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The Anatomy of Determination

The Anatomy of Determination
September 2009 Like all investors, we spend a lot of time trying to learn how to predict which startups will succeed. We probably spend more time thinking about it than most, because we invest the earliest. Prediction is usually all we have to rely on. We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is determination. At first we thought it might be intelligence. In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination—partly because it makes a better story, partly because it gives onlookers an excuse for being lazy, and partly because after a while determination starts to look like talent. I can't think of any field in which determination is overrated, but the relative importance of determination and talent probably do vary somewhat. I don't mean to suggest by this comparison that types of work that depend more on talent are always more admirable. If determination is so important, can we isolate its components? Being strong-willed is not enough, however. Notes

THEY WANT US DEAD !! Eugenics Outlined !! While we are all focusing on the coming financial collapse, as bad as that is something much more sinister is in the works. It’s very subtle if you are not paying attention. But, to the aware, it’s blatant, insidious, and just as horrific as Hitler’s Germany. There is a small group of the world’s banking elite who have worked for a few hundred years with ingenious precision and unlimited money, to corral, coerce, and conquer every country of value on earth. For people who are normal and not rabidly greedy, it’s hard to fathom the idea of anyone trying to get control of the whole world, and taking a chunk of every measure of value traded between its people. What’s even harder to grasp is that they will stop at nothing to do it. They would love nothing better than to use our own military against us by goading us into revolting. If after pondering and researching these facts and events, you come to any other conclusion; you are in need of a serious wake up call. 1. 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Public Art Concepts - Dan Sternof Beyer 2011 Download the PDF of these ideas : Public Art Concepts - Dan Sternof Beyer 2011 (2mb) [ New American Public Art ] The List of N Things September 2009 I bet you the current issue of Cosmopolitan has an article whose title begins with a number. "7 Things He Won't Tell You about Sex," or something like that. Some popular magazines feature articles of this type on the cover of every issue. Why do readers like the list of n things so much? Some of the work of reading an article is understanding its structure—figuring out what in high school we'd have called its "outline." As well as being explicit, the structure is guaranteed to be of the simplest possible type: a few main points with few to no subordinate ones, and no particular connection between them. Because the main points are unconnected, the list of n things is random access. There are times when this format is what a writer wants. There are other less legitimate reasons for using this format. The list of n things is easier for writers as well as readers. Writing a list of n things is so relaxing. It seems a fine plan to start students off with the list of n things.

Архнадзор 1 Kor 13 - Biblija.net - Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap De liefde 1 Al sprak ik de talen van alle mensen en die van de engelen – had ik de liefde niet, ik zou niet meer zijn dan een dreunende gong of een schelle cimbaal. 2 Al had ik de gave om te profeteren en doorgrondde ik alle geheimen, al bezat ik alle kennis en had ik het geloof dat bergen kan verplaatsen – had ik de liefde niet, ik zou niets zijn. 3 Al verkocht ik mijn bezittingen omdat ik voedsel aan de armen wilde geven, al gaf ik mijn lichaam prijs en kon ik daar trots op zijn – had ik de liefde niet, het zou mij niet baten. 4 De liefde is geduldig en vol goedheid. De liefde kent geen afgunst, geen ijdel vertoon en geen zelfgenoegzaamheid. 5 Ze is niet grof en niet zelfzuchtig, ze laat zich niet boos maken en rekent het kwaad niet aan, 6 ze verheugt zich niet over het onrecht maar vindt vreugde in de waarheid. 7 Alles verdraagt ze, alles gelooft ze, alles hoopt ze, in alles volhardt ze. 8 De liefde zal nooit vergaan.

See Randomness April 2006, rev August 2009 Plato quotes Socrates as saying "the unexamined life is not worth living." Part of what he meant was that the proper role of humans is to think, just as the proper role of anteaters is to poke their noses into anthills. A lot of ancient philosophy had the quality—and I don't mean this in an insulting way—of the kind of conversations freshmen have late at night in common rooms: What is our purpose? Well, we humans are as conspicuously different from other animals as the anteater. Now we'd give a different answer. The history of ideas is a history of gradually discarding the assumption that it's all about us. The idea that we're the center of things is difficult to discard. (Few people can experience now what Darwin's contemporaries did when The Origin of Species was first published, because everyone now is raised either to take evolution for granted, or to regard it as a heresy. This principle isn't only for big ideas. I say pick b. See randomness.

