Repetition is a potent tool. With it, many kids are drilled repeatedly, helping them to remember the knowledge necessary to understand so many other things. Pedagogues have long made their students recite math tables in order to start learning mathematical concepts.
On the other hand, repetition is a dangerous tool. Many people repeat themselves because they’re not prepared or they don’t know what they’re talking about. In the end, those that mindlessly use repetition are pawns, unknowingly wasting the time of so many other people.
Like any tool, the use of repetition can be good or bad. If I chose to take a hammer and hit your hand, you would most assuredly say that is bad (even if Mr. Kevorkian were involved). And the red mark on your hand undoubtedly proves your point. But repetition isn’t so easy to diagnose.
I propose that repetition falls into two categories: intentional and incidental. Rote memorization or didactic teaching would be examples of intentional repetition. Intentional repetition is both healthy and good. It is an effective method of teaching and learning. On the other hand, speakers that endlessly repeat their points or people that ask the same questions fall into the category of incidental repetition.
You see, people who ask silly, unneeded questions, or lose their train of thought and start at the beginning only serve to waste everyone else’s time. This has long been a pet peeve of mine, and I am continually exasperated trying to discern what causes incidental repetition.
And the best answer I’ve found is this: people don’t care about other people. Of course, this is a wide-ranging statement and cannot be universally proven true, but I’m making generalizations about general societal trends—not universal truths that apply to everyone.
We get into this terrible habit of feeling like we exist solely as individuals. We forget the interconnected nature of mankind, so when someone sleeps through class and asks the same questions that were posed during class, their actions say that they don’t care about their classmates’ time. The same applies to meetings: if the leader of the meeting doesn’t plan adequately and directs a circular meeting, he (or she) is not respecting his peers (or subordinates) time by endlessly repeating himself for no good reason. Teachers fall into the same trap, but I’m sure you get the idea, so I’ll move on.
So you ask, “Are you saying that not paying attention in class is disrespectful of your classmates?” Yes, I am. “Does that apply to meetings as well?” Absolutely. “Are you saying that unprepared teachers or meeting facilitators disrespect those in the meeting or class?” I couldn’t have said it better myself. It is generally easy to distinguish between those who are prepared and those who are not.
Every day I realize more and more how much your actions describe who you are. And everyday I see that incidental repetition is another sad indicator of pride and/or apathy. Perhaps I get the best view because I see my own life first hand.
Time is a fleeting and precious resource. It continues on, unimpeded by man’s best intentions. And as such, incidental repetition wastes what is undeniably one of life’s most important features.
So what to do with this diatribe? Think about others when you lead. Think about others when you ask questions. Think about others when you choose not to pay attention. Stop thinking about yourself so much and start considering those things which are outside of you.
And please, don’t waste our time with unnecessary, incidental repetition.

I was at HEB tonight, and the cashier and bagger were having a great time flirting… It was interesting to see, but I didn’t mind it because I know that must be immensely boring work. So anyways, as the bagger made a funny quip, he lost my milk and it dropped to the floor, exploding everywhere.
Of course, the flirts are now mortified; they send someone else to get me a new gallon of milk while the bagger grabs a mop. He proceeds to roll the mop cart over to the spill, where he informs everyone that he doesn’t know how to mop. Someone graciously explained the process, and he pensively begins to clean his mess.
By now, I’m waiting to the side, looking at my receipt. As I look at the receipt, I notice that I just bought 12 cantaloupes. Now, I like canteloupes, but not that much. Anyways, she refunded my money and I got a new gallon of milk.
And plus I got a little entertainment watching the flirts and their embarassment at the two screw-ups of the night.
fun…

Have you ever eaten so much that you got sick from it?
Have you ever eaten something so often that you got sick of eating it?
Have you ever heard a joke so many times that it no longer was funny?
Have you ever done something for so long that you hated doing it?
It seems like over-experiencing something leads to burn-out. But at the point of burn-out, you have to wonder: is the burn-out caused by something bad or just too much of something good. And you have to make an effort not to declare the causes to be bad, just because of burn-out.

