Archive for the ‘Everything else’ Category

An easy way to make driving more pleasant

Driving provides all kinds of excuses to get annoyed. I’m appalled by people who cut in without signaling, weave between cars, don’t leave space to change lanes. Each of us is the hero of our own story, and I don’t think of myself as the jerk—hey, I use turn signals! But I get gripped by […]

Seriously, what’s the rush?

I’m typing this with a cast on my arm. I fell on the stairs a few weeks ago and broke a finger. I was carrying bags in both hands, and hurrying. Don’t hurry on the stairs! On the injury spectrum, this one is trivial, and I appreciate the cast that’s helping those tiny bones knit […]

Watching The Clock

Yesterday I joined the long line of museumgoers eager to see The Clock before it leaves San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (and to enjoy the museum before it closes for expansion). The Clock is a 24-hour video—you stay as long or as briefly as you like—consisting of thousands of film clips, each clip indicating […]

Have you hugged a red light today?

Last week, on a mild evening, I was riding my bike toward the waterfront. A few blocks ahead, I saw the light at a busy intersection turn green. As an optimizer who’s often in a rush, I know that particular light stays green for about thirty seconds, and once it turns red, it stays red […]

Going scorecard-free

I took my six-year-old niece miniature golfing during school break. My childhood memories of miniature golf are conflicted: It’s one of those activities that always looks like it will be fun (all those turrets and railroad cars and gnarled fake trees with moving trap doors), but I’ve always been been bad at it, and having […]