The List of Real Life Cheat Codes:Part 2
The List of Real Life Cheat Codes:Part 2: “
Collected by AskReddit
35. If you have crushing chest pain, call 911 first.Then chew some aspirin.I work in cardiology.Then ask someone to help get the anvil off your chest.I work at ACME.If you see someone with an anvil on their chest, don’t help; they want to eat you.Beep at them and run away.I am a roadrunner.
36. Secretaries, tech support and janitors are the true power in office buildings.Make friends, remember birthdays and you can get anything you need or go anywhere you need.Janitor here, I got so many fucking master keys I don’t know how to keep them all straight.So the main boss at work one day starts freaking out and demanding an audit of who has what keys and all key assignments have to be justified, etc. (by Tuesday afternoon) and he starts to give a rash of shit to the guy that been there forever and starts to badger him why he has the keys that he does.These we not masters by any stretch, but keys to parts of the building and remote sites that he needed.So of course the gruff ancient guy comes back with the whole ‘janitors have master keys and they live here and sleep here after hours’ but when that wasn’t getting him anywhere he finally came back with: ‘Listen, I’ve been here for 15+ years now, I already stole everything that needed!’Better advice would be that being nice is only on a by person basis. Also, Purchasing and HR.
37. When receiving a call from a solicitor, simply press 9; the call will be dropped and your phone number is then put on the companies do not call list.95% of companies support this feature.I love it.
38. To get through tech support quickly with an ISP, choose the option for becoming a new customer.Then when you get there ask to transfer to tech support.Usually they won’t put you on hold because they see the number coming from the new customer line.That works just about everywhere.Especially well with airlines.In what situation would you want to call the airline’s tech support?Probably not a situation you want to be in.”hello? Yes…I’m cruising at 32k feet and noticed the left engine fell off…is it possible to change flights?”"Hello? Hi. Yes, there appears to be something on the wing. Can I speak to tech support?”"Sir, please turn your cell phone off while in flight”
39. I know this works in California, so I call upon you to test it out elsewhere: If you receive a parking ticket and it has been less than an hour since it was administered, immediately call the number on the ticket to contest it. The call will go through a series of automated questions – you want to answer these questions based on the premise that your car had overheated, and that you only parked where you did out of necessity. Then go to either a convenience store of a gas station or an automotive shop of any kind (has to be one of these two) and by a bottle of water. When you submit your formal petition via mail, include the receipt for the water that you bought and explain that your car had overheated. The ticket will be waived. It has worked for me every time.
40. Easy splinter removal: dip the splintered body part in some Elmer’s glue, let it dry, remove glue with splinter.Easy lawn care: Pour “beer” (Bud Light, Coors, etc) on the lawn.Fermented sugars make great fertilizer.Easy broken glass clean up: Get the tiny pieces up with a piece of bread, the consistency and texture picks up even the smallest shard.
41. If you need to briefly turn the light on at night and don’t want to completely lose your night vision, keep one eye closed.Same reason pirates wore an eyepatch!Arrgh.A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What happened, you look terrible!”"Arrh – Not at ‘tall.” the pirate replies, “I be fine.” The bartender says, “But what about that wooden leg? You didn’t have that before.”"Arrh!,” says the pirate, “We were in a battle at sea and a cannon ball hit me leg. But the surgeon fixed me up, and I be fine, really.”"Yeah,” says the bartender, “But what about that hook? Last time I saw you, you had both hands.”"Aye,” says the pirate, “We were in another battle and we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and me hand was cut off. But the surgeon fixed me up with this hook, and I be feeling great, really.”"Oh,” says the bartender, “What about that eye patch? Last time you were in here you had both eyes.” “Arrh,” says the pirate, “One day when I was swabbing me deck, some gulls were flying over the ship. I looked up, and one of them–arrgh, he, pooped–in me eye.”"So?” replied the bartender, “what happened? You couldn’t have lost an eye just from that!”"‘Twas me first day with me hook.”
42. Try to put yourself in as many socially awkward situations as possible.You will be desensitized to it which makes you more outgoing.
