February 2012
3 posts
Saying "no" sucks →
Pick the things in life that really matter: your family, your friends, the people, work and art that truly inspires you. You don’t have to ignore everything else, but don’t say yes to anything that compromises the level of enjoyment or excellence that you get and give to those things that really matter.
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Design with trust, ask questions
The most important lesson I learned this past year is that when I don’t understand something, I need to ask questions. I’ve found that overcoming any embarrassment, shame, pride, or ego, and pushing myself to ask seemingly ignorant or naive questions is actually my responsibility as a professional. Having the courage to acknowledge my own lack of understanding and relying on my...
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“Culture educates the emotions. It consists of narratives, holidays, symbols, and...”
– The Social Animal, David Brooks
January 2012
4 posts
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“If you’re building a product for customers (not just for yourself), you’ve got...”
– Test Your Assumptions Before Implementing Them: Introducing Enroll
(As a side note, I’d ignore the product pitch…I think whatever considered method you use to test assumptions is fine, as long as you’re doing just that.)
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Je t'aime
Je t’aime Grand comme une maison.
Je t’embrasse Mouillé comme la pluie.
Je chante Gai comme un pinson.
Mais si tés mechante Je te tire les cheveaux
Et quand tu fermes les yeux, Je te fais des bisous partout.
Marya L’Hène
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“I think we should not let the very real dangers posed by echo chambers blind us...”
– David Weinberger, What the Internet Means for How We Think About the World
“[We are] sitting here on my sad, pathetic American sofa looking at your...”
– Compliment of the New Year.
December 2011
2 posts
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“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to...”
– Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
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Grief
Some day between 1987 and 1988, I was riding my bicycle (with training wheels) down the driveway of my family’s home in Fussa, a city in western Tokyo, Japan. My knee was scarred that day and if I hold my knee up to a light I can still see the smooth, light-toned skin that remains of that faded scar. I remember falling off my bike because a white minivan had turned into our long driveway, speeding...
November 2011
5 posts
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Window shopping past midnight
I decided to walk home from the party instead of taking a taxi, so I wondered through the city for about an hour. And on my way downtown I got caught up in the shop district, going from window to window looking at all the clothes and shoes and watches and jewelry and other displays that I normally do not pay attention to. It was so peaceful and quite and nobody was out that my curiosity took over,...
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100% →
jackcheng:
Our office is next door to a meditation center. Though we’ve been next door for almost a year, it wasn’t until recently that I started attending the open sittings held every Tuesday and Thursday night. I guess it’s a kind of ease-of-access syndrome, like having a museum membership you never use…
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“The most important idea I’ve come to internalize in the last six months is that...”
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“Having an opinion takes work…It means drilling deeper than the...”
– @rands on donating to a literacy charity and the importance of reading
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“Part of what I want to tell you is what it is like to be young in New York, how...”
– Didion (via sippey) I remember sitting in my North Carolinian grandparents’ kitchen eating supper and my grandfather explaining how one day when he was somewhere in his early twenties, he looked in the mirror and saw a man looking back, and from that moment forward, that was the mental image...
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“Co-workers and bosses are not usually your friends: You will spend a lot of time...”
– —Patrick McKenzie When I started my career I had this notion that I aught to become friends with everybody I worked with. In fact, I wrote a blog post in which I suggested that the best kinds of people to work with are the ones you can work and drink together with. One of my mentors read a draft and...
October 2011
12 posts
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“You don’t charge for the work, you charge for the effort it takes to get the...”
– Mike Monteiro
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“In adult life, we simply do not learn things we don’t want to. We learn...”
– Penelope Trunk
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“Beliefs and actions are like two separate musical tones, each with its own...”
– Jack Cheng
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A Local's Guide to San Francisco
Places even locals don’t know about
Drink sake and sing Karaoke at the traditional shochu bar Mogura in the Japan Center in Japantown
Enjoy traditional Japanese bar food and beer at the Izakaya Juku
Ride the Seward Street Slides just west of the Castro neighborhood. Use wax paper and cardboard to pick up top speed and race a friend to the bottom on these twin concrete slides.
Enjoy...
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Perspectives on the Protesters of Occupy Wall...
Compare these two perspective pieces in their views of the commune-style protest that is Occupy Wall Street. The first from the conservative National Review, the second from the liberal Utne Reader.
From the National Review:
In truth, those camped out in Zuccotti Park are running a commune more than a protest. They have established a small communitarian village, which is punctuated by a small...
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Steve Jobs’s greatest legacy will be the inspiration he provides future generations.
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“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a...”
– Robert A. Heinlein (via middaylatte)
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On Wanting Stuff
by Leo Babauta:
There are people who claim never to want stuff anymore, who just don’t care about cool clothes and gadgets and bags and notebooks, who have moved past desiring things.
Those people are lying.
Unless you’re a certified Zen Master, you never move beyond wanting stuff (and even the Zen Masters have their temptations, I’m sure). We’re humans, and we have desires. When the new...
