Dominant Team Quotes

From the onset of polio in 1921 until his death, Franklin, his family, his inner circle of advisers, and teams of physicians assiduously disguised the state of his health, promoting the fantasy of a robust leader who was always in excel- lent physical condition for a man his age. Severe heart disease was not admit- ted until twenty-five years after his death, and then only as part of a new and larger cover-up to conceal other severe medical problems. These deceptions still dominate the present-day narrative of Franklin’s health, especially so in his later years.

If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.

Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. They must face the facts through a realistic, brutally honest assessment of themselves and their team’s performance. Identifying weaknesses, good leaders seek to strengthen them and come up with a plan to overcome challenges. The best teams anywhere, like the SEAL Teams, are constantly looking to improve, add capability, and push the standards higher. It starts with the individual and spreads to each of the team members until this becomes the culture, the new standard. The recognition that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders facilitates Extreme Ownership and enables leaders to build high-performance teams that dominate on any battlefield, literal or figurative.

Cable TV brought the Braves into homes all across America in the 1970s, by the 1980s the Braves were “America’s Team,” and by the 1990s the Braves were the most dominant team in baseball.

Race scholars use the term white supremacy to describe a sociopolitical economic system of domination based on racial categories that benefits those defined and perceived as white. This system of structural power privileges, centralizes, and elevates white people as a group. If, for example, we look at the racial breakdown of the people who control our institutions, we see telling numbers in 2016–2017: - Ten richest Americans: 100 percent white (seven of whom are among the ten richest in the world) - US Congress: 90 percent white - US governors: 96 percent white - Top military advisers: 100 percent white - President and vice president: 100 percent white - US House Freedom Caucus: 99 percent white - Current US presidential cabinet: 91 percent white - People who decide which TV shows we see: 93 percent white - People who decide which books we read: 90 percent white - People who decide which news is covered: 85 percent white - People who decide which music is produced: 95 percent white - People who directed the one hundred top-grossing films of all time, worldwide: 95 percent white - Teachers: 82 percent white - Full-time college professors: 84 percent white - Owners of men’s professional football teams: 97 percent white These numbers are not describing minor organizations. Nor are these institutions special-interest groups. The groups listed above are the most powerful in the country. These numbers are not a matter of “good people” versus “bad people.” They represent power and control by a racial group that is in the position to disseminate and protect its own self-image, worldview, and interests across the entire society.

Success depends on psychological safety. At Google, members of teams with high levels of psychological safety were less likely to leave their jobs, brought in more revenue, and were rated effective twice as often by executives. MIT researchers who studied team performance came to the same conclusion: simply grouping smart people together doesn’t guarantee a smart team. Online and off, the best teams discuss ideas frequently, do not let one person dominate the conversation, and are sensitive to one another’s feelings.

Hanuman has no issues being Angad’s follower. This is Hanuman’s personality—always a team player, ever willing to serve, with absolutely no desire to dominate.

Dominant teams rarely are outplayed or outclassed, but they sometimes beat themselves. Just because you are dominant does not mean you are infallible. Remember that dominance does not mean perfection; a lack of focus for even a short period of time can cost you. Do not relax when you are far ahead or dominating your marketplace. That is the time to push even harder.

The key point here is that large companies typically fail at disruptive innovation because the top management team is dominated by individuals who have been selected for delivery skills, not discovery skills. As a result, most executives at large organizations don’t know how to think different. It isn’t something that they learn within their company, and it certainly isn’t something they are taught in business school. Business schools teach people how to be deliverers, not discoverers.

One reason she had been as successful an assassin had always been her attention to detail, but the weeks of using the cream to maintain her disguise as the hapless dock technician, were taking their toll. Details slipped her mind occasionally, and concentrating was sometimes hard. She’d used the time she had available to study her target, learn his mannerisms and speech pattern, food and clothing preferences. Most of this possible with the right programs and access to the dock AI system. Those hours ‘at work’ in the Fabrication Unit had been well spent, and supplemented by frequenting places where she could observe him. The lack of her usual team of ‘daemons’ had created a number of difficulties, and though she wondered how Security had managed to take them down so quickly, she didn’t waste time worrying over it. Now she knew who he associated with, and his sexuality—all of it vital if she was to escape detection in such a high profile role.

Grant says it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words. In the T-shirt-folding study, the team members reported perceiving the introverted leaders as more open and receptive to their ideas, which motivated them to work harder and to fold more shirts.

Obsess to find ways to win. Work ethic separates the great from the good." "Be so focused on your own ambitions that no one can distract you from achieving them." "Have a maniacal work ethic. You want to overprepare so that luck becomes a product of design." "Stay hungry. Dominate each day with ambition unknown to humankind." "Goals motivate you. Bad habits corrode you." "Operate with love. It fuels the desire to become great." "Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth comes at the end of discomfort." "Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. Seize it. Shape it." "Learn every aspect of your craft and substance will follow." "Find your killer instinct. Impose your will. But also realize you are part of a team.

After the mountains, I found that when my blood sugar levels were between 140 and 180, I was strong during my pulls--and felt refreshed and ready to go for the next ones. Same with Joe. This was a vital piece of information for all eight of us and we immediately spread the word among our teammates. Working out the diabetes strategy was as important as our race strategy. Bike-racing teams ahve to worry about a lot of things; Team Type 1 has to worry about all those same things plus a potentially life-threatening disease.

As a leader, you cannot force the opposition to feel they can’t succeed— they will do that on their own. But you can lead your team to such dominance that giving in becomes the opposition’s only solution. Keep on your team to push hard and, eventually, the other team will submit.

good leadership means leading the way, not hectoring other people to do things your way. Bullying, bickering and competing for dominance are, even in a low-risk situation, excellent ways to destroy morale and diminish productivity. A few NASA teams have in fact come somewhat unglued

But the world had gone mad, in his opinion. Lies and stupidity were more widespread than ever before. Demagogues and psychopaths dominated the political scene, and prejudice and intolerance were poisoning everything, sometimes even penetrating the discussions within his own, otherwise sensible team.

Democratic periodicals in the North warned that the governor’s stance would compromise highly profitable New York trade connections with Virginia and other slave states. Seward was branded “a bigoted New England fanatic.” This only emboldened Seward’s resolve to press the issue. He spurred the Whig-dominated state legislature to pass a series of antislavery laws affirming the rights of black citizens against seizure by Southern agents, guaranteeing a trial by jury for any person so apprehended, and prohibiting New York police officers and jails from involvement in the apprehension of fugitive slaves.

He spurred the Whig-dominated state legislature to pass a series of antislavery laws affirming the rights of black citizens against seizure by Southern agents, guaranteeing a trial by jury for any person so apprehended, and prohibiting New York police officers and jails from involvement in the apprehension

The high-value woman doesn’t ever let men have their way with her emotions, time, body, money, or career. And this is a boundary she strongly protects. Every boundary she bends or changes is only changed when he deserved it. It’s never given.   When a high-value woman is in a relationship with a high-value guy, they behave like a team. They both make concessions, but there’s always an equilibrium. Not a quid pro quo where every concession from her needs to be met by a concession from him. The relationship is always a win-win. Never a lose-win or even a win-lose. (She doesn’t want to dominate her guy either.)   The

think about it. you're playing survivor with all the people you love. some, by sheer luck of genetic lottery, end up on the right team. this team simply knows how to dominate the game. this team understands there is no referee or rules. in fact, this team is so good at the game, they made up invisible referees and rules for other teams to find. they simply do what they want because they understand there is no such things as rights. how do you win if you're not on this team? you don't. however, the consolation prize for knowing the campground is puppet-stringed by a small herd of psychopaths is there is no one for them to pass the reigns on to. in the end, any evil there is in the universe dies, too. i recommend not making any more players and enjoying ice cream while you watch the firework show we tend to call: sun set.

Brainstorming can also be done before the meeting and is best done individually or in very small groups. When I taught at the Stanford design school, I consistently saw how teams who brainstormed individually before coming together not only generated better ideas but were also more likely to have a wider diversity of solutions as they were less likely to be overrun by the louder, more dominating members of the group.

When a CEO looks around her staff meeting, a good rule of thumb is that at least 50 percent of the people at the table should be experts in the company’s products and services and responsible for product development. This will help ensure that the leadership team maintains focus on product excellence. Operational components like finance, sales, and legal are obviously critical to a company’s success, but they should not dominate the conversation.

Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words. In the T-shirt-folding study, the team members reported perceiving the introverted leaders as more open and receptive to their ideas, which motivated them to work harder and to fold more shirts.

your team is ranked first? congratulations and big deal. maintaining a top position is far easier than starting over from the gutters. kevin is doing that right now. he’s facing entirely new schools and learning to play with his less dominant hand. when he masters it, and he will, he’ll be better than you could ever have made him. do you know why? it’s not just his natural talent. it’s because he’s with us. there are only ten foxes this year. that’s one sub for every position. think about it. last night we played blackenridge. they have twenty-seven people on their roster. they can burn through players as fast as they want because they have a pile of replacements. we don’t have that luxury. we have to hold our ground on our own.” “you didn’t hold your ground, you lost. your school is the laughingstock of the ncaa. you’re a team with no concept of teamwork.” “lucky for you. if we were a unified front, you wouldn’t have a chance against us.” “you cannot last and your unfounded arrogance is offensive to everyone who actually earned a spot in first class. everyone knows the only reason palmetto qualified for this division is because of your coach.” “funny, i’m pretty sure that’s how edgar allan qualified.” - neil & riko

Six Thinking Hats: describes six different roles we play on teams and shows the benefits of each role. Each is represented by a different colored hat. Most people have one dominant hat color, with one or two other colors close behind. A person who is drawn to the facts and is very logical wears the white hat. A person most comfortable generating new ideas wears the green hat. A person who uses intuition to make decisions wears the red hat. A person who is very organized and process-oriented wears the blue hat. A "devil's advocate", who uncovers what won't work wears the black hat. A person eager to make everyone happy wears the yellow hat.

