Mar

27

Spec roundup

March 27, 2025 |


Jeff Watson has been watching the CME:
Anyone else notice the increase in seat prices (trading rights) recently?

Big Al found a history lagniappe:

BabelColour
@StuartHumphryes
Travel back in time 117 years to the Russia of 1908. I have enhanced for you this rare colour photo of the Russian writer Leon Tolstoy, regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. It was taken in the grounds of his house at Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula, Russia. It is original colour, not colourised.

Steve Ellison provided his own:

Since one might be well advised to beware the Ides of March, here is a picture I took in 2017 of the ruins of the Theater of Pompey.

Asindu Drileba has been reading:

The importance of contrarianism emphasized by Jeff Bezos, from the Amazon 2020 Letter to Shareholders:

Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical

Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings….While the passage is not intended as a metaphor, it’s nevertheless a fantastic one, and very relevant to Amazon. I would argue that it’s relevant to all companies and all institutions and to each of our individual lives too. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?…This phenomenon happens at all scale levels. Democracies are not normal. Tyranny is the historical norm. If we stopped doing all of the continuous hard work that is needed to maintain our distinctiveness in that regard, we would quickly come into equilibrium with tyranny….We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search