Balance & Focus

01/13/2019

06/17/2016

Anyone even remotely interested in cameras knows that Zeiss lenses are the gold standard. But the 170-year-old company's lenses can cost thousands of dollars..

06/16/2016

Yes, you can get to 50 push-ups! Try our 30-day challenge.

05/29/2016

Coming from the Financial Times, that's a sobering wake-up call.

05/29/2016

At Mic, a media site created by and for 20-somethings, oversharing, acting entitled and second-guessing the boss are the norm.

05/29/2016

Welcome to the land technology forgot. High-end leases negotiated and signed via fax. Millions of dollars in apartment inventory tracked on whiteboards with..

05/22/2016

In the beginning the Prophet Satoshi brought us Bitcoin. And the cryptogeeks and libertarians looked upon it, and said lo, we smile upon this, for it is good,..

05/21/2016

Thanks, Forbes Magazine, for including on your summer reading list! www.ThirdWaveBook.com

05/18/2016

Here are the 5 books Bill Gates thinks you should read this season.

05/17/2016

What was the motive for me taking this action anyway? Why was I here at a trump rally on 2 hits of L*D? Was I searching for some hidden truth by way of chemicals? Or was I here for good fun?

05/03/2016

The latest research on plant "neurobiology" is where things are getting really weird, and it might be where carnivores and sensible herbivores come to an understanding that we all need to consume life to stay alive. Factory farming is the common enemy that both hunters and vegetarians despise; a disgusting perversion of our need and access to food combined with the worst example of capitalist greed applied to the cultivation of living things for our consumption.

Vegetarians confronted with new knowledge of plant intelligence are going to have to come to the same conclusion that hunters have long accepted; life needs life to sustain itself and we all need to respect and honor the life that we consume in order to survive. People that only eat vegetables are no longer able to feign innocence.


"The new research, he says, is in a field called plant neurobiology — which is something of a misnomer, because even scientists in the field don't argue that plants have neurons or brains.

"They have analagous structures," Pollan explains. "They have ways of taking all the sensory data they gather in their everyday lives ... integrate it and then behave in an appropriate way in response. And they do this without brains, which, in a way, is what's incredible about it, because we automatically assume you need a brain to process information."

And we assume you need ears to hear. But researchers, says Pollan, have played a recording of a caterpillar munching on a leaf to plants — and the plants react. They begin to secrete defensive chemicals — even though the plant isn't really threatened, Pollan says. "It is somehow hearing what is, to it, a terrifying sound of a caterpillar munching on its leaves."

Pollan says plants have all the same senses as humans, and then some. In addition to hearing, taste, for example, they can sense gravity, the presence of water, or even feel that an obstruction is in the way of its roots, before coming into contact with it. Plant roots will shift direction, he says, to avoid obstacles.

So what about pain? Do plants feel? Pollan says they do respond to anesthetics. "You can put a plant out with a human anesthetic. ...

04/29/2016

Another piece of science to support my idea of a 25 hour work week.

Getting up any earlier is basically torture.

04/11/2016

I don’t think Uber, Airbnb, and Instacart are anomalies in the way a lot of people tend to view them. I think they’re just a preview of what’s to come.

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The biggest reason I got excited about Uber years ago, was because I realized that it wasn’t about transportation. It was about a company that sells me back time.

When it comes to business, time is your number one asset. In order of magnitude, we as a society literally care about the health our loved ones, money, and then time. It’s number three on that list. And if you really think about it, it’s stunning to watch people's behaviors around the things they most value.

I had literally boycotted LA for four years when I was starting VaynerMedia because I didn’t want to have to hassle with the time it took to rent a car and get around. It was just too much of an investment. I valued my time so much that I didn’t even consider visiting. I love time. Uber gave me that time back.

We love time so much we don’t even really think about it. Think about the last time your phone or your computer was a hundredth of a second slower than what you’re used to on WiFi and how much you cursed and got pi**ed off. That’s how much we like and crave time. It’s a huge theme that will play itself out and should be really understood by those of you who are looking for a place to play with new businesses.

Being able to buy and sell back time is what some of the most successful startups over the last 3 years have done. They capitalize on our craving to get back the time we have to spend on the things we don’t want to do. If you’re thinking in start-up mode, and looking for an inspirational seed as a starting point, I highly recommend thinking about time. People will massively overpay for it. And if you can figure that out trade off, you’re putting your business in a good position.

04/02/2016

03/14/2016

Everyone has that person in the office. You know, the one who always seems to get way more done than everybody else, but who never seems stressed or frantically trying to finish...

02/20/2016

Hmm. Read later

02/18/2016

And it only takes a few hours to learn.