggesting is that 'on-time performance' might tempt an airline to distribute lateness among their flights whenever possible to improve their on-time performance figures.

Here's an example. Suppose an airline is scheduled to land planes at 1pm, 115pm, and 130pm. The landing process takes fifteen minutes. The first plane is fifteen minutes late.

If the airline is using 'on-time performance' as a key performance metric, it might allow the 115pm plane to land first. Since landing requires fifteen minutes, it must repeat the choice with the 130pm plane. Again, it might also allow the 130pm plane to land next to ensure its on-time arrival. The results of the two strategies:

1) Uses 'on-time performance'

115pm plane lands at 115pm - ON TIME

130pm plane lands at 130pm- ON TIME

100pm plane lands at 145pm - LATE by 45 minutes

45 minutes total delay

66% of planes land 'on-time'

*** 

2) Does not use 'on-time performance'

100pm plane lands at 115pm - LATE by 15 minutes

115pm plane lands at 130pm - LATE by 15 minutes

130pm plane lands at 145pm- LATE by 15 minutes

45 minutes total delay

0% of planes land 'on-time'

Different types of travelers will prefer different approaches to the problem. As I wrote way back in the original post, those who incorporate slack into the travel schedule will likely prefer the intuitive system of option #2 over the statistical manipulations motivating option #1. Those who rely on the airline schedule to keep them 'on-time' will likely prefer to roll the dice with option #1.

One problem I see here is what will happen when a careless outsider looks at the options. A cursory glance at the aggregates - 66% to 0%! - will suggest an obvious choice. But those on the 1pm flight will surely become very upset if they find out their trip was delayed an additional half-hour just to fudge the numbers a bit. Is it worth the risk of potentially alienating up to one-third of the ridership in order to better market the airline to a far larger pool of possible customers?

The larger idea here is the result of failing to match a statistic or metric to the question at hand. Most customers assume airlines are trying to move planes from departure to arrival as quickly as possible. Further, they assume each flight performs independently of the other flights an airline operates. But having metrics that invoke the 'yes/no' nature of 'on-time performance' creates incentives for airlines to do otherwise. As the observer effect indicates, observing behavior is often enough to change behavior.

Or, as management guru (editor's note: and The Business Bro's personal hero) Peter Drucker once quipped - what gets measured gets managed. The mismatched behavior resulting from the strange incentives created by a seemingly innocent tool like 'on-time performance' shows this principle in action. These contradictions do not resolve themselves with good intentions or even trivial blog posts, however. From my long-term point of view, a company would be best to avoid unnecessary misalignment in measurement and performance whenever possible by trying to understand how the observer effect changes behavior and taking the necessary steps to correct for its bias.

Signed,

The Business Bro

tales of two cities, vol 7: nov '16

11/07/2016
Back Bay / South End Station (2:06 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (2:16 am)

Another NYC trip, another Amtrak train delay. Rinse, wash, repeat.

The novelty of Hubway is certainly wearing off, just a little, as I hit the fifteenth month of membership. It does remain perfectly useful, however, in solving some of the area's unusual transportation challenges. Or it seems unusual to me, anyway, for the 'T' to stop running just past midnight. I suppose this point of view is influenced by my just having returned from the Big Apple and its round-the-clock approach to everything.

My Hubway milestones are piling up. Just last week saw my second Hubway ride in a suit! And it wasn't a case of Halloween dress-up; I wore the suit for a job interview. It wasn't necessary, exactly (the bike ride, I mean) but since the challenges of local transportation meant I would have required over an hour to get to the interview, I happily took the forty minute savings offered by the local bike share system.

I didn't get the job but I was definitely on time.

11/12/2016
Alewife Station at Russell Field (3:51 pm)
Linear Park - Mass. Ave. at Cameron Ave. (4:14 pm)

I've added a new bike trip to my routine. The Alewife stop, located about five minutes west of Linear Park, is situated on the Minuteman Bike Path. The path starts at Alewife and runs ten miles north to Bedford. I'm not interested enough in the trail to pay a Hubway usage fine so I turn off in Arlington and return to civilization via Mass Ave. All in all, the trip usually takes between twenty and thirty minutes.

I'm often subject to conversations about bike helmets. The dangers of being hit by a car without one are easy for anyone to imagine. But the concept really hits home on these bike paths. I often see riders zip by on my left, sometimes at twice my top speed. A pothole, a stiff breeze, or even a printed out copy of this blog post could send these men and women flying through the air and crashing onto their heads. I've always suspected such high-speed crashes are the most likely cause of cycling's major head injuries but I guess I've never bothered to find out if I was right or wrong about my hunch.

One time when I was ten, I flipped over the handlebars of my bike. A towel I was bringing to the pool got caught in my front wheel. The bike stopped immediately and I went right over the top. I landed on my elbow, which was fine, but got a small rock about the size of a penny was caught in my elbow joint. I pulled out the rock, my mom poured alcohol on it for a month, and eventually everything was fine. I don't remember feeling lucky, just annoyed at the daily ritual of the stinging disinfectant. I owned a helmet but don't remember if I wore it.

Back then, I didn't run. I swam and biked a lot, though. Soon enough, I put the swim trunks away and started running. Once I got to college, I started swimming again but never biked. I kept this up for a few years before once again exchanging the pool for the wheels.

It's occurring to me now that, although I've done more swimming, biking, and running than most people, I've never really given a triathlon any thought. I guess it's a lot like wearing a helmet - I've just never given it serious thought.

This comes as a surprise to those who engage me in conversations about the event - surely, someone who runs and bikes can do a triathlon? Maybe it's because I've never done all three at the same time but, for whatever reason, I just don't follow the logic others take for granted.

11/14/2016
EF - North Point Park (3:54 pm)
Lewis Wharf - Atlantic Ave. (4:08 pm)

Aquarium Station - 200 Atlantic Ave. (5:26 pm)
Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston St. (5:48 pm)

My friend's wife tried biking to work for a short while. She started in Central Square, worked east through Cambridge, and stopped at Lechmere. She gave up because the trip felt unsafe. I understood the feeling in a general way despite never actually biking in the Lechmere area. Still, it was easy enough to relate. The bike lanes in Cambridge do a great job but there remains a lot of work to be done...like, you know, painting more bike lanes...in color, and...where there aren't huge potholes, and...well...

Today, my view changes. I ride into Lechmere traveling southeast on Cambridge Street. As I approach the main intersection at First Street, I pick up speed in the bike lane as I come down a fairly steep hill. The light in front of me turns yellow but I have enough speed to make it.

Right?

Wrong.

I get into the intersection but I mistime it. The light goes red as I hit the crosswalk. By the time I'm to the other side of the intersection, the light on First Street is green. I don't know if I was in any actual danger but, at the same time, I'm a little rattled.

My close call with the light distracts me momentarily. I end up staying on the same street instead of turning off the road and docking the bike. I merge into the next street which, for some reason, is Highway 28. A highway! Just seconds ago, I was cruising through the bike lane; now I'm wondering if I'll need to pin an E-ZPass to my ass. The Lechmere intersection is starting to seem ridiculous.

I wonder what is going on with the light pattern. Any intersection with bike traffic running downhill, it seems, should either extend the yellow, extend the red on any crossing traffic, or simply go to an all-walk signal to minimize any unforeseen problems stemming from downhill riders. It seems almost like common sense and maybe that's the problem. Common sense is far down the list when it comes to bike safety.

I wonder if these problems are only noticed when someone like me does something wrong (or even illegal). I would never have spotted the issue had I rode the brakes downhill or had a better sense of timing at the intersection. I wonder if previous suggestions to alter the traffic pattern were dismissed as 'excuse-making' by those preferring to blame riders for violating traffic law rather than taking their observations seriously.

The whole point of today's trip is to see 'The Supermoon' rise over the Boston Harbor. Eventually, I get there and I'm in time to see it rise. I'm unimpressed. The moon is perhaps a little bigger than usual, I suppose, but I never would have noticed this fact on my own. To me, it seems like its always been there, just the way it is now. Who could really care about this stuff? 

11/15/2016
Charles St at Beacon St (9:12 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:14 am)

Charles St at Beacon St (9:14 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:16 am)

Charles St at Beacon St (9:16 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:17 am)

I set a new personal record as I unlock three broken bikes in a row. The chain on the first one locks, the back tire on the second one is flat, and first gear is the only gear on the third bike. I'm a little annoyed as I'm already late for my hospice volunteer meeting.

Is this a sign from the bike gods? It hasn't been the smoothest time for me lately on a bike. Perhaps it is time to hang up the reflector straps.

Or maybe this is just another example of the truism - all things end poorly for otherwise they wouldn't end...

I return all three bikes and mark each for 'repair'. This is a semi-nifty feature which leaves the broken bike in the dock until a technician comes to repair it. The feature is also ripe for exploit. If a rider marks a bike for repair, the next bike can be taken out without waiting the full minute otherwise required between rentals.