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BRYCE DOT VC: Saturday Morning Soccer for Startups →
brycedotvc:
When you have as many kids as I do, you spend a lot of life on the sidelines. This weekend was no exception. One of the perks of Saturday morning soccer is that when my kid is out of the game, I can let my mind wander. Being that I have a hammer, nearly every scene I process looks like a startup nail. A few scenes from the sidelines this Saturday struck me as relevant for startups....
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“The trouble, I think, is that so many educational processes put a high premium...”
– Absolutely.
(via azcode)
September 2011
27 posts
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“I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to...”
– Kurt Vonnegut
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How to beg
Walking home from the Hilton at half past midnight, I sullenly stared at my phone wondering what sort of updates I could check to divert my mood—decidedly, there were none. I didn’t launch any apps, but pushed the power button as a man lackadaisically riding his cruiser bicycle shouted from the street, inquiring the time. He didn’t ask for a dollar, and the time I could give him....
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“Even this small deviation would open up the possibility of time travel and play...”
– Evidence of Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Puzzles Scientists
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“Refashioning oneself, and embarking on changes that sometimes require you to cut...”
– Maura Johnston (via couch)
Emphasis on privileged existences. I’m counted among those. I lead an incredibly blessed life and feel free to express and record my life and intimate thoughts within the public eye. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of or hide. But Maura points out that this...
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Interface Design is Copywriting →
Here is an example I’ve been using lately at HubSpot because it is so easy to see the importance of words in hindsight. For many years the domain setup screen in HubSpot software used the terminology “Add Domain” as the primary call-to-action. When you get set up with HubSpot you want to point your domain to the HubSpot servers so that your website (now hosted by HubSpot) continues to work.
...
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How to Build Successful Apps →
Focus on improving what you already have. Don’t add new features, improve existing ones.
Make what you have faster. It can always be faster. Remove delays (like Instagram did by removing filtering delays…they even now have live filtering)
Improve usability Instagram also redesigned their already-successful photo taking screen. It would have been easy to skip this…
Resist the urge to add new...
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I love sleep
I’ve heard a lot of people say that they would go without sleep if they could, that it’s a waste of time. I would never forgo sleep. I love the ritual and everything surrounding bedtime. I love brushing my teeth. Snuggling under the sheets. Getting bedhead. Fluffing pillows. Staring at the ceiling as I drift into dreamland. Falling to sleep next to somebody I love. I. Love. Sleep.
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“I feel like I’m on this solitary lifelong path. No matter who weaves in and out...”
– Leslie Feist
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“You don’t inspire clients, you convince clients. Learning how to convince...”
– What I Did On Summer Vacation, Let’s Make Mistakes with Mike Monteiro & Katie Gillum
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Venture for America →
Venture for America uses Teach for America model to match grads with young firms in struggling cities.
The newly launched not-for-profit’s goal is to match college graduates with startups and early-stage companies in the cities that need jobs the most, including Detroit, New Orleans and Providence. The program provides training in innovation and entrepreneurship, while combating the brain drain...
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Mule Design Hiring Web Designer →
We are looking for a designer who understands the web, loves it, wants to make it better and can convince other people to let them do it. Applications and mobile interfaces, too. Check out the full job post for more details.
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“We went to the Natural History museum and watched the people instead of the...”
– Frank Chimero, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
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Eight years later
In 2003 my father’s Army Reserve Quartermaster unit was put on active duty. He went away for about 5 or 6 months to train and help prepare his soldiers for the looming possibility of driving tanker trucks in a combat zone. Then came word that his unit was being mobilized.
“My father could die in this war” is the exact thought I had when he told me the news. I looked at that man...
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“American culture is nothing more than a pastiche of fixations. We are obsessed...”
– Chuck Klosterman in IV (via shellyleonard)
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“Remember those amazing few minutes in Karate Kid where Daniel is training to...”
– Tom Preston-Werner, How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub
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“It used to be that designers were taught that designers were auteurs who were...”
– Nathan Shedroff, in an interview about design education
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Design Education: Interview with Nathan Shedroff,... →
Coming to the Bay Area not long after graduation, I met many young and highly successful designers both with and without college degrees. I’ve heard some people say that it’s hard to find a ‘good’ designer. That me to wonder what they mean by ‘good’ designer and how much of a role, if any, formal education plays into that.
My first interview on design education is with Nathan Shedroff, both a...
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My OkC self-summary
When I was 7 years old my family had just moved from Tokyo to Las Vegas (my father was in the Air Force). We lived on base in LV for 6 months. During that time I used to ride scooters every day after school with Christina, who lived just down the street. One afternoon I went over to her house, parked my scooter by her steps and ran up to the front door, which was already open for whatever...
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“In the years after graduating, pretty much every break I got—all those small but...”
– Arianna Huffington, Back to School and Deeper in Debt