Clean Benjamin

"Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloths, or habitation. " -Benjamin Franklin.

The more I think about Ben's virtue of Cleanliness, the more strange it is. Ben didn't want to clean more. He wanted to not tolerate uncleanliness. It seams that nagging your wife until she cleans would also be a virtue.

I'm sure that's not what he ment. It's fun to read it that way.

Ben Franklin's Virtues

Benjamin Franklin had thirteen virtues that he wanted to cultivate in himself. He did so by writing them on a chart and scoring himself daily.

• Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
• Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; Avoid trifling Conversation.
• Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
• Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
• Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
• Industry. Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.
• Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
• Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
• Moderation. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
• Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
• Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
• Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
• Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

The virtues say as much about Ben Franklin as they do about living well. Temperance, have you ever seen a picture of Ben where he isn't portly? Cleanliness? What kind a man needs to improve his cleanliness? Chastity? Franklin had a common law wife and an illegitimate son with another woman.

Not to make fun of Ben Franklin. In fact, I find it instructive that someone who achieved as much as he still viewed himself as imperfect and took concrete stops to improve.

Good to Great by Jim Collins

Good is an overstatement This is a book on the difference between mediocre companies and great companies.In Collin's estimation, the key differences are...

1. They have Level 5 leadership. Leaders who have both “personal humility” and “professional will”. They are not rock stars. They are diligent and hard working.

2. They get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus and the right people in the right seats on the bus. The idea is that you don't have to manage the right people. You may have to coach, or provide training, but if you find that you are constantly managing someone, or compensating for them, then they are not the right person. If you would be relieved if an employee took a different job, or you wouldn't hire that employee again, then that employee is not the right person, and should be managed out. The Great companies paid little attention to managing change or motivating people. They established conditions where these problems went away. People are not your most important asset. The right people are your most important asset.

3. Never loose faith, but confront the brutal facts.

4. Have a hedge hog concept, a concept that you can earn money at, be passionate about and realistically be best in the world at. When it came to values, it mattered that the company had values, but not what those values where. For every company value you could find, you could find another company with the opposite value. For example, some companies had strong customer values. Others appeared to have disdain for their customers, but loved innovation.

5. Establish a culture of self discipline.

6. Plan in terms of a flywheel, so that momentum builds over time. They do not constantly change plans.

I can almost map these directly to "The Seven Habits" The exception being "Get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus." But, it does ring true. "Choose your associates carefully" should be another habit.

The Up Series

In 1964 the Granada TV produced "Seven Up!" a documentary about a dozen different seven year olds from different back grounds. Some where rich, some poor, some middle class.

Every seven years since then, the film makers have followed up with the kids producing another documentary on their lives-- "7 plus Seven", "21", "28 Up", "35 Up", "42 Up" and "49 Up"

I'm only at "28 Up" but the documentary is becoming fascinating. "Seven Up!" and "7 plus Seven" are the weakest of the lot. The seven year olds, despite their different backgrounds are typical seven year olds, going to school, mostly doing what their parents tell them to do, sometimes getting into trouble. By "21" the kids have their own personalities and their own lives; some married, some broken hearted, some happily single.

I highly recommend this series. Not because the individual installments are strong, but because you get see a dozen lives compressed into a few hours.

The Talent Hypothesis.

I've been going through "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell and "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin. At their center, both books argue that talent is made not born. That genius helps, but is not enough.

It's good to know that the to be great at something, you don't need to be born gifted. You need to work hard it, to deliberately practice, to have great coaching and the support of your friends and family.

But, the books go even further. They say that when you see someone who is talented, you are not looking at someone who someone who was born with a gift, but someone who had the opportunity to practice for thousands of hours.

Bill Gates, Mozart, Bill Joy, Oppenheimer, The Beatles, anyone you'd consider to be a genius. In the beginning they were the same as you or I. Then they chose to spend most of their time practising what they would become great at. They had the opportunity and support to do so.

One study followed world class musicians and the number of hours they practised. The study found that the best musicians were the ones that practised the most-- duh. But, and here is the important part, there were no naturals or people who practised for 9,000 hours that were better than the people who practised for 10,000 hours. And there were no grinds or people who practised for 10,000 hours but were only as good as those who practised for 9,000.

