Title: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Started: 11/30/09
Finished:  1/15/10
More Information: Amazon
Jon’s Summary: If you ever decide to read a book on Abe Lincoln, you should probably read this one. Why? Well because about halfway through the book I realized that it read more like fiction than history. You really feel connected to historical figures that died over a hundred years ago due to Goodwin’s writing style. And even though you know that the book will come to an abrupt stop on April 15, 1865, you still hope things may turn out differently!

Read this book mostly over 3 weeks, as I didn’t get much reading in over the holiday. It goes surprisingly fast as you want to… Continue reading

Title: Lies I Told My Children Author: Karen McQuestion Started: 11/11/09 Finished:  11/16/09 More Information: Amazon Jon’s Summary: So contrary to what you might expect, this book is not about lying to kids. Well not explicitly, anyway. I happened to stumble on this book because it was insanely cheap at Kindle marketplace, only $1.99! I figured – heck, how bad can it be? And the preview looked promising. So I plunked down 2 dollars and was promptly amazed by a number of things:

1. 2 dollars gets you what you pay for quantity wise – this thing is pretty short. Heading from Toledo to Detroit via plane (20 minutes, 50 with boarding, etc..) – then take this book along. It’ll be a quick read.

2. The essays given are… Continue reading

OK, so since I read a fair bit on the train to and from work, I’ve decided to start publishing reviews on JonWestfall.Com for a variety of reasons. First, so I remember later what I thought of a book. Second, so perhaps others get a sense of books they might want to read. And Third, it’s a cheap source of material to keep new content flowing. So here’s the first review, of a book I finished this morning.

Title: Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent
Author: Anthony Rapp
Started: 11/3/09
Finished: 11/11/09
Jon’s Summary: The author examines a period in his life between 1994-1998 which found him staring in a Broadway production and simultaneously dealing with the prolonged illness and death of his mother… Continue reading

Lifehacker recently published an article detailing a few ways to help remember the things you actually care about, as opposed to those you don’t but remember anyway (such as the MVP of the 1996 All-star game). One of the little gems that was tucked in the article was the application fbCal which integrates your Facebook Birthdays and events with the calendar of your choosing. I have this now set up on my Google Calendar and am extremely happy as it’s A) always up to date and B) putting information where I’ll actually look for it, not where I don’t look (e.g., a sidebar on facebook.com)

To get it set up, all you need to do is install the fbCal application to your facebook account and allow it offline… Continue reading

I often talk with people who spend just as much time as me (or more) surfing various blogs and sites to keep up on news in a broad array of areas. One complaint is usually that people miss material, or material is posted so rapidly that they feel overwhelmed. A solution to this is to use an RSS reader, a favorite is Google Reader, to read your news. When I mention this, I often hear  “No, that’s too much work” – quite a funny statement since once it’s set up, the RSS reader will actually save hours and hours of time wasted surfing to pages and refreshing them.

And it isn’t even a lot of work in the first place – you can be up and running with Google Reader… Continue reading

OK, so I came across a rather interesting story earlier this week on Consumerist that I thought I’d share in order to make the following point: Loss Prevention Employees (Or Asset Protection, or plain old Security) at large retailers are just for show. Here’s the story:If you work at Best Buy, don’t tackle any knife-wielding shoplifters or you’ll be fired. That’s what happened to two Best Buy employees who chased a couple shoplifters who were fleeing with armloads of merchandise towards a waiting car. Read MoreSo those guys who give you dirty looks as you leave the store? That’s their only real job. See it breaks down something like this… Continue reading

Deadliest Catch starts up again tonight, and again I’ll be watching it. Karey & I realized a few years ago that the show really is essentially the same thing year after year. They go out, they fish for crabs, things break (both ships and people), good times, bad times, etc… It’s not like I think this year God himself will make a special guest appearence as the Relief Captain of the Cornelia Marie or that Time Bandit’s sauna will catch fire. But for some reason the show is addictive, which is why I’ll be watching… Continue reading

Happy Easter everyone, I hope today is a good day for all out there in the blogosphere and beyond!… Continue reading

Welcome to Jon Westfall’s Software Based Experiment Resource site. This site will begin it’s life to serve as a supplement to my contribution to the SJDM Computing Symposium, and continue on as a resource to other social scientists that seek simple solutions to building software. (Whoa, Holy Alliteration Batman!) If you have any questions, feel free to contact me for more information.

SK3 : An example of using Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Internet Information Server, and Microsoft Frontpage extensions to build rich web-delivered data collection software. SK3 is a multi-stage escalation of commiment / Sunk Cost problem that presents the user various pieces of information and tracks what they look at, how long they

I wrote the following How-To in order to help my fellow undergraduates understand the process of applying to Graduate School (specifically in psychology).  It’s good information to have, considering that a concise (under 40 pages) How-To doesn’t really exist (as far as I could find).  Hopefully this can help you or someone you know.  And if you don’t plan on going to graduate school, now you can know a bit more about the process.  For some detailed ranting of mine on it, you can read that entry in the “My Stories” section later in the book.

Getting into a graduate program in psychology is a time-intensive task.  Most of my friends were unaware of when they should be doing things, when to expect to hear from organizations, and when… Continue reading