Random Thoughts about Life

On Comment Sections of Websites

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:20:11 -0600

They are the worst. They bring out the worst people in society and add no value to articles. If there is one thing the federal government should regulate — it should be no more comment boxes so ignorant people can stop wasting the time of others.

That is all.

In response to Holiday Discounts Are a Dangerous Drug. I bought...

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:01:21 -0600

In response to Holiday Discounts Are a Dangerous Drug.

I bought Adobe Lightroom 4 on Black Friday for $79 (regular price of $149). The week prior Best Buy had been advertising it for $109. That’s a pretty good deal, but I thought I might as well wait for Black Friday to see if I could get a better deal. Obviously it worked.

And that’s where the flaw lies. Discounts reduce the value of your product to your customers. When you have frequent discounts, people come to expect them. When people come to expect them, they wait and wait and wait until the magical sale. I would have been ready to pay $109 or even $149 to Adobe for their product. But because of Black Friday, I delayed my purchase. They got the sale, but I think they lose in the long-term.

This reminds me of some music albums I wanted to buy. I wanted Food & Liquor II, Chapter V, & God Forgives, I Don’t. These would usually be $30-35 total, but I decided to wait until the magical sale. The sale happens to be this week and I got them for $15. Again, they got the sale — but it’s further reinforcement that I can make them blink waiting for a discount.

This isn’t a good game to be in.

2000/2004: Bush wins, Democrats cry voter fraud/rigging....

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:10:25 -0600

2000/2004: Bush wins, Democrats cry voter fraud/rigging. 2008/2012: Obama wins, Republicans cry voter fraud/rigging.

Don’t be a sore loser.

On Presidential Debates

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:38:29 -0500

It’s funny that when Barack is calm, he “loses” debates, but with guns blazing, he does “better”. I reject the premise of the presidential “debate”. Nobody is up there saying who is more or less right on their facts. In the end it gets decided us the people (our gut) and the spin zone. We blame Congress for not passing laws and being too political; WE ARE THE ONES ADDICTED to political porn and if someone does not “win” or “lose” then we don’t care.

Instead of waiting to get your personal jollies from the sexual climax of this campaign — why don’t you go out and do something that will actually make a difference?

On Wage Increases

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:15:19 -0500

I’ve read a lot of articles lately regarding wage increases for city/government employees. You can read this one as an example or I could summarize it like this:

The City of Austin is proposing a 3% across the board pay raise for it’s employees. We are in hard economic times. We shouldn’t be raising city employee salaries when other people are struggling.

At face value this may seem reasonable. Why do city workers deserve more money in these economic times? This is where I’ll stop you.

This is the exact reason with a big problem of the government/working for the government. Everyone is treated the same and basically referred to as cattle. Cattle in the sense of a group of people with no individually redeeming qualities. Nobody is better than other person. Nobody is getting rewarded for doing their job better and possibly even reducing amount of money the city needs to spend to achieve it’s goals. You could blame this on unions (which might be right), but but that would be too easy.

At Google there is a system called OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) that each person defines near the beginning of the quarter. I used to work as a Google Apps support person and you would identify various key results that would essentially tell you if you achieved your goals for the quarter (resolving issues for X number of customers, achieving a customer satisfaction rate of X). At the end of the quarter you are judged on how well you met your OKRs and that would filter down eventually into your salary adjustments, bonuses, etc. People that performed better would get more money and possible promotions.

Let’s now contrast this picture with the situation in the City of Austin. They are contemplating a 3% across the board raise regardless of the performance of those employees. I am not saying that city employees shouldn’t get a raise, I am pointing out that the judgement criteria is very lacking. We all say that the government is wasteful — it takes too much of our money, it’s bloated, etc. One interesting discovery that I’ve made is that nobody I know from my high school or college graduating class (short of teachers) works for the city/state/federal government. How will we create the government of tomorrow with no new people or ideas coming into the picture?