Could someone in a hurry 'accidentally' mark a bike for repair and hop on another bike right away? Absolutely. But what can be done about it?

For now, this is the system and it seems to work just fine. I get on bike number four with no delay and ride off.

the business bro presents: on-time performance

The first time I noticed an airline using 'advanced' statistics to sell tickets was prior to a work trip in 2012. I was due to fly to Tennessee with one of my company's VPs. Smart guy, this VP was - he broke a company record by almost a full week when he booked the flights days in advance of the departure.

His foresight gave me a little extra time to study the flight details. As I looked around on the Good Old Interwebs, I noticed that the flight boasted an 'on-time performance' of 95% (1).

This seemed pretty good. Ninety-five! We would have plenty of time to wind down after landing. But was this statistic relevant?

I suppose the answer depends. The key is slack. If a given flight is packed into a tight schedule, the on-time performance of earlier flight is probably more important. If the earlier flight suddenly starts landing late, the 'on-time performance' of the next flight will quickly decline.

But if there is slack built into the schedule, other flights landing late isn't automatically a problem. Up to a point, the next flight will still be able to take off on time. In this case, the 'on-time performance' won't decline as quickly if the preceding flight suddenly starts experiencing regular problems.

A better analytical tool might allow a buyer to use the landing time to incorporate a given flight's scheduling slack. The airline could then adjust the 'on-time performance' measure to help the traveler understand the history of the route in the context of the traveler's schedule. If a flight is always late to arrive but lands within an hour of the scheduled time with 100% historical success, I might book the flight anyway if I can afford the extra hour's delay.

I use a version of this thinking to travel to and from New York. When going down, I will try to ride a cheap bus to New Haven and switch to the local train into Grand Central. It does not matter at all if the bus is late because there is no train to 'catch' - I just get on the next available one using a ticket that is valid for the entire day.

On the return trip, I never stop at New Haven. The risk of missing the bus is too great if the local train gets delayed. Since there is usually only one bus available, missing the bus means spending the night in New Haven. No thanks! For the return trip, I always ride the train the entire way from New York to Boston.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. Don't like it? Sue me.

I'm making up this number. Like I could remember this years later, right? With all the beers I drink, it's a miracle I remember anything.

I'm just here to defend the formulas, not the numbers.

reading review: fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy - part three

Today is the last section of my review for Tim Harford’s Fifty Inventions That Shaped The Modern Economy. Good luck, reader!

A minor housekeeping item before we begin - no post tomorrow, folks...

I wasn't kidding about those off days.

Thanks for reading (if I ever do post again),

Tim

*********

The basic technologies behind the smart phone were all developed with significant government support.

Since basic research does not officially lead to a specific product or output, its funding is an easy target for governments during times of austerity. It is the basic unstructured nature of the task, however, that leads to new inventions.

In his section about the smart phone, Harford lists the eleven key components that came together to form the final product. He traces the history of each component back to a government project of some kind to make a point about government’s often-unseen role in innovation. Though it rarely creates in the manner of a famed inventor, governments participate in the process of innovation through a mixture of funding and policy.

*********

Goods with positive externalities tend to come around slower than society at large would prefer.

The comment about positive externalities is one of the most important things I learned studying economics. A positive externality is when a third party benefits from an economic transaction. An employee who passes a CPR course for a job and then applies this knowledge to save someone's life while outside of work is a good example.

The obvious problem in a market-driven capitalist system is the lack of incentive for anyone to produce a positive externality. This is why many economists were dismayed to see the USA pull out of the Paris Agreement. It’s not like individuals don’t care about pollution or the environment or clean energy or whatever; it’s that individuals will drive their SUVs to a global warming rally to express these views.

To put it more reasonably, the best most individuals can do regarding a positive externality is to simply reduce their output of the opposite. But doing less of the negative isn’t always equivalent to doing more of the positive. A society interested in accelerating the influence of a positive externality will lean heavily on its government to do so because, in most cases, this is the best way to do it.

*********

Insurance is a vital part of a healthy economy if it encourages workers to take sensible risks. Private insurers rarely profit from such coverage, however, and prefer to sell rich consumers policies for overblown risks.

What was that line I took from Pachinko? Insurance is a way to prey on the weak, vulnerable, or fearful? I suppose this thought is the long-awaited counter-argument, then. It’s a valuable insight, at least, because it establishes a simple definition for public insurance. Using this as a rule of thumb would help governments determine where their presence in the insurance market was merited and where it should be left to private sector interests.

I’m tempted to write more about health insurance here – you know, reader, all the stuff I go into about how health insurance is about paying for rather than providing healthcare – but at this point even I’m sick of my own voice on this matter.

*********

Poor economies often choose pollution as the price to pay for progress.

Credible estimates suggest increasing breastfeeding rates could save nearly eight hundred thousand lives per year. This is due to how poor water supplies in certain areas go straight into the formula used by non-breastfeeding mothers.

Despite efficiency improvements in modern air conditioners, global energy use is still expected to increase eightfold by 2050.

Every year around Christmas, I watch the Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol. Whenever I think of the movie, a line from Scrooge always comes to mind: if you give money to the poor, they won’t be poor anymore...

If we accept the wisdom of Scrooge – a question I’ll leave open for another day – and combine it with Harford’s observation about pollution, it frames the question of foreign aid a little differently. There are many poor countries around the world today. Do we step back, put our hands up in the air, and announce that we do not interfere (hahaha) in the day-to-day of sovereign nations? Or do we dig into our pockets a little bit and try something different?

*********

Luddites knew perfectly well how machines would devalue their skills. New technologies always create winners and losers. Their suddenness comes from people retaining the same skills as always seeing a sudden change in their earning power.

Weak copyright protection tends to create opportunity for those interested in touring. Dickens did this after his profile was raised by bootlegged versions of his books while musicians do the same today.

Predicting a robot’s future capabilities is a tricky business. In 1956, it was thought robots with human-like thinking capacity were around two decades away. Today, it is thought robots with human-like thinking capacity are around two decades away.

A big challenge facing regulators is how to properly handle online matching services. An Airbnb host is able to rent out to only select guests, for example, based on pictures found online.

Internet security is based on our current inability to calculate the two large prime numbers being multiplied to create a larger semiprime number.

The engine was originally a solution to the pollution problem posed by horses.

Let’s see, what do we have here…change is great, but not today…people always find the best price…smart people make optimistic predictions…racists find ways to discriminate…a security problem solved with a bigger lock …a highly visible problem is replaced with a less visible problem…

Maybe it is easier to just say the following:

History, like a poorly read blog, always repeats itself.

master pu's pu-pu platter, special edition: learning from essays in idleness

Great things are achieved only by giving up on other things. To mourn what falls through when the goal is unaffected is foolish.

The student who majors in Japanese neglects history, the barn which yields milk does not house chickens, the traveler who chases sunsets turns his back to the east.

***

A closer look at the results of endeavors started on 'lucky days' will surely reveal the same number of failures as those initiated on ordinary days.

Variations in outcomes reflect variations in skill.

***

A beginner should never practice archery with a quiver of spare arrows. The key of learning technique is to make each arrow decisive. Spares encourage only carelessness with the excess.

A master shipbuilder once explained how he placed his lifeboats - "What is a lifeboat?"

***

The man who studies in solitude, intending to perform his art or skill for an audience once he reaches a certain level, will never learn anything. Mastery requires an openness to criticism developed through unashamed exposure to experts, novices, and the public.

The student open to criticism requires no teacher.

***

Focus on doing what is good and forget about what may follow. The man who sleeps in comfortable conditions tends to avoid illness and a ruler who governs nearby matters with attention, kindness, and fairness tends to extend his influence.

Every step up the mountain is the next one.

***

Wisdom means knowing your capacity and stopping before overexerting.

A resting balloon never pops.

***

The difference in the unskilled specialist and the most competent amateur is the replacement of rashness with habitual caution. A new swimmer rarely considers the undercurrent.

The amateur learns from failure; the specialist learns until failure is impossible.

***

Watch for mistakes when the level of difficulty is lowered.

Its a mystery how anyone can make a grammar mistake in the age of spell check.

***

A man on a great journey must turn back, even at the doorstep of the destination, if he determines a different course will lead to a better outcome. To say "I've come this far" is the seed of a lifetime wasted slothfully.

A good reader does not close the book until the last sentence is read; the great reader stops a syllable shy of completion the moment he learns of a better work to read.

leftovers #2: hourglass

The reading for this book came a day before a road trip back to my college campus. When we arrived, I was overcome with a new fullness of emotion.

I borrowed a remark I mistakenly thought Shapiro said during her reading to describe my new feeling - my return was evidence of life's inevitable accumulation of sorrows...

In hindsight, this explanation was perhaps a tad more dramatic than required. The simple fact is, library books excepted, I simply never handle returning very well.

don’t give up, bono!

Around a year ago, U2 appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show to promote their upcoming stadium tour. After performing a couple of songs, the band sat down with the host for a brief interview.