New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman. Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman." As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib. Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax. But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it. Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob." Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.

But as a Puerto Rican woman, she belonged to not one but two minority groups. New research suggests that her double minority status may have amplified the costs and the benefits of speaking up. Management researcher Ashleigh Rosette, who is African American, noticed that she was treated differently when she led assertively than were both white women and black men. Working with colleagues, she found that double minority group members faced double jeopardy. When black women failed, they were evaluated much more harshly than black men and white leaders of both sexes. They didn’t fit the stereotype of leaders as black or as female, and they shouldered an unfair share of the blame for mistakes. For double minorities, Rosette’s team pointed out, failure is not an option. Interestingly, though, Rosette and her colleagues found that when black women acted dominantly, they didn’t face the same penalties as white women and black men. As double minorities, black women defy categories. Because people don’t know which stereotypes to apply to them, they have greater flexibility to act “black” or “female” without violating stereotypes. But this only holds true when there’s clear evidence of their competence. For minority-group members, it’s particularly important to earn status before exercising power. By quietly advancing the agenda of putting intelligence online as part of her job, Carmen Medina was able to build up successes without attracting too much attention. “I was able to fly under the radar,” she says. “Nobody really noticed what I was doing, and I was making headway by iterating to make us more of a publish-when-ready organization. It was almost like a backyard experiment. I pretty much proceeded unfettered.” Once Medina had accumulated enough wins, she started speaking up again—and this time, people were ready to listen. Rosette has discovered that when women climb to the top and it’s clear that they’re in the driver’s seat, people recognize that since they’ve overcome prejudice and double standards, they must be unusually motivated and talented. But what happens when voice falls on deaf ears?

The Disease of Me Dominance Lesson 1. There is no i in team but there is an i in win. Lesson 2. Everything you do, you do to the team. Lesson 3. Get out of yourself and into the team. Lesson 4. Don’t forget the fundamentals. Lesson 5. You can have no flickering lights. Lesson 6. Do not allow mistakes to go uncorrected. Lesson 7. Having skill is not having talent. Lesson 8. You must trust, not just believe. Lesson 9. Sometimes what is best for the individual is not what is best for the team. Lesson 10. Teams must take ownership for themselves and their personalities. Lesson 11. Teams that play together often end up lucky. Lesson 12. With your A game, you can beat anybody; anything less and they can beat you.

Feminist-dominated administrations in the United States have elevated child protection to a paramilitary operation. In 1993, US Attorney General Janet Reno used unsubstantiated child abuse rumors to launch military operations against American citizens in Waco, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 24 children that she was ostensibly protecting. The militarization of child protection was seen again in the largest seizure of children in American history, when almost five hundred children were seized from their polygamous parents in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints without any evidence of abuse. “A night-time raid with tanks, riot police, SWAT teams, snipers, and cars full of Texas Rangers and sheriff’s deputies—that is the new face of state child protection,” writes attorney Gregory Hession, “social workers backed up with automatic weapons.

As with other childlike traits, human adults remain playful and trusting in a way that looks a lot more like Labradors than adult wolves or chimpanzees. When a grown wolf or a chimp bares its teeth, you’d better run. Humans, even adult humans, are by and large more into chasing balls than establishing dominance. The readiness with which we play with our friends and acquaintances and even strangers is remarkable, even though verbal banter or wordplay tends to gradually displace physical wrestling. When I joke with the hot dog vendor about his pathetic loyalty to the Mets, as evinced by the baseball cap he is wearing, we become very much like two dogs wrestling in a park: My verbal jabs are play-serious, not meant to genuinely wound, and the successful banter establishes an ephemeral but important trust connection in the midst of a busy metropolis. Insult a chimpanzee’s favorite baseball team, on the other hand, and you’re likely to lose an arm. The fact that humans retain into adulthood the complex and sophisticated cognitive machinery required to play, and in fact continue to enjoy playing with others, is a reflection of the profound importance of trust in human affairs.

made some teams much better than others. What they found was that individual intelligence (as measured by IQ) didn’t make the big difference. Having a high aggregate intelligence or just one or two superstars wasn’t critical. The groups that surfaced more and better solutions shared three key qualities. First, they gave one another roughly equal time to talk. This wasn’t monitored or regulated, but no one in these high-achieving groups dominated or was a passenger. Everyone contributed and nothing any one person said was wasted. The second quality of the successful groups was social sensitivity: these individuals were more tuned in to one another, to subtle shifts in mood and demeanor. They scored more highly on a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes, which is broadly considered a test for empathy. These groups were socially alert to one another’s needs. And the third distinguishing feature was that the best groups included more women, perhaps because that made them more diverse, or because women tend to score more highly on tests for empathy. What this (and much more) research highlights is just how critical the role of social connectedness can be. Reading the research, I

Harris: Let’s talk about how the AI future might look. It seems to me there are three paths it could take. First, we could remain fundamentally in charge: that is, we could solve the value-alignment problem, or we could successfully contain this god in a box. Second, we could merge with the new technology in some way—this is the cyborg option. Or third, we could be totally usurped by our robot overlords. It strikes me that the second outcome, the cyborg option, is inherently unstable. This is something I’ve talked to Garry Kasparov about. He’s a big fan of the cyborg phenomenon in chess. The day came when the best computer in the world was better than the best human—that is, Garry. But now the best chess player in the world is neither a computer nor a human, but a human/computer team called a cyborg, and Garry seemed to think that that would continue for quite some time. Tegmark: It won’t. Harris: It seems rather obvious that it won’t. And once it doesn’t, that option will be canceled just as emphatically as human dominance in chess has been canceled. And it seems to me that will be true for every such merger. As the machines get better, keeping the ape in the loop will just be adding noise to the system.

The ethic of autonomy is based on the idea that people are, first and foremost, autonomous individuals with wants, needs, and preferences. People should be free to satisfy these wants, needs, and preferences as they see fit, and so societies develop moral concepts such as rights, liberty, and justice, which allow people to coexist peacefully without interfering too much in each other’s projects. This is the dominant ethic in individualistic societies. You find it in the writings of utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill and Peter Singer11 (who value justice and rights only to the extent that they increase human welfare), and you find it in the writings of deontologists such as Kant and Kohlberg (who prize justice and rights even in cases where doing so may reduce overall welfare). But as soon as you step outside of Western secular society, you hear people talking in two additional moral languages. The ethic of community is based on the idea that people are, first and foremost, members of larger entities such as families, teams, armies, companies, tribes, and nations. These larger entities are more than the sum of the people who compose them; they are real, they matter, and they must be protected. People have an obligation to play their assigned roles in these entities. Many societies therefore develop moral concepts such as duty, hierarchy, respect, reputation, and patriotism. In such societies, the Western insistence that people should design their own lives and pursue their own goals seems selfish and dangerous—a sure way to weaken the social fabric and destroy the institutions and collective entities upon which everyone depends. The ethic of divinity is based on the idea that people are, first and foremost, temporary vessels within which a divine soul has been implanted.12 People are not just animals with an extra serving of consciousness; they are children of God and should behave accordingly. The body is a temple, not a playground. Even if it does no harm and violates nobody’s rights when a man has sex with a chicken carcass, he still shouldn’t do it because it degrades him, dishonors his creator, and violates the sacred order of the universe. Many societies therefore develop moral concepts such as sanctity and sin, purity and pollution, elevation and degradation. In such societies, the personal liberty of secular Western nations looks like libertinism, hedonism, and a celebration of humanity’s baser instincts.13

In any case, there are all of those chores that most of us can’t avoid: cleaning, straightening, raking leaves, shopping for groceries, driving the children to various activities, preparing food, washing dishes, washing the car, commuting, performing the routine, repetitive aspects of our jobs. This is the “in-between time,” the stuff we have to take care of before getting on to the things that count. But if you stop to think about it, most of life is “in between.” When goal orientation comes to dominate our thoughts, little that seems to really count is left. During the usual nonplayoff year, the actual playing time for a National Football League team is sixteen hours. For the players, does this mean that the other 8,744 hours of the year are “in between”? Does all time take its significance only in terms of the product, the bottom line? And if winning, as the saying goes, is the only thing, does that mean that even the climactic hours achieve their worth merely through victory? There’s another way of thinking about it. Zen practice is ostensibly organized around periods of sitting in meditation and chanting. Yet every Zen master will tell you that building a stone wall or washing dishes is essentially no different from formal meditation. The quality of a Zen student’s practice is defined just as much by how he or she sweeps

