Day: September 10, 2020

Today’s Inspirational Quote:


Today’s Inspirational Quote:

“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.”

— Alfred Nobel

Stoicism and cato


3 Stoic exercises from Cato

1) Use pain as a teacher

Cato walked around ancient Rome in unusual clothing—with a goal of getting people to laugh at him. He learned to eat a poor man’s bread and live without luxuries—even though he was a Roman aristocrat. He would walk bareheaded in the rain, shoe-less in the cold.

Cato was training himself. Small difficulties, endured with forbearance and patience, could shape his character. All of Cato’s practice paid off. Seneca, the great imperial Stoic, relates a telling story. Visiting the public baths one day, Cato was shoved and struck. Once the fight was broken up, he simply refused to accept an apology from the offender: “I don’t even remember being hit.”

2) Embrace high standards

The Stoics taught Cato that there were no shades of gray. There was no more-or-less good, no more-or-less bad. Whether you were a foot underwater or a fathom, you were still drowning. All virtues were one and the same virtue, all vices the same vice.

It is the kind of austere scheme that seems unreasonable to live by and almost entirely impossible for the flux of war and politics. But Cato made it work. He refused political compromise in every form, to the point that bribe-takers turned his name into an aphorism: “What do you expect of us? We can’t all be Catos.”

He demanded the same of his friends, his family, and his soldiers. He was infuriating to his enemies, and he could seem crazy to his allies. And yes, sometimes he took his adherence to principle down absurd, blind alleys. But he also built an impossible, almost inhuman standard that brought him unshakable authority. By default, he became Rome’s arbiter of right and wrong. When Cato spoke, people sat up straighter. When he was carted off to jail by Julius Caesar, the entire Senate joined him in sympathy, forcing Caesar to let Cato go.

Many in Cato’s day spent their fortunes and slaughtered armies in pursuit of that kind of authority. But it can’t be bought or fought for—it’s the charisma of character. His countrymen couldn’t all be Catos, but they could join whichever uncompromising side of the argument Cato was on.

3) Put fear in its proper place

On election day during a consequential race, Cato and his brother-in-law were ambushed while walking to the polls. The torchbearer at the head of Cato’s party collapsed with a groan—stabbed to death. They were surrounded by shadows swinging swords. The assailants wounded each member of the party until all had fled but Cato and his brother-in-law. They held their ground, Cato gripping a wound that poured blood from his arm.

For Cato, the ambush was a reminder that if the front-runners were willing to perpetrate such crimes on the way to power, then one could only imagine what they would do once they arrived. It was all the more important that he stand in front of the Roman people, show off his wounds, and announce that he would stand for liberty as long as he had life in him. But his brother-in-law didn’t have the stomach for it. He apologized, left, and barricaded himself inside his home.

Cato, meanwhile, walked unguarded and alone to the polls.

Fear can only enter the mind with our consent, Cato had been taught. Choose not to be afraid, and fear simply vanishes. To the untrained observer, Cato’s physical courage was reckless. But in fact, it was among the most practiced aspects of Cato’s self-presentation. And it was this long meditation on the absurdity of fear—on its near-total insignificance but for our own belief in it—that enabled him to press forward where others gave in.

Cato Quotes

Bitter are the roots of study, but how sweet their fruit. – Cato

A honest man is seldom a vagrant. – Cato

Consider in silence whatever any one says: speech both conceals and reveals the inner soul of man. – Cato

Flee sloth; for the indolence of the soul is the decay of the body. – Cato

I will begin to speak, when I have that to say which had not better be unsaid. – Cato

In doing nothing men learn to do evil. – Cato

***

word of the day – microclimate


WORD OF THE DAY
MicroclimateMY-kro-kli-mətPart of speech: nounOrigin: International Scientific Vocabulary, 1918
1The climate of a very small or restricted area, especially when this differs from the climate of the surrounding area.
 