The conversation turned to politics and Bono - Glamour's 2016 'Woman of the Year', among other things - was asked about his thoughts on President Trump. I still remember his quote today - our thinking was...you just need one thing to agree with somebody on to start a conversation...however... (interested readers can hear the quote in full for themselves in this two-minute clip by following this link). (1)

I liked the quote because it expressed a feeling I’ve always had about myself. Over nearly three decades or so, I’ve used shared interests to spark connections and build relationships. I think my ability to find common starting points and use these as foundations was a big factor in forming friendships with all kinds of people over the years.

But in the past couple of years, I’ve acknowledged some new details about myself that led me to question my thinking. I don't seem to have the same ability to make friends that I once did. One of the possible reasons for this is how much more difficult it is to find other people with similar interests to mine. The ease of meeting these people that I took for granted in my schooling years is not so easy to replicate now in my early adulthood (2).

But another possible reason occurred to me recently that's shaped my recent views about myself and cast Bono's quote about Trump in a new light. The key moment came while reading Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider at the end of 2016. Perhaps the most important idea I wrote down in my reading notes was this:

Learning to relate across differences as equals is the great challenge of compassion - of cooperation - in the face of the pressure to reject - of competition.

Unlike when I first heard Bono's comment on Kimmel's show, I could not immediately tie Lorde's thought back to my experiences. I could not think back to a moment when I thought about someone - wow, I have nothing in common with this person, so we'll probably become best friends!

And yet, the quote stuck with me. Over the past year, I’ve started to understand why I've kept it mind. There are simply times when a person has to connect with another. And in these moments, a lack of common ground is merely an excuse, a justification for a failure to relate. The ability to look someone in the eye, acknowledge a complete lack of common ground, and still find a way to approach a task or a problem as equals in the full spirit of cooperation - well, reader, I'm struggling at the moment to come up with a more valuable skill to cultivate.

Now, I don’t have a particularly good recommendation for how to go about this. My thought at the moment is to simply suggest removing the 'find common ground' idea from the process of forging connections. When I've managed to push back those three decades of conditioning and habit that urge me to seek a common foundation with someone new, I've found that I am better able to get a sense of who someone really is.

Most importantly, I find that ignoring the urge to find common ground keeps me from getting lost in the what/when/where of someone else. These facts about a person seem important - what someone does or where someone was born are key parts of personal identity, without question. But they are also distractions from what I think most people consider the tenets of their personality and character. Questions about who, what, when, where - these invite us to jump to conclusions or entrench for battle over positions and ideologies.

I prefer to learn more about the how and why of someone's thinking and living. As Bono alludes to toward the end of the clip, learning why someone voted for a different candidate or learning how someone thinks a particular candidate will help the electorate bring us all much closer to solving a problem than worrying about who someone voted for or what political party they support.

Of course, all this in a way leads us right back to where we started - acknowledging the value and power in making connections. I know there is plenty of benefit in connecting with new people who share something in common with me. But I suspect the most valuable connections I will make are always going to be with those I have nothing in common with. As Lorde suggested in her work, relating across differences is the process of building the world. It's the hard work needed to rewrite the definitions that no longer serve humanity and the most important step in bringing anyone who feels like an outsider back into the fold. For me, I think continuing to cultivate my own ability to relate across my differences with others is the most important task on my to-do list for these coming years.

Footnotes / imagined complaints

0. In the first draft, this was my opening sentence:

Longtime readers of TOA (and those who read this sentence, I suppose) will know I am a huge fan of Bono.

I must have axed this one after I realized no one blogs about Bono unless they either really like or really hate him.

Just for the record, since I'm not really impacted by all his automatic iPod uploading or tax evading shenanigans, I remain comfortably in the former group.

0a. And in revision, I considered including this alternate quote:

There comes a time in any baseball game when the ball just has to cut the plate!

I think this (approximate quote) came from a book in the Chip Hilton series. Who is Chip Hilton, you ask? Ask your grandfather.

I have no clue as to why I ever considered including the quote in this post but there you go, reader, a look behind the TOA curtain for you. I hope it wasn't too disappointing...

1. Now, what I THOUGHT he said was better, actually, for this post...

Before I double-checked his quote, I'd actually thought Bono said this:

I used to think if I could just establish one shared thing with someone, that we could have a conversation...

It's really bizarre how casually my memory lies to me.

2. I've also developed different interests...

I also don't think it helps that what I consider my main interests these days - running, reading, writing - are basically solitary pursuits. It was a little different back in the day when my interests were more companion friendly pursuits like watching football, watching helmet football, or drinking while watching football (of either variety).

leftovers: the toa stretching program

At the moment, I try to wash my hands whenever I find myself in one of the following situations:

*Whenever I know my hands are dirty
*Whenever I'm about to interact with someone of lower immune function
*Whenever it will be considered rude not to wash my hands

leftovers: paul graham

Just a quick follow up thought today from some writing I did long ago about Paul Graham...

In one of the posts, I made a throwaway comment in the footnotes about how if Sundays invite internet time wasting, then perhaps the best way to avoid wasting time on Sundays is to stay away from the internet (TOA excepted, of course).

It might make a nice rule of thumb for time wasting. If there is a danger of the activity becoming a time waster, find a way to avoid starting (1).

Another approach is to schedule time wasters. I tend to waste time reading blogs and such (TOA excepted, of course). So, I restrict the time I do it during the six non-Sundays of the week. I did a similar thing with work email when I scheduled a block of time each day to answer the previous day's messages.

A final way to cut down on time wasted might involve keeping a simple log. Tracking motivates reducing time wasted to its lowest possible level. If I budget an hour to time wasting, I might never realize that I get just as much out of 'time wasting ' when I only throw away fifteen minutes.

Footnotes / parking what's law?

1. These days, I don't eat snacks at home...

The reason I stopped buying snacks for my apartment resembles this thought pattern - I stopped when I admitted that I ate them much faster than I preferred to. Instead of buying snacks and struggling to control my eating, I opted to tackle the much easier problem of writing a better shopping list.

2. Is this another application of Parkinson's law?

It looks like time-wasting activity might simply expand to fill the calendar space allocated for time wasting. Directly from Wikipedia (aka, must be true)...

Originally, Parkinson's law is the adage that 'work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion', and the title of a book which made it well-known.

I sometimes get very skeptical about these 'insights'. It's not a far cry from stating - the thing took as long as it did. But it is a convenient packaging for another idea I enjoy quoting - worrying about efficiency is relevant so long as there is scarcity.

leftovers: hourglass

To decide whether to read Hourglass or not, I employed what I'll call 'The Pachinko Strategy' - I went to see the author read from the book. The plan was to base the decision on the reading: if I enjoyed the reading, I would read the book.

Spoiler alert: I read the book.

Looking back, I think I recommend the tactic. It's proven a good way to make decisions about books I'm not sure about reading.

And on the bright side, if the reading doesn't quite work out, well, it's a cheap night out (as long as you attend a free reading). That's nothing to sneeze at, reader listener.

the bb book club: the mythical man-month, part two

Hello all,

Welcome to the final installment of the combined three-part review for The Mythical Man-Month. Why waste your time with further introductions? Let’s just jump right into it, reader.

Signed,

The Business Bro

Thoughts on scheduling and efficiency

The nature of error accumulation is for delays to add up at the back end. Think about it like a train. If the train is two minutes late getting to the first stop, it isn’t going to be on time to the second stop. With some extra effort, perhaps the train eventually gets back on schedule. But if there is another delay or two, the schedule becomes as useful as termites in a pencil factory.

This general truth isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It might not even be avoidable – if something could get done in half the time, the schedule would probably shrink to reflect it. It will likely just keep shrinking until something runs late. There is only so much slack that can be built into a schedule before the schedule itself will be required to shrink, probably because your boss said so (reader, meet square one - square one, reader). So, what’s the program manager to do?

One strategy is to make sure otherwise independent tasks are not unnecessarily linked together. If the project is organized like an assembly line, each interruption upstream delays the start time of a subsequent step. Dividing the portions of the design into separate sections ensures that teams can start and finish without depending on another step to be completed first.

The danger of local optimization

When a project is broken up and portions are assigned to different teams, one of the biggest threats to overall success is sub-optimization at the team level. By nature, teams will always want to do their very best work. If the communication structure keeps each team in its own bubble, the naturally motivated team might complete technically outstanding components that do not fit together with the other features of the project.

The project leader’s role is to make sure the project is optimized. This will mean some of the sub-components are not optimized. Sometimes, the sub-components will be completely inefficient. The leader's role is to make sure teams understand their role in the overall project. This work is best done behind the scene by eliminating any incentives that might tempt a team to go for their own goals rather than commit to making the project a success.

The point of the organizational chart

The organizational chart defines the process of communicating information. Its sole purpose is to reduce the communication and coordination efforts necessary to execute a plan. A well-defined communication structure means decision makers get the information they need at the right time. Any organization that seeks to produce flexible products must itself be prepared to change.

