If you want someone to be your friend, get them to do you a favor.

How does it not occur to somebody that using medical records for scrap paper is a bad idea?

Alex Knapp schools us on the seduction, and limits, of the exponential curve.

When Southern Tech (a large public university) and Piermont (a well-to-do private one) played their rivalry game this year, there was some cross-forum smack-talking between the fans of each. Not just about our teams, but our universities. I’m not going to get into what they call us (it involves our school’s racial demographics), but my knock on them is that “Well, some school has to educate those who won’t have a job at Daddy’s firm when they graduate.” It’s a cheap shot, but maybe not that far off-base.

This look at American-European values and how they conflict should surprise no one.

A magic trick that reveals unconscious knowledge.

My only exposure to the BitCoin is when one of my computers got absolutely hammered by some malware that apparently had the objective of stealing bitcoins from my computer, should I get any. Or something like that. Why anyone thought this would work, I do not know. I’m not sure I would bet on this, either.

This is a video on a $25 computer that plays high-definition video. Naturally, it doesn’t come with much attached.

It seems to me that the press does not know what to do when a prevailing narrative no longer fits. So when suddenly the pastoral, declining landscape of the Great Plains is booming, they don’t know how exactly to cover it. So they find a way to turn it into a negative. I am not slow to call bias on coverage of everything between the coasts (outside of Chicago), but I think this is more of a narrative issue than a coastal bias (or liberal bias) one.

Perhaps the most irritating thing about the deification of Steve Jobs is that he will give bosses an excuse to be a jerk for the forseeable future. They’re not being an arse. They’re being like Steve Jobs. It’s not unlike the managers at the places I have worked that read these business books and then only remember the most self-serving stuff. I remember one boss (boss’s boss, actually) who was a die-hard fan of 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Then I actually read the book and discovered that his evangelism was… selective… in nature.

A story from a couple years ago about NBA players going back to college. Oklahoma State’s quarterback is actually a former professional baseball player. Interesting factoids: The average annual salary in the N.B.A. is $5.85 million, and players are generally secure in the near term. Their retirement years can be completely different. An estimated 60 percent of N.B.A. players are broke within five years of retiring, and 78 percent of N.F.L. players are bankrupt or under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce within two years. If the players unions really wanted my support, they would be coming up with a lifetime payment plan so that the money they make from their careers is more modest, but lasts a lot longer.

The New York Times has a good piece on the rise in audiobooks. Now that I have them set up on my smartphone, they’re hard to go without.