Category: Uncategorized

Reader Henrikaavik points us to a new Estonian-built anti-corruption app that is very much what I described in my previous post. Check it out at http://www.bribespot.com/ [no longer available]. Can it change the world? Maybe. Citizens are rising up against their governments in an interesting variety of ways. We’re seeing everything…

Background: In a recent post I complained about both my old iPhone 3GS and my new Android phone. Brandon Watson, Senior Director of Windows Phone Apps challenged me to test a Windows phone. If I didn’t like it better than the iPhone and the Android, he would donate $1,000 to…

I looked for a nice book to read on the plane. I couldn’t find one. What’s up with that? There are nine trillion books in the world and I couldn’t find a single one that I imagined would interest me for more than a paragraph. I blame the Internet. I…

I remember when my only communication device was a phone connected to the wall. I’m old! Then came wireless handsets. They seemed so space age. I was untethered! I could wander all over the entire living room without dropping a call. The bedroom was too far for the signal to…

The fascinating thing about being batshit crazy is that often you’re the only one who isn’t aware of it. That’s why I sometimes like to take a step back and seriously consider the hypothesis that the reason people disagree with me is that I’m an idiot and I don’t realize…

If you have a round peg that doesn’t fit in a square hole, do you blame the peg or the hole? You probably blame neither. We don’t assign blame to inanimate objects. But you might have some questions about the person who provided you with these mismatched items and set…

We humans start our lives at the peak of your popularity. Everyone loves babies. The trouble starts when we learn to speak. Talking is the process by which we transform from adorable to insufferable. The more we talk, the less appealing we become. No topic is safe. If things are…

Warning: This blog is written for a rational audience that likes to have fun wrestling with unique or controversial points of view. It is written in a style that can easily be confused as advocacy or opinion. It is not intended to change anyone’s beliefs or actions. If you quote from…

Did you see the reports of my scandalous behavior on the Internet? The headlines say “Scott Adams Caught Defending Himself Anonymously on Metafilter!” The stories go on to explain that I was posting under the name PlannedChaos and pretending to be the only person in the world who doesn’t hate…

I have an idea for making lots of money but I’m too lazy and frightened to do it myself.  The idea is to become a consumer advocate against a confusopoly. A confusopoly is any group of companies in a particular industry that intentionally confuses customers about their pricing plans and…

I’m not a gamer. I’m not even a casual game player. But the other day I decided to try a game called Angry Birds just to see why it’s so popular. I wasn’t expecting to like it. I was wrong. The game is instantly addictive. But why? Or more generally,…

There’s no derogatory label for people who label others. This creates an imbalance in the linguistic arsenal. Example:     Person 1: “If you don’t watch sports, you’re a racist.”     Person 2: “Oh yeah? Well, you’re…a…person who assigns labels that are not sensible!” See what I mean? It’s like being…

This weekend the top twitter meme in the solar system, at least for a few hours, involved Feminist blogs calling me an ignorant, misogynist asshole. Meanwhile, over on the Men’s Rights blogs, I’m being called a wussy, asshole, douche bag. There is still some debate on those sites as to…

It occurred to me recently that I have developed quite a few tricks for engineering my own happiness. Allow me to share a few. Some are more obvious than others. Food – Observe your own mood, and that of others, in the context of how recently they have eaten. If there’s…

I heard a report on NPR about an auto insurance company giving drivers the options of putting GPS tracking devices on their vehicles to lower insurance rates by as much as 30%. The idea is that, for example, the device could confirm to the insurance company that the car wasn’t…