Organizations that do not understand the nature of a communication framework often become rigid. Despite the talk of flexibility and adaptation, red tape and bureaucracy become the norm and process begins to crystallize. If too many people without decision-making authority require information or key decision-makers cannot access needed information, it’s a sure sign that the organization’s communication structure is broken.

The most subtle managerial skill

The managerial role is very much like a gardener. The goal is not to make people work but instead to make it possible for people to work.

There is also an investor’s mentality required to manage successfully. Just as a long-term investor bets money today for returns tomorrow, a manager who wants to build a strong team must find a way to front-load costs for future benefits.

The critical managerial skill many first-time leaders lack is a willingness to wait for something to grow. This is especially challenging for high-achievers promoted due to their success at solving problems. These people are used to dropping everything to resolve an issue or doing whatever it takes to fix what is broken. The mentality is commendable and the approach often leads to great short-term results.

But managers expecting this mentality to continue serving them well at higher levels of an organization are shortsighted. One problem with this approach is how it will discourage team members. They will grow accustomed to others solving problems for them and will take less initiative over assignments. A manager must be disciplined and wait for as long as possible before stepping in - the key is to strike the right balance between allowing team members to continue learning from mistakes without allowing them to become discouraged from repeated failures or errors.

Another good example of such a challenge comes when bad news is shared during a regularly scheduled status report. The manager must never act immediately. Otherwise, subordinates will start waiting until the status report to share bad news. Instead of misusing the existing framework of a status report to gather urgent information, the manager must create a communication structure so that bad news is shared right away.

Finally, managers who demand full disclosure from their teams must discipline themselves. If they respond to every bit of negative news, team members will become more likely to withhold information. Good gardeners don’t look for weeds every hour and good investors don’t juggle their portfolio every time the market moves – new managers must recognize bad news as part of the growth process and trust their teams to work on continuously building up a successful team.

life changing books: working together

Working Together by Michael Eisner (Winter 2011)

I read this book about successful partnerships back in 2011. If I recall correctly, I thought the book was fine. I enjoyed learning more about some of the specific partnerships but I do not recall being disappointed when I reached the last page.

Still, I ended up including this on my 'life changing books' list for a thought in the chapter about Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's partnership at Imagine Entertainment. If I recall correctly (and this is total recall since I did not take any notes down for Working Together) the two decided that the best way to divide credit (read: money) was to go fifty-fifty. Fifty-fifty or it won't work, I believe the exact quote was.

Fifty-fifty or it won't work...imagine that, reader...how in the world would this ever work? Surely, these two gentlemen then drove the company straight into bankruptcy, perhaps bickering about credit all the while? I suppose at least in the end they could have split $0 fifty-fifty...

The thinking behind the even split was that sometimes Howard would be more responsible for a project's success and sometimes Grazer would be; having to decide just who got exactly what slice of the credit would be exhausting and likely lead to some unwanted disagreements. And what would happen in those cases when the exact split was impossible to determine? I guess both people would be right - and when everyone's right, the group is wrong.

There are a lot of credit-sharing situations I see that would benefit from the parties agreeing to an even split. It might not always work, of course, but if the contributions of everyone involved are close to equal then I recommend the even split. I think we've all had the experience of trying to divide things down to the smallest hair - if the even split applied, everyone could save some time from doing all the admin of calculating the little details involved in such an exercise.

This book was the first time I remember thinking about the idea after reading a book. So though the overall experience of Working Together was not so memorable, I'm glad to have gleaned this specific insight from it.

leftovers: the mbta…has no clue

So, the backstory of the title for this post…

A few years ago on Sunday Night Football, Dallas played Green Bay in a game that got wildly out of hand. I think Green Bay was up 35-0 at halftime, or something along those lines. Dallas came out for the second half a defeated team determined to just finish the game and go home.

Early in the half, a Green Bay defender blitzed and hit the quarterback without anyone making an effort to stop him. The replay came on and showed the defender running right past a stationary Felix Jones, the Dallas running back on the play. Presumably, he was supposed to block the defender but it was hard to tell from the replay. The rest of the play took only a second – the defender hit the quarterback while Jones remained motionless.

Commentator Cris Collinsworth watched this replay twice without remark. This was unusual. His job was to analyze the game and add insight into what was going on. But the first and second replay came and went without comment.

Finally, as Dallas was about ready to start the next play, Collinsworth delivered the sharp insight he is known for.

Felix Jones…has no clue.

the charles river swim thing is confusing

Most people I know would refuse to join me for a swim in the Charles River (1). This makes perfect sense. They, like me, grew up listening to The Standell's 'Dirty Water' after Red Sox victories. We love that dirty water...as long as it stays over there, in the river. For us, the river was considered a small step up on the cleanliness scale from the water sloshing about in a backed-up toilet.

However, I no longer believe this. What specific reason explains my new attitude? I'm not entirely sure it is down to one reason. Rather, as is usually the case in these types of pointless mentality shifts, a series of smaller observations from over the years has simply added up to reach a tipping point.

First, I never see warning signs anywhere along the river to STAY OUT. Why would there be, you ask, if everyone knows the river is the local water treatment facility's biggest nightmare? Well, I actually suspect most people don't know. In my wanderings along the river, it seems like most of the crowd are tourists from Europe, Asia, or Newton-Wellesley, back from a fresh round of selfies and a couple nine-dollar Sam Adams drafts at The Cheers Bar. The most common exceptions are those whiz-kid college students who look a day or two over fifteen. Trust me, these sub-groups of people need all the warnings signs we can give them - therefore, I think it is relevant that we don't give them any such signs.

Another observation came on a walk this past summer. A friend and I strolled the Cambridge side of the river, working our way up from Kendall Square to Mass Ave. Along the way, we watched three small sailboats capsize in moderate winds. Three capsizing sailboats! Did these Magellans-in-training suddenly contract leprosy? Was the six o'clock news filled with breathless reports of new safety measures being installed by the canoe rental companies on the shores of the Charles? Did Mayor Walsh deliver a rousing speech demonizing those corporate interests he probably gave tax breaks to for dumping the chemical waste into the river that was now endangering the lives of hapless local sailors? No, no, and probably not, no.

But the clincher came just a week later when I heard about the City Splash event. Or, excuse me, I should say the FIFTH ANNUAL City Splash event. Apparently, the river is safe enough to swim in, once a year, for about twenty minutes, if you pay ten bucks. This is ridiculous. When it comes to safety, it's either safe or it isn't, and if no one has died yet after the first four swims, I'm sure everyone is good to go for a dip whenever they f'ing please.

Footnotes / plus, the chlorine would ruin my hair

1. Not that I would, either.

I'm not really a huge fan of swimming anymore. I think I got tired of it after doing one to two hour pool workouts every day for six straight weeks while rehabbing my badly sprained ankle back in 2014.

leftovers #2: madness

This post took me almost a year to finish. I read Akutagawa's short stories in the fall of 2016, sketched out a draft for each story I wanted to write about over the course of the next month, and put the first drafts together a few weeks later. But the post for this story sat untouched in the 'first draft' stage until the following summer.

What happened? I think the problem was one I've alluded to here in the past - I tried to write about two ideas in one post. Madness, indeed.

I finally decided to ditch the topic of semi-autobiographical writing and instead focused on issues of agency. I think the decision was a wise one. It was certainly influenced in part by my reading J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy right around the same time I was trying to work on this post.

The big lesson for me from this experience was understanding the benefit of sitting on a piece of writing. If I focus instead on reading other books, having new conversations, or simply thinking things over just a little longer, I always find myself stumbling into unexpected methods for solving a particularly tricky problem in my work.

i’ve been productive since i woke up

Every once in a while, I’ll look back on a day and think wow, today wasn’t very productive. I reach these conclusions in a purely subjective manner – no analysis involved, just some basic reflection and a little bit of additional thinking do the trick.

On one such day - perhaps hoping to do something useful and therefore salvage what I would otherwise conclude was an unproductive day - I decided to try and bring some advanced insight into my productivity measurements. I spent some time thinking about good metrics to use. One thought was to write out a list of things I know are productive – doing a job interview, reading a book, going for a run – and assigning myself points based on a 'productivity measurement' scoring system. Or, perhaps I could set some productivity goals for myself at the start of each day and measure my  progress against those.

As I continued to come up with other equally useless possibilities, I realized something important: I don’t really do many unproductive things. For the most part, I wake up and get going on something useful almost right away. I don’t get involved with video games, I don’t eat sugary cereals, and I don’t go out to buy a five-dollar latte. If I’m awake, I’m usually doing something I would consider productive - writing, cooking, stretching, and so on.

So, if I don't do unproductive things, I must always be doing something productive. But then how could I ever look back on a day and conclude it was unproductive? If I earn more money than I spend every single day, my savings account can’t possibly shrink, right?

