40 Thoughts for 40 Years

Today is my 40th birthday and I thought I’d take the chance to share a collection of small thoughts I’ve had this year. As you can see in the history of this blog, I used to post much more of my thoughts online. However, as I got older, I realized people rarely change their minds. So I spent less time putting my thoughts on the internet.

But if you know me, then you know I still have a lot of thoughts and love to put them out there. So over the years, I’ve gotten in the habit of texting myself what I might otherwise posted online. It’s become a kind of miniature private blog to myself. So, for my 40th birthday, I got myself a present. The chance to share about 40 of the things I’ve texted myself over the last year (organized by date texted, not topic):


True greatness requires longevity.

Investment in institutions (government, school, business, communities) is the key to human thriving. Institutions attempt to systematize beyond the influence of individual human choices. In that way, they are also inherently dehumanizing.

The bias of the news is that there is always something newsworthy. You’ll never see the headline “Things are mostly the same as they were yesterday”. Daily news needs to talk less about the present. More about the past. And a lot less about what the future might hold.

Just because a habit was once adaptive, doesn’t mean it’s working for you now.

Religion can offer us an ancient sense of humility: Our free will is constrained by our weaknesses. I’m grateful it’s also constrained by a loving God.

Parent as if you knew your kids were going to be okay. You’ll push them less and enjoy them more. Then they’ll probably turn out okay.

Capitalism is said to have an invisible hand that guides markets. Democracy needs to have a visible hand that voters can see, appreciate, and want to support.

Move away from “is what I’m saying the most correct” to “is what I’m saying the most effective”.

It seems like Adam and Eve were never meant to die. Never meant to go to heaven. Maybe this is the purpose of the human story. To end up better than where we started.

The American empire will eventually fade. Instead of putting energy towards holding on to as much power for as long as possible. Maybe it’s more productive to put that energy towards supporting growing nations that might share our values (maybe like India, Brazil, Ethiopia, etc).

One of the best ways to make America more resistant to radicalism and more open to gradual change is to help us realize just how successful they we've already been.

Every piece of criticism needs to be couched in the context of predetermined acceptance.

If someone is primarily describes the “good news” of Christianity as just delayed gratification (wait for heaven), that is truly some very bad news.

Your emotions are true, but they might not be telling you the truth.

Avoid financial advice that sounds like easy money or a complicated workaround.

Unlikely benefits of having a lot of children younger: Every year early you have a child, is an extra year you are in their life. Every extra child you have is an extra family member for them after you are gone.

The tradeoff to the many benefits of the 18th-century Enlightenment was an over-reliance of what we can see and understand. Apparently there is a lot about the world we will never understand. Thinking otherwise turns us into skeptics and conspiracy theorists.

We should replace the phrase “I can’t do that” with “I don’t want to do that” (because the benefits of success aren’t worth the costs to try)

“Don’t worry what other people think. No one is keeping your score. They are only keeping their own score” -Jeff Probst

Maybe everyone everywhere is struggling and needs to be treated with kid gloves. If so, I’ve got a lot of more apologies to give.

When you compare men and women, remove the top 1% (which is mostly old white men). Then by almost all measures, women are doing just as well if not better than most men over the last 30 years. This is both a celebration of the progress made and a model for how we can help moving forward. This is a big idea I’ve gotten from listening to Scott Galloway

Immigrants are an incredible piece of positive social engineering. There’s something about the immigrant experience that even makes them perform better than other marginalized groups. Are Kamala Harris and Barack Obama successful people of color, or are they products of a family with an immigrant work ethic and talent?

I’m less afraid of AI taking over society like Terminator. I’m more afraid of AI negatively affecting the way humans actually live their lives in the real world. This is already happening with social media algorithms.

The average age of inaugurated Presidents when I was a kid (Clinton, Bush, Obama) was 49. The average of the next 3 presidents (Trump, Biden, Trump) is 75.

Cynicism is a type of cowardice.

“Identical twins, raised apart are more similar than fraternal twins raised together. The most important thing you give your children is genetics. The second is zip code” -Daniel Pink
I feel like this justifies my laissez-faire parenting and the fact that I’m so picky about houses. Note: I’ve been technically homeless for over 6 months.

When things are bad, just keep pushing. When things are good, slow down.

