Recently, during the sadistic ritual known as “taxes,” I was forced to contact American Express’ customer support. First, I must commend them on using Twitter as a medium. They’re responsive and personable, and I did in fact get an answer quickly. However, the fact that Twitter has become a “decent”...

Side projects are not just random diversions: they are a critical skill-building and rejuvenating activity everybody should actively participate in.     Programmers are especially keen on little side projects. The act of programming is, quintessentially, creating shortcuts to doing something. Many programmers got their start making little scripts to...

Dear my generation:   What gives? Where did all the love go? Are we too pragmatic, too jaded? Or are we more aware of the real workings of the world? How can we possibly reconcile the romantic tales still embodied in our media but absent from our lives? Are we...

Regardless of if you’re hanging out with friends or running a business, you will need to make a request of your peers sooner or later. On one hand, you need to get something out of the request. On the other hand, you don’t want to be that guy.   This...

I’m not here to hawk any self-help products, yet like many book writers I will make the bold claim that I know the formula to success… and it is simple. Surprisingly simple — and widely overlooked or ignored.     I’m not saying that this formula will make you rich....

I enjoy explaining to others just what it is that makes me enjoy learning and speaking Mandarin Chinese so much, as it is a language which is poorly understood. Shrouded in mystery in the west, we’re likely to see it employed as a “mystical” tattoo instead of as a communicative...

Normally when a celebrity passes away I consider the event tragic – but no more so than any other of the human deaths that happen every day. I generally have a somewhat callous attitude toward our celebrity-driven worldwide culture.   Yet I found myself profoundly moved by the passing of...

Malcolm Gladwell uses the term “Outliers” to describe people who are exceptional in some way. His point is well made, but at the end of the day we tend to forget that outliers are people who are different. Strange. Weird.     To have unusual success, you need to be...

How many times have you put off starting something? How many times did that same task end up being relatively easy, once you finally got started?   In chemistry, activation energy is the “minimum energy required to start a chemical reaction.” What is fascinating about the concept is that this...

I once read an article that called my generation the “Mr. Rogers’ Generation…” and it was not a compliment.   The author’s point was that our generation has a sense of entitlement that has not been earned. We have been told “you are special” so many times that we began...