Accidents of birth are nothing to be proud of.
Assumptions are always dangerous, but implicit assumptions are even more dangerous. One of the most prevalent implicit assumptions in current American society is that identification–with a racial or ethnic group, with a gender, with a sexual orientation, with a political outlook…
A Proposed Rate Schedule
We’ve all been there. Someone starts talking, and you realize that what they are saying they have already told you, perhaps many times before. What should you do? Tell them politely you’ve already heard it? Listen without protest, pretending you haven’t? …
Personal solutions to the climate crisis
A few years ago, my wife and I became two of the few people in the world to actually have a negative carbon footprint. This means that rather than adding more than 20 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every every year like most…
You just might need an update
You are not a computer, yet there are thousands of software programs installed in your brain. This software is also known as you. Yet somehow, despite the installation of thousands of pieces of software in your brain over the course of years, you never managed to get any documentation, and…
Personal innovation brings power and freedom
Innovation reclaimed and redefined
When you see the word “innovation,” what appears in your mind? If you’re like most people, what appeared in your mind was a technology product, and nothing else. …
We all know the experience. We hear of a belief commonly held in the past, immediately recognize its absurdity, and marvel that anyone could ever have believed such nonsense. We flatter ourselves in no longer holding such beliefs, and often our self-flattery is mixed with a certain condescension and disdain…
Minimalism is a hot topic these days, and like most hot topics is commonly addressed in detail but not at depth. Most discussions of minimalism are rife with details of the how and why one object or another was kept or discarded, and much time is given to personal anecdote…
