Hilarious Elen Degeneres’ stand-up comedy for all us overachievers out there with “too busy disorder”.

It gets a little silly and less funny in the middle. But it’s absolutely awesome in the beginning and in the end:

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Feynman is one of the brightest physicists of the 20th century who also happened to be a talented lecturer and an author of a book which is fun to read. Here are some excerpts from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” that I found interesting:

On freedom:

So I have just one wish for you–the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel heed by a need to maintain your position In the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

Isn’t it a modern luxury that very few of us can afford?

On pointless communication

When it came time to evaluate the conference at the end, the others told how much they got out of it, how successful it was, and so on. When they asked me, I said, “This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: There’s a meaningless inkblot, and the others ask you what you think you see, but when you tell them, they start arguing with you!

On mindfulness and watching your thoughts become dreams:

I also noticed that as you go to sleep the ideas continue, but they become less and less logically interconnected. You don’t notice that they’re not logically connected until you ask yourself, “What made me think of that?” and you try to work your way back, and often you can’t remember what the hell did make you think of that!

So you get every illusion of logical connection, but the actual fact is that the thoughts become more and more cockeyed until they’re completely disjointed, and beyond that, you fall asleep.

After four weeks of sleeping all the time, I wrote my theme, and explained the observations I had made. At the end of the theme I pointed out that all of these observations were made while I was watching myself fall asleep, and I don’t really know what it’s like to fall asleep when I’m not watching myself. I concluded the theme with a little verse I made up, which pointed out this problem of introspection:

I wonder why. I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder!

…

One night, while I was having a dream, I realized I was observing myself in the dream. I had gotten all the way down into the sleep itself!

 

Interestingly enough, it eventually got him into a lucid dream.

On hypnosis:

All through the demonstration I was vaguely aware of what was going on, and cooperating with the things the hypnotist said, but this time I decided, “Damn it, enough is enough! I’m gonna go straight to my seat.”
When it was time to get up and go off the stage, I started to walk straight to my seat. But then an annoying feeling came over me: I felt so uncomfortable that I couldn’t continue. I walked all the way around the hall.

I was hypnotized in another situation some time later by a woman. While I was hypnotized she said, “I’m going to light a match, blow it out, and immediately touch the back of your hand with it. You will feel no pain.” I thought, “Baloney!” She took a match, lit it, blew it out, and touched it to the back of my hand. It felt slightly warm. My eyes were closed throughout all of this, but I was thinking, “That’s easy. She lit one match, but touched a different match to my hand. There’s nothin’ to that; it’s a fake!”

When I came out of the hypnosis and looked at the back of my hand, I got the biggest surprise: There was a burn on the back of my hand. Soon a blister grew, and it never hurt at all, even when it broke. So I found hypnosis to be a very interesting experience. All the time you’re saying to yourself, “I could do that, but I won’t”–which is just another way of saying that you can’t.

Feynman is an interesting person to hear about hypnosis from. I don’t think it’s  easy to find somebody with a more skeptical mind. What I find intriguing is how one’s brain can theoretically become conditioned to be inclined to do or feel one thing over the other. And what would be awesome is to use it consciously to condition yourself.

On learning instead of memorizing

So I tell them that one of the first things to strike me when I came to Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much earlier than kids do in the United States, that it’s amazing you don’t find many physicists in Brazil–why is that? So many kids are working so hard, and nothing comes of it.

Then I gave the analogy of a Greek scholar who loves the Greek language, who knows that in his own country there aren’t many children studying Greek. But he comes to another country, where he is delighted to find everybody studying Greek–even the smaller kids in the elementary schools. He goes to the examination of a student who is coming to get his degree in Greek, and asks him, “What were Socrates’ ideas on the relationship between Truth and Beauty?”–and the student can’t answer. Then he asks the student, What did Socrates say to Plato in the Third Symposium?” the student lights up and goes, “Brrrrrrrrr-up”–he tells you everything, word for word, that Socrates said, in beautiful Greek.

But what Socrates was talking about in the Third Symposium was the relationship between Truth and Beauty! What this Greek scholar discovers is, the students in another country learn Greek by first learning to pronounce the letters, then the words, and then sentences and paragraphs. They can recite, word for word, what Socrates said, without realizing that those Greek words actually mean something. To the student they are all artificial sounds. Nobody has ever translated them into words the students can understand. I said, “That’s how it looks to me, when I see you teaching the kids ‘science’ here in Brazil.” (Big blast, right?)

…

“I have discovered something else,” I continued. “By flipping the pages at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, I can show you what’s the matter–how it’s not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance. Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you.”

So I did it. Brrrrrrrup–I stuck my finger in, and I started to read:  Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed.. I said, “And there, have  you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You  haven’t told anything about nature-what crystals produce light when you crush them, why  they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can’t.

“But if, instead, you  were to write, ‘When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called “triboluminescence.”‘ Then someone will go home and try it. Then there’s an experience of nature.” I used that example to show them, but it didn’t make any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like that everywhere.

Overall, it’s an amazing memoir with stories varying from building an atomic bomb to pickup up girls.

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“You’re sitting in a chair… In the SKY!”

Louis C.K. makes you laugh while expressing his view that the world is as awesome as never before but over demanding generation is still annoyingly dissatisfied:

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I recently spent some time thinking what ad campaigns I would call my favorite. I think it would be Nike, Intel & Apple. See yourself.

