Author: Daniel

Defining Genius

There is an interesting article in the current issue of Commentary Magazine, about the definition of genius, noting that the term is used pretty widely these days about many people, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/i-dream-of-genius/.

There was on particular quote I liked from Schopenhauer defining the different between genius and talent:

“Talent is like the marksman who hits a target, which others cannot reach,” wrote Schopenhauer. “Genius is like the marksman who hits a target, which others cannot see.”

GSA Planning to End Its HR Shared Services

An interesting article by Jason Miller from Federal News Radio, http://www.federalnewsradio.com/145/3451148/GSA-plans-to-stop-providing-HR-shared-services. GSA provides HR services to 40 agencies, per the article, covering approximately 30,000 employees, of which 18,000 are GSA employees.

Private companies have, in some cases, outsourced capabilities that were not ‘core’ to their value-add in the marketplace. They do so because it allows their management to focus on their core mission and, hopefully, allows that capability to be provided for lower cost. The term often used for the provider is “shared-service” since multiple organizations are sharing the costs and infrastructure of the provider.

The Federal Government has gone through a number of iterations of shared-services provisioning, ending up with small numbers of government agencies and departments providing shared capabilities in a number of areas, including as this article discusses, HR.

The GSA Administrator, Dan Tangherlini, decided to have GSA focus on its core missions and thus get out of the HR shared services ‘business’.

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Genesis

This week, we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, which is sort of the Jewish New Year, though to me at least is more significant as it begins a ten day period of reflection. This period culminates with Yom Kippur, where we ask God to forgive us for our sins (past for some Jews, future for others) and hope for a happy and healthy coming year.

Part of Ellen’s rules for attending services is that it is okay for at least parts of the service to read a book brought with us, as long as the book has a Jewish theme. This year I have decided to reread Genesis, a relatively new translation of Genesis by Robert Alter, http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Translation-Commentary-Robert-Alter/dp/039331670X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378560203&sr=8-1&keywords=genesis+alter.

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Iran’s President Wished All Jews a Happy Rosh Hashanah on Twitter (from the Washington Post)

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s English-language Twitter account sent out this message just before sunset, Tehran time, wishing Jews a happy Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish new year and begins at sundown:

As the sun is about to set here in I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/tmaf84x7UR

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/09/04/irans-president-just-wished-all-jews-a-happy-rosh-hashanah-on-twitter/

 

While the message itself is remarkable (maybe), the fact that the President of a country, and evidently other leaders in Iran, post messages to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on, is amazing. Who could possibly have predicted such things?

I make no comment about whether the sentiments were sincere or not, the fact that such communications exist, and the fact that the leaders in many countries feel a need to participate is a dramatic change.

Mobile Technology Is Impacting the Impact of War

From the Financial Times:

As violence linked to the crisis in neighbouring Syria increasingly slips over the border, the Lebanese have come up with a novel way of coping: advance-warning apps.

Smartphone applications that map gun battles and differentiate between fireworks and gunfire, offer paths around roadblocks and even contact the army in the event of kidnap are becoming a must-have for Lebanese commuters.

“In other places in the world, the only thing that might obstruct your path is traffic,” said Mohammad Taha, an entrepreneur behind one of the products. “In Lebanon there are many things that can happen.”

 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7fa6c9e8-13de-11e3-9289-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2drnFuPaI

 

Updates From The War of the Nationals

I coordinate a season ticket group for Nationals games.

Each year we have a draft where the games are allocated, Ellen and I get 27 home games (of the 81) plus we pick up perhaps 5 or 6 additional games for one reason or another.

Because of other conflicts and our general rule of not going Friday evenings, there are some weeks where we go almost every game. This week is one of them. We have (or had) tickets for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.  This happened once before earlier this year. The difference is that the first time this happened they lost almost every game we saw. This time, thus far, they are winning.

Last night we came up against the dreaded Metro baseball curfew. The last metro train from Sunday – Thursday leaves the Navy Yard (where the stadium is located) at 11:20pm. When there is a rain delay (like there was), or music after the game (like there will be tonight), or that rare occasion when the Nationals are playing Sunday and become the game of the week moving the start time to 8:05pm rather than afternoon which is normal for Sundays then either we need to drive or we need to leave before the game (or music) is complete.

