Books on tape
Between trying to keep your eyes focused on the page, balancing, and remembering where you need to get off, it's hard to do any meaningful reading »
False sense of security from pollsters
Polls are different from elections, though the difference can feel subtle. It's a mistake to assume that because pollsters project that an election is a foregone »
Thermostats and thermometers
There are people who act like thermostats who change the temperature of a room, introducing new ideas and making things happen. There are people who are »
The uncanny valley
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is a hypothesis that describes why we find cartoons like XKCD more compelling, despite being stick figures, than drawings that are »
On patinas
Why do we have a desire to restore some old things to mint condition, while we prefer patinas on others? By extension, who gets to decide »
Helping people who are hard to please
It's hard to stay motivated when people, who are impossible to please, ask for help. Given they're going to be displeased regardless of what you do, »
Loving to win vs hating to lose
In regulatory focus theory, people fall on a spectrum from being promotion-focused to prevention-focused. Colloquially, people talk about this as loving to win or hating to »
Overheard at Sports Authority
With Sports Authority going out of business, I decided to browse the aisles to see if anything I needed was still available. While I was there, »
Keeping a half tank of gas
While I dislike going to get gas, there are merits to keeping your tank at least half full. In the case of a natural disaster, it's »
Making a habit of throwing things out
Procrastinating the decision of whether to throw something out always comes back to haunt me. In the moment, I reason that if there's a chance I'll »