1501. Of all of Hofstede’s Dimensions, though, perhaps the most interesting is what he called the “Power Distance Index” (PDI). Power distance is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects authority;
1502. The Korean language has no fewer than six different levels of conversational address, depending on the relationship between the addressee and the addresser: formal deference, informal deference, blunt, familiar, intimate, and plain;
1503. Western communication has what linguists call a “transmitter orientation” – that is, it is considered the responsibility of the speaker to communicate ideas clearly and unambiguously. But Korea, like many Asian countries, is receiver oriented. It is up to the listener to make sense of what is being said;
1504. If you forget your contact lens case, a(n empty) shot glass is a decent substitute;
1505. It’s not a good idea to go hiking in sandals. But if you do, you should probably wear socks;
1506. As human beings we store digits in a memory loop that runs for about two seconds. We most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within that two-second span;
1507. Playboy Playmates (i.e., Crystal Harris) are undoubtedly attractive in person, but they don’t look like their pictorials . . . hair and makeup, lighting and camera angles (and, most likely, photo manipulation) definitely make a difference;
1508. Working in a rice field is ten to twenty times more labor-intensive than working on an equivalent-size corn or wheat field. Some estimates put the annual workload of a wet-rice farmer in Asia at three thousand hours a year;
1509. What redeemed the life of a rice farmer was the nature of that work. It was meaningful. First of all, there is a clear relationship in rice farming between effort and reward. The harder you work a rice field, the more it yields. Second, it’s complex work. The rice farmer isn’t simply planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall. He or she effectively runs a small business, juggling a family workforce, hedging uncertainty through seed selection, building and managing a sophisticated irrigation system, and coordinating the complicated process of harvesting the first crop while simultaneously preparing the second crop. And, most of all, it’s autonomous. The peasants of Europe worked essentially as low-paid slaves of an aristocratic landlord, with little control over their own destinies. But China and Japan never developed that kind of oppressive feudal system, because feudalism simply can’t work in a rice economy. Growing rice is too complicated and intricate for a system that requires farmers to be coerced and bullied into going out into the fields each morning. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, landlords in central and Southern China had an almost completely hands-off relationship with their tenants: they would collect a fixed rent and let farmers go about their business;
1510. The Fisker “Karma” (plug-in hybrid sports sedan) looks like the lovechild of an Aston Martin (DB9) and a BMW (Z4);
1511. We sometimes think of being good at mathematics as an innate ability. You either have “it” or you don’t. It’s not so much ability as attitude. You master mathematics if you are willing to try. Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds;
1512. Every four years, an international group of educators administers a comprehensive mathematics and science test to elementary and junior high students around the world. It’s the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the point of the TIMSS is to compare the educational achievement of one country with another’s. When students sit down to take the TIMSS exam, they also have to fill out a questionnaire. It asks them all kinds of things, such as what their parents’ level of education is, and what their views about math are, and what their friends are like. It’s not a trivial exercise. It’s about 120 questions long. In fact, it is so tedious and demanding that many students leave as many as ten or twenty questions blank. As it turns out, the average number of items answered on that questionnaire varies from country to country. It is possible, in fact, to rank all the participating countries according to how many items their students answer on the questionnaire. Now, what do you think happens if you compare the questionnaire rankings with the math rankings on the TIMSS? They are exactly the same. In other words, countries whose students are willing to concentrate and sit still long enough and focus on answering every single question in an endless questionnaire are the same countries whose students do the best job of solving math problems;
1513. The psychologist James Flynn points out that the overwhelming majority of Chinese immigrants to the West – the people who have done so well in math here – are from South China. The Chinese students graduating at the top of their class at MIT are the descendants, chiefly, of people from the Pearl River Delta (i.e., rice farmers). He also points out that the lowest-achieving Chinese Americans are the so-called Sze Yap people, who come from the edges of the Delta, “where soil was less fertile and agriculture less intense;”
1514. There is actually a significant scientific literature measuring Asian “persistence.” In a typical study, Priscilla Blinco gave large groups of Japanese and American first graders a very difficult puzzle and measured how long they worked at it before they gave up. The American children lasted, on average, 9.47 minutes. The Japanese children lasted 13.93 minutes, roughly 40 percent longer;
1515. Brian Marshall’s (the bassist for “Creed”) birthday is on April 24th;
