July 2010
2 posts
Watchhitrecordjoe:
originally released on hitRECord.org
PeteForester85 wrote and read not only an appeal for aid to Haiti, but an invitation to examine our freedom, our fragility and our light. RECord your rendition and contribute to the collaboration here. These words he wrote could sound great coming from a multitude…
June 2010
7 posts
“There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to...”
– G. E. Lessing
“What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things...”
– Dave Eggers
Steve Jobs WIRED interview from 1996
On people
I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups.
On design
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper,...
May 2010
8 posts
Buster Benson's Rules to Live By
You must not dilly-dally, so that the Resistance doesn’t trick you.
You must be your word, so that you trust yourself.
You must have good intentions, so that you do not betray yourself.
You must admit to being the maker of meaning, so that you know what you’re getting.
You must not feel sorry for yourself, so that you do not become a martyr.
You must have a vision that you are striving for,...
The Effectual Reasoning Model for Expert... →
My notes:
Do not begin with a specific goal. Instead, begin with a set of means and allow goals to emerge over time.
Build on prior accomplishments and long term interests, so that early customers view the startup as a continuation of earlier efforts and focus.
Have a meaningful picture - a compelling story - that keeps the team together and brings in more stakeholders.
Do not expend energy...
“Coveting possessions is unhealthy. Here’s how I look at it: All of the...”
– An insightful comment on Ask Metafilter
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.”
– John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity
“When you’re younger, think less and do more; when you’re older, do...”
– John Maeda (via Jonathan Harris)
“The larger lesson is that our thoughts are shackled by the familiar. The brain...”
– Jonah Lehrer, Why We Travel
“Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with...”
– Robert Greene, 33 Strategies of War
April 2010
7 posts
“If you’re not sure what to do, make something.”
– Paul Graham, The Power of the Marginal
“You are what you do all day.”
– Eric Barker
“Studies show that commuters are on average much less satisfied with their lives...”
– The commuting paradox (Businessweek)
“The real lesson for me is this: People want the basics done well. Does it look...”
– Jason Fried, Shoes and software - (37signals)
“Failure is thinking you’ve failed.”
– Meredith Myers LeBlanc
“Easier isn’t always better. Sometimes the best thing since a loaf of...”
– Alex Krupp
Assumption-driven entrepreneurship
Thesis-driven investment is the process of making investments based on theories about the future. Having a better understanding of the future than everyone else is a great reason to invest. It’s also a really lousy reason to start a company.
Compare this to actually solving problems. You don’t get to choose your solution from a list. You need to solve it yourself.
All too often...
March 2010
31 posts
Have better ideas using KWL charts
What do I KNOW?
What do I WANT to know?
What did I LEARN?
Whenever you’re thinking about a big problem, write down all your questions and background knowledge in advance. Don’t just write down your main question, write down every question whose answer could conceivably be insightful or useful to your intended audience. Then write down all your background knowledge. Not just a...
How to blog insightful
From Alex Krupp’s essay:
Define a phenomenon
Create a hypothesis
Split one schema into two
Combine two schema into one
Think on a higher order
Think on a lower order
X and Y are both instances of Z
Simplify a more complicated model
X is not mutually exclusive with Y
“The problem with assumptions is that they’re usually correct. For certain...”
– Alex Krupp
A Trainer Shares What He Learned About Health and... →
Personal highlights:
Pushups are the best upper body workout designed.
It’s never too late to build muscle and is more important as we grow older.
If I had to pick one sport for a child to start with it would be gymnastics, the strength/speed/balance/body control they will learn can be applied to any sport down the road.
To build muscle, throw away your Whey protein and eat more steak ...
“You’ve seen what happens when an energetic person enters a room. It raises...”
– Scott Adams Blog: Leadership Energy
“By thinking of ourselves as a child, we end up thinking in more child-like ways....”
– Jonah Lehrer on Childish Creativity
Ask yourself the right questions
Most questions contain presuppositions. A presupposition is a “fact” that’s embedded in the question, which you will have to accept as true in order to answer the question. For example, if you ask “Why is John always mean to me?”, it assumes John is always mean to you.
Instead of asking “Why do I always screw up?”, how about you ask “How can I most...
Three Steps to Make Your Next Speech Your Best -... →
First, step out from behind the podium and choreograph your relationship to the audience.
Four feet to a foot and a half is personal space, and now we’re paying close attention. In fact, we want to keep our eyes on anyone in that space all the time. Again, it’s a safety issue. That person is close enough to us to do us harm, so we’re going to stay focused. So one of...
WatchQuestions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can — and should — be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions (TED Talk)
Anthony Volodkin: Why Steep Learning Curves Are... →
In 2005, back when music blogs were still a relatively new phenomenon, Hype Machine creator Anthony Volodkin imagined a website that would aggregate those diverse critical voices to answer an age-old question: “What should I listen to?” A 19-year-old college student with an IT side job, Volodkin had little time, little money, and little experience working on the web. But rather than getting ...
A heuristic for evaluating any process or infrastructure change in the context of a startup:
Always choose the option that minimizes the total time through the feedback loop.
In other words, any change that accelerates learning is a win, and everything else is waste. This is very different from the trade-offs that need to be made in [corporate] situations where the goal is to optimize for...
Notes on Leadership from Ben Horowitz
So, are great leaders born or made? Let’s look at this one attribute at a time:
Articulation of the vision—There is no question that some people are much better story tellers than others. However, it is also true that anybody can greatly improve in this area through focus and hard work. All CEOs should work on the vision component of leadership.
Alignment of interests—I am not sure if the...
“The woman who was apparently selectively hard to get (i.e. easy for you but hard...”
– Does Playing Hard to Get Work? | PsyBlog
“We’re in for some hard times. We need to pull in our belts, pay more...”
– Roger Ebert - The gathering storm
“My worry is that our online social platforms both magnify our hierarchies (by...”
– Jonah Lehrer : Online Status Anxiety : The Frontal Cortex
“Income is the best medicine.”
– Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank
“In our refusal [to say thank you], we are attempting to flee a sense of...”
– Alain de Botton on gratitude
“We’re nothing but kids with grown-up faces, enjoying the time of our life,...”
– Mo’Nique, when asked how she felt about the buzz behind her Precious performance
“Incidentally, am I alone in finding the expression ‘it turns out’ to...”
– Ben Casnocha’s Blog: The Power of the Phrase “It Turns Out…”
“One group needs to be there for the other to come. That’s a big problem. Without...”
– Mastering Chicken And The Egg Communities - FeverBee