Another study found that the ability to do math correlated with someones desire to not give up and not with any natural math talent. If you give children a hard math problem, those who give up after a minute are the ones who will be weak in math. The children who spend 15 or 20 minutes on the problem, even if they get the answer wrong, are the children who will be strong at math.

Part of this idea is liberating-- I can be world class at anything as long as I choose to work long and hard at it.

Part of this idea is scary. That my natural gifts are less than I'd think and more the result of the opportunties my family and school gave me than anything innate to me.

What Makes Us Happy?

From "What Makes Us Happy?"

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/happiness

Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable
marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight.
Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at
age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called “happy-well” and only 7.5
percent as “sad-sick.” Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the
health factors at age 50, none ended up “happy-well” at 80. Even if they had
been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer protective
factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more
factors.

Kennydale Beach Park.

I thoroughly enjoy Kennydale Beach Park. This is a little surprising seeing how on first glance, the park is not that great. The beach sand is full of stones. The shallow part of the beach has weeds. The grass is full of clover which attracts many bees.

So why do I enjoy Kennydale Beach so much? First off, the competion is slim. ONly two of the three beaches in the area have proper deep swimming sections. Kennydale has roped off an Olympic Pool sized area of deep water. You can actually dive into it from a clean dock.

Compare that to Newcastle beach. No diving allowed and the raft that you can't dive from is usually covered with goose shit. In addition, the water at Newcastle beach is full of weeds. Kennydale beach is very clean in comparison.

And then there is parking. On a hot day you will not find parking near Newcastle or Coloun Beach. Not so at Kennydale.

Life is Beautiful

Life is Beautiful. What a strange movie. The first 3rd is slap stick romance. The rest takes place in a POW camp during WWII-- the lead character is Jewish. The father uses humor and clowing to convince his son that it's all a game and if the win, the prize is a tank.

The switch between slapstick and horror happens quickly. This isn't Hogan's Heros-- people actually die. In one scene the father is carrying his sleeping son through deep fog. They stumble on a huge pile of human bones. The father quietly backs away, hoping to not wake his son.

Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn about an American pilot on a secret mission in Laos at the start of the Vietnam War. He crashes. Is captured. Is tortured and sent to a POW camp. Eventually he and another POW escape. They have a very harrowing treck through the jungle but are eventually rescued.

I enjoyed this move. Parts of it were beautifully shot-- the opening is a spectacular slow motion scene of a bombing in Vietnam. The acting is also solid.

The Notebook...

The Notebook got great ratings, but it didn't click with me. Mind you, it's a tear jerking chick flick and neither of those are my favorite genres.

What bugs me about most romances is that the guy inevitably does something stupid to show the girl how much he loves here and the girl always responds with glee. She never calls him on it. Never "I can't date you because you keep acting stupid." It's always "This crazy act shows me how pure and loving you are and how my life will be better with you." Bleah.

Maybe I'm just too old.

How We Decide...

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer rehashes many recent pop-psych books, but is non-the-less a decent read.

It has some good ending advice... be aware of how you are thinking.

Know what your emotions tell you and when to trust them. But, beware that emotions that can let you down when you do not have experience with the situation, when you are under stress, or when you are on a loosing or a winning streak. When loosing people tend to take unwarranted risks because they have to make up for what they've lost. When people win they also tend to take too many risks because they feel they are on an lucky streak.

Know what your rational brain tells you, but be aware of it's limitations. It won't know your preferences-- that's emotional. It can get overwhelmed with too much data. We tend to give each fact equal weight when the truth is some facts are very important while others are just detail.

Ma vie en rose

Ma vie en rose is the story of a seven year old boy who thinks he's a girl. This causes much stress for the family as their son freaks out the neighbors.

The movie avoids sexuality. It really is just about about who thinks he's a girl. There is no why to this. The boy doesn't think through the full implications of this. He just knows that he's a girl.

