n every living thing there is the desire for love. — D.H. Lawrence
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Lesson Learned at the Drive-Thru
This Coke Zero I got at the Del Taco drive-thru tastes more like root beer than any other Coke Zero I’ve ever had. Possibly the guy in front of me or behind me is wondering right now why his root beer tastes like Coke Zero. Note to self: In future visits to fast food drive-thrus, take a sip of the drink before driving off with it. Read more →
Time is Money
Amazon sent me some book recommendations, including A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and A Really Short History of Nearly Everything by the same author. The second book costs five dollars more. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Maybe condensing a short history into a really short history saves me some time and I have to pay more for that. Time is money . . . in this case, five dollars. Read more →
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand. — Milton Friedman
The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights. — Muhammad Ali
There Are Four Ways You Can Spend Money
There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40%… Read more →
Aside
Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’, but you’re a mess.
Am I Smarter Than A Japanese Schoolchild?
Are we talking book smart or street smart? If a Japanese kid is computing the area of a rectangle while I’m out gettin’ my bling, who’s smarter, I ask you? Read more →
or why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience? — I Corinthians 10:29
Stigler’s Law of Eponymy
Stigler’s law of eponymy is a process proposed by University of Chicago statistics professor Stephen Stigler in his 1980 publication “Stigler’s law of eponymy.” It states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Stigler named the sociologist Robert K. Merton as the discoverer of “Stigler’s law,” so as to avoid this law about laws disobeying its very own decree. — Wikipedia Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Before You Die
50 Books You Must Read Before You Die, 100 Things You Need to Eat Before You Die, 1000 Places You Must See Before You Die, etc., etc., et goddamn cetera. Why not simply say 50 Books You Must Read, 100 Things You Need to Eat or 1000 Places You Must See? We all understand that we won’t be reading, eating or seeing things AFTER we die. Why do you have to introduce death into the equation? Read more →
Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada
Hey Guys, I Wrote a Book!
It’s called Thus Spoke the Programmer: A Fictional Memoir. (Don’t be put off by the title if you’re not a programmer. It’s guaranteed to delight both technical and non-technical readers alike. 🙂 ) If you’re interested in having a look at it, you have a couple of options: Leanpub, a PWYW (pay what you want) platform, which means if you want to read the book for free, you can download it and read it for free. Amazon, available in paperback or Kindle format (not free). Read more →
All Joy Wants Eternity
O man, take care! What does the deep midnight declare? “I was asleep— From a deep dream I woke and swear:— The world is deep, Deeper than day had been aware. Deep is its woe— Joy—deeper yet than agony: Woe implores: Go! But all joy wants eternity— Wants deep, wants deep eternity. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra Read more →
It’s Later Than You (I) Think
Driving through the parking lot at Irvine Marketplace, I slow down to let an old man walk across in front of me. Hurry it up you elderly bastard! As I get a closer look, I recognize him as a former college classmate. Which means he’s the same age as me. He is fatter and balder than I am though, so at least I’ve got that going for me. Read more →
Who Says Creativity is Dead in Tinseltown?
“Summer 2015 will see at least 18 sequels, prequels, reboots, spinoffs and adaptations of TV shows and video games . . .” The rest of the Summer 2015 movies will be sequels, prequels, reboots, spinoffs and adaptations of other movies and comic books. Read more →
On This Day
On July 19, 1980, the Summer Olympics began in Moscow with dozens of nations boycotting because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. Thirty-five years later, there’s still a war going on in Afghanistan, so you can see what a shrewd foreign policy move that was. Read more →
Prescience
Unexpected rain in July makes my decision not to wash my car since last year look eerily prescient. Read more →
Pain in the Neck
I started going to physical therapy for neck pain . . . “What kind of work do you do?” the therapist asks. “Software development.” “Do you sit a lot during the day?” “Yes.” “At a desk?” “Yes.” “Show me how you sit at the desk.” “I turn sideways like this in the chair and lean on the armrest, then I kind of scrunch over and stare at a computer screen.” “Oooh, that’s not good. You shouldn’t do that.” “I know. But I get paid to do it and I don’t know how to do anything else.” Read more →
Greece is Going Out of Business
I remember the good old days when we only had to worry about small banks going out of business. Then big banks started to go out of business, then non-bank financial institutions, and now small countries. The problem with having a lot of debt is that, with some exceptions (“too big to fail”), bad things happen when your investors get nervous. My memory is not photographic as some of the legends about me say, but I am sure I would remember if the works of Adam Smith included the phrase “too big to fail.” — Garry Kasparov What are the odds that people running companies or countries will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions — if they can do just as well or better making dumb decisions and being rescued from the consequences? According to the government debt chart below, the next countries… Read more →