When I'm asked if I want to take on an extra phone shift

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:25:15 -0500

whatshouldwecalltechsupport:

Lessons from Thailand

Mon, 21 May 2012 21:50:32 -0500

Cab drivers don’t want to use the meter. They want to jack with you and negotiate a flat fee that is 2X-3X what you should actually pay.
Cab drivers don’t know English AT ALL. When going somewhere, take the time you need to depart and then subtract 15 mins to account for the cab drivers that don’t know the places you want to visit.
Assume everyone is a dude. Everyone. It’s probably better that way.
Sex tourists are everywhere. How else do you explain the old white guys that are with the young Thai girls (possibly dudes — see #3)
You can walk in any direction and reach a 7-Eleven in 2 minutes. They are everywhere.
Divide any offer for a good or service by at least 2 and then negotiate from there. Thank me later.
Thai people can’t make pizza, Mexican food or any other food that didn’t originate from the area. Resist any urge to try these foods in this new place.
Doing the “beginner” mountain biking course is really advanced. If you’re not in good shape, you will be destroyed.
Muay Thai matches are intense. You will see what appear to be 12 year olds kick each other in the head until they go down. Don’t blink during a match. You will miss the knockout.
The Thai shower experience will make you cherish your Western shower.

Lessons from Southern Vietnam

Mon, 21 May 2012 21:37:19 -0500

Everything is cheap. A whole meal for $4 or less.
There is no rum here. Better get used to the 15,000 VND ($0.75) Heineken.
You will sweat. All the time. Did you bring enough drawers?
There are no white people or black people here. Did you think you could catch a brother on the other side of the Earth?
There are no such things as ice cubes. People put huge blocks of ice into your drink.
Your hotel bathroom may have a Thai shower. This means both you and the whole bathroom get wet.
Everyone runs a business out of their living room (literally). Your living room is a garage is a rice market.
Nobody speaks a word of English. You can say “Fuck shit, fuck fuck” all day with a smile on your face and no one will know.
The horn is used all the time. Two honks = hey buddy move over. Two honks + blaring = you’re going to get run the hell over.
You will repeatedly be asked if you want to eat dog. Repeatedly.
People on the streets will try to sell you lottery tickets. No one buys them.
There’s no sense in haggling with people when you can buy a hat for $2 and a t-shirt for $3.
Everyone wakes up at 6am. Sleeping past 7am means you are a lazy bum.
You must carry a poncho in anticipation of the daily rain shower.
Being non-Asian and having competence with chopsticks means mad props from the locals.

Why I Went Vegan (for a month & more)

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 23:39:41 -0500

Over the past 2-3 years I’ve given a lot of thought about what I eat. The way I eat today is much, much different than how I ate 2 years ago, 5 years ago, and 10 years ago. I’ve read some various books (Becoming Vegetarian, Eat to Live), watched some various documentaries (Fat Head, Super Size Me, Food Inc.), and had conversations with a number of people with differing views on the subject.

Around two years ago I decided to go vegetarian for a month. Over a period of time I had gradually changed my diet to include less and less meat and I finally decided to take the 30-day plunge. It was a lot easier than expected. Some months later I decided to go for 2 months, which I again succeeded with. In my non-vegetarian times, I would eat a diet of mostly vegetables, some meat, and grains, eggs, etc.

Last year in November I made a 2-week trip to Ireland for work. While I was there I felt that I ate a large quantity of meat (have you ever had an Irish breakfast?) and when I came back I decided I wanted to go for 3-months without eating any meat. This meant I had to survive being at home with my family during Christmas and avoid any overtures of meat consumption. After making it to the 2-month mark in the end of January, I decided to change it up a bit. Instead of eating vegetarian for the month of February, I would take it a step further and go vegan.

As a side note here, this was a very radical step especially considering where I had originally come from. If you would have told me 4 years ago that I would be considering eating a vegan diet, I would have called you a crazy person. But as time as passed, it seemed like something reasonable to try for a month and see how I liked it.

After completing 28 days of veganism in February, I can honestly say that I think eating near vegan is the best thing for me (maybe not for you). I have a few reasons why I feel this way. During the preceding two months (December/January) of eating vegetarian, my weight had crept up. I was eating more cheese and eggs to make up for the lack of meat in my diet. I felt very heavy and bloated all the time and I didn’t like it. By the end of January I weighed ~192 lbs and had between 16-18% body fat.

When I started eating vegan, I instantly noticed the difference in how I felt. I will note at first I felt more tired, but that was only for a few days because I simply wasn’t eating enough calories. I also noted that it’s easy to be a fat-ass eating vegetarian but much harder as a vegan. Say it out loud: you can’t be fat eating fruits and vegetables. As I ate throughout the month I definitely saw a change in my body. I will also say that at the same time I started doing yoga 2x a week, so that’s a potential confounding variable. However, by the end of February, I had lost 5-6 lbs and 1-2% of my body fat (as read by my scale). I was really astonished at how fast things had changed.

