proper corona admin, vol 97: tales of two cities - protecting the line

I have my bike helmet in hand when I run into my neighbor. It's a colder than usual winter day, a high of twenty-three degrees, but I intend to avoid the subway if at all possible. I keep this fact to myself because I sense further elaboration would only lead to additional questions, and I'm becoming uneasy - I cannot be late today.

01/31/2021

Charles Circle - Charles St at Cambridge St (3:42 PM)

Charles Circle - Charles St at Cambridge St (3:42 PM)

There is nothing visibly wrong with the first bike, but when I unlock it and start to pedal I find a problem - it's permanently stuck in the lowest gear. I fiddle with the knob, a token gesture, before returning the bike and pressing the "repair" button. This locks the bike in place until a technician can fix it; the simple solution prevents one problem from causing multiple issues. I am now, almost certainly, running late.

The clock started when a quiet Tuesday morning exploded into chaos, one email, another email, then a flurry of responses and chat messages, with all roads leading to a Zoom meeting optimistically allocated thirty minutes. The agenda covered the logistics of the scheduling tool, which seemed intuitive enough; simplicity is the key for the masses, but nothing is so simple. The final few minutes were preserved for questions and the two hundred or so in the virtual audience demonstrated that complexity is a matter of individuals expressing narrower concerns. Did we get to choose the manufacturer? Was the vaccine safe for pregnant women? Would there be three or four weeks between shots? Would there be additional vaccination opportunities in the future? One question was so far over my head (about amino acids, I think) that I stopped listening to the answer just to preserve my mental energy. After almost a half hour of questions, the assembly fell into silence, and the host capitalized on the quiet to end the call. 

I didn't have time to ask my question - why us? It felt like someone had made a mistake. I sporadically checked public sources over the next few hours to confirm what I'd learned on that chaotic morning - the state had declared all hospital employees eligible for the vaccine, from the front-line ICU staff down to this idiot, the one writing this sentence you are reading, and hoping will end; I've been in my remote "office" for twenty-two hours a day for the past ten months. There are some mysteries in life, but my place in line wasn't one of them, or so I'd thought. I repeatedly returned to the state's website but its list of eligible categories remained frozen with yesterday's news, and only furthered my suspicion - the closest category to me was "home-based health care worker", which based on the rest of the site seemed interchangeable with "health care workers providing care in the home"; the former kept me in the race, the latter put me out of the running. I decided that the most sensible approach would be to take the latest available appointment - it gave the governor as much time as possible to issue a stay of execution. I confirmed the timeslot and waited for the inevitable follow up - sorry, there was a mistake, please see below.

It never came, so my turn is at 4:50 PM on Sunday. Fate has just over an hour to put me back into line.

01/31/2021

Charles Circle - Charles St at Cambridge St (3:43 PM)

Dartmouth St at Newbury St (3:52 PM)

The next bike is geared for the task and I take off down Charles Street toward the hospital. It's an opportunity to take advantage of a new bike lane that rings the Public Garden, which eliminates the senseless danger of maneuvering through four lanes of Beacon Street traffic en route to Comm Ave. These bike lanes popped up earlier on in the pandemic on a temporary basis, but recent upgrades suggest the safety is part of the furniture now; it's hard to envision anyone making a compelling case to return these streets to the 2019 setup. The only issue with the new lanes is pedestrians - they sense that the protection afforded to bikes for some reason extends to them, and they let their guard down as they wander to and from their parked vehicles, oblivious to the danger presented by cyclists. Or maybe, it's the cyclist who remains oblivious to the meaning of protection - with cars excluded from the lane, we are now able to stop without fear of being run over from behind.

My itinerary includes a short detour to the library, a stop I consider postponing due to my time concerns - I suspect there may be some leeway for late arrivals, but there are no options when you miss the the last train. Still, I decide to stick with the schedule; my backpack is heavy with overdue books. I dock the bike, walk to the library, and discover that it's closed on Sundays. No matter, there is a simple solution. I walk over to the drop-off bin, take off my mittens, and unpack the bag. The books feel like ice cubes on my exposed fingers. I push on the lid but it, too, is frozen. I try again, trying to force one book in by using Heating & Cooling like an ice pick; I catch the book as it falls back out. There is no ice; the bin is full.

Copley Square - Dartmouth St at Boylston St (4:02 PM)

Longwood Ave at Binney St (4:19 PM)

I am realizing that it's been a long time since I've had any kind of day out - I have no sense of how long it takes to ride a bike from my apartment to the hospital. Luckily, the error is in my favor, and I arrive thirty minutes early. The instructions were explicit - please check-in within ten minutes of your scheduled time - so I take a twenty-minute walk around the campus. As I make my last turn, I see a man on the opposite side running frantically down the block - running late, I assume - from door to door, trying one locked entrance after another; the hospital, like the library, is closed on Sundays. Luckily for him, the unlocked door for the vaccination clinic is at the end of the block on his side of the street, and eventually he makes it there through some combination of desperation, fortune, and the process of elimination. I follow him inside but lose him at the elevators, opting to wait until I can take my own car up to the third floor.

The clinic is in the dining area, which has been converted for the weekend. The rows of staff seated behind plexiglass protectors reminds me of customs on the American side of Niagara Falls; the stern request to wait when I'm about to step forward cements the comparison. I look behind me and find one colleague in line, who I haven't seen in a year - she's also the only one maintaining six feet of distance. I wave, then turn back just as the late man from earlier zips past, almost clipping me with his elbow as he exits. Eventually, the person in charge emerges, who also happens to have run the call a few days earlier - she explains that due to some mix-up, they haven't prepared enough doses, so we'll need to come back on another day. There are appointments available on Thursday, which is news to me; I'd have preferred it from the start. There are no other options. The scheduling tool is the same as before, but I accept the offer of help in setting the new time just so I don't have to go near the others sitting by the computer. I think about the security guard who, seeing me freeze at the overflowing bin, unlocked the library doors and offered to take the books inside.

As I linger in the vicinity, someone asks me if I can take a picture of their small group. I finally realize that everyone here is protected; it would be too risky otherwise. The scene around me is pretty much what you'd expect when a roomful of people realize the mission is accomplished - there is relief and joy, there are pockets of celebration, there are exposed nostrils. There is that sense of teamwork and community that I can still recognize from a distance, even if it's been years since I've felt it myself. It's like that moment when the engine shuts off and everyone steps out of the car, the group reinforcing safety, blissfully unaware of any potential threats. Is a protected space about safety, or is it just where we put our guard down? We couldn't get everyone to stop, and now we can't get everyone to go; it's a complicated situation, but not everything needs to be complicated.

I take the phone and snap the picture. We've all gotten what we wanted today, I suppose. I hand over the phone, forget about my individual concerns, and share an elevator on the ride down to the lobby. I am back in line; it's simpler that way.

reading review - the cross of redemption

I've mentioned this collection, which includes essays, articles, and talks spanning a range of nearly four decades, at various points over the past few months - in August, about grammar; in December, about American traditions; and on Tuesday, when I highlighted my favorite chapter from the book. The logical conclusion of all this attention is that I thought highly of the book; the oddsmakers tracking the TOA Book of the Year board would be advised to place it among the favorites.

