Showing posts with label depressed. Show all posts

Saturday, 23 May 2015

Hyperloop: Elon Musk’s Wild Idea Set To Become Reality In 2016

May 23rd, 2015 | by Vandita

TECHNOLOGY

When Elon Musk , the Tesla CEO, first proposed his idea of Hyperloop —a long system of pressurized tubes that would allow for super-high-speed of 800 mph travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles— in 2013, the concept was thought of a geek fantasy.

But now Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has closed a deal with developers of Quay Valley in central California to begin construction of world’s first supersonic overland transport system along a stretch of road right near the Interstate 5 freeway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Construction of the first 5-mile Hyperloop stretch will start in 2016, get completed by 2019 and will cost about $100 million. Almost 200 engineers from NASA, Yahoo!, and Airbus are involved in the project realization. There is also a group of 25 students from University of California working on different issues including cost estimation, route planning, and capsule design. The estimated cost of the full Hyperloop, which would run 400 miles in length between the two cities, is $8 billion.

“This five-mile stretch will allow us to completely test the technology, from the boarding process to the safety procedures – really everything except top speed,” said Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT). “We will move people and cargo at speeds never thought possible. We will make the world smaller, cleaner and more efficient,” states HTT on their official website.

The Hyperloop is the idea of Tesla Motors and Space Exploration Technologies founder Musk, who outlined a vision for transporting people at high speeds in capsules that will be pushed through a series of tubes stretching over thousands of miles. After announcing his idea, Musk said he would not fund or actively work on any projects to build the Hyperloop. Musk has since announced plans to build a Hyperloop test track in Texas.

The Hyperloop, which Musk dubs “the fifth mode”, would be as fast as a plane, cheaper than a train, weather-proof, and will emit no carbon from the tailpipe. If people could get from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 20 minutes, or New York to Philly in 10, cities become metro stops and borders evaporate, along with housing price imbalances and overcrowding.

http://anonhq.com/hyperloop-elon-musks-wild-idea-set-to-become-reality-in-2016/

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Thursday, 23 April 2015

What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?

What do you want to do with your life? It’s a question almost everyone asks themselves. It’s also a question I don’t believe you should bother asking in the first place.

“I don’t know what I want to do in life, all I know is that it isn’t this.”

That was the sentiment a friend reflected to me. She’s in her mid-twenties, smart, savvy and hard working. But she is still stuck working jobs that don’t hover much beyond minimum wage. Every year, she tells me, that she applies for Universities, but never goes through with it. Why? Because she can’t answer that question.

Passion Evolves

I worry a lot of people fall into the same trap. The trap of believing that they need to make big life decisions before they can start doing anything. The trap that you need to be born with a passion. And the lie that being able to combine your interests with a profession is easy.

When people ask me what I’m going to be doing in five or ten years, I usually tell them I’m going to be an entrepreneur. “Oh. What’s your business going to be?” I have reason to believe this internet business could be it. Between revenues and freelance work I’m expecting to make about ten thousand dollars this year. Concentrated effort for the next four or five years could definitely make this a livable income.

But I don’t usually say that. Because it isn’t the point. In all honesty, I have no idea where I am going to be in a decade. My track record shows that my passions have evolved considerably, even over the last couple years.

Ben Casnocha, the 19-year old CEO of Comcate, shows how his passion didn’t start with a flash of insight, in the book My Start Up Life:

“It didn’t start with a dream. It didn’t start with in a garage. It didn’t even start with an innovative epiphany, which are perhaps entrepreneurs’ most overplayed recollections.” He continues, relating the story of Jerry Kaplan’s epiphany moment in Kaplan’s book, Start Up. To which Ben adds, “I wish my epiphany were as primal. It wasn’t, and most aren’t.” [emphasis mine]

As Ben shares his story of being a teenage CEO, it becomes clear that his passion evolved. There were interests in entrepreneurship and making a difference. But from these interests, he made smaller steps, each building a passion. I don’t believe his journey ever started with deciding what he wanted to do with his life.

Replace Decision with Curiosity

Instead of making definite decisions about a career path, I believe you should get curious. Get curious about the way the world works. Notice your own interests and find small ways you can exercise passion in something. Even if you can’t find a way to make money off of it yet.

