The Black Keys - Tighten Up

Quote

If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain. He would want us to know we can argue fiercely about the proper size and role of government without questioning each other’s love for this country -- (applause) -- with the knowledge that in this democracy, government is no distant object but is rather an expression of our common commitments to one another.

--Barack Obama referring to Martin Luther King at the Memorial speech on 10/16

George Carlin on Being Human

"I don't consider myself an active member of the human race. I know that by definition I am, but I don't go to the meetings, and I don't have a card." 

Start at 3:50 for the great quotables, but the whole thing is worth a watch.

Newsletter: Summer 2011

This is a quarterly email newsletter with ideas, cool links, book

recommendations and a personal update. 

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Read time: 2 1/2 minutes

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IDEAS

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1.  Neighborliness in the lonely city

Since moving to Brooklyn, I've thought much more about

neighborliness than when I lived near Wall Street. People idle here, 

a melange of music can be heard from apartments, car alarms go 

off at all hours, and there's an organic ebb and flow of people who 

you never say hello to but see regularly enough that you start thinking 

of them as your neighbors.

Neighborliness, though, is an odd sensation in a large city where the

combination of close proximity and anonymity sometimes lends to a 

sense of loneliness. New York City is like a giant campus where the

only matriculation requirement is agreeing to experience separateness 

together.

Coming from a small town, where perhaps we experience 

togetherness separately, I am constantly aware of this, yet it also

serves as a security blanket when race, gender, sexuality, income and 

all other variants of distinction begin to blur together. In the end, you refer 

to each other simply as survivalists, or more appropriately, human.

Here are some more thoughts on city living:

A modern perspective on working back and forth between 

a small town and NYC.

A local perspective empathetic to the dilemma of

neighborliness and loneliness in a large city.

A thorough New York Magazine article debunking the 

myth of urban loneliness.

2.  Is the singularity really near?

The more technology becomes part of our daily lives, the more I

think about Ray Kurzweil's idea of the singularity, a precipice-type 

event when technological intelligence is expected to surpass human 

intelligence.

AI, cylons and cyborgs immediately come to mind, but 

it's not far-flung science fiction when you see someone talking to 

thin air on their bluetooth or you pull up satellite-enabled, 

location-tracking GPS directions on your smartphone while driving. 

What seemed unlikely a decade ago, we already take for granted.

At the same time, advancement feels like it's outpacing us. No

matter what age, it seems like everyone is trying to find a balance 

between online and offline worlds. Adaptation to new technologies 

has become a necessary skill, though it's still uncertain how 

technology will impact communication in the long run. First, we 

may have to contend with the growth of technological inequality 

on a more global level.

Singularity-inducing technologies worth keeping an eye on:

NeuroSky uses EEG monitoring to type hands-free and send 

emails and tweets.

The Predator camera "fingerprints" your visual image to track 

movement and location.

World Lens translates language real-time using the camera on 

your smartphone.

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BOOKS

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1. The White Album by Joan Didion

Since reading it, I've touted this book to almost everyone I know.

Didion talks about everything under the sun in a dry, nonchalant

style that hits you unexpectedly, perhaps at dinner or when you're

out taking a walk. It requires the right mood - for me, it was

needing a dramatic change to my reading list. This is just the cure

for that. (I wrote a much more detailed review here)

2.    Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

I read this book over 3 years ago and came back to it because it

because of a renewed interest in storytelling. Powerpoint has

wisely lost ground with many since Reynolds came out with a better 

way to be persuasive. Going beyond the classroom or boardroom, 

this book targets the art of conversation altogether. An insightful and 

worthwhile read. (I'd also recommend The Back of the Napkin by 

Dan Roam as a wonderful companion read)

3. Just Kids by Patti Smith

Light, fun, and dare-I-say-it, a beach read with substance. I

didn't know who Patti Smith was when I read it, and that made it

all the better. Smith lilts along autobiographically through the

60's and 70's showing the plight and reward of becoming an artist.

This book is a rare opportunity to live vicariously through a

bygone era that still holds great influence today. (A more detailed 

review can be found here)

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CONNECT

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Google+ 

LinkedIn

Twitter 

Blog

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PERSONAL UPDATE

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I've been experiencing Brooklyn on my bike, which I recently

revived from its 8-year slumber in a storage box. No car and long

avenue blocks is a perfect excuse to use the bike more

functionally; to pick up groceries or dry cleaning or ride to the

park for a picnic.

