Category: Fun Stuff

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Fun Stuff

A Very Brief History of Mixed Reality and Disney

When we think about Augmented Reality or Mixed Reality, we’re tempted to think this is a very new thing. Take The Void for instance. You can walk through a space that’s literally “painted” with virtual reality textures. I experienced The Void at Madame Tussauds in Times Square last year and it was awesome!

But mixed reality has actually been with us for quite a while. Take a look at a typical Disney experience. Mickey Mouse literally opens the Magic Kingdom to guests each morning. Of course it’s a man (or woman) in a costume dancing around while the virtual voice is piped in through speakers. This lets you really be part of a Disney experience!

But this combination of real life and cartoons is nothing new for Disney. Take a look at this early Disney movie where a real life Alice is transported in a cartoon wonderland.

But it goes back even further in animation. I just came across the first mixed reality movie The Enchanted Drawing. Not only is it the first mixed reality movie, it’s also the first animated movie!

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Fun Stuff People

Malcolm Gladwell’s Favorite Writers and Storytellers

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the best writers of our generation. That’s not to say he’s always right. As he likes to say, “I hope you find my work entertaining even when it’s wrong.” Gladwell has done some amazing stuff as a magazine writer, book writer, speaker, and even podcast host. If you want to watch some amazing talks, check out: The Spaghetti Sauce Talk and The Coke and Pepsi Talk. But who are the people that Malcolm Gladwell thinks are the best writers and speakers?

The Spaghetti Sauce Talk:

The Coke and Pepsi Talk:

On Great Writers

From the Longform Podcast interview with Malcolm Gladwell (starting at 28:18. Transcript provided by Longform)

My great hero as a writer is Michael Lewis. I just think Michael Lewis, believe it or not, is the most underrated writer of my generation. I think he is the one who will be read 50 years from now. And I think what he does is so extraordinary, from a kind of degree of difficulty standpoint. The Big Short is a gripping book, fascinating, utterly gripping book about derivatives. It blows me away how insanely hard that book was to do, and it’s brilliant. The Blind Side, I think, it might be the most perfect book I’ve read in 25 years. I don’t think there’s a single word in that that I would change. I just think it has everything. But he uses no science, right? Very little.

It’s all story. But he does more work in his stories, makes much more profound points than I do by dragging in all these sociologists and psychologists. He’s proved to me that, if you can tell a story properly, you don’t need this kind of scaffolding. You can just tell the story. And so, I’ve been trying, not entirely successfully, but trying to move in that direction over the last couple books.

I don’t think people realize how hard it is to do a single narrative book. That’s one of the things I admire about Michael Lewis. He seems to be able to do it effortlessly. I don’t even think I could pull it off. Maybe it’s because I’ve never found an individual whose story is rich enough. But, maybe I’m just not as good at developing a single story. I just think that’s kind of beyond me a little bit. … I would lose faith in my ability to keep the reader engaged. I’m much too nervous a writer. Whereas the amount of self-confidence you feel in Michael Lewis’s work, or Janet Malcolm’s work … she’s so extraordinarily sure of her gift, she’s not in any hurry to start and she knows you’ll stick with her because she knows she will deliver. To use a sports metaphor, Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis are the people who are quite happy to take the last shot. I’m going to pass.

Apparently, Lewis and Gladwell are friends and appear together often.

In addition to being a compelling author, Gladwell also makes phenomenal speeches. My favorite Malcolm Gladwell speeches were given about 10 years ago: The Spaghetti Sauce Talk and The Coke and Pepsi Talk. Both of these are brilliant examples of storytelling and really show the difference between reading an article and giving a performance.

In his interview with Tim Ferris (starting at about 28 minutes), Gladwell talked about how difficult it is to give a great speech. It’s not about reading an article in front of a group, it takes a lot more work than that. Then Ferriss asks Gladwell, “Is there anyone in the world of speaking alive or dead who is the Michael Lewis for you.” Below is Gladwell’s answer. Note that I used YouTube’s transcript function  and tried editing it so it makes sense on the page:

I once went to a birthday party for an old friend of mine, Anne Applebaum, in England.  Now first of all the English are way better at giving speeches than we are. And secondly, we were talking about the creme de la creme of English speech givers.  Like serious Cambridge and Oxford debating society kind of people.