The Cross of Redemption by James Baldwin (October 2020)

The pieces in this collection are not of the same standard associated with Baldwin's acclaimed work, though I hardly mean to suggest that these are rough drafts - it's more like the difference between a studio album and a concert performance. The quality I enjoy in live recordings comes through at times in this collection - I see the artist working rather than see the artist's work, and one of the rewards of this read is discovering the connection between a given topic and the larger themes of both this and Baldwin's work. But what I'll remember about The Cross of Redemption ten years from now was my realization that this collection spoke with more clarity and insight about 2020 than did most of what I read or heard throughout the year.

TOA Rating: Four out of four

In addition to the previously linked essay, I reread "Sidney Poitier" from this collection. The book was also fruitful in terms of recommended reading - I added both Soledad Brother by George Jackson and Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether to my future reading list. My book notes are here.

repost: the essay of the year

Hi reader,

Email subscribers may have noticed that Tuesday's post didn't distribute correctly, so here it is again - click here (or follow the full path below, if you are one of those "phishing vigilant" types):

https://www.trueonaverage.com/2021/02/the-essay-of-year.html

See you tomorrow!

reading review - life hacks (riff off, awards show)

If you search "life hacks" you get a stack of results, so I'll include a rare clarification for today's review - it's this book, a list of one thousand tips. The structure presents unusual challenges for the TOA reading review protocol - sharing even my book notes seems like a potential copyright violation, since I merely copied out the most useful tips.

What I'll do instead is a variant on the classic TOA riff off - I'll hand out an award to a few tips and share some additional thoughts. As usual, the line from my book notes is in italics.

Life Hacks by Keith Bradford (February 2020)

I suppose before I launch into the gimmick that I should comment on the book. Look, if you open a book of one thousand tips and expect each one of them to contain the infinite wisdom of this day and age then, well, I can't help you (but you may find your soul mate somewhere in the complaints/comments section of that above-linked page). I suggest going through Life Hacks a few pages at a time, noting down a useful thought or two along the way, as the best approach for a productive read.

OK - drumroll please...

The Go To A Concert and Hold Up Your Phone The Whole Time Award - Online comments (Foursquare) can help find the Wi-Fi passwords for many public locations.

The millennials are a resourceful bunch, but sometimes their desire to solve problems with unnecessarily clever solutions leads me to wonder how I can renounce my membership in this group. In this case, I wonder why using the internet (to which you might not even have access, by the assumption embedded in the tip) is considered a better idea than walking up to someone and asking for the password - it's surely a much faster process than scrolling through comments sections.

The Most Applicable to TOA Award - 'site:' specifies how Google will look for your search term.

I intend to update TOA soon with a search tool, but the temporary solution takes advantage of the above. For example, if you want to read everything I've ever written about Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, copy and paste the following into the Google search bar:

site:trueonaverage.com "klopp"

To search for anything else on the site, just enter a different search term within the quotes.

The Inspired A Better Hack Award - Toilet paper rolls can become iPhone speakers with a quick slice down the middle.

I don't have an iPhone but I do have a speaker, which I amplified by placing it inside an empty cardboard box (originally a twelve-pack of Harpoon Winter Warmer).

The Advice Others Will Dismiss Out of Hand Award - Run a spoon under hot water to prepare for scooping brick-frozen ice cream.

It just seems like the ice cream culture has reached a point where you fall into one of two camps - either you overprepare by leaving the ice cream out "to thaw" (which means it's not "ice" cream anymore, is it) or you indulge in the pageantry of straining a deltoid as you try to force the spoon a centimeter or two into the sugar-brick hood-ness of the classic dessert.

The Stolen Advice Award - Relaxation technique - exhale completely, inhale for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, exhale for eight seconds.

I have been sharing this one for years with anyone who steered our conversation toward this topic - in fact, in the past year a loyal reader got back in touch and mentioned that he still uses this from time to time whenever he is having some trouble falling asleep.

The Arbitrary Misuse of Statistics Award - Laughing for fifteen minutes is as healthy as sleeping for two hours.

Where do I begin trying to untangle this mess of a tip? Look, I don't care if Mitch Hedberg himself walks into the room and says he hasn't slept for ten days because that would be too long - if I'm exhausted the healthiest remedy is a bit of sleep; any room can be the bedroom.

The Arrested Development Memorial Award for Blatant Product Placement - Toothpaste left overnight on a pimple will help it vanish.

I don't need a PhD from Colgate University to figure this one out - someone explain to me why there is such a thing as the $4 billion acne treatment industry if the solution is to dab a little toothpaste on a zit.

The Spirit of the Hacker Award - Redbox offers a discounted second movie if you add two intially then remove one before checkout.

Honorable Mention: Pushing back the date on your computer can extend certain free trials.

Paul Graham defines a "hacker" as someone who can get a computer to do what he or she wants it to do. The problem with following the kind of advice listed here is that these software bugs are likely repaired as soon as they become popular, but it's the spirit of the thinking that contains the value of these tips.

The Forgotten Base Rate Award - A good lie should include an embarrassing personal detail.

This one has that truthiness quality to it, but I can confirm from decades of telling little fibs that most people believe everything; a good lie is simply a bad lie with "just kidding" left on the cutting room floor.

The You Knew It All Along Award - All I have shared, and all I have loved, is all I'll ever own.

The premise of Life Hacks is that we can all live better if we arm ourselves with the right tools - knowledge, curiosity, tenacity - which allow us to treat the trials and tribulations of daily life with a healthy perspective: they are like fun puzzles, testing our problem-solving skills, rather than the root cause of our eternal despair. But at the end of the day, the big questions remain, and the answers aren't listed neatly in a book. The fortunate aspect of this otherwise demoralizing situation is that deep down, we know the truth - it's all that we share, all that we give away, with love being the greatest...

...what?

OK, fine.

This isn't from Life Hacks, it's from the Muse song "Something Human". And don't give me that look - if you've been here before, you know how these riff-offs end; you knew it all along.

Thanks for reading, back on Friday.

the essay of the year

In my book notes for James Baldwin's The Cross of Redemption, I wrote that the chapter "The Artist's Struggle for Integrity" was (perhaps) the best essay I read all year. I don't have any formal mechanism for tracking this sort of thing; I suppose I'll just take my word for it.

The essay in question was originally delivered as a talk in the fall of 1962. Based on a quick search online, it seems like the talk is posted in its entirety. Those who prefer to read about it (but remain unwilling to open the collection mentioned above) can check out this post about it on Brain Pickings.

2020 toa awards - 10 for 10 (part 2)

Hi reader,

Back with part two of the annual "10 for 10" exercise, which I started last week.

Quick note from behind the curtain - I renamed last week's post to follow the convention from last year. My apologies if this causes any kind of chaos with links, repeat email alerts, etc.

Also, for those expecting a more substantial Sunday offering, I recommend following the links in the final section below.

Ten songs (not new) that (I think) I started enjoying this year

Chvrches - "Forever"

Hermitude ft. Jaugar Jonze - "Heart-Shaped Box"

Norah Jones - "Patience"

Of Monsters and Men - "Visitor"

Of Monsters and Men - "Circles"

Mos Def - "Mathematics"

Muse - "Reapers"

Muse - "Apocalypse Please"

U2 - "The Wanderer"

U2 - "Original of the Species"

Ten actual TOA quotes from 2020

1) "Best case, the data scientists of 3030 will consider these missives an important 'artifact' or 'fossil' or whatever word becomes equivalent to 'cave drawings'." (1)

2) "With a good alternative available, it’s not hard to imagine a time a few decades in the future when people who still eat meat are regarded as that era’s racists."

