Grantland Friday

Here is an attempt at a new feature. I first blogged about Grantland about a year and a half ago, and my devotion has only grown.To say that I read Grantland pretty regularly is an understatement. Honestly, Mrs. Kid is probably sick of (but also probably getting used to) the idea that about half of the conversations I initiate begin with some form of "So there was this article on Grantland that was really funny or interesting...."

Anyway, this first entry is about the regular columns I read on a somewhat regular basis:

• About Last Night by Shane Ryan is a daily, humorous synopsis of the previous day's sports news. 
• Bad Quarterback League (AKA BQBL) by David Jacoby is one of my favorite regular entries. The fantasy leagues are generally good, and this one is the best.
• Grantland Reality Fantasy League (AKA GRFL) by David Jacoby is my view into reality TV. I watch none of these shows, but the fantasy league is still amusing.
• TV Show Recaps by various staff members are probably really good. All I really know about are the ones Andy Greenwald did for Breaking Bad Season 5, and those are terrific! They are wall-to-wall spoilers, so be careful, but the Breaking Bad recaps are truly great.
• Other favorites: NFL Run & Shootaround, Your Semi-Ignorant College Football Guide, and just about everything by Bill Barnwell or Chuck Klosterman or Charles P. Pierce or Katie Baker, as well as many of the longer-format features.

Lists of more specific articles (especially the really informative features) will come, but this list has many of the recurring columns I follow.

Crazy Compensation

Here are a few articles about compensation/finance/economics:

• Why They're Winning on CEO Pay is the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein's explanation of our screwed-up executive pay situation.
• And around the same time (which was a few months ago), Bill Simmons wrote for his own Grantland about the NBA lockout: Business Vs. Personal.
• New York Magazine had The End of Wall Street As They Knew It, which is a long-ish, but interesting read. 
• CNN Money has It's the economy – and CEO pay, stupid, which describes some of the problems with how CEOs are compensated

As I've said before, I have no problem with people making a ton of money. What bothers me is when people make money that is way out of whack with the value they bring to their organization and/or society. Kobe Bryant makes millions, but he has performed at a high level for a long time and is a major part of why the Lakers have won multiple championships and why the NBA makes so much money. Sergio Marchionne deserves his millions for bringing Chrysler from bankruptcy to profitability. He helped save a company, and thus tens of thousands of jobs.

On the other hand, just as there are pro athletes who bring no value to their teams in return for multi-million dollar contracts, there are corporate executives who make a ton of money for either presiding over a failing company, or successfully gaming the system. My theory is that most people aren't bothered by people making a ton of money if they bring value. What gets people annoyed is seeing some no-talent at the end of the bench who will make more in a year than the best 2nd grade teacher in the country will make in her career. Similarly, people hate to see a CEO make millions for driving a company to ruin.

As an economy, we should find ways to drive down the number of people who make tons of money without providing commensurate value.

Luddites: Fearing Technology's Impacts for a Long, Long Time

I've been reading "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleick, and in it, he has a quote that I had to dig a little deeper on. Here is a slightly longer version of something Gleick quoted:

For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in [this technology] will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom,....

So, who was this Luddite railing against technology? Though this could easily be my mother or father, it was actually Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus. He was warning of the perils of written language, just as others would eventually complain about the printing press and then radio, film, TV, and every other transformative information technology.

What's funny is that I had already captured this quote and saved it in a blog draft when I read a FB post by one of my fraternity brothers in which he said:

"He seemed to think that [...] statements might be accepted without the test of dialogue -- of people asking ʻIs this really true?ʻ" Some Luddite skeptical of the Internet/Google/Wikipedia? No, Plato skeptical of literacy. (Quote from Joan Acocellaʻs piece on the history of female literacy, in "The New Yorker" 10/15/12 issue.)

Anyway, I had connected this thought to my thoughts about My Life, My Crutch, but this issue is broader. This isn't just about how each of us do or don't use technology to manage our daily lives. This is also about education. What skills do we need to teach? What does it mean to be educated, and how does that definition change over time? 

In Plato's time, you could be considered educated even if you were illiterate. In the 1970's you needed to know how to read, but could still be considered well-educated if you had no clue about how to use a computer. What about now? More importantly, what about 10, 20, or 30 years from now?

Note: I am not trying to wade out into the depths of the battles about whether technology is making kids worse students. New York Times has Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say, which does wade out into those scary waters. I just think the changing nature of what it means to be educated is an interesting thing to keep an eye on.

