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It’s a widely held and probably comforting view that sports are driven by “transformative” athletes, a procession of unprecedented individual talents—Pelé, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods—that heroically drag their games to ever-escalating heights. Occasionally these players prompt physical transformations and rule changes, but usually their impact is more nebulous. Jordan never made anyone seriously consider raising the height of the hoop. He just played basketball better and more shrewdly than anyone else, and in doing so, he altered basketball’s cultural footprint, clearing the way for Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, maybe even Andrew Wiggins.
Robert Griffin III, 23 years old with a twice-reconstructed right knee, is, we’re told, one of these transformative athletes. This offseason, Griffin has been the subject of two full-length books, Dave Sheinin’s RG3: The Promise and Ted Kluck’s Robert Griffin III: Athlete, Leader, Believer, and both frame Griffin as an epochal, superhuman talent. “Someday historians may look back at the Redskins’ second play from scrimmage in their win over the Saints and pinpoint it as the moment offensive football changed forever in the NFL,” writes Sheinin. Kluck’s explicitly faith-based book goes even further, offering up RG3 as a sort of Cartesian theological proof: “RG3 and football should remind us of who it is that we really worship. … There’s something in Robert’s game that suggests that God made him to do exactly this, exactly now.” Take that, Tim Tebow.
Griffin was also the focus of a recent hourlong ESPN special that documented his rehabilitation process, his family life, and his insatiable thirst for Gatorade. And in May, Washington fans unearthed Griffin’s wedding registry and showered him and his fiancée with gifts, the sort of desperate affection normally lavished on a coveted free agent or a star player feared to be on the verge of departure. If Sunday football is America’s secular religion, all of this hagiography and breathless devotion has made Griffin seem like some blessed apparition: precious, magical, fleeting. We love him, and because we love him, we can’t stop worrying about him.
via RG3 knee injury: Can Robert Griffin III save the NFL, or will pro football destroy him? – Slate Magazine.

The Man Who Took on Amazon and Saved a Bookstore
 
Certain business ideas seem doomed to fail. You can walk into a restaurant or retail chain and know instantly that its days are numbered.
That’s the gut sense I had when I learned that someone new had bought the Harvard Book Store – a comforting oasis for bibliophiles and casual
browsers – just a few blocks from my office in Cambridge. In a town where independent bookstores have been folding faster than Starbucks can open coffee shops in China, this naïve optimist embarked on his new venture in the dark days of the recession, under the shadow of Amazon, and as e-books began their zenith rise.
Jeff Mayersohn, the new owner, elicited my sympathy, but I also wanted to get to know him. I respected his mission, even if I didn’t quite believe in its future. So, Jeff shocked me a couple of weeks ago, when he told me with a certain amount of pride and pleasure that he has been seeing double digit sales growth month by month over the last year.
I wanted to know how he managed to survive, let alone prosper, in the age of e-readers and the mighty Amazon. Over coffee, Jeff shared his original insight that led to his strategy for buying the store.
A former technology executive with a passion for reading and books, Jeff saw – like everyone else – that the digitization of content was destroying the neighborhood bookstore.
Imagine for a moment what it would feel like if people walked into your company and used the lobby to call your competitors and buy their products. That’s standard consumer behavior in a bookstore. People browse, find a book they like, pull out their smart phone, and order online.
Making an intuitive leap, Jeff wondered if the opposite could be true? Maybe access to the vast universe of digital content could also save the bookstore. Maybe the bookstore, while limited in inventory, could evolve in the digital world and become a destination where people had access to every digitized book ever published.
To truly compete, he would also have to solve consumer’s expectations for instant gratification and delivery. Jeff needed a complete production, distribution, and fulfillment model. He has likely shocked a lot of people by building one in his own backyard.
Essentially, Jeff installed a printing press to close the inventory gap with Amazon.  The Espresso Book Machine sits in the middle of Harvard Book Store like a hi-tech visitor to an earlier era. A compact digital press, it can print nearly five million titles including Google Books that are in the public domain, as well as out of print titles. We’re talking beautiful, perfect bound paperbacks indistinguishable from books produced by major publishing houses. The Espresso Book Machine can be also used for custom publishing, a growing source of revenue, and customers can order books in the store and on-line.
You can walk into the store, request an out-of-print, or hard-to-find title, and a bookseller can print that book for you in approximately four minutes. Ben Franklin would be impressed.
But you don’t even have to go into the store to get a book. If you live in Cambridge and neighboring communities, you can order online and get any book delivered the same day by an eco-friendly Metroped “pedal-truck,” or a bicycle, as I like to call them. Beat that Amazon.
Marketers know that success comes from a complex formula, and Jeff’s strategy includes many moving parts. Harvard Book Store pays fanatical attention to customer service with an unrivaled staff of passionate and educated booksellers. They have spent years building a local brand. They bring people together with over 300 public events a year. They’re exceptional retailers with a frequent buyer program. They understand technology, and you can expect them to continually adapt.
Of course, Amazon has got nothing to fear, but that’s not the point. Harvard Book Store defended their market and they did it by leveling the playing field with a giant. You shop there because it’s the most effective and satisfying experience.
Ultimately the bookstore exists to serve a community, and Jeff devised a strategy to safeguard that mission. While people will always take the path of least resistance to buy a book, they still value the experience of browsing and spending time in a place that ignites their imagination. That’s the position that Harvard Book Store has defended.
It might sound audacious to say that one bookstore devised a strategy to counter the long reach of Amazon. But it’s no more audacious than Amazon’s conviction in 1999 that you could sell books over the Internet.
Phil Johnson is the CEO of PJA Advertising and on Twitter @philjohnson
via The Man Who Took on Amazon and Saved a Bookstore – Forbes.

