How to discuss politics with friends, version 1
My good friends Royal Winchester, Rob Lefferts and I like to talk about things. Eventually we realized there were some things, mostly…
Category: Culture
How to Use Bad Data for Good
There are ways to intentionally use bad data to discover important things. In a comment from Richard I. Garber on…
Missing maps and the fragility of technology
Recently Tim O’Reilly wrote about how using maps on his phone, and assuming they’d work where he was going,…
The unavoidable power of compromise
Anyone who makes progress in this world makes compromises. In the case of the U.S. Government, every gear and…
Arrogance vs. Confidence: what’s the difference?
A long running debate in my own mind is the difference between arrogance and confidence. Here are two definitions:…
When is good data impossible?
I was thinking recently about skepticism in small sample sizes. How its wise to doubt big claims based on…
The death of death? (the premature cliche of killing an idea)
To say an idea, or a technology, is dead, mostly reveals an ignorance for how ideas work. If you…
Comment of the week
A privilege of having a popular blog is sometimes smart people come by and calmly, warmly, without a hint of snark,…
How To Fix Email: A Radical Proposal
Professor Beth Kollo has an interesting idea about our email dominated culture, in a post called Recreating Email. What…
The top 10 unsolved tech problems? help wanted
Update: here’s a revised list based on all the comments (thanks). I posted weeks ago asking for suggestions for…
What are the most annoying platitudes?
Sometimes when people are trying to be helpful, all they can think to say is a platitude. Often this…
Why Do Arguments Become Hostile?
When conversations go wrong, there’s a moment right before it gets bad that something must have changed. What is…
Why It’s OK To Be Obvious
“There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it” – Dostoyevski, Diary of A…
NSFW: most used curse words in history?
Ok, this is pure fun. I took George Carlin’s 7 Dirty words (The only words you can’t say on…
WikiLeaks Considered
I was working on a piece about WikiLeaks, when I found this cogent comment, related to the recent U.S.…
2011 Predictions: mind blowing and amazing
My big secret project this year was extensive research into what will happen in 2011 and it hasn’t been…
Book review: The checklist manifesto
Gawande’s first effort, Complications is a great book. He’s honest about the limitations of surgeons in a way few…
We are just like ants: the proof
As I kid I spent hours playing with ants. I’d move stuff around their nests, watching how they responded…
The impact ratio (why it’s hard to know what’s important)
We like to think we know how important everything is when it happens. But looking backwards, it’s clear some…
Can Getting Healthy be Fun?
Talking about losing weight is easy, but as the obesity rates in the U.S. attest, living up to that…