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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 16 days ago

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No one could have seen this coming. Absolutely no one — unless, of course, they had a pulse, a calendar, or a vague understanding of international trade. But for the 74 million Americans who dragged themselves to the polls in 2024 to rehire Donald Trump as President, this was exactly what you ordered — delivered fresh, hot, and right to your crumbling 401(k).

The Dow just plunged 890 points, like a bungee jumper who forgot the cord. The S&P 500, which had already been bleeding for two weeks straight, has now fallen 7.45% since late February — tumbling from 6,147.43 to 5,614.36 like someone chucked their retirement fund off a third-story balcony. The Nasdaq? It's been in a full-blown correction for days now, down over 10% from its recent peak — the kind of nosedive that makes Silicon Valley cry into their kombucha.

And Tesla? Oh, poor Elon Musk. Tesla’s stock got hammered like a frat boy on spring break, collapsing 15% in a single day — its worst performance since September 2020. Musk’s fans thought his bromance with Trump would unlock some economic cheat code — but instead, their electric dreams are getting dragged to hell like a toaster in a bathtub.

But no one could have predicted this, right?

Except... literally everyone who saw Trump’s economic chaos coming from space. Wall Street didn’t get “caught off guard” — they just assumed they could outrun the blast radius. The smart money bet they could milk Trump’s instability long enough to cash out before the market imploded. They thought tariffs were just noise — a showy distraction to keep Trump’s voter base entertained while they quietly skimmed profits off the top.

But now the roulette wheel has stopped spinning, and all those bets are coming due. Trump’s trade war is finally hammering the economy like a sledgehammer in a china shop. Tariffs on China? Up to 20%. Mexico and Canada? They’re on the chopping block next. The Atlanta Fed’s GDP tracker says the economy might already be shrinking, but Trump’s White House is still playing dress-up, calling this mess a “transition.”

Kevin Hassett — still staggering around in public pretending to be an economist — insists everything will calm down by April, as if the stock market works on the same timeline as your dentist appointments. Meanwhile, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insists this is just a “detox,” like the economy is some booze-soaked college dropout who needs to sweat it out in a basement.

But don’t worry, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick swears there’s “no recession coming.” That’s adorable — like a man shouting “This ship is unsinkable!” as the water reaches his chin.

Even Trump couldn’t resist throwing out his signature nonsense. “We’re bringing wealth back to America,” he assured Fox News viewers — a statement that probably sounded comforting right up until the moment they checked their portfolios and realized their “wealth” is now buried somewhere next to Jimmy Hoffa.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is crashing faster than a drunk cyclist — down from $106,000 to $80,000 in just weeks. Turns out even imaginary money isn’t safe when Trump starts swinging his tariff hammer.

But no one could have predicted this. Nope. Not the voters in MAGA hats who believed Trump’s economic “genius” was going to fix America with import taxes and cheap slogans. Not the Wall Street gamblers who thought they could skate through the chaos. Not the investors who thought Elon Musk’s proximity to Trump would protect them.

They all knew. They just thought someone else would take the hit. Now they're sitting in front of their financial wreckage, stunned — like kids who set off fireworks indoors and can’t believe the couch is on fire.

So here’s to the voters who believed in Trump’s master plan — the ones who swore tariffs would turn America into an economic powerhouse and thought a man with six bankruptcies and a golden toilet was some kind of financial wizard. You cheered while Trump slapped tariffs on everything that moved, convinced this chaos was just part of his “genius strategy.” Now you’re staring at your portfolio like a blackjack player who hit on 19 and can’t believe they lost. You wanted this, you begged for this, you voted for this.

And if you’re one of those Wall Street analysts pretending this economic collapse came out of nowhere? Please — you knew. The only people truly shocked by this are the ones who never had a functioning frontal lobe to begin with.

(Fear and Loathing : Closer to the Edge)

#Fear and Loathing #Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge #economic news #crash #stock market #S&P #stock market crash

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cleolinda · 1 year ago

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Weekend links, April 14, 2024

My posts

Honestly, I spent much of the week coping with storm migraines. You can tell, because I was reblogging a lot from under a cold compress rather than doing anything useful with life.

Reblogs of interest

The Hot Vintage Lady Polls are rough out there, y’all. Round three started closing yesterday (see what’s still open here), and as of this writing, we have lost Bette Davis, Alla Nazimova, Theda Bara, Myrna Loy, Barbra Streisand, Fay Wray, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, and Olivia de Havilland--and it looks like Catherine Deneuve, Clara Bow, Lana Turner, and Mary Pickford are on their way out. Meanwhile, I learned about a ton of actresses I’d never heard of before, only to shriek when Sharmila Tagore, Nadira, and Waheeda Rehman lost this round. (Edwige, I will never forget you.)

Let me remind you (and me sometimes, too): Not everyone has the same taste or childhood attachments or cinema experiences as you. And everybody in this bracket loses. Everybody but one.

(I can tell I’m not cut out for brawling because I’m like, “I will be very sad to see Norma Shearer go, but Hazel Scott seems nice!”)

“Actually, Mr. Musk, I am an attorney. Do you know that?” Here’s the highlights of Mark Bankston, the man who brought down Alex Jones, coping with Elon Musk and Elon Musk’s Lawyer, who is not even licensed in Texas, for 100 pages of deposition.

Hozier Watch 2024: “Too Sweet” has now charted higher in the UK than “Take Me to Church,” and it’s getting real close on the US charts. This is a song that didn’t even make last year’s album. I am endlessly fascinated.

Happy Leland Melvin Day!

Happy Neil Banging Out the Tunes Day!

“Posting endless DNIs because we can’t (or don’t know we can) make spaces just for the people we do want to interact with” actually makes a lot of sense in this centralized social media hellscape.

There is a 20k mg weed gummy and nobody needs that. “Forget meeting the Hat Man this is what turns you into the Hat Man. This is worse than that torture drug that makes you experience 600 billion years in a second. This is the secret to honest to god shifting.”

One of the best uses of the Kate Beaton Poe comic I’ve ever seen

“Americanisms that tell you to check on your American” (they are all correct)

“Tuxedo Mask is the first example of being ‘Kenough’”

Just this once, I will allow this AI rendition of a “traditional Polish family” and their traditional Polish woodchuck.

I am absolutely not saying there is anything wrong with being into tentacles; I’m just saying that Pyramid Head doesn’t even have them and thus is a pretty tame choice to complain about.

Little Guy, a game

A cursèd chair called “Oops!”

Sparrow Tarot: Honestly, this is one of my favorite takes on the Hanged Man.

This dog is a biscuit and she is precious

Video

One of the things that’s so great about this Ilia Malinin free-skate program is, he makes it look so effortless that I would have never figured out on my own, without Tumblr’s commentary, that there’s a couple moves in here that no one in the world can do but him. Like, the very first jump and the announcers start screaming.

A journey from fearing moths to raising them

A dude puts on a dress For the Meme and then discovers that he loves it (and then he styles it as a full outfit and it looks SO GOOD)

Watching this cat ride around on a roomba on a sped-up surveillance camera is self-care.

So is this (although it’s a bit strobe-y)

Bat type: hi doggy

Was the jello for the tuna salad lamb supposed to be lime?

The sacred texts

Holy Shit, Two Cakes

The origin of “Me, an intellectual”

#AllMyLifeIHadToFight

Personal tag of the week

Designer Roberto Cavalli, who passed away this week at age 83. I reblogged several fashion posts--I hadn’t even realized myself that he had designed Beyoncé’s famous yellow dress in Lemonade.

#weekend links #odds and ends #linkspam

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posttexasstressdisorder · 2 years ago

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Today’s Lefsetz Letter

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The Post-Political Era

You can go back to your normally scheduled programming.

