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A Precarious Life
Last night I played poker for the first time in four months. I play a reasonably big game, where you typically buy in for $500, and always have another $500 in reserve. When you play a couple times a week, like I was doing last year, your winnings and losses don’t mean much to you…
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One Language Down, A Review of The Pimsleur Method
Two months ago I wrote a blog post about how I was going to learn every language. At the time I had just finished the Pimsleur tapes for Romanian I and German I, and was moving on to German II. I’ve now finished a complete Pimsleur course, German I – III, and figured I should…
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Why Crazy Stuff Happens on the Island: Risk Profiles
I really enjoy talking about risk, but it’s always better to talk about concrete examples rather than theories. My recent post about the disasters encountered on our island trip got a lot of people riled up about the risks I was taking, so I figured I’d use that as an opportunity to talk about risk,…
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Island Adventure 2, Part 2: Almost Total Victory
I woke up to a familiar sight. Outside the vehicle I had slept in was Brian, on the phone, trying to get us help with our latest predicament. And, just as last time with being stuck in mud, our unfailingly benevolent neighbors came to our rescue. “I don’t let anyone besides my dad work on…
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Island Adventure 2, Part 1: Total Disaster
As I write this, I am hunched over my laptop, which is held at an awkward angle because of the steering wheel in front of me. Carpal tunnel syndrome is imminent. Out of the window to my left, if it wasn’t so foggy and dark, I’d be able to see our island. This island trip…
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Sometimes It’s Better Not to Know
I’m sitting in the Kansas City terminal, waiting for my next flight. The barbecue restaurant there serves shockingly large portions, which, combined with waking up early today, has me feeling sleepy. I should work, I think. My eyes are half closed, though, and I can’t imagine thinking through tough problems like the one waiting for…
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Dread and Uncertainty Cause Us to Overestimate How Long Things Take
I’m on a late flight back from Vegas, I didn’t get enough sleep, and I’m exhausted. I hadn’t done my German tape for the day yet, so I put my headphones in, propped my head against the window, closed my eyes, and did it. I’m sure my neighbor, if she could hear my stilted German…
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Trying Valve’s Virtual Reality, and Why It Will Change Everything
Thanks to my friend Brian, I recently had the opportunity to try out Valve’s new work on virtual reality. Only a couple hundred or so people have had the chance to try it so far, and most of them are people within the video game industry. I went in thinking that it would be a…
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When Is Your Lowest Priority Task Your Most Important?
You know that feeling when you’re having a great day, but you forget exactly why it’s so great? There’s that feeling that something really good happened earlier, and its glow is being carried forward, even though you maybe don’t have the original positive event in the front of your mind. I had that feeling today…
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Filling Your Glass and Fighting Hedonic Adaptation
There’s a concept called hedonic adaptation, which says that we quickly adjust to any increased level of comfort or luxury and cease to appreciate it. Anything good that happens to us becomes our new normal, and we look higher up the ladder, not realizing that we’ll quickly adjust to those rungs as well. The trick,…
