Do you feel if you don’t deal with difficult things you’re denying or avoiding reality? Does that bring you down or make you feel irresponsible? Does that compel you to do things you don’t want to? Here’s how to make sure you don’t. After a conversation last night, my friend said she looked at enjoying life in a whole new way for the better. Let’s start with an analogy. On[…] Keep reading →

The New York Times wrote yesterday about Eben Moglen, whom I wrote about recently. “We have to aim our engineering more directly at politics now,” he said. “What has happened in Egypt is enormously inspiring, but the Egyptian state was late to the attempt to control the Net and not ready to be as remorseless as it could have been.” … If revolutions for freedom rest on the shoulders of[…] 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 →

When you think of deciding, do you think of going toward the choice you decide on? I tend to and I think most others do too. But if deciding is about going toward something we like, why can it be so hard? The –cide in decide is the same -cide as in pesticide, homicide, and suicide — from Latin, meaning cut or kill. However much we think about deciding as[…] Keep reading →

The Tao Te Ching has influenced and resonates with me more than any other book. This translation is my favorite so far for its accessibility. The translator in this interview said a number of perspectives like I would: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Most other perspectives I have follow from those life-level perspectives.

A few years ago I stopped eating partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. I learned more than I expected from it. The change affected more than my eating habits. I didn’t know how healthy they were, nor did I care, since I eat plenty of unhealthy food. The issue was not that partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is bad for you. Lots of things are. Nor was it[…] Keep reading →

On a scorching August day, running along the Hudson I passed a sign: “Runners: Free T-shirt for Interview.” I stopped and agreed to be interviewed. A sports apparel company was interviewing runners for a commercial. They had constructed a small plywood hut with the cameras inside that was air-conditioned. They had me wear a shirt over the one I had been running in to cover their competitor’s logo. The interviewer[…] Keep reading →