My wife and I had the chance to watch a wonderful movie this past weekend, The Peanut Butter Falcon. I highly recommend it. Here's the movie summary from Rotten Tomatoes, where it scored a 95% on the Tomatometer and 96% on the Audience Score: A modern Mark Twain style adventure story, THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON … Continue reading Music Monday: Selected Songs from the Wonderful Film, The Peanut Butter Falcon
A few days ago, an Oklahoma judge acknowledged that he was three decimal places off when he originally calculated the amount Johnson & Johnson should pay for its role in the state’s opioids crisis. The mistake came when he was assessing various costs to the state to deal with addiction and prevention issues stemming from … Continue reading Nice Try, but You Can’t Blame the Calculator
This weekend is the Philadelphia Marathon, a 26.2 mile run through America's greatest city. Over 30,000 people compete in the race which winds its way through some of the most historic places in the United States. But apparently, it's not for everyone. A poll sponsored by Advil and Harris found that 28% of Americans would … Continue reading There Are Not Many Things Worse Than Running a Marathon. Or Is There?
Reporters Suzanne Kapner and Dante Chinni had a fascinating story in this week's Wall Street Journal that looked at the consumer behavior patterns of Republicans vs. Democrats, and how those patterns have changed over the years. The Journal analyzed 15 years of consumer surveys conducted by MRI-Simmons, a research firm. The research, which studied 2,528 … Continue reading Here’s How to Show Support for Your Favorite Political Party
John Hennessy returned to his roots tonight, giving a lecture about what the past 50 years have been like since he first arrived on Villanova's campus. John graduated from Villanova in 1973 with a degree in electrical engineering and then went on to Stonybrook University for his Masters and Ph.D. Hennessy then became a Stanford … Continue reading From Villanova Class of ’73 to President of Stanford to Chair of Google
Remember that time is money. – Ben Franklin, Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748 To prove what Franklin meant about the time value of money, let’s use an example, one that pays homage to Franklin. Another famous saying of Franklin’s is “A penny saved is a penny got.” Imagine someone took Franklin’s advice, and took a penny … Continue reading Compound Interest – the Eighth Wonder of the World*
Once again, it was getting late, and I still had not thought of something to write about for today's post. Somehow, while searching the web for blog ideas, I came across the above cartoon, and it spoke the truth. I have posted for 1,784 straight days, starting on January 1, 2015, so there are bound … Continue reading This Cartoon Hits Too Close to Home, Too Often
It's known as the "curse of knowledge", a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand. For example, in a classroom setting, teachers have difficulty teaching novices because they cannot put themselves in the position of the student. As a teacher, I have … Continue reading Music Monday: Can You Name That Tune? Most Likely Not
These twelve traits are in no particular order, although I would probably say the first one is the most important one for me: kindness wisdom humility collaborative fairness compassion honesty sense of humor enthusiasm creative peaceful sense of gratitude To me, character matters, a lot, in our leaders. I think it would be impossible to … Continue reading Twelve Traits I Look for in a President
It's one of the all-time great songs of summer, "Under the Boardwalk". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKmKezVBdOQ Now I have never personally experienced the romantic overtones suggested by the lyrics, but nonetheless, it's still one of my favorites because of all the other wonderful imagery contained in the lyrics. The song came back to me as I reading a … Continue reading Would You Rather Be Thrown “Under the Boardwalk” or “Under the Bus”?
Borden's Blather 