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The goal is not to be perfect by the end. The goal is to be better today ...

Mitchell Kapor comparison of getting information off the Internet and drinking from a fire hydrant

vutran | May 18, 2021, 8:20 p.m.

"Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant." 

— Mitchell Kapor

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Rory Vaden on Procrastinate on Purpose

vutran | May 18, 2021, 8:16 p.m.

“Success is no longer related to the volume of tasks you complete but rather the Significance of them"

— Rory Vaden

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Louise Erdrich on taking risks

vutran | May 17, 2021, 8:53 p.m.

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”  

— Louise Erdrich

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Arthur Brooks on Tune Out to Tune In

vutran | May 14, 2021, 7:45 a.m.

"Beethoven became more original and brilliant as a composer in inverse proportion to his ability to hear his own — and others’ — music. But maybe it isn’t so surprising. As his hearing deteriorated, he was less influenced by the prevailing compositional fashions, and more by the musical structures forming inside his own head. His early work is pleasantly reminiscent of his early instructor, the hugely popular Josef Haydn. Beethoven’s later work became so original that he was, and is, regarded as the father of music’s romantic period. ... Deafness freed Beethoven as a composer because he no longer had society’s soundtrack in his ears.."

— Arthur Brooks at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-holiday-season-we-can-all-learn-a-lesson-from-beethoven/2019/12/13/71f21aba-1d0e-11ea-b4c1-fd0d91b60d9e_story.html


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Enrico Bertini on deepening understanding helps in intepreting the related phenomena

vutran | May 13, 2021, 12:51 p.m.

"The interpretation of a type of attribute, a given attribute is also depends on understanding at a deeper level the real meaning of these attributes and how they relate to the phenomena or objects that they describe in the world." 

— Enrico Bertini on Data Visualization

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Amelia Barr on the difference between mediocrity and genius

vutran | May 12, 2021, 12:28 p.m.

“Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.”

— Amelia Barr

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James Clear on assigning meaning to our past

vutran | May 12, 2021, 12:27 p.m.

“The events of your past are fixed. The meaning of your past is not.  The influence of every experience in your life is determined by the meaning you assign to it.  Assign a more useful meaning to your past and it becomes easier to take a more useful action in the present.”

— James Clear

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Certified

2025 Reading Challenge

2025 Reading Challenge
Better has read 12 books toward his goal of 36 books.
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2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Better has read 2 books toward his goal of 52 books.
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2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Better has read 17 books toward his goal of 52 books.
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2022 Reading Challenge

2022 Reading Challenge
Better has read 2 books toward his goal of 36 books.
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2021 Reading Challenge

2021 Reading Challenge
Better has read 0 books toward his goal of 60 books.
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2020 Reading Challenge

2020 Reading Challenge
Better has read 10 books toward his goal of 36 books.
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2019 Reading Challenge

2019 Reading Challenge
Better has read 21 books toward his goal of 24 books.
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