Our six year national nightmare might not be completely over, but you can safely quit your addiction to the news, you can rejuggle your priorities, you can go back to regular life.

Donald Trump will never be president again. Oh, he could possibly win the nomination, although I doubt it, but he could never win. You see America saw the movie and didn’t like it, didn’t like much of what Trump touched. And the slow drip of truth being revealed is leaving a stink on a man who might be indicted and even go to jail.

As for last week’s shenanigans in the House…

The headlines were enough. Insanity on parade. Nitwits. These are the people we have to be afraid of? Sure, they can get elected in their right wing red gerrymandered districts, but the rest of America wants nothing to do with them. Sure, nothing will get accomplished for two years, and they’ll investigate Hunter Biden and his laptop, but this isn’t going to rivet the public, they just can’t see how Trump’s kids and his son-in-law can skate completely, having all been involved in their father’s business, never mind administration, and Hunter’s activities were supervised by his father and therefore a penalty should be paid. As for trading on the fame and power of their father, can you say Ivanka and her clothing line?

Case closed. Oh, not for the Trumpers. It’s just that that constituency is nowhere near the majority, its power has been neutered. D.C. might be a source of headlines for the next two years, but you don’t have to focus on the stories, go in-depth beyond the headlines. Actually, you can laugh, because happy days are here again!

Not really. There’s a looming recession, and the economists can’t agree whether it’s coming or not. And rampant income inequality. And homelessness. But…

You can have a life. You don’t have to worry about politics coming up and dividing friends and family. It’s on the back burner. Democracy has been saved, at least for now. And it’s a great relief. (And if you live in an oppressive red state I can only give you Sam Kinison’s advice to the starving in Africa…MOVE!)

What does this mean?

Plenty.

Culture becomes king once again. And what will that culture be?

We’ve done mindless for nearly two decades, but now we’re older and wiser. It’s not like we learned nothing in the past six years. We learned if we’re somnambulant, not paying attention, rust never sleeps and our entire society can be corroded. Thinking people got a boost. The put-down of intellectualism did not triumph. As for Elon Musk and Twitter… It’s now even left the news, all we’ve got is the shell of a social media network and a declining Tesla. Not only did Musk bring down his car company, he put a dent in the image of techies everywhere. It’s kind of like lawyers after Watergate, they still have not recovered their status in society, they’re not hated as much as the cable company, but most people have no faith in lawyers, they look down upon them. Same deal hereafter with tech. Just because you’re rich and successful in one vertical…that does not mean you know anything about anything else.

However, the last six years have taught us that we all live in our own niche, our own vertical, and this will not change. Politics brought us together, it was the one thing we could all talk about. Now…

Be into your band, your streaming TV show, just don’t assume everybody’s heard it or seen it. Sure, there will be national news items now and again, like school shootings, but we’ve already seen them fall off the front page quickly. Everything top-line lasts shorter than ever before. If you want to appeal to everybody, you’re going to find that you don’t last. And if you’re appealing to the top, to the media, oftentimes your core abandons you, if there was a core at all to begin with.

What we’ve learned from TikTok is humanity sells. And everybody is playing. And if you want to win…

Check out the comedians. There’s a plethora on TikTok. They all can’t earn a living. Multiply by a zillion when it comes to music. The competition is stiffer than ever before. And if you’re not great, the surfer skips and the algorithm never shows your face again. Funny how we’ve heard about the power of the algorithm forever, but it’s really only triumphed now, with TikTok, the computer is in control of what we see, and ultimately our culture.

The movie business is dying. Theatre chains are going bankrupt. You see movies are like tech, what you did yesterday does not count. Oh, to a degree you can build on a franchise, but if you don’t come up with something new…

This is like the smartphone killing computer manufacturers. Do you even need a computer anymore? Many people survive without one, or use a tablet, which is just a giant smartphone.

As for the two-dimensional reality stars… That’s so last decade. Famous for nothing, even TikTok stars have a greater identity, and more creativity.

I’m not saying we’re returning to an age of gravitas, but that we are not just going back to 2016, or even 2020. We’ve seen that there are bigger things than money, like democracy. And if you let the blowhards talk long enough they’ll indict themselves, show their flaws.

ChatGPT? Very interesting, but it has nowhere near the impact and footprint of MySpace, never mind Facebook. We expect technological breakthroughs. College graduates have not only never known an era without the internet, they’ve never known an era without broadband. They don’t e-mail, they text. The ship has sailed, the world has been wired, everybody has been connected and if you’re worried about your privacy, you must live off the grid and never go online, but even then your house will show up in Google Maps. The battle between the boomers and the younger generations is over. The younger generations won. Anti-internet screeds are laughable. Stop telling us about the deleterious effects of something so fulfilling. You can’t even ban football, never mind Coke (of either variety!), yet you think you can stop the internet train? Give me a break.

And the boomers have shifted into low gear anyway. They’ve retired, or soon will. They’re all about going to bed early and managing their investments, playing it safe, and we all know progress is made via risk.

Magazines? Like the movies, the pandemic put a dent in them too. So much was wiped away in the past two years. We are not going back to the mall. We are continuing to get our food delivered. Sure, we’re still in the middle of a wrenching transition, but we are absolutely not going back to the way it was.

So where does this leave you?

Well, if you’re working for the man, you’re going to take a haircut. Salaries are being kept flat, they are not keeping up with inflation, because if they do, inflation never dies. So unless you’re rich, you’re going to have to budget, watch your pennies. Not that you’re not going to spend them.

That’s one thing about millennials, they love to have experiences, not only concerts, but travel. Millennials travel in a way their parents never did. Credit the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, marketed directly to them and incentivizing them to go. Millennials want those perks and they want to use them. So if you’re marketing to them… Give them something, make it interesting.

Only the pubescent and those younger than them are ignorant. These are the online armies. Ignore them. They might be a mile deep, but they’re not a mile wide. The noise far exceeds the impact, like the Republican Congresspeople. There’s something there, but you can ignore it and not much will change.

Online hate, blowback? It’s here to stay. Grow a thicker skin. We’re all in it together, and the main reason people attack you is because they’re angry they’re not where you are, and if they can’t be, you’ve got to pay a price.

So what’s new on the horizon?

Once again, culture.

Food and restaurants are as big as they ever were, America’s number one form of entertainment.

As for streaming content, despite what the financial pages say, there’s still going to be a ton of it, there has to be, otherwise people won’t subscribe. And it will be a smorgasbord, of not only lowbrow, but highbrow too. Because it’s not about getting everybody to watch the same thing, but delivering shows for individuals so they keep paying. Sure, there will be consolidation amongst the streamers, but it’s akin to sports trades, unless you’re really into inside baseball, you can ignore them.

As for music… The brand phenomenon will continue. And will for as long as we have billionaires, musicians want that money.

But there will be a new cadre, not playing to the back row, who realize the power of music is…to speak truth to power. Who won’t fight for every last dollar. Who will be in bed with their audience, not mobilizing them to fight anybody, but to be fulfilled in the symbiotic relationship.

This is the turning point. Don’t expect radical change tomorrow. But there will be an evolution, because most Americans are breathing a sigh of relief, they don’t have to be on guard 24/7 to save our nation. They’ve got bandwidth for other things now.

And don’t expect tech to fill the vacuum. That’s done. We had multiple decades of innovation, but we’re rarely wowed by new products, hardware or software, today. If anything, we expect them.

It’s just like music, which squandered its power after the classic rock and MTV eras.

Really, it’s the age of the individual, which is contrary to the millennial ethos, which is all about keeping your head down and being a member of the group. We’ve seen the power of one individual, especially with Trump. He’s a beacon that way. If you believe and you want something, you may be able to do it. Take a stand.

