Author Archive

But who keeps a food journal? Exactly.

Unless you have extreme note-taking OCD like me, it’s too much of a pain in the ass to write down what you eat and track it all. I use the online food database here to keep my facts straight, but data entry sucks no matter how you slice it.

Here are first-look highlights of the FoodScanner, which launched a few hours ago and is now available… Read More

John Smith making another title look like child’s play (no audio)

From 1994-1995 I had the great pleasure of training with wrestling legend John Smith, 2-time gold medalist and 4-time world champion (domestic freestyle record of 80-0; international freestyle record of 100-5).

He was famous for his low leg attacks that made even Olympic finals look like textbook demonstrations.

The problem was, of course, that I was in New Hampshire at boarding school and had never met John Smith. I only trained with him 45-60 minutes per night while I was lucid dreaming. I went on to have my best career season, which culminated with a more than 20-0 record before the national championships… Read More

Photo: Laughing Squid/Scott Beale

Before I had to establish my no-blurb/no-review policy for books due to volume (picture: one day’s mail), I received an e-mail from Rick Smith, the founding CEO of the World 50, one of the most exclusive senior executive networking companies on the planet, with members and contributors like Bono, Francis Ford Coppola, and Phil Knight… Read More

This is a short Random episode — 10:30 — and easily the most disgusting to date. I also think it’s the funniest. Imagine Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations if he didn’t need to edit for cable.

This episode has some educational bits, but it’s focus is on enjoying the not-always-so-smooth experience of travel.

Not for the faint of heart.

From Glenn:

The following video segment is a continuation of the randomly shot randomian-thought random show project with Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose. This time, we’re not in a library nor are we out on a boat dock fishing for fish – we’re on a street corner in Jinggu. At night. And it’s not really cold outside. It’s slightly humid with a dusty breeze coming out of the southwest.

Audio Note: Most of this was recorded with a Shure-VP88 stereo condenser mic (good with headphones). Apologies for when I don’t have it pointed in correct direction (sounds like they’re behind us).

To borrow from Gary Vee, here is the Question of the Day (QOD): What is the most disgusting or confusing travel experience you’ve ever had?

(Photo: Africa Within)

Total read time (bolded sections) = 5 minutes
Total read time (all) = 40 minutes

I am embarrassed to tell you that, up until three weeks ago, I had never read Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham City Jail. It is, without a doubt, one of the best case studies in how to deal with criticism I’ve ever come across.

Much like the historic Declaration of Independence (4-minute read time) and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (30-second read time), not much happened immediately following publication.

The direct action that it helped catalyze, however, prompted police abuse that became front-page news around the world.

The news created pressure on the US government for a response, and when Martin Luther later spoke with President John F. Kennedy, it’s reported that JFK’s message was much the same as the clergymen below: please be patient; time will solve this.

Reverend King’s response was purportedly a simple statement of fact. “I can’t stop this movement. The children plan to march on to the capital.”

JFK’s then sighed and changed his tune: “OK. What do you want, Martin?”

Check mate… Read More

This pre-China trip includes the below:

- Personal experiences with Y-Combinator, demo days, and pitching new ideas through avenues like YC.

- Five things you can do as a new startup to get your ideas, app, or product in front of influencers.

- Tweaking your website: per-user metrics, cost per acquisition, lifetime value of the customer, etc..

- The iPhone 3GS, talking some about the new updates and then a short comparison with the Palm Pre.

- Learning new languages and reactivating old ones (in this case, Mandarin Chinese).

The above list is taken from Glenn McElhose’s blog, where you can also find links to all of the sites and products mentioned in the show.

This post will show exactly how one start-up improved their homepage conversion rate (visitor to sign-up flow) more than 20%, then 16% again, with a few simple changes and Google Website Optimizer.

Once reading this, you will know more about split-testing than 90%+ of the consultants who get paid to do it… Read More

Roger Bannister broke the mythical 4-minute mile barrier in 1954. (Source: Guardian UK)

Dean Kamen is no stranger to innovation.

He’s also no stranger to doubters and skeptics. People said the Segway was impossible, but Kamen disagreed, and he was right.

“Don’t tell me it’s impossible,” he says, “tell me you can’t do it.” “Tell me it’s never been done. Because the only real laws in this world–the only things we really know–are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell’s equation–no, scratch that, the only things we really know are Maxwell’s equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That’s all we know that’s true. All the rest are man’s laws…”

Read More

(Photo: Dustin Diaz)

How much more could you get done if you completed all of your required reading in 1/3 or 1/5 the time?

Increasing reading speed is a process of controlling fine motor movement—period.

This post is a condensed overview of principles I taught to undergraduates at Princeton University in 1998 at a seminar called the “PX Project”. The below was written several years ago, so it’s worded like Ivy-Leaguer pompous-ass prose, but the results are substantial. In fact, while on an airplane in China two weeks ago, I helped Glenn McElhose increase his reading speed 34% in less than 5 minutes.

I have never seen the method fail. Here’s how it works…

The PX Project

The PX Project, a single 3-hour cognitive experiment, produced an average increase in reading speed of 386%.

It was tested with speakers of five languages, and even dyslexics were conditioned to read technical material at more than 3,000 words-per-minute (wpm), or 10 pages per minute. One page every 6 seconds. By comparison, the average reading speed in the US is 200-300 wpm (1/2 to 1 page per minute), with the top 1% of the population reading over 400 wpm… Read More

Big goals? Learn to think small. (Photo: H. Koppdelaney)

The following is a guest post from Chad Fowler, CTO of InfoEther, Inc.

He spends much of his time solving hard problems for customers in the Ruby computer language. He is also co-organizer of RubyConf and RailsConf, where I first met him in person.

Our second meeting was in Boulder, where he was kind enough to use his musical background and natural language experience (Hindi, among others) to teach a knuckle-dragger (me) the primitive basics of Ruby… Read More