Omiru focuses on “real style for real people”. Coming in 46th place on Times’ 50 Best Websites of 2008, for people like me (the perpetually unfashionable) the Men’s section of Omiru is a Godsend.
I know that it’s not entirely possible to have a 10-item-only wardrobe, but what 10 items do you think could make a complete wardrobe that would last forever (i.e. wear well and not go out of style)?
I’m struggling to separate the wheat from the chaff in this list of books. I just know that hidden within some there must be a treasure trove of knowledge. The problem is: in which?
Most of these have a multitude of reviews, but I’ve never put much stock in this; the best reviewed books can often be awful and an undiscovered masterpiece could have a single unfavourable review. I feel the paradox of choice is playing a key role here.
Latin was probably the single most useful subject I was taught in school. I despised it at the time, but now I have come to realise its importance and many applications–the greatest of which is how it has helped me learn other languages.
In learning languages (although none to fluency… yet) I have found the following resources invaluable. This is the order in which I would suggest researching/learning:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
– Mark Twain
Travel Independent thinks it has “everything you need to know about independent budget travel”. After just a quick browse of its many sections (‘What to Pack’, ‘Where to Go’, ‘Before You Go’, ‘Country Summaries’, and ‘On the Road’), I’m inclined to agree.
But how much is this going to cost you? For a quick guesstimate, Saving for Travel is your pal.
Thanks Andy
You may have noticed that I’ve recently been fascinated by everything cognitive bias. With the release of Nudge—a book looking at how politicians around the world are using cognitive bias—the general public are now going to be hearing about it a lot more too.
The Times has a nice case-study where the theories are used to guide the public on the issue of environmentalism and ‘going green’. This quote sums up what I believe are many of the public’s thoughts on the many ongoing green campaigns:
Like millions of others, Heath had found that simply being told she ought to save energy had little effect on her habits – and she actively resents the idea of being punished for disobeying government diktats on environmentalism. Drive a big car? You’re bad – pay a penalty.
via Mind Hacks
BBC Business’ How to Write a Business Plan has some sound advice for that basic business plan. However, being written by a multi-national corporation, I had an inkling that it wasn’t going to be very—I hate saying this—Web 2.0, so I went to the usual suspects.
This Ask Y Combinator thread has some good advice and further resources. I was expecting this:
Keep working on your product, get a user base, and worry later about verbalizing the specifics of your projected market share and what day exactly you plan to go cash flow positive.
Instead the comment got debunked numerous times.
Extra-special resources include: Sequoia Capital’s ‘Ideas’ and Paul Graham (of Y Combinator) on Viaweb’s first business plan.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has been scouring Microsoft’s internal emails (released through various law suits) looking for an insight into Gates’ personality and to get a picture of his role at the top of Microsoft.
From this epic email rant, it is obvious that even Gates himself isn’t immune.
I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? […] What an absolute mess.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low…
via Link Banana
Time has just released the results of its 50 ‘best’ websites of 2008 vote.
Present are many you would expect, but there are a few surprising entries too. The top 5:
via Mind Hacks
You may know gapingvoid from Hugh MacLeod’s “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards“. Now he’s telling us How To Be Creative.
So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:
- You are responsible for your own experience.
- Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
- Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
- If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
The lengthy article was picked up by Seth Godin and is now available for free in a wonderfully formatted PDF from ChangeThis. Also worth a read is Hugh’s How To Be Creative book proposal.