Too much advice, even too much good advice, can create anxiety in the receiver and actually end up being taken incorrectly and become bad advice. If you feel that now, just stop reading this blog post ;)

People only get better when it’s easier to improve than to stay the way they are.

One of my greatest personal flaws is I love the simplicity of Checkers and I am easily tired from the complexity of Chess.

A good summary of the U.S. economy of my adult life: The price of non-essentials have gone down (TV’s, computers, air travel, etc) largely thanks to automation, but the price of essentials has gone up (housing, groceries, college, etc), largely due to fixed human labor costs. Curious how AI will affect this,.

There is never a more fickle mistress than the approval of others.

The bad times will come and go. So will the good times. It’s all about enduring and enjoying the now. If life is a gift, we’ve got to accept it all with gratefulness. Somehow.

Expectations are what drive us. They are also what drive us crazy.

My pitch for a new cult: “25 year Amish”. There are costs to living in the modern world. So instead of tying your culture to an arbitrary century like the Amish do, just delay all technology you use by 25 years. So go out and get a Blackberry and start ordering books from Amazon.

If you find yourself serving someone, something, or some group more than they serve you… great! That’s the purpose of life. To become a net positive on the world.

Negative emotions are key factor in human survival. Ignore them at your own peril.
That said, see above about the news high jacking your emotions.

People are not drawn to you. People are drawn to how they feel about themselves around you.

Earnestness is not a measure of whether what you are hearing is in fact correct. Earnestness is saying confidently what you think is correct. This is what makes Trump so believable, yet so incorrect.

It’s weird that as you get older your parents have less impact on your daily life. But it’s not until you’re older that you realize just how much they impact who you are.

I have found that my own lack of empathy is a lack of willingness to endure the feeling someone else in having right in front of me. It is brave to embrace the joy and sorrow of the world around you.

This NYT article is about how one of the most powerful things you can give children to increase their resiliency is an intergenerational self. An idea of how they fit into the larger narrative of their family history. A way to test this, is to see how much of the stories about their parents and grandparents they know. My wife and I played a trivia game asking our children these questions. They scored an average of 84%!

Career advice for my children: cast a wide net of hobbies and interests and then follow the ones that offer the lifestyle (money, hours, satisfaction) you desire.

You don’t get to choose who you are. That is largely a function of who you spend your time with. But you do get to choose who you spend your time with. I’d suggest regularly participating in more than just one group to ensure a healthy competition of ideas.

I’d like to increase not only my transparency, but also my vulnerability. One challenge for myself is to use more “I feel” statements. People will commonly respond incorrectly to vulnerability, but worst case scenario I’m just giving us all practice.

I’ve gotten very good at communicating with large groups. My challenge for the next decade of my life: give more individual attention.

Six Presidential Candidates on My Ballot Not Named Trump

Sign in front of my house

I'm fairly certain I would vote for any Democrat or Republican presidential candidate since 2000 over both of the two main presidential candidates this year. Both Trump and Clinton have set records for being unfavorable, even among their own party (and especially with millennial voters like myself). If you remember back when this blog was regularly updated, I may have won $20 from family members in the each of the last 2 presidential elections and it looks like I'm about to be right again (though I was admitted way wrong about how far Trump would go in the primary and will likely break even this year).

Not too much has changed about my own personal political beliefs, though I have moved slightly the opposite of how you might expect based on my region (since I moved from NC to SC) and my age. However, like many voters, this presidential election season has been confounding. That's why, I'd like to make the case for 7 different options for Election Day (today):

Options 1-6) Vote for any of the other 6 candidates (at least on the SC ballot) not named Donald Trump. There's been plenty written to try and convince others to not vote for him. In fact, here's a good summary from fellow early 2000's blogger/friend Justin Scott. Though I should mention that his post was a little over a month ago so there's plenty more to add to the list. I got a chance to see conservative NYT columnist David Brooks here in Greenville a few weeks ago and he concisely stated that "Trump is the wrong solution to a right problem". If you'd like to get some real sympathy for why at least 40% of voters in the country is planning to vote for him, the Cracked Podcast has a great discussion (here's the shorter list version). I actually got a chance to do a short informational presentation on the election to the two campuses of my high school (one fairly urban and one very rural) and you could feel the stark difference (even in the historically very conservative Upstate of SC).

