Yesterday I had that idea years ago!- So somebody else built a successful business on that idea you had three years ago. What does that mean? That if you would just have pursued that idea, you would now automatically be enjoying their spoils? Sorry to burst your bubble, but I really don’t think so.
Ideas on their own are just not that important. It’s incredibly rare that someone comes up with an idea so unique, so protectable that the success story writes itself. Most ideas are nothing without execution.
Just…(more)
- Early retirement is a false idol
- The classic argument for enduring 80 to 100 hour work weeks for years on end — sacrificing relationships, hobbies, and anything else that doesn’t progress the mission — is that at the end of the rainbow lies early retirement. The reward for risking it all on a crazy startup idea. This wonderful place is filled with anything you want it to be. Never a dull moment again, all the flexibility and freedom in the world.
I’m Jack’s sense of utter disbelief.
Why…(more)
- [Quotable] Andrew Stanton, Stefan Sagmeister, Joel Spolsky, Philip Johnson, etc.
- “The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive. We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it served us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our financial independence from our clients.”
-Stefan Sagmeister (link)
“Watching nonprogrammers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf. Even if he has great advisers standing on the…(more)
- Play this!
- The internet is full of vapid words and catch-less phrases, but one that I’ve long been particularly peeved about is the word “play”. As in this company is an “infrastructure play” or a “CPM play”. Blogger, please.
Using “play” feels like it’s just pointing to how unsubstantial something is. Like that this is their third play. And oh hell, if that doesn’t work, we’ll just get more of other people’s money and try …(more)
- Features are a one-way street
- Here’s another reason to double, triple, quadruple-check yourself when you want to add a new feature. A while back Netflix added a “Profiles” feature to their service. A couple weeks ago, they decided to pull the feature because it was too confusing and it wasn’t adding value. But it was too late. People were pissed. The blog post received 1286 comments. In the face of this reaction, Netflix had to turn 180 and keep the feature. Whether Netflix Profiles are good or bad, …(more)
- [Screens Around Town] Google Maps, John Deere, EMS, etc.
- Google Maps
Links to Google Maps are shared all the time. So how come the URLs are so unwieldy? (For example: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1st+ave+and+1st+st,+nyc&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=52.967233,67.763672&ie=UTF8&z=17&iwloc=addr.) If TinyURL can figure out how to make a URL in just a few characters, can’t the rocket surgeons at Google do it?
Aaron Martin caption wrapper
Aaron Martin’s blog features th…(more)
- What's your favorite Twitter feed to follow (and why)?
- Link it up in the comments.
…(more)
- Fresh UI ideas from Songza and Algorithm Ink
- Aza Raskin released a new project today called Algorithm Ink. For the full story check out his explanation and video. The app is basically a “grown up version of Logo”—a front-end to a simple programming language for creating fractal images. While the fractal art is the main attraction, I was more interested in the unconventional UI.
Algorithm Ink continues the style that Aza demonstrated six months ago with Songza. His UI comes from another planet where Microsoft Windows…(more)
- Bang & Olufsen design team avoids meetings/process and "sculpts" products little by little
- David Lewis, Bang & Olufsen’s chief designer, discusses the company’s unusual approach to design with The Wall Street Journal.
Along the way he reveals the pioneering B&O design team only spends 2-3 days a month at B&O headquarters and works externally the rest of the time, they never meet, they have no fixed process, and they build initial versions of products out of cardboard and paper.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: You spend just two or three days per month …(more)
- Orchid mantis
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…(more)
- Today Inside Jokes: Science Writer Jim Holt Explores Why We Laugh
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What do you get when you cross scholarly research and dick jokes? Nothing to laugh at, normally. But science writer Jim Holt defies the Heisenberg principle of humor — you can't study it without killing it — in his book Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. We caught up with him walking into a bar.
Wired: One question you tackle is who invented the joke. Weren't we cracking wise back in the caves?
Holt:
No, the classic joke form —…(more)
- Yesterday Study: Orangutan Populations Declining Precipitously
- Orangutan numbers decline sharply on the only two islands where they still live in the wild and they could become the first great ape species to go extinct if urgent action isn't taken, a new study says.
