The first thing I associated with Subway's ridiculous six dollar 'deal' was a phenomenon known as ‘The Mandela Effect’. In short, this describes a type of collective misremembering. The name references how some people are convinced Nelson Mandela died in prison. It’s a bizarre sort of thing to be convinced of because it isn’t like Mandela walked off Robben Island and passed away quietly some years later - in fact, I would argue his accomplishments as the President of South Africa make Mandela one of the most prominent public figures of my lifetime. And yet, despite his high profile, for many caught in the power of 'The Mandela Effect' it's like his post-prison accomplishments never happened.
My adventures with Subway, however, is not an example of this. This company is going to have a better chance of convincing me that Mandela died in prison than it will of making me consider the $6 footlong as some kind of 'deal'.
An actual personal example of ‘The Mandela Effect’ comes from my music-hunting adventures on Youtube. I found a song I used to listen to, ‘Panic Switch’, by a band called the Silversun Pickups. And I was like – this is obviously wrong, they’re the Silver-SPUN Pickups, everyone knows this! It wouldn’t be the first time some overzealous fan mistyped the name of a band as they were uploading pirated content, right?
But the more I researched, the less convinced I became. I couldn’t even go on Google and find examples of other people who thought the band was called the Silverspun Pickups! If I am the only one who remembers the past differently, does it even count as an example of The Mandela Effect?
There is another factor to consider here, reader – I don’t really care. I don’t care whether this band is called the Silver-SPUN Pickups or the Silver-SUN Pickups or The Scare Me Outta Hiccups or whatever. If the past is something that lives a little differently in my middle aged head, then so be it. Perhaps this is why some people make no effort to correct their own misconception that Mandela died in prison sometime during the first Bush administration - ultimately, though it might seem silly to misremember such well-known facts, it just doesn't really matter how good anyone is at trivia.
Footnotes / a confession / sources cited
0. Getting old is getting old...
I should note – I like the band a little more as the Silversun Pickups. It’s the little details in music, you know? In addition to the two songs I mention, I thought Circadian Rhythm and Lazy Eye were worth a few listens.
1. I didn’t know about Kazaam being involved in an example…
This link has a list of commonly cited examples of this effect.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Monday, July 30, 2018
can a vegan ever be good at sports?
A friend and current basketball teammate asked me about how his recently-adopted vegetarian diet might impact his energy levels. Specifically, he was wondering if meat created any special advantage for an athlete. Would going vegetarian - or possibly even vegan - impact his energy level for our highly important league?
Long time readers will know I possess no knowledge in this area. However, you loyal readers ALSO know I possess many hunches about lunches, all of which I'm happy to share, buffet-style, to anyone who wants to humor me.
The answer I came up with surprised even me, reader. As I considered my answer, I was struck by a sudden thought: if meat was so important to energy levels, how did ancient hunter-gatherers prepare before going out to catch their prey?
This assumes, of course, that hunting in the good old days occurred only when no meat remained. I might be wrong about that, as well, but I bet I'm right. So whatever the ideal pre-hunt meal was, meat was likely not a significant component. And in the absence of meat, our ancestors would have had no choice but to eat fruits, vegetables, or whatever else they had on hand before going out on the all-important hunt.
If the pregame meal is adequate preparation for chasing after a mastodon, it's probably more than sufficient prior to shooting a few hoops, right?
Long time readers will know I possess no knowledge in this area. However, you loyal readers ALSO know I possess many hunches about lunches, all of which I'm happy to share, buffet-style, to anyone who wants to humor me.
The answer I came up with surprised even me, reader. As I considered my answer, I was struck by a sudden thought: if meat was so important to energy levels, how did ancient hunter-gatherers prepare before going out to catch their prey?
This assumes, of course, that hunting in the good old days occurred only when no meat remained. I might be wrong about that, as well, but I bet I'm right. So whatever the ideal pre-hunt meal was, meat was likely not a significant component. And in the absence of meat, our ancestors would have had no choice but to eat fruits, vegetables, or whatever else they had on hand before going out on the all-important hunt.
If the pregame meal is adequate preparation for chasing after a mastodon, it's probably more than sufficient prior to shooting a few hoops, right?
Sunday, July 29, 2018
reading review - devotion
Devotion by Patti Smith (May 2018)
Every once in a while, I’ll be at the library when I suddenly realize that I’ll need to check out a book if I want to have something to read for later. This is a very unusual scenario, reader, for I almost always plan ahead for what I’ll read on a given journey. But sometimes, circumstances will see me in sudden need of a book and I’ll wander off through the library hoping that when my eyes notice what I’m looking for, I’ll know not to let the opportunity pass me by.
One dreary Sunday afternoon in May, I found myself in such a situation. I had left my apartment intending to spend the day zipping from appointment to appointment on a bike when I realized that if the cloudy skies opened up I would be forced off my bike and onto public transportation. Luckily, my first stop was the library, and after a quick browse through the new releases section I ended up pulling Devotion off the end of a shelf.
Devotion turned out to be a successful choice for its specific role but it would have been an enjoyable read regardless of my circumstances at the time of checkout. The short book – around ninety pages – is broken up into three parts. The first section follows Smith around as she goes through various events in her life. The second and longest section is a short story, ‘Devotion’, where many of the moments from the first section inform elements of the story. The final and shortest section brings it all together (1). The book, in short, is one way to consider an important thought about art – how does an artist’s life inspire the artist’s work? Or, to put in terms of a borrowed thought from Devotion – is the artist’s life the hand that dictates the work or merely just another influence among many?
As it turned out, the skies held on the day I checked this book out and I spent most of the day gleefully zipping from destination to destination on a bike. I didn’t get to start reading this book until later that night during the commercial breaks of the Boston Celtics playoff game. The game didn’t quite work out for the Celtics as many players missed the same shots they had been making during the other games.
I felt bad for some of the players and wondered about their disappointment. For these players, there had been a simpler time when all they had wanted to do was just play, not for fame or fortune or to win some game but because they just wanted to play. Once, just playing was the only thing they wanted to do, and in a sense, that's still what it was, but it wasn't quite the same, either. They were being paid the big bucks and it no longer mattered that they were doing all that they ever wanted to do. Things had changed, things were different now, and circumstances meant that neglecting new duties and responsibilities would mean losing the chance to play. I suppose on nights like that one when the game got really difficult, a player might take some comfort in tracing back to those humble origins, to those dreary Sunday afternoons, when they would leave home with little more than a vague hope that the skies would hold long enough to play, just play, even if for a little while.
Footnotes / well, who can remember everything, right?
1. Or, I should say, I think...
Honestly, reader, I’ve kind of forgotten about what happens in this final section.
Every once in a while, I’ll be at the library when I suddenly realize that I’ll need to check out a book if I want to have something to read for later. This is a very unusual scenario, reader, for I almost always plan ahead for what I’ll read on a given journey. But sometimes, circumstances will see me in sudden need of a book and I’ll wander off through the library hoping that when my eyes notice what I’m looking for, I’ll know not to let the opportunity pass me by.
One dreary Sunday afternoon in May, I found myself in such a situation. I had left my apartment intending to spend the day zipping from appointment to appointment on a bike when I realized that if the cloudy skies opened up I would be forced off my bike and onto public transportation. Luckily, my first stop was the library, and after a quick browse through the new releases section I ended up pulling Devotion off the end of a shelf.
Devotion turned out to be a successful choice for its specific role but it would have been an enjoyable read regardless of my circumstances at the time of checkout. The short book – around ninety pages – is broken up into three parts. The first section follows Smith around as she goes through various events in her life. The second and longest section is a short story, ‘Devotion’, where many of the moments from the first section inform elements of the story. The final and shortest section brings it all together (1). The book, in short, is one way to consider an important thought about art – how does an artist’s life inspire the artist’s work? Or, to put in terms of a borrowed thought from Devotion – is the artist’s life the hand that dictates the work or merely just another influence among many?
As it turned out, the skies held on the day I checked this book out and I spent most of the day gleefully zipping from destination to destination on a bike. I didn’t get to start reading this book until later that night during the commercial breaks of the Boston Celtics playoff game. The game didn’t quite work out for the Celtics as many players missed the same shots they had been making during the other games.
I felt bad for some of the players and wondered about their disappointment. For these players, there had been a simpler time when all they had wanted to do was just play, not for fame or fortune or to win some game but because they just wanted to play. Once, just playing was the only thing they wanted to do, and in a sense, that's still what it was, but it wasn't quite the same, either. They were being paid the big bucks and it no longer mattered that they were doing all that they ever wanted to do. Things had changed, things were different now, and circumstances meant that neglecting new duties and responsibilities would mean losing the chance to play. I suppose on nights like that one when the game got really difficult, a player might take some comfort in tracing back to those humble origins, to those dreary Sunday afternoons, when they would leave home with little more than a vague hope that the skies would hold long enough to play, just play, even if for a little while.
Footnotes / well, who can remember everything, right?
1. Or, I should say, I think...
Honestly, reader, I’ve kind of forgotten about what happens in this final section.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
this is twenty percent inflation, it is
Around a year ago, Hubway sent me one of its regular monthly email updates. There was a little news, a list of events accessible via the bike share system, and some tips for winter riding. Included in all this was a note about the 'new bikes' in the system. Intrigued, I opened the article and read further.
A couple of paragraphs into it, however, and I’d realized the 'new bikes' being described were actually the same bikes I’d been riding around for close to a year. A year!
How do I know this for sure? Well, reader, I know that the bikes I'd been riding for about a year have a different gearshift than the old models. They also have a unique front basket design and a longer seat pole targeted at taller riders. Most noticeably, these bikes have a blinking red light above the back wheel that makes it an ideal choice for nighttime cycling. These features that I knew all about from a year of riding the bikes were the exact features Hubway boasted about in its email update!
To this day, I don’t know what prompted Hubway to send out an over-excited article pretending these old bikes were actually new. Was I the only one not fooled by this nonsense?
Hubway isn’t the only company that tried to pull the wool over my eyes last year. I noticed last fall that Subway was doing the same type of thing. Their ad campaign that touted The Great Deal of one large sandwich for six dollars (but at select times only) did not impress me, reader. I remember the good old days when five dollars was Subway’s deal - and those good old days were like, what, two years ago?
A six-dollar meatball sub isn’t a good deal; it’s inflation, and at twenty-percent, that's a whole lot of it, especially in an economy where inflation has been pretty low lately.
Footnotes / well, an endnote
0. Moya's thoughts on Subway...
Subway’s recent marketing campaign, a great deal, great, great, six dollars for a sub, why six, why is this so great, seems like I’m being reminded all day of this, one way or another, the great Subway and the six-dollar deal, wonderful, really wonderful, for six dollars I get some bread and a rubber chicken, for six dollars, what a joke, I got this for five dollars last week, it is too bad, Moya, too bad indeed, for us old men, who can sip our whiskeys and remember the truth, too bad I’m so old that I remember when five dollars was the deal, five dollars, now for five dollars you might get a slice of bread and a napkin, five dollars, those were the days, they had a song for that deal, five five five dollar footlong, oh who would sing now, for six dollars, sing for six dollars, like anyone would, and there's Subway all the time, pretending like nothing has ever happened, always pretending…
A couple of paragraphs into it, however, and I’d realized the 'new bikes' being described were actually the same bikes I’d been riding around for close to a year. A year!
How do I know this for sure? Well, reader, I know that the bikes I'd been riding for about a year have a different gearshift than the old models. They also have a unique front basket design and a longer seat pole targeted at taller riders. Most noticeably, these bikes have a blinking red light above the back wheel that makes it an ideal choice for nighttime cycling. These features that I knew all about from a year of riding the bikes were the exact features Hubway boasted about in its email update!
To this day, I don’t know what prompted Hubway to send out an over-excited article pretending these old bikes were actually new. Was I the only one not fooled by this nonsense?
Hubway isn’t the only company that tried to pull the wool over my eyes last year. I noticed last fall that Subway was doing the same type of thing. Their ad campaign that touted The Great Deal of one large sandwich for six dollars (but at select times only) did not impress me, reader. I remember the good old days when five dollars was Subway’s deal - and those good old days were like, what, two years ago?
A six-dollar meatball sub isn’t a good deal; it’s inflation, and at twenty-percent, that's a whole lot of it, especially in an economy where inflation has been pretty low lately.
Footnotes / well, an endnote
0. Moya's thoughts on Subway...
Subway’s recent marketing campaign, a great deal, great, great, six dollars for a sub, why six, why is this so great, seems like I’m being reminded all day of this, one way or another, the great Subway and the six-dollar deal, wonderful, really wonderful, for six dollars I get some bread and a rubber chicken, for six dollars, what a joke, I got this for five dollars last week, it is too bad, Moya, too bad indeed, for us old men, who can sip our whiskeys and remember the truth, too bad I’m so old that I remember when five dollars was the deal, five dollars, now for five dollars you might get a slice of bread and a napkin, five dollars, those were the days, they had a song for that deal, five five five dollar footlong, oh who would sing now, for six dollars, sing for six dollars, like anyone would, and there's Subway all the time, pretending like nothing has ever happened, always pretending…
Thursday, July 26, 2018
my ten year Hiroshima anniversary
On July 26, 2008, I visited Hiroshima. I vaguely remember a cousin driving us down on that morning ten years ago from Hamada, the seaside town where half my family seems to be from. We briefly visited an English-language bookstore before stopping someplace I’ve long forgotten for lunch. If I recall correctly, I thoroughly enjoyed both stops, reveling in the gift of being able to enjoy the company of the family I’d been separated from for so long.
But as they say – or as they should say, in my opinion – Americans don’t visit Hiroshima for lunch.
So, after we finished the meal my cousins drove back home and I went off with my mom’s best friend to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I knew going to the museum would be an important experience. I didn’t realize at the time, however, that I would look back on the visit as a life-altering experience, an event of such importance to me that exactly a decade later I would note its anniversary.
I don’t remember too many specific details about the museum. I recall a giant guestbook where visitors from all over the world wrote their thoughts about nuclear weapons. I remember looking at the skeletal remains of the A-Bomb Dome. In my mind's eye, I have an image of how beautiful Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is.
My most significant memory, however, is of a moment that took place entirely in my own mind. It came when I was reading the many stories about the civilians who burned, melted, or became sick for the rest of a much-shortened life on that day. It came when I read about all the children in the city who were caught in the blast. It came when I read about the parents who, in one brilliant flash of light, became permanently separated from these children. I read these stories, one after another, until I came to a sudden realization: we still do this.
We still drop bombs regardless of how innocents might get caught up in the explosion. We still find ways to separate families in the name of nation building. We did it then and we still do it. The details are different from where we were several decades ago, of course, but in terms of finding ways to harm powerless people through our haste and recklessness, well, I think America remains very much in that business – at home, abroad, and wherever those two concepts happen to intersect.
But as they say – or as they should say, in my opinion – Americans don’t visit Hiroshima for lunch.
So, after we finished the meal my cousins drove back home and I went off with my mom’s best friend to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I knew going to the museum would be an important experience. I didn’t realize at the time, however, that I would look back on the visit as a life-altering experience, an event of such importance to me that exactly a decade later I would note its anniversary.
I don’t remember too many specific details about the museum. I recall a giant guestbook where visitors from all over the world wrote their thoughts about nuclear weapons. I remember looking at the skeletal remains of the A-Bomb Dome. In my mind's eye, I have an image of how beautiful Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is.
My most significant memory, however, is of a moment that took place entirely in my own mind. It came when I was reading the many stories about the civilians who burned, melted, or became sick for the rest of a much-shortened life on that day. It came when I read about all the children in the city who were caught in the blast. It came when I read about the parents who, in one brilliant flash of light, became permanently separated from these children. I read these stories, one after another, until I came to a sudden realization: we still do this.
We still drop bombs regardless of how innocents might get caught up in the explosion. We still find ways to separate families in the name of nation building. We did it then and we still do it. The details are different from where we were several decades ago, of course, but in terms of finding ways to harm powerless people through our haste and recklessness, well, I think America remains very much in that business – at home, abroad, and wherever those two concepts happen to intersect.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
tales of two cities, vol 10: apr '17, part 1
04/05/2017
Charles Circle - Charles St at Cambridge St (12:52 pm)
Copley Square - Dartmouth St at Boylston St (1:01 pm)
Hubway is BACK in Beacon Hill! It seems like there should be more pomp and circumstance. I guess I celebrate wildly by riding instead of walking to the library, a decision saving me about fifteen minutes of travel time.
