miscellany, by branden

“ The ultimate test of a man’s character is the health of his wife

— Cyril Connolly

Poem: Oh Yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often 
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than 
too late.

by Charles Bukowski

Kazakhstan's Radioactive Legacy

http://su.pr/2rKBpN - Chilling photojournalism of Kazakhstan’s radioactive legacy which has silently devastated three generations of people in Kazakhstan.

“ It’s precisely when we stop believing in the idea that gods made religions that things become interesting, for it is then that we can focus on the human imagination which dreamt these creeds up.

— http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/utopia-june

“ When we skip a vacation to work overtime or pass up that awesome vintage Porsche for a used minivan—sure, we pat ourselves on the back for a week or two. But as the years go by, we invariably regret our monkishness and wish we’d enjoyed ourselves more.

— Wired

“ Rather than scaling vertically and building a company with systems, levels and people around you to do the jobs you don’t want to do or are just plain bad at, you scale vertically and look for ways to keep the “business” as small and simple as possible.

— Simplicity-Driven Entrepreneurship

“ Make something people want” is the destination, but “Be relentlessly resourceful” is how you get there.

— Paul Graham

“ What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: No more.

— http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html

“ A team from the University of Pisa in Italy found the bodily chemistry which makes people sexually attractive to new partners lasts, at most, two years.

— Seems 5 years was too optimistic! Source: BBC NEWS

“ Nothing kills startups like distractions. The worst type are those that pay money: day jobs, consulting, profitable side-projects. The startup may have more long-term potential, but you’ll always interrupt working on it to answer calls from people paying you now.

— Startups in 13 Sentences