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I’m on Twitter.

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Yes, as of recently, I’m on Twitter. I decided to join not out of need or curiosity or the desire to fit in or seem like I know social media or seem like I’m up to speed on technology, but because I decided to open up to the idea that Twitter may actually be useful in allowing me to communicate effectively — let me share my ideas better, let them reach people better.

Twitter (just as any tool, really, and especially just as any platform) is used improperly all the time. By “improperly” I mean used in ways that it wasn’t meant to be used, or in ways that obscure its truly revolutionary, game-changing, unique purpose. I believe that Twitter is unique in that it allows individuals (and groups) to broadcast their thoughts, opinions, reflections (broadly speaking, information) in a lightweight way, and with support for consuming that information.

In other words, As a subscriber, I don’t want articles. I want headlines. And I want them delivered to my doorstep.

The constraint to keep the broadcast lightweight is crucial precisely because we’re letting people broadcast — if the information is too verbose, its sheer volume will make the platform useless. And support for consuming the information lowers the bar for subscriptions. If the information is hard to get, people won’t bother managing their subscriptions.

So yes, I could just have a blog, but by its virtue it will likely contain longer bits of information; and there is no easy way for people to follow my blog unless they subscribe in some way, which will likely be too heavyweight for the number of subscriptions they will likely be maintaining (many of their friends, figures of authority that they trust, companies that they think of, etc.).

Now, a headline might pique your curiosity and then you may want to read more. Twitter supports URLs, which is great. I can have my cake — allow lots of people to go through my content really quickly (so they can go through others’ content too) — and eat it too — still be able to express myself fully.

This blog has a natural connection to Twitter. Many of my posts are snippets of opinion with added context. I should be able to synthesize most of them into something bite-sized. Twitter will create a contract between me and people who may be interested in what I have to say that gives me a scalable forum, and gives them the peace of mind that the content won’t be too time-consuming to get to. I had better be good at synthesizing my content, but it is a great skill to have anyway. In a way, Twitter makes information delivery more democratic.

Of course, that’s not how Twitter is used to a large extent. I think that’s fine — many platforms are abused in some form or another, and different platforms may tolerate different volume of abuse. Since Twitter has such a clear contract, I am okay tolerating abuse because if I do a good job, people who I care about will easily be able to separate me from noise and so I will be able to maximize who I reach out to.

Posted in changes/cyclical, human nature, principles, technology | No Comments »

Bumper guards

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

Bumper guards — those rubber sheets people stick out of the trunks of their cars to protect their bumpers from dents — are the surest way to:

Make your car look ugly. I understand their appeal — though I haven’t verified it myself, I am sure they protect somehow from small scratches and dents, but at what aesthetic price! It’s like a bib for your car.
Make other drivers bump into you more. Presumably the existence of a rubber surface will protect both cars so the driver who might otherwise be careful will take a few more liberties getting out of that ridiculously cramped parking spot.

I wonder how many people get them having done the research to figure out how effective they are. In other words, is it just a fad, or is there some merit to the idea? (While I should have checked, the disgust I feel for what they make cars look prevents me from spending much time on them. Maybe except for this post.)

Posted in The Daily Badness, human nature, products | No Comments »

A painful consequence of my philosophy

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

A big problem with biking in Central Park is everyone else using the circuit, but especially pedestrians and joggers crossing the road, and casual bikers.

Riding defensively (slowing down near any pedestrian and casual biker, assuming that everyone is an idiot and will make a sudden move towards traffic) is simply impractical. It was my initial approach, but very quickly I realized that the resulting stop-go motion takes away from the entire pleasure of biking and defeats the purpose of having a circuit to bike on.

The fact is, you only have about one second to figure out if the person in the danger zone is an idiot (not paying attention), an asshole (having a sense of entitlement to think everyone else will move aside), or just efficient (is well aware of the surrounding and is in control of the path to ensure a collision will not occur). It’s harder than it seems.

In my desire to implement my philosophy of “commonsense right of way” I let the pendulum swing too far. A bruised tail bone and a whimpering jogger on the ground later, I was forced to revisit my approach.