Last night we left after the Nationals went ahead in the bottom of the 7th 4-3, what turned out to be the final score. We are undecided about whether we will drive or metro tonight, but will definitely drive Sunday. Too bad there isn’t one last Metro run closer to 1am on weekdays that would be very helpful (for us anyway).

In the playoff status, the Nationals have:

* ten more losses than St. Louis & Pittsburgh

* six more than Cincinnati

* one more than Arizona

They need to pass two of those teams, getting closer.

As Usual A Sports Team I Root For Is Toying With Me – Go Nationals

So after last year’s magical baseball carpet ride with the Nationals which ended when Drew Storen pulled on that thread hanging out of the carpet and unraveled the whole thing, THIS YEAR has been a tough go of it.

Terrible fielding, slumps by almost everyone not injured and not named Werth, and the off-season free agent signings not living up to expectations have kept the Nationals at or below .500. I must admit I liked it better when they had the best record in baseball, but as I said last year was pretty magical.

And yet, and yet – even though they only have a really small (imagine two fingers held very close together) chance of making the playoffs, the chance is still above zero (imagine two fingers held very close but still separate).

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Big Telephony Changes at Home

We have a blended family. My daughters and wife have Macs and I have a PC.

In fact, if you recall the Mac/PC ads, compiled here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSBWbnmGrE, you will recall how cool the Mac guy was and how uncool the PC guy was, that basically describes us.

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Maryland Renaissance Festival – Still Great

So yesterday, Saturday, Ellen went to NYC to provide moral (and physical) support to Miriam to help with her apartment move from someplace in Brooklyn to some other place in Brooklyn (you can tell how well I know Brooklyn).  BTW, among other things Ellen spent five hours (FIVE HOURS!!) with Miriam and Miro (Miriam’s roommate) at IKEA. I am not sure what would happen if I was in IKEA (any IKEA) for five hours, but the one thing I could not do is stay there.

Regardless, I was then faced with a dilemma. I could have gone to Synagogue (probably the right thing to do). At Synagogue there were two family events. The way it works at our Synagogue is that often families having family events ‘enhance’ the kiddush meal (making it nicer, adding options). I suspect the kiddush meal was probably pretty nice. ALSO, downtown there was the option to go to Penn Quarter, spend $13 and participate in the all-you-can-eat ice-cream sandwich activity. Evidently ice-cream sandwiches have joined yogurt, donuts, macoroni and cheese, and so on as sort-of gourmet foods (who knew).

However, yesterday was also the opening day of the Maryland Rennissance Festival, http://www.rennfest.com/. And I had a family obligation, since Miriam was coming home for Yom Kippur, Saturday, September 14 (near her birthday), and we all would be going Sunday; there was an opportunity to scout ahead to make the September visit more smooth (I admit that was a pretty weak rationale, but it was the best I had yesterday morning). Also the weather was nice.

The Festival for all who want to know is once again a great event.

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How Do You Handle a Brawny…, I mean Brony…, Um

I recently read an article about the annual BronyCon, www.bronycon.org, held a few weeks ago in Baltimore MD. After finally realizing that this was a real event, I naturally turned to the Internet to find out more.

The BronyCon is a convention focused on the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Attendees are almost all male and call themselves bronies.

The August BronyCon had over 8,000 attendees, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BronyCon.

In a Baltimore Sun article, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-08-02/entertainment/bs-ae-brony-culture-20130730_1_little-pony-bronycon-2013-tv-show, quotes one attendee:

“Many bronies say their obsession centers on the show’s cast of well-rounded, relatable characters. Weiss said he’s most like Fluttershy, as they are “both kind of socially awkward but we both like to muster the courage to speak out when we need to.” And Max Stahman, a first-year graduate student at the University of Maryland, is drawn to Rarity, a pony who is “somewhat snobbish and can rub people the wrong way, but ultimately has the best intentions and is a nice person.””

and

“”It’s one thing if it’s ironic,” Miller said. “But when you’re wearing a shirt with [the character] Pinkie Pie on it because you genuinely like Pinkie Pie, that’s different.””

Hopefully after telling my wife about all this, she will stop making fun of me going to see Serenity every year. If not, there is always Pinkie Pie shirts.