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Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Perpetual To-Do List

By Paul Graham

http://paulgraham.com/todo.html

The Listserve

A few days ago I discovered thelistserve.com thanks to a tweet by Andrew Weissman. The idea is simple, yet powerful. In their words: “One person a day wins a chance to write to the growing list of subscribers. It could be you.”

So, you get a daily email from a random person that’s already subscribed. And one day, that person might be you.

On Wednesday evening I got my first email from thelisterve, written by Emil Stenström, and it was awesome!

Hope you’ll read it through and enjoy it as much as I did:

“I’m sorry to break this to you, in an e-mail from a random stranger like this, but it needs to be said: Most of your life won’t be fantastic. I’m not joking. The adventures you’ll tell your children about will be a minuscule part of it. So if you want to avoid the feeling of utter disappointment as you grow older, you need to accept that fact. Sorry.

This leads us to the insight: You should focus more on the non-fantastic parts. The parts where you eat breakfast, walk to the bus, have a boring day at work, eat your ordinary lunch, shop groceries, and brush your teeth. After all, this is the major part of your life, and neglecting it is a wasted opportunity.

Here’s the thing: Most of the boring stuff in your life is so dull, that even the tiniest thing can make it seem fun. The tiniest thing. This means the you could make it better with extremely simple means.

What exactly am I talking about here? Little things. Like these:

* Challenges: When brushing your teeth tonight, use your left hand.
* Mind games: When you enter work (or school!), imagine the sound “Kabaaaam!” as you enter, as if your presence changed the whole room.
* Action: Jump down from the side-walk, instead of just stepping down.
* Changes: Buy some fancy tomato sauce tonight, instead of your usual brand.
* More action: Count the number of pink things on your way to work, as if your life depended on it.

See? Easy stuff. I really try to live by this “Everyday Action” idea, and I think it works for making the boring parts of life more fun. Because that’s the thing: just because the fantastic moments are few, there’s no reason to just sit there, waiting for the next big thing to swipe you off your feet. Have some fun meanwhile, it’s easy…”

http://friendlybit.com/css/the-listserve-im-sorry-to-break-this-to-you/

Blake Masters: Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 2 Notes Essay

Float - Sube

“Insurers receive premiums upfront and pay claims later. In extreme cases, such as those arising from certain workers’ compensation accidents, payments can stretch over decades. This collect-now, pay-later model leaves us holding large sums – money we call “float” – that will eventually go to others. Meanwhile, we get to invest this float for Berkshire’s benefit. Though individual policies and claims come and go, the amount of float we hold remains remarkably stable in relation to premium volume. Consequently, as our business grows, so does our float.”

Extracted from Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter to Shareholders of 2009

I wonder if there’s any way to invest in SUBE (Argentina’s card for public transportation)? Or better, companies with public transportation cards that invest their float wisely…

Learn to Program - Chris Pine

I’m learning to program with Chris Pine’s book, which I highly recommend, and just wanted to share what I think is the best paragraph in the book so far:

Figuring this all out would take us a ridiculous amount of time. I mean, it’s pretty cool that you can do it at all, but you didn’t pay good money for “pretty cool.” No sir, this is a De-Luxe-Supremium book you have here. And for that, my friend, we need some serious saving. We need some full-frontal loading. Yes, when you’re looking for De-Luxe-Supremium, you want YAML.

You can buy the book here.

And you can also read it online here.