Human history is a few thousand years old, and we still haven’t really figured out things like sex and death. We can do both, but we don’t really understand their full power over us — and it’s all about to get a lot more complicated thanks to virtual reality.
What Oculus Rift And Virtual Reality Mean For Sex, Death, Violence And Identity
Sunday, June 8, 2014
What Oculus Rift And Virtual Reality Mean For Sex, Death, Violence And Identity
Soviet Doctors Cured Infections With Viruses, And Soon Yours Might Too
In the Soviet Union, western antibiotics couldn't make it past the Iron Curtain. So Eastern Bloc doctors figured out how to use viruses to kill infectious bacteria. Now, with antibiotic-resistant bugs vexing doctors, that eerie yet effective method might come our way.
Soviet Doctors Cured Infections With Viruses, And Soon Yours Might Too
Sleep Plays A Huge Role In Memory Formation
Scientists have discovered how sleep is key to learning and forming new memories. How much sleep do you get and is it enough?
Sleep Plays A Huge Role In Memory Formation
When you pivot, you fire the plan, not the people. See why in 2 minutes
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Here’s the pivot, explained in 2 heavenly minutes, by Lean Startup deity Steve Blank:
This story originally appeared on Steve Blank.
When you pivot, you fire the plan, not the people. See why in 2 minutes
Should You Have A Right To Sell Your eBooks And Digital Music?
How should the first sale doctrine apply to digital goods? Members of Congress came to New York to hear the opinions of publishing executives, librarians and others.
Should You Have A Right To Sell Your eBooks And Digital Music?
This Is The First Vine Ever Recorded In Space
American astronaut Rick Wiseman posted a sped up tracking shot of Earth's terminator line — the point at which its surface is divided into "night" and "day" by the sun — as seen from the International Space Station.
This Is The First Vine Ever Recorded In Space
The Bizarre Underground Expansion Of London's 1%
Because London’s strict planning rules restrict building upwards, digging downwards has been the solution for owners who want to expand their property’s square-footage. As a result adding new subterranean floors to London houses has become a highly lucrative business.
The Bizarre Underground Expansion Of London's 1%
So, you made your ‘f*** you’ money. What’s next?
Image Credit: Shutterstock
As exits have been flowing nicely again the past few years, many of the entrepreneurs I work with have experienced their first big exit.
I refer to this moment as when you find that you have life changing money in your bank account, which I like to call “fuck you money.” You now can do whatever you want with the rest of your life.
I was on a walk with an entrepreneur recently who was wrestling with this when we ran into another entrepreneur I had backed who had an exit a while ago and had wrestled with the question of “what’s next.” We chatted briefly and then he hopped on his bike and continued his ride.
Later in the day, I got the following magnificent note in my inbox from my bike-riding, successful friend.
I was thinking about the ‘what’s next’ conversation. I’m sure you’ve seen everything and are all over it, but in my more limited experience, for some people it’s harder than the what’s first conversation (i.e., should I start a company or not?).
I find, unfortunately, that a reasonable percentage of people chase their tail endlessly looking for the next big win, but they can never catch it because they have no idea what they are chasing. Their life spirals inward as they get more unsure of themselves, more frustrated, more unhappy.
I think this state of uncertainty and self doubt causes more depression, divorce and addiction for some people than starting and running a company. Especially if they’ve never felt failure before. Now they fail all the time and they can’t figure it out.
I think it’s mostly because they never find passion again, or they look for it in the wrong places. There are a million things they can do in the world, but the spend most of their time looking for the next great technology company that sells a better widget but doesn’t necessarily change their life in any meaningful way.
They have grand opportunity because they are unbound to do something they truly love. If you love mentoring, mentor, if you love the environment, help it. If you love children, teach them. If you love your family, share with them. Give back to everyone who gave to you on the path to success, and then give more broadly to everyone who seems deserving.
To me, that’s the real grand victory.
Totally brilliant. And so simple.
I had my first exit when I sold my first company (Feld Technologies) at age 28. After the dust settled and I had sold all the stock I’d received, I’d made somewhere between $1 million and $2 million after tax.
When my wife, Amy, and I talked about “what’s next” when I was 29.5 (about the time I finished working for the company that bought mine), one of the options for consideration was to retire and move to Homer, Alaska.
I was making plenty of money consulting, and, while I was investing much of the money I made from the sale into new companies as an angel investor, the idea of living in Homer was attractive. We figured we could easily live for the rest of our life on consulting income and what we’d managed to save, even if none of the angel investments I was making turned into anything.
When one of them was acquired a few months later and we had another $1 million after tax, we realized that we could easily live on $40,000 per year of cash in Homer, which would last us about 25 years if we made no other income.
We were deeply in the “should we just call it quits and go live a different life conversation.” But at almost 30, I just didn’t feel done, and in many ways I felt that I was just at the beginning of a new journey (which turned out to be true.)
So we packed up, moved from Boston to Boulder, and decided to build a life in Colorado while I continued to invest. This was 1995, and the path from there has been powerful and dramatic.
By 1999, I had to ponder “what’s next” again after a number of my angel investments returned more money to me than I ever thought I’d have, and then again in 2002 after getting massively crushed by the collapse of the Internet bubble and losing even more money on paper than I expected I’d make cumulatively in my lifetime.
I’ve been through the “what’s next” discussion with Amy several times, including in 2004 when I doubled down on Mobius Venture Capital (instead of packing it up and calling it quits), in 2006 when we decided to start Techstars and Foundry Group, and again in 2013 after spending six months being extremely depressed.