As it stands today, I am evaluating how I want to change the way I eat. People always make it into a meat vs. no meat argument but that is just a waste of time. There’s a TED video about Weekday Vegetarianism that I found interesting and I recommend. Basically this guy chooses to eat vegetarian on the weekdays and whatever he wants on the weekends. I think that’s a reasonable change for most people. For me, my goal is to eat vegan on the weekdays, vegetarian on the weekends (so I can still eat the hell out of regular pizza), and reserve the right to eat meat during awkward social situations/times when the meatless alternative is awful.

In the end, I think the biggest thing I’ve learned in the whole process is that we should avoid the holy war of meat vs. non-meat and really strive for eating non-processed foods. No chips, cookies, fruit snacks, candy bars, NONE OF IT. If you eat things that are closer to their original state, you will be much better off. Also, pizza is still NOT a vegetable.

On People vs. Resources

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:48:44 -0500

This article here at http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/people_are_not_cogs.html got me all riled up about a topic that I often talk about: people vs. resources.

Let me clarify for all those in the room.

I am a person. I have a family. I have friends. I have feelings. I have emotions. I am a person.

If you talk to enough business people, you’ll find them magically talking about resources to staff projects, run projects, and complete projects. “Yeah, I think we’re looking at 3 resources for 6 months to get this running.” Kid me much?

A resource is a piece of paper. It is a computer. A pen. A paper clip.

See the difference?

People are not plug and play. Everyone is different. We should treat everyone that way. In fact, I hate the term “human resources.” It’s an oxymoron that’s demeaning, useless, and just needs to go away.

</rant>

On Being 1/2 "Black"

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:34:53 -0500

I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time.

I am half white and half Jamaican. My mom grew up in Illinois and met my father from Jamaica who went to college there.

Since most forms that you fill out only have a box for “Black/African American”, this is the option that I frequently choose when trying to describe myself, when I actually feel that it doesn’t really describe me.

While I don’t feel a connection to the word “black”, I am in tremendous debt to those who came before me who were actually “black” and paid the price for the current state of “equality” among groups in the United States. Because while I don’t identify with black people, back in the day I certainly would have been perceived as one. I certainly would have not be allowed to vote, own property, go to school, and live out my own version of the American dream. So it is with the struggle of Rosa Parks, the words of Martin Luther King, and the sacrifice of Malcolm X (among countless others) that I am able today to have a college degree and have a job.

For example, when applying for scholarships, I obviously put down that I was “black” because who was going to tell me I couldn’t. I won the National Achievement Scholarship which is given to “outstanding Black american high school students” who score well on the PSAT. Without this scholarship, I would have faced many hardships in trying to pay for my college education. Did I really deserve the scholarship? I don’t feel “black” but that’s how others perceive me.

So while I’ve gotten some advantages in being perceived as black — I haven’t faced the struggles. I haven’t ever thought to bleach my skin so people would perceive me in a different way. I haven’t been accused of shoplifting or stalked by mall security like countless other black people (maybe I have, but I haven’t noticed the stalking part). I didn’t grow up with parents that abused alcohol and/or drugs.

I will tell you one area in which I have felt my blackness — with women. On more than one occasion, I have been undesirable to a woman’s family solely on the basis of my heritage. It sucks. It’s also interesting, because in general I don’t really like “black” girls, not because they’re black, but because I just don’t find a lot of them attractive. I would totally date a black girl, it just hasn’t happened yet. While I don’t reject black girls solely on the basis of being black, I definitely have a bias against them (in terms of attraction).

The other interesting thing is how people like me perceive themselves. Growing up I never really thought of myself as “White” or “Black/Jamaican”. I was just a kid from a mixed background. When I read Barack Obama’s (shoutout to Barry!) book Dreams From My Father I couldn’t help but see that as a kid he identified more with being “black”. Growing up in Alief in Houston, there were people from all different backgrounds, so people didn’t focus as much on the issue of race. For Barack, it was much more a part of his upbringing.

A few months ago I read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist. He is one of 10 or so black astrophysicists in the world. No one ever guesses that he’s actually smart. In the book there is a classic passage about the plight of black men — many are accused of crimes they didn’t commit — others commit the crimes of JBB (Just Being Black) or WWB (Walking While Black). In the end, while I don’t feel black, I have figured out what my crime is — BBA (Black By Association). For the people who’ve come before me, I can accept that with honor.