What was interesting is that even though the movie is set in suburban France, it could have been suburban America. The small houses set next to each other, the daily grind of families with kids, seem to be the same the world over. The only difference i could spot was a scene where the parents pour champagne for their kids. The whole family drank together to celebrate the fathers new job.

I had a problem with some of the writing. At the beginning of the move the father was the most uncomfortable with his cross dressing son, while the mother was tolerant. By the end of the movie their attitudes flipped with the father accepting his son and the mother lashing out at the boy for causing problems-- for not fitting in.

Still, it was a plesant film.

The Divingbell and the Butterfly...

The Divingbell and the Butterfly is a move based on the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who uppon waking from a stroke finds that he fully paralized with one exception-- he can blink.

Eventually he and a speach therapist work out a system of communication. She recites the alphabet. He blinks when she says the right letter. Part of the story focuses on how slow this sytem is. To write the book, he and an assistant work for hours every day just to compose a single page.

This isn't a movie with a profound ending where everyone learns to live for the moment because tomorrow you may die. Bauby chooses to not feel pity for himself.

The movie and the book are different beasts. The book is all bauby's words. In the movie, the director can add the perspective of others, how Bauby's woman chasing hurt those around him. How others react to him.

I enjoyed both the movie and the book.

What is there to say about this movie? Is it life affirming? Is it a sad story? Is it a story of a man concering adversity? I wanted it because I have questions that I am trying to answer. "Why are we happy?" and "How do different people find happieness." This movie is an extream example of somene finding happiness despite being in the most horrid of situations. It's as if we control how we feel.

Yet, if we control how we feel, then why achive anything? Why shouldn't I dedicate my life to being a care free, pennyless happy hobo?

These questions quickly desolve into a vat of hypotheticals.

Helvetica

Helvetica is a documentary on the most ubiquitous of fonts. It has an interesting take on they cycle of design and trends.

Something new and practical becomes popular-- in this case it's the font helvetica.

It goes from popular to ubiquitous.

At this point, there are three futures. One is to rebel against it. Often, the rebels don't know what they stand for, but they do know what they stand against. The result is an explosion of creativity, most of it bad.

The 2nd future is for it to just fade away. Nothing to say hear.

The 3rd, is for it to transition from popular to ubiquitous, almost like air. Helvetica has achieved this. People use Helvetica without thinking about it. It works. It's neutral. It's legible and it can be applied to so many situations.

Super Crunchers....

Thanks to the recession, Super Crunchers, published in 2008, now has an interesting taint.

The central thesis of the book is that analysis of huge databases (Super Crunching) is leading to computer models that make better decisions than people and that maybe, just maybe, people should hand more decision making to these models as time and time again these models yield more accurate predictions than people themselves.

And then came the mortgage melt-down, the collapse of hedge funds and the banking crisis. All caused, in no small part, by people trusting computer models more than their own judgement.

To paraphrase Allan Greenspan, When you take a risk, if you are not willing to live with failure, then you probably shouldn't take the risk, no matter the upside. How easy it is the forget this. The result is bubble think. People making unncessary risks when they get a big cut of the success and get to blame the failure on someone else.

And that's the problem. A computer may make more accurate predictions than a man. But a computer can't take responsibility for its actions. A computer doesn't have to live with failure. A great computer model may make more accurate choises than I. But, I have to make those choices and live with the consequences.

The 4-hour work week.

Part of the 4-hour work week irritates me. After years of floudering, the author Timothy Ferriss, started a successfull dietary supliment business. It earned him $30,000.00 a month. But, Ferriss found he was working 12 hour days and not enjoying life. So he developed his philosphy and a lot of buzzwords and grew his sucessfull business into something that earned him $100,000.00 per month with less time and commitment from him.

Starting a busines that nets $30,000.00 a month. Hmmm. He takes that for granted Yes, he grows his business astronomically while working less. But, he never quite realizes that starting a business that nets $30,000.00 a month is a mixture of opportunity and luck and not due to his philosphy.

The philosophy its self is nothing new. More or less the 7-Habits rephrased.

Good To Great

I went through "Good To Great" a few months back. I'm going through it again. It's suprising how many good observations are in it.

