Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
This morning, my spouse intercepts me coming out of the bathroom ask, “I’m going to the store, do you need anything?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I need some [blank] and some [blank] because I have [insert graphic and colorful description of a minor but disgusting personal problem].”
My spouse looked startled. Confused, I looked around.
“Oh,” I said, “You might have informed me we have company.”
Every day I grow more convinced the universe is a cosmic conspiracy to rob me of my dignity.
Well, the talk is that my oldest will be getting braces soon. She needs them. Her mother and father both went through it so it was pretty much expected. She also has an overbite which will need to be corrected. Back to this in a minute or two.
Have you ever had a person in your life that seemed to drop out of the blue, but affected you in an interesting way? Henry Rollins did. In his essay Iron, he speaks of Mr. Pepperman, who took pity on a scrawny, dorky kid, and taught Rollins how to lift weights. This gave Rollins a sense of accomplishment. It is a great essay and very motivational. I carry a copy of Iron in my briefcase and read it when I need a swift kick in the pants. Whenever I am sore or tired and don’t feel like going to the gym or running or biking or whatever training I need, I read Iron, strap it on, and get to work.
One hour of computer programming after ten hours of sleep is more productive than ten hours of computer programming after one hour of sleep.
Linguists define the pulls and pushes on our identity: Biology & nature (man is a symbol-making, language using animal), society & nurture (we speak the language that surrounds us), and, finally, our separate and individual selves. We express our own vision, our own interpretation of life in our unique sentences. The unique nature of our choices is what contemporary tests for plagiarism reset on – the series of words we choose from our flexible language are not likely to be repeated in another document on Google or Turnitin. But biology is important. I don’t come from demonstrative people. The family jokes that I avoid hugs, touching, commitment. But that isn’t because I don’t think part of love’s impetus and expression is physical. Instinctive, it is biology, defined by culture; of course, it is also expressed in the unique ways of our clan, of ourselves.
So, Chinese scientist have made a “desktop blackhole”. Big whoop. I’ve had one on my desktop for years.
At least, things tossed onto my desk seem to disappear completely never to be seen again. Clearly, Occam’s razor says that a black hole is the most likely explanation.