Fantasy sports went a long way toward developing the sabermetrics formulas used not only by oddsmakers but general managers in hiring players. So the amateur fantasists ended up creating some of the algorithms that Oakland GM Billy Bean's statisticia...
In Sweden, I went to an English school, where there was a mishmash of people from all over the world. Some were diplomatic kids with a lot of money, some were ghetto kids who came up from the suburbs, and I grew up in between. There's a community of ...
Since losing his reelection in 2002, Barr has lost not only his power but also many of his friends. It doesn't help that after alienating nearly every Democrat with impeachment, he spent the next five years alienating his fellow Republicans - railing...
I had these kind of unrealistic expectations that were fueled by romantic comedies, and it has both helped me and hurt me in many ways. It helped me because, in general, they've made me hopeful. I just figure things will eventually work out for me. B...
I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for the author. That was Robert Wilson, something called 'Network,' which consisted of Wilson sitting on a bunk, the dialogue of the mo...
It may be the optimist in me, but I think America has a uniquely powerful and capacious glue internally. The American identity has always been ethnically and religiously neutral, so within one generation you have Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, C...
I would argue that we have a generation of young people, particularly minorities, who are no longer putting up with the kinds of things their parents put up with. They're much more self-confident. It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people becau...
Growing up in this post-apartheid era, the first generation of teens in South Africa living in this new democracy, I often found myself feeling different. I was often the only person of color in an otherwise all-white school. And within the Indian co...
Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today's wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium - and tens of millions of Americans will feel a simil...
When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which ...
Dr. Einstein: Alright, Mr. President, we go to Panama. Teddy Brewster: Bully, bully! Follow me, General. It's down south, you know. Dr. Einstein: [hat falling across his eyes] Well, Bon voyage!
My grandmother taught me that accomplishments meant less than what you left behind. I started to ask myself what impact my comedy would have on people's lives. And that changed my act. I got cleaner. I stopped talking about generic stuff like airplan...
The natural tenderness and delicacy of our constitution, added to the many dangers we are subject to from your sex, renders it almost impossible for a single lady to travel without injury to her character. And those who have a protector in a husband ...
The lower spreads mean lower costs for investors, because Nasdaq investors generally do not trade directly with one another. Instead, they usually buy and sell from market-makers, brokerage firms that flip shares between buyers and sellers and keep t...
Doctors and scientists, being part of that two-sex culture, have done everything they can to try to force people who are in-between into one of the two clear types. Intersex people themselves have also generally wanted to fit into one of the two clea...
You broke me bodily. The heart ain't the half of it, And I'll never learn to laugh at it In my good natured way. In fact, I'm laughing less in general, But I learned a lot at my own funeral. And I knew you'd be the death of me, So I guess that's the ...
One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren't routine, often don't get a fair break... It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs which produced the corollary that women are bred to ti...
With regard to electric vehicles, I am all for them because most of the incremental electricity needed to run those vehicles will come from gas-fired electric generation. However, I do not believe it is wise for America to substitute dependence on fo...
I give talks to theater arts departments, and I don't know what I'll say. I don't plan a thing. It's just the energy of these young people. They're the next generation, and what they have is very representative of how I felt when I was 19 or 20 or so...
I've always liked TV shows that have slightly unlikable leads, where you root for them in spite of a lot of things. I know it's not common with shows with young people; they have to be so likable. But, I mean, teenagers just generally aren't very lik...
I'm not of the opinion that all software will be open source software. There is certain software that fits a niche that is only useful to a particular company or person: for example, the software immediately behind a web site's user interface. But th...
