Quote of the Day

Like us, cetaceans have special brain cells, spindle cells, that are associated with communication, emotion, and heightened social sensitivity. These cells were once thought to be unique to us, but research is now showing that whales and dolphins may have up to three times more spindle cells than humans.

- Ocean Giants

Quote of the Day

The moral: don’t invade a country if you are too lazy to learn the language. If you can’t understand what people are saying, you are operating blind. I’ve been told by American officials that up to 95% of the Iraqis imprisoned in American brigs were probably guilty of nothing. They were ratted out, perhaps by someone who owed them money, and the gullible Americans just locked them up. Imprisoning the innocent created unnecessary   enemies for the occupation. In 2003, most Iraqis were pleased at Saddam Hussein’s ouster. They could have been predisposed to support American aims, if the Americans hadn’t alienated so many of them for little reason. It is impossible to successfully conduct a war if you can’t distinguish friend from foe because they all look the same to you. If more American soldiers understood Arabic, their insight and awareness of Iraqi culture could have made a huge difference.

- Why The World’s Biggest Military Keeps Losing Wars

Quote of the Day

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

- Lao-tzu

Quote of the Day

America's Protein Craze Is Hurting Our Health

The average American currently consumes three to five times the needed amount of daily protein, and most of us aren't training to be competitive athletes or bodybuilders. While we take protein to be a vessel of robust health, we continue to lead sedentary lives. And when we don't exercise, the body quickly stores any and all excess protein as fat.

"In fact, consistent protein overload will flood the kidneys, and cause digestive issues, nausea, harm to your brain and nervous system, and unusual weight gain. You’ll also be putting your body at risk of developing more serious long-term health problems, such as a buildup of amino acids, insulin, ammonia, and other toxic substances in your bloodstream."

Likewise, when dietitians recommend foods high in protein, they are not talking about bacon and hamburgers. Non-animal sources of protein include the Japanese vegetable dish edamame, which packs 16 grams of protein per cup, chia seeds, quinoa, lentils, Greek yogurt, tempeh, nut butters, and chickpeas.

- More Here

Quote of the Day

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.

-  Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness

Wisdom Of The Week

When we started in the PhD program in Computer Science at Stanford, Prof. Rajeev Motwani, who was the “default PhD advisor” for all incoming PhD students told us that our only priority should be to find a research topic that we care about.  In fact, Prof. Motwani was so adamant that this was the only thing that mattered, that he said that we shouldn’t worry about the myriad of other requirements for the PhD. He explained that rarely had he seen anyone not complete their PhD for any other reason.

Rajeev taught me that getting a PhD is as much about “finding a problem as “solving the problem.” The first and often the most time-consuming part of the PhD is finding a problem that you care deeply enough about to spend several years of your life researching. Ultimately the goal of a PhD should be to “make an incremental contribution to human knowledge.” Sounds simple enough doesn’t it?

There are many things about doing a PhD that have helped me to better understand how things work or should work in a startup environment. But one of the most important has been finding a problem worth solving.

[---]

Frequency, Density, and Pain have become three variables that I now look at to analyze almost any problem. They tend to be good measuring sticks to see how the problem you’re solving stacks up.

• Frequency: Does the problem you’re solving occur often?
• Density: Do a lot of people face this problem?
• Pain: Is the problem just an annoyance, or something you absolutely must resolve?

Put another way asking the Frequency, Density and Pain question can help you to identify how often people have this problem?  How many people have this problem? Do they care?

If your business is stuck at a plateau and you can’t figure out why you’re not making headway, it might be worth thinking about these variables to determine whether you’re solving the right problem, a big enough problem, or a frequently occurring problem.

- Find a Problem Worth Solving

Quote of the Day

You asked me how to get out of the finite dimensions when I feel like it. I certainly don't use logic when I do it. Logic's the first thing you have to get rid of.

- J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories

Quote of the Day

The future of technology is likely to illuminate the unsettling implications of how predictable we are.

- Tyler Cowen

Your Memory Is Like A Camcorder -- Here's How To Turn It On

The “on” switch for your brain’s camcorder, according to this study, is knowing that you must recall the information. The fine-tuning of this memory mechanism is more precise than we realize, so much so that we can remember a specific detail about a thing or event without remembering much else about it. The researchers call this “attribute amnesia.”

Wyble added, “This result is surprising because traditional theories of attention assume that when a specific piece of information is attended, that information is also stored in memory.”

- More Here