Silence is Golden(?)
I recently went looking for computer keyboard that was completely silent. At home, my computer is in the same room as our television, so my girlfriend is stuck with the incessant clickety-click of my fingers pounding the keys. I decided to get a silent keyboard so she wouldn't have to suffer the noise pollution. There are keyboards that are flexible and made of rubbery material that roll up, but those keyboards aren't that great, and...
Matchmaker
Recently, a friend of mine tried to play matchmaker and hook up one of his close college friends with a casual acquaintance of ours. He arranged a time and place for them to meet one another, during a large social gathering that we used to have once a week. I thought there was a good chance it was going to work out, but my friend did make a critical error: he told both of them...
The Secret of Failing Fast
A common aphorism in the business world is the suggestion that you "fail fast". That is, instead of spending a whole lot of time and effort on a project, just do the bare minimum and push it out to the world so you can see, based on how successful it is, if the project is really worth any more of your time and effort. It's true that very little comes of most things that people...
Gift Ideas (For You)
I don't know about you, but whenever someone asks me what I want for Christmas or my birthday, I rarely have an answer for them. There aren't a whole lot of things that I want that I don't just go out and buy for myself as soon as I want them (usually, it's books) and I know better than to ask people for money. Here are some random gift ideas you might ask for, the...
Tiebreaking
Let's try a quick little thought experiment. Imagine that one of your favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell. You're in Borders browsing the audiobooks on CD, and you're looking to buy one of the three audiobooks by Gladwell that they have on their shelves. Here are the three choices they have in stock for you to choose from (imagine, also, that you like all of his books equally): 1. "What the Dog Saw", Unabridged, 9 Compact...
That's What I Want
Here's a delightful little story from author Kurt Vonnegut. Unlike most of his delightful stories, he didn't make this one up. It actually happened to him when he was at a party with author Joseph Heller, who wrote a book called Catch-22. The party was hosted by a super-wealthy investor, back when both authors were still alive. The conversation went something like this: Vonnegut: "Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our...
I Only Have Eyes For You
Police officers are assigned the difficult task of patrolling the roads, looking for speeders and issuing tickets to the offenders. Like most jobs, the majority of their time is probably routine, tedium, and paperwork. However, unlike most other jobs, it comes with a good deal more risk than most other jobs. (Depending on where they're working, it might be a lot more risk.) In the course of their work, police officers learn how to spot...
Street Benefit Concert
I like it when a big name band puts on a benefit concert, where multitudes of fans pay to see a live performance by their favorite band, but the band donates all of the proceeds to a charity of its choice. U2 is probably the biggest name that comes to mind as having done something like this. This idea, as simple as it is, doesn't have to be exclusive to more well-known artists. You might...
The Independent Bookstore
A couple weekends ago, I visited San Luis Obispo, a small college town in the Central Coast of California. They have a quaint little downtown area. One of the highlights the city boasts is an alleyway between two buildings that's about fifty feet long, and on both sides, eight feet high, the walls are completely covered in people's chewing gum. (Translation: they turned one annoying type of litter into a tourist attraction...an interesting concept.) During...
Dirty Laundry
During a long car ride in the middle of the night back during college, the music I was listening to slowly segued into a talk radio show. The host was a guy that I had never heard of named Bill O'Reilly. As the program began, he proceeded to go right into discussing his thoughts on gay marriage and why he felt it shouldn't be legalized. I don't remember the exact details, since this was eight...