I spent some time trying to figure this one out before I got it: on the days I felt unproductive, I simply woke up later than on the days I felt productive. It left me with a very simple metric to use for measuring my productivity - the time I woke up.

the mbta…has no clue

Back in 2016, the MBTA came under criticism for how it cancelled certain train routes in response to various mechanical problems. The issue of how the cancellations were perceived to favor affluent riders at the expense of serving lower-income neighborhoods is well-summarized in this piece (1).

Whenever I see such stories, I always find myself taking a closer look at the math. Statistics are so frequently misused by news and media outlets that one of my favorite podcasts, More Or Less, exists merely to research and point out these errors on a weekly basis. It could be, I thought when I initially heard this story, that there was a good alternative explanation for why certain trains were cancelled more often than others. If this was indeed the case, it was a tough break for the MBTA. They would have no choice but to hope such misrepresentations did not happen again in the future.

Now, doing nothing differently yet hoping for a changed outcome is a little silly. It might help the MBTA if they became better at explaining their decisions in the future. But for the most part, I think if they researched all their options, came to a clear conclusion on what to do, and tried to treat their customers as fairly as possible, they would probably not find themselves being charged with sensational claims of 'transit racism' (!?!) by all of us know-it-all bloggers out here...right?

*********

In the fall of 2017, I had the pleasure of riding the MBTA on my way home from a wedding. I boarded the Orange Line at Stony Brook and rode north to Ruggles. There, however, I learned track maintenance meant the subway was shut down. All of us on the train were switched over to shuttle bus service. These shuttles were regular MBTA buses deputized for the day to replace the subway trains. The ride was bumpy and it was uncomfortable in the overcrowded bus. When we reached Tufts Medical Center, I again had to pay to re-enter the subway system.

After the subway took us to Downtown Crossing, I transferred over to the Red Line. I rode the train one stop to Park Street where, again, we passengers were asked to board shuttle buses due to a track maintenance project on the Longfellow Bridge. However, when we left the subway system, I found that these 'shuttle buses' were not the standard MBTA variety - these were proper coach buses, the kind travelers pay up to fifty dollars to ride in for trips crossing state lines. The comfortable and spacious seats allowed everyone a place to sit for the entirety of the smooth ride. The coach - excuse me, ‘shuttle’ - zigzagged through Beacon Hill, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in world history, before crossing the Longfellow Bridge.

The shuttle finally arrived at its final stop in Kendall Square, one of Boston's many affluent neighbors. In the shadow of the offices for some of the world’s richest companies - Amazon, Facebook, and Google among them - passengers got off the luxury bus - excuse me, shuttle bus - and strolled straight onto the Red Line platform without being asked to pay a single penny more to re-enter the subway.

I have a feeling I shouldn’t hold my breath to hear a statistically-based explanation for the 2016 Fairmount Line cancellations anytime soon on a More Or Less episode.

Footnotes / rebuttal

1. And yet, I'll still try to do the very thing I sarcastically ruled out at the end of the post...

This article from the Boston Globe adds further detail to the situation by pointing out a number of the factors that may have gone into the decision-making process. There is a little too much going on in the article for me to work with for now but I do expect to get back to the topic in a future post.

(re) reading review: december 2017, part two

(There is a knock on the door.)

TOA: Hey, come on in.

(THE BB enters.)

BB: Hey, boss.

TOA: How was the month?

BB: Is he here?

TOA: Who?

BB: Moya.

TOA. No. I gave him a day off. Why?

BB: Goodness, last time, let me tell ya, usually I keep track of his rants but he was neither here nor there, I couldn’t tell if he wanted everyone to ride a bike or if he wanted them all to get run over by a duck boat, he was going on and on, I’m surprised he still isn’t going on, I thought it would never end, if he was my employee I would’ve axed him.

TOA: Well, I’m sorry to hear it was tough, but whatever you did worked some magic, last week he came in and actually got some work done. I put it in the newsletter. I might post one of his rants in the coming weeks.

BB: Oh, good, so you finally get some return from a new hire.

TOA: What does that mean?

BB: What about that guy, I forget his name, Mister Wu is it?

TOA: Master Poo.

BB: Right, what’s he done?

TOA: Well, he’s supposed to take over the Talking Shits-

BB: Hey! Watch your mouth!

TOA: What, that’s the name of it, what do you want me to call it?

BB: I don’t care, just call it something else, what a dumb name, no wonder why no one cares, even the guy you hired to do it doesn’t care.

TOA: Oh, give it a rest, he’ll come around.

BB: Yeah, it doesn’t matter to me, anyway, I just want to get this done with today.

TOA: Fine by me. Where were we when we left off?

BB: So last time before Moya, I think we were talking about what you saw in common among the books?

TOA: Right, well, in terms of connections, I did see many connections-

BB: Hold on, I remember now, I meant as in, did you see connections among the fiction you read in the way you saw connections among the nonfiction?

TOA: No, not so specifically within genres, I mean in M Train there is a significant portion devoted to Patti Smith reading and responding to Wind-Up Bird and this, too, was something I’d forgotten since my first reading. And are you gonna just interrupt all day again?

BB: If you start saying something dumb, I’ll interrupt. So yes, probably a lot. What was her take on the book?

TOA: She didn’t really get into it, if I recall correctly.

BB: Which you probably don’t…

TOA: Yeah, for once, smart-

BB: Hey!

TOA: Oh, chill, for once, OK, smart guy, I’m with you, wise guy, I’m just saying as I reread I realized my recall for these books wasn't very good at all. For Smith, I think Wind-Up Bird just captured her imagination. She talked about how much she enjoyed the description of a particular property, I remember, and wrote about how she might actually go to Japan to see it. I mean, are you kidding me? I didn't care half as much about seeing the apartment building I grew up in, and as far as I know, my living there actually happened, though this recent revelation-

BB: So you don’t care one way or the other for description?

TOA: Well, it’s vital, but I’m never captivated by that sort of thing in writing, those details usually just zip right by my eyes, in fact, when I read it, it didn’t even occur to me that I could find this place in Tokyo if I tried, I just assumed Murakami made the place up.

BB: So what, then, did you take from Wind-Up Bird, if you didn’t care for any of the words?

TOA: Other than a name for a cat?

BB: Other than…what? I thought Jake was from the Animorphs?

TOA: Ah, right, I forget you don’t read this blog, Mr. Honda is going to be the name of my first cat. And I didn’t read Animorphs again, you clown.

BB: I see, so, wait, so, was that the security question?

TOA: Did I read Animorphs?

BB: No, the cat thing. I’m lost. It's been a month, you know.

TOA: Well, why do you care? What, you trying to hack my accounts?

BB: Oh, like there’s anything worth hacking. Listen, brainless, I told you last month, I got hacked, and I can’t get into the accounts again, those stupid questions keep coming up and I don’t know the answers and I need to do my taxes and this inability-

TOA: What, they tax $0 now? You gonna get us a refund?

BB: Oh settle down, I only got a job because you couldn't handle the uncertainty of unemployment, too embarrassed to give honest answers to dumb questions, like what is there to be so afraid of, but now I spend half the day-

TOA: Whatever. Well, you might like Wind-Up Bird, code breaking is a key part of one section. And regarding that book, it’s like I said, one thing I took from it was indirectly through M Train, just the realization that I’m going to like a book for very different reasons than someone like Patti Smith.

BB: You needed a dedicated rereading month to figure out you were different than Patti Smith?

TOA: Oh, pipe down, it’s just different, it’s like with Harry Potter, some people like those books because they are inspired by the magical world and I’m usually the one ruining the experience by asking why someone didn’t just invent the equivalent of text messaging with all the magic they could do, you know?

BB: It sounds like you just want to be obnoxious.

TOA: Well…

BB: Right? Or clever via your consistently contrarian view?

TOA: No, I like Harry-

BB: It’s not like contrary is always original, you know? Not every fact is relevant.

TOA: Hey, listen-

BB: Like, this blog should be called ‘Advocate For The Devil’ or ‘The True Contrarian’ or some other nonsense. Or maybe just ‘Irrelevant Fact Roundup with-’

TOA: Bullsh- er, Bolshevik, I mean, that’s BS. That’s crap.

BB: Bolshevik?

TOA: Sorry, it slipped out.

BB: Why would that slip out?

TOA: I don’t know, maybe, well, a couple of these books make loose references to politics and such, so maybe it’s in my head.

BB: Yeah, right, well I do recall hearing Eureka Street is a bit political, though it was probably from your noise, so who knows if it's true, and, well, maybe Sputnik Sweetheart, obviously, I could see why-

TOA: I’ll get to that, but first, look, if J.K. Rowling wants to tell us her magic kingdom is accessible by crawling under the French fry machine at Mickey D’s or whatever, then I expect a higher standard for realism. Otherwise, just make up the whole universe, like those sports movies that pretend the NFL or D-1 college basketball doesn’t exist and make up their own teams.

BB: Right, Willie Beamen and the Miami Sharks.

TOA: Exactly. There’s no reason why a wizard living in a parallel world to ours should communicate by tying parchment to an owl or sticking his head into a fire when any twelve year old girl can just text all her homies-

BB: Huh? What are you talking about? How is this crap magic book popular?