Examples of Microclimate in a sentence “My microclimate gets plenty of sun in the afternoon, even when it’s raining just a few streets over.” “The waterfall produces a very lush microclimate full of vegetation.”

Random Paragraph


  1. It’s not his fault. I know you’re going to want to, but you can’t blame him. He really has no idea how it happened. I kept trying to come up with excuses I could say to mom that would keep her calm when she found out what happened, but the more I tried, the more I could see none of them would work. He was going to get her wrath and there was nothing I could say to prevent it.

wisdom quotes


Desire is the seed from which all achievements are harvested.
The starting point of all achievement is desire. (Napoleon Hill)
==========
It’s not how many years you’ve lived in your life, but how much life you’ve lived in your years.
In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. (Abraham Lincoln)

Random superlatives


1. free – Liberated, by arriving at a certain age, from the control of parents, guardian, or master.

2. obtuse – Not having acute sensibility or perceptions; dull; stupid; as, obtuse senses.

3. sober – Temperate in the use of spirituous liquors; habitually temperate; as, a sober man.

4. soft – Not harsh or rough in sound; gentle and pleasing to the ear; flowing; as, soft whispers of music.

5. terse – Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished.

writing prompts


  • Peace OutWhat do you find peaceful?
  • Convenience StoreWhat’s the importance of convenience?
  • Picture PerfectSomething that is supposed to be perfect but has a hidden flaw.
  • Last PersonWrite about the last person you had contact with.
  • Coffee or TeaA dialog about the merits of coffee versus tea.

A Riddle


I’m measured in temperature and time, but have neither. What am I?

The answer is: Longitude and latitude.

A cloud was my mother, the wind is my father, my son is the cool stream, and my daughter is the fruit of the land. A rainbow is my bed, the earth my final resting place, what am I?

The answer is: Rain.

nik’s book summaries newsletter I like


Heyo, Nik here with your free summary of the day.

If you enjoy these, check out our reading guide. It’ll help you learn and remember more from everything you read.

Happy reading!

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1-Sentence-Summary: Energy makes you smarter by helping you understand where this important aspect of our lives comes from, how we’ve used it throughout history to get to where we are today, and why we need to be careful about how we consume it so that we can have a better future.

Read in: 4 minutes

Favorite quote from the author:

Energy Summary

If I say the word “energy,” what comes to your mind? Is it the feeling you get after you’ve finished your morning coffee? Or possibly it’s how you feel when you’ve just had a great night’s sleep. Maybe you even consider your physics classes and certain equations come to mind. 

Whatever the case, this scientific principle has played a vital role in our species’ evolution as long as we’ve existed. We’ve harnessed energy by using tools, plowing fields with oxen, and more recently learning how to burn fossil fuels. Figuring out ways to use energy more efficiently has always been a core of mankind’s progression.

Now, however, we’re starting to face some grim realities of how we’ve been consuming energy for the last few years. It’s time to understand this law of physics better and find healthier ways of keeping our world going. And this is exactly what Vaclav Smil teaches in his book Energy: A Beginner’s Guide.

Here are the 3 most powerful lessons I’ve discovered from this book:

  1. Energy means a lot of different things to humans but is important no matter how you choose to look at it.
  2. Nothing on earth can survive without this precious resource.
  3. We need to look to wind, solar, and especially nuclear energy if we want to reduce the negative consequences of our past energy uses.

Ready for an energizing discussion on this important piece of your life? Let’s get right to it!If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Download PDF

Lesson 1: We have a lot of different definitions of energy, all of which are important.

How we speak when referring to energy shows us that we’re not certain what it actually means. We use phrases like “he really energized the audience with that speech,” for example. Or if someone is training for a triathlon they might feel energized after a swim.

But did the speaker perform some sort of magic to put electricity into the crowd? And wouldn’t that swim actually deplete your energy? It’s clear that we use this word in lots of different ways to mean multiple different types of it.

The origin of energy is the Greek word energeia, which was created by Aristotle. In this first meaning, it referred to work, motion, or action. Now we think of it more in terms of performing work or having the power to make change happen.

We even consider something as simple as sitting and pondering our next business move to be this type of work. Although we might think we’re not moving, our bodies are still hard at work keeping us alive even while we’re motionless. In other words, we’re still using energy!

According to the first law of thermodynamics, it’s impossible to create or destroy energy. It only gets transferred from one thing to another. This shows us that the idea is more abstract than we might initially realize. It’s more like a way of interpreting how energy is converted between different types. 

If you rub your hands together, for example, they become warm. This is an example of changing kinetic energy into thermal energy. 

Although energy is a complex idea, it’s been an important part of our history. And more than we might think, as we’re about to discover!

Lesson 2: This precious resource is a key component to the survival of everything on our planet.

Everything the light touches has to have energy to survive. Well, living things, at least. It doesn’t matter if it’s your power-hungry uncle or a lion on an African savanna. Without energy, it will die. Let’s dive deeper into how this works.

Going back to our idea about energy conversion, this is also what living things do to survive. Take plants, for example. They absorb sunlight through leaves and then convert that into a form of food for themselves. This is how they grow.

Humans and other animals also utilize energy exchanging processes to stay alive. The bacteria in your stomach helps your body break down complex organics, such as plant leaves, to get the energy that keeps you alive. 

You can think of it being similar to the circle of life, actually. 

But those organisms that are further away from the origin of energy-solar radiation-the harder it is for them to get energy because there isn’t enough. This is why there are a lot more plants than animals and a lot more plant-eating animals than carnivores.

And not everything uses energy in the same way. Younger creatures use more than older ones, for example. And wolves physiology lets them run farther than cheetahs, which have a design that lets them use energy more rapidly.

Lesson 3: Our future is bright as long as we look to and begin using renewable sources of energy to sustain us.

While we can’t accurately predict what’s going to happen for our energy consumption, we do know where we need to go. As the demand for it grows, the need to handle it appropriately will increase also. 

However, to keep up with everybody’s current needs, we’ll have to stick with fossil fuels. That’s because more renewable types, like solar or wind, can’t sustain all of the demands. But that doesn’t mean that we need to deal with the negative impacts of fossil fuel consumption forever.

Nuclear energy is a top option for a healthier future for us and our planet. Although it’s a hotly debated topic, it still remains the cleanest way forward. 

Our nuclear mistakes of the past have taught us much to help us improve safety measures. But we still need to figure out feasible ways to protect nuclear plants against terrorist attacks. And there also remains the question of how we dispose of the waste from these facilities. 

But more than anything else we just need people to accept that nuclear power is our best chance to fix our planet.

And that’s not to say that better options than this might be developed in the future. We’re a clever species, and if history has taught us anything it’s that we can adapt to survive and thrive.

Energy Review

Wow, what an interesting book! Energy is definitely the type of science book that I like to read and I learned a lot from it. I had no idea there was so much to this hugely important aspect of our lives!

Read full summary on Blinkist >>

Free Preview >>

Learn more about the author >>

Who would I recommend the Energy summary to?

The 56-year-old that denies climate change, the 25-year-old who likes to read about physics, and anybody that’s curious to know what really makes the world go ‘round.

The post Energy Summary appeared first on Four Minute Books.Keep learning,
-Nik

PS: Want to get more out of everything you read? Check out our guide!

World suicide prevention day 10th September


6. World Suicide Prevention Day – 10 September

World Suicide Prevention Day - September Content Marketing Ideas

This day is commemorated to provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides.

Content marketing opportunities:

  • Listicle idea: Signs to look out for in people with depression
  • Infographic idea: X Ways to think positive during the lockdown
  • Video idea: Why do farmers commit suicide so often?
  • Podcast idea: How can we destigmatize suicide?

Brand campaign that worked:

This video by TheDrawShop features a whiteboard animation that commemorates the passing of Robin Williams and explains how to recognize signs of suicide.

