|
|
Positive Correlation? I went to the Twins game Friday night, and they lost. I went to the Twins game Saturday night, and they lost. I watched the Twins game on Sunday, and they were losing when I left for golf. While I wasn't watching, the Twins rallied and won Sunday's game. I'm going to the Twins game tonight, they better not lose or I'll have to quit being a fan...
posted by Brad at 7/31/2006 01:34:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
Blink, Chapter 2: The Locked Door This chapter reinforces the fact that snap judgements (based on "thin slicing" mentioned below) are unconscious - behind a locked door in our brain. It's difficult to trust judgements that come from such a mysterious place, but we inevitably fail when trying to explain the thought process that led to a decsion. As quickly as you can, make a four-word sentence out of each set:
Gladwell also uses speed-dating as an example of how dating can be distilled to a simple snap judgement, which helps explain its recent growth in popularity. But if you try to look behind the locked door and ask people to explain their choices, it gets confusing. Two professors from Columbia University had speed-daters rate what they are looking for in a potential partner before, after, and months after the speed-dating. They found that answers changed to match people they connected with (unconscious preferences), but eventually shifted back to the original "conscious ideal" 72 pages down, 182 to go - I better pick up the pace!
posted by Brad at 7/30/2006 09:23:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
PennantRACE My new favorite website combines my passion for baseball and the visual display of quantitative information. There's a shakeup in the AL Central:  The Twins (bottom, maroon-ish line) have caught up to the best teams in baseball: 
posted by Brad at 7/28/2006 11:27:00 AM | permalink |
1 comments
Home at the Dome I'm pumped to be going to 3 of the next 4 Twins games (sitting in yellow circled sections)  Love that 6 dollar "near beer"...
posted by Brad at 7/28/2006 10:00:00 AM | permalink |
0 comments
Chapter 1: The Theory of Thin Slices This chapter introduces the concept of "thin-slicing," as demonstrated by University of Washington psychologist John Gottman's "Love Lab." He created a scale that measures emotion from 1 (disgust) to 20, which can predict with 90% accuracy whether or not a married couple will still be married 15 years later after observing them talking for fifteen minutes. Samuel Gosling (another psychologist) did an experiment which suggested that fifteen minutes in someone's bedroom can give you a more accurate indication of their conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to new experiences than asking their close friend. Medical researcher Wendy Levinson recorded hundreds of conversations between a group of physicians and their patients. Half of the doctors had been sued at least twice, while the other half had never been sued. "Trivial" things like the length of conversation, comments made, and tone of voice used by the doctor highlighted clear differences between the two groups - regardless of the amount or quality of information provided to the patient. Time for Chapter 2 to put me to sleep...
posted by Brad at 7/26/2006 12:39:00 AM | permalink |
1 comments
Introduction: The Statue That Didn't Look Right I started reading Malcolm Gladwell's blink at the airport on Monday, and it's due back at the Library next Wednesday. Since I'll be speed reading it, I am going to write very short summaries of each section to help me internalize the material (and hopefully pique your interest along the way...) The introduction starts off with a story about the Getty Museum's 10 million dollar purchase of a statue that ended up being a fake - even after the museum did careful analysis, several experts knew instantly upon seeing it that "something was up." The next example uses 4 decks of cards (2 each red and blue) that either wins you or costs you some money. It takes people 50 cards to develop a hunch about which color is better, and 80 cards to be sure. But by measuring the activity of sweat glands on the hands, we can see that the body actually starts reacting after only 10 cards. Next, the 3 objectives of the book are laid out:
posted by Brad at 7/26/2006 12:23:00 AM | permalink |
0 comments
Bizzare Japanese Toilet Training Cartoon Courtesy of Dmitry, although not as awesome as the beer can montage...
posted by Brad at 7/25/2006 06:08:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
Stranded I finally joined the "missed a flight" club tonight, and needed to get online from SFO to reschedule some meetings tomorrow morning. Since I'm paying $6 for anything up to an hour, I might as well use it - sleep is overrated. While I don't have any photos to share from Yosemite, plenty were taken. If/when I get my grubby (literally, I haven't showered in 66 hours) hands on some, I'll be sure to Flickr. In the meantime, feast your eyes on my cousin Karen's first baby.  Thanks to Wikipedia, I know that Aidan is to be properly referred to as my "first cousin once removed"
posted by Brad at 7/24/2006 03:40:00 AM | permalink |
0 comments
RSS 4 Comments Thanks to the folks at Feed43, I now have a seperate feed for comments. Feel free to subscribe anytime by clicking on the little orange icon next to each post's comments.
posted by Brad at 7/21/2006 11:37:00 AM | permalink |
0 comments
Real Full Just got back from the Taste of the Twin Cities Originals, which was totally oversold. If I had a dollar for every time I bumped into someone, it might have covered the cost of admission. Dmitry, Jennifer and I picked a single word to describe each thing we tasted: mashy, uppity, creamy, game-y, spicy, gritty, salty, soggy, chewy, yummy, tiny, creepy, oniony, beefy, smoky, zesty, tasty, crumbly, chilly, tender-y, stringy, bready, pinky, disappoint-y, nutty, starchy, spready, sweaty, and beet-y. Best of Show Awards:
posted by Brad at 7/18/2006 09:39:00 PM | permalink |
2 comments
Camping is Fun I went camping on Friday night to brush up on my skills for this weekend in Yosemite - Kristi's first ever camping experience. Hopefully my camera behaves and she provides some entertianment, as I've been wasting a lot of monthly quota on Flickr lately. We had fun on Lake Pepin Saturday, except my arms hurt from too much tubing behind Damon's boat. Hopefully that doesn't affect my ability to throw bowls at Brit's tonight, as I try to raise my record to 4-0 on the green. Feel free to stop by and enjoy some Bass and a cigar, I'll bring extras.
