Cheating

January 9, 2010 under personalinthepubliceye, thehumancondition

I’m posting this here for the benefit of my sister – she’ll probably stumble across it here. But you might enjoy it too ;-)

Cheating is a thin slice of human nature that doesn’t change. We can grow up, but we can’t grow out of it.
We want something. Our experience tells us it is a good thing (for us).
What are we willing to do to get this ‘good’ thing?

Two stories to read:

Story 1 (Two parts): A father seeing his son cheat at Candyland and teaching him a lesson. (Hat tip – The Old New Thing)

Story 2: Marvel comics fighting the heirs of Jack Kirby for the characters that will (perhaps) revert to his estate in 2014 (we’re talking Spider-Man here)

These are the same story to me.

In the first story a child wants to win because it feels good. That feeling is a good thing, and he is willing to do what he can to get it. It doesn’t matter that the game is no longer fair and that the other people are forced to lose.

In the second story someone (I don’t know who is right) wants to make millions of dollars. That money is a good thing, and they are willing to do what they can to get it. It doesn’t matter what the truth is or that they are lying about the nature of the original agreement.

A terrifying discussion of cheating can be found at the freakonomics blog. Read the comments; don’t stop until you at least hit comment #39. It frightens me because of the soullessness of the calculations, and it illustrates exactly how tolerent we are of cheating.

We?

Yeah, I mean me. I can vividly remember cheating on a spelling test in second grade. It was self marked (the things we do in the name of logistics) and as the teacher read out the correct answers, I silently erased my incorrect entries and wrote the correct ones down, putting a check mark beside them.

I wanted to receive recognition and I wanted to receive favour. It felt good.

But it felt real bad when the teacher asked me afterwards, “Did you change these answers?”

More recently when a colleague asked me if I’d performed a certain necessary task, I said, “Yes, of course.” Not having done the task would have said bad things about me; it would have meant admitting I wasn’t all that and more. After all, if I did it *before* our discussion, or did it *after* our discussion – what did it matter?

But I hadn’t done the task, and it felt real bad when I had to go back and confess that I had lied to him.

I’m constantly surprised at my own willingness and desire to cheat and deceive.

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Whiteboard dump

January 8, 2010 under curios, tongueincheek

From the Word of the Day that I keep on my whiteboard:

WOTD: affect(process)/effect(state)

The best way to have an effect is to affect someone. (We all need a little affection)

If you verb the ‘e’ word, you are evil. Verbing words is evil.

“Do you wish to effect change?” (this means “bring about an effectcorrect but evil)

Affecting change means putting it in vinegar so it gets shiny again. (this means ‘alter’)

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Saw a book on the bus today

January 7, 2010 under Uncategorized

A woman was reading it; I didn’t see the cover, only the heading of the page she had open.

Chapter 6: Will your child be obsolete by 30?”

Umm… I’m not sure what to make of that.

(Internet research reveals the chapter belongs to the book “Rich Kid, Smart Kid”. Very uncomfortable book for me. I’m not sure which part of my discomfort comes from the total lack of grace it conveys, and which part comes from my own dissatisfaction at not being as rich or smart as I ‘should be’.)

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Branson is a billionaire for a reason

January 6, 2010 under Uncategorized

I think, in part, it’s because he plays a different game than everyone else. He plays a game that he likes – a game that makes sense to him.

Let’s take a look at how Branson races cars.

From the article,

Virgin Racing will operate within a £40m budget – around £100m less than Brawn, who were funded by former owner Honda, spent in their championship-winning season.

Branson is realistic about which end of the grid his Virgin logo is likely to line-up in 2010.

“We’re not expecting the same good fortune,” he said.

“The team is at a major disadvantage as the other teams can spend £400m if they want to but it’s such a waste of money to spend that on two cars.”

There are two games here:

Game 1: Try and win the F1 Championship

Game 2: Try and see exactly how far you can take the money you’re spending.

Game 1 is extremely hard to win and is, for the most part, out of your control. It leads you into ballooning costs for a reward that represents… what value? Some value to be sure, but it’s not worth what you spent to get it. Hmm… sounds like an auction.

Game 2 is a lot easier to win. It’s a lot easier to control. It’s achievable. It’s still challenging; it’s still a game; but because you are choosing the parameters and rules, it’s a game that you get to design so that it’s fun for you. In particular, the main rule is no longer, “You have to win.” The main rule becomes, “You need to maximize your exposure and get the best value for your investment.”

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Time to start a list of “Things that are not funny?”

January 5, 2010 under tongueincheek

“Joke or not, I now recognize that what I did was a mistake and was wrong,” Arenas said. “I should not have brought the guns to D.C. in the first place, and I now realize that there’s no such thing as joking around when it comes to guns — even if unloaded.”

You can use that phrase in so many ways:

“I now realize that there’s no such thing as joking around when it comes to <insert taboo here>.”

My picks for much hilarity:

Feeding kittens to my pet python
Telling people they’re going to hell
Bombing an aeroplane

Telling people that they’re going to hell for bombing an aeroplane (or for feeding kittens to the snake) is okay though.

Feeding kittens to a snake on a plane is moving into Samuel L. Jackson territory and that’s absolutely fair game.

What, dear reader, are your sacrosanct topics of discourse?

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Giddy Hubris

January 4, 2010 under Uncategorized

Whenever I see stuff like this I get real nervous.

But then I remember that they all speak funny languages everywhere else and I calm down again.

Q) How does the Burj Dubai come down?

A) Hard.

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Clever game

January 1, 2010 under curios

Grammatically correct rock songs.

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