TOA: Well, I mean…the Harry Potter books are good. But I think we get taken advantage of a little bit because the books are supposed to be about magic. So what? Just because a broomstick can fly doesn’t mean I can’t call-

BB: You’re full of it, man, fiction requires this sort of thing, you know, you can’t just read it and then yell at everyone, fiction requires a certain willingness to suspend disbelief, like, surely, something came up in a plot you reread in December that you were just like come on…

TOA: Sure, that’s true, and for the most part I’m willing to suspend disbelief. I think if I’m reading fiction, I’ll give the plot free reign. But if I’m reading nonfiction I’ll take a closer look at strange plot elements.

BB: So Harry using an owl instead of texting isn’t a plot element? Give me a break.

TOA: Hmmm.

BB: Like-

TOA: No, see, it’s part of the environment to me, or maybe the back story is a better way to put it, or characterization even, I don’t know the meaning of that word but I think that’s it, but the way the wizards sit around and ignore the advancements made in the real world just makes no sense, like in the first book Harry has to explain what a telephone is, and that’s preposterous, really, like no Muggle-born ever came to Hogwarts and was like - hey, we can use these things called telephones - like, Harry almost died in the first book because Dumbledore communicates like the rest of that lot, via owl, who really thinks the best way to deliver a package is by tying it to an owl-

BB: Right, but-

TOA: Like people in Beacon Hill order a sixty-eight dollar bottle of conditioner via Amazon and worry it’ll get stolen en route even though Amazon would probably shoot thieves on sight if they could and meanwhile Dumbledore’s sending top-secret messages about Voldemort by tying a note to old Hootie?

BB: Well, small price to pay for self-esteem, really, and besides, what do you have against-

TOA: It doesn't matter, I don’t care, and I didn’t reread the Animorphs, I didn’t reread Harry Potter, we aren’t here to talk about those books, anyway, right, we aren't here to talk about how ridiculous it is that through all seven books everything Hermione tries to do is something Harry eventually does, because how could we believe a woman would be good at magic, anyway, right, no way I could properly suspend my disbelief for that-

BB: Yikes.

TOA: -that Ron is considered a great friend even though he spends half the books just abandoning Harry-

BB: OK, fair enough! I think we got it, man, and maybe we'll deal with it more later, but you didn't read those books in December right, just like you didn't read Animorphs, which reminds me, I thought Jake was in the Animorphs? So how did you pick him out as a favorite character?

TOA: What? No, when did I say that? Jake’s in Eureka Street.

BB: I thought Jake had a cat?

TOA: Right, in Eureka Street. It’s a good book, man, you should read it.

BB: So is the name of it the password?

TOA: Name for what? And password for what?

BB: For my accounts.

TOA: Will you stop with the accounts? The cat’s name is Mr. Honda, or Noboru Wataya, I should say, the password is Mr. Honda, and as for Jake’s cat, I actually think it didn’t have a name.

BB: No name? Are you kidding?

TOA: I think so, I know I forget these details here and there but the names in Eureka Street are pretty memorable, Septic Ted, Aoirghe, so on, Poetry Street, I’d probably remember the cat’s name.

BB: Roche?

TOA: No, Roche was a kid. Probably still is, as a matter of fact, though since it was set in the early-

BB: You said you liked Roche, what did you like about Roche?

TOA: He’s just a good character, though convenient, too, I should say. Read the book.

BB: Convenient how? He own a grocery or something?

TOA: Well, like the plot stuff, he just pops up from time to time to link pieces together. Sometimes, it’s a little like…

BB: Like…?

TOA: Well, like…it’s nice that he pops up, you know? Like you need a ride and suddenly someone pulls up, that just never happens in real life, but in fiction-

BB: So you gotta suspend disbelief, right? Like coincidences?

TOA: Not quite, I mean, with fiction at some point worrying about the plot becomes a bit too much for me to take seriously, fiction is the plot, you know? So if the plot is a little wacky, well, that’s too bad, but I’m not gonna fuss over it because the plot is the fiction. So saying something made up is too made up feels off to me.

BB: How is this different from Harry Potter and the telephone?

TOA: The problem is just in the details. I don’t believe a character like Hermione who Rowling presents as smarter and more capable than any other student in that school would show up and not instantly be like – hey, let’s get a telephone up in this tower! I mean, she goes around trying to end slavery and does time travel and such and manages to avoid doing anything dumb like going to the Under The Sea Dance with her father or that git Ron, even, and so to me I'm just not sure getting a phone jack into the Gryffindor common room is supposed to be too much, you know?

BB: I...do not know...but, whatever-

TOA: Like if you went to school in another country and they used the same forks to handle the cooked meat that they used for the raw meat, you wouldn’t be like, hey, wash the forks? Hermione definitely would, kid’s smarter than two Rons, Ron’s so dumb-

BB: OK, one more Harry Potter reference and I’m done!

TOA: Next December, I’ll reread them all just so we’ll have to-

BB: So I’m just saying, convenient coincidences don’t bother you?

TOA: Not much, like I said, any story is fundamentally a convenient coincidence.

BB: When did you say that?

TOA: Well, maybe I didn’t say it like that, but that’s what I meant. In fiction, what bothers me is someone acting out of character or something in the environment that just makes no sense. With Harry Potter, it’s like, why would Quidditch ever be popular, you know, it’s would like if-

BB: Will you stop it with the magic stuff? You are starting to sound like Moya here.

TOA: Right, right. Well, it’s true, though, I mean in Wind-Up Bird the whole book just comes to a complete stop at like ten different times because the character gets a letter or talks to some guy who tells a long story or reads an article on the computer. At some level, it’s just a construction, it’s just like Murakami’s writing it and saying – hey, I have something to say and no way to really say it naturally within the plot, so the character is going to conveniently receive a letter or log onto the computer. And I’m fine with that. But it’s also convenient, the letters I get are never timed like that, I don't even get letters anymore, and the emails I receive never quite arrive when I need them, they're too long anyway, and when old people tell me stories, I’m just like what the-

BB: Hey!

TOA: Right, sorry. What’s with this, though? New Year’s resolution to stop cussing?

BB: Well, kind of, I suppose-

TOA: You’d hate Eureka Street, all they do is cuss. I learned some new words, actually.

BB: Like what?

TOA: Like tay...who knows, really, I can't pronounce those Irish words.

BB: Right. Well, I see it a little better when you put it that way. But I’m still not sure. Can’t a story have too much coincidence built in?

TOA: Well, let’s talk about Hard-Boiled Wonderland, that book is really something, it’s basically two parallel stories, and they intersect in ways, but really it’s just two stories in one story, and Murakami just alternates chapters.

BB: So one chapter is the first story and the next is the other? Sounds like Lost.

TOA: Like the TV show, you mean?

BB: Right, like the show is on the island, but also the show is off the island, and it was kind of one or the other in terms of scenes.

TOA: So what did you make of that?

BB: Well, it just had to happen, right? How else would you tell the off-island story?

TOA: Lots of ways, I think, and this is like I was saying last time with the memoirs, Nelson relies on breaking up the sections to make her points and Smith is writing it in a more traditional style. But by using one style or the other, I think the reader ends up with certain expectations, and it’s harder to write when the structure creates expectations. Like if you bought a comic book, you would expect a drawing somewhere, you know?

BB: That’s not a very good comparison, I think, but what you are saying is like the end of season three?

TOA: Season what?

BB: In Lost. You know, season three, you gotta go back, you gotta go back next December, maybe make it a rewatching month-

TOA: Oh, right. Yeah, I mean, by that point the show’s structure was still non-traditional but well-enough understood by the viewer, so the-

BB: Spoiler alert!

TOA: Oh come on, it’s been like ten years, anyone who hasn’t seen it already can go-

BB: Hey! No cursing.

TOA: Oh right, I forgot. But anyway, my point about these things-

BB: Wait, you ignored my point from before, about too many coincidence-

TOA: Yeah, chill, I’m just saying, it’s like I don’t mind if Roche just pops up so Jake can go from one part of Belfast to another, it's not like they had Uber twenty years ago, and I don't care if Murakami decides his character is going to receive a letter every day just so the plot moves forward, like I said those elements make sense because at the end of the day a story’s a story, right? If the routine happens like expected, it wouldn’t be a story, you know?

BB: Sure. But in nonfiction, if the plot’s off, your antenna goes up a bit? Why bother to make a distinction? And what is a nonfiction plot anyway?

TOA: Well, shouldn’t it have a plot? It's just the chronology of events, and whether those are plausible, like in your stupid business bro books, like if the example doesn’t make sense in the context of a workplace, you can’t really take it seriously, right?

BB: Well, I suppose, sure. If someone writes a book about managing and they say something like give a ‘Shit Sandwich’ for feedback- oh, hey, look at you, making me curse-

TOA: Hey, I didn’t make you say shit.