My enthusiasm for Hubway's return, though real, is not at last year's level. I've simply taken more of a liking to slow walks through the area. Whether this is directly related to my no longer wearing headphones is unclear (though I would bet on it, if forced to pinpoint one reason). But having the bike rack next door once more will make commuting out of the city to Cambridge, Somerville, or even Brookline a lot easier than it was throughout the winter.
04/10/2017
Conway Park - Somerville Avenue (2:31 pm)
Linear Park - Mass. Ave. at Cameron Ave. (2:48 pm)
I celebrate a nice early spring day by going out for lengthy ride through Arlington. My first stop is about halfway up, at Conway Park in Somerville. As I head out again to resume the trip, an older woman starts waving at me from a bench next to the bikes. I roll slowly over.
At first, I cannot understand a word she says. Her problem slowly becomes clear. She's looking for something near both Route 2 and a Stop and Shop. I don't have a good sense of where this semi-mythical place might be. I ask her address and she shows me on her smartphone. It is written entirely in a different language, most likely Chinese, though I suppose it could be any Asian language I can't read (which is all of them).
We go back and forth a little while longer. Eventually, I find a better map using her phone and try to point her in the right direction. Still, when I leave, I'm unsure if she is going to find her way. She is over an hour from her destination, it isn't clear she will be able to ask anyone else for help, and there are no signs on the way - in any language - that might help point her way.
This reminds me of a morning commute from a day long ago. I was boarding an inbound train at Central Square when an older woman got my attention. I did not decipher a word she said except 'Chinatown'. I tried to ask her if she was going there and it seemed like she agreed. She asked me where I was from by pointing at me and rattling off words I thought were names of cities. I said Tokyo and drew a rough sketch of the Japanese flag on the inside cover of my book. She seemed to both understand and like my communication style.
We got to Downtown Crossing and I walked with her to the Orange Line platform. Again, the same stray thought passed through my mind - was this enough? I asked another waiting passenger who was around my age if she could help out and make sure this woman got off at the Chinatown stop. When I left the two of them on the platform, I felt a little uneasy. I guess all training wheels come off at some point but the process of removing them from the bike is never easy.
I'm again reminded of what I used to think about while riding Hubway back and forth to the food bank. At some point, I realized while volunteering that everyone must decide what is no longer 'my problem'. It is an interesting turn of the expression because 'not my problem' is usually expressed dismissively with perhaps a hint of disgust. But that's not quite the tone I'm looking for here. What I mean is more that if everyone stopped to resolve every problem they saw, nobody would ever have the time required to figure out what the most important problem they could solve actually is.
I suppose the real challenge here is to learn how to use 'not my problem' as a way to free up time and energy for when I have decided something else is my problem. I suspect this is the real reason why I stopped volunteering at a food bank and started volunteering at a hospice. But I'm still not entirely sure - at this point, it isn't perfectly clear what is or isn't my problem. Sometimes, I worry this lack of clarity is its own problem.
Charles Circle - Charles St at Cambridge St (12:52 pm)
Copley Square - Dartmouth St at Boylston St (1:01 pm)
Hubway is BACK in Beacon Hill! It seems like there should be more pomp and circumstance. I guess I celebrate wildly by riding instead of walking to the library, a decision saving me about fifteen minutes of travel time.
My enthusiasm for Hubway's return, though real, is not at last year's level. I've simply taken more of a liking to slow walks through the area. Whether this is directly related to my no longer wearing headphones is unclear (though I would bet on it, if forced to pinpoint one reason). But having the bike rack next door once more will make commuting out of the city to Cambridge, Somerville, or even Brookline a lot easier than it was throughout the winter.
04/10/2017
Conway Park - Somerville Avenue (2:31 pm)
Linear Park - Mass. Ave. at Cameron Ave. (2:48 pm)
I celebrate a nice early spring day by going out for lengthy ride through Arlington. My first stop is about halfway up, at Conway Park in Somerville. As I head out again to resume the trip, an older woman starts waving at me from a bench next to the bikes. I roll slowly over.
At first, I cannot understand a word she says. Her problem slowly becomes clear. She's looking for something near both Route 2 and a Stop and Shop. I don't have a good sense of where this semi-mythical place might be. I ask her address and she shows me on her smartphone. It is written entirely in a different language, most likely Chinese, though I suppose it could be any Asian language I can't read (which is all of them).
We go back and forth a little while longer. Eventually, I find a better map using her phone and try to point her in the right direction. Still, when I leave, I'm unsure if she is going to find her way. She is over an hour from her destination, it isn't clear she will be able to ask anyone else for help, and there are no signs on the way - in any language - that might help point her way.
This reminds me of a morning commute from a day long ago. I was boarding an inbound train at Central Square when an older woman got my attention. I did not decipher a word she said except 'Chinatown'. I tried to ask her if she was going there and it seemed like she agreed. She asked me where I was from by pointing at me and rattling off words I thought were names of cities. I said Tokyo and drew a rough sketch of the Japanese flag on the inside cover of my book. She seemed to both understand and like my communication style.
We got to Downtown Crossing and I walked with her to the Orange Line platform. Again, the same stray thought passed through my mind - was this enough? I asked another waiting passenger who was around my age if she could help out and make sure this woman got off at the Chinatown stop. When I left the two of them on the platform, I felt a little uneasy. I guess all training wheels come off at some point but the process of removing them from the bike is never easy.
I'm again reminded of what I used to think about while riding Hubway back and forth to the food bank. At some point, I realized while volunteering that everyone must decide what is no longer 'my problem'. It is an interesting turn of the expression because 'not my problem' is usually expressed dismissively with perhaps a hint of disgust. But that's not quite the tone I'm looking for here. What I mean is more that if everyone stopped to resolve every problem they saw, nobody would ever have the time required to figure out what the most important problem they could solve actually is.
I suppose the real challenge here is to learn how to use 'not my problem' as a way to free up time and energy for when I have decided something else is my problem. I suspect this is the real reason why I stopped volunteering at a food bank and started volunteering at a hospice. But I'm still not entirely sure - at this point, it isn't perfectly clear what is or isn't my problem. Sometimes, I worry this lack of clarity is its own problem.
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
three strikes and i'm what?
I tried to find out just now if the 'three strikes' sentencing law is entirely because of baseball. I could not quite find out after a thorough canvassing of The Old Interwebs (though I admit I only ran a couple of Google searches and peeked momentarily into Wikipedia).
Still, it has to be, right? Three strikes and you're out is a concept unique to baseball. For it to become part of basic jurisprudence with no influence from the only other thing that uses the idea strikes (!) me as highly unlikely.
And really, reader, let's take a moment to recognize how ridiculous this is. Does the soccer-mad UK have a 'two yellow cards mean exile to Europe' law? In Indiana, arguably our nation's most basketball-obsessed state, is the 'three strikes' concept adjusted to 'five fouls'?
Whatever the answers to those questions may be (editor's note: no and no) we still have the 'three strikes' concept to think about, a controversial element of our legal system that many feel reinforces bias against black offenders while doing next to nothing to make America a safer place to live. And that it exists purely due to a fluke involving the rules of a sport that became popular enough to be referred to as "America's pastime" despite the sport's top professional league excluding black players until 1947...
Actually, when I think of it that way, I suppose that if the law were going to borrow from any sport, it would have to be baseball.
Still, it has to be, right? Three strikes and you're out is a concept unique to baseball. For it to become part of basic jurisprudence with no influence from the only other thing that uses the idea strikes (!) me as highly unlikely.
And really, reader, let's take a moment to recognize how ridiculous this is. Does the soccer-mad UK have a 'two yellow cards mean exile to Europe' law? In Indiana, arguably our nation's most basketball-obsessed state, is the 'three strikes' concept adjusted to 'five fouls'?
Whatever the answers to those questions may be (editor's note: no and no) we still have the 'three strikes' concept to think about, a controversial element of our legal system that many feel reinforces bias against black offenders while doing next to nothing to make America a safer place to live. And that it exists purely due to a fluke involving the rules of a sport that became popular enough to be referred to as "America's pastime" despite the sport's top professional league excluding black players until 1947...
Actually, when I think of it that way, I suppose that if the law were going to borrow from any sport, it would have to be baseball.
Monday, July 23, 2018
leftovers - i read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius so you don't have to
Hi all,
Yesterday's post about this book did not get into what I learned from my reading so I thought I would briefly recap some of my favorite ideas from Dave Eggers’s memoir.
First, I liked the observation that people tend to respond to the tragic events in their lives by feeling as if they have been ‘chosen’ by a higher power. This is certainly a feeling I can relate to but I don’t have much to add in the way of an explanation. It may be that the sense of purpose created by such feelings empowers people to take active steps (like reaching out others or turning to religion) to help them overcome their suffering. It could also be that the sense of kinship with a higher power helps people accept the difficult events of their lives.
At one point in the book, Eggers points out how people who worry about certain external ideals such as perception or manners struggle to ask questions about what they really want to learn. The questions these kinds of people ask tend to lack internal logic. A good way to spot such people is to see if their questions are based on any faulty assumptions (1).
The final thought I enjoyed was an explanation for lying. In most harmless cases of lying, the goal of the liar is to expedite an otherwise clunky, awkward, or time-consuming transaction. Though as a society we tend to default toward vilifying the liar, most of the time the malicious intent attributed to the liar would be better described as a desire to simply keep things moving along.
Footnotes / is the business bro here?
1. Can you explain your interest in this position?
If this paragraph made no sense to you, go to a job interview for an ambiguous position.
Yesterday's post about this book did not get into what I learned from my reading so I thought I would briefly recap some of my favorite ideas from Dave Eggers’s memoir.
First, I liked the observation that people tend to respond to the tragic events in their lives by feeling as if they have been ‘chosen’ by a higher power. This is certainly a feeling I can relate to but I don’t have much to add in the way of an explanation. It may be that the sense of purpose created by such feelings empowers people to take active steps (like reaching out others or turning to religion) to help them overcome their suffering. It could also be that the sense of kinship with a higher power helps people accept the difficult events of their lives.
At one point in the book, Eggers points out how people who worry about certain external ideals such as perception or manners struggle to ask questions about what they really want to learn. The questions these kinds of people ask tend to lack internal logic. A good way to spot such people is to see if their questions are based on any faulty assumptions (1).
The final thought I enjoyed was an explanation for lying. In most harmless cases of lying, the goal of the liar is to expedite an otherwise clunky, awkward, or time-consuming transaction. Though as a society we tend to default toward vilifying the liar, most of the time the malicious intent attributed to the liar would be better described as a desire to simply keep things moving along.
Footnotes / is the business bro here?
1. Can you explain your interest in this position?
If this paragraph made no sense to you, go to a job interview for an ambiguous position.
Sunday, July 22, 2018
i read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius so you don't have to
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (March 2018)
I reread Dave Eggers’s 2000 memoir as part of a mini-project to read every book I own one last time before I get rid of them all for good (1). I didn’t remember much about it from the first time I read it. I recall, vaguely, that my reaction was (a) the book was good. I may have taken it a step (or two) further and said you should therefore (b) read the book but (c) don’t take my word for it being good because (d) we all have different tastes and interests and preferences and this book is a little unusual and yet (e) the book did get some positive reviews from (f) real reviewers and some people even thought (g) this was one of the great books ever so (h) I’d read it because (i) it was pretty good, now that (j) I think about it.
This time around, I was a little more guarded with my reaction. I’m still on Team This Book Was Good but I’m more understanding of how people join teams for different reasons. I know some will come to this work after reading Eggers’s recent work and those readers will enjoy the process of learning more about a favorite author’s personal history. There is a novelty factor in this book that I think will win many other readers over, a novelty that relates to both the writing style and the specific circumstances Eggers writes about in AHWOSG. On the other hand, there is a universal aspect to the book in how it describes the process of picking up and moving on after a loss that I know will appeal to many other readers.
I wondered if I liked this book because I could relate a little bit to Eggers and his circumstances. In certain passages where other readers might dismiss the writing as too wild, too experimental, or even too avant-garde, I could at least try and understand, could at least empathize, that Eggers was trying (successfully) to capture the manic swings of energy and emotion that come while trying to come to grips with watching a dying mother suffer for an extended period of time (2).
I don’t know if this is really important, though, partly because I think the minimal surface similarities I notice I have with Dave Eggers serve only to more closely emphasize our significant differences. The best way to know what makes each of us unique is to closely compare ourselves to someone others identify as being ‘similar’, right? But more importantly, I don’t think being able to relate to Eggers helped me read, understand, or appreciate this book at all because the book accomplishes a task all great works of art set out to do – they distill our strongest emotions of grief, outrage, and shock into a meticulously detailed observation.
Footnotes / book project
1. Like, if you want this book for yourself, get in touch…
I should say ‘own’, since the books I ‘own’ are mostly books others have handed to me for whatever reason – I can’t recall the last time I bought a book for myself.
2. God, what a long and tiring sentence...
Is describing something as 'avant-garde' the hallmark descriptor of choice for the clueless reviewer?
I reread Dave Eggers’s 2000 memoir as part of a mini-project to read every book I own one last time before I get rid of them all for good (1). I didn’t remember much about it from the first time I read it. I recall, vaguely, that my reaction was (a) the book was good. I may have taken it a step (or two) further and said you should therefore (b) read the book but (c) don’t take my word for it being good because (d) we all have different tastes and interests and preferences and this book is a little unusual and yet (e) the book did get some positive reviews from (f) real reviewers and some people even thought (g) this was one of the great books ever so (h) I’d read it because (i) it was pretty good, now that (j) I think about it.
This time around, I was a little more guarded with my reaction. I’m still on Team This Book Was Good but I’m more understanding of how people join teams for different reasons. I know some will come to this work after reading Eggers’s recent work and those readers will enjoy the process of learning more about a favorite author’s personal history. There is a novelty factor in this book that I think will win many other readers over, a novelty that relates to both the writing style and the specific circumstances Eggers writes about in AHWOSG. On the other hand, there is a universal aspect to the book in how it describes the process of picking up and moving on after a loss that I know will appeal to many other readers.
I wondered if I liked this book because I could relate a little bit to Eggers and his circumstances. In certain passages where other readers might dismiss the writing as too wild, too experimental, or even too avant-garde, I could at least try and understand, could at least empathize, that Eggers was trying (successfully) to capture the manic swings of energy and emotion that come while trying to come to grips with watching a dying mother suffer for an extended period of time (2).
I don’t know if this is really important, though, partly because I think the minimal surface similarities I notice I have with Dave Eggers serve only to more closely emphasize our significant differences. The best way to know what makes each of us unique is to closely compare ourselves to someone others identify as being ‘similar’, right? But more importantly, I don’t think being able to relate to Eggers helped me read, understand, or appreciate this book at all because the book accomplishes a task all great works of art set out to do – they distill our strongest emotions of grief, outrage, and shock into a meticulously detailed observation.
Footnotes / book project
1. Like, if you want this book for yourself, get in touch…
I should say ‘own’, since the books I ‘own’ are mostly books others have handed to me for whatever reason – I can’t recall the last time I bought a book for myself.
2. God, what a long and tiring sentence...
Is describing something as 'avant-garde' the hallmark descriptor of choice for the clueless reviewer?
Saturday, July 21, 2018
leftovers - selected letters by emily dickinson
I’ve tried my luck with a few similar collections to this one but for the most part I haven’t found them as interesting as the other books I tend to read. When given a choice, I'd prefer to read something other than a collection of letters. What makes people interesting is often reflected in the way they communicate, of course, but rarely is someone interesting merely because of the way they communicate.
Thinking about these letters led me to another thought. Is it ironic, reader, that in this day and age when everyone is (rightfully) concerned about the internet’s implications on our privacy, that we read books like this one which are essentially created after rifling through all of a deceased person’s things? Surely, there is something crazy about the proliferation of these 'collected anything' books?
To put it another way – would Emily Dickinson consider the existence of these collected letters a data breach? I have no idea but I’m sure her answer would be clever.