The bridge from passion to money-maker can’t be made hastily. Interests often get discarded because they cannot be immediately relayed into a source of income. And therefore aren’t as important as work that does.

Blogging is a great example. I know many bloggers who want to go pro. They want to take the interest they have and turn it into a passionate source of income. But blogging isn’t easy. Even the most rapid successes I’ve seen, took over a year before the author could claim blogging as more than a hobby. And those were due to writing talent, luck and an incredible amount of work.

Patience is a necessary ingredient in evolving a passion. But even more, you need to be open to other possibilities.

Interest to Income Isn’t a Straight Path

80% of new businesses fail in the first five years. But more interesting, is that of the 20% that succeeded, most didn’t do so in the way they had expected to.

Before setting up his immensely popular website, Steve Pavlina believed he would make most his revenue through products and workshops. But close to five years later, he makes all of it from advertising and affiliate sales. A revenue prospect he downplayed when making his business plan.

Similarly, I don’t believe that most people’s passions follow a straight path. Scott Adams began with a degree in economics and a position in a bank and now he is the successful cartoonist who created Dilbert.

Seven Steps to Evolving a Passion… and Making it Work

Step One – Gather Sparks of Curiosity

Don’t have an inferno of passion driving your actions yet? Don’t worry about it. Most people I know don’t. And if you are under thirty, you are probably in the overwhelming majority.

The first steps is to simply invest your energy into whims. Those little sparks of interest where you don’t know enough to make them a passion. Ben Casnocha calls this seeking randomness. For me, it has been a process of finding my intuition and using it to make small investments in things that are potentially interesting.

This means reading different books, taking on different activities and meeting different people. Broad associations gives a lot of chances to stumble on a passion that can work.

Step Two: Fan the Flames of Interest

After exposing yourself to a lot of randomness, you need to cultivate the successes. Build upon the little sparks of interest that come by your life. If you read a book about physics and like the subject, try taking a physics class. If you enjoy some basic programming try a small software project.

Step Three: Cut Out Distractions

Cultivating whims and exploring new passions requires time. One of the reasons I’ve placed such an emphasis on productivity with myself, is that without it I couldn’t explore these options.

If your interests are genuine and worth exploring, it shouldn’t be too difficult to eliminate the non-essentials. Distractions such as television, excess internet usage and video games only take a bit of conditioning to free up. The hard part is reallocating time you don’t believe is yours.

Step Four: Living Minimally

If you already have a job you aren’t passionate about, work only as much as you need to keep going. Valid passions need time to grow into income generating skills.

I don’t suggest becoming a starving artist and racking up huge debts. But avoid expanding your life to fit a bigger and bigger paycheck if you aren’t living your passion. Otherwise you simply trap yourself into a life that is comfortable, but otherwise dead.

Leo Babauta, author of ZenHabits is a great example of this. With six kids, freelancing work and another job to help support his family he found ways to cut expenses and focus on his passion. His website has quickly grown to become incredibly popular, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a stable source of income for him in a few years. Live minimally, and avoid getting trapped into a comfortable, but unsatisfying, life.

Step Five: Make a Passion that Creates Value

If you have a skill that creates social value, you can make money through almost any medium. Monetizing a passion takes skill, as any entrepreneur can tell you, but without providing legitimate value it is impossible.

You need to transform your developing passions into a skill that can fill human needs. Some passions are easy to translate. An interest in computers could allow you to become a software designer. Others are more difficult. A passion for poetry, may be more difficult to meet a specific human need.

Step Six: Find a Way to Monetize That Value

Once you have the ability to create social value, you need to turn that into a repeatable process for gaining income. This could be in the form of a job. As a programmer you could get hired by Google. Or, it could lead to becoming a freelancer or an entrepreneur.

Monetizing value isn’t easy. It requires that you learn how to market, sell yourself, and find ways to connect human needs. Whether you intend to work in a job or own a business makes no difference. You are the CEO of your life, so you need to know how to connect your passions with serving other people.

Step Seven: Go Back to Step One

Describing this process in steps is misleading. It implies that there is a destination. There is no destination. The process of following whims, cultivating passions, turning them into valuable skills and then finally earning revenue from them is lifelong. I have some passions that are in steps one and two. This blog is in the midst of step six. In ten years I may have gone through them all with a completely different passion.