There’s an additional depressing reason why stress fosters aggression—because it reduces stress. Shock a rat and its glucocorticoid levels and blood pressure rise; with enough shocks, it’s at risk for a “stress” ulcer. Various things can buffer the rat during shocks—running on a running wheel, eating, gnawing on wood in frustration. But a particularly effective buffer is for the rat to bite another rat. Stress-induced (aka frustration-induced) displacement aggression is ubiquitous in various species. Among baboons, for example, nearly half of aggression is this type—a high-ranking male loses a fight and chases a subadult male, who promptly bites a female, who then lunges at an infant. My research shows that within the same dominance rank, the more a baboon tends to displace aggression after losing a fight, the lower his glucocorticoid levels.78 Humans excel at stress-induced displacement aggression—consider how economic downturns increase rates of spousal and child abuse. Or consider a study of family violence and pro football. If the local team unexpectedly loses, spousal/partner violence by men increases 10 percent soon afterward (with no increase when the team won or was expected to lose). And as the stakes get higher, the pattern is exacerbated: a 13 percent increase after upsets when the team was in playoff contention, a 20 percent increase when the upset is by a rival.79

A team of Mass-Observation researchers, experienced in chronicling the effects of air raids, had arrived on Friday afternoon. In their subsequent report they wrote of having found “more open signs of hysteria, terror, neurosis” than they had seen over the prior two months of chronicling air-raid effects. “The overwhelmingly dominant feeling on Friday was the feeling of utter helplessness.” (The italics were theirs.) The observers noted a widespread sense of dislocation and depression. “The dislocation is so total in the town that people feel that the town itself is killed.” In order to help stem the surge of rumors arising from the raid, the BBC invited Tom Harrisson, the twenty-nine-year-old director of Mass-Observation, to do a broadcast on Saturday night, at nine o’clock, during its prime Home Service news slot, to talk about what he had seen in the city. “The strangest sight of all,” Harrisson told his vast audience, “was the Cathedral. At each end the bare frames of the great windows still have a kind of beauty without their glass; but in between them is an incredible chaos of bricks, pillars, girders, memorial tablets.” He spoke of the absolute silence in the city on Friday night as he drove around it in his car, threading his way past bomb craters and mounds of broken glass. He slept in the car that night. “I think this is one of the weirdest experiences of my whole life,” he said, “driving in a lonely, silent desolation and drizzling rain in that great industrial town.

Back in America, Donald Trump had, as a candidate, preached the virtues of withdrawal. “We should leave Afghanistan immediately,” he had said. The war was “wasting our money,” “a total and complete disaster.” But, once in office, Donald Trump, and a national security team dominated by generals, pressed for escalation. Richard Holbrooke had spent his final days alarmed at the dominance of generals in Obama’s Afghanistan review, but Trump expanded this phenomenon almost to the point of parody. General Mattis as secretary of defense, General H. R. McMaster as national security advisor, and retired general John F. Kelly formed the backbone of the Trump administration’s Afghanistan review. In front of a room full of servicemen and women at Fort Myer Army Base, in Arlington, Virginia, backed by the flags of the branches of the US military, Trump announced that America would double down in Afghanistan. A month later, General Mattis ordered the first of thousands of new American troops into the country. It was a foregone conclusion: the year before Trump entered office, the military had already begun quietly testing public messaging, informing the public that America would be in Afghanistan for decades, not years. After the announcement, the same language cropped up again, this time from Trump surrogates who compared the commitment not to other counterterrorism operations, but to America’s troop commitments in Korea, Germany, and Japan. “We are with you in this fight,” the top general in Afghanistan, John Nicholson, Jr., told an audience of Afghans. “We will stay with you.

The Memory Business Steven Sasson is a tall man with a lantern jaw. In 1973, he was a freshly minted graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His degree in electrical engineering led to a job with Kodak’s Apparatus Division research lab, where, a few months into his employment, Sasson’s supervisor, Gareth Lloyd, approached him with a “small” request. Fairchild Semiconductor had just invented the first “charge-coupled device” (or CCD)—an easy way to move an electronic charge around a transistor—and Kodak needed to know if these devices could be used for imaging.4 Could they ever. By 1975, working with a small team of talented technicians, Sasson used CCDs to create the world’s first digital still camera and digital recording device. Looking, as Fast Company once explained, “like a ’70s Polaroid crossed with a Speak-and-Spell,”5 the camera was the size of a toaster, weighed in at 8.5 pounds, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel, and took up to thirty black-and-white digital images—a number chosen because it fell between twenty-four and thirty-six and was thus in alignment with the exposures available in Kodak’s roll film. It also stored shots on the only permanent storage device available back then—a cassette tape. Still, it was an astounding achievement and an incredible learning experience. Portrait of Steven Sasson with first digital camera, 2009 Source: Harvey Wang, From Darkroom to Daylight “When you demonstrate such a system,” Sasson later said, “that is, taking pictures without film and showing them on an electronic screen without printing them on paper, inside a company like Kodak in 1976, you have to get ready for a lot of questions. I thought people would ask me questions about the technology: How’d you do this? How’d you make that work? I didn’t get any of that. They asked me when it was going to be ready for prime time? When is it going to be realistic to use this? Why would anybody want to look at their pictures on an electronic screen?”6 In 1996, twenty years after this meeting took place, Kodak had 140,000 employees and a $28 billion market cap. They were effectively a category monopoly. In the United States, they controlled 90 percent of the film market and 85 percent of the camera market.7 But they had forgotten their business model. Kodak had started out in the chemistry and paper goods business, for sure, but they came to dominance by being in the convenience business. Even that doesn’t go far enough. There is still the question of what exactly Kodak was making more convenient. Was it just photography? Not even close. Photography was simply the medium of expression—but what was being expressed? The “Kodak Moment,” of course—our desire to document our lives, to capture the fleeting, to record the ephemeral. Kodak was in the business of recording memories. And what made recording memories more convenient than a digital camera? But that wasn’t how the Kodak Corporation of the late twentieth century saw it. They thought that the digital camera would undercut their chemical business and photographic paper business, essentially forcing the company into competing against itself. So they buried the technology. Nor did the executives understand how a low-resolution 0.01 megapixel image camera could hop on an exponential growth curve and eventually provide high-resolution images. So they ignored it. Instead of using their weighty position to corner the market, they were instead cornered by the market.

Only recently has it been discovered that sneezes are a much more drenching experience than anyone thought. A team led by Professor Lydia Bourouiba of MIT, as reported by Nature, studied sneezes more closely than anyone had ever chosen to before and found that sneeze droplets can travel up to eight meters and drift in suspension in the air for ten minutes before gently settling onto nearby surfaces. Through ultra-slow-motion filming, they also discovered that a sneeze isn’t a bolus of droplets, as had always been thought, but more like a sheet—a kind of liquid Saran Wrap—that breaks over nearby surfaces, providing further evidence, if any were needed, that you don’t want to be too close to a sneezing person. An interesting theory is that weather and temperature may influence how the droplets in a sneeze coalesce, which could explain why flu and colds are more common in cold weather, but that still doesn’t explain why infectious droplets are more infectious to us when we pick them up by touch rather than when we breathe (or kiss) them in. The formal name for the act of sneezing, by the way, is sternutation, though some authorities in their lighter moments refer to a sneeze as an autosomal dominant compelling helio-ophthalmic outburst, which makes the acronym ACHOO (sort of). Altogether the lungs weigh about 2.4 pounds, and they take up more space in your chest than you probably realize. They jut up as high as your neck and bottom out at about the breastbone. We tend to think of them as inflating and deflating independently, like bellows, but in fact they are greatly assisted by one of the least appreciated muscles in the body: the diaphragm. The diaphragm is a mammalian invention and it is a good one. By pulling down on the lungs from below, it helps them to work more powerfully.

Korie: Phil and Willie are so much alike. We went to a marriage seminar at our church one time, and Phil and Kay and Jase and Missy were there as well. Each of the couples took a personality test to see if their personalities were compatible. We all laughed because Phil and Willie scored high in the characteristics for having a dominant personality. They were almost identical in a lot of areas, but somewhat different in that Willie was high in the social category as well. I think Willie got that part of his personality from his mother. It’s funny because people look at the Robertsons and think Jase and Phil are just alike, and they are certainly similar in their love for ducks. But when we took the personality test, we saw that Jase’s personality is much more like his mother’s. So I guess it makes sense that Phil and Jase get along so well in the duck blind. They made a good team, just like Phil and Kay do at home. Kay has always said that Willie is a lot like Phil and even calls him “Phil Jr.” at times. While I wouldn’t go that far, I definitely saw the similarities. They both have strong, charismatic personalities. They are both big-picture guys with big ideas and deep beliefs. Whatever either of them is going in life, he does it all the way, and they are both very opinionated, which can sometimes be a challenge. Phil and Willie haven’t always been as close as they are now. As they grew, they recognized the attributes they have in common and learned to value one another’s differences and strengths. Willie says it couldn’t have happened until after he was thirty, though. He needed to grow up and mature, and Phil has gotten more relaxed as he’s gotten older. Willie loves to hunt with his dad and brothers, but there have been times when he’s had a hard time sitting in Phil’s blind. You can only have one leader in the duck blind, only one man who lines up the men and yells, “Cut ‘em!” when it’s time to shoot. Willie and Phil have both always been leaders, whether it’s in the blind or in business.

Denial and desire fought for dominance in his expression. Her lungs squeezed and forced a shallow breath. Right there. His lips were right there. The pupils of his eyes dilated before he breached that hair's breadth of air separating them. Their lips met and the chemistry exploded, racing through her body like wildfire. Need burned hot as his lips owned hers.

