Life of (f)Utility: Hacking the Human Race

The Credit Crunch Unravelled

this really is my wallet. and this is about the amount of cash that I typically carry with me.

If all I did was write posts pointing to great ‘This American Life’ episodes, I’d have a new post every week. The urge to do this is so great because it’s such a compelling show. Will this time, I could not resist. TAL gives a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the whole disaster.

Here’s a clip from the episode that I find hilarious. Have a listen (click on blue arrow to listen via flash [may not be viewable in RSS reader]):

At the center of my favorite stories is the theme of how common sense often is not common practice. In my simplistic thinking, the actions which led to the credit crunch seems to me like a big money pyramid scheme. I would think, however, that when people are getting half-million dollar loans with no income, no assets - that would be the clear indicator that the joke has been taken too far.

Here’s a link to full show: The Giant Pool of Money

Popularity: 55% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to discussion »

The Single Most Important Message I Got out of “Four Hour Work Week”

my son and me in the fountain. we had a scorcher yesterday.

Quitting The Deferred-Life Plan

Similar to ‘Getting Things Done’, I feel the author saved the best message for last. At the end of ‘Four Hour Work Week’, he gives a poem ‘Slow Dance’ (written by David L Weatherford, a child psychologist).

Four Hour Work Week is the second book (of three) that woke me up and has encouraged me to… get off my ass, to put it bluntly. It made me think about what dreams am I putting off. Why am I not acting on them? Why am I allowing myself to be distracted by so much noise in the world?

I know this poem is the content of spam mail, and I know it’s arguably cheesy. But I don’t care, I love it. In the slim chance you haven’t read it, here it is.

Slow Dance

by David Weatherford

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,
or listened to rain slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight,
or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,
when you ask “How are you?”, do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,
with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

Ever told your child, we’ll do it tomorrow,
and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,
’cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
it’s like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn’t a race, so take it slower,
hear the music before your song is over.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to discussion »

Conservation of Time: An Example

Ever since I got my D40, it seems like nearly all my spare time has gone towards learning about it and photography in general. I’ve noticed a direct correlation in time lost for doing other things (e.g. writing more thoughtful posts). I promise I will write some thoughtful posts soon!

I just realized that, paradoxically photography “convserves time” in that a split second is preserved for a lifetime in a photograph! This (and the science behind photography) completely captures my imagination. Not since computers has anything consumed me so much!

Popularity: 34% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 2 Comments »

DOHE#004: Late Mother’s day gift

I just posted DOHE#004 in theDoHE.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

What Happened:

For the ump-teenth time in a row, I have waited to the last day to send my mom a mothers day gift. I sent it yesterday (Friday) and there ain’t no way it’s getting there in 24 hours

Root Cause:

Failure to recognize/accept how important it is that she get the mother’s day package *before* or on the day of mother’s day.
General procrastination.
General thoughtlessness of others.

How to prevent it from happening again:

1. Set google calendar reminder.
2. Put reminder in paper calendar for 2009 (might be too early for this, especially since I don’t have a 2009 calendar yet).
3. Think a little more about other people’s happiness, especially your mom’s.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 2 Comments »

All I got is my bike, a beautiful sunny day and a new Nikon D40!

I went for a bike ride to downtown yesterday. Words can’t describe the beauty and energy that was in the air in Portland yesterday.

I did my part to jump start the economy and bought a nice camera. I’ve always loved taking pictures with my point-and-click and decided I wanted a serious camera.

I really believe that the best way to enjoy any city is by foot or on a bike, so that’s just what I did yesterday and I brought along my new toy. Below is a gallery of some images that I’ve taken with this thing.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 2 Comments »

The Single Most Important Message I Got out of ‘Getting Things Done’

I raced through reading GTD. I knew that when I had gotten to the last chapter, entitled ‘The Core Principles’ - I had wisely moved quickly to the end of the book. In my opinion, the first and last chapters are 99% of the book.

Here’s the most important passage I got from GTD:

As Steven Snyder put it, “There are only two problems in life: (1) you know what you want, and you don’t know how to get it; and/or (2) you don’t know what you want.” If that’s true (and I think it is) then there are only two solutions:
* Make it up.
* Make it happen.

