hhabgood
The problem is, that habit of watching TV with dinner causes me to sit down and get sucked into my TV habit. For example, last night I decided to do that and ended up watching 3 episodes of random shows and then going to bed, instead of doing what I wanted to do.
When I eat dinner and listen to a podcast, I still have a bit of an urge to watch TV but I find it much easier to sit down and get to work afterwards.
Maybe you have this type of habit in your own life? Try thinking about what you do every day when you come home from work, and identify your 'triggers'. If it's like mine and you are watching TV while eating dinner, listen to/watch a podcast or TED talk instead. If you end up spending a ton of time on YouTube or Facebook, set up something like SelfControl (or the PC equivalent Cold Turkey) to make sure that you can't use those things during times that you have blocked off for work.
For mac users, here's a list of stuff that you can use (note that I'm not vouching for any app in particular, but they all seem useful to someone): http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/productivity-roundups/15-ma...
I didn't get a loan to build an electric car, and I might have tried if someone gave me $500 million. HOW IS THAT FAIR?!?!?!?!?
A great option would be to get a treadmill desk and walk at a slow pace. Not only would you burn more calories but you would also constantly be shifting your weight, meaning less time being spent with your wait placed on one area of your foot. Obviously you would want to build up to 8 hours of walking as well.
Keep in mind that he's not interviewing every single person in the country, he's interviewing college graduates.
Not only was having a college education not as prevalent as it is now, the sole fact that the people who are taking this test have graduated from college eliminates every single one of the "discriminatory" accusations you are making. If anything, the college admissions process (an obvious prerequisite of the test) is discriminatory, not the test itself.
To your point, you also aren't going to become a zookeeper or programmer by playing poker or travelling, but you also won't necessarily become one by going to college. You WILL become one if you make the effort to do so, it doesn't matter whether it's in college or elsewhere.
Looking at another industry, take the extremely 'risky' business of a VC partner; if you look at one investment of his, you might say the odds dictate that his investment is more luck than anything, because he is investing $10,000 and has done so in a way which gives him a 10% chance to make $1 million. However, if you look at his track record of the 250 investments that he has put $10,000 into, you would see that for the $2.5 million he has invested, it has made him $25 million in return.
Is playing poker and investing in VC risky? Absolutely. Does it involve more luck than skill? In one iteration of the game, yes, but in 150 or 250 iterations? Not likely.