Journal

Money

Michael Koppelman1 Comment

Here, listen to this in the background while you read this: Play Music

It occurs to me that people go through 3 stages in their life:

  1. Having no money.
  2. Having negative amounts of money.
  3. Having positive amounts of money.

That’s how it went for me, anyway. I had no money during high school and college. I had debt after college. Then I had a little money for a while during my Prince years and then I went into debt again when I started my first business. After I sold that business it was the first time I had the opportunity to think about saving money.

I’m not cheap and I’m not particularly frugal but at the same time, I have very modest tastes. Luxury and exclusivity are abhorrent concepts to me. The things I want, for the most part, money can’t buy.

Still…all of us get old someday and we’d all like to retire to a comfortable life of some sort. It’s foolish not to take care of business. I’m actually quite jealous of academics who get tenure and can look forward to a paycheck until the day they die. That’s not the life I lead. The only way I get to a comfortable retirement is to put it away now.

The song I linked above (which you aren’t listening to) I wrote a long time ago when I had more money than time. When you are in that situation, it does not seem worth it. I will not become one of those people who put money before my kids or my family or my own interests and desires (and maybe even a vice or two). Money is a utility. It’s has no value in and of itself. I’m going to take care of business but I’m not going to whore my life out for money.

That’s actually why I’m so proud of my business, Clockwork. We put a lot of value on quality of life and we have a lot of fun as a result.

I want to make a nice living and earn a nice retirement but I want to do it honorably.

Money

Blog software update (again)

Michael Koppelman2 Comments

Behold, my blog is now on WordPress. Note that this is not the final design, it’s just a temporary design while Kyle finishes up the new design. You will see some weird things happen, perhaps, from time to time as we try out the new design.

If you are a frequent visitor I would highly encourage you to register. Then I can approve you so you can comment without moderation. I’m going to try to set the perms as liberally as I can without being bombarded with spam.

The old version of lolife.com/blog is here for a little while in case I screwed anything up.

Blog software update (again)

Framing: Duh

Michael Koppelman, , Leave a comment

Over at scienceblogs there is a recurring argument debate about “framing”. My definition of framing is wording an argument in a manner that your audience is going to be most receptive to. It’s crafting an argument carefully with the goal of convincing people of its authenticity.

Using this definition its literally self-evident that if you want to convince people of something that you should approach your argument in a manner most likely to do so! That’s just obvious.

It’s a separate question whether you should have that goal or not. I.E. it would be a tedious world if everyone always spoke with utter care for maximum convincing power. I’m going to talk about religion differently if I’m with a bunch of atheists than I do if I’m at a funeral. Sometimes we preach to the choir and enjoy reveling in our superior views.

But, yes, if your goal is to convince, framing is a no-brainer.

Generally the framing debate at scienceblogs relates to the “new atheists” and the “battle of science and religion”. Dawkins and Myers alienate the people they are trying to convince, says one side. Dawkins and Myers respond: fuck you, we have every right to speak our opinions when and how we feel.

They are both right.

Dawkins and Myers do alienate the people they are trying to convince by focusing on the most radical and ridiculous examples of religion. That’s not all they do, by a long shot and I agree with them on literally almost everything. But they do alienate people. That’s a fact whether you like it or not. Religious moderates, who are an important political ally of secularists, are painted with the same broad brush as loonies like young earth creationists.

But on the other hand, and really more importantly, what Dawkins and Myers have done is say what they think. They used their best judgment. They have no responsibility to religious moderates, secularists or anyone else. Their words have been a very important part of the debate and we would be much poorer without them. We’re all grown ups and we should be able to handle it if it gets a little rough sometimes.

Framing: Duh

HOWTO: Kill your cat

Michael Koppelman, 13 Comments

First of all, I grew up in North Dakota and back in the day if you decided you didn’t want your cat or dog anymore, you killed your cat or dog. It wasn’t a big deal. You did it quick and humanely. (Although I have never personally killed a pet.) Being “put to sleep” is no more humane and, in my view, probably less humane than a quick unexpected blast from a shotgun.

I’ve loved a lot of pets in my day but I hate my cat. It’s fair, though, because my cat hates me. I think it’s fair to say we’ve always hated each other. You see, we got him first (Case is his name) and we instantly didn’t hit it off. So we got one of his brothers, too, whose name was Q. Q was an awesome cat. I loved that cat. I would have died for that cat. But having Q around did not loosen Case up. He pretty much hates all people. Oddly (or not) my dog Stella is apparently the only creature on earth that Case doesn’t hate.