Breathe a sigh of relief.

Get back to your life.

--Bob Lefsetz

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newtypezaku · 3 years ago

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P-P-P-Power Rankings!!

Shinkalion Z (Last: 1): DR. YELLOW WAS DEPLOYED TO FIND THE CRYSTALS AND THAT BROUGHT SHIN AND ABUTO TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER FIGHT.

Dragon Quest (Last: 5): Hyunckel tried to stop Baran's pointless fight by starting a pointless duel which ended with his pointless sacrifice.

Re-Main (Last: 6): Minato stars in Getting Murdered by my Former Teammates, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Game.

Eighty Six (Last: NR): While Lena overstepped her authority to get results, Shin and the gang woke up overseas and got adopted.

Yashahime (Last: NR): Towa successfully revived Setsuna and dad immediately had her snap to attention to clean up Totosai's mess.

Getter Robo Arc (Last: 8): Kamui genocided a bunch of people and fought Takuma, then they joined forces to fight Emperor, I guess.

Muteking (Last: NR): Can't wait to see this guy use roller skates and sick beats to defeat Elon Musk and Steve Jobs' love child.

Godzilla: Singular Point (Last: 7): Thanks to time shenanigans, Jet Jaguar realized that it was the answer all along, so poof go the kaiju.

Aiming for eight each week cuz eighters gonna eight. [Full Watch List]

#zaku rankings

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violetsystems · 3 years ago

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Spent most of the day yesterday trying to hack through an ip surveillance cam I bought. Resorted to having to port scan it with nmap until I finally got an email back from support. I know way too much about generic ip cameras from shenzhen as a result. Still don’t qualify for any sort of job or contract work in the eyes of America. Had enough of people like Time’s person of the year Elon Musk calling me useless to the workforce. Can’t steal my wages if you ignore my resume I guess. More likely to get a settlement before an actual paycheck. Must not be noticeable enough to the Artificial Intelligence doing the recruiter’s job. Might need to “stick out” a little more. My air max 97’s got delivered early. Those and the 95’s are the two shoes I never owned any pairs of. Mostly because I thought they’d look too clunky on me. I used to favor more svelte designs because I walked too fast. These are nice casual walkers. Bright ass pink stripe that says “do you.” I wear a lot of olive military green now because I’m part of some secret resistance even I’m not fully clear about. The pink is more of an accent. The majority of the shoe is lime green, black and white. They remind me more of an old skate shoe than anything. I’d still wear my vapor max mids for running but it’s the direct polar opposite. I also bought a pair of doc martens low a month back I never wear. Those are for the interviews I’ll never be called in for. Far more subdued. Just like my civil rights. At least now I can truly say with no hesitation “kiss my airs.” 💋

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the-real-xmonster · 7 years ago

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Hey! I was wondering what you thought about this video: uZbBaVvSy94 (YouTube link) | I often watch the video posts by this person and the stuff about the edge calls etc (the technicalities) I agree with but some of it seems extremely opinionated and more towards disliking Evgenia and picking out the fact that she laughed after she fell and then assuming that she did that because she "knew she would win even after falling". What say you?

I say that I hate you a bit, anon, for making me go and watch that pile of steaming bullshit.

Skating is a very difficult sport. Don’t let the skaters’ apparent effortlessness tricks you into thinking otherwise. Figure skating jumps are dangerous, high-risk moves and they are impossible to perform without utmost concentration. When a skater goes in for a jump and mid-air realizes that they’re off axis, it takes every single of their brain cells to try minimizing the impact of the fall. Within less than 1 second, the skater must figure out a way to react and salvage anything they could. And even with that, every time they fall in a jump, pardon my French, it hurts like a motherf*cker. If you don’t believe me feel free to fling yourself up into the air and crash into a hard surface of your choice and see if that leaves you with any faculty to think. I can’t tell you exactly what went on in Janny’s head during that moment, but I’d say it’s something along the line of f*ck I’m off axis, f*ck it hurts, f*ck how the f*ck did that happen, f*ck I need to get back to the program. I bet she had less profanity in her thoughts, since she seems a much, much nicer girl than I am, but that’s about the gist.

If Evgenia Medvedeva can figure skate while contemplating the fact that she’s being propped up by Russian mafia money and reflecting on the full dynamics of corruption and whatnot in the ISU, the girl shouldn’t be an athlete, her brain would better be suited to pursue a career in nuclear astrophysics.

Who knows, maybe she’s really that awesome. Janny as the next Elon Musk, anyone?

#replies #evgenia medvedeva #Anonymous

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techbotic · 7 years ago

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Elon Musk says The Boring Company’s Loop will prioritize pedestrians, cyclists

Enlarge (credit: The Boring Company)

The idea also changed a bit: instead of simply looking to build the cheapest tunnels, The Boring Company wanted to build a "Loop" inside its tunnels. The Loop would be a modified version of Musk's Hyperloop idea, but it would not pull a vacuum and cars would be lowered into the tunnel system where they would be put on electric skates and zipped off to their destination automatically.

According to some tweets from Elon Musk last night, though, the idea has once again morphed. "Adjusting The Boring Company plan: all tunnels & Hyperloop will prioritize pedestrians & cyclists over cars," the executive tweeted, adding: "Will still transport cars, but only after all personalized mass transit needs are met. It's a matter of courtesy & fairness. If someone can't afford a car, they should go first."

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digicrunchpage · 7 years ago

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Elon Musk says The Boring Company’s Loop will prioritize pedestrians, cyclists

Enlarge (credit: The Boring Company)

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Elon Musk says The Boring Company’s Loop will prioritize pedestrians, cyclists published first on https://medium.com/@HDDMagReview

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kalique · 4 years ago

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but anyway

1. caine wise. he did what he had to do as caine. i’m not even kidding dude. tatum makes caine his own bizarre, wacky, affectless alien character. he is humourless and earnest. he is a half dog soldier with wings who has magical flying roller skates and once tried to rip out the throat of outer space‘s equivalent of elon musk with his TEETH. he somehow manages to be likeable, original, not cliched, and a believable love interest for jupiter. thats right I SAID ALL THOSE THINGS. channing tatum was great as caine. god himself can’t change my mind

2. kingsman cowboy. um. whiskey? tequila? vodka? he was named one of these idk. i am not ashamed that i don’t remember which alcoholic beverage channing tatum was named after. he put his whole pussy into this role, i guess. honestly i’m not too fond of this guy but the amount of channing tatum movies i’ve seen is limited and the amount i actually remember seeing is even less

3. the small foot guy. the fucking. yeti. zendaya is meechee and lebron james is gwangi, but let’s not forget that channing tatum was the star. i have actually seen this movie. this movie is fine. sure whatever. and i don’t really remember how good channing tatums performance was, but i do remember he was impressively good at singing

4. ???

i was going to make a post about my opinion on channing tatum’s best roles but i’m certain everyone already can guess what i think on this subject and no further input is needed

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katyavendel · 5 years ago

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I let go of my lucky bird

now I’m the one dancing

Singing

Flying

I know my worth

And its a zero gravity zone

Straight to the cosmos

Sending comets left and right

But I’m just smiling

I believe in no gravity

One, two

Lift off

I’m drawing time in the dust, in the sand

I’m Salvador Dali

Tie up my eyes

Hold my wings

And let me go

Draw me like a Michael Angelou

Sistine Chapel

Make me a masterpiece

I’m letting go

As Craig David says

I’m walking away.

Everyday’s a new day

I know michiavelli’s a little tense

Lol he could use a glass of wine and. A quick fuck

Maybe learn a thing or two from Rasputin.

