links for 2010-08-27

  • Ask giver to think in terms of time given up, not money. Asking giver to think about anything (5 babies, 100 pencils, etc) instead of "how much money" works
  • keep things simple, focus on quality and service. Crew members aren't told the margins on products, so placement decisions are made based not on profits but on what's best for the shopper.
  • 50 mechanics used in all sorts of games. Giving rewards, scheduling benefits, punishment if not kept up, etc. Interesting
  • Pursue what you love, work hard (less than 90 mins) in the morning, practice intensely, get expert feedback, take regular breaks, ritualize practice
  • If you meet a person who cares about the same obscure things you do, hold on to them for dear life. Sympathy is medicine.
  • Awkward I guess, but I've been squatting since I got home from India. Supposedly healthier, quicker, be wary of people that overstate benefits however
  • (tags: jobs)
  • During/after college I worked at a couple of startups that merely got absorbed into larger companies - but I learned a lot. In fact, after working both at startups and big companies I can say: You should always choose the startup because you will learn much more. lots of other good advice in the post
  • If you look at the founders that PG talks about the most, they are all tough as hell – and I’m pretty sure that’s why he likes them so much. I doubt he is particularly impressed by my and my co-founder’s raw intelligence, especially given how ridiculously smart the other YC founders are. I can hear him now: “I don’t know how smart they are, but god damn are those WePayers tough.” PG knows a lot about WePay. His favorite stories are those that demonstrate our toughness…like the time my co-founder and I adopted a dog together, dropped out of law school, and quit a high paying banking job, just to “burn the ships” before we founded WePay. I can probably recall two dozen stories about other founders that demonstrate how insanely tough they are — all stories frequently and proudly recited by PG.
    (tags: jobs)
  • The Washington Monthly and Education Sector, an independent think tank, looked at the 15 percent of colleges and universities with the worst graduation records—about 200 schools in all—and found that the graduation rate at these schools is 26 percent. (See the table at left for a listing of the fifty colleges and universities with the worst graduation rates.) America’s “college dropout factories,” in other words, are twice as bad at graduating their students as the worst high schools are at graduating theirs.
  • “The demands of imminent independence can worsen mental-health problems or create new ones for people who have managed up to that point to perform all the expected roles,” explains Henig. “[They] get lost when schooling ends and expected roles disappear.” In other words, when you go through life thinking “if I can make it through this, things will be better later,” you eventually forget what “better” means. the despair that accompanies the perpetual postponement of an enjoyable life has a way of making its presence known. It is seen, for example, in the regular e-mails I receive from college students suffering from deep procrastination — an advanced stage of burnout where, as with the Yellowbrick patient mentioned above, completing work becomes impossible — or the quiet desperation of the overworked law associate who strains to remember why, exactly, law school had once evinced such certainty."
  • 1. The sommerlier pours. You sip. You hesitate. Good move. Never say yes to a wine until you're sure it's sound. Try it a second time. A third, minutes later, if you still have doubts. Like sex on a first date, you'll regret it if you're not sure.
  • 1. Write a text message to a girl apologizing for the series of drunken text messages you sent her at 2 a.m. last night, which were just poorly composed requests for her to come over. 8. Write and practice reciting a monologue in which you explain to a girl that you aren't a scumbag like your friend(s), who slept with her and then didn't call her. Incorporate the phrase "I don't even know why I still hang out with those guys." 10. Write a cover letter to a bank manager that claims your B.A. in literature gives you advantages that people who have degrees in business, finance or economics simply don't have.
    (tags: humor)
  • martin seligman says in learned optimism that 25% of 3rd, 4th graders are depressed: unlike your typical joyful and carefree 4-year-old, Kiran didn’t have a lot of fun. “He wasn’t running around, bouncing about, battling to get to the top of the slide like other kids,” Raghu notes. Kiran’s mother, Elizabeth (her middle name), an engineer, recalls constant refrains of “Nothing is fun; I’m bored.” When Raghu and Elizabeth reminded a downbeat Kiran of their coming trip to Disney World, Kiran responded: “Mickey lies. Dreams don’t come true.”
  • (tags: jobs)
  • Online stalking has been scientifically proven to feel good. This past spring, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Journalism hooked 36 students up to sensors and monitored their faces and palms while they navigated Facebook. By measuring physiological responses associated with motivation and emotion, the researchers found that the students derived the most pleasure from activities described as “social searching”: “goal-oriented surveillance” (yikes!) that involved visiting another friend’s profile page, reading their Wall posts, perusing their photos, checking out the events they’d recently attended.
  • the differences are shocking
  • "People deserve a place to be wrong."
  • I have said this before, and it applies now: The Princeton offense is a good offense but it is not some magical system that will win games that other well-run offenses won't. Whether it is motion, flex, reverse action, the triangle offense, a set play offense or the Princeton offense, it matters how the offense is run, not the offense itself. There is nothing inferior about the Princeton offense. But there is nothing superior about it, either.
  • This is when they discovered something peculiar: the percent of professional athletes who came from cities of fewer than a half million people was far higher than expected. While approximately 52 percent of the United States population resides in metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 people, such cities only produce 13% of the players in the NHL, 29% of the players in the NBA, 15% of the players in MLB, and 13% of players in the PGA.*
  • Using more general words instead of specifics, referring less often to shareholder value, using more extreme superlatives, use the third person more often, don't say "um" as much, swear more

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