Grantland

Grantland has me hooked. I stumbled onto Grantland when checking scores at ESPN, which employs Grantland's editor-in-chief Bill Simmons. The articles drew me in.

• The Greatest Paper that Ever Died is the first article I read. It is LONG, but fascinating. I dimly recall The National (a failed attempt at a national sports newspaper), but this "article" brings it to life in a unique way. It is a series of quotes assembled as a transcription of an oral history of the endeavor. Really, really good and interesting.
• Space, Time, and DVR Mechanics was eerie. It's like Chuck Klosterman was staring straight into my soul.
• It's Time for LeBrondown, Part II rings very true.

Check out the articles. It's an online magazine I can really get into. The look is uncluttered. The writing is interesting.

End of Life Revisited

Discussions about healthcare consistently get me thinking about end of life issues. I have discussed this stuff before. Notably, in The Ugliness of Modern Death, but now I am past some personal situations involving death and so am more capable of thinking about these issues.

DyingWell.org is not a cheery site, but it is an important one. I recently bought Dr. Byock's Dying Well and really am looking forward to the read. It's morose, but critical.

New Career Goal

I have two career goals.

1) Chief Learning Officer or Chief People Officer for a company.
2) Mrs. Kid's secretary when she becomes a rich and famous author. I'm here to support her.

Now, I can add a third option:
3) Stay at home father with a website that supports me and Mrs. Kid and the little ones.

Dooce: An Epic Vitriolic Screed is a very good blog. Check out her About page to learn more about her and to see the other ways she refers to her husband who is a Stay at Home Father. This is the life I want. All I need is:

1. The ability to write coherent, interesting stuff.
2. A more interesting life to write about.

Sadly, I am a functional illiterate who writes prose as interesting as a crossword puzzle. I also spend most of my work week sitting in an office writing and reading math. My boss isn't crazy. I rarely interact with our customers. I don't often interact with Marketing or Sales, both of whom can be counted on for lots of great stories.

Oh well. It's nice to have lofty, unattainable goals. Maybe the answer is to encourage Mrs. Kid to become the next Dooce. It's all about supporting my wife.

Web Stuff Friday: xkcd Highlights

If you aren't into the webcomic xkcd because it's too nerdy, here are some entries I think have relatively broad appeal. You don't need to be a programmer or a mathematician to find these amusing:

Lego: That's deep. My only quibble is that the lego house (like grandpa) still exists in our hearts, minds, and imaginations.

Movie Narrative Charts is wonderful (it's better when big). I like the LOTR and Star Wars diagrams, but really like 12 Angry Men as well.

Scary: This sort of thing gets me all the time. Boy Kid was born a month and a half before 9/11/01, so he is the same age as the post-9/11 era. We have project managers at work who are too young for me to have taught them: I stopped teaching before they entered high school. Holy crap!

Some Blogs I Wish Were Still Going

This blog has come back from a couple month hiatus, but other blogs have simply gone on permanent sabbatical. I wish their writers would get back to these blogs.

FKS was hilarious. Dirty (even the title is dirty), but funny.

Kim Jong Il (the illmatic)'s Journal was a fun fake blog.

Why is that chair empty? (subtitle: The fragile art of a good excuse.) was created by someone from my company about someone else from my company. This could have been broadened to become a blog about great lame excuses, but oh well. It was a good run while it lasted.

BTW: All of these blogs had their last posts within a three month period in 2006.

Web Stuff Friday: Dr. McNinja and Wooo!pedia

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a webcomic about ... well, i think the title speaks volumes. Go to the archives and start working your way through.

Wooo!pedia calls itself The Excited Encyclopedia. It is "...the continuing (not-very-)encyclopedic documentation of ideas, memes and points of interest generated by the webcomics ASW, DC & PBF":

• The Perry Bible Fellowship
• Dinosaur Comics
• A Softer World

I dig PDF and DC. ASW can be a bit esoteric for me, but maybe I just need to give it some more chances. I haven't checked out much of Wooo!pedia, but the Star Wars pages (for instance The Empire Strikes Back) were fun.

Outlook Recap: Healthcare Myths and Torture

Here are a couple gems from recent editions of The Washington Post's Outlook section:

5 Myths About Our Ailing Health-Care System is a very concise list of misconceptions about the US healthcare system. It foreshadowed this longer article. Our healthcare system is terrible. Too many people are not covered and we don't do a good enough job preventing problems. As a country, we spend more money on healthcare than any other country, but we don't get the return on investment we should be getting. I don't think we need to spend more. I actually think we could pay less and get more. The system is broken.