He had his fuck’s and his nose up the Tsar’s business

Who knows maybe if we didn’t go to WW1 we’d still be a monarchy

Look, I’m just smiling

Just smiling

Learning how to operate in the zero gravity of my mind

No worries

Baby don’t worry , he said,

He lit up a zoot

And played me some Bob Marley

Smooth talking’ masterpiece

But all I wanna do is have a good time

I know Rousseau’s a bit psychotic

And Hobbes is a bit dark

But Locke’s alright

Hence why the playwrights copied him

Which playwrights?

Well, the constitution of the United States of course,

Didn’t Shakespeare say all of life’s a play

And we’re merely players and actors staring in different parts

In our own lives and others

And by the things that are occurring, it really does feel like a screen play

I mean, life, the constitution,

And the way things are occurring

In the world, of course

Read the UN’s sustainable development goals

And the Declaration of Human Rights

And then read you some Pride and Prejudice

And see, we’re not so different you see.

If music be the food of love, then play on , isn’t that

Hamlet

Lol, Romeo and Juliet, the Twelfth Night,

Trying to star in my own plays, playing Jane Eyre

And learning Chekov, but what’s the point.

No conspiracy theories

Take me to a cave, a cenote in Mexico, and let’s go swimming baby

Mexian Sky, send me the lyrics

Let’s dance them out loud.

Just plain sanity

Well, they do say Einstein was a little crazy.

Well yes, philosophy

Philosophizing on Locke, Hobbes, the Buddha, and whoever else comes to mind

Don’t tell me about Gandhi, mother teresa, nelson Mandela, and the way the changed the apartheid

Don’t tell me about the way he got through those 29 years

Tell me about your own Valley of the Shadw of Death, and how you got through it.

Don’t tell me about the theoritical equations of quantum physics and mechanics,

I know every theorem on quantum mechanics and the double slit experiemnt

I wanna know about the theorum’s in your mind

The equations you keep solving in your head about your next move

Please don’t tell about how Putin still poses anti’ gay rights

Tell me why it moves you.

Don’t tell me about the job you have

Tell me why you haven’t left

Tell have you ever let go

Have you ever danced underneath a sunrise

Or swam in an ocean at midnight

I have,

These things, it changes you

Have you ever wondered how small you are

And the peek of a summit

Or at the bottom of a valley,

I have.

Makes you realize we’re just a speck in the universe

I’m not a fan of Eastern philosophy

But it does have some sense

Believe in the tao

And just being still

Tell me about the occurrences of your own heart

Your own mount Everests you’ve conquered

Tell me about what brings your soul to life

Have you ever been so ecstatically happy, so ridulously joyous against all odds,

That you felt your heart was gonna burst right out your chest, tell me what that felt like

Did you ever point at a map, a single location, a random destination and just went spontaneously

No matter what.

I have, it changes you.

Have you ever integrated in a culture that’s not your own.

I have, and it changes you.

Have you ever travelled somewhere, just for a good cause, with people you don’t even know,

I have.

And it changes you.

Have you ever stared at the sky and wondered how these clouds

Have been here for millennia’s, I have, and it changes you.

Have you ever worked your butt off to become the best in your field,

I have, and it changes you.

You know Rumi said live as though the whole world’s rigged in your favour

Jesus said if you pray in my name and believe it shall be done for you

Do you believe? In the Lion of Judah.

That’s there’s better in store, a new day coming.

Ah, I know, you’re not into all this drama or philosophy,

You’re not into contemplation, or the purpose of life.

You’re not mundane, but you’re practical, one foot in, one out. All right, lets play a game.

Guaranteed I’ll beat you at chess.

How about Tony Robbins, or Zuckerberg, or your idol, Steve Jobs,

Well he woke up each day as if it’s his last, if that isn’t mindset, then I don’t know what is.

How about your programming, tell what is the wire, the neurocircuits that fire the electrons in your body.

Tell me how your neurons function. What is it that keeps you living, breathing, functioning, and moving forward.

Do you believe in a higher power, that maybe there’s more.

Oh, you believe in Elon Musk, well then baby boy, he’s still a hustler.

It’s mindset baby.

How’s your game?

Stop throwing all your bluff

And blow job techniques and rituals of seduction

Stop telling about how you got this girl or that in bed

Tell me, have you ever made love? So passionately, you thought your life had changed.

Was it real, or was it just a fling. Did you ever wake up to the gaze of a lover and know your whole world had just been made still. that

Somehow you’ve been given a taste of ecstasy , Heaven on Earth.

Of course, not.

Stop talking all your bluff, and why it won’t work. Tell me why it will.

Tell me how hard you’ll hustle to achieve this dream against all odds.

I’m so sick of you telling me about limitation and society’s perception.

i just want you to live.

And If you’re not in it, to live. But exist. Then baby, we’re on different lanes.

I’m here to live against all odds.

And live so bravely and fearlessly, that when death comes, it trembles to take me.

Courageously and passionately,

But I’m not a hopeless romantic, and I’d never allow myself to be that way,

But I love life against all odds.

Can you?

Let’s go to a museum, lets look at Da Vinci

Let’s go to the Colosseum, let’s visit the Louvre again, how about Nigara falls, take me to a new cafe,

Lets explore, actually, take me to that little cafeteria by the beach, the one that lights up candles at night,

And has shitty seats, let’s get dirty and go swimming.

Throw some mud on my face.

Take yourself less seriously.

Let’s have a laugh.

And when we’re looking at Da Vinci somewhere in the National Gallery in London

let’s go crazy and tell me you can’t keep your hands off me

That it turns you on the way I look at those paintings

And you can’t wait to get me in bed.

lol baby can we have some fun.

I want my life to be a masterpiece

A masterpiece painting

I want to see the way you raise my kids

The way you look at them in the morning and tell them you love them

The way you play ball with our little man and the way you kiss our little girl on her way to school

The way you teach them how to skate

And how to love life

How you teach them how to ski

And how to go bunjee jumping

How their first sky dive was with their mum and dad

And how the first time they learned how to ride a bike was on our porch yard

I wanna see our little boy run around with a skate board

And never get into bad crowds even though he’s always at the skatepark

Cause he knows he can be honest with us

I want our little girl to have a strong side and know how to fight

And know how to weep beautifully without being judged

I want our kids to know how to be authentic

And never feel like they have to hide or compromise anything about themselves

I want them to be leaders in their high schools and the kids everyone looks up to

I want them to be super intellectual and beautiful

And have the world at their feet

I want them to be sensational

And know how to inhabit their body and

Be real.

Baby let’s have a date night

And run barefoot in the middle of the road like we did when we were 18

Lets have a Notebook moment and dance underneath the street lights

But we’re married now, and nothing’s gonna stop us from still living audaciously.

Lets have a Pirates of the Caribbean moment and live like explorers,

And shake the world, and live like tourists on. A borrowed earth on borrowed time

Because we’re all just visitors for a time being on this planet,

Let’s win the jackpot, the lotto, let’s reach the high score, if life’s nothing but a game,

Then baby, I’m competitive and I wanna reach the high score, the high life, the high love,

I don’t wanna wait till I’m 80 to know the worth of life and what really matters.

I wanna die, close my eyes, and know that I’ve really lived.

And I beg God, not to take me till I’ve lived and fulfilled my purpose on Earth.

And if you’re gonna share a life with me, then baby you better live.

Lets kiss while at war, in the middle of battle, because we’re warriors on the inside

Let’s have tattoos and weird cuts and be sexy parents

Let’s wake up at 4am and go for a run

Let’s work out insanely and eat healthily but have insane pasta cheat meals

Lets love on life, lets make love to life.

