Immoveable Feast

Selling Content to the Great Unwashed

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:21:00 -0500

Dave Chatier responding to Merlin, who is responding to Marco:

Most people don’t give a crap about where they get their laughs or information, so long as it’s free. “Because so many things on the Internet are free, everything else should be free.” I admire Mr. Mann for spending tons of cash on the things that he loves. I often do the same. Most people don’t and—thanks to the current culture of the Internet—won’t.

Some people are willing to pay a ton of money for stuff they love and others are going to give least possible and/or settle the bare minimum—and this isn’t limited to the Internet or online content. It’s the reason people by particle-board furniture that falls apart within a year from Target.

Target is in a very different business than the carpenter down the street who crafts furniture by hand. Target knows that and so does the carpenter. The national chain thrives off razor-thin margins and an economy of scale, while the craftsman makes his living off of enthusiasts who are willing to pay a bunch of money for something they really like. The Internet isn’t somehow exempt from this rule and I think a lot of content providers are losing sight of this.

You’re never going to be able to please everyone, so you have to choose you’re battles. Are you going to do whatever it takes to squeeze an extra penny out of the window-shopping masses or are you going to make something that delights a small group of obsessives with their hands on their wallets?

I argue that unless you really think you can scale to the size of Amazon or Google, alienating hardcore users who’d love nothing more than to spread your ideas and content out to anyone and everyone who hasn’t gotten tired of hearing them speak yet, is a short-term strategy at best—and not a particularly good one.

The big thing here—and you can correct me if this isn’t...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:48:41 -0500

The big thing here—and you can correct me if this isn’t the first time this has occurred—is that you can get access to these lovely notebooks without having to subscribe to the Colors subscription.

Chris Bowler:

The crew at Coudal Partners sure know how to target us northerners as we yearn for signs of spring. The latest version of the Field Notes brand plays to that desire: PACKET of SUNSHINE is a nice way to bring in the new season.

I’ve been working my way through my first pack of Field Notes and I have to say, they’re much more resilient than any other notebook that I’ve tried to carry around in my back pocket for an extended period of time. I’m thoroughly impressed with the amount of thought that went into these small little notebooks.

"When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:06:00 -0500

“When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. So create.”

- why the lucky stiff (via inky)

Building Robots at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning in...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:32:00 -0500

Building Robots at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning in Manhattan

This Machine Kills Fascists (via Cool Hunting, patrickrhone) ...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:19:00 -0500

This Machine Kills Fascists (via Cool Hunting, patrickrhone)

A boxed set of standard No. 2 pencils ($22) comes emblazoned with the phrase, “This Machine Kills Fascists,” a nod to “This Land is Your Land” legend Woody Guthrie and making a great gift for folksy and literary types alike.

Here’s a reference point in case you don’t get it immediately.

"I like it when competitors copy me because it means they aren’t about to leapfrog me: they’ll always..."

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:57:00 -0500

“I like it when competitors copy me because it means they aren’t about to leapfrog me: they’ll always be playing catch-up.”

- An Open Letter to Steve Jobs Concerning the HTC Lawsuits (via chartier)

Rocks in a Pond

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:17:00 -0500

Logan and I were talking over a bottle of cheap Spanish wine the other night about this elusive thing called simplicity. I don’t really remember how we got to that topic, but it’s been something I’ve been obsessing over lately. So, it’s more than likely that I somehow steered the conversation in that general direction.

I went off on some tangent about signal versus noise, the need to eliminate all of the things in your life that don’t add value. I don’t like talking about signal versus noise, because it reminds me of that 37 Signals blog I don’t read.

Logan had a similar concept: rocks in a pond. When there is one rock or stone in a pond, you can clearly see its effect. You can see its ripples gentle move through the water’s surface. When there are too many stones in the pond, all rippling, they cancel each other out and you’re left with nothing.

I think that stuff is extremely tempting, you know? You look at something you don’t have and you think to yourself, “Man, if had this—my life would be totally different. If I had this [crock pot, new smart phone, MacBook Pro], things would really change for me. I’d totally [cook at home more, be an organized member of society, write the Great American Novel].” The thing is, more often than not, this doesn’t happen. You’re the same person you were, but now you’ve got somewhere between $30 and $2000 of debt to your name—and more junk to dust.

It’s also a lot more than that. In general, we considering buying something to be a one-time transaction. You pay your money and take your item. Unless you’ve signed a contract with AT&T, then that’s it. Transaction over. But there’s another metric, which I think we lose track of a lot—you’re still paying for that item with mental energy. You still have to think about it, look at it, and potentially dust it. You’ve got to organize it, move it, and worry about breaking it or the dog chewing it.

