MANILA, Philippines — Commandos shot and killed a former policeman who was holding 15 tourists hostage aboard a bus in downtown Manila on Monday, authorities said. Six of the hostages were killed, hospital officials said. — Officials: 6 hostages die after ex-cop seizes bus – msnbc.com Read more →
August 2010
Pug Photos on Flickr
Originally uploaded by the.wizzler Originally uploaded by smeado Originally uploaded by lauren_louise Originally uploaded by wombatarama Originally uploaded by ACC__1 Read more →
What I’d Really Like, Dad, is to Borrow the Car Keys
My son walks into my room and says, “Dad, where are your car keys?” “Where are you going?” I ask. “Gym,” he says, and starts to walk out of the room again. “Wait a minute. Where are you going?” “To the gym.” “I got that, but you asked me a question and you’re walking out of the room before I answered it.” “I thought you could give me the answer as I was walking away.” “Well, I can’t because the keys are in my pocket.” “Oh,” he says. “See, that’s what threw me off,” I say, “is I’ve got the keys right here and you’re walking in the other direction.” “I don’t have time to stand around,” he says. “You don’t? Well, I don’t have time to figure out other people’s mystifying behavior.” Read more →
I Have No Fears
Except aging, death, poverty, diminished capacity, criticism, loss of love and ill health. Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-21
RT @capricecrane: “Spencer Pratt Writing Tell-All About Ex Heidi Montag.” Chapter One: She marries a douchebag. # RT @TheOnion: Obama To Create 17 New Jobs By Resigning And Finally Opening That Restaurant http://onion.com/a0V23H # Related articles Spencer Pratt to write tell-all book about ex Heidi Montag, as if we don’t already know everything (popwatch.ew.com) Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-18
My Twifficiency score is 36%. Whats yours? http://twifficiency.com/ # Read more →
Overheard at the Office
Twitter: 2010-08-17
RT @jdickerson: Breaking News: Person unknown to you did something of dubious distinctIon or is no longer missing or married. # RT @joshcomers: "Everything’s going to be okay." (First lie to self of week). # RT @TheOnion: In Focus: Al-Jazeera Introduces 'Lighter Side Of The News' Segment http://onion.com/dknefU # RT @fredthompson: Obama warns GOP planning to privatize Soc Sec. Very upsetting for him. Interferes with the current plan of bankrupting it. # Read more →
Aggregating Intellect
A team can aggregate the intellects and elevate the nobility of the group as a whole to create a greatness of effect comparable to, or even surpassing, any individual genius. — Jim McCarthy Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-16
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to retweet it. # Read more →
A Beautiful Mind
Princeton University Read more →
Short Books
My kid’s got a summer assignment for AP English — select and read two novels from a list of about 20. I’ve been telling him since June that I’d be glad to go over the list with him and recommend books that he might enjoy reading but he’s put it off so long now that I’m limited to recommending short books that he might enjoy reading, and that leaves us with Ethan Frome, Wide Sargasso Sea and All the Pretty Horses. He comes back from the bookstore with Frome and Sargasso, two books about men who marry crazy women. He ruled out All the Pretty Horses because it’s 300 pages long and “I read the first sentence and it had like six adjectives.” Read more →
We Live Like Baboons but at Least We Have Television
Baboons who live in the African plains spend about one-third of their life sleeping, and when awake they divide their time between traveling, finding and eating food, and free leisure time–which basically consists in interacting, or grooming each other’s fur to pick out lice. . . . And as the historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has shown, in thirteenth century French villages–which were among the most advanced in the world at the time — the most common leisure pursuit was still that of picking lice out of each other’s hair. Now, of course, we have television. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-13
RT @alaindebotton: What is most offensive about militant atheists is their seeming lack of sympathy 4 desperation. They seem so… un-needy. # Read more →
A Dog at the Airport
Picking up my family at John Wayne Airport . . . There’s a guy walking around the baggage claim area with a toy poodle on a leash. I point this out to my son and say, “I didn’t know you could walk your dog around here. I would have brought Lightning.” “Maybe it’s a bomb-sniffing dog,” he says. “A bomb-sniffing poodle?” “Yeah.” Read more →
Why People Don’t Succeed
In summary, I claim that some of the reasons why so many people who have greatness within their grasp don’t succeed are: they don’t work on important problems, they don’t become emotionally involved, they don’t try and change what is difficult to some other situation which is easily done but is still important, and they keep giving themselves alibis why they don’t. They keep saying that it is a matter of luck. — Richard Hamming Read more →
This Sounds Familiar
Bias is particularly an issue on cross-boundary initiatives, where multiple groups of stakeholders work together on a project. Each stakeholder group has particular goals and is judged against metrics that may be unique to that group. Bias tends to be a substantial driver of project disruption in organizations where goals or metrics across groups are in conflict. — “Behavioral economics: The IT failure domino effect” Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-12
RT @ChelseaVPeretti: When someone's telling you something is it ok to say "who cares" if you do it tenderly and touch their arm? # RT @eddiepepitone: Just drank a coffee the size of a Buick. I think I will write an outline of the history of civilization. # Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-11
Other than it's not in the plan, what's the argument for not doing it? http://goo.gl/Hbu4 # RT @eddiepepitone: tweets of Bob Frankenstein ( the monster's normal brother)- Frank is just big and unfortunate. # Thank god Emma Thompson has come along to save us from G.B. Shaw, Lerner & Loewe, and Audrey Hepburn. # RT @fakerahmemanuel: This just in from Ted Stevens: Hell is actually a series of tubes. # Welcome to Twitter, @Steven_Slater # Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-10
RT @joshcomers: “I’m ready to take this to the next level!” (overly dramatic guy walking into an elevator) # RT @joshcomers: Just saw that a guy following over 28,000 people unfollowed me. I must have really fucked up. # Risk creates value. Except when it destroys value. # RT @Jesus_M_Christ: #ILaughEverytime I send a Fundamentalist to Hell. # RT @Jesus_M_Christ: Whenever someone pleads with me for World Peace then ends their prayer by asking for bigger boobs #ilaugheverytime # Read more →