Re-reading the notes I wrote while reading Skin In The Game a few years I came across this, in response to something in the first chapter:

Roman emperor charging into battle to face certain death is meaningful only in a setting of honor and institutions. It is folding your current hand so that the next guy that takes your seat will have a fresh start and a strong hand. It only works if your sacrifice,

After finishing About Face by David Hackworth, my friend Gary renewed his recommendation of A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan. (I ended up with a copy that appears to be the first paperback edition, printed in 1989, with a sticker in the front declaring it withdrawn from Bowdoin College Library. When I got the book it showed no signs of ever being read.)

It was a very

(Part 1 of this story.)

I've never been a car guy. I appreciate a nice Mustang or Corvette as much as the next American but I always knew I was way out of my depth compared to the guys who had been studying hot rods since high school.

Then came the beginning of this year, and it was time to replace my aging Ford Focus hatchback that was I quite fond of. It was getting

My grandfather, James P. Berry, bought the first Chevy Volt sold in Rock Hill. Unveiled in 2007 (the same year as the iPhone) and taking 3 more years to come to market, the Volt was an odd car. An entirely electric drivetrain that had a 40 mile battery but could burn gas to power a generator to run the motors for unlimited maximum range. Commute on electricity, road trip on gas. The best of both

I'm not familiar with Yuval Levin (I don't even remember his previous appearance on EconTalk, which I must have heard), but he was on EconTalk recently talking about his new book.

The book sounds interesting enough, and if I had room on my to-read shelf for it, I'd probably add it, but I don't so I won't. But the bits of conversation that emerged centered around three things that really stuck with me.

First was

Reading about Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, both histories emphasize that part of the successful R&D formula is hiring the best minds you can, giving them resources, and then leaving them alone to follow their curiosity wherever it goes. (Expect that they produce something, but not what or when.)

The closing chapters of "Range" by David Epstein echo this as well. Hyper-specialization is a trap. Great results in the lab can be achieved

It is difficult to comprehend what modern computers would look like without Bell Labs. In some abstract way I was aware of this, but reading Kernighan's new Unix history/memoir really hit that home when he talked about Bjarne Stroustrup developing C++ while he too worked at Bell Labs.

Stroupstrup's name and the fact that he invented C++ was lodged deep in my brain from my high school AP Computer Science class where it was

At dinner last night, the topic came up again about how I've gotten a great deal of satisfaction out of shooting USPSA, but that I've never really made friends (in the "hang out and drink beer together"/"help you move"/"bail you out of jail" way) through USPSA. I've met lots of interesting USPSA people and had good internet conversations, but that only goes so far.

All of the

If your reputation can't absorb a few blows, it wasn't worth anything in the first place.

Ryan Holiday, Ego Is The Enemy

It's so tempting to think that your reputation is fragile. You feel like you spent years building it up, and then someone posts something negative about you. More people pile on. People you've never heard of before, who just enjoy the bandwagon of hate. People so empty that they have to keep busy