When we were living in our first apartment. We bought so much random shit. As money got tighter, we cut out more and more. We went from 300 channels we didn’t watch down to 9 channels we didn’t watch. Surprisingly, we found we were just as happy—if not happier—without all of the stuff and expenses.

However, I don’t believe for a moment the people who claim that material items don’t make you happy. It’s kind of like money in that sense. Once you can meet your basic needs, additional money doesn’t make you any happier, but money definitely does play a role up to that point. My mother always said, “Money doesn’t make you happy, but not having money can certainly make you unhappy.”

It’s similar when it comes to stuff. Having lots of extraneous stuff can (and does, in our case) make you unhappy. That being said, a few well-designed, high-quality items (e.g. a good desk, a quality notebook, or even a MacBook Pro) can bring you happiness.

The trick is knowing where that fine line is and making sure not to cross it.

How To Become a Fan on Facebook (via laughingsquid)

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:10:23 -0500

How To Become a Fan on Facebook (via laughingsquid)

How to Live 100 Years

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:27:52 -0500

How to Live 100 Years:

Scientists are studying people approaching their centennial and looking at how both genes as well as our behavior impacts not only our life expectancy, but also the quality of life we experience as we age. One scientist predicts that genes may only account for about 30% of our longevity, which means we’re in control of many of the factors that lead to a long and active life.

Do-It-Yourself Genetic Engineering

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:26:00 -0500

Do-It-Yourself Genetic Engineering:

Synthetic biology involves rearranging DNA patterns to dramatically alter existing lifeforms or create totally new ones. The team at City College in San Francisco is working on making a bacteria-powered battery with nothing but borrowed and used equipment in any spare room they can find. Other colleges, such as Berkeley and Stanford, have whole labs dedicated to creating new organisms that do incredible things. Some examples include an adaptation of the E. coli virus that turns one of five different colors when it detects an environmental toxin and a bacteria that secretes a substance astoundingly similar to diesel fuel.

Yoko Ono (via hitrecordjoe, lapetitecoccinelle, jacob)

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:28:00 -0500

Yoko Ono (via hitrecordjoe, lapetitecoccinelle, jacob)

Aerial View of New York City (circa 1924)

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:26:00 -0500

Aerial View of New York City (circa 1924):

It’s an aerial map of New York City that lacks most of the creature comforts you’ve grown to love in Google Maps. You can click on a given building and see who owns it, when it was built, how big it is, et cetera.

If you click on the little camera on top of the map, you get a satellite view with a slider that has four settings: None, 2008, 2006, and 1924 (quite a jump). Scrolling back to 1924 is where the fun begins. Large schools and housing projects vanish and are replaced with row houses. The Brooklyn Navy Yard comes back to life. Elevated lines reappear in Manhattan.

Scrapped from a New York Times article:

The effect is not as simple as it sounds. The old city doesn’t merely replace the new one. It seems to resurface from within it. Gone are Manhattan’s perimeter highways — the F.D.R. and the West Side Highway. On the east, the blocks run right up to the water’s edge, and on the west, they terminate in a hardworking dockside, with ships at berth where Battery Park City now stands.

There are also some other nifty features, such as a free wi-fi finder and whatnot—for those not historically inclined.

My blog just turned three. What an uneventful three years.

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:08:00 -0500

My blog just turned three. What an uneventful three years.

Miss Me Yet? The cheery image of former President George W....

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:28:51 -0500

Miss Me Yet?

The cheery image of former President George W. Bush appeared on a billboard in Minnesota earlier this month, next to the words, “Miss me yet?” It appears a lot of people think it’s a fair question.

Funny you should ask—No.

You’re my type. I’ve had this idea that I’ve...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:28:50 -0500

You’re my type.

I’ve had this idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while. The basic premise is as follows, I walk around New York City and take pictures of various signs and billboards and whatnot and identify what typeface their in. I might map them out; I might not.

For the most part, I’ve put this project off because it’s incredibly cold out and up until recently my only camera was my iPhone, with it’s lack of zoom. But I saw this on the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel. It’s an incredibly beautiful example of one of my favorite typefaces of all time, Futura.

I was pretty sure that the Port Authority Police were going to stop me as I took this photograph, but they didn’t seem to mind.

Oh, a spoiler alert: The overwhelming majority of signs and whatnot in New York City are in either Helvetica or Futura, but you knew that already.

Have you seen any beautiful type around?

