Well, the point of the book was to get rid of your 'normal 40 hour job', replacing it with a 4 hour a week job, not to do all your 40 hour work in 4 hours. As I said, not everyone is able to or interested in adopting his entire model.

That's not a problem with this thesis at all. It's entirely possible for average IQ to go up while the ratio of smart people to less smart people goes down. Also, the difference is incremental, while the difference between "smart" people and "average" people is significantly larger than the effect you're describing.…

I've read that comment by several people on threads on this topic and I find it strange. I've worked at union jobs where everyone knew what everyone made and there was no particular rancor of this sort, and since I've been in the tech industry the crowd I run with always knows what each other makes and we all share…

A tactic that I came on entirely by accident that's made an INCREDIBLE difference in the way people at work perceive me is kind of an extension of this idea: When faced with multiple possible outcomes, assign them probabilities, and try to think of all the outcomes that are possible at a more than 1% probability. I…

Email can quickly pile up and be a distraction with its constant notifications—especially those short back and forth messages. Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, says you should get into the habit of using "if...then" statements to reduce these.

There's a big difference between "We've never enforced this" and "We have no intention of enforcing this". The fact is that the vast majority of people don't pose a competition risk. But if they decide you do, they will enforce it. Of course, some companies know they don't have any 'secret sauce' and the non-compete…

LOL. My family comes from the Ozark mountains - "hillbillies" in the classic sense - though we've been separated from Arkansas for two generations. I am an autodidact with no formal education to speak of, and got my public school education in spite of the system, not because of it.

One might think that would lead me…

Agree. Also, my truck shuts itself down when oil pressure drops (we found this out because it was one of the 5.4 liter Chevrolet engines that used oil between changes. They ended up replacing the rings and gaskets and it stopped, but my wife called me and said it said "Oil Pressure Low! Engine will shut down in…

It might be eugenics conceptually, but since I'm advocating a completely voluntary behavior, I don't find it particularly objectionable. :P And I'm well aware that we are in fact products of our environment and our genes, neither of which we choose. It's just that my intellectually chosen egalitarianism has difficulty…

You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Yeah, don't try this at Target. Last year I bought a shitty little Sony point and shoot because I wanted to take pictures and left my DSLR at home, thinking, if it sucks too bad, I'll return it. Came back into the store (because it's terrible - my iPhone takes better shots, ffs), the customer service folks were like,…

Kahn Academy has free courses on basic math. Do it, you'll thank yourself next time you're drinking and trying to do simple calculations. ;)

Haven't used their stylus, but I LOVE the app. It's a blast.

Haven't used their stylus, but I LOVE the app. It's a blast.

If you can't handle any conflict, I suggest you avoid relationships of all sorts.

Hey, if you're smart, have kids. If you're not, don't have kids. That should handily increase the average IQ in the world AND reduce the population. :P

Unfortunately, the trend is going the other way. I know quite a few people who are choosing not to have children because there are too many people. The problem is that…

Bullshit. My relationship with my daughter has never been the way you describe. The planning part is true, but that's because my wife's stress elevates to the stratosphere when we start planning something, and it predates the kid. My kid and I joke, laugh, smile, and chat far more often than we have conflicts, and…

I think that the point was not that the person didn't like children; it's that they went out of their way to make evil faces and screw with people they don't even know simply because of some neurotic twist of their own brain. Yes, it's neurotic to "hate" children; you were one once, get over it. You're entitled to…

LOL! Interviewers actually intentionally ask for all of these stories? It would be hard not to laugh. I can't imagine why someone would ask for so many self-reported narratives in any case; they aren't particularly meaningful, as our own perceptions of events are horribly flawed. I'd be much more likely to ask them to…

Some research suggests they can also help lose weight (when taken to extremes LOL). You gotta burn a lotta calories to bring all that body back up to idling temperature.

Also, sorry, but I can't help myself... *regimen. Unless you're in the army, in which case: As you were.

Man, the last time I spent much time as a hiring manager I got scads and scads of bullshit resumes. Now, when forced to hire someone, I look for obvious red flags on the resumes, but the real result comes from the interview. I don't ask "gotcha" questions, but I do ask detailed, open-ended ones that give me an idea of…