The Lifelong Learner
:: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::
The Lifelong Learner
:: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::
I’ve received the following email several times. At first, I was “almost” ready to sign up. It sounds good and credible, doesn’t it? The catch? There is a sign up fee of $25, and after a week or so, they lower it to $10. I almost signed up. Almost, because I did a Google search and found out it was a scam. Don’t fall for it. I tell you, if it sounds to good to be true, it is. And because of search engines, we’re able to find out about them very soon. That’s great.
I would like to offer you an exciting and well-paid job opportunity available to students from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Every year we recruit reliable and self-motivated young people to participate in research projects for prestigious local and international companies.
You can earn from $650 to $850 per week by saying what you think. You will participate in online surveys, focus groups, and product/service evaluations. Get rewarded for your time and efforts.
This job is easy and rewarding. All you need is a computer, Internet connection, and good English skills. You will be free to decide from the comfort of your home when to work, how much to work, and which assignments to take. If you like the job, you can keep it as long as you want!
To become part of the research team, please write back and I will be happy to send you more information.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Prof. Linda Johnson, Ph.D.
It’s free now. 
I tried it, and it will be my secondary browser after Firefox. I like it. Here are some good things that I like about Opera: 1) It looks great. 2) It feels fast. 3) It remembers the tabs that you closed your browser with. 4) It’s standards compliant (I think). 5) It remembers passwords for almost all of the sites (Firefox does not always do it).
Take a look and try it for yourself. Just remember, it was not free until today. Competition is good — for all!
We visited 4 places in 7 days…
Barcelona. The greatest city I’ve ever been to. You can say New York has it all. But Barcelona has more — at least it seems like. It has a beach within walking distance, great food, great night-life, and an amazing city center. I don’t know what else you can ask for. What’s more, it’s a very tourist friendly city: you can practically walk and reach all destinations. 
Valencia. Beautiful but boring. We went there for the beach. Very disappointed.
Ibiza. Are you single? Then you have to visit Ibiza. It’s the biggest party place on the planet. Period. Very nice beaches. Beautiful girls — with nice boobs (oh, yeah, I was in heaven for a couple of days . Girls, because you can hardly notice any older people. I’d love to go back.
Majorca. Coming from Ibiza, a little disappointed. It’s like you add 15-20 years to the average age of the people. It feels like you’re in another country. Germany? But for families, it’s great. Very beautiful.
4 places in 7 days. Not bad. But overall, we liked Greece better last year. Something was missing.
This is the best definition of wealth I heard.
The Definition Of WealthBy: Brian TracyIf you want to be wealthy, you must understand what wealth is. Here is the best definition of wealth you will ever find. Wealth is “Cash flow from other sources.”
Make Your Money Work For YouWhat this means is that, you are not wealthy just because you earn a lot of money. You are only wealthy when your money works for you. To become wealthy, your main job is to acquire money and then put it to work making more money for you.
Add Value ContinuallyThe key to creating wealth is simple. It is called “adding value.” Successful people are those who are always looking for ways to add value in some way to a person, a company, a product or a service.
AOL is going to lose a lot of dial-up subscribers. No doubt about that. AOL is not dead, however. I see AOL rebounding. Why? Content is the king! AOL has a lot of content, mainly from Time Warner. I see some good things from them lately — take a look at aol.com. Their portal is looking better than ever. They have quite a few developments in place. Like what? Read this excellent post, AOL Rising.
Reference:AOL Rising by Russel Beattie
Oh, Europe, old Europe, look at yourself, where are going? Stop blaming others, look at your own chronic problems, and go to work!
Some people say that Europe is the next big thing. They say that US is losing its edge, and that Europe is THE future. Not so fast, I think. Until they resolve their huge problems — inflexibility in the work force, hard-line unions, high costs — companies are going to move out, rather than move in.
Read this article from NY Times, Thomas L. Friedman: 35-hour week? 35-hour day!. Friedman is not afraid to speak loudly. Interesting read, though.
Those are words coming from Harry S Truman. How true are they? The situation in Russia looks very worrisome. The president of Russia, Putin, is silencing the opposition (the governement just took control over the most popular, liberal news company), and puts more power into the government’s hands (oil industry). Next thing you know, as Truman said, the people in Russia are terrified (companies are already feeling it). Not a good situation. I just hope democracy wins, that people of Russia win. Win over Putin’s authoritative rule.
You probably heard about the new food pyramid, haven’t you? The old pyramid is gone, and in place they put several different pyramids. One size does not fit all — that’s what they say. I agree. So if you’re an athlete, you’re going to have a different pyramid than a guy who sits on his butt all day — me . But that’s how it should be, because an athlete needs more energy, more food than I do.
You can find the new pyramid at MyPyramid.org.
But if you look closely, and this article, New Pyramid Gets Personal, did a nice job, it boils down to the following recommendations, below.
While the new food pyramid may seem confusing at first, you can get well on your way to a healthier, new you by following the basics.
Grains
* Eat at least 3 ounces of whole-grain bread, cereal, crackers, rice, or pasta every day.* Look for “whole” before the grain name on the list of ingredients.
Vegetables
* Eat more dark green vegetables.* Eat more orange vegetables.* Eat more dry beans and peas.
Fruits
* Eat a variety of fruit.* Choose fresh, frozen, canned, or dried fruit.* Go easy on fruit juices.
Oils
* Get most of your fat from fish, nuts, and vegetable oils.* Limit solid fats like butter, stick margarine, shortening, and lard.
Milk
* Go low fat or fat free.* If you don’t or can’t drink milk, choose lactose-free products or other calcium sources.
Meat & Beans
* Choose low-fat or lean meats and poultry.* Bake it, broil it, or grill it.* Vary your choices — with more fish, beans, peas, nuts, and seeds.
Even a country with 1.3 billion of people can face workers shortage. Really? Yeah. And that’s what’s happening in China right now. Because of the shortage, the pay is rising (the minimum wage rose by 30%, last year) and workers are starting to demand more. Some companies are even moving to different countries, like Vietnam, where pay is cheaper. Is China losing its dominance? Read this article on IHT.com. I think it’s very good.
Paul Graham wrote an excellent article, How to Start a Startup. One thing about Paul Graham: there only a few that can write as well as him.
I’m going to extract couple things that I marked with double stars. However, go read the article as it was a joy to read. Highly recommended.
You might not start a startup right away, but you’ll learn what it takes and the whole process of creating a successful tech startup.
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.
Ideas for a startup?
look at something people are trying to do, and figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t suck.
If you want ideas for startups, one of the most valuable things you could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a couple weeks just watching what they do with computers.
People
We could bear any amount of nerdiness if someone was truly smart. What we couldn’t stand were people with a lot of attitude. But most of those weren’t truly smart.
So as a rule you can recognize genuinely smart people by their ability to say things like “I don’t know,” “Maybe you’re right,” and “I don’t understand x well enough.”
Understand Users
If you can’t understand users, however, you should either learn how or find a co-founder who can. That is the single most important issue for technology startups, and the rock that sinks more of them than anything else.
What Customers Want
In nearly every failed startup, the real problem was that customers didn’t want the product.
The only way to make something customers want is to get a prototype in front of them and refine it based on their reactions.
It’s worth trying very, very hard to make technology easy to use.
If you build the simple, inexpensive option, you’ll not only find it easier to sell at first, but you’ll also be in the best position to conquer the rest of the market.
Raising Money
[What] most investors expect is a brief description of what you plan to do and how you’re going to make money from it, and the resumes of the founders. If you just sit down and write out what you’ve been saying to one another, that should be fine.