On Poverty

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:08:04 -0600

I’ve been here in Quito, Ecuador for 3 days now and it’s really made me think a lot about poverty. Growing up I had a much different perspective on this topic. I thought everyone could get straight A’s in school because I did and helping people through charity didn’t make sense because they should be helping themselves. My, have I changed over time.

When I think about the United States, I think about all the people I know who deride poor people as dumb and/or lazy. It’s their own problem — they should take the “personal responsibility” to solve their problems. But it’s not just their problem, it’s a problem that involves everyone. Increasingly I think there is a problem with the gap between the haves and have-nots in the US. Have you seen the resurgence in the Dow, but unemployment doesn’t budge?? Part of that is companies have learned to deal with less through the recession and with new “technology” it reduces the number of people you need to hire. But also, companies are stockpiling cash and returning it to the shareholders as opposed to some of the people who work on the front-line in the company. As a result, all the CXOs get paid more and more, while the blue-collar workers continue to struggle. Hence, more wealth gets concentrated in the top 5% of society.

For some of my more conservative friends this is no issue — the CXOs worked for their money. But I think the problem happens when society is too skewed and there are not realistic opportunities for those in poverty to move out of it. It reminds me of a Malcolm Gladwell book ( I think Outliers) that talks about the differences between kids from affluent families and those from low-income families. As it turns out, the differences in kids between these groups lies with the summer enrichment that they receive. Whereas kids from affluent families go to summer camps, have books to read at their disposal, etc — kids in low-income families don’t have such opportunities. Basically, poor kids forget more stuff than rich kids over the summer break. For me, that’s where the problem lies — if our rich are too rich and our poor are too poor, then I think society breaks down because people don’t have a realistic chance of making it up the economic ladder. Our country was built on the concept of the “self-made man” — anyone who works hard enough can move up in society. I’m afraid we’re headed the opposite direction.

Coming back full circle, what should we do about poverty? As I sit here in Ecuador, it’s obvious that the poverty here is much different than in the US. Kids in poverty in the Us have a better chance of moving up than kids here. Even so, poverty is prevalent everywhere because it is inevitable in a roughly capitalistic society. Poverty is simply defined as those who live in the bottom 5/10/15% of society. Therefore anyone with the specific goal of eliminating poverty will always fail. You can raise the standards and prospects of people, but there will always be people at the bottom. However, it’s not to say that even though people will always be in poverty that we shouldn’t help them. In fact, I think a lot of people in the US have the mentality that we shouldn’t give a lot of aid to foreign countries — why should we spend money on those who live outside our borders and don’t pay taxes? It’s not realistic to say that we should be helping everyone, but I think we should help more people because while everyone is not a US citizen, everyone is a human. In addition, I understand we need to make sure incentives are aligned so we aren’t the welfare state for the rest of the world. We must help people who want to be helped and make sure they don’t take advantage of our charity.

On Cutting The Government

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:02:36 -0600

Over the past 6-9 months I’ve been thinking a lot about the changes that are happening in politics as some people get more agitated about the size and scope of federal and state governments. The biggest development is the rise in influence of all the “Tea Party” conservatives who are hell bent on reducing the size of government by cutting spending, eliminating “non-essential” services, and trying to “right-size” the government.

As I’ve listened to all the rhetoric, I don’t think it’s all such a bad idea at it’s core. The government should be run like a business. Like any business, you have revenue (taxes) and you have costs (services). If these two components get out of line for too long, it becomes an unsustainable situation. Somebody has to pay somewhere (or you just print more money — but that’s a different story).

However, while I’m all for getting rid of “waste” in government, I don’t think that some people really understand what happens when you cut “waste”. Because when you cut parts of the government, you are cutting jobs. When you cut jobs, people get pissed. And when people get pissed, they change their votes. So while some might contend that the 2010 election was a indictment against President Obama for all of his “budget busting” bills — I think the more realistic answer was that everyone was pissed because they didn’t have a job. In his campaign he talked about changing healthcare — it’s not like weren’t expecting changes in this area.

Back to people being pissed — when you cut the government, you are cutting jobs. Right now the unemployment rate stands at 9.1%, while the “real” unemployment rate stands to be much higher — at some something like 15%-20% after you factor in all the people who have quit searching for work and those who are underemployed. Let’s say you get the chopping block out and start cutting programs (jobs) — where do you think that unemployment number is heading?? It’s certainly not going to be a good number.