Colors also influence other aspects of our behavior. In humans, aggression and dominance are associated with reddening of the face due to increased blood flow—perhaps that is why we refer to “seeing red” when angered. Evolutionary anthropologists at Durham University and the University of Plymouth wondered whether wearing a red shirt might exploit our innate response to the color red and so influence the outcomes of sporting contests. They studied fifty-five years’ worth of English football league results, and found that teams whose home colors were red won 2 percent more often than teams who wore blue or white, and 3 percent more often than those who wore yellow or orange.11

The novel is set in Germany and the main characters are German. There is nothing of significance to say about England twenty years after its surrender. Except, that is, that it is part of a European Union: In the West, twelve nations – Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland – had been corralled by Germany, under the Treaty of Rome, into a European trading bloc. German was the official second language in all schools. People drove German cars, listened to German radios, watched German televisions, worked in German-owned factories, moaned about the behaviour of German tourists in German-dominated holiday resorts, while German teams won every international sporting competition except cricket, which only the English played.8

his peers have expressed considerably more skepticism. “There is nothing Tesla [can] do that we cannot also do,” Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said in June 2016. Two years earlier, he had asked customers not to buy the Fiat 500e electric car, because the company lost $14,000 on the sale of each one. Fiat would sell the minimum number of electric cars needed to meet government mandates and “not one more,” he said. In April 2016, Marchionne continued that theme in an interview on the sidelines of his company’s annual meeting, this time responding to the price of the Model 3. If Musk could show him that the car would be profitable at the $35,000 price tag, Marchionne said, “I will copy the formula, add the Italian design flair, and get it to the market within twelve months.” The German automakers have been even more dismissive. In November 2015, Edzard Reuter, the former CEO of Daimler, called Tesla a “joke” and Musk a “pretender,” suggesting in an interview with a German newspaper that Tesla didn’t stand up to serious comparison with “the great car companies of Germany.” Daimler, BMW, and Volkswagen were slow to accept that Tesla could one day challenge their market dominance. “German carmakers have been in denial that electric vehicles can create an emotional appeal to customers,” Arndt Ellinghorst, an automotive analyst at Evercore ISI, told the Los Angeles Times in April 2016. “Many still believe that Tesla is a sideshow catering to a niche product to some tree-hugging Californians and eccentric US hedge fund managers.” GM wasn’t quite so blasé. In 2013, then CEO Dan Akerson established a team within the company to study Tesla, based on the belief that it could be a big disrupter. GM’s Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid sedan that could drive about forty miles in full electric mode, had won Motor Trend’s 2011 Car of the Year, but GM was looking further into the future. At the 2015 Detroit auto show, it unveiled a concept of the Chevy Bolt, a two-hundred-mile electric car that would retail for $30,000 (after a $7,500 rebate from the US government). It was seen as a direct response to Tesla and new CEO Mary Barra’s biggest risk since she took over in 2014. Wired magazine celebrated the Bolt’s impending arrival with a February 2016 cover story about how GM had beaten Tesla “in the race to build a true electric car for the masses

Who wants what? The answer to what any given plant prefers is found in the next two soil food web gardening rules. Rule #2 holds that most vegetables, annuals, and grasses prefer their nitrogen in nitrate form and do best in bacterially dominated soils. Rule #3 points out that most trees, shrubs, and perennials prefer their nitrogen in ammonium form and do best in fungally dominated soils.

At the most senior level, the people with the greatest impact—the ones who are running the company—should be product people. When a CEO looks around her staff meeting, a good rule of thumb is that at least 50 percent of the people at the table should be experts in the company’s products and services and responsible for product development. This will help ensure that the leadership team maintains focus on product excellence. Operational components like finance, sales, and legal are obviously critical to a company’s success, but they should not dominate the conversation.

Love MINECRAFT? **Over 18,000 words of kid-friendly fun!** This high-quality fan fiction fantasy diary book is for kids, teens, and nerdy grown-ups who love to read epic stories about their favorite game! Meet the Skull Kids. They're three Minecraft players who hop from world to world, hunting zombies and searching for the elusive Herobrine--the ghost in the machine. Teleporting down into a new world, the group is surprised to find that the game has changed once again, rendering almost ALL of their technology and mods useless. And when two of the Skull Kids are starving and distracted by exploring a desert village on Day 1 of their new adventure, the whole group is in danger when the sun goes down. Will the Skull Kids survive? Thank you to all of you who are buying and reading my books and helping me grow as a writer. I put many hours into writing and preparing this for you. I love Minecraft, and writing about it is almost as much fun as playing it. It’s because of you, reader, that I’m able to keep writing these books for you and others to enjoy. This book is dedicated to you. Enjoy!! After you read this book, please take a minute to leave a simple review. I really appreciate the feedback from my readers, and love to read your reactions to my stories, good or bad. If you ever want to see your name/handle featured in one of my stories, leave a review and tell me about it in there! And if you ever want to ask me any questions, or tell me your idea for a cool Minecraft story, you can email me at steve@skeletonsteve.com. Are you on my Amazing Reader List? Find out at the end of the book! June 29th, 2016 Now I’m going to try something a little different. Tell me what you guys think! This ‘Players Series’ is going to be a continuing series of books following my new characters, the players Renzor51, Molly, and quantum_steve. Make sure to let me know if you like it or not! Would you still like to see more books about mobs? More books about Cth’ka the Creeper King? I’m planning on continuing that one. ;) Don’t forget to review, and please say hi and tell me your ideas! Thanks, Ryan Gallagher, for the ideas to continue the wolf pack book! Enjoy the story. P.S. - Have you joined the Skeleton Steve Club and my Mailing List?? You found one of my diaries!! This particular book is the continuing story of some Minecraft players—a trio of friends who leap from world to world, searching for the elusive Herobrine. They’re zombie hunters and planeswalkers. They call themselves “The Skull Kids”. Every time these Skull Kids hop into a new world, they start with nothing more than the clothes they’re wearing, and they end up dominating the realm where they decide to live. What you are about to read is the first collection of diary entries from Renzor51, the player and member of the Skull Kids who documents their adventures, from the day they landed on Diamodia and carved out their own little empire, and beyond. Be warned—this is an epic book! You’re going to care about these characters. You’ll be scared for them, feel good for them, and feel bad for them! It’s my hope that you’ll be sucked up into the story, and the adventure and danger will be so intense, you’ll forget we started this journey with a video game! With that, future readers, I present to you the tale of the Skull Kids, Book 1. The Skull Kids Ka-tet Renzor51 Renzor51 is the warrior-scribe of the group, and always documents the party’s adventures and excursions into game worlds. He’s a sneaky fighter, and often takes the role of a sniper, but can go head to head with the Skull Kids’ enemies when needed. A natural artist, Renzor51 tends to design and build many of the group’s fortresses and structures, and keeps things organized. He also focuses a lot on weapon-smithing and enchanting, always seeking out ways to improve his gear. Molly

The best leaders checked their egos, accepted blame, sought out constructive criticism, and took detailed notes for improvement. They exhibited Extreme Ownership, and as a result, their SEAL platoons and task units dominated. When a bad SEAL leader walked into a debrief and blamed everyone else, that attitude was picked up by subordinates and team members, who then followed suit. They all blamed everyone else,

Winning Teams Execute Plans to Perfection Teams like these, that can dominate, are often excellent at converting their plans into action. They do the small things better than the opposition can, or wants to. It is incredible how many matches are won by teams that do the simple things, the one per cent things, better.

NBA 2K18 Wishlist - Good Badges To Deal Problems In 2K17 The NBA 2K18 release date has basketball fans hyped. The new game in the series will be the definitive way for fans to take control of their favorite franchises and players on the Xbox One and PS4. As of the features player wish to be added into NBA 2K18, we can compare it with NBA 2K17. Today, we'll list the best badges players would like to see in the latest NBA franchise. Flashy Dunker 2K Sports has spent a large amount of time recording flashy dunk animations that look great when they trigger. Unfortunately players do not equip any of these because they get blocked at a higher rate than the basic one and two hand dunk packages. NBA 2K17 has posterizer to help with contact dunks but Flashy Dunker would be for non-contact animations. The badge would allow you to use these flashy dunk packages in traffic while getting blocked at a lower rate in NBA 2K18. Bullet Passer Badge Even with a high passer rating and Hall of Fame dimer you can still find yourself throwing slow lob passes inexplicably. These passes are easy to intercept and give the defense too much time to recover. Bullet Passer would be an increase in the speed of passes that you throw, allowing you to create open looks for teammates in 2K18 that were not possible in NBA 2K17. A strong passing game is more important than ISO ball and this badge would help with that style of play. 3 And D Badge The 3 and D badge would be an archetype in NBA 2K18 ideally but a badge version would be an acceptable substitute. This badge would once again reward players for playing good defense. The badge would trigger after a block, steal, or good shot defense and would lead to an increase in shooting percentage on the next possession from behind the 3 point arc. Dominant Post Presence Badge It's a travesty that post scorer is one of the more under-utilized archetypes in NBA 2K17. Many players that have created a post scorer can immediately tell you why they do not play it as much as their other MyPlayers, it is incredibly easy to lose the ball in the post. Whether it is a double team or your matchup, getting the ball poked loose is a constant problem. Dominant Post Presence would trigger when you attempt to post up and would be an increase in your ability to maintain possession of the ball as long as NBA 2K18 add this badge. In addition the badge would be an increase in the shooting percentage of your teammate when you pass out of the post to an open man. The Glove NBA 2K17 has too many contested shots. The shot contest rating on most archetypes is not enough to outweigh the contested midrange or 3 point rating and consistently force misses. It's obviously that height helps you contest shots in a major way but it also slows you down. However, the Glove would solve this problem in NBA 2K18. This badge would increase your ability to contest shots effectively, forcing more misses and allowing you to play better defense. Of course, there should be more other tips and tricks for NBA 2K18. If you have better advices, tell us on the official media. The NBA 2K18 Early Tip-Off Weekend starts September 15th. That's a total of four days for dedicated fans to get in the game and try its new features before other buyers. The game is completely unlocked for Early Tip-Off Weekend. Be sure to make enough preparation for the upcoming event.

