Brian White » Misc

Irony

Brian — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:56:50 +0000

I’ve got this trick to work out if something is ironic or not. I think I picked it up from a college professor. I recall it as thus:

Imagine that a driver dies in a car accident, and the driver’s seat has a seatbelt.

The person dying, despite the availability of a seatbelt which was not worn, is not irony.
The person dying, despite wearing the seatbelt, is not irony.
If the seatbelt turns out to be the cause of death, that’s irony.

Giant Pool of Money

Brian — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:18:34 +0000

A recent This American Life episode does a great job of telling the story of the Housing Bubble/Mortgage Crisis:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

It filled in a part of the story which I didn’t understand, which was the pool of money that fed into this machine. Definitely worth a listen.

It’s also got a Ben Mezrich-like chapter, with requisite celebrities, clubs, and bottles of Cristal for some of the key players.

My Hero: Tony Gwynn

Brian — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:16:15 +0000

Since 1983, when he broke into the majors, my personal hometown hero has been the retired baseball player, Tony Gwynn. He’s currently the baseball coach at San Diego State. Last year he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I wanted to list out the reasons I admire him, so here goes:

He has an impeccable work ethic. He applied this to baseball skills, especially in the use of video tape to analyze his stance and swing as a hitter.
Combined with hard work, he found a niche, and worked that niche his whole career. His niche was hitting singles as opposed to home runs. In this era of Moneyball and Sabermetrics, he might have been more appreciated, nonetheless he hit .394 in 1994. This is a feat that might never be replicated.
He is a genuinely nice guy.
He has an unabashed love of fast food. He may have to pay for that in old age, but he loved it anyway. Despite being overweight, he generally avoided injury.
He never had to cheat to excel. While it’s becoming well-known that his peers were looking for shortcuts in the 80s and 90s, Gwynn has never been implicated in any steroid scandals. His lack of power numbers supports that. “But everyone else is doing it” probably didn’t even register.
He was loyal to the team and the city: He took less money to be happier playing for his hometown.
He didn’t get a lot of glory as he spent his whole career in a small market (Mexico to the south, water to the west, desert to the east, Dodger Blue to the north).

Adding it all up: This small-market player, who “just” hit singles and doubles, with a taste for Taco Bell, was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, my an overwhelming margin, with a vote total on par with Cal Ripken (another hard worker). Best of luck to Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds in even making it to the Hall of Fame.

I have my Tony Gwynn bobblehead proudly displayed in my cube.

(image credit)

Please take note, Costco

Brian — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:03:10 +0000

…of the policy of a fellow retailer:

Nascent Site Todo

Brian — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:58:09 +0000

Claim my Technorati Profile.
Stop publishing everything as the category “Blogroll.”
Change the composition template so the post title form have the words ‘I’m a Dummy Because I Didn’t Title This Post’ by default (if you publish without a title using wp-cache, the post number becomes the title)
~~Use the word ‘nascent’ in a post.~~