Not a Journal

Is there one thing that comes to mind when you stop and think? I've written about stopping and thinking a while ago, and if I wasn't so lazy I'd link that post, but I honestly don't remember what it was even called. *Pretend to read aforementioned post*  All 4 of you who read: "Wow, nice post Jay, can't wait to finish this one!" Thanks guys.. For whatever reason, lately, it has been the control loops our brains go through to perform simple, or even insanely complex tasks that I've been thinking about. I get a little excited (I do recognize how lame this will sound) when I think of a PLC. A PLC is essentially a simplified electronic version of the control loops I'm talking about, that for example, controls the heating and cooling inside your house. It's rather simple, a thermocouple (a slightly better thermometer, or an RTD if you're fancy) measures the temperature. A small computer reads it, compares it to the setpoin...

*Reads title* Not really, just been busier than Donald Trump's campaign schedule. Surprisingly, he isn't even slowing down. Ironic, seeing how he went from billionaire celebrity to, well, whatever you want to classify him as now. I guess it doesn't really matter, since he's still rich as f***. I'm currently sitting in the library on Saturday night. There are 7 other people in sight in all directions. Last night, I spent 7 hours in the same chair, running data for this hell of a project I'm working on for school. It's going well. Just made a boring presentation for it too. Literally 12 graphs. So. Many. Graphs. You may be wondering how the rest of the semester is going.... Don't ask. Great! What else here..... I'm destroying 1st place in fantasy hockey right now. SEE! Told you.. sorry Morassutti. You may think this post is a huge waste of time and and internet space, and it completely is. I'm just wasting time until the prin...

I know, I've been a terrible blogger this summer. I think I wrote 4.. maybe? I had a busy summer ok!!?! Well, as it begins to wrap up, I want to try this 'reflecting' thing. My therapist says it's healthy. Who am I kidding, I don't have a therapist... Although that cartoon shithead on my shoulder has been getting pretty annoying lately. Ok that's enough of that nonsense... Let's jump back to the beginning..of summer.                   *Cheap TV shaky screen into memory but for a blog effect* The first few months were, for all intents and purposes... absolute write offs. That is the LAST time I take hard online classes at an accelerated rate. Jesus it was bad. Fast forward to August and here's where the fun-if-you-can-call-it-that stuff happened. I won a gold medal in Ri.... oops, not me. Oh silly, all I did was joinnnn a gym for a month. That's right, I'm slightly less fat and slightly more "in-shape..ha...ha" than before...

As promised on Twitter (follow me, on second thought... don't, I'm boring) I will go way too in depth on the family room classic, Guess Who. Here we go. I should probably get the board out for reference.. So for you monkeys who have not played this wondrous game, I shall explain the premise. You start by each selecting a card with a character's face on it. That face is somewhere on a flipy-board thing each player has, which consists of 23 other faces. The object of the game is to guess your opponent's mystery person by asking yes-or-no elimination questions. Based on the answer you get, you knock down the characters that don't fit the description. So you could ask random questions, but there definitely is a strategy to ask particular questions to eliminate the most people. Some may call this cheating.. it's not. I checked. Normal questions would include something like, "Is your person's hair white?" or "Is your person female?". ...

Credit is owed where credit is due. I heard this first today from Malcolm Gladwell on a podcast (I don't recall which one, either his or Tim Ferris') and I feel like it was a great point he made. And want to expand on it. Maybe controversial, but hear me out. So I'm going to focus on American sport drafts, mainly basketball, hockey and football. The work was done by a world famous sociologist who I do not remember the name of, but I wish I did to credit him. Basically he ran a study of the value of the first overall draft pick in football and shared his findings with team owners, who disregarded his findings after meeting with this researcher. I mean they're still filthy rich, but they are missing out on "free wins" each season due to their old habits. But let's talk about some background before getting to that. Scenario: If I had the first overall pick in hockey this year, (I'll talk about hockey since I know most about that relative to the other...

As I start writing this, I don't really have a map of where I want to take it. You're getting off the cuff-straight from my freakishly amazing brain-content right now. All 14 of you must feel so lucky. I was thinking about this shitty course I have to take next week which is about technology and its impact on society. I want to do this now, and get my ideas about it out before I start the course and get frustrated at some overly in-depth textbook some Generation X-er wrote, thinking he knows more about the tech and its applications that our generation has created, better than we do. Think about this. When's the last time you spoke to an older adult (~45+ is Gen X range) and didn't have to help them with some sort of electronic device. I love my Mom to death but she is just now beginning to flawlessly operate a cable box remote control. I need not say more, but I will anyway. I know not every Gen Y-er (our gen) is great with tech, so this doesn't apply t...

As a disclaimer, I personally have only ever been on the consumer side of the restaurant business. Even then, I don't eat out that often. But that doesn't change the fact that the current system is inefficient, awkward and unsettling. Let me explain. Now what specifically am I talking about? Well, after listening to a Freakonomics Radio podcast about one of the most famous restaurants in NYC, I'd like to share with you some of the concepts that were discussed, and spin my own opinion into how this may affect smaller class restaurants like the ones the average person goes to (like me!). First off, restaurants are not great businesses. By that, I am referring to their profit margins. Without doing a ton of research, I can say with 90% confidence that 7% is above average and most probably only make around 5%.. meaning, for every dollar I spend, they earn only 5 cents. Furthermore, there are two distinct services that a restaurant provides, wait staff which are referred to as...