43. Sprinkle some salt on your napkin coaster at the bar..your beer won’t stick to it EVERY FUGGIN TIME….Girls hate a guy who can’t keep his napkin coaster shit in order.Waitresses hate a guy who sprinkles salt all over the table.
44. Don’t announce that you are having a kid till the second trimester.This is certainly good advice for friends and acquaintances, but I think it’s perfectly acceptable to share that information with your family and very close friends.If you do happen to lose it, they are going to be the ones to help you get through it.And you always should tell the father, if he’s still around.
45. Probably nobody will see this, but anyway…If you get brain freeze from eating something cold too quickly, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth as hard as you can.Voila, instant brainfreeze relief.
46. rainymood.com and simplynoise.com are the cheatcodes for studying/working without distraction.A friend of mine told me about a better one! Give it a try.I recommend None on the first, Bonfire, Ocean, Rain and Thunder on the others.
47. Have confidence.Chicks dig confidence.And if you have no confidence, fake it.It won’t take long to see that it works and then your fake confidence becomes real.Ah, the magic of bullshit.Best Advice right here.This is exactly how I turned my life around 10 years ago. I woke up one day and decided to pretend to be confident. I looked everyone in the eye and spoke a bit louder and smiled a lot. I stopped breaking eye contact with girls and I promoted my achievements at work. In that first years I met a new woman who became my wife, got a great job that I am still loving, moved from a tiny two room apartment to a 3000 sq foot house. I have great kids and a happy life.I was borderline suicidal when I started the experiment.I don’t even think about it now. I became what I pretended to be. Confident and happy. I don’t have to fake it anymore.This is why I pretend to be a tiger.This is exactly how I turned my life around 10 years ago. I woke up one day and decided to pretend to be a tiger. I walked on all fours and growled and ate a few people. I stopped talking to girls and quit going to work. Now I have a great life on the savannah that I am still loving.I was borderline normal when I started the experiment. I don’t even think about it now. I became what I pretended to be. Also I can type with my paws.
48. Never bring anything in to work.That way, when you leave (ie, earlier than usual) it doesn’t look like you’re leaving for the day.
49. socks are lube for pants.Bunch sock onto thumbs, then pull sock onto feet as women do stockings.
50. never renew your car insurance with the price offered……..call your provider and say you will leave if it is not reduced further.
51. If you rear a bear from birth you can walk through dark alleys without fear in 4-5 years.Then you die from high-fives and hugs.Better than .45s and thugs.This is already sounding like the best rap song I’ve heard.Not because you own a 5-year-old bear, but because after rearing a bear, you won’t be afraid of anything.Or because cleaning up after that goddamn bear for the last five years has made you crave the sweet release of death.
52. In the UK: Dial 0118 999 881 999 119 7253 for emergency services.
53. 1st Date Cheat Code for MEN: Never tell a girl where you’re going or how to dress. Instead, tell her to “dress for a first date with a guy she really likes”. Now, pick three places you’d like to go: someplace fun and active (bowling, pool, mini golf, go-kart racing, ballgame, etc), something romantic and classy (nice restaurant, upscale lounge, art gallery opening) and something in between (nice bar, coffee shop, comedy club). Now, when you pick her up, let the way she’s dressed decide which you’re going to do: If she’s wearing something sexy and revealing (dress, high heels, low cut top, etc.) than she wants to go somewhere classy and romantic. If she’s sporting some jeans, tennis shoes or flip-flops, and a tee, the bowling ally or pool hall may be a good bet. If she’s wearing jeans, high heeled boots, and nice top or blouse, than she’s not really jonesing for the super romance treatment, and she put in more effort than mini golf deserves (eighteen holes of mini golf in heels… seriously?), so a comedy club or some place with live music is a good choice. And never, EVER, do a movie on the first date! EDIT: Men: You’re going to wear a pair of CLEAN, NEAT jeans, a pressed stylish LONG sleeve button down shirt, nice shoes or boots (try to avoid tennis shoes of sneakers). Works for ANY occasion!This might be the best dating advice I’ve ever read.It’s such a creative way to manage figuring out what to do on a first date.Too bad I’m over 550 lbs and can’t use my legs IRL.(Are you really?According to Wolfram Alpha that’s the weight of 3.4 men.)Yeah, really.My friends torture me by getting me blazed and placing 5 large stuffed cheese pizzas just out of reach.I struggle for hours in an attempt to reach it, burning over 500 calories in the process.However, it’s counterbalanced by the 30,000 calories of stuffed pizza I eat when I finally get them.Appendix 1:Old jeans and college sweater – sports bar followed by a house party. Vintage clothing – Faux dive bar and tattoo parlor Miniskirt and leggings – quiet cafe that turns into a wine bar after 4pm Short black wig, man’s white shirt and cocaine in her purse – 1950s theme diner Cocktail dress with a small handgun tucked into her garter – Opening night at a casino, challenge her to playful game of high-stakes baccarat. Blood-stained clown costume – Chuck E Cheese Tank top, sweat pants and tells you to help yourself to some ice tea while she is in the bathroom – Get out of there, Chris Hansen is around the corner.Tank top, sweat pants and tells you to help yourself to some ice tea while she is in the bathroom – Get out of there, Chris Hansen is around the corner…and sheriff’s deputies in the rose bushes outside.You’re screwed already.
