Brett Hutley's Blog

Tim Ferris (of the The 4-Hour Work Week fame), has got a post out on "Hyper-decanting" wine to "age" it very quickly.

Continue reading “Immersion Blending Wine”

I've been listening to Slate's Negotiation Podcasts, which I think are excellent. There are currently 7 episodes (although more are on their way), each about 10-15 minutes in length. Below are my notes summarising what I've learned:

Continue reading “Negotiation”

I just picked up my Jawbone UP from the Post Office last night, so thought I'd post my first impressions.

Continue reading “Bio-Monitoring and the Jawbone UP”

This morning I was researching a fast yoga workout when I came across the Five Tibetan Rites. These exercises supposedly came from a retired British Army Colonel who was stationed in Tibet, and written up in the book "The Eye of Revelation" by Peter Kelder in 1939. Apparently the colonel stayed at a monastery populated by extremely long-lived monks who practiced these exercises every day.

Continue reading “The Five Tibetans”

There is an absolutely awesome bit of Neal Stephenson's book Reamde, that goes like this: The brain "was sort of like the electrical system of Mogadishu. A whole lot was going on in Mogadishu that required copper wire for conveyance of power and information, but there was only so much copper to go around, and so what wasn't being actively used tended to get pulled down by militias and taken crosstown to beef up some power-hungry warlord's private, improvised power network. As with copper in Mogadishu, so with neurons in the brain. The brains of people who did unbelievably boring shit for a living showed dark patches in the zones responsible for job-related processes, since all those almost-never-exercised neurons got pulled down and trucked somewhere else and used to beef up the circuits used to keep track of NCAA tournament brackets and celebrity makeovers."

Continue reading “Rewiring the Brain”

The list of the top 50 bars in the world have been announced by Drinks International.

London is represented very well, with 5 of the top 10 bars. 12 of the top 50 bars are based over here. For comparison, 8 of the top 50 are based in New York, and 3 of the top 50 are based in Paris. 69 Colebrooke Row came 7th, which is about 2 blocks from our flat.

Continue reading “World's Best Bars 2011”

Time-boxing is an idea that I heard about a number of years ago. It's only been fairly recently that I have tried to incorporate it as a regular part of my daily workflow. The general idea behind time-boxing is that you concentrate on working for a set periods of time through-out the day. I adjust the period of time to how motivated I feel. When I feel really motivated I work in blocks of 25 minutes. When I am just getting started on the day I work in blocks of 10-15 minutes.

Continue reading “Micro-boxing for productivity”

I read Paul Graham's essay on the acceleration of addictiveness this morning, and it really struck a chord. I feel as though it is almost impossible to become bored these days, there is so much to do. Is this because the world is getting more addictive, or just because I have gotten older and have much more control over my life so I tend to do only those things I want to do?

Continue reading “The Future is Addictive”

I live in London, on Oxford Street. You can't really live in a more urban environment than that. Last weekend Helen and I got out of London to the North Downs to go hiking. For me, this is the ideal lifestyle; live in the city in an exciting, stimulating environment. When you feel like "getting back to nature" - pick the environment you want, and go there for the weekend. The countryside is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there!