5 Reasons The Future Will Be Ruled By B.S. Everything from that second tier to the capstone, they can get at a cost that rounds down to zero, if they so choose. We Internet types are so busy haggling over video games with DRM that we're not grasping the scale of this. We're like a dog who's been cooped up behind a fence his whole life, and now a storm has knocked down the gate. The dog looks out and thinks, "Wow, out there is the front yard!" No, Fluffy. Well, shit, Utopia's here! House music and MDMA for everyone! Wait -- did you forget the thing about the baby formula? Because this is where shit gets absurd. Public libraries have been lending out books to people, for free, for the last 500 years or so. But then the publisher invented a better book.
Strange Science: Mammals Perhaps as long as 5,000 years ago, a group of sailors found skulls belonging to a race of hideous giants whom the ancient Greeks named cyclops. Dwelling in their mythical land, entrusting the fate of their crops to their evil gods and devouring any humans they could find, these creatures terrified generations of Europeans. Today, relatives of these monsters can still be found — roaming the African savannas or the Indian jungles, or even eating peanuts from the hands of small children in city zoos. In fact, the ancient Greek sailors found elephant skulls. What they mistook for single eye sockets were the nasal openings for the elephants' trunks. Most Recent Additions May-31-2015 May-17-2015 Apr-11-2015 Year: 1486 Artist: Erhard Reuwich Originally published in: Perigrinationes ad Terram Sanctam Now appears in: The Unicorn by Nancy Hathaway Unicorn "sightings" occurred throughout the world, but the mythical creature wasn't the same in each description. Year: 1897 Scientist: H.N.
Seven Weird Habits That Will Change Your Life Some habits will help you live a better life. They’ll help you improve what’s already working or help you fix what’s not working very well. But what about habits that completely change the game entirely? What are the questions that uproot your beliefs, shake them from its roots and move you into a bigger pot? These are seven habits that won’t just improve your game, or help you “level up.” They’ll help you play a different game, one that you completely design yourself. Regularly engage in time travel. These are just a few habits I’ve found that have made a huge difference for me. So now my question for you is this: What habit has made the biggest difference for you? photo courtesy of platinum Share: Get everything you need to finally leave your job for good. The first few weeks of the Job Escape Kit has already produced some outcomes I’d never thought I’d see in my whole career.” ~ Nick Burk
15 New Rules For IT To Live By - Global-cio - Executive insights/interviews The old IT rulebook is obsolete, but the new one that accounts for the rise of mobile, social, and analytics hasn't been written. Consider this a first draft, so your revisions are welcome. No one's going to complain about winning new business, but a recent deal to do contract unit repair work from more than 2,000 locations across North America posed a huge challenge for Flextronics' IT team. The customer was in a hurry to get started, and Flextronics had to first set up its IT systems that track products as they move through the product-repair process. The old model would have meant setting up a server in each of those locations, making sure the software ran properly from each, and training the on-site people to maintain it. So instead of using the old approach, Flextronics' IT team deployed the software, which is custom-built on a Microsoft stack, using Microsoft's Azure cloud service. Here's our start to that new IT rulebook, one that begs to be rewritten many times over. 1 of 6
Noise-Canceling Tech Lets You Quietly Dine in Noisy Restaurants How many times have you gone out for some fancy food, and ended up spending the evening yelling into the ear of your dinner companion? An accomplished sound engineer has figured out a way to solve that problem, using technology similar to that of noise-canceling headphones. Using 123 cleverly hidden speakers, an array of highly sensitive microphones and noise-canceling technology, sound engineer (and now restaurant owner) John Paluska has teamed up with Meyer Sound to create a way to make the noise of conversation cancel itself out, letting him control the ambient sound levels in his restaurant using an iPad app. Paluska's noise-canceling system's beta test site is Comal, his restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. How well does it work? If the performance of noise-canceling headphones is any indication, this could be a breakthrough. [via SF Gate]
20 mental barriers you should let go of photo by admitchell08 You are in an imaginary hot air balloon. It’s just you and all of your belongings in the wicker basket. Something went wrong and you are losing altitude fast. You will hit the ground in less than ten minutes if you don’t come up with something quick. The only immediate solution is to get rid of excess weight and throw off at least half of your belongings. This happens to all of us in less dramatic circumstances. Our mental life follows the same fate. Some of them are useless ideas that drag us down considerably. So if you were in the hot air balloon situation, which of these mental barriers should we let go? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Related posts:
5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. #5. So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully. "SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? Holy Shit! We're pretty sure Kramer did this once on Seinfeld. How Does It Work? #4. #3. 1. 2. 3.
24 Quick Actions You Can Do Today That Can Change Your Financial Life Forever Note: This is a post from Adam Baker, founder of Man Vs. Debt. Last week, while I was talking about our new You Vs. We talked about our obsession with the debt-fueled life path and how it’s keeping millions trapped. But talk is cheap. I’m much more interested in action. And this week, I want to do my part to shatter any excuses or justifications you may have. I took the time to provide 24 different options. Sure, there’s little chance all will be viable for your situation. I’m asking for one. Do it. Action #1: Pull Your Credit Report (10-20 minutes) Simple steps: Visit Annual Credit Report – Visit annualcreditreport.com. How this can change your life: When we first pulled Courtney’s credit report, we were saddened to find she was a victim of identity theft. We had better luck with my credit report, however I did discover a $200 collections account I didn’t even know existed! Additional Resource: How to Get Your Free Credit Report Online: A Step-by-step Guide
11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations 1. “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates (470-399 BCE) Socrates’ [wiki] belief that we must reflect upon the life we live was partly inspired by the famous phrase inscribed at the shrine of the oracle at Delphi, “Know thyself.” The key to finding value in the prophecies of the oracle was self-knowledge, not a decoder ring. Socrates felt so passionately about the value of self-examination that he closely examined not only his own beliefs and values but those of others as well. 2. Commonly known as Ockham’s razor, the idea here is that in judging among competing philosophical or scientific theories, all other things being equal, we should prefer the simplest theory. The ultimate irony of Ockham’s razor may be that some have used it to prove God is unnecessary to the explanation of the universe, an idea Ockham the Franciscan priest would reject. 3. Referring to the original state of nature, a hypothetical past before civilization, Hobbes [wiki] saw no reason to be nostalgic.