Personal Growth — September 6, 2011

Silicon Valley’s Self-Help Mentor

An entertaining read about self-help author Timothy Ferriss, who urges the would-be New Rich to check e-mail no more than twice a day and set automated “unavailable” responses.

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

Self-help author Timothy Ferriss had an epiphany in 2004. Working 12-hour days, 7-days-a-week, he realized he’d prefer to spend his time learning the tango in Buenos Aires. He found that, by automating his business life as much as possible, he was able to pull it off. Ferriss advises the would-be New Rich to check e-mail no more than twice a day and set automated responses advising correspondents of their unavailability.

What’s the Big Idea?

Ferriss professes to be untroubled that his own freedom to live “outside of the inbox” is bought by transferring drudgery to the inboxes of less fortunate individuals in the developing world. “There are people I have outsourced to in India who now outsource portions of their work to the Philippines.” One of his favorite new startups is a company which outsources internet-based work such as transcription to refugee camps and other impoverished communities.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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