Luke’s $10k A Week Blog

Surprisingly, the one thing I get the most attention for from the search engines is something I wrote one brief piece on, namely Raising Red Worms. Here’s all of my results. Note: anything with “10kluke” in it was just me checking.

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The title for this post was “borrowed” from a recent TUK posting — where you’d better post a quick comment or you’ll fail at life. Anyway, he makes some great points:

I will tell you one thing right now - if you read posts and don’t comment, you are wasting your time. I used to be like that too - I used to bounce from post to post in the blogosphere, just skimming, rarely commenting… before realising that ultimately, I wasn’t doing anything of use to improve my own blog. By commenting, you are.

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One of the great disappointments of our generation is how slowly science seems to progress in certain areas. For example, we know for a fact that it is theoretically possible to re-grow human limbs. Our bodies are not all that dissimilar to salamanders on a biomolecular level. And yet, it still has not been done. Is this not the 21st century? Is this not the nanotech era?

From: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=regrowing-human-limbs

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Last night I was inspired to write some link bait. It didn’t turn out so well, in my opinion. I only realized this after I published, as happens when you are sleep deprived. I’m going to leave it up, of course. I submitted it to Digg — but the fact is it was crap, so I undug. Oddly enough, I got a comment. IIRC, It was like “OMG you actually watch that show???”

The fact is, all articles are potential link bait. Someone somewhere might very well link to you. But some articles are more likely to float to the top of a social bookmarking site than others.

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Scientific American talks about how you can possibly train yourself to be more compassionate through meditation.

When engaged in compassionate meditation, the brain region known as the insula burst into action when the expert meditators heard the sound of a woman in distress. (The insula—a part of the limbic system—has been associated with the visceral feeling of emotion, a key part of empathizing with another’s emotional state.)

And when these experts heard the female screams or the sound of a baby laughing, their brains showed more activity than the novices in areas like the right temporal-parietal juncture, which plays a role in understanding another’s emotion.

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If you watched the season finale of The Celebrity Apprentice the other day, you may have noticed some things. Maybe you didn’t want to know all of them…

1. Nice guys don’t finish last. Just second-place.

   Trace is awesome, right? So are Tito and all those cool guys. But they all lost. Trump called them “special” and kicked them to the curb.

2. Mean isn’t always evil. It just seems that way.

   Yeah, that Piers fellow. Total jerk! Same with Trump. But they have lots to donate to charity, so they can’t be all bad, right?

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Who do you think of when you think of a resourceful person? Is it a rich person who has everything they need? Or is it a person who can always get what they need, because they have the smarts and the drive to to so?

Labor, land, capital, and entrepreneurship are all listed in my economics textbook as the fundamental scarce resources. While it is true then that wealth — land and capital — are known as scarce resources, we can be certain that the most truly resourceful person is the hard-working one with entrepreneurial skills. If you can do business things; put together a better website, impress people with the value of your products, or engineer new products from scratch, you are resourceful. If you can’t, well, you may have resources but you aren’t exactly resourceful.

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Here’s a quick introduction to what is called Mindfulness Meditation. I use this technique for relaxation. A good introduction is available at How to do Mindfulness Meditation. A longer, more philosophical introduction to the subject is available in a free online book called Mindfulness In Plain English.

• While it is best done sitting cross-legged, this mental exercise can be done while standing or sitting, or even while laying down if sleep is your goal. In a nutshell, the basic idea is to focus on (without trying to affect) your breath, for several minutes straight. Your breathing will grow longer and deeper naturally, but it is important not to change it willfully. Along the way you will think of new things, and attend briefly to these thoughts but return to the focus on your breathing as soon as you are able.

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I just signed 10kluke.info up for a new site called rssHugger. The brainchild of Collin LaHay, it is an interesting, and unconventional blog-promoting tool. I think it has the potential to become a very big name in the blogging industry.

While the original plan was to charge a $10 entry fee, it is currently possible to get in the directory for free. In exchange for writing a review of rssHugger, and provided you can pass a manual inspection for quality non-spam blogs, your entire RSS feed will be featured in their searchable directory. The review can be avoided if you want to pay $20 to be featured directly.

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No, it’s not a role-playing game, but close. Being charismatic is that magical quality that makes it easier to make and keep friends. Here are eight good ways to boost your charisma.

1. Mirroring

   Mirroring is when you copy another person’s mannerisms, movements, and facial expressions. It has a way of making them feel more comfortable with you, because in mimicking them you naturally begin to feel what they feel. Most people naturally mirror each other in normal social interactions — but when done consciously this can work to an even more powerful effect.

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