Art Spiegelman on "Maus"

 

A few times each year, the Chicago Public Library chooses a book reflecting some societal theme, sets up programming and events, and presumably procures a bunch of extra copies. This season's pick is Art Spiegelman's "Maus," a graphic novel depicting his father's experiences during the Holocaust. I saw Spiegelman speak last week in Chicago¹ about the case for comics, his relationship with his father, and more, and it was fantastic.

Algorithms and the attention economy

Last week FiveThirtyEight published Where The Algorithms Can't Find You, an article about how the modern internet's cookies and web analytics funnel everyone toward the same content with "algorithms that think you only want to watch beauty tutorials, Avengers outtakes or product unboxings."

Presumably in response to this state of affairs, a few people have started websites that specifically serve up videos that other people aren't watching. Here's one of the author's favorites from Default Filename TV, a website that finds and plays random YouTube videos with names like DSC 3307:

The algorithms will never recommend a video like this because it doesn't look like anything people in general or the current viewer in particular already watch, and I think that's a problem.

My retirement talk

I gave a talk at work last week on what academic research has to say about the best ways to save for retirement. Because we live in amazing times, I was able to record the presentation and save it on YouTube. Feel free to share it with anyone who might benefit:

The video description is below.

Secretary Robert Gates on leadership

This past week, I saw Robert Gates give a talk to promote his new book about how organizations can be reformed so that they work more effectively and efficiently for both their staff and the people they serve. He argues that all too often, the missing ingredient is courageous leadership. Though he focused on governmental institutions, many of his points are broadly applicable and good food for thought.

Hardly a day passes in the life of any American without having to battle one or another bureaucracy. It doesn't need to be this way. I believe institutions – bureaucracies large and small – can be fixed. Changed and made more cost effective and user-friendly, efficient and responsive, and shaped to meet new problems and challenges.

It's a combination of pragmatism and optimism that of late I haven't seen enough of in government.

More quotes below.