Fact of the day, before 9/11, banks were required by law to use physical checks, rather than check images, to settle transactions. After the 9-11 attack and subsequent grounding of planes, including planes used to transport deposited checks across the country, Congress passed Check 21 which allowed banks to use images rather than physical checks [...]
What does it mean that your startup is “Ramen Profitable”? It means you’ve passed an important milestone and you’re on the right track. Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders’ living expenses. This is a different form of profitability than startups have traditionally aimed for. Traditional profitability means a big [...]
Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all [...]
When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don’t stand still and look around On all the hills I haven’t hoed, And shout from where I am, What is it? No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe in the [...]
It’s not quite a Christmas song, but it does get me in the Christmas mood to see such a creative take on an old standard.
Fantastic piece by Charles Kenny on Foreign Policy on the effect of television on modernization. TV has become such an integral part of our culture in the US, but as television penetrates globally, we are seeing dramatic social consequences. Many of them good consequences. A couple of these changes that jumped out at me. Exposing [...]
Continue reading about The Revolution Will Be Televised, or Rather, Televized
Interesting study in the Scientific American today on mind matters. In a series of experiments, they showed that if students make an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve information before receiving an answer, they remember the information better than in a control condition in which they simply study the information. The authors of the “Dummies Guide” and [...]
Continue reading about Improve Your Memory by Getting it Wrong