« To the past
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Jan 13, 2012
I want to care about something the way he cares about driver safety. I want to be the opposite of a moral idiot, but I don’t know how, and I’m fascinated by people who do. Bob oozes concern; he wants to infect the state of New Jersey with good driving habits. He respects his public role, the fact that the minute he’s done with these kids they head straight for their parents’ car keys and out onto the roads we share. When I asked him what he likes to do outside of work, he laughed: “This is my life.Learning About Work Ethic From My High School Driving Instructor - Atlantic
Jan 7, 2012
In March of 1974, some 29 years after the official end of World War II, Hiroo Onoda, a former Japanese Army intelligence officer, walks out of the jungle of Lubang Island in the Philippines, where he was finally relieved of duty. He handed over his sword (hanging from his hip in photo), his rifle, ammunition and several hand grenades. Onoda had been sent to Lubang Island in December of 1944 to join an existing group of soldiers and hamper any enemy attacks. Allied forces overtook the island just a few months later, capturing or killing all but Onoda and three other Japanese soldiers. The four ran into the hills and began a decades-long insurgency extending well past the end of the war. Several times they found or were handed leaflets notifying them that the war had ended, but they refused to believe it. In 1950, one of the soldiers turned himself in to Philippine authorities. By 1972, Onoda’s two other compatriots were dead, killed during guerrilla activities, leaving Onoda alone. In 1974, Onoda met a Japanese college dropout, Norio Suzuki, who was traveling the world, and through their friendship, Onoda’s former commanding officer was located and flew to Lubang Island to formally relieve Onoda of duty, and bring him home to Japan. Over the years, the small group had killed some 30 Filipinos in various attacks, but Onoda ended up going free, after he received a pardon from President Ferdinand Marcos. (AP Photo) #
Jan 3, 2012
Chris Wake - Habits of Ineffective People
No one sets out to be ineffective, but it’s easy to pick up the habits. Too easy.
Consuming more than you create -
Effective people tend to create a lot of content. Content can mean a lot of things - but the rule is always the same, create more than you consume. Ineffective people, on the other hand, spend the majority of their time consuming the fruits of others’ labor. They are consummate lurkers.
Watching your own vanity metrics -
Everyone suffers from some level of vanity. A need to be liked. The Internet feeds that need, keeping popularity at the forefront of any online identity with lists of ‘Friends,’ ‘Followers,’ ‘Connections,’ ‘Re-Pins’ and even the ‘Like’ itself. Ineffective people tend to feed on these popularity metrics, whereas effective people recognize that these are shallow indicators. Effective people focus more on engagement and strength of relationships; they create quality content to solicit engagement from others, or seek out interesting people and proactively engage them on their own terms.
Starting the day responding to others -
Ineffective people allow others to set the agenda for their day. They start their morning reading or responding to others’ requests. Effective people approach each day with an agenda for what they want to accomplish, start their day tackling a task crucial for accomplishing their goal, and respond to others when (or if) it works with their agenda.
Prioritizing the wrong activities -
Busy work. It’s quite literally work that keeps you busy; it saps your time, but gets you no closer to your end goal. Ineffective people tend not to recognize busy work, and therefore, they prioritize tasks that will not move them any closer to their goals. Effective people recognize busy work for what it is and waste little to no time trying to appear busy when they know there are more important tasks to be completed.
Relying on multi-tasking to “save time” -
Multi-tasking is a scam. Being able to walk and chew gum at the same time may be the only true form of multi-tasking worth doing. Ineffective people use multi-tasking to appear busy, or to fool themselves into believing they can reach their goal faster by making minor progress on a lot of things at once. Effective people have a secret weapon to saving time. Focus. Effective people know which tasks are important for reaching their goal, and they focus on each one after another.
Dec 6, 2011
Amazing sounds from one saxophone. This is what happens when you are passionate about what you do.
Above everything else, I’m most amazed that he’s circular breathing the whole time. He never takes a deep breath for 6 minutes.
Oct 25, 2011
Think You Don't Need To Focus? Think Again. | Chase Jarvis Blog
“But mark my words, if you’re goal is to get your work to stand out from the crowd (as good art does), then you’ll need to focus all the more.
Focus on subject. Focus on content. Focus on meaning. Focus on artistic vision…
…because these are all the tools that computers can’t help you with and these are the only ways from here on out that you’re going to be able to make a mark.”
Exactly. They are just tools, nothing more.
Oct 17, 2011
Unfortunately, almost no problem can be productively conceived in this way. A group that divides the world between the pure 99 percent and the evil 1 percent will have nothing to say about education reform, Medicare reform, tax reform, wage stagnation or polarization. They will have nothing to say about the way Americans have overconsumed and overborrowed. These are problems that implicate a much broader swath of society than the top 1 percent.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/the-milquetoast-radicals.htm
Jun 29, 2011
Human Experiment
It’s like the scientists in the movies who perform the experiment on themselves because they aren’t sure if it’ll work and doesn’t want to risk anyone but himself. Dan McLaughlin is spending over $100,000 in order to test this one idea, that with 1% talent and 99% of effort (or 10,000 hours) you can become an expert at whatever you do. He’s done almost 1200 hours, let’s see what happens after 10,000.
Jun 7, 2011
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times
The best article I’ve read about food and nutrition. It answers a lot of questions that you may not even know you had.
May 25, 2011
The new tech bubble via The Economist
We were too ignorant back in the 90’s to understand what all this meant. We know better now, but will greed trump common sense yet again?
May 19, 2011
Dancing at a Funeral Follow Up
Two great follow up articles that help me navigate through what I was feeling while I wrote my thoughts about Osama. One’s from the New Yorker the other is from the NYT.
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