While embarking on a rather extensive traveling schedule, I ran across a number of highly unusual folks. I have long struggled to adequately describe them, and I will embark upon my most thorough attempt in these next few pages. Please bear with my verbose descriptions as I feel there is no way to adequately express the manner of these people using verbiage common to everyday life.
I would normally begin with appearance in my sociological descriptions, but among all of the tendencies of this culture, appearance is easily not in the top ten. I will, if I have the time, describe their appearance.
The dwellings of this strange race are perhaps the most interesting of all cultural aspects. In many regards, each hut is more akin to a temple than to a standard dwelling in other cultures. Every hut has a large common area filled with the most peculiar of altars. At first, I expected a naïve version of child sacrifice, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they abhorred such practices.
However, this altar still seemed to define much of their existence. Every evening around dusk, the entire clan would enter the altar room and find a place to sit or lay. Some would sit on primitive chairs and others found the ground or a table to be more accommodating. They would clamor about for a few moments in meaningless gibberish until the patriarch would issue the final command. At that point, fire and thunder would descend from heaven, emblazing the altar with a fire few have seen before. The fire danced about from yellow to red to blue to green and white; in some odd way, it was the most complete spectrum of colors ever produced in fire. The room would glow as the fire shifted colors.
The sounds from the fire were likewise amazing; at one moment, you could hear the thunder from above speaking to you in this eerie audible sense. The next moment you could hear the crackle of wood or the rushing of wind. All the while, the clan was ensconced in this disturbing tradition.
The clan continued in this pattern for a seemingly endless period of time, with clan members shifting from point to point across the room. Inevitably arguments would break out regarding the altar and a strange bone which seemed to indicate power.
The bone was blackened as though it had been burned, and it was adorned with many fine stones. The patriarch began the evening with this bone, but it had progressed throughout the clan during the night. It seemed as though everyone clamored for this special bone as though it had some sort of ancestral power. At the very least, the person who held this bone was the happiest of the entire clan while they held it in their hands.
Eventually, however, the fire would wane and clan members would depart to their sleeping quarters. And when the last person exited the altar room, the flame would mysteriously end, leaving a calm crackling sensation in the room. But soon silence and darkness replaced all other sensations, leaving the room helplessly empty.
The mornings were likewise a strange experience. Clan members would appear and disappear in a non-regular fashion, moving from their quarters to another sacred room. This room must have been filled with exercises of personal sacrifice, because each member was fiercely private and would not allow you to join them during this daily ritual.
It was not uncommon for a variety of sounds to emanate from this closed door, and I only wish that I could recount the sounds. Each member had his or her own ritual, and as much as I asked, I could never ascertain what exactly was involved in that ritual. But I do know that the rituals took a rather large range of time. As far as I can tell, the more spiritual chaps took more time; you could see their spiritual nature in their faces as they exited the room. And certainly even the least spiritual of the group experienced a daily change because of the personal sacrifices.
At some point, all of the clan would meet in the altar room again for the daily dispersion. I was not permitted to follow the dispersion, but I saw that everyone departed away from the dwelling for a period of time. And the peace that I experienced the night before all but faded away as I watched this nearly perfect culture degrade into a frazzled mess as they embarked on this daily departure. It was as if all of the gains in the personal-sacrifice room were lost in only a few moments.
As dusk approached again, the clan members would all return and begin the ritual in the altar room. Every night was a truly riveting experience.
Once a week, the clan members would embark on a different routine than their daily one. Instead of diverging into many different locations, the entire clan would travel together for the day. The morning routine of personal sacrifice was maintained, and so was the frazzled departure. Fights were much more commons on these special together-days.
The clan would travel several miles and meet up with many other clans. My guess is that this is the weekly inter-clan meeting, although I still cannot be sure of it. Upon arriving at the central location, the clan would split apart again, with each going their own way. I tried to discern the reason for this, but in my short few weeks there, I could never ascertain why.
The clan members would travel to rooms—rooms which had two or more altars. But in many cases, the altars were not in use, and I could not see the special bone either. Most of the times, the groups would discuss community matters, and inevitably one or two would doze off. The meetings were a spectacle in the sense they were dull. You could see it on the faces. And I wondered why not light the altars like the clans did in their dwellings? You could tell that the clan members were much happier when they were worshipping the altars.
These small assemblies soon dispersed into one giant assembly of the whole town. It was a spectacle unlike any other. Score and scores and scores of people crammed into a little room with two of the largest altars I had ever seen. Soon the shades were drawn and the altars glowed with fire from above. The sounds were richer than the altars at home, and the crowd joined in a rousing rendition of some cultural chants. The clans would stand in sit in some indiscernible fashion, with some moving their hands and other sitting still. The leaders of the assembly likewise had a series of distinct motions. But the reasons for these motions still baffle me to this day.
The mass chants soon ended with the passing of baskets throughout the room. Some people placed things in the baskets, others removed from the baskets. I watched carefully to see where they went, but I was thwarted when I saw they were removed to a room in the town center. Another assembly leader stood and issued words for the group. Once again, many of the group dozed off, but a few of the clans seemed particularly interested, clapping or screaming in approval or disgust.
Soon the ending word was issued and the crowd dissipated from the assembly. Each clan returned to its dwelling where it began the daily altar lighting earlier than any of the other days. I suppose it is the special assembly day when you get to celebrate in front of the altar for so many hours.
All in all, I am still baffled by my time with the Nait-Sirhc. They are perhaps some of the oddest people in the world, with so little to actually look forward to. The altar was a spectacle among spectacles, and it certainly brought them immense happiness. But I can’t help but wonder if they picked a god that wasn’t as satisfying as they hoped.