3) "I had no time, so I just said, ‘why not add one billion points if you have a YES?’ and went back to my desk." 

4) "It's true, when greed is the cause, you often don't have a choice, and when greedy companies recreate the Icarus tale in their Endless Pursuit Of More, the layoff is when the wax starts raining down from the sun."

5) "But there’s something about them that is deeply affecting, the same way I feel when I listen to Nirvana or Avicii, the same way I know is true for the bands and artists that pay tribute to these performers, and I wonder if the hint is in those drums, the mastery and the potential in each beat, the knowledge that making the right sound wasn’t enough to drown out the noise, and the urgency of getting in every last note before the song ended."

6) "First, as I noted on Sunday, don't come here expecting any insight into the pandemic."

7) "But sometimes it's the road itself that changes, a sudden curve appearing in the blink of an eye, and we move in a new, unexpected direction, the surprise unfolding ahead, the unrecognized image in the mirror, forever humming the same tune, with no choice but to remain loyal to the path we've traveled all along."

8) "Spain recently ended an eight week period where citizens were allowed outside for only three activities - buying food, picking up medicine, or... walking the dog. Walking the dog!?! The most dangerous trip is perro-less."

9) "Pascal seemed pretty smart, maybe even smarter than me. I'm sure he would have seen this problem with technology, and said something immortal about it - all of technology's problems stem from their insistence that there is no need to ever sit quietly in a room, alone."

10) "Worst case, I become this era's Pillow Book."

Notes / Footnotes

(1) "I count the words in footnotes for the word count, don't you worry reader."

Come on, one more!

No.

One more!

No.

Booooooooo!

Fine.

11) "I think in some ways the surest sign of something good is a big pile of stuff that would otherwise survive in 99% of my writing. I could go on, but I fear I would make my point."

Ten spending increases

Internet

Streaming TV

Cheese

Beer (from liquor stores)

Bandannas

Running shoes

Tips

Takeout

Patreon memberships

Library fines*

Notes

The first four are in their own ways pandemic necessities but I don't anticipate having any problems scaling down my spending when I hang up my mask... I may continue replenishing my bandanna supply thanks to their value as workout accessories... Running shoes means Altra Running, which I'm happy to support for life thanks to their indispensable role in my managing a self-diagnosed Morton's neuroma... Unlike the opening quartet, the next three items are likely to remain part of the long-term budget... The asterisk denotes that these fines were not charged, so technically I didn't "spend" what I assume would otherwise have been several thousand dollars in late fees.

Ten topics for TOA that I don't have any idea how to write about

1. People who read books so they can disagree with the author

2. Gini Wijnaldum's contract

3. Honesty is important because you can't always be honest

4. If you give people the means, they will try to prevent issues

5. Willing to look dumb is a skill

6. Suburban office parks are doomed

7. People will try meditation before simply slowing down, like strolling instead of walking, or eating at half-speed

8. Areas restricted for smoking encourage smoking

9. Legacy work requires distance to prevent people from lying to you

10. Americans who care more about the world than the country

Notes

What do you want from me? If I had something to say, these wouldn't be on the list, right?

Ten posts I'll use to summarize my pandemic

1) One of the strangest things in the beginning was the formulaic way organizations communicated to every single email address they had on file.

2) Three months after I posted it, my worst fears came true (social distancing was the marshmallow test, or something).

3) I suspect a few years from now a lot of people will forget that it took over a month before local governments even suggested wearing a mask in public.

4) If I had to make a prediction, I would bet that the Beacon Hill bagpiper returns this spring and becomes a permanent fixture in the neighborhood; I stand by my post, but I know now that this type of outdoor activity (anything short of 'spin the bottle', really) has little risk of increasing spread.

5) The first thing I thought about this week when I heard Rush Limbaugh passed was the way he insisted COVID-19 was the common cold; I think it was a year ago today.

6) Game theory is a complex subject, but there is nothing challenging about its application to the pandemic. I'm still ducking around unmasked passersby, and I might hold off on indoor dining until 2022.

7) I should have written "the holidays", but I'll take credit for getting the spirit of the idea.

8) This also happened with someone who wanted me to use his phone to take a picture of his family; I didn't feel bad at all about saying no to him. 

9) I am optimistic about the problem I described here - I have seen people point out the inequities of the vaccine distribution process without wasting time linking it into the tangled web of capitalist propaganda.

10) The nonsense continues - the recent story is that "double masking" makes for more effective protection, and we should of course do all we can to slow the spread. But there is a simple fact - no mask in the world is better than staying six feet away. I see these recommendations as being intended for the heroes who have no choice, but it seems like there is always someone out there who wants to use it as an excuse to brush past within six feet of me.

And that's it?

That's it.

Kind of an anti-climactic ending?

What? Why would it end? It isn't over. Keep your mask on, keep your distance, and keep pushing - we're almost there, but it's not over.

And for those who keep reading - thank you.

slurred speech

We should stop using sexist slurs, and since we includes everybody, that includes Dave Chappelle. I don't bring this up to detract from any of his work, especially the "8:46" special that initially prompted my reaction - it's deserving of every one of its seemingly endless accolades; we includes everybody. But it struck me as I watched that the way he used certain language in it is, if not commonplace, at least recognizable, and the fact that his word choice proved no detriment to how the performance was received reflects the broader misogyny in our culture. 

I do not feel compelled to explain why we should stop using these slurs, with the main reason being that others have already done so; the lesser consideration is that it should be self-evident, but perhaps this is not the case - sexist language remains tolerated at a time when someone can be fired for using slurs referencing another's race or ethnicity. Again, it reflects the culture. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke out regarding such language because she knew silence would imply acceptance, and that acceptance would enable the culture, which would allow the slurs directed at her on the steps of the Capitol to go - and continue to go - unpunished. I do feel the culture is changing, gradually - stopping to articulate the problem so that others understand how serious it is, precisely, is slow work, but it's the only way to make change a little faster.

reading clearout, february 2021

Hi folks,

A few thoughts on some reading that will not make it into a full review.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (November 2020)

I sometimes worry that my reading reviews, with their bullheaded insistence on digging out the insights buried within a work, overlook a critical characteristic of any book - readability. It's important for an author to pack information, knowledge, and wisdom between the covers, but it's a futile exercise if a reader struggles throughout the journey from start to finish. This fact is at the core of my strong recommendation for Nothing to See Here - it's not the type of book I tend to read, which is perhaps best exemplified by my unusually short book notes, but it was the one book in 2020 that I couldn't put down. If a lesson must be learned from Wilson's story, it's that the powerful, possibly due to reasons of incomprehension, make for unsuitable protectors of the weak.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (February 2020 - book notes)

Satrapi's graphic memoir covers her childhood in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, a period that coincides with the Iranian Revolution. Persepolis and its creative storytelling was helpful for me as an introduction to this moment from history, but there is much more to this work than the educational value. It occurred to me as I thought about this book that the way Satrapi guides us through her story informs us of events in the way anyone experiences history whenever it's made in real time - through snippets of scattered and sometimes contradicting information, coming from all manners of sources, that slowly come together to reveal the full story; my experience of the pandemic strengthens this lesson. The technique demonstrates not just what happened in those extraordinary times, but also shows the incremental effect the revolution had on the people in her life as they found themselves gradually swept into the cold, ruthless path of history.

