Monthly Archives: July 2008

Where I Plan On Going

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I’ve recently become encumbered with several other projects that take priority over the blog. That paired with the fact that the works that I have complete, I feel aren’t worth my time and ultimately yours. So, I’m going to update you on the progression of where I see the blog going and provide a link dump to some content I enjoyed in the last couple of weeks.

I plan on keeping the schedule of 2 posts per week, Monday and Friday, however occasionally it will be a link dump or something else. I plan on writing about an innovative or inspirational person once a month and also about items that I found innovative. So I’ll get along to the link dump.

The 7 Secrets to Warren Buffet’s Happy and Simple Life over at Success Soul looks into the 7 rules that Warren Buffet lives by. Most of this are about living a simple life and not becoming jaded by fame or fortune. Pretty interesting post about the richest man in the world.

11 Ways to Build an Extraordinary Life over at Steve-Olson looks at 11 things that your going to want out of life and he sums them up perfectly. This is how I live and it’s kind of cool to see this in text. It kind of tells me that I’m pointed in the right direction, but I can still advance further.

25 Visionaries Who Created Empires from Virtually Nothing at Business Pundit looks at some of the biggest names in the world of early industrial business to computers to entertainment. This is missing several people that I find inspirational, however, they didn’t create empires. Several of the people on this list are actual on my list of innovative and inspirational people.

A post at the NY Times on Web Literacy vs Conventional Literacy. This is pretty interesting as several of my friends and I, all in our late-teens to early-twenties work both sides of the line; we read books regularly and we stay up-to-date with blogs and other web sources. I actually would rather read a book than multiple pages of an e-book or large source of data.

And finally just a really interesting idea, TechCrunch brought up an interesting project for people. They asked for A Dead Simple Web Tablet after hearing about a rumor about Apple working on one for sometime this Fall. So they posed the question to the people if they could design a thin tablet that runs linux and uses Firefox as it’s main use.

Your Pouring The Wrong Way

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[I’m sorry for any ranting and poor writing this subject is just to dire.]

Wednesday, June 23, the Housing Bill was passed through Congress and the House. I’ve reviewed what little information they are giving the public and it’s only going to affect a small majority of homeowners, approximately 400,000. The main benefactors to this bill, however, are Frannie, Freddie and other lenders. The fact still stands that overtime the average American is going to be taxed for the problems of others

The bill will offer bailouts on houses up to $550,000 which in most cases would be relatively higher than median pricing in any area,  with exceptions for a few areas (i.e. California). This is just ridiculous; if you’re going to offer this to former defaulters you’re a fucking retard, or a member of Congress. This is a horrible incentive to be offering, it’s just going to show them that they weren’t responsible for their problems, each party will point the finger at the other.

I think someone should have thought this thing through, at 600 pages you would think that it might be worth something, yet nothing except tying the government to corporations. I think if anything we need to bolster economic centers of growth but we can’t be bailing people out for every problem, yeah I’m calling you out Dems. We need to develop a plan that can actually help rather than just boost morale for a few months. We also need to show that we don’t support weak economic decisions by people, how about starting to teach basic personal finance and economics in our Middle and High Schools.

Our lending market filled itself with greed and ditched common sense; they offered poorly qualified people opportunities that they could never afford. These people only thought about margins and not about the chance that everyone else would be going after the same niche in the market, sub-prime borrowers. Now we, the American public, get our asses taxed off until we default or our jobs get taxed to the brink and they collapse leaving us jobless and then we default. This isn’t going to help it’s just there to ease the trip down.

So it looks like I’m going to have fun as a responsible spender over the next several decades. Hooray for the assholes back in the 90’s and early-oughts, for flipping me and my generation over and fucking us in the ass. It really fucking stings to know that simplicity and release from branding, no matter how non-conformist, doesn’t help you separate far enough to escape bailing out the people bound to consumption. It’s time to stop praying for the money to come in, and learn responsibility for your actions.