My favorite biking adventures though have been on Governor's Island, 

a welcome escape from the daily hubbub of the city.

I'd love to hear how your summer is going. Drop me an email when

you get a chance!

Cheers,

Akshay 

(Click here for previous newsletters)

Joan Didion - The White Album

Joan Didion makes me want to write.

I'm on a vacation/staycation, sweating in a humid apartment with two fans running, one in front, one behind me. I finished The White Album a week ago, reading The Year of Magical Thinking now and looking forward to her 56-page essay-book, Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11. I only heard of her a month ago in June after finishing Patti Smith's Just Kids. I wanted more writing like that; non-fiction, in-depth explorations of life through an autobiographical lens.

For a sci-fi/fantasy reader, it's been a wayward and rewarding pleasure. If psychobabble holds any truth, I went from "escaping the real-world" to jumping in it full-fledged.

"Most of us live less theatrically, but remain survivors of a peculiar and inward time. If I could believe that going to a barricade would affect man's fate in the slightest I would go to that barricade, and quite often I wish that I could, but it would be less than honest to say that I expect to happen upon such a happy ending."

There's a distant apathy to her style. I picture her flippantly flicking her hand as words go from brain synapses firing onto the page. She's good, she knows it, and it bothers her. She achingly tries to elucidate this feeling in her writing. "A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work", as an anonymous Wikipedia contributor references from an article about her.

"I gravitated to the random. I swung with the non-sequential."

She's more funny than serious though. More lost than analytical. She comes from wealth, is wealthy, and has a clear understanding that her station in life - as a renowned journalist and author - allows her (comped) access to varied aspects of life that others don't see. Her candor gives you front-row seats.

"Bike movies are made for all these children of vague "hill" stock who grow up absurd in the West and Southwest, children whose whole lives are an obscure grudge against a world they think they never made. These children are, increasingly, everywhere, and their style is that of an entire generation."

She's talking about the generation of the 70's, but I see the hipsters of today or sometimes the disconnected teen entrepreneurs or the laid-off brokers turned freelancers. Held accountable to rules that no longer pertain to them. Absurd, begrudging, distant.

I keep reading Didion because she keeps hinting at recurring themes. Having written since the early 60's till today, she could very well point out the "human search for meaning in a changing world". But it's something Obama might say in a campaign speech. We might see it on a billboard promoting Scientology, abortion rights, or Chase Bank. It may be assigned as a homework assignment in an English class focused on the classics; Of Mice and Men, Dickens, or Brave New World. The cliche doesn't bear repeating, so she writes to convey the feeling.

I found the video below in barely 2 minutes after hearing it on the end credits of a Weeds show. You feel like a detective discovering "who done it?" when you succeed in such a short quest on the internet. It's weirdly thrilling.

"There in the Governor's Mansion that night I learned for the first time that my face to the world was not necessarily the face in my mirror."

I love reading Joan Didion.

Checking Email

It's 10:30am and I haven't eaten a thing. I have though checked my email twice, both for work and personal accounts. As if an hour is going to make a difference. Email, or the checking of email, somehow slows down time. It becomes imperative to check it regularly, though it's only been 1/2 an hour, an hour or two. You can do a lot in that amount of time, but the sense of urgency isn't warranted. As Tim Ferriss quipped in premonition four years ago, email is distracting and time-consuming if checked more than twice a day at regular intervals.

Patti Smith - Just Kids

Patti Smith writes innocently. She reads in a fluid way, the way a skateboarder must feel when the ricocheting of the wheels against the ground is lost to the smooth ride. It feels like Patti escaped the noisiness of the world, but not without difficulty. She knows of it, but lives beyond it.

I can't echo her writing through metaphor as well as a reader can decipher it through "Just Kids". Overall an ode to Robert Mapplethorpe, the book speeds through adolescence into young adulthood in mid-60's New York. Andy Warhol fanaticism, Martin Luther King's death, Jimi Hendrix being cool, Janis Joplin's insecurities, and other folklore play out in first hand.

Life just happened to Patti Smith, and she didn't struggle against it. She was lost and hungry and destitute, but kept going for the sake of art. I was sucked in by this struggle and couldn't stop reading, trying to figure out what this esoteric term that couldn't be seen or defined meant to her. Art in some sense was god, though the religious relation was never mentioned.

