Siftables

Very cool, short video from the Feb 2009 TED conference.

UPDATE: Holy smokes, this video looks even cooler. Think Minority Report (in a good way) and holodeck.

Betting Or Bonding?

Today I ran across a Legal Zoom article that posed the question: Is Your March Madness Office Pool Legal? Wow, what a bummer! I honestly never thought about that. It's also true that I haven't had occasion to because I've never participated in a March Madness Pool for fun, let alone for money.

It doesn't surprise me that people do it though. According to the article, "2008 March Madness office pools were worth more than $2.5 billion with 27% of American employees participating." Pools are also cited as a way to foster a sense of community around the water cooler. Truth be told, the majority of office pools are illegal gambling activity because betting on sports is only legal in Nevada.

What I find most interesting is that Legal Zoom goes on to advise gamblers on how to avoid detection: keep your pool small, bracket on paper rather than online, encourage game watching after-hours rather than on the internet at work, etc. WHAT?! A website devoted to helping people accomplish things legally is advising them on how to behave illegally? Something about that just did not sit right with me.

I realize that this situation is unfortunate for those who enjoy the camaraderie of March Madness Pools. However, shouldn't lawyers respond by lobbying for an exception to the law rather than by advising clients to break the law?

Apologia pro Grammatica (I think this is right)

I have been on Facebook for most of the last two years. I was initially dragooned into it by a friend who was concerned about my lack of a social life and who confided that concern to Facebook. Facebook in turn- and spookily- sent me an introductory email to sign up. And so I did.

From that time until over Christmas break, I was that androgynous white head that shows up in people’s friend portfolios, and my own portfolio of friends was limited to folks who sought me out. As part of a New Year’s resolution to surrender to the zeitgeist, and in so doing avoid being presumed dead, I became an active member of Facebook in January of this year.

Now that I am an active member of Facebook, I not only know too much about a whole bunch of people, but have discovered besides, in the messages sent between users, some persistent grammar problems. The most common one is the use of ‘your’ when what is meant is ‘you’re.’ Then there is the tendency, understandable at least from a logical standpoint, to use ‘it’s’ when what is meant is ‘its’. And, alas, there is the conscious and widespread non-use of punctuation and capital letters, and the ingenious abbreviation of one syllable words (e.g. thnx instead of thanks). It is unattractive to go on about these things too long or too stridently, because nearly everyone makes mistakes in English grammar and because pedantry is boorish; although the dedicated pedant may actually round the bend, as it were, and become endearing.

Consider the case of French grammarian Dominique Bonhours, best told by Bill Bryson in The Mother Tongue (read Bill Bryson, by the way). Bonhours, just before shuffling off the mortal coil, and exemplifying what is meant by dying in the saddle, is reported to have said, “I am going to- or I am about to- die, either expression is used.” And too there is the asserted and sometimes actual utility of excluding certain grammatical formalities from a functional writing. A few people I know steadfastly refuse to use capital letters or consistent punctuation in electronic messages. They assert the utility principle (and then make fun of my lack of a social life, going so far as to suggest a connection between that fact and my inclination to write things like this post).

But if the time saved by the writer is then wasted by the reader in divining the message sent, there is no net time saved. There is but a shifting of the burden, and an announced disrespect for the reader. And the use of a construction that means something very different from what is intended seems an unmitigated error. Finally, someone has to object to ‘thnx’, or else it will become the new ‘thanks’, the new proper thing to be transgressed against (perhaps with ‘tx’), and so on until we climb back into the trees.

Hot Cup of Joe in Hand

As the mercury stays low outside, and job seekers try to secure post-graduation employment, recent research suggests a person's first impression may be more influenced by random physical comforts, like holding a hot cup of coffee, than once believed. The study, conducted at Yale, concludes there may be a link between environmental stimuli and behavior and feelings. Specifically, feelings of trust and empathy are linked to physical feelings of warmth.

The scientists recruited college students to participate in what they thought was a personality study. As the students were brought into the lab, they were asked to hold a cup of coffee (either hot or cold). They were then asked to evaluate presumed personality traits based on a neutral description of a fictitious person (industrious, cautious, and determined). The students who held the hot cup perceived the person as "more generous, sociable and good-natured" than those who held the cold cup. A second test group of students was given either a heating pad or cooling pack to hold for "product-testing." At the end of the "test," the students could choose a gift either for themselves or for a friend. The students who held the cold pack were more likely to choose the gift for themselves.

So what is the moral of the story for those seeking to make a positive first-impression? The study stopped short of concluding individuals should hand out warm drinks before an interview, but rather made the observation that perhaps our environment influences our feelings more than we could have imagined. True, but maybe holding onto that hot cup of coffee before a big interview isn't such a bad idea.

The AP story can be found here.

A Good Thought for the Day

"Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action."
~ Oswald Chambers.

Lincoln the Lawyer

Today marks 200 years since Abraham Lincoln's birth.

Two days before Lincoln's 198th birthday, President Obama opened his presidential campaign on the steps of the Old Capitol in Springfield where Lincoln gave his "house divided" address. In his speech, Obama invoked Lincoln's spirit: "Through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people.”

In his speech on the Old Capitol steps in June 1858, Lincoln said about the political struggle over slavery:

"Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends -- those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work -- who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now? --now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail -- if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come."

Historian David Ward is curator of One Life: The Mask of Lincoln at the National Portrait Gallery. When asked for a VOA.com story how Lincoln might have felt about the presidential election, Ward said: "I think the fact that a person of color is now president would hearten Lincoln immensely."

Willing To Live Worse

If this generation were willing to be the first generation to not live more prosperous than our parents, willing to quit putting bandaids on the problem and instead spend the next 40-60 years (2-3 generations) digging out of the national debt and financial folly, we could be the second greatest generation.

Will we sacrifice our present-day prosperity for the long-term solvency and prosperity of our nation for our children and our children's children? We must reject fear, embrace sacrifice, and have vision outside of ourselves.

We can survive this crisis without a stimulus that will save ourselves and doom those to come. What we are doing is like standing on the Titanic, pushing our kids back on the ship, and jumping into lifeboats to save ourselves.