“
Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself.
”
”
John Green
“
If I had a dollar for every time a random woman walked up to me and tried to seduce me, I'd have 50 cents. That's assuming drag queens are half price.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
You shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch yo mouth: cause I'll break yo face.
”
”
50 Cent
“
If you die in an elevator make sure you press the UP button.
”
”
50 Cent
“
Show No Love , Cus Love Can Get U killed
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”
50 Cent
“
I love you like a fat kid loves cake
”
”
50 Cent
“
what comes around goes around.
”
”
50 Cent
“
Get rich or die tryin'.
”
”
50 Cent
“
Understand: people judge you by appearances, the image you project through your
actions, words, and style. If you do not take control of this process, then people will see
and define you the way they want to, often to your detriment. You might think that
being consistent with this image will make others respect and trust you, but in fact it is
the opposite—over time you seem predictable and weak. Consistency is an illusion
anyway—each passing day brings changes within you. You must not be afraid to
express these evolutions. The powerful learn early in life that they have the freedom to
mold their image, fitting the needs and moods of the moment. In this way, they keep
others off balance and maintain an air of mystery. You must follow this path and find
great pleasure in reinventing yourself, as if you were the author writing your own
drama
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
Reality has its own power—you can turn your back on it, but it will find you in the end, and your inability to cope with it will be your ruin.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
WHEN YOU WORK FOR OTHERS, YOU ARE AT THEIR MERCY. THEY OWN YOUR WORK; THEY OWN YOU. YOUR CREATIVE SPIRIT IS SQUASHED. WHAT KEEPS YOU IN SUCH POSITIONS IS A FEAR OF HAVING TO SINK OR SWIM ON YOUR OWN. INSTEAD YOU SHOULD HAVE A GREATER FEAR OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU REMAIN DEPENDENT ON OTHERS FOR POWER. YOUR GOAL IN EVERY MANEUVER IN LIFE MUST BE OWNERSHIP, WORKING THE CORNER FOR YOURSELF. WHEN IT IS YOURS TO LOSE-YOU ARE MORE MOTIVATED, MORE CREATIVE, MORE ALIVE. THE ULTIMATE POWER IN LIFE IS TO BE COMPLETELY SELF-RELIANT, COMPLETELY YOURSELF.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
What separates those who go under and those who rise above adversity is the strength of their will and their hunger for power.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
There is no reason to regard God as immune from
consideration along the spectrum of probabilities. And there is
certainly no reason to suppose that, just because God can be neither
proved nor disproved, his probability of existence is 50 per cent.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
“
I've made so many mistakes, so many corrections. I'm so far from perfect so many imperfections. But I'm a go getta I get up and go get it, so if you preaching prosperity, i wanna hit it....
”
”
50 Cent
“
Love your enemies and hate your friends, your enemies remain the same your friends always change
”
”
50 Cent
“
its not about the dog in the fight, its about the fight in the dog!
”
”
50 Cent
“
Every negative is a positive. The bad things that happen to me, I somehow make them good.
That means you can’t do anything to hurt me.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
50 bucks sounds fair to me. Especially since I’m not doing anything to earn it.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (99 Cents For Some Nonsense)
“
We drive down the road in complete silence for a few miles listening to 50 Cent. As soon as he tells us that he's into having sex, he ain't into making love, Casey turns the volume down and begins telling me the following information: " I love you so much. We're going to have the best life together. I can't wait." Every word she says makes me feel a little more like faking a stroke and pretending to lose all memory of who I was, but it's not until she looks me in the eye and says in all seriousness, "You're my soul mate," that I realize I am not going to marry her.
