As a follow-on to yesterday’s Vision for Penn State Greeks, I wanted to clarify some things after speaking with some who read it. I also want to offer a practical idea for how we might start addressing the problem of “spiritual meaning” I identified as the underlying problem beneath the surface of fraternity and sorority challenges. First, a…
Month: March 2017
Vision for Penn State Greeks
I remember touring Beta Theta Pi a few years ago. It was over Arts Fest in 2013, and I had been invited along with some others to see inside the new crown jewel of Penn State’s fraternity system. An alum had contributed a huge sum of $6+ million to entirely renovating the historic fraternity basically…
Artificial Narrow Intelligence
I started subscribing to Ben Thompson’s site a few weeks ago. Daily emails on technology that I’ve found very helpful to understand what’s going on, and weekly articles like today’s that is a great overview/introduction to the issue of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. It starts with Chris Dixon’s recent article How Aristotle Created the Computer: Dixon goes…
Penn’s Prayer for Philadelphia
I was walking through the City Hall courtyard earlier today and William Penn’s prayer caught my eye. I thought I’d share it here: William Penn’s Prayer for Philadelphia- 1684 “And Thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province—named before thou wert born. What love, what care, what service and what travail there have been to…
Good financial advice
Joshua Becker shares key financial advice that changed his life. At the top of the list is my favorite: Most people who overspend their income do so in one of three ways: 1) Too much house, 2) Too much car, 3) Too much entertainment.” // Financial adviser, 2008. I made a passing statement to a…
SEPTA Key
I picked up my first SEPTA Key earlier this month. The SEPTA Key works for subways, trollies, and buses so far, but they’re not yet functional for the regional suburban trains that I take frequently. The slow-roll launch of the SEPTA Key program has been many, many years in the making. I’m proud of some…
A little creek
Earlier this week I caught the train out of Philadelphia. It was a beautiful early spring evening, so I walked the mile or so from the suburban train station to where I was heading. Along the way, this little creek was flowing under the pedestrian bridge I was crossing. I stopped to snap a Live Photo,…
Reading defeats narcissism
Kevin Hartnett writes on the effects of art on life: In the same way that it would be hard to meet Scarlett Johansson and not be distracted by her beauty, it is difficult to read War and Peace and not be preoccupied with its reputation as the greatest novel ever written. … One way to think about…
State College streetcars
I’m writing to share a romantic vision. I’m telling you this right off the bat to so that you can take a hike if you’re the cold hearted, unsentimental type. If you don’t care about aesthetics, and if you don’t know where nostalgia lives, then get out and save yourself the grief of what’s to…
Graeco-Christian
In Will Durant’s closing section of Our Oriental Heritage, the first of eleven volumes in his The Story of Civilization series, he works to tie in the broad histories of ancient Asia with Greece as a transmitter and transformer civilization. (The Life of Greece is the second in his 11-volume series.) Excerpt: From Egypt and Mesopotamia Greece took the models for her…