Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Uncategorized”
Maintenance is a requirement and not a luxury by definition. Proper maintenance reduces the rate of depreciation of an asset like real estate by slowing the approach of entropy. Dilapidation is delayed if undeterred. Increasing control over my time has better enabled me to address the long-deferred maintenance of my health in a number of ways. I am not making …
A reader, Carla, inquired if I might provide some closure to the malpractice lawsuit I’ve referred to previously (see here and here for the original posts). In addition to wanting to know the ending, there’s value in reflecting on where I am now, where I was then, and how I bridged the gap. Legal Conclusion The case dragged on for …
The title of the post comes from correspondence from Danny Kahneman to Amos Tversky regarding insights into irrational human decision-making processes. It was during their collaboration in elucidating the concept of loss aversion. Regret minimization is a related but distinct concept. Given dual-choice gambles where a rational actor should choose the option with greater statistical odds of benefit according to …
At the time of writing, I’m deep into Michael Lewis’ latest book, The Undoing Project. It’s a profile of the unlikely friendship and rich academic collaboration between two psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, whose interest in the systematic flaws of human decision-making gave rise to the field of behavioral economics. A result cited from their studies felt particularly relevant …
I heard a sermon last weekend based on the concept of sacred fear, explained through the analogy of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon as a simultaneously beautiful and terrifying experience. On the one hand, you are filled with a sense of the sublime in tandem with a rare perspective of your insignificance in the greater world. At …
Right Place, Right Time: Case Study #1 Me: “I’m so relieved you came straight to the Emergency Department.” Patient: “I’ll take lucky over smart any day, Doc!” This comment came from a patient with a long and checkered cardiac history who walked into a smaller local ED complaining of chest pain, only to experience a witnessed cardiac arrest from a …
We discuss money often in our family. Until recently, I thought this was an unqualified positive. When we returned from our summer travel to Washington, D.C. and Spain, the entire family reviewed the costs of all three weeks, pinpointing the areas of greatest expense (spoiler alert: the U.S. travel was much more pricey!). When we went out for ice cream …
We recently took a full moon hike as a family offered through our local nature conservancy, and it inspired a suggestion for what could be a fun and possibly spooky family Halloween activity for those who live in the Southwestern United States: a night-time scorpion hunt! It’s worth knowing that in the Los Angeles area, where I live, there are …
How important is putting down roots in a community to your life objectives? The question was underscored on reading a recent guest post by Jacob Lund Fisker (of the legendary Early Retirement Extreme blog) on Get Rich Slowly. Jacob is a theoretical astrophysicist who studied at Berkeley and achieved FI before eschewing academics for a life pursuing interests independent of …
A few years ago, a provocative concept became the basis for a most amusing book entitled, “Not Quite What I Was Planning.” The conceit was that, similar to the title, the book consisted entirely of six word memoirs submitted by persons ranging from the famous to the obscure. My favorite came from the writer Dave Eggers: “Fifteen years since last …