Let’s be audacious against all odds,

And live like warriors,

And be like titans in our business fields,

In our careers, lets be the best of the best.

baby, Let’s have a Tolstoy moment and be intimate in the middle a war zone

In the middle of an economic breakdown, lets learn to relax and invest,

And lets be the bomb at crypto currencies because that’s the future

Lets learn AI and know about Elon Musk and visit Sillicon Valley.

Lets get weed in Jamaica and chill with the Rastas

Lets meet all the Hindus and Buddhas and chill in in their temples,

And get these weird roses and say thank you.

Lets’ camp on Mount Everest.

And have our own helicopter.

Lets sleep in the forest, and wrestle the lions with love.

Lets see the truth of this earth.

Let’s learn to relax even in the midst of chaos

Let’s learn to dance in the rain

When was the last time you made out under the rain?

Let’s go.

Let’s learn to forgive and love out loud.

Let’s climb Kilimanjaro , and maybe go to the Batu Caves again, where a monkey stole my ice - cream the last time that I went.

Let’s learn about ancient rituals, the rural parts of Eastern France, lets go to the African war zones, poverty stricken villages in Nigeria, lets see

How they live, and how they praise the Lord.

I want to praise like an African.

Because you see, it’s just a dance for the Lord.

But I want to praise Earth like the Shamans and Native Americans.

Live like a child, learn like an intellectual

Blaze trails like a prodigy

Work like a hustler

Live like a lover

Pray like a saint

Love like a warrior

Dress like a queen

Think like I’m Plato

And love like I’m an aphrodisiac

I want to pray like a saint

And love like a lover

I want to play like a child

And work like a hustler

I want to praise like a queen

And dance like every dance is my last

The first time in the Colosseum, I wondered how tough it oughta be to live here, living like a tourist, buying souvenirs, yet a couple centuries ago,

This was the ground for massacre

Gladiators and chariots

and massacres

lions fighting back and forth

The human race always had a knack for violence

Yet we’ve always been suckers for true love

Even, Caesar himself couldn’t help himself, brought, Cleopatra to Rome against all odds,

Just to be massacred by his own men for bringing a woman like her.

They say Nefertiti was more beautiful.

But that’s not the point.

The Hunger Games, live.

On a battle ground.

And what about the Roman inquisition.

Death for the cross, did you know it was chaos.

Or how they cut of Marie Antoinette’s and Louis XVI’s head.

Or how they massacred the Romanov’s in Yekaterinburg

Or King Henry VIII’s wives.

how they suffered the fate of just being women

Or how the Latinos suffered under the arm of dictatorship and the invasion of foreign policy

How the Americans invaded their land

Did you know all of the modern foreign policy tore up the Middle East starting from the Iraq war in 1991

To Saddam Hussein’s death and 9/11

The foreign policy for gold and ivory

that places like Timbuktu could turn into ruins

Look, I’m not insane

I’m just saying, shit happens

But like Richard Branson, we should sail on the waves

Cross Guinness records, own our own private islands

And enjoy life while we can

Just live out loud you know,

Shit happens, but you can’t control it

You can control nothing but your own emotions, and actions, and heads

And as Bukowski said, you can only change one life at a time, all else is grandiose romanticism or politics

Or how the English cut off the heads of slaves

How the Europeans divided Africa like a cake.

How the Belgians, cut up Congo for Ivory in half.

All that’s nice, but now what?

Now you live.

You live against all odds.

And you live life so bravely, so audaciously

That life trembles to take you.

I’ll leave you with a poem and short story.

Firstly, read All The Way by Charles Bukowski, it will change your life .

Secondly, Google, Nero’s 100 Gladiators, and see how the 40 stood up for Jesus, and how the one ran to them,

And see these stories of courage and bravery and be inspired.

Because as the wild saying goes, “Here’s to the misfits and the crazy ones” - Rob Siltanen.

#Iletgoofmyluckybird

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damonbation · 5 years ago

Text

Let the Roaring 2020s Begin

—

First some great news: because of your support in reading and sharing this blog, it has been able to earn quite a lot of income and give away over $300,000 so far. The latest $100k of that happens at the end of this article. Please check it out if you want to feel good, learn more, and even join me in helping out the world a bit.

—

As I type this, there are only a few days left in the 2010s, and holy shit what a decade it has been.

Ten years ago, a 35 year old MMM and the former Mrs. MM were four years into retirement, but not feeling very retired yet. We stumbled out of 2009 with a precious but very high strung three-year-old, a house building business that was way more stressful than it should have been, and a much more rudimentary set of life skills. It was a time of great promise, but a lot of this promise was yet to be claimed.

Ten years later, despite the fact that I have one less marriage, one less surviving parent, and ten years less remaining youth, I am in an even better place in life right now, and would never want to trade places with the 2009 version of me. And on that measure alone, I can tell it has been a successful decade.

This is a great sign and it bodes well for early retirees everywhere. Compared to the start of the decade, I am healthier and stronger physically, wealthier financially, and (hopefully) at least a bit wiser emotionally. I’ve been through so much, learned so much in so many new interesting fields, and packed so much living into these 3653 days. A big part of that just flowed from the act of retiring from my career in 2005, which freed me up to do so many other things, including starting this blog.

It has not always been easy, in fact the hard times of this decade have been some of the hardest of my life. But by coming through it all I have learned that super difficult experiences only serve to enrich your life even more, by widening your range of feelings and allowing you to savor the normal moments and the great ones even more.

Ten Years of Learning in Three Points

I think the real meaning of “Wisdom” is just “I’ve seen a lot of shit go down in my lifetime and over time you start to notice everything just boils down to a few principles.”

The books all say it, and the wise older people in real life all say it too. And for me, it’s probably the following few things that stand out the most:

1) This Too Shall Pass: nothing is as big a deal as you think it is at the time. Angry or sad emotions from life traumas will fade remarkably quickly, but so will the positive surprises from one-time life upgrades through the sometimes-bummer magic of Hedonic Adaptation. What’s left is just you – no matter where you go, there you are.

2) But You Are Really Just a Bundle of Habits: most of your day (and therefore your life) is comprised of repeating the same set of behaviors over and over. The way you get up, the things you focus your mind on. Your job. The way you interact with other people. The way you eat and exercise. Unless you give all of this a lot of mindful attention and work to tweak it, it stays the same, which means your life barely changes, which means your level of happiness barely changes.

3) Change Your Habits, Change your Life: Because of all this, the easiest and best way to have a happier and more satisfying life is to figure out what ingredients go into a good day, and start adding those things while subtracting the things that create bad days. For me (and quite possibly you, whether you realize it or not), the good things include positive social interactions, helping people, outdoor physical activity, creative expression and problem solving, and just good old-fashioned hard work. The bad things mostly revolve around stress due to over-scheduling one’s life, emotional negativity and interpersonal conflict – all things I am especially sensitive to.

So while I can’t control everything, I have found that the more I work to design those happiness creators into my life and step away from things that consistently cause bad days, the happier and richer life can become.

Speaking of Richer:

I recently read two very different books, which still ended up pointing me in the same direction:

This Could Be Our Future, by former Kickstarter cofounder and CEO Yancey Strickler, is a concise manifesto that makes a great case for running our lives, businesses, and even giant corporations, according to a much more generous and person-centric set of rules.

Instead of the narrow minded perspective of “Profit Maximization” that drives so many of the world’s shittier companies and gives capitalism a bad reputation, he points out that even small changes in the attitude of company (and world) leaders, can lead to huge changes in the way our economy runs.

The end result is more total wealth and happier lives for all of us – like Mustachianism itself, it really is a win/win proposition rather than any form of compromise or tradeoff. In fact, Strickler specifically mentions you and me in this book, using the FIRE movement as an example of a group of people who have adopted different values in order to lead better lives.

