Very cool article courtesy of Mr. Dario. I could have done this once upon a time. Experiencing the world as a minimalist traveler.
28 Monday Feb 2011
Posted Travel
inVery cool article courtesy of Mr. Dario. I could have done this once upon a time. Experiencing the world as a minimalist traveler.
28 Monday Feb 2011
Posted Health
in28 Monday Feb 2011
Posted Psychology
inThe newspapers reported yesterday that a Canadian tourist has been kidnapped by the Taliban. The Taliban in the Bahamas, you might ask? Or perhaps in Cuba? No….the Taliban in Afghanistan. Afghanistan? A Canadian tourist in Afghanistan? I can just imagine the conversation with his beloved prior to departure: “Honey, I’m going on vacation…to Afghanistan…I hear the weather is great there in the Winter, and the waters are fine”. The Taliban have accused him of being a spy. The nerve of those people!
We routinely hear strange stories of people who get kidnapped or killed, not as extreme examples of bad luck (like your high-end Mexican hotel blowing up because of a gas leak), but from a near psychotic belief in some type of invulnerability. A Canadian/Iranian photojournalist gets arrested, tortured, and killed for photographing a military installation in her homeland. Her son is suing the Iranian government for “justice”. Justice? It’s fu*^ing Iran! What part of totalitarian, theocratic whack jobs don’t you get? American bible missionary sailors get kidnapped and murdered by Somali pirates. A group of American youths arrested and held captive while “innocently” hiking the border between A’Stan and Iran and, oops, crossing over into Iran.
There is always public outrage at these events; the portrayal of innocents caught up in unforeseeable circumstances. No one seems to ask: “What the f*^k were you thinking? It’s one thing when soldiers, journalists, police officers, race car drivers, and stunt people get injured or killed. Bad enough. But they knew the risks, took appropriate precautions and got unlucky. They were professionals. But when amateurs put themselves in harm’s way….on purpose…we may well have sympathy and compassion….but outrage? Surely, one can hardly blame the nutbars who kidnap and kill them for thinking they’re spies.
27 Sunday Feb 2011
Posted Uncategorized
inIn 2000, during a concert in Munich, Mikis Theodorakis met his old friend Anthony Quinn, who had come some 250 miles to see his concert. Theodorakis asked Quinn if he would dance, to which Quinn quickly retorted, “I dance if you dance”. During the concert, Quinn spontaneously walks up on stage, removes his jacket, and prepares to reprise his role of Zorba the Greek nearly 40 years after that movie (and Theodorakis’ music) made him an international star.
It’s fantastic to see Quinn dance at age 86; a little slower perhaps, but still full of life nearly a year before his death at 86 years old.
And below, the original from the movie, with Alan Bates (1964):
If you’ve never seen this Acedemy Award winning film, run, don’t walk to the video store (or Netflix). Trailer, here.
25 Friday Feb 2011
I was at our local chain grocery store (Metro Plus) yesterday and noticed cured whole pork butt on sale. It was from a brand name producer, whose label was prominently posted on the package. Also marked in large bold letters on the label was: 18% meat protein. The butcher happened to be there putting the packages into the special display fridge, so I asked him what “18% meat protein” meant. He appeared flummoxed and at a loss to answer the question. We discussed some of the possibilities; “I guess it might mean the meat protein less the fat”, he speculated. That didn’t make sense; there should be a lot more meat than 18%!
Today, as I explained what had happened to my son, there it was, a flash of understanding! “Of course”, I said out loud, “It’s the meat less the fat and the WATER! But why should this be so prominently posted on the label as if it represented some type of positive quality or competitive advantage? Then I realized that when you’re dealing with cured meats, manufacturers (because that’s what cured products really are: manufactured foods), can make their product weigh more by adding more salt and chemicals so that the meat will absorb more water; a nice cheap and unethical way of boosting profitability.
Not much different from shrimp, where processors add tons of salt to make them absorb more water, and also not dissimilar to ice cream….yes ice cream…which has air whipped into it. That’s why ice cream is sold by volume….not by weight! And that’s at least partly why a 500 ml of Haagen Daz costs $6 while you can get 2 liters of cheap store-brand ice cream for about the same money. You’ve surely noticed if you’ve compared both, that the Haagen Daz is hard as rock and takes quite some time to soften up outside the freezer, while cheaper ice cream melts before you can even get home from the store.
“You can’t protect yourself part-time, from people committed to taking advantage of you full-time”.
23 Wednesday Feb 2011
Posted Deception, Health, Psychology
inYesterday, I wrote about my wife’s brilliant observation that “Wherever money is involved, there’s always someone nearby to take it from you”. I called this, The First Premise of Money. On the heels of that observation comes SENSA, the latest weight-loss product that purports to help you lose weight through “Tastants” chemicals that you sprinkle on your food at every meal, and are intended to stimulate the brain into believing that you are no longer hungry.
