Three Life Hacks I Wish I Knew Back When!
Don’t ask. Just look at this (30 seconds) and think about how great it would be if you knew these three life hacks when you were younger.
Click here.
“Wonder, astonishment, and devotion”
I came across this journal entry in Diaries of Note. It was written in 1831 in Brazil by Charles Darwin. It describes a typical day in his life then, surveying the rain forest with the help of his team. I was excited to see his description of the cabbage palm, Florida’s official tree, and one of my favorites. His description of the stem (“so narrow that it might be clasped with the two hands”) doesn’t reconcile with the 50+ cabbage palms in Paradise Palms. Ours are a bit thicker. But the height is right, and they are a handsome species. Darwin’s last sentence matches how I sometimes feel strolling through our 25 acres.
Click here.
More About Yuja Wang
I introduced you to Yuja Wang before. After reading that piece, DF, my sister, sent me this compilation of her playing the piano, starting as a little girl.
She was amazing at four years old! And her skills clearly improved over time. But what I especially liked about this video was all the different ways she was able to go from adorable to pretty to beautiful as she grew up. (She is now in her mid-30s.)
Click here.
A Socratic Conversation About Reducing Crime
From Freddie deBoer, my favorite self-proclaimed socialist…
Click here.
Take a look at this graphic representation of language use across the globe. One thing that strikes me is the difference between Mandarin and English. Mandarin is, by far, the language most spoken by native speakers. English is, by far, the most spoken second language.
Click here.
Good Cop? Bad Cop? You Tell Me
This is, IMHO, a good cop acting badly. Click here.
Here is a cop trying to do his job. But he’s being a bit of a bully. Everything he’s doing, according to a retired cop friend of mine, is within the range of what most cops used to think of as normal. “We were taught that to stay safe you had to take immediate control of every encounter with civilians. And that the only way to do that was to be dominant.”
In recent years, this approach is becoming less common because civilians are getting educated on their 2nd and 4th amendment rights. And they have dash-cams and iPhones to record their encounters.
In this case, you have what I believe is a cop trying to bully his way through an encounter. But the civilian is standing up for himself. Everything the cop does incriminates him and exculpates the civilian.
It’s not going to be easy, but the police are going to have to figure out a way to establish control within the limits of their constitutional power.
“He Never Comed Back”
You’ve probably heard it said that Mandarin is the most difficult language for English speakers to learn. Other contenders include Hungarian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Basque, and Navajo.
But learning English is no walk in the park. Among other challenges, English grammar is difficult to master because of all the exceptions to the rules.
Click here for a funny take on irregular English verb conjugations.
Wanna Make a Ton of Money Creatively?
If I said it once, I said it a hundred times. If you want to succeed at the highest possible level in life, you must master at least two out of three fundamental skills. You must learn to think analytically. You must learn to speak authoritatively. And you must learn to write persuasively.
Mastering the last one, learning to write persuasively, is like acquiring an invisible ATM that spews out thousand-dollar bills. It’s a way to earn that money by doing something that is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying, while having lots of personal autonomy.
If this sounds remotely interesting, I urge you to click here to read about a very rare opportunity from Mike Palmer, a former protégé of mine.
How Did Consciousness Evolve?
Click here for an Illustrated Guide from The MIT Press Reader.
Putting gun deaths in perspective…
I thought this was pretty funny. Click here.