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2011

  • 1 min read

"Good art is a kind of magic"

Another great quote, this one from David Foster Wallace in a letter to Harper’s Magazine in 1996:

Good art is a kind of magic. It does magical things for both artist and audience. We can have long polysyllabic arguments about how to describe the way this magic works, but the plain fact is that good art is magical and precious and cool. It’s hard to try and make good art, and it seems to me wholly reasonable that good artists should be concerned with their work’s cultural reception.

I would add that it can also be very hard to convey the challenges of making good art to someone who doesn’t do it regularly.

(Frank Chimero via Daring Fireball)

  • 2 min read

I know this quote has been making the rounds on

I know this quote has been making the ‘rounds on the Internet for a few weeks now, but it really is quite good. Stanley Kubrick answering the question, “If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living?” in his 1968 interview with Playboy:

Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

(Google Books via Daring Fireball)

  • 1 min read

LEGO Model LEGO Maker

I love this kind of meta:

The set consists of two moulding machines, the first was a replica of the original hand operating injector back from 1949. The second, Larger one is copy of the current Moulder that LEGO uses today that … well made the bricks that made this model…

(Source: Make)

  • 1 min read

The Innovator's Solution

A great follow-on to The Innovator’s Dilemma, the author, Clayton Christensen, explores how the lessons from the first book can be used to create strategies that make starting a growth business practical and reliably successful. The authors form compelling arguments grounded in real world examples, despite, by their own admission, the lack of companies that have been able to reliably execute in the manner laid out in the book (though, at the risk of looking foolish in the near future, I think one could argue that Apple’s success in the last 10 years has been a direct result of their ability to create and recreate growth businesses). The authors’ argument that disruptive products and services compete best against non-consumption, resonated particularly well with my view of the world.

  • 1 min read

The universe is probably littered with the

> “The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space–each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.”
— [XKCD](http://xkcd.com/893/)
  • 1 min read

The Times Announces Digital Subscription Plan

Beginning March 28, visitors to NYTimes.com will be able to read 20 articles a month without paying, a limit that company executives said was intended to draw in subscription revenue from the most loyal readers while not driving away the casual visitors who make up the vast majority of the site’s traffic.

I’m pretty sure they have this backwards. Punishing loyal customers doesn’t sound like the path to success. And the ridiculous distinction between “web” and “tablet” subscriptions shows that the Times still can’t break out of the old media mindset.

  • 1 min read

Skunk Works

As much as this book is about the incredible objects of military might produced by Lockheed’s Skunk Works, the core story is about the power of engineering and innovation. It’s the story of how a thermodynamicist can change the course of history with engine intakes that work efficiently at mach 3. It is the story of ideas from a single engineer becoming the spark that produces a plane invisible to radar and it is the story of a company that gave engineers and innovators free reign to develop the next great thing.

  • 1 min read

The Travels of a T-Shirt In The Global Economy

A great book to make you feel good about globalization and bad about most everything that inhibits free trade. In particular, the author’s explanation of how sweatshops have been key to improving the lives of the impoverished is truly eye-opening. And her descriptions of the incredible bureaucracy that governs the trade of apparel makes me wonder how stores have clothes to sell at all.