GO HYPHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
YEEEeE YEEEEeE
Wassup mai niggas!? You ready to stomp?
I enjoy long walks on the beach, reading PLOS One [www.plosone.org], playing any game where I can fly or be a gangsta, listening to hip hop, and watching basketball.
LEZ GO DUNK ON SOME FOOOZ
http://gfycat.com/CheerfulDampDeviltasmanian

Things I'd like everyone to try in their lifetime:

1) Learn for learning's sake:
So many people just use education as a job factory... borrring! There's so many free educational resources today thanks to the internet that you're doing yourself a diservice if you don't self educate through the numerous resources that are available today.

Some example of learning tools in this day and age:

* Coursera: [www.coursera.org]
A website with a wide variety of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, which are basicly free online classes. There's a wide variety of content ranging from learning how to produce music to electrical engineering. Assignments have fixed due dates and most assignments are either machine or peer graded. I highly suggest checking out Dr Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn course [www.coursera.org], as it has countless valuable insights into how to learn more efficiently. Make sure to check out the course's bonus interviews. additional reading, and don't forget to participate in community discussions.

*Other MOOC websites*
edX: [www.edx.org] Mainly has a lot of Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, etc. courses.
Academic Earth: [academicearth.org] These courses tend to be video recordings of actual class lectures.
Udemy: [www.udemy.com] A lot of courses are paid here, but many are free.

* Khan Academy: [www.khanacademy.org] At your own pace unlike MOOCs. An excellent place to keep your math skills honed and it makes it incredibly easy to look up videos on math problems you're stuck on.

* Reddit: You might think "what's this silly social media site doing in the list?" It's important to understand there's a lot of good resources here as long as you know where to look. Learn how to use the search function and you can find places like the /r/learnmath , /r/getmotivated , /r/cooking , or /r/cogsci .

* Quizlet: [quizlet.com] A nice set of study tools. Good for preparing for tests.

* TED Talks: [www.ted.com] A place for public speakers to open your mind to new ideas.

* Code Academy: [www.codecademy.com] A great place to start programing. At your own pace like Khan Academy but with programming!

* Code Wars [www.codewars.com]: After you make your way through Code Academy this should be your first stop. It throws programming puzzles at you forcing you to start truly thinking like a programmer.

2) Try Nootropics:
Nootropics, also named "Smart Drugs" [money.cnn.com] and "Cognitive Enhancers", are substances that can help you learn better through increasing focus and motivation. If you're interested you might want to check out the /r/nootropics' beginners guide , the "stack advice" subreddit , and Examine [examine.com]. A good starting point is Adrafinil, Piracetam and Alpha-GPC. Feel free to message me with any questions.

3) Try to find the beauty in new things:
For example, a lot of people rag on math for how "soulless" it is... yet Paul Lockhart wrote a wonderful essay [www.maa.org] about how the beauty of math gets crushed out of it by the way that it's taught rather than it being soulless in itself. Meanwhile, Joël Franusic has written a wonderful blogpost [joel.franusic.com] about how artists can have valuable insights for people in the field of programming. Try not to get locked in to one line of thinking and hold it above all others... find comfort in uncertainty and learn to love seeing the other sides of things.


4) Force oneself to empathize with people, especially ones one impulsively dislikes:
Everyone has a story... some people have been born with disorders, others have trauma, and some people haven't had the oppertunity to be nurtured into a wonderful person. Try to understand how people aren't always in control of their actions and give people slack. It's also incredibly important to understand that the world shouldn't need to adhere to your world view, and you shouldn't judge people harshly based upon your own ideals.

5) Learn to love life and the human race for what they are:
The bad gives the good meaning. If everything was perfect, humans would lose perspective and adjust their expectations to want even more. Likewise, aspects of the human race might have worth that you might not see immediately. To get out there with this idea... the concept of world peace may be impulsively atractive. Well, lets say hypothetically we do achieve world peace but hundreds of years later a aggressive alien race attacks. Without any species experience of warfare the human race wouldn't have the tools to survive such an event. In that way, what can be percieved as faults of the human race can just as easily be advantages [www.forbes.com]. We shouldn't get sucked into arrogance and believe that we as individuals know what's best for the human race as a whole.

6) Try to contribute to the longterm survival of the human race:
Carl Sagan said that "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." This is a profound truth about reality, that the human race is a mechanism for the universe to introspect. For this reason, the survival of intelligent life is of dire importance. The universe deserves this way of knowing itself, and I think it's a calling that transcends the boundaries of spiritual beliefs. It's also important to note that just being kind to your fellow man can have knock-on effects and help contribute to this goal. You don't need to be a super hero to contribute, you just need a kind heart.

7) Learn programming:
There's a lot of simple things you can learn to do in programming that can help you be a more productive person, or even teach you to think about the world in a structured logical way. I would suggest starting with the python programming language.

8) Treat every human interaction as a learning experience:
Whether it's a bum asking for money, or it's an irate customer demanding a refund... there's a silver lining in each interaction you have with the rest of man kind. There's always an opertunity to gain insight into the human condition by looking at each interaction objectively. Even if you know what someone's saying is "wrong" you can use it as a starting point to think about large social issues like racism, education, etc. Why does a person think a certain way? Why does it matter? Are certain thoughts or actions dangerous and, if so, what insights can you gain to combat such destructive tendencies?

9) Strive to improve one's self every day:
No one's perfect, and no one should be expexted to be--yet it's always nice to improve. Try adopting a "Growth Midset" [www.ted.com]