February 2009
83 posts
Truth over Happiness →
So what do Americans want from a leader if not happy talk?
As it turns out, they want honesty.
(thanks, Josh Rachford)
What I've Learned from Hacker News →
Paul Graham’s learned lessons on people, submissions, dilution, and comments.
Why Hasn't America Been Attacked Since 9/11? →
I spent the Obama transition asking various terrorism experts why the dire predictions of a 9/11 sequel proved untrue and reviewing the literature on this question. The answers boiled down to eight prevailing theories whose implications range from fairly reassuring to deeply worrying.
(thanks, theredpanda)
Facebook and Bebo risk infantilising the human... →
Greenfield warns social networking sites are changing children’s brains, resulting in selfish and attention deficient young people.
How to Procrastinate Like Leonardo da Vinci →
Leonardo was the kind of person we have come to call a “genius.” But he had trouble focusing for long periods on a single project. After he solved its conceptual problems, Leonardo lost interest until someone forced his hand. Even then, Leonardo often became a perfectionist about details that no one else could see, and the job just didn’t get done.
Taco Bell: The Arrival →
Taco Bell is coming to India. This American living in India attempts to bridge the gap for the majority of the billion who have never heard of a taco and view a talking chihuahua with deep, deep suspicion.
(thanks, Dave)
Always on the side of the egg →
Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall.
(thanks, imadam)
Nice Work If You Can Get It →
Yet amid this carnage there is one thing that, surprisingly, has continued to grow: the paycheck of the average worker.
The Godfather Wars →
In many ways, the men who made The Godfather […] were as ruthless as the gangsters in Mario Puzo’s blockbuster. After violent disputes over the casting of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, they tangled with the real-life Mob, which didn’t want the movie made at all. The author recalls how the clash of Hollywood sharks, Mafia kingpins, and cinematic geniuses shaped a Hollywood masterpiece.
...
Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall... →
In the mid-’80s, Wall Street turned to the quants—brainy financial engineers—to invent new ways to boost profits. Their methods for minting money worked brilliantly… until one of them devastated the global economy.
Is Genius Born or Can It Be Learned? →
Is it possible to cultivate genius? Could we somehow structure our educational and social life to produce more Einsteins and Mozarts — or, more urgently these days, another Adam Smith or John Maynard Keynes?
How The Internet Is Wrecking Society →
It is easy to slip into this detached state of being. The Internet is as much a protective cage as a car’s metal bars, only for the Internet, this protection isn’t from physical injury from another road-user as it is in a car, it is from having to come into any true contact with another human being.
(thanks, Simon J. R. Holmes)
So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur →
Building a successful business can take years filled with setbacks, long hours and little reward. Certain personalities thrive on the challenge and embrace the sacrifices. But it can be a hard switch for someone who has spent years sitting in a cubicle with a steady paycheck.
So, how can you figure out whether you’re suited for self-employment?
Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0 →
Local business owners say Yelp offers to hide negative customer reviews of their businesses on its web site … for a price.
What's cooking? →
The evolutionary role of cookery.
Surfing the Universe →
An academic dropout and the search for a Theory of Everything.
The New Cult Canon: Eyes Wide Shut →
But it’s a good example of what happens when films of genuine ambition and artistry are caught up in the swells of studio mass marketing and hype. […] Fortunately, the guardians of film history (cultists, you might call them) are more than patient enough to wait out the culture’s short attention span, but I can’t think of a film that needs rescuing more than Eyes Wide Shut, which was...
The Gatekeeper →
Rahm Emanuel on the job.
On Drowning →
I used to manage a band called The Format. They ceased to exist one year ago today. It was a 4.9 quake in the grand scheme of the music world, causing damage to only poorly constructed buildings over small regions. The truly scary thing is that it didn’t occur anywhere near a fault line - not a single soul predicted it, let alone those of us who had built a house on top of the ground that...
What You'll Wish You'd Known →
If I were back in high school and someone asked about my plans, I’d say that my first priority was to learn what the options were. You don’t need to be in a rush to choose your life’s work. What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do.
(thanks, imadam)
Watching Republicans grieve →
Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi journeyed into the heart of the GOP for her new HBO documentary. She discusses what she found there: Denial, depression and a whole lot of anger.
In Defense of Readers →
Despite the ubiquity of reading on the web, readers remain a neglected audience. Much of our talk about web design revolves around a sense of movement: users are thought to be finding, searching, skimming, looking. We measure how frequently they click but not how long they stay on the page. We concern ourselves with their travel and participation—how they move from page to page, who they talk...
Non-Hierarchical Management →
Instead of the standard “org chart” with a CEO at the top and employees growing down like roots, turn the whole thing upside down. Employees are at the top — they’re the ones who actually get stuff done — and managers are underneath them, helping them to be more effective. (The CEO, who really does nothing, is of course at the bottom.)
