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August 13, 2015
I was listening to an episode of the Tim Ferriss Show podcast (which I finally started, even though I’ve been following Tim for years. Highly recommended), and one of the guests mentioned something in passing that I found quite interesting. From the episode with Dr. Justin Mager and Kelly Starrett, one of them mentioned that, if you asked his wife what his “two skills” are, she would say: He can mimic anyone. That allows him to understand how you move and why you move, and...
May 3, 2015
“Hi, how tall are you?” “Wow, so tall.” “Did you play basketball?” “You’re very tall.” Whenever I ventured into a tourist-heavy area in Shanghai or Beijing, I was bombarded by sales pitches. Equally inevitably, every one started with a comment about my height. Comments about my height don’t bother me; I love being tall. I’d also have thousands of short people out for my blood if I complained. But after the fifth time in fifteen minutes, how effective do you think that lead-in was?...
April 26, 2015
I was sitting at a bar with two friends. One of them, the birthday boy, turned to our third companion: “Go up and talk to her.” “I’m not going to. She doesn’t look interested.” “Don’t bother. He doesn’t have any game anyway,” I say, trying to defuse the situation between the drunk and the super-drunk. “I have game! I just haven’t met a lady worth using it on,” said the third. “So you have Schrödinger’s Game,” I reply. “Well, I won’t believe it until...
March 1, 2015
Keep Moving Forward – Manly Guys Doing Manly Things I never felt I was especially good at being a kid. I wasn’t temperamentally suited to it, I think, until I discovered alcohol, after which college worked reasonably well. But even then, I’ve always preferred to be an adult, and I’ve always preferred the person I am now to the person I was then. That’s because I’m always trying to improve myself, so the current me always leaves the old me in the...
November 7, 2014
I was talking to Kairi and Enzo on twitter about Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, and how I was enjoying it so much. I was surprised to learn they weren’t so keen on it. To me, it’s all about art. Kaori—when she’s not acting like a blonde ogre—speaks to my creative soul. Speaks for it … I find myself cheering as she says many of the things I would say myself. I love seeing the stuffed shirts freak out, I love seeing her flout the...
August 15, 2014
If you hear someone claim they’re completely unbiased or totally objective, they’re lying. Either to you or to themselves. No one is unbiased. We’re all biased. It’s called having a worldview, and it’s something every human has. We are predisposed to certain opinions based on natural inclination and personal experience. Of course, when most people say they’re objective they mean “I’m 98%+ objective”, because only the most deluded of souls would claim to be 100% unbiased, and even egomaniacs will allow for the possibility of them being wrong, though...