Self hosted Git management software
GitLab is a fast, secure and stable solution to manage your projects.
It is based on Ruby on Rails and has a free and open-source license (MIT).
GitLab is the most installed git management application in the world.
via GITLAB: Self Hosted Git Management Application.

For now, Martin and Bionym are courting developers large and small to build apps and devices that use its method of authentication. “If you think of any of the top mobile manufacturers,” he tells me, “we are most likely engaged with them. They saw this was a huge additive value to what they do.” The Nymi is scheduled to come out sometime next year, and will cost $99. It’s not the first product to read a person’s ECG — it’s used on a few devices in the medical community — but it’s the first that promises to do it well and for everyday people.
IT CAN ONLY REPLACE PASSWORDS IF IT WORKS EVERYWHERE YOU NEED IT
Bionym’s challenge is gaining enough trust and support for its product; unless it’s ubiquitous, it’s doomed. Martin doesn’t sound worried — he’s more like impatient. “I’ve got keys in my pocket, and they’re scratching whatever else is in my pocket. I want to go home and my door is unlocked and that’s it.” Even if it’s not his product that does it, Martin believes he’s on the front lines solving a huge problem both for oft-hacked companies like Google and for everyday people.
“Do you think 100 years from now we’re going to be doing this? We’re going to have to remember all our passwords, carry our stupid keys around? I hope not.”
via This bracelet could replace your passwords, your car keys, and even your fingerprints | The Verge.

From the opening episode it becomes clear why Hormones, a drama of daily life at a Bangkok high school, has become the most talked about programme on Thai television.
Within the first few minutes there is the sneaky cigarette during morning register, the bathroom quickie during break time, the mindless chatter about who likes whom, the agony of a boring lecture, and the impending suspension of a handsome bad boy.
Day-to-day life in Thailand is still largely conservative, with programming revolving around game shows and anodyne soap operas, and sex education premised on abstinence over birth control.
Which is why, much like Skins did in Britain, Hormones has struck a nerve in Thailand, where fans appreciate its honesty and critics lambast its “reckless” scenes of youths smoking and kissing on-screen.
Officials have even called for outright censorship, but its director, Songyos Sugmakanan, says the series plays an integral part in Thailand’s culture, primarily because the issues it touches upon – teenage sex, drugs and general hormonal confusion – are not usually discussed at home or in school.
“Thai society has been closed for a long time,” said Sugmakanan, 39. “In my day adults chose not to teach us about sex in the classroom because they feared it would lead to us having sex, when actually it just forced kids to go out and learn on their own.”
Thailand has the second-highest number of teen pregnancies in the world, year-on-year increasing rates of STD infection among its youth, and the highest rate of HIV/Aids in Asia.
While sex education is mandatory, teaching the subject is limited to eight hours a year, with campaigners claiming that conservative teachers often fail to address essential issues such as how to practise safe sex, preferring to focus on abstinence.
Hormones portrays this modern-day dilemma through contrasting characters. In one episode the self-aware, sexually advanced Sprite storms off after a boy refuses to produce a condom during a classroom-based rendezvous, while later the mollycoddled, naive Dow is forced to visit an illegal abortion clinic after losing her virginity. Such scenes have angered the National Broadcast and Telecommunication Committee, which wants them censored for being too “obscene”. But Sugmakanan says avoiding such subjects would be another example of “adults closing their eyes” to reality. “The abortion rate here is so high – the teenage figure is around 100,000 every year. It’s impossible not to talk about safe sex,” he argues.
The series, which is the first of its kind in Thailand, has proven hugely popular, ranking third behind two major terrestrial channels during its Saturday night slot. A second series is slated for air next year. Non-cable viewers are able to catch each week’s episode on YouTube the next day, where some episodes have reached more than 9m views. Sugmakanan says that parents often watch with their teens to get an idea of what school life may entail.
With each episode themed around a particular hormone – such as testosterone or oestrogen – the series follows nine characters, from heartthrobs and goody-two-shoes to wannabe musicians and tomboys. As topical issues are woven neatly into the script, including single parenthood, abortion, homosexuality and class bullying, the series has been lauded as “quality, thought-provoking programming” that could change not only the way Thais see TV, but their own culture as well.
“Hormones is based on real-life problems in Thailand, but that’s scary to most people,” said Jaded Chaowilai of the Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, which campaigns for greater sex education in schools.
“We cannot talk openly about sex education in Thai society, so most of the youth don’t know what they’re doing when they have sex. Most of the young women have abortions because they don’t know how to protect themselves – they don’t even know how to use condoms.”
Unsumalin Sirasakpatharamaetha, 22, who plays class president Khwan in the series, says most of the characters are based on real people, with many of the actors incorporating their own life experiences into the series.
“The aim is to provoke the audience to think, and because it acts like a mirror for teens, they know what can happen with each path they might take, and from that learn what to do,” she says. “Censorship is really only to protect those who can’t think for themselves.”
via Thailand’s answer to Skins shocks some, thrills others | Television & radio | The Guardian.