Die with Zero*, by former hedge fund manager and thrill seeking poker champion Bill Perkins sounds like a completely different book on the surface: Perkins’ point is that many people work too long and defer too much gratification for far too long in their lives.

Instead, he encourages you to map out your life decade by decade and make sure that you maximize your experiences in each stage, while you are still young enough to enjoy each phase. For example, do your time in the skate park and the black diamond ski slopes in your 20s and 30s, rather than saving every dollar in the hopes that you can do more snowboarding after you retire in your 60s.

Obviously, as Mr. Money Mustache I disagree on a few of the finer points: Life is not an experiences contest, you can get just as much joy from simpler local experiences as from exotic ones in foreign lands, and spending more money on yourself does not create more happiness, so if you die with millions in the bank you have not necessarily left anything on the table. But it does take skill to put these truths into practice, and for an untrained consumer with no imagination, buying experiences can still be an upgrade over sitting at home watching TV.

However, he does make one great point: one thing you can spend money on is helping other people – whether they are your own children, family, friends, or people with much more serious needs like famine and preventable disease.

And if you are going to give away this money, it’s better to do it now, while you are alive, rather than just leaving it behind in your estate, when your beneficiaries may be too old to benefit from your gift anyway.

So with this in mind, I made a point of making another round of donations to effective causes this year – a further $100,000 which was made possible by some unexpected successes with this blog this year, combined with finding that my own lifestyle continues to cost less than $20k to sustain, even in “luxury bachelor” mode.

And here’s where it all went!

$80,000 to GiveWell, who will automatically deliver it to their top recommended charities. This is always my top donation, because it is the most serious and research-backed choice. This means you are very likely doing the most good with each dollar, if your goal is the wellbeing of fellow human beings. GiveWell does constant research on effective charities and keeps an updated list on their results – which makes it a great shortcut for me. Further info in my The Life You Can Save post.

Strategic Note: I made this donation from my Betterment account where I keep a pretty big portion of my investments. This is because of tax advantages which multiply my giving/saving power – details here at Betterment and in my own article about the first time I used this trick.

$5000 to the Choose FI Foundation – this was an unexpected donation for me, based on my respect for the major work the ChooseFI gang are doing with their blog and podcast and meetups, and their hard-charging ally Edmund Tee who I met on a recent trip. They are creating a curriculum and teaching kids and young adults how to manage their money with valuable but free courses.

$2000 to the True Potential Scholarship Fund, set up by my inspiring and badass Omaha lawyer friend Ross Pesek. Ross first inspired me years ago by going through law school using an extremely frugal combination of community and state colleges, then rising to the top of the pack and starting his own firm anyway. Then he immediately turned around and started using some of the profits to help often-exploited immigrant workers in his own community with both legal needs and education.

$1000 to plant one thousand trees, via the #teamtrees effort via the National Arbor Day Foundation. I credit some prominent YouTubers and Elon Musk for promoting this effort – so far it has resulted in over 20 million trees being funded, which is a lot (roughly equal to creating a dense forest as big as New York City)

$5000 to Bicycle Colorado – a force for change (and sometimes leading the entire United States) in encouraging Colorado leaders and lawmakers to shift our spending and our laws just slightly away from “all cars all the time” and towards the vastly more effective direction of accommodating bikes and feet as transportation options. Partly because of their work, I have seen incredible changes in Denver, which is rapidly becoming a bike utopia. Boulder is not far behind, and while Longmont is still partially stuck in the 1980s as we widen car roads and build even more empty parking lots, these changes slowly trickle down from leaders to followers, so I want to fund the leaders.

$5000 (tripled to $15,000 due to a matching program that runs until Dec. 31) to Planned Parenthood. Although US-centric, this is an incredibly useful medical resource for our people in the greatest need. Due to emotional manipulation by politicians who use religion as a wedge to divide public opinion, this general healthcare organization is under constant attack because they also support women’s reproductive rights. But if you have a loved one or family member who has ever been helped during a difficult time by Planned Parenthood, you know exactly why they are such an incredible force for good – affecting millions of lives for the better.

And finally, just for reasons of personal and local appreciation, $1000 to the orchestra program of little MM’s public middle school. I have been amazed at the transformation in my own son and the hundreds of other kids who have benefited from this program. They operate a world-class program on a shoestring (violin-string?) budget which they try to boost by painstakingly fundraising with poinsettia plants and chocolate bars. So I could see that even a little boost like this could make a difference. (He plays the upright bass.)

You could definitely argue that there are places that need money more than a successful school in a wealthy and peaceful area like Colorado, and I would agree with you. Because of this, I always encourage people not to do the bulk of their giving to local organizations. Sure, it may feel more gratifying and you may see the results personally, but you can make a much bigger difference by sending your dollars to where they are needed the most. So as a compromise, I try to split things up and send the lion’s share of my donations to GiveWell where they will make the biggest difference, and do a few smaller local things here as a reward mostly for myself.

So those are the donations that are complete – $99,000 of my own cash plus an additional $10,000 in matching funds for Planned Parenthood. But because environment and energy are such big things to me, I wanted to do one more fun thing:

$5000 to build or expand a local solar farm.

This one is more of an investment than a donation, but it still does a lot of good. Because if you recall, last year I built a solar array for the MMM Headquarters coworking space, which has been pumping out free energy ever since. My initial setup only cost me $3800 and it has already delivered about $1000 in free energy, more than the total amount used to run the HQ and charge a bunch of electric cars on the side.

So, I plan to invest another $5000, to expand the array at HQ if possible, or to build a similar one on the roof of my own house, possibly with the help of Tesla Energy, which is surprisingly one of the most cost-effective ways to get solar panels installed these days. These will generate decades of clean energy, displacing fossil fuels in my local area while paying me dividends the whole time, which I can reinvest into even more philanthropy in the future.

What a great way to begin the decade. Let’s get on it!

—

* Die With Zero is not yet released, but I read a pre-release copy that his publisher sent me. The real book comes out on May 5th

** Also, if you find the scientific pursuit of helping the world as fascinating as I do, you should definitely watch the new Bill Gates documentary called Inside Bill’s Brain, which is available on Netflix.

from Money 101 https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/12/28/let-the-roaring-2020s-begin/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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andrewdburton · 5 years ago

Text

Let the Roaring 2020s Begin

—

As I type this, there are only a few days left in the 2010s, and holy shit what a decade it has been.

Ten Years of Learning in Three Points

I think the real meaning of “Wisdom” is just “I’ve seen a lot of shit go down in my lifetime and over time you start to notice everything just boils down to a few principles.”

The books all say it, and the wise older people in real life all say it too. And for me, it’s probably the following few things that stand out the most:

Speaking of Richer:

I recently read two very different books, which still ended up pointing me in the same direction:

And here’s where it all went!

$5000 to build or expand a local solar farm.

What a great way to begin the decade. Let’s get on it!

—

* Die With Zero is not yet released, but I read a pre-release copy that his publisher sent me. The real book comes out on May 5th

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/12/28/let-the-roaring-2020s-begin/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Genius or manchild? Reconsidering Steve Jobs after his daughter's book

The statement from Steve Jobs' widow arrived via email, unrequested, in the middle of Labor Day. "Lisa is part of our family, so it was with sadness that we read her book," it began, the "we" referring to Laurene Powell Jobs and her sister-in-law, the novelist Mona Simpson. "The portrayal of Steve is not the husband and father we knew," it continued. "Steve loved Lisa, and he regretted that he was not the father he should have been during her early childhood."