Just for the record, I wouldn’t be against my great-grandkids someday releasing a load of utter nonsense like Tim Concannon: The Collected Emails, c1995 – 2018 (or however long I last before this blog gets me a lifetime ban from The Information Superhighway). It would be boring as you-know-what and annoyingly lacking in capital letters.
If you want to get into the book, you know what to do.
Thinking about these letters led me to another thought. Is it ironic, reader, that in this day and age when everyone is (rightfully) concerned about the internet’s implications on our privacy, that we read books like this one which are essentially created after rifling through all of a deceased person’s things? Surely, there is something crazy about the proliferation of these 'collected anything' books?
To put it another way – would Emily Dickinson consider the existence of these collected letters a data breach? I have no idea but I’m sure her answer would be clever.
Just for the record, I wouldn’t be against my great-grandkids someday releasing a load of utter nonsense like Tim Concannon: The Collected Emails, c1995 – 2018 (or however long I last before this blog gets me a lifetime ban from The Information Superhighway). It would be boring as you-know-what and annoyingly lacking in capital letters.
If you want to get into the book, you know what to do.
Friday, July 20, 2018
the melatonin machine
On one hospice volunteer shift, I was asked by an aide to sit with an agitated resident. This resident was having a very hard time falling asleep. Apparently, she had slept very little the night before and had spent the entire day tossing and turning in bed, trying in vain to rest.
This was possibly an assignment I was qualified for. I used to have a colleague who joked that I exuded melatonin. It usually happened when I sat next to her at her desk or she sat next to me at mine. After a few minutes, she would start yawning, and then the accusations about my sleep-inducing powers would start. I was never entirely sure about the science behind her conclusions but I did have to at least concede that the results consistently supported her theory.
When I walked into the resident’s room, it was just past four o’clock. I went around the bed and sat in a chair next to the window.
Hi. I’m Tim. I’m going to sit here for a little while. I hope that’s OK with you.
My entrance received no acknowledgment. The resident lay perfectly still. I sat and waited. After ten minutes, she broke her stillness and turned over with a sigh. She did this a couple more times. We remained in the shared silence. The room was slowly getting darker but night was over an hour away. I adjusted the blinds to little effect. She turned over again, sighed again. Her eyes were like glass.
Finally, she sat up and looked at me.
Do you know any way I can get to sleep?
I sat there and thought about it. The previous night, I’d lain awake for a couple of hours before giving up, turning on the light, and reading a book. When I finally nodded off, it was probably around three in the morning.
No. I’m sorry.
The resident, surely, was not very impressed by my answer. But her expression gave nothing away about how she felt. After a short time, she returned to lying down. Five minutes passed, then ten. She was very still. After twenty minutes, she had not moved.
I wasn’t sure if she was asleep or if my answer had annoyed her. I got up slowly, crept to the foot of the bed, and sat in the recliner. She remained motionless. I kept the footrest down and leaned back into the chair. I didn't have anything to read. We waited for sleep to come.
This was possibly an assignment I was qualified for. I used to have a colleague who joked that I exuded melatonin. It usually happened when I sat next to her at her desk or she sat next to me at mine. After a few minutes, she would start yawning, and then the accusations about my sleep-inducing powers would start. I was never entirely sure about the science behind her conclusions but I did have to at least concede that the results consistently supported her theory.
When I walked into the resident’s room, it was just past four o’clock. I went around the bed and sat in a chair next to the window.
Hi. I’m Tim. I’m going to sit here for a little while. I hope that’s OK with you.
My entrance received no acknowledgment. The resident lay perfectly still. I sat and waited. After ten minutes, she broke her stillness and turned over with a sigh. She did this a couple more times. We remained in the shared silence. The room was slowly getting darker but night was over an hour away. I adjusted the blinds to little effect. She turned over again, sighed again. Her eyes were like glass.
Finally, she sat up and looked at me.
Do you know any way I can get to sleep?
I sat there and thought about it. The previous night, I’d lain awake for a couple of hours before giving up, turning on the light, and reading a book. When I finally nodded off, it was probably around three in the morning.
No. I’m sorry.
The resident, surely, was not very impressed by my answer. But her expression gave nothing away about how she felt. After a short time, she returned to lying down. Five minutes passed, then ten. She was very still. After twenty minutes, she had not moved.
I wasn’t sure if she was asleep or if my answer had annoyed her. I got up slowly, crept to the foot of the bed, and sat in the recliner. She remained motionless. I kept the footrest down and leaned back into the chair. I didn't have anything to read. We waited for sleep to come.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
some thoughts from the argonauts that I’ve never had myself
Hi,
Today’s post is one of those described perfectly by the title – ideas I considered for the first time when I read Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts.
Tim
How many ‘same-sex’ couples see themselves as ‘same-sex’?
Well, reader, though I don’t have an exact percentage answer for the question, I’m sure the answer isn’t ‘every couple’, and that seems important.
The question highlights the problem brought on by definitions. Those who take the time to strictly define marriage might feel they understand marriage very well. But is it marriage or merely its definition that is understood?
I suppose the distinction will become obvious when someone is challenged to incorporate a new angle into his or her understanding. Those who merely understand the definition will struggle to incorporate a new idea into a fixed concept while those who are less concerned with the definition will it easier to add a new dimension into their understanding.
A spokesperson is always fighting against the reality that people are different from each other.
A spokesperson has a much tougher job than I’d ever given it credit for. Most people have many interests and therefore most groups will have far too many interests among their members for a single person to fully represent. So, how does a spokesperson actually do the job?
One approach is to focus on a single interest that most in the larger group share. This approach will strengthen the group so long as its membership remains committed to the singular interest ahead of other concerns. This is probably the best path for a small group. However, if the group ever wishes to pursue another goal, the spokesperson might struggle to retain support (especially if the group wishes to distance itself from the group’s original aim that the spokesperson publicly represented).
Another approach is for the spokesperson to simplify a complex issue into positions and demand the neutral or the undecided within the group take up a side. This group will boast significant outward leverage due to the stated unity among its members. A large group will most likely prefer this method. However, the group will be weak at its core because maintaining the semblance of group unity will always become the primary concern ahead of achieving any of the group’s stated interests.
Thinking about groups in this way makes it evident to me why larger organizations struggle to fight off existential threats from smaller competitors. Like an aggregated statistic, the viewpoints of large organizations tend to represent everyone's feelings yet describe no one member's exact point of view. Those who accept the burden of uniqueness will find their natural energy is better harnessed among a smaller group brought together by their shared commitment to initiative, creativity, and change.
The man who thinks he is a king is mad; does this also include the king?
I once read about the prevalence of personality disorders found in top-level leaders of various organizations. According to this piece, the rate is similar to what is observed in criminal populations. Unlike some other examples of sensational research claiming to diagnose a previously undetected condition a specific subset of the population, this one rung true to me. I’m sure those who have ever held a paid position can think of their own experience with such a person in charge (1).
Does this dynamic apply to royalty? I think it must (but acknowledge how there is probably no other way for it to be). If a society requires a monarch for its own effective function, a king who thought himself undeserving of his privilege would throw the kingdom under his charge into turmoil.
Of course, this might just as well apply to our elected leaders. Just as a king cannot promise bread and water to all if he is self-conscious about his gold-stained lips, an elected official cannot demand progress on environmental issues if he is embarrassed about flying to a global warming conference in a private jet.
I suppose cognitive dissonance is a ‘disease’ prevalent at all tiers of society. It probably has no value as a predictor. If those running the study I mentioned above looked at other levels of society, I’m sure they would continue to see the same rates they observed in their selected samples.
Aging is the ongoing transformation of the body.
I have no working definition for ‘aging’. To me, my only thought about aging is that it has been the most bizarre experience of my life. Perhaps I’m too focused on trying to understand the experience first before worrying about describing to anyone else exactly what I think aging is.
I did like this thought, though... aging is the ongoing transformation of the body. Whenever I have a clear thought about my mortality, it is always grounded in some observation about a body transformation (for example, just recently I realized - wow, my teeth are going to erode away eventually). These thoughts never linger long and I almost always return to my baseline condition of assumed immortality. But I find they do help me understand the aging process a little better.
It also helps me understand what it means to age gracefully – simply put, it means accepting the body’s inclination to transformation. Society’s insistence on particular body ideals challenges this acceptance on a daily basis. Every new anti-aging promise that rolls off the production line makes me think again about what parts of my changing body I should allow and what parts require my immediate intervention.
So although I consider myself open-minded about the decisions others make about their bodies, I can’t help but worry that if every decision I make for my body stems from my initial non-acceptance or intolerance for myself, I’ll eventually apply the same logic outward to how I perceive the decisions others make for themselves. I personally don’t think I’ll ever reach a point where I become bigoted or prejudiced (or even misidentified as such by another) but I do worry about isolated instances where my own inability to accept my transformations influences a thought I might have about someone else’s body.
Footnotes / a better way to spend five hours might be to just watch the show, but hey…
1. Warning – this recommendation is a seriously long read…
For those who’ve had the great fortune of never stepping into such a situation, perhaps a television program like The Office is the best example of the concept...
This series of essays from Ribbon Farm is a delight for anyone familiar with the show. In summary, Venkatesh Rao analyzes the show’s various examples of sociopath behavior among a handful of selected characters and scenes from the series.
Today’s post is one of those described perfectly by the title – ideas I considered for the first time when I read Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts.
Tim
How many ‘same-sex’ couples see themselves as ‘same-sex’?
Well, reader, though I don’t have an exact percentage answer for the question, I’m sure the answer isn’t ‘every couple’, and that seems important.
The question highlights the problem brought on by definitions. Those who take the time to strictly define marriage might feel they understand marriage very well. But is it marriage or merely its definition that is understood?
I suppose the distinction will become obvious when someone is challenged to incorporate a new angle into his or her understanding. Those who merely understand the definition will struggle to incorporate a new idea into a fixed concept while those who are less concerned with the definition will it easier to add a new dimension into their understanding.
A spokesperson is always fighting against the reality that people are different from each other.
A spokesperson has a much tougher job than I’d ever given it credit for. Most people have many interests and therefore most groups will have far too many interests among their members for a single person to fully represent. So, how does a spokesperson actually do the job?
One approach is to focus on a single interest that most in the larger group share. This approach will strengthen the group so long as its membership remains committed to the singular interest ahead of other concerns. This is probably the best path for a small group. However, if the group ever wishes to pursue another goal, the spokesperson might struggle to retain support (especially if the group wishes to distance itself from the group’s original aim that the spokesperson publicly represented).
Another approach is for the spokesperson to simplify a complex issue into positions and demand the neutral or the undecided within the group take up a side. This group will boast significant outward leverage due to the stated unity among its members. A large group will most likely prefer this method. However, the group will be weak at its core because maintaining the semblance of group unity will always become the primary concern ahead of achieving any of the group’s stated interests.
Thinking about groups in this way makes it evident to me why larger organizations struggle to fight off existential threats from smaller competitors. Like an aggregated statistic, the viewpoints of large organizations tend to represent everyone's feelings yet describe no one member's exact point of view. Those who accept the burden of uniqueness will find their natural energy is better harnessed among a smaller group brought together by their shared commitment to initiative, creativity, and change.
The man who thinks he is a king is mad; does this also include the king?
I once read about the prevalence of personality disorders found in top-level leaders of various organizations. According to this piece, the rate is similar to what is observed in criminal populations. Unlike some other examples of sensational research claiming to diagnose a previously undetected condition a specific subset of the population, this one rung true to me. I’m sure those who have ever held a paid position can think of their own experience with such a person in charge (1).
Does this dynamic apply to royalty? I think it must (but acknowledge how there is probably no other way for it to be). If a society requires a monarch for its own effective function, a king who thought himself undeserving of his privilege would throw the kingdom under his charge into turmoil.
Of course, this might just as well apply to our elected leaders. Just as a king cannot promise bread and water to all if he is self-conscious about his gold-stained lips, an elected official cannot demand progress on environmental issues if he is embarrassed about flying to a global warming conference in a private jet.
I suppose cognitive dissonance is a ‘disease’ prevalent at all tiers of society. It probably has no value as a predictor. If those running the study I mentioned above looked at other levels of society, I’m sure they would continue to see the same rates they observed in their selected samples.
Aging is the ongoing transformation of the body.
I have no working definition for ‘aging’. To me, my only thought about aging is that it has been the most bizarre experience of my life. Perhaps I’m too focused on trying to understand the experience first before worrying about describing to anyone else exactly what I think aging is.
I did like this thought, though... aging is the ongoing transformation of the body. Whenever I have a clear thought about my mortality, it is always grounded in some observation about a body transformation (for example, just recently I realized - wow, my teeth are going to erode away eventually). These thoughts never linger long and I almost always return to my baseline condition of assumed immortality. But I find they do help me understand the aging process a little better.
It also helps me understand what it means to age gracefully – simply put, it means accepting the body’s inclination to transformation. Society’s insistence on particular body ideals challenges this acceptance on a daily basis. Every new anti-aging promise that rolls off the production line makes me think again about what parts of my changing body I should allow and what parts require my immediate intervention.
So although I consider myself open-minded about the decisions others make about their bodies, I can’t help but worry that if every decision I make for my body stems from my initial non-acceptance or intolerance for myself, I’ll eventually apply the same logic outward to how I perceive the decisions others make for themselves. I personally don’t think I’ll ever reach a point where I become bigoted or prejudiced (or even misidentified as such by another) but I do worry about isolated instances where my own inability to accept my transformations influences a thought I might have about someone else’s body.
Footnotes / a better way to spend five hours might be to just watch the show, but hey…
1. Warning – this recommendation is a seriously long read…
For those who’ve had the great fortune of never stepping into such a situation, perhaps a television program like The Office is the best example of the concept...
This series of essays from Ribbon Farm is a delight for anyone familiar with the show. In summary, Venkatesh Rao analyzes the show’s various examples of sociopath behavior among a handful of selected characters and scenes from the series.
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
the business bro owns the world's worst bulletin board
One side effect of strong work performance is how it influences other parts of life. This is often a good thing. I remember how success in process improvement projects encouraged me to reevaluate my diet and exercise methods. And the solution to my work email problem provided the template for organizing my personal inbox. (1)
In some cases, though, the blind application of successful practices leads to haste induced mistakes. This almost happened to me recently. My old cubicle at work was surrounded on three sides by soft walls. I could use pins to stick papers or notes up on them. I realized that I was creating bulletin boards when I walked into a VP's office one afternoon and saw how his expensive and store-bought bulletin board resembled my three walls.
Over time, my 'bulletin boards' became indispensable. Anything I needed to do the same day, I tacked on the left. Anything resembling a checklist, user manual, or reference material went on the right. And the back wall was reserved for relevant miscellany.
Of the three, the left wall was most useful. Rarely did I leave the office with anything tacked on that space- it was no coincidence that I rarely missed a deadline. But the other walls served a vital function. They helped organize what could very easily have become clutter.
One night, I was sitting on the couch in my apartment. I thought about how I often delayed simple admin. Rent checks always seemed to go out a day or two after I wrote them and teetering piles of paper tended to clutter my open table space. I realized that if I had a bulletin board, I could organize my apartment in the same way I organized my work.
How much could a bulletin board cost? I had no clue. My research found that new ones online seemed priced at random within a range of $25 to $75. A used one would run much less than that. With some diligence, I could probably find a perfectly acceptable option for between $15 and $25.
It was unclear where I would hang the board. The space above the table made sense for its proximity to my main clutter problem but the built-in shelf and fake fireplace frame would make it hard to fix in place. The wall next to my bed was open but I did not want the board to fall on me while I slept. The space on the wall between two of my windows was too narrow to fit a standard board. I was in no hurry and so I decided to mull the options over a couple of weeks.
During some downtime the next week at work, I looked more closely at my colleagues' walls. I noticed something interesting - not everyone used pins like I did. Anything with a built in adhesive, like a post-it note, went up just fine. A number of people used tape instead of pins to hold up pieces of paper.
A light went on in my head. I went home that night and looked again at my door. With some scotch tape and a few post-it notes, it would be just like a bulletin board. My door - or I should say, my new bulletin board - has been covered in paper and post-its ever since.