”
”
Chad Kultgen (The Average American Male)
“
Now is the time to stop drifting and wake up—to assess yourself, the people around you, and the direction in which you are headed in as cold and brutal a light as possible. Without fear.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
mental alchemy you can effect by thinking of any adversity as an opportunity for power.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
I'm a trackstar running through life, chasing my dream"50 Cent
”
”
50 Cent (Playground)
“
IN MY VIEW…IT IS BETTER TO BE IMPETUOUS THAN CAUTIOUS, BECAUSE FORTUNE IS A WOMAN, AND IF YOU WISH TO DOMINATE HER YOU MUST BEAT HER AND BATTER HER. IT IS CLEAR THAT SHE WILL LET HERSELF BE WON BY MEN WHO ARE IMPETUOUS RATHER THAN BY THOSE WHO STEP CAUTIOUSLY. —Niccolò Machiabelli
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
THIS PAST, THE NEGRO’S PAST, OF ROPE, FIRE, TORTURE…DEATH AND HUMILIATION; FEAR BY DAY AND NIGHT, FEAR AS DEEP AS THE MARROW OF THE BONE…THIS PAST, THIS ENDLESS STRUGGLE TO ACHIEVE AND CONFIRM A HUMAN IDENTITY…YET CONTAINS, FOR ALL ITS HORROR, SOMETHING VERY BEAUTIFUL…. PEOPLE WHO CANNOT SUFFER CAN NEVER GROW UP, CAN NEVER DISCOVER WHO THEY ARE…. —James Baldwin
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
live on the edge. I’m only free because I’m not afraid. Everything I was afraid of already happened to me.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
The link between literacy and revolutions is a well-known historical phenomenon. The three great revolutions of modern European history -- the English, the French and the Russian -- all took place in societies where the rate of literacy was approaching 50 per cent. Literacy had a profound effect on the peasant mind and community. It promotes abstract thought and enables the peasant to master new skills and technologies, Which in turn helps him to accept the concept of progress that fuels change in the modern world.
”
”
Orlando Figes (A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924)
“
That's when I realized that as long as you don't broadcast your beefs, you can get away cold with murder. It's even better if you don't allow the beef to take place. If someone disrespects you, you can know in your heard that you're going to get him, but you don't have to show him there's a beef. You can just look at it like, Okay, this nigga must not know. And then you fall back and you put it down.
”
”
50 Cent (From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens)
“
slavery was a system that depended on the creation of deep levels of fear.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
Fear dominates most people’s lives. Fear of loss. Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown. Fear of loneliness.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
Get rich or Die tryin
”
”
50 Cent
“
the greatest danger you face is your mind growing soft and your eye getting dull.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
THE FIRMER YOUR GRASP ON REALITY, THE MORE POWER YOU WILL HAVE TO ALTER IT FOR YOUR PURPOSES.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own – what makes you different.
”
”
50 Cent
“
i love you like a fat kid loves cake!
”
”
50 Cent
“
fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
the knife’s edge that separates failure from success in life. That edge is your attitude, which has the power to help shape your reality.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
My own diagnosis of my problem is a simpler one. It’s that I share 50 per cent of my genome with a banana and 98 per cent with a chimpanzee. Banana’s don’t do psychological consistency. And the tiny part of us that’s different - the special Homo sapiens bit - is faulty. It doesn’t work. Sorry about that.
”
”
Sebastian Faulks (Engleby)
“
To the Greeks, the most basic energy in the world was a battle between two forces. A debate was a fight between two people over an idea. Exercise is a fight between energy and fatigue. Study is a fight between you and the material. Every new day is a fight between light and darkness.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
From the streets to stardom.
”
”
Hal Marcovitz (50 Cent (Hip-hop))
“
That is the physics that all fearless types discover at some point—an appropriate ratcheting up of self-belief and energy when facing negative or even impossible circumstances. Fearless
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
From your top lieutenant to the lowest person on the totem pole, you need to be able to articulate not only where you need that person to go, but also the steps they should follow to get there.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
Keep in mind the following: what you really value in life is ownership, not money. If ever there is a choice—more money or more responsibility—you must always opt for the latter. A lower-paying position that offers more room to make decisions and carve out little empires is infinitely preferable to something that pays well but constricts your movements.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
Never be a minion, always be an owner.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
Your goal in life must be to always move higher and higher up the food chain, where you alone control the direction of your enterprise and depend on no one.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
world will see you the way you see you. And treat you the way you treat yourself.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
SO OVER YOU IS THE GREATEST ENEMY A MAN CAN HAVE AND THAT IS FEAR.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
If I lost it wasn't because I was backed into a corner and beaten down. It would be because I'd gone for what I wanted, and simply come up against someone with more skill.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
The public is never wrong. When people don’t respond to what you do, they’re telling you something loud and clear. You’re just not listening.
