Things that are fun to play with...

1. What's your name anagram? Mine is "alpha nagger."
2. What's your credit IQ? Mine is pretty good.

News Articles I think are interesting...

1. Comparing the post office to other things that have to travel long distances.

2. Proof that facebook can ruin lives.

3. The CEO of Whole Foods on alternative ideas for health care reform. Here's another article about the challenges that come along with single payer. Funny quote: "Yet even the smallest budget moves are proving controversial. Local residents are up in arms over a cost-cutting measure that makes patients pay €1.10 an hour to park at the hospital."

4. The problem with hate crime laws

5. Salutations for the 21st century

6. What to do when you're Bernie Madoff's assistant...

STD testing is highly Platinum

So DCPS is going to start giving free optional anonymous STD testing to everyone in DC high schools. One especially good thing about the program is how it takes pains to make sure that the students are given maximum privacy before, during, and after the testing. Honestly, I think this is probably the best idea I have ever heard in terms of spreading the disease among teens. As much as I want to believe that people will make smart decisions based on education, the education programs don't seem to have a great deal of impact, especially for high school students in low income schools. In light of that, the best thing to do is give students information so that they can know what their status is. It's not perfect, but I genuinely believe that kids are smart and can make better decisions once they are given information, assuming steps are taken to ensure students feel confident about obtaining the information. Kudos to the people who came up with this idea and are implementing it.

Platinum Links: Lot's of cool websites I found

1. This is an awesome website for anyone that owns a car...

2. Website where you can compare bing vs. google. pretty cool.

3. Website for those of us that can't focus due to distractions on the web.

4. An interesting article in the NyTimes about what to do when your significant other wants to get a divorce. Speaking as someone who gets incredibly antsy when relationships reach a certain point and then regrets his decisions, this is probably the best approach I've ever seen for dealing with this problem. Key quote below on how to approach the situation...

Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.

I honestly thought this was snuck onto WSJ by The Onion

Double the Platinum, Double the links...

1. This article empirically verifies what I pretty much knew; people are naturally social and for the most part, not interested in conflict in any form. This is a positive in many situations, but not all. Fascinating stuff. (HT: LT)

2. Someone smarter than I describing why she doesn't like government-run health care.

3. Chick flicks that men can like. Some I agree with more than others. I definitely enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada, though it's doubtful I will ever watch the Sex in the City Movie. The unstated part of this whole article is that men should tolerate watching these movies on the off chance that it gets your lady friend in the mood. The whole thing makes me think of this....(wait for the 1:50 mark)

4. Congrats to my friend, Courtney. She is going to be working at this school in Chicago. Here's an article about the new school they are opening up near my college.

5. This article is interesting in that it describes the dramatic transition communities go through when they modernize. To be certain, it is not always pretty and it is a process that can radically change in a few years much of what an agrarian society has become accustomed to over centuries. All I could think of while reading it is that an observer probably would have said the same thing about settlers in the United States two and three hundred years ago. I, for one, have a new blog to subscribe to. (HT: LT)

6. This is very odd. It's a charter school being run by a school district. This seems to defy the definition/logic of charter schools. Other than the school being allowed to choose their own employees (sort of), all this seems to prove is how districts recognize that they can't centrally control schools - even when they are still centrally planning the schools that are not centrally controlled. Weird.

7. This list is remarkably good. There are only two movies I'd replace: Goodfellas and Saving Private Ryan. Points to the person who can figure out which two movies I'd replace them with. The first should be very easy.

8. This is an extremely long post about basketball and the link to the Ewing theory is also a pretty decent length. Both are great posts. The main post provides an intellectual analysis of basketball that you just don't see very often. Great stuff. Another example that goes unmentioned is this article about Shane Battier. It fits so perfectly, it's scary. Make sure you give yourself a half hour before clicking on any of these links.

9. This seems remarkably accurate given what I know about New Yorkers. And having heard Rudy speak about a week ago, I completely believe his quote. Thoughts, anyone?

10. Here's an article that takes a pejorative tone against, ironically, one of the only bankers who did not help to get us into the recession. I'm no objectivist, but it's interesting that the article, in describing people that understood the crisis before it began, seems to take a higher than thou tone about laissez faire capitalism, and misses the crucial point that there is a difference between how markets operate and how the individual actors within a market should behave if they want to survive and thrive in the long term.