In Praise of Boredom

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:31:00 -0500

In Praise of Boredom:

bobulate:

On the exquisite nature of boredom:

It’s about a certain mindset. Perfect boredom is the enjoyment of the moment of stasis that comes between slowing down and speeding up — like sitting at a traffic light for a particularly long time. It’s at the cusp of action, because however enjoyable it may be, boredom is really not a long-term aspiration. It’s for an afternoon before a sociable evening. It marks that point in a holiday when you’ve shrugged off all the concerns of work and home, explored the hotel and got used to the swimming pool, and everything has become totally familiar. ‘I’m bored’ just pops into your mind one morning as you’re laying your towel over the sunlounger before breakfast, and then you think ‘How lovely.’ It’s about the stillness and familiarity of that precise moment before the inevitable anxiety about packing up and heading back to God-knows-what.

Equal parts irreverent, innocuous, and inspiring, boredom is at once impossible to intentionally be (one can’t plan to be bored) and impossible to be without.

Here’s another part that I really enjoyed:

Boredom in the workplace is something else, of course. Here every moment has hovering over it the question-mark of time passing.

Ignorance Frequently Begets Confidence

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:48:00 -0500

Ignorance Frequently Begets Confidence:

This explains a lot.

The Dunning–Kruger effect:

A cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.

[Researchers] hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

(via bobulate, via Caterina.net)

Grumpy People May Be More Evolved

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:40:00 -0500

Grumpy People May Be More Evolved:

If that’s the case, I’m highly evolved.

Phenotypic changes between species can occur when evolution shapes development. Here, we tested whether differences in the social behavior and cognition of bonobos and chimpanzees derive from shifts in their ontogeny, looking at behaviors pertaining to feeding competition in particular. We found that as chimpanzees (n = 30) reached adulthood, they became increasingly intolerant of sharing food, whereas adult bonobos (n = 24) maintained high, juvenile levels of food-related tolerance. We also investigated the ontogeny of inhibition during tasks that simulated feeding competition. In two different tests, we found that bonobos (n = 30) exhibited developmental delays relative to chimpanzees (n = 29) in the acquisition of social inhibition, with these differences resulting in less skill among adult bonobos. The results suggest that these social and cognitive differences between two closely related species result from evolutionary changes in brain development.

The Great Grocery Smackdown

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:51:51 -0500

The Great Grocery Smackdown:

Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy?

Is it just me, or is The Atlantic ruling more and more lately?

(via givemesomethingtoread—which also rules, thanks Nostrich and Marco)

Computer Science Students are Biggest Cheaters

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:42:00 -0500

Computer Science Students are Biggest Cheaters:

A recent study by the San Jose Mercury News shows that at Stanford, cheating in computer science classes account for 22% of the university’s total honor code violations, despite accounting for only 7% of student enrollment…

My wife and I were taking the PRAXIS test in Jersey a few weeks ago. The PRAXIS is a standardized test that you need to take to become a teacher. I showed up with a hangover and a bad attitude (It was Saturday morning, in my defense). The other budding test takers brought note cards and study guides. Mind you, this was the test in “Elementary Education: Content Knowledge.”

Then it happened. A girl spotted a chart in the corner with a list of former presidents on a timeline in the opposite corner of the room. She immediately got up and moved her seat to sit next to the poster. Others were busy scrawling notes on the Magna Carta in discrete places on their desks.

These people are either current or aspiring teachers. Cheating. On a test of their knowledge of the content taught between grades 1 and 5. Seriously?

Addendum: My wife and I got certificates in the mail saying that we scored in the top 15% of all test takers. They sent the certificates in big envelopes with the word “Excellence” written in big, gold-embossed print on them. Again: elementary content knowledge. Should we be proud?

I already ordered frames off of Amazon.

(via fuckyeahcomputerscience)

Immoveable Feast

Selling Content to the Great Unwashed

The big thing here—and you can correct me if this isn’t...

"When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes..."

Building Robots at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning in...

This Machine Kills Fascists (via Cool Hunting, patrickrhone) ...

"I like it when competitors copy me because it means they aren’t about to leapfrog me: they’ll always..."

Rocks in a Pond

Recommended Reading

How To Become a Fan on Facebook (via laughingsquid)

How to Live 100 Years

Do-It-Yourself Genetic Engineering

Yoko Ono (via hitrecordjoe, lapetitecoccinelle, jacob)

Aerial View of New York City (circa 1924)

My blog just turned three. What an uneventful three years.

Miss Me Yet? The cheery image of former President George W....

You’re my type. I’ve had this idea that I’ve...

In Praise of Boredom

Ignorance Frequently Begets Confidence

Grumpy People May Be More Evolved

The Great Grocery Smackdown

Computer Science Students are Biggest Cheaters