”
”
50 Cent
“
The grandmothers decided on William’s eighth birthday that the time had come for the boy to learn the value of money. With this in mind, they allocated him one dollar a week as pocket money, but insisted that he keep an inventory accounting for every cent he spent. Grandmother Kane presented him with a green leather-bound ledger, at a cost of 95 cents, which she deducted from his first week’s allowance. From then on the grandmothers divided the dollar up every Saturday morning. William could invest 50 cents, spend 20 cents, give 10 cents to charity and keep 20 cents in reserve. At the end of each quarter they would inspect the ledger and his written report on any unusual transactions.
”
”
Jeffrey Archer (Kane and Abel (Kane and Abel, #1))
“
extremely serious about the value of hard work. I believe it creates not only success but happiness, too. You can never feel satisfied if you’re not applying yourself to something you’re passionate about.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
Be fearless. Most people run from what they’re afraid of. I run toward it. That doesn’t mean I think I’m bulletproof (I’ve learned the hard way that I’m not) or that I’m unaware of danger. I experience fear as much as the next man. But one of the greatest mistakes people can make is becoming comfortable with their fears. Whatever is worrying me, I meet it head-on and engage it until the situation is resolved. My refusal to become comfortable with fear gives me an advantage in almost every situation.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
Events in life are not negative or positive. They are completely neutral. The universe does not care about your fate; it is indifferent to the violence that may hit you or to death itself. Things merely happen to you. It is your mind that chooses to interpret them as negative or positive.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
Ed Woolard, his mentor on the Apple board, pressed Jobs for more than two years to drop the interim in front of his CEO title. Not only was Jobs refusing to commit himself, but he was baffling everyone by taking only $1 a year in pay and no stock options. “I make 50 cents for showing up,” he liked to joke, “and the other 50 cents is based on performance.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
Thus it is awkward to call motion-sickness a migraine attack, but we may very conveniently term it a migranoid reaction, and note, in support of its affinities, that a large minority (almost 50 per cent, according to Selby and Lance) of adult migraine sufferers experienced severe motion-sickness in
”
”
Oliver Sacks (Migraine)
“
You can only get true fulfillment and happiness from enjoying the achievement you made happen yourself.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
absorb a massive amount of detail and organize it in his mind.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
If you’ve put in the work, and know your shit, raise your damn hand!
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
you can build a lifestyle for yourself that doesn’t need to be fueled by booze and drugs to get things done.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
I remind myself that while it’s okay to feel conflicted about a situation, depression is a luxury that I can’t afford. I cannot allow another person’s lack of success to start undermining my own.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
Ninety-six per cent of juvenile prostitutes are fugitives from abusive domestic situations; 66 per cent began working before they turned 16. (Prostitution is their only perceived means of survival.) Millions of children work as prostitutes around the world. A third are male. One study revealed that over 50 per cent of prostitutes are the children of alcoholics or substance abusers, and 90 per cent are deflowered through incest or rape. Ninety-one per cent of prostitutes do not speak of the abuse. (The truth of life is told through the language of behavior.) Abused children suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, guilt, self-destructive impulses, suspicion, fear. Seventy-five per cent of prostitutes attempt suicide. (Imagine their scrapbook of memories.)
”
”
Antonella Gambotto-Burke (The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide)
“
Modern barber college, Smith eyes closed suffers a haircut fearing its ugliness 50 cents, a barber student olive-skinned 'Garcia' on his coat, two blond small boys one with feared face and big ears watching from seats, tell him 'You're ugly little boy & you've got big ears' he'd weep and suffer and it wouldn't even be true, the other thinfaced conscious concentrated patched bluejeans and scuffed shoes who watches me delicate, suffering child that grows hard and greedy with puberty.
”
”
Jack Kerouac
“
They’re all pretty wasted by now and, besides, they’ve abandoned the tables for the dance floor. It’s absolutely crammed in there. There are all these thirty-somethings slut-dropping and grinding on each other as though they’re in some shit noughties club dancing to 50 Cent, not a marquee on a deserted island with some guys playing fiddles.
