Subscribe via Email·RSS

The Volt, Part 2: Second Generation

(Part 1 of this story.) I've never been a car guy. I appreciate a nice Mustang or Corvette as much as the next American but I always knew I was way out of my depth compared to the guys who had been studying hot rods since high school. Then came the beginning of this year, and it was time to replace my aging Ford Focus hatchback that was I quite fond of. It was getting up in miles and with plans to start a family, having something more reliable was Stephanie's main criterion. And, of course, … (Continued)

The Volt, Part 1: Lineage

My grandfather, James P. Berry, bought the first Chevy Volt sold in Rock Hill. Unveiled in 2007 (the same year as the iPhone) and taking 3 more years to come to market, the Volt was an odd car. An entirely electric drivetrain that had a 40 mile battery but could burn gas to power a generator to run the motors for unlimited maximum range. Commute on electricity, road trip on gas. The best of both worlds. In a car industry notorious for imitation, it's still amazing to me that no other automaker … (Continued)

Craft vs Trade - Programming

I was having a conversation with a friend just starting out, later in life, on his journey as a software developer, and we were talking about code schools and college degrees. There seems to be a paradox, that some companies hire code school graduates and have success when others don't, while at the same time not all companies have success hiring junior developers straight out of college. So what determines success? One model that might explain this apparent paradox is that some programming is … (Continued)

Grant Imahara, 1970-2020

Yesterday's post was not intended to be the first in the series, but here we are. The obstacle has become the way. MythBusters premiered during my freshman year of high school, and slotted into the subscription list on our first-gen TiVo alongside Junkyard Wars, so in a way this hits me more like finding out about the death of a friend I lost contact with when I went off to college (not having a TV or a TiVo in the dorm). He was 49 and died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. The obvious quotation … (Continued)

K. Anders Ericsson, 1947-2020

I was saddened to hear that Anders Ericsson passed away recently, because his research and writings, primarily his book Peak has had a significant positive impact on my life. His research into what distinguished effective versus ineffective practice was sadly taken out of context to become the cultural meme of the "10,000 hour rule," which I might consider a miscarriage if he hadn't had a chance to set the record straight in Peak, for anyone interested in the truth rather than the catchy idea. … (Continued)

Loss Due To Measurement

Every time you put something into a measurement container, some small amount of the stuff stays in the container after you empty it out. The measuring scoop you use for flour, the measuring cup for cream, the mixing bowl to combine it. We like to think that we can measure things for free, but it's just not true. Cooking a roast with a temperature probe in it makes it easy to hit exactly the right temperature, but the meat around the probe always cooks a little differently. How big is the effec … (Continued)

Palantiri and Social Media

Journal, 13 March 2020 So much of social media reminds me of Tolkien's palantirs. Dangerous and corrupting for mortals. Manipulated to show you what will redirect your will to someone else's aims. Seemingly a gift but more a temptation. Can lead even mighty kings to crazed suicide. Is long-distance, many-to-many communication beyond a small forum always doomed to do this? It seems harmful every time it's been tried.

Incentives Matter - Google and Dark Mode

In conversation with a friend today, he made a passing remark: How can Google's own emails look like crap when viewed in Gmail, on a Google phone, using Google's dark mode? I think there are three things at play here. The first is that Google isn't just one thing. It's thousands of groups, mostly working independently. Of course we know this, but it's easy to forget when we use the shorthand of talking about a vast multinational corporation as a single thing. The second thing is incen … (Continued)

Voluntary Hardship

You must choose your own forms of hardship, or they will be chosen for you by fortune. Suffering through workouts or being surprised by injury and frailty. Budgeting your money or being blindsided by unexpected events. Controlling the food you eat or being weakened and sickened by the lack of discipline. You get to choose all of these. You get to choose what form of exercise to do, or what to spend your budgeted money on. The only choice you do not have is "No Hardship."

Winning is a Mirage

So, if most people who show up for an individual competition are losers and show up anyway, what's the point? At least the guys who win are satisfied, right? In my experience? No. For the people who are interested in growing and developing their skills, winning at a certain level just means one thing: it's time to go to the next level. Everyone climbing the mountain is looking up at the guy at the top of the mountain, but he's not looking down the mountain at the people behind him. He's loo … (Continued)

Staying Busy

Tonight was the toughest I've had this week. I finished work, feeling drained. Steph and I walked around the neighborhood with the dog, I made dinner, we ate dinner. I had the whole evening. I sat down to write another blog post like yesterday's, since it seemed to resonate and was really thrilling to write. It didn't work. I can't summon that on demand. I had good raw materials yesterday and bupkis today. I puttered around for a while. I tried to read. I went upstairs to for something. I saw … (Continued)

The gift of discovery

You have been given the gift of discovering just how little it takes for you to be happy. We all go through life with certain default constraints we stay within. Now, free of these, you are discovering what the ancients knew. To live happily is only to live in accordance with one's self. Not by complying with foreign dictates. Without anyone telling you where to go and where to be, you are left alone with yourself, to understand what drives you. Think of every thing thing that causes you pain … (Continued)

The Present Alone

This moment right now is not so bad. If you're sitting somewhere, reading this, wherever you are, whenever you are, it's not so bad around you.   Sure, somewhere in the world there are people facing very tough challenges. But they are less worried about their predicament than you are right now. When you are in the midst of the battle, you don't have time to worry. You just do what you have with the resources on hand. Right now, on the other hand, you are probably idle. You have time to sit, a … (Continued)

To be rather than to seem

The virtues of copper: “Sleek and shining stainless steel doorknobs and push plates look reassuringly clean on a hospital door. By contrast, doorknobs and push plates of tarnished brass look dirty and contaminating,” she wrote at the time. “But even when tarnished, brass—an alloy typically of 67% copper and 33% zinc—[kills bacteria], while stainless steel—about 88% iron and 12% chromium—does little to impede bacterial growth.” Ultimately, she wrapped her paper up with a simple enough conc … (Continued)

Yuval Levin on EconTalk

I'm not familiar with Yuval Levin (I don't even remember his previous appearance on EconTalk, which I must have heard), but he was on EconTalk recently talking about his new book. The book sounds interesting enough, and if I had room on my to-read shelf for it, I'd probably add it, but I don't so I won't. But the bits of conversation that emerged centered around three things that really stuck with me. First was the idea of formative institutions. One view of people is that children know what& … (Continued)