If you're like me, the first thing you would have done when you read the title of this post is go to Google and type, "what happened 413 days ago". And you would have found out that 413 days ago was Friday, November 24, 2017 - Black Friday. And 773 days ago (November 29, 2016) I ended one … Continue reading This Post Is 413 Days Late
The Wall Street Journal had a story today about the intensifying conflict over college debt among American families. Reporters Erica Snow and Douglas Belkin note that tuition increases have outpaced household incomes just as parents are facing multiple financial responsibilities, including supporting their own parents, saving for retirement, health-care costs, and sometimes their adult children’s living … Continue reading Thanks, Mom and Dad
For the past several years, Mark Zuckerberg has set a personal challenge for himself. He just announced his challenge for 2019 on Facebook (of course) - host a series of discussions on the future of technology "My challenge for 2019 is to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society -- … Continue reading Mark Zuckerberg’s Personal Challenge for 2019, and a Look Back at His Previous Ones
I had seen the commercial a couple of times, but I hadn't really paid too much attention to it. Then I read Harlan Coben's tweet about it: Is it weird that Chevy’s adverising campaign relies on the fact that no one believes Chevy is reliable? — Harlan Coben (@HarlanCoben) January 7, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js So I … Continue reading Sorry, Chevrolet, It Looks Like Two Thumbs Down for Your Latest Commercial
Sometimes I can't remember the name of people I met five minutes ago, but somehow I can sing all the lyrics to both the opening and closing theme songs from the Beverly Hillbillies, from 50 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvE9zJgm8OY And when I watched this video until the end, the memories came rushing back as I heard Daisy May … Continue reading Music Monday: Classic TV Theme Songs
That's one of the memorable lines from the book, Educated, which I just finished reading. Here's a brief summary of the book from the author's (Tara Westover) website: Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of … Continue reading “I teach them not to piss on their hands.”
For more than 80 years, pollsters have been asking Americans from all walks of life to share their opinions and experiences on pretty much every imaginable topic. Thousands of those surveys are archived by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University. As the end of 2018, HuffPost wanted to see how things have ― and … Continue reading American Attitudes, Then and Now
Sorry to make you wait three days, but you can blame good old Dan Ariely. Dan recently received the following email: Dear Dan, I enjoy giving gifts to my best friend, and I was wondering which approach would be better for strengthening our friendship: giving her big gifts twice a year, on her birthday and … Continue reading Don’t Read This Post Now – Wait Three Days to Do So
I was at IKEA today, and ended up buying just one very small item, a $5 shelf. When I got to the checkout, I was startled to see that there were only two registers open, and there were about 8-12 people in each line. I was surprised because it was 11:30 on a Thursday morning. … Continue reading Dear Rude People: Quit Cutting in Line
Last year I wrote the following about the famous Marshmallow Experiment: You may be familiar with the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, which was a series of studies on delayed gratification in the late 1960s and early 1970s led by psychologist Walter Mischel, then a professor at Stanford University. In these studies, a child was offered a choice between one small … Continue reading Eating That Marshmallow Won’t Ruin Your Life After All
Borden's Blather 