I think about Witold Rybczynski’s book One Good Turn (which is a history of the screwdriver and the screw) more than is healthy for a person. Discussing his possible candidates for ‘tool of the millenium,’ Rybcyynski contemplates the power saw: “Does one of my carpenter’s tools qualify as the millennium’s best? I discount power tools. …
A friend/colleague/friend tweeted this from an IBM ‘innovation discovery client briefing’, from IBM research in Switzerland: “Incrementalism is the enemy of innovation.” -Nick Negraponte Which, ok, part of Negraponte’s gig is to go to things like an IBM innovation discovery client briefing. Sounds nice. But the other part of this is the actual assertion. Is …
Oliver Reichenstein’s take on ‘business class’ for news is really interesting. The working analogy is airline ticketing, distinguishing between coach and business class: online news still doesn’t make enough money it seems. Some newspapers try to tackle the financial problem by erecting pay walls. “You want information? You pay!” But, as many have noted before, …
As a now-finished-with-breastfeeding friend noted to me, nobody knows what to do with breasts. What she means is that breasts – nursing breasts, actually – occupy a space in between OB/Gynecology and Pediatrics. This is immediately understood by any of the adult, childbearing, breastfeeding women in the contemporary Western world, and particularly by anyone who …
If you have a couple of hours to spare, there are far worse things you can do than to watch the 10-part D&D extravaganza, Acquisitions Incorporated (pt one is here. First, it will raise your nerd cred so high you won’t ever be forgiven by your spouse/students/friends who ever thought that maybe, just maybe, you …
Two things about this old interview from March strike me as worth more attention. The first is the role of technology and its pernicious effects on long-form writing: He thinks it’s possible that his huge appetite for work – for juggling a publishing company with philanthropy and writing – comes from a sense of how …
That’s right, man. I designed and built this site in 1995, and that baby is still up on the USC internet. And it probably will continue to be up there until the end of time. Also, yes, that’s right, I did both the yellow circle image and the tight-roping stick figure. And the tiling, I …
After struggling with the internet over the course two decades for self-determination, businesses have decided that their best bet is to toss in (careful, that’s a .pdf) with Twitter and Facebook. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? (that last one is a .pdf)
I just want to let you know that if you are not using dropbox, you are making your life harder than it needs to be. This program has now saved my bacon at least thrice, and it is the most awesome kind of working cloud program – it is smart, so you can be dumb. …
Sure, this is more appropriate for my twitter account, but part of my social media strategy is to keep my Twitter followers under 15, and to post there only once a month or so…