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Wise Words for April Fool’s Day 2020

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

In honor of April Fool’s Day I thought I’d share a gem from Henry David Thoreau.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

The goal, of course, is to avoid, or at least limit, the time you spend as either the lead fool or the follower fool.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Wise Words From Richard Feynman

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (deceased) provides words that should be taken to heart.

No further comment is necessary.

Hat tip to CB Insights for sharing it.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Origins of Entitlement

Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedailyenglishshow/16760477796/

I was going through some very old cuttings and this one jumped out at me.

I want all of my rights immediately, but have no urgent need of my obligations.

It was originally written about teenagers.

These days it seems to fit a lot of folks in the tech world and beyond — way beyond.

From sea to shining sea and on to Wall Street, then south to DC and the halls of Congress and the White House.

Image credit: studio tdes

Educational Fraud

Tuesday, June 4th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dharmabum1964/3108162671/Have you ever wondered how much smarter VCs, money managers, corporate CEOs, and the super wealthy really are? (They’re not.)

What “due diligence” actually involves? (Not what HP did.)

Do they really fall for scams and do stupid stuff like the rest of us? (Absolutely.)

CB Insights recently shared 17 Of The Biggest Startup Frauds Of All Time.

I found it hilarious (I have a warped sense of humor) and well worth reading.

Click the link (or save it for later) and all your questions will be answered.

Image credit: Beatnik Photos

Golden Oldies: Quotable Quotes: April Fools Day

Monday, April 1st, 2019

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonny2love/3405825968/

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we humans could relegate all our foolishness and foibles, both word and deed, to this one day of the year. Instead we tend to spread them across the year and repeat them over and over and over…

All humans are fools at times; some more often than others. Those who claim otherwise are usually found in the ‘more often’ category.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Can you believe? Q1 is over, done, gone and all we have to show for it is a day especially for fools. So on this day dedicated to fools and foolishness I offer you up some foolish words of wisdom.

Way back in 1894 Mark Twain wrote a book in which the main character, Pudd’nhead Wilson, says, “This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.” A home truth if there ever was one.

If you plan on pulling any pranks today you might want to keep Will Shakespeare’s words in mind, “Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”

Ben Franklin must have been thinking of politicians when he said Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.”

As usual, it’s Will Rogers who nails April Fool’s Day perfectly—not to mention the upcoming elections, “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.”

Finally, we can all see the truth in this old Welsh Proverb, “If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings;” all we have to do is look in the mirror.

I wish you a wonderful day full of pranks, silliness and friends.

Happy April Fools Day!

Flickr image credit: Jonny Hughes

If The Shoe Fits: an Entrepreneur with Balls (Literally)

Friday, March 1st, 2019

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

It doesn’t matter which side you were on regarding the recent shutdown, because you were probably effected.

Maybe it was you, a relative or friend. Or maybe a friend or relative of a friend who couldn’t feed their kids or pay their mortgage/rent.

People were angry; some wrote letters, most unloaded online.

The more entrepreneurial (opportunistic) converge on Café Press.

But one entrepreneur went much further.

Greg Miller, founder of Neuticles, a company that sells testicular implants for neutered dogs so they appear unneutered, used his own product to make a statement.

As the shutdown has dragged on – it entered its 34th day Thursday – he is preparing to send his product to all 53 Senate Republicans, plus Vice President Mike Pence, with the message: ‘We are demanding that you gain testicular fortitude and have enclosed a pair of Neuticles to help achieve the necessity to stand up against the sole interests of this rogue president.”

Miller’s company, based in Oak Grove, Missouri, will spend around $13,000 on mailing plus the cost of the product.

He knows that sales are likely to take a hit from his actions, so why do it?

“I just want them to get some damn balls and think of America, not their political party.”

Male or female, entrepreneurs are known for being tough, in other words for having cojones, i.e., balls.

Greg Miller certainly does — in more ways than one.

Image credit: HikingArtist

My Holiday Vacation

Friday, December 21st, 2018

I haven’t taken more than a few days off here and there since I started writing this blog in 2006 and that’s a long time.

I’ve also written numerous times that unwired vacations are critical to productivity and creativity.

The unwired part is especially critical — whether they are vacations or staycations.

Thus, from now until January 2 Mapping Company Success will go dark and I’ll indulge my staycation doing all the tuits I haven’t gotten ‘round to, which includes a clean, organized office.