I have never harmed this cat. I have tried to be friends. It hasn’t worked out. The feeling is mutual and we’re both OK with it.

But lately I have been trying to think of the best way to kill my cat, if I was to kill my cat. It must be legal for me to kill my cat, right? Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Let me know if you have others to add.

  1. Drive it out to the country and shoot it.
  2. Drive it out to the country and leave him there.
  3. Bring it to the vet for a shot in a sterile room.
  4. Put it in a 5-gallon bucket with a tight lid and let him suffocate.
  5. Fill the bucket in #4 above with water.

For #1, my cat would be freaking out (not in its normal environment) so I’d have to put it in a cardboard box and then just shoot the box a few times. But if I’m gonna drive to the country, I may as well give him a chance to live off the land (#2). I personally think #3 is really lame. If I had to kill my cat at home I think I’d put catnip in a bucket and try get him in there and all fucked up and then I’d put the lid on real tight and let him go to sleep (#4).

What do you think?

I’M KIDDING!

(or am I…?)

HOWTO: Kill your cat

Good-bye Sioux

Michael KoppelmanLeave a comment

sioux.png

I was raised, for the most part, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, home of the University of North Dakota, which is home of the UND Fighting Sioux. There has been on on-going controversy about the name/mascot of the Sioux because it is the name of several living Indian bands. The NCAA has rules which prohibit the use of Indian names, nicknames and mascots.

It’s been an extra controversy in Grand Forks because a rich dick by the name of Ralph Engelstad donated a bunch of money to UND for a new hockey arena (a sport which UND excels at nationally) and then threatened to withdraw it when they considered changing the name.

But the name has got to change. It saddens me, as a long time Sioux hockey fan, to lose the tradition I grew up with. But my respect for the living nations that were once part of the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) is greater. You can’t honor people against their will. And while many North Dakotans are respectful of their Indian neighbors, many are not and many hockey fans are not and the cartoons and caricatures of Native Americans as entertainment for white people is wholly inappropriate.

It’s not the name that makes the UND Fighting Sioux the UND Fighting Sioux. We’ll love our hockey team regardless of the name. It’s never too late to do the right thing.

(Thanks to massdistraction for taking a nice pic of my Sioux t-shirt!)

Good-bye Sioux

Unleash the Fury

Michael KoppelmanLeave a comment

capslock.png

This cracks me up. It cracks me up because it hints at a very deep truth — the struggle to use written text in a way that adequately communicates emotional content. Never before have we had this near-instantaneous interpersonal written communication. Never before have we conducted so much business and navigated so many relationships in a written medium.

When someone reaches for that caps lock key, they are emotional and they want to holler at someone. They want the text to holler for them. And it does! We add the emotion back in when we read it.

Think about it — we lose information when we type an email message and that information is put back by the recipient, using clues from the text. Things like italics, bolding, case and punctuation, in addition, of course, to the word choices in the message, try to convey a multi-dimensional interpersonal communication over a single, written channel. The emotional content of emails is often (some might say always) misinterpreted by the recipient.

Except, perhaps, when we unleash the fury of caps lock.

Unleash the Fury

HOWTO: Be a successful blogger

Michael Koppelman4 Comments

For someone as brilliant (and humble) as I am, I often wonder why I am so fantastically ignored on the Internet. I get very few comments and almost no one links to me. I never get forwarded clever little “memes”. I’m just one of a billion little blogs that garners almost no interest.

Using my un-experience I have developed a simple 4-point list so that you, too, can be a successful blogger:

1. Post a lot. If you don’t post a lot you won’t be successful, period. Post no less than several times per day. When in doubt post an “open thread” or post about how you are too busy to post.

2. Pretend you have a theme, even if you don’t. So name your blog “Math Blogger” or “Sex Blogger” or “Evolution Blog” or some name that makes people think you have one and only one main theme. Then post whatever you want. It’s not having a theme that’s important, it’s making people think you have a theme.

3. Be hot. If you are hot, put your picture on your blog. Better yet, be female and hot. No amount of clever, intelligent posting can make up for being hot. If you aren’t hot, only post pictures of you that make you seem hot. Again, it’s not the reality that’s important here.

4. Shamelessly self-promote yourself all the time. Go to every trendy conference, befriend other A-list bloggers, get pictures of yourself with famous bloggers and ruthlessly shove your persona down Twitter and Facebook and every other social meme that erupts. You’re not a blogger, you’re a brand!

I’m just kidding. I don’t feel at all sorry for myself. I have no idea why some people get jillions of readers and jillions of comments for writing ordinary and obvious things. It’s a cult of personality that is impossible to predict.

HOWTO: Be a successful blogger