luck | Mostly Bright Ideas

Browsing All posts tagged under »luck«

If Not Now, Where?

January 14, 2014

My father often interpreted the misfortunes of others by saying that the person was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d explain that this could be a matter of either poor judgment or bad luck. “You could even be in the right place,” he’d say, “but at the wrong time.” I guess […]

Probable Cause (Part 3)

May 21, 2013

I reach for a book in my office, and I get that weird tingly feeling, something like an invisible finger tapping me on the brain. I turn and walk over to another bookcase, pulled along as though I were a migrating insect, and not one of the smart ones either. I’m heading somewhere, but for […]

Probable Cause (Part 1)

May 6, 2013

I’m interested in probability. Not in how we calculate probability, because once you know how to do it, the whole thing can get pretty boring. But what probability is – that’s what I wonder about. Does it really exist? Or is it more like time, in the sense that it’s a way of measuring something […]

Train of Thought

January 10, 2012

150

Most of us spent our childhoods bouncing back and forth between our own wants and the demands of various authority figures. In many ways, it seemed like some kind of game that we woke up in the middle of, and that required us to figure out the rules as we went along. Gradually, through a […]