It's what any PR expert would call "getting ahead of the story" — the story being Small Fry, an autobiography by the Apple founder's first child Lisa Brennan-Jobs, daughter of Christine Brennan, which was released the next day. Never mind that Lisa was technically part of Steve's family circle before either Laurene or Mona (younger birth sister to Steve, who was put up for adoption). If you get your riposte in first, the advice goes, you control the narrative.

SEE ALSO: Lisa Brennan-Jobs shares tangled memories of her imperfect father, Steve Jobs

But as any journalist would tell you, it's the kind of statement that gets our spidey senses twitching, more for what it wasn't saying than what it was. It didn't refute any specific allegation in Brennan-Jobs' book. It didn't have anything to say about Powell Jobs telling Lisa "We're just cold people," or her regret that she married Jobs too young, or any one of a dozen scenes in which she does little to prevent her husband's controlling, heartbreaking, manchild-like behavior toward her stepdaughter.

As I discovered when I sped-read the thing so you don't have to, the statement had nothing on the book. Small Fry recounts simple scenes in Lisa's life in an unhurried fashion, with a novelist's eye for detail. (She openly admires her author aunt Mona, even after Mona writes a fictional version of Lisa's life without asking.) In contrast with most tell-all autobiographies, this one actually suspends authorial judgment.

What a relief that is, especially in 2018. Lisa Brennan-Jobs is the anti-Omarosa. Her book is an even-handed, surprisingly poetic, quietly devastating record of the witness that she bore, and is now sharing with us.

This testimony will make most readers think differently about Jobs. And in the age of Trump and #MeToo, Small Fry is another good example of why we should stop forgiving or enabling powerful men who act like assholes toward women and refuse to grow up.

"You get nothing!"

From an extract in Vanity Fair and an interview in the New York Times, we already knew a few of Small Fry's more shocking moments. Jobs bullied and gaslighted his daughter throughout her childhood — at first denying his paternity and child support payments, then repeatedly denying that he named the Apple Lisa computer after her. The lie tortured Brennan-Jobs until Bono, of all people, made him 'fess up.

But the shock of the big stuff is nothing compared to the accumulation of small details, through which you feel you're living Lisa's childhood and teenage years. She went to live with her father and Powell-Jobs during middle and high school, on condition that she stop seeing her mother. Her self-doubt and loneliness are painfully, almost claustrophobically real. She develops a tic where she can't control her hands, and breaks many glasses. She feels unable to breathe when her father pays her attention or affection. (More often he didn't, even point-blank refusing to swing by her room and say goodnight to her.)

Stuck in a cold bedroom because Jobs wouldn't fix the heat, made to wash all the dishes because he wouldn't fix the dishwasher (in high school, Lisa finally called a repair guy herself), babysitting her young half-brother whenever Laurene and Steve wanted her to, she comes across as a real-life Harry Potter — or, as she thought of herself at the time, Cinderella.

Brennan-Jobs' self-awareness in shaping her story is part of what makes her seem a reliable witness. "I was both the one hurt and the narrator of the hurt," she writes after telling a neighborhood boy her Cinderella story. "I would learn which complaints worked and which ones didn't trigger much sympathy in others."

Fundamentally, however, she is guileless and straightforward. She's lonely, she tells her father again and again. Even with a therapist sitting right there with them, it elicits no response.

Brennan-Jobs' mother almost comes off worse than Jobs. A wannabe artist who drifted from hippie boyfriend to hippie boyfriend, Christine openly admitted — usually with screaming and swearing — that she wasn't up to the task of motherhood. One time this happened when she was behind the wheel of a car. Brennan-Jobs stayed as quiet as possible, praying to a crack in the windscreen to keep them safe as her mother swerved across the road.

Lisa was lost, confused, and yearned for a connection with her remote, famous dad. But he blew up at her more often than he charmed her with trampolines and roller skate outings. "You get nothing!" he screamed at her when she asked for one of his many discarded Porsches. He became mad at wealthy neighbors who paid her way through college when he refused to do so. He made Lisa's friends cry with his insults, and he verbally assaulted waitresses while Mona and Laurene sat by, silently.

Then there's the sex stuff, which ... if it doesn't cross a line, it sidles right up to it. According to Lisa, he liked to point out to his child daughter that the Stanford tower "looks like a penis," and repeatedly told a story about a friend masturbating while watching Ingrid Bergman sunbathe. He draws his daughter a bath and later tells her she should masturbate.

And in the book's ickiest scene, he made Lisa watch as he began practically simulating sex with her stepmother, Powell Jobs. (He did much the same thing with his previous girlfriend, a woman named Tina, whom he later regrets leaving for Powell Jobs; Tina tells Brennan-Jobs that such ostentatious making out "was what he did when he felt uncomfortable.")

If I was Powell Jobs, I wouldn't want to remember my spouse that way, either. But we all have different memories of the dearly departed, especially when it comes to someone as mercurial as Jobs.

The child inside

I interviewed Jobs around a dozen times in the 2000s, when Apple was still just another tech company, before the iPhone secured his legacy. His tactics during an interview largely consisted of telling the reporter why their questions were "stupid." If you could withstand 20 minutes of this behavior, or if you started to use reverse psychology to get good quotes out of him, he'd suddenly smile: You were okay, you got it, you were in the club.

The other compelling memory I have of Jobs is him leaving a restaurant in Palo Alto. In jean shorts and a black T-shirt, with a plastic takeout bag in one hand, he idly made airplane shapes with his arms as he walked down the street. Exactly like a child.

The hectoring, reality-controlling Jobs that Brennan-Jobs writes about feels like one of the most true depictions we have. People longed to be drawn into his orbit for the good moments, the flashes of brilliance or mere attention, for which they slogged through the bad.

But maybe that isn't good enough any more. Maybe "Time's Up" not just in Hollywood, but also in the tech world. Maybe we need to stop spreading the lie that genius can only come from jerks.

In his 2012 authorized biography of Jobs, Walter Isaacson spends a lot of time considering this question: Would the Apple founder still have been a great man with a legacy of killer products if he hadn't been so cruel to his employees? If he hadn't become a millionaire in his mid-twenties? Did parking his Porsches in the disabled spots for his entire career make the iPhone happen any faster? What if he hadn't quit Apple in a snit in 1985? If he hadn't spent a decade down the rabbit hole of his failed next company, NeXT, might the modern world have arrived a little earlier?

What if he'd used his powers to motivate and inspire people with sternness, but also with love?

Brennan-Jobs tells how her father used to carry a picture of her around in his wallet, denying she was his kid even as he showed her off to others as the kid of a friend he was helping out. "He loves you," her mother said. "He just doesn't know that he loves you." It took the emotionally stunted Jobs a long time to learn what love meant. We can speculate on the reasons why, and to what extent his adoption had anything to do with it; we can also speculate whether that's just making excuses for behavior that was clearly abnormal.

At the very end of his life he apparently knew it: He cried and apologized on his deathbed, Brennan-Jobs tells us. He repeated the words "I owe you one" over and over. It's practically the textbook definition of "too late."

She has forgiven him, and the book ultimately leaves any questions of worldly remedies to the reader. But the final pages do contain the closest thing we get in this non-judgmental book to a judgment on her turbulent father (emphasis mine):

This is on all of us as a society, but men especially. We should stop giving our fellow men license to be jerks — for the sake of everyone around them, for the victims like Lisa, but also for their own sake. The more that men in positions of authority act poorly, the more they're missing out.

See Steve Jobs through his daughter's eyes and you're left with a profound sense of pity. He was a genius who didn't get what the whole family thing is supposed to be about, and he acted horribly. Nobody dared call him out for being a brat. In the future, when public figures and business leaders behave this way, we need to be less afraid of shining a spotlight on this behavior as it's happening.

Or as Jobs itself might put it, we need to learn to think different.

