Links for Later 10-29-15

1. Maggie Stiefvater reflects on creativity as a form of dream thievery.
2. The Turkish elections are shaping up to be quite a mess. Wishing the Turkish people all the best.
3. Ukrainian elections are shaping up to be just weird. People dressed up as Star Wars characters are winning some elections, getting arrested in others. 
4. The Republican Party's strategy "continues to assume that the government is too mean to rich people and too nice to poor people."
5. A social history of the Salem witches.
6. The soundtrack to Hamilton is on repeat at my house.
7. When Beyonce met Jonathan Groff, as told by Lin-Manuel Miranda: "Groff got embarrassed. But he said I could tell you. Next three tweets.
1.  Beyonce: Did you play the King? Groffsauce: Yes. Beyonce: I'm stealing your walk. I love your walk. Groffsauce: *inarticulate sounds*
2. Beyonce: When you turned away still facing the audience? *BEYONCE DEMONSTRATES FLAWLESSLY* Beyonce: You were your OWN turntable. Love it. 
3. And then, in Groffsauce's own words "Then the ground swallowed me up and I died happy." Thus endeth the meeting of Beyonce & Groffsauce.
4. There is no straight-male equivalent for the ecstasy of Beyonce telling you "I love your walk." ESPECIALLY for Groffsauce, walk enthusiast.
5. Bruce Lee: "Can you teach me that cool kick?" That's the closest I can approximate to what happened to Groffsauce.

Links for Later 10-20-15

1. Kevin Kelly and Mark Frauenfelder list the Top 50 factual podcasts. We are not on this list. Yet.
2. A very good, foul mouthed rant about the status of brain simulation.
3. The frenzy over the puzzle book Masquerade.
4.  Mr. Robot gets introduced to the UK.

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 013: Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson wants help you relax. He's an online hypnotherapist and designer of a wildly popular series of hypnotherapy apps and mp3s.

Today, we talk about how to use relaxation techniques, including hypnosis and guided meditation, to change habits and improve quality of life.

We also contrast the mental state of relaxation produced by hypnosis or guided meditation from that of simple mindfulness techniques and the memory palace technique I discussed with Anthony Metivier in the previous episode, which I'm using while I'm interviewing Anthony, as I mention during our conversation ("the beach in Greece"). Anthony is a "non-visualizer", while I'm at the other end of the spectrum.

Anthony also takes us through a simple "aliveness" meditation inspired by Eckhart Tolle, which you can use to help you focus, relax and feel more at home in your body.

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Show Notes and Links

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 012: Anthony Metivier

Anthony Metivier, proprietor of MagneticMemoryMethod.com, has taught fifty thousand people how to improve their memory using the memory palace technique. He is a one man content factory, producing books, podcasts, online videos and courses to teach foreign languages, meditation and relaxation, and memory improvement.



Today, we talk about how you can improve your memory, what makes for a good online course, and why friendship can be  monstrous.

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Show links and notes

Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal reached

Trade representatives reached a deal on the Trans Pacific Partnership this morning. Here's the live press conference:

Links for Later 9-4-15

1. If we regulated firearms like abortions.
2. Why the world is getting weirder.
3. Moog stopping production of the Voyager.
4. Shakespeare's father appears to have been a wealthy wool merchant & tax evader with dodgy connections. Shakespeare himself may have been the family's representative in London who did theatrical producing gigs on the side.
5. Anne Sexton, "The Truth the Dead Know".
6. Paul Romer's article "Endogenous Technological Change" introduced the concept of nonrival and excludable goods 25 years ago. Joshua Gans has a review of its impact. Paul Romer looks back.

The Mysteries of Planned Parenthood

I do not understand how or why a Planned Parenthood counselor would or could advise Sarah Jones to get an abortion when that counselor presumably knew that Sarah Jones was not pregnant.

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 011: Warren Ellis

Warren Ellis is a master storyteller with over twenty years experience producing amazing stories as serials, singles, graphic novels, books and films. He is also a very funny man, in all the best senses of the word.

From his website:

Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name.

Today, we talk politics, life in the Thames Delta, managing the creative pipeline, quiet technology, glamorless utilities and cunning folk. His new and forthcoming work includes TREES and the new James Bond graphic novels.

Listen on iTunes.
Please subscribe, rate and review us there as well.

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Startup Geometry Podcast EP 010: Nicolas Cole

Today, I talk with Nicolas Cole, a Creative Director with Idea Booth, a branding consultancy and think tank. When he was a teenager, he was a  highly ranked World of Warcraft player and blogger, spending hours online as an Undead Mage while skating through high school. Now, Cole is a Quora Top Writer, author, fitness model, and marketing expert. In this episode, we talk about how he physically and mentally transformed himself over the last seven years, and what it takes to overcome the limitations you impose on yourself.

Listen to us on iTunes

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Show Notes and Links

Links for Later 9-20-15

1. Canada's vanishing data and archives.
2. Warren Ellis' work tools.
3. Are Ad Blockers ethical? I say yes.

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 009: Alice Dreger

In this episode, I talk with Alice Dreger, author of Galileo's Middle Finger and former Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. She resigned from the position following a dispute over censorship of an issue of the medical humanities journal Atrium.

I first heard about Alice when she livetweeted her son's sex ed class, and in this episode we talk about the state of sex ed today, her work as an advocate for intersex individuals and conjoined twins, how she became interested in studying scientific controversies and contrarians, and answer some questions from listeners.

