How much you can earn matters much less than how little you must spend.
2022-06-04
2022-05-08
Hershey school
From Is having children worth it?
Milton Hershey and Mrs. Hershey wanted to have children. They could not, for whatever reason. And they gave all of their money – like, their entire inheritance, to a philanthropic trust – it’s not hard to make the connection here – literally to create a school for orphan children. There are all these pictures of Milton Hershey and Mrs. Hershey with these orphan boys at the time. It’s since become co-ed, and you don’t have to be an orphan, but you come from, essentially, a place where you can’t safely live, so you come to live at the Hershey school, which is a boarding school. Because Hershey has done so well as a company, and because this trust was basically built on Hershey stock, this school, I think, has the highest per-capita endowment of any institution in the world, including Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., and Princeton. So anyway, that would just be an example, I guess, of people who don’t have children – so, who are you going to pass your money down to?
2022-05-06
2022-03-26
Dictator meeting room
In a meeting few days ago a colleague was sitting alone in a conference room, which, due to camera angle, appeared much deeper than it really is. We joked to the colleague that he looked like a dictator sitting at the end of a long table, and he immediately moved closer to the camera.
2022-03-24
Burnout from a thousand little tasks
A task might not seem to take much time or efforts to complete, but if we take on all of these coming our way, we will run out or bandwidth before too late.
Better judge each task as part of the whole (work-life) optimization.
2022-03-22
I can hear you but not see you
This frog was clearly in a good mood, and, maybe also confident about his camouflage, continued his loud vocal even when I got close.
https://youtu.be/XjHsC1Az8lQ
2022-03-20
Workout
Before the industrial revolution humans got enough physical exercises in their daily routines without needing extra workouts or diets, which are signs of unnatural design for the modern environment and activities.
Should our cities be centered around driveways for cars, or walking/biking lanes with public transports?
Why are we sitting in front of stationary devices instead of walking around manipulating objects for work?
2022-03-19
Layoff
At the beginning of a movie I was watching there was a scene of someone who received a surprise layoff and, after being escorted outside the office building, did not seem to have any idea what to do.
(I don’t know what happened to that character at this moment of writing as I have yet to continue with the movie.)
Which prompted me to ponder: when at last we leave our jobs, what has to be left behind and what we can bring with us? Thinking ahead of this eventuality can clarify our priority about what is really important: titles and positions we hold, colleagues/collaborators we interacted with, experiences we learned, products we built, achievements we accomplished, etc.
Now, replace job with life, and think again.
2022-03-08
Sensory dilemma
I smelled dog poop when watering plants outside tonight, but it was too dark to spot the source.
Waiting until the next morning can provide better visibility, but then the smell may have dried out.