Don't shoot the moon unless you know you can make it

One of the things I learned during my non-profit management fellowship was the importance of clear expectations in a workplace setting. People need to know what they are empowered to do and where they should draw the line. It prevents confusion, wasted time/resources, and makes a team far more productive. It's surprisingly important and yet many people don't think about it very much.

Today we attempted to get new cable installed in our house. Due to some architectural issues, when the two fellows came in, they couldn't figure out how to approach installing the lines, boxes, etc. They immediately called their boss and we arranged a new appointment. Aside from being disappointed that the cable issue wasn't dealt with, I was pretty impressed. My roommate thought the guys gave up to easily, but I just assumed that that was what they've been trained to do. Neither one appeared to be well educated or in a position to know how to do the complex work needed for the project. They were most likely trained to do exactly what they did. Instead of wasting time and possibly biting off more than they could chew, they assessed the situation, realized it was beyond their skills, and moved on to their next task. I consider that a highly platinum use of labor.

Platinum Links: I've been productive today edition

1. Video on American consumption habits over the past quarter century or so. I'd like to say that I'm pretty meticulous about how I spend my money and absolutely hate debt. Definitely something I learned from my parents.

2. This looks much more like 21st century education in my mind. No clue whether it will work, but it's definitely the kind of innovation I like. Knowing the state of Hawaii, they will adopt this 20 years from now (regardless of evidence from this attempt), roll it out to every school, say that it will cure all ills, overpay for "consultants" to help them put it into place, and still not have air conditioning at most of the schools on the island.

3. Talk about barriers to entry! Interesting to think about, especially considering this video...




4. I'll be honest. I often find myself falling into this mental trap of being angry about bundling. My largest complaints are for things like cell phones, stadium food concessions, and definitely cable. But then I let my rational side calm me down and look for someone like Megan Mcardle to remind me of what I know in the back of my mind. Bundling happens all the time and it's good for me.

5. Advance Directives and google health. Get one if you don't already...

Talent Recruitment Openness Seems Platinum to me

So there was an article in the NYTimes today about colleges abandoning the use of the SAT/ACT in the admissions process. The general tilt of the article was that colleges do this to boost their applicant pool size, which then allows them to move up the rankings when they turn down more applicants. It also describes how some schools do not require the tests for applicants, but do require the tests for merit aid. The article seems to imply that the first activity is gaming the system and the second activity may just be unethical. I know I'm weird, but I had the exact opposite reaction upon reading the story.

Awhile ago, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article in the New Yorker about how we really don't know what makes good teachers. There are lots of rules, regulations, and schools dedicated to saying what is required in order to be a teacher, but none of these have been found to produce great teachers. Gladwell gives several examples of how other entities (football coaches and investment bankers) go about finding top talent when they are looking for something hard to quantify. Both groups recruit widely, train intensely, and monitor progress methodically. They constantly thin the herd searching for the exact talent they want/need.

My thinking on the college article was that colleges are simply applying the principles that the football and banking groups apply (according to Gladwell). Given the poor predictive nature of the SAT/ACT for college performance, it makes sense for colleges to not treat them as hard and fast rules to be applied across the board at all times. By removing barriers to entry (standardized tests) colleges are widening the scope of people that can apply and getting more diverse streams of talent.

The implication of the article is that this may be some sort of race to the bottom, but maybe it's a race to the top. Maybe, in the long term, this is just one of many gradual steps towards identifying better indicators for the best and brightest students. One can only pray that other parts of the American education system adopt a similar openness.

Random Platinum Quotes

"Coke Zero is Diet Coke for men."
- Karl

"But for the love of God, let’s not forget the love of God."
- Tony Woodlief(more here)

“Universally, principals have been considered a part of management, so unionizing presents some obstacles for them. Many states, as well as classic labor-management law, forbid management groups from joining a union. The result is that in order to be eligible for union membership, many principals are now insisting that they are non-management.

In order to give principals non-management status, the New York State Public Employment Relations Board recently re-defined the principalship. The Board defined the principal as a highly paid clerk who supervises in some vague way, but who has no important function to perform.”

- On the attempts of principals to unionize, in a 1975 National Association of Secondary School Principals Bulletin, authored by B. Frank Brown