Morning Thoughts

My Pick: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

My pick for this week is the polymath Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I've heard of this brainy fellow before, but only recently started to read some of his work. His tips (below) for leading a good life are taken from a June 1 article in the Times Online (awarded news site of the year), Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The prophet of boom and doom by Bryan Appleyard. 

Taleb's top life tips

1 Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

2 Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

3 It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

4 Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

5 Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.

6 Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.

7 Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).

8 Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.

9 Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

10 Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

Taleb's personal webpage <http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/>

- Justin

My Pick: My Custom Moleskine

Ever since I was a kid, I've been intrigued by technology. I remember when a Future Shop was being built in a nearby strip mall, I knew it was going to be full of all sorts of gadgets and electronics. Unfortunately for me - as well as the future of Future Shop - it was full of junk that no one bought. The only cool thing about the store was that you could sit at the CD bar and screen any of the CDs you were thinking about buying, which I thought was the most innovative idea when I was 15. Needless to say, Future Shop had a short life, at least in my city. If there are still any of them out there, I apologize...I'm sure you sell some great products...

Like many people in my generation (Y), I use my computer for everything. I'm always doing something with my phone, and prefer plastic cards to cash. I write 12 checks a year, and all to the same person. I go to school sans notebooks and paper, relying on my Mac to do all my dirty work. If I'm at a stoplight, I'll either be texting, checking the weather, or simply just seeing how accurately the iPhone's Mapquest widget locates me. The point is, I am always doing something electronic. It doesn't matter what the task is, I always feel I need to be connected somewhere. 

For the most part, this makes life exponentially easier. If I need directions, just use the phone. If I need to do some research, just log online. If I need to pay some bills, well that happens automatically. It's so easy to be efficient, and with technology getting better and better, I just figured that I would just get the newest gadget, making everything I do now seem irrelevant or antiquated. Then I woke up. 

My Pick: All Over Coffee by Paul Madonna

I stumbled on My Pick for this week by complete accident. I was at the bookstore hoping to replace a copy of the Qur'an I lost on the bus last week when Paul Madonna's book grabbed my eye. I'm not a big comic reader, but the beautiful cover alone was worth the purchase price. All Over Coffee is quirky in the sense that it's not like your typical comic strip. There are no people anywhere in the book, only San Francisco city and landscape ink sketches - unbelievably detailed one. Although, the lack of people doesn't mean there aren't any characters. What I am enjoying most about this book is how Madonna's amazing architectural details are juxtaposed with all too familiar dialogue that, after exploring, isn't as random as it first appears. His commentary makes you feel like you're actually a part of the culture and urban landscape that makes up San Francisco. - Justin Below are three of my favorites so far (click to enlarge them):  

In the Air by Malcolm Gladwell

My Pick is the newest category in my blog, which I decided to add about three minutes ago. Every week, I usually come across an article, essay, movie, person, or idea that I find fascinating or inspiring. I tend to file these fascination bits away for future reference, and am always eager to tell people about my great find - almost like I'm the only one who knows about it! Instead, I'm just going to start sharing them on my blog each week, probably posting on Sundays, but I'm too impatient to wait that long for my first one, so I'll do it this morning.

Since The New Yorker is my favorite magazine, it's only fitting that my first pick come from there, and last week's issue made this easy.