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Just make this annoying thing go away.

My quest from QWERTY to Dvorak... and back again (thanks Apple) :PThe White Shoe Theory of WealthYour Happiness Area CodeI don't wanna... I'm not used to itThe Perfect WatchtowerIs Twitter useless for building followers?How to get paid for what you do for freeCop Bots vs Robber Bots
June 30, 2010

You need tension

If you want to change, create tension. Some people join the army to do this. I don’t know if it works for them. Thankfully there are other options. Place limits on yourself, even though you don’t need to. Break up your unhappy relationship, even if it’s comfortable. Stop talking, stop going out, or change your [...]

June 29, 2010

I don't wanna... I'm not used to it

This really got me thinking. I was telling an acquaintance of mine who wanted to lose weight about how a bunch of us had made a lifestyle change, eating paleo and working out using Crossfit and MovNat principles. They were interested in it but their response struck me as odd. I realized that I’ve heard [...]

June 25, 2010

Cop Bots vs Robber Bots

A simple metaphor for an important phenomenon. I’ll explain. Cop bots are the enforcers. Google is an organizing algorithm but, more importantly, it’s also an exclusion robot. It says “you’re in,” and “you’re out.” It has to be very good at this, or it makes no money, and the robot gets shut down. Spammers are [...]

June 23, 2010

The Perfect Watchtower

It occurred to me this morning that checking email often may be a feature, not a bug, of information culture. Productivity people talk all the time about how you have to stop checking email, you have to stop checking Twitter, in order to start doing real work. I’m not sure checking email is the problem. [...]

June 22, 2010

Cultural Transparency ÷ Risk = Upward Mobility

These are just notes. Some of the links may be incomplete but the basis, I think, is strong. Theory: The more you can find out about your culture, the more you’re capable of moving upward. This is buffered by risk, which prevents people from acting based on potential repercussions. Huge mouthful, I know. Let’s break [...]

June 21, 2010

Raise Your Hurdles

Two things came together this weekend to get me thinking about direction. I’ll tell you the story, maybe it’ll work for you too. Last week, my friend Justin and I suggested we trade books for a month, so that I could get him thinking with mine and he could get me thinking with what he [...]

June 16, 2010

How to get paid for what you do for free

Bartenders make $500 a night in tips. Baristas make $20. Their drinks are equally complex. They serve similar numbers of clients. They perform the same job, but during different hours and in different settings. Why do bartenders make so much more? It isn’t performance. Some bartenders are sloppy, and some baristas are excellent, but their compensation [...]

June 11, 2010

Your Happiness Area Code

There are three measures of success. If you follow them, you should have everything you want. The first of the three is direction. If you don’t know what your end goal is, no amount of grit or dedication will get you there. There is some guesswork involved in all of our lives, but if we [...]

June 10, 2010

The White Shoe Theory of Wealth

Every external behaviour is a tell for an internal belief. Yesterday, I spent time on a panel with Karl Dubost, whose website blocks search engines from finding him. This external behaviour is a tell for something he believes in. Can you guess what that is? Today I heard a story where someone was talking about [...]

June 4, 2010

Two Great Local Business Uses for Foursquare

These examples are simple, but they prove a point. Uses of social media have to be timely or they lose their value. The stuff below works, and impresses me, right now, but it’ll become common later. Use them before that to leave an impact, ok? FAIT ICI, a local shop that focuses on local, organic [...]

June 3, 2010

Is Twitter useless for building followers?

It actually offends me how difficult it is to build a Twitter audience by using Twitter. Ridiculous. Here’s a great example from this morning. I found an amazing quote from a Bruce Lee book on Reddit and tweeted it out. Here it is so you can see how fucking awesome it is. Bruce had me [...]

June 1, 2010

My quest from QWERTY to Dvorak... and back again (thanks Apple) :P

I am in search of the perfect keyboard layout. Maybe you are too? If you’re anything like I am, you have forever looked at the keys on your keyboard and thought: “There has got to be a better way.” I know I did. Years ago I taught myself how to type over 100 words a [...]