book review vol. eight: Freakonomics
I’ve known for a while that I enjoy learning, but until recently I thought I only enjoyed learning about certain things, things that I found pertinent to my life and the lives of those for whom I care. Then I read Freakonomics and realized that my limited set of information that I strive to know more about may not be so limited.
I’m sure you probably wouldn’t roll into a bookstore and pick out a book that looked like the one pictured above. Well I did and after reading the intro and the first chapter (a pre-purchase routine I regularly rehearse), I knew I wanted every ounce of information this book had to offer. It was like reading a textbook, only good. I’ve never read a book like this before, and when I’m in charge of this nation’s education programs, I’m going to require teachers to teach out of books like this. Kids would undoubtedly enjoy school more. No question in my mind. Why is that? Let me tell you.
The authors of this book have a gift. They know how to present potentially boring data in a very exciting way. For example, their blog is interesting, where as mine, for the most part, isn’t. This discrepancy in interesting-ness can be accounted for in two areas: One, they’re freakishly smart; Two, they present information well.
The book is mostly based on the research of Steven Levitt, who is basically like Brad Pitt in economists circles. He’s won tons of young economist awards and he’s well on his way to winning a Nobel Prize (according to an economics professor I sold shoes to yesterday). During his career as an economist, Levitt has simply asked tons of unconventional questions and found very interesting ties between variables that most people would never notice.
If I had to draw a picture that best represents the book, it would be a sledge hammer crashing down on the words, “Conventional Wisdom.” If that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will. Levitt explores things like why parents don’t feel safe when their kids play at a house whose owners keep a gun, while they fail to think twice about having their kids play at a house with a swimming pool, which is in fact, statistically, significantly more dangerous. Stuff like that is interesting, no?
So there you have it. Go buy Freakonomics (or borrow the Supercinski’s). Read it. Have intelligent discussions with your peers (This book will give you no shortage of things to discuss). Read the Levitt’s work so you can claim you knew him before he was famous (i.e. before he wins a Nobel Prize). And also listen to Andrew Peterson’s Christmas album like I asked you so kindly to do in yesterday’s post. If for some reason you can only do one, listen to the music. It’s more powerful than the book, unless you were somehow able to read the whole book in 45 minutes, and even then I think the music trumps.
Good News!
Since today is Black Friday and I survived it (praise God) I’d like to share something with you that I planned on sharing even if I hadn’t survived the madness that is retail on the day after Thanksgiving: Andrew Peterson. If you are ready to have your mind literally explode for lack of other options because it is so happy, then click the link above. It’ll take you to Andrew’s website, where you will then click, “Open Player” (ah heck, how about you just click here). Once you successfully click the “here” or the “Open Player” link, a window will open and it will start playing [arguably] the most mind-blowing Christmas album that will ever grace your ears. Go ahead. Even if you hate Christmas music, this is different. And if you love Christmas music, then I’ve probably already sold you, you’re half way through the first song.
Remember my post about music and how awesome and powerful it is? I referenced a certain album that literally brought me to tears because it was so good? Recall? No? Well this is that album. I recently ordered and received the live concert DVD version of the same record… also amazing. I rarely recommend music on this blog, but if I didn’t tell you to listen to this album, I’m pretty sure I’d be sinning. It’s about 45 minutes. Just do it. I bet you Jesus shows you something through it. Stop reading, and start enjoying the magic of true musical fusion… then come back in 45 minutes and tell everyone what you thought… if you can see through your tears.
The Thanksgiving Hun-derd!
I decided that for this year’s Thanksgiving post that I’d do something a little different — not that there have necessarily been any Thanksgiving posts in the past. I’ve decided to list one hundred people for which I am thankful. These names will be in no particular order, so if your name is the first one, the last one, or the middle-est one, that doesn’t mean anything, other than that you made the list. I’ve also decided to break them up in four sets of 25, so it will be less overwhelming to read and easier for me to count. Go!
