Month: August 2008
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Olympic Motivation
Coming into the 400m semi-final at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Derek Redmond was the favourite to win the gold medal. However 150m into the race, Redmond’s hamstring snapped and his Olympic dream was shattered… but Redmond was determined to finish the race. The Guardian takes us through the emotional race, with commentary from…
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Commanding Heights
I recently watched all six hours of Commanding Heights; a great documentary that attempts to trace the rise of free markets during the last century, as well as the process of globalization. It acts almost like a primer on 20th century economics. I have just re-discovered the PBS supplementary website for Commanding Heights and am…
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Code: Quantity vs. Quality
Coding Horror on coding quantity vs. quality. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories. […] Stop theorizing. Write…
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American Food Consumption Since 1970
Lately the New York Times has excelled in creating compelling graphic charts. This one, which numerous blogs posted last week, shows how American food consumption has changed since the 1970s. There’s an overall increase of 1.8lbs of food a week: 0.5lbs of which is fat. Dairy is the only food category to see a decline,…
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Finding Underrated Geniuses
Finding it difficult to discover good/great people? Ben Casnocha (author of My Start-Up Life) suggests relaxing your usual filters (Ivy League education, big breasts, etc.) and instead suggests seeking out the underrated geniuses who aren’t amazing at what you typically seek. People who earn the label “hidden gems” are hidden because they lie unturned after…
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Independent Film Channel
Always on the lookout for enjoyable and thought-provoking films (i.e. not the typical mainstream drivel that makes it to your big-name cinema), I think the Independent Film Channel’s website may provide a plethora of (independent) candidates. Since the Cardiff Film Festival now ceases to exist, the Chapter Arts Center is Cardiff’s answer to New York’s…
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More Top Productivity and Personal Development Blogs
Primarily an advert for a new “community search tool” (the author’s custom Google search), this blog post turns into an impressive list of the top productivity and personal development blogs in the following categories: Personal Growth/Productivity (e.g. Life Optimizer) Career/Personal Branding (e.g. Brazen Careerist) Lifestyle Design/Travel (e.g. Real Social Dynamics) Generation-Y Issues (e.g. Employee Evolution)…
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Imagining the Tenth Dimension
Another one from the year-old+ StumbleUpon archives: a video to help in imagining the tenth dimension. Apparently the book isn’t scientifically up-to-par and wouldn’t survive the remotest hint of peer review, but the video is interesting nonetheless.
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The Shutdown of MathWorld and the Fall of Publishing
MathWorld—a division of Wolfram Research, the creators of Mathematica—was temporarily shutdown in late 2000 due to a copyright dispute over a book based on the website. Eric Weisstein’s commentary on the shutdown reveals a lot not just about being on the receiving side of an unfounded lawsuit, but also about publishing and its apparent change…
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Facebook + Google = FriendRank
News of Google’s newest advertising venture: In its just-published patent application for Network Node Ad Targeting, Google hatches plans for identifying the most influential of a circle of friends and providing this ‘influencer’ with ‘financial incentives from advertisers in exchange for permission to display advertisements on the member’s [social network] profile’. Doing so will ‘provide…