I looked forward to reporting on running the marathon yesterday. After at least 300 miles training without incident or injury, I hurt my foot last week — I don’t think anything permanent, but enough to make running impossible. I put off deciding as long as I could, but with a heavy heart and tears almost welling in my eyes on as beautiful a fall day as you could hope for,[…] Keep reading →

I followed a link to an interesting site I recommend visiting: seeyourfolks.com. Check it out. Most of the comments I saw on it found the site depressing — an unwanted, surprising reminder of their mortality and how little they expected to see of their parents. I found it an effective site, but I hope the people who found it depressing reconsider their responses. The site didn’t tell you anything you[…] Keep reading →

The other day I passed a guy blowing leaves with a gasoline-powered leaf blower on a paved area in a park by City Hall. This post isn’t about him. It’s about us, including you. What is wrong with us? We buy oil from countries we have adversarial relations with, pollute the environment, create loud, unpleasant noise, so a fat person can work less, and cart away what would create topsoil,[…] Keep reading →

[I’m testing out something new for this page — to comment on current events or other opinion/editorial from the perspective of this blog on Fridays. My goal is to counter the common practice that other media generate readers and viewers by promoting outrage, fear, indignation, and so forth. It gets them but it fills their lives with emotions they probably don’t want. I want to help people feel more calm[…] Keep reading →

Here’s an anecdote from a woman named Elle Luna: I was using Uber all the time in San Francisco, even though I hated the design. And then I went to the Crunchies awards ceremony and at a post-ceremony event, where I was in a ball gown, I saw the CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, sitting at the bar. I was three whiskeys deep at this point and I walked up[…] Keep reading →

Multiple factors Not all options have only one decision factor. Many have two or more. For example, do you prefer a job with higher pay but lower chance of promotion or higher chance of promotion but lower pay? You have to look case-by-case, but let’s see how our visual representation shows them. A trivial choice The easiest two-part case is when you prefer both parts of an option to both[…] Keep reading →

You know choosing can be hard. I’ve written about it before from a few angles: Why are decisions hard? Difficult life decision? Here’s how to look at it. How to decide among close options A belief to choose without getting mired in indecision Today I’ll give you a tool to simplify decision-making more with a way of visualizing the challenge that shows the hard part. Partly I’m following up on[…] Keep reading →