As for the other 6 candidates, they've gone through SC's fairly stringent process of getting on the ballot:

In South Carolina, political parties can conduct primaries. Filing requirements for presidential primaries are set by the parties themselves. An independent presidential candidate must petition for placement on the general election ballot. The petition must contain signatures totaling 5 percent of all registered state voters. Write-in candidates are not permitted.

I'd suggest that if someone has gone through the proper channels to legally appear on your ballot, then they are open to vote for them. That's not just my opinion, that's the law. There are certainly arguments of spoiler candidates, but that's only if you are first obligated to a party or candidate. If that means the party you normally side with "lost your vote" then you're now showing your vote matters. Hopefully that party won't make the same mistake again. So here are the non-Trump candidates:

1) Hillary Clinton (Democrat): Despite all the email scandals (there are actually several different ones involving several different people), I still think Clinton would make a much better president than Donald Trump. Comparisons aside, she was a relatively innocuous Senator so much so she was approved as Secretary of State 94–2. It wasn't until she became a candidate for president in 2008 that she became such a pariah to conservatives (or even Trump himself).

2) Gary Johnson (Libertarian): Having voted for him in the last presidential election he was easily my first choice. His Vice Presidential pick is even better than his last one 4 years ago. I think Johnson would make a very competent and fairly moderate president. He's the only candidate I've heard in decade reminding voters that the president can't actually pass laws and has to work with Congress (one of Obama's major pitfalls). I'd also nominate him for most likely to balance the budget.

3) Jill Stein (Green): She might be the only candidate on this list I might call into question. Her policies are health, energy, and debt are very concerning. However, I believe her and Gary Johnson are the only candidates openly calling for shrinking the federal military and decreasing US involvement in nation building overseas.

4) Darrell Castle (Constitution): I don't know a lot about Castle as a candidate, but my understanding of Constitution Party is that it is a more religiously conservative version of the Libertarian Party. If you appreciate Gary Johnson's honest efforts to shrink the size of the federal government, I believe Castle will push for similar things economically. However, they divide over issues like abortion, LGBT rights and other issues where the Constitution falls more traditionally.

5) Peter Skewes (American Party): I know nothing about Skewes personally, but the entire vision of the American Party is incredibly appealing, especially in this election. This was a party actually founded right here in SC with the mission of leading from the middle. Here's a quote from their site: "The central focus of the American Party is to increase the economic global competitiveness of our states and our country, by focusing on the implementation of common ground solutions".

6) Evan McMullin (Independent): The true wildcard among wildcards Evan may be the only 3rd party candidate to carry a state since Ross Perot in the 90's. Right now as a completely independent candidate he's polling above Hillary Clinton in Utah and drawing 24% from Trump in a state the Republicans carried handedly in 2012. If there's no majority in the electoral college, it could get interesting.

7) Don't vote. It's your right to vote and it's just as much your right not to vote. If there are no candidates that represent enough of your views accurately, then no outcome will express your voice. Plus you have a 1 in 60 million chance of making a difference. 1 in 10 million if you're in a swing state. Wasted votes aren't votes that don't make a difference. No one vote has ever made the difference in a presidential election. A wasted vote is one for a candidate that you do not want to be president. Which is why studies shows we mostly vote for our own personal or communal feeling of satisfaction (same reason I watched baseball for the first time in a decade on Game 7). In fact, after reading over "Why I Voted" from 8 years ago, not a lot has changed for me and plus, voter apathy may actually be a positive.

Like the Greenville News (who endorsed Romney last time), this year I'm not endorsing any candidate. I think all non-Trump candidates would be passable. My vote however will go to Hillary Clinton, who like her husband, policy-wise might turn out to be the boring president I've always wanted. And the policy issues we do disagree on (and there are plenty), I'm confident our system of Federalism and other two branches will do what they were made for (as I discussed on the issue of abortion just a few hours ago). It's also important to me how Trump loses. Whether it's a small loss or a big one likely determine whether we see a Trump/Christie type Republican Party in 2020 or my dream new version of the party with candidates like Kasich/Weld on the ticket. This also means I will have voted for 3 different parties in 4 different presidential elections. It feels good not to be tied to a party, which are at the end of the day just private organizations that nominate candidates for office. Instead I vote for who I think would be the best chief executive, a suggestion I got from Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate Bill Weld.