significados - tatuagem Gueixa Gueixa ("pessoa de artes") são mulheres japonesas que estudam a tradição milenar da arte da sedução, dança e canto. A palavra geiko é usada em Kyoto para descrever as gueixas. Uma tatuagem tradicional japonesa (Irezumi) geralmente cobre o corpo inteiro ou, pelo menos, uma grande proporção do mesmo. Apesar de existirem vários estilos diferentes, podemos destacar como o mais belo o estilo KAME (tartaruga) essas tatuagens estendem-se do pescoço para baixo, cerca as nádegas, os braços e tórax como se forma-se um casco de tartaruga. Uma vez que um desenho é escolhido, o esquema será desenhado exclusivamente para o cliente. O processo completo de recepção de uma irezumi pode levar até um ano ou até mesmo vários anos quando o cliente vai voltar todos os meses ou quando o tatuador tiver agenda disponível, e o cliente tenha tempo e dinheiro para tanto, cada sessão leva em media duas horas e irá durar várias horas, é um processo moroso e dispendioso. Flor de Lotús - Lotús Coração Simbologia

Modernism vs. Zen Aesthetic by Zoe Y. Zheng Seattle-based graphic designer Zoe Y. Zheng has created this clever series of minimalist posters entitled “Modernism vs. Zen Aesthetic”… Zoe Y. Zheng «Modernism vs. What Startups Are Really Like October 2009 (This essay is derived from a talk at the 2009 Startup School.) I wasn't sure what to talk about at Startup School, so I decided to ask the founders of the startups we'd funded. I'm in the unusual position of being able to test the essays I write about startups. So I sent all the founders an email asking what surprised them about starting a startup. I'm proud to report I got one response saying: What surprised me the most is that everything was actually fairly predictable! The bad news is that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered. There were very clear patterns in the responses; it was remarkable how often several people had been surprised by exactly the same thing. 1. This was the surprise mentioned by the most founders. What people wished they'd paid more attention to when choosing cofounders was character and commitment, not ability. Here's a typical reponse: You haven't seen someone's true colors unless you've worked with them on a startup.

Pakistan ‘categorically rejects’ claim that it tacitly allows US drone strikes The ISI no longer responds to the CIA’s faxes on drones. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has bluntly rejected claims by the Obama administration that it tacitly approves CIA drone strikes on its territory, saying that ‘drone attacks are illegal, counterproductive, in contravention of international law and a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.’ The remarks came after the Wall Street Journal revealed that US claims of legality appear built on a monthly fax from the CIA to its ISI counterpart which goes unanswered, and on Pakistan’s apparent acceptance of ’no fly zones’ over the tribal areas which enable the drones to operate. Islamabad’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar also waded into the fray, telling an audience in New York that ’What the drones are trying to achieve, we may not disagree… If they’re going for terrorists — we do not disagree. But we have to find ways which are lawful, which are legal. For at least 17 months nobody at the ISI has acknowledged or answered the faxes.

99% Invisible | A Tiny Radio Show About Design with Roman Mars How to Disagree March 2008 The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts. Many who respond to something disagree with it. The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. DH0. This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. u r a fag!!!!!!!!!! But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. The author is a self-important dilettante. is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag." DH1. An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. Of course he would say that. This wouldn't refute the author's argument, but it may at least be relevant to the case. DH2. DH3. This is often combined with DH2 statements, as in: DH4. DH5. DH6.

UK government spends £2bn on drones British Reapers strike targets in Afghanistan from Kandahar airbase. The British government has spent over £2bn on drones since 2007, according to a new report. Shelling Out, by advocacy group Drone Wars UK, is the first complete assessment of UK government spending on unmanned aircraft. It is built on publicly available data that is buried among mountains of government documents. Drone Wars UK trawled through the official records to compile the report. It reveals the single biggest spend is on an unarmed surveillance drone that has yet to enter service – despite so far costing taxpayers £847m. The government renegotiated the contract when the manufacturer said it was going to miss its deadline, reducing the costs. Homegrown UK drones do not have a good record. Source: Drone Wars UK The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has spent £872m on buying and flying drones over the past five years. The UK’s drone fleet pales compared with the US. The RAF’s Reapers

The Trouble with the Segway July 2009 The Segway hasn't delivered on its initial promise, to put it mildly. There are several reasons why, but one is that people don't want to be seen riding them. Someone riding a Segway looks like a dork. My friend Trevor Blackwell built his own Segway, which we called the Segwell. Why do Segways provoke this reaction? Someone riding a motorcycle isn't working any harder. Try this thought experiment and it becomes clear: imagine something that worked like the Segway, but that you rode with one foot in front of the other, like a skateboard. So there may be a way to capture more of the market Segway hoped to reach: make a version that doesn't look so easy for the rider. Curiously enough, what got Segway into this problem was that the company was itself a kind of Segway.

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