From one point of view, spending the $1 on tape meant I saved around $20. Not much, but still OK. From a different perspective, I saved up to 96% of my initial estimate, which sounds impressive but exaggerates the value. The most important thing is that I minimized the cost of getting organized. In the same way that my workplace saved the cost of individual bulletin boards by using cubicle walls in their place, I was able to give the unused space on the back of my door extra value by converting it into the world's worst bulletin board.
Footnotes / more ramblings about work
1. It does go both ways, though...
And just as often, life success influences work performance. My improvement as a manager was undoubtedly linked to volunteering at a food bank - each shift asked that I complete easily generalized responsibilities like assessing inventory levels, understanding client needs, and delegating tasks to match output to demand changes. After enough time, it becomes impossible to determine if work or life was the true catalyst.
In some cases, though, the blind application of successful practices leads to haste induced mistakes. This almost happened to me recently. My old cubicle at work was surrounded on three sides by soft walls. I could use pins to stick papers or notes up on them. I realized that I was creating bulletin boards when I walked into a VP's office one afternoon and saw how his expensive and store-bought bulletin board resembled my three walls.
Over time, my 'bulletin boards' became indispensable. Anything I needed to do the same day, I tacked on the left. Anything resembling a checklist, user manual, or reference material went on the right. And the back wall was reserved for relevant miscellany.
Of the three, the left wall was most useful. Rarely did I leave the office with anything tacked on that space- it was no coincidence that I rarely missed a deadline. But the other walls served a vital function. They helped organize what could very easily have become clutter.
One night, I was sitting on the couch in my apartment. I thought about how I often delayed simple admin. Rent checks always seemed to go out a day or two after I wrote them and teetering piles of paper tended to clutter my open table space. I realized that if I had a bulletin board, I could organize my apartment in the same way I organized my work.
How much could a bulletin board cost? I had no clue. My research found that new ones online seemed priced at random within a range of $25 to $75. A used one would run much less than that. With some diligence, I could probably find a perfectly acceptable option for between $15 and $25.
It was unclear where I would hang the board. The space above the table made sense for its proximity to my main clutter problem but the built-in shelf and fake fireplace frame would make it hard to fix in place. The wall next to my bed was open but I did not want the board to fall on me while I slept. The space on the wall between two of my windows was too narrow to fit a standard board. I was in no hurry and so I decided to mull the options over a couple of weeks.
During some downtime the next week at work, I looked more closely at my colleagues' walls. I noticed something interesting - not everyone used pins like I did. Anything with a built in adhesive, like a post-it note, went up just fine. A number of people used tape instead of pins to hold up pieces of paper.
A light went on in my head. I went home that night and looked again at my door. With some scotch tape and a few post-it notes, it would be just like a bulletin board. My door - or I should say, my new bulletin board - has been covered in paper and post-its ever since.
From one point of view, spending the $1 on tape meant I saved around $20. Not much, but still OK. From a different perspective, I saved up to 96% of my initial estimate, which sounds impressive but exaggerates the value. The most important thing is that I minimized the cost of getting organized. In the same way that my workplace saved the cost of individual bulletin boards by using cubicle walls in their place, I was able to give the unused space on the back of my door extra value by converting it into the world's worst bulletin board.
Footnotes / more ramblings about work
1. It does go both ways, though...
And just as often, life success influences work performance. My improvement as a manager was undoubtedly linked to volunteering at a food bank - each shift asked that I complete easily generalized responsibilities like assessing inventory levels, understanding client needs, and delegating tasks to match output to demand changes. After enough time, it becomes impossible to determine if work or life was the true catalyst.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
reading review - selected letters by emily dickinson
Selected Letters by Emily Dickinson (February 2018)
This volume brings together a subset of Dickinson's collected letters into one easily digestible book. For the most part, the letters went pretty much as I expected – most were short updates filled with a lot of mundane details about the comings and goings of daily life. However, interspersed in these letters were all kinds of expected surprises – sharp observations about life, little tangents into the mysterious or unknown, and of course, scattered lines and stanzas of poetry.
What do I mean by expected surprises? Well, in the moment, these little phrases and ideas would come out of nowhere – one minute I’m reading about the night’s dinner plans, the next minute I’m learning about the metaphorical value of a flood. I suppose I mean that these letters were filled with spontaneity, the kind that I expected in general yet never could claim to have anticipated at any specific moment.
The spontaneity of these ideas always caught me off guard. But what was I expecting? Spontaneity breathes life into everything. Like I’ve come to learn through the years, the unique characteristic of a living thing is spontaneity. When someone describes a piece of writing as ‘coming alive’ (and this could certainly be said of many of these these letters), I think it means the writer is injecting the same spontaneity into the work that we all value in our social interactions.
One of my favorite examples of the above was her comment on forgetfulness – if a thought leaves the mind, is it oblivion or absorption? I didn’t reach my own conclusion on the thought, reader, just as I couldn’t do much with her logic that being human is preferred to being divine: when Christ was divine, he became human. It was fun to read and think about, however, and that these thoughts came from out of nowhere made them all the more interesting.
A thought that I disagreed with a little bit was her comment that hard work is healthy for the spirit because tired flesh cannot tease the soul with possibility. In my experience, the opposite has been true – fatigue has been my guide into the neglected spaces within. I think this is because a weary body limits my ability to interact with the physical world. As my options for mobility drop away one after another, I’m left with the growing sense that the real work for me will spring from an internal source.
One up: Another example of ‘the expected surprise’ I reference above was how enjoyable some of the writing was. After the fact, of course, it makes sense to me that I would be delighted by Emily Dickinson’s writing – in the moment, though, her expression did catch me unawares, much to the benefit of my reading experience.
I’ll hold back from running out a big list. Here are two of the ones that made me laugh:
Regarding a party that night exclusive for married couples:
As a reader, I’m grateful for how this unintended work brought her hard-earned lessons to my attention. One such lesson is how a stunning death is always a reminder to love better. She also adds in another letter that being separated from a love brings a pain no alternate activity can alleviate.
These lessons are useful in so many ways. However, I’m not sure if they would resonate with a reader yet to learn them already in some capacity. I came to this conclusion as I pondered her thought that a friendship made in anguish is the slowest one to lose. I think I get the point but I’m struggling to envision how anyone could learn this merely from exposure to the concept. For me, it’s a thought I accept after comparing it against my own recent experience but not an idea I could have done much with a decade ago.
I also mentioned earlier that Dickinson mused at one point about the metaphorical value of a flood. Specifically, she mentioned that the law of floods means when the water is no longer rising, it must be falling. I thought about this but couldn’t quite get the math to work. However, I do recognize the spirit of the idea. When each new loss accumulates with the last into a rising, unstoppable tide of grief and disappointment, the signal of a better day ahead comes not when the water recedes but merely when it is no longer visibly rising.
Just saying: I live with two conflicting beliefs about the letter, those being (a) the handwritten letter is the highest form of human communication and (b) I think writing a letter is a waste of time. As I’ve noted here before, I’m perfectly comfortable living in the conflicted world of 'and' that exists between two contradicting beliefs. However, a part of me did read this collection hoping for some kind of resolution - I would either feel differently about the letter's status as a form of communication or I would shut this blog down in its digital format and start writing proper admins by hand. Neither outcome really came about, however - I still feel pretty good about letters in general but feel no closer to writing one anytime soon.
In the aftermath of this disappointing result, I wondered - will it be possible to compile any book like this one hundred years from now? Surely not, for two reasons. First, no one I know writes letters, which feels relevant but isn't important (because all it would take is one letter-writer to reject my hypothesis). Second, there was nothing here from Dickinson that suggested she wouldn’t have used email if it had been available (and the texting, oh, the texting!). This second thought is perhaps less relevant but more important (because what is implied when I wonder if this kind of book could exist in one hundred years is that the book would be worth reading).
I reached this second thought because at times it in this collection it seemed that Dickinson was against the letter. The closest she came to a wide-ranging comment on the form was her thought that sending a letter away and not having it returned was a wounding experience. Given some of what she endured over the course of her life, it was kind of incredible for her to cite ‘not having a letter returned’ as a wounding experience (though this probably says more about her capacity for self-expression than it does reveal some kind of robust internal ranking system of scars, wounds, and difficulties).
A comment I thought she made that indirectly supported the letter was her stressing the importance of encouraging others to write when they feel like it. I would guess that if she applied this thought to her daily activities, she would consider returning a letter as among the highest priorities because to not do so would be a wounding experience and, by extension, a very discouraging response to someone who is clearly interested in writing.
This volume brings together a subset of Dickinson's collected letters into one easily digestible book. For the most part, the letters went pretty much as I expected – most were short updates filled with a lot of mundane details about the comings and goings of daily life. However, interspersed in these letters were all kinds of expected surprises – sharp observations about life, little tangents into the mysterious or unknown, and of course, scattered lines and stanzas of poetry.
What do I mean by expected surprises? Well, in the moment, these little phrases and ideas would come out of nowhere – one minute I’m reading about the night’s dinner plans, the next minute I’m learning about the metaphorical value of a flood. I suppose I mean that these letters were filled with spontaneity, the kind that I expected in general yet never could claim to have anticipated at any specific moment.
The spontaneity of these ideas always caught me off guard. But what was I expecting? Spontaneity breathes life into everything. Like I’ve come to learn through the years, the unique characteristic of a living thing is spontaneity. When someone describes a piece of writing as ‘coming alive’ (and this could certainly be said of many of these these letters), I think it means the writer is injecting the same spontaneity into the work that we all value in our social interactions.
One of my favorite examples of the above was her comment on forgetfulness – if a thought leaves the mind, is it oblivion or absorption? I didn’t reach my own conclusion on the thought, reader, just as I couldn’t do much with her logic that being human is preferred to being divine: when Christ was divine, he became human. It was fun to read and think about, however, and that these thoughts came from out of nowhere made them all the more interesting.
A thought that I disagreed with a little bit was her comment that hard work is healthy for the spirit because tired flesh cannot tease the soul with possibility. In my experience, the opposite has been true – fatigue has been my guide into the neglected spaces within. I think this is because a weary body limits my ability to interact with the physical world. As my options for mobility drop away one after another, I’m left with the growing sense that the real work for me will spring from an internal source.
One up: Another example of ‘the expected surprise’ I reference above was how enjoyable some of the writing was. After the fact, of course, it makes sense to me that I would be delighted by Emily Dickinson’s writing – in the moment, though, her expression did catch me unawares, much to the benefit of my reading experience.
I’ll hold back from running out a big list. Here are two of the ones that made me laugh:
Regarding a party that night exclusive for married couples:
"...celibacy excludes me and my sister…"On where home actually is:
"I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings…"One down: As I mentioned above, Dickinson endured a difficult life and much of her loss and grief is reflected in these letters. Even in the cases when her pain was not directly expressed, the melancholy came through in the writing – as I noted after I reread M Train, anything written in the aftermath of a loss is about the loss first and everything else second.
As a reader, I’m grateful for how this unintended work brought her hard-earned lessons to my attention. One such lesson is how a stunning death is always a reminder to love better. She also adds in another letter that being separated from a love brings a pain no alternate activity can alleviate.
These lessons are useful in so many ways. However, I’m not sure if they would resonate with a reader yet to learn them already in some capacity. I came to this conclusion as I pondered her thought that a friendship made in anguish is the slowest one to lose. I think I get the point but I’m struggling to envision how anyone could learn this merely from exposure to the concept. For me, it’s a thought I accept after comparing it against my own recent experience but not an idea I could have done much with a decade ago.
I also mentioned earlier that Dickinson mused at one point about the metaphorical value of a flood. Specifically, she mentioned that the law of floods means when the water is no longer rising, it must be falling. I thought about this but couldn’t quite get the math to work. However, I do recognize the spirit of the idea. When each new loss accumulates with the last into a rising, unstoppable tide of grief and disappointment, the signal of a better day ahead comes not when the water recedes but merely when it is no longer visibly rising.
Just saying: I live with two conflicting beliefs about the letter, those being (a) the handwritten letter is the highest form of human communication and (b) I think writing a letter is a waste of time. As I’ve noted here before, I’m perfectly comfortable living in the conflicted world of 'and' that exists between two contradicting beliefs. However, a part of me did read this collection hoping for some kind of resolution - I would either feel differently about the letter's status as a form of communication or I would shut this blog down in its digital format and start writing proper admins by hand. Neither outcome really came about, however - I still feel pretty good about letters in general but feel no closer to writing one anytime soon.
In the aftermath of this disappointing result, I wondered - will it be possible to compile any book like this one hundred years from now? Surely not, for two reasons. First, no one I know writes letters, which feels relevant but isn't important (because all it would take is one letter-writer to reject my hypothesis). Second, there was nothing here from Dickinson that suggested she wouldn’t have used email if it had been available (and the texting, oh, the texting!). This second thought is perhaps less relevant but more important (because what is implied when I wonder if this kind of book could exist in one hundred years is that the book would be worth reading).
I reached this second thought because at times it in this collection it seemed that Dickinson was against the letter. The closest she came to a wide-ranging comment on the form was her thought that sending a letter away and not having it returned was a wounding experience. Given some of what she endured over the course of her life, it was kind of incredible for her to cite ‘not having a letter returned’ as a wounding experience (though this probably says more about her capacity for self-expression than it does reveal some kind of robust internal ranking system of scars, wounds, and difficulties).
A comment I thought she made that indirectly supported the letter was her stressing the importance of encouraging others to write when they feel like it. I would guess that if she applied this thought to her daily activities, she would consider returning a letter as among the highest priorities because to not do so would be a wounding experience and, by extension, a very discouraging response to someone who is clearly interested in writing.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
thank you for saying you’re welcome
Back in the March newsletter, I mentioned that my New Year’s resolution (‘resolution’) to say you’re welcome anytime someone said thank you seemed to be going really well. It was based on a simple observation that by saying you’re welcome, I prevent myself from (unintentionally) dismissing someone else’s gratitude.
These dismissals happen by the use of those common little expressions that we’ve come to widely accepts as substitutes for you’re welcome, comments with hidden subtexts like oh, don’t mention it (because helping others is the drudgery of social obligation and I don’t need to be reminded of it like an unreliable child needs reminding of his chores) or no, THANK YOU (because your general helplessness gave me a chance to do something that made me feel good about myself).
For some reason, I hear comments like these in response to thank you far more often than I hear the simple you’re welcome. It’s too bad. I think you’re welcome is a powerful expression, one that boasts significant power to build camaraderie and improve relationships through the simple task of acknowledging a shared reality.
It is important to express gratitude. Many report feeling much better about themselves when they take the time to express gratitude on a regular basis. But I think the positive impact of expressing gratitude will be lost if the recipient dismisses it. Does it feel good to give a gift that someone throws back at you?
So, reader, I urge you once more to simply say you’re welcome before following up with anything else. It will make the other person feel better!
Thank you for reading.
(Waiting...)
Well, no need to start now.
-Tim
These dismissals happen by the use of those common little expressions that we’ve come to widely accepts as substitutes for you’re welcome, comments with hidden subtexts like oh, don’t mention it (because helping others is the drudgery of social obligation and I don’t need to be reminded of it like an unreliable child needs reminding of his chores) or no, THANK YOU (because your general helplessness gave me a chance to do something that made me feel good about myself).
For some reason, I hear comments like these in response to thank you far more often than I hear the simple you’re welcome. It’s too bad. I think you’re welcome is a powerful expression, one that boasts significant power to build camaraderie and improve relationships through the simple task of acknowledging a shared reality.
It is important to express gratitude. Many report feeling much better about themselves when they take the time to express gratitude on a regular basis. But I think the positive impact of expressing gratitude will be lost if the recipient dismisses it. Does it feel good to give a gift that someone throws back at you?
So, reader, I urge you once more to simply say you’re welcome before following up with anything else. It will make the other person feel better!
Thank you for reading.
(Waiting...)
Well, no need to start now.
-Tim
Thursday, July 12, 2018
looking and responding
The three commercials I’ve written about this week don’t share all that much in common. The companies work in different industries and the products they create do not all compete against each other. However, the general message is similar - if you look at the world and respond to it, your life can really become something significant.
It doesn't sound like much - look and respond. But how often do we really do this? The tricky part is that it is so easy to do one or the other - we see something but pretend we don't, for example, or we respond to a question without truly considering what is being asked of us. Doing both is sometimes difficult, even if we aren't being asked to do all that much, but I've always found doing so to be very rewarding.
