qotd june 11. Paul Beatty: “If all the world’s a stage, I want to operate the trap door.” [Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]
This is the kind of twisted mind that appeals to me. My other favorite along these lines came from a t-shirt long since gone. It read:
“If all the world’s a stage, I want better lighting.”
Fill Life
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things your family, your health, your children, your job, your friends, your favorite passions things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else the small stuff.”
“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. “The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled and replied, “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.”
I’ve heard this one before, but that doesn’t make it any less pertinent
Size Matters. via Subtraction.com: “Starship Dimensions” is a phenomenal piece of work and a staggeringly detailed attempt to apply metrics to imagination. [All topics]
Starship Dimensions is one of the wonderful places that only the web can make possible. From the site’s description:
For those of you who are new to the site, this site is intended to allow science fiction fans to get an impression of the true scale of their favorite science fiction spacecraft by being able to campare ships accross genres, as well as being able to compare them with contemporary objects with which they are probably familiar.
Haven’t you always wanted to know how bit an Imperial Star Destroyer was relative to the Enterprise?
I’ve been following the discussion and insight over at Invisible Adjunct with more than casual interest lately. There’s been some passionate and articulate discussion on the essential folly of getting a Ph.D. in the humanities (and many other disciplines for that matter). The problem being the huge imbalance between supply and demand for Ph.D.s in academic settings.
This discussion comes too late for me, since I already did the “piled higher and deeper” game (although to be technically correct my degree is not a Ph.D., but a D.B.A. – doctor of business administration, which has more to do with the academic politics of different graduate schools at Harvard than with anything else). I also went into the process with a clear notion of what the job market was likely to be.
I’ve actually spent the bulk of my post-doctoral career on the non-academic side of the fence and I’m headed back there again. You can see the details here, although I try to avoid wearing a tie whenever possible. I find that I’m happiest working in rapidly growing environments. Kellogg has been great fun and it was particularly rewarding to be able to develop a course on knowledge management, but what I’m interested in isn’t at the heart of what Kellogg does best. Time for a new adventure.
I’ve been at Huron now for a couple of months so I can say that I expect the blogging to continue. Managing knowledge work hasn’t gotten any easier and I expect I’ll continue to write down my questions, observations, and suggestions about how we can design our way into some useful answers. I just think of it as a participating in this colllective action research program from a slightly different location.
Scholastic Aptitude Test: Answering All Questions Incorrectly. This is a knee-slapping account of one person’s attempt to achive the lowest possible score on a SAT examination. The project is fully documented, with lavish illustrations, from the original application to take the test to the white-knuckle stress of finding the wrong answer in a testing environment. Some biting commentary – and from the examples provided I see that the tests are still very culturally biased. Every person planning to take a SAT should read this article. By Colin P. Fahey, May, 2003 [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily]
Don’t know how many of you caught this elsewhere around the net. It demonstrates just what you can accomplish if you have a goal.
Bill of Rights-Security Edition. You need to get used to offering up the bill of rights for inspection and government workers need to get used to deciding if you’ll be allowed to keep the Bill of Rights with you when you travel. [Blogcritics]
I think I may need to order a batch of these.
BumperActive is live!.
The BumperActive site is live and running: build your own bumper stickers (like this one), on the cheap at get them shipped to you as a one-off. Your friends (and people who see your sticker) can order more. Fund your charity! Express your PoV pithily! Put stickers on things!
The sticker design here — I WarChalk WiFi — is the first sticker I put on my new laptop. I get tons of compliments on it.
(Funny stuff: Kyle from BumperActive has put together a table in which he catalogs all the celebrities who did “Got Milk?” ads and also took a public stance on the war.)
Link Discuss (Thanks, Kyle!) [Boing Boing Blog]
Who says the web isn't contributing to the advancement of society? Something fun for the weekend.
So I'll just guess the answer is yes.
I'm checking off over half of these, but I'm too busy to finish the whole list.
I finished while watching the Cubbies lose (maybe I should adjust my score downwards). Sadly, but predictably, I scored 53.25444% – Super Geek by the quiz's metric.
Vancouver bureaucrats are funny as hell.
Now this is how to advertise your local by-laws. Link Discuss (Thanks, Airtime!)
[Boing Boing Blog]
Don't you wish the bureaucrats at TSA or the IRS had a similar sense of humor?
For Brennan. I thought you'd get a kick out of this: Units of Angst. [Steven's Notebook]
They say that you can't manage something until you can measure it. Well here's a start on measuring it and there sure seems to be plenty of it to manage.