All the typical components of the modern con are there: The flashy web site, the credentialed scientist/founder, the free trial offer, the clinical study, and the links to various “independent” weight-loss blogs that report on the miraculous effects of the product. I’m particularly interested in the blogs because this is a new twist emerging from social networking, and viral marketing – using supposedly independent reference sources while in reality they are actually shills for the company.
I particularly liked this one independent “reviewer” (The Diet Advisors) who it turns out also sells SENSA along with other products. Check out the link, here. Tell me if you think the other products they sell are an omen for what SENSA really does to you.
SENSA “find” courtesy of Mr. Italo.
22 Tuesday Feb 2011
Posted Business, Psychology
inMy 3 year-old HP Officejet printer has developed a “fatal error”: Every time you print something it immediately gives the “carriage jam” error message and you have to shut it down and restart it for the next print job (not terribly practical in a business). All my web research confirms that this is a software issue that cannot be fixed except by returning it to the manufacturer. Since they won’t even give you the time of day under $100, it makes no sense to get it fixed since a new one costs about that (and that’s just the way they like it!).
A couple days ago I bought a new HP Officejet 6500. Yesterday I set it up. It took about three hours, much of that unwrapping the incredibly well-designed protective packaging. I installed the print cartridges, software, etc., and printed the test page. Beautiful. Then the machine died. “Print head error oxce32jds” it reads, followed by “Ink system error 07fgh432kc” (or some shit like that). I tried every suggestion in the manual, but it appears to be a terminal problem, due to a defective print head. Today I must return it to Costco and get a replacement, and go through the whole fu*^ng process all over again.
Repacking the whole thing was a nightmare. It’s clear that these products aren’t ever meant to be repacked, a probably effective return deterrent to the fickle buyer. But I must say that the packaging is incredibly well done and great at protecting a basically fragile product, ensuring safe delivery to the customer through many components of the distribution chain.
But here’s the irony: They spend millions to design clever and effective packaging to ensure safe delivery…of a defective product! It’s like the old Seinfeld episode with the hotel reservation. Gerry to hotel clerk on being told they’ve lost his reservation: “It’s not enough to take the reservation…you have to actually hold the reservation”.
There’s a great line from Six Sigma (the quality initiative pioneered by GE): “The customer doesn’t experience the mean…he experiences the deviation from the mean”, i.e. it doesn’t matter if you deliver a perfect product 99% of the time…the client with the bad one experiences a failure of 100%!!!
22 Tuesday Feb 2011
Posted Deception, Psychology
inFrom the lips of my personal guru (The Wife) this morning: “Whenever money is involved, you can be sure there’s someone waiting nearby to take it from you”.
We were having a discussion about the master swindler, Earl Jones, who continues to be in the papers as news of the misfortunes of the widows, orphans, the elderly, and disabled he bilked out of some 50 Million dollars, comes to light. Some are even our friends and acquaintances. Most are suffering from depression as well as the actual effects of a vastly diminished lifestyle (Jones’ victims were largely mid-income people who had worked and saved all their lives, not the wealthy a la Madoff). Much of that depression comes from blaming themselves for not seeing the warning signs and doing their due diligence.
My wife proposed this as The First Premise of Money, i.e. if you have any money, you must assume, a priori, that someone will try to steal it from you. A good starting point for any transaction, IMHO.
22 Tuesday Feb 2011
Posted Psychology
inA great quote from my business partner, Mr. Angelo, this morning: “Everyone wants to change the world, but few are ready to change themselves first”.
This in the context of a discussion around people who vocally criticize others about the same problems they themselves have.
20 Sunday Feb 2011
I hadn’t used the Merkur Slant-Bar razor in a couple of years. Simply put, with my aging fingers, I now prefer a longer handled razor that provide a little more grip area. The E.J. Chatsworth has been my go-to razor for at least the last two years; it’s Merkur HD head provides the perfect combination of blade exposure, angle, and ergonomics.
Nevertheless, it’s good to occasionally get out of one’s comfort zone, so the Slant-Bar seemed a good way to get out of my present rut (induced from being a virtual shut-in all last week due to a stomach bug). I loaded an Iridium Super blade into the Slant-Bar’s crazy-angled head, dipped my vintage Simpson’s brush into a pot of T&H 1805 shaving cream, and proceeded to get a very close, albeit a little irritating, shave (the alum block told the tale with more than the usual stinging). No blood-letting though, so I’m happy with my control of this beast after so may years off its back.
For those unfamiliar with the slant bar, it’s head is designed so that the blade exposure increases from each end of the head. This results in a very close slicing of the beard hairs. It is however, NOT a beginner’s razor.
Staying with the “out of comfort zone” mode, I even splashed on some R&G Extra-Vieille cologne (very similar to 4711 in scent). I find that using as many unscented products as possible, I can now enjoy stronger scents from time-to-time (I think it’s all about “load”).