I couldn't relate to her hardship because I always found a practical solution for it. When Robert went through withdrawal, why did she take him to the Chelsea Hotel and not to Saint Vincent's? Why didn't she ask Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix to see her work and sponsor her? I was continuously drawn to her lack of finding a solution and letting circumstance suit her pace of life. Maybe she happened to life, because she would reject offers to sing or read her poems when they didn't feel right. She would pursue acting, though she didn't have any experience in it.

Patti and Robert had an approach to life that didn't at all make sense to me. I think that's the point. Patti wrote "Just Kids" to show the simple sinusoidal flow of life. Not just the content, but also the writing echoed that sentiment. There was no meaningful conveyance of "follow my route". There was no way you could anyway. No ego, no audience to write to, no publisher to impress. I'm reminded of Anna Nalick's "2 am" when she says she had to get a song down on paper before it threatened the life it belonged to. That's probably what Patti felt.

She was asked to write about her time with Robert by Robert and though you knew it the whole time, she only shared that at the end. This didn't have to be published for her to feel the work was complete.

The Art of Non-Conformity » Hello, My Name Is…

"I don’t think that any of these ideological constructs are bad—in fact, they’ve clearly done good things for the world and helped a lot of people live more intentionally. But I do think it’s a mistake to group yourself into someone else’s idea of identity."

From Hello, My Name Is… by Chris Guillebeau

This post is one of the most clearly laid-out arguments against labels. The most difficult part about fighting labels is becoming another label during the process. You become anti-label and the cycle is never-endless from there.

I like the way Chris links labels back to defining your personal identity. So many of us gain from dressing up, looking a certain way, having a higher-sounding title, living in a swanky neighborhood, working at that awesome company because of the way people look of us. Their perception of us makes us feel better. We become what others admire in that era - that specific moment in time when dark jeans or ties or hats or geekiness or tech work or working at Apple or McMansions or Beverly Hills or whatever are the in thing. We're social animals and we climb that hierarchy set for us by our social structures. Memes.

If we step out of that moment - or rather mement - and dig down deep for what we care about, we might find something different. Something dissimilar to the current social norm. We can never avoid labels, but going through the "know thyself" exercises lets us create our own or more solidly become part of a mission that we consciously agree with.

What mement are you a part of or do you want to create?

Money, Happiness and Personality

"Life, except for the obvious physical needs, is not so much defined by the external situation as by the inner one. Having money won’t change your internal makeup. If you’re an anxious sonofabitch without money, you’re going to be an anxious sonofabitch with a lot of money."

From Delayed Echoes

Money, or the lack thereof, brings out the real you. Stickler, freewheeler, bragger, hoarder, hider, straggler, whatever your personality might be is what personality you have with money. The link between money and happiness is much more uncertain than with money and personality. It's the not the personal earning, but the personal growing, changing and evolving that will change someone's relationship with money.

I've been learning a lot about my personal relationship with money and how closely it's associated with my philosophy of life. I don't much like what I'm discovering. The strong correlation just means I guide my life around its accumulation. It's not just currency, it's my value system. And I'm working on changing that.

The strongest influences are people who's value systems define their currency. For example, some people believe strongly in the value of relationships. We all might think we do, but we mostly hang out with similar socio-economic groups, lots of us make friends up the ladder, and marriage-wise, misunderstanding about financial issues is always among the top 3 reasons for divorce. People who truly value relationships deal in a different currency. For them, social capital may be important; how many friends you know that you can rely on, the level of trust you've garnered with your partner, etc. They're trading and bartering on a social exchange rate.

Other people have value systems surrounding creativity. They deal in the currency of art, originality and aesthetic.  Regardless of money or power or social capital, they're motivated and drawn to what moves them visually or musically. It's something unseen, but felt at their core.

I'm learning these different currencies, which seem so new to me, but have been around forever. Everything is intrinsically linked to money, but it doesn't have to be the guiding force or value system that drives us. It's the byproduct that lets us be more ourselves, whatever that personality might be. In a capitalist system, all of us are susceptible to being caught in an accumulation cycle and it's when we stop and assess our personality, values and motivations that we can truly begin to grow and change our relationship with money, and happiness.