The times I look back on and consider to be my most significant all involve doing these two things together - looking at the world and responding to it. These significant times include mundane everyday moments when I simply lent a hand to someone who needed it. They also include more unusual moments when I encountered a new situation, took in all the information I could, and made the best possible decision. The common thread in these is the simple, repeated process - looking at the world and responding to it.
The only unexpected thing I realized when I looked back is how I used to do this almost entirely by accident. Looking and responding - when I did this in the past, it was never something I meant to do. It was never part of a plan or an agenda or a life philosophy. And the many forgettable or irrelevant experiences of my past often came about because I failed to do it, I failed to look and respond, opting instead to do just one, the other, or perhaps even neither.
When did this change? When did I change from someone who stumbled into significance to someone who really understood how my own approach created significance? I think it changed right around the time my mom died. I think this is the one thing I took away from all the thinking and feeling and talking and experiencing of that time three years ago - there was a lot of difficulty that would have been impossible to handle had I not so frequently accepted the circumstances around me and responded to those circumstances in the best way I could. That doesn't make any hard thing easy, of course, but I think the way forward in a difficult time is to make a habit of looking at the world and responding to it. And it isn't good enough to settle for doing this every once in a while, either. For me, the key now is to put myself in situations where I am challenged to do this all the time.
Walking down the street and thinking – oh, look, hopscotch, it would be fun to play, I would feel so young! – and then just continuing to walk by... this kind of thinking shouldn't cut it for anyone. And yet, when I pay close attention to others, it seems like the norm is to continue walking right on by. I think this is a mistake. What I've come to realize is that much of life is about that first moment when you notice the squares and you wonder about jumping in. Do you trust your instincts? Or do you look around to see what lines others are toeing?
When I feel that stir, when I sense that inner acknowledgement of what I see and recognize how I can get involved, I think I need to respond by jumping in with both feet. That might isolate me at times, might leave me with two feet firmly planted on the wrong side of the line, but I think it's a small price to pay for looking and responding. When I get to that point where I see the world around me and respond to every small part of it, that's the point when I really start to create, that's the point when the lines start to get a little blurry, and that's the point when all the loss and misery and difficulty starts to make a little more sense to me.
I don't think the how or the where or the what really matters here - looking and responding is going to work a little differently for everyone. I could point at myself and say you should write or you should bike or you should volunteer at a hospice or whatever but I don't think the specifics matter. The details should be different for everyone. I think it just matters to do two things, look and respond, just do those two things, and remember that though this might seem like a small step, to simply look and respond, it can be the smallest steps that take us over the biggest thresholds.
It doesn't sound like much - look and respond. But how often do we really do this? The tricky part is that it is so easy to do one or the other - we see something but pretend we don't, for example, or we respond to a question without truly considering what is being asked of us. Doing both is sometimes difficult, even if we aren't being asked to do all that much, but I've always found doing so to be very rewarding.
The times I look back on and consider to be my most significant all involve doing these two things together - looking at the world and responding to it. These significant times include mundane everyday moments when I simply lent a hand to someone who needed it. They also include more unusual moments when I encountered a new situation, took in all the information I could, and made the best possible decision. The common thread in these is the simple, repeated process - looking at the world and responding to it.
The only unexpected thing I realized when I looked back is how I used to do this almost entirely by accident. Looking and responding - when I did this in the past, it was never something I meant to do. It was never part of a plan or an agenda or a life philosophy. And the many forgettable or irrelevant experiences of my past often came about because I failed to do it, I failed to look and respond, opting instead to do just one, the other, or perhaps even neither.
When did this change? When did I change from someone who stumbled into significance to someone who really understood how my own approach created significance? I think it changed right around the time my mom died. I think this is the one thing I took away from all the thinking and feeling and talking and experiencing of that time three years ago - there was a lot of difficulty that would have been impossible to handle had I not so frequently accepted the circumstances around me and responded to those circumstances in the best way I could. That doesn't make any hard thing easy, of course, but I think the way forward in a difficult time is to make a habit of looking at the world and responding to it. And it isn't good enough to settle for doing this every once in a while, either. For me, the key now is to put myself in situations where I am challenged to do this all the time.
Walking down the street and thinking – oh, look, hopscotch, it would be fun to play, I would feel so young! – and then just continuing to walk by... this kind of thinking shouldn't cut it for anyone. And yet, when I pay close attention to others, it seems like the norm is to continue walking right on by. I think this is a mistake. What I've come to realize is that much of life is about that first moment when you notice the squares and you wonder about jumping in. Do you trust your instincts? Or do you look around to see what lines others are toeing?
When I feel that stir, when I sense that inner acknowledgement of what I see and recognize how I can get involved, I think I need to respond by jumping in with both feet. That might isolate me at times, might leave me with two feet firmly planted on the wrong side of the line, but I think it's a small price to pay for looking and responding. When I get to that point where I see the world around me and respond to every small part of it, that's the point when I really start to create, that's the point when the lines start to get a little blurry, and that's the point when all the loss and misery and difficulty starts to make a little more sense to me.
I don't think the how or the where or the what really matters here - looking and responding is going to work a little differently for everyone. I could point at myself and say you should write or you should bike or you should volunteer at a hospice or whatever but I don't think the specifics matter. The details should be different for everyone. I think it just matters to do two things, look and respond, just do those two things, and remember that though this might seem like a small step, to simply look and respond, it can be the smallest steps that take us over the biggest thresholds.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
one last commercial break
Yesterday, I complained a bit about a couple of commercials that annoyed me last fall. It's never a great idea to complain all day, though, so I thought I'd bring some balance back to the TOA equation and highlight my favorite commercial from last year.
This one is from Bose – they make headphones – and it stars Larry Fitzgerald ('Fitz'), a young man in nominal terms (mid-thirties) but an aging fossil in helmet football terms (mid-thirties). This ad opens with Fitz out for a walk on a nice day. When he comes across a chalk outline for hopscotch, he brings the game back to life by jumping right in. As the commercial wraps up, some little kid (with perhaps the same attention span as the Apple kid and maybe one-tenth the basic intelligence of whoever runs GE's marketing) sprints right at his kneecaps. Old Fitzy manages to evade this existential threat to his career with a nifty sidestep move before settling again into his walking pace. The whole idea of this commercial is to feel young, to really feel it, or whatever, and this is somehow related to ignoring the outside world via headphones.
The main portion of the commercial reminded of some things I do when I go out on a run. When I zigzag my way through the crowds in Harvard Square, for instance, no one I dart around seems to realize that in my head I’m returning a punt against them (and for a touchdown, obviously). And if I spot something small and kickable on the path ahead, I try to line it up with a target of some kind (any kind of pole or post works pretty well for this). As I approach it, I’ll line up my stride like a soccer player and try to hit the target. I might get this chance two or three times per run – a small rock, a loose piece of ice, a discarded plastic bottle – and I’m always uplifted, just a little bit, on those rare occasions when I do hit my target and ‘score’.
There's no point to these little games I play in my own head, no point at all, except that they are fun. And isn't that the whole point? The journey is long and unpredictable and it could end at any point. Given those circumstances, it's always worth it, whether the bottle cap I kick hits the lamppost or not, to veer a couple of steps off the planned route and try something just because it seems like it might be fun. And if it seems fun, it will be, as long as you let yourself really feel it.
This one is from Bose – they make headphones – and it stars Larry Fitzgerald ('Fitz'), a young man in nominal terms (mid-thirties) but an aging fossil in helmet football terms (mid-thirties). This ad opens with Fitz out for a walk on a nice day. When he comes across a chalk outline for hopscotch, he brings the game back to life by jumping right in. As the commercial wraps up, some little kid (with perhaps the same attention span as the Apple kid and maybe one-tenth the basic intelligence of whoever runs GE's marketing) sprints right at his kneecaps. Old Fitzy manages to evade this existential threat to his career with a nifty sidestep move before settling again into his walking pace. The whole idea of this commercial is to feel young, to really feel it, or whatever, and this is somehow related to ignoring the outside world via headphones.
Bose: feel young by ignoring everything.Still, despite the shaky connection of the product to the message, I really enjoyed the commercial. Maybe this is because the commercial is just really well done. One example of this is the symbolic balance in the commercial - it opens with Fitz looking through a window on an old woman exercising and it ends with two young kids looking out the window at Old Man Fitz 'exercising'. And that little piano tune in the background...
The main portion of the commercial reminded of some things I do when I go out on a run. When I zigzag my way through the crowds in Harvard Square, for instance, no one I dart around seems to realize that in my head I’m returning a punt against them (and for a touchdown, obviously). And if I spot something small and kickable on the path ahead, I try to line it up with a target of some kind (any kind of pole or post works pretty well for this). As I approach it, I’ll line up my stride like a soccer player and try to hit the target. I might get this chance two or three times per run – a small rock, a loose piece of ice, a discarded plastic bottle – and I’m always uplifted, just a little bit, on those rare occasions when I do hit my target and ‘score’.
There's no point to these little games I play in my own head, no point at all, except that they are fun. And isn't that the whole point? The journey is long and unpredictable and it could end at any point. Given those circumstances, it's always worth it, whether the bottle cap I kick hits the lamppost or not, to veer a couple of steps off the planned route and try something just because it seems like it might be fun. And if it seems fun, it will be, as long as you let yourself really feel it.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
could someone automate the commercial... please?
Reader, summer is underway, and we all know what that means - fall is right around the corner...
One of the strangest things about the fall is the way I get back into watching commercials. This is due to how my ‘TV year’ breaks down. With a few one-off exceptions like the odd NBA basketball game or idle time spent in someone else’s living room, I barely watch a commercial between the months of February and August. Once helmet football starts up again in September, though… I’m back, baby! Tell me what car to buy, tell me what beer to drink, tell me, TV, because I'm ready to spend!
Last fall, I decided to mark this great occasion by keeping track of the commercials I found most annoying. (No, reader, I’m not going to turn this into a nonsensical awards show!) Two advertisements in particular stick out in my mind.
The first is from Apple. It shows some kid – some annoying, snot-nosed kid – zipping around town on a bicycle and doing a variety of things with an iPad. Some of this stuff is pretty neat – a website about bugs in town, a video conversation with a friend, a burst of comic book reading on the bus, and so on. Great premise overall.
Here’s the problem: this kid is an asshole. Check out the conversation again with his broken-armed friend. Is there eye contact? Is there any compassion? Is there any attempt at conversation? No! Most of the time is spent in conversation with another person on the steps as they try to come up with the best way to make fun of the injured kid.
And what does this kid say? You got it, reader – what’s a computer?
WHAT'S A COMPUTER??? Hey Trebek, I got news for you - you’re ON a computer! It’s the only thing you’re on, unless you think the grass is a computer, but if you thought that, kid, if you thought that, you would have said – lying, on my computer. That would have been appropriate, since the kid knows what he's on, so he knows he's lying on it. Actually, come to think of it, that's all the kid is doing here... lying.
The commercial starts just fine, starts a lot like the Apple one, in fact, as a promising young whiz kid realizes the world is her oyster. Apparently, she decides it is her mission to build an automated way to open said oyster. Her resulting accomplishments for me, really, are a mixed bag, at least in terms of usefulness (the automatic page-turner is a waste of time, the trash trick is a good solution, and the lawnmower is six of one and a half dozen of the other - it seems brilliant but could go off the rails very quickly if the rope snapped, you had a lawn with a weird shape, a dog ran into the yard, etc). But anyway, kudos to the young engineer, at least in an ‘A for effort’ sense.
But then this budding Edison graduates college and gets a job at GE. It’s never clarified what the job is – I’m guessing the title is ‘Automatic Job Cutter’ and the description is ‘find ways to put people out of work’. Now, on its own, this commercial could be just fine, could even be a delight, and I’m not generally against progress or technologyor even a company that never seems to do anything on time 'committing' to reaching gender parity in entry-level tech roles by 2020 because, like, why rush, you know, and besides, putting this kind of commercial on showcasing a young woman succeeding in a tech role will distract everyone, anyway.
I guess my annoyance with this commercial centered around a more basic objection - I didn’t think it looked very good for GE to announce major layoffs and job cuts while this ad filled commercial breaks during helmet football games. A little kid being annoying about technology is one thing - kids don't really know better, whether they have a computer or not. But a major corporation run by 'adults' can probably find a way to spend advertising money that isn't insensitive to the hard workers who've seen their jobs evaporate through no fault of their own.
One of the strangest things about the fall is the way I get back into watching commercials. This is due to how my ‘TV year’ breaks down. With a few one-off exceptions like the odd NBA basketball game or idle time spent in someone else’s living room, I barely watch a commercial between the months of February and August. Once helmet football starts up again in September, though… I’m back, baby! Tell me what car to buy, tell me what beer to drink, tell me, TV, because I'm ready to spend!
Last fall, I decided to mark this great occasion by keeping track of the commercials I found most annoying. (No, reader, I’m not going to turn this into a nonsensical awards show!) Two advertisements in particular stick out in my mind.
The first is from Apple. It shows some kid – some annoying, snot-nosed kid – zipping around town on a bicycle and doing a variety of things with an iPad. Some of this stuff is pretty neat – a website about bugs in town, a video conversation with a friend, a burst of comic book reading on the bus, and so on. Great premise overall.
Here’s the problem: this kid is an asshole. Check out the conversation again with his broken-armed friend. Is there eye contact? Is there any compassion? Is there any attempt at conversation? No! Most of the time is spent in conversation with another person on the steps as they try to come up with the best way to make fun of the injured kid.
The iPad: make fun of your crippled friends, unless you are ignoring them.Or, consider the final scene. A neighbor comes outside and asks a perfectly reasonable question – what are you doing on your computer? Nice to be asked, right?
And what does this kid say? You got it, reader – what’s a computer?
WHAT'S A COMPUTER??? Hey Trebek, I got news for you - you’re ON a computer! It’s the only thing you’re on, unless you think the grass is a computer, but if you thought that, kid, if you thought that, you would have said – lying, on my computer. That would have been appropriate, since the kid knows what he's on, so he knows he's lying on it. Actually, come to think of it, that's all the kid is doing here... lying.
The iPad: be a pathological liar.Somehow, though, another commercial managed to annoy me even more than the Apple one. This one comes from GE, a company Boston recently opened up its loving bosom for thanks to its promise of more jobs, more growth, more blah blah blah...
The commercial starts just fine, starts a lot like the Apple one, in fact, as a promising young whiz kid realizes the world is her oyster. Apparently, she decides it is her mission to build an automated way to open said oyster. Her resulting accomplishments for me, really, are a mixed bag, at least in terms of usefulness (the automatic page-turner is a waste of time, the trash trick is a good solution, and the lawnmower is six of one and a half dozen of the other - it seems brilliant but could go off the rails very quickly if the rope snapped, you had a lawn with a weird shape, a dog ran into the yard, etc). But anyway, kudos to the young engineer, at least in an ‘A for effort’ sense.
But then this budding Edison graduates college and gets a job at GE. It’s never clarified what the job is – I’m guessing the title is ‘Automatic Job Cutter’ and the description is ‘find ways to put people out of work’. Now, on its own, this commercial could be just fine, could even be a delight, and I’m not generally against progress or technology
I guess my annoyance with this commercial centered around a more basic objection - I didn’t think it looked very good for GE to announce major layoffs and job cuts while this ad filled commercial breaks during helmet football games. A little kid being annoying about technology is one thing - kids don't really know better, whether they have a computer or not. But a major corporation run by 'adults' can probably find a way to spend advertising money that isn't insensitive to the hard workers who've seen their jobs evaporate through no fault of their own.
Monday, July 9, 2018
some thoughts from the argonauts that I’ve had myself
Hi all,
For the next few weeks, I’m going to comment on some of the ideas I didn’t cover in my first review (‘review’) of Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts. This week’s post expands on some thoughts I’ve considered before that also came up in this book.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
We overestimate the maturity of adults.
I’ve noticed how when an adult acts childishly, the common response is to label the adult ‘immature’. An adult who behaves immaturely often takes us by surprise, even if nothing was ever done by the person in question to indicate maturity.