Assume the other person is deaf. That was effectively the case with the aforementioned jogger who had her music blasting on at full volume. Or purchase a really loud bike horn (is there even such a thing?).
Watch out for signs of idiocy — a cyclist moving at 3 mph, swerving left and right, a jogger crossing the road in a direction almost parallel with the flow of traffic, a biker slowing down (they usually do rapid 90 degree turns, having gotten bored with riding their bike), people riding these rented tourist bikes

Posted in The Daily Badness, changes/cyclical, for reflection, funny, human nature | No Comments »

Pedestrians vs Bikes

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Ever since I started biking in Central Park, I’ve been formulating my opinion of pedestrians.

For one–I’m just going to get this off my chest–I am increasingly frustrated by pedestrians who think they are entitled to just cross the street and bikers will slow down for them. I think it has to do with the sense of entitlement mostly because of the mixture of stubbornness and madness displayed on their faces; but also–let’s face it–surely they wouldn’t have done the same for a large ass truck heading their way.

In general, I found myself being less and less patient with pedestrians (I do, however, try to differentiate between those who just don’t pay attention and those who jaywalk to spite me). I used to slow down, later just swerve to avoid them. Now I’m pushing it more and more, engaging in this terrible game of chicken. I think, deeply, nobody wants to be run over by a cyclist (while the cyclist would definitely be injured and the bike damaged, the damage to the pedestrian is greater by simple laws of physics and the pedestrians must–let’s hope–understand that intuitively).

Crosswalks are interesting in Central Park. While they are accompanied by traffic lights, both pedestrians and cyclists seem to ignore them by and large. My take on this is very simple: a crosswalk gives the cyclists the obligation to be more careful (it’s like a flashing amber light for regular traffic). A crosswalk with the walk signal for pedestrians gives the pedestrians right of way, by which I mean a pedestrian should feel to be in control of his or her pace in crossing the intersection in order to cross safely. In other words, a pedestrian should not have to hurry half way through the intersection because otherwise a racing cyclist hits him or her; a pedestrian should be allowed to slow down or speed up. The pedestrian is in control. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the cyclist needs to stop at the crosswalk. So long as the cyclist ensures he or she is not on a collision course (with adequate buffer to account for a reasonable change in the pedestrian’s behavior), he or she can cycle through the intersection even when the pedestrian has a walk signal.

This rule is symmetric, of course. A cross with the don’t walk signal for pedestrians gives cyclists the right of way. A cyclist should not have to swerve or slow down in order to avoid hitting a pedestrian, but a pedestrian is welcome to cross if he or she is careful not to get in the way of a cyclist, taking into account a reasonable change in the cyclist’s behavior.

I like this rule because it’s unambiguous and efficient (it’s impractical for all cyclists and pedestrians alike to stop at all such crosswalks). Similarly, it does give the pedestrian a slight edge (cyclists must be careful around crosswalks) which seems fair given the prevalent opinion about relative rights of pedestrians, cyclists, and motor vehicle operators.

Now, if only I got everyone to listen to me and actually behave accordingly…

Posted in The Daily Badness, human nature, reductions, things everyone should do | 1 Comment »

Elevator music (Part II)

Monday, May 16th, 2011

I think there are lots of ideas that seem good at a time (and perhaps are boosted by plenty of research) that become overimplement and thus abused, causing a reverse reaction. Two examples I was recently reminded of…

Elevator music. What was probably initially intended as a great measure to let the awkward time that total strangere spend in a claustrophobically small elevator pass more quickly, has become something I have a cynical reaction to (or one of disgust, more often). Worse, now not only elevators, but airplanes use it to, I guess, let the time pass better as I await take-off. While there may have been a study that shows that forgettable, mild music with no sharp tones, beats, minor chords or off-key notes is calming, its abuse defeats the purpose because it now becomes part of our collective subconsciousness.

Another example is the “no signal” screen that most projectors use is a pure blue screen. I heard somewhere that blue was chosen because it was relatively calming (curiously, the Windows crash screen is also a blue screen).

Of course, the blue projector screen may have been used for purposes different than psychological ones. Perhaps it was because blue is the primary color with the lowest luminance (a particular intensity of blue is three times less luminous than red, and six times less luminous than green) to ensure the bulb doesn’t burn out too easily. Of course, then my theory wouldn’t work — the abuse of blue screen doesn’t make it any more luminous — but if that was the only reason, I can think of a number of better screen-saving measures (for example, a less intense blue or a checkerboard pattern that would be impossible to mistake for blackness or an actual signal). So in a way, I hope I am right…

By the way — at first I didn’t even remember I already wrote about elevator music. I guess it truly is subconscious, after all.

