December 2011
60 posts
“The reason is simple: you don’t want to get more done.
You’re...”
– Seth Godin on the reason productivity improvements don’t work.
“The only standard is impermanence.”
– Seth’s Blog: “It’s always been this way”
As I wrote recently, everything in existence is permanently impermanent. Even those things we have come to believe are less so. Perhaps, especially, those. (via minimalmac)
Don’t be a know-it-all. →
Young children are like sponges, full of optimistic curiosity that fuels their confidence to be creative. But as they get older, they lose that magical openness, and, for many, the door to creativity closes very early. It starts in elementary school when the need to fit in comes from peers and parents, to get the grades and tick the boxes. Taking risks and asking why becomes less important than...
“I tend to set and pursue goals like most people do, but more and more I’m...”
– http://www.corbettbarr.com/when-goals-make-you-crazy
iCloud and Snow Leopard and Google Sync
So … I’m not sure what’s going on but a few weeks after Google integrated Circles into Gmail my Google Contacts are all screwed up. dd in how badly Google Contacts and Calendar sync to my iOS devices and my Mac and one begins to wonder if there might be a better way. My wife has started screaming at me that this “cloud stuff sucks”. She is very rightly frustrated...
State lotteries and the Internet →
If millions of tickets have been sold for a huge lottery jackpot with no winner yet identified, would it be possible for a syndicate or maybe a huge corporation to simply say “I’ll take all the remaining tickets, please,” reducing the odds to a certainty through one huge electronic buy?
Why does this feel like a really bad idea?
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Top 10 Destination for 2012 is my birthplace →
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
What’s not to like about a tropical paradise that bills itself as “one destination, 32 gorgeous Caribbean islands”?
Located between St. Lucia and Grenada, this island chain has long drawn stars and vacationers with deep pockets, but it will become more accessible to a wider range of travelers thanks to a $240 million airport scheduled to open...
“For many geeks, the Internet is our first weapon of choice. We can use it to...”
– This is one doozy of a snowball fight.
Geek Nation at War! Read All About It! | GeekDad | Wired.com
A Lesser Photographer: The Lure of Diminishing... →
alesserphotographer:
Keith Green points us to this New York Times article on Kwaku Alston:
“‘I just got back to basics,’ said Mr. Alston, 40, who has divided his time between Venice and New York for nearly 10 years now. ‘I had been just pumping out commercial images all day long, that when you looked at it,…
I want to go back to web development and consulting.
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“In a way, Flipboard is the opposite of TweetDeck. TweetDeck takes Twitter, and...”
– Alex Wilhelm, Why Flipboard Matters - The Next Web (via underpaidgenius)
Watchfrankveronsky:
Trash the Dress Workshop
The Carriage House
FRANK VERONSKY MAKES PICTURES and FRIENDS
This looked like it was fun.
Nike decries frenzies, arrests over Air Jordan... →
In Indianapolis, shoppers stormed a mall, trampling fellow consumers and ripping a door off its hinges. In Seattle, police used pepper spray on about 20 shoppers fighting over the shoes. A man was stabbed in a brawl over the shoes in Jersey City, N.J. He’s expected to recover.
I’ve never heard of this happening at an iPhone release day. Adidas should run some ads showing stupid...
Where Holiday Traditions Come From - LIFE Magazine →
Believe it or not, there was once a time when there was no Santa, no Christmas gifts, no menorah, no Valentine’s Day, and no New Year’s Eve ball drop. So where did they come from? Well, in the case of Christmas, the holiday we know now is believed to be a melding of both a celebration of the birth of Christ and earlier, pagan winter celebrations like Saturnalia, the Roman sun-god holiday of Dies...
No skin in the game? →
People like Dimon, and Schwarzman, and John Paulson, and all of the rest of them who think the “imbeciles” on the streets are simply full of reasonless class anger, they don’t get it. Nobody hates them for being successful. And not that this needs repeating, but nobody even minds that they are rich.
What makes people furious is that they have stopped being citizens.
I...
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A few hacker teams do most China-based data theft →
Fast Decisions: Steve Jobs vs. Meg Whitman →
Walter Isaacson in Steve Jobs
When the board proposed a study that could take two months, Jobs exploded: “Are you nuts?!?”