What does that mean? For starters, never go into a board meeting, tee up a topic, and ask them what they think. Instead, prep carefully with your team in advance, and then go in and tell them what you think. If they then respond with questions or concerns, that's fine. You have started the meeting by filling a vacuum, instead of creating one. That will make it much harder for them to dominate the discussion.

If you are tired of your business not reaching the targeted audience, Master Infotech has the solution. We provide full-fledged, one of the best SEO services in Mohali that will help you dominate the search engine results. Our team is excelled at SEO, PPC, SMM, content marketing, email marketing, and much more. contact us today: +91 74000 18000

Kept on as head of NBC Entertainment by Fred Silverman’s successor, Grant Tinker, Tartikoff had more than justified Tinker’s faith in him by gradually putting together a string of hits such as Cheers, Hill Street Blues, Night Court, Miami Vice, The A Team, Family Ties, and The Cosby Show, hits that finally took NBC out of third place in the ratings. That most of those shows were of an unusual originality and quality was not an insignificant footnote, for it could be said that by succeeding with them Tartikoff and Tinker contributed more than anyone to a movement in network television away from the crassness of the programs that dominated the medium during the Fred Silverman era.

In 1986, shortly after Chris’s fourteenth birthday, came a moment that would permanently alter drug enforcement polices moving forward. On June 19, just two days after being selected second overall by the defending champion Boston Celtics, Len Bias died from an overdose, and the world stopped. Bias was a basketball superhero. He had dominated college basketball at the University of Maryland with a combination of force, beauty, grace, and destruction that made him a true one-of-one. In joining the Celtics, he was pinned to become Michael Jordan’s greatest rival (the two had phenomenal duels in college) and prolong the dynasty in Boston, where Larry Bird had led the team to three titles in the last six years. Rumors spread in the press that Bias died after smoking crack. Cocaine, usually associated with lavish white communities and those living in the lap of luxury, was seen as an addiction. But crack was a crime. The drug, far cheaper than powder cocaine, was largely associated with Black communities and was being held significantly responsible for the erosion of society’s moral fabric.

Bothe’s expression changed from friendly to nervous. “We are still at war,” Bothe said. “It must be clear to you that I cannot tell anything which I promised to keep secret.” “I understand your reluctance to talk,” said Goudsmit. “But I should appreciate it if you will show me whatever secret papers you may have.” “I have no such papers. I have burned all secret documents. I was ordered to do so.” Goudsmit didn’t buy it. “The fear of a German atom bomb development superior to ours still dominated our thinking,” he said later, “and as we had obtained no real information of their uranium project in all our investigations so far, we were still mighty uneasy.” The Alsos team learned that Werner Heisenberg, and whatever work he was doing, had recently been moved to a town called Haigerloch. Goudsmit had only one option. “We had to go farther into Germany.” * * * AT LOS ALAMOS, Robert Oppenheimer was

During Scale, you have to learn your proper place on the team. You can’t do everything anymore and be effective—and you’re more likely to hurt things rather than help by dominating others on the team. While dominant go-getter skills come in handy to help you incubate the company, that same skill can make you lousy at scaling unless you learn how to control it.

I would also like to note that with the Horns of Hammerad’s successful completion of this assignment with a solo member of our group, when no team was capable of doing so by themselves, we have established our superiority over other teams in this guild. I understand that equates to dominance in Human culture.” At last there was a shift in the crowd. Ksmvr saw an adventurer open his mouth furiously. “What the hel—” Ksmvr turned, quick as a whip to face the adventurer. The man froze for a second. He stared at the Antinium and his tongue failed him. Ksmvr nodded. “Dominance.

The heroic “hands-on” leader whose personal competence and force of will dominated battlefields and boardrooms for generations has been overwhelmed by accelerating speed, swelling complexity, and interdependence. Even the most successful of today’s heroic leaders appear uneasy in the saddle, all too aware that their ability to understand and control is a chimera.

The Just Therapy Team’s discussions involved an outline of how othered marginalized groups desired a genuine alternative therapeutic dialogue. Marginalized groups (e.g., women, people of color, persons living in poverty, and persons struggling with mental health issues, disabilities) no longer wanted to be dictated to or told who they actually were as persons, as defined by the dominant class of Western psychological thinking (T. K. Tamasese and C. Waldegrave, personal communication, 1991, 1996, 2004, 2008).

Entitled leaders act as if the world revolves around them. Their thinking goes something like this: I’ve been blessed. I have gifts and influence. I have worked hard and deserve to be treated well. This is what I refer to as “power over” others leadership. The opposite of an entitled leader is a grateful leader. Grateful leaders continually marvel at all they have received from God. But as a leader’s sense of gratitude shrinks, their sense of entitlement grows in equal measure. While the world practices a “power over” strategy characterized by dominance and win-lose competitiveness, Jesus taught a “power under” strategy characterized by humility and sacrificial service. In the world, says Jesus, leaders throw their weight around, “[but it is] not so with you. . . . Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” (Mark 10:42 – 43). While Jesus is the invisible God who holds all things together — Almighty, eternal, immortal, and infinite — he became human, temporal, mortal, and finite. Jesus demonstrated his power not by force or control, but by choosing to come under us, humbly washing feet and dying for our sins. He carefully stewarded his power: “[Christ Jesus,] who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:6 – 7).

When people gather and discuss in a group, independence of thought and expression can be lost. Maybe one person is a loudmouth who dominates the discussion, or a bully, or a superficially impressive talker, or someone with credentials that cow others into line. In so many ways, a group can get people to abandon independent judgment and buy into errors. When that happens, the mistakes will pile up, not cancel out. This is the root of collective folly, whether it’s Dutch investors in the seventeenth century, who became collectively convinced that a tulip bulb was worth more than a laborer’s annual salary, or American home buyers in 2005, talking themselves into believing that real estate prices could only go up. But loss of independence isn’t inevitable in a group, as JFK’s team showed during the Cuban missile crisis. If forecasters can keep questioning themselves and their teammates, and welcome vigorous debate, the group can become more than the sum of its parts.

Questions direct people’s thinking. It’s through questions that you help people change. People always move in the direction of their most dominant thought. If you want to change actions, you begin by shaping thinking.

To take one example, even a brief exposure to light in a newborn kitten, rat, or monkey can launch a complex cascade of gene expression. The light activates photoreceptors-which send signals-which trigger a pathway-which leads to the expression of neural growth factors and a set of genes known as "immediate early genes" or "early response genes"-each of which, in turn, triggers the expression of many more genes. One study of cichlid fish suggests that a change in social status (from submissive to dominant) is tied to changes in the expression levels of at least fifty-nine different genes-a phenomenon not entirely unrelated to the testosterone rush that Joe-six-pack gets when the home team wins.

Not all warriors wield knives and guns, Remi. Sometimes, simple resistance makes a person a fighter. Refusing to cave to wrongful domination or bullying is the bravest act of all.

Bernard and I always believed that most pop music fits into the board category called rock and roll. Rock and roll was ever changing, and this art form had different genres of classification for the benefit of consumers, like sections in a library or bookstore. Once any genre-folk, soul, rock or even some jazz-reaches a certain position on the pop charts, it does what’s known in the music business as crossing over, and gets played on the Top Forty stations. That’s the reason so many of us own songs by artists from genre’s we normally wouldn't-their hit songs crossed over into the pop Top Forty mainstream. When a genre repeatedly crosses over and comes to dominate the Top Forty, what had originated as an insurgency becomes the new ruling class. This was the path disco had taken-from the margins where it started, a weird combination of underground gay culture and funk and gospel-singing techniques and, in the case of Chic, Jazz-inflected groovy soul. But it was basically all rock and roll, historically speaking, as far as we were concerned. But the media and the industry pitted us against the Knack-the disco kings in their buppie uniforms verses the scrappy white boys. But we never saw it that way. We thought we were all on the same team, even if our voices and songs followed different idioms. Boy, were we naïve. And boy, did things change.