I’m not sure why this is but I am fairly certain of its truth. The problem could be that maturity is considered a passively accumulated skill when in reality it might be an actively cultivated skill. Or, maturity might not be related to time at all.
Overarching concepts or figures are dangerous because they tempt us to ignore the details of a given situation.
This reminds me of the common criticism I’ve read or heard about the profit-driven. By habitually reducing a situation’s moral or ethical calculus down to ‘revenue against cost’ arithmetic, a person slowly becomes blind to all the additional details. Eventually, the ability to consider anything else except the profit margin becomes atrophied.
It is important to have philosophies and principles as a guide to daily living. However, being unable to understand details is dangerous because it makes the moment to apply an exception almost impossible to identify.
There is no need to make a fetish of the unsaid. The talented writer contains the unsaid within the said. The expressed always contains the inexpressible.
The perfect thing here would be to say nothing, right, reader? Sometimes, the loudest answer is silence, and all that.
But noise doesn’t make music and volume doesn’t mean relevance. When a television viewer hits the mute button, it usually isn’t because the silence is enriching – it’s because the sound is ruining the viewing experience.
Sometimes, the loudest answer is silence. Silence speaks volumes, they say. But the loudest answer and the best answer are rarely the same thing.
The more effort we make to express our feelings, the less time we waste later trying to identify the same feelings when they come around again.
I grew up playing various team sports. From my experience, I can confirm that though practice does not make perfect, it does almost always lead to improvement.
The idea also reminds me of Cheryl Strayed’s comment in Tiny Beautiful Things – people express their love for each other so that they can say it when they really need to. I like this example for how it reinforces the simple lesson that almost all things benefit from some degree of practice.
Privilege does not protect us from suffering.
This comes to mind every once in a while as I do my hospice volunteer work. The access to palliative care in the face of a debilitating illness should be considered a basic human right; there is no doubt about it in my mind. But I also recognize that a morphine drip is a privilege. It’s the same kind of privilege that my running water is, one not available to many from the past, a privilege that we citizens of wealthy nations today have yet to extend to those of poor nations.
And yet, even with these privileges, suffering remains ever-present around here. In some cases, the morphine is ineffective. But in most others, what the morphine takes away only opens room for further suffering of a mental or emotional nature.
For the next few weeks, I’m going to comment on some of the ideas I didn’t cover in my first review (‘review’) of Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts. This week’s post expands on some thoughts I’ve considered before that also came up in this book.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
We overestimate the maturity of adults.
I’ve noticed how when an adult acts childishly, the common response is to label the adult ‘immature’. An adult who behaves immaturely often takes us by surprise, even if nothing was ever done by the person in question to indicate maturity.
I’m not sure why this is but I am fairly certain of its truth. The problem could be that maturity is considered a passively accumulated skill when in reality it might be an actively cultivated skill. Or, maturity might not be related to time at all.
Overarching concepts or figures are dangerous because they tempt us to ignore the details of a given situation.
This reminds me of the common criticism I’ve read or heard about the profit-driven. By habitually reducing a situation’s moral or ethical calculus down to ‘revenue against cost’ arithmetic, a person slowly becomes blind to all the additional details. Eventually, the ability to consider anything else except the profit margin becomes atrophied.
It is important to have philosophies and principles as a guide to daily living. However, being unable to understand details is dangerous because it makes the moment to apply an exception almost impossible to identify.
There is no need to make a fetish of the unsaid. The talented writer contains the unsaid within the said. The expressed always contains the inexpressible.
The perfect thing here would be to say nothing, right, reader? Sometimes, the loudest answer is silence, and all that.
But noise doesn’t make music and volume doesn’t mean relevance. When a television viewer hits the mute button, it usually isn’t because the silence is enriching – it’s because the sound is ruining the viewing experience.
Sometimes, the loudest answer is silence. Silence speaks volumes, they say. But the loudest answer and the best answer are rarely the same thing.
The more effort we make to express our feelings, the less time we waste later trying to identify the same feelings when they come around again.
I grew up playing various team sports. From my experience, I can confirm that though practice does not make perfect, it does almost always lead to improvement.
The idea also reminds me of Cheryl Strayed’s comment in Tiny Beautiful Things – people express their love for each other so that they can say it when they really need to. I like this example for how it reinforces the simple lesson that almost all things benefit from some degree of practice.
Privilege does not protect us from suffering.
This comes to mind every once in a while as I do my hospice volunteer work. The access to palliative care in the face of a debilitating illness should be considered a basic human right; there is no doubt about it in my mind. But I also recognize that a morphine drip is a privilege. It’s the same kind of privilege that my running water is, one not available to many from the past, a privilege that we citizens of wealthy nations today have yet to extend to those of poor nations.
And yet, even with these privileges, suffering remains ever-present around here. In some cases, the morphine is ineffective. But in most others, what the morphine takes away only opens room for further suffering of a mental or emotional nature.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
reading review - ripley bogle
Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson (February 2018)
Ripley Bogle is about a young man who first overcomes the odds to make it into Cambridge (not the one near Boston), then does the same sort of thing in reverse and ends up living out on the streets (not the ones in Boston) despite being so well-educated. I came to this novel after reading Wilson’s Eureka Street, one of my favorite recent books. Though I would not say I enjoyed Ripley Bogle to the same extent, I found it both entertaining and filled with plenty of insight to highlight here.
An obvious topic this book examines is poverty. As Wilson points out, without poverty the rich have a hard time valuing their worth. The ability to look around and know exactly how far away one is from becoming poor is a key characteristic of wealth and contributes mightily to the urge to protect it.
When poverty doesn’t go away, it lingers in the mind. For those who have been poor in the past, the reminders of poverty in the world around them contribute to a nagging sense of insecurity that makes it almost impossible to feel comfortable without a significant level of wealth.
Another observation I liked was that sometimes people avoid certain public spaces out of a fear of possibly running into someone they know. I’ve been there, though rarely. I think these moments are the surest sign that a change is needed and yet also the easiest one to ignore given how little effort is involved in avoiding a particular area.
Finally, though Ripley Bogle uses an extensive vocabulary to describe even the most mundane details, Wilson could only come up with a familiar word to describe the desire for a second chance – grief. It’s not the way I’m used to thinking about grief but I liked the way the definition fit. I wonder if grief, a word seemingly reserved to describe a particular form of loss, has lost the ability to describe some of our more general emotions thanks to its narrow application.
One up: I think most people judge satire based on its humor and the clarity of its reference to an outside person or event. This was more or less my working definition for some time. Wilson added to my understanding when he pointed out that satire walks a fine line between the vindictive and the educational. If satire is not used to correct, it loses its critical ability to stimulate reform.
One down: The thought that placing too much value on sleep is a sure sign of a problem elsewhere in life left me in two minds. On one hand, I’m writing this after having just woken up an hour later than usual (slept through the alarm). I’ve yet to identify the problem in my life, reader, but I’m worried!
And yet, on the other hand, if someone were to stay up all night on a regular basis, surely we would consider this a sign of a problem as well? I think Wilson’s insight about sleep is just one of those things – true until it isn’t.
Just saying: Wilson points out in one passage that people don't really expect to hear the truth anymore. Even the most basic greeting cannot be exchanged these days without a small lie tucked somewhere into the conversation.
My favorite example of a “truth I didn’t expect to hear” came in a description about why the geriatric tend to run the world while the juvenile remain spectators: ultimately, when we collectively think about how the world should be run, we simply would prefer any approach except for the trial and error method so often advocated by the inexperienced.
Ripley Bogle is about a young man who first overcomes the odds to make it into Cambridge (not the one near Boston), then does the same sort of thing in reverse and ends up living out on the streets (not the ones in Boston) despite being so well-educated. I came to this novel after reading Wilson’s Eureka Street, one of my favorite recent books. Though I would not say I enjoyed Ripley Bogle to the same extent, I found it both entertaining and filled with plenty of insight to highlight here.
An obvious topic this book examines is poverty. As Wilson points out, without poverty the rich have a hard time valuing their worth. The ability to look around and know exactly how far away one is from becoming poor is a key characteristic of wealth and contributes mightily to the urge to protect it.
When poverty doesn’t go away, it lingers in the mind. For those who have been poor in the past, the reminders of poverty in the world around them contribute to a nagging sense of insecurity that makes it almost impossible to feel comfortable without a significant level of wealth.
Another observation I liked was that sometimes people avoid certain public spaces out of a fear of possibly running into someone they know. I’ve been there, though rarely. I think these moments are the surest sign that a change is needed and yet also the easiest one to ignore given how little effort is involved in avoiding a particular area.
Finally, though Ripley Bogle uses an extensive vocabulary to describe even the most mundane details, Wilson could only come up with a familiar word to describe the desire for a second chance – grief. It’s not the way I’m used to thinking about grief but I liked the way the definition fit. I wonder if grief, a word seemingly reserved to describe a particular form of loss, has lost the ability to describe some of our more general emotions thanks to its narrow application.
One up: I think most people judge satire based on its humor and the clarity of its reference to an outside person or event. This was more or less my working definition for some time. Wilson added to my understanding when he pointed out that satire walks a fine line between the vindictive and the educational. If satire is not used to correct, it loses its critical ability to stimulate reform.
One down: The thought that placing too much value on sleep is a sure sign of a problem elsewhere in life left me in two minds. On one hand, I’m writing this after having just woken up an hour later than usual (slept through the alarm). I’ve yet to identify the problem in my life, reader, but I’m worried!
And yet, on the other hand, if someone were to stay up all night on a regular basis, surely we would consider this a sign of a problem as well? I think Wilson’s insight about sleep is just one of those things – true until it isn’t.
Just saying: Wilson points out in one passage that people don't really expect to hear the truth anymore. Even the most basic greeting cannot be exchanged these days without a small lie tucked somewhere into the conversation.
My favorite example of a “truth I didn’t expect to hear” came in a description about why the geriatric tend to run the world while the juvenile remain spectators: ultimately, when we collectively think about how the world should be run, we simply would prefer any approach except for the trial and error method so often advocated by the inexperienced.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
leftovers... the arognauts (marshmallow index rant)
Moya, MOYA, just the man, sit, Moya, sit and have a whiskey, Moya, I have a game for you, watch this, now sit, here, sit, and look, look here, at this whiskey, Moya, I have a game for you, you can have this whiskey, for free, right now, if you’d like, drink up Moya, up, up, drink, but if you sit and stare at this whiskey for fifteen minutes, this is the game Moya, sit and stare, in fifteen minutes I’ll buy you another, two whiskeys, Moya, if you can wait fifteen minutes, and if you do this, Moya, I know you’ll pass the SAT II in European History, because the SAT II requires willpower, and this whiskey test requires willpower, and if you pass it now, you obviously have willpower, the beauty of it Moya, the lab is life, no, sometimes I wonder, just remember to sober up first, Moya, two whiskeys, but sometimes I wonder, no not now, in fifteen minutes, were you listening, Moya, to the game, anyway sometimes I wonder, I wonder what it’s like to study for decades, test after test, just to get a degree, and a degree, and three degrees, and you come up with a test like this, a ridiculous test, proof of nothing, proof of proof, ninety proof, marshmallow proof, it’s all fluff, I say, I thought of it today while reading about The Marshmallow Experiment, what a wonderful thing, Moya, this test, a modern-day torture technique, child abuse by the well-dressed academic, they torture these five-year olds, these five-year olds were removed, were taken, from recess and playtime and normal psychological development, placed by these academics in rooms, intimidating rooms, with cold metal furniture and even colder expressions, told to make eye contact with a jet-puffed marshmallow, look at the whiskey Moya, look at it, right in front of you, just like the kids and the marshmallows, look at it, placed directly in front of them, the kids told to eat, eat up, anytime they wished, eat the marshmallow if they so wished, consequence free, and they were probably starving kids Moya, kids are always hungry, right, and if they lasted fifteen minutes, if they sat for fifteen minutes, an eternity, without eating, without touching the marshmallow, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow, which they could eat, ridiculous, Moya, sit through an eternity for a marshmallow, and this test is supposed to demonstrate willpower, supposed to prove willpower, when all it proves is materialism, it must be taught, taught at age five, if you wait you get double the goods, you learn this as a kid now, and diabetes, you get that too, with your marshmallow, and the researchers scribble this data down, and look at it, and years later, look at it again, after these same kids were tortured again, by Napoleons and dynamite, the SAT II, European history, sit still and study, kids, sit Moya, study the mistakes of tomorrow, today, Europe never changes, Moya, and so it is for these kids, they never change, look at the whiskey Moya, look at it, good, wait another minute more and I’ll buy you another, how will you pass the test, you must sit still, Moya, if you can’t sit still and look at a still whiskey, Moya, sit, use your special skill, your willpower, win at life for once, you drunk, you fool, no willpower, some have it from age five, apparently, ask your local academics, they know it, they know it, a kid who can say no to a marshmallow, it’s willpower, like a muscle, never mind the kid who might be poor or hungry, never mind the kid’s relationship with food, never mind the kids who only know having marshmallows taken away, a life of the empty fridge, a life of being told no, being told the family no longer qualifies, the empty fridge doesn’t qualify them for assistance, so better eat now, kid, before it gets taken away, never mind that kid, Moya, every call is last call, he’s five and knows more than you Moya, see here, up it goes, Moya, you should have drank it while you had it, drink up next time, Moya, unless you want to look at this empty glass, oh sit, sit back down, Moya, don’t worry, don’t be a child, Moya, you’re in the control group, he’s in the control group, oh fine, off you go, run another study, never mind that a kid without time to wait for a marshmallow probably can’t wait to study, either, or wait for a whiskey, because they can’t be late for the after-school work shift, come back, Moya, come sit and stare, Moya, show your willpower, some proof indeed, just a second more, Moya, and I’ll buy you two more…
Friday, July 6, 2018
leftovers #2… now, it’s interesting because, I mean, like, you know… right?
Here are my thoughts on some of the common verbal tics I highlighted in this recent post:
Now…
Now is the most powerful word on the above list – like a sharp elbow into the ribs of your conversation partner. A well-placed ‘now’ at the start of a sentence asserts almost full control of the ensuing moment, whether it is the continuation of the thought or merely an extended pause.
It’s interesting, because…
I see this expression commonly introduce opinions that are essentially being formed as the speaker talks. It buys time during a rambling explanation since ‘because’ suggests an explanation is always just around the corner.
I mean…
I’m of two minds here. It is likely the most common one on the list these days – it seems I can’t go five sentences anymore without someone actually meaning whatever they are about to say. ‘I mean’ seems to have a two-fold purpose: it denotes a tentative or in-progress thought while also inviting the listener to increase the pace of the back-and-forth in a conversation.
Like…
In evolutionary terms, ‘like’ is the predecessor to ‘I mean’ – they both signal that a speaker is wading into uncertain territory while also cranking up the pace of the conversation. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn ‘I mean’ came about purely to overcome some of the ditzy connotations associated with ‘like’.
You know…
This usually comes as a point is being wrapped up instead of introduced. A speaker who realizes that a line of thinking or the direction of conversation is reaching an open-ended point might start to lean on ‘you know’ with increasing frequency. Instead of asserting control in the way ‘now’ does, ‘you know’ actually gives away power in a conversation and invites someone else to take control of the next moment.
Right?
Those unimpressed by my non-committal stances on the tics above will be pleased to know that ‘right’ is my least favorite expression on the list. In fact, it’s the only one I dislike and I try to avoid using it whenever possible. It appears a favorite of those who expect all to agree with their every thought and I often find myself thinking 'no' each time I hear someone bark out 'right' in the general vicinity of my ears. I seem to run into it in business settings more so than in casual conversation.
When someone says right too often – either multiple times in a sentence, right, or to punctuate every thought, right, I start to wonder if I’m in a conversation, right, or being sold a used car, right, like I’m being asked to agree with something, right, that I don’t agree with, right, usually because I think it is untrue, right, right being similar to ‘you know’, right, but a little more assertive, right, if ‘you know’ is the equivalent, right, of asking permission to cut in line, right, then, right, right, is like honking the horn, right, at a pedestrian, right, while running a red light, right, right?
Well, maybe not, right?
Now…
Now is the most powerful word on the above list – like a sharp elbow into the ribs of your conversation partner. A well-placed ‘now’ at the start of a sentence asserts almost full control of the ensuing moment, whether it is the continuation of the thought or merely an extended pause.