Posted in The Daily Badness, human nature, products, technology | No Comments »

Which Number are You?

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Go down the list and stop once your answer is “no”.

I would want to do something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
I would want to devote a month of my life completely to something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
I would want to devote a year of my life completely to something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
I would want to devote twenty years of my life completely to something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
I would want to do something that save mankind from total destruction but as I save mankind, I would need to die.
I would want to die saving mankind even if people didn’t find out I did it until a hundred years later.
I would want to die saving mankind even if there was a 50% chance that nobody would ever know I did it.
I would want to die saving mankind even if nobody ever found out I did it.
I would want to die saving mankind even if nobody ever knew mankind was in peril.
I would want to die saving mankind even if everybody was convinced that a person Y did it.
I would want to die saving mankind even if everybody was convinced that instead of saving mankind, I was the one that put it in peril.
I would want to die saving mankind in all circumstances.

Posted in for reflection, human nature, lists, purpose, reductions | 2 Comments »

Comparisons vs Absolutes

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

I make this mistake all the time. Instead of thinking of myself on an absolute scale, having standards that depend solely on what I think is right and wrong, acceptable and not acceptable, good and inadequate, I constantly compare myself to other people.

I guess it’s human nature, to see what’s around us and compare. After all, a comparison is a much easier operation to carry out than an absolute assessment — the latter requires a good mapping from reality to something more abstract while the former is simple pattern matching. But there are many problems with comparing myself to others: I may end up spending a lot of energy on something that is irrelevant to what matters to me; I don’t utilize people I compare myself to to help provide me leverage (just like they should use me to get leverage) and instead end up doing things inefficiently–double-doing either explicitly or implicitly through lack of information; I may also think I’m done (if the comparison tells me so) while in fact be far from achieving whatever goal I need to achieve.

I wish I thought of absolutes rather than in terms of comparisons.

Posted in comparisons, for reflection, human nature, things everyone should do | No Comments »

Life expectancy and the desire for peace

Monday, May 9th, 2011

Is there a relationship between life expectancy in a society and its desire to maintain peace? Could it be that the younger the population, the more temperamental it is and so the more likely it is to wage wars?

Or is being peaceloving a trait that comes with the sophistication of a society brought about by greater literacy, education, and made possible with better health and nutrition?

Or is it simply a fluke and future generations will be just as violent as the prior ones have been?

Posted in changes/cyclical, for reflection, human nature, origins, puzzle | No Comments »

The Ultimate Desire

Monday, May 9th, 2011

We all desire things, experiences, and people. Our desires stem from our values — what we value tells us what we want to have. More and more I begin to realize that there is one ultimate desire that each of us has: all we want is not to be lonely.

This is not always literally meant as wanting to be in a long-term relationship with another person. For many, the feeling of being close to God or some other spiritual being or state, or being part of a community.

This desire to not be alone is what makes us human. We are not only capable of, but also programmed for a long-lasting relationship. Relating with another being helps us make sense of who we are, and reveal some of the mystery hidden in our minds. After all, we’re all locked inside these minds.

In essence, our desire expresses who we are — we are selfish, but this selfishness is not meant pejoratively. It’s a pure, good selfishness. It’s selfishness that challenges the inconvenient fact that we are all independent individuals who are born by ourselves and die by ourselves.

Posted in for reflection, human nature, reductions | No Comments »

Honesty

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Each generation brings different values into the world. Usually these values are a reflection of the world in which the generation was brought up, as well as, in many cases, a reaction to the values of their parents’ generation.

Talking to my friends in business school and slightly older friends who are beginning to take on more meaningful positions in the industry, I am beginning to realize that my generation will bring more honesty into the world. Between the trend to be more socially and environment conscious, it seems that it’s a less selfish generation — concerned about the good of the whole as well as one’s own — and with selflessness comes honesty and integrity.

Posted in changes/cyclical, human nature, retrospective | No Comments »