Sunday, 29 January 2012
Happiness Takes (A Little) Magic
Brian Lam, on technology (news) addiction:
If you make content that is the intellectual equivalent of gummy bears, your site will appear to grow quickly. Advertisers reward size, and growing fast is expected in most places I’ve seen. Last month I visited Xeni Jardin, my blog-sister from Boing Boing and she said to me, “Only cancer and bullshit websites grow fast.”
And a personal favorite from the piece:
The first thing I did was to take back my time. I quit all the online content that was id-provoking and knee jerk. I stopped reading the stupid hyped up news stories that are press releases or rants about things that will get fixed in a week.
I can’t speak highly enough about this practice of hacking away at the unessential — I’ve spent the last year of my life canceling, deleting, removing, resetting, unsubscribing, and eliminating everything possible. It’s difficult and it’s draining. But it has been, and continues to be, the path to a better life.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
The Third & The Seventh
In 2009 I first watched this short film by Alex Roman and nearly cried from its purity and its beauty — I’d never seen anything like it.
Today I’d like to share it with you.
'Wait, Did I Just Hear a webOS Alert Tone in the Background?'
Josh Topolsky interviews Jon Rubinstein now that he’s left HP.
Friday, 27 January 2012
Reading on the Web Needs Its iPhone
Wherein Rian Van Der Merwe disparages, or rather describes how advertising is disparaging, the current state of reading on the Web. These certainly aren’t new thoughts to web designers, developers, or just plain-old lovers, but they remain as important as ever.
'Exact Nonsense'
Penn Jillette, in his book God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales:
There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.
(Via Kottke.)
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
'How Much Do Music and Movie Piracy Really Hurt the U.S. Economy?'
Answer: No one has any idea.
That PIPA and SOPA can get as much traction as they did without an answer to this, the most basic question, is frightening.
'Perspective'
Farhad Manjoo:
Apple’s profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google’s entire revenue ($10.6 billion).
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Yep
Jonathan Coulton:
Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
'Don't Cry. Disney Owns The Right to That Emotion.'
Hitler reacts to SOPA.
Monday, 16 January 2012
EFF's 2011 in Review: The Year Secrecy Jumped the Shark
This is my concerned face.
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Nothing Good Gets Away
Such a beautiful letter from John Steinbeck to his son Thom, who needed advice when he believed himself to have fallen in love with a young girl named Susan at his boarding school.
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Does Culture Matter for Product Design?
Don Norman ruminates on Human-Centered Design vs. (what he calls) Activity-Centered design and the value/quantity of instilling culture when designing products. Classic, thought-provoking Norman.
Friday, 13 January 2012
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Fred Wilson: 'Pseudonyms Drive Community'
Fred Wilson was kind enough to write up a little summary on our recently-released pseudonym research. A lot of people have raised valid points since we published the data and we’re keeping in that in mind as we continue our newfound love for research.
In the meantime though, the value of pseudonyms remains personified on Fred’s blog, A VC. A top-notch community filled with classy, quirky, witty personalities (using both “real” identities and otherwise), if you’re interested in this whole debate you can do no better than at least glance through the conversation on this post.
Monday, 9 January 2012
61 Percent Of Disqus Comments Are Made With Pseudonyms
Fun fact of the day.
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