Essential French Langauge Tools — La Belle in France The Importance of Benevolent Dictators I believe that groups coming together to make tough decisions driven by consensus tend to make poor decisions. This is especially true in startups where speed matters and where there is a need to constantly calibrate direction and where these decisions can have existential outcomes. Should you increase your burn rate by adding 2 senior hires who will help you ship faster or sell more but then have less time for fund raising? Or maybe their existence itself will help accelerate fund raising. Who the fuck knows? It’s hard being a leader. But you need conviction. Leaders need to be respected, not loved. It’s why I look for strong leaders in companies that I back. I have seen the sclerotic pace of decision-making by some co-founders who don’t have a common sense of purpose or the ability to resolve conflict when different opinions result in delayed actions. It’s why I caution people about whom you choose as your co-founder. I believe in “benevolent dictators.” Or firing people. Fuck ‘em. Think.
40 websites that will make you cleverer right now The indexed web contains an incredible 14 billion pages. But only a tiny fraction help you improve your brain power. Here are 40 of the best. whizzpast.com – Learn about our awe inspiring past all in one wonderful place. khanacademy.org – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science. freerice.com – Help end world hunger by correctly answering multiple-choice quizzes on a wide variety of subjects. artofmanliness.com – Blog/site dedicated to all things manly, great for learning life skills and good insights. unplugthetv.com – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch. coursera.org – An educational site that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use. mentalfloss.com – Interesting articles guaranteed to make you smile and get you thinking. feelgoodwardrobe.com – Find out how the world of fashion really works and what you can do to combat it. lifehacker.com – Learn to hack life!
Life Hack Ninja | life tips, self improvement, and throwing stars Cooking For Engineers - Step by Step Recipes and Food for the Analytically Minded. Big Questions - Trivia, Quizzes, and Brain Teasers As they say, it takes money to make money, and Hollywood is certainly spending its fair share. No one knows when, exactly, parents began terrifying their children with the prospect of a post-lunch drowning. But there are a few theories as to why. Most people are probably more concerned with how much money is saved in their piggy bank rather than wondering why exactly we save our spare coins in pig-shaped containers. But how did those containers get that shape? The voting process that determines Oscar nominees is a long and complicated undertaking that involves more than 6000 voting members and hundreds of eligible films, actors, actresses, directors, cinematographers, editors, composers, and more. From reality TV shows to The Beach Boys’ croons of Aruba and Jamaica, references to honeymoons are everywhere. Comparing a dog's mouth with a human's mouth is sort of like comparing apples and oranges—really filthy apples and really filthy oranges.
Letters of Note The Daily Miscellany Bill Hammack's Video & Audio on Engineering Dubai Architecture- The Burj al Alam, or The World Tower. Upon completion it will rank as the world's highest hotel. It is expected to be finished by 2009. At 480 meters it will only be 28 meters shorter than the Taipei 101. The Trump International Hotel & Tower, which will be the centerpiece of one of the palm islands, The Palm Jumeirah. Dubailand. Dubailand will be built on 3 billion square feet (107 miles^2) at an estimated $20 billion price tag. Dubai Sports City. Currently, the Walt Disney World Resort is the #1 tourist destination in the world. The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished. The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores. Ski Dubai, which is already open, is the largest indoor skiing facility in the world. The UAE Spaceport would be the first spaceport in the world if construction ever gets under way. Some other other crazy shit...
Science Says: Lungs Love Weed Breathe easy, tokers. Smoking marijuana in moderate amounts may not be so bad for your lungs, after all. A new study, published in this month's Journal of the American Medical Association, tested the lung function of over 5,000 young adults between 18 and 30 to determine marijuana's effect on lungs. After 20 years of testing, researchers found some buzzworthy results: regular marijuana smokers (defined by up to a joint a day for seven years) had no discernable impairment in lung activity from non-smokers. In fact, researchers were surprised to find marijuana smokers performed slightly better than both smokers and non-smokers on the lung performance test. MORE: 5 Reasons Not to Smoke Synthetic Weed For most of human existence, cannabis has been considered a medicine. Attitudes are changing, however. As marijuana enters the mainstream, studies like the one published in JAMA might dispel false assertions about the plant's deleterious health hazards and promote its medicinal benefits.
Life Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice If you’re like most people, you keep your money in the bank (or several banks). But you may also want keep a little stash at home, so that it’s easily accessible in case of an emergency. It used to be a habit we associated with our grandparents, but after the banking crisis of 2008 and 2009, even young consumers started keeping at least some of their cash within reach. Companies that manufacture and sell home safes reported significant sales spikes during the recession, a trend that wasn’t unusual: during tough, uncertain times, people prefer to keep their money where they can see it. Not everyone wants to spend a couple hundred dollars or more on a home safe, though. And stashing your cash in the mattress sounds a little bit trite: isn’t that where a thief would first look?
How to Replace Six Vital Documents This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. Could you produce your birth certificate, car title, or an old tax return at a moment’s notice? You’re supposed to store vital documents in a fireproof box or keep them in a safe-deposit box, but how many of us actually do that? We may not need these papers often, but when we do need them, we really need them. You need vital documents to sell your car, travel overseas, apply for a job, get through an audit, refinance your house, and more. The good news is that if you’ve lost important pieces of paper, you can replace them — and it might be easier than you think. Birth certificate You need a birth certificate for everything from enrolling in school to getting a marriage license (if you don’t have a passport). NameBirth dateGenderParents’ namesPlace of birth Replacing a birth certificate costs $10-$20, depending on the state. U.S. driver’s licenseState-issued, non-driver identification cardU.S. passport Car title Hoping to sell your car?