Lost Cat by Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton (January 2021)

OK, so I read it again, sue me. I emerged from round 2 with some book notes, out of which the following captured my attention - humans worry too much about the future and the past. The fact that Paul projects this insight onto one of her cats suggests it's a lesson learned from pet ownership, or perhaps it represents the hard-earned wisdom gained from writing the book. I am in no position to argue with these possibilities, but I suspect a pet owner must understand this before taking on the responsibility for another living creature, just as a writer recognizes the fact before scribbling that first blemish onto the blank page; the solution to our anxieties, these endless concerns regarding the future or the past, lies in the tasks, hobbies, or responsibilities that demand no less than our full attention to the present.

proper corona admin, vol 96 - it's spelled with an eye

Someone noted to me last month that she considered being unable to see other people smile in public as one of the biggest problems with universal masking. It's a sensible complaint - if worn correctly, the mask covers the mouth, and as you know the mouth does a lot of the heavy lifting during a smile.

But I didn't fully agree with the observation. I think the eyes play a much more important role in a genuine smile - harder to see, but even harder to fake. If someone smiles at you, mask or not, you should see it in the eyes. I suggest the real problem of the pandemic might be something different - we've discovered that a lot of those smiles we once enjoyed weren't very genuine at all.

the business bro's math of innovation is fifteen percent correct

It's bizarre the way busy business bros make time to talk about innovation - how much they like it, that they believe in it, that they consider themselves innovators, and possibly even inventors, though of course their only recent invention is this fresh charade of self-delusion; busy people don't have time for innovation. It sounds like one of those ancient riddles - if your entire day is allocated to predetermined tasks, how much time is left for new pursuits? I suspect this logic was at the foundation of 3M starting "15 percent time", a program which encourages employees to "set aside a portion of their work time to proactively cultivate and pursue innovative ideas that excite them." If there isn't time for innovation, then the only solution - or at least the initial step - is to make time for innovation. This style of programmatic thinking is not limited solely to 3M, and there are many more successes from this approach than just the famous example of the Post-It note - loyal TOA subscribers reading this on Gmail should pause for a moment in acknowledgement of the email service having been developed during Google's variant of the concept (cleverly renamed "20 percent time" by the tech giant, perhaps to disguise its roots). But the existence of these programs is the exception rather than the rule in most organizations.

The situation concerns me because my experience suggests that innovation is beyond the reach of most organizations, whose leaders seem to think innovation is the result of little more than sporadic votes of confidence. One reality shared across the different roles I've held in three organizations has been the proliferation of busy business bros who allocate every hour of staff time to an existing concern, the frenzy of short-term directives occasionally being interrupted long enough for them to insist - yes yes, we're open to change, invention, and progress. The actions always spoke louder than the words, or at least it was in my case, as I've found over the years that my various attempts at innovation would generally be met with a range of reactions ranging from indifference to open hostility, but rarely support. It reminds me of something Michael Lombardi said on an episode of The GM Shuffle podcast - if you think someone is smart, you should be able to list off two or three specific things about this person that support your position. When I think back to leaders I've worked with who spoke in grand terms about their commitment to innovation, it strikes me that not a single one of them said - here are two or three specific things I've done that demonstrate my commitment. Instead, they always spoke of their intangible qualities, like dedication to the cause; sometimes they wrote checks for future creativity that would have bounced at the patent office.

The temptation is to conclude that organizational behaviors reflect the natural human tendency to crave the familiar and the routine over the unknown. I remain open to the possibility that the business bros of my past feared change at a visceral level and tailored their managerial philosophies such that the status quo could reliably protect them from the horror of tomorrow, this terror being their only certainty regarding the otherwise unknowable future. However, the issue with this conclusion is that there were always certain instances where the gatekeepers would relent in the face of new evidence. In my first managerial role, I could never implement an official work from home program for my team, but working from home was otherwise permitted for a wide range of exceptions including my six weeks on crutches, anyone who moved out of state, or a violent case of the common cold; I was almost fired from another job for trying to automate a certain process using SQL, but a few months later a similar project was assigned to me as a top priority. I am sure millions of workers have asked at some point during the past year - why did it require a worldwide pandemic for our organization to embrace virtual collaboration?

I am intrigued by the possibility that failures to lead innovation are less about business bros being afraid of the unknown and more about them ignoring the underlying math, which in my mind always demonstrates the return on innovation. The example of the COVID-19 pandemic is especially intriguing to this point as almost all employers with the capability shifted to remote work, seemingly overnight, in a mass admission of the new cost-benefit equation. I suspect prior to this moment many organizations existed much like my own, where there was a clear divide between junior and senior management in terms of each group's belief regarding the benefit of widespread remote working arrangements. In fact, my current organization - which years ago grudgingly permitted senior staff to work from home for one day a week, assuming of course that the staff member in question met a long list of additional criteria, a checklist that covered at least one printed page and included critical reminders such as "staff may be asked to attend key meetings in person on their work from home day", this document a testament to the tireless work that addressed every risk associated with one butt being out of one seat for one day a week - this organization of mine suddenly found its entire roster logging into Zoom meetings from home, a transition period that lasted all of three days; there is no official verdict at the time of writing, but all signs point to this being a permanent arrangement, due mostly to the success of the past year. The mentality change, it should go without saying, was due to the sudden mortal risk of riding the Green Line to the office, which convinced everyone that 2019's reservations over working from home suddenly represented trivial concerns in the larger context of the advantages of remote working considerations.

If you strip away the buzzwords that litter certain TED Talks about innovation, I suspect you'll find that the truth underpinning programs like "15 percent time" is the same as for any other successful business practice - the balance of costs and benefits associated with the approach is beneficial to the company. This is crucial because the business bros who hide their fear of change by keeping everyone busy may find a cost-benefit approach more convincing, as many did when COVID-19 simplified the calculus of working from home - after all, the only consistent truth about business bros is that, given two numbers, they will cleverly steer their organizations toward the more beneficial of the figures. I suppose the logical conclusion, then, is to explain the math of innovation in the simplistic terms necessary for allowing a busy business bro to see the benefit. I usually refer to this as "managerial math" and the concept is simple - you have to figure out if the innovation has a profit, just as you would do in building the case for any other business plan.

I'll use the example of innovation through coaching to highlight this idea. The math involves accounting for the following - on the cost side, I consider the time I spend coaching, the time a colleague spends learning, the opportunity cost to both coach and colleague, and the possibility of allocating resources in the future to repair errors associated with misusing the new technique; on the benefits side, I tally the time saved from reapplying the new skill across future iterations, the direct cost savings or revenue gains of a new approach, and the possibility of inspiring colleagues to pursue additional training. I'm comfortable estimating these aspects of the equation but those concerned of painting with broad brushstrokes are advised to incorporate a comfortable margin that protects against this risk - for example, only proceed if benefits exceed cost by over 10%.

