two habit books

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Recently I reread Charls Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit” from 2012 and James Clears “Atomic Habits”. I liked them both. Again. They are good books to revisit after a couple of years.

If somebody would ask me which one they should read then I would think that people below 30 should read Clear while others might find Duhigg more rewarding. Reading the other respective other book is helpful too.

The things they point out are simple, true and immensely powerful. Having implemented some over the last decade (Duhigg wasn’t the first Author to point certain things out) I can attest to the fact that reading and understanding is one thing. Applying it consistently however is not as simple as it might feel. So reading about this part of our nature repeatedly and redundantly is a good thing. For me.

Titanic suicides

history media

In the wonderful “Ship of dreams” I read that 10 people that survived the Titanic died by their own hand later in life. I instantly explained this to me that the tragic event must have tarnished their life.

Turns out that the overall rate of suicide compared to other reasons of death is 1.4%. Since 705 people survived the disaster the statistics would predict exactly that amount of people.

Jon Steward: I miss him

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A good segment on ‘class warfare’ as per Fox & Co. I wonder how random stuff from Fox from that time would hold up: Not so well.

speaking

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I wonder if there was a ‘talk like a fascist‘ school that these guys all did go to?

plus and minus

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From the mans Twitter feed. It is amazing that there seem to be people wanting to believe that every single job added is his work.

While every job lost, every one of them, is just not his fault, and could not possible been have avoided.

His presidency is currently around 10 million jobs in the minus. Or 5 years of growth. Growth years that had exactly the same level under Obama or him. Look at the graph of job growth in the past: You can NOT find where things switched from Obama to Trump:

If the Democratic Party had any sense then they would communicate this clearly.

Instead they let the man sing his praises – over nothing. Without having a clear message that he makes shit up that is not like that.

urban devastation week

economy politics technology

Two events obliterated urban landscapes around the globe this week. Ammonium nitrate not stored properly will become a bomb. It happened many times before. 75 years ago a single bomb devastated a Japanese town.

Not violent, and so far unnoticed by press and pundits is another change: Trump directing his “lets break things to get reactions” spiel on WeChat. (And tiktok). Outside of China WeChat is not widely understood. I have never seen or used it. Neither have I handled Fertilizer components or enriched uranium. WeChat is how people do everything in China. Banning WeChat for a Chinese person is like banning the Internet for you. Why would that change the urban landscape? Much of the building boom in DTLA is fueled by Chinese investments. Chinese money erected lots of glas towers, hoping to sell at least parts of them to Chinese citizens. An A380 can get you from the Middle Kingdom to Hollywood in great comfort and less than a day. Sunshine, stars, America. That is was something to go for. But without WeChat it suddenly is no longer interesting: What good is it, if you see Jonny Depp driving by (you never do, but it sells real estate) and you can not send your friends pictures. What good is it, if the sun is always shining, but non of your family members can reach you.

For reasons that don’t matter, I care for a specific building in Downtown LA. So I check occasionally how many listings there are in Zillow:

  • May 15 – 11 listings
  • May 29 – 14 listings
  • Jun 12 – 14 listings
  • July 11 – 20 listings
  • Aug 8 – 24 listings 

This doubling in inventory has nothing to do with the impact of 45 attempting to mess with Chinese online entities. It would take months to show up in these numbers.

Prices didn’t change much. They seem to slowly decline. But no real big changes. Yet. Since money and its value is questionable right now and going forward they might never really go down. I think that – depending on what individual situations will be going forward – there will be spikes and good deals to be had. There is certainly pressure building from the circumstances.

Banning an App seems like nothing, but it is something. People exist through their screens. It is reality for them. That is stupid. But something being stupid never has stopped people from following it, as long as it tickles enough of their fancies they will continue to go where it feels good …

winning & losing

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T didn’t win in 2016. Hillary lost it. And she was a much better candidate than Joe Biden is right now. T will not win 2020. He can not.

The Democrats however might very well loose this years election.

Again.

Stimmenjagd

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Offensichtlich von 2016. 2020. Aber warum dann immer noch Frau Clinton? Had Putin vergessen für die Photoshop Lizenz zu bezahlen?

unintended Covid art

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This piece of performance art has a whole new dimension in epidemic times.

Shill Philler

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So he “advances to Apple Fellow”. Apple newspeak for loosing your job. I was not a fan of his. Jobs was a BS artist as well, his antenna response ‘you are holding it wrong’ has a clear and distinct part in America’s history of BS. PT Barnum, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump: What you say does not have to be true to be sucessful.

Phil was doing the same thing. SD card slot? Magsafe? Working keyboard? Away with it for the progress of all mankind.

Sure he got rich. But I would not want to switch with him for a single second: Bending the truth for a living must be horrible.