Month: October 2011

The Jobsian fallacy

We are fascinated by our giants and this fascination motivates us to learn. This is good. But we continually forget every story in this world is unique. We can’t cherry pick the convenient elements of one successful life and graft it into our own, expecting the same results. Had da Vinci or Ford been born today, they might have ended up janitors or car salesmen. And a school teacher or gardener from their times, born today, might have transformed the world. We don’t want to see success as fragile or circumstantial, but the slightest touch of chance in the lives of any great man or woman, and we’d never know their names.

Scott Berkun – The Jobsian fallacy.

You Can’t Buy Word of Mouth

Evangelism is word-of-mouth marketing. It’s the best kind of marketing because it’s honest and personal. We don’t pay attention to television commercials and magazine ads because we don’t trust them. We do, however, trust our friends recommending something to us.

And so, companies want their customers to tell their friends about the product. But try as you may, you can’t force people to talk about your product, which means that the next best thing is to try and get people to at least use it.

Shawn Blanc – You Can’t Buy Word of Mouth.

The New Value of Text

Text lasts. It’s not platform-dependant, you don’t just get it from one source, read it in one place, understand it in one way. It is not dependent on technology: it is what we make technology out of. Code is text, it is the fundamental nature of technology. We’ve been trying for decades, since the advent of hypertext fiction, of media-rich CD-ROMs, to enhance the experience of literature with multimedia. And it has failed, every time.

Yet we are terrified that in the digital age, people are constantly distracted. That they’re shallower, lazier, more dazzled. If they are, then the text is not speaking clearly enough. We are not speaking clearly enough. Like over-stuffed attendees at a dull banquet, the mind wanders. We are terrified that people are dumbing down, and so we provide them with ever dumber entertainment. We sell them ever greater distractions, hoping to dazzle them further.

James Bridle – The New Value of Text.

“The real reason people go hiking”

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Courtesy of one Chris Rudzki. 🙂

Easter Island heads have bodies. Wild. Cool photos of the statues as well. (via Ben Brooks)

One of my favorite things about coming home from…

One of my favorite things about coming home from travel is being able to make my own meals and coffee.

“Let’s unfuck America!”

I can’t believe it took me this long to come…

I can’t believe it took me this long to come across Passion Pit. Rdio recommendations FTW.

The Argument for 3G MacBooks. I’m wholeheartedly in agreement here. My 11″ MacBook Air is, in most ways, the ideal computer. Persistent web access with 3G built in would cover the last remaining hole in its features.

Annual subscriptions are now available for The Manual. This was a Kickstarter project that I funded when it was live. The first issue was fantastic in every way. The design, writing, and feeling of the essays was well worth it.