Mom, Dad, L.O., Granny, Aunt Sherry, Uncle Stan, Cousin Misty, Jon Tettleton, Mikey Mills, Colby Ivey, Jessie Harris, Grant Usry, T-Bomb Abbey, French Logan, John Banks, Johnny Williams, PG, Nate Dog, Matt Graham, Jimmy Needham, Cody Kimmel, Sam Binkley, Justin Smith, Aaron Hendrick, Heather Hendrick,
Anson Hendrick, Hayden Hendrick, Ashton Hendrick, My boy Danny, Chris Gaines, Butch Smith, Michelle Smith, Allen Duty, Kendra Duty, Brooke Brandon, Hayley Haralson, Claire Borne, Jessica Schmale, Sarah Vierling, Lauren Helton, Brice Helton, Stephanie Logan, Rachel Schmale, Lauren Rouse, Mallory Maxwell, Jordan Coulter, Kristin Good, Lauren McDaniel, Katie Domenech, Laura Nutter,
Brandone Rogers, Beethel Rogers, Mohawk Chad, Bill Magee, Ila Magee, Thomas Supercinski, Rachel Supercinski, Faith Fuqua, Ryan Couch, Jenny Couch, Lynn Brannon, Laura Brannan, Danie Magee, Katherine Carelock, Drew Lewis, Travis Black, Tyler Kunkel, Steve Miller, Andrew Rios, Blaine Grace, Brad Smith, Haley Smith, Breeto Wells, Rachel Gillman, Charles Roitsch,
Click!, Daniel Darnell, EJ Rathburn, Lamar Stockton, Topher Stockton, Trent Dowd, Tommy Clements, Brad Stroup, Rob Bethman, Taniesha Bethman, Chris Pletcher, Molly Allen, Megan McKenty, Melissa McKenty, Marc Morrow, PEEPS, Luke Friesen, Lisa Merryman, Lauren Drewry, Julie Anna Aboussie, Joshua Langston, Joe Baker, Joey Rigney, Jason Dunn, Jenna Fenoglio
Well that’s it. I could have kept going (maybe not a whole lot longer, it’s safe to say at least 10 people got left off), but one hundred’s one hundred… sorry. One pretty big person who didn’t make the list (but in a stroke of irony, did, in face, make, the list) is Jesus. I thank Him for giving me 100+ people for whom to be thankful. Amen and amen. And a hand-squeeze.
is that a joke?
The weather has been extremely pleasant the past couple of weeks (save a couple of wet days), which has allowed me to do something I enjoy: ride my bike. I’m not exactly in riding distance to any trails, so I settle for using my bike a means of transportation to places like the grocery store and the book store.
The other day at the local Barnes (which is two stories tall, thank you) I picked up a delightful book, Freakonomics. I have since bought it and read about half of it. When I finish, you will be able to reap the benefit of that which you did not sow by reading my review of it right here at online diary for the masses. Today as I was reading, I came across a disturbing fact: the cost of coffins is way too expensive. The one pictured above is the cheapest one I could find on the internet, and it’s $1,000. (Most coffins are easily $3,000 and up).
This got me thinking: What better way to put on display how terribly we spend our money on this Earth than to end up with our carcasses lying in a $3,000 bed… underground? I can understand certain folks justifying such a purchase, for example, people who believe in reincarnation. However for people who claim to be Christians, and claim to believe that they’re going to have a bodily resurrection when the guy they claim to be their leader, Jesus, comes back — these people, the way my critical and opinionated eyes see it, have no business delving into such an investment.
I’ll admit, this is a pretty one-sided view of an issue that is irrelevant to most of us (because how many of us will be buying our own coffin?), but it got me thinking, and it was time for a new post, so this is what we get. Since this is my blog, and I’m allowed to be biased and share my opinion, let me tell you what I’d like to have done to my dead earthly body: donate everything that you can. If there is anything left, do whatever is cheapest, all while being jealous that I get to be in the presence of my Maker while you’re left to wait.
