Thanks to a friend who pointed out that blog posts are showing up funny in other platforms when cross posted. I have a little homework over the weekend to fix this WordPress character encoding from Latin1 to UTF8.
Links
[Link] 34 Mistakes on the Way to 34 Years Old
Ryan Holiday had a birthday, useful time as any to write
If I have been successful at all, it’s been through learning from these mistakes (painfully) and by benefiting from the mistakes of others (a less painful way to learn). With that, I share these things I learned the hard way…or continue to struggle with.
[Link] Surviving A Fire
Bob Fulghum has faced many a challenge in his life, & a fire that swept through his neighbourhood hasn’t gotten him or his attitude down.
The first question was “What were my valuables?” Not much.
Just me and my memories and my attitude.
And I saved those.
As for “stuff”?
I always turn to the words of the 4th Century Greek philosopher, Epictetus, for perspective.
He said: When a neighbor breaks a bowl, we readily say, ‘These things happen.’ When your own bowl breaks, you should respond in the same way as when another person’s bowl breaks. Carry that understanding over to worldly consequences.
[Link] Trust in the Age of the Pandemic
Kaiser Fung shares a Citizen Petition by a group of scientists against issuing a full approval to the vaccines:
The heart of the issue is about maintaining the standards of science. The authors of the petition explain their reasons. Fung’s reminder is simple:
Trust is a precious commodity. Once lost, it’s hard to earn back
[Link] A Project of One’s Own
Paul Graham’s reminder:
Many kids experience the excitement of working on projects of their own. The hard part is making this converge with the work you do as an adult. And our customs make it harder. We treat “playing” and “hobbies” as qualitatively different from “work”. It’s not clear to a kid building a treehouse that there’s a direct (though long) route from that to architecture or engineering. And instead of pointing out the route, we conceal it, by implicitly treating the stuff kids do as different from real work.
[Link] Exponential Entrepreneur
Peter Diamandis shares six tools and mindsets for any entrepreneur.
[PPT Hack] Eyedropper tool
I can’t believe I didn’t know about this very handy tool to pick any color on to .
The Eyedropper in PowerPoint is a simple tool that can take your presentations to the next level. The Eyedropper tool in PowerPoint lets you find out an exact color reference (RGB) on different elements. The tool is used to retrieve a color and then color a highlighted text with this exact color. The Eyedropper tool was introduced with PowerPoint 2013.
[Link] Two Ways to Challenge the Status Quo
Seth Godin offers some ideas for the challenge of culture shifting slowly:
That’s why the smallest viable audience is so important. Focusing on a specific group of people, understanding their beliefs, engaging with empathy, creating new social norms and then, peer-to-peer, spreading the new normal.
[Link] Ed Yong Wins a Pulitzer
The Atlantic’s Ed Yong Wins 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting
If you’ve not yet read this – do yourself a favour.
[Link] A Centuries Old Idea That’s Making Cities More Affordable Today
“Reasons to be cheerful” shines a light always on the little – or not so little – things that give hope of a brighter future.
This one, in particular, caught my attention. Law, in its various forms, is often badly written, horribly enforced & rarely questioned – and sets up the background of our collective lives.
The U.S. has a whopping 54 million spare bedrooms. As cities and states liberalize their housing regulations to allow more people to live together safely and affordably, it is making a dent in the country’s housing crisis. Legislative changes like this one in Washington are ahead of their time — and a reason for some subdued excitement.