Wow! I’m excited! (No sarcasm, I really am.)

That said, I do want to wish you a very special holiday before I unwire, so I looked for something special to share and I found it.

Something that fully embraces all my ambivalence of the season.

Take care and I’ll see you next year!

Video credit: David Gurney

3 Immutable Rules for Passwords

Wednesday, September 5th, 2018

 

In spite of my dislike of social media I know there is interesting stuff lurking amidst the inane, the garbage and the hate.

Fortunately, much of what I’m missing is referenced in stuff I do read, such as CB Insights, which is where the following showed up.

And here’s a link to my approach to make passwords easy.

Image credit: CB Insights

A Joke, 3 Links and Time Off

Friday, June 29th, 2018

 https://hikingartist.com/2015/04/15/fish-in-doubt/

 

It’s the last day of June and I’m a bit burned out. So I’ve decided to do something I have done in the 12 years of this blog.

I’m going to take the entire next week, July 1-7 off. Call it a mental health week.

Rather leave you with nothing to do while I’m gone I thought I’d share a three valuable links and one excellent joke (or maybe it’s a meme)

A techie and his wife were having a conversation about their attitudes towards life and death.

The techie had very strong feelings about his end-of-life preferences. He said didn’t want his brain frozen or any other Silicon Valley ideas.

“Never let me live in a vegetative state, totally dependent on machines and liquids from a bottle. If you see me in that state I want you to disconnect all the connections that are keeping me alive, I’d much rather die.”

At that point, his wife got up from the sofa with a look of pure admiration on her face and came towards him.

She gave him a hug and proceeded to disconnect the Cable TV,  DVD, computer, smart phone, iPod,  Xbox, and Alexa.

Then she went to the bar and threw away all the whiskey, rum, gin, vodka, along with the beer from the fridge.

Then she held him tenderly and used mouth-to-mouth to help him breathe.

Because her husband almost died.

As to the links,

Obvious as it sound, watching experts does not improve your skills.

A pair of researchers from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business conducted six separate experiments in which people who watched an expert demonstration of a particular skill experienced a big surge in confidence in their own skill-doing ability, and zero increase in their actual ability.

A first person account of why you shouldn’t always believe websites, social media or reviews.

Freakin’ Awesome Karaoke Express (or F.A.K.E., for short). I made it up and paid strangers to pump up its online footprint to make it seem real. I didn’t do it to scam anyone or even for the LULZ. I wanted to see firsthand how the fake reputation economy operates. The investigation led me to an online marketplace where a good reputation comes cheap.

Impressive. John Perry Barlow founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, contributed to the Grateful Dead as a lyricist and in figured out what it took to be a good adult.

According to his Reddit AMA four years ago: “I found myself so surprised to have reached an age of indisputable adult that I wrote up a set of “adult principles” that I’ve been trying to live up to for 35 years.” The rules below are concise, practical, and can be applied to nearly every aspect of life: from waiting in line at the market to having a difficult conversation with a loved one.

Have a fabulous Fourth of July and I’ll see you on the 9th.

Image credit: HikingArtist.com

Dollars to Donuts

Wednesday, May 16th, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/richardgiles/4463805539/

What do you do when you are bored / broke / dim / greedy?

Especially if you live in California?

File a lawsuit, of course.

Not only do you sometimes win, but 40 years later someone produces a musical about it.

In the 1970s, a 29-year-old woman named Gloria Sykes sued Muni for $500,000 (roughly $3.1 million today) for a head accident on a Hyde street cable car that turned her into a nymphomaniac. The widely publicized event and ensuing court battle brought in psychiatrists and the woman’s lovers to testify on her behaviors, and—as might only happen in San Francisco—she won her case.

These days, cable cars are passé and the focus is on food.

From the vagaries of baked dough in Subway’s Foot-long subs to Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme.

The basis of the donut lawsuits is the same.

Both have blueberry donuts that, gasp, don’t actually have blueberries in them. The same goes for

Krispy Kreme’s raspberry-filled donuts and, horrors, the maple bar is not made with real maple syrup.

This, of course, is a cause of major trauma to the millions of people who buy them for their healthful properties.

Now you know what to do when you are bored / broke / dim / just plain greedy.

Hat tip to CB Insights for alerting me to the Krispy Kreme story.

Image credit: Richard Giles

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