The year is 1914. Three sisters are driving a carriage down the street in Paterson, N.J., when an automobile appears and barrels straight into them, overturning their carriage, breaking it apart, and pinning them beneath it. When passersby scramble to right the vehicle and help free the sisters, oen of the sisters confronts the automobile driver and demands reimbursement for the damage done to the carriage.
Do you have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day? I’ve always been at least a bit conflicted about it. I’m all for love, and showing people that you love them, but celebrating a single day when that’s expected is problematic for me in a couple of ways:
Rather than celebrate Valentine’s Day, I’d prefer to fill the world with random acts of kindness every day of the year—kindness both toward the people we love and toward total strangers. Here are some ideas: Continue reading
Seth Godin recently wrote of the importance of owning responsibility for your mistakes and sharing credit for successes. He focused on use of the pronouns “I”, “you” and “we,” and when each is most appropriate. Example: Instead of saying “I” when announcing a success, he suggests using “we.” Continue reading
I unsubscribed from two email lists today. The very different experiences that I had offer an object lesson in how to treat subscribers—and how not to treat them.
A portion of the book stack that awaits me next to my bed.
I just finished reading a marvelous book of essays about Chicago and Chicagoans, Neil Steinberg’s You Were Never in Chicago, recommended by a friend. It was educational, engaging, and made me think a lot about what makes Chicago unique and what makes someone a Chicagoan. It also left me further behind in my planned/desired reading than I was when I started it. Continue reading
Machines that think are already among us. They’re also so far out in the future that they might never arrive.
Machines that think give us reason for great hope. They also should cause us great concern.
We might be thinking in entirely the wrong way about machines that think. Continue reading