1516. In the Pearl River Delta, the rice farmer planted two and sometimes three crops a year. The land was fallow only briefly. In fact, one of the singular features of rice cultivation is that because of the nutrients carried by the water used in irrigation, the more a plot of land is cultivated, the more fertile it gets. But in Western agriculture, the opposite is true. Unless a wheat- or cornfield is left fallow every few years, the soil becomes exhausted. Every winter, fields are empty. The hard labor of spring planting and fall harvesting is followed, like clockwork, by the slower pace of summer and winter. This is the logic applied to the cultivation of young minds. A mind must be cultivated. But not too much, lest it be exhausted. And what was the remedy for the dangers of exhaustion? The long summer vacation – a peculiar and distinctive American legacy that has had profound consequences for the learning patterns of the students of the present day;
1517. When it comes to reading skills, poor kids learn nothing when school is not in session. Virtually all of the advantage that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of differences in the way privileged kids learn while they are not in school;
1518. The way in which education has been discussed in the United States is backwards. An enormous amount of time is spent talking about reducing class size, rewriting curricula, buying every student a shiny new laptop, and increasing school funding – all of which assumes that there is something fundamentally wrong with the job schools are doing. Schools work. The only problem with school, for kids who aren’t achieving, is that there isn’t enough of it;
1519. Fennel tastes like licorice;
1520. Robbie thinks wax figures are creepy;
1521. Panna cotta is kind of like custard;
1522. When you’re out, you can get free stuff (or discounts) just for “checking in” on foursquare (foursquare.com);
1523. It’s kind of nice getting a free (alcoholic) drink when you get your measurements taken (e.g., at Alton Lane);
1524. Every Tuesday, Lucky Bar (LuckyBarDC.com) in D.C. has $.25 wings from 5 o’clock to 11 o’clock (with a minimum order of ten);
1525. Any vehicle maintenance outside of what’s specified in the owner’s manual is unnecessary;
1526. Any (vehicle) fluid flush is more than just emptying the reservoir. It means draining and refilling the lines as well;
1527. On game days, the (Washington) Nationals have 400 (or so) $5.00 grandstand tickets. They’re only available at the box office and ticket sales start between 2 and 2-½ hours before the game. For a seven o’clock game, they’ll probably sell out around 5:30;
1528. American University is just down the street (i.e., Massachusetts Avenue) from the (Washington) National Cathedral;
1529. The Embassy of Brunei would make a great place for a (wedding) reception;
1530. Wax figures are kind of creepy;
1531. We grow up and form a certain view of our parents. It’s interesting to meet their friends and coworkers and listen to their stories about them. You might see another side of your parents you haven’t known before;
1532. (Caffeine free) Diet Coke, two years after the best use by date, doesn’t taste anything like it should. It’s watered down and tastes more chemically;
1533. A strange thing about life is that ambition and satisfaction are at war. If you’re ambitious, you aren’t satisfied and if you’re satisfied, you aren’t ambitious. Most of us are plagued by ambition;
1534. The optimal way to influence the emotions, moods and feelings of others is to change your own emotions, moods and feelings instead of trying to make them feel a certain way consciously. If you change your own feelings first, then the other person’s mirror neurons will cause that person that you are interacting with to feel what you are feeling, without them consciously knowing that their state just changed;
1535. You have a sense of when you are emotionally overreaching when it feels as if your actions are being based on, or influenced by, your desire to cause a response in the other person rather than by the way that you feel, your mood or your intent;
1536. The good thing about having an education is that it'll be a lifelong consolation to you. It'll be a pleasure every day of your life. Because of it, you'll be more aware. You'll be more interested in things. It isn't what an education does for you that makes getting one worthwhile. It's having one. Being educated is an end in itself, and it sets you apart from most of the people on the planet;
1537. After sampling five different Scotches, your taste buds are pretty much blown;
1538. Every Wednesday, Lucky Bar (in D.C.) has ½ off burgers (including turkey and veggie);
1539. No person was ever honored for what s/he received. Honor has been the reward for what s/he gave;
1540. On Monday and Tuesday nights, you can get two entrées and a bottle of wine for $28.99 or one entrée and a glass of (house) wine for $14.50 at Laporta’s Restaurant in (Old Town) Alexandria;
1541. The “Dewar’s 12 Clubhouse” (at the Verizon Center) is rather spartan;
1542. The Italian “commedians” were the first professional acting troupes and they were also the first to employ women;
1543. If the (ice) hockey career doesn’t work out for him, John Carlson (of the Washington Capitals) could make a living cleaning (hockey) helmets;
1544. During “Museum Walk Weekend,” you can visit the member museums of the “Dupont Kalorama Museums Consortium” (DKMuseums.com) for free. . . . It’s in early June;
1545. Woodrow Wilson is the only president to live in D.C. after his presidency;
1546. The NoMa-Gallaudet U Metrorail station is just the New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U stop;
1547. Robbie likes pinot noir . . . and the zoo;
1548. Campari and soda isn’t bad . . . as long as you don’t mind bitters;
1549. People can look quite a bit older after losing a lot of weight. Their features can sink in without fat to fill them out and the excess skin can dangle loosely;
1550. Honesty is not having to remember what you’ve said;
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