Producing Various and Sundry

The Optimization of Boring?

For my work, I’m often focused on continuous improvement — and the silver lining of broken processes means there’s always room for improvement. On the one hand have you ever met those people for whom 99.9999% just isn’t close enough to 100%? Can more optimization be too much of a good thing? Derek Thompson over at The Atlantic feels that might be the case, starting, with that most American of statistics obsession: baseball. If you…

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Various and Sundry Writing

If a Worldview can be Destroyed by a Novel, the Problem is not the Novel

You may wonder what authors think about when their books are banned, so why not frequent vlogger and author John Green who found his book, Looking for Alaska, in the crosshairs of censors. I should note this particular video is from 2016, referencing the top challenged books of 2015. There’s usually a lag time compiling the data: while it’s interesting, it’s not necessarily pressing. However, the video is also under 3 and a half minutes…

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Various and Sundry

Mid-life Crisis Royale

Let’s say you’re contemplating whether you or a loved one is currently experiencing a ‘mid-life crisis,” and you’re wondering why that is, what that means, and who came up with the concept anyway. The Royal Society has your back. Just be prepared for some very British references. Honestly, based on the level of research Professor Mark Jackson has put into this, I’d be interested in a much longer lecture or series of lectures, but it’s…

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Various and Sundry

Tanks for the [Movie] Memories…

I greatly enjoy the expert-reviews-movies-depicting-the-area-of-their-expertise videos, especially when it’s clear the experts understand some creative license occurs in the best of times. So with that, and for the 10-year-old boy in me (and possibly you) here is one about tanks. My favorite part: he confirms what I always suspected since the first time I saw Kelly’s Heroes: every tanker wants to be Oddball.

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Writing

A Lot More Q&A with Rod Serling

After watching the Rod Serling video compilation back in July, I’ve gone down a modest Rod Serling rabbit hole looking for other videos and talks and interviews he’s given. As you might imagine, YouTube does provide. This nearly hour-long entry is essentially a long question-answer session from UCLA circa 1971. As with many of the other videos I’ve come across, many of his answers and references are very topical to 1971, so be warned that…

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Various and Sundry

Drunk and Coke

In last Friday’s post about the not-so-secret history of Fanta, the author of the Atlas Obscura article goes a little bit into the history of Coca-Cola itself (since that company begat Fanta). And got me thinking a bit more about the origins of Coke and cocaine and then I got to Drunk History, a series that, if you’re in the right frame of mind (or sheets to the wind) is tremendously fun. Happy Friday!

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