Naked by Brian Hoffman Overview In the acknowledgements, author and scholar Brian Hoffman notes that the idea for this book grew out of his own early experiences in a clothing optional home/community. He noted that as he grew older he became increasingly aware that what was normal in his own life was not nearly so normal for most others, at least in the US. It was, he suggests, that dichotomy between his experiences and the broader social order that led him to explore the history and influences on nudist life. As he notes in the acknowledgement, he tried to avoid coming across as a dyed-in-the-wool nudist who was seeking to justify his lifestyle but rather wanted to present a fact-based perspective on a lifestyle that is different from mainstream society. ...

Confusing Fiction with Fact I swear some people can’t keep track of reality. While browsing Amazon for something to read in the vein of philosophy I ran across a book entitled The da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth is Stranger than Fiction by Robert M. Price. The book purports to debunk the “many misleading claims found in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code” according to one reviewer. That statement and several others made by various reviewers suggest that somehow Brown was intending to provide accurate historical information regarding the Christian Church. Funny, having read The Da Vinci Code I don’t recall Brown ever claiming that the book was historically accurate. For someone to take the time to write a book to refute claims that were never made seems, well, stupid. Apparently, Mr. Price (or I should say Doctor Price, given his PhD) has difficulty comprehending that fiction is by definition not fact. Fiction writers often base their works on some variation of an idea or concept and follow the “what if” process. That is, “what if” there really is an Opus Dei 1 with sinister underpinnings? “What if” Jesus and Mary Magdalene really did have a child together? and so on. Fiction writers take some fact and embroider it with the lace needed to paint an enticing picture that tells an entertaining story. Few set out to present history (or any other topic) factually. ...

My Wife Always Wanted to Marry a Pilot A Bit of Background I became interested in drones in the spring of 2021. My wife was preparing to retire from her teaching gig and considering a new career in real estate. After 15 years in our relatively small town in the mountains of North Georgia, we were planning a move to a little larger town with fewer challenging hills and more conveniences. We were building a new home in our soon-to-be new town. This was, I thought, a great time to explore my interest in drones. After all, I could document the progress of our new home and, if she did go into real estate, I would be positioned to do some of her photography. Win! ...

How We Encourage Cheating in Education I was watching a news report this morning about students using ChatGPT that asked whether this was considered cheating. That got me to thinking about how we encourage cheating in education.. Think about it: The purpose for education is to provide the student with the foundational knowledge they need to be successful in work and life. We all want to be successful, so cheating to get there doesn’t seem to me to be a very profitable endeavor. After all, at the end of the day you still have to know how to do things in order to be successful. I used to remind my nursing students of this all the time: If you want to be a good nurse you’re going to need to actually know what you’re doing. Cheating might get you through the class, it might even allow you to pass the licensing exam but the real test is whether you can function in the real world. It’s a hell of a lot less stressful to actually know what you’re doing when in an emergency than to try to wing it because you lack the knowledge to actually perform correctly. ...

Why I Think Crypto is Stupid I recently read an article on Wired about Faruk Ozer, The CEO of Turkey’s biggest Cryptocurrency business. That article outlines how tens of thousands of Turkish people were victims of Ozer’s theft of their crypto wallets and all of their assets. The thing that stood out to me is how easy it was for him to simply download their accounts onto a thumb drive and be off with their money. In the wake of the crypto crimes of Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX) and Changpeng Zhao (Binance) I fail to understand why anyone would trust their financial assets and future to something so easily stolen. Unlike banks, there is no FDIC insurance. Unlike stocks and bonds there is no physical document to show ownership. (Yes, I realize that most transactions exist in the ’ether’ but using a reputable trading house provides a level of safety that they are unlikely to steal your money. ...

My Thoughts on Competency Based Education Competency based education has gathered quite a lot of steam over the last few years. Many universities now assert that they are competency based and promote this as somehow better than traditional education. In general, it seems that competency based education is a way of expediting the educational process whereby the student can move forward more quickly so long as the student can demonstrate competence in a subject. ...

I Don’t Trust Gmail. Here’s Why. I have had an email address with Gmail for probably 20 years. I mean my email address is my name @ Gmail. No numbers, no weird abbreviations, no strange punctuations, just my firstnamelastname @gmail.com How long has it been since that was possible? Three or four years ago I began receiving emails to my address that were clearly intended for another person with my same name. Their email was literally my email address! At first I thought it was just an glitch in the system. Later I thought perhaps they had simply mis-typed their name (maybe left out a letter or something) or had made up a name so that they did not get spam emails. However, many of those emails were for legitimate purposes – receipts from Tractor Supply or from their cell phone provider. What gives? ...

A Curious Mind I am, and have always been, a curious person so when I saw this book at the book store I had no choice but to select it. Curiosity is a driving force that pushes us to learn more, understand more, and to find or create new things. Curiosity is also the foundation for creativity, which is the premise for Brian Grazer’s book, “A Curious Mind”. If the name sound familiar, but you can’t quite nail down his name, Brian is the producer of many hit movies, including Splash, Apollo 13, Friday Night Lights, and A Beautiful Life among many others. Brian credits his curiosity for both getting him into the movie industry and with his success within that industry. He points to how his curiosity, and what he calls “curiosity conversations”, has expanded his understanding of people and phenomena, allowed him to explore new ideas in unique ways, for developing a deeper understanding of others, and for providing him the foundation for identifying good ideas. ...

Noise By Daniel Kahnemnan Overview We often like to think that decision-makers use sound, rational judgment when making decisions. Using examples from the courtroom, Human Resources, insurance adjusters, and others, Kahneman and team show that, in fact, our judgments are strongly, and unconsciously, affected by a multitude of seemingly irrelevant factors such as the weather, how hunger the decision-maker is, and even whether the local sports team won their game over the prior weekend. These are what he terms Noise. He differentiates noise from bias and notes that both can, and frequently do, coexist. ...

I had never heard of Naval Ravikant until the book popped up in the search results for personal finance books on Amazon. Or wealth, I don’t really remember what that search term was! In reality, this book is not about personal finance. Instead, it is a collection of thoughts by Naval Ravikant, a venture capitalist, founder or co-founder of several successful websites including the consumer reviews website Epinions.com, Angelist.com, producthunt.com and others. He has been an early investor in over 200 companies, including Uber, Poshmark, wish.com, Twitter, and Stack Overflow. ...