Welcome to Wednesday, Apexians. Today’s stories are especially interesting, and I encourage you to read each of them. (They’re all short.) Take a gander, eh?
The acceleration of addictiveness. [Paul Graham] — “Unless the rate at which social antibodies evolve can increase to match the accelerating rate at which technological progress throws off new addictions, we’ll be increasingly unable to rely on customs to protect us…Most people I know have problems with Internet addiction. We’re all trying to figure out our own customs for getting free of it. That’s why I don’t have an iPhone, for example; the last thing I want is for the Internet to follow me out into the world.” [A 14-year-old essay that seems even more relevant today than it did in 2010.]
“How I used the 4% rule over the past 29 years.” [The Retire Early Home Page, via Rob Berger] — “I’ve had confidence over the years in the long-term stock market return data and just maintained my asset allocation through thick and thin. I don’t time the market. Stocks go up and down, but the money you lose to financial advisor fees, commissions, trading costs, and taxes is gone forever.” [From (one of?) the first-ever early retirement site on the interwebs. Still rockin’ the old-school 1994 aesthetic. I love it.]
“I cancelled Amazon Prime, and you probably can too.” [Big Technology, also via Rob Berger] — “Last June, on a whim, I canceled Amazon Prime…I planned to return to Prime soon after canceling, but then never did. At first, I figured I’d wait to pay its $139 annual fee until I had something to buy or watch. But within a few months, I realized I didn’t need it.” [As I’ve mentioned before, I hate what the internet has become. Modern Google and modern Amazon are the two worst offenders. I’m mostly out of the Google ecosystem now, and leaving Amazon is my next project.]
So, here’s a “fun fact” about me: I notice many of the little details that are off in movies and TV shows. And these things bug the hell out of me. I notice when the level of somebody’s drink jumps around from full to empty to full again. I notice when the time on the clock is inconsistent, or when the “summer” leaves are all falling colorfully to the ground.
But I didn’t know until today that this quirk of mine is actually a job in the film industry. Apparently, I’d make a good script supervisor.
The script supervisor is the person responsible for catching continuity errors, for thinking like the J.D.s of the world.
Maybe I’ll move to Hollywood to hire out my services.
For now, though, I’ll be back tomorrow with another installment of Apex Money.