second brain

caribbeancivilisation: soca is going GLOBAL

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:42:56 -0400

caribbeancivilisation:

soca is going GLOBAL

Photo

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:51:40 -0400

Google Glass and Gargoyles

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:19:11 -0400

youmeandmyapi:

Compare these two quotes. The first from Nick Bilton. He’s remarking on the Google I/O experience. The second is from Neal Stephenson’s third novel “Snowcrash.” The parallels are surprising and possibly terrifying:

“Everywhere I looked at the conference, people were wearing Google Glass. Hundreds of them. Maybe more than a thousand! They were on the escalator. At the coffee stations. Press lounges. Lingering in the hallways like gangs of super nerds. They looked like real people as they nibbled on M&M’s and nuts at the snack bars. Except they weren’t; these “humans” were able to take pictures with their eyes and then post them to the Internet.”

-Nick Bilton

Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.

-Neal Stephenson

shoutsandmumbles: Google is making smart design decisions that...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:24:55 -0400

shoutsandmumbles:

Google is making smart design decisions that make using their product easier and more straight forward to do. Not to mention they actually work.

It’s the little things.

Still pissed about Google Reader, though.

briannegarcia: Drawing by Kitty Wong, an illustrator and...

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:11:43 -0400

briannegarcia:

Drawing by Kitty Wong, an illustrator and fashion designer living in Hong Kong. Follow her blog here, her lovely tumblr here, and shop around in her Society6 shop. And if you like this, there’s more to come.

A few weeks ago, my father graced my inbox with a list he’s talked about for years: Zig Ziglar’s list of 100 things he learned on his way to the top. The list is a little old school, but the beauty in wisdom is that it never expires. I tweeted out an offer to send the list to anyone interested, and the response surprised me: dozens of people responded or emailed me directly, interested in this list of lessons.

This was a really cool realization; all of the people who responded are conscious livers of life. Instead of passively passing through their own lives, they’re interested in motivation, wisdom and advice on how to better approach all the millions of moments ahead.

Kitty was one of those who emailed me, and of course, I stalked her a bit and realized her drawings run the gamut from glamorous and beautiful to photographic, in a sense, sometimes telling the literal story of the subject in one snapshot.

We decided to work together, and Kitty offered to draw some of our favorites from this Zig Ziglar list, since almost all of the graphics we found were outdated or cheesy.

Kitty interpreted #45 personally: “Our chief want in life is someone to inspire us to be what we want to be.”

It look me much longer than I thought it would to translate the concept into a drawing. And I wanted them to be cool.

I made so many sketches for this, but then I for some reason kept thinking about Fran Lebowitz all the time for the word ‘inspiration’, mostly from her doc Public Speaking. So I drew her. She seems like someone who would be an amazing and terrifying mentor who’d toughen you up and be pretty inspiring.

And there you have it; a personal interpretation of wisdom is the best kind.

We hope to do one drawing per week together, and create postcards to give away or buy. We’re still tossing around ideas.

If you’re interested in this list, or in a guest post or illustration, please email me: bri.garcia7 @ gmail dot com

:)

First installment of @percolatehq coding club. @heyitsnoah...

Thu, 09 May 2013 19:35:03 -0400

First installment of @percolatehq coding club. @heyitsnoah teaching Python basics.

"And while disruptive innovation is generally a good thing, nothing inherent to the idea implies it’s..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:16:44 -0400

“And while disruptive innovation is generally a good thing, nothing inherent to the idea implies it’s the only good thing or the best thing. Entrepreneurs should not be ashamed to admit that their ideas aren’t particularly disruptive.”