…(more)
- Yesterday Climate Change, Food Crisis Linked, Says U.N. Chief
- The U.N. climate chief says climate change will cause the global food crisis to worsen. He is urging leaders of the world's richest countries meeting in Japan next week to set goals to reduce carbon emissions within the next dozen years.
…(more)
- Yesterday Video: Pac-Man, Space Invaders Laser Body Mods
- Forget tattoos. These days all the cool kids are using high speed laser etching machines to burn gaming icons onto their appendages.
…(more)
- Yesterday First DC Universe Online Art Unveiled
- The first batch of media from the upcoming DC Universe Online MMO emerge courtesy of the game's MySpace page.
…(more)
- Yesterday What's Inside: 'Just for Men' Hair Color
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Ethoxydiglycol
Back in the '50s, home hair dyes were laced with toxic chemicals that turned a simple touch-up into a haz-mat operation. Luckily, dye makers found substitutes like EDG, a fume- free organic solvent that keeps the ingredients in a thin, pourable consistency.
Oleyl Alcohol, Vegetable Fatty Acid
That thin, pourable consistency would be problematic during application. Mixing the base with the separate bottle of "color developer" causes these two fatty organic thickeners t…(more)
- Yesterday How To Follow the Tour De France Online
- A web insider's guide to of all the options for streaming video, audio, live news tickers, interactive maps and contests associated with the world's biggest (and toughest) bike race.
…(more)
- Yesterday Hideo Kojima's Top 5 Memorable Games
- The maestro of pixelated sneaking lists his top five memorable games and, weirdly, his own 'Metal Gear Solid' made the cut.
…(more)
- 3 days Led Zeppelin Won't Lend Music to Rhythm Games
- Despite the success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, you won't see Led Zeppelin's iconic tunes pop up in either game any time soon. The band isn't comfortable giving gaming companies access to the group's master recordings -- a necessary step in adding the band to any game.
…(more)
- 3 days Court Orders YouTube to Fork Over Video Logs
- A federal judge orders YouTube to disclose who watches which video clips and when to Viacom and other copyright holders involved in a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against the video-sharing service.
…(more)
- Creating scalable layouts
- Craig Grannell is a master of getting around varied screen sizes and resolutions that affect how users view websites. This issue, he shows you a flexible methodContinues...…(more)
- WDTV Episode 15
- Master Bezier curves curves in Flash. In this project you’ll discover how to use Bezier curves as a motion guide, and animate a butterfly!Continues...…(more)
- Portable potential
- Will the mobile web dominate the future of the internet?Continues...…(more)
- The brains behind: The SEO Rapper
- Online marketing specialist Charles ‘Chuck’ Lewis, from Houston-based agency Pop Labs, has taken the web by storm. We talk to the one and only SEO RapperContinues...…(more)
- WDTV Episode 14
- Type tips in Photoshop. Use the Photoshop text tool to make your own typographic web logo. Topics covered include kerning, leading, type treatments and type effects.Continues...…(more)
- Today Friendfeed v. Twitter: Half The Followers In Five Months
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Twitter is still far larger than its much younger competitor Friendfeed in aggregate terms. But an interesting trend is developing - many longtime Twitter users are noticing that the number of followers they have on Friendfeed is growing far more rapidly than on Twitter. And the conversations at Friendfeed are better, too.
I joined Twitter when it launched in mid 2006 (about 24 months ago), and have, as of today, 20,464 followers.
I joined Friendfeed on February 9, 2008 (about 5 months ago), a…(more)
- Today Webaroo Raises A $10 Million Round For SMSGupShup
- Webaroo Technology has raised a $10 million round of funding for their product SMSGupShup, an SMS-based community site in India, according to Plugged.in. The round, the third for the company, was co-led by Helion Venture Partners and Charles River Ventures.
SMSGupShup is a community site that enables users to join groups according to their interests and receive updates through their mobile phones via SMS. Very similar to Twitter, in that you can send and receive mobile updates to your friend…(more)
- Today Plus ça change
- Holiday weekends, especially the ones that bracket the summer months, tend to be stress tests for the tech media. With the proliferation of smart phones, social media aggregators, and of course the Twitter clonestakes, it’s now trivial to get a snapshot of what is going on throughout the “time off.”
Is nothing going on? Has the TechMeme conversation dried up, as Robert Scoble entertainingly baits? Are FriendFeed conversations more viral and link-inducing? Of course. There&rsquo…(more)
- Yesterday Think Before You Voicemail
- Voicemail is dead. Please tell everyone so they’ll stop using it.
When I first started out in the real world in the mid-nineties voicemail was an important productivity tool. I remember people talking about the pros and cons of various enterprise voicemail systems - which had the best forwarding and group messaging, which allowed for archiving, and how many messages could be stored and for how long. Even though email was around, people were still unsure how to use it. Letters went on lette…(more)
- Yesterday Yahoo’s Helpful Shortcut To Pictures Of Underage Girls
- Yahoo Shortcuts automatically finds and underlines interesting items in articles and provides additional information via a pop up window (Yahoo Shortcuts also refers to shortcuts in Yahoo Search for common things like travel search). “People, places, organizations, and other things of interest are underlined,” says the FAQ.
One blogger is pointing out, though, that the tool may be going a little too far - by, for example, linking the term “underage girl” in a recent artic…(more)
- Yesterday Joey Chestnut Beats Kobayashi Again in Hot-Dog Eating Contest
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It’s not the 4th of July without the Coney Island Hot-Dog Eating Contest (that’s how we celebrate in Brooklyn, by stuffing our faces with as many hot dogs we can fit). This year’s winner is defending champion Joey “Jaws” Chestunt, who won in overtime from six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi.
Both ate 59 hot dogs during the 10 minute contest (down from 12 minutes in the past), and then the contest went into overtime to see who could eat five additional hot dogs th…(more)
- 3 days The Problem With Identi.ca Is That It Is Not Twitter
- The launch of Twitter clone Identi.ca earlier this week caused a bit of a blogstorm because it appears to have a solution to Twitter’s all-too-regular downtime. (That problem has reached comical proportions, with the familiar Twitter Fail Whale now appearing on T-shirts and kitschy art).
Identi.ca’s answer to Twitter’s scaling issues is by open-sourcing its code and encouraging others to host Identi.ca on their own servers, thus distributing the load. The service also suppo…(more)
- 3 days Follow Animal Migrations On Google Earth
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Google Earth is turning out to be a great resource for scientists to visualize and communicate the phenomena they study. You can see the migration patterns of endangered and other threatened animals, based on data collected by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. (The image above shows the range of both the Northern spotted owl and the Mexican spotted owl).
Anybody can take geographical data and turn it into a layer on Google Earth. Scientists are doing this in droves. You can also…(more)
- 3 days Independence Day
- Tomorrow we celebrate July 4th, and a week later our long National Nightmare is over. On the 11th we deposit our 2G iPhones in the FriendFeed donation bins and officially hook ourselves up to the Enterprise iPhone. The ePhone will change how we work and play, and in the process free us from the tyranny of our jobs as consumers.
When the iPhone shipped last year, IT responded with a wave of dismissal to the shiny new platform. No keyboard, no push email, no secure deployability, and certainly no …(more)
- 3 days Regator Wants To Be A Blog Reader For The Masses
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Regator, a new blog aggregator that hopes to reduce the blogosphere down to consumable chunks for the average user, has launched today in private beta. The site acts like a combination between Digg and a standard RSS reader, allowing users to vote on the most popular stories drawn from 3,000 blogs that have been hand-picked by Regator editors. TechCrunch readers looking to try the site can get one of 100 invites here by entering the code “techcrunch”.
The Ajax-heavy site seems bes…(more)
- 3 days This week on TEDPrize.org
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There's a great blog over on our sister site, TEDPrize.org, with news of all the 2008 TED Prize winners and interesting updates. This year's wishes are interactive and amazing, with lots of great things happening right now. Keep up via the feed. From the TEDPrize.org blog:
+ Karen Armstrong at The Chautauqua Institution -- last week, Karen gave 5 talks exploring the theme of “What is Religion?” She discusses the distinction between faith and belief; she speaks about silence, the limitation…(more)
- 3 days TEDTalks takes a day off
- The TED.com team in the US is celebrating Independence Day. We won't post a new talk today, but watch for five fresh talks next week. In the meantime, here's an archive gem: Erin McKean on our freedom to coin new words.