Beautifully Sad

How to Be Unremarkably Average

"Use your credit card as your primary means of spending. Get the largest mortgage you can qualify for. Fill it with plasma TVs and expensive furniture. Buy a big, new car and complain about the cost of gas. Spend all you earn, or maybe even more than you earn. The government will help you if there’s a recession. Spend money on things you don’t want but will help you impress others."

From: The Art of Non-Conformity » How to Be Unremarkably Average

The scary thing was how much of this artfully satirical diatribe related to me and how much I bet it relates to a lot of those who read it. It does describe "average" after all.

The recurring theme is personal security; doing what's safe, sticking to what you know and understand. There's nothing bad in that. We are all trying to achieve some form of security, but when we reach it we slow down. And we certainly reach it when we hit the average mark.

The key word is "trying". We should never stop. There is no achieving "security", only the sense that we have. The revolutions going on around us wake us up to that fact. Security is an aim, not a reality. There's nothing disconcerting in that. Rather, it keeps us alive! 

The Upside of Irritation

"No matter how good we are at controlling our circumstances, there will always be factors and people that we cannot control. How we respond to these experiences to a great degree determines the quality of our lives. The goal of spiritual development is not to learn to control our environment—which is more of an ego-driven desire. And while having some measure of control over our external reality is important, it is when we are confronted with a person or situation that irritates us and we can choose not to react that we know have made progress spiritually. It is when we have mastered our internal reality that we will have become the masters of our lives."

From: DailyOM - The Upside of Irritation

Group Think

"To which I say: key-shmey. There is no rule, process, peer group, leader, or best seller that can absolve us of the responsibility of thinking our way through life on our own two feet. What irks me most about this infinite parade of gigundo solutions isn’t their glibness or even the borderline theology (of some) and borderline Babbitry (of others) involved in promising audiences easy, happy, profitable ideas. Nope. What irks me is that when you rigidly apply grand theories to everybody, sooner or later everybody feels like nobody, whether you’re in Communist Belgrade or the local DMV. There is a reason we call such systems soul-crushing: They ignore or annihilate individual difference and inner life."

From the brilliantly-written Group Think by Kathryn Schulz. It's worth a full read, if only for the comedic lilt of the piece.

Seeking Advice from Yourself

"Think back to how you viewed the world when you were younger. What were your thoughts on happiness, love, and injustice? Think about how you would have reacted to a dilemma you are currently facing. The perspective may shed a different light on relationships, money matters, or life decisions. Likewise, think about the person you will become. A more mature version of you might mull a problem or conflict over carefully before taking action right away… or perhaps not. Maybe your older self would be more willing to take risks, care less about what other people think, and want to enjoy life more."

From: DailyOM - Seeking Advice from Yourself

The Internet hasn't invented the skeleton in the closet...

"The Internet hasn't invented the skeleton in the closet, it's only made it easier to take the skeleton out. That doesn't mean that humans can't be mature."

From: On the Internet, you can hire someone to ensure nobody knows you're a dog - O'Reilly Radar

We love our reflections

"When researchers partially morph a person’s face with a politician’s, that person becomes more likely to approve of the politician — and has no clue why. As long as the ratio of the politician’s features remains below 40 percent, the person doesn’t even realize the photograph was doctored."

From: 3-D Avatars Could Put You in Two Places at Once - NYTimes.com

David Christian: Big History

This is wonderfully put together and the way it ends is just remarkable.

Gentle Nudges

The idea of a "gentle nudge" being an effective way to change behavior makes more sense when you first think about what a "nudge" is.

A nudge usually starts with, "You should". "You should make your bed", "You should work out", "You should get a new job". It's really unasked-for, free advice that has a one-time affect of being annoying. Nudging someone in the right direction rarely does the trick.

A gentle nudge, on the other hand, can make a world of difference.

First, it's gentle, so instead of starting with, "You should", you start with the benefit first. "Did you know that 88% of successful people make their bed?" (relative association). "Let's take the stairs, beat you to the top!" (competitive motivation). "The market's getting better, it's the best time to start something new" (contextual benefit).

Second, you can gently nudge more than once. Repetition is the key to behavioral change, personal or otherwise. Automating gentle nudges can be extremely powerful. A motivational quote on your fridge, a phone alert to take your medication, scheduling a mid-day walk on your calendar are some of the most basic ways.