I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq is by a former US military interrogator (writing under a pseudonym). This made me think back to one of my earlier posts: Mixed Feelings About Omar Khadr's Gitmo Interrogation and some articles I have read on the topic of torture's efficacy. Torture is bad. It isn't just bad because it's morally reprehensible. Many people who are tortured don't deserve to be treated nicely. Many of them are bad, dangerous people. When I condemn torture, I am not saying that these people deserve better treatment; I condemn torture because it is ineffective. Worse, I agree with the author of the Post article: Torture helps create enemies.

Best Slashdot Sigs, Volume 1

I am an unabashed and total geek. Actually, this site says I am 81% geek, while this site has a quiz that is too long, but at some point, I should try it out.

I have attended and taught at two of the geekiest places on earth. When I was a freshman in college, I had a T-shirt with Maxwell's equations just like this one (but in yellow). Most people have never heard of my favorite number (e). While at the beach this summer, I read a book about the number pi.

My Linux distro of choice is Ubuntu for my home computer. I own (and often use) a couple graphing calculators. When in grad school, I had an HP 11c calculator that used RPN. It was a great calculator, but the best part was that it was totally unusable by almost everyone I knew.

I own at least 13 boxes of comic books (though I haven't collected since the early-nineties), and I'm pretty sure I still have my old D&D and Traveller characters in a drawer somewhere in my basement.

Two of my favorite web sites are xkcd and Slashdot.

Anyway, the original point of this entry was not to enumerate all the ways in which I am a geek. The point is to say that people who post comments on Slashdot often have amusing signatures on their messages; here is a small sampling:

• There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
• Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak...
• The ratio of cake to people is too big
• Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
  

Pirsig on Quality

When a senior in college, I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (the book is available on PDF here) and it made quite an impression on me. I really felt I could relate to the lead character's philosophical journey.

I wrote out one quote from the book and kept it on my bulletin board for years and years. Here is a snippet from immediately before the quote I like so much:

The result [of skill devoid of Quality] is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of "style" to make it acceptable. And that, to anyone who is sensitive to romantic Quality, just makes it all the worse. Now it’s not just depressingly dull, it’s also phony.

I immediately picture McMansions when I think about this veneer of style. Cookie-cutter style with a long list of features ("veneer"). Pirsig continues...

It’s the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style.

This isn't an indictment of style. It's an indictment of superficial, shiny style that is really just a thin cover over a lack of Quality. Finally, here is the big payoff. This is the quote that has stuck with me for years:

Quality isn’t something you lay on top of subjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Real Quality must be the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start.

Amen, brother. It's gotta have "good bones." This way of thinking applies to many, many areas: companies, employees, software, homes, marriages, etc. Quality has to be there from the beginning.

Web Stuff Friday: Best-of-Craigslist Favorites, Volume 3

Here are some more entries from Best of CraigsList:

• Disgruntled American: I think the age range is the best part.
• Husband for Adoption: It seems that Mrs. Kid posts on CraigsList (who knew?)
  
• SWF Who Isn't Asking Too Much: So many gems in this one.
• Manly Bike for Sale: I want that bike.
• Totally Awesome Kickass Motorcycle: Not as good as the bicycle, but I like the Chuck Norris references.

And here is a bonus funny: Obama and Palin on Dancing with the Stars. They make a nice looking couple. Perhaps he'll toss Biden (or Michelle?) aside and....

Travels with John

A friend of mine (really the husband of a former colleague, but I consider them both friends as well) is blogging as he rides through the southwest on a motorcycle. I may not be much, but I'm all I think about is good stuff.

Like many men, I dream of taking a trip like John's. Cruising the scenic southwest through tiny towns that dropped off the technology train around the time of eight-track tapes. Beautiful scenery with huge vistas reminiscent of No Country for Old Men or a John Wayne western. Great food in simple places that Tim and Nina Zagat have never heard of.

Maybe I'll try it when Boy Kid is turning 13 or some similarly auspicious event. It would be a fun bonding event. We'd take tons of pictures and blog from the road as we cruise around on motorcycles (yeah, right...no way Mrs. Kid is letting that fly) or in a Jeep. I'd have to plan the trip. Destinations, roads, sites, and places to sleep and eat are all important, but the real key is to hand-pick a bunch of playlists for the iPod. Having the right soundtrack for each part of the trip is crucial.

Anyway, John is my hero. Check out the story of his trip.