Niall Ferguson, the historian, gave a birthday toast which is just the best toast I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean it was like so much better than anything I had ever heard — like on another level. I was like oh my god that’s good. And part of what made it genius was he really gave you the impression he was making it up on the spot. Now he might actually have done that. He may be so good he could do that.

The conceit was that it was totally spontaneous. It was so cleverly done and so hilarious. And one of the ways it was so charming was the ways in which he was wrong. Part of the joke was he was going to make this elaborate hilarious argument about Anne who was turning fifty. And half of the stuff that he was going to say was not right. He spun a theory about the weekend and about her birthday and about her friends that was like hilarious because it was not accurate. And he did it with such panache. First of all that would never have occurred to me to make stuff up in such a dramatic way. But also I can’t do off-the-cuff. Ever since then I just worship the guy. I just think I think he walks on water.

I had Niall as a professor when I was at NYU for business school and he was just amazing. His books (like The Ascent of Money) and television programs (like The Ascent of Money) are really amazing. If you want to see him giving more of a speech like Malcolm mentioned, though a lot less funny, you can watch his speech at the Sydney Opera House.

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Fun Stuff Product Management

The Worst Consultant OR My Favorite Consulting Joke

A man in a hot air balloon comes descending on a meadow where a shepherd is tending his flock. After he greets the man he asks him “If I tell you how many sheep you have without having to count them, will you give me one of them?”

The shepherd agrees.

The man in the balloon says “You have 100 sheep.”

A bit surprised the shepherd says “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the man, “your field is about 5 km by 5km and in this part of the wilderness you can graze 4 sheep on each square km of land. So 5×5 is 25 square km times 4 is 100 sheep.”

“Wow, you’re right,” said the shepherd, “please take your pick of the sheep.”

After the man in the balloon selects his sheep, the shepherd turns to him and says “if I tell you what you do for a living, will you give me my animal back?”

The man in the balloon agrees. The shepherd says “You are a consultant.”

The man in the balloon is amazed at the insight that the shepherd has shown and says “How on earth did you know I am a consultant?”

The shepherd answered, “You showed up here even though nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. And you don’t know a thing about my business … now give me back my dog!”

For an example of a great consultant read up about the great refrigerator repair experience I had.

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Fun Stuff Life Lessons My Writing

Questions OR Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at 40

Yale has a wonderful writing class called Daily Themes. This class has been taught at Yale for over 100 years and requires students to write a story each day of about 500 words. I always wanted to take the class but never did. So I started to do some of the writing on my own based on the prompts my friend Aaron Gertler online from the 2015 class.  My favorite one so far is:

Create a conversation between two characters in which everything said on either side is in the form of a question and every question advances the conversation. Avoid rhetorical questions and repetitions.

I hadn’t realized this but the instructor had put in a link to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s “Questions” game — which was what popped into my head as well. With that preamble, I now give you…

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at 40

How did we get here?

Weren’t we promised a happy and fulfilled life if we just gave our life to the company?

Isn’t that why we went to business school?

Wasn’t that the promise once we got out?

Do you feel likely we have climbed a giant mountain up through the clouds only to see more mountain?

Do you think we are at the top of the mountain and can finally see clearly?

Are we getting close to the end?

Do you feel like we are in that Tom Stoppard play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead?”

Or maybe Godot?

So what do we do now?

Should we change our focus and get off the hedonic treadmill?

But what would we do then?

Don’t Zen monks talk about this problem?

Could we leverage some of that?

Why do you always have to talk in business speak?

Aren’t you afraid of death?

Aren’t we dying every minute?

Do you think that’s the secret – living completely in the moment?

Is there any other way?

Why don’t we treat every moment as our last by being fearless and vulnerable and not afraid to fail?

Are you saying failure is good?

How can you have anything valuable without failure?

What about love and courage and accomplishment?

Isn’t that what I’m saying?