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn says it best:

Health is mobile, and health care is local. The So-Lo-Mo phenomenon plays beautifully into the world of moms, who are their families’ Chief Household Officers. Mothers have been the key determinants of health and health care consumption in their households, and mobile gives them the platform that makes their health decisions more efficient and even engaging.

We keep paying more for health care we're worried we won't have

Credits
Graph 1: To the young brilliant minds
Graph 2: Even the most wealthy, healthy U.S. citizens worry about future health care access and finance

Newsletter: Spring 2011

This is a quarterly email newsletter with ideas, cool links, book

recommendations and a personal update.

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Read time: 2 minutes

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IDEAS

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1.  Are you an Apple or PC person?  And what does it mean if you're

both?

I wonder what Leonardo da Vinci would have chosen. It's the

ultimate modern debate between design and function. What I love

most about this rivalry though is the awareness it builds about how

aesthetic and usability blend together.

I particularly like Rick Landesberg's passionate observation of how

creative imagery affects us daily: "when the functional rises above

itself, when the everyday becomes celebratory, we become more

human." Examples abound:

Here's a "map" of San Fransisco depicting local and tourist

hotspots just from pictures taken by each group.

Here's "map" of NYC laying out racial and ethnic group census data

in an easily comparable fashion.

Here's a "diploma" using a portrait of an anatomical heart made up

entirely of words from a dissertation.

2.  What's the cure for procrastination?

First, are you sure you want to cure it, considering

procrastination may be telling you that something really isn't

worth doing? We deal with task overload daily and often blame

ourselves for not doing enough. When something stays on my to-do

list for weeks though, I wonder if I'm truly too busy or if I'm

subconsciously avoiding it because it doesn't matter to me.

Curing it is a mix of setting deadlines and tackling tasks

piecemeal. "Later", an engrossing New Yorker article, comments,

"Since open-ended tasks with distant deadlines are much easier to

postpone than focussed, short-term projects, dividing projects into

smaller, more defined sections helps."

The Pomodoro technique is one of my favorites. If "work expands to

the time allotted", this is how to get work done fast!

Compact Calendar is another tool that makes project planning easier

by offering a visual of continuity across consecutive days instead

of months.

Here are 3 simple solutions offered by Marty Nemko for dealing with

the procrastination problem.

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BOOKS

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1. Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

In search of a book that would help me articulate my thoughts and

ideas better in conversation and on paper, I found Made to Stick.

The authors are natural storytellers that lead by example and keep

you turning pages. It's a book you'll come back to time and again.

It's sticky, I guess.

2. The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman

Written by my friend, Josh, this tome of business knowledge is

hefty in the topics it covers and yet somehow it's encapsulated in

a small reference-like volume that reads like a novel. I finished

it in 3 hours. Skip b-school and learn it here. It's exactly why he

wrote it.

3. I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj

I would put this in the category of philosophy that you can play

with, feel, work through. The entire book is a transcription of

various Q&A sessions with people who come to debate life issues

with Maharaj. Easy to read little bits at a time, it's experientially 

rewarding because you can easily practice the message.

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CONNECT

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LinkedIn

Twitter 

Blog

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PERSONAL UPDATE

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I recently took a trip to Istanbul that was a mix of catching up on

sleep and discovering a secular Islamic culture. Ever since Ataturk

made Turkey into a secular state in 1923, there have been major

debates about the ban of headscarves and the consumption of alcohol.

I saw a provocative video fixture at the Istanbul Modern Art

Museum, discussing the right of women to wear headscarves if they

wanted. Also, alcohol was taxed so heavily that sometimes a glass

of wine cost twice as much as the entree! 

The interplay between the two sides in daily life was remarkable to

see. I highly recommend it for history buffs.

I'd love to hear about what's going in your life, so drop me an

email when you get a chance.

All the best,

Akshay
(Click here for previous newsletters)

Knowing when to change

"When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important thing I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

-Steve Jobs

From: The Art of Non-Conformity » Opening Night

Be a pupil of myself

yourbeautifulmind:

siddhartha

I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time. - Hermann Hesse in Siddartha

Make It Mean Something

They might tell the House [of Representatives] that there's a 1.5 percent failure rate, but most Americans don't understand what that means. I mean, 1.5, what is that? Is that a lot? You have to relate it to something that means something to somebody. Otherwise, people have the perception that space flight is safe, and when there's an accident, they're shocked. It's like, "We gotta stop flying." If we want to add additional safeguards because now we're feeling emotional about it, okay, we can do that. But if we're still meeting our design specs for loss, why would we stop flying?