These are my favorite (and free) web programs. They make my life so much better, and I think they can make your life better too.
1) Firefox
Firefox is a great browser and the tabbed browsing beats IE to a pulp. Add in AdBlock and a few other extensions, and you have quite a package.
2) Bloglines
Do you read a lot of blogs? Then Bloglines will save you tons of time (actually, you will spend more time reading blogs in the future becuase it makes it so easy). It automatically aggragates the blogs in one convenient location.
3) Backpack
Do you like lists? Do you use more than one computer? Backpack makes life easy by allowing you to create lists (up to 5 for free) and access them from any location. Plus, you can allow friends to access and edit those lists.
4) Flickr
Want to put pictures online? And do you want it to be easy, simple, and beautiful. Flickr’s it.
5) Del.icio.us
Social bookmarking at it’s best. This allows me to carry all my favorites between work and home, plus their search allows me to find good sites from other people’s lists.
6) Facebook
Are you tired of IM? Then Facebook is one of the world’s greatest wastes of time. You can search through people and find out how you really are connected to the whole stinkin’ world.

RANT – I hate how applications steal the focus from other applications. Examples:
Instant Messenger: I’m typing away in another program, someone I’m me, and the next thing you know, all of my latest words go directly to them.
Browser Popups: Don’t take me away from what I’m doing, let me choose to switch over.
Loading Applications: You load a new application (say, Microsoft Outlook) and you go back to whatever else you’re doing. When Outlook finishes loading, it decides, you should now be looking at Outlook.
Somebody (Microsoft) — write some software that will not allow applications to steal my focus. I know TweakUI has a checkbox that say “Prevent Applications from taking Focus”, but on all my computers, I have yet to get it to consistently work!
I’m done now….

I watched Crash last night. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should.
Crash describes prejudice and the people behind it. It delves into interesting quesitons of stereotypes and racism without being overly preachy or politically minded. It shows the henious nature of mankind while piecing a group of seemingly unconnected people together. It poignantly shows how events in life effect your life and other lives, and how so many things in life are intertwined.
The plot weaves between a group disparate people, showing how they are all alike, yet so very different. And it shows the tendancy of mankind to be prejudicial–even when we’re not. And best of all, it is tempered with reality…something many movies lack.
The movie tells a story. You can see it in the footage. You can relate to it in the dialogue. And you can hear it in the music. And together it forms a cinematic wonder.
*Note: The dialogue is peppered with the f-word, so beware…