”
”
Lucy Foley (The Guest List)
“
No matter what I see, I always think, “They just don’t make them like they used to.” Well, except for kids. People still make children the way they always have, though I am working on a product that’ll make the process 100% more efficient. It’ll work by eliminating 50% of the people required to make one kid. My target market will be asexuals.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (99 Cents For Some Nonsense)
“
Look around you. Everything changes. Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving. . . . You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant. —STEVE MARABOLI
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
The best way to get past a fear that’s holding you back is first to acknowledge it and then come up with a plan to get past it.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
I hate a liar more than I hate thief. A thief is only after my salary, a liar is after my reality.
”
”
50 Cent
“
Comfort, I've learned, is a dream killer. It saps our ambition. Blinds our vision. Promotes complacency. What you cannot do is become complacent with any of those fears
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
You’re only going to be as strong as the weakest person in your crew.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
Allegedly, 50 per cent of Americans believe that the Earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, which if true says something rather sad about the most expensive education system in the world.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Darwin's Watch: The Science of Discworld III (Science of Discworld, #3))
“
It is true that my rent is but 50 cents a week. It is true that my clothes were a gift from the city council. I exchange federal currency for my own, and thus I live. Many restaurants and eating houses now accept my scrip. This is my city, in my country. They treat me well here. I am the Emperor of the United States, Pain. I am content to be what I am. What more than that could any man desire?
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections)
“
When you open yourself up to someone, either financially or emotionally, and they go left on you, it’s a different kind of pain, even more dramatic than a stickup kid physically taking something from you.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
In summary, parents matter, schools matter and life experiences matter, but they don't make a difference in shaping who we are. DNA is the only thing that makes a substantial systematic difference, accounting for 50 per cent of the variance in psychological traits. The rest comes down to chance environmental experiences that do not have long-term effects.
”
”
Robert Plomin (Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are)
“
Having a brush with death, or being reminded in a dramatic way of the shortness of our lives, can have a positive, therapeutic effect. Our days are numbered and so it is best to make every moment count, to have a sense of urgency about life.
”
”
50 Cent (The 50th Law)
“
Aoife also offered a 50 per cent discount if I held it here. She might look dowdy but she’s savvy. That’s how she clinched it. She knows I’ll feature it in the magazine now, knows it’ll get press because of Will. It’ll pay dividends in the end.
”
”
Lucy Foley (The Guest List)
“
Man's inhumanity to man will continue as long as man loves God more than he loves his fellow man. The love of God means wasted love. 'For God and Country' means a divided allegiance—a 50 per cent patriot.
The most abused word in the language of man is the word 'God.' The reason for this is that it is subject to so much abuse. There is no other word in the human language that is as meaningless and incapable of explanation as is the word 'God.' It is the beginning and end of nothing. It is the Alpha and Omega of Ignorance.
It has as many meanings as there are minds. And as each person has an opinion of what the word God ought to mean, it is a word without premise, without foundation, and without substance. It is without validity. It is all things to all people, and is as meaningless as it is indefinable. It is the most dangerous in the hands of the unscrupulous, and is the joker that trumps the ace. It is the poisoned word that has paralyzed the brain of man.
'The fear of the Lord' is not the beginning of wisdom; on the contrary, it has made man a groveling slave; it has made raving lunatics of those who have attempted to interpret what God 'is' and what is supposed to be our 'duty' to God. It has made man prostitute the most precious things of life—it has made him sacrifice wife, and child, and home.
'In the name of God' means in the name of nothing—it has caused man to be a wastrel with the precious elixir of life, because there is no God.
”
”
Joseph Lewis (An Atheist Manifesto)
“
The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion.7 More than 90 per cent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
[Dan] Brown states that five million women were killed by the Church as witches. In fact, modern research has shown that the witch hunts began in the sixteenth century in Europe and that between 30,000 and 50,000 men and women were burned to death for the crime of witchcraft. However, 90 per cent of those trials took place before secular tribunals in countries such as Germany and France where by the 1500s the Church had lost most of its influence in judicial matters. Indeed, it was precisely in countries like Spain and Italy where the Catholic Church still had influence that there were almost no witchcraft trials.