It’s Not About You

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I got to thinking earlier, “Why fight against another aggressor when it’s only going to elevate both parties aggressive stature?” Why not just sit back and let them remain aggressive and feed you with hints at weakness? An overly aggressive party could become reckless and divulge information because they became overly focused on landing a blow; however if you too are acting just as aggressively you may miss your chance. We all need to just slow the fuck down and listen to the clues.

Atheists get a bad rap because of the radical few, who vocally protest meaningless shit. If you look at the Newdow v Congress was it necessary to protest against the words “one nation under God”, yes it may have been his constitutional right; however is there any true harm to be brought forth from these words. His claim actually brings forth a stigma against atheists because he became vocal it added fuel to the fire of Christian aggression. The same amendment contains freedom of speech or the freedom to remain silent. I am just calling for a rescission of aggression in the atheists motion for the truth. Let the Christian’s aggression lead to there own gaffes.

This same principle can be applied to politics in broad or even warfare. You need to stay defensive and alert of your enemies tactics and where their coming from next. If your right-wing read The New Yorker and the Huffington Post; if your left-wing watch FOX, stay attuned to where their coming from be objective about it. This gives you the ability to strike them where their weak, or deflect their blows back.

“So just shut the fuck up and listen.”

This guy has been doing that for several weeks and it’s amazing what he overhears and quotes. He also is probably more knowledgeable about the strategic and religious flaws in this post.

P.S. I’m a right-wing Athiest.

The Top 5 TED Talks That Inspire Me

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I enjoy thinking about innovative ways to do things and TED offers an amazing way to look through the eyes of influential people in different areas. The conferences may be elitist gatherings but; rather than keep this knowledge locked away they have begun to share their ideas for change. So I decided I’d give you a list of the talks that I enjoy.

1. Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

A speech on how capability should no longer be based on educational standard and how creativity is a new way to develop one’s capability. Imagination is a the ultimate gift to a child.He takes an astounding non-conformist view and presents it excellently.

2. Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

Gladwell speaks about how people base their judgements. He delves into human variability in choice.A very interesting insight in how to develop a product that will be diversly accepted, increasing it’s aspects to fit or providing more with different aspects.

3. Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

Schwartz looks at the inverse of Gladwell’s talk and how over variation in choice can cause more harm than good. Showing that our world is becoming so simplified for groups that the world is being diluted in complexity.

4. Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

Larry is showing how people are being restricted further and further from modifying the IP of another and creating something new. This talk is quite motivating in the way that you think about recreating it has been around for century’s and now people are labeling it piracy. To go along with this I recommend reading The Pirate’s Dilemma.

5. Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen

Hans Rosling delivers a speech that talks about the inefficiency in the development of current thought, from pre-conceived notions. He displays the data in a fascinating way that enthralls you as you watch it move through time.

In Search Of The Shepherds

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Man is narcissistic from birth; we are taught not to be completely enveloped in our own personal wants and needs as we grow. However, as a baby our world contains only people who will give us what we want, it is bestowed upon us by them when we beckon with a cry. As we grow we never forget this, we choose to affect others by wanting them to accept us and needing them to be like us. As this furthers itself, through time, we all begin to fit in to the crowd and follow those who have already achieved that which we want to achieve. We all fall into our flocks and we will remain there until we realize that we cannot achieve greatness with these others, mere copies of ourselves and us of them.

When one escapes what he knows, he finds knowledge; first he must be wise enough to realize he has to escape. Once he has done this, he shall spread his knowledge to others and shall his knowledge prosper. As he prospers in this new environment he shall see his knowledgeable gains wane. This occurs as he again becomes a copy of those around him, the internal narcissism of man. He shall always become a copy of those he surrounds himself with and he shall create copies of himself within his view of them.