The stuff of life, in other words, arose in places and times somewhat more accessible to our telescopic investigations. Since most of us spend our lives confined to a narrow strip near Earth’s surface, we tend to think of the cosmos as a lofty, empyrean realm far beyond our reach and relevance. We forget that only a thin sliver of atmosphere separates us from the rest of the universe. But science continues to show just how intimately connected life on Earth is to extraterrestrial processes. In particular, several recent findings have further illuminated the cosmic origins of life’s key ingredients. Take the element phosphorus, for example. It is a critical constituent of DNA, as well as of our cells, teeth and bones. Astronomers have long struggled to trace its buildup through cosmic history, because the imprint of phosphorus is difficult to discern in old, cool stars in the outskirts of our galaxy. (Some of these stellar “time capsules” contain the ashes of their forebears, the very first generation of stars that formed near the dawn of time.) But in a paper published in December in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a research team reported that it had measured the abundance of phosphorus in 13 such stars, using data taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Their findings highlight the dominant role of so-called hypernovae, explosions even more energetic than supernovae that spell the demise of massive stars, in making the elements

Our present culture idolizes three practical philosophies that are eating away at the very fabric of our workforce and culture, our relationships, and our lives. The first of these practical philosophies is individualism. When most people today are faced with a decision, the question that seems to dominate their inner dialogue is, “What’s in it for me?” This question is the creed of individualism, which is based on an all-consuming concern for self. In the present climate, the most dominant trend governing the decision-making process is individualism. Have you ever tried to work with a team where all its members were rugged individualists? Have you ever tried to manage an individualist? No community, whether it is as small as a team or as large as a nation, can grow strong with this attitude. Individualism always weakens the community and causes the whole to suffer. In every instance it is a cancerous growth. The fruits of individualism are no secret to any of us: greed, selfishness, and exploitation.

Indeed, a truly predatory type of investor - sometimes referred to as a vulture capitalist - looks to use the chasm period of struggle and failure as a means to discredit the current management, thereby driving down the equity value in the company, so that in the next round of funding, he or she has an opportunity to secure dominant control of the company, install a new management team, and, worst case, become the owner of the major technology asset, dirt cheap. This is an incredibly destructive exercise during which not only the baby and the bathwater but all human values and winning opportunities are thrown out the window. Nonetheless, it happens.

Every few years, in the world of sport, someone ascends to the most rarefied of all levels—the one at which it becomes news not when they win, but when they lose. It must have been like that in the early Fifties, when a tubby Italian called Alberto Ascari was stitching together nine Grand Prix wins in a row, a record not even Fangio, Clark or Senna could match. Or when the great Real Madrid side of Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas won the first five European Cup finals, between 1956 and 1960. Or when Martina Navratilova dominated Wimbledon's Centre Court, winning nine ladies' singles titles in thirteen years. The current Australian cricket team is in just such a run at present, having just completed nine consecutive victories, putting them four wins away from establishing an all-time record. And then there is Tiger Woods.

There is no doubt that 'force multipliers' - squad automatic weapons - have changed the character of warfare once again, just as their predecessors did during the First World War, if perhaps not to quite the same degree. In the immediate future it seems that most armies will be using some form of 5.56mm machine-gun at squad level, be it a box-fed LSW or belt-fed SAW. If there is a cloud on the horizon where modern light machine-guns are concerned it is that they are not powerful enough for long-range work, or for penetrating cover and light armour. Nevertheless, the new generation of light machine-guns will remain in use well into the next century, not least because they are popular with the soldiers who operate them, the machine-gunners. Likewise, there will still be a place for the heavier GPMG, which does have the 'punch' that the LSW lacks. Machine-guns themselves have become lighter, and their operating principles both more secure and more efficient; the ammunition they use has shrunk to a quarter of its original size and become almost 100 percent reliable. The one important thing which has not changed dramatically is the human component; the attitude with which man faces the prospect of death in battle, and how he prepares himself to face that possibility quite deliberately, for it was the original invention of the machine-gun which reformed that. More than any other single 'advance' in weapons technology, the machine-gun allowed an individual (or actually, a small team of men) to dominate a sector of the battlefield. They had an inhuman advantage which simply had to be exploited if they were to be on the winning side, whether their opponents were Zulus, Sioux, or Dervishes, or other industrialized nations to be beaten into last place in the race toward economic supremacy. Whether the machine-gun has been as important, in any sense at all of the word, as it near-contemporary, the internal combustion engine - or even, date one say it, the bicycle or sewing machine - is still to be decided, but there is one clear, irrefutable fact connected with its short history: it has killed tens of millions of men, women and children and blighted the lives of tens of millions more.

How is Single-Person CQB Different? Single-person CQB tactics are different from tactics developed for teams and multiple teams. The reason for this is the increased risk associated with operating alone. Even if you are very experienced in team-level operations, it may still take time for you to master the specific skills and movements needed for single-person operations. Team-level CQB is generally divided into “immediate entry” and “delayed entry” tactics. Immediate entry methods call for offensive, aggressive movement and were developed by elite military special operations forces for hostage rescue situations. Delayed entry tactics are more common in the law enforcement community and are designed to minimize your exposure and maximize the benefits of cover and concealment. For single-person operations, delayed entry is generally a safer option than immediate entry. If you have a team behind you, it is possible to aggressively rush through a door to dominate a room. However, if you are operating alone with no support, it is dangerous to rush into a fight when the odds might not be in your favor. By employing delayed entry tactics you clear as much of a room or hallway as possible from the outside, before you actually make entry. The tactics in this book are primarily delayed entry tactics. Team-level CQB can also be divided into “deliberate” tactics and “emergency” tactics. The difference has less to do with speed and more to do with the level of care and attention applied to the clearing process. It is possible to execute deliberate tactics very quickly, as long as you are careful to clear each room and danger area completely. Essentially, when conducting a deliberate clear, you will not take any shortcuts.

Pep and Bielsa have much in common: they love teams that dominate, that want to be protagonists on the pitch, to seek out the opposition goal as the main priority.

One of Satya’s first moves was to abolish stack ranking. He worked to reverse the traditional emphasis on rewarding the smartest person in the room, who dominates and pushes around others. He encouraged people to ask questions and listen—to be “learn-it-alls” not know-it-alls. He pressed people to live the One Microsoft philosophy, that the company is not to be “a confederation of fiefdoms” because “innovation and competition don’t respect our silos, so we need to transcend those barriers.” To support this new culture, Satya changed the reward system so that the superstars were people who worked across silos and teams to build products and services with pieces that meshed together well. And so that people deemed as superstars were those who helped others succeed in their careers. The backstabbers who’d flourished under Ballmer changed their ways, left the company voluntarily, or were shown the door.

Leaders, on the one hand, cannot be too lenient. But on the other hand, they cannot become overbearing. They must set high standards and drive the team to achieve those standards, but they cannot be domineering or inflexible on matters of little strategic importance. To find this balance, leaders must carefully evaluate when and where to hold the line and when to allow some slack.

Still, they had more problems to face as now they were encountering an athletic market dominated by the likes of established brands such as Adidas and Nike. While the running market had allowed them to scale to America, things had stagnated, and they needed to pivot. “Being an entrepreneur means taking risks,” he observed, and one of the big risks they decided to take was when a key player on their team, Arnold, came across another new exercise wave: aerobics. They decided to create a couple hundred pairs of sneakers for women’s aerobics and see what would happen.

When a subsystem’s goals dominate at the expense of the total system’s goals, the resulting behavior is called suboptimization. Just as damaging as suboptimization, of course, is the problem of too much central control. If the brain controlled each cell so tightly that the cell could not perform its self-maintenance functions, the whole organism could die. If central rules and regulations prevent students or faculty from exploring fields of knowledge freely, the purpose of the university is not served. The coach of a team might interfere with the on-the-spot perceptions of a good player, to the detriment of the team. Economic examples of overcontrol from the top, from companies to nations, are the causes of some of the great catastrophes of history, all of which are by no means behind us.

The System would tolerate these harmless activities as a means to allow people to go through the Power Process to meet contrived needs which pose no threat to its dominance. For example, rather than directly work towards obtaining food and shelter, one would occupy one’s time with innocuous pastimes like building model ships or cheering for a particular football team, despite the fact that one’s quality of life would not be improved at all even by seeing one’s favourite team win the top championship game. Kaczynski of course calls these surrogate activities.

These principles empower those teams to dominate their battlefields by enabling leaders to fulfill their purpose: lead and win.

American WOMEN are the best football players in the world. The need to declare our independence and our dominance resonated with the entire team.

The need to declare our independence and our dominance resonated with the entire team.