- Stop “Disrupting” Everything via Slate

The valley sells innovation, yet serves up picture apps and other frivolous nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, some of those things can make money for investors, but to couch it as “disruptive” is about as convincing as a McRib sandwich. Maybe we can tone down the “disruption” hyperbole and simply admit that many of the startups funded by VC’s are purely about cashing in on the latest fad. Most VC’s could care less about innovation.
(via marksbirch)

"We almost expect women athletes to not be classically beautiful or feminine, and therefore we’re not..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:41:22 -0400

“We almost expect women athletes to not be classically beautiful or feminine, and therefore we’re not surprised to learn they’re gay. Male professional athletes, by contrast, are thought to be our most masculine specimens. So when they come out as gay, it seems they’re playing against type. Even more than with femininity, masculinity and heterosexuality are widely perceived to be linked. For all the progress that’s been made, there’s still a perception that the bullied gay kid is spending his after-school hours curating a Lana Del Rey Tumblr, not practicing with the varsity basketball team. The bullied teen lesbian? She’s the one on the court.”

- On Jason Collins, Brittney Griner, and the need to decouple gender and sexuality - NYmag.com / The Cut (via annfriedman)

Drop that knowledge.

"A recent report by the Center for an Urban Future laments the lack of “low-income” entrepreneurs in..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:26:22 -0400

“A recent report by the Center for an Urban Future laments the lack of “low-income” entrepreneurs in New York City. The entire premise of the report is strange to me, the concept that our most vulnerable populations should be responsible for creating opportunities for employment. The very definition of poverty is to be lacking the money to cover the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and healthcare. If you can’t do that, how can you choose to spend money to start a business when it will ultimately mean yet more physical sacrifice, possibly at the expense of your health, sanity, and what little stability one might have? The risks inherent in entrepreneurship are such that the poor frankly cannot afford it, evident in the questionable success of micro-lending programs worldwide. These pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps perspectives are short-sighted products of the privileged, relieving governments and policymakers of the responsibility to abandon austerity measures and private interests and invest in the types of WPA-style projects that created the American middle class in the first place.”

- The Coloured Collective | -celebrating women of colour in a world of black and white- (via colouredcollective)

“These pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps perspectives are short-sighted products of the privileged”

How to brew coffee - without a coffee maker Why...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:22:08 -0400

How to brew coffee - without a coffee maker

Why I subscribe to @TonxCoffee: coffee; wit; design. (Referral link: https://tonx.org/a1aecacf)

(via How to Brew Coffee Without a Coffee Maker)

"Every other time I go out to eat with a group, be it family, friends, or acquaintances of whatever..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:15:11 -0400

“

Every other time I go out to eat with a group, be it family, friends, or acquaintances of whatever age, conversation routinely plunges into a discussion of when it is appropriate to pull out a phone. People boast about their self-control over not checking their device, and the table usually reaches a self-congratulatory consensus that we should all just keep it in our pants. The pinnacle of such abstinence-only smartphone education is a game that is popular to talk about (though I’ve never actually seen it played) wherein the first person at the dinner table to pull out their device has to pay the tab. Everyone usually agrees this is awesome.

What a ridiculous state of affairs this is.

”

- The IRL Fetish – The New Inquiry

Now, I’m not saying that not replying quickly to emails will get...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:14:06 -0400

Now, I’m not saying that not replying quickly to emails will get someone fired, and I get that we all have lives outside of work and sometimes can’t reply quickly to emails but I value it… and ultimately, don’t we all want to know what our bosses value?

Why not just say, when I say jump, you better drop everything else in your life that might be remotely important and immediately respond with, “yes sir, how high sir?”

(via How to help new employees be rockstars, a new approach)

"Communication is important. Mutual generosity is important. Men’s inner emotional lives are..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:28:00 -0400

“Communication is important. Mutual generosity is important. Men’s inner emotional lives are important. Women’s sexual boundaries are important. And vice versa on all counts, of course. But when talking about sex, female trauma is not subordinate to male frustration. Men not “getting” enough sex from their chilly wives (as though wives couldn’t possibly want sex, or be justified in not wanting it) has been our oversimplified narrative for generations. Prioritizing men’s sexual issues over women’s is not a revolutionary, maverick stance—it is the status quo dressed up as progressive pablum. And exploiting one couple’s very specific emotional trauma and dysfunction in order to support sweeping, regressive generalizations about the sexual function of entire genders is utterly fucked up.”

