January 2011
49 posts
I would pay for X
I hate when people write on Facebook or Twitter, “I would pay for X service if only …” Especially when X has to do with media. Build the product if it’s so compelling to you!
Nicolaus Copernicus
Copernicus was Polish. I did not know that.
Revisited
On Saturday night, I saw the film Revisited by Kyzysztof Zanussi at MoMA. The film has a narrative frame in the form of a young man who is interviewing people on camera. The young man has attempted suicide a few times and appears to be using his project as a way to justify life. The young man is actually interviewing the current incarnations of Zanussi’s characters from his films from the...
Google Labs
The Send and Archive Button in Google Labs is absolutely brilliant.
“Our disagreement, though, was fundamental, independent of circumstances; it was...”
– Milan Kundera, “Enmity and Friendship”
“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather...”
– James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
Bryce on WFMU →
Listen to new music.
$5 Billion →
I simply don’t understand how a few managers can do so well.
“Didn’t we learn exactly what we expected to learn? The real disturbance was at...”
– Slavoj Žižek
“I think that I’d have been happier if I had been anonymous.”
– Ingmar Bergman
“Nobody today knows the names of those who built Chartres Cathedral.”
– Ingmar Bergman
“We are aware that we are doing something significant. We’re here at the...”
– Steve Jobs (via davemorin)
Is Fukuyama Trustworthy? →
Overall, an informative broad overview of American inequality by Fukuyama, but I think he completely misses the mark here:
A final explanation lies in the realm of ideas, and comes closest to a Marxist plutocracy-conspiracy theory. Simon Johnson’s view that Wall Street constitutes an oligarchy manipulating the political system in a manner uncomfortably similar to the Russian oligarchs or other...
“The whole history of architecture revolves exclusively around the wall...”
– http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/teaching/nds/ws98/script/text/corbu.html
“I could not go to sleep. While I lay in that quiet front bedroom, with a distant...”
– Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the age of 27!
Japanese Companies Have Fascinating Web Sites →
gary's choices: The Stuxnet Worm and Iran: The Day... →
garysick:
Congratulations to the New York Times for an example of good, old-fashioned investigative reporting. Three reporters provide a persuasive account of how the United States and Israel collaborated on building a so-called worm that would attack Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities. Clearly…
“The desert of seriousness, the humorless desert.”
How To Do Proofs →
Zadie Smith on Facebook →
Models are simplifications of reality. Does the Facebook model reduce our lives?
“If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung...”
– Wilfred Owen, 1918
“Where the heck were you when the page was blank?”
– Paul Butterworth
Beautiful Architecture →
A somewhat complex website, but very intuitive.
Information Theory in Airline Pricing →
This is a great discussion of airline auction pricing. Between frequent flier miles and these types of auctions, I bet there is a consumer business that could simplify flying and gain a chunk of the consumer’s surplus.
Facebook Engineering Management →
So much truth here:
Tools are a high priority. Automate everything and encourage the best engineers to work on tools rather than leaving it for the junior engineers.
Why Bond Funds Still Make Sense →
A Notebook in Your Pocket →
Impressive
If the sample project is representative of the submissions for Google’s Science Fair 2011, then I will be highly impressed. Creating incentives and role models (monetary and otherwise) for young creative kids is a smart, cheap way to to improve America’s global competitiveness. Fred Wilson often talks about creating women role models in technology, and I completely agree. It is vital to have role...
Google Amazes Me Daily
Wow, this is a new one from Google. I clicked on a link to a PDF of a Le Corbusier essay. Turns out the link was broken. But Google (search engine and Chrome), because the they are so smart, show me a link to the same PDF at a different URL that works! Awesome!
21st Century Corbusian Architecture →
Incredibly beautiful. The ground floor should truly be the ground!
A Contentious Interview →
This is an interview between the Foreign Minister of Iran and Der Spiegel. 2 journalists from Spiegel are currently in prison in Iran on immigration charges. The journalists did enter Iran with tourist visas, but the controversy is part of the larger struggle between Iran and the West. The tone of the interview is contentious, but at points oddly graciously. Salehi, the Foreign Minister, speaks...
Arduino Makes Everything Possible →
Maps are Mesmerizing →