Luit never came out of the anesthesia. He paid dearly for having stood up to two other males, frustrating them by his steep ascent. Those two had been plotting against him in order to take back the power they had lost. The shocking way they did so opened my eyes to how deadly seriously chimpanzees take their politics. Two-against-one maneuvering is what lends chimpanzee power struggles both their richness and their danger. Coalitions are key. No male can rule by himself, at least not for long, because the group as a whole can overthrow anybody. Chimpanzees are so clever about banding together that a leader needs allies to fortify his position as well as the greater community’s acceptance. Staying on top is a balancing act between forcefully asserting dominance, keeping supporters happy, and avoiding mass revolt. If this sounds familiar, it’s because human politics works exactly the same. Before Luit’s death, the Arnhem colony was ruled jointly by Nikkie, a young upstart, and Yeroen, an over-the-hill conniver. Barely adult at seventeen, Nikkie was a brawny character with a dopey expression. He was very determined, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He was supported by Yeroen, who was physically not up to the task of being a leader anymore, yet who wielded enormous influence behind the scenes. Yeroen had a habit of watching disputes unfold from a distance, stepping in only when emotions were flaring to calmly support one side or the other, thus forcing everybody to pay attention to his decisions. Yeroen shrewdly exploited the rivalries among younger and stronger males. Without going into the complex history of this group, it was clear that Yeroen hated Luit, who had wrested power from him years before. Luit had defeated Yeroen in a struggle that had taken three hot summer months of daily tensions involving the entire colony. The next year, Yeroen had gotten even by helping Nikkie dethrone Luit. Ever since, Nikkie had been the alpha male with Yeroen as his right-hand man. The two became inseparable. Luit was unafraid of either one of them alone. In one-on-one encounters in the night cages, Luit dominated every other male in the colony, taking away their food or chasing them around. No single one of them could possibly have kept him in his place. This meant that Yeroen and Nikkie ruled as a team, and only as a team. They did so for four long years. But their coalition eventually began to unravel, and as is not uncommon among men, the divisive issue was sex. Being the kingmaker, Yeroen had enjoyed extraordinary sexual privileges. Nikkie would not let any other males get near the most attractive females, but for Yeroen he had always made an exception. This was part of the deal: Nikkie had the power, and Yeroen got a slice of the sexual pie. This happy arrangement ended only when Nikkie tried to renegotiate its terms. In the four years of his rule, he had grown increasingly self-confident. Had he forgotten who had helped him get to the top? When the young leader began to throw his weight around, interfering with the sexual adventures not only of other males but also of Yeroen himself, things got ugly. Infighting within the ruling coalition went on for months, until one day Yeroen and Nikkie failed to reconcile after a spat. With Nikkie following him around, screaming and begging for their customary embrace, the old fox finally walked away without looking back. He’d had it. Luit filled the power vacuum overnight. The most magnificent chimpanzee male I have known, both in body and spirit, quickly grew in stature as the alpha male. Luit was popular with females, a mighty arbiter of disputes, protector of the downtrodden, and effective at disrupting bonding among rivals in the divide-and-rule tactic typical of both chimp and man. As soon as Luit saw other males together he would either join them or perform a charging display to disband them.

table of contents reads like a list of values that any organization should strive to nurture: Perseverance Work Ethic Teamwork Individual Responsibility to the Team Dominance Thriving with Pressure

My company provides personal guarding services to foreign dignitaries, billionaires, politicians, sports teams, movie and Broadway stars---" "Movie and Broadway stars?" Zara grabbed his tie and yanked him forward until they were almost nose to nose. "Names. Give me names. Who have you guarded? A-list? B-list? Anyone from Hamilton?" Her full attention was on him now and it was hard not to get pulled into the depths of her liquid brown eyes. "Our client list is confidential." "Did you work for Lin-Manuel Miranda?" She tipped her head back and gave the kind of groan he'd only ever heard from a woman between the sheets. "What was he like? Tell me. No. Don't tell me. We're in public and I can't be responsible for what might happen if you do." His mouth opened but no words came out. He'd convinced himself there was no chemistry between them. But now, with her face only inches away, he was almost overwhelmed with the desire to taste the curve of her lips. "C'mon, Jay." She leaned close, the gold flecks in her eyes sparkling, her voice a husky purr that he felt as a throb in his groin. Had he ever met a woman with eyelashes so long? He could swear that every time she blinked, they swept over her cheeks. "Just one name," she pleaded. "One itty-bitty little name for me to fantasize about when I'm alone in bed tonight." She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, slow and sensual. "Or even better, an introduction. I'll make it worth your while." Jay swallowed hard, loosened his collar. Need, tightly controlled, began to unravel. He knew he shouldn't ask, but the words came out just the same. "What do you mean worth my while?" "What do you want, Jay?" Her breath whispered against his cheek. "What is your greatest desire? World domination? Ten glamor models in a limo? Your own island? An endless supply of samosas? Six blue silk ties? A perfectly balanced set of accounts? A night of hot sex, no strings attached...?

Bundling eventually stopped working for Microsoft. After the antitrust investigation, the company maintained its dominance on the PC operating systems market, but it lost control of many other markets. Eventually the industry jumped from PC to mobile. Microsoft tried to exactly replicate the network effects it had before—an ecosystem of hardware manufacturers who paid a licensing fee to run Windows Mobile, and app developers and consumers to match—but this time it didn’t work. Instead, Google gave away its Android mobile OS for free, driving adoption for phone makers. The massive reach of Android attracted app developers, and a new network effect was built, derived from a business model where the OS was free but the ecosystem was monetized using search and advertising revenue. Microsoft has also lost the browser market to Google Chrome, and is being challenged in its Office Suite by a litany of startup competitors large and small. It continued to use bundling as a strategy, adding workplace chat via Teams to its suite—but it hasn’t achieved a clear victory against Slack. If bundling hasn’t been a sure thing for Microsoft, it’s an even weaker strategy for others. The outcome seems even less assured when examining how Google bundled Google+ into many corners of its product, including Maps and Gmail, achieving hundreds of millions of active users without real retention. Uber bundled Uber Eats across many touchpoints within its rideshare app, but still fell behind in food delivery versus DoorDash. Bundling hasn’t been a silver bullet, as much as the giants in the industry hope it is.

I had to understand first that even if I didn’t have a team to handle my client’s listings that weekend, I would have still deserved a weekend off. No one owns my time but me. I also have to tell myself on a daily basis that there will always be some people who CANNOT BE PLEASED. Work 24/7, go above and beyond, consistently deliver fantastic results, offer your firstborn child—and they’re still unhappy. If your PTSD is tied to human reactions that have upended your livelihood, the solution here is to simply say (in your mind, please) “FTG!

ON WOMEN DOMINATING INFLUENCER MARKETING AND INSTAGRAM CREATING UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS . . . I think women are social creatures and form strong relationships and connections much easier than men, so it’s natural that we dominate social media. I definitely think Instagram can create unrealistic expectations. I have had comments and DMs from followers telling me how my content makes them feel depressed or inadequate. So you know what I do now? I post lots of Insta stories and Facebook posts, usually unedited, about what really goes on in my life. This way, they see the prep that goes into that other Instagram post they saw, including the giant mess that is my office, the team that helps me out, and the 3 A.M. late nights.

Over the years, his employees had suggested alternative ways of structuring data retention, to no avail. “At various times in Facebook’s history there were paths we could have taken, decisions we could have made, which would have limited, or even cut back on, the user data we were collecting,” said one longtime employee, who joined Facebook in 2008 and worked across various teams within the company. “But that was antithetical to Mark’s DNA. Even before we took those options to him, we knew it wasn’t a path he would choose.

With some dogs, boundaries are critical; they must know their place. If you let them in your bed, or on the couch, they won’t respect your authority or understand their place in the pack. If you try to push them away, they will growl unhappily; it’s a sign of dominance, and you have to be very careful about letting this behavior go unchecked.

Character Sheet: Herobrine Height: 6’3’’ Most Likely to Say: “Heroes Lose Everything.” Least Likely to Say: “I will fail!” Affiliation: None Origins: Herobrine is the king of the mobs. They follow whatever order he gives, and without him, they are weak and mindless. His goals are to dominate the entire world and become the King of Everything. One of the biggest cities that has been able to resist his attacks is Craft City. And since the arrival of The Mob Hunter, the job has only gotten harder. Herobrine faced off against The Mob Hunter and although he was winning, the Mob Hunter used his creeper ability to gravely injury both himself and Herobrine. Herobrine recovered using the potions of the witches and dark matter energy from the enderman. Not only did he get better, but he also gained the ability to turn into smoke. Herobrine teamed up with Crusher to successfully invade Craft City, but his victory was short lived as he was eventually once again defeated by The Mob Hunter. Herobrine got his freedom after he accepted Alex’s offer to join her team of villains to do hero work. With his redstone collar, he isn’t able to betray her. Yet. Then instead of Alex, Mayor Jackson had control of his redstone collar. Herobrine was then accidently rescued by Steve. Herobrine thought about who he was and if he really was a villain and realized that after fighting for the Mine City Heroes, he rather be a hero. His journey to redeem himself and become a hero came to an end when he sacrificed himself to save Anne and Steve.

We’re talking about them as athletes, rather than some of the conversations we had in ’99: My god, who are these women? They’re kind of hot!” Julie Foudy said. After the team won in 1999, the players turned into one-of-a-kind heroes, pioneers, and role models overnight. Many people rooted for them as a larger statement about women in sports. But by 2015, the players of the national team were athletes that America grew to love simply as athletes. If fans were going to be jubilant about a victory in the 2015 World Cup final, it wouldn’t just be because of some deeper meaning or greater impact—it would be because fans knew these players and wanted them to win. It was evidenced by Alex Morgan’s almost 2 million followers on Twitter, Hope Solo’s autobiography becoming a New York Times bestseller, and Abby Wambach appearing in Gatorade television ads on heavy rotation. No longer did the players need to show up at schools and youth clinics to hand out flyers, like the 1999 team did. The word about the national team was already out. In the team’s three May 2015 send-off games, they sold out every match, drawing capacity crowds at Avaya Stadium, the StubHub Center, and Red Bull Arena. Consider what Foudy told reporters in 1999 after the World Cup win: “It transcends soccer. There’s a bigger message out there: When people tell you no, you just smile and tell them, Yes, I can.” By 2015? Players like Carli Lloyd were talking about world domination. It was all about the soccer—and that, in and of itself, was something special and powerful.