A couple days ago, I posted about why we are defensive. After thinking about it some more, I decided it is not an exhaustive list. I never really thought it was: there are definitely some more points. However, I think the most important part is “What can I learn after I was defensive.”
1. The World Does Not Revolve Around You
That’s right…everyone doesn’t bow down to your ideas (unless, of course, you’re the boss [this should not be construed as a barb against my boss, but rather a generalization regarding bosses and "suck-ups" in general.]). Consider how you treat other people and their ideas. Chances are that you treat them no better than you get treated yourself. If they don’t get upset, why should you?
2. The World Probably Doesn’t Want to Poop on You
Unless you’re a jerk and hacked a lot of people off, most people aren’t interested in seeing you fail. (Side note: You’ll probably know if a person wants you to fail, so this entry does not apply to that situation). Most of the time, they are promoting their idea (not because you’re bad, but because they like their idea better) or are interested in talking through the situation. A negative comment or thoughtful question should not be considered a peronsal affront — it should just be considered a comment.
3. You should prepare yourself for conflicting opinions.
People never agree on everything. I people did, politics would be much prettier. But people are naturally in strife against each other. It has something (everything) to do with a sin nature. At any rate, prepare yourself by thinking of as many different and opposing ideas as possible. The more that you have considered, the better. When someone brings up an opposing point, you will have a stronger footing to reply.
4. Your opinion or design was likely missing important details.
When you create something, you miss details. It just happens. You’re human.
It’s good to work with people who point out those details that you overlooked. It helps to create a better product or service. When people bring those points up, they’re not personally attacking you, they’re just pointing out what needs help.
The tendancy of mankind is to gravitate toward the negative. It’s easier to see what is wrong than to see what is right. As a result, the negative points generally come up first. Always remember, there are good things about your work (sometimes the good is very very small) and it is sometimes not mentioned in convserations.
Take the advice gladly; allow it to be constructive.
5. Be quiet. And let everything soak in before replying.
This is the biggest one for me. Don’t respond reflexively. Take in what people say; consider it. Then respond.
A little bit of silence may seem awkward, and people may read into your silence; big deal! Sit there, think, and respond intelligently. Thank them for their suggestion; take it if it’s good; ignore it if it’s bad. If you don’t have a reply — admit it, and suggest that you finish the conversation later after you have had a chance to mull over their comments. Say you want to have a constructive talk and in order to do that, you need some time.
If they’re interested in helping you, they will agree.

My cable internet service died. Again. I think this is the tenth time in the last year that my internet has gone out. I’ve called Time Warner so many times that I stored their phone number in my cell phone.
Anyways, while I’m working through the menu system, I have narrowed down my problem to Time Warner Cable > My Phone Number > Cable, Phone or Internet Outage > Internet > Road Runner > Phone Number … now I’m on the list to speak with a “CSR” — whatever that means (I suppose it’s a customer service representative). I also heard a friendly message saying, “There are no known outages in your area…”
While I wait, I’m hearing a variety of messages. The first is: “Is your DVR out? If it is please, unplug it….bla bla bla.” But I think, “Why am I listening to a spiel about a DVR. I just told their computer system that I had an internet outage — not a DVR problem.” Stupid.
The next message I hear is “Time Warner Cable .com is a great resource if you have questions about your service. If you do not want to wait, you can hang up and search for your question there (paraphrased).” WHAT??? Check out the internet? I just told you that my internet was down. Even stupider. (Yes, stupider is a word now).
Time Warner Cable would be out of business if there was decent competition. With incompetence like that, I certainly would love to use another company, but I’m stuck.
Update: I’ve been on the phone 24 minutes now…I haven’t talked to a real person yet. Now it’s 45 minutes. Final update: The phone call took 56 minutes and ended with the “CSR” saying, “We have a known outage in your area. Thank you for calling Time Warner Cable.”
Arg!

Seth Godin has a great post about how ridiculous people are regarding shark attacks… Check it out here…