Research by Dan Ariely shows that everyone cheats a little if given the opportunity. Factors that increase dishonesty include the ability to rationalise, creativity (!), cultural examples of dishonesty and watching others behave dishonestly.
Fascinating - though it makes sense! April 24 - my brother, cousin and second cousin’s birthday - is one of the less common days too!
I’d always imagined the spread of birthdays across the year would’ve been even… apparently not.
‘Growing up, I looked at my future as a timeline of graduations in which every few years, I’d be given more freedom and reward as I passed each milestone of childhood. When I get my driver’s license, my life will be like this; when I’m a senior, my life will be like that; when I go off to college, my life will be like this; when I move out of the dorms, my life will be like that; and then finally, graduation. And on graduation day, I had only one goal left, and that was to be part of professional theater. We have this in common, you and I—we want to be able to earn a living doing what we love. Whether you’re a writer, mathematician, engineer, architect, butcher, baker or candlestick maker, you want an invitation to the show.’ - A. Sorkin
Analysis of Facebook IPO and how it may signal the death of Facebook as an (effective) advertising machine.
On a day where everything went right and everything went wrong, I needed to watch this video to kick start powering back up the mountain. Inspirational stuff from Neil Gaiman.
Standout quotes:
“If you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here to do, then just go and do that. And that’s much harder than it sounds and, sometimes in the end, so much easier than you might imagine.”
“I would do my best in future not to write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work. Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me. I don’t know that it’s an issue for anybody but me, but it’s true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn’t wind up getting the money, either. The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I’ve never regretted the time I spent on any of them.”
What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
“
| — | Herbert Simon. |
This is a brilliant application of game theory, and despite the gentleman being called an idiot, he made an honest man out of a market trader.