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Fun Stuff

How Numbers Work In The Real World

I really like numbers. I understand that not everyone likes numbers as much as I do and that’s OK. I still like you.

Radiolab did an awesome podcast on Numbers a few years ago. There’s a lot of great stuff in there and it’s accessible even to people that are afraid of math. One of the most interesting bits is how our natural sense of numbers is different from formal math. Come to think of it, that may be why some people have a problem with math.

The core idea is something they refer to as natural counting. We’ve all been conditioned by math classes to think of counting as 1,2,3, etc. However, in the natural state, people act differently. On the show, they told of an experiment with an Amazon tribe where people do not count and don’t have numbers beyond five. They showed the tribesmen a line. On one side they placed 1 object and on the other side, they placed 9 objects. The experimenter asked, “What number is exactly between 1 and 9?” The response was “3.” The reasoning works like this:

  1. First person has 1 stick
  2. Middle person has 3 sticks (3 times as many as the first person)
  3. Last person has 9 sticks (3 times as many as the second person

So the second — the one in the middle has 3 sticks.

Let’s look at another example. Imagine you’re giving out bonuses at work and you have a pool of $500,000 and you want to fairly distribute the pool. You could give everyone the same amount of money. But what if someone made $1 million and 4 people made $100,000. You could give everyone $100,000 as a bonus. But that doesn’t feel fair. To be fair you’d give everyone about the same percentage of their salary as a bonus — which in this case would be about a 36% bonus for everyone.

Another non-intuitive concept on Radiolab is Benford’s law.  Benford’s law says that in the real world, you’ll see the number 1 appear many times more as the first digit than the number 9. This happens for naturally occurring phenomena like money in your bank account, size of countries or views on YouTube.

Radiolab has a great story on how this is used in the real world. Say someone was trying to commit a fraud on tax returns. They would be trying to create “random” numbers by having the first digit of each number evenly distributed (equal numbers of 1,2,3, etc.) But Benford’s law says that you should have more 1’s as the first digit than 9’s. So if numbers end up looking more random than they would be in the real world, that’s a sure sign of fraud.

So why does this happen? For the same reason that we saw above, things like to grow by percentages rather than units. Think about the bonus example. Say things are growing by 10%. If you start with the number 1 the next numbers are 1.1, 1.21, 1.33. 1.46, 1.61, 1.77, 1.94. That’s 8 numbers that start with a 1. For 9, you have 9 and 9.9 so that’s only 2 numbers that start with a 9 (and then you’re back to another number that starts with a 1).

For a more detailed explanation of Benford’s law including a pretty technical mathematical explanation, check out Singing Banana.

So why is this important? Even though we think about the world in 1, 2, 3’s, it’s actually more about the changes from where we are now. It’s 10%, another 10%, another 10%, etc. By understanding the world in these terms it’s more intuitive and more useful.

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Fun Stuff

Exploring Towers

I’ve always loved going to the tops of towers. When I was at Yale we used to climb up on towers and look across the campus. This was before every door was locked.

Freshman year, my friends Lutz and Christine joined me in a quest to figure out what was at the top of the library. If you look at the top of Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, you can see something that looks like a tiny castle (you can see it if you zoom in on the roof). We spent a few afternoons trying to figure out what this secret castle was. As it turns out, it’s actually a castle! When the library was built, they thought it would be a nice way to hide the machinery on the roof. In the age of Facebook, we can actually see what the castle looks like:

Sterling Castle

More recently, when I’m up at SchoolPlus for the boys to take their Math and Science class, I found another tower. This is the view from the south tower at the Union Theological Seminary.

It’s a wonderful place for me to sit and do some writing.

Today the building is under construction. As I looked out upon the garden I couldn’t help but think that this is what Rapunzel must have felt like.

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Building Design Fun Stuff Life Lessons

My Personal Contact Cards

About a year ago I made my own business cards. I wanted to have a personal expression of who I was rather than just me as an agent of a company. I wanted to make something I was proud of and made this:

It’s based on an Apple Store recruitment card which reads “Your customer service just now was exceptional. I work for the Apple Store and you’re exactly the kind of person we’d like to talk to. If you’re happy where you are, I’d never ask you to leave. But if you’re thinking about a change, give me a call. This could be the start of something great.”