I’ve often wished that corporate America wasn’t so full of politically correct bullshit so that people (meaning me) were free to call things as they see them.
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RIP: Google's Android Update Alliance →
The back story: If you own an Android phone, you may have watched with frustration as a new version of the OS hit the market. It’s almost never clear if your phone will ever get that upgrade—unlike with iOS or Windows Phones, which always get all upgrades (providing they meet the right hardware requirements). With Android, it seems to depend on the phone vendor, the specific model, the...
More Thoughts on Magazines and Publishing on the... →
There isn’t a tablet market right now. There is an iPad market and I can’t envision that changing in the next few years. Instead of recognizing this, it seems publishers would rather hedge their bets that Android or another platform will catch on and steal some of Apple’s thunder. This is why you end up with subpar experiences on multiple platforms. Rather than mastering a single platform and...
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→ Don’t Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other... →
At the end of the day, your life happiness will not be dominated by your career. Either talk to older people or trust the social scientists who have: family, faith, hobbies, etc etc generally swamp career achievements and money in terms of things which actually produce happiness. Optimize appropriately. Your career is important, and right now it might seem like the most important thing in...
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Security experts dispute Carrier IQ threat |... →
“To fail to differentiate an after-market app from a system internal that is integral to the management of the network to which the device is connected is a major failing,” Bace says of Eckhart’s original analysis. “To propose, as he has in the meantime, that he can provide a means of removing the offending mechanism—without disrupting quality of service—to a general...
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Did Apple's iPhone Redefine Photography? →
Again as is the case with photography, users can shoot, edit and post impressive videos directly from their phones. When it comes to choosing between an iPhone and point-and-shoot camera, or a flip video, the convenience of having all of those tools in one device makes the decision a no-brainer, and in so doing, you’ll also save money from having to buy several gadgets.
Recently, we found...
Zittrain in Technology Review: The personal... →
Yes, but it’s not a bad thing Asa he suggest. Unless by consumer he means those people who would prefer to hack stuff. Computers were originally designed by those people for those people. It’s time the other 99% got a computer deigned for them.
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The 12 Days of Christmas via @owasp →
Information security geeks have fun too.
“Don’t worry about being better than anybody you know personally or whose work...”
– I’ll make an effort to remind myself about this everyday. (via jorgeqfolio)
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tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?
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“For the independent worker, the litmus test for career success is not position,...”
– http://gigaom.com/collaboration/the-future-of-work-fiercely-independent-and-agile/
Nine Tips for using Flipboard →
My favourite:
Read a story later. Tap the “gear” icon, page 2, lower right. Authenticate your Read It Later or Instapaper accounts. Then, earmark stories for later reading (via Read It Later’s or Instapaper’s apps or sites) by tapping the “Share” icon (top, second from right in article view).
“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us...”
– E.E. Cummings via A. King in Society
Encrypting DNS →
DNS has, unfortunately, always had some inherent weaknesses because it’s transported in plain text. DNSSEC has never attempted to address that (crazy, I know). Encrypting all DNS traffic means a fundamental change to the security of the system on the whole and a strong improvement.
It doesn’t work at all on my Mac connected via my Time Capsule. Perhaps it was meant to be used on...
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500px: Ethereal Morning →
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Currents - Google's answer to Flipboard →
We’ve worked with more than 150 publishing partners to offer full-length articles from more than 180 editions including CNET, AllThingsD, Forbes, Saveur, PBS, Huffington Post, Fast Company and more. Content is optimized for smartphones and tablets, allowing you to intuitively navigate between words, pictures and video on large and small screens alike, even if you’re offline.
I’ve been...
Readmill for iPad →
readmill:
Readmill for iPad is a simple, beautiful reader that tracks your reading progress seamlessly while you read
This means that anyone using an iPad, Kindle or Android phone can sign up and start sharing…
bijan sabet: The thing about open source →
bijan:
I think we need to aim even higher with open source movement. It’s not just about an open source version of Photoshop or Windows or MS Office. It has to be bigger and more ambitious than free and open. It has to be better.