• SOME 3½ MILLION EMAILS ARE SENT EVERY SECOND, OVER 300 BILLION EVERY DAY. Tips to optimize likelihood of a timely and effective response: (1) Make a single, simple request which can be replied to in one word (yes or no), or forwarded, as is, to the right person; (2) Keep it short and factual, under five lines; (3) Use font size 12 or above, assuming reader will be on a smart phone; (4) Subject line needs to be unique and compelling to capture attention; (5) Put action/request in first line and be specific (like ‘Can we meet Friday Nov 11 at 10:am’ versus ‘Could we meet sometime next week?’); (6) If truly urgent, don’t use email. Call or send a text. [PETER DIAMANDIS – 11/4/22]
  • SCHOOLS, EMPLOYERS AND ENTIRE INDUSTRIES DISQUALIFY CANDIDATES BASED ON THEIR INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT (I.Q.), a measure of how a person performs on a narrow set of specific types of questions compared to others – i.e., “relative, not absolute, intelligence, without reference to vocational skills, general knowledge, practical wisdom or rational intuition.” The fact that IQ can be improved with training or degraded with chemicals confirms that it is “not the measure of a person structural to their being, unchangeable & predetermined, such as genetics… Nonetheless, based on a series of questions inspired by a century’s old psychology, Racists have long used IQ as an ‘objective’ measure of Superiority, while children as young as 3 can be defined as idiots, if scoring below an 8-year-old level as imbeciles, and when below age 13 as morons…  What IQ does measure is General Mental Ability (called ‘g level’) which somewhat correlates with academic & professional success – just not overall cognitive prowess.”  [NEUROPSYCH – 11/2/22]
  • CHILDREN WHOSE PARENTS READ WITH THEM HAVE A LEARNING ADVANTAGE equivalent to a half a year’s schooling over kids whose parents don’t, based on a recent education-think-tank study. But researchers also found that “contrary to popular opinion, supervising children’s homework is not particularly helpful. More useful is setting a regular place and time for them to do their studies.”  [ECONOMIST – 11/5/22]
  • RISK OF LOSSES FROM RANSOMWARE ATTACKS HAS BECOME A CRITICAL FACTOR IN BUSINESS PROTECTION, as insurance companies including Lloyds of London are now designating certain systemic risks as ‘Acts of War’ – which exclude “liability for losses arising from any State-backed cyber-attack… But ‘war’ is no longer easily defined, and geopolitically-motivated aggression can render particular business practices now uninsurable or rejectable.”  Examples could involve losses from product shipments blocked from Chinese ports in retaliation for a company’s support of Taiwan; or losses from exiting Russia as result of pressures stemming from the Ukraine war; or sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline. As geopolitical aggression intensifies, obtaining insurance protection will become increasingly difficult to obtain and/or rely on.  [WALL ST. JOURNAL – 10/23/22]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: Road Rage stupidity: https://biggeekdad.com/2017/06/idiots-of-the-day/

Reality of the Ukraine/ Russia fiasco. An important analysis: “The U.S. is not just supporting Ukraine. It is fighting a war in Ukraine’s name… This is a war with no natural stopping point. One can easily imagine scenarios in which winning might be more costly than losing.”   https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/complications-of-the-ukraine-war/

“Huge implications for the power of psychedelic mental health treatment: A single dose of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in Magic Mushrooms, helped ease the worst symptoms of depression for around three months,” according to a major study, backed by Oxford and conducted in the U.S., U.K. & Canada, just published in New England Journal of Medicine.