- How Not to Talk About Sex in Relationships

Sometimes, Jezebel, sometimes you stick that goddamned landing so very hard.

"the most innovative workers — also the “happiest,” by its definition — are those who have a strong..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:04:00 -0400

“the most innovative workers — also the “happiest,” by its definition — are those who have a strong sense of mission about their work and who also feel that they have much personal autonomy”

- Don’t be evil. Don’t micromanage.
Big Data, Trying to Build Better Workers - NYTimes.com

"The Facebook interface is filled with numbers. These numbers, or metrics, measure and present our..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:42:00 -0400

“The Facebook interface is filled with numbers. These numbers, or metrics, measure and present our social value and activity, enumerating friends, likes, comments, and more. Facebook Demetricator is a web browser addon that hides these metrics. No longer is the focus on how many friends you have or on how much they like your status, but on who they are and what they said. Friend counts disappear. ’16 people like this’ becomes ‘people like this’. Through changes like these, Demetricator invites Facebook’s users to try the system without the numbers, to see how their experience is changed by their absence. With this work I aim to disrupt the prescribed sociality these metrics produce, enabling a network society that isn’t dependent on quantification.”

- ‘these quantifications of social connection play right into our (capitalism-inspired) innate desire for more’. Interesting experiment.
Facebook Demetricator | benjamin grosser

Reinhart and Rogoff; and The Dangers of Tipping Points, Real and Otherwise - Forbes

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:50:03 -0400

Reinhart and Rogoff; and The Dangers of Tipping Points, Real and Otherwise - Forbes:

Interesting.

"it is possible to be too good. The unassuming Mary Wrightly, a “good, polite little girl who spoke..."

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:34:02 -0400

“it is possible to be too good. The unassuming Mary Wrightly, a “good, polite little girl who spoke in a small, soft voice” and the heroine of “Mary Wrightly, So Politely,” by Shirin Yim Bridges (“Ruby’s Wish”), finds that retiring girls don’t always get what they want or deserve. Often, they are simply ignored.”

- ‘Sometimes you just have to tell people what you want. And what this smart, affecting and original story wants is some well-deserved attention’
‘Mary Wrightly, So Politely,’ by Shirin Yim Bridges - NYTimes.com

"I say they. But I am and have been a manager, and I may well have been the reason someone left the..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:32:05 -0400

“

I say they. But I am and have been a manager, and I may well have been the reason someone left the office and went straight to a bar for a stiff drink, or resented even the thought of having to come to work the next day.

How much more often than, “why can’t people just get things done?” should we be thinking, “I take responsibility for this. How might I make this better? How might I be better?”

”

- Don’t be the reason people quit. Published over at Medium. (via stacymarieishmael)

"The study’s authors noted that female passengers were generally less likely to ride in..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:04:01 -0400

“The study’s authors noted that female passengers were generally less likely to ride in unpopulated cars and often tried to position themselves relatively near to a conductor, presumably out of “personal security concerns.” Because still, in the 21st century, that’s part of the day-to-day routine for most women: having to be a little bit more scared than everyone else, and planning your day around potential attacks you have to assume people will try to enact on you. Really, pretty fun.”

- ‘part of the day-to-day routine for most women: having to be a little bit more scared than everyone else’
The Psychology of the New York Subway Rider, Decoded | Brooklyn Abridged

"Chipotle brings us exactly what innovators have always brought us. Not the very best product in the..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:53:00 -0400

“Chipotle brings us exactly what innovators have always brought us. Not the very best product in the world, but the very best production process allowing for large-scale distrbution of a quality product. Mass produced clothing isn’t as good as tailor-made, but a world in which mass produced clothing is available is a much better and more prosperous world than a world of handmade clothing. Artisans like the proprietors of La Taqueria make enormous contributions to their communities, but entrepreneurs and mass producers like Chipotle make enormous contributions to the whole world by bringing great ideas to scale.”

- Taqueria is incredible. If you go, smother than burrito in green sauce.
La Taqueria vs Chipotle: Buttito summit and burrito economics.