Betterment

For the first time, the only time, everyone on Earth was in the same boat at the same time. We’ve long been divided by privilege, by caste, by accidents of birth or by organized hierarchies. …

Since I’m now twice as old as I was when I started this blog, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on advice I wish I could have given my younger self.

Don't abandon your notes! Obsidian is exceptionally good at systems. Here are a few to help you with finding old notes in Obsidian.

The smartest people in the world use mental models to make intelligent decisions, avoid stupidity, and increase productivity. Let's take a look at how ...

It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker. Other folks might be easily duped by a spammer or a hustler, but not us. And yet, no o…

To get to the Kebab House Cafe, you’ll need to drive past a dozen fast food restaurants, restaurants you can find off just about any interstate. It’s certainly less convenient to go a f…

There’s a story from this country’s old-time mining days that tells of a man who found a vein of gold in the mountains of the West. He staked a claim and went to work to extract the glimmering ore. But shortly thereafter, the vein of gold disappeared.  Day after day, the man continued to pick, […]

Preparation is the key to success in your first 90 days!

Some problems, when well solved, lead to making things better. Some problems give us a chance to get back on course. And some problems are opportunities to be generous. But many of the problems tha…

Explore the importance of hobbies for men that bring joy, keep your mind sharp, improve your eye for detail and help you meet new friends.

Over on the Infinite Loops Podcast #167 the author, entrepreneur, and former White House advisor (under George W. Bush), Dr Pippa Malmgren talks about

Here are some books and household items that I wanted to share. I’m mostly into audiobooks these days–a good narrator combined with a good author is pretty rare and wonderful… It …

In todays world, productivity is the name of the game, especially in the tech industry where software developers are the driving force behind innovation. However, the idea that longer hours lead to greater productivity is no longer considered to be the case by most. Recent research and real-world examples suggest that cutting back on work hours can actually boost productivity for software developers. In this article, we’ll explore the reasons behind this shift and the benefits it brings to both developers and their employers.

There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating and is reliably busy. The other has an astonishingly low 1.5 out of 5 rating. The physical plant is…

Over the life course, people’s happiness tends to follow a U-shaped curve; it begins to decline around the age of 18 and hits its lowest point around age 47 or 48, at which point it starts to go back up again. Researchers aren’t sure why happiness follows this trajectory. Our personal hypothesis is that after […]

The idea of communing with nature is instilled from birth in Norway. I hiked through a rain-drenched forest to try it myself

When an organization first sets out to have an impact, it discovers that it has no customers, no clients, no constituents. So it shows up, it makes an offer and it listens. The early days are excit…

A version of this post originally appeared in Google bathrooms worldwide as a Google Testing on the Toilet episode. You can download a prin...

Getting the word out is easy to measure and exciting as well. Focusing on this misses the point. You might be able to get a song played on the radio, but will the song motivate listeners to show up…

The trick for most ambitious pursuits, I’m afraid, is simply doing the obvious thing much, much more than most other people are willing to do—and accepting that it may hurt at times.

Elizabeth Spiers for the NY Times on how to apologize (given the recent spate of celebrity non-apologies): I Have a Question for t

If every building in the shopping district in a big city was owned by one landlord, rents would go up. So would the prices of everything sold. The landlord would keep a significant percentage of ea…

“It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite

Authority is usually addressed as a brand is a way to reach people and gain their “automatic”...

It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original recording. It might be the high fidelity of loyalty. No shopping around for a momentarily better de…

What does it mean to act in a moral way? One of the answers the philosopher Immanuel Kant formulated to this question can be paraphrased this way: “Never treat people merely as a means to an end, but always as an end in and of themselves, too.” We all treat people as means sometimes, and […]

Rubber duck technique for improving your code and design