1. Great people are more important than great vision.
2. Great organizations have a "hedge hog" pricipal; a simple & clear statment of what they can be the worlds best at.
3. They optimize for "Profit Per Unit X" X is subtle and different for each organization. For some companies it's "Profit per customer visit." leading to decisions that can decrees the number of employees. In others it's "Profit per employee.' leading to decisions that increase the number of employees and the expectations per employee.
4. Great companies do not grow for growths sake. They only grow in ways guided by their hedge-hog pricipal, in ways that increase "Profit Per Unit X" and in ways they are passionate about.

Amazon Fresh...

I like using home grocery delivery. There is no convenient grocery store around me so grocery delivery saves me a couple hours a week. The scheduled delivery and the minimum purchases force me to plan ahead which kills impulse buys and means I eat out less often.

In the past I've used Safeway.com. Unfortunatly their fees are slowly increasing. Last year I could get free delivery for orders over $75.00. This year it costs $10.00 for orders over $150.00. Since I'm buying for two, $150.00 in groceries is too much. The vegitables go bad or I run out of perishables before my grocery list is up to $150.00.

Safeway's delivery schedule isn't that convenient. If I order today, my groceries are delivered tomorrow night. Yes, technically they could be delivered between 10am and noon tomorrow, but I have a day job.

Along comes Amazon Fresh.

They have free delivery on orders over $75.00. Amazon also has unattended predawn delivery. If I order by midnight, my groceries will be on my door stop by 6am the next morning. Refrigerated and frozen goods are left in returnable freezer totes.

This is so good. I can reasonably spend $75.00 a week on food and the perishables won't go bad before my next order.

Safeway.com may have a larger selection than Amazon Fresh. For similar items, Amazon appears to be less expensive than Safeway.

I'll be using Amazon Fresh for some time to come.

The secret super powers of David Sedaris.

"When You are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book. But it's hard to communicate why. I like David Sedaris. It is amusing, but rarely laugh out loud. I'm not constantly wondering "what will happen next?" If I stop and set it down I'm in no rush to start it back up again.

Yet the book is entertaining. Perhaps it's his selfish world view. For being a successfull gay write during the Bush administration, Sedaris is oddly a-political. He writes about his life, his friends, his quirky observations and little more.

I know he'd hate to hear this, but his gentle voice plus the combintion of amusing but not engaging, plesent but not exciting writing, means that his audio books are great for managing insomnia. As a bonus "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" is about nine hours long.

My insomnia happens when I wake up in the middle of the night and start to worry and think too much My mind engages and won't let me go back to sleep. If a David Sedaris book is playing in the back ground, then I'll listen to it. Crisis averted. Within minutes I'm back to sleep.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

I enjoyed "Prince Caspian" more than "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" The first movie suffered from too much arbitrary magic-- magic and the kids are in trouble, magic and the kids are out of trouble, magic and the kids are in trouble again. Prince Caspian avoids this. The characters appear to have some control over their lives and are not always the victims of arbitrary magic.

Of course the special effects are great.

Maybe I'm just too grown up. Too aware of the themes and hidden subtext. That Aslan is Jesus. That bad things will happen if you walk away from Aslan. You plans will fail if Aslan is not around. That a happy ending will happen for no better reason than Aslan has arrived.

That's my gripe with an otherwise fine movie. Aslan shows up because he has to, and not because the kids deserve it.

Yes, the allegory is not lost on me. However, this is a Hollywood movie. It has not affected my views on Christianity and redemption. Is there anyone whose views would change because of this movie?

The movie has a few stylistic quirks. Many people have to die, yet this is ultimately a family film. A great many soldiers suddenly fall over when they are touched by a sword or knife. This is a bit funny after a while. To be honest, I am happy the film approaches death this way. I don't enjoy gore.

ABBA

I saw Mama Mia last night. and now I'm listenting to ABBA Gold.

Abba. Well... well, what can I say about Abba that hasn't been said hundreds of times before. Just a few questions.

Did Abba invent elevator music? Their songs are pure pop happiness, but musically sound so thin.

And the movie? It's an excuse to play Abba songs. Without the music, it's a high school play with a budget.