PicoBlog

This is a followup to my earlier post on How to Make Fewer Decisions. You may want to read that one first, although it’s not strictly necessary. In economics, satisficing is a decision-making strategy that tries to find a “good enough” solution to a problem. It can be contrasted with maximizing, which tries to find the best (or at least close to optimal) solution. It’s quite common to see search problems in all areas of the world ranging from the personal (which flavor of jam or which car should I buy?

Today at the Sorbonne, the storied Paris university, some professors held a small public discussion about transgenderism. Some were critical, but as one who is pro-trans delivered his talk, a couple of trans activists in the audience slung pink paint on them all. Watch: I met most of the professors who were involved in this not long after it happened. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant. Two of them, including Prof.

The first question Victor Wembanyama had for Dirk Nowitzki's lifelong shooting sensei had nothing to do with basketball. "How much does it cost?" Wembanyama asked Holger Geschwindner, figuring there would surely be some sort of booking fee to schedule a visit to study Dirk-ian techniques right in the laboratory where they originated. "Nothing," Geschwindner said. "It never costs any penny for anybody." So began a weeklong roundball science camp for the most ballyhooed hoops prospect on the planet in a no-frills gym in Bamberg, Germany, that just thinking about now made Wembanyama's "

Fourth of July fireworks are coming, and if you don’t like fireworks, Lord have mercy. The Fourth is the traditional day to celebrate America’s birth. But is it the right day? The Fourth of July commemorates the Declaration of Independence, significant not only in American annals but for all nations seeking hope and self-determination. The Declaration contains one of the most important sentences ever written: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Greetings from sunny-ish Hollywood, CA (still havin’ that “May Gray!”) The Writers Guild of America, that group of folks who dream up the stuff a lot of us consume (like Game of Thrones or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel!) are still picketing production sites for a teensy pay bump from an extremely profitable entertainment industry. As of last night, the performers in the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio & Television Artists (aka SAG-AFTRA) are initiating a strike authorization vote (aka SAV) from its 160,000 members before we begin our negotiations with the SAME PEOPLE who refuse to give writers a raise.

As we begin studying Romans 9:30-33, I thought it would be good to consider when the chapters and verse divisions were added to the Bible. The reason for this is that where Romans 10 begins is rather unfortunate since the thought really begins in Romans 9:30. Has the Bible always included the division into chapters and verses? And if not, where did they come from? Share Ancient Hebrew texts were divided into paragraphs (called parashot) that were identified by two different letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

You’re reading Stories from Jewish History, a weekly newsletter exploring Jewish thinkers, events, and artifacts, from the famous to the obscure. We’re at the tail end of a series on premodern travel to Eretz Yisrael, with two illustrious olim (“ascenders,” those who come to live in Israel) to round out the series: R. Yehuda ha-Levi, whose journey we’ll… ncG1vNJzZmisoqKus8LIp2WsrZKowaKvymeaqKVfpXy4tMSnZLKdmKqxonnHmmSlnaaeeqO%2Bzq6eoaxdnba0eceemKusXZeDdQ%3D%3D

From early October 2023 to about mid-January 2024, I was plagued with a near constant sense of dread. Most of it revolved around one particular person. One person. It doesn’t sound all that significant. But we all know that one person can generate many ripple effects, whether it’s through their kindness or cruelty, their addiction or recovery, their courage or cowardice, their discretion or a loose tongue, their joy or combativeness.

I’m in my Aldi era. Let’s start with that. On a typical evening, I like to make a dinner that achieves a few key things: 1) healthy-ish, 2) simple to make, 3) fast cleanup. But on some nights (like last night), I need dinner to be stupid easy. These are the nights when you don’t want to order take-out, but you’re so exhausted, you can’t fathom spending more than 15 minutes in the kitchen (and I’m including cooking and cleaning up).