Find the transcript of this talk here >>
…(more)
- "Everybody" and "Peace on Earth": Raul Midon on TED.com
- Guitarist and singer Raul Midon plays "Everybody" and "Peace on Earth" during his 2007 set at TED. See both sides of Midon's lyrical personality in the hopeful "Everybody" and the wry "Peace on Earth" -- sweetened with his glorious guitar playing and soaring voice. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 09:25.)
Watch Raul Midon's 2007 performance on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances -- including two more songs fro…(more)
- A girl, a photograph, a homecoming: Rick Smolan on TED.com
- From the 2007 EG conference: Photographer Rick Smolan tells the unforgettable story of a girl, a photograph, and an American homecoming. (Recorded December 2007 in Los Angeles, California. Duration: 25:06.)
Watch Rick Smolan's 2007 talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Rick Smolan on TED.com.
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog >>
Embed this video: Use this code to run the vid…(more)
- Rickshaw Bagworks opens shop online
- The TED2008 Gift Bag was the first product from a brand-new company, Rickshaw Bagworks. Made in San Francisco with sustainable fabrics and thoughtful details, the TED bags became a bit of a cult item -- not least because they weren't available for retail sale at the time of the '08 conference.
This week Rickshaw opens its online store, selling the TED-style bag (they call it the "med commuter messenger") along with other styles, including a baby bag that benefits Healthy Child Healthy World.
…(more)
- Beyond the Top 10 TEDTalks: user favorites
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Last week, TEDTalks celebrated our 50 millionth view by counting down the Top 10 TEDTalks of all time (so far) -- and inviting people to share their own favorites. Here are a few:
My favorite is still Susan Savage-Rumbaugh and those bonobo apes.
-- S.F., Boynton Beach, Florida
Stamets (mushrooms), Isabel Allende (passion), Dave Eggers (schools), and Ballard (ocean) -- not to be missed.
-- Marian Angele
Majora Carter's talk on her environmental work in the Bronx.
-- lydia chadwick
Majora Ca…(more)
- Flying Stephen Hawking into zero g: Peter Diamandis on TED.com
- X Prize founder Peter Diamandis talks about how he helped Stephen Hawking fulfill his dream of going to space -- by flying together into the upper atmosphere and experiencing weightlessness at zero g. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 04:01.)
Watch Peter Diamandis' 2008 talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances -- including Stephen Hawking's 2008 TEDTalk about humanity's greatest questions.
Read more abou…(more)
- TEDTalks turn 2!
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Two years ago today, TED.com posted its first six TEDTalks. It was a radical notion to share these powerful talks and ideas with the world -- but it looks like it was the right notion. This week, TEDTalks notched its 50 millionth view, and we moved to a daily publishing schedule to keep up with the demand for more great talks, performances and conversations.
Celebrate with us by suggesting your favorite TEDTalks over the past two years. Count down the Top 10 TEDTalks in a special Theme page, …(more)
- "Clonie": Nellie McKay on TED.com
- Singer-songwriter Nellie McKay performs the semi-serious song "Clonie" -- about creating the ultimate companion. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 02:20.)
Watch Nellie McKay's 2008 performance on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Nellie McKay on TED.com.
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog >>
Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own sit…(more)
- Matthieu Ricard's new humanitarian site: Karuna-Shechen
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The "happiest man in the world," Matthieu Ricard balances his Buddhist contemplation of happiness (watch his TEDTalk on the habits of happiness) with an active life as a humanitarian in the Himalayas. Learn more about his projects -- and get involved -- at the new website for his Karuna-Shechen foundation. Karuna-Shechen brings medical help and education to people in Tibet, Nepal, India and Bhutan.
Visit Karuna-Shechen >>
…(more)
- Getting Out of Binding Situations in JavaScript
- Every wonder who you really are? Congratulations! You have a lot in common with JavaScript. Learn once and for all how to train your JavaScript to remember who it is and what it's doing.
Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!…(more)
- Collaborate and Connect with Subversion
- Managing subcontractors and distributed projects is easy and fun. No wait, that's a lie. Luckily, a good version control may be just what you need to keep your projects on track.
Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!…(more)
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