Below is one calculation using a situation from a few years ago - I was considering an email to a large group which would explain a trick I thought they could use in Excel files. I came up with the following estimates:

Costs (known)

• Time to draft email: one hour
• Cost - one hour of my salary
• Time to read email: one hour (sixty colleagues, half will delete or ignore, two minutes each for the thirty who read the email)
• Cost - one hour of aggregate salary among sixty total (thirty responsive) colleagues

Costs (unknown)

• Fixing future errors
• Opportunity cost of writing/reading email

Benefits (known)

• One percent annual efficiency for three colleagues
• Response rate to email: three colleagues (assuming ten percent read and respond)
• Time saved in Excel: three hours (one hour per colleague based on one hundred total Excel hours in a year)

Benefits (unknown)

• Colleagues develop curiosity and proactively pursue additional skills

In other words, by writing out the email, I figured it would cost us two hours with certainty in terms of my time plus the time thirty colleagues spent reading the email. In addition, there was an unknown risk associated with someone screwing up the concept and making a mess of an existing file or process. I expected a one percent efficiency increase for the three colleagues that ultimately read and applied the email, with each of those three saving one hour per year based on an estimate that they spent one hundred hours each year using Excel. As it was on the cost side, I also noted the possible gain of these three colleagues choosing to pursue additional skill development opportunities based on this exposure to a new technique. The stated numbers give a clear verdict - three hours of gain for two hours of cost, so writing the email was a great use of my time - a 50% return on the overall investment.

If I think back to the various supervisors and managers from my three different career stops, I would estimate 100% of them would pursue any opportunity with a 50% return, with that morning's original priorities relegated to secondary status with immediate effect. However, there is a catch - I'm fairly certain not a single one of them would agree that my spending an hour on an instructional email demonstrated a good use of my time, even if I used my above calculation to demonstrate the error in the rebuttal. It could be due to any number of factors, with the most likely being a dispute over my assumptions, but the key is that the specific nature of the dispute doesn't matter because each moment spent in additional discussion adds to the cost side of the above calculation. If the process of making my case takes up a half-hour of work for two people, then the stated benefit in the math is wiped away - it's now three hours of cost for three hours of benefit; effectively, any business bro who filibusters through a presentation of managerial math is strengthening the objection through the cost associated with the act of objecting.

There could also be an outright refusal to consider the managerial math, which is a problem in its own way, but I think the underlying objection in such a case follows a track that I'm quite familiar with from experience - they would point out that my hour writing the email meant an hour lost for a different priority. It would likely be implied at this point that seeing as how the superior set the priorities to begin with, the eventual conclusion of any discussion was destined to affirm the superior's original set of objectives; the battle ahead of me to change existing priorities promised to be bloody, and forever uphill, with pyrrhic victory representing the closest thing to a positive outcome. This is the worst form of objection to innovation in my mind because most mediocre managers actually think they are asking a smart question - if you do this, what do you have to stop doing? It never occurs to them that questions like this often hold back innovation.

I actually encountered an endorsement of this question recently in a mediocre management book, which should have been named Good But Not Great Questions for Good But Not Great Managers. It sounds good, this question - if you do this, what do you have to stop doing? - but it imposes an unnecessary scarcity consideration onto the topic of innovation, which is inappropriate given that new thinking lives on the infinite side of known boundaries. If I think about how to ask this question without shoehorning the scarcity mentality, I end up with a superior question - why aren't we already doing this? I suppose an alternate formation offers a similar upside - when else can we do this? The power of a program like "15 percent time" is obvious when considering these reframed versions of the merely good question - if you do this, what do you have to stop doing? The answer lies in the inverse - if we don't do this, then we don't innovate. As noted above, it's also often the case that small innovations lose their marginal return in the course of prolonged discussion, debate, or justification. The unspoken value of a program like "15 percent time" is that it should eliminate the need for these questions - there is no discussion required when the employee is encouraged to direct time toward projects that have the faintest hint of innovation. In the context of the coaching example from above, it's also worth noting that the response rate to such an email might improve if those colleagues felt like working on the skill was an acceptable use of their "15 percent time", which is yet another possible benefit to such a program - it creates time to pursue meaningful learning opportunities.

This leads me to my overall point, which is that the biggest barrier for innovation in most cases is talking about it - by definition, innovation is about discovery within the unknown, and I don't consider the unknown among those topics which invite intelligent discourse. Even the managerial math that I outlined above, compelling though it may be in certain cases, seems like it does more harm than good in the way it suggests the possibility of a knowing conversation about an unknowable subject. The only way an organization can demonstrate a commitment to innovation is to set as many of its people as possible to the task, which of course means all of them, and to set them to the task in a way that eliminates any and all known barriers to innovation. I believe a program like "15 percent time" helps move an organization closer to innovation, but in some ways I find the broad definition from 3M ("pursue innovative ideas") too narrow for my tastes. I recommend a variant of this program that encourages employees to use time in a self-directed manner, even if it's as little as 5 or 10 percent, with the only requirement being the self-belief that the activity will someday help the organization. I would clarify that this includes personal and professional development projects, and for organizations that do not allow for remote work I would even recommend allowing "offsite" time to count within the parameters of this program; I would allow anything that did not attract the notice of the local police. I suggest such extremes because ultimately innovation comes down to one necessary ingredient, time, which means a policy whose administrative requirements take time away from itself is self-defeating -  the moment people busy themselves with justifications, the program itself has become the obstacle; busy people don't have time for innovation.

2020 toa awards - 10 for 10 (part 1)

It's back! Let's kickoff the TOA awards for calendar year 2020 (and what a fine year it was) with the "10 for 10" format I borrowed last year.

First half today, next half in a week's time.

Top ten podcasts

1. More Or Less: Behind the Statistics

2. Football Ramble

3. Book Fight

4. The GM Shuffle

5. The Bill Simmons Podcast

6. EconTalk

7. Men In Blazers

8. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

9. Higher Learning (with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay)

10. Middle Theory

Notes

I never thought More Or Less would move to #1, but it's reflective of the reality in 2020 - its emphasis on untangling the messy statistics presented by the media throughout the pandemic proved invaluable for my health (not physical, but mental)... Football Ramble and Book Fight represent interesting milestones - I support both on Patreon, which helps creators run subscription services... Lombardi on The GM Shuffle, Mr. Murphy, is too good to drop any lower, Mr. Murphy, even as my interest in helmet football wanes, Mr. Murphy... I've become more selective with the next three podcasts, choosing only episodes that capture my immediate interest, though I would love to go back and catch up on EconTalk... Hardcore History comes out twice a year, but I won't complain because increased frequency might dilute the product... Higher Learning at its best alone would rank near the top of this list, but its pop culture focus means it will stray beyond my interest areas from time to time... Middle Theory has proven an exceptional replacement for longtime TOA podcast rankings mainstay Common Sense; it mentioned the latter as an inspiration on a recent episode... Song Exploder would be in the top-five if it consistently covered songs I knew (or liked)... I brought Reply All back into my rotation but I don't think it has a future, or a present, in my top ten.

