Hello, Apexians, and greetings from the Big Easy. It’s J.D. here again to keep you company.
As I do once each year, I’ve made the migration to Fincon, the conference for folks in the financial media. I’m trying to be retired from the financial media (except Apex Money), but I will never miss Fincon. For me, it’s not a conference; it’s a place to hang out with old friends — and meet new ones!
During breaks here and there, I’ll continue gathering interesting stories about money (and more!) to share with you. Let’s start the week with a great piece published 30 years ago. Here’s some excellent insight The Meaning of Life:
The road to self renewal. [PDF article from March 1994 Stanford alumni magazine] — “The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character. You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you; they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.”
“How I got to the bottom of a vexing toilet-paper mystery.” [Slate, via Mr. Robert Berger] — “That is how I found myself on a Zoom with Gregg Weaver, a senior scientist at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, to talk about toilet paper R&D. He informed me that the scalloped edges were not merely aesthetic, though he did allow that some people thought they looked good. Wavy edges, Weaver said, are designed to solve the No. 1 problem consumers have with toilet paper: the incomplete tear.”
Everything you can’t predict. [Young Money] — “Predicting the future is easy, but predicting who wins in that future is much, much more difficult. By 2001, plenty of tech experts could have told you that cloud computing was going to emerge as an important technological development in a decade. But how many of those experts would have predicted that an online bookstore would dominate the cloud market?”
Our final piece today has nothing to do with money. It has nothing much to do with anything, in fact. It’s just a fun little trifle. Here’s a 14 April 1967 television news broadcast from Cedar Rapids, Iowa as the station transitions from black-and-white to color:
Recently at my personal blog, I wrote about what life before electricity in rural America. Well, I experienced life before color TV. Growing up in the 1970s, most of the families I knew had B&W sets. The rich folks had color TV. (My family had no TV at all until about 1982? 1983?) But by the time I was in junior high, everyone had color television.
And that’s all I have to start today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more great stuff. Join me, won’t you?