Infinite Permutation | brandon hoe's blog

Between the ages of 7 and 10, bottle caps featured prominently in my life. Every single school day, the lowly bottle cap served as the primary source of entertainment for my friends and me. Some days, the object that was so readily available from the school canteen served as our soccer ball. Hopeful Maradonas and Peles gathered behind the primary school hall, ten, sometimes twenty a side, to try to slot, slam or slide the bottle caps into the opposition's goal. The squeak of rubber-soled shoes on Read more [...]

Entrepreneurship tickles time, doubles it over, and allows you to do a lot more than you ordinarily would in the same span of time within other contexts. You experience a heightened sense of urgency that's inversely proportional to the size of your bank account, propelling you into action, even if you don't always know whether the steps you're taking are right or not. But you persist and believe, because there's something bigger than you and greater than you pulling you towards it. For some people, Read more [...]

When you’re in a tense situation that could potentially blow up, whether you’re at home or in the office, answering these 3 questions honestly could very well help you avoid a disastrous outcome. Before you open your mouth, ask yourself:

1. Does it need to be said?
2. Are you the person who needs to say it?
3. Does it need to be said, by you, right at that very moment?

"No" is one of the hardest things to utter in social and business settings, because of our inherent desire as humans to help other people. Every time we say it though, we feel terrible, because most of us genuinely enjoy seeing how our contributions can result in positives for other people. However, there's a direct relationship between the quality of the things we do and the number of times we say the word. The more we say "No" when people ask us for help, especially when we're already Read more [...]

My dearest Ani, Your mom and I are insanely in love with you. We thought we knew what joy was when we got married last year, but your arrival changed our understanding of how much the human heart can feel for another being. We love sitting and watching you figure the world out. You have a very inquisitive nature for someone your age, and it looks like you're struggling a little bit with information overload. Your face is often scrunched up, as if concentrating hard to make sure you don't Read more [...]

My friend, Chuck Pell, posted this update on Facebook today - When we're born, we're handed a ~75-year progress bar. In reality, our progress bar is an unknown percentage. At any moment, you could be at 25%, 50% - or 99.9% None of us has a clue where our progress bar is at the moment. We could be 20 years old or 70 years old, but that figure doesn't provide any indication of how close we are to our life's end. When our progress bar hits 100%, what will we be doing? Will we be updating yet another Read more [...]

Image created by Lilian Darmono (Also https://www.facebook.com/liliandarmono). You can also purchase products bearing illustrations created by Lil here --> http://society6.com/liliandarmono   The image above was created by my friend, Lilian Darmono, who's a freelance illustrator in London. It's part of her "100 Days of Cakes and Characters" project, a 100-day long exercise during which she creates characters based on desserts suggested to her by her friends. This picture Read more [...]

My wife and I spent our New Year's Eve at a friend's place last night, playing Mexican bingo (both fun and frustrating!), sipping Krupnikas from "Brothers Vilgalys Spirits" and munching on a variety of yummy snacks. The bubbly flowed as the clock crept past the midnight hour, and as we clinked glasses and exchanged hugs, it occurred to me that 2014 brought many amazing things into my life. Getting married, selling my house and traveling for 6 weeks, first, with my family, then with my wife, Read more [...]