The Sleepwalkers is one of the most remarkable books I’ve ever read, very close to the edge of what can be accomplished with the written word. I had never heard of either the book or the author — neither seems to have any following here in the States — but Amazon for some reason started recommending me post-WWI Austrian modernists. (I also read Robert Musil’s A Man Without Qualities, which was extremely tedious.) I don’t know who to compare Broch with, in terms of language, wit, psychological and historical insight — maybe Nietzsche, if Nietzsche had decided to write historical fiction. The book chronicles, via multiple overlapping narratives, the moral history of Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the disintegration of values that led to fascism. And in his fear of the voice of judgment that threatens to issue from the darkness, there awakens within him… Read more →
July 2017
Overheard
Man reading news story from his phone: “‘A 4-year-old boy is among at least 29 people shot in Chicago this weekend as violence across the city left two dead and more than two dozen others wounded.’” “Twenty-nine people shot and only two dead? Thank god black people can’t shoot straight.” “How do you know they were black people?” “OK, you got me there, Inspector Clouseau.” Read more →
Where Are the Additional Women in Technology Supposed to Come From?
The jobs report for May contained discouraging news: continuing low labor-force participation, now below 63 percent overall. About 20 million men between the prime working ages of 20 and 65 had no paid work in 2015, and seven million men have stopped looking altogether. In the meantime, the jobs most in demand — like nursing and nurse assistants, home health care aides, occupational therapists or physical therapists — sit open. The health care sector had the largest gap between vacancies and hires of any sector in April, for example. — The New York Times We hear a lot about a shortage of women in technology jobs but we don’t hear about a shortage of men in traditionally female jobs. It’s really two sides of the same problem. Unless a lot of women suddenly appear out of nowhere, the only way to get more women into professions where they’re currently under-represented… Read more →
One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance
One of my “progressive” Facebook friends posted: I’ve always wondered why white people who use the defense “I have black friends” to defend their “I’m not a racist because” arguments, never seem to tag their supposed black friends. Where are they? Fresh take! Now I’ve always wondered why some people think they have the moral authority and supernatural power to look into the hearts of others and label them racists. I’m all about tolerance and love and anyone who doesn’t think the same way I do is a racist, sexist, homophobic Nazi! We seem to be living in a time when the first person to call “racist” is ceded the moral high ground. I’m not a racist because I called you a racist first! Read more →
Remote Work on the Decline
According to LinkedIn: IBM, Aetna, Reddit, and Bank of America are among a growing list of companies slashing remote work policies. It’s not because employees working from home are less productive; rather, many companies think in-person collaboration just can’t be beat. I get that. It’s easier to work with people in the same room than with people at some distant point in time and space. But I can’t help noticing that there are more companies willing to hire hordes of itinerant trainees in a foreign land to write important software (i.e., “outsourcing”), than to let employees write software 15 minutes from the office in their own home. Read more →
Like Virgil
Like Virgil, I recognize that I may have falsified reality in my attempt to create beauty . . . Read more →
Aside
Bravery, not perfection.
I Paid My Debt to Society
I paid my debt to society by reporting in for jury duty today. Jury duty is worse than losing a limb. In my experience, if you pick 12 Americans at random, you get nine good, clear-thinking citizens and three people who are like, “Well, anything’s possible.” For example, the last time I served on a jury, the case involved a defendant who was driving drunk and crashed a car with passengers into a tree. There were photos taken after the crash showing the defendant pinned behind the steering wheel of the car. His defense? He wasn’t the person driving the car. He didn’t testify himself but that was the defense presented by his attorney. And three of the jurors were like, “Yeah, that’s possible.” Hung jury. Today I survived three rounds of random juror calls in the morning and by lunchtime they started calling names of people to go… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Acquisitive yuppies who, instead of holding their infant, wear the child in a harness on their chest, thus keeping their hands free for grabbing more stuff . . . Read more →
Mistaken Identity
I’m walking through the parking lot at Kohl’s when all of a sudden, the rear hatch on an SUV pops open next to me, even though there’s no one in or around the vehicle. Then I notice several cars further down is a similar-looking SUV and a woman with an armful of parcels trying to figure out why it won’t open. Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: Baby Driver
The dialogue is awful and the characters are trite — the criminal mastermind in his secret lair, the beautiful but deadly femme fatale, the trigger-happy psychopath, etc. — but once they stop talking and the action kicks in, it’s terrific! Also: great soundtrack! Rating: Director: Cast: IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →
The Victimized Media
In the age of Trump, it’s acceptable for reporters to claim they “never wanted to be part of the story,” while waiting in a green room to go on TV and talk about themselves. — Washington Examiner Read more →
A Couple of Questions About Commerce
Why are store receipts so damn big? I bought a couple of 3V batteries at Office Depot and got a receipt as long as my arm. (The receipt is shown upside down to discourage you from stealing my identity.) Why do chip readers have to honk at you when your transaction is approved? I get that they’re reminding me to remove my card but why not remind me via a pleasant jingle? Read more →
Our Town
And I can see the sun settin’ fast And just like they say nothing good ever lasts Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover ‘Cause your heart’s bound to die Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town Can’t you see the sun’s settin’ down on our town, on our town Goodnight Read more →
Privilege
There can be no grosser example of privilege than that set before us as an ideal by certain socialistic writers the ideal that . . . the man who is vicious, foolish, a drag on the whole community, who contributes less than his share to the common good, should take out what is not his, what he has not earned; that he shall rob his neighbor of what that neighbor has earned. This particular socialistic ideal would be to enthrone privilege in one of its grossest, crudest, most dishonest, most harmful and most unjust forms. — Theodore Roosevelt, 1908 Read more →
10 Reasons Why Failure is Good, Except When It’s Bad
Once upon a time there was a startup, and the president of this startup, like a lot of people in the early part of the 21st century, celebrated failure — as a learning tool and as a precursor to success. He encouraged employees to celebrate failures on the company Slack channel, using the hashtag #fail. Legend has it that the president called one employee on the carpet for suggesting on the Slack channel that it doesn’t make sense to celebrate failure without factoring in the cost of failure. That is simply a truism, is it not? Obviously the value of failure can be swamped out by the cost, e.g., Blew up 7 astronauts but learned that O-rings don’t function in sub-freezing temperatures. #fail You can think of other examples yourself. You can probably also think of people and/or companies for whom failure was merely a precursor to more failure. Working… Read more →
“I’m Not Pointing Any Fingers . . .”
. . . I say to the only other person who lives in my house, “but SOMEone plucked the toppings off the leftover pizza.” Read more →
Today Would Have Been a Good Day
I’ve always been tempted to short Abercrombie & Fitch stock based on the abysmal quality of people I see wearing their merchandise. Today would have been a good day to actually do it, as a deal to sell the company fell through (If you’re not familiar with stock charts, today’s activity is reflected in the vertical purple bar plummeting toward the bottom right of the chart.) Read more →
Sounds Like a Plan
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People who say “What does this button do?” and immediately press the button without waiting for an answer . . . Read more →