The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic. — H. L. Mencken
Author Archive: Paul Epps
How to Answer Stupid Job Interview Questions
Via Liz Ryan Read more →
The Best Advice I Got This Week
I was watching a Paul Barton YouTube video about piano practice . . . he said that when someone asked Horowitz how he’s able to play so many difficult pieces, Horowitz replied, “You just got to really want to.” That seems like excellent advice. It’s short, just a few words . . . you can remember it without even trying to. And I think it could be applied to almost any endeavor. Imagine someone listening to Horowitz and thinking, “Wow, that’s great! I’d give anything to be able to play like that!” But he wouldn’t really give anything. He wants to play like Horowitz but he doesn’t really want to play like Horowitz. He doesn’t want to practice 20 hours a day and give up everything else in his life. In any endeavor, reaching a goal often requires more than someone is willing to give . . . not more… Read more →
Disappearing Planes: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has left investigators, aviation experts and the authorities in several countries at a loss to explain what happened. . . . — NYTimes.com From an observer’s point of view, air travel is a magic trick: you disappear from one place and you reappear somewhere else . . . unless the trick doesn’t work and you never reappear anywhere ever again . . . Read more →
A Mega Millions Lottery Ticket is a Good Investment
Mega Millions uses 75 numbers for the first five selections and 15 numbers for the Mega ball. The number of unique combinations of five numbers selected from a pool of 75 is \(\frac{75!}{5!(75-5)!} = 17,259,390\) Multiply that times 15 possibilities for the Mega ball and the odds of winning come out to 1 in 258,890,850. BUT THE CURRENT MEGA MILLIONS JACKPOT IS OVER $350 MILLION! Any time you can get 350 million to one odds on a 258 million to one bet, you’ve got to take it. Read more →
Rickie Lee Jones – Sympathy for the Devil (Live)
Rickie Lee Jones “Wild Girl” Live
Income Inequality Explained
Via NPR: Read more →
The Secret to Playing Difficult Piano Pieces
Risk = Cumulative Cost – Cumulative Value
Henrik Kniberg has a presentation online called “What is Agile?” It includes a method of visualizing risk as the gap between cumulative cost and cumulative value, as well as methods of visualizing risk mitigation strategies. I found it valuable. Here are some representative slides: Read more →
Geoff Edwards, 1931-2014
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Geoff Edwards, the hip-looking 1970s and ’80s host of TV game shows including “Jackpot!” and two incarnations of “Treasure Hunt” died Wednesday, his agent said. He was 83. “Geoff was one of the cleverest, funniest radio and television personalities I’ve worked with,” said fellow game show host Wink Martindale. The two were DJs at pop radio station KMPC in Los Angeles. — Game show host Geoff Edwards dies at 83 – MSN TV News Shocking, shocking news . . . Wink Martindale is still alive?! RIP Geoff Edwards Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: My Antonia by Willa Cather
Woulda, coulda, shoulda . . . Rating: Read more →
Spa Day at the Vet and Erica’s Departure
I dropped Lightning off at the vet for grooming . . . “Make it like a spa day for him,” I said. “With lots of pampering. Don’t just put him in the sink and soak him down like we do at home. Make it free pampering though, nothing that will cause extra charges to accrue. By the way, where’s Erica?” Erica is usually at the desk on weekends but today there was a new girl. The new girl, Lauren, said that Erica is moving to Arizona and won’t be working there anymore. “She will be greatly missed,” Lauren said. She sure will. People are insane when it comes to their pets and Erica was always extremely patient and attentive — extremely. I wish I had the kind of personality that makes people miss me when I go away but oh well . . . I guess I have other qualities.… Read more →
On the Evaluation of One-Sided Evidence
We examine predictions and judgments of confidence based on one-sided evidence. Some subjects saw arguments for only one side of a legal dispute while other subjects (called ‘jurors’) saw arguments for both sides. Subjects predicted the number of jurors who favored the plaintiff in each case. Subjects who saw only one side made predictions that were biased in favor of that side. Furthermore, they were more confident but generally less accurate than subjects who saw both sides. The results indicate that people do not compensate sufficiently for missing information even when it is painfully obvious that the information available to them is incomplete. — Lyle A. Brenner, Derek J. Koehler and Amos Tversky, “On the Evaluation of One-sided Evidence” (emphasis added) Read more →
9 Links
Data Structure Visualizations Good Tech Lead, Bad Tech Lead Google Java Style Guide to 12 Disruptive Technologies How to Write a Cover Letter The Landing Page Optimization Guide You Wish You Always Had Selendroid: Selenium for Android UX Axioms by Eric Dahl Yelp’s got style (and the guide to back it up) Read more →
The 2014 Hater’s Guide to the Oscars
You know who should host the Oscars? BANE. Fucking Bane should host them. No jokes. No attempt at currying the audience’s favor. Just the constant threat of death and hostile takeover. — The 2014 Hater’s Guide to the Oscars Read more →
He Lost His Arm, Not His Sense of Humor
Former CNN anchor Miles O’Brien revealed Tuesday that his left forearm was amputated this month after a freak accident led to emergency surgery for a potentially life-threatening condition called compartment syndrome. . . . O’Brien said he’s dealing with phantom pain and getting used to life with one hand. “But I am alive and I’m grateful for that,” he wrote. “Life is all about playing the hand that is dealt you. Actually, I would love somebody to deal me another hand right about now – in more ways than one.” — Former CNN Anchor Loses Arm After Freak Accident Complication – NBCNews.com Read more →
Overheard at Subway
“Last time I was here, I decided to have a pink lemonade instead of a soda. Biggest mistake of my life.” “The biggest mistake of your life was buying a pink lemonade?” “Yeah. My whole afternoon was ruined.” Read more →
Neil Young in LA
Neil Young is playing a couple of solo acoustic shows next month at the Dolby Theatre. Tickets went on sale Monday morning, but somehow I missed the fact that they’d been available via “pre-sale” since last Friday and were all gone by Monday morning. What a heartbreaker. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of technology and social networks, Mr. Young and his team were able to inform me via Facebook that a third show had been added and I was able to log in and get tickets for that one. The sold-out shows are on a Saturday and Sunday. The new show is on a Tuesday. Am I looking forward to driving in to LA and back on a Tuesday? No, but on a list of solo acoustic shows for which I’d be most willing to knock over my own mother to get a ticket, Neil Young would be second, behind… Read more →
A Trip to the Vet
I’m picking up a prescription for Lightning at the vet. He takes 5mg/day of a steroid for his joints, half a tablet in the morning and half at night. The tablets are scored to make them easier to cut in half, but the vet staff uses a pill cutter, making cutting on the scoring actually a little more difficult because you have to line up each pill. It’s better to cut them on the scoring, because the pills are small and they can crumble if they’re cut across the scoring, but it’s more time-consuming. “Are the pills cut on the lines?” I ask the woman at the desk. “Lightning doesn’t like it when they’re not cut on the lines.” “He doesn’t like it?” she says. “He feels like it doesn’t show attention to detail.” Some of the women at our vet’s office have a sense of humor and some don’t.… Read more →