Each time, I’m adjusted how I spend my life in the way my friend talks about in his final paragraph:
They have grand opportunity because they are unbound to do something they truly love. If you love mentoring, mentor, if you love the environment, help it. If you love children, teach them. If you love your family, share with them. Give back to everyone who gave to you on the path to success, and then give more broadly to everyone who seems deserving.
If you’ve recently had some success, as you go into the weekend, take some time out to ponder how you are you thinking about this. And share if you have any insights!
The post After Your First Big Success, What’s Next? appeared first on Feld Thoughts.
This story originally appeared on Brad Feld.
So, you made your ‘f*** you’ money. What’s next?
Want to cut heat in the city? Paint the roads white
Image Credit: BMW
It’s fair to say we don’t give roads much thought unless they’re doing something wrong.
You certainly notice them when you run over a pothole, for example. But what about when they’re radiating heat on a hot summer’s day?
The effect of all those roads is estimated to increase city center temperatures by as much as 12 degress Fahrenheit. Could lighter roads be the answer?
It’s a question being asked by the Cool Change Cities Project (Renew Economy). As much as 24 to 35 percent of a city area is dedicated to roadways, and they’re typically paved with asphalt.
This dark surface absorbs the daytime heat, radiating it out again all day and into the night and raising overall temperatures. Combined with buildings and other human-made spaces, it contributes to the “heat island effect”, where urban areas are significantly warmer than rural land.
That, in turn, increases energy use. An extra 12 degrees of heat on a summer’s day means an extra 12 degrees of cooling to bring a building or car interior down to a comfortable temperature.
Painting building roofs white has already worked to great effect in tests, reducing the amount of energy a building uses to keep cool. The lighter exterior reflects heat better than a typical dark roof.
There was even a rumor several years back that the sale of black cars would be banned in California, based on similar thinking — though this did turn out to be just a rumor.
Roads wouldn’t need to be painted white, exactly — though doing so would reflect significantly more heat than existing surfaces.
Instead, using a pale resin in their construction or lighter aggregate particles to produce a lighter road surface would go some way to reflecting rather than absorbing daytime heat.
There are issues with this, to a degree. A fairly light surface could result in a lot of glare from the sun, particularly at higher latitudes during the winter, when road glare can be an issue even on dark asphalt.
It would also require roads to be dug up and replaced, which costs money and uses huge resources.
Still, it could save resources too. According to the Cool Change Cities Project’s leader, Michael Mobbs, one recent example of a road repaved in a pale surface cost $58 million, versus $57 million in energy savings.
And roads need repaving anyway — why not make them lighter when the time comes?
This story originally appeared on Green Car Reports.
Want to cut heat in the city? Paint the roads white
5 reasons you should forget the coding bootcamp & study online instead
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Teaching coding languages and skills is a critical need in today’s technology-infused society, but we’re falling behind in the talent wars.
Even though programming jobs are some of the best paying in the world, the gap of qualified developers and programmers is only projected to increase in the next several years. In fact, it’s estimated that there will be 1 million jobs left vacant by 2020 because of this alarming lack of qualified developers.
The lack of qualified talent in the computer science field has created fertile ground for the growing number of coding boot camps popping up across the nation. In fact, a recent study found that this year, the number of boot camp graduates is expected to triple from last year’s numbers, yielding nearly 6,000 graduates.
These intensive, multi-week full-time courses claim that they provide students with the necessary skills they need to join the world of developers.
While boot camps can assist with providing new skillsets and helping fill the talent gap, they are still somewhat limited in what they can offer. Here are a few reasons why e-learning is a better alternative:
- Location. While most boot camp courses are located only in major cities like San Francisco, Boston, and New York City, e-learning allows students to take these courses anywhere, without incurring the additional cost of relocating to attend these boot camp courses. E-learning removes these barriers to entry and provides a similar experience from the comfort of one’s personal computer or mobile device.
- Cost. E-learning provides an excellent education that is a mere fraction of the cost of a traditional boot camp, which cost an average of $9,900. This opens up a path to becoming a developer to a much broader population, something that is desperately needed right now.Although the cost of education has slowed down, it is still on the rise indefinitely. Embracing e-learning gives students an affordable way to receive a top-notch education.
- Scope. In today’s market, developers need to know various languages to meet the needs of the ever-changing tech landscape. Boot camps usually only teach one language when most developers need to have command of various languages and tools (not to mention non-development skills like DevOps and creative).E-learning courses provide students with myriad languages and approaches to solving the complex problems they will be faced with in the field. These courses also give students access to hundreds of instructors, providing access to different perspectives and experiences and allowing for a richer learning experience. Boot camps may limit students in their learning by only providing a few teachers at most.
- Flexibility. Many students enrolled in boot camp courses are taking them with the intent of changing careers. However, not all those who want to make a career change can start a full-time training course, as an average course lasts 10 weeks.Online learning allows for a more flexible schedule, so students can complete their training on their own schedule, whether in a few days, weeks or months. Studies have shown that when students can control the pace of their learning, they perform 60 percent better and have a much higher retention rate compared with instructor-led learning.
- Marketability. Many boot camps don’t set up students for ongoing learning after they graduate from the program. This is a missed opportunity, as new developers cannot show off their fresh, newly learned skills to potential employers.Independent study online can help with career placement and allow developers to find their dream job through resources like interview preparation and resume building.
The glamor of trekking to the big city and immersing oneself in code for several weeks is an appealing prospect for thousands of people. But a wider swath of the population is finding that e-learning provides a much richer and more in-depth opportunity, helping to fill this dearth in developers.
Aaron Skonnard is CEO of Pluralsight, a hardcore training ground for coders and creatives.
5 reasons you should forget the coding bootcamp & study online instead
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