This isn’t meant to be a morbid post, just honest, real, and a little offbeat. Don’t cry.
fireplace: before and after
I’d like to thank Tony Green for the “f”, the vase, and the giant white Lego leaves. I’d also like to open up the comment section as a safe place to discuss your thoughts on our fireplace.
book store thoughts
I love bookstores. Half-Priced Books, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, you name it, and I probably like it - unless it’s a comic book store. I love that you can go into a book store in any city of America and feel like you’ve been there before (once you find a book, an empty chair, and start to read).
I’ve had a few days off from work this week and the past couple days I’ve found myself riding my bike in the disgustingly hot Dallas weather to the local Barnes where I proverbially swim around in the sea of books. I’ve got this gift where I’m able to find a book that peaks my interest in nearly every section of the store. I mean it could probably be the child birth section and I’d find something that interests me.
I’ve done some introspection and discovered where that gift comes from. Well, at least I’ve gotten one step closer to discovering it’s origin. I like to learn. Maybe more so than my liking of learning is my attraction to the idea of knowing a lot of things. That fact is proven in my habit of picking up books that catch my eye, reading the first couple of lines on the back, pretending to read the remainder of the back, then putting the book back on the shelf.
The fact is, I really want all of the knowledge that the books in any given bookstore have to offer, without spending the time or money necessary to acquire said knowledge. That’s the problem. And I blame the Internet.
Another thing I love to do at bookstores (and everywhere else I go) is watch people! Especially in the magi zine section. If you ever find yourself with a free afternoon and you just don’t know what to do, go to the local Barnes, grab a book and pretend to read it near the magazine section while looking at people and observing to which magazines they are drawn. It is fascinating.
Clearly this post hasn’t been profitable or funny, and I doubt it’s even been entertaining, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about lately, so it gets blog-space. There is one very funny thing about this post, and if you haven’t noticed it already, go ahead and scroll back up and click on that picture. Look at the books on the table at which the boy is sitting. Hilarious.
Happy Yesterday
Those of you who are my parents, or who have a facebook account, know that yesterday was my birthday. Those of you who are on facebook know that this picture is of the facebook guy. Mark Zucherburger or something. Smart cat. But this post isn’t exactly about facebook, nor is it entirely about my birthday. It’s about how people used facebook to wish me a happy birthday. So I guess it’s about both. And it may be about something else later. We’ll see.
When one logs on to their facebook account, the homepage houses a sidebar telling them which of their friends have birthdays coming up, including friends whose birthday is that day. This is an extremely convenient feature, because it allowed fourty people to wish me happy birthday who would have been none the wiser had it not been for said sidebar. I recognize that; I don’t expect anyone to remember anyone else’s birthday (save spouses and other immediate family), so when people like Jessica Schmale call me on my birthday just to talk, unaware that it was in fact my birthday, I really don’t mind. I say that to make sure that you — the reader who went through their day yesterday unknowingly failing to celebrate my birth — won’t feel a need to apologize. I don’t mind. It’s not big deal.
Anyway, of those forty or so facebook well-wishes yesterday, a couple stood out and I felt the need to recognize them. I decided yesterday morning I was going to hold a contest for who could post the best birthday comment, but I didn’t tell anyone. Sneaky huh? I wanted to have a first, second, and third place, but only two really stood out. And here they are:
2nd Place: Jessica Schmale said, “I’m still writing Happy Birthday on your wall… even though I feel like a lame friend” (upon realizing it was my birthday when logging on to facebook hours after we’d talked on the phone)
and…
1st Place: Catlin Whatley said, “I never write facebook birthday messages to people I actually like… cool picture.”
I thought that was absolutely brilliant. Catlin is a girl I worked with in Brenham this summer, and she’s sarcastic, and it’s great.
So there you go. Congratulations to the winners of my contest in which nobody knew they were participating.