Nike

Nike probably create the most motivational and vital commercials. Not only they motivate you to engage in sport but to to act and compete life in general. One of the best ones: “Nike Courage“.

Few other Nike video ads: No excuses, Impossible is nothing, I can do this, My better is better than your better.

Intel

Intel’s snobbish humor is awesome. I think the favorite one is: “Intel jokes“.

Few other Intel video ads: Rockstar, Doodles. Then, just follow “similar videos” links.

Apple

Well, Apple is a kind of banal choice, but they really did a good job. It’s hard to pick a favorite one, but I think it would be classic “Think different“.

And then the whole “Mac vs. PC” series. For example, “Legal“. Yes, they do manipulate facts sometimes, but it’s so funny! Few other great videos: Viruses, Restarting, Security, Surgery. Then, just follow “similar videos” links.

Others

Few other great ads pop-up in my head.  This Jim Beam commercial is just great. “Bold choices“:

Also, guys from Barclays did a good job turning economic crisis situation to their advantage: “Fake“.  And Nissan made us smile and think with their “Gas-powered everything“.

What are your favorites?

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Quite funny at times

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Well, one might of course get an impression that I’m a fan of Conan O’Brien as this is the second video with him on this blog. But c’mon the man is charismatic and this commencement speech is probably the funniest one I’ve seen so far! And a little wise too

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One of the best short movies I know, Validation:

Do you know of any similar short films?

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Ok, let’s continue filling newly created “humor” category… That’s not something you want to miss. Conan O’Brien @ Google. Kind of rude to the host and others but still so charismatic and funny.

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Well, that’s just funny. A guy called Baba Brinkman recorded a hip-hop album that is devoted to… Hmm, rather unconventional subjects for this kind of music: evolutionary biology, neuroscience & psychology. All spiced with humor of course.

Rap guide to human nature.

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Throughout last couple of years I’ve been collecting my personal favorite quotations from various inspirational people in my Evernote. As a result I got quite a long list of sayings which I personally consider to be one of the smartest, wittiest, daring and positive at the same time.

Moscow, 2008.

So, I thought why not to share them with you? Assuming I have a lot in common with my readers, you might enjoy them too. If you don’t then you might just skip the post and excuse me for wasting your time. Otherwise, here is the collection:

• “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

• “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

• “There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.” ~ Mark Twain

• “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti

• “Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn’t be about the money.” ~ Tim O’Reilly

• “Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.” ~ Frank Tyger

• “In the end, it’s not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away.“ ~ Shing Xiong

• “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” ~ Albert Einstein

• “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” ~ Albert Einstein

• Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” ~ Albert Einstein

• “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” ~ Albert Einstein

• “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” ~ Albert Einstein

• “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” ~ Albert Einstein

• “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” ~ Albert Einstein

• “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.” ~ Socrates

• “People, who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ~ Apple Inc.

• “You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.” ~ Pursuit of Happyness

• “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom”. ~ Viktor Frankl

• “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.” ~ Henry Ford

• “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” ~ Buddha
• “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”  ~ Buddha

• “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

• “I haven’t failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” ~ Thomas Edison

• “But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” ~ Rocky Balbo

• “Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your inner voice.” ~ Steve Jobs

• “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” ~ Peter F. Drucker

• “Pause now to ask yourself the following question: “Am I dreaming or awake, right now?” Be serious, really try to answer the question to the best of your ability and be ready to justify your answer.” ~ Stephen Laberge

• “It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute… that gives meaning to our lives.” ~ Anthony Robbins

• “Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.“ ~ Malcolm Gladwell

• “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell

• “One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life.” ~ Edward B. Butler

• “A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” ~ Walter Gagehot

• ”Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” ~ Oscar Wilde

• “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” ~ Ayn Rand

• “Three ingredients of luxury lifestyle design are time, income, and mobility.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “The most important actions are never comfortable.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “It isn’t enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Slowing down doesn’t mean accomplishing less; it means cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of being rushed.” ~ Tim Ferriss

• “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” ~ Will Smith

• “Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network.  ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

• “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” ~ Nassim Taleb

• “I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” ~ Ralph Nader
• “So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.” ~ Dale Carnegie

• “People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.” ~ George Orwell

• “Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell

• “God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.”~ Reinhold Niebuhr

• “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”~ Ayn Rand

• “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein

• “Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they lead to actions. Watch your actions, they create habits. Watch your habits, they build your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” ~ Upanishads

• “Think about what it feels like when you interact with someone who makes you notice what’s good about yourself (raising your status), who is clear with his expectations of you (increasing certainty), who lets you make decisions (increasing autonomy), who connects with you on a human level (increasing relatedness), and who treats you fairly.” ~ David Rock

• “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali
• “Become one who is happy with that which you are and with that which you have – while at the same time being eager for more. That is the optimal creative vantage point. To stand on the brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation – with no feeling of impatience, doubt, or unworthiness hindering the receiving of it.” ~ Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks.
• “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I also wanted to include few things from The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (funny & sarcastic) as well as the text of If by Rudyard Kipling (idealistic & inspirational) and a Charlie Chaplin’s Declaration about Life on his 70th Birthday (wise & inspirational). I’m sure they totally deserve to be quoted in full. But I decided against it not to make this post too long. However, I strongly advise to take a couple of minutes and enjoy reading those if you haven’t before. Basically, that’s all I wanted to share, hope you enjoyed. Do you want to share anything of the similar kind?

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