Monthly Archives: September 2013

Why I Charge $1,000 For An Hour Of My Time

"As an entrepreneur, fighting small charges such as bank errors or late payment fees simply isn’t worth your time. If you have a finance or office manager whose hourly rate is less than the amount of the erroneous charge, then it makes financial sense for that person to spend time resolving the issue. If that isn’t the case, it’s better just to let it go. The bottom line? The more you can avoid fighting based on principles, the better: It just isn’t worth it. When your time is worth $1,000 an hour, it’s often best to turn the other cheek." Continue reading →

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Late Marc Rich’s Swiss mansions for sale

"The daughters of the late expat American commodity trader and financier Marc Rich have put up for sale his luxury Swiss homes in the canton of Lucerne and the mountain resort town of St. Moritz. Rich is celebrated for making a fortune in metals such as aluminum, silver and zinc by cornering the market and in dubious dealings in oil. He became a fugitive in Switzerland after being indicted in the early 1980s on charges of widespread tax evasion, illegal dealings with Iran and other crimes." Continue reading →

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Video game pioneer & former Nintendo head Hiroshi Yamauchi dies at 85

"He was known as 'the godfather of the console', building the Japanese firm Nintendo from a playing cards manufacturer into one of the world’s most powerful computer games businesses. Now the gaming industry is paying tribute to the company’s former president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who died on Thursday at 85. For a generation of gamers, Yamauchi’s Nintendo represented a golden era of mainstream gaming, dominated by classic titles like Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda and Metroid. A 1990 survey found the company’s mascot Mario, a moustachioed Italian plumber, was more recognisable to American children than Mickey Mouse." Continue reading →

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Grand Theft Auto V sales zoom past $1 billion mark in 3 days

"Grand Theft Auto V has crossed the $1 billion sales mark after three days in stores, a rate faster than any other video game, film or other entertainment product has ever managed, its creator Take Two Interactive Inc said on Friday. The latest installment of GTA, a cultural phenomenon that has sparked a national debate on adult content and violence, received strong reviews and racked up $800 million in first-day sales alone. That marked a launch-day record for the Grand Theft Auto franchise which is Take Two's most lucrative and allows players to cruise around a make-believe gameworld based on real-life locations such as Los Angeles." Continue reading →

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10 Simple Steps to a Billion Dollar Business

"There are some great technology companies worth billions of dollars like photo-sharing website Instagram, and microblogging platform Tumblr. But…that doesn’t make them great businesses either. Mainly because they don’t actually make any money. These two are examples of a great idea that people love, but don’t pay for. But there are a lot of great ideas in the world. A lot of inventions, a lot of smart people coming up with world changing ideas. Some get lucky (like Instagram and Tumblr), some fail and some take years of hard work. For those ideas to become great companies, the pathway to that destination is relatively simple." Continue reading →

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Google teams with Apple chair to launch ‘health and well-being’ company

"Google announced Wednesday it was launching a new company focused on health and well-being, and hinted at cooperation with longtime rival Apple in the venture. A Google statement said the company called Calico 'will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases.' Arthur Levinson, chairman and former chief executive of the biotech firm Genentech and chairman of Apple, will be Calico’s chief executive and a founding investor. Time magazine, which interviewed Page ahead of the announcement, said the details of the project were not yet clear but that it is likely to use its data-processing to shed new light on age-related maladies." Continue reading →

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Why the Higher Education System Is Unsustainable (i.e. Doomed)

"That which is unaffordable is unsustainable and will go away. The current system of higher education is profoundly unaffordable: it exists on an immoral foundation of student debt--$560 billion of which is Federal. Enormous expansions of student debt are required to keep the current system of higher education afloat. This chart shows the insane trajectory of Federal student debt. But unaffordability is only one reason why the present system of higher education is unsustainable. Despite the good intentions and hard work of individuals, these systems are broken. Due to their size and structure, large systems such as national defense, healthcare and education limit the impact of individual initiative." Continue reading →

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Dozens of British universities join the online education revolution

"Dozens of British universities began offering free online courses on Wednesday through a collective portal, joining a global trend started in the United States that opens higher education to the masses. Pre-registration opened on Tuesday and in one day 20,000 people from 158 different countries signed up — even though the portal site will not be completed for several months. Until then it will run in beta phase, without all the finishing touches, so organisers can see how it works. The scheme brings British universities in line with many of their rivals in the United States, where so-called massive open online courses (MOOCs) are hugely popular." Continue reading →

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Yahoo Japan develops 3D search engine-printer

"Yahoo Japan Corp. has developed a voice-activated Internet search that links to a 3D printer, letting users look online for blueprints to deliver solid objects in a few minutes, the company said. The search engine scours the Internet for information that it can use to print palm-sized renderings of items as diverse as hippopotamuses or fighter jets. Heralded as a technology that is potentially as game-changing as the steam engine was in its day, 3D printers have become a more commonplace reality over the last few years. The devices use slices of information about a three-dimensional object and gradually deposits fine layers of material — such as plastic, carbon or metal — to build a copy." Continue reading →

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Researchers create battery that recycles sewage into energy

"They hope their technique could be used in wastewater treatment facilities and to break down organic pollutants in the 'dead zones' of oceans and lakes where fertilizer runoff has depleted oxygen, suffocating marine life. However, for now the team from Stanford University have started small, with a prototype about the size of a D-cell battery, consisting of two electrodes — one positive and one negative — plunged into a bottle of wastewater, filled with bacteria. As the bacteria consume the organic material, the microbes cluster around the negative electrode, throwing off electrons, which are captured in turn by the positive electrode." Continue reading →

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