”
”
Michael Coren (Why Catholics are Right)
“
The truth is that I work much harder than I play, because I enjoy the work more. My attitude towards my career is whistle while you work.
Every 18 hour day on a set is fun for me.
Every all nighter in the studio is a joy.
Every 4:30 wake up call is a blessing.
I have places I like to go while on vacation, but the first thing I pack isnt my swimsuit, its always my computer.
I know after the first day of jet skiing or hanging in the spa, im going to be ready to go back to work.
”
”
50 Cent (Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter)
“
About 50 per cent of children with Asperger’s syndrome have relatively advanced verbal reasoning skills, and may be colloquially described as ‘verbalizers’. If such a child has difficulty acquiring a particular academic ability in the social ‘theatre’ of the classroom, then his or her knowledge and understanding may be improved by reading about the concept or engaging in a one-to-one discussion.
”
”
Tony Attwood (The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome)
“
Thank you for raising our children and running our house and taking care of all the emotional labour, which enabled me to work without distraction. It’s time for something new now but here is 50 per cent of everything we built together.’ No. They lawyer up and try to shaft you, hiding their money offshore, pleading poverty, arguing that you never contributed in any way, protesting that the kids don’t need that much.
”
”
Bella Mackie (How to Kill Your Family)
“
If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of 100 people, with all existing human ratios staying the same, it would look like this: There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. 80 would live in substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 50 per cent of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people. And all 6 would be citizens of the United States.
”
”
Ahdaf Soueif (The Map of Love)
“
Between the first case recorded on 4 March 1918, and the last sometime in March 1920, it killed 50–100 million people, or between 2.5 and 5 per cent of the global population–a range that reflects the uncertainty that still surrounds it.
”
”
Laura Spinney (Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World)
“
As a psychologist I am deeply interested in mental disturbances, particularly when they infect whole nations. I want to emphasize that I despise politics wholeheartedly: thus I am neither a Bolshevik, nor a National Socialist, nor an Anti-Semite. I am a neutral Swiss and even in my own country I am uninterested in politics, because I am convinced that 99 per cent of politics are mere symptoms and anything but a cure for social evils. About 50 per cent of politics is definitely obnoxious inasmuch as it poisons the utterly incompetent mind of the masses. We are on guard against contagious diseases of the body, but we are exasperatingly careless when it comes to the even more dangerous collective diseases of the mind.
”
”
C.G. Jung (The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings (Collected Works, Vol 18))
“
Well, that night we had our show; but there warn’t only about twelve people there – just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy – and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said:
AT THE COURT HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The World-Renowned Tragedians
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
Of the London and Continental Theatres,
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD,
OR
THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
Admission 50 cents.
Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said:
LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.
“There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know Arkansaw!
”
”
Mark Twain
“
One 2007 study showed that public health measures such as banning mass gatherings and imposing the wearing of masks collectively cut the death toll in some American cities by up to 50 per cent (the US was much better at imposing such measures than Europe). The timing of the measures was critical, however. They had to be introduced early, and kept in place until after the danger had passed. If they were lifted too soon, the virus was presented with a fresh supply of immunologically naive hosts, and the city experienced a second peak of death.9
”
”
Laura Spinney (Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World)
“
Two large trials of antioxidants were set up after Peto’s paper (which rather gives the lie to nutritionists’ claims that vitamins are never studied because they cannot be patented: in fact there have been a great many such trials, although the food supplement industry, estimated by one report to be worth over $50 billion globally, rarely deigns to fund them). One was in Finland, where 30,000 participants at high risk of lung cancer were recruited, and randomised to receive either ß-carotene, vitamin E, or both, or neither. Not only were there more lung cancers among the people receiving the supposedly protective ß-carotene supplements, compared with placebo, but this vitamin group also had more deaths overall, from both lung cancer and heart disease. The results of the other trial were almost worse. It was called the ‘Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial’, or ‘CARET’, in honour of the high p-carotene content of carrots. It’s interesting to note, while we’re here, that carrots were the source of one of the great disinformation coups of World War II, when the Germans couldn’t understand how our pilots could see their planes coming from huge distances, even in the dark. To stop them trying to work out if we’d invented anything clever like radar (which we had), the British instead started an elaborate and entirely made-up nutritionist rumour. Carotenes in carrots, they explained, are transported to the eye and converted to retinal, which is the molecule that detects light in the eye (this is basically true, and is a plausible mechanism, like those we’ve already dealt with): so, went the story, doubtless with much chortling behind their excellent RAF moustaches, we have been feeding our chaps huge plates of carrots, to jolly good effect. Anyway. Two groups of people at high risk of lung cancer were studied: smokers, and people who had been exposed to asbestos at work. Half were given 3-carotene and vitamin A, while the other half got placebo. Eighteen thousand participants were due to be recruited throughout its course, and the intention was that they would be followed up for an average of six years; but in fact the trial was terminated early, because it was considered unethical to continue it. Why? The people having the antioxidant tablets were 46 per cent more likely to die from lung cancer, and 17 per cent more likely to die of any cause,* than the people taking placebo pills. This is not news, hot off the presses: it happened well over a decade ago.
