Mumbai terrorism

Very interesting article on BBC news. Do terrorists have to have a story or will the news media make one up? Is it in the best interest of the news media to make terrorists seem more sophisticated and complex than they really are?

I'm a little worried what adds Google will target for this post :).

The Dreaming Tree has Died

Wow, what a week we had. If you heard a crash it was my innocence shattering in the wake of the economy falling over. Up until last week, it was easy to scoff at this whole "economic downturn" as someone else's problem. Yeah, my 401(k) may be down, but I'm young and it will have time to recover. Yeah, some banks have lost a lot of money, but you could say it was their own fault anyway. Maybe there is a bit less traffic getting to work or maybe I should have noticed how easy it is to get a table at lunch these days. Many of my good friend's start-ups have let good people go, but hey, that couldn't happen to us, right?

The last 5 days have been non-stop hearing of the word layoff. From the neighbor, to a former co-worker, to a drinking buddy. Its hard to forget the images of good friends walking back to their cubes, cheap cardboard box in hand and a blank look on their faces. Everyone is keeping face and acting tough, but it isn't hard to imagine how they are churning inside. Its a disgusting sight. Its quick to see how tatered the saftey net can be and hard to notice how far the fall is into it. The other side of the American dream isn't too pretty.

Things will get better, but they aren't better right now. Lets hope things settle down for the holidays.

That's my new philosophy!

Everyone needs a new philosophy every once in a while, just ask Sally from the scene above (isn't Kristin Chenoweth great). A buddy recommended I read the book "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps". The book's thesis is that humans have millions of years of evolutionary programming for gender roles and that today's beliefs that all humans are fundamentally identical fights that genetic history.

The book tries to apply this thesis to just about everything in life, from the two points in its title to LGBT behavior and why women are underrepresented in science and math.

It's a quick read and will make you think. While I definately don't buy everything in this book, it can give you some tips for understanding how stereotypical people think. It also explains to me why I turn off the radio when I'm trying to talk. Maybe it will even give you a new philosophy!

Note: I may be able to get interested readers a soft copy of this book.

Ugly Vegetables

VS

Could you eat ugly vegetables or are you so acclimated to eating the biggest, most perfect looking veggies? BBC recently talked about some excessive restrictions on vegetable appearance that is creating a stir in Europe. I'm very proud of this article because it uses the term "wonky" in its title and that is deliciously British. I do like deliciously British things.

There are only beautiful people on TV, so why can't we only eat beautiful veggies? There are children's books about ugly vegetables to teach diversity lessons. There are even ugly veggie competitions.

This is such a good chance to go into a moral rant that I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader. Just try not to think about your prejudices against 3 pronged carrots and curved cucumbers and how that makes you a heartless person as they are sent off to the juicer instead of your salad plate.

Daylight savings or why I hate darkness

Today is daylight savings, which means we get to enjoy a 25 hour day. This usually translates to a lot of people showing up to church too early, a lot of people enjoying an extra hour of sleep, and Northern California getting dark at something like 5pm.

Daylight savings time has a somewhat complicated history. In practice, this seems to be one of the greatest uses of government authority to save energy and lives by pushing daylight into the afternoon. However, the Wikipedia article does raise some questions with respect to how much energy is really saved by daylight savings.

For me, I always am disappointing when we "fall back", because it means my evening commute is going to be done in the dark for 4+ months. It is quite demotivating to drive home in the dark. For me Labor Day, the end of baseball season, and the first bit rain may hint and the end of summer, but daylight savings time and driving home in the dark is a hard visual clue to ignore the fact that winter season is coming.

If I was in charge, it would always be light at 6pm in Northern California, even if it is dark at 8am.