David ex Machina

Ever get that strange, protective feeling when buying a new pair of shoes. Careful to walk around the block, not to scratch the pair, slow to break them in. Optimistic that they’ll fit for the long haul, but not completely sure. It’s the brief time, when you notice everywhere you’re walking is either clean or dirty, and each step is pensive. Is there enough support there? Too tight? Too loose? Is that how it felt when I got my last pair? Eventually though, the pair gets its first scuff. Immediate frustration sets in as you try to correct the misstep: wiping the mark down, vowing to never let that happen again. But alas, we all know it will, it’s walking, it’s inevitable. The only thing that saves the shoe owner is that the newness wears off, the shoes become just another pair of shoes. The cycle of new fading into the norm happens for most material goods (i.e. car purchases), and even non-material things (i.e. getting a new job wears off after a while). There’s an inherent honeymoon ...

The purpose of a lobby, as defined by the web , is the entrance room that connects to other rooms or hallways of a building. At a basic level, it is a means[room] to an end[room]; the physical router to the different rooms of the building. The lobby[router] can have a variety of filters to optimize the building’s purpose. For example, a building with security uses a lobby to grant access rights to the building. Businesses use lobbies as reception areas to direct customers where to go or wait. Transit stations, use a combination of these to provide security, as well as relevant information about the transit network. Lobbies also give a strong impression to its passersby. Ornate lobbies with high ceilings give a sense of grandness versus a dark and cramped lobby. Most people don’t think twice about walking through a lobby, which I’d argue is a well-thought out lobby, since it is commonplace. But some lobbies are too poorly designed to ignore.  Hotel lobbies with inadequ...

For all of my life, it has been a privilege to watch soccer. Unlike most countries, the beautiful game has always had a tough time finding its home in the U.S. A sport that demands as much as it gives, soccer, or football everywhere else in the world, is pure at its heart. It is simple. The game has a natural flow to itself that can only be dictated by the players themselves. It can be played anywhere by anyone. No special equipment is needed, and no specific physique is required. It is truly the world’s game, where honor, tradition, and philosophies are reflected in the style of play. So much so, that FIFA , the sport’s world-governing body acts as a paradigm for international government to ensure the sanctity and fairness of the game. Growing up, I learned and loved to play the sport, and did not understand why the US had outright ignored the rest of the world. The U.S. always wants to be #1 in everything, and soccer would be the prime sport to show dominance, but did lackluster pe...

Photo Credit: Wonderlane As we approach the 2012 election, we’re going to be hearing a lot about job creation, job growth, and jobs in general. Most of the time, these job reports come in numbers and percentages. The number of jobs gained in a month, or the overall unemployment percentage in the country, etc. While useful signals for some macroeconomic trends of the U.S. economy, I don’t think these numbers explain anything beyond basic baseline trends. I’d argue that the lack of granularity also makes it hard to determine causal factors for job creation. NPR’s Planet Money had a great podcast about how difficult it is to attribute job claims to their proper “creator.” However, more important than the actual number of jobs lost or gained, is the value of the jobs our economy is producing. For example, let’s say that tomorrow the unemployment rate went to zero. Everyone had a job, fantastic! But it then turned out that 40 million of those jobs went towards digging ditches; getting...

Many different diets, or ‘healthy lifestyles,’ come and go like the wind. Everything from drinking milk to smoking to exercise has been disputed as being healthy. The problem is we still don’t fully understand the biochemical pathways of the human body, so it’s easy to think that drinking water, or insert-favorite-nutrient-here , promotes better health. Misidentification of causality versus correlation. As such, many diets follow the trendy cycle: offering a glimmer of hope which is then vetted by some critical contingent of people, becomes popular in the mainstream, and then fades away as a new emerging diet replaces it. Look at all the recent diets in the past few years: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Juice Cleanses, Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, Zone Diet, Vegetarian Diet, Vegan Diet, Raw Foods Diet, Paleo (Caveman) Diet, The Low Carb Diet, The Slow Carb Diet... Diets feed on the human emotions of survival, self-interest, and discipline. However, people are lazy and wan...

B eing a celebrity is cool right? You’re famous, most likely rich, and have the world’s attention. But celebrity status comes with a price: paparazzi, lack of a private life, etc. Anything a celebrity says or does can be publicly scrutinized. Take Ashton Kutcher’s tweet fiasco . So that got me thinking, is there an optimal type of celebrity to be or not be? In no particular order: Reality TV Star No skills. Your life is literally being publicized, so no privacy. Your real friends won’t be near you with these cameras, so no more real friends. You have to live with other reality TV stars. Movies / Television You’re always pretending to be someone you’re not. People believe you’re the same as your most popular character. You get called by anything other than your real name. Getting typecast. Always moving from project to project. Paparazzi. Music Forced to repeat your songs over and over. No one wants to hear to you talk, just hear you sing. Continuously getting shown up by teens. Have to...