I've always been intrigued by people who seem to be blessed with an amazing memory. My aunt seems to have an unlimited memory for people's birthdays and phone numbers. A former colleague at Villanova was able to recall the names (and details) of students he taught 40 years ago. And then there's Joshua Foer. Foer had … Continue reading How I Improved My Memory by Playing Connect 4 Using My Mouth
A woman in Ipswich, England, a small town about 60 miles north of London, filed a report with the Ipswich Borough Council, claiming she has been woken on an almost nightly basis by a tinny, distant rendition of ‘It’s Raining, It’s Pouring’. Here's what it sounded like (you've been warned): Early one morning, after being … Continue reading Warning! This Post Might Give You Nightmares…
Have you ever heard of the web sites Upwork or Get Friday or Fiverr? How about 99designs? Perhaps freelancer? If so, then you might have some familiarity with the world of online freelancing. If not, let me introduce it to you. Online freelancing is a global marketplace where people looking for help on a project … Continue reading The Fascinating Online Gig Economy
Eliud Kipchoge is a 33-year old Kenyan long distance runner, and the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the marathon. Yesterday, Kipchoge set the world record for the marathon at the Berlin Marathon in a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, and 39 seconds (2:01:39). The previous record was 2:02:57; Kipchoge's time represents the biggest drop in the … Continue reading Putting Yesterday’s Amazing Marathon World Record in Perspective
The New York Times Magazine had a wonderful, but at the same time depressing, story about what it's like to be poor in the United States today. Written by Pulitzer Prize winning writer Matthew Desmond, the article offers insight into world of poverty, and provides evidence and sound reasoning as what is the best way … Continue reading Why Is There Even a Debate about Trying to Help the Poor?
This past week I read a couple of articles that talked about the potential impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on the future of work, and the articles noted that some jobs would likely be safe from being replaced by a robot. So I decided to look a bit more into it, and see if … Continue reading What Jobs Will Survive the Artificial Intelligence Revolution?
A couple of years ago I offered my thoughts on the great book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. In that post I focused on one of the more memorable lines from the book, "each of is more than the worst thing we've ever done." This afternoon I had a chance to attend a presentation by … Continue reading Hopelessness Is the Enemy of Justice
Printerinks, one of the largest printer ink, printer toners, and replacement ink cartridges companies in the UK,, has put together a great infographic comparing how long it has taken to write some of the world's best known novels, as well as how lengthy those novels are. Not only is the information itself fascinating, but I love … Continue reading It’s a Good Thing That Reading a Book Doesn’t Take as Long as Writing a Book
For many companies, their primary goal, and perhaps their only goal, is to do well by their stockholders. This often translates into a single-minded focus on profits as the measure of success. Other companies may have multiple goals, all relatively equal. Such goals might include creating an organization that treats its employees, customers, vendors, and … Continue reading Doing Well and Doing Good – The Rise of the B Corp
As if libraries don't already offer great resources to their local communities - books, audio tapes, CDs, DVDs, newspapers, toys, puzzles, games, computer terminals with internet access, reference librarians, children's programs, sponsor 5K runs; the list goes on and on. And then just today I just read a story about a library that has a "tiebrary"; a … Continue reading More Reasons Why Libraries Are the Heart and Soul of Local Communities
Borden's Blather 