Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Somebody Always Hates What You Do - Will Shortz

I'm a puzzle fan, and so I am interested in everything that Will Shortz (cross word puzzle editor at the NYT) does or says.

Ran across this interview with him at the Yale Daily News, and his last comment is so bone-deep true, even for hacks like me, that I simply had to share it.

"I’ve discovered that anytime you do something interesting and fresh and really nice, there will be people who hate it. And conversely, no matter how awful something is, there will be someone who likes it." Will Shortz

Backstage: Will Shortz

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Monday, March 02, 2009

Mental Epiphanies

I just listened to this discussion by Jonah Lehrer on Fora.tv about how your brain works to solve problems, that there is a part of your brain that does the problem solving, a few cells in your right hemisphere it turns out, that you can only access if you're not directly focused on the problem.

It sounds really unlikely, I know—but I also know that this is definitely my experience, that when I'm working on writing a piece, a science piece that is, I often need to distract my brain by playing a game before I can complete what I'm doing. Sudoku, or Babble, or Cryptoquote, or JigZone. Just one of them and I can get back to work. In the past I've always felt guilty about this—I only have a certain number of hours to actually crank out a new science piece and the game-playing has seemed like a waste of time. I've always done it, though, especially just before the final read-through. I don't think I'll feel bad about this any more.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Adrenaline Rush: The Grammys

I love these days! Coverage of the Grammys at Mahalo.com on Sunday, February 8, 2009, will be just as mindblowingly exciting as the Super Bowl was last weekend. See ya there!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Election Results and Exit Polls

I spent part of the morning today, the BIG DAY, making telephone calls to college kids in my precinct for Obama. Most of the people in my neighborhood have already voted, and it's mostly the kids who are waiting until the last minute. It was good to talk to so many, all of whom said they were going to vote or had just returned from voting.

This afternoon, I'm going to be watching the polls for Mahalo.com. We have a network of people set to track polls this afternoon and evening, folks all over the country, with separate pages for each state and we will be watching and getting the exit polls and results listed.

Here's the main pages:

Election Results
Election Exit Polls
Presidential Polls

And I'll be tracking
Iowa: Exit Polls, Election Results
Minnesota: Exit Polls, Election Results
Oklahoma: Exit Polls, Election Results
Illinois: Exit Polls, Election Results
Nebraska: Exit Polls, Election Results
Oregon: Exit Polls, Election Results

And I'm going to be watching these as they change, because I can't miss a battleground state, not one.
Pennsylvania: Exit Polls, Election Results
Florida: Exit Polls, Election Results
New Hampshire: Exit Polls, Election Results
Virginia: Exit Polls, Election Results
Nevada: Exit Polls, Election Results
Indiana: Exit Polls, Election Results
Georgia: Exit Polls, Election Results
West Virginia: Exit Polls, Election Results
North Dakota: Exit Polls, Election Results
Ohio: Exit Polls, Election Results
New Mexico: Exit Polls, Election Results
Missouri: Exit Polls, Election Results
Montana: Exit Polls, Election Results
North Carolina: Exit Polls, Election Results
Colorado: Exit Polls, Election Results

Please feel free to join me. The champagne is on the ice, which we have planned to use as celebration or solace, but --- dare I say it? we are hoping for the former!

Go Obama!