The Blog That Can't Wait

If you know you can always go back to it, sometimes you don't always make it a priority:

New Baby New Blog

That's right, my wife and I are having a baby! And here's the most recent post from my new baby blog, written from the perspective of the main character:

It's official, I'm a boy or girl! You'll have to solve this word problem to find out which: 

I'm the most popular baby in the world. I charge the minimum wage in 1994 (in 1996 dollars) per hour to be baby-sat before midnight. But I get a dollar more per hour if you keep me up later. Last Friday, I earned $28.50 for being baby-sat by the neighbors until 1:30am. What time did I start? 

If it's before 8pm I'm a girl. After 8pm I'm a boy. Good luck!

And here's the first heartbeat and ultrasound!

Emptying the Bottle: Early April '12 Links

Here is the best of what I've shared on Twitter recently:

• Don't text and live via The Onion [video].
• Great Wall, cracking knuckles, and other common misconceptions [video].
• Too big to fail badly, a living will for big banks.
• Justin, my blogfather, has quit blogging.
• From Penelope Trunk: Divorce is immature and selfish. Don't do it.
• You are impossibly small (and impossibly large) [graphic].
• Nerd March Madness: Democrats vs. Dictators.
• The story of Morse code and why technology matters [audio].
• It's not about Tiger moms, it's about moms.
• You're in relationship trouble when you see no trouble [chart].
• Alchemy Comedy interview on Your Carolina [video].
• The problem with feminism from the daughter of a leader.

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Last Post!

1000 posts and over 4 years ago, on January 16th, 2008, I did my first post. Today I write my last post. Not the last post I'll ever write, but the post I'd like to have put up last. Let me clarify. I got the idea from a blogger, who asked his family and friends to publish one last pre-wrtitten post for him when he died. I figured, why wait until you are actually on your death bed? So here are my final thoughts, that I expect to update annually and would like to be reposted after I die.

1) I am doing this to ensure I get to a say in what is written about me when I die. Knowing me in person is the best way to get a grasp for who I am. Sharing stories about me is the second best. Reading this blog is probably the third best. Although my recently deceased grandfather's obituary was fine, it wasn't what I would like mine to say.

2) This is also a chance for me to finally get a legal will and updated life insurance. Your death will already be hard for your loved ones. Any future planning that can make their grieving better should be done.

3) I'd like to die how doctors die. Please spare me any "futile care". Life isn't about surviving.

4) This post isn't about being morbid. It's about facing reality. I will die. And like most of life, it will probably be unexpected. I doubt we think about too much about death and expect the opposite to most likely be true.

5) My final thoughts resemble those of James Madison's deathbed letter entitled "Advice to My Country". His greatest desire was the the United States to perpetuate. My loyalty is a little more localized. My greatest hope is that my family would perpetuate. That my loved ones be taken care of in my absence.

Although I don't want to be buried or have a grave stone, if I did, I'd like this on it: "He Really Lived. He Really Died. He Really Lived Again."

New Place and New Phone

If I'm going to talk about the bad, I should give updates on the good. First, I got a new phone:

photo taken by my wife's matching iPhone 4S

For a guy who reads a lot about smart phones, it's taken me a long time to actually dive in. Just looking back at my old phone reminds me of my old car. I'm hoping to keep up with my blog reading and so far it's been helpful. I hope to keep to my previously posted texting rules and I've been trying to limit my use while driving. Though it is unusual to be excited to pull up to stop lights and be excited. Let me know if there are any great uses for smart phones I should know. The other good news is I've moved:

this one was taken by my phone

After struggling for 4 months to find a house, my wife and I have decided to take a break. We'll be taking my old advice and renting for a while. We plan to pick up the hunt next summer. In the meantime we are downtown and close to my work. Now if I could just get a break from school for a couple weeks...

Emptying the Bottle: Mid-November '11 Links

Google recently canceled their sharing format, so I've switched to posting them on Twitter. So as usual, here is a list of the worthwhile links I've found recently:

• There's a billion-bug highway above you that you can't see [video] (earlier).
• Story of how modern day science can protect us emotionally [audio].
• Tear jerking marriage interview to inspire us all [audio].
• Why sandwiches taste better when someone else makes them.
• Blackberry outages cut Abu Dhabi traffic accidents by 40%.
• I am the 59%. Find out your number (earlier).
• Freakonomics on football momentum and icing the kicker [videos].
• Famous boos throughout history.
• Follow The Fake PewResearch Center on Twitter.
• A "Life Isn't Fair" Hallmark greeting card [photo].
• Siri meets Furby [video].