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
This book reminds me a lot of Programming Pearls, but it’s actually better, because it’s less focused on code. Instead of worrying about code, the authors boiled down all the practical approaches that they’ve found to work in the real world into this one book. Not all of these things are technically programming. For example, asking yourself “why am I doing this? Is this even worth doing at all?” isn’t thinking outside the box; it’s something you should incorporate into your daily routine to keep yourself– and your co-workers– sane. And that’s what makes Pragmatic Programmer such a great book.
If you’d like to know a little more about the book, I created a HTML version of the pullout reference card included inside, which provides a nice overview of the contents.
via Coding Horror: Recommended Reading for Developers.

Ultimately it’s difficult to assess how a tool like Glass might change our information habits and everyday behavior, simply because there’s so little software for it now. “Glass is more of a question than an answer,” in the words of Astro Teller, who heads Google X, the company’s “moon shot” skunk works, which supervised Glass’s development; he says he expects to be surprised by what emerges in the way of software. Phil Libin, the C.E.O. of Evernote, told me that my frustrations with Glass were off-base. I was trying to use it to replace a phone or a laptop, but the way head-mounted wearables will be used — assuming the public actually decides to use them — will most likely be very different. “This is not a reshaping of the cellphone,” he added. “This is an entirely new thing.” He predicts that we’ll still use traditional computers and phones for searching the Web, writing and reading documents, doing e-mail. A wearable computer will be more of an awareness device, noting what you’re doing and delivering alerts precisely when you need them, in sync with your other devices: when you’re near a grocery store, you will be told you’re low on vegetables, and an actual shopping list will be sent to your phone, where longer text is more easily read. Depending on your desire for more alerts, this could be regarded as either annoying or lifesaving. But as Libin puts it, “The killer app for this is hyperawareness.”
via Googling Yourself Takes on a Whole New Meaning – NYTimes.com.

Corporate suicides highlight stresses at the top
By Clare Hutchison, Reuters
Posted at 09/01/2013 9:26 AM | Updated as of 09/01/2013 9:26 AM
LONDON – The suicides of two top executives in Switzerland has prompted calls for greater support for boardroom highfliers.
Heavy workloads, frenetic schedules and extensive overseas travel has obliterated the so-called “work-life balance” for many bosses and the financial crisis has piled on the pressure with job cuts, firesales and the scramble to survive.
“It has always been tough at the top and it has always been lonely at the top and certainly since the global financial crisis, it’s got even lonelier and even tougher,” said Executive Mentor David CM Carter, author of self-help book Breakthrough.
“That’s why it’s really important that those people at the top pay attention to the need for balance,” he said, pointing to entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson and Bill Gates, who have teamed glittering careers with a successful family life.
“They do hot air ballooning, they save the planet as well as running their fantastic empires. They have holidays and hobbies or they focus on their family and their relationships and on their health.”
But career chief executives often face more pressure from shareholders and their boards than company founders such as Branson and Gates.
And while they usually have a coterie of staff running around them, chief executive officers often feel isolated by their position and the high-stakes decisions they have to take. The need always to present a “game face” can inhibit them from confiding in colleagues.
Zurich Insurance Group’s Chief Financial Officer Pierre Wauthier was found dead at his home on Monday in what police said appeared to be a suicide.
Just weeks earlier, Carsten Schloter, the chief executive of telecoms group Swisscom, killed himself.
The deaths shocked Switzerland’s corporate community and have highlighted the sometimes lonely existence of high-ranking executives.
In media interviews, Schloter expressed regret about the distance between him and his three children in Germany, whom he saw far less frequently due to the breakdown of his marriage. He also said he found it “difficult to unwind”.
Executives often spend large amounts of time away from their friends and family and it is not uncommon for bosses to live in a different city or even country for work and commute home at weekends.
Schloter had also faced pressure after an acquisition he championed led to 1.3 billion euros of writedowns. More recently, Switzerland’s competition body said it had opened a probe into Swisscom after a rival suggested it abused its market position.
via Corporate suicides highlight stresses at the top | ABS-CBN News.