BB: OK, well, I know, that person probably isn’t getting much out of the feedback just because I’ve been on the receiving end of it and it didn’t work, all I hear is the negative part, and I start to think the boss is afraid to be direct, on top of it. Or if a book is like – hey, don’t go to a meeting unless there’s a clear agenda – well, that might work for a certain type of worker-

TOA: Like a wealthy worker, probably-

BB: Yeah, yeah, or maybe it applies to someone with control over a schedule or a workload, but most people just want to go to work, not have a very stressful time, do their jobs well, and go home to their lives without thinking about work all night. And I think these books just don’t acknowledge the reality-

TOA: Right, right, but we’ll talk about that when you actually read a book, OK, because I got something to add anyway, I think it’s like what you are saying, in nonfiction, the worst thing I say about it is that something is untrue. And that makes sense, since the only thing separating fiction from nonfiction is truth. The plot has to at least add up or I’m gonna question the author’s grasp on what happened, if not the truth of the matter.

BB: But why make a distinction about environments or characters or motives? Aren’t these all part of the story?

TOA: Well, sure, to an extent, but my rope is a lot longer for nonfiction. A biography or a profile doesn’t need to add up, really, since most people are far deeper than what the author understands about them. It’s like looking at a picture, a photo, it’s a good representation but still a dimension short of a full person.

BB: Well, what if the topic is the author?

TOA: Yeah, but even in the case of memoir, the author is simultaneously exploring and mapping, teaching and learning, and the act is so tangled up in this mess that I don’t think it’s worth saying a character doesn’t add up.

BB: But in fiction, since the characters are created, don’t you think they have to add up?

TOA: Well, I guess not necessarily, but what’s the point of reading about a character if the author holds back? Like, why buy a calculator that doesn’t add up the numbers for you? Or divides when you say subtract?

BB: Well…

TOA: It’s not like anyone else is going to describe the character to me, you know? The author is literally the only person in world history who will ever be able to do it. So do it! And if the character does something inconsistent, then I’m going to be disappointed in the author a little bit because maintaining the consistency, that’s the author’s job! Don't tell me Hermione is smart, make her do smart things!

BB: I mean, you could have an inconsistent character, though?

TOA: Well, sure, but then they have to be inconsistently consistent.

BB: You mean consistently inconsistent?

TOA: Right, whatever it consists of, that.

BB: I don’t know. But then how could an author ever surprise anyone?

TOA: What, like a twist ending?

BB: Sort of, I guess.

TOA: Who cares about that? A great author can write a twist ending without being lazy about the characters. A great author should be able to get the reader to look back and say – hey, that ending was surprising, but it’s definitely in character, and maybe even predictable.

BB: Well, I’m not sure about it, I guess, but maybe for now, best to leave the endings for later.

TOA: Yeah, probably, it’s not like these books had surprise endings anyway.

BB: Oh yeah?

TOA: I guess Hard-Boiled Wonderland, in hindsight, was a suspenseful ending in the sense that I found it hard to expect. I’m not sure if that’s why I really like it or not, but that was my experience. Eureka Street was hard to figure out the first time around but in this reread I think I understood what happened. Wind-Up Bird just kind of stopped, I guess I’m not really sure what I make of the ending.

BB: Sputnik Sweetheart?

TOA: That’s a tough one to talk about, I’ve read it twice now and each time I’m just left with a huge feeling, it’s almost like loss or regret or mourning, I think the book’s a real accomplishment but I think I suffer a little bit each time I read it. It reminded me of looking at my ankle after I injured it and realizing that something permanent had happened, that I wouldn't be able to walk for a bit, and who knew how long it would be, you know?

BB: Not really. I was just thinking about how to email folks at work so I wouldn't have to come in the next day.

TOA: It's a hard feeling to explain, like you would do it differently in a heartbeat while simultaneously understanding that there won't be a second chance, ever. It's like having two people in your head at once, each one trying to get a handle on a different aspect of the situation.

BB: I guess you’ll need to read it again.

TOA: Possibly. With books, you do get second chances, provided you read it once.

BB: So, what’s the verdict for next December?

TOA: I think any good idea is worth trying twice.

BB: Where’d you get that one, a fortune cookie?

TOA: I mean, it wasn’t so bad to finish the year with familiar books. The holidays are a time for family, or whatever, right? So I think I’ll try it again and as long as things go well, I’ll keep at it with December rereading.

BB: OK, and, last thing…

TOA: Go ahead.

BB: Is Eureka Street your favorite book?

TOA: That one, I’m still mulling, but I’ll get around to answering it eventually.

BB: OK, then, that’s a wrap.

TOA: All good?

BB: Yes.

TOA: You want to talk to Moya before you go?

BB: I thought he was off?

TOA: Yeah, he’s off, but he’s still here. I think he’s having a whiskey out back.

BB: I think I’ll pass.

TOA: OK, well, thanks for stopping in.

BB: No problem. We’ll chat again soon, I’m sure, you were saying something about another debate?

TOA: Yeah, I think it’s about time, maybe get Moya and Master Poo involved, if you haven’t fired them yet-

BB: Hey, that’s on you, I’m only advising.

TOA: Right, well, I’m struggling to write about helmet football, so maybe we’ll get the debate club going again and see what we come up with.

BB: Sounds good.

TOA: OK, until next time.

BB: See you.

i read march was made of yarn so you don't have to

March Was Made of Yarn by David Karashima and Elmer Luke (January 2018)

This collection of short stories, essays, and poetry was put together in the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami that leveled Japan’s northeast coast. Of the many works collected for this project, the two I liked enough to read a second time were the short stories ‘The Charm’ and ‘Pieces’.

I was initially surprised by how little some of the entries in this collection had to do with the tsunami – ‘Pieces’ was mostly about Tokyo's 1987 blackout. But as I made my way through to the end, the loose connections among the works clarified and the central theme – the importance of facing the burden of loss before being able to move on – became evident.

The swift devastation brought from the ocean reminded Japan of how quickly an unexpected event can change everything. In many of the works here, we see how recovery means finding a way to live with joy again. Small joys don’t add up to bury a loss. But a loss does not need to take the next day’s joys away, either.

A related idea I noted in these works was the decoupling of loss and unhappiness. Since the idea is the opposite of the common perception that happiness is acquired, the decoupling first requires rejecting the link between happiness and acquisition. Those who believe in building a future via accumulation will inevitably conflate loss with unhappiness. To look down the long, winding road of the future and accept that what’s been lost cannot be rediscovered takes a courageous, hard-earned wisdom. But this is the understanding required to move forward. It is not what is acquired but rather what is lost that becomes the heaviest burdens we must learn to carry.

Japan’s nervous, complex relationship with nuclear power also received a long look from this collection. The tragedies at the power plants did not have anywhere close to the direct loss of life experienced by the coastal towns hit hardest by the tsunami. Yet for many Japanese, the problems at the reactors left their own fresh wound and proved to be yet another reminder of why nuclear power is simply out of the question for so many in the country (1).

The way nuclear fallout renders fertile soil redundant is an additional insult. Japan is a densely populated country whose intimate reliance on the land is perhaps difficult to relate to for those of us in the more sparsely settled United States. For those who’ve grown up with such a strong connection to the land, no amount of electricity will ever justify the inherent risk in powering the entire country with nuclear reactors.

Footnotes / a reference to my first-ever post…

1. If you can’t afford the tip…

As it regards nuclear power, there is also another angle. I do not think many Japanese wish to burden tomorrow’s diners with the tab from today’s meal. And when it comes to nuclear power, ‘tomorrow’ could run for something along the lines of ten thousand years, so it is a serious consideration.

I think this is quickly becoming an easier feeling to relate to for my American readers (and all Americans, really, who at least think about the environment every once in a while). Maybe I’ll give The Pittsburgh Climate Agreement another try the next time I go back home.

maybe we should call it kyoto caviar

I've never understood those who don't eat 'seaweed' on the account of the properties observed at the beach (slimy, salty, sandy, etc). If there is a tuna roll out there wrapped in the same stuff I peel off my leg when I leave the ocean, I've yet to dip it into my soy sauce dish.

Do these same people refuse to eat vegetables on the account of the (literal) crap dumped on it while it grows? Do they throw away the steak when they learn of all the E. coli that lived on it prior to its being cooked?

It must be in the name, the seaweed thing that is. Hot dogs and hamburgers would be far less popular if their names described their origins and I know seaweed suffers here in the USA because we use one English word to describe all the various edible and inedible variations.

they aren’t called aesop’s morals, you know?

I’ve always had a problem with the story about the tortoise and the hare. You know the one, reader, it's about a tortoise and a hare who decide to race. The hare gets off to a big lead at the start and, quickly succumbing to overconfidence, stops partway along the course to take a nap. The tortoise just keeps plugging away and, eventually, overtakes the snoozing hare. The hare wakes up, too late, and can’t catch the tortoise before it crosses the finish line. This story is one of many in Aesop’s Fables and, like all the others, concludes with a moral: slow and steady wins the race.

