Great distinction that is often overlooked. Could you / anyone elaborate on the key skills required in building a company? (aside from the oft-mentioned virtues of hard work, focus, and perseverance)
1. The ability to curate a clear vision for the company and its path to success;
2. The ability to take that vision and turn it into an an actionable, real-world plan, with clearly defined roles for any staff necessary to execute it; and
3. The ability to sell the company's vision to others - investors, employees and customers/users.
In the UK, allotments can have sheds. Allotments are public fields that you can rent a plot on for not too much money to grow food. They are often near railways, just below the embankments. They date from when terraced houses did not have any yard space. Some are very popular with waiting lists, some less so.
I go past a shed on an allotment each day that is built from old doors. The long walls are five doors, and the short walls are three doors. They are nailed to fairly substantial planks top and bottom, and there is a tarpaper style roof. One of the doors is actually mounted on hinges so is the actual door. The owner has used half glazed doors so the interior must have fantastic light. I'd imagine there must be some kind of floor rather than just earth.
I wonder if there is a business idea in this?
There are a lot of writers in NYC. So you buy a warehouse, and divide the space up into really small, sound-proof rooms.
Charge customers $250 a month to rent the space.
Just have to make sure customers are not sleeping in the room.
Love it. I wanted to do this in Singapore. There are lots of co-working spaces but they're all so damn social, and what I really want is solitude.
I thought it'd be great to make a co-working space called "Solitude" with lots of little 1-person rooms, and make it clear to any new customers that we're not here to chat and hang out.
But alas it seemed that not many people were into this idea, and Singapore is so insanely expensive that it makes more sense to just find a quiet place at the library or something.
I am a 16 year old, locally schooled Hong Kong resident.
The rash implementation of Moral and National Education is but another attempt by the Central Government in the grand scheme of things to assimilate Hong Kong.
Although the protest will probably succeed in stalling it, given its massive public inertia , such victory is short-lived.
China will reclaim Hong Kong, no matter how vehement we protest . Deng Xiaoping's 'One Country, Two Systems' is the sole reason why Hong Kong has been allowed to escape the fate of its neighbouring provinces, and evolve into what it is now.
According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of HKSAR reads: 'The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.'
28 years has passed. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already demonstrated that it will not lie dormant until then.
Consider the 2012 Legislative Council Election, which is to be held tomorrow. It introduces the new system of 'Super Seats', where elected 'Super' district councillors' votes will count twice as much as their 'ordinary' colleagues. Thanks to CPC, pro-establishment district councillors' are likely to be voted in, and thus fulfill their function as pawns of the Hong Kong government in the legislative council, passing whatever law CPC desires.
'The [Hong Kong political] system ensures that every government-led initiative -- which otherwise would have been killed by democratically elected lawmakers in a separate vote count -- sails through the Legco without a hitch. As a result, our legislative and executive branches always march in lock steps. How is that for a separation of powers?'
(How functional constituencies hinder the city’s path to full democracy:)
'Functional constituencies are the reason why taxpayers are forking out HK$67 billion for 26 kilometers of wasteful express railway, why the investigation of C.Y. Leung’s conflicts of interest in the West Kowloon bid was dropped, and why the government is sitting on trillions of foreign reserves and we still don’t have a social security plan.'
Not sure which 28 years you are referring to, but the handover was in 1997 and the 15 year anniversary has just been celebrated in July.
35 more years to go before Hong Kong becomes another Chinese province (or not if China decides that this 2-system thing works well for their interests), but I'm also worried about the direction taken by China and its obvious hand in trying to shape Hong Kong politics to its liking.
I'm still hopeful in that in Hong Kong, pragmatism usually prevail and even if schools were force-fed such propaganda it's dubious that it would have much of a real impact, given that information is still free in HK and people know better.
I will be very worried when censorship or monitoring laws start to pass through the legislature.
True democracy will never be achieved in Hong Kong, there will always be intense supervision by China.
It's fairly obvious that many aspects of the freedoms we currently enjoy in Hong Kong will be under siege over the next 35 years.
"Philosophy" sounds too much like just a set of ideas. "Religion" sounds too much like just a set of beliefs and rituals. "Way of living" sounds too easy and fuzzy! But Zen does incorporate elements of all those things.