From: The Wrong Stuff : Risky Business: James Bagian—NASA astronaut turned patient safety expert—on Being Wrong

Google: Creepy & Fantastic

I typed in "japan earthquake" in Google to find out more details about the location and the magnitudes of the recent earthquakes. Google had organized US Geological Survey data in way that told me exactly what I was looking for. As if the search engine were reading my mind.
It's what makes Google so creepy and fantastic.

All of my good ideas are battles

via s3.amazonaws.com

Who profits off you being unhealthy v. healthy?

Jay Parkinson, MD 16 hours ago in reply to fran

• Coca-Cola makes a direct profit off you behaving unhealthily. What are the companies that make a direct profit off your everyday behaviors that optimize health?Like Reply

Jon Christianson 13 hours ago in reply to Jay Parkinson, MD

• This is a good question - much of the US economy clearly benefits from promoting unhealthy behavior (e.g, mainstream food industry, energy, health care, retail, etc.).
  
  I suspect most facets of tourism make a direct profit off of behaviors that optimize health.

Third Space

Inspired by Ray Oldenburg’s "Third Space" concept which states that society needs a place away from home (First Space) and work (Second Space). Third Spaces are "Anchors of Community Life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction." Societies across the world have third spaces that manifest themselves as coffee houses, pubs, plazas, etc. The Summit is the ultimate Third Space.

The Summit SF

I've loved the idea of a "third space" since I learned of it only a year ago. I can't wait to go here.

There's no space for the extra space

ideasareawesome:

There’s no space for the extra space. By Farhad Manjoo on Slate.

I saw this piece earlier in the day and loved it. We don't need two spaces after the period. It's just a convention that can be changed. Although, as I typed this I found myself double-tapping the space bar after periods and corrected it after the fact. Ugh.

Also, why do people put their hats on AFTER they get outside? You lose all that heat off the top of your head and then trap cold air inside. Put it on before you get out the door and you won't even feel the transition into cold weather.

via healthpopuli.com

What a revealing graphic. Practice Fusion continues to impress.

The joy of not being sold anything

I've been thinking a lot lately about useful ads, good ads, value-filled ads that inform us and motivate us. Ads about community events, blood donation, clean sidewalks, and healthy living. Ads that communicate the variety in our culture, the foods, the music, the arts, the people and their ways of thinking.

Ads that don't have to sell.

Why are we willing to believe things that are false?

Why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, do so many people remain adamant in their belief that vaccines are responsible for harming hundreds of thousands of otherwise healthy children? Why was the media so inclined to air their views? Why were so many others so readily convinced? Why, in other words, are we willing to believe things that are, according to all available evidence, false?

What Drives Irrational Rhetoric? The Case of Childhood Vaccinations - The Atlantic(via jayparkinsonmd)

Newsletter: Winter 2011

This is a quarterly email newsletter with ideas, cool links, book

recommendations and a personal update. 

******

Read time: 2 1/2 minutes

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IDEAS

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1. Are you saying what you mean or is everyone listening to what they want to hear?

What's in our heads doesn't always translate verbally. Being bilingual,

I often wish I could use Hindi words to communicate what I'm trying

to say. Hindi has the ability to invoke various emotions with a single word.

I imagine Native American languages work similarly, exhibiting an emotive

quality that requires several English sentences to explain. English is far more

analytical, which is obviously its strongest quality. It reduces the strong cultural

and historical effects subject to shift meaning and clearly connotes a message.

Interestingly though, single words in English can have a different meaning

based on context. We may not think about word choice, but it has an impact

on how well we communicate with others. George Bernard Shaw said, "The

single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

At work and with friends, I notice how much time and energy is spent on

correcting misunderstandings. Viewing language as variable and subjective

has made me much more attentive to whether I'm truly understanding what's

being said and whether I'm truly communicating what I want to say.

NYTimes Language Article

Persuasive Storytelling

Talking to Patients with Technology

2. What will the internet look like in 10 years?

Every generation feels removed from the previous one and the

internet has widened the gap even more in the last 10 years. The

rate of growth, especially in social media, seems to have surpassed

the rate of adoption, with a few obvious exceptions; Facebook,

Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

With no barrier to entry and an ubiquitous, open-source platform,

one would think the internet would allow very few people or companies

to rise to the top. The internet though is an enormous, real-time

sociological experiment that makes us either participants or observers.

