If you’re visiting Iceland and want to explore beyond Reykjavík, the South Coast is the perfect place to see glaciers, roaring waterfalls, and dramatic black sand beaches, all in a single trip. Use this detailed Iceland South Coast itinerary to plan your route and discover some of the best things to do in Southern Iceland. […] The post Iceland South Coast Itinerary: Waterfalls, Glaciers, & Hidden Canyons For First-Time Visitors appeared first on The Thought […]

My wife and I recently started watching Hacks, the HBO TV series starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, about a legendary comedian trying to stay relevant in a changing world. It’s funny, the writing is fantastic, and there are lots of great plot twists. But I really love the show because it explores the tension between doing something for money versus doing it for the art itself. Smart, who plays the veteran comedian, seems to care more about the commercial aspects of comedy (i.e., money and fame) while Einbinder, her writing partner, cares more about the artistic aspects (i.e., truth and authenticity). In this regard, Smart is closer to the “hack” while Einbinder is more like the “artist.” Every creator on Earth sits somewhere on this continuum between hack and artist. If you don’t know which is which, here are some examples to help guide you: Giving bad financial advice just to go viral? Hack. Promoting work that you are truly proud of? Artist. Making a fool of yourself to get more engagement? Hack. Turning down a lucrative project because it is low quality? Artist. Passing off AI writing as your own? Hack. Admitting to mistakes before others call you out on them? Artist. You get the point. Hacks do what they think works. They follow every trend and try to maximize money/status/fame wherever possible. Artists, on the other hand, care about what they actually produce and how it reflects on them. Few creators are complete hacks or complete artists. Most are some mixture of the two. While I wish I could say I’ve always been an artist, I haven’t been. At times, I’ve cared a bit too much about financial rewards. I’ve taken on some partnerships that I probably shouldn’t have. And while I made some mistakes, I also tried really hard to stay true to myself and what I believe in. It’s a delicate balance, especially when you’ve never done it before. This categorization applies to anyone in any line of work too. You don’t have to be a creator to embody the essence of a hack or an artist. You can be either, whether you’re a waiter or a wealth manager. For example, if you’re a financial advisor, do you see your clients as people you serve (artist) or as a source of revenue to capture (hack)? I get that we all need revenue to survive, but, at some point, the marginal dollar isn’t worth it. So why do hacks exist in the first place? Because the rewards are quicker and require far less effort. More importantly, as we get rewarded for certain behaviors, we’re more likely to repeat these behaviors rather than risk trying something new. This idea is called mode collapse and it helps explain why all the AI writing sounds the same. Henrik Karlsson wrote a great piece explaining how this occurs: Mode collapse is when a generative model (most notoriously GANs) stops producing diverse outputs and instead obsessively reproduces a small

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An Amazon engineer whose story went viral recently for telling Business Insider that he was barely making it on a $300,000 annual salary. Mr. Jain stated he did not feel financially secure at all while living in a high cost city like Seattle. I kid you not. You can see the headline of the article below. This dude is in the top 10 percent of income in America. This article reads like an episode of […]

The year was 2010 or early 2011. A pub in Clapham. I was having a debate with the girlfriend of an investment banker pal of mine. She was more scornful than he was of my hobby of picking stocks. .memberful-global-teaser-content p:last-child{ -webkit-mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); } This article can be read by selected Monevator members. Please see our membership plans and consider joining! Already a member? Sign in here. […]

There’s a dynamic playing out in medicine right now that most physicians feel but few have named clearly. The more years you put into your career, the less control you tend to have over it. Your income is set by someone else. Your schedule is set by someone else. The terms under which you can leave, and where you can practice afterward, are set by a contract you signed years ago, possibly without fully understanding […]

Getting an annual raise or a promotion that comes with a higher salary is a great feeling. It makes you feel appreciated for what you do, and, if your finances were tight, it brings a sigh of relief. What’s the first thing people tend to think of immediately after a raise? What to do with the extra income, of course, and usually, where to spend that sum. It’s not the immediate reward that’s the biggest […]

Darkseid wickedly manipulates heroes and villains to fight in DC Comics’ Legends #1 from 1986. Amanda Waller made her debut in this issue. Image source: Amazon Influential authority figures wield as much power to drive comic book stories as the superheroes. Many such characters don’t even have superpowers; even when they do, they exist mainly to drive the moral ethics or control the actions of others. Perry White is a supporting Superman character, but he […]