Monthly Archives: January 2011

Less lingo please. More plain talk.

on January 31, 2011 in Awareness, Blog, Tips

People use too much lingo. What do I mean by too much? I mean it when big or out-of-context words confuse more than illuminate or create meaning. Everybody knows it, we still do it more than we mean to. I’m going to examine the issue from a few perspectives. Having a background in science I see a lot of scientific sounding language where it seems people use it more to[…] Keep reading →

The best book on the environment, economy, and ecology

on January 30, 2011 in Blog, Education, Nature

Everyone has something to say about the environment, the economy, and ecology. People believe in human caused global warming or they don’t, but they have something to say about it. They believe improving the environment will ruin the economy or save it or something. Everyone has something to say. One major trend I see is based on the interests of the source. If the person speaking comes from the business[…] Keep reading →

An alternative to truth and lies

on January 29, 2011 in Awareness, Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Freedom, Tips

An incredibly useful perspective in some half-baked notes to a friend. I’ll develop them more in future posts. Feedback and criticism appreciated. — You wrote about lying as an example of a “bad trait”. I’d like to suggest another perspective (generalizable from just lying to other aspects of apparent lack of empathy): that the reason people communicate is not to convey truths. Evaluating people according to truths and lies holds[…] Keep reading →

Why do movies still have closing credits?

on January 28, 2011 in Awareness, Blog

Closing credits now commonly stretch for ten minutes. Early movies had closing credits of ten people. Why do we still have them? The typical answer is to credit the people who contributed, but that method seems ineffective: one name out of thousands is nearly invisible, it’s only visible while watching the movie, and they’re unsearchable. Meanwhile, every movie has a web page but those pages rarely list the full closing[…] Keep reading →

The empowering relationship between time and priorities

on January 27, 2011 in Awareness, Blog, Freedom, Tips

One of the great lessons I learned from my father was that when people talk about how they spend their time, they’re talking about priorities. As he put it, “When people say they don’t have time to do something, they mean they prioritized something else higher. People have time to do anything. The question is if what they put aside to do something.” Internalized over the years, the perspective seems[…] Keep reading →

Is Urban Dictionary this awesome for everyone?

on January 26, 2011 in Blog, Humor

Urban Dictionary has the best definitions for my name. I’m too lazy to look up if they make up awesome definitions for everyone, but check out yours in case they do to brighten your day. Here are the first few definitions of Josh: Josh – He is a fun loving guy really funny and can make anyone laugh.He is very quiet at first and seems shy but when you get[…] Keep reading →

Twenty years of gospel church

on January 25, 2011 in Blog

In college I volunteered at a soup kitchen near campus, in the basement of the church with the big red doors on 114th and Broadway. I did it independently of the student groups that organized students to interact with the community beyond Columbia, but I volunteered more regularly than anyone else, so they invited me to the annual August retreat for the student organizers. On the way back from upstate[…] Keep reading →

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