Mostrando resultados por "mark schectman" en Todas las categorías

If you're a homeowner, having a river or pond run through your property can be pretty cool – it can turn a rather nondescript piece of land into something more interesting and, with proper upkeep and safety, something more fun. Of course, that's only true if the body of water was something you expected to be there. If, one day, you woke up to find your typically dry backyard more akin to a bayou – well, that's a problem.

Who polices America's prosecutors? And when they set their sights on an innocent CEO, can he survive a five-year, $25 million legal labyrinth to save the company he built, and himself from prison?

People typically come with 10 fingers and 10 toes, but when it comes down to it, we tend to neglect the latter set. That may be because we can't do much with our toes, at least not intentionally. (Or, put another way, they're not nearly as useful as our fingers.) In fact, we don't really think much about our toes – they're just kind of there, hiding in our shoes, doing whatever toes do. And as it turns out, we're not really good at thinking about our toes, even when we try to. Just ask a team of researchers from Oxford University.

Are you frustrated or disenchanted by the results of your Agile approach? Does Agile sound like a good idea, but you're not sure how to explain it beyond roles, practices, and meetings? Is your team going through the motions, but it's still business as usual? The missing piece is the Agile mindset - the thinking that makes Agile processes work.

François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was a French writer during the Enlightenment. Known for what would today be considered snark, he often made comments to which many would take offense. For example, in his 1764 treatise Dictionnaire Philosophique (which translates as Philosophical Dictionary), Voltaire quipped that "common sense is not so common." This smarter-than-thou attitude was a theme throughout his works, and, one would expect, his life as well.

A fun yet factual guide to thriving not only in Silicon Valley but in the emerging Global Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has become synonymous with big ideas, start-ups, and inventing the future. But today the magic of Silicon Valley has gone viral and global. From Austin to Boston, from Shanghai to Dubai, a Global Silicon Valley is emerging.

No Hope is for disaffected conservatives and moderates as well as liberals who are fed up with the political party system. Forty-three percent of Americans now identify as Independents. Many of them are right of center and used to be Republicans.

Is zero odd or even? Find out how India drove around the problem on this episode of Now I Know. Zero is an even number. Let’s get that out of the way. But if that gave you pause, you’re not alone – it can be a little hard to internalize. That’s why Wikipedia has a surprisingly long entry discussing the subject and why, according to a study from the 1990s (as explained by the BBC), “people are 10% slower at deciding whether zero is odd or even than other numbers.”

From the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union nearly fifty years later, the happenings of those nations behind the Iron Curtain were hidden in the shroud of communism. Many of the goings-on came to light in subsequent years, with most being stories of abuses under communist dictators. But some of the revelations unveiled in the 1990s were secrets about the Nazis. For example, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, someone discovered a swastika made of trees.

What do you do when fog disrupts a soccer match? If you're the UK in 1940, you broadcast an imaginary game instead. Get the full, fogged up story on this episode of Now I Know. In 1875, two of Edinburgh’s soccer teams – Heart of Midlothian F.C, and Hibernian F.C. – faced off for the first time. The two teams, nicknamed the “Hearts” and the “Hibs,” now meet on the pitch regularly, and the games have become a cultural touchstone.

The Persian Gulf Pro League is the highest level of Iranian soccer. The Iran Pro League, or IPL, as it is often called, dates back to 1970, but has been around since 2001 in its current form. The sixteen teams in the IPL play 30 games over the course of a season; each team plays a home game and an away game against the other fifteen squads. Teams earn 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie, and the team with the most points at the end of the season is the league champion.

Sometime in the summer of 1933, a couple in Trinidad – it's unclear if they were ever married – went through a particularly nasty breakup. The woman, Caroline, believed her partner to be less-than-faithful; his reputation for philandering and carousing was more than she could handle, especially given that she had just given birth to twin boys six months prior. Caroline decided to return to Germany, where she – a practicing Roman Catholic – had grown up.

Crack – a smokable form of cocaine which is all too common – is highly addictive and very dangerous. At $50 to $100 per gram on the street (that's a Google-fueled guess by the way; sorry if I have that wrong, but I've never been in the market for crack), it's also a lower-cost alternative to those cocaine addicts who need a hit but don't have the dollars for the straight, snort-able kind. Oh, and in most places, it's illegal – including in the United States, which includes the state of Tennessee.

On January 5, 2010, Irish authorities descended upon the home of an electrician who, just a couple of days earlier, had traveled from his native Slovakia back to his adopted home of Ireland. Acting on a tip from the Slovak authorities, the Irish police believed that the man – whose name was never released to the press – had recently smuggled explosives into Ireland. Specifically, the man was believed to have transported an explosive called RDX in his luggage during his January 2nd flight.

Here's a simple experiment you can try at home – and, probably will in the near future, whether you'd like to or not. Call a customer support hotline, try to talk to a real human and, well, you don't have to do much else. In many cases, you'll be put on hold, and you'll get to experience hold music. It's almost a given that this will happen, as hold music has become a very common feature of such phone systems. But it has a very uncommon history.

Checks are, basically, IOUs. The person writing the check promises to pay the check's recipient at some point in the very near future. The check writer isn't even part of the transaction at that point – the writer's bank is instructed, literally, to "pay" the amount specified "to the order of" the person to whom the check is made out. The bank plays a critical role in the transaction beyond the delivery of cash, too – it helps ensure that the check writer is good for the debt now owed.

In China, millions of women regularly gather for morning square dancing – despite the government's attempt to stop them. Get the step-by-step story on this episode of Now I Know. Today millions of Chinese women aged 55 and older regularly gather for morning square dancing – even though the Chinese government tried to stop them. Square dancing in China, at least among middle-aged and older women, became a trend in the mid-1990s.

Meet the Beverly Hills Caviar Automated Boutique: a super fancy mall vending machine that sells caviar, escargot and truffles. Explore the fishy facts on this episode of Now I Know. In the market for a high-end, expensive meal? Here are two rules of thumb: One, don’t even bother looking at vending machines. A Snickers bar or bag of Pirate’s Booty may seem like a grand idea, but – even with the 20 ounce drink of your choosing – it isn’t going to make for a good date night experience. And two, don’t go to the mall.

There's a teensy problem with the Lincoln Memorial – one that spelling sticklers might have the biggest problem with. Explore this little-known fact on this episode of Now I Know. The Lincoln Memorial is one of Washington, D.C.’s top tourist attractions. The monument, erected to honor the 16th President of the United States, is a painstaking work of architecture and sculpture. It features a 19-foot high sculpture of Abraham Lincoln himself, and the attention to detail is breathtaking.

Natural gas is odorless. And gas leaks are very dangerous. Is the solution a scratch-and-sniff sticker? Decide for yourself on this episode of Now I Know. Natural gas is odorless. As gas leaks are very dangerous – even the smallest spark can turn a peaceful, gas-filled room into a flaming inferno – gas companies give us a way to detect a leak. They add a colorless, flammable gas called mercaptan to the mix, which smells like rotten eggs or rotten cabbage.