Stupidity, Big and Small
17 April 2012, 4:12 pm · Flabbergastations
It's been a while, but I'm back--and I'm happy to introduce a new category to the blog, which I call "Flabbergastations." These are probably best described as things that make me stop, jaw hanging agape, before I muster up the ability to say "Really?!" Enjoy the inaugural entry--and share in my outrage. Earlier this year a Michigan woman named Amanda Clayton won a significant amount of money in that state's lottery, collecting a million dollars before taxes. Shortly thereafter, though, it was discovered that this woman was still collecting welfare assistance in the form of food stamps. Her excuse was...Winter Reading List
16 January 2012, 12:36 pm · Books
It's time once again for me to catalog the books that are cluttering up my coffee table until I can get around to stripping their pith and depositing it into my commonplace book. Here, for your enjoyment, edification and relaxation, are a few of the volumes that I recently finished reading. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker This is one dense little book--let me start by saying that. Pinker is arguably one of the greatest scholars working today, and in this volume, he attempts to explain how our words and language color...A Theory of Twitter
23 October 2011, 1:20 pm · New Media
After participating in a very successful and extremly fun "tweetup" a couple of weekends ago, I've been thinking more and more about Twitter as a social medium. On its surface, Twitter wouldn't seem like much of an incubator for lasting relationships--really, how well can you know someone that you communicate with in 140-character bleats? Will the social interaction in real life work, even if you're friendly and communicative on Twitter? I would argue that the succinct nature of the communiques exchanged via Twitter actually increases the probability that folks who communicate regularly using the service will get along in real...My P90X Failure
27 September 2011, 2:30 pm · Fitness
It's now late September, and I've fallen off the wagon--somehow I got to roughly Day 35 of P90X, but I stopped. And I was doing so well! What happened? I think there are a few reasons. Results were slow in coming. That's not to say they were nonexistent--because there certainly were physical changes (most notably I added an inch to each bicep--which I was very impressed with). However, there was not the sort of dramatic change I expected to see, even "just" 30 days in (that's a third of the way through the program, by the way), when I compared...The Utter Stupidity of Partisan Politics
1 August 2011, 12:28 am · Politics
I nearly spit out my coffee this morning when I came across the following news--Apple, manufacturer of pretty much every computing and telephonic device that I own and use on a daily basis, is now not only the second largest company in the world by market value (behind ExxonMobil), but it also has more cash in its bank accounts than the United States Treasury. Let that sink in for a moment. Apple, which only holds something like 11% of the PC market (including the iPad), has more money in cash (meaning that Apple could theoretically write a bigger check that...First Page - Page 1 of 3 - Next Page - Last Page
