Betterment

When starting a new job as a software engineer, it’s natural to feel the pressure of delivering immediate value and meeting the expectations of your role....

If you can't do nothing, then don't expect to be able to do something.

As we accelerate into the age of AI, we need to think about what skills people will need to learn over the next decade.

The early adopter bought an iPhone in 2008 and never looked back. They played a few games of pickleball and then joined a club and bought the equipment. They picked up a new magazine on the newssta…

I defend the view that the mind is a computer, and why people who devote their lives to studying the brain believe it.

Johnny.Decimal is a system to organise projects (or your life, or anything else)

The trick is knowing where it is and using it well. Wanting control doesn’t always mean needing to have control. Sometimes it is simply a desire to be acknowledged. HT to Brian.

I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a good swing. It’s getting them to stop using a bad one. Our position feels so frag…

Going on strike or getting furloughed may be preferable to losing a job—but no easier financially. Here’s how to survive during a prolonged loss of income.

The cool thing is always a little out of reach. And for most of us, once we get it, it’s not seen as cool any more. This is not an accident. One definition of cool are things that are just ou…

The world can be divided into agents and objects.  Things that make stuff happen, and things that have stuff happen to them. The shaper, and the shaped. The mover, and the moved. The driver, and the screw. No one is ever entirely one or the other, and you should be open to allowing positive influences […]

Posted on Tuesday 18 Jul 2023. 818 words, 12 links. By Matt Webb.

Like many American boys who grew up in the 1980s, I loved The Karate Kid. For months when I was five years old, I demanded that my family call me “Daniel-san” instead of Brett. Besides instilling in me a desire to crane-kick everyone, The Karate Kid also implanted a nascent interest in Japanese culture. When I […]

Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even the fear of failure. Of course, risk also feels risky (or at least it should). Differentiating betw…

Sociologist devised a robust way to test the cultural climate by focusing on information flow.

That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the bar became well understood: If you can’t jump over the bar that the current leader cl…

The scientific rule of thumb is simple: When you make a bold claim, you need significant research to back it up. Telling us that eating vegetables is healthy can be justified by a fairly simple hig…

Everyone is entitled to their own taste. But this isn’t the helpful answer to the question, “is this good?” Whether it suits your taste might be irrelevant. “It doesn’…

Back in the early 2000s, the great brand and marketing thinker, Russell Davies, famously said that “It’s a brand’s job to be interesting.” It’s a terrific

What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing but nice things, positive feedback and encouragement coming your way? Amazingly, you could build s…

Recently, there’s been increased interest in extending the human lifespan — not only making it to the century mark (and beyond), but spending those last decades healthy and strong.  In one way, this interest in living longer isn’t very surprising; no one welcomes death. Yet in another, it is a strange thing, given that so […]

That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and mob manipulation.)” “I’d like to run a marathon (without getting ti…

The single best term I’ve learned this year. I want to give you the non-technical definition, and as is my wont, broaden it a bit. Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occur…

It’s easier than ever. Solvents, power tools, market research, AI, committee meetings, online reviews and ennui are all aligned in one direction. To fit all the way in. Of course, once you sa…

In your quest for self-improvement, you’ll likely encounter moments of despair where your current self isn’t anywhere near the ideal self you’ve created in your head. Maybe your ideal self is 50 pounds lighter than your current self. You’ve started working out and watching what you eat, but after three months, you’re only down 10 […]

Tony Soprano, TV’s most famous antihero, is quite a paradox. On one hand, he’s a complete monster who does terrible things. On the other, he’s a pretty

Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return on investment. And among all Hollywood movies in the top 1,500 at the box office, Paranormal Act…

I place a lot of value on creativity in my life, and this has been pretty consistent throughout my various life stages. For a long time it was tied to my identity which was tied to my work, and later on it was more of an existential thing: like to me there is not much...