I guess I should clarify my opening remark here because I realize my problem isn’t with the story, it’s with the moral. The story is fine, even cute, but the moral makes no sense to me. It never has.

Slow and steady wins the race? Uhh, I just read the story (editor's note: he did not) and I’ll offer my two cents - slow and steady was a stupid fucking strategy. Let's try that on for size as the moral - slow and stupid was a stupid fucking strategy. Seems about right, no?

The only counterargument I can see here is that 'slow and steady' barely qualifies as a strategy at all. The hare was fast and any opponent who adopted a slow approach was always going to come off as unwise and always going to finish second. It worked out, sure, but if Aesop ever gets around to writing a sequel, I think I know who I'm betting on.

If you are still unconvinced, reader, let's agree that, at best, slow and steady was a risky strategy. A better strategy would have been fast and steady, maybe. If the tortoise had gone with 'fast and steady', it could have won by an even wider margin than it did in the first race.

Do you still object, difficult reader? Do you say, wait a minute, now, the tortoise only went as fast as it could! Well, I agree with you, reader, it did do its very best, but I'll also remind you again that my issue is with the moral, not the story, so perhaps we can agree that go as fast as you can would have been a better moral....maybe?

Footnotes / imagined complaints

0. No no no, the tortoise was clever…

Still disagree with me, reader? Do you say, no no no, the tortoise was clever and knew the hare would fall asleep, so it was wise to challenge the hare to a race. Well, to that point, I say, if the hare had a reputation for snoozing through a race, why was the result framed as this big surprise result?

Maybe the moral should have been get some rest before a race or even if you have an obvious sleeping disorder, stop racing small arrogant animals and go get some medical attention right away.

leftovers: analogies

There is another angle to analogies that I did not get into in this post. Sometimes, analogies run the risk of becoming dated.

Know anyone who is as strong as an ox? I do - in fact, reader, I'm as strong as an ox (editor's note: this is factually incorrect). But I've never seen an ox (editor's note: this is factually correct).

Luckily, I'm still able to understand the idea. It is possible, though, that someday - perhaps when global warming wipes out the ox species through a series of destructive events on their natural habitat - this analogy will make no sense to anybody (1).

I'm not sure the pizza delivery analogy from Sam Quinones's Dreamland will suffer the same fate. Pizza delivery is pretty fast now and should get faster in the future. (Skeptical, reader? Just wait until Amazon buys Domino's Pizza...)

But I concede that a lot has changed since I was a kid. Even a decade ago, if I wanted to watch a TV show I could not catch live, setting my VCR was a completely reasonable option. In a few years, I bet a VCR will be something you pay $30 to see in the science museum.

So, with the way technology is disrupting so many aspects of daily life, it could be the case that someday in the future no one will remember what a pizza delivery looked like. And this, in turn, will make an otherwise outstanding and important book just a litter harder to comprehend.

Footnotes / other analogies

1. This post is as boring as hell...

The life expectancy of the 'strong as an ox' analogy is undoubtedly extended due to the helpful construction of the expression - to say someone is 'as strong as' implies that the person in question is, if anything, strong.

the official TOA stretching program

In my recent pair of posts – 'now, i'm no scientist' - I recommended having some rules of thumb for when to stretch. Here is my current stretching routine structured around my own rules of thumb (1). 

I) When/what to stretch

ROT #1: Stretch the big guns

As a middle to long distance runner, I need my calves, quadriceps, and hamstrings working properly. So, I stretch these muscles twice daily. I recommend adjusting accordingly based on the major muscles groups your main physical activity depends on.

ROT #2: Stretch sore or unusually stiff muscles an extra time

If these muscles are in the ‘big guns’ group above, I simply do an extra round of the same stretching movement I'm already doing. If these are not in the regular stretching routine, I add a new stretch to the program until I no longer feel the stiffness.

If the muscle remains sore or stiff for a few days despite the added stretching, I might investigate alternate ways to stretch the same group. However, usually I've found that this type of lingering soreness or stiffness has more to do with my other activities than it has to do with my stretching routine. Since most of what I do is run, the best response to lingering muscle problems is to just run less. 

ROT #3: Stretch muscles likely to cramp or stiffen up due to repeated non-exercise activity

I sit down quite a bit so I do a stretch to acknowledge sitting’s impact on my hip flexors (the muscle group most commonly strained by prolonged sitting). I've found ‘the pigeon’ works best for me and I highly recommend it for anyone who sits for prolonged periods of time. For those requiring a less strenuous hip opener exercise, I'd recommend the 'dead pigeon' - this one has worked just fine for me in the past.

I should remind anyone with a knee or hip injury to skip these stretches until the injury is healed (2). 

ROT #4: Stretch any areas related to past injuries

I’ve dealt with a nagging problem in my left hip area for most of the past decade so I do a more rigorous stretch for my left quadriceps than I do for my right one. I also hurt my foot last year and, although stretching the foot is difficult, I do regularly work out the muscles by rotating the toes and massaging the sole.

I suffered a bad ankle sprain in 2014 but no longer stretch it. In this case, my rehabilitation routine was good enough to return the injured ankle to full strength. However, if I notice discomfort in the ankle, I will add a stretch or two to this routine until it goes away.

II) How to stretch

ROT #5: Stretch until you sweat...well, sort of

I realized stretching was a major exercise activity when I noticed how serious yoga students tended to become very strong over time. I'm only aware of one way to build strength - steroids strength training - so I concluded that yoga was a fairly well-disguised form of strength training (3).

The only thing I remember from strength training was the difference in a workout when I sweated versus one when I didn't. To summarize quickly, if I wasn't sweating, I wasn't really challenging myself. I recently extended the same logic to my stretching routine and I've seen some pretty good results so far.

Now, unlike the other ‘rules of thumb’ on this list, I do not necessarily recommend taking #5 literally. Sometimes, it is hard to sweat and I see no need to pick up a new injury from overexertion during stretching (4). But having the mentality that stretching is a workout is critical.

ROT #6: Stretch at rest

Finding the time for a twice-daily stretching routine temps me to do it anytime I have a spare fifteen minutes. However, stretching right before or right after a workout is a bad idea for me. The altered shape of the muscle after one activity makes the other a difficult proposition. I've found it is best to stretch when the pulse rate is normal and there is no imminent exercise activity.

III) Dynamic or static?

This question addresses the best way to stretch prior to physical activity such as weight lifting, running, or playing a sport. Dynamic stretching means gradually increasing a muscle group’s range of motion through a warm-up exercise while static stretching refers to slowly lengthening a muscle as the rest of the body is held in place (everything I've referred to above is about static stretching).

This is a fake debate, I think, in the sense it groups stretching into an ‘either/or’ paradigm when a mix-and-match strategy is likely to better serve individuals. In my current pre-activity warm-up routine, I first do a static stretch for the groups identified in ROT #2 - #4 above before I do some basic dynamic stretches mimicking the upcoming activity.

After the activity is over, most trainers recommend a round of static stretching. I’m fine with this idea but never bother to do it myself. Again, if there are particularly sore or injured muscles, a post workout stretch is probably a great idea. But committing to the twice-daily concept I reference above should be enough to handle all post-workout stretching needs - reader, you'll never be more than twelve hours (or so) removed from the most recent workout when you stretch. I think this turnaround time is more than enough to meet my current muscle maintenance needs.

Footnotes / well, who is really counting these things, anyway?

1. Version 1.0 was every post before this one, I suppose...

This is really more a version 2.0 since I recognize I’ve covered the stretching topic a bit in the past. But I think the following is a little richer in terms of when (and why) to stretch.

2. Contraindications

I should expand on this point and mention that since stretching requires most of the body to hold itself still while one muscle is isolated in a stretch, a person with injured or damaged joints, ligaments, or tendons must take great care in experimenting with a new stretching routine.

For those who are relatively healthy but still unsure about new stretches, I would recommend researching contraindications. This is a medical term that generally refers to situations when an otherwise helpful treatment will harm patients with specific conditions. In the context of stretching, this term basically means 'stretch, unless...'

This relatively brief overview covers some of the basic ideas for those seeking reassurance for their common sense.

This link is a little confusing at first and focuses more on yoga poses. However, it seems the most thorough catalog of stretching contraindications. To navigate the site, I would recommend using the find feature in your web browser and typing in the name of the stretch you are mulling over.

3. This revelation did not lead me to sign up for a yoga class, mind, but...

I'm not even sure where the closest yoga studio is. If I had to guess, I would assume it's in Starbucks, my thought based on all the yoga mats I've seen their customers bringing in and out anytime I walk by the little one on Charles Street.

4. Sweaty me, a (mercifully brief) history...

I've sweated for all kinds of reasons over the years - being called on in class, riding the 'T' at rush hour, eating a bowl of ramen. These situations all share an underlying threat of discomfort. Since muscle development is often a response to a controlled level of discomfort, it makes perfect sense to me that stretching to the point where the body temperature rises (by at least one degree, C or F, you pick, reader) would be preferred to a stretch where nothing at all happened to my body temperature.