Thoughtical | Raised By Turtles

The Contrast Principle and how much you’ll pay for anything

23 Jan 2009 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

You weren’t planning to buy the premium edition, but somehow that’s what you came home with. How did they get you do to do that? Easy. The Contrast Principle

Don’t Blink (Does Logic Betray Us?)

20 Jan 2009 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

If you have to make a snap decision to save your life, that’s one thing, but the hoopla around Malcom Gladwell’s book Blink got me thinking of the times when I’ve been told that you can’t always trust logic. Well, never trust someone who tells you that.

The Problem With Common Sense

15 Jan 2009 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

Common sense keeps us from doing uncommonly stupid things. And uncommonly wonderful things.

Turtle Index: Carbon Footprints and Executive Pay (January 2009)

12 Jan 2009 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

In the tradition of the Harper’s Index, a collection of juxtaposed facts on executive pay and the carbon footprint of using the internet.

The Magic Word to Get What You Want

3 Jan 2009 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

We all know one “magic word”. Please works well, but there’s another word that you must know if you want to get your way and must recognize if you want to be less susceptible to manipulation.

212: The Extra Degree of Bullshit (or Excellence is Asymptotic)

30 Dec 2008 (updated 17 Apr, 2020)

The 212:The Extra Degree metaphor is fundamentally broken in both its inspiration and its application. Excellence is typically not a state change achieved by just a bit more, but rather, something else entirely.

Turtle Index: Healthcare, Ethanol and Video Games

16 Dec 2008 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

For this month’s Turtle Index: focus on healthcare in America. The number in square brackets refers to the source, given below. 4 dollars: portion of the cost of a $299 iPod made in China that actually stays in China, according to University of California study [1]. 160 dollars: amount that stays in the United States […]

Celine on The Value of Education

4 Dec 2008 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

I was recently listening to someone on the radio who had worked with the Rwandan truth and reconciliation commission and she was saying how one of the things that surprised her was how the people who participated in and fomented the genocide were often the best educated. Priests, doctors, teachers. The heros she found were […]

Single-issue customers – How to count vegetarians

16 Oct 2008 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

You’ve no doubt heard of single-issue voters. People who vote for a candidate purely based on issues like abortion, capital punishment, gun control and so on. But what about single-issue customers? That is, customers who won’t patronize your business because it’s so unfriendly to smokers, vegetarians, or whatever. How many of those groups can you […]

Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA (book)

15 Oct 2008 (updated 14 Nov, 2019)

If you want to be really afraid, read Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, a prize-winning history of the CIA based heavily on recently declassified internal documents and hundreds of interviews with former and current agents, including most living directors and some dead ones (the author has been covering the intelligence […]

Personal Favorites

Improved Roads (thoughts on the loss of wild places)
A Theory of Dryer Crimes (fiction in which Jason turns out to be an asshole)
The Forgetoir (a new literary form to replace the memoir)
The Faithful Couple (a poem about long-term love)
Curriculum Vitae (a poem about learning to live)
Best Jeremiah Johnson Quotes (the only post to appear on both the "favorites" list and the "most popular" list, because JJ is a movie to live by)
Ice Cream For Dinner (imaginary high school graduation speech; my chance to tell young people to stop listening to the lies of their elders)
The Boy Behind the Couch (reading Susan Cain and my secret life as an introvert)
How To Tell Tom from Las Vegas (my friends get this, others may not)
Sarah's Watch (fiction fragment and experiment in writing with Hemingway App)
Learning to Read (and what makes a great reader).
You Can Always Yell Later (a life lesson from my mom on getting what you want and making the world better)
I’d Like to Add You to My Network. Some of these Linked in connection options are getting scary (humor, I think).
Six Essential Skills that Marketers Can Teach Academics (for scholars who write grants and apply for fellowships, please stop aiming the gun at your foot).