Betterment

The customer service from the freight shipping company that came to my home a few months ago was truly terrible. Not simply a lack of care, but an aggressive embrace of uncaring. Every interaction …

Women are increasingly playing the role of best friend, lover, and on-call therapist to their male partners.

Groups rarely say this. They often (and loudly) state “we are right,” but when the future arrives, and it always does, it’s not surprising that it turns out that many projections …

Whether you’re hunting wild boar at night, taking a moonlit walk through the woods, running some kind of covert operation, or simply trying to find the bathroom in an unfamiliar house or hotel, it can be advantageous to be able to see well in the dark. You could fire up a flashlight to accomplish that […]

When it comes to fitness, people tend to either focus on endurance or strength; they’re runners or powerlifters. But wouldn’t it be pretty cool to be able to deadlift 500 pounds and run a marathon? My guest says that combining real strength with true endurance to become a “hybrid athlete” isn’t only possible, it also […]

This is the dilemma that every game designer, form creator and teacher faces. Writing an instruction manual, doing a survey, creating a map–they’re all difficult tasks because of the tr…

Coming down the empty road, you can see the light from a ways off. It’s been green for awhile, which means it’s due to turn red soon. Should you speed up, so you can make it through bef…

In letters men exchanged in the 18th and 19th centuries, they referred to one another as “bosom friends,” exulted in their “eternal” and “ardent” attachment, and affirmed that even when apart, “my heart is knit with thine.” In photographs from the same era, men hold hands, sit on each other’s laps, and wrap their arms […]

I faced down three attackers in my living room last night. I used a knife on the first one, grabbed his pistol and fired on the second, then...

It’s not too late to restart your software development career at 40

Research shows how eliminating the familiar can instantly reveal a broader array of potential solutions.

Posted on Friday 28 Jan 2022. 874 words, 6 links. By Matt Webb.

At first glance, it makes sense to avoid a crowded market. Better to sell your services or your products in a place where you’re the only one. But crowded markets also have lots of customers.…

As we approach the halfway mark of winter, have you found your commitment to the exercise habit waning? When the days are cold, dark, and gray, it can be hard to stay motivated to work out, especially if your fitness practice takes place outside. When it’s 20 degrees and overcast, you may not feel in […]

Has this ever been done before? Why not? Did it work? Why not? If it’s new and useful, what problem is it solving? Why has the audience rejected similar innovations in the past? One day, this…

Why do we fail to use so many of the subjects we learn in school? Are they useless, or do we simply fail to learn them well enough?

Modern apps have been engineered to capture your attention. We explore how to break free and find more focus for your own programming.

Josh Butts, CTO of Ziff Media Group, talks one-on-ones: how to get the most out of your face time, why 1:1s are important, and what not to use them for.

The ostracod is extinct. Over millions of years, with good reasons at every step, it evolved to become the creature it was. And when we add up all of those little steps, we end up with a creature t…

Do you have a script? Most of us do. Here’s a new piece of software. Do you immediately read the manual front to back? Dive in and see how it works? Tense up in fear and distaste? She’s…

Why do bikes stay stable when you ride them (and fall down when you stop)? A tiny reason is the gyroscopic stability of the wheels, but the real reason is the forward momentum of the rider. And we …

Being a natural non-dualist, I have been pondering this question.  For instance, I know someone who almost always gives charismatic and “thunderous” answers to questions posed.  These are typically smart answers, whether or not you agree, but I suspect over time that talk style makes this person somewhat stupider and more dogmatic. I believe if […]

Alert readers of my last two posts have probably guessed what this one is about. The control/responsibility matrix (click to enlarge) People make choices about their preferences for control and for…

When things go wrong, is your instinct to hide in a corner and hope you won’t get noticed–or to lean into the situation and make it clear that this one is on you? “I’ve got …

When the physician and psychiatrist Leonard Schwartz surveyed his life at middle-age, he was not particularly happy with the state of himself as a physical specimen. Decades of smoking, overwork, and living a sedentary lifestyle had left him with high blood pressure, chronic back pain, and a generally subpar level of energy. Dr. Schwartz began […]

Does the concept of powerlessness reside more in a psychological sense as opposed to being grounded in reality? Scrum Inc.’s Robert Woods examines this question and ways to reflect on whether you have a learned sense of powerlessness and the impact it’s having on your work, organization, and life.

Would you rather write the script, read the script, watch the movie or write the review? When someone commutes by train, they’re giving up control over the journey. On one hand, that means th…