How to Not Get Conned

I really like a blog called Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds. The woman who writes it is a great writer and has such an interesting life.

A recent post really struck me. It's titled Red Flags - Part 1 and it's about figuring out how to not get conned in relationships or business. Here is one quote that got me:

I know a girl who is constantly abused by men in some way. She has been date raped twice and in both cases she was drinking heavily. In one of the cases she was even drugged, which is a whole new level of awful. Still though, in some way, it was her fault because she put herself in a situation where she was impaired, could not think or act optimally and could not defend herself. Had she not been drinking she would have been a much more difficult target.

Amen, sister. Don't get either of us wrong: Guys who take advantage of drunk women are scum. They are weak little "men" who deserve to serve time. But the women who put themselves in these positions are not wise, and any woman who does it more than once is very stupid. This goes for guys, too. If you make bad decisions when you are drunk, then you have to figure out how to stop drinking.

I'm looking forward to Part 2. Wide Lawns' perspective and writing style are top notch.

Drives and Walks of Shame

Network World has an article Doing the Laptop Drive of Shame. This is one of my minor fears. It would be a big fear if I lived far from the office or worked at a job that couldn't generally be done remotely. The chances of me doing this is really quite high.

When I lived in an apartment as a single guy, it often took me three tries to get away from home.

1. First, I would lock the apartment door, then realize "dang, forgot my _____" (insert critical thing like my briefcase.) Back on in.
   
2. Second, I would lock my apartment door, walk down the stairs and just to the door to exit the building. At that point, I would realize that I forgot my wallet (or something similarly important.) Back up the stairs and into the apartment.
   
3. Finally, after getting my wallet, I would make it to the car and realize that I forgot one more thing (perhaps even my car keys.) Time to walk back across the parking lot, into the building, up the stairs, and into my apartment.
   

I sometimes imagined that someone watching my routine would have thought me a really dim or crazy person, but chances are that nobody really noticed or cared, so my shame was mostly internal. It wasn't a public walk of shame that anybody ever noticed.

Now that I live in a house with an attached garage, the trip from briefcase/wallet/keys to car is a short one, so round trips at home are quick ones. At the office, it often takes me one or two attempts to leave, but those trips are generally between the door to my office (which I share with ten co-workers) and my desk. Not much shame there. I'm a doofus, but that is not news to my co-workers.

Web Stuff Friday: Dresden Codak

Dresden Codak is a series of online comics. I have lots and lots to read to catch up. I started at the beginning and am working my way up.

here is a nice highlight:

Web Stuff Friday: BOFH and GINA

1930's Marital Scale is a funny quiz.

Simon Travaglia is a great writer. He is best known for stories called Bastard Operator From Hell (B.O.F.H.)

• For geeks: B.O.F.H is Bastard Operator From Hell.
  
• For guys: The Kiwi Blokes Pages are really hilarious. I don't understand all the words or get all the references, but I understand enough to have a really good laugh.
• Other Stuff is quite varied. Lots of random stuff.

I haven't read all of Simon's stuff, but I think I have a source of reading material for a long time to come.

The BMW Gina is a cloth-covered concept car. Nice video.

Web Stuff Friday: The Lost Thing and Some Illusions

The Lost Thing is Shaun Tan's graphic novel about a boy trying to find out where a strange creature belongs. A friend showed me Tan's book The Arrival and it was really interesting. The fun part about this online excerpt from The Lost Thing is the way you turn the page. Frankly, when I get to a page, I have fun just rolling my mouse cursor over the lower-right corner and the right edge of the page. Watching it flip up and down is most excellent.

The Neuroscience of Illusion is an image gallery that accompanies a Scientific American article about how the brain processes images. Each illusion is accompanied by text explaining something about the illusion.

Web Stuff Friday: Google Reader

An uber-hip techie friend from work told me about Google Reader. It's an RSS feed reader that makes it easy to view and manage your subscriptions. As he says, "going to websites is so 1997." With RSS, you can subscribe to all the sites you like, then they come to you. For instance, I have subscribed to Slashdot's feed and now when I go to Google Reader, I can see what the most recent updates are. I use a widget to include a view to my Google Reader on my iGoogle personalized homepage.

Drunk Darth Vader video Geeks on film are always fun. My favorite quote: "Hughes claimed he couldn't remember the incident, having drunk the better part of a 2 1/2-gallon (10-liter) box of wine beforehand." He's no Ghyslain Raza, but the story has its own charm.