54. Dual blind date cheat code:Dad tells a story of he and a buddy taking two nursing students on a dual blind date to a drive-in movie. Eventually the girls say they’re going to go to the bathroom, naturally to compare notes. The guys offer to go first and make sure there aren’t any creeps hanging around the bathroom. The guys go have a look, smoke a cigarette, and head back to the car. “The coast is clear.” The girls then go off to the ladies’ room.The guys then listen to the tape recorder hidden under the seat of the car.Edit: Not everyone understood where the recorder was hidden. (You flunk spy school.)WOW.Both inspiring and creepy at the same time…
“
(Via VentureWeek.)
The List of Real Life Cheat Codes:Part 1
The List of Real Life Cheat Codes:Part 1: “
Collected by AskReddit
1. Stop: Stop: Play. Skip advertisements in movies and go strait to the movie.
2. Dial 0 during most automatic menu phone systems to be taken to operator to route your call. also, mashing buttons may work as well. Whenever you have a voice automated phone system, typically saying “representative” gets you someone right away. Update In regards to Cheat Code # 2 I recommend this site:http://gethuman.com/
3. keep a spare car key in your wallet/purse. If you have a bulky Key that won’t fit in your wallet, get a key made that doesn’t have the electronic chip on it. It will still unlock the car, it just won’t start it. changed by popular request Risk Update: if your wallet is stolen they have your car key. All they need to do is go to your house some time later and take your car out of your driveway.
4. Riding a bicycle will save you lots of money on gas, parking, medical bills, and gym memberships.
5. If you are speeding and suddenly up ahead see a cop that clearly just tagged you, slow down and wave to him/her. Your odds of being pulled over are quite a bit reduced.
6. Don’t be rude, but NEVER answer any cops questions when they call you in for questioning.
7. when getting lectured into voice mail, hit 1, pause momentarily. If you aren’t put through immediately, hit *, pause. Finally, hit # if neither 1 or * worked. It is called the 1-star-pound technique, and it works for all cell carriers.
8. If your credit card magnetic stripe starts to get worn from use and being in your wallet, and doesn’t always read in the card reader, you can use the plastic bag trick. Put the card in a plastic grocery bag and then swipe it. Not sure why it works, but it does.Taking it further though, you can simply apply a piece of quality cellophane tape over the mag stripe for a “permanent” plastic bag trick.
9. At the end of your shower turn the water really (or all the way) cold. This will wake you up and get blood flowing. Update update 9: It also closes your pores to allow for less dirt and bacteria to get in to help reduce acne problems.
10. Macy’s credit cards usually have a 20% discount on purchases. I pay with the Macy’s card, then while still at the register, I immediately pay off the charge with my debit card. I just got 20% off my purchase and I never get a credit card bill. – this also works with JCP and kohl’s cards.
11. im replacing the free movie rental cheat because its unpopular…mostly with movie rental clerks :-/ heres a new one! When you buy something online, you usually get a chance to enter a promo code before you purchase. Google the promo codes. They’re out there – you can get anything from free shipping to 25% off the purchase.
