We used to only think cars and mass transit,” the mayor said. “Today, Milwaukee Avenue is one of the most-biked streets in America. The first protected bike lane in the city, on Kinzie Street, has had a positive impact on the economy.
— Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Chicago’s upcoming bike-sharing program
(Source: chicagotribune.com)
If you want to have partnership at the office, you have to have partnership at home. The idea that you can have it all, and do it all, is just ridiculous. There is the family, there is the profession, and then there is everything else. And you surely shortchange everything else. But those two I don’t think I’ve shortchanged.
— Christine Beshar, the first woman in NY to pass the bar without having gone to law school, made first woman partner in 1970, and is currently senior counsel in Cravath’s trusts & estates dept.
(Source: abovethelaw.com)
It’s safer for you to assume none of it is true than that any of it is.
From James Clear on Quora, discussing “Exercise Treatment for Major Depression: Maintenance of Therapeutic Benefit at 10 Months,” by Babyak et al
Treating depression with exercise was just as effective as medication, and vice versa. Furthermore, combining the two treatments yielded the same success rate as doing either one individually.
[…]
After 16 weeks of treatment, there were 83 patients (spread evenly across all three groups) that were declared in remission and free from depression.
The researchers decided to let these patients spend the next six months without receiving any treatment from professionals.[…]
• In the medication only group, 38% of patients relapsed into depression.
• In the exercise and medication group, 31% of patients relapsed into depression.
• In the exercise only group, only 8% of patients relapsed into depression.
[…]
“One of the positive psychological benefits of systematic exercise is the development of a sense of personal mastery and positive self-regard, which we believe is likely to play some role in the depression-reducing effects of exercise.” [from article by Babyak et al]
[…]
“Instead of incorporating the belief ‘I was dedicated and worked hard with the exercise program; it wasn’t easy, but I beat this depression,’ patients might incorporate the belief that ‘I took an antidepressant and got better.’” [from article]
Researchers originally attributed the cohabitation effect to selection, or the idea that cohabitors were less conventional about marriage and thus more open to divorce. As cohabitation has become a norm, however, studies have shown that the effect is not entirely explained by individual characteristics like religion, education or politics. Research suggests that at least some of the risks may lie in cohabitation itself.
[…]
In behavioral economics, it’s called consumer lock-in.
Lock-in is the decreased likelihood to search for, or change to, another option once an investment in something has been made. The greater the setup costs, the less likely we are to move to another, even better, situation, especially when faced with switching costs, or the time, money and effort it requires to make a change.
Cohabitation is loaded with setup and switching costs.
A local Chili’s restaurant in Midvale, Utah, might have made the grave mistake of “breaking” one little girl’s cheeseburger by cutting it in half, but the waitress, manager and line cooks more than made up for it Sunday when they presented her with a brand new “fixed” one.
[…]
“The manager came over and did the same thing. It was really a big deal. The line cooks even got involved,” MacLean said. “When she brought it back out, Arianna said ‘Oh, thank you! You brought me a fixed cheeseburger.’ She sat there and looked at it and said ‘Oh I missed you,’ and kissed it over and over again.”
MacLean was so touched by the staff’s compassion and understanding that something as minor as a cut-in-half cheeseburger would be enough to ruin Arianna’s whole day that she snapped a photo of Arianna giving the cheeseburger a kiss and uploaded it to Facebook along with a brief description of how well the restaurant handled the situation.
Competition for Google Now & Siri
Ramon Llamas, a mobile analyst at the research company IDC, thinks it will be challenging for Sherpa to make sense of all the information it collects from users and figure out how to deal with it. Yet Ferrell seems confident that Sherpa can not only do this but make money off it, by allowing some companies to be preferred service providers. Eventually, when Sherpa reminds you about your flight to New York tomorrow and asks if you need a cab to the airport, it may suggest a taxi service that pays Sherpa for bringing in customers.
Ferrell also envisions Sherpa offering additional features. It’s currently testing one at a Philz Coffee in downtown Palo Alto: if you tend to get coffee there each morning, Sherpa can alert you when you’re about 500 meters away from the shop and ask if you want your regular cup. If you respond yes, it will be ready for you when you walk in the door.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
— Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan
“You don’t need permission from people to lead them. But in case you do, here it is: they’re waiting, we’re waiting for you to show us where to go next. So here is what leaders have in common. The first thing is, they challenge the status quo. They challenge what’s currently there. The second thing is, they build a culture. A secret language, a seven-second handshake, a way of knowing that you’re in or out. They have curiosity. Curiosity about people in the tribe, curiosity about outsiders. They’re asking questions. They connect people to one another. Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed. They want to be missed the day they don’t show up. They want to be missed when they’re gone.”
