Archive
Ideologues
This may sound hypocritical to some, but I find it frustratingly difficult to deal with ideologues. An ideologue is a closed-minded, binary, absolutist when it comes to “beliefs” that he/she is passionate about.
Experts don’t think, they know (just like BD00).
As soon as you start to question assertions from an ideologue or suggest an alternative idea/concept/belief, in the blink of an eye you automatically become an enemy to be annihilated. The rhetoric starts ratcheting up and personal attacks may start spewing forth. Unless you’re the Buddha, it’s incredibly easy to get sucked into the vortex and start playing the ISTY game with an ideologue. On the up side, if you deal with ideologues often, with a little self-awareness, you can get better and better at handling interactions with them more gracefully.
Being a passionate person myself on topics that are near and dear to me, I can definitely empathize with ideologues. I “believe” that if you’re not passionate about something, then you’re living an incredibly boring and unfulfilled life. But hey… it’s just a BD00 “belief“.
I believe that there is such a thing as objective truth, but a lot of people have an objective truth that differs from mine. – Cynthia Tucker
Writer’s Block!
After aimlessly doodling with my ad-hoc clipart pallet for awhile , I concocted this monstrosity:
Surprisingly, I drew a blank when I tried to conjure up a delusional story to bind to the drawing. This must be what writer’s block is. D’oh!
Can you please fill in the void for me? Think of it as a creative writing assignment.
Shipped!
Woot! They’ve been shipped! What’s been shipped? Why, the free “cog diss” T-shirts silly:
In case you were born yesterday, or this is the first time you’ve stumbled upon this ridiculous time-waster of a blawg, here’s the scoop.
Not too long ago, BD00 celebrated his fitty-turd birthday by offering up the obnoxious T-shirt to the first two substantive evaluators of this blog. The first winner was (unsurprisingly) the chameleonic fish dude who frequently visits here and serves up funny blowback under pen names such as: oldfishfart, bottom-feeder-fish, finding-neo-fish, dwindling-resources-fish, Fishbert, lord-of-the-fish, etc. Mr. Fishilicious came through on a request to send BD00 a pic of him wearing the highly coveted collectors item. Vera Wang, eat your heart out.
The second winner was a surprise. He’s a first time commenter from the great country of Espana who came out of the shadows to thoughtfully pitch in his two cents. Perhaps the sleeping bull in BD00’s coat of arms evoked an image of Spain’s world renowned “running of the bulls” event? Look – here’s a vision of my new friend running like Usain Bolt in next year’s running of DA BULSE:
After hoofing it down to the USPS on Saturday and filling out a customs form in triplicate, the second turdy tee was off to Spain. BD00 now anxiously awaits the arrival of a pic of his Spanish friend donning the dung. Preferably, an adventurous one like the one above?
I’ll Skip This One
“The Back Of The Napkin” author Dan Roam is hatching a new book titled “Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work”.
Being a graphics-oriented dude myself, I loved reading TBOTN. However, since I’m spoiled from buying Kindle books for $9.99, I’m gonna skip purchasing this one because I refuse to pay the $14.99 price that the publisher wants for the e-version. It makes BD00 wonder what the publisher-publishee split is from the sale of each unit.
I love the fact that self-publishing is on the rise and that sites like lulu.com are eating into dinosaur publishing house profits. The big pub house strategic plan may be to phase out the costly-to-produce physical versions of their books while jacking up the price for the non-touchable e-versions. For now at least, I’m not hoppin’ on that train.
Hindsight Bias
In Nancy Leveson‘s forthcoming book, “Engineering A Safer World“, she provides the following attributes of Hindsight Bias (a.k.a “hindsight is always 20-20“):
So THAT’s why Bulldozer00 is always 100% right!
I find that the text in the blue ellipse is very insightful. If one switches his/her analysis slant from “what they did wrong” to “why it made sense at the time“, one’s emotional reaction will soften toward “those who are responsible for the mess“.
BD00’s attitude toward FUBAR situations, which used to be anger and frustration, has changed to wonder and curiosity. At some serendipitous point along the line, BD00 finally came to the realization that since borgs exhibit emergent behavior that can’t be traced back to a single source, tis better to laugh than cry.
Organizations often behave worse than any member would – Fred Brooks
The Null Set
Few would argue that Martin Luther King and Albert Einstein didn’t change the world for the betterment of the human race. These two stunningly similar quotes unveil one of the keys to their hard won success:
Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from prevailing opinion. – Martin Luther King
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. – Albert Einstein
Something tells me that this is an ironic twist on the cliche that “great minds think alike“. Great minds think alike, but so do mediocre minds. It’s just that on matters of importance, great minds don’t think like mediocre minds. D’oh!
Wear It In Shame
Boy, does BD00 have a treat for you. Here’s the dealio.
Post a comment here with your assessment of this blog. Good or bad? What is BD00 doing right? What is BD00 doing wrong? Does BD00 piss you off? Does BD00 make you laugh? A bit of both? How could BD00 improve the content? What else would you like to say to BD00?
The writers of the first 2 “substantive” comments that BD00 receives will get a gratis copy of the notoriously famous “Cog Diss” T-shirt to wear in shame:
Notes:
- BD00 reserves the right to decide what “substantive” means.
- Sorry, but the only size BD00 has in stock is XL
- Hey Phil, did you notice that BD00 used your clipart in the design?
- Don’t feel that you have to give a rave review and kiss ass. If you feel the need to “substantively” rip BD00 a new one, then by all means do it.
- You can buy this shirt yourself (without the self-promotional back design) at cafepress.com/thefrontalassaultidiot.
Goo Goo Gah
Well, it’s here. Today Bulldozer00 turns fitty tree. I’ve experienced the privilege of having walked the earth and imbibing its wonders for 19,345 days. Although the imposter within causes “me” to lose the feeling for long stretches at a time, I’m incredibly grateful for being alive and having been born in the USA. It’s just a random stroke of luck that I wasn’t born a starving baby in Africa or said equivalent in a Brazilian favela.
One of my mottos is:
The purpose of life is to fight maturity – Dick Werthimer
If you ask many of the people I know, I think they would agree that I live by that credo. I don’t mind anymore, because the so-called mature adult crowd isn’t doing such a good job of running the world’s institutions and making the world a better place, no?
Bastions Of Objectivity
Experts don’t think, they know. (just like Bulldozer00)
In theory, high brow academic disciplines are supposed to be bastions of dispassionate objectivity. However, in the Oscar-winning documentary “Inside Job“, several of the most highly esteemed professors of economics are laughingly called out onto the mat by Charles Ferguson (ala Mike Wallace style) for taking payments from the financial institutions that triggered the 2008 meltdown. These dudes wrote papers and gave speeches praising the virtues of “no regulation” on junk bundles of sub-prime loans, credit default swaps and all other kinds of financial “innovations“. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad, but when these bozos shoveled their BS “expertise” onto laymen like you and me, they didn’t even disclose that they were being paid by the big bad dudes who figuratively deflated your pension and 401-K account.
Along with Kevin Smith’s “Red State“, former software-weenie Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job” are the best two movies I’ve seen this year. If you’ve still retained your Netflix subscription after their recent price change fiasco, put these movies at the top of your queue.
Kickstarted
Last month, I blogged about helping to kickstart Scott Berkun‘s new book, “Mindfire”. Yesterday, I received a kool e-mail from kickstarter.com stating that all systems are go:
I also received a thank you e-mail from Scott inviting me to a party he’s throwing in Seattle:
Damn, I wish Scott lived in Syracuse, NY.
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
My BTC Address
Bulldozer00's Blog 