July 2008
54 posts
The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard →
Hat tip to Jean Russell. Great way to save yourself 4 years of econ undergrad and all the associated BS.
It has a bit of a commie/hippie vibe at first, but it is definitely not a total distortion of the truth. Really refreshing.
“If you want to know where the business model for the Social Web lives, it’s in...”
– The Web’s Dirty Little Secret | How To Split An Atom
The last line is the money part: solve a problem that wasn’t created by the web itself.
…
I’m working on it
“The modern distinction between “private” corporations and...”
– 2blowhards.com: The Mencius Vision
I am probably going to be posting a whole lot of Mencius Moldbug quotes up over the next few weeks as I read through his incredibly deep & dense back catalogue. Great shit.
Deltron 3030 - Upgrade
How on earth did it take...
Reblog Ban
Shit. I accidentally broke my “don’t reblog the Radar” rule.
The Art Of Learning
I usually only venture into the “Self Help” section of a bookstore to pick up easily influenced women but The Art Of Learning is a great read. The book doesn’t succumb to the usual pitfalls of the genre: overly general advice, excessive use of lists, and failed attempts at understanding the mind of the reader; instead, it just tells the story of how one man achieved excellence.
Me and My Girls - The Night of the Gun - David... →
This article - an adaptation of a soon-to-be-released memoir - is so excellent I couldn’t choose a quote from it. Gritty and introspective, not too schmaltzy, eloquent but succinct. It makes one want to become a junkie just to be able to write something like that 20 years later. Probably not a wise move, or David’s aim, but still: it’s that good.
“voters reward disaster relief spending but not disaster prevention spending....”
– Overcoming Bias: Disaster Bias
Democracy is fucked when the people are this consistently wrong. This article later talks about how $1 of prevention leads to >$8 of savings.
Awesome Startup Watch
“The ultimate, rather immodest, goal of Wigix is to create a complete record of every item in existence, who owns it and what it’s worth, as well as a platform that enables people to track, discuss, and trade all of those items.”
-Bill Burnham
This site relieves so many frustrations I have with eBay…it’s like a breath of fresh air. Clean UI, persistent item types,...
joelaz:
Bright Eyes - Amy In The White Coat
...
A soul cover of Cameo - Word Up. It’s a...
“The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in...”
– Josh Waitzkin: The Art Of Learning
I typed this quote in 3 parts while checking my email and receiving a SMS. He might be on to something…Oooh, better check Google Reader, bet there’s something new.
“Stephen Hawking once said, “If time travel is real, where are all the time...”
– Simon Rich, Ant Farm (via nickdouglas)
Stephen Hawking is funny, but it’s really all in his delivery.
“Emprical work doesn’t tell you anything about the world; only models do....”
– Oxonomics: What is wrong with economic punditry?
Never, ever, look backwards for answers in economics.
Google Figuring Out Virtual Worlds →
This implementation looks goofy and half-assed (no money, no room for creativity) but the central idea that the virtual world should live on the web is a good one, and Google might just be able iterate its way into success with this one.
“If we really understand the message of an economic downturn, we would all become...”
– Time To Celebrate Business by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
An interesting example of how government can fuck with something as straight-forward as making wine.
Switched from Twitter—->Tumblr to Tumblr—->Twitter. I think it makes more sense. Social media is confusing. Esp. with Ping.fm. Please don’t create an infinite loop of this post.
Reading Clay Shirky’s ‘A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy’ http://ping.fm/rBbQl
“The other pattern that’s very, very attractive — anybody who looks...”
– Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy
I have that epiphany frequently, but it has always turned out to be an overstatement. People aren’t automatons, whose social programming can be changed.
“People who work on social software are closer in spirit to economists and...”
– Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy
I wish Clay was still writing/keeping his site up-to-date. He tackles the same issues everyone else is talking about, but from a totally different perspective - and with much more satisfying conclusions.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-7-6) →
team9 vs. Stereogum
Black Francis
G3RSt
Phoenix
Murs
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
“TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the...”
– David Foster Wallace (via craig)
hoping this does not create an infinite loop of posting via ping.fm
“The story is told of a sales call that Ernest Gallo made to a New York customer...”
– Wine Economics: They Always Buy the Ten Cent Wine
This explains why I like Three-Buck-Chuck so much. Rationally, making good wine can’t be that much more expensive than making good grape juice - and that sits around $3 a liter.
“So, then, what about melting ice-sheets, rising sea levels, the extinction of...”
– Skeptic: The Magazine: Featured Article
People don’t make good decisions with a gun to their head.
-Bjorn Lomborg
A quote to explain a quote…
“However, if the present uncertainty limit in General Circulation Models is at...”
– Skeptic: The Magazine: Featured Article
I’ve been saying this for years and - man - do people get upset. People look at me like I’m a Holocaust denier.
listening to Immortal Technique’s ‘3rd World’. Waited far too long for this
Immortal Technique - Leaving The Past
Every once...
Wine and cheesing. Life is too good. http://snipurl.com/2u1mz
I’m at Marinaside Crescent, Vancouver, BC, Canada (Vancouver, BC, CA) - http://bkite.com/00QNb
I’m at Vancouver, BC, CA - http://bkite.com/00QN1
“Keynes hypothesized in The General Theory that if “spontaneous optimism...”
– Overcoming Bias: Overconfident Investing
I seem to wind up on this topic a lot. One point that is neglected in this article is that there is value in the act of investing - that gambler’s rush - that can bias, or even blindside, the investor.
“Why aren’t we consciously obsessed with inclusive genetic fitness? Why did...”
– Overcoming Bias: Thou Art Godshatter
Overcoming Bias is consistently the deepest stuff I read on the internet - yet it never veers to esoteric bullshit. There is always razor sharp logic at its core.
“Was the industrial revolution good or bad? Yes.”
– Whimsley
I think I have a new favourite blogger
USA Today: For The Illiterate, By The Illiterate
I challenge anyone to find a passage in USA today that requires a greater than 8th grade English competency.
Loves listening to acoustic guitar when you can hear the performer’s foot tapping
See yourself in others mirror: by the barbarian group. http://snipurl.com/2t3xp
I’m at McLeod Residence (2209 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98121, USA) - http://bkite.com/00Phu
Black Keys - Strange Times
I’ve been...
