I’ve written before how I like to read the results of the finishers of marathons I run, especially the last and oldest. From the publicly published information, it’s the most inspiration you can get. I’m sure it barely scratches the surface of what some athletes overcome to finish, but I look for inspiration where I can. Since I registered for last year’s New York City marathon lottery (but didn’t get[…] Keep reading →

Typical e-book readers today have a few gigabytes of memory, enabling holding thousands of books. Where did the choice for this amount of memory come from? Am I missing something? What is the value of holding that many books? Even if you were trapped on a desert island you would die before finishing reading them, leaving aside the issue of recharging the battery. On the face of it you could[…] Keep reading →

Do you want a better life? The book Predictably Irrational is a great entry point to one, and to my philosophy. It’s also a great book in its own right — informative and well-written. From my perspective it’s a great gateway to how to live a better life. Its title describes its two-part thesis. First, humans react irrationally to many things. Using “irrational” this way presupposes a definition the book[…] Keep reading →

After yesterday’s post, I thought of another little rule I made that makes something some people consider difficult into a game. I’m almost embarrassed to share it because of how geeky it is, but it makes something otherwise challenging into fun, or at least a way to make myself a better me. First, you should know, I love eating food that tastes good and chips are included. I can eat[…] Keep reading →

Here is a simple way to reduce one type of stress. I used to get annoyed when people would show up late to meet me. I imagined them disrespecting me and such. One day I made a rule for myself: Everybody gets fifteen minutes. That’s it. If someone shows up anywhere less than fifteen minutes late, it’s fine. I don’t ask questions, I don’t ask where they were, I don’t[…] Keep reading →

Continuing this post that our access to reality is limited by our senses and our minds can’t comprehend it all, what then do we have in our minds? We form beliefs or mental models. What is a model? A model is a simplified representation of reality for a purpose. That previous post dealt with the ramifications of models being simplified — that they are all flawed. If they are all[…] Keep reading →

One measure of something worth doing is if you would ever regret it. I’m making a list of things that no one would ever on their deathbed look back and say “I did X too much.” I doubt anyone looked back at their life and said, “I danced too much,” “I sang too much,” or “I played with my nieces and nephews too much.” Can you add to the list?[…] Keep reading →

The Parsons Class I’m co-teaching this semester has a blog. So far it just has a few pictures from the zoetropes a few students did. The results from that first assignment were incredible — tremendous variety of solutions to the various challenges of physical animation devices and animations: materials, sizes, quality versus quick and dirty, colors, contrast, motion, repetition, etc. I can’t wait to see the results of the later[…] Keep reading →

The freedom for consenting adults to do what they like is as fundamental a freedom as I can think of and the protecting of it one of my most important interests. About once a week I say something like “I’m a big fan of consenting adults doing what they please.” I’m not a fan of people preventing consenting adults from doing what they like or a person involving someone who[…] Keep reading →