Top ten subscription emails

1. Tim Harford

2. Mr. Money Mustache

3. WBUR

4. Brain Pickings

5. The Daily Coach

6. The Week In Patriarchy

7. This Is Anfield

8. Altra Footwear

9. The Boston Calendar

10. TOA

Notes

Harford's emails are a good supplement to what he covers on More Or Less, though I suppose if I was in a hurry I could just hunt the articles down as they are published (the emails regularly repost one of his columns)... MMM used to be a treasure trove of personal finance insight but some of his recent posts have me wary of him potentially vacating his fundamentals; it's possible he drops off the list next year... WBUR's daily update is a best-case scenario for a news website's newsletter, partly because their main page often feels like a waste of time due to infrequent updates... Brain Pickings remains a consistent source of potential books, though I only read its posts if the featured book appears worthy of my consideration (I have a massive "to-read" list at the moment)... The Daily Coach is like TOA, except twice as good (and half the length) - it offers a daily lesson on the arts of coaching, self-development, and building culture... The Week In Patriarchy is a Saturday afternoon update from The Guardian, accurately described as follows: "Arwa Mahdawi tracks what’s happening in the world of feminism and sexism"... TIA is my daily Liverpool update, and it would rank much higher except during the pandemic I started checking it multiple times per day, diminishing the value of the morning email... Altra's running newsletter offers interesting stories and features as an occasional respite from its advertising... The Boston Calendar was more useful when doing things in Boston wasn't a mortal risk... yup, I subscribe to my own site, sue me, in my defense it's a useful way to confirm the post went up as intended.

Top ten bands / artists

1. U2

2. Of Monsters and Men

3. Muse

This seems like a good place to transition from ranked lists to groups of ten for no other reason than my own indifference to ranking everything - and if I don't care, why would you?

Second Tier

Chvrches

Lake Street Dive

Third Tier

Courtney Barnett

Middle Kids

Norah Jones

Rubblebucket

Vulfpeck

Notes

It finally happened, yes folks I admit U2 is #1, all it took was a pandemic forcing me to sit at home by myself for nine-plus months, giving me plenty of time to work through their back catalogue and dig through YouTube for concert footage from as far back as the 1980s... OMAM separated itself from the pack with some new footage during lockdown, including acoustic renditions that I considered major improvements on 2019's Fever Dream... Muse is rock-solid at #3, it's hard to imagine them falling into the second tier given their musicianship and excellent live performances... the difference between the top three and the second tier is that I have some faith in the former's ability to improve every song during a live performance... my favorite songs from the the third tier don't reach the same heights as their equivalents in the second tier.

Ten Liverpool goals I (re)watched during lockdown

Gerrard vs. West Ham, FA Cup 2006

Gerrard vs. Real Madrid, CL 2008

Gerrard vs. Everton, FA Cup 2009

Can vs. Hoffenheim, CL 2017

Coutinho vs. Everton, Prem 2017

Mane vs. Man City, Prem 2018

Firmino vs. Arsenal, Prem 2018

Salah vs. Southampton, Prem 2019

Origi vs. Barcelona, CL 2019

Salah vs. Man City, Prem 2019

Notes

The goals (or their contexts) speak for themselves, so not much to add from me... I was in the bar when Salah scored against Southampton, and I consider it the best reaction I've witnessed in that setting - it's always fun to watch a big game from a packed audience, but I prefer dropping in for the games against slightly lesser opposition, where the viewers would be comprised only of the hardcore fans... Goals from the 2013-14 season are perhaps conspicuously absent but in my defense not only were there an awful lot of options, it's hard to forget that the best "goal" wasn't even scored (which I suppose is an appropriate summary for the season)... I'm pleased that in my research for this section I came across this thoughtful piece.

Ten comments on last year's "10 for 10"

Top ten eating places - the pandemic narrowed this list to four possibilities, which meant I had to put this item on pause for the 2020 edition. I get most of my takeout from The Upper Crust, so I suppose it's the theoretical #1.

Top ten drinking places - the stupidest thing I missed during the pandemic was going to the bar to watch Liverpool games, so I guess in hindsight the Phoenix Landing at #10 was far too low.

Top ten bands - Arctic Monkeys at #4 feels almost like a typo, but that's reflective of how it goes with music rankings - it might make sense at the time, but most of what we enjoy in the moment doesn't make much sense in retrospect. 

Top ten podcasts - I'm noticing that variety is becoming more important over time. Even as recently as last year, it seems like I was open to the idea of hearing multiple programs on similar topics, but today a show like Men In Blazers, which I consider a strong podcast in its own right, doesn't take on much importance because I'm already listening to Football Ramble.

Top ten podcasts, #2 - I didn't comment on missing Common Sense last year, so it's worth pointing out here: what a huge loss, and such bad timing. I would trade a week of access to the news for a new episode of this podcast. 

Ten songs - "Beneath the Bed" and "New Born" are holding up, but the others have slipped down my list. I may need another try at "She", as I became a bigger fan this year of Norah Jones, mostly thanks to her consistent YouTube mini-concerts. More to come in next week's update of this list.

Ten ideas - if time travel became a reliable and widespread technology, you'd think #2 would happen as soon as it overcame any technical obstacles. At the very least, someone would travel back in time and try to catch a jumper, right? The fact that these bodies are regularly recovered suggests to me that there is no chance time travel will ever be invented.

Ten reminders - "Be who you needed when you were younger" made a lot of sense to me at this time last year, but in the ensuing twelve months I've started to think "be who you'll need when you're older". It may be evidence that I aged much more than a year in 2020, or perhaps I simply wised up.

Ten band names - it turned out that Population: Carousel, Hunnnnus, and Replica Krakatoa lingered in my mind through 2020; my expectation is that Rooks Diagonal and Origami Bender have some untapped potential.

Ten posts - I suppose this is more of a preview item for next week, where I'll dig out ten posts I reread from 2020. Although I did not do an exact equivalent last year, I feel the concept is similar in spirit to the post that marked my fourth, or first, TOA birthday.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.

the business bro says a good idea isn't good enough

I've noticed a theme among the various motivational techniques, incentive programs, and reward structures I've been researching over the past hour or so, none of which seem any more or less likely to succeed than the next - it's about enough being enough. The way I see it almost anything should work, provided it's good enough to motivate, incentivize, or reward an employee. Is a monthly prize for the best performer going to increase productivity? It sure will, assuming the prize is good enough.  

I'm reminded of an amusing few months from a past job when my boss created a bonus scheme to try and get us all to work longer hours - without going too deep into the details, let's just say the midnight oil remained in its unburnt state. If he had asked me for my opinion on the matter, I would have shown my boss what I'd calculated on the back of my pay stub - once I factored in the extra hours necessary to earn the bonus, I'd determined that it lowered my average hourly pay, so I'd decided that it was better to have a social life than to pursue the incentive; the bonus was a good idea, but it wasn't good enough.

toa rewind - public criticism

I made a reference in Sunday's footnotes regarding my refusal to criticize subordinates in public. I'm not sure if I've written anything about the philosophy except its origins, which I detailed in this post about my college basketball coach.

reading review - the football ramble

Longtime TOA readers may be familiar with The Football Ramble for its regular appearances atop my annual podcast rankings. I do not recommend this 2016 book with the same conviction I reserve for the podcast - the book, which I read twice in just under a year, doesn't capture the enthusiasm, spontaneity, and chemistry that make the podcast one of my all-time favorites. This read was also a bit too broad for me given how much I already know about soccer- eh hem, football. However, for a new or casual fan who is interested in learning more about the quirks and joys of the game, The Football Ramble will prove a perfect bit of reading.