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Blogging is Hard in the Real World

This has been one of the hardest months of my life. In two weeks, on June 25th, my wife and I are officially moving back to our hometown Greenville, SC. There are so many good reasons to move home. Both of our entire families are there (except for those overseas). I can't commute an hour to work anymore. As our plans for kids get closer, grandparents and aunts/uncles get more valuable. But the move is bittersweet.

I've come to love North Carolina. I've created friendships that will be hard to leave. A teaching job I originally took mostly because it was offered has been great place of growth and opportunity. I will be currently moving without a job to a state with a worse overall economy. I'm going to miss the improv teaching and performing opportunities I've gotten at DSI. Also, the stress of deciding to move and the actual process of moving is difficult for any relationship. At least in the short run, by many measures, my life will be worse. No job, less friends, and less career and artistic possibilities.

This explains why this blog has been silent for the last couple of weeks. I've been so focused on what my life will look like if what I've been working on for 8 years (improv and teaching) isn't immediately available. What am I if I lose some of my labels? It's very difficult to write about the difference between humans or animals or the stimulus package when my life is being turned upside down. In fact, I feel like I've been pushed down Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

Look back at most of my recent posts. They were questions of morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and changing my beliefs based on facts. One of my main blogging goals is to slowly improve myself in hopes of reaching my personal potential. But when my wife and I finally decided to officially move, that desire got taken over by more basic desires. Leaving my teaching position at my high school and at my improv theater makes me question my personal esteem and sense of belonging. Leaving my current home and pay check makes me question my safety and if worst comes to worst my physiological needs.

However, it's been nice to look back and remember that even the unemployed in America are relatively rich (physiological need, check). That poverty isn't a lack of employment, but a lack of relationships (safety need, check). That my family is big and supportive (belonging, check). That my esteem is not self-esteem gained from being a good teacher or good performer. It comes from being a connected to a good God who only requires we recognize that. I'm optimistic my spirits will improve. And I hope that this will make me more empathetic to my future students, wherever they may be on the pyramid.

What I Get Out of Blogging

Last year I did my best to describe why blogging is great for everyone. One of the first benefits I mentioned was how useful it is as a learning/memory tool. Justin Landwehr recently made list of what I'd like to call six reasons why blogging helps you remember what you read:

#1. Write them down. There is a Big increase in retention from doing this. And handwriting seems to be more effective than typing.

#2. Question them. Or have others question them. I remember ideas much better when I have given them a mental colonoscopy.

#3. Re-visit them. This chart was huge in helping me understand how memory works:

(Accompanying article in WIRED, 4/21/08)

My approach is to type up all the ideas from my notebook, typically about 3 months after they were originally written. I have also experimented with a program called Mnemosyne that is like a flash-card program based on this memory principle. I found that it did increase retention, but not so much that I felt compelled to go out of my way to use the program.

#4. Explicitly connect them to other ideas. Based on my experience, this is significantly more effective than re-visiting. I do both, but I find that the ones that are explicitly connected to other ideas I remember more clearly and for a longer time.

This is a really important point that often goes overlooked: Ideas need other ideas to tell them what they mean.

#5. Give them an intuitive place in your mind. Organize them into “chapters”. Memory champions do things like organize ideas into an imagined hotel or landscape.

#6. Explain it to someone. Bonus points if it’s someone who will scrutinize the idea. Double bonus points if it’s someone you respect.

I'm actually kind of curious how non-bloggers remember anything they read.

Why Men's Acheivements are More Public

An article I shared a while back discussed reasons why women are less likely to blog (mostly that women need/want less outside praise for their achievements). I wonder, does this apply to other parts of their life? This study suggests yes:

Two ecologically valid studies involving anticipated public performance offer insight into women's tendencies to avoid placing their abilities under a spotlight. First, in an experimental study, women felt less comfortable than did men and experienced more personal risk when they anticipated that their test scores would be public. Second, in a naturalistic observational setting, students taking an experiential forensic psychology course were required to perform intellectually challenging activities in public. Women displayed more concern about the course requirements than did men, and subsequently dropped the course in disproportionate numbers.

