Once upon a time, Google Chrome was atop the internet browser food chain with its simplistic design, easy access to Google Search, and customizable layout. By contrast, it was lightyears ahead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which had a separate address bar and Bing (yes, that’s still a thing) search bar. In 2020, most browsers have adapted. Google Chrome has mainly kept itself on top of the food chain. They basically invented auto-search in the address bar. Besides that, Mozilla Firefox’s layout is way cleaner, Safari sells itself as Apple proprietary software with a massive emphasis on security and privacy, even Opera’s take…
Math anxiety is the feeling of tension and fear that many people experience when called on to work out a sum. For children, it can lead to behavioral problems in class, as well as physical symptoms such as butterflies in the stomach and a racing heart. Students with high math anxiety perform worse in standardised math tests and school exams. Anxious thoughts interfere with recalling math-related facts and procedures, and also with performing these procedures well. This is often described as the experience of having your mind go blank. Our new research shows that math anxiety does not only affect…
If you follow the news on artificial intelligence, you’ll find two diverging threads. The media and cinema often portray AI with human-like capabilities, mass unemployment, and a possible robot apocalypse. Scientific conferences, on the other hand, discuss progress toward artificial general intelligence while acknowledging that current AI is weak and incapable of many of the basic functions of the human mind. But regardless of where they stand in comparison to human intelligence, today’s AI algorithms have already become a defining component for many sectors, including health care, finance, manufacturing, transportation, and many more. And very soon “no field of human endeavor will remain independent of artificial…
TLDR: Over 22 courses, The Premium 2021 Project and Quality Management Certification Bundle lays out the plans and tools for becoming a certified project management pro. Even in today’s business climate, there are still some old rules that are just as relevant now as they were going all the way back. One of those is: if you want to advance in your current company or the next, you need to be bringing new skills to the table. For example, understanding how to build and execute a project management plan requires more than just drive and smarts. It requires actually knowing…
Most people lie occasionally. The lies are often trivial and essentially inconsequential – such as pretending to like a tasteless gift. But in other contexts, deception is more serious and can have harmful effects on criminal justice. From a societal perspective, such lying is better detected than ignored and tolerated. Unfortunately, it is difficult to detect lies accurately. Lie detectors, such as polygraphs, which work by measuring the level of anxiety in a subject while they answer questions, are considered “theoretically weak” and of dubious reliability. This is because, as any traveler who has been questioned by customs officials knows,…
Wondering how to get more people to watch your YouTube videos? Looking for a strategy you can model? To explore how to get more views on your YouTube videos, I interview Justin Brown on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. Justin is a YouTube expert and video strategist who helps businesses grow an audience and scale […]
Our life is filled with projects. We invest time, effort or money, and perhaps we get a result.
It’s useful to have a portfolio of projects, because not all of them are going to work.
The 4 x 4 grid looks like this:
It might be simple, but it’s not always easy. Success doesn’t always mean money, it just means that you got what you were hoping for. And while every project fits into one of the four quadrants, there’s no right answer for any given person or any given moment..
Here are some of the traps that are worth avoiding:
All your eggs are in a low-chance basket. You’re taking a wild gamble, and it’s your dream. And you want a shortcut. The problem, of course, is that this isn’t a resilient long-term plan. Someone has to win the lottery tomorrow, but alas, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be you.
You’re hoping to come out ahead by doing something that depends on scarcity, but you’re doing it in the top right quadrant. The problem is, so is everyone else. All of a sudden, your odds just went down. It’s easy to start an Insta account, but once everyone does it, the chances of becoming a top .01% traffic generating influencer are close to zero.
You focus on only high-probability, low-value successes, even if the outcomes are not really worth your time. Getting a $3 an hour gig on a freelance site is easy, but it might not be worth it.
On the other hand, consider a portfolio of projects. Some of them have a very high likelihood of working out, and each one of these outcomes is pleasant, if not game-changing. Play often enough, though, and your persistent generosity will pay off.
And then, mix into that some of the moonshot projects that most people are afraid to take on. They’re afraid because they have equated “low chance of success” with “risky.” They’re not the same. Risky implies that failure will cost a lot. It won’t. You can thrive with this strategy because you have a portfolio, and because you realize that “unlikely” is not the same as “not worth trying.”
The best portfolios are persistent (because patience is a rare skill), they’re generous (so others root for you to succeed) and they build on each other (because then, even the ones that don’t work increase your chances for the next one to work out).
People are increasingly aware of the harm plastic waste causes to wildlife, and many would avoid buying single-use plastics if they could help it. But are the alternatives to plastic much better? Let’s look at one example – fizzy drinks. You might assume that plastic bottles are the least green option, but is that always the case? To find out, we compared five different types of pressurized drinks containers. We tested their environmental impact according to a range of criteria, including how each contributes to climate change and the pollution each produces during manufacture, use and disposal. Here they are,…
When the Williamson family from Dundee lost their mother Sue to a rare cancer named phaeochromocytoma in 2003, they didn’t realize that further devastation was to follow. Of her four children, twins Jennie and James discovered that they also have the faulty gene that cut short their mother’s life. Both twins are affected with inoperable tumors wrapped around vital blood vessels and nerves in their necks. Father Jo decided to appear in a Cancer Research pledge video (below) in memory of his wife and to raise awareness of the important work that cancer researchers do for people like his children.…
While the world is eagerly waiting for COVID-19 vaccines to bring an end to the pandemic, wearing a mask to help prevent viral transmission has become more or less mandatory globally. Though many people embrace mask wearing and adhere to public health advice, some rebel and argue that wearing a mask has been imposed upon them against their will. With mask wearing and social distancing, it’s down to the individual to decide whether or not to comply, yet what influences compliance isn’t straightforward. Demographic factors such as income level, political affiliation, and gender have all been associated with whether people…
