Some Love for Buffalo

Yesterday, I did my best to capture Buffalo in summer splendor:

It was a beautiful afternoon at the Erie Basin Marina. A perfect day for my kids to enjoy a walk on the rocks:

There are times I like to sing a Buffalo love song. Ten years ago, I wrote about how Buffalo was really the only place I could have written my dissertation. I stand by what I wrote in this piece.

I live in a suburb now but that doesn't mean I can't have strong pride about Buffalo. It's known as "Buffalove." Tina, my wife, gets this photo credit:

Buffalo and the entire Western New York region is a great place to live, work, and play. In the winter, too. Like a famous song goes, "the cold never bothered me anyway."

Bob Schieffer - "The Selfie Urge"

Bob Schieffer has fun here at the expense of the selfie. I actually like the part where he takes a crack at the famous Oscars selfie that was promoted by Samsung. He isn't in faux outrage mode. He reasonably advises against putting oneself in harm's way to take a selfie. And he concludes the piece by taking a selfie.

 In case you're wondering about my selfie stance, I'll share a few thoughts. As a fan of the human face, I am generally in favor of selfies. I think it makes perfect sense for people to take pictures of themselves with a smartphone. First of all, it's easy to do. Second of all, we're in a picture-sharing age. Third, it can be fun. Fourth, many of us like pictures of ourselves. Fifth, because why not? So I say let the people take pictures of themselves and enjoy life.

The Beatles - Two of Us

The beauty of a friendship/partnership/relationship...

Do You Consider Yourself a Feminist? Interviewing People on the Street

Here's an example of a convenience sample for Research Methods teachers and students. It's a haphazard effort to find out what some people in New York think about feminism. A small amount of people on the street are asked about their views. Only a few men are included, and only a few people over the age of 30 (a safe guess, I think) are involved. Click here for an article that accompanies the video on Cosmo's website if you're interested in how they treated the subject of feminism.

Absurd Thoughts for the Day

I have an idea for a book or a play. The tentative title is Sweating to the Metrics: A Tragicomedy about Living in an Era of Data Science. The idea came to me while I was cutting the grass this morning. I was trying to think of something clever to say about an app or the latest research that could inform people about efficiently cutting their way to a lush lawn. But I moved on from that quickly. Some people care a lot about the appearance of their lawns. There are worse obsessions.

Then I was thinking about metrics and algorithms and whatever else is part and parcel of our BIG DATA-Data Science era. I like data and all but sometimes I feel like we have jumped the data shark. Notice I said "feel" in the previous sentence. I don't think we're supposed to feel anything anymore about anything. I think we're just supposed to coldly collect the data, make decisions, rinse and repeat. Some of this is overstated. I occasionally make sociologically snarky remarks.

So all I have is a title for a book or a play and a dream of someone overpaying me to write a manuscript. The big money people will surround me with a superstar public relations team and bring forth the influencers and stylists. I'll receive a boatload of money and retire with my family to who knows where.

I'm off to crowdsource for ideas about where to retire.

Note to No One

Life in 2011

Came across a cartoon I made in 2011. It was hiding in a pile of papers in my office. Issue #2 never happened.