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    The Stroop Effect

    This is fun.

    The Stroop Effect is a well-known psychological phenomenon that challenges how we name physical colours when they are used to spell the name of a different colour. Take our test and see how quickly your brain responds to the task.

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    Questions For A Better Future

    I’m at a crossroads. I need to change some hard entrenched habits. While I’m aware of what I need to do, sometimes I still need to remind myself.

    There are two questions I have to answer:

    1. What am I not doing now that one day I’ll wish I had started earlier?

    2. What am I doing now that one day I’ll wish I had done less of?

    Until I get the answers situated in my head, I’ll just be hanging out at the crossroads. I need a path and way to make decisions easier on myself. Answering these questions will ultimately help me have a better, stronger, healthier, and longer future.

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    Time to Get Rid of the Lottery

    Leah Muncy, writing in The Outline, has an in-depth story on state lotteries. She calls it a scam that predominately targets poor people. She’s absolutely right.

    Despite the one-in-292-million odds of winning the multi-state Powerball jackpot (you have a greater chance of dying from a falling coconut, which is one in 250 million), Americans spent $71.8 billion on lottery tickets in 2017. The bulk of this revenue was generated by the largest consumers of lottery tickets, who also happen to be the poorest Americans.

    I know this, but it is still fun to buy a ticket when it’s some astronomical number and then dream a bit. I never have any anticipation of winning aside from, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…”

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    There Are No Alternate Universes

    If there is an alternate universe for every possibility, then there is a universe where alternate universes don’t exist. And we exist so we have to live in that universe. Therefore there are no alternate universes.

    However, we are definitely in the darkest timeline.

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    Join the Fight

    What a great design.

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    Handy Equations

    I’ve never been very good with math or equations, but this post from Nicholas Bate certainly makes a lot of sense to me.

    1. innovation=creativity + action

    2. work in+lag=results out

    3. EQ (emotional intelligence)=2 x IQ, in terms of importance. 

    4. Wellness=M(meditation) xE(exercise) xD(diet) x S(sleep)

    5. communication is joined up; bullets are not joined up; PowerPoint (alone) is not communication

    6. important plus investing (working ON things) > important plus urgent (working IN things)

    7. love beats all
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    “Lost in You” by Childish Gambino

    Like A Version is a segment on Australian radio station triple j. Every week a musician or band comes into the studio to play one of their own songs and cover a song they love.

    This version of the Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines song by Childish Gambino is freaking incredible. Stripped down to just a keyboardist, background vocalists and Donald Glover’s falsetto, I’d love him to release this on Spotify.

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    I Played Trump in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Debate Prep. Here’s What It Takes to Beat Him.

    Philippe Reines, writing in Politico, presents several suggestions on how to beat Trump in a debate. He should know, he played him during Hillary Clinton’s debate prep.

    Never admit you’re wrong. It is safe to say in a debate against Trump that he or the moderator will press a weakness in your past you’ve likely addressed countless times before. You could spend your allotted time repeating yourself, or you can say, “Are you kidding? You’re asking about some lobbyist I met with a decade ago while this guy has installed a revolving door in the White House? No. Let’s talk about how people are paying him $200,000 to get into his club and then getting their money’s worth out of him. If there’s still time, you can come back to me.”

    Yes. The Democratic candidate cannot back down or be contrite to Trump. You can’t hurt Trump by attempting to shame him or point out a weakness so the candidate must never agree with any weakness a moderator or Trump himself calls out upon the candidate. The candidate must always remember Trump is a bully.

    [O]ur nominee should know that Trump will lie throughout their debate, but can’t count on the moderator to call them all out and can’t expect the audience to know on their own. So our nominee needs to be able to say, “You’re lying.” Easier said than done. Especially if Trump lies every time he opens his mouth.

    One possible tactic is to simply, and calmly, count out loud. First time he lies, the nominee should say, “That was the first of many lies to come because that’s what he does best.” After that, when Trump lies again, the nominee should interject with a simple “Lie number two,” or, “That was a few, so we’re up to six.” The moderator might scold the candidate for interrupting, but he or she should respond, “If you were calling out his lies, I wouldn’t have to. But someone has to. He gets away with it all day every day. But not here, not now."

    That’s decent advice. My simple addition would be when Trump inevitably says, “I’m not lying, you’re lying,” the Democratic candidate should say, “There you go again,” echoing Reagan.

    Ultimately, Trump will come across as a bully with lots of bluster. All you have to do is punch him in the nose repeatedly.

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    All 180 Rush Songs, Ranked

    Jordan Hoffman, writing for Thrillist, has put together a ranking of all of the Rush catalog. While I’m certainly not a Rush aficionado, I’m not sure Hoffman’s top ten is even remotely right. Still, I admire his gumption on taking on this challenge. Makes me want to try my hand at doing the same thing for all 200 plus KISS songs.

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    Mondays

    Nicholas Bate with some start-of-the-week advice.

    Still there until you get the hang of them.

    It’s you or them.

    Decide.

    Sometimes, attitude is all.

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    Rats

    In case you missed it, the President of the United States is a racist. Over the weekend, he decided to go after Rep. Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore.

    The Baltimore Sun was having none of it.

    It’s not hard to see what’s going on here. The congressman has been a thorn in this president’s side, and Mr. Trump sees attacking African American members of Congress as good politics, as it both warms the cockles of the white supremacists who love him and causes so many of the thoughtful people who don’t to scream. President Trump bad-mouthed Baltimore in order to make a point that the border camps are “clean, efficient & well run,” which, of course, they are not — unless you are fine with all the overcrowding, squalor, cages and deprivation to be found in what the Department of Homeland Security’s own inspector-general recently called “a ticking time bomb.”