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Fun Stuff

What is in a name?

Michael Schur, a writer on The Office and Parks and Recreation has put some very subtle jokes about names into his work on these shows. I learned about Schur from Mindy Kaling and Amy Pohler’s autobiographies.

Gwendolyn Trundlebed (The Office)

From The Believer:
I love crazy names. It comes right from Monty Python and Woody Allen—nothing in the world makes me giggle more than a funny name. It became a thing I started doing when I wrote. If a person came into a store and said, “How much is this apple?” that person would have an insane name. When I was writing on The Office, I wrote a character who literally didn’t have a line, but I made her name Gwendolyn Trundlebed. When I got to set to shoot the scene, I found out that the production team had run with it. They read her name and did their job—they imagined, What is the office of a woman whose name is Gwendolyn Trundlebed? The whole thing was pink, with unicorns everywhere. It looked like a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory set or something. I had to say, “Oh no, I’m really sorry. This is just a normal human woman, and she is named Gwendolyn Trundlebed because that’s a combination of two words that make me laugh.”

Wonderfully Named and Credited (but Not Speaking or Spoken of) Characters on Parks and Rec

From Variety: “I have this belief that most people you meet in life aren’t named Bill Smith,” Schur says. “From early on I thought, ‘Part of what’s going to make (the city of Pawnee) feel real is if people have weird names.’”

Over the years some of the silliest and strangest “Parks” names weren’t even heard on the show.

“There’s a whole family, the Lerpiss family,” Schur explains with delight. “You’ve never heard the name Lerpiss on the show, but there’s probably ten or twelve characters who have had the last name. It doesn’t play into any episode and there’s no plot that relates to it.

“If you look up Lerpiss on IMDb, we wrote character descriptions for them and how they’re related to each other. A lot of businesses in town are like the Lerpiss Moving Company or the Lerpiss Mortuary. There’s a whole other show about this very dynastic but also completely powerless family in Pawnee.”

Schur’s favorites:

  • Judy Zappossoppazzappossopaz
    Schur: “Originally it was Judy Zappos, and I was like ‘You’re gonna have to clear that.’ So I wrote Zappos backwards and it was Judy Zappossoppaz. Then I liked Zappossoppaz so much that I added that whole thing and it became Judy Zappossoppazzappossopaz.”
  • Officer Randy Killnose
  • Mona-Lisa Saperstein
  • Trodd Frankensteip
    Schur: “He comes back (in the final season).”
  • Tyrion Fonzarelli
  • Toni Toné Strunkfuster
  • Gretzky-Susan Pelligrino
    Schur: “I love hyphenates … and a lot of ‘k’ sounds.”
  • Typhoon Montalban
  • Ssassandra Ssassnorp
  • Summer Olé-Kracken Frogfrong
    Schur: “Probably my favorite. It comes right from Monty Python. We also created the opposit<e, which=”” is=”” winter=”” carumba-yecti=”” rabrabbit.”<=”” li=””>
    </e,>
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Articles Fun Stuff

Silly But Makes Me Laugh — One of My Favorite Mike Royko Columns

When I was in college we used to have this big newspaper room (which they’ve since taken the newspapers out of). I used to love and go in and read random papers from around the country. My favorite was Mike Royko who wrote for the Chicago Tribune. Below was one of my favorite columns from 1996. It’s extremely silly but made me laugh. Hey, you can’t be too serious when you’re writing 4 columns a week. Note that the Chicago Tribune doesn’t seem to have it online so I’m putting the whole thing here:

KILLER? MURDER? MANY FIND THEY CAN LIVE WITH IT
By Mike Royko

13 Mar 1996

A man in Canada recently made a bit of news when he took legal steps to change his family’s name.

His name has been Arthur Lawrence Death. He wants it changed to Arthur Lawrence Deeth, which is the way it has always been pronounced, except by those who snicker and make wisecracks.

The request for a name change is understandable. But what is surprising is the large number of people born with unusual and potentially embarrassing names who choose to live with them.