The other way to “right-size” the government is to reduce the benefits that it gives to people. Everyone loves to say they want to cut government spending, but when you actually give them some options, they won’t touch any program that will have an effect on them. And that’s the problem — Medicare and Social Security are the biggest drivers of the future budget, but no one has the desire to make a real change to them, because they affect so many people. In the end, you have everyone cursing any potential tax increase, but nobody wants to pay. It’s not a good combination.

I think people need to be realistic and pragmatic about how to reduce the deficit. The bi-partisan group in Obama’s fiscal commission recommended spending cuts and tax increases that draws ire from both sides of the aisle.

Will someone finally listen to them?

On Healthcare Reform & Civil Rights History

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:01:44 -0600

A lot is being made about the Democrats plan for health-care reform. One minute it looks like they have their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, which means they can push through whatever they want. The next minute,they lose Kennedy’s seat, and everyone says healthcare is dead. The next minute, everyone starts talking about reconciliation as a way to only need 51 votes in the Senate to get the bill. Then, you have Republicans calling reconciliation a “back-room deal” even though they used those tactics when GWB was in office.

It’s apparent that something needs to change with healthcare. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the bill needs to have this or that. I haven’t looked at all the numbers. And most people haven’t. So, it annoys me when people cling to their Glenn Becks of the world and just repeat what they say (ex: public option is bad), when they haven’t performed the analysis themselves. I’m not saying the public option is good either. I’m saying I DON’T KNOW. Is that such a novel concept?

Now, people are looking at the polls and saying that less than 50% of people are in favor of the health plan. These are the same citizens that hated the stimulus, but loved all the individual tax breaks and incentives that it created.

However, the biggest thing I think about is, who cares about public opinion? Obviously it is an election year and the Democrats are nervous about losing their seats, but sometimes on an issue you have to go above public opinion. Do you think when the Supreme Court made its decision on Brown v. Board of Educationthat >50% of citizens agreed with it? Hell no. It took 10 YEARS for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to finally become law. Why did it take so long?

By the early 1960s, the nation s congressional history contributed to growing legislative pressures for a comprehensive civil rights law. Although political pressures prevented President John F. Kennedy’s administration from proposing legislation to Congress in 1961 and 1962, the President took steps to ensure minority rights in voting, employment, housing, transportation, and education by executive action. (link)

Political pressure = white people in Congress from the South + public opinion. That means that the public didn’t want black people to have their Civil Rights, because if politicians would have voted for it in 1954, then would have lost votes in the subsequent election. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that public opinion changed somewhat and allowed the legislation to go through.

The National Opinion Research Center discovered this change of attitude in a sample survey of northern whites in 1963. The Center determined that the number who approved neighborhood integration had risen 30% in twenty years, to 72% in 1963. The proportion favoring school integration had risen even more impressively to 75%.(link)

How does this all tie together? All I’m saying is that someone needs to grow some balls in Congress and pass something that going to rein in costs and create the incentives for lower-cost healthcare. I’m not saying that I know what the solution is, but the alternative (doing nothing) doesn’t look too promising either.

On Music Companies, Book Publishers & the RIAA

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:37:00 -0600

I’ve finally figured out why all these companies are getting all upset about “piracy”. It’s not about protecting the music artists or the book writers, or the movie producers. It’s not about protecting the actors, illustrators, or the guitarists. It’s about PROTECTING THEMSELVES. With digital distribution, why do you need a book publisher or a movie distributor or the RIAA mob? The point is you don’t. If you have your own content, you don’t need them to break your balls and you can distribute it yourself over the Internet in a more efficient manner than was previously possible. You cut out the middle-man!

Case 1: Book Publishers want to introduce a new windowing system to not allow some new books to be introduced in an ebook form for up to 4 months after the release of the book. Who thought this was a good idea? I think the meeting must have gone something like this:

Hey, let’s sell these people these new ebook readers. They’re only really affordable for those who are pretty intense readers. Let’s reward them for buying these products by not allowing them to read the books the want.

In addition, when some writers want to release DRM free audiobooks because a) DRM doesn’t work and b) DRM just makes it hard for paying customers , they just can’t because the big companies are so scared of “piracy”.

Case 2: The Movie Studios keep telling everyone that their movies are being stolen. You know, you’ve seen those ads at the beginning of your legitimately purchases DVDs that tell you how evil piracy is. So since we’re in the recession and people don’t have as much money and there’s so much “piracy”, then we would expect overall movie revenues to be down right? WRONG.

