August 2012
“What I personally hope doesn’t get lost in all the hand waving is Jonah Lehrer’s...”
– Radiolab’s Jad Abrumad, writing about Jonah Lehrer after the recycling scandal in June.
I don’t intend to cite this quote as a bit of claim chowder, but to illustrate a point.
Lehrer fashioned himself as an ‘explainer,’ a person whom can take complex ideas and boil them...
July 2012
“Americans Would Prefer Not to Draw Broad Conclusions From Aurora”
– The Atlantic Wire
Someone should start thingsamericanswouldprefernottodrawbroadconclusionsfrom.tumblr.com.
Potential posts:
Record setting heat and droughts
Minority unemployment levels
Student load trends
Energy prices
Shrinking fish stocks
And so on.
“My daughter just turned four. We don’t sit around having jamborees or anything;...”
– This Dan Bejar interview in Pitchfork is a fantastic retrospective.
"U.S.D.A. does not endorse Meatless Monday" →
In case you had any remaining faith in the USDA’s health and safety advice:
“One simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeterias,” read a United States Department of Agriculture interoffice newsletter published on its Web site this week, “is to participate in the ‘Meatless Monday’ initiative.”
Thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants and schools...
Apple charges as much for their operating system as they do for their word processing application.
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“Localizing does not simply mean making specific allusions to a culture. Nor does...”
– Jonathan Mak Long , interviewed in Evan Osnos’ New Yorker blog.
Jonathan is a 20 year old Hong Konger designer, whose first ad is this:
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Data, journalism, and design hackers: if you’d like some publicity, I’d suggest conducting and visualizing where the content from top websites (Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, etc.) originates. What percentage of Gawker network stories start out as Reddit posts? How many Tumblr posts are repackaged for Buzzfeed?
“Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado jumped more than 41...”
– The Denver Post
The internet is a place where we can have substantive chat about firearm controls before segueing into thin speculation about smart phone ports.
“The “scientist” specifically mentions Siemens hardware, which could be a...”
– VentureBeat
“Costolo told the WSJ that the company would “soon explain further...”
– The Verge quoting the WSJ’s interview with Twitter CEO Dick Costello.
And AOL wanted everyone to use keywords.
How to Live in the Future
Step 1: Wait for voice recognition technology to become dependably accurate, within an ecosystem of handy services.
Step 2: Wait for talking to a computer to become a socially acceptable behavior.
“At least 21 people were treated for burn injuries after participating in a...”
– San Jose Mercury News
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If I were managing a luxury brand I’d make its Twitter account protected – invite only.
Mercedes shouldn’t be trolling for likes.
“The global manufacturing of electric and electronic devices requires a total of...”
– Ars Technica on why junk electronics should be big business
Midtown Sushi Restaurant
Young business dude: What's the best sushi you have?
Waitress: Well... They're all good.
Young business dude: OK, what's the most expensive?
Waitress: [some sushi roll]
Young business dude: OK, I'll have that. And a Bud Light.
Waitress: We only have Sapporo.
Young business dude: Same thing.
“Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.”
– Technology and business expert, Wayne Gretzky.
Update: Apparently being facetious doesn’t translate to the internet.
To those adding #startup and #inspiration to this post: the point I was attempting to indirectly make is that we should be wary of easily digestible advice that often comes...
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Given the growing trend of brands exchanging discounts for ‘likes’, I’ve started to assume that anytime someone on Facebook ‘likes’ a brand they’re only doing it for a coupon or other reward.
This is a bad precedent to set, advertisers.
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Marissa Mayer Becomes Yahoo's CEO →
From NYT’s DealBook:
As she hashes out Yahoo’s strategy, Ms. Mayer said she was intent on leveraging the Internet company’s strong franchises including e-mail, finance and sports. She also hopes to do more with its video broadband and its mobile businesses.
Still, Ms. Mayer is unlikely to try to make Yahoo a direct competitor to Google in the world of search. In 2009, Yahoo gave up...
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Free Modern Branding Advice: A really smart brand should run one or two less primetime TV ads and throw a few hundred thousand into Penny Arcade’s ad-free Kickstarter. Think of the “social media buzz” they’re always coveting…
As mainstream GIF adoption picks up, I’m eagerly awaiting a NYT front page that looks like the paper from Harry Potter.
U.S. Declares the Largest Natural Disaster Area... →
“The declaration covers almost every state in the southern half of the continental U.S.”
Here’re the affected counties:
And for ironic effect, with regard to climate change politics, the 2008 electoral college map:
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“Everything is rectangles.”
–
Steve Jobs (via Peter Vidani)
Andy Hertzfeld, writing about QuickDraw’s development for the original Mac during May of 1981:
Bill fired up his demo and it quickly filled the Lisa screen with randomly-sized ovals, faster than you thought was possible. But something was bothering Steve...
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Is Local Journalism a Middleman?
David Carr on the current state of printed newspapers:
Those of us who work inside the racket like to think of our business as unique, but with underfunded pension plans, unserviceable debt and legacy manufacturing processes and union agreements, the newspaper industry looks a lot like, well, steel, autos and textiles.
The bread and butter for most of the industry is local information....
“Rosedale said one of the biggest surprises he had building SecondLife was how...”
– PandoDaily covers a talk by Philip Rosedale of SecondLife. Rosedale cites the phenomenon above as a possible reason Second Life’s growth flatlined.
Lending credence to this theory is the parallel success of The Sims, which focused on the simulation of ready-made items rather than the...
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“Northwest China’s Gansu province plans to send an army of chickens to...”
– CRI English describes a reality show I’d watch.
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WatchSuperquadratic cobbled together a step sequencer with a webcam, Python, OpenCV, OSC, MIDI, Abelton Live, and a bunch of Legos. Oh, and here’s the source code. (Via Create Digital Music)
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