WATCH: Elon Musk opens up about the toll Tesla takes on him

#_author:Chris Taylor #_category:yct:001000002 #_uuid:a425c0c7-193e-3556-977d-bfc2468f5eba #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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ntrending · 7 years ago

Text

Last week in tech: Listen to our new podcast

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Last week in tech: Listen to our new podcast

Keeping up with tech news is hard. New products show up, big companies make sweeping announcements, and Elon Musk casually mentions his latest insane ideas on a weekly basis. That’s why we do these weekly wrap-ups. Now, however, we have expanded this helpful content into a podcast called Last Week in Tech. Please check out the first episode on SoundCloud or iTunes. Our boss said if we were going to sit around arguing about technology all the time, we had to “make it into content” because it’s our job or whatever, so it would really help us out.

It’s an experimental project for now, but it gives us, the PopSci tech team, a chance to dig deeper into the most important, interesting, or just entertaining stuff from the tech world. In the future, you can count on improved audio quality, more spirited discourse, and me continuously trying to coin catch phrases.

Now, on to the stories.

Philips now makes Hue lights for outside

Connected light bulbs are often one of the first steps folks take into the realm of smart home devices. Now, Philips is expanding its popular line of Hue lights into people’s yards. The new outdoor lights work on the same platform as the typical Hue lightbulbs, and models include spotlights, wall-mounted fixtures, and illuminated pillars to line walkways. You can control them with Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, and the new products include both white and colored lights. So, if you want to trick your neighbors into thinking a UFO is landing in your yard, this is your chance.

Amazon’s Alexa started laughing randomly, but Amazon fixed it

If your Amazon Echo devices started cackling for no reason last week, then you weren’t alone. Amazon officially addressed the issue and changed Alexa’s laugh, as well as the prompt required to evoke it. Many people wondered why Alexa needed to laugh in the first place, so we asked an expert.

Lots of weird new cars showed up in Switzerland

The Geneva Auto Show is happening right now in Switzerland, but most of the new rides have already been announced. You can check out our round-up of the notable announcements here, including some truly impressive stuff from Aston Martin, as well as a vehicle referred to as a “self-driving living room.”

Some Penguins found a camera and it was adorable

You can achieve some truly magical things if you leave a running camera near some interesting wildlife. The latest example of this phenomenon comes from the Australian Antarctic Division. The video shows a couple emperor penguins investigating the camera and creating a video that’s equal parts fascinating and adorable. Watch the video here.

Elon Musk said some cryptic stuff about Hyperloop

Remember when Elon Musk said his underground tunnels would whoosh cars around on subterranean skates? Well, plans have apparently changed, as Elon says the Boring Company will concentrate on moving people instead of their vehicles. That might change again, of course, and we’ll probably all find out about it via Twitter.

An Apple patent shows potential for an improved keyboard

The keyboards on the latest model MacBook Pro haven’t garnered much love from users or reviewers because of their flat nature, lack of space between the keys, and their propensity to jam up when debris like crumbs gets inside. A newly-public patent, however, shows Apple’s plan for keeping junk out of the sensitive underside, which would allow the butterfly switches to flap freely. We don’t know if this will ever see real life.

Smash Bros. is coming to Nintendo Switch this year

Nintendo recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of the excellent Switch console. As part of the celebration, the company released a teaser for the upcoming Smash Bros. title. The teaser focuses on a pair of characters from Nintendo’s popular Splatoon franchise, who will presumably join the cast of the game. Now might be a good time to buy a rugged case for your Switch controllers in case you throw them down in frustration after a tough match.

Samsung announced its new TVs as a part of your smart home

TV announcements can be droll and boring, but Samsung tried its best to spice up the unveiling of its 2018 QLED TVs. One of the biggest new additions is Ambient Mode, which turns your television into a huge smart screen that displays things like weather and headlines from the New York Times. The new sets also got support for Samsung’s smart assistant, Bixby, and integration into the SmartThings connected device platform. Samsung is slowly but surely building a foundation for a cohesive smart home, which is great if you love giant screens in every room of your house (we do).

Leica made an all-black camera that I want, but can’t afford

For those who are unfamiliar, Leica is a renowned camera company with a history of making insanely limited special edition models. Its latest is an all-black version of its Leica M Monochrom, which only shoots black-and-white digital photos. The camera is a collaboration with fashion company rag & bone, and it’s almost entirely black, except for a few markings on the lens and body, which glow in the dark. It’s wildly impractical in a variety of ways, including its run of just 125 and its $15,750 price. It sure is pretty, though.

Written By Stan Horaczek

#Technology

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phooll123 · 7 years ago

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Elon Musk says The Boring Company’s Loop will prioritize pedestrians, cyclists

The Boring Company

Elon Musk started The Boring Company in late 2016 because he was frustrated by sitting in his car in Los Angeles traffic. A system of tunnels, he reasoned, would alleviate certain traffic choke points. The idea turned into reality throughout 2017, as Musk tore up the parking lot outside of his SpaceX headquarters, testing boring machinery to find weak spots that engineers might improve upon to make tunnel-digging faster and cheaper. The idea also changed a bit: instead of simply looking to build the cheapest tunnels, The Boring Company wanted to build a "Loop" inside its tunnels. The Loop would be a modified version of Musk's Hyperloop idea, but it would not pull a vacuum and cars would be lowered into the tunnel system where they would be put on electric skates and zipped off to their destination automatically. According to some tweets from Elon Musk last night, though, the idea has once again morphed. "Adjusting The Boring Company plan: all tunnels & Hyperloop will prioritize pedestrians & cyclists over cars," the executive tweeted, adding: "Will still transport cars, but only after all personalized mass transit needs are met. It's a matter of courtesy & fairness. If someone can't afford a car, they should go first." Does this sound exactly like a subway? Yes. It does. But Musk says this idea will be slightly different. He tweeted: "Boring Co urban loop system would have 1000s of small stations the size of a single parking space that take you very close to your destination & blend seamlessly into the fabric of a city, rather than a small number of big stations like a subway." Granted, people who live in Manhattan or Paris might feel that their subway system has an adequate number of stations, but many large cities in the US have subway or light rail systems with poor station density, and a system that transports cars as well could have an advantage. Still, the main problem with building massive infrastructure for public transportation is not generally a problem of technology, it's a problem of politics. A sad example is the California High Speed Rail project. On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the bullet train intended to link Los Angeles and San Francisco in three hours had dramatically missed deadlines and blew through budget limits. In 2014, project operators estimated they would have a system up and running by 2021. Now the system may not be fully operational until 2033. The original project was supposed to cost $33 billion. Yesterday, the Times estimated that the cost will come to $77.3 billion and could rise as high as $98.1 billion. Contributors to that rising cost include years of delays, lawsuits to hinder or stop the project, and opposition from communities that don't want a rail system passing through. A system of small tunnels could bypass some of the aesthetic concerns that communities might have, but it may not eliminate some of the structural concerns. Of the California High Speed Rail project, the Times wrote: "The cost of environmental reviews jumped from a projected $388 million in 2010 to more than $1 billion. The rail authority found that nobody could be sure what was under the ground in Fresno [a California town through which the bullet train would pass], driving up the cost of relocating sewers, water lines, communications cables, and electrical conduits by hundreds of millions of dollars." For now, The Boring Company seems to be making connections with authorities in Maryland, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Until any real digging starts, it's hard to tell if this will become as real as SpaceX or Tesla, or just vapor infrastructure. (To his credit, Musk appears to be self-aware about this, tweeting a poll that asks whether tunnels are an "impossible pipedream" or a "stupid hole in ground" or "both.") Until then, the CEO tweeted a video rendering of what a Loop station might look like:

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