12. Turn it off, then on again.
13. Buy things out of season, this can save you money. Unless its food, then buy it in season.
14. When you have forgotten someones name, simply say : “I’m sorry, but what was your name one more time.” They may act offended, but when they give you there first name you simply reply “No, I meant your last name.” (more socially acceptable to forget). Bingo. First and last names.
15. When eating buffalo wings, the flat portions. You can detach the smaller bone on one end very easily, then twist it a bit and it will just slide out. You’re now left with a big hunk of meat and only 1 bone, you can just bite it off into your mouth in one piece, flintstones-style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRcOY-PvOC8
16. Gently work an orange in your hands to loosen the peel from the fruit. This makes it easy enough to get the whole peel in one shot.
17. Can’t find your car in a parking lot? hitting the lock button trying to get it to beep? Extend the distance of key-less entry by putting the key under your chin. The signal will resonate in your skull increasing the range dramatically. I swear to god this works, and I’m told it’s safe because the radiation is non-ionizing.verification notice from ddrt via AskReddit sent 20 hours ago 9 is called the scottish shower. Just sayin’ EDIT: I just tried #17 holy shit it works!
18. If you get a ticket on the windshield of your car, you can potentially get away with parking illegally in the same lot for the rest of the day by keeping the ticket on your windshield. edited reduced from a few days for a single day.
19. Most tinfoil and saran wrap boxes have little push-in tabs on the sides. If you push them in, the roll won’t fall out when you try to rip out a sheet of it.
20. Keep a list of all of the credit card phone numbers (1-800) in your cell phone. This way, if your wallet is ever lost, you can call them immediately to have them disabled. It’s also a good idea to place all of the cards in your wallet on a copier and print a page to keep at home. This will give you access to your License #, etc.Update: You should update 20. If you lose your wallet.. as in misplace it.. put a hold on your credit cards. Do NOT cancel. If you cancel it can later show up on your credit report. If you believe you are going to find it later, placing a hold saves you the red mark on your report.
21. If you are driving an unfamiliar car and you don’t know which side the gas tank is on, just look at the little pump icon next to the gas gauge on the dashboard. The pump handle on the icon will be on the side of the tank. Update: saw the gas tank one on an older reddit, turns out the handle thing is not consistant. But there IS usually a little arrow next to the icon. Second Update 99% of the time the gas door is opposite of the tailpipe. So far, I have only found that early-mid 2000 Pontiac Vibes break this trend. Third update if there is no arrow, then it most likely is on the passenger’s side. I’ve yet to see one without an arrow that wasn’t on the passenger’s side
22. this tip was unpopular, so im changing it This one changed my life. If you’re at home/work/party or GOD forbid your girlfriend’s house and the toilet starts to overflow, take the lid off the back reservoir part and lift the long handle as far up as it will go. The water will stop rising and then you can quietly mutter curses at it till it goes back down (which it does, more often than not…) link to a Diagram:http://superhomeideas.com/images/toilet.gif
23. to peel a boiled egg, roll it around on your plate for a while until all of the eggshell is cracked evenly. Then it’s easy to remove the complete shell at once. After you boil eggs immediately place them in ice cold water for a few minutes. No vinegar or salt or oil or whatever people use. Shells slip right off
24. you spill any liquid that will stain on your carpet (red wine, juice, etc), pour some salt on it. Work it into the carpet – just rub it in with your hands. Leave it there for a few hours (for serious stains, up to a day) and vacuum it out. Voila, stain gone.
25. If you park in a large parking garage/shopping centre, get out and take a photo on your cell phone of the nearest parking sign (Area B2, etc). You will never lose your car again.
26. If you drive stick and the battery s dead, get some friends, put the key to the on position, put the car in 2nd and push the clutch down. have your friends push your car. when you get a decent speed going let the clutch up. (this is called “Popping the clutch.” your car with start and you can drive around for a while to recharge your battery(provided nothing is wrong with the battery or the alternator). Update thanks for the input guys, i switched it from 1st geear to 2nd gear.