”
”
Ben Goldacre (Bad Science)
“
In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion.7 More than 90 per cent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers. Accordingly, most business transactions are executed by moving electronic data from one computer file to another, without any exchange of physical cash. Only a criminal buys a house, for example, by handing over a suitcase full of banknotes. As long as people are willing to trade goods and services in exchange for electronic data, it’s even better than shiny coins and crisp banknotes – lighter, less bulky, and easier to keep track of. For
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
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Over 50 per cent of all American crime over the last 75 years has been blamed on drugs, because drugs are the single most convenient scapegoat for a society that is unable to blame itself. When it comes to explaining the presence of those drugs themselves, blame is still not placed on American consumers, but on the foreign supplies who grow the stuff. In America, there are no villains - only victims.
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Dominic Streatfeild (Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography)
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Consequently, in 1958 the Chinese government was informed that annual grain production was 50 per cent more than it actually was. Believing the reports, the government sold millions of tons of rice to foreign countries in exchange for weapons and heavy machinery, assuming that enough was left to feed the Chinese population. The result was the worst famine in history and the death of tens of millions of Chinese.3 Meanwhile, enthusiastic reports of China’s farming miracle reached audiences throughout the world. Julius Nyerere, the idealistic president of Tanzania, was deeply impressed by the Chinese success. In order to modernise Tanzanian agriculture, Nyerere resolved to establish collective farms on the Chinese model. When peasants objected to the plan, Nyerere sent the army and police to destroy traditional villages and forcibly relocate hundreds of thousands of peasants onto the new collective farms. Government propaganda depicted the farms as miniature paradises, but many of them existed only in government documents. The protocols and reports written in the capital Dar es Salaam said that on such-and-such a date the inhabitants of such-and-such village were relocated to such-and-such farm. In reality, when the villagers reached their destination, they found absolutely nothing there. No houses, no fields, no tools. Officials nevertheless reported great successes to themselves and to President Nyerere. In fact, within less than ten years Tanzania was transformed from Africa’s biggest food exporter into a net food importer that could not feed itself without external assistance. In 1979, 90 per cent of Tanzanian farmers lived on collective farms, but they generated only 5 per cent of the country’s agricultural output.4
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
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Stone Age ancestors spread from East Africa to the four corners of the earth, they changed the flora and fauna of every continent and island on which they settled. They drove to extinction all the other human species of the world, 90 per cent of the large animals of Australia, 75 per cent of the large mammals of America and about 50 per cent of all the large land mammals of the planet – and all before they planted the first wheat field, shaped the first metal tool, wrote the first text or struck the first coin.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
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A Letter To Say, "I'll See You Later"
I remember just like it was yesterday the grapevine, clothesline, lilacs and peonies. I remember the secret hiding place for 50-cent pieces.
I remember just like it was yesterday the color wheel Christmas Tree, The Honeymooner’s, The Dukes of Hazzard and Jeopardy!
I remember just like it was yesterday the house was full of children, but I was your only and your favorite. You always made time for me, even when I deserved the fly swatter.
I remember just like it was yesterday falling asleep to the scent of Dove soap on your pillow, you lying for me so I wouldn’t be abused again.