There was still another 75 minutes left to play. It didn’t matter. Those 75 minutes would end up as a footnote on Carli Lloyd’s stunning performance—one of the most dominant displays in a championship game anywhere, ever. The Americans won the World Cup, 5–2, but it was the performance of a lifetime for Lloyd. When the whistle blew, Lloyd dropped to her knees and cried. Heather O’Reilly ran from the bench straight to Lloyd and slid into her. Soon all the players found their way to one another for a frantic mishmash of hugs. Afterward, in the post-match press conference, Japanese coach Norio Sasaki told reporters: “Ms. Lloyd always does this to us. In London she scored twice. Today she scored three times. So we’re embarrassed, but she’s excellent.” Lloyd, for her part, almost downplayed the performance. She believed she could’ve scored one more goal. “I visualized playing in the World Cup final and visualized scoring four goals,” Lloyd said. “It sounds pretty funny, but that’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day, you can be physically strong, you can have all the tools out there, but if your mental state isn’t good enough, you can’t bring yourself to bigger and better things.

Max Levchin’s Plan A was not to be. Demand for security on handheld devices never materialized. He remained a vagabond. But he was cooking another idea. Max pursued a Plan B that centered on cryptography software. “It’s really cool, it’s mathematically complex, it’s very secure,” said Levchin.7 But once again, no one really needed it. Plans C, D, and E didn’t work out any better. Levchin’s Plan F, still based on his cryptography expertise, was a system for securely transferring cash from one PalmPilot to another. As part of that effort, Levchin’s team built a Web-based demo version that did everything on a Web site that the PalmPilot version could do. By early 2000, people were using the Web version for actual transactions, and the growth of the Web demo was more impressive than for the handheld version. “Inexplicable,” recalled Levchin. “The handheld one was cool and the Web site was … unsexy … a demo. Then all these people from a site called eBay were contacting us and saying, ‘can I put your logo in my auction?’ We told them ‘No. Don’t do it.’ Eventually, we realized that these guys were begging to be our users. We had the moment of epiphany. For the next twelve months, we just iterated like crazy on the Web site version.”8 Levchin finally had a tool that filled a void, allowing ravenous eBay traders to safely transfer cash from buyer to seller. Plan G—a little outfit called PayPal—was born. And did it strike gold. PayPal is the now dominant system of paying securely for online purchases. Eventually, eBay, whose internally run payment system was floundering, bought PayPal for $1.5 billion.

The other problem that Lanza had, and perhaps the most significant, was that he was not a very powerful gangster. Sure, in the Luciano family, he was a high-ranking soldier, he had his own territory, and his influence stretched across the country. But that influence stopped cold when it came to the territories dominated by the other four families in New York City. This was by design—the design of his imprisoned boss, Lucky Luciano. Perhaps it was time to talk to the acting boss of his family—Frank Costello—but even he would have trouble exerting influence over the other families. It had been purposely set up that way to maintain a balance of power and keep the peace in the underworld.

Finding the right people for your team starts with a continual self-audit. Examine yourself in the mirror. Figure out who you are and who you aren’t. Then look at your friend group, the people who are around you all the time. Who’s building you up? Who’s bringing you down? The people in your circle, they’re either adding to you or subtracting from you. Maybe they’re helping to multiply your blessings. Or maybe they’re dividing you from things that are really important. To get the results you want in the MATHEMATICS OF LIFE, you’ve got to surround yourself with the right kind of folks.

In a culture dominated by intense pressure to meet quarterly or annual targets, too many of our leaders value high performers with little consideration of whether others on the team can trust them. And those values are reflected in whom they hire, promote and fire.

Here are ten facts about IQ. These facts are debated and often controversial among the general public but far less so among scientists who study intelligence. The best review of the academic literature supporting these facts is a 2012 paper by Richard Nisbett and colleagues – an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars, household names within intelligence research, comprised of psychologists, an economist, a behavioral geneticist, and a former President of the American Psychological Association. Their areas of expertise include cultural and sex differences in intelligence, the effect of social and genetic factors that affect intelligence, the development of intelligence over the lifespan, the relationship between economic development and intelligence, and changes in intelligence over history 1. IQ is a good predictor of school and work performance, at least in WEIRD societies. 2. IQ differs in predictive power and is the least predictive of performance on tasks that demand low cognitive skill. 3. IQ may be separable into what can be called ‘crystallized intelligence’ and ‘fluid intelligence’. Crystalized intelligence refers to knowledge that is drawn on to solve problems. Fluid intelligence refers to an ability to solve novel problems and to learn. 4. Educational interventions can improve aspects of IQ, including fluid intelligence, which is affected by interventions such as memory training. Many of these results don’t seem to last long, although there is strong evidence that education as a whole causally raises IQ over a lifetime. 5. IQ test scores have been dramatically increasing over time. This is called the Flynn effect after James Flynn (also an author of the review mentioned above), who first noticed this pattern. The Flynn effect is largest for nations that have recently modernized. Large gains have been measured on the Raven’s test, a test that has been argued to be the most ‘culture-free’ and a good measure of fluid intelligence. That is, it’s not just driven by people learning more words or getting better at adding and subtracting. 6. IQ differences have neural correlates – i.e. you can measure these differences in the brain. 7. IQ is heritable, though the exact heritability differs by population, typically ranging from around 30% to 80%. 8. Heritability is lower for poorer people in the US, but not in Australia and Europe where it is roughly the same across levels of wealth. 9. Males and females differ in IQ performance in terms of variance and in the means of different subscales. 10. Populations and ethnicities differ on IQ performance. You can imagine why some people might question these statements. But setting aside political considerations, how do we scientifically make sense of this? Popular books from Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994) to Robert Plomin’s Blueprint (2018) have attributed much of this to genes. People and perhaps groups differ in genes, making some brighter than others. But humans are a species with two lines of inheritance. They have not just genetic hardware but also cultural software. And it is primarily by culture rather than genes that we became the most dominant species on earth. For a species so dependent on accumulated knowledge, not only is the idea of a culture-free intelligence test meaningless, so too is the idea of culture free intelligence.

There appear to be three dominant factors that impacted, and continue to impact, Millennials most significantly as they grew up: over-parenting, ubiquitous technology and greater opportunities for instant gratification

The three of us were wearing flat caps, green jackets, plus fours, as if we played for the same sports team. (In a way, I suppose, we did.) Pa, driving us out into the fields, asked about Meg. Not with great interest, just casually. Still, he didn’t always ask, so I was pleased. She’s good, thanks. Does she want to carry on working? Say again? Does she want to keep on acting? Oh. I mean, I don’t know, I wouldn’t think so. I expect she’ll want to be with me, doing the job, you know, which would rule out Suits…since they film in…Toronto. Hmm. I see. Well, darling boy, you know there’s not enough money to go around. I stared. What was he banging on about? He explained. Or tried to. I can’t pay for anyone else. I’m already having to pay for your brother and Catherine. I flinched. Something about his use of the name Catherine. I remembered the time he and Camilla wanted Kate to change the spelling of her name, because there were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested. I wondered now what came of that suggestion. I turned to Willy, gave him a look that said: You listening to this? His face was blank. Pa didn’t financially support Willy and me, and our families, out of any largesse. That was his job. That was the whole deal. We agreed to serve the monarch, go wherever we were sent, do whatever we were told, surrender our autonomy, keep our hands and feet inside the gilded cage at all times, and in exchange the keepers of the cage agreed to feed and clothe us. Was Pa, with all his millions from the hugely lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, trying to say that our captivity was starting to cost him a bit too much? Besides which—how much could it possibly cost to house and feed Meg? I wanted to say, She doesn’t eat much, you know! And I’ll ask her to make her own clothes, if you like. It was suddenly clear to me that this wasn’t about money. Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him. And Camilla. He’d lived through that before, and had no interest in living through it again. I couldn’t deal with any of that right now. I had no time for petty jealousies and Palace intrigue. I was still trying to work out exactly what to say to Granny, and the time had come.

The drawbacks of “hot-desking” or “hoteling,” as it’s called, point to another way in which space can be used to extend our minds (but too often is not). When we operate within a space over which we feel ownership—a space that feels like it’s ours—a host of psychological and even physiological changes ensues. These effects were first observed in studies of a phenomenon known as the “home advantage”: the consistent finding that athletes tend to win more and bigger victories when they are playing in their own fields, courts, and stadiums. On their home turf, teams play more aggressively, and their members (both male and female) exhibit higher levels of testosterone, a hormone associated with the expression of social dominance.

Race scholars use the term white supremacy to describe a sociopolitical economic system of domination based on racial categories that benefits those defined and perceived as white. This system of structural power privileges, centralizes, and elevates white people as a group. If, for example, we look at the racial breakdown of the people who control our institutions, we see telling numbers in 2016–2017: • Ten richest Americans: 100 percent white (seven of whom are among the ten richest in the world) • US Congress: 90 percent white • US governors: 96 percent white • Top military advisers: 100 percent white • President and vice president: 100 percent white • US House Freedom Caucus: 99 percent white • Current US presidential cabinet: 91 percent white • People who decide which TV shows we see: 93 percent white • People who decide which books we read: 90 percent white • People who decide which news is covered: 85 percent white • People who decide which music is produced: 95 percent white • People who directed the one hundred top-grossing films of all time, worldwide: 95 percent white • Teachers: 82 percent white • Full-time college professors: 84 percent white • Owners of men’s professional football teams: 97 percent white26