Via The Telegraph:
Architectural Digest also had a library slideshow — not as spectacular because unlike the Telegraph slideshow, these libraries are in people’s homes — but a couple of great ones nonetheless.
Mates and Dates
Which Experts Predicted a Red Sox-Cardinals World Series?
With two storied franchises making the 2013 Fall Classic, let’s take a look at which of the 63 experts we tracked this year (from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CBS, Yahoo, and Fox) pegged the series correctly.
(… Calculating …)
(… Calculating …)
Well, how’s this for embarassing: 0 of the 63 so-called experts had both the Red Sox and Cardinals in the World Series.
Perhaps this is not a huge surprise, as Vegas gave each team less than a 10% probability of making the Series. So let’s lower the bar considerably and look at the pundits who picked either the Red Sox OR the Cardinals to make it.
(… Calculating …)
You guessed it — zero. Not one.
When Will Snowden Denounce Russian Spying?
Russia to vastly increase internet spying capabilities. I eagerly await Mr. Snowden's principled denouncement! http://t.co/rWFgYz0j05
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 21, 2013
I'm sure a Sakharov Prize nominee like Snowden will bravely stand up to criticize the invasive policies of his new homeland.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 21, 2013
Everyone Was Equal
Sorry, but I’m from a place where everything was “shared equally” and it wasn’t as nice as some of you seem to think it would be.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 20, 2013
Or as fellow grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi wrote in his autobiography: “The Soviets were very successful: everyone was equal — equally poor.”
How to Talk to Anyone: 6 Rejoinders for All Occasions
- You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.
- Just like a typical [man/woman].
- I can read you like a book.
- Why? Because I said so.
- Who’s sorry now?
- If I were you, I’d . . .
We Named the Dog “Indiana”
Snakes. Why’d it Have to Be Snakes?
And So it Goes
Joe Bell, 48, was walking cross-country from Oregon to New York to memorialize his gay son, who killed himself after being bullied.
Bell’s journey began April 20 and ended this week on a two-lane road in eastern Colorado, where he was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer whose driver had apparently fallen asleep.
Cleaning on the Day Shift
A couple of months ago, the cleaning staff at our office started working during the day, instead of after hours.
Whatever improvements were supposed to accrue from that have evidently not come to pass because starting next month, they’re going back to the night shift.
What I will miss most about having them around during the day is their impeccable sense of timing in closing the men’s room twice a day for cleaning at the precise moments that I urgently need to use it.
The School of Dysfunctional Parenting
Specializing in ineffective and destructive ways of relating, a vicious spiral in which the faults of the parents are passed on to the children . . .
ObamaCare Winners and Losers
Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.
Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four. . . .
Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations the exchange has always made clear that there will be winners and losers under Obamacare. . . .
“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”
Well, there are fewer limits on what you can promise than on what you can deliver. — Milton Friedman
Newton’s Cradle
Do You Have a ‘Right’ to Health Care?
The general point is that a positive right to health care – no matter how splendid you hold that right to be and no matter how lovely is the provision of that right – requires that its recipients receive at others’ expense the services to which these recipients have a ‘right.’ Someone (or a multitude of someones) must supply those services whose recipients self-righteously insist be supplied as a matter of ‘right.’ This fact is undeniable and inescapable.
Note that – although undeniable and inescapable – this fact does not by itself establish a case against treating health care as a right. But recognizing this reality does reveal certain potentially ugly aspects of all this ‘rights’ talk about health care – namely, to exercise your ‘right’ to health care requires that someone else be forced to serve you. Someone else must not merely refrain from interfering in your life and business. Instead, that someone else must be obliged to exert positive effort to help you – and not because you make it worthwhile for that person to exert that effort on your behalf, but because the government will ultimately execute him or her if he or she refuses to supply you with that to which you have a positive ‘right.’
I’m aware that such positive “rights” strike many people as being evidence of a highly progressive and especially civilized and caring society. They strike me as being quite the opposite: evidence not only of economic ignorance, but of collectivized and mutually destructive predation camouflaged with a pretty mask and falsely scented with absurd oratory.
Gay Divorcee Wants $94,000 a Month
Jane Lynch’s ex wants $94,000 in monthly spousal support — MSN TV News
You’ve gotta be careful what you wish for.
We want to be able to marry our same-sex partners. We want to enjoy the blessings and sacraments of love just like straight people.
O-kay . . . do you also want to pay $94,000 a month to your same-sex partner when things don’t work out?
Back in the pre-gay-marriage era, Jane Lynch could have ended the relationship with a handshake and perhaps a modest gratuity if she felt like it.
People don’t know when they’re well-off. Group A feels put upon in comparison to Group B, wants to be more like Group B, and doesn’t think about having to give up the advantages of NOT being like Group B.
As Bobby Fischer used to say, “To get squares, you’ve got to give squares.” Everything’s a tradeoff.
Interview Tips: You’re a 10 in Everything
One of my least favorite interview questions goes something like this:
On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on [insert personal attribute here].
This is a bad question because while some quantities – speed, weight, temperature, earthquake magnitude – do have an agreed-upon scale of measurement, personal attributes like, say, leadership, do not.
Person A might give himself a 10 in leadership, while a third party might say, “Oh, I know that guy. He’s a 3.”
You might be tempted to answer like this: “I consider myself a good leader, better than most, but I’m humbled by the challenges of leadership, and I’m always learning something new, so I’ll give myself an 8.”
Absent any information about how that number is going to be used, I’d say that’s a pretty good answer. It’s honest and reflective.
BUT — the question itself is so misguided that I don’t expect someone asking it to use the answer in an intelligent way. I expect the asker of “rate yourself” questions to take the answers at face value, write them down and then do one of two things, maybe both:
- Compare the answers to some meaningless threshold. Ooh, we really need someone who’s at least a 9 in leadership.
- Compare the answers with the answers of other candidates. Candidate A is an 8, Candidate B is an 9 and Candidate C is a 10. Advantage, Candidate C.
Just play it safe and give yourself a 10 on everything.
The only reason I can come up with to give yourself less than a 10 on any attribute is the remote possibility that the interviewer could discount a candidate giving all 10s as being lacking in self-awareness, but no one asking me “rate yourself” questions has ever struck me as being that subtle.
Husband Descending a Staircase
The White Lexus Strikes Again
“I just tried to get into my car in the parking lot and I couldn’t open it. Do you know why?”
“Let me guess. Do you drive a white Lexus SUV?”
“Yes.”
“Because you were trying to get into someone else’s car.”
“How did you know that.” (Answer here.)
See You in HEL
HELSINKI (AP) — Would you board flight 666 to HEL on Friday the 13th?
For superstitious travelers, that might be tempting fate. But Finnair passengers on AY666 to Helsinki — which has the 3 letter designation HEL — don’t seem too bothered. Friday’s flight is almost full.