I can barely use my phone until it dies these days. It’s an iPhone X. I’ll say it again, real revolutions in battery tech will change the world.
Product & Startup Builder
2 Kinds of Luck
I was just discussing the question of “How big a role does luck play in success?” with Ashley Angell.
For me, there are two kinds of luck.
1. Blind luck:
This is the kind of luck that you can’t control. Where are you were born, how much money your family has, how healthy you are, your IQ, most types of illnesses you or your loved ones might develop during the course of your life, etc.
2. Intentional luck:
This is everything else that happens in life. This is preparation + opportunity + execution. This is the kind of luck you CAN control. Because opportunities happen every day and in many forms. They often present as hard work, uncomfortable or risky - so they are usually avoided instead of embraced. Therefore It often takes a leap of imagination to notice, catch and convert opportunities into value creation for ones self and their family. These are the “lucky” people.
How do you think about the relationship between luck and success?
Leftists Won't Be 'Placated' Anymore In 2020 Election
Yes! Moving the Overton Window! That's what it's about. Moving it back to REALITY.
Cordial Convo With A Trump Supporter
Just met an Australia Farmer visiting “the big city”.
We got to talking and at one stage he asked me if I was a Trump supporter. I laughed and said Trump was a dangerous psychopath.
He’s said he’s Trump supporter and that he liked his immigration policies.
I calmly explained to him...
“We might disagree about the policies - and that’s a reasonable debate - but there are likely many politicians who could represent your position that I wouldn’t call a dangerous psychopath.
The difference is that Trump himself is dangerous to democracy itself because he’s undermining the institutions that make society work - law enforcement, media, courts etc.”
He readily agreed.
I also told him...
“We might disagree on the right level of immigration, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that we both want less immigrants and less illegal immigration. Well it turns out that most immigration happens through legal ports of entry with people overstaying their visas. So even if we both wanted fewer immigrants, a border wall isn’t the way to achieve it.”
He said “If that’s true, I agree”.
He’s a mango farmer and has come to Brisbane to join a protest against the government‘s treatment of farmers. He complained that they allow cheap imports which hurts local farms.
I explained how it’s extremely difficult to balance the needs of the few against the needs of the many. That there might be some other trade off they were working towards to assist the overall wellbeing of the economy.
He readily named the trade off they were making (part of some broader trade deal). He acknowledged that it’s a very hard job to do.
A rather surprisingly productive and cordial conversation.
Disney's Aladdin
I'm getting an "Amateur fan film" vibe from this. Weird acting, bad CGI, stage show style staging... weird.
The Republicans Are The Problem
"They're not both just as bad as each other - that's a stupid person's idea of a smart thing to say". This x1000…
Change Is As Good As a Holiday
They say change is as good as a holiday. But Holidays are also as good as a change
Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez And The Ethics Game
All the insight and clarity of Elizabeth Warren without any of the stern school teacher baggage. I’m just going to keep sharing her videos until she becomes president.
Oh and by the way, US politics is almost fully compromised.
Family Seperations
You can’t argue someone into empathy or competence
South Bank
Being a recovering homebody means going out of your way to push past the urge to just stay at home and order UberEats or to go back home straight after grabbing a bite to eat.
Instead, on my way to enjoy South Bank.
EDIT: This is actually much harder than it sounds when you’re in your own home and everything is set up perfectly to your liking. Being “homeless” while #skysanctuary is being renovated is definitely helpful here.
Time Is Precious
Time is precious. Be careful how you spend it and don’t waste other people’s
Deepfake Videos
This is going to be a big challenge moving forward. It’s only going to reinforce and accelerate the erosion of our collective ability to believe in the same set of foundational facts in order to make informed decisions and execute collective action for a better world.
What Have I Learned From This?
Each time something happens "to" you, ask: "What have I learned from this?"
Cory Booker Explains Why He's Running For President
This man is the next Obama. I hope Americans give him the chance to continue that legacy
Israeli Scientists: A Cure For Cancer
This will be either a world-changing discovery that will forever reshape society - or a giant letdown. I deeply hope it’s the former.
America Has Spent $5.9 Trillion On Wars Since 2001 ...
Imagine if they spent all that money on developing and subsidizing green tech instead of spending it on attempting to safeguard the oil. Massive subsidies (and destruction) for a toxic, unsustainable industry.
Profoundly Impressive Video
This is a profoundly impressive video.
What I see
1. An amazing piece of journalism
2. A lot of stupid behavior on all sides
3. The Native American seemed to come up to the kid. Not the other way around
4. The kid was basically just standing his ground and the “gesture” to his friend was telling his friend to chill out (I.e trying to somewhat calm the situation as he claims)
5. American society is breaking apart at the seams. The culture Cold War is turning into a warm war.
6. There’s an opportunity to build an app that does this kind of editing/reconstruction automatically. I seem to remember a few attempts. What were they and what happened to them?
"Just Relax, It Will All Be Ok”.
Rediscovering my private blog posts (a kind of journal) from a decade+ ago, I want to go back and tell that young guy to “just relax, it will all be ok”.
At the same time, if it wasn’t for his constant pushing and ideating on his circumstances, I don’t think he/we would have capitalized on the breaks and gotten me/us as far as I’ve come.
Failure Of The 4th Estate
A great example of the abject failure of US corporate media is how they spent a week talking about the ”bombshell” that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation on Trump after he fired Comey.
WHO CARES! That information by itself is meaningless. The FBI opens all sorts of investigations all the time. The most important part is what the investigation TURNED UP!
But they almost never explain that part in all the reporting I saw. They just tell you the first part - the clickbait ineuendo - but they don’t tell you the most important information - the result of the investigation!!
Well if you dig deeper, you find out it was handed off to the mueller investigation before it really got very far. Why did I have to listen and read so hard to figure that out? Why are they making it sound like this is a slam dunk case? Why are they acting like the president being under investigation for conspiracy with Russia is a new thing? It's been happening for more than a year in public!!
At best this should be communicated as another key fact in the ongoing case - but instead it was presented as evidence, in-and-of-itself, that the president was guilty.
What a waste of ink and air time. What a massive distraction from the real and dangerous things he’s doing and the real and ongoing investigations into every facet of his life and presidency. What a way to undermine their own credibility. What a dangerous way of blowing the headline and crying wolf for when the real results of the investigation come out.
I witnessed this first hand at Uber. They can make anything sound like news and/or damning evidence just by the music, images and word choice they play with the data.
I just saw it happen again with Uber just this morning. I got a CNN Alert about a leaked, Uber funded, year old report on the safety team showing that they were stressed out about the case-load and tough customer issues they were dealing with.
No suggestion that Uber is doing the right thing to commission the report to get answers, no information about what has since changed thanks to the report's findings, no information about how others in the field handle this kind of stress/organization. Nope. Just a sense that Uber fucked up. Which is not proven based on the evidence available (potentially the opposite actually).
Failure of the 4th estate.
Facebook Launches Petition Feature
This is genius, potentially disruptive, and could go very wrong. The best kind of big bold bet. Very impressed that Facebook would do this and hope they do much more.