Clay Shirky explains it brilliantly:

"In systems where many people are free to choose between many

options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate

amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of

the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing

to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological

explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and

freely enough, creates a power law distribution."

Points of Control

Newsmap

Future Internet Scenarios

3. Is the economy shaping the job market or is it the other way around?

It's hard not to think about the job market right now. Unemployment

at 9% not only affects recent graduates, but also increases job lock

among current employees, shifts where we live, increases housing

prices, and diminishes productivity through long-term underemployment.

The soft side of unemployment is different though. While morale is

still low, people are finding creative ways to find work and companies

are responding with an increase in project-oriented work.

Nobel Prize in Economics

Part-time Health Insurance

Susan hires a boss

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BOOKS

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1. Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Fast-paced from the beginning, Daemon represents a whole new

thriller genre mixing technology and crime while staying out of the

sci-fi realm. Great summer/airplane/couch read.

2. F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way by John C. Parkin

Existential philosophy boiled down to two words that convey a

flippant yet energized attitude. The ability to fearlessly achieve

your goals is a strong theme in this book. A little bit of a

throwback to the 70's new-age, hippie motif (Parkin runs a retreat

called The Hill That Breathes), it's still a hilarious must-read.

3. White Noise by Dan Delillo

Strange and captivating, White Noise was written in 1985 and yet

eerily speaks of societal problems we face today, especially

media-induced fear. The writing is quirky, funny, and has a

lackadaisical style that makes tough vocabulary somehow easy to

understand. I felt like a better writer having read it.

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CONNECT

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LinkedIn

Twitter

Blog

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PERSONAL UPDATE

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Hi from NYC! My last year has been a thorough exploration of

restaurants and neighborhoods in NYC. I've expanded my horizons

beyond Manhattan into Brooklyn and I'm always amazed how the city

organically changes from street to street. If you're around, give

me a buzz and we can get together for coffee or dinner.

Cheers,

Akshay

Working Hurts Less

jingc:

On procrastination and how to think about the substitute activities that we do instead of dong work:

When you procrastinate, you’re probably not procrastinating because of the pain of working, because on a moment-to-moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of procrastinating.

That is pretty useful to remember. And another tidbit:

I’m starting to think that […] you do not regain mental energy from [procrastination. Success and happinesscause you to regain willpower; what you need to heal your mind from any damage sustained by working is not inactivity, but reliably solvable problems which reliably deliver experienced jolts of positive reinforcement.

I think this is a pretty useful insight - when compelled to procrastinate, what you choose to do can greatly affect whether you manage to get actual work done later.

In October of last year, there was a great piece in the New Yorker about procrastination that convinced me to change my working habits immediately.

I took on exactly this philosophy that procrastination is a personal signal of unhappiness. Neal Stephenson once wrote, "Boredom is a mask that frustration wears". The usual precursor to procrastination was boredom, which told me two things; I was frustrated about something that was making me unhappy, which in turn was making me avoid what I was frustrated about.

I began looking for segues that would lead me back to productivity. If I had to read a long policy paper and I was procrastinating, I would read a novel instead, which would gear the reading side of my brain and get the right word-scanning juices flowing to ease into governmental policy.

If I had to analyze a report on work RVU productivity variations for five specialty practices, I would take a break from the computer, walk, and observe in detail my surroundings, exercising my analytical brain to see things I normally wouldn't see. When I got back to the task at hand, it'd be a natural transition to sit in front of the computer for a few hours comparing numbers.

As noted above, having self-awareness about how you feel when you're in the middle of something produces direct results in your behavior. I'd rather be in the middle of a good book or walk than surfing the web. Scheduled surf time is far more rewarding.

Bill Maher - Anti-Pharma Rant

“New rule, if you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, than you are already on drugs …” - Bill Maher

The Great College-Degree Scam

Here it is: approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less.