27. Tapping on the top of a beer or soda can will make it fizz less!
28. Peel a banana from the bottom
29. 4,2,3,1 — Vending machine cheat code. (As in, the vertical buttons machines, like this one ). will grant access to vending machine’s diagnostic menu. most times the fun features are disabled, but i’ve gotten a free powerade and a couple cokes in the past.
30. use this at your own risk Re: #30, I worked as a parking enforcement officer during college and we can tell when it’s fake. The fine for this offense (at the university I worked at) was $250, and usually a ban from parking at the university (i.e., booted or towed on sight). College Parking Cheat Code: Anyone who’s gone to a college or university knows they usually charge a ridiculous amount of money for parking (usually $300+ for a semester pass or $10+ for the daily passes), a service that should fucking be free for students considering the high cost of education. Fuck them. Buy one daily pass at the beginning of the school year (usually a small paper ticket printed out a machine on the lot), take it home and scan it, photoshop the date for tomorrow, and print. Repeat for the next 4 years. Anyone with even the most rudimentary photoshop skills can pull this off convincingly. Even if your printer is shitty, from behind the tint and glare of a car windshield, it might as well be a 7-11 receipt. I did this for 2 years at a UC and saved hundreds of dollars.
31. Walk on the sides of stairs to avoid/reduce creaks.Also works for hallways with wooden floors.Walk without rhythm and you won’t attract the worm. And for God’s sake, learn to recognize drum sand!This belongs in a subsection: ninja hints.
32. Lift yourself a little off the toilet if noise is a concern and you’re having a particularly gaseous bowel movement.The volume will decrease at least 50-60%.I’d like to see the research on that one.”Hey Carl, the db meter says that was 54% quieter than the last one!”"Coming up next on Mythbusters…”Just spread your buttcheeks, the volume will reduce to a low whine.Pedophilia pro-tip.
33. pro-tip: Lay a piece or two of toilet paper down before dropping the kids off at the pool and you won’t stain the porcelain.Great for the gf’s place.but keep in mind that if you put too much TP down, you’ll have a poop barge floating under you keeping a constant stink.also, said poop barge is risky to flush because it’s taking down the bulk of the waste, rather than piece by piece.(You sound like a man who knows his shit.)
34. Talk to everyone like you would your best mate, and smile.I thought the smiling thing was bullshit until I actually became happy for real.Everyone is nicer when you’re smiling at them.I was telling my grandmother this one day and she told me, “Honey, the secret is to kill ‘em with kindness. Its really hard to be mean to someone that’s really nice to you.”Every time I find myself dealing with someone who’s difficult or rude, I hear my grandmother’s voice in the back of my mind saying “just kill ‘em with kindness!”and you know, I’ve never been in a situation where it didn’t work.My ex girlfriend gave me the same advice.Works on everyone but her.The bonus of killing them with kindness, is that it makes certain already mad people absolutely irate, so you’re there being nice and polite and they’re flipping their shit, making you look awesome.That was my favorite part of working retail.
“
(Via The Green Head.)
Financing Options: Bridge Loans
Financing Options: Bridge Loans: ”
Today’s post in the financing options series on MBA Mondays is about Bridge Loans. Bridge loans are so called because they are a “bridge” to something else. They are short term loans intended to fund a company to an anticipated event in the future.
Bridge loans exist in many sectors outside of the startup world. Big banks will often bridge companies to transactions they are putting together for them. Real estate transactions are often bridged to a closing. The concept of short term transaction driven loans is universal in business.
In the startup world, bridge loans are a particularly interesting case to study. I’ve been in and around startups for 25 years now and I have rarely seen a bridge loan made by anyone other than an existing investor or investor group. Most bridge loans in the startup world are made to money losing companies that are going to run out of funds before they can close a financing or sale transaction. These are very risky loans that will not get paid back unless a transaction happens and often the transactions that are required don’t happen.
If you could assemble a data dump of all bridge loans made by VCs and angel investors to startups over the past twenty five years, I think you’d see that the aggregate performance of these bridge loans would be awful. I’m certain that the performance of bridge loans made by firms I’ve been associated with in that time is hugely negative. The loss rate is very high and the returns on the ones that work are not much better than a typical venture investment.