Zen is a tradition that is firmly based on the practice of meditation (zazen) as a way to gain insight into fundamental aspects of awareness and let go of clinging to concepts and self. This sounds very abstract, which is why Zen teachers sometimes prefer to express themselves very concretely, like in this story:
A monk told Joshu: `I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me.'
Joshu asked: `Have you eaten your rice porridge?'
The monk replied: `I have eaten.'
Joshu said: `Then you had better wash your bowl.'
It's hard to talk about all of Zen at once --- though I guess any one word is sufficient, even silence says everything, or just snapping one's fingers --- so I think it's better to just look at basic zazen instructions and start practicing, because nothing makes sense until you taste that.
If you look at the formal aspects of Zen practice --- the rigorous monastery schedules, etc --- it can seem like a very stiff and rigid religion. And in one sense it is. But from the inside, this strictness is just a helpful way of intensifying.
Feel free to ask if there's anything you're curious about, I might be able to answer, though I'm really a beginner.
I have heard the same story told by Alan Watts, though his telling made it easier for a n00b like myself to understand the point of it.
In Watts' telling, the monk was at the monastery for quite some time, expecting that eventually someone would pull him aside and tell hike what to do.
After months, he grew impatient and told the head master "I have been here some time, yet I have not been given instruction".
The headmaster asks if he has had breakfast, and when the monk replies in the affirmative, he is instructed to "go wash your bowl".
For me, what the headmaster was saying was "if your expectation is that I'm going to lay out enlightenment in 5 easy steps for you, then you misunderstand zen. It is a mistake to be in the mindset of waiting for me to tell you what to do."
I'm interested to hear your take-away of that story.
I like that interpretation. These Zen stories always have many layers, I think, but for me, it's very resonant just as a simple story. Saying something like: don't go looking for mystical, sophisticated stuff when the proper thing to do is just to wash your breakfast bowl. A child might hear the story just like that: oh yeah, if I've had breakfast I should wash my bowl. But we're conditioned to make everything complicated.
Then I've also heard a more symbolic interpretation where Joshu is actually really asking about whether the monk has had some taste of enlightenment, and washing one's bowl here means getting rid of residues like pride.
Wonderful! I love the way Zen stories and koans invite so many interpretations.
As a casual Zen enthusiast, I have enjoyed two audio books from iTunes, which other newcomers may also enjoy:
* Zen Buddhism Stories (Trout Lake Media): This is a reading of many Zen stories similar to the one above about the monk being told to wash his bowl. Its great for light-heartedly pushing your mind in an unfamiliar direction. Many of the stories at first lie just outside your understanding, and invite you to ponder them a while longer. I listened to this audio book several times while driving the Pacific Coast Highway on a Californian road trip, which was a wonderful experience. Drive, listen, pull over, watch the waves, smell the sea, ponder, repeat.
* The Iron Flute: Zen Koans (Nyogen Senzaki): This is a much drier, academic coverage of Zen Koans. Koans are read and followed by commentary. Many of these are still very opaque to me (the koans are often a mystery, and the commentary only makes me realize they are even more complex than I had first thought). More challenging, but still interesting.
I've been encouraged by others in my zendo to focus more on practicing Zen (sitting zazen) than reading about Zen, but I must admit, reading about it is great fun :)
Questions like this can only be answered by asking what the consequences of the categorization is. Does saying "religion" make it worth dismissing? Does it make it a rival to Christian thought? Does saying "philosophy" mean that it has no consequent prescriptions for living?
Categorization for its own sake is definitively useless. If you want to compare Heraclitus to Joshu, go for it. Alternately, if you want to compare Pirsig with Aquinas or Kant, fine. If you want to figure out how to live, there's not much point to asking, "Is it a religion?" or "Is it a philosophy?": the salient point is rather whether or not there's anything worth enacting in your life.
Just like with a standard keyboard you need to get yourself in a decent ergonomic position before doing prolonged iPad typing. The temptation is a lot stronger on the iPad to fudge a little on the positioning which can very quickly be disastrous.
Namely: 90 degree angle on the elbow joint while making sure you don't slant your wrists up to reach the keys.