By searching a national phone book program, I came across a wide range of names that could bring smirks from store clerks, bank tellers and traffic cops.

For example, there is a Martin Pecker, a businessman in Boca Raton, Fla.

He is one of several dozen Peckers scattered across the country.

Of his name, Pecker says: “Honestly, I love it. As a kid I got a lot of teasing for being a Pecker. But I grew up big–I’m 6-3 and 220–and my sons are big, so people are careful about what they say. And with women, I used to get flattering remarks.

“Here in Boca, I have a physician friend named Zipper. We were in a society page together once. Zipper and Pecker.”

Then there is James Pee of Birmingham, Ala., one of a few dozen Pees, who seem to live mostly in Southern states.

Laughing, Pee said: “I’ve had trouble with my name since I was a kid. Spent 10 years in the Air Force, so I got a hard time there too. I’ve had nicknames like Pee-Pee, Urine, Little Pee.

“Around Kosciusko, Miss., there are so may Pees that there is a Pee Cemetery.

“I never really thought seriously about changing it. And I asked my son, who’s in college, how he felt. He said that if I could get by being a Pee, he’d just as soon stay a Pee too.”

Paul Crapper of Lehigh Acres, Fla., one of numerous Crappers, said: “I’m perfectly happy being a Crapper. People make remarks, but I just pass it off or say something like: `I’m like Alka Seltzer, I bring relief.’ ”

Walter Crapp of Brownsville, Pa., feels the same way: “I never considered changing it. My grandfather came from Russia and had a long name. So I just decided to keep Crapp and drop the rest.”

Of her married name, Suzan Geek says: “I believe we are the only Geeks in North Carolina,” which might be a matter of debate.

“People sometimes laugh because they can’t believe someone could be a Geek. And when I order a pizza by phone, they almost always laugh. But I’m in real estate, and I assure you that nobody ever forgets my name.”

Among the more distinctive names are Murder or Murders.

Danny Murders, 51, of Russellville, Ark., has done considerable research on how the names came about.

“When my ancestors came to the New World in the 1700s, it was Murdaugh, with a Scottish brogue. They were farmers and moved West. Later, in Tennessee, the census takers spelled it phonetically so it became Murder or Murders. Around Hot Springs, there are about 26 families named Murders. There are four brothers known as the Murders Boys. As far as I know, none of the Murders have changed their name.”

A Killer named Christine, in Cheshire, Conn., says: “Oh, yes, it is a daily conversation piece. People will say things like, `You don’t look like a killer.’ And I’ve often been asked to show an ID because people don’t believe my name can be Killer. The name is of German origin. As for my being teased, not very often. Maybe they were afraid.”

Jack Ripper, 60, who runs a sign company in Detroit, says: “Sure, I get called Jack the Ripper about twice a day. Because of the Ripper name, people used to ask my mother, `Is Jack the Ripper your husband?’ And she’d always say, `No, but my son is.’ I like it. That’s why I put it on my business. People don’t forget a name like Jack Ripper.”

Peter Hitler, 54, of Mequon, Wis., says: “Well, it is interesting to say the least. Our family goes back to the 1700s in Circleville, in southern Ohio. There were a lot of Hitlers there. A Hitler Street, a Hitler cemetery.

“There used to be a lot more of us, but they changed their names around World War II. I was just a kid, but my older brother took a lot of flak. My parents took our name out of the phone book.

“There aren’t too many Hitlers left. I’ve run across three or four. I guess the name is outlawed in Germany.

“I’m in real estate and not a day goes by without someone saying, `Oh, my gosh,’ or `Why didn’t you change your name.’ Any time I present my credit card, someone makes a remark. But it is something you live with. I don’t think about it anymore.”

Which is what a New Yorker named Ben Mussolini said: “Hey, forget it. I’ve been through this before. I don’t feel like talking about it.”

And the woman who answered the phone listed for Jim Wierdo said: “The Wierdos don’t have this number anymore. But so many people keep calling. I don’t know why.”

 

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Fun Stuff

Some Great Videos Sponsored by Big Brands

I’ve been very impressed recently at how some big brands have been using sponsorship dollars to do some really awesome things. Some examples: