Ben Casnocha › Comments

At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., the rate of theft has increased to approximately one book per hour. I asked Steve Bercu, BookPeople’s owner, what the most frequently stolen title was. “The Bible,” he said, without pausing. - Ben Casnocha

25 min pres by Michale Clemsn - Ben Casnocha

I wondered if part of the lack of attention on Latin America was the lack of high profile, super-successful Latin role models in the Valley. - Ben Casnocha

one of 10 articles on wisdom - Ben Casnocha

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, - Ben Casnocha

Aphorisms: provocative, exaggerated sentences that overstate their case as a way of flushing out occasional truths. - Ben Casnocha

Being a nobody and Dying - the two fears change their relative importance after 40 - Ben Casnocha

At an invitation-only executive retreat earlier this year in Sundance, Utah, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs including LinkedIn Corp. founder Reid Hoffman and Mozilla Corp. Chief Executive John Lilly discussed the latest tech trends. - Ben Casnocha

The David Foster Wallace Memorial Tribute was organized by the UA Prose Series and the Sonora Review, and took place at the University of Arizona's Poetry Center last May. The tribute honored Creative Writing MFA program alumnus David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), the groundbreaking author of fiction and nonfiction including Infinite Jest. The event coincided with the publication of a special issue of Sonora Review devoted to the work of Wallace. - Ben Casnocha

Spend more. Get less. We’re the city that knows how. - Ben Casnocha

Official proficiency tests from UN - Ben Casnocha

Woods’s appeal was based, ultimately, not on his physical abilities but on his mental toughness, his extraordinary capacity for focus and discipline. He was the man who always made the key putt, who never cracked under pressure. That’s why Gatorade, introducing a new drink with his face on the label, called the drink Tiger Focus. And it’s why the most powerful Nike ad about him is the one in which his father, in a voice-over, says, “I’d say, ‘Tiger, I promise you that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life. And he hasn’t . . . and he never will.’ ” - Ben Casnocha

I always sing, even though I never know the words to the song. I like this as a metaphor for how I live my life, too. - Ben Casnocha

To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home. - Ben Casnocha

she knows how to prevent a sneeze when she feels one coming on. The trick—does everyone know this already?—is to rub the bridge of your nose with a finger as though you were erasing the need to sneeze. It works. - Ben Casnocha

Times are bad. We know this. But how bad can they be when people are still ordering stuff from the SkyMall catalog? - Ben Casnocha

the contemporary American condition of wanting it all, right now, no matter the contradictions, and without having to give up anything in exchange. Obama tells us that we can have quality, universal health care without increasing the deficit. He tells us that he intends to have the 9/11 detainees given a fair trial in a civilian court but assures us that the trials will end in convictions. He declares that he will wage war in Afghanistan, but pledges to s - Ben Casnocha

If you like party's, event's, photo shoot's, and bicycle's, but don't know that plural word's don't require apostrophe's, then please contact me before any posting's. I will gladly proofread so I don't have to read another mis-apostrophed ad in search for a gig that better fit's me. Thank's. - Ben Casnocha

Did we underestimate the effects of fame in his formative years on Tiger? Become famous at an early age and invariably you "mature" into someone who can't remember anything other than being famous. Most (if not all) of your interactions are with people who are impressed by you or want something from you. You don't have to win anyone over. You don't have to work on being a better person, or funnier, or nicer, or anything. You don't want to make new friends because you can't tell if any prospective friends want to be friends because you're who you are, so you end up gravitating toward other famous people, most of whom are just as messed up as you. You can get away with almost any indiscretion and be forgiven. Your only responsibility is to stay yourself, but you became this twisted, self-aware version of you without even knowing it. And that's when the trouble starts. - Ben Casnocha

But to me the honest approach would be the opposite: we should publish lists of specific beliefs we teach in schools, and our best arguments supporting those beliefs against critics. We can’t say such topics are not important enough to bother arguing for, if we are going to all the trouble to teach them. And if we are too embarrassed by the quality of our supporting arguments, we just shouldn’t be teaching such things. - Ben Casnocha

I believe that America's health care system should be reformed. Medicare is unsustainable. Employer-provided health insurance should never have been instituted in the first place, and it is becoming more dysfunctional every year. I would like to deal with the structural issues that bias our system in favor of specialists, fragmented care, and credentialism. Americans need to learn how to make reasonable judgments about medical procedures that have high costs and low benefits. None of these problems is addressed by the bills in Congress. This year's health care debate is proof that top-down reform is not going to work. The more the system is politicized, the less likely it is that it will change. The only direction for reform is market-oriented policy that by today's standards seems radical and unacceptable. In contrast, the politicians are struggling mightily to do what amounts to minor tinkering and tampering. - Ben Casnocha

Researchers studying facial attractiveness discovered people consider the evenness and glow of a woman's skin as the key factor people when deciding on their allure. - Ben Casnocha

Billions of dollars and a Nobel Prize later, it looks like ‘microlending’ doesn’t actually do much to fight poverty.” Other media have weighed in on all sides, with The Wall Street Journal concerned about a microcredit bubble. What is going on? - Ben Casnocha

the latest Pew poll on US attitudes on international affairs, 44% of Americans think that the world's leading economic power is... China. Only 27% think it's the United States. - Ben Casnocha

Let's be frank: life is defined by how much you do, how often you took the difficult road and were rewarded for it. It is not, and will never be, improved by how much you avoid and scheme and congratulate. - Ben Casnocha

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: people express strikingly little sympathy for sex-starved men. - Ben Casnocha

David Boaz recommends - Ben Casnocha

incredibility detailed / authoritative acount of how Obama decided to send more troops - Ben Casnocha

10 life problem solving heuristics - Ben Casnocha

In the nation's capital, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has closed schools, removed principals and dismissed teachers based on merit, rather than seniority, angering unions. On Tuesday, she said these efforts have contributed to "a tremendous amount of momentum" in reversing the decline. - Ben Casnocha