12.20.11
Happy Holidays!
10.05.11
Rest in Peace Steve Jobs
In his own words, spoken like a true Buddhist and Visionary:
…And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
And for a little context, here is a quote from President Obama about Steve Jobs giving him an iPad2, “Steve Jobs actually gave it to me, a little bit early. Yeah, it was cool. I got it directly from him.”
05.22.11
Epistemology
Karl Popper believed that even scientific knowledge does not qualify as the ultimate truth. Rather, scientific theories should be accepted as provisionally true as no amount of corroborating evidence can rule out the possibility that some contradictory evidence will turn up in the future.
Great quote, though I forgot where I found it…
05.18.11
Nucular
CNN suggests we ask How close is your home to a nuclear power plant? While I’m all for spreading useful information like this, it’s unfortunately positioned to scare people rather than inform.
Here’s the closest plants for Durham…
On the flip side of the coin, xkcd drew up this humongous and informative chart to help people understand relative levels of radiation.
05.15.11
Ambiguity and Changing Behavior
From Switch, by Dan and Chip Heath:
Ambiguity is the enemy. Any successful change requires a translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors. In short, to make a switch, you need to script the critical moves.
(I got this quote from the Kindle most popular highlights for the book.)
05.14.11
Why does this sound familiar…
“No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.”
-Quote attributed to an R&D Supervisor at 3M
via Casey Research.
03.23.11
The NY Times
From Michael DeGusta: Digital Subscription Prices Visualized (aka The New York Times Is Delusional)
Does The Times really think the mass audience is going to decide their $455/year is better spent on The Times rather than getting 20+ free articles/month from The Times plus The Wall Street Journal ($207/year) plus The Economist ($110/year) plus say The Daily ($39/year) for good measure, and still having ~$100 left over each year?