posted by Brad at 7/17/2006 05:03:00 PM | permalink |
1 comments
Stretch Your Stomach Looks like they posted the menu for tomorrow's Taste of the Twin Cities Originals event. I'm going to stop eating now so I can vist all 32 booths... 
posted by Brad at 7/17/2006 05:01:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
What does your number spell? It's super annoying that I have to type in my 14 digit card number every time I want to view my account on the Minneapolis Public Library website. Frustrated by having to copy/paste the number from my Backpack every time, I decided to see if there was a mnemonic that could help me remember the last 7 digits (the first 7 are apparently the same for everyone). tags-owe is the best that phonespell.org could come up with, so we'll see if that works...
posted by Brad at 7/17/2006 01:29:00 PM | permalink |
2 comments
McHealthy? Muck was just telling me how yummy the KFC "Famous Bowls" are, so I looked up the Nutrition Facts thinking I could save myself a trip. 720 calories (PDF) isn't exactly diet food, but 531 grams seemed like a pretty significant serving size. Since I don't frequent KFC, I needed to find a comparison I was familiar with - enter the McDonald's USA Nutrition Facts. Since I have nothing better to do, I loaded the menu into my first ever Google Spreadsheet. Sadly, it does not appear that you can publicly share GeeSheets yet - so I published it on my first ever ZOHO Sheet. The bowl is only 1.38 calories per gram, a whopping 60% less than a small fry. All this typing is making me hungry, I wonder where I can get one of my own? PS: It hurts to type b,f,g,r,t and v because I burned my left index finger starting last night's campfire - perhaps more on that in another post...
posted by Brad at 7/15/2006 06:48:00 PM | permalink |
2 comments
The Perfect Wine? Friendly neighborhood Sam's Wine Shop wants me to pre-order the 2001 Chateau d'Yquem, Sauternes. It received a perfect 100 point rating from Wine Spectator and Robert Parker, which means it's probably quite tasty...  ...but $475.99 for a 750 ml bottle? You've got to be kidding me.
posted by Brad at 7/13/2006 07:44:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
Not a Morning Person For some reason, I got out of bed a half hour early this morning - and eventually attempted to brew coffee without water. It's great to get in to work early, but if I'm just going to sit down at my desk and blog about it, then what's the point? Remember the morning I put on non-matching shoes and didn't realize until I got to work? The photo has disappeared from Flickr because I'm cheap and don't have a Pro account...
posted by Brad at 7/13/2006 08:32:00 AM | permalink |
0 comments
Baseballs & Beer Met up with the Bullwinkle's Softball Team at their namesake tonight to watch the AL continue their dominance of the All-Star Game - tough to beat $5 pitchers and $3 burger baskets, let me tell ya. Is it possible that I'm the first person ever who is worse at Golden Tee than real golf? Because I'm pretty sure that's what happened tonight...
posted by Brad at 7/11/2006 11:26:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
Good Form As I begin my rigorous mental preparations & stretching routine for tonight's lawn bowling match at Brit's Pub, I recalled that a photographer was at our match a coupla weeks ago... Sure enough, the "grassy lawn" made Minnesota Daily's Summer '06 Activities Guide: 
posted by Brad at 7/10/2006 05:30:00 PM | permalink |
3 comments
From the NYT "Most E-Mailed" List I try to read an NYT article or two every day, and realized after today's second helping that I could not recall what the first one was even about! They say that a good way to remember things is to teach them to someone else, so I decided to blog about both articles in a futile attempt to commit them to long-term memory. Part of the reason I chose to forget about the first article is because it was a little dry - How a Computer Knows What Many (Mutual Fund) Managers Don't. But the Op-Ed piece from a Dartmouth pediatrician was an interesting argument on why more doctors won't necessarily solve our nation's healthcare woes... If you have time to read only one, pick the latter.
posted by Brad at 7/10/2006 12:46:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
City-Wide WiFi? I rode my bike to the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center this morning, and am currently blogging while connected to Earthlink's "Feather" Wi-Fi service.  Pretty sure I'm going to have to break down and buy a laptop once the city is blanketed with wireless Internet...
posted by Brad at 7/08/2006 12:03:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
Kewpee Dot Kom Keeping with tradition, we visited Kewpee's when I was home in Racine earlier this week. I made a note to myself (which I've been known to do occasionally) to see if they had an article on Wikipedia - and they did. Back in the olden days, I used to search the internet by typing in whateverIwaslookingfor.com. In this case, it would have taken me to the site for Racine's very own restaurant - who knew that Kewpee is a chain? Now I have to visit the other restaurants in Ohio & Michigan...  There's lots to do at kewpee.com, what are you waiting for?
      
posted by Brad at 7/06/2006 01:11:00 PM | permalink |
0 comments
Rock Star Twins Joe Mauer (.392, 5 HR, 40 RBI) lost the starting catcher job to Ivan Rodriguez (.298, 7 HR, 38 RBI) by a mere 16,842 votes (less than a 1% margin) in final voting. It appears that I agree with most of the SportsNation that Santana should start for the AL and Francisco Liriano is the most deserving recipient of your Final Vote. With a sweep of the Brewers complete, the Twins have now won 10 straight, 20 of the last 22, jumped to #7 in the MLB Power Rankings... but still trail Detroit by 10 games in the AL Central :(
posted by Brad at 7/03/2006 11:26:00 AM | permalink |
0 comments
|
Archives
