What I’ve learned since moving to D.C. (some of which should be obvious): 0013

601.  Shore excursions are cheaper in port;

602.  The liquor shops in port (in the Bahamas) are cheaper than the shops on the (cruise) ship;

603.  One U.S. dollar is worth one Bahamian dollar;

604.  Bahamians will try to hustle you;

605.  The ocean waters in the Bahamas are cool (at least in the wintertime);

606.  The world’s best burgers might be made by a woman at a little stand outside the cruise terminal in Freeport (in the Bahamas).  I think the combination of the charcoal grill, the fat from the beef and the woman’s secret family seasoning might make them taste so good;

607.  Ohio State fans are everywhere (including the middle of the ocean);

608.  Don’t room with people who snore and have smelly feet (especially on a cruise);

609.  Your happiness depends far more on the number of instances of positive feelings, what psychologists call “positive affect,” than on their intensity when they hit.  In other words, good news is good news first; how good matters rather little.  So to have a pleasant life you should spread these small “affects” across time as evenly as possible.  Plenty of mildly good news is preferable to one single lump of great news;

610.  Humans will believe anything you say provided you do not exhibit the smallest shadow of diffidence; like animals, the can detect the smallest crack in your confidence before you express it.  The trick is to be as smooth as possible in personal matters.  It is much easier to signal self-confidence if you are exceedingly polite and friendly; you can control people without having to offend their sensitivity.  The problem with business people is that if you act like a loser they will treat you as a loser—you set the yardstick yourself.  There is no absolute measure of good or bad.  It is not what you are telling people, it is how you are saying it;

611.  To understand successes and analyze what caused them, we need to study the traits present in failures;

612.  Just as we tend to underestimate the role of luck in life in general, we tend to overestimate it in games of chance;

613.  If you want a simple step to a higher form of life, as distant from the animal as you can get, then you may have to denarrate, that is, shut down the television set, minimize time spent reading newspapers, ignore the blogs.  Train your reasoning abilities to control your decisions; . . . . Train yourself to spot the difference between the sensational and the empirical.  This insulation from the toxicity of the world will have an additional benefit: it will improve your well-being.  Also, bear in mind how shallow we are with probability, the mother of all abstract notions.  You do not have to do much more in order to gain a deeper understanding of things around you.  Above all, learn to avoid “tunneling;”

614.  Prediction, not narration, is the real test of our understanding of the world;

615.  The more information you give someone, the more hypotheses they will formulate along the way, and the worse off they will be.  They see more random noise and mistake it for information.  The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds–so those who delay developing their theories are better off.  When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate;

616.  The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.  Lack of knowledge and delusion about the quality of your knowledge come together–the same process that makes you know less also makes you satisfied with your knowledge;

617.  We humans are the victims of an asymmetry in the perception of random events.  We attribute our successes to our skills, and our failures to external events outside our control, namely to randomness.  We feel responsible for the good stuff, but not for the bad.  This causes us to think that we are better than others at whatever we do for a living;

618.  When flying, remember to bring ear/headphones;

619.  Many university stars, or “contributors to top journals,” are no better than the average New York Times reader or journalist in detecting changes in the world around them.  These sometimes overspecialized experts failed tests in their own specialties;

620.  Most important advances are the least predictable ones, those “lying out of the path of the imagination;”

621.  Red king crab has a lot of meat;

622.  Philosophers since Aristotle have taught us that we are deep-thinking animals, and that we can learn by reasoning.  It took a while longer to discover that we do effectively think, but that we more readily narrate backward in order to give ourselves the illusion of understanding, and give a cover to our past actions;

623.  Do not be narrow-minded.  The great discoverer Pasteur, who came up with the notion that chance favors the prepared, understood that you do not look for something particular every morning but work hard to let contingency enter your working life;

624.  Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. . . . Many people do not realize that they are getting a lucky break in life when they get it;

625.  The skin of (Cantonese) roasted pig is crackly and crisp, but the meat is juicy and tender;

626.  Chinese opera is loud and screechy;

627.  Being in a parade means a lot of standing around waiting for your time to perform;

628.  Prawn and fruit salad is pretty tasty;

629.  The Cheesecake Factory on the 8^th floor of the Macy’s building in downtown San Francisco has an amazing view of Union Square;

630.  Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. . . . Many people do not realize that they are getting a lucky break in life when they get it;

631.  The probabilities of very rare events are not computable; the effect of an event on us is considerably easier to ascertain (the rarer the event, the fuzzier the odds).  We can have a clear idea of the consequences of an event, even if we do not know how likely it is to occur;

632.  Of the five hundred largest U.S. companies in 1957, only seventy-four were still part of that select group, the Standard and Poor’s 500, forty years later.  Only a few had disappeared in mergers; the rest either shrank or went bust;

633.  Don’t reheat (i.e., microwave and/or refry) fried yucca. . . . It’ll explode (so I’ve been told);

634.  The Columbia Firehouse Restaurant in (Old Town) Alexandria serves absinthe;

635.  An ad hominem attack against an intellectual, not against an idea, is highly flattering.  It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message;

636.  Not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.  You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice;

637.  It’s not a good idea to try to go to Wal-Mart in a Chevy Aveo during a snowstorm;

638.  Not all fire alarms are false alarms;

639.  The steps of the George Washington Masonic Memorial in (Old Town) Alexandria are a great place to go sledding;

640.  Cardboard wrapped in a garbage bag is a pretty good makeshift sled;

641.  It doesn’t seem as cold if you keep your ears warm;

642.  Random (strange) women will offer (and give) you a bite of their hot dog at Washington Redskins games;

643.  People do buy cars as Christmas presents (at least professional hockey players do);

644.  The Club Level at FedEx Field reminds me of an airport;

645.  The Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins played each other for the 100^th time (including the playoffs) on Monday, December 27, 2009;

646.  The Washington Capitals’ practices at Kettler Capitals Iceplex are free and open to the public.  On game days, they start at 10:00 AM, on non-game days, practices start at 10:30 AM and on days after a game, they start at 11:00 AM;

647.  It’s rather surreal watching a player practice in the morning and then finding out s/he was traded (i.e., Chris Clark and Milan Jurcina) a few hours later and then realizing that that would be the last time you’d see her/him play for that team;

648.  Check your viewing options on your TV during HD broadcasts (especially hockey games).  You may be able to get a wider picture on your screen;

649.  If you thought going door to door was annoying, Jehovah’s Witnesses will send mail, specifically addressed to you, to try to solicit you to convert;

650.  “Chou Chou” from the “Imperial Palms Orchestra” claims she’s 56;