I remember just like it was yesterday your big “Black Cat” and the late, dark nights driving to IFP and knowing there was “No Place Like Home.”
I remember just like it was yesterday the “horns” in your ‘do and the smell of Raffinee wafting through the house and Listerine in the bathroom. I remember your bows and polka dots and “just a few fries.” I remember the green blanket.
I remember just like it was yesterday the way it felt to sit on your lap and have you sing “She’s Grandma’s Little Baby.”
I remember just like it was yesterday the day you told me I could “Shit in the sugar bowl.”
I remember just like it was yesterday telling you that you were going to be a great-grandma…for the first time.
I remember just like it was yesterday the 1st time you held him in your arms; you helped me raise him. Your house was always our home.
I remember just like it was yesterday having my heart broken but you helped me mend it.
I remember just like it was yesterday asking for your help when I couldn’t do it on my own; you’ve always been my rock.
I remember just like it was yesterday confiding my secrets to you – you were the first to know another baby was on the way, this time a girl.
I remember just like it was yesterday the joy they brought to your life; they were the reason you didn’t give up.
I remember just like it was yesterday saying words I never meant, not spending more time with you because my life got in the way.
I remember just like it was yesterday you loving on me, your strength and vitality, your faith, hope and kindness.
I remember just like it was yesterday wishing for more tomorrows so I could tell you that I love you another time.
I remember just like it was yesterday having you tell me you love me, “more than anyone will ever know.”
I remember just like it was yesterday you taught me to never say good-bye, just say “I’ll see you later.
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Amanda Strong
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take the idea of a spectrum of probabilities seriously, and place human judgements about the existence of God along it, between two extremes of opposite certainty. The spectrum is continuous, but it can be represented by the following seven milestones along the way. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C. G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know! Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.’ Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’ Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’ Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.’ Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’ Strong atheist. ‘I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung “knows” there is one.
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Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
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Let us, then, take the idea of a spectrum of probabilities seriously, and place human judgements about the existence of God along it, between two extremes of opposite certainty. The spectrum is continuous, but it can be represented by the following seven milestones along the way. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C. G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know! Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.’ Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’ Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’ Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.’ Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’ Strong atheist. ‘I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung “knows” there is one.
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Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
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It was perhaps, then, not surprising that it was Colonel Beppo Schmid, not General Martini, who on 16 July submitted to Göring the principal intelligence appreciation of the RAF, which became the basis for the Luftwaffe General Staff’s plans. He underestimated the strength of squadrons, claiming they were eighteen aircraft strong, when in fact they had between twenty-two and twenty-four aircraft. He also stated that only a limited number of airfields could be considered operational with modern maintenance and supply installations, which was nonsense. He badly underestimated current aircraft production figures to the tune of about 50 per cent and claimed there was ‘little strategic flexibility’, when, in fact, Dowding’s air defence system provided exactly the opposite. The Me110, he claimed, was a superior fighter to the Hurricane. Even more glaring were the omissions. The Luftwaffe had no concept of how the air defence system worked, no concept of there being three different commands – Fighter, Coastal and Bomber – and no understanding of how repairs were organized. ‘The Luftwaffe is clearly superior to the RAF,’ he concluded, ‘as regards strength, equipment, training, command and location of bases.’7 He was correct in terms of strength only. The rest of his claims were utter twaddle. On the eve of Adlertag, Schmid further reassured the Luftwaffe General Staff that some 350 British fighters had been destroyed since the beginning of July and that they were already being shot down faster than they could be produced. In fact, up to 12 August, 181 had been destroyed and more than 700 new fighter aircraft built.8 The gulf between fact and fiction was quite startling.
