I’ve been browsing real estate all day for a project that needs my attention. I ended up wandering from community to community, and at one point, clicking on random states. I somehow came across what has to be the ugliest piece of property I’ve ever seen in my life but now I can’t look away. I’m fascinated.
DetailsMy youngest sister made our day yesterday by stopping by the house to visit for a few hours. She had been at the NakaKon convention in Overland Park and saw an 8-bit pixel Metroid collectible she thought I’d love. She was right. Upon holding the specimen, I temporarily reverted to a six year old, 1980s-living, NES-dominating beast. Behold, and listen to the theme if you need some adequate inspiration.
DetailsThe word Mokita is a fantastic word taken from a language called Kivila. It is spoken in Papua New Guinea. The best English translation you can get of Mokita is, “the truth we all know but agree not to talk about.” There are several concepts in the English language related to the notion of Mokita, such…
DetailsTesla Motors, the Silicon Valley-based electronic car company that has revolutionized energy efficient vehicles and become a cult icon, operates its business like Apple. It designs amazing products, then sells them direct-to-consumers through specialty branded stores, staffed with knowledgeable sales associates. By cutting out the middleman, Tesla can pass more savings on to the consumer,…
DetailsWhy do successful individuals and family seem reluctant to support poorer school districts, resulting in greater inequality?
DetailsSo much misfortune in life can be sidestepped if you simply make it a rule to never stretch your finances, yet it’s a rule I see violated more than any other both through observation of those around me and through the messages I receive. Someone can afford a $150,000 house but they try to buy a $250,000 house. Another can realistically go to a college that will cause them to graduate with $10,000 in debt but they want to sign up for the program that will put them $40,000 in debt. Then, not only do they have to hustle to try and meet their legally promised payments, they have to pay rent (in the form of interest expense) on the savings they’ve temporarily borrowed from someone else through an intermediary such as a bank.
DetailsHaving reached the end of the road in the third installment of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, requiring 150+ hours of game play over a four year period to climb the highest levels of power in creation and culminate in a conclusion to the series, I’m struck how the entire thing is really a well-done repackaging of Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma. In case it’s been awhile since you delved into the classics, the philosopher’s famous question posed in Greece more than 2,300 years ago can be summed up as (made singular since a majority of world religions are now monotheistic): Is something “good” because God says it is good, making it dependent upon His will or does God say something is “good” because it is inherently “right”, making goodness independent of His will?
DetailsMental Model: Situational Knowledge Last night, I was talking with Aaron about the situational knowledge mental model and its implication for business innovation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, situational knowledge is a type of experience-based knowledge that arises either organically or through training, creating a database of relevant facts and implicit…
DetailsI’m taking it as a given that practically everyone who reads this site has already gone through Warren Buffett’s stockholder letter, which Berkshire Hathaway released today. Personally, I love how, for only the third or fourth time in his career, Buffett essentially provides enough mathematical evidence to say to people, “You’re a moron for not buying Berkshire Hathaway at these prices, but I’ll never come right out and say it.” He did it in sort of a clever way, too, to encourage people to run the figures.
DetailsThe Wall Street Journal had a recent story detailing the trend of small investors jumping back into stocks, some trading options and futures. I’m old enough now, combined with twin quirks of being interested in finance at such a young age and having my lifespan line up with some interesting times in the capital markets, that I’ve watched this play out three times. At this point, you’d think it would lose its novelty but I still find my mouth dropping open and my head shaking in disbelief, mixed in with a bit of sadness. Reading what people are doing with their hard earned money – money that they exchanged for part of their life by selling time that could have been used traveling, reading, painting, or hanging out on the beach – doesn’t compute. If you took $5 out of their wallet, they’d throw a fit, but they’ll gamble $5,000 on something they barely understand.
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