Ron Frisard's Blog

The Anosognosic’s Dilemma

One of the most important articles I have read in many years. This principle of believing what your mind or own incompetence can handle is fascinating. The story of the bank robber and lemon juice just highlights the point so well - I can’t stop making comparisons to it everywhere. I think many things today regarding politics revolves around this. The first part is really the best one but in the others there is some good stuff regarding the wife of President Wilson.
Some of my favorite quotes:

If I were given carte blanche to write about any topic I could, it would be about how much our ignorance, in general, shapes our lives in ways we do not know about. Put simply, people tend to do what they know and fail to do that which they have no conception of. In that way, ignorance profoundly channels the course we take in life. And unknown unknowns constitute a grand swath of everybody’s field of ignorance.

Stefan Fatsis, in his book “Word Freak,” talks about this when comparing everyday Scrabble players to professional ones. As he says: “In a way, the living-room player is lucky . . . He has no idea how miserably he fails with almost every turn, how many possible words or optimal plays slip by unnoticed. The idea of Scrabble greatness doesn’t exist for him.” (p. 128)

Unknown unknown solutions haunt the mediocre without their knowledge. The average detective does not realize the clues he or she neglects. The mediocre doctor is not aware of the diagnostic possibilities or treatments never considered. The run-of-the-mill lawyer fails to recognize the winning legal argument that is out there. People fail to reach their potential as professionals, lovers, parents and people simply because they are not aware of the possible. This is one of the reasons I often urge my student advisees to find out who the smart professors are, and to get themselves in front of those professors so they can see what smart looks like.

I must read!
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/

Trip to Quebec City..

What a great time I had last weekend in Quebec! The city is incredible clean - we did not see one coke can or candy wrapper on the street! Here is the link to the rest of our photos.

Old Photo’s #1: Final Four & Miss Louisiana

Back in 2003 Steve and I finally got our chance to go to a final four that just happened to be in my birthplace. The first night we went to my Cousins car dealership and ran into Miss Louisiana. She was there to take care of the last minute details for an upcoming appearance later in the week at the dealership. We talked a little with her and we asked to take a photo with her and the line Steve and I will never forget is “wait a minute, let me get my sash..”. One of the best trips I will ever have!

Prius love..

So I have been using fuelly.com for a while now to track my MPG in my Prius. It is a great web 2.0 site and really give me some great data on how “green” I can be. For example, over 29K miles my average cost per mile is at $0.06 (that includes the + 4 bucks a gallon last summer!).

Meghan’s 13 years video project

Meghan is at it again to create a viral video but this time for a project at school. The assignment was to create lyrics like the Billy Joel song “We didn’t start the fire” about current events since your birth. So Meghan and her friend went a step further and created a video and used a song from Taylor Swift instead as the music. I think it is incredibly creative and shows how easy it is to create a video with a Mac..
Enjoy..

What is this picture all about???

This photo was taken back in the summer of 2003 at Comerica Park in Detriot.  I love mascots and what better then the official Tiger of the Detriot Tigers.  It was a great game and statium.

One of the things I remember most of the trip is how the statium is buried into the ground.  When you see if from the street it is not that tall but really all you are seeing is the upper decks.