bits

…from here and there

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Driven problem solvers: PayPal had a strong bias toward hiring (and promoting / encouraging, as Keith mentions) smart, driven problem solvers, rather than subject matter experts. Very few of the top performers at the company had any prior experience with payments, and many of the best employees had little or no prior background building Internet products. I worked on the fraud analytics team at PayPal, and most of our best people had never before done anything related to fraud detection. If he’d approached things “traditionally”, Max would have gone out and hired people who had been building logistic regression models for banks for 20 years but never innovated, and fraud losses would likely have swallowed the company.” (by Mike Greenfield, former Sr. Fraud R&D Scientist of Paypal)
Why did so many successful entrepreneurs and startups come out of PayPal? Answered by Insiders

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youmightfindyourself:

This is Carl Sagan reading from his book, “The Pale Blue Dot”. Carl Sagan was the most uncommon of scientists. Yes, he was smart. Accessible. And even popular.

But more than anything else, he was inspiring.

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mikehudack: abcsoupdot: sexartandpolitics: Just a few hours before the 1991 Gulf war ceasefire, photographer Ken Jarecke was heading back to Kuwait from Southern Iraq. Jarecke came across a single truck burnt out from airstrike in the middle of a highway. Jarecke told his military escort that “If I don’t make pictures like this, people like my mother will think what they see in war is what they see in movies”, and went over to the burnt tank and took the above photo. At that time, it was an image challenged the prevailing notion that the ‘clinical’ attack avoided ‘collateral damage’. Dead Iraqi Soldier « Iconic Photos Sorry to make you uncomfortable, but this is important.

mikehudack:

abcsoupdot:

sexartandpolitics:

Just a few hours before the 1991 Gulf war ceasefire, photographer Ken Jarecke was heading back to Kuwait from Southern Iraq. Jarecke came across a single truck burnt out from airstrike in the middle of a highway. Jarecke told his military escort that “If I don’t make pictures like this, people like my mother will think what they see in war is what they see in movies”, and went over to the burnt tank and took the above photo. At that time, it was an image challenged the prevailing notion that the ‘clinical’ attack avoided ‘collateral damage’.

Dead Iraqi Soldier « Iconic Photos

Sorry to make you uncomfortable, but this is important.

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Anyway, as you might have noticed there’s a brand new series of TopGear starting this Sunday on BBC2 at 8pm if you’re in Britain, or a few minutes after 9pm UK time if you’re one of those people abroad who cheekily downloads the show off some illegal BitTorrent website. Don’t look guilty and fiddle nervously with your mouse cable. We know what you’re up to…
Top Gear Script Editor Richard Porter (via caseyliss)

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If Americans ever really get hold of football (soccer) and figure it out, they’ll just destroy everyone. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You’re the best in everything if you care about it.

An Irishman at a bar last night (via clarityunfiltered) (via section9) (via mikehudack)

I think that’s true. Hopefully we, mexicans, could do the same in football and in a lot of more important things.