Month: June 2009

Tim Ferriss: Stoicism as a Productivity System

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Tim Ferriss on The Practicality of Pessimism: Stoicism as a Productivity System. Ep 20

In the video Tim Ferriss asks if defining your fears could be more important than defining your goals.  I find Tim Ferriss fascinating and just got his book (the 4-Hour Workweek).  I will provide a full review when I get done reading it.  People think he is full of himself but I just see him as confident.

Key quotes:

  • “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” – Mark Twain
  • “Named must your fear be before banished it you can.” – Yoda
  • “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action”- Benjamin Disraeli
  • “All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s possible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”- Niccolo Machiavelli
  • “Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.” – Cheri Huber

Mill City Museum in Minneapolis, MN

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I take my camera to as many places as I can so when I was in Minneapolis, MN a while back I filmed a flour mill tour at the Mill City Museum. Minneapolis is called the “Mill City” and has lots of old mills that sit along the Mississippi River.  This video isn’t going to win any awards but the museum did such a great job depicting the life of an average mill worker I wanted to share it with you. The elevator seats approximately 40 people and while we were getting in it people joked it was like getting into the Tower of Terror at Disneyland.  The elevator takes you to different floors and shows you how flour was milled and how dangerous it was.  I learned that flour dust is more explosive than gun powder so it was really dangerous work and many people died.  The mill blew up and caught fire until it was later turned into a museum.  It is one of the best museums I have been to and if you think about it they had a tough time trying to make milling flour interesting.  Hope you enjoy it.

My Ultimate Bachelor Pad Found on AirBnB.com

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ultimateBachelorPad

I have found my dream bachelor pad!  I just heard about AirBnB.com where you can rent out places instead of staying in a hotel for cheap.  As long as you don’t mind staying at a stranger’s house (which I would) you could save big money.  I love, love, love this place and would totally buy it if I could…

“Looking for something more interesting than a standard hotel room? Try the guest room in our 4600 sqft converted Mission warehouse/loft.

Our space used to be an auto trim shop, it is now a live/work setup for a young web development company. Its a unique space and offers conveniences such as:
✾ a swinging couch
✾ a 12 foot tiki bar (free tiki drink upon arrival)
✾ an air-hockey table
✾ movie theater with 11 ft screen and stadium seating
✾ TB of media to enjoy in theater
✾ giant hammock nets on the second floor
✾ an electric piano
✾ roof access with a view of the skyline
✾ washer and dryer
✾ guest bikes with locks, lights and maps
✾ really awesome wifi
✾ free tech-support from resident geeks
✾ plenty of workspace, access to printer & scanner
✾ library of city planning books

The neighborhood:
Two blocks from 16th & Mission BART, we’re near dozens of fantastic restaurants, Mission nightlife and arts scene. Its easy to get around the city from here too, with downtown/Union Square, the ferry building and the airport (SFO or OAK) just an easy BART ride away. Several of us are professionally trained city planners, we can point you in the direction of just about anything you want from events to the best food to the best Art Deco movie theaters. You can also just relax in our huge, quirky space with couches, nets, fast wifi, TB of media and friendly people.

The Room:
The guest room has a queen sized bed. For an additional $35 we can accomodate a third person on a futon/couch either in the room or in a smaller adjacent room. Message us for details, we can often rearrange things to accommodate you.

About us:
Currently in our warehouse we have a bike mechanic, a computer science PhD student, a professional bassoonist, an Australian lobster salesman, a foreign exchange professional, a web developer, a start-up web and city planning company, a city planner and a semiconductor broker.”

Update – The link is no longer working.  If you can comment on any other cool spaces, let me know!

http://airbnb.com/airbeds/show/4300

Google: Secrets of a Nimble Giant

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google-logo

The Guardian has an interesting article about Google and how they stay innovative.  Below are some interesting things from the article I liked:

  • “It was Rupert Murdoch who summed up success in the digital age when he said: “Big will not beat small any more – it will be the fast beating the slow.” That might be inspiring for startups, but in the process-laden, corporate environment, how can big companies keep their edge by moving quickly and lightly?
  • Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, thinks size should help. “It’s important for people to realise that you should benefit from the scale – if you’re not benefiting then you’re doing something wrong, and might as well break up into lots of little things.
  • We have been gradually embracing the idea that once you’re successful, we give you much more latitude, says Brin. Somebody who has a success under their belt has really demonstrated accomplishment and in that case we will give them generally more liberty. When they came and proposed this idea they said, ‘We want to do something new and revolutionary, but we’re not even going to tell you what it is. And we want to go back to Australia, hire a bunch of people and just work on it.’ That was a crazy proposal,” Brin says, and not one many businesses would have supported.  But, having seen their success with Maps, I felt that it actually was pretty reasonable.” It was two years ago that Brin agreed to support the project, and the full version of Wave will be released later this year.
  • The most well-known Google initiative for encouraging innovation in-house is its “20% time” strategy, which has almost become an innovation cliché. The idea that 80% of an engineer’s time is spent on the day job and 20% pursuing a personal project is a mathematician’s solution to innovation, Brin says.
  • In-house, Google uses a project database and an ideas mailing list to manage new projects. While noting ideas on the mailing list is important, it is less significant than the project database, says Brin, which lists weekly updates on who is working on what, their goals, progress and links to documentation. That distinction has to be instilled in the company culture.”