The Escalator

John Kemp Starley invented the bicycle as we know it today when he was only 30. His ‘Rover Safety’ bicycle, first displayed in a bicycle show in 1886, was a curiosity, but later when pneumatic tires were added to it to cushion the ride, it became safer, smoother and also 30 per cent faster.

The masses, especially women, suddenly experienced freedom to go anywhere without the need for expensive carriages and horses.

The bicycles transformed society, and emancipated women in a way nothing else could. Women found them lightweight, fast, affordable and easy to take care of.

• A social infrastructure: society needs a supply of creative innovators who are willing and able to challenge their physical environment in order to better themselves.
• Social incentives: there need to be incentives in place to encourage innovation.
• Social attitude: a creative society has to be diverse and tolerant. People must be open to new ideas and individuals.

“Invention occurs at the level of the individual, and we should address the factors that determine individual creativity. Individuals, however, do not live in a vacuum. What makes them implement, improve and adapt new technologies, or just devise small improvements in the way they carry out their daily work depends on the institutions and the attitudes around them.”

Are physical activities undertaken as part of carrying out normal daily chores. 

Brief sessions of 20 seconds of stair-climbing (60 steps) repeated 3 times a day on 3 days per week over 6 weeks for example can lead to measurable improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness. 

• Replace short car trips with fast walking, or cycling;
• Walk up the stairs at a fast pace instead of using the elevator;
• Vigorous walk at a pace of about 130-140 steps per minute;
• Look for opportunities to walk uphill;
• Take your dog to an off-leash area and jog for 30-90 seconds alongside the pup.

Labor alone can be sufficient to induce a greater liking for your own work. A study confirmed the phenomenon. Experiments involved assembling IKEA boxes, folding origami, and building with Lego.

• The results showed participants valued items they assembled themselves more, demonstrated by their willingness to pay to keep it.
• However, when participants spent too much time building or deconstructing their creations, or failed to complete the task, their willingness to pay for the item declined.

Several other important economic behaviors that are connected to the IKEA effect are:

• The endowment effect: Owning a product increases its perceived value.
• Effort justification: An individual who makes a sacrifice to achieve a goal attribute greater value to the achievement.
• Personal preference: The fact of being attached to a particular brand.

• While fitness fads come and go, the fundamentals of basic weight lifting or daily walk remain strong.
• Companies executing fundamental selling practices, like making more calls to increase sales, seem to do better.
• Old books offering time-tested knowledge are still in print, while newer bestsellers disappear after a short time.

Implementing fundamentals is often the difference between success and failure.

The Scotch tape was released at the start of the Great Depression when people had to mend and make do.

People used the transparent tape for everything. While many companies were going under, tape sales helped the company to grow.

• William McKnight, the executive who told Richard Drew to stop working on Scotch tape, became chairman of Scotch, then known as 3M's board. Drew helped McKnight understand that experimentation could lead to innovation.
• McKnight developed a policy known as the 15 percent rule, which allows engineers to spend 15 percent of their work hours on experimental doodling.
• After his tape successes, Drew led a Products Fabrication Laboratory for 3M, where he could freely develop new ideas.
• He and his team filed 30 patents for inventions, from face masks to reflective sheeting for road signs. He also mentored young engineers to develop their ideas.

The concept of Parkour was thought of by a then-teenager named David Belle in a small place called Lisses, near Paris, France. His father, Raymond Belle was a hero fireman and acrobat. This was in the 90s, and the teenager was greatly influenced by Spiderman and Tarzan. His acrobatic ways made him a celebrity and created a huge fan following.

Parkour is a made-up word, cousin to the French parcours, which means “route.”

The world of climbing walls without stairs and jumping off rooftops without any rope or parachute is filled with risk, thrill and adventure.

It also has its own naming system. Someone practising parkour is called a ‘traceur’, someone who traces David Belle’s footsteps. A female traceur is called a traceuse.

Food is a relation to organism and circumstance.

• Food is bound to vary from moment to moment. Coffee and pasty are a fine breakfast or afternoon snack. Yet, most of us won't enjoy it for dinner.
• Circumstances are bound to involve contradictory principles. You may buy only organic food, but on vacation, you crave burgers and fries.

Therefore, any given food relation is the mirror of an eater, and it represents the eater's needs, habits, convictions, deliberations, and compromises.

Ethical convictions can shape our diets.* Would you eat a cat or a horse? Why or why not?* Your reasons are likely rooted in ethical principles, such as feeling outraged that someone can do such a thing.

Vegetarians conform to a particular diet to prevent unjustified violence being done to animals.

Before the pandemic, only 4 percent of the US workforce worked from home at least half the time. However, the trend of working from home had been gaining momentum for years.

It is estimated that within a couple of years, 30% of people will work from home multiple days per week.

• Before the pandemic, a lot of company management and leaders were skeptical regarding remote work. But the skepticism will go away because companies recognize that remote work does work.
• The economic impact of the pandemic will likely force employers to cut costs. They may reduce their rent by letting workers work from home instead of layoffs.
• Employers had to spend money on new technology and equipment to work from home - a departure from the norm.
• Employees themselves are also spending more money to create better home offices.