At Northwood High School, Honors Euro Lit is known by its acronym — HEL (pronounced hell) — and widely regarded as the hardest class at the school. In order to get an A in the class for the first semester, my son needed a very high score — around a 98 — on the final exam, didn’t get it, and finished with a semester grade of 89.27 — a high B. If he’d had at least an 89.5, the teacher would have rounded it up to an A. So out of 1,000+ possible points over the course of the semester, an 89.27 means you missed an A by only three or four points. I’ve always encouraged the boy to be proactive with his teachers. Some people call this “sucking up” but I’ve been a teacher myself and I can tell you that teachers like students who are engaged and make… Read more →
January 2010
Empathize
As design thinkers, the problems we are trying to solve are rarely our own—they are those of a particular user; in order to design for the user, we must build empathy for who they are and what is important to them. . . . The best solutions come out of the best insights into human behavior. . . . We engage to… Uncover needs that people have which they may or may not be aware of Guide innovation efforts Identify someone to design for Discover the emotions that guide behavior — D.School Bootcamp Bootleg Read more →
Overheard
Hearing Voices
I’m getting some coffee in the lunch room . . . no one else is present. One of my colleagues walks in and says, “Are you talking to yourself, Paul?” “No, actually I wasn’t saying anything.” Which I wasn’t. “Maybe you’re hearing voices,” I suggest. “And ironically, you were just insinuating that I was nuts.” Read more →
Conversation with a Dog
ME: In the future it is neither necessary nor desirable for you to greet me every single time I walk in the door. Unless a minimum of two hours has passed, the previous greeting is still in effect. In other words, if I come IN the door, and you greet me, and then several minutes later I go OUT the door, only to return in a matter of seconds, you do NOT have to greet me again. LEWIS: Ha-ha. Good one. — Merrill Markoe, How to Be Hap-Hap-Happy Like Me Read more →
Happy Birthday, Virginia Woolf
So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters. — Virginia Woolf (Jan 25, 1882 – Mar 28, 1941) Read more →
Fun for Rich and Poor
Fun for Poor People Eat sweet things. Run up credit card then kill everyone where you work. Love the wrong people. Fun for Rich People Follow foibles of the poor on the local news. Wave to the poor. Talk about the plight of the poor at parties. — @eddiepepitone Read more →
Joyeux Anniversaire, Manet!
History painting, what a joke! There is only one authentic thing: to paint what you see. — Édouard Manet (Jan 23, 1832 – Apr 30, 1883) Read more →
We Don’t Keep Our Money in Banks
Security fears dog online banking — Yahoo! News Now that’s what I call lazy reporting. If they’d bothered to interview an actual dog, they would have found out that we don’t keep our money in banks because banks are run by Wall Street fat cats and we don’t trust Wall Street fat cats. Actually, we don’t trust any kind of cats. There may be dogs online barking but there are no dogs online banking. — Lightning Read more →
Twitter: 2010-01-21
RT @capricecrane: T.S. Eliot: "The world ends not with a bang, but a whimper." Sadly, so do most of my dates. # Read more →
Overheard
Salmon Kings
Notes From Interstate 5
It poured rain all the way from San Jose to Los Angeles . . . “It’s a good day for cows,” I say to my son, as we drive by a field of happy-looking bovines. “It’s raining,” he points out. “I don’t think cows mind a little rain. They get to eat lush, moist grass. Instead of dry grass. Do you like to eat a dry salad with no dressing? You don’t, right?” No answer. “I’m trying to think like a cow here.” “My phone would go out right in the middle of a text message,” the boy says. “That’s awful,” I say in mock sympathy. “It is,” he says. “It was a thoughtful, heartfelt text message.” “How thoughtful and heartfelt can a text message be? Aren’t you limited to 160 characters?” “Not to Verizon numbers.” “Oh. Well, that is disappointing then.” We’re driving past an agricultural area… Read more →
Waving at the Computer
Last night in the hotel room, I was lying on one of the beds reading and my son was sitting on the other bed doing something on my computer. At one point, in my peripheral vision, I thought I saw him waving at the screen. “Were you just waving at the computer?” I asked him. “I was testing your webcam,” he said. “Oh. Does it work?” “Yeah.” Read more →
NARCh Winternationals – Day 4
Semifinal This one was like a replay of the third round-robin game. Final Score: West Coast Warriors 2, Devil Dogs 0 “They couldn’t buy a goal,” one of the moms said. “Are you allowed to buy goals?” I asked. “We need to make a new rule for that,” she said. The Warriors went on to lose 5-1 to NorCal Riot Black in the 16U final. That score surprised me, since NorCal couldn’t score on the Devil Dogs and the Devil Dogs couldn’t score on West Coast. I’ve got to find out if any parents stayed to watch the final. How did NorCal get 5 goals on the West Coast boys? Whatever they did, the Devil Dogs should start doing it . . . Read more →
Happy Hour
“What kind of tequila do you have?” I ask the bartender. He says something that sounds like “Gizo.” “I’ll have a rum and coke,” I say. “What kind of tequila were you looking for?” he asks. “Uh, something I’ve heard of.” Read more →
Twitter: 2010-01-18
Just Like Football: USC 67, UCLA 46 # RT @Lileks: To recap: if you drink in the morning, you're an addict. If you drink in the morning near an athletic facility, you're a fan. # Read more →
Hockey Parents
Originally uploaded by lippo At hockey tournaments, especially travel tournaments, there’s a lot of down time between games. I usually bring a book to the rink so I have something to do. Nobody else does this. Nobody. In hockey circles, I’m known as the guy who brings books to the rink. This weekend, we’re at a tournament in San Jose. One of the dads from our team — I think he’s a copier salesman — says to me, “I can’t understand why anyone reads fiction.” He says it, not in a rude way, but not in a complimentary way either. I say, “Oh. Well, I can’t understand why anyone lives his whole life inside his own head and never gets curious about what life looks like to other people.” So I probably won’t have to talk to him the rest of the season. Later the same day, this guy knocks… Read more →
NARCh Winternationals – Day 3
Game 4 The Devil Dogs are running into hot goalies. They’ve been shut out two games in a row, this one a scoreless tie against undefeated NorCal Riot Black. Final Score: Devil Dogs 0, NorCal Riot Black 0 The tie is good enough to put the Dogs in tomorrow’s single-elimination round against the West Coast Warriors — who beat them yesterday — with the winner playing NorCal Riot Black in the final. Read more →
NARCh Winternationals – Day 2
Game 3 The West Coast Warriors are a team of big kids from British Columbia. The Devil Dogs had some trouble dealing with their size and speed. And the Warriors’ goalie played a great game. Final Score: West Coast Warriors 2, Devil Dogs 0 The final round-robin games are scheduled for tomorrow. Depending on how things go, the Devil Dogs could be the top-seed for the single-elimination round or they could get knocked out of the tournament. Their game is against NorCal Riot Black, who are undefeated at 3-0. Read more →