We place the highest value on actual implementation and taking action. There are many things one doesn’t understand and therefore, we ask them why don’t you just go ahead and take action; try to do something? You realize how little you know and you face your own failures and you simply can correct those failures and redo it again and at the second trial you realize another mistake or another thing you didn’t like so you can redo it once again. So by constant improvement, or, should I say, the improvement based upon action, one can rise to the higher level of practice and knowledge. — Fujio Cho, President, Toyota Motor Corporation, 2002 Read more →
February 2009
Snow Diary
I’m supposed to be doing some stuff in London today, but the snivelling tossers cancelled all the trains and buses because there was a bit of snow. On the bright side, shutting down our financial services industry for a day will save the country billions. — Harry Hutton Read more →
EppsNet Music Review: Springsteen Halftime Show
What year did Asbury Park come out — 1973? Man, that was a great album. So Springsteen must be what now — 60? He looks great, with his hair transplants and cosmetic surgery, shilling his new album on the Bridgestone Halftime Show. Bruce Springsteen — authentic blue-collar friend of the American working man! I couldn’t even watch it . . . Read more →
Before ADHD Was Invented
The school thought Gillian [Lynne] had a learning disorder of some sort and that it might be more appropriate for her to be in a school for children with special needs. All of this took place in the 1930s. I think now they’d say she had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and they’d put her on Ritalin or something similar. But the ADHD epidemic hadn’t been invented at the time. It wasn’t an available condition. People didn’t know they could have that and had to get by without it. — Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything Read more →
It Must Be February
I got up at five this morning, rolled into LA Fitness . . . there wasn’t one person in the entire downstairs workout area. So much for New Year’s resolutions . . . Read more →
Failure is an Orphan
For centuries, historians have debated whether history is propelled by Great Men (and Women), human forces of nature who bend events and systems to their will, or by vast impersonal forces (communism, capitalism, globalization) that render even the most powerful of us a mere reed basket floating in a massive river. There’s no session on the subject at the World Economic Forum in Davos. But at least with regard to finance and business, the consensus seems to be clear: Success is the work of Great Men and Great Women, while failure can be pinned on the system. — Daniel Gross, “Why the world’s economic leaders blame the catastrophe on the system instead of themselves” Read more →
Insulting People as a Public Service
There was a troubled-looking guy in Petco this afternoon giving away packets of Natural Balance dog food. He looked like a meth addict or something. As I walked past him, he mumbled, without making eye contact, “Want some free dog food?” “My dog won’t eat that shit,” I said, which is not true, but it certainly took the wind out of his sails. Now you might say I wasn’t very charming but by verbally assaulting him in that way, I was motivating him to rehabilitate himself and get a real job. Tough love . . . Read more →
Stealing Ideas
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down peoples’ throats. — Howard Aiken Read more →