May 2012
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Technology for Humans
I have recently found myself a bit irritated by the way that current “web 2.0” startups are playing in people’s lives. This isn’t a, “technologists are evil and are trying to monopolize all our time” rant, but rather different: Is this it?
We have built these fabulous machines, and now, finally, some of us have begun to comprehend how they think — not in an...
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Watch(via Dancing with Handcuffs: The Geography of Trust in Social Networks - Lift Conference)
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“A few times in my life I’ve had moments of clarity, where the silence...”
– Tom Ford, writing the last line in ‘A Single Man’ (Style Forum Special)
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“There is a very squiggly line between Tom Ford the man and Tom Ford the brand....”
– Tom Ford (Style Forum Special)
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“These days, memes spread faster and wider than ever, with social networks acting...”
– Feels Bad Man: How Mobile Is Stopping the Lulz | Underwire | Wired.com
This is what scares me so much about the tablet-computing era.
And yes, it could be corrected, but:
It feels like we’re on the verge of a breakthrough to unleash the creative potential of these devices, but mobile...
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“Such findings open up a fascinating prospect: perhaps many patients whom doctors...”
– Scratching an itch through the scalp to the brain : The New Yorker
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“It’s the way cultural progress takes place generally. Classical artists, for...”
– Noam Chomsky on the Purpose of Education | Brain Pickings
When people say design is about to enter it’s golden age, this is what I think of. Without a proper exploration of tools, craft, and history, it’s hard to get anywhere new when you’re so busy building on the shoulders of...
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“Last year, I visited Shanghai with Max Burton, one of Frog’s pre-eminent product...”
– Kickstarter Rescues Startups That VCs Won’t Touch, But Here’s What’s Missing | Co.Design: business innovation design
Fabricant calls it, “A Sacrifice of Craft.” Fascinating.
ETA: The article comes off a bit like, “hey, here’s some excuses for why hardware...
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“Ubiquitous Apple advertising has trained consumers to believe the magic and fill...”
– Kickstarter Rescues Startups That VCs Won’t Touch, But Here’s What’s Missing | Co.Design: business innovation design
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“DA: You mentioned your vision of where the PC will be on every desk and in every...”
– Hah! Bill Gates steals from Xerox PARC yet again! Mark Weiser pioneered this concept, which he coined “Ubiquitous Computing” in 1988. :)
Bill Gates, 1993, talking about the future. (via cacioppo)
Appropriation aside, I’m far more interested in the implication Gates makes about what...
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“What you do is to take the different bits of material which you have gathered...”
– A recipe for producing ideas circa 1939 (via explore-blog)
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“Thirty years ago, the city of Shenzhen didn’t exist. Back in those days,...”
– China’s All-Seeing Eye | Naomi Klein
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“To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.”
– Henri Frederic Amiel
(via Hillary Coe - Art Direction & Design)
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“When I look back upon the things I’ve embarked upon to create change in...”
– metacool: Climbing Mountains and Wells
Fantastic Diego!
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The something else approach →
bobulate:
That’s Annie Dillard in her 1989 book, The Writing Life. In it, she tells the story of a fellow writer who was asked by a student:
“Do you think I could be a writer?” ” ‘Well,’ the writer said, ‘do you like sentences?’ ” The student is surprised by the question, but Dillard knows exactly what was meant. He was being told, she explains, that “if he liked sentences he could begin,” and...
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“My beef is really with the factors that gave rise to this state of affairs, and...”
– Why the Old-School Music Snob Is the Least Cool Kid on Twitter - NYTimes.com
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“What makes chairs so awful for the body? That’s a complicated question to...”
– Against Chairs
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Is Stanford Too Close to Silicon Valley? : The New... →
Some quick points I wanted to share about this:
I’m really not sure how much of this is more a critique of John Hennessy as opposed to Stanford itself.
As far as I know, many private universities need to be involved in industry to some degree - that’s part of the nature of privatizing education.
More broadly, I think the critique is just… so East Coast. Deciding that...
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Things That Scare Lauren Leto: Use It or Lose It →
lehrblogger:
thingsthatscarelaurenleto:
What if products like Twitter pruned the hedges for me? Implementing a feature that automatically unfollowed people who I haven’t retweeted, at replied, or favorited in the last three or six months. If I haven’t cared about what they’ve had to say in that much time, I’m probably never going to care. Social wars could be won or at least seriously jolted...
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“The classic business plan imposes efficiency on an inefficient market. Where...”
– How to Spot the Future | Epicenter | Wired.com
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"Gangbang Interviews" and "Bikini Shots": Silicon... →
Yeah, I prefer my misogyny in the retro 4chan flavor.
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“In other words, the people Turkle sees with their heads down on their devices...”
– Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships - Zeynep Tufekci - Technology - The Atlantic
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“The approach ignores the magic and the soul.
I understand the value of data and...”
– A/B Testing Ourselves To Death | Austin Center for Design
While I’m on the subject of EQ and IQ, this captures what I mean perfectly. The thing about engineering in general is that, when it comes to interfacing with real-world phenomena, we are creating models - effectively minimizing the...
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BRYCE DOT VC: The Ballerinas of Silicon Valley →
brycedotvc:
I frequently hear investment thesis that go as deep as “they’re smart, they’ll figure it out” to founders providing such powerful entrepreneurial insights as this little jewel from a recent WSJ piece:
You pivot as many times as you can, as fast as you can, until you run out of money
I’ll throw out that this may be a symptom of our culture’s persistent obsession with...