Accumulate Profit Margin Invest Destroy

So I picked up Richard Branson’s book at the train station on my way back from the UK as a final token of “something British”. Branson, of course, is an English entrepreneur who became highly successful with his record label “Virgin Records” that had their first hit with Mike Oldfield in the early 1970s. Bands like Sex Pistols, Human League, Simple Minds and Genesis followed, making Virgin a huge success.

The book was released in 2006 and updated in 2007 with new chapters on “Gaia Capitalism” (environmentally friendly business).

The subtitle reads “Lessons in Life and Business” and the book delivers on that promise by being just that: The story how Branson became the super-rich industrialist that owns a record label, several airlines, a humanitarian organization and other companies, amongst which there even is an enterprise that wants to bring people cheaply into space (and back).

How he became that person is roughly described in the book and I want to share some things I found interesting while reading it. [Read the rest of this entry...]

In the seemingly excellent and very compelling documentary Don’t Mind The Men Behind The Curtain, a speaker leads us, step by step, through (a/the) history where the Federal Reserve is a big conspiracy controlling the world. The men running the FED take more and more control over various aspects of your life in order to generate more money and enslave their citizens more.

Just watching the video, it all makes a lot of sense and sounds not too far fetched. But what about facts? It’s easy to make a claim .. it’s harder to back it up with sources. A Web Skeptic Wiki has done some facts checks, while not addressing all claims in the video.

I wonder most about the claims regarding World War 1, WW 2, and Vietnam. Does anyone know the answers to that?

Gather around, it’s story time:

Last Sunday, 11 AM. Outside an insurance company building in Munich, Germany.

The sun is shining. It is unusually quiet.

A black Audi sedan pulls into the parking lot in front of the building. The windows of the car are dark. It drives very slowly. There are six or seven other cars in the parking lot. There are no pedestrians anywhere in sight.

The car turns slowly around. It stops right in front of the main entrance. The building is a structure of glass and concrete and five stories high. The windows reflect the sky. It is not possible to see what is going on inside. The engine of the car stops.

Suddenly both front doors of the car open. The sound is barely audible. Two people step out. They wear black suits and black sunglasses. They don’t carry any suitcases. They move slowly but with determination as they approach the door. A dog barks somewhere.

This is where the story ends. Actually it is where it ended when I attended a story telling seminar a few days ago. The lecturer was speaking slowly and made a lot of pauses. By the time the dog barked in the story you could have heard the pin drop in the room where around 100 people were silently listening for the conclusion.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Philip K. Dick is considered by many to be one the world’s greatest science fiction writers ever; as a sufferer from mental illness himself he had the ability to turn his hallucinations about the universe into an extraordinary writing career.

During his lifetime, Dick produced an astonishing amount of prize winning novels and short stories, which were translated into more than 25 languages. Three of his literary works were transformed into blockbuster movies: Blade Runner, Minority Report and Total Recall.

Several years before his death, Philip started having mystical experiences that affected his everyday life. As a result, he started to wonder if what he had imagined for his stories was real and if life was just an illusion or the creation of each person’s subjectivity.

This in-depth program explores Philip K. Dick`s world, a universe full of mysteries and intrigues.

Link to The Penultimate Truth About Philip K. Dick (2007) full documentary.  ( You are gonna like it, watch it now! )

Now this book is 11 years old, but I decided to pick it up anyway and it’s one of the best books I’ve read for a long time.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

“I Grift” was Homer’s license plate in one Simpsons episode where he and Bart would make a living as con artists. And while there are many movies on the subject (perhaps most notably the excellent Redford / Newman film “The Sting” ) it’s still an interesting piece both of pop culture and real criminal statistics.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Some point at our neverending hunt for the online fortunes, and after several failed web business ideas, someone made a note if we had invented Facebook here, we’d said “that’s like the stupidest fucking idiotic idea ever“. Instead of the coolest and best ideas, we should list some of the most dorkful, fucking idiotic stupid imbecile ideas.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Internet procrastination became a real problem, to me and probably to many other people spending a lot of time in front of a computer. Dozens of online news site, social networks, and social news sites (not forget about email) are very popular and at the same time can be very addictive. I’m not a person who does not enjoy a funny picture or strange news story — quite the contrary! However, I realised that my online habits started to affect my work and I had to change something. What I wrote down in this post are the lessons I learned and techniques I used to decrease my procrastination and increase my productivity.

[Read the rest of this entry...]