This past Christmas I got my wife a Cricut machine and a variety of accessories, so she can create various craft projects around the house. So far she’s done great! However, there are a lot of things she’s still unable to do and it can be frustrating, but she recognizes that it’s just part of […]
General
Listen Longer
I’ve seen a lot of people put “listen more” as a goal for 2021, and it’s something we should all strive for. The ability to really listen (and not just be half-listening while you’re thinking of the best response) is a tough thing to do, and something I continually work on. I recently saw a […]
Averages can be misleading
Averages can be a good way to look at things, but they can also be used to intentionally distort data. Two examples come to mind. First, you have my example from yesterday about the truck full of SD cards driving from Georgia to Michigan. You’re essentially transferring data at an insane 1.7 Petabytes/sec, but that […]
Why moderate viewpoints get squashed
I was recently listening to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast (the episode was “A Conspiracy of Silence“) and it raised an interesting idea. The bulk of the podcast was on the subject of preference falsification, the idea where people will intentionally falsify their preferences when with other people. These little lies can be […]
Curiosity Drives Advancement
In his excellent book “Einstein“, Walter Isaacson digs deep into what made the famous physicist so insightful and influential. One big key was undoubtedly his curiosity. When he was young, Einstein was given a compass by his father and was enthralled by it. From the book: He [Einstein] was sick in bed one day, and […]
Embrace the brevity
For quite a while, in various circumstances, I’ve felt that I need to speak for a longer period of time. I tend to say what I’m going to say, and then move on without a lot of repetition. Some other people can use a lot more words to answer a question, and that may be […]
Disagree Without Dehumanizing
In his excellent book “Never Split the Difference“, Chris Voss offered this advice regarding negotiations (hostages in his case, but he presented it for business owners): “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.” If you can disagree with someone while still remaining a decent human […]
Highlights from “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning is another book that had been on my “to read” list for a long time. I’m glad I finally got around to it. His detailed description of his time in various concentration camps during World War II were vivid and eye-opening. The book is broken into two main sections. The first […]
Google Family Link is finally ready for prime time
Google first released Family Link a few years ago, as a way to help parents monitor their kid’s devices. However, it had a few issues: When it first came out, you could only monitor new Google accounts. If your kids already had an account, like ours did, they simply couldn’t added. Later, they added the […]
Make the personal connection, or why Liberty Mutual is much better to us than Allstate
Early in the morning of August 20, 2011, our neighbors tree fell across both of our cars. The tree had been leaning for years, and did some serious damage (but not quite enough to total them). We called Allstate, they had us call Marietta Tree Service (who was great!), and we started the process of […]