Brazil 9000, these guys are insane in the very best of ways:
In early September 2012 we (Aaron and Gareth) will return to Brazil and attempt to become the first people ever to complete a voyage from the country’s most northern point at Caburaí, to its southern extreme at Chuí, covering a distance of over 9000km (5500miles) by foot, paddle and pedal.
Stijn Debrouwere on the (mis)use of metrics:
Instead of thinking about metrics, think about projects and goals.
Good way of phrasing that.
Professors without borders. Interesting overview of mass, distributed, web-based teaching tools. Things like Coursera and Udacity are neat but they’re really just an alpha. They take the same model of education as traditional colleges and shift it online. The revolution will come when someone sets the goal of building a web-native tool for learning. Then it will get interesting.
But tools can only go so far. In the end, it comes down the writer. In writing, the friction that has to be dealt with the most is that which takes place in your head. Not from your tools. A good writer can change thoughts, opinions and even worlds, regardless of the tool or platform used.
I strongly believe digital books benefit from public endpoints. The current generation of readers (human, not electronic) have formed expectations about sharing text, and if you obstruct their ability to share — to touch — digital text, then your content is as good as non-existent. Or, in the least, it’s less likely to be engaged.
Word. Art Space Tokyo is a gorgeous site and I bet will drive a lot of digital sales, in addition to readers.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, while attending this weekend’s WordCamp:
Blogging is beautiful, it elevates the human spirit and enriches public life…I remember discovering how easy it was to blog, not so many years ago, and I really hope that lots of people are still discovering how easy and how rewarding it is every day today.
Jason Fried, Be More Productive. Shorten the Workweek:
When there’s less time to work, you waste less time. When you have a compressed workweek, you tend to focus on what’s important. Constraining time encourages quality time.
I’ve found that to be true not just on the week level but also on the day-to-day level. Limiting the number of hours you’re around in a morning, afternoon, or entire day forces you to really focus.
When I switched to webOS from my old iPhone, it felt like I was using the future. The inductive charging and reliance on cloud accounts for contacts, calendars, and email permitted me to be have a truly cord-free phone.
I totally agree with Ian here. I loved using my Palm Pre and webOS was so much fun to interact with. The hardware was a weak point but over time I figured that would be solved. It’s truly a shame Palm couldn’t make it in the marketplace.
Design Tip: Never Use Black. Neat post with some great illustrations of why pure black doesn’t work well for interface elements.
Everywhere at Once: Chef Geoff Tracy’s Data-Driven Empire. Geoff Tracy and his brother use a set of 800 standards to measure the performance of their restaurants. A couple examples:
Did Elizabeth bring your Pinot Gris within three minutes of the time you ordered it? Were your appetizers delivered within seven minutes, entrées within ten, desserts within seven? Were these plates described at the table before they were set in front of you? Were napkins refolded when you went to the restroom? Was non-bottled water referred to as “ice water” (correct) or “water” (incorrect)?