On Writing Well →
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.
(thanks, sparo)
The Moral Instinct →
Evolution has endowed us with ethical impulses. Do we know what to do with them?
(thanks, Jesse Endahl)
Yes, They Could. So They Did. →
In New Delhi, it was refreshing to meet idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act, but are starting their own projects and driving innovation.
How the Crash Will Reshape America →
On the other side of the crisis, America’s economic landscape will look very different than it does today. What fate will the coming years hold for New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas? Will the suburbs be ineffably changed? Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all?
The Open-Door Bailout →
The centerpiece of our stimulus should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts smart people to our shores.
How Google Decides to Pull the Plug →
Google’s approach to innovation includes tough standards for deciding when to give up on new projects.
(thanks, c0wb0yz)
Social Collapse Best Practices →
The idea that the USA will go the way of the USSR seemed preposterous at the time. It doesn’t seem so preposterous anymore. I take it some of you are still hedging your bets. How is that hedge fund doing, by the way?
Irving Fisher, the forgotten economist →
Today’s crisis has given new relevance to the ideas of another great economist of the Depression era.
Letting Scientists Off the Leash →
As we think about how to heed President Obama’s call to “put science back in its rightful place,” I wonder if this should also be the time to rethink the basic foundations of how science is funded.
The writing is on the paywall →
Is the idea of getting people to pay for news online an impossible dream?
The Burden of Twitter →
That’s where my guilt comes in. Because of time constraints and just plain reticence, I worry that I’m snatching morsels from the information food bank without making any donations. Instead of healthy, reciprocal participation, I’m flirting with parasitic voyeurism.
Is Food the New Sex? →
What happens when, for the first time in history, adult human beings are free to have all the sex and food they want?
Iconic Collaboration →
A few hundred years ago, a particular group of backwoods provincials gave birth to perhaps the best idea of all - a limited republican government designed to protect against tyranny. Their idea was radical and untried in human history - a system of governance based on freedoms, individual protections, assumption of innocence - one that favored merit over bloodline. This spark of an idea then...
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative →
Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it’s Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world.
Speaking in Tongues →
The incomparable Ms. Zadie Smith on English voices, “the synthesis of disparate things,” and Obama. (thanks, Nora)
Printed Words, Computers, and Democratic Societies →
More exactly, what [computer technology’s] effects are on societies and citizens as a result of developments that come under a variety of labels—from electronic data to information technology, broadcast teletext to interactive videotext—but which add up to the same thing: the dissemination of information from senders to receivers in formats without benefit of (or supplemental to) hard...
Amish Hackers →
The Amish have the undeserved reputation of being luddites, of people who refuse to employ new technology. It’s well known the strictest of them don’t use electricity, or automobiles, but rather farm with manual tools and ride in a horse and buggy. In any debate about the merits of embracing new technology, the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative of refusal. Yet...
The Age of Mass Intelligence →
We’ve all heard about dumbing down. But there is plenty of evidence that the opposite is also true. Is this, in fact, the age of mass intelligence?
Scene stealer: The aXXo files →
To Hollywood executives, he’s public enemy number one. To film fans around the world, he’s a modern-day Robin Hood. As the internet’s most prolific pirate makes his 1,000th illegal film download available to the masses, Tim Walker investigates the mysterious figure known only as aXXo.
Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains →
Paying attention isn’t a simple act of self-discipline, but a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots — and this complex faculty, says Maggie Jackson, is being woefully undermined by how we’re living.
Unfinished Business →
Charles Darwin’s ideas have spread widely, but his revolution is not yet complete.
The End of Alone →
At our desk, on the road, or on a remote beach, the world is a tap away. It’s so cool. And yet it’s not. What we lose with our constant connectedness.
Our Epistemological Depression →
Major recessions are characterized by something novel. Opacity and pseudo-objectivity created the crisis today.
Why Small Payments Won’t Save Publishers →
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the media business is being turned upside down by our new freedoms and our new roles. We’re not just readers anymore, or listeners or viewers. We’re not customers and we’re certainly not consumers. We’re users. We don’t consume content, we use it, and mostly what we use it for is to support our conversations with one another, because we’re media outlets now...
How Game Theory Solved a Religious Mystery →
The answers defied a proper explanation for almost 2,000 years, filling volumes of critical review. Some scholars have essentially given up and suggested the 200 case might be an issue of faulty transcription. And this is the unlikely background for which game theory enters and possibly saves the day.
Too Weird for The Wire →
How black Baltimore drug dealers are using white supremacist legal theories to confound the Feds.
(thanks, alexklein)
Growing Rich by Blogging Is a High-Tech Fairy Tale →
I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.
By Dan Lyons (a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs).