WSJ: “Picture a humble study. It is situated on a house’s second floor, near the bedrooms, forming an inner sanctum removed from the bustle of the street. A lamp sits on a desk to give a working writer plenty of light. Books line the walls from floor to ceiling, supported by bookends and embracing subjects from modern fiction to history, music and law. There is an easy chair for leisurely reading; a window above the dog’s bed affords a fine view of the trees. Close scrutiny might even reveal a bottle and a pair of hidden glasses for evenings when company stops by, or when the muse stays away. In his delightful, wide-ranging work “The Study,” Mr. Hui undertakes a “historical investigation into the personal library.””
Johan Norberg: “Sven Norfeldt, one of Sweden’s most successful entrepreneurs, once described the market to me as a minefield. Over there, on the other side, there is new knowledge, capacities, products and services that could enrich the whole of society. But our path there is blocked by a minefield of uncertainty, technological dead-ends, unpredictable consumers, shifting business cycles, interest rate changes, capricious policies and plain bad luck. We have no idea where the mines are located. The only way to find a way to the other side is to get as many people as possible to venture out. This increases the chance that someone will find a safe path that we can all follow.” [via CafeHayek]
NYTimes: “The buzz around Zone 2 is based on the work of Iñigo San Millan, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine…His work with cyclists led him to classify exercise into six different training zones, based in part on what type of fuel your muscles are burning, to explain how the body responds to different workout intensities. In the easiest zone, which for an average person might be a brisk walk, you’re burning mostly fat. As you push harder, you burn more fat — but only up to a point. Beyond a certain level of effort, your body starts relying more on carbohydrates and ramps down fat-burning. Lactate levels in your blood also begin to creep up, a sign that your muscles are working harder. From a metabolic perspective, Dr. San Millan said, “something funky happens” when you cross this threshold.”
Harry Neilis: “Over time, when you go through enough cycles, there’s a successful entrepreneur, they exit a company, their team wants to do it again, then a flywheel starts to happen. That flywheel today is happening on a really big scale. Unicorns in Europe — and we have around 350 of them — have generated 1,500 new start-ups. So there’s a flywheel going where employees from unicorns here in Europe start new companies here in Europe. And that flywheel is going with people who have done it before. And that’s the key thing that has changed.”
WSJ: “In learning how to write well, nothing can replace thoughtful reading, careful practice and an interesting point of view. Anything else is artificial all right, but a good deal less than intelligent.”