So why do VCs and angels make bridge loans when they perform so poorly? There are two reasons, and they are related but they are not the same. First, investors like to give the companies and teams they have backed a chance at success. Contrary to the popular view, VCs and angels are supportive of their portfolio companies well beyond what a hard nosed rational investor would be. I have seen startup investors make follow on investments many times that make no sense other than on a “doing the right thing” basis. Second, many investors are playing defense with these loans. They know they’ve made a weak or outright bad investment but they don’t want to acknowledge it with a writeoff, so they keep putting in good money after bad.
So bridge loans are often bad investments made defensively. And so they are red flags to other investors. When a new investor looks at a company and sees a bridge loan in place, they will understand that all is not well. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make or receive a bridge loan. It just means you will need to explain it. And it will make closing a financing more challenging.
Bridge loans made in anticipation of a sale are a bit different. There is a really strong rationale for making a bridge loan in anticipation of a sale. The investors know that a sale is coming so a priced equity round doesn’t make much sense. The company can’t sell equity cheap relative to what the expected sale price will be. And if the equity is priced close to the expected sale price, then there will not be an equity return when the sale closes. So a loan makes the most sense. And bridge loans are the best kinds of loans to do in this situation. An acquirer will not be terribly surprised to see a bridge loan in place when they look at the books and thus it is not nearly the same kind of red flag as it is in an equity financing.
When making a bridge loan, it is critical that the size of the loan be sufficient to get to the transaction you are bridging to. The bridge metaphor is a good one. You want the bridge to be long enough to cross the river. Otherwise it does no good. Getting a second bridge done is always very hard. So if you think you need three months to sell the company or get a fiancing done, get six months of burn in your bridge.
The biggest concern investors will have in making a bridge is the probability of a tranaction closing. Investors will not make a “bridge to nowhere.” So before you can realistically ask for a bridge, you must build a strong case for the transaction you want the investors to bridge to. Getting a banker or an advisor hired to help you secure the transaction you want is one good way to give investors comfort in making a bridge. It doesn’t guarantee that you will get a deal done, but it shows everyone that you are committed to making it happen.
The terms of bridge loans are pretty standard. The loan will be secured by all the assets of the business that can be pledged. If there is existing bank debt or equipment financing, the bridge will be subordinate to those loans. And you will need the bank’s cooperation getting a bridge done if there is a bank involved. Sometimes that is not easy.
The loan will carry an interest rate of between 6% and 12% depending on the current rate environment and will have warrant coverage or a discount. We covered the concepts of warrant coverage and discounts in the convertible debt post earlier in this series. Bridge loans are a specialized form of convertible debt.
In summary, bridge loans are common in all businesses. In the startup world they are often a sign of distress and for that reason you should try to avoid them if you can. But when you are sinking, any lifeline looks good and bridge loans are no different. Beggars can’t be choosers. In a sale process, bridge loans are less problematic and are often the right solution to financing a company to a sale transaction. For startup investors, bridge loans in the aggregate are a poor performing investment and as an industry, we dislike making them. But like all of the tools at our disposal in the statup world, bridge loans are a reality of our lives, we will all experience them from time to time, and they can be a useful form of financing at a critical time in the life of a company.
“
(Via A VC.)
Almost everything is getting better
Almost everything is getting better: “
The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.
Last week The Millennium Project released its 02011 State Of The Future report, looking at trends for the past twenty years and projecting ahead for the next decade. (Not the 10,000 year future, but still of interest.) You can read an executive summary of the report here.
While the report finds many things to worry about – global warming, terrorism, corruption – overall the trends are surprisingly hopeful, as shown in their chart called “Where we are winning”:
“
(Via The Long Now Blog.)
Innovation in Private Equity
Innovation in Private Equity: ”
Private equity firms can boost the value of their investment portfolio by applying a systematic innovation method along the entire investment value chain – before, during, and even after the investment.
Private equity firms are collections of investors and funds that put money into privately-held companies. Private equity investments provide working capital to a target company to nurture expansion, new product development, or restructuring of the company’s operations, management, or ownership. Private equity firms are betting on their ability to take control of the target, clean it up, make it more competitive, and then sell it for a higher price. It is like “flipping” a home in the real estate market.