Not all your passions will or can finish the sixth step. But as persistent as the myth you need to decide what you want to do with your life, is the myth you can only have one passion. I’m at a point where cultivating passions has meant I have too many options. Too many possible paths that could lead to enjoyable and fulfilling careers. Don’t obsess over one failed attempt.

What do you want to do with your life?

Your life doesn’t need to go through a predictable story arc. It doesn’t have to start with a dream, follow through hard work and end up in a nice home with four bedrooms. Instead it can twist and travel. You don’t have to know the final answer, you just need to act on the next step.

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2007/07/29/what-do-you-want-to-do-with-your-life/

Monday, 20 April 2015

Do you feel your motivation has diminished recently? Or do you feel at the moment that it's gone completely? Do you wonder how you'll ever get it back?

It often happens that many people find their motivation decreasing or disappearing altogether. When this happens you tend to feel stuck and you're not really moving forward. You may feel frustrated because you're not making any progress. Seeing yourself making progress is one way to be motivated. But if that's not there, it becomes a vicious circle, because when you're not making progress, you don't feel motivated and vice versa.
When you want to increase your motivation, it's worth remembering that there's a difference between it and inspiration. Motivation is an external source which encourages you and gives you ideas. Inspiration comes from within and the encouragement and ideas are your own. When it comes from within, you own it and will feel inspired. When you feel inspired you'll take action and taking action is the key to achieving what you want, whether it's increasing your business, making changes in your life or progressing towards your dreams.
So, we're really looking to increase your inspiration here and not necessarily just to motivate you. I've found that people's inspiration drops when they've been doing the same thing over and over again for some time. You may feel you're stuck in a rut; it's become a bit of a drag. If you're feeling this way, it's no wonder your inspiration has decided to 'wander off'.
Sometimes you just need to take a break or have a rest from what you're doing and your inspiration may well come back. This break also allows you to re-assess what you've been doing and not doing. Perhaps then you'll see there are some changes you want to make, perhaps deciding to implement a different strategy or action plan.
Taking a break will mean different things to different people and you need to determine for yourself what this break will be. Perhaps, you'll decide take a day or a week off work, to play and have fun. Or you may decide to go for a brisk walk. I'm even inclined to suggest to you that, while taking this break, you tell yourself that you're not allowed to do or think about anything related to work or whatever it is that you're taking a break from. It's surprising how much most of us react to being told we can't do or have something. The rebellious part of us often surfaces and wants to fight it.
Taking a break from whatever it is you've been doing will probably make you feel apprehensive. All your fears about how much you have to get done, you're wasting time, what if I don't want to go back to doing this, are likely to surface. It's a natural reaction, but the fear is usually much worse than the reality. You need to trust yourself, face up to the fears and know that you can handle any situation.
After a break, you'll feel refreshed and when you feel refreshed, your enthusiasm and inspiration will return. Then, you'll be ready to start moving forward again.
What I want for you is to take a break and allow your inspiration and desire for life and business to return to you naturally.

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 7

#7 Take risk. Failure and bouncing back are elements of motivation. Failure is a learning tool. No one has ever succeeded at anything worthwhile without a string of failures.

http://www.motivation-tools.com/elements/seven_rules.htm

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 6

#6 Increase knowledge of subjects that inspires. The more we know about a subject, the more we want to learn about it. A self-propelled upward spiral develops.

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 5

#5 Harmonize natural talent with interest that motivates. Natural talent creates motivation, motivation creates persistence and persistence gets the job done.

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 4

#4 Learn how to learn. Dependency on others for knowledge supports the habit of procrastination. Man has the ability to learn without instructors. In fact, when we learn the art of self-education we will find, if not create, opportunity to find success beyond our wildest dreams.

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 3

#3 Socialize with others of similar interest. Mutual support is motivating. We will develop the attitudes of our five best friends. If they are losers, we will be a loser. If they are winners, we will be a winner. To be a cowboy we must associate with cowboys.

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 2

#2 Finish what you start. A half finished project is of no use to anyone. Quitting is a habit. Develop the habit of finishing self-motivated projects.

Seven Rules of Motivation Part 1

I'm releasing 1 every hour!!

#1 Set a major goal, but follow a path. The path has mini goals that go in many directions. When you learn to succeed at mini goals, you will be motivated to challenge grand goals.