From: The Great College-Degree Scam - Innovations - The Chronicle of Higher Education

How to land a job

"Here's how career changers are most likely to land a job: Make a list of 100 people who know you. They don't even have to love you. Let's take the worst case: a boss who fired you. He might be willing to give you a lead on a better-suited job. And that's the worst case. Chances are that if your list includes your relatives, your parent's and wife's relatives, your friends, your wife's and parents' friends, your past and present coworkers, bosses, customers, and vendors, your haircutter, accountant, lawyer, doctor, church members, co-volunteers, etc., you'll likely get leads to people willing to consider you for a project manager job outside of defense or refer you to someone who might. And you might hear about career areas you never would have thought of in a million years. Last week, I got a call from a client who got a job at a toy company monitoring plush stuffed-animal factories in China."

From: Marty Nemko: Lessons from a Career Counseling Session

Japanese t-shirt folding technique

We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already

“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

From: J.K. Rowling on Failure And Imagination

Hans Rosling: Visual Statistics

ideasareawesome:

The health & wealth of 200 countries over 200 years, in less than 5 minutes. Wait for the post-colonial explosion.

Via WaPo’s Ezra Klein.

Hans Rosling is amazing. If you like this, don't miss his TED talks.

livingasana:

my thoughts exactly. and by the way….shit happens.

Doubts can find no foothold

Doubts can find no foothold in our minds as we seldom concern ourselves with fleeting visions of failure.

Know what you eat

“Yet Americans watch 35 hours of television a week, according to a Nielsen survey. (Increasing amounts of that time are spent watching other people cook). And although there certainly are urban and rural pockets where people have little access to fresh food, about 90 percent of American households own cars, and anyone who can drive to McDonald’s can drive to a supermarket. But perhaps most important, a cooking repertoire of three basic recipes can get anyone into the kitchen and beyond the realm of takeout food, microwaved popcorn and bologna sandwiches in a few days.”

Cut-and-dry advice from Mark Bittman that seems sensible enough. The staple stir-fry, salad and rice/lentil combo are basically how I got started cooking again. In NYC, fighting the urge to eat out is difficult. It’s too easy to get great restaurant food and on top of that, grocery trips seem outrageously expensive and you wonder about the cost/benefit.

Bottomline: You know what you put in your food. Salt, oil, fat, and a clean kitchen is up for grabs at a restaurant. The peace of mind you get cooking at home is worth it.

Steve Pavlina On Leaving Facebook

"So I’ve crossed the threshold where Facebook’s value isn’t worth the hassle to use it. I concluded that the best choice was to simply drop the service altogether and invest my time elsewhere....

...From a subjective perspective, I’m not particularly disappointed. I’ve been wanting to spend less time online and more time connecting with people in person, so these problems may simply be part of the way that desire manifested."

-Steve Pavlina on Leaving Facebook

Steve's eloquent reasoning for leaving Facebook echoes my sentiments exactly. It's a clunky time-suck that doesn't add to the strong friendships I already have and creates an awkward resentment towards prior friends who I believe should have called when they got married, had a baby, moved and so on.

Snowpocalypse 2010

I'm sad to say I missed Snowpocalypse 2009 completely. But I still got some good shots. The city was a mess on Thursday so I can only imagine what Monday was like. That last shot truly is a burnt-out car, most likely set on fire from skidding its wheels too much.

Heat Source Matters

Having successfully weened myself off the microwave over the last 7 months, I'm now sensitive to the taste of heat when I do use the microwave. Microwave hot is sharp and sudden, as opposed to say stove hot, which has an even distribution and stays warm for much longer. Sensing the different quality of heat is most apparent in liquids, especially tea. If not for any other health benefits, gaining the ability to note the difference was worth it.

Similarly, another experiment I've been running in the winter is heating myself through exercise instead of turning up the thermostat. Coming in from the cold, blistery weather, my natural instinct used to be to turn on the external heater or crank up the dial on the thermostat. Over the next half hour, I warmed up, but the room felt like a sauna. You could smell the nutty odor of the heat. The rest of the time became a battle trying to find a balance between the ups and downs of fake heat.

Instead, I began doing 10 minutes of jumping jacks, high knees, butt kicks, and pushups. My muscles needed to move and no external heat source was going to make them truly heat up the way exercise did. At the end, I felt great thanks to the endorphins, and the feeling of warmth lasted for hours. If I did need to use the heater, I was more attuned to when I should turn it off.

Discovering alternatives to the usual wasn't planned. It truly just happened as a result of following my instincts or trying something new. Planning helps tremendously with a clear, task-based objective. I'm amazed though at the power of long-term experimentation and the unexpected benefits it can offer.