Reinhard Selten, the Nobel prize-winning game theorist, noticed something about how we think: we spend most of our mental energy being rational after the fact. We replay conversations, revisit decisions, trace back through the chain of events and ask ourselves what we should have done differently. This is rationality ex post – looking backwards, reconstructing the path we ought to have taken. But game theory is concerned with something else entirely. It asks you to build a strategy before the game begins, to arrive at a good outcome a priori, without the luxury of hindsight. The gap between these two modes of thinking is where most of our failures live. We are brilliant historians of our own mistakes and terrible architects of our own choices.

I’ve been reading up on emotional intelligence lately and collecting the bits that felt useful. Not the textbook definitions — the ones that actually change how you show up in a room. The five things that matter There’s a framework that keeps coming up, and it boils down to five skills: rapport building, curiosity, communication, ambition, and conflict resolution. They’re not glamorous. They’re not the sort of things you put on a CV under “technical expertise”. But they’re the difference between being someone people want to work with and someone they tolerate. ...

I came across this parable recently and it stuck with me. The attribution is disputed – some say it was the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer on his deathbed, others point to an Anglican bishop, and some claim it’s simply anonymous folklore that’s been circulating for decades. The origin doesn’t matter much. What matters is the shape of the thing. When I was young, free, and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. ...

Political intelligence requires a thorough understanding of the dynamics of leverage — which simply means your ability to get others to do what you want.

Most people treat office politics as something to avoid. They’d rather focus on their work and hope it speaks for itself. But the truth is, everyone is already playing the game — whether they admit it or not. The difference is between people who understand how it works and people who get surprised by it. Here’s what I’ve learned about developing political awareness at work. Know where you’re going You can’t navigate an office if you don’t know what you’re looking for. What do you actually want? A promotion? A transfer to a different team? More influence over decisions? Be honest with yourself about it. ...

I came across a set of notes on digital content strategy and thought I’d share the bits that stuck with me. Nothing earth-shattering, but useful if you’re trying to think more clearly about how content actually works across platforms. QR codes They’re everywhere now. Easy enough to scan, instant redirect to a page or product. Fine as a bridge between the physical and digital world, though I’m not convinced they’ve earned their place in most campaigns yet. ...

I keep coming back to the same problem: everyone talks about big data as if it’s a thing you have, when really it’s a process you go through. There’s no single tool or platform that solves it. What you end up with is a series of messy stages, each with its own set of headaches, and most organisations I’ve spoken to are stuck somewhere in the middle without a clear picture of what comes next. ...

It’s the last day of 2013 and I’ve been sitting with the question of what I actually want to do differently in 2014. Not what I should do, not what sounds good on a vision board, but what I genuinely want to change about how I spend my time. I’ve made lists before. Five resolutions, ten resolutions, the whole lot. Write more, exercise more, read more, save more, learn a language, cut out social media, meditate every morning. By February I’d abandoned at least eight of them, and the ones I kept were half-hearted at best. The problem was never discipline. It was that I was trying to change everything at once, which is just a fancy way of saying I wasn’t going to change anything at all. ...

