Allen Iverson vs. Kobe Bryant

There is a great video on Youtube of Allen Iverson saying he doesn't understand how he could make his teammates better by practice.  What matters is games.  His presence on practice doesn't effect what his teammates work on or develop.

Contrast that with Kobe Bryant, who said he thinks the only reason they didn't win the championship in the 2010-2011 NBA season was that he wasn't able to practice with the team and keep the intensity level high.  He wasn't able to "crack heads together" to get people up to the level they need to be at.

Allen Iverson:  0 Championships
Kobe Bryant:  5 Championships

NFL Draft Remix by DJ Steve Porter

I've been listening to an awesome draft remix by DJ Steve Porter, which you can find here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i624aWIIwI

On of my favorite parts is 0:43 part, where everyone is chanting  J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS, and then when repeated, the JETS chorus is replaced by a bullhorn timed to sound just like JETS.  It adds a nice feeling of chaos to the chant, similar to the Matrix theme song.

Amazing Bears Trick Play

I watched an amazing trick punt return by the Bears, where Devin Hester ran left to return a punt, when actually the ball was kicked to his right, and another Bears player was running back and caught it over his shoulder, then started returning it for the touchdown.  It worked brilliantly.  I also saw that Hester (the Decoy) ran left towards his own sideline, and the punt was towards the Packers sideline.  This was because if Devin Hester was faking towards the Packers side, the players on the Packers sideline would clearly see what was happening and yell to their teammates on the field.  Instead, all the Packers players were fifty yards away from their teammates on the other side of the field.

Amazing.

Chris Bosh is already over the NBA finals...and thats a bad thing

Chris Bosh said in a recent interview that he was over the NBA Finals loss and was ready to move on.  That is the response of an emotionally mature person with a large world view and a good perspective.  After all, its just sports and his self-actualization as a player.

But its bad news for the Miami Heat.  It means they'll be getting the same Chris Bosh they had last year, except a year older and a year closer to retirement.  He won't have been lifting all summer, upset over the way things ended like a Michael Jordan or Larry Bird type would have been.  He hasn't been pushed all summer by the humiliating defeat he experienced.

After all, it is emotion which separates people out.  I get the feel that if Chris Bosh were 6'2" instead of 6'10", he wouldn't even be in the NBA.  A guy like Kevin Garnett or Chris Paul would be in the NBA no matter what height they are.

The Romney Campaign

I just read a very interesting article on the Romney campaign and their recent attacks on Governor Perry from Texas.  It was a very interesting and well written article on the Huffington Post.  The impression I got was that Romney was running a very disciplined, well thought out campaign that was planned in advance with much thought and historical knowledge going in to it.  They planned things out based not on what they wanted to happen, but on historically what happens, and they are ready for many occassions. 

Will Romney ultimately win the Republican nomination and the Presidency?  I don't know.  I can't see the future. 

But its very interesting to read about a campaign that is essentially the opposite of McCain's campaign.

Romney is a very, very intelligent and educated person.  That doesn't mean he's a great politician or can get people "riled up" and to the voting booths, or that he will make a great leaeder, but it means he would do an amazing job as a high level administrator like Secretary of State at the very least. 

I'll continue to follow his campaign now that I know more about him. 

Ultimately, it comes down to fundraising.  Romney has to be very thorough and well-planned to compete with Obama's thorough and well-planned campaign.

Remembering someone's face but not one's name

I used to know a man who professed that he couldn't remember people's names well, but he always remembered someone's face.  And he was so proud of this accomplishment, like he had a supernatural ability to remember them.  And being young, I believed him and was impressed.

After reading Moonwalking With Einstein, I understand that humans have evolved to remember people's faces with great clarity, and to be able to detect even the slightest change in expression.  Everyone can remember faces, because as humans we've been doing that for thousands and thousands of years.  Even before language and names existed, people had to remember faces.  It would be critical to early humans survival to know as they approached another human if they had seen them before and what their relationship was.  To think you recognize someone, only to have never seen them before, could be deadly.  Strangers can be brutal to eachother, but friendships are valued.

My old mentor bragged about his ability, but it was reality an innate gift passed to him by our common ancestors over the millenia preceding us.  He no more worked on his ability to remember faces than I worked on my ability to breathe oxygen through the air.  We are just born with it.