Listeners who have what used to be called a "sensitive constitution" may wish to avoid this episode, as we speak frankly about several adult topics, including genital anatomy, sexual behavior, and academic funding. Due to a higher than normal amount of email this month, any complaints about this episode must be hand-delivered to our Complaints Department, located in the secret caverns underneath Ulaan Bator, Mongolia.

If you enjoy these podcasts, please use iTunes to download, subscribe, rate and review each podcast, as this helps introduce us to new listeners.

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Show Links and Notes:

Oliver Sacks on Smell: The Nervous System and the Soul

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 008: Justine Simonson and Marcus Lehmann of How To Make It In Berlin

Today, I talk with Justine Simonson and Marcus Lehmann, filmmakers and creators of the YouTube series How To Make It In _________.

From Justine &  Marcus:

How To Make It In: Berlin is the premier season of a web series about small businesses and the owners who took a risk in creating them. This season features 10 unique entrepreneurs and small business owners from Berlin's street food scene, tech startups, the service industry and more. Each season will be filmed in a different city around the world; Berlin is the premier location. Part travel show, part business series, How To Make It In:________ presents an in-the-know guide to its location while also delivering helpful tips for anyone who's ever dreamed of quitting their day job and starting fresh.

The How To Make It In: Berlin series is available at  www.howtomakeitin.co and  on YouTube

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Show Notes

• What makes Berlin a good city for startups?
• The essentials of a good documentary funding pitch
• Ratio of shooting and editing
• Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.
• Justine's work on Years of Living Dangerously and Doomsday Preppers
• Marcus's work on an Antarctic Icebreaker and Punkin' Chuckin'
• What goes in your gear bag or go bag? Headlamps, a legal release app for filmmakers on iPad, a wireless boom mike
• Cameras: Canon 5D, Sony FS7, GoPro
• Where else they'd like to film 

If you enjoy these podcasts, please use iTunes to download, subscribe, rate and review each podcast, as this helps introduce them to new listeners.

Witness Me!

If I'm going to die, I'm going to die economic on the Fury Road.

I have an interesting observation about wages and the attention we pay to different types of inflation:

An interesting reaction to prices: we would be terribly concerned about 6% wage growth, yet find 6% energy price growth (or growth in any other volatile price) perfectly acceptable, because we have found a lot of volatility in the latter and less in the former in recent decades. Following decades of increases in worker productivity coupled with an absence of wage growth, we could have 30 years worth of catch up growth in median worker wages before we really need to worry about runaway inflation. Yes, automatic labor price increases embedded into contracts in the 60's and 70's contributed to high inflation in the 70's; however, those automatic increases leading to wage spirals are gone for most workers. Yet, members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are having conniption fits over a tight(er) labor market, worried about "inflation" which has not appeared yet.

More than that, there remain substantial pools of workers who have passed in the opposite direction from "employment" to "unemployment" to the invisible category of "discouraged worker" who must be employed before we need to start worrying about labor costs increasing very much. Until then, the Fed should not raise its rates.

Witness me! 

or 

Refute me!

Links for Later 8-3-15

1. Why do student loans cause the cost of college to rise?
2. Why are students at Princeton so stressed out?
3. Why have productivity and pay diverged for so many workers?
4. Can machine learning methods teach economics some new tricks?

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 007: Alex Bandar of the Columbus Idea Foundry

Live from the Columbus Idea Foundry makerspace and incubator, I talk with Alex Bandar about protoyping products, neighborhoods, cities and the Idea Foundry itself.

Alex Bandar is an engineer with a specialization in materials science and computer assisted design. In 2008, he founded the Columbus Idea Foundry, which has recently moved into a new and larger space, becoming the largest makerspace in the country. It is an anchor for the redevelopment of the Franklinton neighborhood of Columbus, and an important part of the Columbus entrepreneurial ecosystem.

September 19th and 20th, 2015, the CIF will take part in the Independents' Weekend and will hold an open house as part of the event. If you're in their neighborhood, please stop by for a visit.

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Show Notes & Links

Columbus Idea Foundry

Franklinton Development Corporation

IC3D Printers Printers and high spec filament developed at the Foundry.

"Scrape" the electric motorcycle, designed by Todd Perkins, who also developed "The Inhaler", a high speed electric car, and other high performance experimental vehicles.

Jotnot

The Four Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss

Over on Twitter, Mattermark's Danielle Morrill is laying down some good tips for founders who are out pitching for A Rounds.

Links for Later 8-22-15

1. Putin is reshuffling his inner circle as money runs out. (via Marginal Revolution)
2. Did socialism keep capitalism equal? (via Economist's View)
3. What kept population from growing in the ancient world?

Links for Later 8-15-15

1. Nonsensical centrists and debt stupidity.
2. Several things that needed to be said, but would not have needed to be said if the world was a better place: Chicago does not need a Katrina. New Orleans did not need a Katrina. Teachers are better at educating children than are random entrepreneurs. If you give away too much of your taxes as tax expenditures and/or fail to make pension contributions, your budget will break.
3. The John Feathers Map Collection, acquired by the Los Angeles Public Library, instantly doubled their map collection. Feathers had collected an entire house-full of maps. Maps on the walls, maps in filing cabinets, maps, maps, maps.
4. The dreadful, data-driven culture that is Amazon. A current employee pushes back.

Startup Geometry Podcast EP 006: Ed Cooke

Ed Cooke is a Memory Grandmaster and CEO of Memrise, a company dedicated to making you better at learning and memory. Today, we talk about ways to maximize your memory, how get more out of life by paying better attention to it, and the Epicurian value of having good friends around you in life and work.

Links and transcript to follow.

Please subscribe, download, rate and comment through iTunes. This helps our ratings and allows us to reach more listeners.

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