It’s called listen to your customers people. I can’t stress it enough. Piracy just means you’re not catering to your customers. These companies aren’t fighting to protect the artists…they just don’t want to go the way of the horse buggy.

I am in love with Ally Bank. Today I got a letter from them. I...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:46:50 -0600

I am in love with Ally Bank.

Today I got a letter from them. I instantly assumed that I had messed up with my account or they were raising fees on my account.

Instead they:

a) Are removing all ATM fees. Previously they would refund up to $6 per cycle.

b) Will not charge you to overdraw your account if its less than $15.

c) Will give you free checks if you use Ally standard checks.

d) Outgoing international wires are decreasing from $45 to $20.

e) Check issuance fees are decreasing from $10 to $0.

Wow.

A bank is decreasing its fees?? Way to not be a dick like most other banks that I know. I’m moving my whole financial mothership to them.

On The Paradox of Choice -- Related To Happiness

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:53:29 -0600

I’ve become hopelessly addicted to watching TED videos lately. Two of them have been of particular interest:

The Paradox of Choice -http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Why Are We Happy -http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

The first one about the paradox of choice was of particular interest. It pretty much encapsulates a lot of ideas that I’ve had recently about happiness. This is where my inner “socialist” comes out. How can I explain this?

We all act in our own self interest. Today we don’t have to make all of our own food, make our own clothes, build our own houses, etc. We have decided to divide our labor and specialize into different fields of interest. I am a technology consultant. You might be a doctor or a flight attendant or a customer service rep. We each try to do the job to the best of our ability and we benefit from everyone else who specializes and we exchange the money from our jobs for goods and services from others. This is how our economy works.

Although this format may try to maximize efficiency in our economy, does it really make us all happier? I’m convinced that everything we do is to increase our happiness. Every action we take is an attempt to increase our happiness.

In the labor market, we all act in our own self interest. We pick the jobs and/or careers that we think are best and will maximize our earnings and wages relative to our interest in the job. We we specialize into different fields more or less independent of what others think we should do (obviously we would want to pick jobs that have a decent demand for their goods and/or services).

When we’re in each of our respective professions, we are generally trying to maximize our earnings. Our companies are doing the same thing. So when we offer products and/or services to our customers, we’re trying to get the most money we can get out of them. We are NOT trying to maximize their happiness. Curiously, the more choices we offer them, the more confused they turn out to be.

Example:

You go to the grocery store looking for some salad dressing (as the video stated). You get arrive to the arrive, and OH CRAP, there are a ton of dressings here. Which one should I get? I wonder which ones tastes the best? If I choose this one, will it be good? Will I regret buying this salad dressing if it’s not good?

I’m convinced we each ask ourselves variations of the same questions for each purchase we make. There’s not just one option. There’s tons of options! How to pick?

This is the source of our unhappiness. Not necessarily being unhappy, but just less happy relative to the situation if we didn’t have so many options. Excessive options confuse people and lead them to question their decisions. This is not to say that SOME choice is good, but I’m just saying that if we had fewer choices, then we would be MORE happy.

Again, I’m trying to say that since we are all acting in our own self-interest within the professions that we work in, we’re trying to maximize our earnings and not the happiness of customers. This leads to an aggregate decrease in happiness due to all the options people have.

In the video, Barry Schwartz says that is there were more “income redistribution”, then we would take some of the excess choices from the rich people and give them to the poor people, who would actually benefit from more choice. I think this idea is problematic, but very interesting. It’s problematic in its implementation, because who wants Uncle Sam coming for more of their money? But if Uncle Sam did, maybe they (richer people) would actually be happier…

This ties into the second video question why we are happy. It very nicely reinforces my point that people who have more options question themselves more and have more an internal struggle in their daily lives.

Example from the video. You have a class of photography students who get to choose 2 pictures from their collection of 10 to be blown up and framed. For half of them, you tell them that they should choose one of the two pictures and they will have 3 days to change their mind about the choice. For the other half, they must make one final decision on the picture that they will choose. Who do you think is happier, the people with our without the choice? Turns out the people who are stuck with their initial choice are happier. Whoa. Doesn’t work out like you think.

——————————————————————————————————

I hope these videos spark some thoughts in your mind. They sure did for me. I think that if we all step back and accept that people in our industrialized nation are somewhat paralyzed by all the choices that we have and think about all the good we could do by giving those in other countries more choices, we would ALL be better off. It’s amazing. Life wants to be simple.

