1) How To Respond If Someone Holds A Gun To Your Head. (What? Not self-help meh? :D) Written by a former police officer. There’s some disagreement about things like whether to talk to your aggressor, whether to look them in the eye etc, but what I really took away from it was how he analyzed what each person holding the gun to your head was after, and why he was using the gun. Was it a robbery? Hostage situation? Kidnapping?
It says if someone is holding a gun to your head don’t drive where they want you to drive to – because a) they are not likely to shoot you when you are going 50 miles an hour (what if your body gets stuck behind the wheel and person with gun is trapped in the car?) and b) when they want you to drive to a secluded area it’s to preserve their anonymity so they can do what they want to you in peace. So don’t give them that. (This is interesting because without reading that my first instinct is to totally just drive where they wanted me to. If I drove.)
Apparently you’re supposed to drive briskly to as crowded a place as you can and honk your horn. Because if you do what your kidnapper wants, there’s even more chance they will kill you or whatever it is they want to do to you anyway. If they’re going to do it anyway, how about them doing it with lotsa witnesses around and the highest likelihood they won’t be able to get out of a life sentence?
Now, when he puts it that way………
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2) Writing Lessons From Stephen King. Yes the horror story guy. He is too good. So I don’t read him (unless I want to give up sleeping like, forever).
I like #2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with. Because long ago I read the semi-autobiography of an editor of a large newspaper (sorry, I forget offhand which one and have to go dig up the old book) and remembered what he said about writing books for a living – he’d worked out that one needed to produce not just a book but a bestseller ever few years just to “survive” solely as a novelist or something. It says in the article linked above that Mr King pulls about USD 17mil per annum. (And then of course there’s J.K. Rowling, but anyway…)
AND it’s really good advice for anyone, whether you have a startup or well, life.
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3) Career advice! 😀 Inspired by Business Insider’s Great Careers College Kids Ignore, I found this interview of Guy Who Discovers Cavefish With Anus On Its Head. I mean, you could be Investment Banker or you could be Guy Who Discovers Cavefish With Anus On Its Head and why do we all think “Investment Banker” sounds better? Biased, I tell you…
cavefish with – ok, you get the idea
Oh and in some obscure reversal of fortunes (kind of), just for the heck of it Evolution also made a Spider With Mirror On Butt.
How could I be smart enough to make THAT one up?
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4) How One Man Makes Up To USD 1,000 A Week Standing In Line. Very Hong Kong-relateable 😀
Proving you can’t keep a good guy down… but you can keep him in line. 🙂
Laid off AT&T employee turns queueing for you into a business. He now has an actual company and has employed his friends. You might not like anus fish but come on, in HK you could totally be surfing the net in line somewhere. Online in line. Seriously. How do I come up with this stuff… (Ans: Hormones. Caffeine.)
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5) Eye-tracking Heat Maps Show Where You Really Look re ads and stuff.
Like this one
Women apparently looked at the model’s body a little more than the men did – and everyone looked at her face the most. Interesting right – hands up, who thought that would turn out differently <puts hand up>
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6) I’m 22 And I Grew Up Without Internet. For parents of more techie-inclined kids. He talks about some creative ways in which he goes about getting that wi-fi because it’s not right at his fingertips at home, and reflects how this colors and ultimately enriches his own internet experiences, allowing him to still access some of the benefits without the most obvious disadvantages, of connectivity.
“…Let me be clear, I would never dream of implementing a similar no-internet policy in my future household, but the positive effects I’ve experienced at least ensure I won’t be buying an iPad for my kid out of the gate…”
(In a nutshell I would say I took away from the article that there is a big difference between being served up all that tech and connectivity on a platter…… and having to work out how to hook up your own.)
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7) 10 Things I Want My Daughters To Know About Marriage from a daddy blogger. What’s interesting is his own dad left when he was 9 so it’s not like he’s preachy-hypocritical. He strives to be the dad he didn’t have. Inspiration for me to come out and say the amount of crap your daughter thinks is alright for her to stomach will be related to the amount of crap she’s seen growing up. (I. Said. Related to. I didn’t try to speculate how, related to. As I said before, not affecting your kids whichever way with your own marriage is the tougher one.)
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8) The Miss has the skit this week, titled either I’m Not Sure It’s A Good Idea or Full Marks For Enthusiasm (as in, she’s doing water color painting by the bed (because she gets a view) and her current pose of choice is fingers in half a victory sign. Or, in honor of the recent World Cup, how so many players score and then point heavenward.)
Have a good weekend…