We are naturally herded, by society, by our ideals, and by our own discretion. We are the sheep of this world; we shall follow as we are taught, as our fore-fathers were taught. Yet, did not the fore-fathers of this land remove this teaching from their minds and choose to rebel to gain free reign for themselves and their neighbors. They chose to be the shepherds of this land and its people, they no longer wanted to follow a lord that denied them the same rights as the men that lived among his lands close. This is becoming that land of lords and of sheep, so timid they may be. The time must come that shepherds, hidden among sheep, will rise and reshape our knowledge, teaching us ways anew.

We the narcissistic sheep of this land shall soon relegate our minds to the brink of non-acceptance, out of fear for change, to any shepherd that may arise to bring forth the new rebellion. The rebellion for change must come before we all become diluted into the same mental body. As we become more the same, the chance for change becomes ever more burdensome upon those who will rise. Our best source of knowledge into change comes from enemies, those who we resolved are flawed in there knowledge, they too feel this way of us. What if we sought to understand their knowledge, we shall unburden them of their preaching and hate and allow ourselves to grow substantially.

“We must seek wisdom from the ancients, for age doth leave wisdom in place of youth and as tides change, so do the ages pass.”

Metaphysical Inertia In Relation To The Law Of Attraction

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This is an idea i had during a constitutional back to my apartment. I cannot quite understand what caused me to ask myself about the Law of Attraction; I did however and it led to an idea of Metaphysical Inertia based upon Newton’s First Law. The thought makes sense easily on so many levels, yet it’s still extremely hard to describe.

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors, that which it loves, and also that which it fears. It reaches the height of its cherished aspirations. It falls to the level of its unchastened desires — and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.”~James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

“Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.”~ Sir Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica

I’m going to break the Allen’s down into more general terms in order to derive connection and a better understanding of it. So the first can be perceived as,

“One’s subconscious attracts its ambitions and that which it dreams, that which it refuses to lose, and that which it avoids living with. It shall bring a person to his meaning in life. It then finds its purpose un-rebuked and as such it shall become conscious through its surrounding events.”

Now in relation to the second it develops an overlying idea that there is a force in act. The subconscious is pulling ideals & non-ideals together into the conscious life. The force of the ideals as they are achieved, this is under our mental control, is pushing us forward in a positive direction that leads to more forward advances, the counter is also true.  The uncontrollable, however cannot be predicted by our conscious or subconscious states and is the randomness that can turn a wealthy, businessman, with a family; into a hollow, emotionless, bastard, who cheats upon his wife and children.

What is this force that acts so negatively upon the forward advances that we make? It’s effectively the friction of life, based around the idea of diminishing gains, it shall pull us back as we begin to reach our goals and complete more and more of what we dreamt of, we slow. The only way that we can keep advancing is by not becoming complacent with what we have achieved and strive for more. Also we cannot overburden ourselves with that that we take distaste in, it shall only lead to an harbored contempt for what we’re achieving.

The Time To Fail…

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It is oft-stated that Thomas Edison once said, “I did not fail 10,000 times when creating the light-bulb; I have succeeded in finding 10,000 ways how not to create a light-bulb.” I have read it many times and I find that the number seems quite arbitrary and he was not the first person to create the light-bulb, merely the innovator who found a more viable filament source in tungsten steel. This article is not about him but, about allowing oneself to take risks in life and allowing failure.

I was watching Seth Godin on TED and, he was talking about how to market to the world by not focusing on the masses, but risking your gains on the people who actually give a damn about what you are selling.  “The riskiest thing you can do now is being safe.” You are going to have to take your risks to stand out among the ever growing crowd. Develop your product and sell it not to a crowd but to the few who care about your work. Let the few spread your product, all you have to do is find them and give them what they want.

Man is capable of perceiving risk and finding ways to manage it, however, the simplest way that man knows is to remove it all together. This is quite risky in itself as with higher risk comes higher failure rates but, also, larger success. We should not see these failures as losses but as knowledgeable gains for our future successes. When you truly develop an understanding of the risk you are taking it is no longer a gamble; you have developed a strategy to turn most fortunes, good or bad, into positive successes.

“The time you have is short, better to fail today and have tomorrow left to succeed; you will never know if your failure now will lead to a future success.”