Its like a fish bragging about how well he can swim through water.  Of course he can swim, he's a fish!

Don't Worry About Tiger

I read that Tiger Woods recently switched putters...in the middle of a tournament. Blaming the putter and not himself is a sign of weakness, something the old Tiger would never do. Prior to the tournament he said that his "goal was to win, as always" and he wouldn't be playing if he didn't think he could win.

That doesn't sound like the Tiger we know and love.

The Problem With Memory

I picked up a copy of Ender's Game recently at the book store and read the first page again.  I couldn't remember any of it, which is a surprise to me because I have read the book previously and have a great memory.  I flipped through a few more pages and was reading it again like the first time.  Same great author.  Same excellent plot.  I know the ending, but I could easily re-read the book again and enjoy it just as much, maybe even more so because I will be able to pay closer attention to the plot development and less time surprised by every twist and turn of the plot. 

Why is that?  Why can I remember the basic outcome and emotions I felt but nothing else from a book I read when I was 16?

The mechanics of the human memory system mean that I don't have a photographic or absolute memory of anything, and memories slowly erode over time, so that a once sharply contoured design becomes a smooth surfaced rock after enough washings. 

In many respects, that is what mars the entire human experience.  We simply don't have a perfect memory, and memories get distorted over time.  Eventually, only the general facts are remembered, or an emotional impression.  Nothing else. 

The problem of predicting the future is most possible through a keen understanding of human nature.  The details of history are soon forgotten even by those who experienced them.  Those who did not experience them, how could they possibly be expected to understand the future if they can't even understand the past.

As regards to the financial crisis, I think that an accurate prediction could have been easily made by people with a strong understanding of human nature and human history.  Those two are equally intertwined. 

Another problem is that human history has no beginning.  It is a continuum, with each action echoing down through eternity.  The root causes of major actions are never discreetly definable because each of those causes has its own separate causes, which could be said to have made the major action inevitable. 

It is a very Tolstoy perspective on human history to believe that everything is virtually inevitable and all the talking heads and political leaders are no more guiders of history as they are the victims of it, the illusion of control something we all share because to admit that we have no control over our environment is a solipsist perspective, which we all (hopefully) grew out of. 

Setting Goals

Goalsetting is an individual activity, a family activity, a group activity, a corporate activity, and a national activity.

The problem is goals often produce undesired, unexpected, and unanticipated results. Look at the mess and cheating scandal in the Washington D.C. school system, where it has been discovered that teachers systematically improved their students standardized test scores by erasing incorrect answers and writing in correct ones. They were threatened with being fired if their students underperformed and not surprisingly, when they discovered they could not raise the test scores fast enough, resorted to cheating.

This shouldn't be a surprise. Anyone who has lived through enough challenges in life knows that people will resort to nearly anything when threatened with the loss of their lives, their possessions, or even their jobs. In fact for many people, those three things are wound up like the Gordian Knot.

So don't be surprised when you set goals for another person and then pressure them to do it, that quality goes down or is faked to get the desired results.

Sometimes pressure doesn't make diamonds, it just gives you crushed coal.

Achieving a hole in one in golf

I've been golfing for about four years now, and am still waiting on my first hole in one. 

A hole in one is dependent on the following number of factors:

1) Total number of par-3 holes played
2) Total number of greens landed
3) Distance that each ball rolls on the green (six inches of roll versus 13 feet of roll)
4) Ability to select the right club (for distance (controlling the y axis))
5) Ability to hit the ball straight and at the pin (controlling the x axis).

Therefore, to increase my chances of getting a hole in one, I need to work on all five factors, although factor two is related to factors 4 and 5 for obvious reasons. 

I need to play more short courses, and increase the number of par-3 holes played per round.  For example, at Pruneridge it is a nine hole course and six of the holes are par-3s.  That is a ratio of 6:3, or 6:9, depending on the metrics. 

The shorter the hole, the better chance I have of landing the green.

The more pure the swing I have, (high shot with back swing) the more roll I will get.

The more I can accurately judge the wind and distance of each hole (accounting for pin placement) the better chance I have of landing the green.

And the more I work on my technique, the more I can shoot the ball straight at the pin.

Rah!