The Football Ramble by Marcus Speller, Luke Moore, Pete Donaldson, Jim Campbell (February 2020, January 2021)

My personal theory for soccer's overwhelming global popularity is that people of average height and varying physical skills are not automatically unlikely to become star players, which means it will always enjoy a disproportionately larger talent pool than sports with narrower athletic requirements, particularly the major American sports that discriminate for power (helmet football) or height (basketball). It also helps that soccer is a sport which requires almost no equipment - a ball and markers for goals - before it can be played by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, which again helps expand its talent pool at the expense of the sports that require greater investment in tools (golf, ice hockey) or space (baseball, tennis, cricket). These two general factors create a self-perpetuating cycle because new stars, particularly from previously unknown markets, are more likely to be soccer players due to the sport's relative lack of barriers, and these players in turn fuel the popularity of the sport at home which leads to more participation, and so on. 

This leads me to a concerning theme from this book which emerged from my two sets of book notes (first and second) - it seems that the current state of the world's game is one where the status quo leans in favor of exclusivity, particularly as it relates to the familiar opposition of sexism, xenophobia, or ableism, and it's a credit to these podcasters that there are so many insights throughout which make note of these concerns. The lack of women in the game is obvious to even the most casual observer, particularly in the non-representation at managerial level, and Sir Alex Ferguson's famous dismissal of Arsene Wenger as an expert on "Japanese football" is belied by the finding that foreign managers in the Premier League have won around 30% more games than their British counterparts (at the time of the book's publication). In addition to these thoughts, The Football Ramble also discusses the issue of stadium accessibility, which given the amount of revenue generated by the sport should at minimum have been resolved at the elite levels. These topics are problematic in their own right, but it's also important to remember that open access is the foundation of the sport's success and that anything which creates new barriers in the game is a long-term threat to the future of soccer.

TOA Rating: Three's company out of four's a ramble.

leftovers - white fragility (riff-offs)

Hi all,

I had some additional thoughts on White Fragility, so let's have a classic TOA riff-off. As usual, the thought as it originally appeared in my book notes will be in italics.

A belief that racism is committed in isolation by bad people helps prop up a system that serves people based on the color of their skin.

White supremacy can be a problematic term for those who associate it with extremist hate groups.

White superiority is often left unnamed or even denied by white people, which makes it hard for even the most liberal among them to cease participating in systems of domination, inequity, or control.

As I concluded in my reading review, the main idea in this book is that participation in biased systems leads people to commit acts that would otherwise be labeled as racist were it not for the protection offered by these same systems. This understanding is elusive for those who consider racism a behavior exclusive to evil people.

Defensiveness is generally a tool used to maintain the status quo.

The defensiveness that people demonstrate toward being accused of racist behavior has some relationship to the idea that bad people, and only bad people, can be racist.

Respect is a challenging idea to define, as it tends to have certain nuances in the definition. For example, in a white-centric environment respect means [...] a focus on intention over impact.

Robin DiAngelo's point about the focus on intention over impact resonated with my experience, and I wonder if this is the difficult mental leap for the defensive - how is it possible to be racist if your inner thoughts and feelings are free of prejudice, bigotry, or hatred? The problem in this thinking is obvious to me - it's a lot like saying someone who throws punches is a pacifist because, at heart, he favors peace.

There is a distinction between racist behavior and systemic racism. Any individual can show a prejudice against someone else solely due to skin color. The systemic aspect is social or institutional, manifesting as collective power or privilege over another group.

Backing a collective prejudice with the power of society, institutions, or government transforms racism from a series of events to a system.

My standard for a biased society is one where knowing information that should be specific to a person's circumstances gives me an improved chance to makes guesses about that person's group identities. I'm reminded of an oft-cited statistic pertaining to Boston's household wealth - "the median net worth of a white family is $247,500 while the median net worth of a Black family is just $8". If I tell you that I know a family in Boston with a six-figure household net worth, do you assume I'm speaking of a white family?

It may be hard to see a direct link of a given policy to such statistics, but it's there if you work out the implications, as this paper from the Center for American Progress has done for a countless number of examples.  

Many people shy away from giving feedback to someone who won’t accept it, often allowing the relationship to wilt away under the pressure of growing inauthenticity and distance.

DiAngelo's point here speaks to my experience, but likely not in the way she'd intended - I just don't know many people who accept feedback in any sense of the term. It's unlikely her point was a roundabout way to highlight the ongoing feedback drought, but I don't think the average person is going to suddenly change course as it relates to their racist behavior even if they receive thoughtful feedback on the matter. I think this insight benefits from an acknowledgement that giving feedback isn't an appropriate solution for the type of person who never accepts it under any circumstances.

Working with others in terms of racism means looking inward and validating someone else’s point of view. 

I read this as a reminder that it's more important to correct behavior than it is to succumb to the righteous instincts of the moment. This is without question a challenging approach, particularly if you are dealing with a bureaucracy or are personally wounded, but finding common interests is always the productive approach in a situation where two sides find themselves taking opposing positions.

You don't have long

I am on to you

The time, it has come to destroy

Your supremacy

OK, I won't even pretend this came from this book, or any book - those are lyrics from "Supremacy", a song by Muse; who better to end a riff-off?

Thanks for reading.

Endnote / encore

DiAngelo has significant experience as a meeting, seminar, and workshop facilitator that she weaves into White Fragility. I give her the benefit of the doubt in terms of what she's learned from her work, but there were two insights tied to her role that I felt created more confusion than clarity. First, I wondered if the effect of being criticized in public was a more relevant explanation for the reaction of some participants than the factors she cited in the book; longtime TOA readers may recall that one of my golden managerial rules is to never criticize a subordinate in public. Second, although I recognized the negative effect of a white person crying in front of people of color in the context of a discussion about racial issues, I didn't understand why she added that given how sometimes people do cry, she tried to be thoughtful whenever she cried in such settings. Will someone in the vicinity know the difference between a person who is crying from guilt and a person who is crying thoughtfully? If anything, it seemed to undermine her point about the importance of impact over intention.

I bring this up to highlight the potential complexity of these discussions, particularly in a group setting where the participants are likely to arrive from all walks of life, and to consider its effect on the outcome of such conversations. The work described in White Fragility is perhaps too challenging to leave to the impersonal environment that I am all too familiar with from my experiences in meetings, seminars, or workshops. My suggestion to those interested in taking the steps DiAngelo describes is to supplement these larger gatherings with smaller groups of trusted friends, family, or acquaintances, from whom you can accept honest feedback while remaining open and transparent about your own perceptions, challenges, and experiences. 

reading review - constance

I don't make much effort on TOA when it comes to reviewing poetry, fearing of course that I'll make a fool of myself if I try too hard; I'd rather not have so much on the line. I noted two thoughts from this short collection - that an illness with many remedies almost certainly has no cure, and that some old possessions have the quality of a long-lost person seemingly embedded within them.

Constance by Jane Kenyon (November 2020)

I reread three poems - "Biscuit", "Pharaoh", and "Gettysburg: July 1, 1863". The latter was my favorite ("sensational", I drooled in my book notes) and lucky for us all, it's been reprinted here. 

reading review - stories of your life

Ted Chiang's work may be familiar to some readers because "Story of Your Life", one of seven in this collection, inspired the 2016 film Arrival, which I haven't seen because it's been a decade since I watched more than one movie in a year; I will recommend one or the other, depending on your preferred medium. For those precluded by a peculiar loyalty to television, I'll point out that "Story of Your Life" reminded me of Lost at its best for the way it created a coherent narrative using events from past and present, and I will therefore expand my above suggestion to include the first three seasons of ABC's hit show as a suitable alternative (1).

Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang (November 2020)

The stories in this collection were true to the spirit of science fiction in the way they explored with varying success the inevitable questions that arise at the intersection of science, society, and philosophy. A line from one story stands out as a broad summary of the entire work - to prove the obvious, start by assuming the doubtful; Chiang's worlds start with an unfathomable premise - for example, a technology makes us all equally attractive -  and follows the chain of events to reach a simple conclusion about our current times - the undiscussed discrimination in modern society is against the unattractive.

The overall result was a bit of a mixed bag for me, and I only reread two of the seven stories. One of the rereads was "Tower of Babylon", a story notable for the way it set the mood rather than for its exploration of a deep or existential question. The collection as a whole produced a handful of interesting comments that I included in my book notes - that night is the Earth's shadow on the sky, that human ears are tuned for human sounds, and that the question of zero complicates the assertion of division being the inverse of multiplication.

The other reread was the aforementioned "Story of Your Life". This was a special story, likely to remain one of my favorite works from the genre for a long time. The crux of the story reminded me of my recent thinking about spoken communication - although the process seems to move sequentially from word to word, there is a type of person who will begin speaking only when ready to express an entirely formed thought. The question for me is whether this is an innate or a learned skill. My experiences from writing TOA incline me to the latter - there are times I feel that I am speaking in complete paragraphs rather than in sentences or even words, and I've noticed that in many of these cases the writing process preceded my otherwise unplanned verbalization.

TOA Rating: Three UFOs out of four.

Footnotes

1) If you think watching just one movie a year is bad, think about this - the final episode of Lost aired the day I graduated from college, and I was so disappointed by the culmination of the show's final three seasons that I stopped watching television. I simply said - I will never again invest this much time in something that might have this ending - and that was the end of it. This was ten and a half years ago.

Of course, if you include sports, I still watch an obscene amount of television.

Anyway, I still stand by those first three seasons, which is why I limited my recommendation to the first half of the series.

toa rewind - quota proofreading (july 2020)

Friday's "quota" rewind reminded me of this post, which stands out for an unexpected occurrence - activity in the comments section! This was more important back in 2006 (my first experience with a blog... RIP to HYDB) when the comments section was a daily first pitch to debate the Sox-Yankees rivalry, but TOA lives in a muted reality - the comments, all of which I've since deleted, were among a handful that have ever appeared on the site.

I knew the comments were junk because they claimed to be impressed with "the layout for your weblog", which is laughable. It was also amusing that the comment was on that particular post because I'd written something I thought was far better on the preceding day (though I'd say "Quota Proofreading" isn't half-bad). TOA traffic is jumping lately, so I'll likely turn off comments to help protect my time and space.

the toa newsletter - february 2021

Hi reader,

No major updates from January, or at least nothing that I can't cram into this opening sentence - I signed up for Youtube TV to skip commercials during the helmet football playoffs, I started wearing two masks for trips to LOL Foods, and I think the GameStop story is only slightly interesting.

Let's pick up from the end of yesterday's post, where I finished by noting that the only relevant consideration for self-directed education is the energy to keep going. The issue with that conclusion is that it's partly misleading because I feel most people already have a natural desire to learn, discover, and grow - what I posed as a question of propulsion is better framed as a challenge to avoid the obstacles that impede us on our journeys.

I've returned today with a list of these obstacles to keep in mind on your self-education process. If you avoid these problems, your natural inclination to learning should be free to lead you through a lifetime of self-education. This is a hard-earned list because I've made all of these errors myself, though of course in some cases I speak from observing someone else make the mistake. It's not comprehensive by any means - I expect to add to it over time, for a long time, as I continue learning; today's list is just the start.

Here are the first five mistakes to avoid in the process of self-directed learning:

1. Not enough time

I almost got rid of this because it felt too obvious, but it's sadly the most common error I've seen as it relates to self-directed learning - you cannot learn if you don't make time for learning.

2. Enabling distractions

If people ask me why I don't have a smartphone, I give them some version of the following - I value abilities such as being able to focus and remaining fully present more than I value the many useful features of the smartphone, and I fear that having a 24/7 distraction machine would erode these abilities without bringing an acceptable return in terms of convenience, connection, and information.

I don't think turning in the smartphone is an idea that will work for most people but I do think everyone could benefit from ruthlessly culling needless distractions from daily life. As I noted in #1 above, time is a crucial component of learning, and distraction impacts time from two angles. First, the time handed over to a distraction is time lost from learning. Second, a distraction has the potential to bisect otherwise unbroken time, which could undermine the learning process for anything that requires a long block of uninterrupted time.

3. The know-it-all

This is a lesson best learned during an honest moment of reflection at the end of the day - it means admitting that you woke up mistaken about something. I go through this experience when I reread books because I often find that the things I thought I knew from my first read were either misinterpretations or outright errors. The failure to recognize the know-it-all obstacle means your understanding about new topics is doomed to remain skin-deep at best because although the first pass can make you familiar with any general idea, without rethinking it's hard to fill in your own gaps with the missing details.

The long-term arrogance of this mistake puts the self-learner at risk of several subsequent errors, with the most likely being an inability to incorporate new discoveries about an existing topic. In the worst case scenario, a once-knowledgeable person remains stuck in a certain perspective for so long that the immediate issue of being out-of-date eventually gives way to the permanent crisis of being mistaken.

4. The knew-it-all

Like with the know-it-all, the knew-it-all is another obstacle that is often defeated in the mirror - it means admitting that you learned something rather than tricking yourself into thinking you already knew it (even though you never previously expressed the idea on your own). I suspect this happens a lot when people skim information - rather than absorb the knowledge in a way that challenges assumptions and raises uncomfortable questions, the knew-it-all finds a common denominator that is consistent with an existing perspective instead of investigating the potentially objectionable details.

If you are looking for examples of this out in the world, keep a close eye out for defensive allegations of "trick questions". There are certainly cases of confusing or misleading phrasing that interferes with the retrieval process, but for the most part if a factual question invites an incorrect response any suggestions of a "trick question" hint at the retroactive logic of a knew-it-all. If you feel like the victim of a trick question, make sure to think hard about whether you could have generated the information without any prompting.

5. The entertainment factor

The educational value of a podcast, television show, or bestseller is influenced by how willingly the creator exchanges the information content for the entertainment factor - a good rule of thumb is that if you enjoyed learning from a particular source, you probably didn't learn much. This isn't meant to dismiss the value of these sources as a tool for casual learning, but if you are serious about a specific topic you need to avoid anything that ranks in the top ten of a popularity list.

It's possible to expand "entertainment" to encompass considerations such as affinity, demeanor, or industry standards. Doctors are rightfully criticized for the way poor communication skills are linked to patients ignoring their orders, but given that I'm much more likely to become a patient than a doctor the relevant lesson for me is that I should ignore my concerns about a doctor's questionable bedside manner.

What next?

These five are the obstacles that I've thought the about the most during the past month. More to come, I hope, as I reflect more on the learning process.

Until then, thanks for reading, and see you in February!