tfl: The Flatiron Life

Zach’s comment to my post about Anastasio Prieto getting his money back was “What a pleasant surprise. You don’t often hear good news like this.”

You never hear about this for 2 reasons.

First, I am a pessimist on government and I think it is not in its nature to do the right thing most of the time.

Second, often the main story is front page news but the follow-up will be months later and buried.  The follow up is usually more interesting to me.   (Call me romantic, but I also like to finish books and know the conclusions to stories generally.)

I don’t have great advise about the first.  Don’t believe government, support watchdogs and lobbies, and vote.

Through the miracle of technology and The Google, I do have an answer to the second provlem.  Google news allows you to setup email alerts and subscribe to feeds via RSS.  Want to know when your company is in the news?  When a relative is in the news?  When Alastasio Prieto is in the news?  Just set up a feed.  The next time you read something you want to be sure to hear the end of, set up a search.

This is a neat little chess playing app.  It actually shows you what the computer is thinking, but I don’t think will help me much.  Maybe it will give you an advantage.  Even if you don’t play chess, give it a look.

Did you make an overt choice of where you live?
Did you just stay were you were?
Did someone else make the choice and you followed them?

Answer in the comments. I make no judgments of others values; everyone is entitled to their choices. I am quite curious. We visit friends and family quite often and moving to the visited locale is often a topic of discussion.

I have a pretty good idea why I live where I do. Before I say why, you need to tell me why you live where you live.

Today I found out there is a bit of a baby boom going on at OWW.  I had noticed that a couple women around the office were pregenant.  Then today I was talking to a teammate about Jonah and he said his wife is expecting in October.  Another teammate’s wife had a son last week and ‘new boss’s wife had twins earlier this year.  Also, I have heard that several other wives of coworkers are expecting.

Does this say anything about the health of the company?  I dunno and the SEC would not want me to say if I did.

Have you ever seen information about a national birth index or conception index?  Would this be a leading or trailing indicator of economic health?

This is not the iPhone. T-Mobile has introduced some really interesting new plans that are more likely to fundamentally change your phone use than the amazing little phone/ipod/atlas/pda/oracle/ED-cure from Apple.

David Pogue’s article really spells out how this is not just a money saving proposition for consumers, but a really brilliant business plan that I think could propel T-Mobile to be the cell market leader. Read the whole thing; it is very well written and .

(HT: Melissa Lafsky at Freakonomics Blog)

Today I was surfing the TV at lunch, when I spotted Gwen Shamblin on The Tyra Banks Show. I know, The Tyra Banks Show is the most ridiculous show on television, what was I thinking? But my mother was on Gwen’s diet a good 10 years ago and I couldn’t pass up a chance to re-explore a forgotten childhood memory. As a know-it-all teenager, I thought this diet was a totally wack, holy-roller plan. Gwen comes with a Southern accent, big hair, and a flamboyant worship style: all the trademarks of the televangelist that you’re not supposed to take seriously; but as I listened to Gwen today, I thought she was on to something. The plan is really no more than AA for overeating, urging people to pay attention to their bodies’ needs, eat small portions slowly, and rely on a healthy dose of faith to get them through times of temptation. The Weighdown Workshop is sort of French Women Don’t Get Fat, which I also like, plus Bible study.

On the slightly wack side, Gwen and some of the Workshop participants seemed to suggest that, when on the verge of succumbing to temptation, God would cause something to happen to the food they were about to eat: cakes falling to the floor, chips flying out of the bag when opened, etc. Since I believe that God allows temptation so that we might exercise our free will, I think you have to expect the outcome of prayer to be a change in perspective rather than circumstances.

I have the utmost respect for people who overcome eating disorders (and I use the term broadly). Most treatment programs for other addictions teach total abstinence, with food that is just not a possibility. I think, in many ways, it takes much more strength to deal with temptations in life through moderation rather than by eliminating them altogether.

When you take a picture with your digital camera. a lot of information is saved in the file. One bit of information is the type of camera. Now imagine millions (is it millions?) of people uploading images to a central place. It would be pretty easy to find out what the most popular camera is.

Flickr is part of the amazing world we live in today and they have the data. Check out Flickr: Camera Finder.

My 7-year old! Sony DSC-S50 is not listed among it’s brothers. I wonder if I am the old person still using this camera. Maybe I will have to see what the more popular SLRs are in a couple months for my birthday.

Those wild and crazy guys in Mountain View are having fun with us.

The most resent episode from the Re:Sound podcast is about Jewish death rituals.  It is a really interesting and enlightening program.  The documentary is a trilogy of segments and the thrd is about the afterlife.  According to the program, there is not clear answer if Olam Haba exists and if so what form it takes.  A Rabbi in the documenty says “If you get 3 Jews together you get 50 opinions.”  One of the more humorous tales is that the afterlife is a place of learning.  Moses sits and teaches Torah all day long.  For the righteous people, this is heaven; for the evil people, this is hell.