Posted in The Meditations on Mar 14th, 2010 4 Comments »
Yesterday was my first training ride of the 2010 triathlon season. As I started grinding up the first hill, I noticed that I wasn’t going very fast. Even for me, I was going pretty slow. I started pondering the depressing possibility that I had peaked as a triathlete at John Tanner State [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Nov 18th, 2009 6 Comments »
A couple of younger guys call me “Boss.” One of them emailed me the other day with a couple of basic questions along the lines of: “I’m thinking about buying a house. Should I? What are these tax breaks people keep talking about?”
I responded with a long, rambling email, which I [...]
Posted in The Meditations on May 11th, 2009 5 Comments »
At back-to-school night, I found out something terrible: Walden wants to be rich. (He mentioned it in one of his essays.)
And it is my fault. I have recently made a friend who is very wealthy, and I have been gushing about private jets and yachts. So, it was my responsibility to explain [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Apr 30th, 2009 20 Comments »
Today is my 40th birthday, and I have an announcement: I’m not teaching any more.
I love teaching, and my students have been truly excellent — motivated, creative, fun. However, as the company has grown, the weeks that I spend teaching have become more and more problematic. When I return from a week [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Feb 5th, 2009 5 Comments »
The U.S Government is about to do some fiscally irresponsible stuff to end the recession. I think this is a really bad idea. The American economy does have serious problems, but the recession is the fix for those problems, not the cause.
The real problems:
We have been borrowing too much and saving too little
We have [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Oct 9th, 2008 9 Comments »
When I watch TV, I am surprised at how many car commercials there are. I am also surprised how little the ad says about the car. The voice-over usually says something like, “Awaken the beast within.”
I suspect those companies are trying to sell the viewer an identity. It is the saddest [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Aug 18th, 2008 5 Comments »
I was teaching in Europe last week, and I was reminded of something: There are 400 million native English speakers, but over a billion people who speak English as a second language. English is the language of business and technology around the globe. At any given instant on this planet, most people who are [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Apr 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
The Telegraph recently posted a list of the 110 best books. It is a pretty good list, but they missed some of my favorites, so I thought I would create this addendum of great non-fiction books. (Disclosure: I’ve included a link with my associate number — if you buy the book, I’m going to get [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Feb 25th, 2008 2 Comments »
Three books that I have been reading are related in interesting ways. They are all tied together by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. So let me start there.
Maslow says that people pursue their needs in a predictable manner. First, a person takes care of the physical needs: food and shelter. While the [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Jan 23rd, 2008 7 Comments »
Walden is in first grade in the neighborhood public school.
Before going any further, let me point out the importance of public schools: Public schools are the mechanism by which we ensure that all Americans are given the opportunity to learn. Public school is where the rich and poor meet and recognize the humanity [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Jan 11th, 2008 7 Comments »
I love bookstores. I worked in a bookstore during high school. Today, I wander down the aisles looking at books, reading the blurbs, and putting them back on the shelf. I can easily fill a couple of hours browsing in a bookstore — especially now that every bookstore has a coffee bar.
What [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Dec 14th, 2007 No Comments »
In 1991, I was living in Seattle. At that time, the state of Washington had a caucus instead of a primary. Before the caucus, I was annoyed. After all, to someone who has voted in a primary, the caucus has many obvious problems:
It happens at a certain time. Primaries last all [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Dec 4th, 2007 No Comments »
I finished Greenspan’s “Age of Turbulence”, and I thought it was delightful. The first half is a memoir, and the man has had an interesting life. The second half is “What is happening now in the world economy.”
In that second half, he talks a little about corporate governance. Greenspan is a libertarian, [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Nov 18th, 2007 6 Comments »
I have a confession: I am not patriotic.
I mean, I’ve travelled all over this country and it is pretty good. It has beautiful scenery and nice people. And we have a decent government — democratically elected, relatively corruption-free. But, it is just a country.
There are lots of countries that have beautiful sights, [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Nov 2nd, 2007 3 Comments »
When I’m teaching my classes, sometimes a student will say, “Aaron, you are so patient with our dumb questions.” And I respond, “That’s my job this week.”
See, if I was trying to ship software, the dumb questions would be an annoyance. But, if my priority is to eliminate dumbness, answering questions is the [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Oct 16th, 2007 No Comments »
For our employees, we (Big Nerd Ranch, Inc.) have recently set up a 401K plan. I expected more people to enroll. I suspect that some people do not understand the power of compound interest.
Stock markets go up and down, but on average the market has paid about 10% per year. Historically, then, [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Oct 2nd, 2007 2 Comments »
I teach for a living, and teaching is something that I am passionate about. There are several common causes for bad teaching. I thought I might take this week to tell you how to avoid being a lousy teacher.
Posted in The Meditations on Sep 23rd, 2007 4 Comments »
I’m going to my 20-year high school reunion in two weeks. I am neither fat nor bald, so I guess Time has been gentle with me. I’ll be interested to see how she treated the rest of Jefferson High School’s class of 1987.
Like many people of my ilk, I was not popular in [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Sep 19th, 2007 No Comments »
On the last post, Amanda wrote a comment that said basically, “You, with all your numbers, are missing the point. People don’t change for numbers.” She is, of course, right.
This is a terrible puzzle for me. My first hypothesis is that numbers don’t hold the power that narratives do. One good story [...]
Posted in The Meditations on Sep 9th, 2007 3 Comments »
One of the recurring themes of this blog is “Don’t worry about that stuff.” Usually because that stuff is unlikely, unavoidable, or just not that bad. When I start to rant about these things, someone always says, “Better safe than sorry!”
This is not true. Sometimes when you steer around something harmless, you drive into [...]