Millennials Differ From Previous Generations

Posted on by Mike

From the Ivy Jungle newsletter:

Millennials Differ From Previous Generations: Having grown up in a digital world of constantly evolving technology, researchers say the millennial generation differs from all of its predecessors. The second largest generation in US history, they thrive on choice and instant results. The economy is just one sphere of their influence where the average US teen spends just over $100 a week on discretionary items. Recognized as trendsetters in the population, marketers have taken a keen interest in them. They have proven very adaptable – especially with regard to technology. They have moved from email to IM to MySpace in the course of almost literally months. They have left cd players far behind as they took up iPods. They constantly want choices – even in education. At the college level, researchers say it is not uncommon for them to be simultaneously enrolled in both traditional on campus courses and online classes – through their own university or another somewhere else in the world. On a standard personality test, Millenials outscore their GenX predecessors in warmth, abstract reasoning, emotional stability, social boldness, sensitivity, openness to change, and perfectionism. GenXers scored much higher in self reliance. Their driving value seems to be choice and finding ways to make something their own. (Seattle Post Intelligencer March 13, 2007)

House in Two

Posted on by Mike 1 Comment

Here’s a slug I got on my newsreader 1The actual article didn’t read like this from Fox news:

Smoke Break May Have Saved Woman’s Life

Brenda Comer had just finished washing dishes Monday and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when an 80-foot oak tree crashed through her roof, landing across the sink where she had been standing, splitting her house in two.

Two observations: (1) What was she doing splitting her house in two? And (2) thank heavens for cigarettes.

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The actual article didn’t read like this

High Profile

Posted on by Mike

I love to read anything by Robert B. Parker. His characters are so vivid, complex, and compelling that I just want to keep on reading even when the book is done. Spenser, a hardboiled but sensitive Boston PI, was one of my favorite characters of all time. But I’m beginning to love Jesse Stone, an alcoholic police chief of Paradise, Mass. As adept he is at understanding the crime solving process, he is inept at understanding his relationship with his ex-wive, Jenn.

But why I enjoy reading Parker is his mastery of dialog. Here are some examples from High Profile, his latest book. These are conversations between Chief Jesse Stone and one of his policemen, Suitcase Simpson.

After an interview with Conrad Lutz, who would later become a suspect in a multiple homicide:

“It means Lutz lied to us,” he said.

“Or at least left stuff out,” Jesse said.

“We maybe should ask him about that?” Suit said.

“Sooner or later,” Jesse said.

“First, you want to get all your ducks in a row?”

“I’d settle for getting them herded into the same area,” Jesse said. Read more

Golf Quotes

Posted on by Mike
  1. Eighteen holes of match play will teach you more about your foe than 18 years of dealing with him across a desk.
    –Grantland Rice
  2. Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.
    –John Updike
  3. It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
    –Robert Lynd
  4. If profanity had any influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.
    –Horace G. Hutchinson
  5. They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. Golf is more complicated than that.
    –Gardner Dickinson
  6. If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork as poorly as they do a golf club, they’d starve to death.
    –Sam Snead Read more