Could this also be why women are less likely to do speak up in my class, pursue leadership positions or do improv?

Relationship Currency

Yesterday I shared a link to Justin Wehr's new blog about exposing 99 embarrassing truths. It wasn't until after that I realized he'd taken the blog down. Here was his explanation:

Vulnerabilities are the currency of relationships

I'm not sure that's exactly true, but it's more true than I realized last week.

Background: Last week I started a Tumblr where I intended to publish in the public abyss 99 things that I’m embarrassed about in hopes of nudging myself in the direction of openness and comfort-in-skin. I made it up to 19 before quitting. (It's gone, you can't find it anymore, I deleted it.) I didn't quit because I ran out of things to say -- far from it, I barely said anything deserving of an eyebrow raise. I quit because I realized there was something wrong with my premises.

I still believe openness and comfort-in-skin are good things, but only up to a point. Last week I was operating under the unconscious assumption that embarrassing secrets are bad things that we should try to purge from our otherwise pure selves. Now it seems to me that vulnerabilities are better thought of as resources to be spent carefully.

The more widely you distribute it, the less it's worth. The harder it is to say, the more it's worth. The longer you hold it in, the more it's worth. But unless you let it out, it's worthless.

By this theory, there are two types of people who are relationship poor: (1) people without embarrassing secrets, and (2) people who refuse to ever "spend" their secrets.

Vulnerabilities are different from financial resources in at least one important way: Vulnerabilities are not a cha-ching money-in-the-bank kind of resource. You don't invest in them as you would a 401K. The goal is not to accrue as many vulnerabilities as possible.

But like any other resource, it is scarce, and it ought to be spent wisely.

I couldn't agree more. I've tried really hard to figure out what makes relationships successful. Balance, resolved conflict, dedication and thinking long term are all important for healthy relationships. But I think there is something very important in the above quote I'd never thought of. Intimacy is only intimate if it's private. The more people you bring into the circle of vulnerability the less it matters to you and to them.

If you're not already reading Justin's personal blog I highly recommend it. Here's two more recent posts from him worth reading: 1) we need more punctuation and 2) wisdom is being bad at trivia.

Policy Recommendations from Economics Bloggers

Here are my thoughts on each issue:

• Give Haiti Trade, Not Aid or Free Trade Agreements Are Not Free Trade
• Reader Request: Government Regulation or Worthwhile Sentences on Regulation
• I Fixed the Deficit! or Evaluating Our Government's Debt
• I'm Not a Special Interest or Another Benefit of the Gas Tax
• Corporate Welfare vs. Business Friendly or Let China Subsidize Us

There's more interesting charts at the Kauffman Foundation.

Emptying the Bottle: Early-March '11 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• There's a place in St. Paul that let's alcoholics go to drink and die.
• Does my blog help or hurt me get on a jury?
• Make meetings better and faster, hold them standing up.
• Most tourists take pictures from the same spot [photo] (earlier).
• Interview with Chris Anderson, curator of the TED Conference [video] (earlier).
• People are ruder in their car because of the barrier between them.
• Madoff is not a metaphor for Social Security, but for the government (earlier).
• Is lying okay? Here are three good reasons to lie.
• The un-famous story of Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes [audio].
• Make you blog posts into a book.
• Police bias can make police dogs bias [video].
• Who will still be famous in 10,000 years?

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.

Before There Was Blogging

There was memorization:

Today we have books, photographs, computers and an entire superstructure of external devices to help us store our memories outside our brains, but it wasn’t so long ago that culture depended on individual memories. A trained memory was not just a handy tool but also a fundamental facet of any worldly mind. It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics. Only through memorizing, the thinking went, could ideas be incorporated into your psyche and their values absorbed.

My Career and Hobby Advice

Get really good at something specific and get paid for it (ex: teaching high school economics). Then spend the rest of your time getting good at everything else (ex: improv, blogging, relationships) and it will probably make you even better at your original thing.