Seth godin newsletter – Who is good at discovery?


Who is good at discovery?

Apple has carefully guarded the podcast directory, persuading podcasters that ‘winning’ here is the shortcut to building a popular podcast. But they’re terrible at introducing podcasts to new listeners, terrible at developing a point of view that enables the industry to thrive or even grow.

Compare this to Netflix. They’re terrific at surfacing content and helping people find things that they end up liking. Netflix, for economic and marketing reasons, has limited the number of ‘shows’ they have to promote, but within their set, they continue to delight. Compare this to YouTube–if you follow the ‘recommended’ path for just a handful or two of clicks, you’ll end up with something banal or violent.

Google built its entire business on the mythology of discovery, persuading millions of entrepreneurs and creators that somehow, SEO would help them get found, at the very same time they’ve dramatically decreased organic search results to maximize revenue.

Bookstores were pretty good at helping people discover new books, and in some situations, Amazon’s even better. Often, though, particularly on the Kindle and with Audible, Amazon does little indeed to help people find serendipity as they think about what to engage with next. (And putting recommendations up for sale to the publishers is shortsighted and greedy, imho).

In music, Roon’s ‘radio’ feature does a startlingly good job of introducing me to songs I thought I already loved, even though I’m hearing them for the first time.

Given how much our culture depends on finding out what’s new, it’s surprising that few have figured out how to be smart about it. If you’re a creator, the truth remains what the truth has been ever since Yahoo tried to sort the web by hand: the best way to make a hit is to build something for the smallest viable audience and make it so good that people tell their peers.

WORD OF THE DAY


WORD OF THE DAY
Confabulatekən-FAB-yə-leytPart of speech: verbOrigin: Latin, early 17th century
1Engage in conversation; talk.2(Psychiatry) Fabricate imaginary experiences as compensation for loss of memory.
 
Examples of Confabulate in a sentence “Come sit with me, and let’s confabulate!” “He might confabulate when he can’t remember something, but that shouldn’t be a lasting side effect.”

ethical Alliance Daily News


Ethical Alliance Daily News

World: Pandemic Is An Opportunity to Clean House, Compliance Experts Say
Sep 09, 2020 06:00 pm
The coronavirus pandemic is presenting companies with an opportunity to scrutinize due diligence processes, risk assessments and other routine tasks that help businesses avoid brushes with the law, compliance chiefs say. The effort to make compliance departments more cost-effective is happening as companies grapple with the economic fallout from the
Read More 

United States: US sanctions Lebanese former ministers for corruption, supporting Hezbollah
Sep 09, 2020 05:30 pm
The US imposed sanctions on Tuesday on two former Lebanese government ministers for corruption and supporting Hezbollah. The sanctions targeted former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil and former transport minister Youssef Fenianos. Khalil is a senior official in the Amal group headed by parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri. Fenianos is a
Read More 

Israel: Netanyahu ally asks state to drop graft charges after police cover-up alleged
Sep 09, 2020 05:00 pm
A Likud lawmaker on Tuesday formally asked the state to drop criminal charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in one of three corruption cases against him, after a television report alleged an investigator had a conflict of interest. At the same time, Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn backed the state prosecution’s denial that
Read More 

India: India court remands former ICICI Bank CEO’s husband in police custody
Sep 09, 2020 04:30 pm
An Indian court on Tuesday allowed the country’s financial crime fighting agency to take 10-day custody of former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar’s husband, two lawyers familiar with the matter said. Deepak Kochhar’s remand in custody comes a day after he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate as part of
Read More 

Taiwan: Three indicted over graft in military speedboat deal
Sep 09, 2020 04:00 pm
Two military officers and the owner of a local shipbuilding company were indicted on corruption charges by Taoyuan prosecutors Tuesday over an Army speedboat procurement deal in 2007. The officers surnamed Lai (賴) and Tsai (蔡) and the owner of Lung Teh Shipbuilding Company (龍德造船公司) surnamed Huang (黃) were charged
Read More 

Malaysia: Prosecution confirms Guan Eng will face two new corruption charges
Sep 09, 2020 03:30 pm
The prosecution in former Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng’s corruption case in relation to the undersea tunnel project has confirmed that he will be facing two new charges in Butterworth on Friday. Deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told Sessions Court judge Azura Alwi this when Lim’s
Read More 
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Conflict between mind and heart


In the life of most persons the mind and the heart are at loggerheads, and the conflict between the two creates confusion.The mind, in its objective handling of the material world, is saturated with the experiences of multiplicity and separateness, and it, therefore, feeds the egocentric tendencies which divide man from man and make him selfish and possessive.But the heart, which in its inner experiences feels the glow of love, gets the glimpse of the unity of the spirit; and it, therefore, seeks expression through the self-giving tendencies which unite man with man and make him selfless and generous.——-AVATAR MEHER BABA

[GEMS FROM THE DISCOURSES OF MEHER BABA By Meher Baba. An Avatar Meher Baba Trust eBook June 2011. Copyright © 1945 by Circle Productions, Inc. (a New York Corporation), Copyright © Adi K. Irani, 1967 Copyright © 2007, Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India.]

The beacon ndewsletter


The Beacon
It’s Wednesday, September 9, and Poland is accelerating plans to phase out coal.A cut out of Poland next to a a down arrow and a pile of coal.Poland, one of the largest coal-producing countries in the European Union, is speeding up its transition away from the fossil fuel. The country’s climate ministry announced a plan Tuesday to invest a whopping $40 billion into nuclear and $35 billion into wind energy, in an attempt to bring the country more in line with its neighbors.Currently, Poland generates 74 percent of its electricity from coal — much of it mined in the region of Silesia. That area became infamous in the climate world back in 2018, when the United Nations climate conference, COP24, was held in the Silesian city of Katowice. Rather than try to hide the city’s association with coal mining, the organizers leaned in: Katowice’s booth at the conference featured soap, earrings, and even cufflinks made out of coal.Now, however, the rising costs of emissions permits — which are required by the European Union’s cap-and-trade system — are pushing Poland’s government toward renewables. If the new energy strategy pans out, only 11 to 28 percent of the country’s electricity will be coal-generated by 2040.The policy still has to be approved by the government, and in other ways Poland is still lagging behind: It remains the only country in the E.U. that hasn’t set a goal for net-zero emissions by 2050.— Shannon OsakaSmog cloudsTHE SMOGNeed-to-know basisAs wildfires continue to ravage California, Oregon and Washington residents are also facing extreme fire danger. Thousands of people have had to evacuate their homes in Oregon, where Governor Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency. And in Washington state, more land area was burned on Monday than was burned in the past 12 fire seasons.The chances to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) are slipping away, according to a new report from the United Nations. The 2016 Paris Agreement aimed to limit total warming to 1.5 degrees C to avoid the worst effects of climate change, but scientists now say there’s a one-in-four chance that the earth will warm that much within just the next five years.Roughly 13 percent of all deaths in Europe can be attributed to environmental factors, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency. The biggest health risk, air pollution, can cause diabetes, lung disease, and cancer, and it contributes to more than 400,000 premature deaths each year in the E.U.’s 27 countries and the U.K.— Joseph WintersMORE GRIST FOR YOUR MILL How COVID-19 is a threat to the premise of public transitTransit’s superpower is extra vulnerable to COVID-19. Here’s how. What does the fossil fuel industry have to do with police brutality?Don’t understand the connection? Let me draw you a picture. Inside the green construction job that workers are dying to leaveAsbestos removal is one of the deadliest jobs in America. Does it have to be? Nuclear power’s big new idea is really … smallMini nuclear plants are almost here. Is the U.S. ready? How SUVs conquered the world — at the expense of its climateExclusive new emissions analysis shows how much more dangerous for the climate SUVs are than smaller vehicles, and how embedded they have become in our lives