Sorry I burned your money

The last episode of This American Life concluded with an entertaining bit about the parodies that have been created from William Carlos Williams' poem/half-hearted-apology This is Just to Say.  I'm not normally a consumer of poetry but I found this particularly entertaining.  I think there's something to be said for hearing a poem instead of reading it that really makes it stick.  Or maybe it was that tiny drop of sarcasm.   

Sorry But it was Beautiful by Andrew Vecchione

Sorry I took your money and burned it
    but it looked like the world falling
    apart when it crackled and burned.
So I think it was worth it after all
    you can't see the world fall apart
    every day.

George versus Patrick

If it weren't for the doodle on google.co.uk, I wouldn't have known that today is St. George's Day.  Perhaps I should have figured it out when I saw a throng of guys in faux chain mail sword fighting on my way home.  Come to think of it, I had no idea that St. George is the patron saint of England until I moved here. 

Contrast that with St Patrick, the Irish equivalent, who manages to get extra special attention in Seattle, Cambridge, and just about any city I've been in on March 17th.  Maybe there's something to be said for the enthusiasm of the Irish diaspora but that doesn't explain why St Paddy's day gets more attention than St George's day in England.  Or maybe there's something to be said for the fact Guinness spends millions on ads in the US but you would be hard pressed to find a pint of Carling or Green King.  I'm not quite sure what makes one holiday more celebrated than another but it sure seems that George got a raw deal.

Techno Bedouins

This week the Economist ran an interesting special report on mobility. When I first downloaded the podcast and saw the title "Mobility" I thought this was about social mobility or perhaps even physical mobility (obesity epidemic crimps range of human motion?). The article actually focuses on the impact of pervasive connectivity on topics as diverse as work, architecture, language, activism, and social interaction.

The phrase "digital nomad" was repeatedly used in the article and one variation, "techno Bedouin," struck a chord with me. I was reminded of a friend who spent a season doing archeological work in Petra and lived in a Bedouin village during that time. You may be thinking "Bedouins? In villages? Contradiction!" But the Bedouins in that area were given homes by the government and forced to settle. One unexpected problem with this forced settlement was garbage. The society previously traveled to consume natural supplies where they were produced and disposed of their rubbish as they moved. With settlement, suddenly food needed more packing to be brought to them and the traditional trash disposal resulted in piles of garbage.

So what does this have to do with techno Bedouins? It's a reminder to ask what is the "trash" that no one considers when we switch from a settled to technomadic existence. I think The Economist actually touched on one of the problems: constant connectivity has placed a premium on speed of response over quality. We start spending so much time consuming and acknowledging information that no time is spent to ponder broader trends or think critically about the data we see.

I find the constant connectivity to be maddening at times but there is a silver lining. I suspect there’s a positive impact on the subject that I originally thought this report covered: social mobility. As opposed to one or two decades ago when only a subset of society could be constantly connected (think early cell phones or PDAs), now everyone has access to mobile technology, even in the developing world. More importantly, the real value of information is now about interpretation rather than access. And unlike access to data, interpretation only requires brainpower which is quite an equitably distributed resource.

Two Cents about Three Dollars

Every year at tax time, I happily tick the box to allocate $3 of my federal taxes to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. I've had a vague idea that this was a valuable bit of support for public funding of the presidential elections. It doesn't cost the taxpayer anything extra and any effort to reduce the tyranny of fundraising on the campaign trail must be positive.

Today I came across an article in slate that gave me second thoughts about this donation. First off, I was reminded that McCain and Obama may reject these funds because they can avoid spending caps if they rely on private donations. That could result in $168 million sitting untouched in a Treasury Department account until 2012 (assuming the next presidental campaign took public money). Secondly, the Slate article suggested that about $16 million would go towards each nominating convention. I'm not a fan of pumping more money into these events which seem to be all spectacle and no substance. Why not adopt the British model of an annual party conference which keeps discussion of issues fresh and makes it harder to forget what was said last time around?

It's a moot point this year as my taxes are already mailed off but definitely food for thought for next year.

The Orphanage

I highly recommend going to see The Orphanage even if you don't typically like horror/suspense movies. The story was solid and it was almost entirely free of gratuitous violence while still delivering some serious shocks. And, it has legitimate movie "credentials" because it's in a foreign language, right?

I do need to thank the man sitting in front of us who broke the tension by delivering a LOUD I've-been-smacked-in-the-gut grunt at one of the scariest moments which sent laughter through the theater.

The Cosmic IQ Test

Yesterday I came across an inspirational nugget while listening to one of Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leader podcasts.  I was about fifty minutes through the discussion of Angel Investing when this anecdote caught my attention.  The only context you need to know is that this guy is speaking to a lecture hall full of Stanford students.  (Note that this is my rough transcription of the speaker so I'd encourage you to listen to the audio version here starting at 50:55)

     A couple months ago I was walking through the airport really early in the morning and the TSA guy goes to me "How are ya doin'?" And I said "Great. How are you doing?"  And he goes "What does it look like?  I'm livin' the dream!" 

     At that point this epiphany came over me that if you go to Stanford University, you're in the rare position of privilege that you'll pretty much get to choose what you do in life.  And that puts you in less than 1% of the world.  And so [those of you in this position] have no excuse in life not to do things that you're passionate about.  There are a lot of people that will never get to and so if you do something you're not passionate about, you're flunking a cosmic IQ test.  You can learn that IQ test now or you can learn it when you're 40 and miserable in a job you don't like -but in the end you know what your passion is.  And when people and forces in the world try to prevent you from doing it turn off the noise and the hype and believe yourself, because so few people do and it's just tragic - anyone who comes out of this experience who is not doing something they're excited about - it's just a tragedy of their own making. 

Given my recent frustrations with work this was a good kick in the rear for me.  It's a bit elitist to say this only applies to students from one particular university, but I think if you were to select any reasonably educated westerner from the total global population it's likely they're in a similarly privileged position.  It's good to have a reminder that not everyone has the ability to pursue their passion so for those who have the ability but don't use it that's a big shame.