TV's Crowning Moment of Awesome - Esquire -
“In thirty-eight years, The Price is Right never had a contestant guess the exact value of prizes in the Showcase showdown. Until Terry Kniess outsmarted everyone — and changed everything.”
(via longform.org)
Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? - Nick Patrick
The Food Movement, Rising — by Michael Pollan, The New York Review of Books
No Pick Nick
“As Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him, an epiphany. If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.
DAVID DUNNING: When you’re incompetent, the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is. In logical reasoning, in parenting, in management, problem solving, the skills you use to produce the right answer are exactly the same skills you use to evaluate the answer. … We’re not very good at knowing what we don’t know.
ERROL MORRIS: Knowing what you don’t know? Is this supposedly the hallmark of an intelligent person?
DAVID DUNNING: That’s absolutely right. It’s knowing that there are things you don’t know that you don’t know. Donald Rumsfeld gave this speech about ‘unknown unknowns.’ It goes something like this: ‘There are things we know we know about terrorism. There are things we know we don’t know. And there are things that are unknown unknowns. We don’t know that we don’t know.’ He got a lot of grief for that. And I thought, ‘That’s the smartest and most modest thing I’ve heard in a year.’”
I ♥ NY
Photo credit: Bawol on Flickr
See also: Banksy Arrives in New York, Banksy Gets Dissed, short clip of Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand, by Steven Brill - The New York Times Magazine
How Did Uniqlo Become the Hottest Retailer in New York? — New York Magazine
“Uniqlo is a company that prescribes, records, and analyzes every activity undertaken by every employee, from Ahmed’s folding technique to the way advisers return charge cards to customers (Japanese style, with two hands and full eye contact). To some extent, management science is an element of all international companies, but Uniqlo’s obsession is more like a turbocharged version of kaizen, the Japanese concept that translates roughly as the continuous search for perfection. (Kaizen is often invoked in business schools when describing Toyota, though less so recently.) Uniqlo has a relatively flat power structure and encourages employees to suggest ideas for improving productivity. Experimentation, however, must go through the proper channels. There is a poster in every Uniqlo manager’s office outlining the ‘Ten Accountabilities.’ No. 8 reads, ‘As a store manager, always follow company direction. Do not work in your own way.’”
The Wizard of Oz: Movie Storybook - Book Movie Book
"Popular Highlights" coming to Kindle -
A software update to the Kindle next month will include “Popular Highlights: See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you’re reading.”
Update: Popular Highlights