Here is how a private equity firm could apply systematic innovation in their portfolios:
Before Investing:
Take the target company’s main product or service and apply S.I.T. to it during the evaluation process. There are three things that could happen, all of which are positive outcomes.
1. The innovation effort is a success. You conceptualize exciting new innovations for the target firm that could increase its value. By identifying these new sources of value before the deal, you widen your negotiating envelope.
2. The innovation effort fails – no new opportunities are identified within the target company. Given that, the full valuation of the deal should be based on the current products only. This helps you avoid being overly optimistic about the target’s prospects for growth. Any increases in value will come from cost cutting and efficiency gains.
3. The innovation effort is a success, but you decide to walk away from the deal for other reasons. You still have innovative concepts that you can extract value from. You could sell the intellectual property to the target firm, or to one of its competitors, or to another private equity investor considering that target.
During the Investment:
By installing innovation processes in the target firm, private equity firms can influence success of the company and its stake in the company, This would include: idea generation processes, voice of the customer processes, idea evaluation processes, prototyping, testing, validation, and launching.
After the Investment (the equity firm has sold its position):
How would a private equity firm use innovation after exiting? On itself, of course. Taking the lessons learned from the last investment, and carrying those lessons into a systematic innovation process will yield new insights and opportunities. Applying S.I.T. on deal flow, target selection processes, due diligence, and other key processes would bring value to the firm where it might be appreciated the most – right at home.
“
(Via Innovation in Practice.)
Neural signature of ‘mental time travel’
Neural signature of ‘mental time travel’: ”
Electrocorticographic recordings establish evidence for the context reinstatement hypothesis. Each dot marks the location of a single electrode. (Credit: Jeremy R. Manning et al.)
University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University researchers have found neurobiological evidence for the context reinstatement hypothesis: that memories formed nearby in time become linked.
“When I remember my grandmother, for example, I pull back all sorts of associations of a different time and place in my life,” said University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Kahana. “I’m also remembering living in Detroit and her Hungarian cooking. It’s like mental time travel. I jump back in time to the past, but I’m still grounded in the present.”
To test this hypothesis, researchers made electrocorticographic recordings (subdural and depth electrodes) as 69 neurosurgical patients studied and recalled lists of words during treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy.
By examining the activity of the implanted electrodes, the researchers were able to measure when the brain’s response was similar to a previously recorded pattern. When a patient recalled a word, their brain activity was similar to when they studied the same word, the researchers said. In addition, the patterns at recall contained traces of other words that were studied prior to the recalled word.
“What seems to be happening is that when patients recall a word, they bring back not only the thoughts associated with the word itself but also remnants of thoughts associated with other words they studied nearby in time,” Kahana said.
Ref.: J. R. Manning, et al., Oscillatory patterns in temporal lobe reveal context reinstatement during memory search, PNAS, 2011; [DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015174108]
“
First demonstration of time cloaking
First demonstration of time cloaking: ”
Schematic of the temporal cloak using a pair of split time-lenses (Moti Fridman et al.)
Researchers at Cornell University have designed and built a cloak that hides events in time, The Physics ArXiv Blog reports.
Time cloaking is possible because of a kind of duality between space and time in electromagnetic theory. In particular, the diffraction of a beam of light in space is mathematically equivalent to the temporal propagation of light through a dispersive medium: diffraction and dispersion are symmetric in spacetime, the researchers said.
A time-lens can be made using an electro-optic modulator that can magnify or compress in time. The temporal cloak at Cornell was built by placing two time-lenses in series and then sending a beam of light through them. The first compresses the light in time, while the second decompresses it again. For a short period, there is a “hole” in time in which any event is unrecorded, the researchers said.
In effect, the space between the two lenses is a kind of spatio-temporal cloak that deletes changes that occur in short periods of time — only for 110 nanoseconds — but time gaps lasting about 100 times longer should be easily achieved, the team notes.
Science NOW offers a more detailed description: To open the gap in the beam, Fridman and his colleagues used a “time lens”—a device that can shift the frequency of the light. At a particular moment, they first shift the frequency of the light higher and then suddenly lower. They then send this “frequency modulated” light through an optical fiber designed so that some wavelengths of light are sped up and travel faster than other wavelengths. As one set of wavelengths races ahead of the other set, a gap opens in the beam.