In closing I’d like to thank, as sincerely as I possibly can on a blog, the people who did anything for me today, even if it was just writing “happy birthday” on my wall (again, a facebook thing). Thanks for that, for the calls, emails, dinners (rents), and for just letting me be your friend. I’m far from deserving it. Thanks so much, and I love you people a ton. I’ll also thank in advance whoever posts a comment on this post.
doggie days
Here is a picture of me and Hershey. Hershey is a yorkie that belongs to the Olivers, the family that birthed, raised, and currently claims me. My parents usually keep him, but due to their recent travels he has been staying with us at the apartment. Isn’t he cute?
Well the answer is, it depends. He’s cute when you come home and he runs up to you and jumps as high as he can (6 inches above my knee) to greet you. He’s cute when he jumps up in your lap and falls asleep. He’s actually cute right now as I’m typing this, laying down on the pillow beside my bed.
However, he is not always cute. It’s not cute when you come home to find him in his cage with his own waste. He’s also not cute when he decides, in the middle of the night, that he suddenly cannot jump on to my bed — something he does with no problem in the day time — and whines heavily until he receives the assistance he believes he deserves.
There is one thing that Hershey is not: smart. Every time I tell him it is time to go outside, he freaks out like he’s never been anywhere other than our apartment’s entry way in his life. You’d think he would remember that I have to put the leash on him before we go out, and that he’d at least stay still while I try to accomplish that feat… not the case. He just jumps around like an idiot until I finally grab and subdue him until I can get that little leash buckle to click. Another very intelligent thing he does happens every time we come back in from outside. He still hasn’t wrapped his peanut brain around the fact that we live upstairs. He always goes right on past the steps. I don’t understand it.
Anyway, that’s Hershey. He’s cute, and not cute, and not smart, but I love him anyway. My roommates hate him and make fun of him, but I love him. I think dogs are funny. I do not, however think this post is funny, and at this point I’m wondering why I thought it would be a good idea for a post at all. Oh well. It’s like the subtitle of my blog says, “online diary for the masses - where D.O. wastes your time for you”
an RSS how-to that you don’t want to miss
I had been thinking about doing a post about rss (are-ess-esse) feeds the past few days, then I saw the Super’s did one already. However mine will take a different approach. Read his to see what RSS feeds are… go… read…
In short, RSS will help you keep up with all your blogs without having to click every link from your blog twice daily. It checks them for you and tells you when changes have been made. Ok. My version of the RSS post will be a how-to concerning installation and usage of a RSS reader that you can use in firefox (which you should be using at this point in history).
Welcome to Sage. If you’d like you can install it as you read along. Just click the link, the “install” tab, then the “install” button. You will probably have to restart firefox (close and re-open) before Sage will work. No biggie.
The sidebar you see on the left of the mini-screen (click to enlarge) is what Sage will look like. If you don’t see any sidebar when you re-open firefox, just press Alt-S, or click the new button you have up in your URL bar (the colorful talk bubble icon).
Now your Sage sidebar should have three feeds automatically installed to it: BBC News, Yahoo! News - Sports, and Sage Project News. You may or may not care about any of those, but you probably do want to add your blogs… and here’s how.
Open up one of the blogs you read. At the top corner of the URL bar you will see this:
Which will open up something like this:
To which you will select the “Sage Feeds” folder, and click OK.
Repeat for all of the blogs you read, and in about ten minutes, you’ll have a nice looking list in your sidebar. Now when you open your internet you can press Alt-S (if you don’t leave Sage open all the time) which will open up your sidebar, and then click the little orange refresh button (see first pic) at the top left of the Sage sidebar.
Here’s the cool part:
The blogs on your list that have been updated will change from normal font to bold! You want to check the bold ones because they’ve got something new. You needn’t check the non-bold ones because they haven’t been updated.
Note: at first they will probably all be bold, because the reader doesn’t know that you’ve read the existing posts. Simply press Ctrl-Shift-C, and that should mark all of your feed items as read. Now you’re set. From now on, all the bold items are updated sites.
That’s it. If you have any questions let me know via comments, and if you actually do install it please let me know, because I’d like to think that the past 45 minutes of post-composition weren’t a futile effort.