Applicable values for AddItemRequest.Item.Country When listing an item via the eBay Trading API, the Item.Country field expects a two-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code. The table below lists every value eBay accepts, along with the country name. All codes are valid for both incoming (selling) and outgoing (shipping) directions unless noted otherwise. Country codes Code Country Notes AA — APO/FPO. Not in ISO 3166; retained for backward compatibility. AD Andorra AE United Arab Emirates AF Afghanistan AG Antigua and Barbuda AI Anguilla AL Albania AM Armenia AN Netherlands Antilles AO Angola AQ Antarctica AR Argentina AS American Samoa AT Austria AU Australia AW Aruba AZ Azerbaijan BA Bosnia and Herzegovina BB Barbados BD Bangladesh BE Belgium BF Burkina Faso BG Bulgaria BH Bahrain BI Burundi BJ Benin BM Bermuda BN Brunei Darussalam BO Bolivia BR Brazil BS Bahamas BT Bhutan BV Bouvet Island BW Botswana BY Belarus BZ Belize CA Canada CC Cocos (Keeling) Islands CD Congo, The Democratic Republic of the CF Central African Republic CG Congo CH Switzerland CI Cote d’Ivoire CK Cook Islands CL Chile CM Cameroon CN China CO Colombia CR Costa Rica CU Cuba CustomCode — Reserved for internal or future use. CV Cape Verde CX Christmas Island CY Cyprus CZ Czech Republic DE Germany DJ Djibouti DK Denmark DM Dominica DO Dominican Republic DZ Algeria EC Ecuador EE Estonia EG Egypt EH Western Sahara ER Eritrea ES Spain ET Ethiopia FI Finland FJ Fiji FK Falkland Islands (Malvinas) FM Micronesia, Federated States of FO Faroe Islands FR France GA Gabon GB United Kingdom GD Grenada GE Georgia GF French Guiana GG Guernsey GH Ghana GI Gibraltar GL Greenland GM Gambia GN Guinea GP Guadeloupe GQ Equatorial Guinea GR Greece GS South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands GT Guatemala GU Guam GW Guinea-Bissau GY Guyana HK Hong Kong HM Heard Island and McDonald Islands HN Honduras HR Croatia HT Haiti HU Hungary ID Indonesia IE Ireland IL Israel IN India IO British Indian Ocean Territory IQ Iraq IR Iran, Islamic Republic of IS Iceland IT Italy JE Jersey JM Jamaica JO Jordan JP Japan KE Kenya KG Kyrgyzstan KH Cambodia KI Kiribati KM Comoros KN Saint Kitts and Nevis KP Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of KR Korea, Republic of KW Kuwait KY Cayman Islands KZ Kazakhstan LA Lao People’s Democratic Republic LB Lebanon LC Saint Lucia LI Liechtenstein LK Sri Lanka LR Liberia LS Lesotho LT Lithuania LU Luxembourg LV Latvia LY Libyan Arab Jamahiriya MA Morocco MC Monaco MD Moldova, Republic of ME Montenegro MG Madagascar MH Marshall Islands MK Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of ML Mali MM Myanmar MN Mongolia MO Macao MP Northern Mariana Islands MQ Martinique MR Mauritania MS Montserrat MT Malta MU Mauritius MV Maldives MW Malawi MX Mexico MY Malaysia MZ Mozambique NA Namibia NC New Caledonia NE Niger NF Norfolk Island NG Nigeria NI Nicaragua NL Netherlands NO Norway NP Nepal NR Nauru NU Niue NZ New Zealand OM Oman PA Panama PE Peru PF French Polynesia Includes Tahiti. PG Papua New Guinea PH Philippines PK Pakistan PL Poland PM Saint Pierre and Miquelon PN Pitcairn PR Puerto Rico PS Palestinian territory, Occupied PT Portugal PW Palau PY Paraguay QA Qatar QM — Former eBay code for Guernsey (pre-ISO). Retained for backward compatibility. QN — Former eBay code for Jan Mayen (pre-ISO). Retained for backward compatibility. QO — Former eBay code for Jersey (pre-ISO). Retained for backward compatibility. RE Reunion RO Romania RS Serbia RU Russian Federation RW Rwanda SA Saudi Arabia SB Solomon Islands SC Seychelles SD Sudan SE Sweden SG Singapore SH Saint Helena SI Slovenia SJ Svalbard and Jan Mayen SK Slovakia SL Sierra Leone SM San Marino SN Senegal SO Somalia SR Suriname ST Sao Tome and Principe SV El Salvador SY Syrian Arab Republic SZ Swaziland TC Turks and Caicos Islands TD Chad TF French Southern Territories TG Togo TH Thailand TJ Tajikistan TK Tokelau TM Turkmenistan TN Tunisia TO Tonga TP — No longer in use. TR Turkey TT Trinidad and Tobago TV Tuvalu TW Taiwan, Province of China TZ Tanzania, United Republic of UA Ukraine UG Uganda UM — No longer viable. Use US instead. Retained for backward compatibility. US United States UY Uruguay UZ Uzbekistan VA Holy See (Vatican City state) VC Saint Vincent and the Grenadines VE Venezuela VG Virgin Islands, British VI Virgin Islands, U.S. VN Viet Nam VU Vanuatu WF Wallis and Futuna WS Samoa YE Yemen YT Mayotte YU — No longer in use. See RS for Serbia and ME for Montenegro. ZA South Africa ZM Zambia ZW Zimbabwe ZZ — Unknown country.

Saahith Mothkuri’s Kichidi finally has a trailer, and it’s worth the wait. The Artical trailer drops a mood before it drops a plot. You get flashes of humour, a romance that doesn’t explain itself, and enough suspense to make you wonder what happens after the screen cuts to black. That’s how a trailer should work – it sells the feeling, not the summary. Mothkuri has been building a reputation for stories that sit somewhere between the familiar and the unexpected. Kichidi keeps that thread but pushes it further. The characters in these first glimpses feel like people you’d actually recognise, not the polished archetypes that fill most of the screen time these days. And the camera work has a quiet confidence to it – it trusts you to pick up on the atmosphere without spelling everything out. ...