    In pointing to the 7th, the president wasn’t hoping his supporters would recognize landmarks like Johns Hopkins Hospital, perhaps the nation’s leading medical center. He wasn’t conjuring images of the U.S. Social Security Administration, where they write the checks that so many retired and disabled Americans depend upon. It wasn’t about the beauty of the Inner Harbor or the proud history of Fort McHenry. And it surely wasn’t about the economic standing of a district where the median income is actually above the national average. No, he was returning to an old standby of attacking an African American lawmaker from a majority black district on the most emotional and bigoted of arguments. It was only surprising that there wasn’t room for a few classic phrases like “you people” or “welfare queens” or “crime-ridden ghettos” or a suggestion that the congressman “go back” to where he came from.

    This is a president who will happily debase himself at the slightest provocation. And given Mr. Cummings’ criticisms of U.S. border policy, the various investigations he has launched as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, his willingness to call Mr. Trump a racist for his recent attacks on the freshmen congresswomen, and the fact that “Fox & Friends” had recently aired a segment critical of the city, slamming Baltimore must have been irresistible in a Pavlovian way. Fox News rang the bell, the president salivated and his thumbs moved across his cell phone into action.

    As heartening as it has been to witness public figures rise to Charm City’s defense on Saturday, from native daughter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, we would above all remind Mr. Trump that the 7th District, Baltimore included, is part of the United States that he is supposedly governing. The White House has far more power to effect change in this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress including Mr. Cummings. If there are problems here, rodents included, they are as much his responsibility as anyone’s, perhaps more because he holds the most powerful office in the land.

    Finally, while we would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner — or ruefully point out that he failed to spell the congressman’s name correctly (it’s Cummings, not Cumming) — we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.

    That last line… burrrrn.

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    Cable for Streamers

    M. G. Siegler, writing at his site 500ish.com, says piracy is coming back in full force not for music but for television shows and movies. He thinks the price isn’t the issue but the lack of a unified service to connect all the services together.

    Even if you are eventually paying for all of these services, the experience of using them as their own, stand-alone apps is sub-par. Which is a nice way of saying “crap”. It’s like an egg hunt in a coal mine. Friends was on Netflix, now it’s on HBO Max. The Office was on Netflix, now it’s on NBC Whatever. So and So Movie was on Amazon Prime Video, but now it has been pulled to stream exclusively for the next three month window on Showtime. You will not be able to keep up with it all. Nor should you.

    In a way, the success state here ends up looking like… cable. A simple, unified UI to serve up the different content you want. Even better if you can buy different content sources as… bundles. Funny that.

    Basically, he thinks Apple or some company is going to create a “cable company” for all the streaming sites.

    I think he’s wrong. Or maybe I should say he’s not quite right.

    To my mind, what people want is to curate their own entertainment by show. I said this back in March.

    Let’s say I want to watch Game of Thrones, Star Trek Discovery, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, all the seasons of Criminal Minds, Shameless, Doom Patrol, This is Us, Russian Doll, Cobra Kai and live sports. I’d have to subscribe to nine streaming services and probably a cable package to get it all.

    This is untenable.

    What Apple or some company needs to do is create a way for every television show, live event, and movie to be available for streaming by name. I don’t want to subscribe to nine different streaming services. I want one service that costs me maybe as much as $100 a month, and I get everything.

    That’s it. Plain and simple.

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    How My Daughter and I Connect Over Our Favorite Pastime

    Elizabeth McCracken, writing for Real Simple, has a charming story about her and her daughter bonded over going to the movies last summer.

    It made me think a lot about my own daughter and me going to see movies as often as we could when she was little because it was something we both truly enjoyed. In fact, after reading the story it made me want to go see a bunch of movies with my kiddo even though she now lives a few hours away.

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    “I Was Cyber-Blackmailed Over a Consensual Dick Pic”

    Adam Elder, writing in MEL Magazine, has a horrifying story about cyber-blackmail. It made my skin crawl.

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    Easy Watercolor

    Shibasaki is an elderly Japanese watercolor artist with a YouTube channel in which he teaches you to paint a rainy day in a village, figures on a street, and cherry blossoms. Watching him work is soothing and inspirational. I’ve never really had a desire to do watercolors, but after watching one of his videos I kind of want to try.

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    Time to Die

    Rutger Hauer, best known for his performance as replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, has died at 75.

    Blade Runner is not my all-time favorite film, but it’s in the top three. Bilge Ebiri, writing in The New York Times, writes about his performance in the film with obvious reverence. It was a chilling yet soulful performance.

    Of course, he will be most remembered for his short, dying soliloquy that director Ridley Scott allowed Hauer to improvise. It was poetry in a neon-noir movie, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

    What a beautiful piece of acting.

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    The Only Thing That Matters

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    Daily Productivity

    Nicholas Bate with your productivity list

    1. Address true priorities for the day (set by Personal Compass, not urgency nor ease. More here.)

    2. Vertical timeline: 30 minutes slots. Priorities matched to timeline.

    3. Batch work on digital interrupts.

    4. Minimise meetings by reducing numbers attending, clear goals and shorter length.

    5. Regular breaks to stand, stretch, sip water and ask: what’s really, really important here?

    6. Chaos in the day? 97% of the time it’s the result of poor planning in the past. Fix it for the future.

    7. Go home on time. All work and no play etc.

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    Customs

    Fifty years ago, the Apollo 11 astronauts had to go through customs after landing. Basically, they left Florida, took a detour to the Moon, and landed in Hawaii. Plus, they declared moon rocks and dust.

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    The Mueller Report

    The Mueller Report, originally released as a scanned image PDF, is now available via the Digital Public Library of America as a text-based EPUB document with 747 live footnotes and is conformant with both Web and EPUB accessibility requirements.

    Seems appropriate about now.

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