Bottlenecked Blog Goes National

One of fun things about writing online is following who's reading. Google Analytics is great way follow when, where, and how many people are visiting your site. One of the items I follow closely is where in the country (and sometimes world) are people viewing my site from. For the longest time I've wanted to have at least one view from each state. As of last week, the last hold out Montana, finally arrived:

Bottlenecked Blog Readability

I've posted before on the personality type of this blog. But recently Justin Landwehr posted on one of Google's new advanced search features. It allows you to see and filter your search results based on reading difficulty. Which also means you can check to see the reading difficulty of your own writing. Here's the results for the Bottlenecked Blog:

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this. Compared to other blogs I read I am above average. A part of me is happy. Everyone likes to be told they have a high reading level. Even though the topics discussed here may be a factor, the sites that are blockquoted probably are too. And reading level doesn't necessarily imply intelligence. It's also possible that Google just couldn't get a good read on the site and just gave it an intermediate score. So what really matters, readability, probably isn't measured very well with this tool. Good thing there's another tool that let's me measure that, the comments section. Please let me know how this blog can be made more readable, even if the answer is better grammar.

To use this tool yourself click on advanced search on the Google homepage, and select "annotate results with reading levels" under reading level.

Takeaways from Q & A with Tyler Cowen

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you're aware of my affinity for economics professor Tyler Cowen. He covers everything from blogging, to the market, to reading suggestions. He was even nice enough to answer my question about the timing of the Industrial Revolution on his blog. At a teaching economics conference I even heard his co-blogger at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok, say that "before there was Google, there was Tyler". The weekly podcast Surprisingly Free recently did a Q & A with Tyler. Here are my takeaways:


Water transport is significantly cheaper than trade over land. Though slower, the natural resistance of water travel is simply less than land and air. This may helps explain why buying local may not be that great. I wonder what percentage of the buy local movement is about personal image.

One of the main reasons why there has been relative peace instead of war is that the technologies of peace have been cheaper than the technologies of war. This has not been true through most of human history. Nuclear terrorism may change this.

Trying to incentivize marital fidelity may actually ruin the cultural norm. Shame may be one of the best motivators. Especially the guilt children might put of divorcing parents.

People are more likely to think they are above average when they don't have to pay to prove it. This may be why many teachers don't support merit pay. That said, if the administration, board, or superintendent positions aren't based on merit, then maybe they can't reward merit.

Most economic principles are correct. There may be changes on the margins, but the textbooks probably won't change much.

If the average person doesn't fly much, then they may actually want too much airport security. They are hurt (indirectly) by terrorist attacks, but are barely affected by increased invasive pat downs. Tyler predicts, and I agree, that there may be small cosmetic changes to the current TSA policy, but that most of it will stay intact. Then once we have another attack, anyone still protesting will seem crazy.

One of the best ways to learn economics, like anything, is to do it. That means reading it and writing it. That means blogging.

The best non-fiction books are about the past. The worst non-fiction books are about the future. Worst case scenario: have a very incorrect understanding the world with a high degree of certainty.

In the past I've specifically voted for divided government. Historically this has been the best way to limit the growth of bad government. However, now that our country is on an unsustainable growth in spending, gridlock will bankrupt us.

When asked where Tyler would most like to live in the world he said where he is now. Shouldn't we all say that?

Knowledge is contextual. My job as a teacher is to give my students the context to learn long after final exams.

Tyler thinks marijuana legalization will never happen because of the concerned parent vote. I hope he's wrong.

Apparently my old friend and Clemson economics study partner Tate Watkins is helping to produce the Surprisingly Free podcasts. I must say I'm at least a little jealous.

Here's Surprisingly Free's first Cowen interview from earlier this year on the internet, the iPad, and Lost.

Emptying the Bottle: Late-November '10 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• Looks like the Republicans are adding free trade to their fear list (earlier).
• Cartoonizing lectures in real-time. I want this for my lectures (earlier).
• Reporter turned blogger turns back (earlier).
• Defense of payday lending [video] (earlier).
• Augmented reality greeting cards and business cards [videos].
• Controversial TSA security looks better when you look at airplane terrorism before 9/11.
• Congressmen refuse to be on Appropriations Committee. Bad news for debt. (earlier-er).
• Question and answer about quantitative easing.
• Those who make a living off corporate sponsorships should buy disgrace insurance.
• From me: New (Smaller) Take on a Classic Gag from the Mister Diplomat blog.

As always, feel free to email me anything interesting you come across.