It’s interesting, because…
I see this expression commonly introduce opinions that are essentially being formed as the speaker talks. It buys time during a rambling explanation since ‘because’ suggests an explanation is always just around the corner.
I mean…
I’m of two minds here. It is likely the most common one on the list these days – it seems I can’t go five sentences anymore without someone actually meaning whatever they are about to say. ‘I mean’ seems to have a two-fold purpose: it denotes a tentative or in-progress thought while also inviting the listener to increase the pace of the back-and-forth in a conversation.
Like…
In evolutionary terms, ‘like’ is the predecessor to ‘I mean’ – they both signal that a speaker is wading into uncertain territory while also cranking up the pace of the conversation. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn ‘I mean’ came about purely to overcome some of the ditzy connotations associated with ‘like’.
You know…
This usually comes as a point is being wrapped up instead of introduced. A speaker who realizes that a line of thinking or the direction of conversation is reaching an open-ended point might start to lean on ‘you know’ with increasing frequency. Instead of asserting control in the way ‘now’ does, ‘you know’ actually gives away power in a conversation and invites someone else to take control of the next moment.
Right?
Those unimpressed by my non-committal stances on the tics above will be pleased to know that ‘right’ is my least favorite expression on the list. In fact, it’s the only one I dislike and I try to avoid using it whenever possible. It appears a favorite of those who expect all to agree with their every thought and I often find myself thinking 'no' each time I hear someone bark out 'right' in the general vicinity of my ears. I seem to run into it in business settings more so than in casual conversation.
When someone says right too often – either multiple times in a sentence, right, or to punctuate every thought, right, I start to wonder if I’m in a conversation, right, or being sold a used car, right, like I’m being asked to agree with something, right, that I don’t agree with, right, usually because I think it is untrue, right, right being similar to ‘you know’, right, but a little more assertive, right, if ‘you know’ is the equivalent, right, of asking permission to cut in line, right, then, right, right, is like honking the horn, right, at a pedestrian, right, while running a red light, right, right?
Well, maybe not, right?
Thursday, July 5, 2018
leftovers #3: mythical man month - the subtlest managerial skill
First time managers who are accustomed to succeeding based on their understanding of ‘how’ will initially struggle to define ‘why’. Nowhere is this more evident than in how new managers commonly dismiss the importance of formal documentation. However, when it comes to running large projects, documentation is often proof for what is going well and can be the first indicator of trouble for what is about to go awry.
A formal document forces the writer to make the hundreds of previously ignored decisions that must be perfectly clear for clean documentation. This task demands discipline and focus. If done correctly, a formal document clarifies policy and brings clarity to uncertain areas. A manager who can document understands the plan and knows how to communicate it. Since a manager's role in general is to keep everyone going in the same direction on a project, the task of creating formal documents should fall to the manager.
The documentation process is also critical for how it forces managers to question designers and ask them to defend their decisions. This process might reveal important information that would otherwise have remained hidden from the manager. If project participants are reluctant to assist with documentation, for example, it suggests that decisions are tentative or that the organization itself is threatening some feature of the project. These are sure signs of impending failure because projects with tentative direction are in danger of becoming uncoordinated - the manager should use this information to take on a larger role in any of the project's coordination tasks.
If the project is run by an organization prone to sudden changes in vision, perhaps the reluctance of participants to help the manager is a signal that the organization will never maintain the focus, discipline, or patience needed to resolve every small issue that arises in the course of the project. A manager armed with this knowledge will be in better position to help guide the team around upcoming obstacles and keep progress on track despite any outside pressure, inertia, or impulse from the organization.
A formal document forces the writer to make the hundreds of previously ignored decisions that must be perfectly clear for clean documentation. This task demands discipline and focus. If done correctly, a formal document clarifies policy and brings clarity to uncertain areas. A manager who can document understands the plan and knows how to communicate it. Since a manager's role in general is to keep everyone going in the same direction on a project, the task of creating formal documents should fall to the manager.
The documentation process is also critical for how it forces managers to question designers and ask them to defend their decisions. This process might reveal important information that would otherwise have remained hidden from the manager. If project participants are reluctant to assist with documentation, for example, it suggests that decisions are tentative or that the organization itself is threatening some feature of the project. These are sure signs of impending failure because projects with tentative direction are in danger of becoming uncoordinated - the manager should use this information to take on a larger role in any of the project's coordination tasks.
If the project is run by an organization prone to sudden changes in vision, perhaps the reluctance of participants to help the manager is a signal that the organization will never maintain the focus, discipline, or patience needed to resolve every small issue that arises in the course of the project. A manager armed with this knowledge will be in better position to help guide the team around upcoming obstacles and keep progress on track despite any outside pressure, inertia, or impulse from the organization.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
happy fourth
Hi all,
Not much to go with today so I thought I'd make up for a light links section from the newsletter with some national anthem (National Anthem?) related materials.
But first, let's dig into one of life's great mysteries... what is TOA's favorite rendition of the anthem?
In general, I prefer the instrumental to the vocal, so a good candidate would seem to be Jimi Hendrix getting the guitar out for a few minutes back in 1969 at Woodstock.
However... I also prefer something a little more, er, straightforward, so I'll have to rule this contender out.
I'm sure there are some memorable instrumental versions out there that meet my 'straightforward' criteria. I think these examples from recent sporting events fit the bill - this one is a pure saxophone powerhouse while the trumpet-only attempt here sounds pretty good to my ear.
However... I must acknowledge that one of the great powers of the national anthem is how it encourages us all to sing along with it. Unfortunately, I don't think these versions quite bring that element of the anthem to life so these, too, I will pass on.
Now, as it regards the sing-along aspect, nothing is more important to me than others singing along. This is due to the reality of my singing voice - unlike TOA, it's probably better off as part of a chorus. Such criteria would suggest that perhaps this memorable rendition (go to the three minute mark) would be the big winner (and that's not counting the Boston points). If I wanted to go for more of a 'grassroots' version, we could even nominate this version that could've happened at any baseball field in oursoccer-hating country.
However... it's not possible for me to think about everyone singing at the same time and not remember that this is one of Canada's finest exports. There are so many examples to choose from that I can hardly say this is the best example but the audio came through pretty clean here so let's roll with it. And if you protest, reader, that this is the wrong anthem, well, let me point you to this rebuttal... when Canada has us beat, I say let's tip our cap, let them enjoy their rare victory, and go for something else.
OK, so maybe this is just a case where I get out the best possible version, right? This is America, after all, and if we aren't the best, we insist on it, or maybe we just say a solo effort beats a collective, so why not just go with the best solo version? After three minutes of furious research, I think Whitney Houston giving it a go at Super Bowl XXV seems like the consensus top choice out there on The Good Ol' Interwebs.
However... this is almost too much, I think. It's so good, it fails every criteria from above - the instrumentals aren't instrumental enough, there is a little too much flare and drama, and the sing along aspect... well, I mean, when Whitney Houston sings, my policy is to shut up and listen, you know? It would be embarrassing to be singing along, feeling all American and all, only to have my ears suddenly note the massive talent discrepancy in my voice and hers. So although this might be the best version out there, I can't crown it. Sorry...
No, loyal reader, I think the winner must be - and some would suggest, always was going to be - Marvin Gaye rolling back the clock at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game to give us this classic performance. It has everything I'm looking for - a significant but straightforward instrumental presence, a vocal performance that invites singing along, and a great moment of unity when the crowd begins to clap through the final words of the song.
Perhaps most importantly, it has what I promised at the top - links. If today gets slow for you, reader, take a break from your hot dog and have a look below.
Happy Fourth!
Tim
Footnotes / links, links... / endnote
0. The links we were all promised...
The Undefeated
Grantland
NPR
Rolling Stone
0a. You know it's gone too far...
The overdone performances - particularly those done prior to sporting events - were taken down a peg in this SNL sketch from 2006. It's one of those ideas that sounds better on paper than on screen, I think - sure, it would be funny to hear Maya Rudolph do a mockery of all those over the top renditions, but in reality is it all that funny to sit there for three minutes and actually listen to it? Sometimes, I think comedians like an idea so much that they can't let go of it even if the idea doesn't translate into a performance.
Not much to go with today so I thought I'd make up for a light links section from the newsletter with some national anthem (National Anthem?) related materials.
But first, let's dig into one of life's great mysteries... what is TOA's favorite rendition of the anthem?
In general, I prefer the instrumental to the vocal, so a good candidate would seem to be Jimi Hendrix getting the guitar out for a few minutes back in 1969 at Woodstock.
However... I also prefer something a little more, er, straightforward, so I'll have to rule this contender out.
I'm sure there are some memorable instrumental versions out there that meet my 'straightforward' criteria. I think these examples from recent sporting events fit the bill - this one is a pure saxophone powerhouse while the trumpet-only attempt here sounds pretty good to my ear.
However... I must acknowledge that one of the great powers of the national anthem is how it encourages us all to sing along with it. Unfortunately, I don't think these versions quite bring that element of the anthem to life so these, too, I will pass on.
Now, as it regards the sing-along aspect, nothing is more important to me than others singing along. This is due to the reality of my singing voice - unlike TOA, it's probably better off as part of a chorus. Such criteria would suggest that perhaps this memorable rendition (go to the three minute mark) would be the big winner (and that's not counting the Boston points). If I wanted to go for more of a 'grassroots' version, we could even nominate this version that could've happened at any baseball field in our
However... it's not possible for me to think about everyone singing at the same time and not remember that this is one of Canada's finest exports. There are so many examples to choose from that I can hardly say this is the best example but the audio came through pretty clean here so let's roll with it. And if you protest, reader, that this is the wrong anthem, well, let me point you to this rebuttal... when Canada has us beat, I say let's tip our cap, let them enjoy their rare victory, and go for something else.
OK, so maybe this is just a case where I get out the best possible version, right? This is America, after all, and if we aren't the best, we insist on it, or maybe we just say a solo effort beats a collective, so why not just go with the best solo version? After three minutes of furious research, I think Whitney Houston giving it a go at Super Bowl XXV seems like the consensus top choice out there on The Good Ol' Interwebs.
However... this is almost too much, I think. It's so good, it fails every criteria from above - the instrumentals aren't instrumental enough, there is a little too much flare and drama, and the sing along aspect... well, I mean, when Whitney Houston sings, my policy is to shut up and listen, you know? It would be embarrassing to be singing along, feeling all American and all, only to have my ears suddenly note the massive talent discrepancy in my voice and hers. So although this might be the best version out there, I can't crown it. Sorry...
No, loyal reader, I think the winner must be - and some would suggest, always was going to be - Marvin Gaye rolling back the clock at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game to give us this classic performance. It has everything I'm looking for - a significant but straightforward instrumental presence, a vocal performance that invites singing along, and a great moment of unity when the crowd begins to clap through the final words of the song.
Perhaps most importantly, it has what I promised at the top - links. If today gets slow for you, reader, take a break from your hot dog and have a look below.
Happy Fourth!
Tim
Footnotes / links, links... / endnote
0. The links we were all promised...
The Undefeated
Grantland
NPR
Rolling Stone
0a. You know it's gone too far...
The overdone performances - particularly those done prior to sporting events - were taken down a peg in this SNL sketch from 2006. It's one of those ideas that sounds better on paper than on screen, I think - sure, it would be funny to hear Maya Rudolph do a mockery of all those over the top renditions, but in reality is it all that funny to sit there for three minutes and actually listen to it? Sometimes, I think comedians like an idea so much that they can't let go of it even if the idea doesn't translate into a performance.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
the business bro presents - practice, not passion
Good morning,
I remember one time I got into a heated exchange with the analyst I trusted the most in my team. We were preparing for an upcoming job interview at the time of the argument. After reviewing the cover letter, resume, and our notes from the phone screen, we were preparing a final list of things we needed to learn about the candidate who was soon coming in. Our process was to first finalize this list of 'what we need to learn' before working together to craft questions targeted toward learning these details about the candidate.
As it had done occasionally in the past, the question of passion came up. Should we look for passion, should we seek an individual with passion, should we just ask outright why are you passionate for this job? And in the past I’d just said no, don’t ask about passion, and we’d always left it there. I’d gotten away without further explanation up until then, I think, because I usually gave clear reasoning for my other decisions. At this point, I'd earned my team's trust that if I made a quick decision without explaining, it was because there was simply no time to explain. But I guess I’d gone on long enough in this particular situation without explaining myself and my analyst rightfully decided it was time to demand an explanation for my thinking.
This, of course, was like ringing the bell before the heavyweight fight. I did not believe passion - passion - was important. In the team at the time, there were few people I would have described as passionate. The qualities that made them successful, I thought, had little to do with a burning desire (or lack thereof) to do any of the work we were responsible for - programming databases, analyzing data, and helping our auditors get the details right, all for the sake of improving healthcare.
My analyst disagreed. For him, without passion, there was no natural inertia toward improvement. Bringing in new hires with a drive to push themselves and the team was his most important goal for this hiring round.
We went back and forth on this for quite a long time. I will not go through a blow-by-blow account here, reader. The main point is the aftermath. In the process of airing our views, challenging each other, and defending our positions, we came to a unified midway point on the importance of passion at this stage of hiring.
Passion, we decided, was a baseline skill. It was important to care enough about the field, the company’s role, and the tools our team used to contribute to the organization. A candidate who did not have enough of it could not be allowed into the team. But this was a binary factor, merely a yes or no consideration. A candidate who boasted the quality in abundance was not a preferred candidate to someone who only had just enough passion to meet the baseline.
Instead of worrying about passion, we decided to worry about practice. Did the candidate try to get better at things? Did this practice happen outside the allotted time for learning, studying, or working? Did the candidate respond to an opportunity for improvement by putting in the all the time and effort required to get better? Practice, we thought, was a good way to measure the quality my analyst called passion without endangering us as a hiring team of being distracted by a candidate whose endless passion never quite translated into productive action.
This sounds silly to a degree. It even feels a little strange to write this down, years later, as a learning moment. I still wonder if I forced our team into a mistake. Isn’t passion the best thing a person could have? Maybe my analyst was right, maybe the best move would have been to simply ask – why are you passionate about this job? – and go with the first candidate whose response brought tears to my eyes.
However, I think the reason we went a different way holds up. Passion can be gamed. A candidate for any job could walk into the interview and recite a memorized script about how passionate he or she is about the given job. An inclination to practice is a little different. Describing how to practice is much tougher for people who never practice. Simply put, candidates who don't practice don't know how to talk about practice. The candidates who can relate experiences about practicing in exhaustive detail are not smooth-talking their way into a job because what they are talking about can only be learned through practice.
The idea of the passionate individual is, I think, a bit of a red herring. It is so obvious when someone has passion. The desire passionate people have to excel seems to bleed from their every pore. With someone who cares so much in the team, we think nothing could ever go wrong. But do we want the surgeon whose passion cannot be expressed in words or do we want the surgeon who puts in all the extra practice to master the craft? Do we want the fireman who cannot stand the very thought of a burning inferno or do we want the fireman who trained on aiming the hose until his arms were stiff and aching from exhaustion? It's possible that those who practice the most are also the most passionate, of course, but from my experience passion is hardly a strong predictor of who will practice.
Most successful people, I think, do not separate themselves from their competition because of their passion. They do so because they practice. The more I learn about these highest of performers, the less surprised I am to encounter stories about practice: the hours alone in the gym, the discipline to rise in the dark and start writing, the midnight oil burned away programming software. I’m sure their passionate competitors at home with their passionate feet up on the couch are thinking only of how much they want to succeed. These people might even want to succeed more than anyone else on the planet. But if they don't put in the practice, they're going to lose against someone who practiced, and it won't matter who cares more about the outcome.
The next time you are filling an open position, here is my humble suggestion: look for people who get better at things on their own time. I can’t claim to be an expert in the specifics of how to do this – it’s different for every job, I suspect – but figuring it out is probably your job, anyway.
Until next time, happy hiring.
Signed,
The Business Bro
I remember one time I got into a heated exchange with the analyst I trusted the most in my team. We were preparing for an upcoming job interview at the time of the argument. After reviewing the cover letter, resume, and our notes from the phone screen, we were preparing a final list of things we needed to learn about the candidate who was soon coming in. Our process was to first finalize this list of 'what we need to learn' before working together to craft questions targeted toward learning these details about the candidate.
