Apps are the new Starbucks. Apps are our new guilty pleasure.

A daily "pick me up" that gives a longer and more fulfilling dopamine rush than a frappuccino -- and without the calories (y'all heard on "60 Minutes" that sugar is now toxic, right?).

If you're going to burn $3 to $5 a day consuming something, an app is the perfect little fix.    

Apple's neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has trained us to solve our problems with apps.

You have problems? We have solutions.

"There's an App for that" is a cult manifesto on par with "live your best life!"

Bottom line, we've been programmed that "installing" the latest app will make our lives better. The progress status bar at the bottom of an app icon is an emptying syringe.

We're all app junkies, and for good reason: they're a delightful rush and cheap.

There's a reason why crack and apps are the same price.

Pics from a Chinese gangsters phone

Hans Rosling om den här boken: "Impressed by the clearity of Anirudh Krishnas research on the ways people get out and fall back in poverty. Must read"

The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value—and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.

The major investors in the diamond mines realized that they had no alternative but to merge their interests into a single entity that would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of scarcity of diamonds. The instrument they created, in 1888, was called De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., incorporated in South Africa. As De Beers took control of all aspects of the world diamond trade, it assumed many forms. In London, it operated under the innocuous name of the Diamond Trading Company. In Israel, it was known as "The Syndicate." In Europe, it was called the "C.S.O." -- initials referring to the Central Selling Organization, which was an arm of the Diamond Trading Company. And in black Africa, it disguised its South African origins under subsidiaries with names like Diamond Development Corporation and Mining Services, Inc. At its height -- for most of this century -- it not only either directly owned or controlled all the diamond mines in southern Africa but also owned diamond trading companies in England, Portugal, Israel, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland.

Expenses
Link a credit card
Log hours and track mileage
Manage your spending
Receipts
Guaranteed eReceipts
Mobile receipt capture apps
Infinite storage
Reports
Create reports instantly
Reimburse expenses online
Completely paper free

I found a question/response thread on Hacker News to be quite interesting. The question was “how did your life change after FU money”. FU money being a term for enough money that you have complete freedom to not work.

Paul Graham’s response I felt particularly rang true, and is something to think about. Paul Graham earned his FU money from cofounding Viaweb which later sold to Yahoo.
One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what’s stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard.
It sort of goes with the whole cliche that money can’t buy happiness, but it also provides some good insight for people who might see their job as an excuse not to do whatever they really want to do.