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Blake Masters: Leap forward
In 1811, when Cornelius Vanderbilt was 17, he borrowed $100 from his mom to buy a small sailboat. He figured he could make some money by ferrying goods and people around New York Harbor. He was right. When the War of 1812 broke out, Vanderbilt’s competition nearly vanished (presumably, few… None necessary
"ADHD is a fictitious disease"
Remember, there are two ways drug companies can make money:
- Invent new drugs
- Invent new diseases already invented drugs can treat
In the past decade or so, Big Pharma has created less than 10 new novel drugs per year.
As an example of Big Pharma inventing diseases is “short, normal” children. We can treat “short, normal” kids with human growth hormone and make them “normal.” For parents who want tall or “normal-sized” children, they can inject their kids with growth hormone on a regular basis. When I worked with Nader at his group, Public Citizen, in 2006, I wrote a petition to the FDA to ban human growth hormone on the newly approved disease, “short, normal” children because we identified about 10 reported cases of “short, normal” children who had died from complications of receiving human growth hormone.
Leon Eisenberg, “The Father/Inventor Of ADHD”, on his deathbed
Too many people tell me that they suffer from ADHD when, to me, they suffer from the consequence of bad design. Are you familiar with the Social construct theory of ADHD?:
ADHD as a social construct [edit]
Psychiatrists Peter Breggin and Sami Timimi oppose pathologizing the symptoms of ADHD. Sami Timimi, who is an NHS child and adolescent psychiatrist, explains ADHD as a social construct rather than an objective ‘disorder’.[5] Timimi argues that western society creates stress on families which in turn suggests environmental causes for children expressing the symptoms of ADHD.[6] They also believe that parents who feel they have failed in their parenting responsibilities can use the ADHD label to absolve guilt and self-blame. A common argument against the medical model of ADHD asserts that while the traits that define ADHD exist and may be measurable, they lie within the spectrum of normal healthy human behaviour and are not dysfunctional. However, by definition, in order to diagnose with a mental disorder, symptoms must be interpreted as causing a person distress / espec. maladaptive. In America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) requires that “some impairment from the symptoms is present in two or more settings” and that “there must be clear evidence of significant impairment in social, school, or work functioning” for a diagnosis of ADHD to be made.
(via kenyatta)
Amen
(via jayparkinsonmd)
Captain Obvious says “Logistics is the Killer App”
In the battle for Nigeria’s e-commerce, the latest weapon seems to be the eponymous packaged webshop. Like I suggested a year ago, the real GNBO would be helping Nigeria’s small businesses sell their goods online. The ecosystem seems to have risen to the challenge.
If you throw a rock today, you’re going to hit someone or something that’s working on a “platform that will help small businesses sell their goods”. Shoppi.ng, Shopistry, 500Shops, Traclist and Konga Mall just to mention a few. Even Mastercard wants in on the action.
Unfortunately, many of these are focusing on sorting out e-shops and payments but ignoring the biggest issue in e-commerce - logistics. The assumption seems to be that they’ll outsource logistics to some other player and charge customers for delivery to cover those costs.
I can’t even explain how wooly-headed this concept is. Logistics is the heart and soul of e-commerce and Nigeria doesn’t have the requisite infrastructure to make outsourcing a sensible proposition. I suspect that the costs associated with outsourcing logistics will eventually sink players facing vertically-integrated e-commerce players.
Furthermore, small businesses don’t avoid e-commerce simply because they can’t make websites or the costs of integrating payments. Those problems have been solved some time ago. They avoid e-commerce because delivering goods across Lagos (let’s not even talk of across the country) can be a pain in the bum (Ask anyone who’s ever tried to receive goods that they bought from a small online shop). Furthermore, I’m not sure there’s any courier company who will handle cash on delivery on your behalf; and COD is a major driver of e-commerce in Nigeria.
In the end, if you’re going to help small businesses do e-commerce, you have to help them do ALL of e-commerce; not just the parts that are comfortable for you.
So allow me to make another prediction in the vein of our Lord’s at the last supper.
The e-commerce player that integrates logistics into their offering will win this battle.
And the people said “amen”.
Going Into Debt Will Help Apple Avoid Taxes
The statutory corporate income tax rate is quite high—35 percent—so it turns out to be cheaper to borrow the money and pay interest than to repatriate cash and pay taxes.
[UPDATE] How Much Money was Made from the Hack of AP’s Twitter Account?
UPDATE: When I said you could make a few million from this maneouver, I might have been understating things a bit…
A false Tweet wiped out $136 BILLION from the S&P today in about two minutes: buswk.co/17greFb
— Bill Gross (@Bill_Gross) April 23, 2013
So if you’re a bit of a conspiracy theorist, you’d have a bit of a smile at the aftermath of the hack of AP’s Twitter account. In case you didn’t know, the AP’s [certified] Twitter account was hacked and a fake tweet was posted saying that the White House had been bombed and that President Obama was injured.
As soon as the fake tweet, was discovered, Twitter suspended the account but the damage had already been done. Forbes reports that stocks plunged temporarily before recovering.
To the people trading stocks solely based on unverified AP tweets: you are why we can’t have nice things.
— Aaron Levie (@levie)
Actually, Mr. Levie, they can. If you had taken a shorted some stock in anticipation of this plunge, you could have made some cool money based on that information. Even a few seconds is enough to make a killing.
So Mr. Conspiracy Theorist, what makes you say this?
Well, yesterday, Sepp Blatter’s [certified] Twitter account was hacked. Could it have been a test run? A proof of concept? Something to show the “clients” that the hacking team could break into any account, even if it was certified?
Of course, it could just be the Free Syrian Army having fun at Twitter’s expense.
Just me. Jason Njoku.: Value is in the eye of the beholder | Marketplaces and lead generation
My boy Bastian bought a car. It cost N8Mn ($47k). He found it via a brief search on Cheki, the most awesome car marketplace in Nigeria. But Cheki didn’t directly benefit from what, to most people, is a massive, massive purchase. That is after buying your own house. Easily the most… Marketplaces aren’t for the faint-hearted.
The Power Law in Education
This will sound crazy to you right now but here is the deal :
In the next 10 years, the top 10% of teachers in the world will teach in 90% of the world’s Universities.
Just me. Jason Njoku.: Victory has defeated me.
Peace has cost you your strength. Victory has defeated you The intensity of my work ethnic used to scare my then girlfriend and now wife. She would fall asleep and wake up and I was always, always at my laptop, worried about something. Terrified that someone else would happen on this…
