Between now and November 8th, I am going to learn more about polls than I may ever want to know. Every day there's a new poll and every new poll is accompanied by an analysis of the techniques utilized by the poll. Then some commentator will delve into the bias of the poll. Gone are the simple days of "here are the results and there's a error factor of 3%".

Steve Jobs was ridiculed for wanting to open Apple Stores. They have proven to be ridiculously successful.   The Taxi drivers fought so they wouldn't have to  accept credit cards. Now its one of their greatest money makers.

  The US government yesterday issued some go ahead regulations that should pave the way for a new phenomenon to take off -- driverless cars.    

On Saturday morning, I had thought of a fun blog idea. Running out to an appointment, I decided to set the idea aside and write the blog on Sunday morning.    

This past Friday during lunch in Princeton, my friend architect extraordinaire Josh Zinder asked each attendee to share a story.   Since the next Friday (September 23) marks a special anniversary of sorts, I shared how I met Fred C. Klein or perhaps how Fred met me.  

What's left after a bruising battle, a war, a conflict, an argument? Raw feelings, resolution, terror....? Can we as a country feel unified? Did we ever?   We are fed a stream of news that is divisive and lopsided, you can pick the side. Social media feeds us what we want to hear...not what we should hear. Yes...it's true. Social media keeps track of what we click on and provides us with more content related to that topic. It's in their algorythms.  

Rashomon was an iconic 1950 Japanese movie wherein a number of eye witnesses to a horrendous event each had a different version as to what happened. The Rashomon effect is contradictory interpretations of the same event by different people.  It is said that the effect is not only based on differences in perspective, but occurs where such differences arise in combination with the absence of evidence to elevate or disqualify any version of the truth, plus social pressure for closure on the question.

Recently, I was again reminded of the vagaries of life. Those chance occurrences that could make all the difference.We were driving to Washington, D.C. and were about 30 minutes away on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway when traffic suddenly came to a complete stop. Within minutes, at least 10 emergency vehicles passed us. The traffic app told us that there was a major accident less that a tenth of a mile ahead of us. It had happened moments before.