Shock Notes

Having big earth-shattering goals is important.  These are the towering “meaning of life” goals.  They drive us and give us a reason to wake up each day. The reason most people don’t pursue the big goals is that they appear too daunting.  They are intimidating.  They are simply too big to start.  Pursuing the big […]

I have always been fascinated by history, and one of the best tools I’ve found for understanding history is the timeline.  Timelines give you a chronology, concretely placing specific events before others to establish a cause-and-effect relationship. There should be a “master timeline” on the Internet, sort of like how Wikipedia has become a “master […]

The Internet Archive is a massive (as in, more than 15 million gigabytes!) archive of the Internet.  Alexa is an Amazon-owned company that provides web traffic data on the Internet.  Combining these two services, I could do a quick analysis of how the World Wide Web has evolved over the past several years. The following is […]

Pineapples can be more than just a sweet tropical treat.  Besides simply cutting them up and eating them, there are a few other uses of pineapple. How to choose a pineapple When selecting a pineapple at the store, look for the ones with healthy green leaves. Gently press them. They should feel firm with no […]

Oh No! My stocks are down 15%! The stock market doesn’t always go up. If it did, we’d all be millionaires by now. Sometimes your stocks will take a tumble. When that happens, don’t fret—history shows that it’s no big deal. If anything, it may signal a great time to buy more stocks. It pays […]

getAbstract is a service that provides 5-page summaries of business books.  The company I work for gives me unlimited access to the service, and I have made a habit of reading one or two abstracts daily while taking notes. So far, I have read over 130 book abstracts.  The abstracts allow me to effectively skim […]

For those not wanting to eat so much red meat, this burger solves the problem by mixing in about 50% mushroom and breadcrumb fillers. Ingredients small onion, finely chopped 2 cups mushrooms, finely chopped 1 pound lean ground beef 1 cup breadcrumbs 0.5 tsp sage 0.5 tsp oregano 1 tbsp tomato paste 1 tbsp water […]

Do we even need to segregate bathrooms by gender anymore? These days people are more private than they were when your grandfather was young. I can’t speak for women, but I’ve been in plenty of men’s restrooms. Lots of closed off stalls and every urinal is sectioned off with a divider. If a woman walked […]

The now-defunct BabyWorld.co.uk site was an excellent baby resource based in the UK.  When my wife was pregnant years ago, I tried out several of the pregnancy recipes on the site.  The recipes make great dishes even if you’re not cooking for a pregnant wife. Since the BabyWorld is now gone and the content was […]

The annualized return of the S&P 500 over the last 12 years is 5.9% My annualized return over the last 12 years is 10.8% Investing isn’t for generating wealth. It’s for preserving it. So I’m not rich, but I do okay. Over the course of my working career, I’ve saved up a lot of money […]