On Tipping

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:31:38 -0500

I don’t really understand the tipping rules that we have in society.

If I go to a restaurant and someone takes my order, brings me some water (and keeps it full), and does other relevant tasks, then sure you should earn a tip. In this instance I would say you’re paying the food and then your providing a incentive via a tip for the person to give you great service. Sure. I get it. That’s awesome.

But if I go to the wrap place in my building and you make me a wrap, why is there a tip line on the receipt? I’m not tipping you for doing your job. There was no additional service being rendered. Maybe the wrap was made with extra love…but I’m not buying it.

What about haircuts? I don’t understand the rationale for tipping barbers. You’re paying them for the haircut. There is no real “additional” service being performed. You might say, well they are giving you a good haircut. But I think that the mere fact that I am coming to them means I am expecting a good haircut. If you gave people consistently shitty haircuts, you wouldn’t last very long as a barber. I would say if you’re a great barber, just charge more.

And what about cab drivers? Where is the “additional” service? Getting into your cab implies that you’re going to do a good job in getting me from point A to point B. What am I tipping you for? Because you didn’t get me killed? I’m not against tipping people…I just think it should be for a good reason.

Why Me Offending You Is Actually A You Problem

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:30:30 -0500

I don’t like your hair.

I think you should apologize for your hair.

In fact, I am OFFENDED by your hair.

You need to apologize for it.

Is this a legitimate argument?

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Maybe you’ve heard the recent news about the Nigerian government. In recent days, they have become offended by two separate things.

Offense #1: The movie District 9. Nigeria has banned the movie in their country. The movie is “drawing protests from government officials in Nigeria over its portrayal of Nigerians…because it depicts Nigerians as gangsters and cannibals.”

Offense #2: The recent Sony PS3 Ad. According to the ad: “You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Otherwise I’d be a Nigerian millionaire by now.”

Do we have to now start scrutinizing every movie, book, newspaper article, blog post, or whatever to find things that could be potentially offensive to an group of people???

The only reason why the Nigerian government is offended is because there is some truth to the depictions of Nigerian people in the movie and in the ad.

District 9 is a movie. They can say whatever they want. And, hasn’t everyone has got those Spam messages before? It’s nothing new. How is that offensive? The ad is highlighting a true statement based on everyone’s experience with email.

You can’t change how someone is going to react to what you have to say. Anybody can be offended be anything. Your job is to speak your feelings and let them be known. You shouldn’t have to temper them just because one person might take them the wrong way.

Sure things can be inappropriate, racist, etc…but just because you’re offended by something means nothing. That’s why if I say something that “offends” you, they maybe you should reevaluate your reaction to what I’m saying.

It’s a you problem. Get over it.

Because if you don’t agree, I think you should apologize for your hair. It’s offensive.

Cue the response from the Nigerian government saying that they are offended by my comments.

The Madden Curse

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:37:00 -0500

Every year the new Madden comes out, I hear more and more about the “Madden Curse”. What is the Madden Curse? The Madden Curse says that if someone appears on the cover of Madden, then something bad is going to happen to them during the following football season. This year Troy Polamalu gets hurt in the first game and somehow Madden is to blame.

Let me tell you something. There is no such thing as the Madden Curse. I am annoyed further and further by people who continue to propagate such nonsense.

Instead of wasting your time talking about the Madden Curse, how about you use that time for better use and go take a statistics class. Maybe you already took one. Well maybe you weren’t paying attention when learning about Regression to the Mean.

Usually people who appear on the cover of Madden have had a spectacular year. Here’s the thing, basic statistics will tell you that when you have a great year which may be an outlier based on your past performance, you’re just not going to do as well the next year (most likely).

Here’s the other no brainer: football is a contact sport. People get injured all the time. It’s not like the best players have some immunity from getting hurt. So maybe during your All-Pro season, you didn’t get hurt, but the next year you did. People get injured in football. It’s just the way it is.

So the next time you hear someone talking about the Madden Curse, just sock it to them for me and tell them to learn about football and statistics before talking such nonsense.

P.S. — Apparently two years ago there were a contingent of LT fans that didn’t want him to be on the cover of Madden. This was actually reported by CNBC. Wow. This is why nobody cares about the news. It’s all crap.

http://saveltfrommadden.com