Time hole. This schematic of a proposed time cloak shows that light can be manipulated—some wavelengths advanced, while others are slowed—so that an event occurring inside the red circle at a particular time is not illuminated and is never seen by an outside observer. (Credit: M. W. McCall et al 2011 J. Opt. 13 (March 2011))
Then, after the light has passed the spot where the hidden event will occur, the experimenters reverse the process. They run the light through a fiber in which the wavelengths that had been sped up are slowed down and those that had been slowed down are sped up, so the gap closes. They then use a second “time lens” to undo the frequency shifting.
Ref.: Moti Fridman et al., Demonstration of temporal cloaking, arXiv, 2011; [arXiv:1107.2062]
“
The Pencil Visualization
The Pencil Visualization: “(This beautiful animation of a rotating four-dimensional “tesseract” comes from the wikipedia article on hypercubes.)
With Imagining the Tenth Dimension, we’re talking about how our reality springs from ten spatial dimensions. Some cosmologists have claimed that the tenth dimension is beyond our comprehension, that it’s impossible for anyone to actually imagine such a thing. With this project, we’ve used logical puzzles to help us to do so, building one layer, one concept upon another. Really, this is the basic process of all learning: we start from simple concepts, and we grow from there.
Remember: we’re talking about spatial dimensions here, and that means that each spatial dimension is at right angles to the one before. Let’s use a paper and a pencil to visualize what that means.
Start with a piece of paper. If you have a piece of paper on your desk and you stand a pencil straight up on it, that pencil is at right angles to the paper.
So a single point on the paper would be like the “zero” we start from in my animation, and if, right on top of that point, we were to stand the pencil on the paper, the pencil would be like the first dimension. A simple line on that paper can represent the first dimension, in which case the pencil would be like the second dimension. Or a square on that paper is like the second dimension, and the pencil would be in the third dimension. A picture of a cube on that paper is like the third dimension, in which case the pencil is like the fourth. A picture of a tesseract represents the fourth dimension, and so the pencil is like the fifth. And so on! Obviously, this gets harder and harder to visualize as the number of edges increases with each additional dimension, but the logic keeps working. If our paper had a picture of an enneract on it (a nine-dimensional hypercube), then it would be like our pencil was in the tenth dimension!
But what’s all this about “tesseracts” and “enneracts”? If you go to the wikipedia article on hypercubes, you'll see that the point we started from can be called a "zero-cube", the 1D line can be called a "one-cube", and so on. Here's the whole list:
0-cube a point
1-cube a line
2-cube a square
3-cube a cube
4-cube a tesseract
5-cube a penteract
6-cube a hexeract
7-cube a hepteract
8-cube an octeract
9-cube an enneract
10-cube a dekeract
We’re about to look at diagrams of orthographic projections of these multi-dimensional objects, this is what they would like projected onto a 2D surface like a piece of paper or a video screen. To imagine what we’re looking at here, let’s start with an easy one – the cube. Do you see how the 3-cube seen at the left here corresponds to the solid cube on the right? The projection at the left would be what we’d see if our cube was made out of wire, and the shadow it casts would show all the different edges of the cube. With a solid 3D cube like the one on the right, we know those other edges are there, but they’re hidden from our view.
So with our “pencil visualization”, the 3-cube we’re looking at here is projected onto a flat surface, and we can use our pencil to imagine what the “next dimension up” would be when we stand the pencil on end on that surface. Think about a cube, then look at the 4D hypercube animation we started this entry with. Do you see how there are 3D cubes within the shape, and how there are additional edges that are extending out at four-dimensional “right angles” to create a 4D hypercube? This logic continues all the way up – the new lines we see in each of the following drawings come from a new “corner”, a new 90-degree angle, that was unavailable in the previous dimension. Think about that as you look at these projections:
Have you watched What’s Around the Corner? It explains these concepts using a somewhat similar approach. Here’s that video again to close this entry:
A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K_MgAfeZkk
Enjoy the journey!
Rob Bryanton
Next: New Video – Waves Curves and Frames
“