Why I love this quote

As an engineer, even as a student, we learn about iterative solutions. What this means is that you actually assume an answer. Isn’t that funny? Put another way - to answer the question, you simply make up (with an educated guess) - the answer… just like David Allen says in the quote above.

Here’s a link to post about my GTD implementation.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 4 Comments »

Learning from theDoHE: An example

Last Friday, I had a spill while skiing and lost my cell phone. I’ve been cell-phone-less for nearly a week now (which is a lesson in and of itself). I logged the event in theDoHE.

On my commute, I usually stuff my pager, moleskin and wallet into my pockets, but this morning, I threw them in my backpack. I can honestly say that as I was biking around, it felt great to be free from fear that I couldn’t possibly lose those items like I did my cell phone.

Here’s a challenge: find an ‘error’ (not necessarily yours). Log it into theDoHE, and see if you can’t learn from that mistake and apply that learning to real life. It really does feel great to learn from you mistakes.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 2 Comments »

The Most Powerful Instrument

it’s not this thing

One of my favorite authors is Dr. Scott Peck, whose most famous book is ‘The Road Less Traveled’. It’s through his writing that I first became enchanted with the power of paradox. He basically had written that only once we constrain our freedom through discipline can we experience freedom most abundantly. (read that sentence again.)

In another book, ‘A World Waiting to be Born: Civility Rediscovered’, he describes a revelation he had while in medical school. Every component of the system has a very critical and specific task to execute, all in support of the greater system. The possibility then occurred to the author that each of us might play a similar role as part of an even greater system of society.

This point brings me to the heart and soul of my whole message. I’ve blogged now about a number of various tools. But consider now that the most powerful, useful instrument, in fact, is you. Let me ask you this: what happens to a tool when it’s not being used for the right job, or if its not well maintained or taken care of?

You can be an instrument for change. We will all die some day. This, by the way, is the meaning of ‘life of (f)utility’. Shall we live in vein looking out only for ourselves? or will we realize the bigger picture and have an impact on this world? To ignore the question is to passively choose the former.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 4 Comments »

DOHE#3 Innocent man imprisoned.

How would you like to get thrown in jail for no reason?

You may have read about this in the news. There was a US college journalism student, James Carl Buck, that was arrested in Egypt while reporting on a riot. He was shortly freed. His friend was not as lucky and is still being held without charge. I signed a petition to help get him free. There’s been about 30 new signatures in the last hour or so, which is exciting to see.

There are several reasons why this story caught my attention:

The college student cleverly brought attention to his case by twitting a single word twit: ‘Arrested’.

He is now using the web2.0 phenomena to help get his friend freed. Please check it out here and sign the petition.
It just takes a few moments.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to discussion »

It’s 38 degrees in April and I could use some global warming!

In honor of ‘Earth Day’, I’ll give a brief glimpse of my interest in ‘the environment’.

In high school, senior year - I opted for an ‘experimental’ social sciences class which was geared toward what we now call ’sustainability issues’. What I loved about the class is that it was taught by a left-wing, Canadian, chain-smoking liberal. Despite her left-leaning political views, she managed to get the point across to think for yourself. The class was balanced by teacher who had a PhD in Biology.

We learned about overpopulation, the effects of pollution, etc… Long story short, one of the extremely refreshing things I learned from the class was the perspective that you gain when you ‘zoom out’ and (try to) think objectively. It’s a message that has stuck with me to this day.

Fast forward to the present day. My first job after getting my PhD was to either work for Exxon (to look for more oil) or [huge tech company] to work on fuel cells. I’m choosing to not name the company since I don’t think it’s publicly announced that they ever had a fuel cell program.

To my financial dismay, I erroneously chose the latter (working on fuel cells - which went nowhere) and I’ve regretted that decision ever since! Happy Earth Day!

That decision to not work for Exxon may very well go into the DoHE

Popularity: 32% [?]

Posted in Observations | Add to the 2 Comments »