The Column

Motto: I Voted

I hated economics in school. It was a boring subject. The study of supply and demand was too demanding. Interest rates didn't interest me. The law of diminishing returns got less and less cool the more I learned about it.

Then a dozen years went by. Things changed.

Now I like economics, but it's it's not because I suddenly find supply and demand fascinating. Interest rates still don't interest me. The parts of economics I like aren't those communicated in the simple example problems teaching the fundamental truths of economics. I like to think about marginal cost and reward, the concepts of value and utility, and how economics applies to me as an individual, not a business.

I just got a phone. It's expensive, but it's also the single device I use more than any other. If your phone costs $1000 and you use it 2 hours a day for 2 years, that's $0.68/hour. It also replaces any number of other devices you would otherwise need to spend money on…

Motto: Mic Check One Thousand Two Hundred Twelve

I have a kid. He's really cool. He sleeps a lot. He eats a lot. He's very large for his age. His temperament is incredible. He smiles all the time. He's pretty easy to soothe most of the time. He looks like me mixed with Melissa, which I suppose is obvious but is really neat. 

Today Griffin giggled for the first time. I about cried out of happiness. That's something I never really experienced before having a kid. I think there's a country song about that. Being a dad can be pretty cool.

In other dad-related news - my lawn mower wouldn't stay running. I took it apart, cleaned the carburetor, and put it back together.



Then it fired up on the first pull. Then I over-the-top-celebrated for a solid half hour before mowing the lawn.

So that gives me dad cred... but I'm not king dad. Griffin doesn't have king dad. Griffin's grandpa was king dad. For evidence of that - see Column #301.

Moving on.

Hollow Knight was…

Motto: This is Shooting-From-The-Hip Poetry at Its Nothingest

Before we start - expectations be framed.
Each bits of this is self-contained. 

I've written a book.
The main character was a clock.
I gave him a tic;
so th-this is how he would talk.

Pet peeves with which everyone agrees:
Slow drivers. Slow walkers.
Loud eaters. Loud talkers.
Pet peeve that's just for me:
Using the flash at 100+ feet.
Learn how pictures work, idiot.

The price tag of the new iPhone is XS-ive.
Yes I'm aware it's pronounced "Ten Ess" and not "Ex Ess"... but I'm just not good at making tennis jokes, love.

Not all of these are going to rhyme.
I cannot do that all of the time.
They also might not fit in meter.
Because I forget to check.

Do things the right way & have a nice start to your day.
Aaron's assertion, annoying as always:
Be better by being bounded by burden.
Cut corners cause cascading consequences.
Don't dilly-dally. Do due diligence. Delayed duties drive d…

Motto: Hamburgers are Fun on a Bun

File this Column under "Aaron tells other people what they should be doing", which I realize is too common of a theme.

You know what's fun? You know what's rewarding? Honing a skill. Creating something new. Doing a craft. Working on something just because you want to. It's a lot more fun than enjoying someone else's work. It's a lot more lasting fun than enjoying someone else's work.

Creating things brings a sort of whole-brain engagement that only happens with the absolute best of storytelling. I wrote this Life Tracker thing to keep track of all sorts of different aspects of my life so I might be able to read through the data what makes me most happy... what I found out was that what made me most happy was actually BUILDING the thing. Doing the data work. I was more than just coding - I was creating. I was generating a thing that had never existed before and the possibilities were endless. That's really exciting. …

In Column #97 I wrote about "The Taxonomy of Human Attractiveness". In that post, I analyzed the perceived differences between "cute", "pretty", "hot", and "beautiful". Today's post is a continued analysis on human attractiveness, but more focused on what it is and less focused on our nomenclature for it. I started writing today's post back in November of 2016... so this has been a long time coming. Since this is already a Column out of time, I'm going to correct my accidental skipping of Column #344, too.

Also I feel the need to through out a necessary PREFACE CAVEAT!

I'm an American white male. I'm a member of just about every majority class that exists in my region. Attractiveness is heavily influenced by culture. Everything I'm about to say is coming from a place of "I Googled this", but my Google searches, even in Incognito Mode, will inherently be geared towards the American majority sentiment. S…

Motto: Make Happy

I write the first half of this Column from a position of privilege. Actually I write every Column from that position, now that I think about it. Regardless, this is all very personal and I can say up front that I know it's not this simple, this is all very easy for me to say, and what good does it do? Part of me thought about just deleting this, but heck I wrote it so here it is.

I don't really understand smart people who aren't happy.

If you're smart, you should be able to identify cause and effect relationships. You should be good at noticing patterns and trends. You should have a good idea about what toolsets are available to you and how to use them to create effective change. 

Happiness, to me, seems like a key metric that most people are trying to maximize in their lives... and smart people are supposed to be good at tweaking dials to solve problems. Combining those two strongly-held beliefs, it doesn't seem like smart, unhappy people should be …