Category: Philosophy


  • Communication

    A while ago, there was some kind of difficulty understanding why we (the DBAs) and another group were unable to read the same words yet not draw the same conclusion. The words in bold are what I wrote on my white board explaining why there was a difficulty. Communication Vocabulary Standards: Words have agreed upon…

  • A friend of mine who I used to work with once remarked (2007-ish) the University System of Georgia does not really work like a system so much as a loose confederation fighting over money. Given I have no access to budgets, I would not know. GeorgiaVIEW works remarkably well given there are only a few…

  • I found this article in The Economist reporting on a study regarding lies on conference calls interesting. David Larcker and Anastasia Zakolyukina of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business analysed the transcripts of nearly 30,000 conference calls by American chief executives and chief financial officers between 2003 and 2007. They noted each boss’s choice of words,…

  • It talks about mirror neurons as the key to why we feel empathy. This empathy is the foundation for why we do things for others. Nice thoughts.

  • We Remember

    Today is the day many Americans will signal (any nonverbal action or gesture that encodes a message) their nationalism by displaying pictures of the World Trade Center, the United State flag, NYFD logos, or yellow ribbons. Given the current climate, such signalling probably is wise as anyone like me who fails to appropriately signal can be…

  • I don’t think I of myself as very intelligent. I think I’ve managed to have great conversations chock full of fantastic ideas with very intelligent people and discussed those ideas with others who refined them. It hadn’t occurred to me it was the exchange of objects leads to specialization which leads to improvement of both…

  • Soccer clubs are tied to a neighborhood or city. Doing well inspires local pride. National teams expand the base of supporters. Beirut-born Ibrahim (or Youssef) Bassal displayed a 70′ x 20′ German flag to show his family’s solidarity during the World Cup where millions of smaller flags are everywhere. Only people keep vandalizing the flags because…

  • Last year I posted a TED video by Daniel Pink on the science of motivation. This is the same talk but animated. I’d love to see more of these!