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James Holland (The War in the West - A New History: Volume 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941 (A New History Vol 1))
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RENEWABLE ENERGY REVOLUTION: SOLAR + WIND + BATTERIES In addition to AI, we are on the cusp of another important technological revolution—renewable energy. Together, solar photovoltaic, wind power, and lithium-ion battery storage technologies will create the capability of replacing most if not all of our energy infrastructure with renewable clean energy. By 2041, much of the developed world and some developing countries will be primarily powered by solar and wind. The cost of solar energy dropped 82 percent from 2010 to 2020, while the cost of wind energy dropped 46 percent. Solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of electricity. In addition, lithium-ion battery storage cost has dropped 87 percent from 2010 to 2020. It will drop further thanks to the massive production of batteries for electrical vehicles. This rapid drop in the price of battery storage will make it possible to store the solar/wind energy from sunny and windy days for future use. Think tank RethinkX estimates that with a $2 trillion investment through 2030, the cost of energy in the United States will drop to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, less than one-quarter of today’s cost. By 2041, it should be even lower, as the prices of these three components continue to descend. What happens on days when a given area’s battery energy storage is full—will any generated energy left unused be wasted? RethinkX predicts that these circumstances will create a new class of energy called “super power” at essentially zero cost, usually during the sunniest or most windy days. With intelligent scheduling, this “super power” can be used for non-time-sensitive applications such as charging batteries of idle cars, water desalination and treatment, waste recycling, metal refining, carbon removal, blockchain consensus algorithms, AI drug discovery, and manufacturing activities whose costs are energy-driven. Such a system would not only dramatically decrease energy cost, but also power new applications and inventions that were previously too expensive to pursue. As the cost of energy plummets, the cost of water, materials, manufacturing, computation, and anything that has a major energy component will drop, too. The solar + wind + batteries approach to new energy will also be 100-percent clean energy. Switching to this form of energy can eliminate more than 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is by far the largest culprit of climate change.
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Kai-Fu Lee (AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future)
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she feels lucky to have a job, but she is pretty blunt about what it is like to work at Walmart: she hates it. She’s worked at the local Walmart for nine years now, spending long hours on her feet waiting on customers and wrestling heavy merchandise around the store. But that’s not the part that galls her. Last year, management told the employees that they would get a significant raise. While driving to work or sorting laundry, Gina thought about how she could spend that extra money. Do some repairs around the house. Or set aside a few dollars in case of an emergency. Or help her sons, because “that’s what moms do.” And just before drifting off to sleep, she’d think about how she hadn’t had any new clothes in years. Maybe, just maybe. For weeks, she smiled at the notion. She thought about how Walmart was finally going to show some sign of respect for the work she and her coworkers did. She rolled the phrase over in her mind: “significant raise.” She imagined what that might mean. Maybe $2.00 more an hour? Or $2.50? That could add up to $80 a week, even $100. The thought was delicious. Then the day arrived when she received the letter informing her of the raise: 21 cents an hour. A whopping 21 cents. For a grand total of $1.68 a day, $8.40 a week. Gina described holding the letter and looking at it and feeling like it was “a spit in the face.” As she talked about the minuscule raise, her voice filled with anger. Anger, tinged with fear. Walmart could dump all over her, but she knew she would take it. She still needed this job. They could treat her like dirt, and she would still have to show up. And that’s exactly what they did. In 2015, Walmart made $14.69 billion in profits, and Walmart’s investors pocketed $10.4 billion from dividends and share repurchases—and Gina got 21 cents an hour more. This isn’t a story of shared sacrifice. It’s not a story about a company that is struggling to keep its doors open in tough times. This isn’t a small business that can’t afford generous raises. Just the opposite: this is a fabulously wealthy company making big bucks off the Ginas of the world. There are seven members of the Walton family, Walmart’s major shareholders, on the Forbes list of the country’s four hundred richest people, and together these seven Waltons have as much wealth as about 130 million other Americans. Seven people—not enough to fill the lineup of a softball team—and they have more money than 40 percent of our nation’s population put together. Walmart routinely squeezes its workers, not because it has to, but because it can. The idea that when the company does well, the employees do well, too, clearly doesn’t apply to giants like this one. Walmart is the largest employer in the country. More than a million and a half Americans are working to make this corporation among the most profitable in the world. Meanwhile, Gina points out that at her store, “almost all the young people are on food stamps.” And it’s not just her store. Across the country, Walmart pays such low wages that many of its employees rely on food stamps, rent assistance, Medicaid, and a mix of other government benefits, just to stay out of poverty. The
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Elizabeth Warren (This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class)
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Dear KDP Author,
Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.
With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.
Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.
Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.
The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.
Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.
Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.
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Amazon Kdp