As it had done occasionally in the past, the question of passion came up. Should we look for passion, should we seek an individual with passion, should we just ask outright why are you passionate for this job? And in the past I’d just said no, don’t ask about passion, and we’d always left it there. I’d gotten away without further explanation up until then, I think, because I usually gave clear reasoning for my other decisions. At this point, I'd earned my team's trust that if I made a quick decision without explaining, it was because there was simply no time to explain. But I guess I’d gone on long enough in this particular situation without explaining myself and my analyst rightfully decided it was time to demand an explanation for my thinking.
This, of course, was like ringing the bell before the heavyweight fight. I did not believe passion - passion - was important. In the team at the time, there were few people I would have described as passionate. The qualities that made them successful, I thought, had little to do with a burning desire (or lack thereof) to do any of the work we were responsible for - programming databases, analyzing data, and helping our auditors get the details right, all for the sake of improving healthcare.
My analyst disagreed. For him, without passion, there was no natural inertia toward improvement. Bringing in new hires with a drive to push themselves and the team was his most important goal for this hiring round.
We went back and forth on this for quite a long time. I will not go through a blow-by-blow account here, reader. The main point is the aftermath. In the process of airing our views, challenging each other, and defending our positions, we came to a unified midway point on the importance of passion at this stage of hiring.
Passion, we decided, was a baseline skill. It was important to care enough about the field, the company’s role, and the tools our team used to contribute to the organization. A candidate who did not have enough of it could not be allowed into the team. But this was a binary factor, merely a yes or no consideration. A candidate who boasted the quality in abundance was not a preferred candidate to someone who only had just enough passion to meet the baseline.
Instead of worrying about passion, we decided to worry about practice. Did the candidate try to get better at things? Did this practice happen outside the allotted time for learning, studying, or working? Did the candidate respond to an opportunity for improvement by putting in the all the time and effort required to get better? Practice, we thought, was a good way to measure the quality my analyst called passion without endangering us as a hiring team of being distracted by a candidate whose endless passion never quite translated into productive action.
This sounds silly to a degree. It even feels a little strange to write this down, years later, as a learning moment. I still wonder if I forced our team into a mistake. Isn’t passion the best thing a person could have? Maybe my analyst was right, maybe the best move would have been to simply ask – why are you passionate about this job? – and go with the first candidate whose response brought tears to my eyes.
However, I think the reason we went a different way holds up. Passion can be gamed. A candidate for any job could walk into the interview and recite a memorized script about how passionate he or she is about the given job. An inclination to practice is a little different. Describing how to practice is much tougher for people who never practice. Simply put, candidates who don't practice don't know how to talk about practice. The candidates who can relate experiences about practicing in exhaustive detail are not smooth-talking their way into a job because what they are talking about can only be learned through practice.
The idea of the passionate individual is, I think, a bit of a red herring. It is so obvious when someone has passion. The desire passionate people have to excel seems to bleed from their every pore. With someone who cares so much in the team, we think nothing could ever go wrong. But do we want the surgeon whose passion cannot be expressed in words or do we want the surgeon who puts in all the extra practice to master the craft? Do we want the fireman who cannot stand the very thought of a burning inferno or do we want the fireman who trained on aiming the hose until his arms were stiff and aching from exhaustion? It's possible that those who practice the most are also the most passionate, of course, but from my experience passion is hardly a strong predictor of who will practice.
Most successful people, I think, do not separate themselves from their competition because of their passion. They do so because they practice. The more I learn about these highest of performers, the less surprised I am to encounter stories about practice: the hours alone in the gym, the discipline to rise in the dark and start writing, the midnight oil burned away programming software. I’m sure their passionate competitors at home with their passionate feet up on the couch are thinking only of how much they want to succeed. These people might even want to succeed more than anyone else on the planet. But if they don't put in the practice, they're going to lose against someone who practiced, and it won't matter who cares more about the outcome.
The next time you are filling an open position, here is my humble suggestion: look for people who get better at things on their own time. I can’t claim to be an expert in the specifics of how to do this – it’s different for every job, I suspect – but figuring it out is probably your job, anyway.
Until next time, happy hiring.
Signed,
The Business Bro
Sunday, July 1, 2018
the toa newsletter - july 2018
Loyal reader – welcome to July! If March is in like a lion and out like a lamb, then July must be in like a… warm pizza… and out like a… burnt pizza? Whatever, I’ll keep working on that, but the point is: once the weather gets really hot, I get really annoyed.
Since there is so little to look forward to, let’s use today's time by having a look back.
Updating previous items, part one – proofreading rules of thumb
I started the June newsletter with my ‘writing rules of thumb’. Of course, in terms of a TOA post, writing is only half the battle. In the editing and proofreading stage, I try to keep my mind on the following basic ideas:
This could turn into one of those fabled TOA ten thousand word posts if I’m not careful so let’s try a one-sentence review of U2’s concert at the TD Garden:
I write this on the morning of June 24, just a couple of hours before Japan takes the field against Senegal with its biggest soccer opportunity since blowing a penalty shootout again Paraguay in the 2010 tournament – with a win, Japan is sure to advance out of the group stage. I put the odds at 25% chance of a fluke win, a 50% chance of a humiliating loss, and a 25% chance I have a heart attack while yelling ‘HONDAAAAA!!!!!’.
With just about two-thirds of the group stage completed, here are two-thirds of my impressions of the action thus far:
1) It’s the right time to expand the tournament.
I was always against this as a matter of principle but after noting the long list of recent World Cup fixtures missing from this tournament – Italy, Netherlands, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, USA – and noting how well almost every team at the tournament is performing thus far, I think a bump to 40 or even 48 teams is feasible without losing any of the quality in the competition.
2) This tournament is wide open.
Of the top favorites, no one has strung together two good performances. Hipster favorites Belgium and Croatia have looked strong while traditional dark horses Uruguay, Switzerland, and Mexico have all looked up for the fight. Brazil, Germany, and Columbia were top teams in 2014 and should not be counted out while France was a finalist at Euro 2016 and could get going. I think any team can win this (except Japan) and it is going to be a sensational knockout round.
Updating previous items (sort of), part four – hubway steals my idea?
The recently renamed Hubway is rolling out a new rewards-style program called ‘Bike Angels’ to encourage riders to balance out full or empty racks. This works via a rewards points system for members who take bikes out of full racks or dock bikes at empty racks.
Coincidentally, this program works exactly like an idea I emailed them about a year ago during their annual member survey.
Updating previous items, part five – workplace behavior
I’ve officially given up on drying my hands after washing them. The realization came soon after I resumed working when I noticed the mountains of paper towels piling up in the bathroom waste bin after my colleagues patted their just-washed hands dry with 37% of the material. The amount of waste was simply staggering and eventually I think it broke my green heart and led to my new behavior. These days, I just walk out of the bathroom with wet hands that dry naturally by the time I get back to my desk.
Are air dryers the option for me? I don’t think so. I never quite got the hang of using the air dryers and I don’t think the twenty seconds I spend standing there thinking about global warming while rubbing my hands under the jet of warm air is worth having my hands dry thirty seconds faster than if I simply let them dry naturally.
Updating previous items, part six – TOA book of the year
Ummm… I’ve been too busy watching the World Cup to look at this… maybe next time?
I see… so anything new this month?
Not really – see ‘part six’ above. I haven’t got much done around these parts in June.
Well, can you at least finish the third World Cup impression from earlier?
Sure, boss…
3) I think the winning team will have two characteristics.
First, whoever wins must have a goal scorer capable of reliably capitalizing on those lucky breaks that come a team’s way once or twice during a game. Second, the winning team should have a dominant goalie or defender who can clear the danger in such moments (in other words, a player who can counteract the effect of the first type of player). In such a tight tournament, the margins between winning and losing are so narrow that having players who can reliably capitalize on luck might make the difference.
The top nations generally have these players with perhaps France and Brazil best fitting the bill. Breaking news: this is why they always win. Among the dark horses, I think Croatia is the best example. Some of the other countries have one or the other which means they might win a game or two but are unlikely to win in four straight knockout rounds without falling victim to some fluke incident that everyone talks about for the next fifty years.
OK, so obviously this newsletter is light because of the World Cup… I’d thought you would have blamed U2, at least…
Hey, four Irish dudes, they are probably into the tournament more than I am.
I was going to ask if you left the apartment, but obviously, with the exception of U2, probably not…
It’s been a slow month.
No links this month, then?
Well, to bring it all together, I suppose, here’s the video ABC put together after the 2006 tournament. It’s basically a lazy highlight reel set to ‘One’ which is probably U2’s best song.
At the time, I didn’t realize ABC had cut the song down by 20%. And when I rewatched it just now, I realized the 2006 tournament wasn’t very good – the quality of the games has really improved in just twelve years. Somehow, though, after that summer I got into both U2 and soccer, so maybe this mediocre video had something to do with it.
The strange thing is that if I were thirty when that 2006 tournament rolled around, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into soccer or U2.
Anything else?
Let’s wrap up by… finally… looking ahead a bit.
As longtime readers know, I’ve tinkered with the TOA format to an unfathomable degree over the past two and a half years. In those experiments, I’ve learned a few things that I think should form the foundation of how I organize the schedule:
The second change will be the end of Sundays as an exclusive ‘reading review’ day. I guess today is the first example of this change. The reason for this adjustment is simple – Sundays are a good day for longer posts but not all the reading reviews are very long. Although I will continue to favor posting reading reviews on Sundays, I’ll probably opt for something else if I have a long post ready to go.
There is also a big change coming - I think we'll get back to daily posts. Not yet, but soon. More to come on that one, I'm sure.
Thanks for reading in the first half of 2018.
See you in July.
Tim
In the next month of... True On Average...
1. We learn how I put people to sleep.
2. Twenty percent inflation at Subway!
3. Some remarks on a ten year anniversary... maybe?
Since there is so little to look forward to, let’s use today's time by having a look back.
Updating previous items, part one – proofreading rules of thumb
I started the June newsletter with my ‘writing rules of thumb’. Of course, in terms of a TOA post, writing is only half the battle. In the editing and proofreading stage, I try to keep my mind on the following basic ideas:
*Uhhh... do I need this adverb?Updating previous items, part (u)2 – concert review
*Is this pronoun clear?
*A subject must do things!
This could turn into one of those fabled TOA ten thousand word posts if I’m not careful so let’s try a one-sentence review of U2’s concert at the TD Garden:
I’m definitely going back. -TOAUpdating previous items, part three – world cup update
I write this on the morning of June 24, just a couple of hours before Japan takes the field against Senegal with its biggest soccer opportunity since blowing a penalty shootout again Paraguay in the 2010 tournament – with a win, Japan is sure to advance out of the group stage. I put the odds at 25% chance of a fluke win, a 50% chance of a humiliating loss, and a 25% chance I have a heart attack while yelling ‘HONDAAAAA!!!!!’.
With just about two-thirds of the group stage completed, here are two-thirds of my impressions of the action thus far:
1) It’s the right time to expand the tournament.
I was always against this as a matter of principle but after noting the long list of recent World Cup fixtures missing from this tournament – Italy, Netherlands, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, USA – and noting how well almost every team at the tournament is performing thus far, I think a bump to 40 or even 48 teams is feasible without losing any of the quality in the competition.
2) This tournament is wide open.
Of the top favorites, no one has strung together two good performances. Hipster favorites Belgium and Croatia have looked strong while traditional dark horses Uruguay, Switzerland, and Mexico have all looked up for the fight. Brazil, Germany, and Columbia were top teams in 2014 and should not be counted out while France was a finalist at Euro 2016 and could get going. I think any team can win this (except Japan) and it is going to be a sensational knockout round.
Updating previous items (sort of), part four – hubway steals my idea?
The recently renamed Hubway is rolling out a new rewards-style program called ‘Bike Angels’ to encourage riders to balance out full or empty racks. This works via a rewards points system for members who take bikes out of full racks or dock bikes at empty racks.
Coincidentally, this program works exactly like an idea I emailed them about a year ago during their annual member survey.
Updating previous items, part five – workplace behavior
I’ve officially given up on drying my hands after washing them. The realization came soon after I resumed working when I noticed the mountains of paper towels piling up in the bathroom waste bin after my colleagues patted their just-washed hands dry with 37% of the material. The amount of waste was simply staggering and eventually I think it broke my green heart and led to my new behavior. These days, I just walk out of the bathroom with wet hands that dry naturally by the time I get back to my desk.
Are air dryers the option for me? I don’t think so. I never quite got the hang of using the air dryers and I don’t think the twenty seconds I spend standing there thinking about global warming while rubbing my hands under the jet of warm air is worth having my hands dry thirty seconds faster than if I simply let them dry naturally.
Updating previous items, part six – TOA book of the year
Ummm… I’ve been too busy watching the World Cup to look at this… maybe next time?
I see… so anything new this month?
Not really – see ‘part six’ above. I haven’t got much done around these parts in June.
Well, can you at least finish the third World Cup impression from earlier?
Sure, boss…
3) I think the winning team will have two characteristics.
First, whoever wins must have a goal scorer capable of reliably capitalizing on those lucky breaks that come a team’s way once or twice during a game. Second, the winning team should have a dominant goalie or defender who can clear the danger in such moments (in other words, a player who can counteract the effect of the first type of player). In such a tight tournament, the margins between winning and losing are so narrow that having players who can reliably capitalize on luck might make the difference.
The top nations generally have these players with perhaps France and Brazil best fitting the bill. Breaking news: this is why they always win. Among the dark horses, I think Croatia is the best example. Some of the other countries have one or the other which means they might win a game or two but are unlikely to win in four straight knockout rounds without falling victim to some fluke incident that everyone talks about for the next fifty years.
OK, so obviously this newsletter is light because of the World Cup… I’d thought you would have blamed U2, at least…
Hey, four Irish dudes, they are probably into the tournament more than I am.
I was going to ask if you left the apartment, but obviously, with the exception of U2, probably not…
It’s been a slow month.
No links this month, then?
Well, to bring it all together, I suppose, here’s the video ABC put together after the 2006 tournament. It’s basically a lazy highlight reel set to ‘One’ which is probably U2’s best song.
At the time, I didn’t realize ABC had cut the song down by 20%. And when I rewatched it just now, I realized the 2006 tournament wasn’t very good – the quality of the games has really improved in just twelve years. Somehow, though, after that summer I got into both U2 and soccer, so maybe this mediocre video had something to do with it.
The strange thing is that if I were thirty when that 2006 tournament rolled around, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into soccer or U2.
Anything else?
Let’s wrap up by… finally… looking ahead a bit.
As longtime readers know, I’ve tinkered with the TOA format to an unfathomable degree over the past two and a half years. In those experiments, I’ve learned a few things that I think should form the foundation of how I organize the schedule:
a) Readers prefer short, daily posts to infrequent long postsTranslating these into basic rules of thumb for the blog schedule:
b) Readers like long posts more than short posts
c) Readers think Sundays are a good day for longer posts
d) Readers have a weekly word limit before they'll give up on TOA
a) Go back to daily postsBringing all of this together, I anticipate two small changes coming to TOA over the next couple of months. First, short posts (anything under five hundred words) will come after any long post and the length of the long post will determine the number of consecutive days I’ll have with a short post. For now, I think every five hundred words or so would mean one day of short posts (if I write a two thousand word post, the next four posts would all be under five hundred words).
b) Continue to write long posts
c) Make decisions about Sundays based on word count
d) Keep an eye on the weekly word count
The second change will be the end of Sundays as an exclusive ‘reading review’ day. I guess today is the first example of this change. The reason for this adjustment is simple – Sundays are a good day for longer posts but not all the reading reviews are very long. Although I will continue to favor posting reading reviews on Sundays, I’ll probably opt for something else if I have a long post ready to go.
There is also a big change coming - I think we'll get back to daily posts. Not yet, but soon. More to come on that one, I'm sure.
Thanks for reading in the first half of 2018.
See you in July.
Tim
In the next month of... True On Average...
1. We learn how I put people to sleep.
2. Twenty percent inflation at Subway!
3. Some remarks on a ten year anniversary... maybe?
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