From The Wikipedia: “a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.”
Word of the Day: Mamihlapinatapai
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Monthly Archives: October 2010
Quick Thoughts: Leadership
No matter what project you’re working on mistakes and disasters are inevitable. Recovery time, ie how long it takes you to pull your head up out of your hands and bounce back, is one of the key things that determines the success or failure of your project.
Also of critical importance: if you’re in charge and things go straight to hell but you keep an even keel, the people that are looking to you for guidance are going to have an easier time keeping it together. 
Superior Humans
Language Therapy
Removing the word “like” from my primary vocabulary seems like a good idea. I’ve been halfheartedly working on this for a few years without any serious progress. So if anyone catches me using the word “like” please bring it to my attention, extra points for creativity.
BUT DON”T WORRY, I’ll still be rolling out similes like it’s goin out of style. 
Whatcha Thinkin Bout?
REPEATR –> Announcement
I would encourage anyone interested in more REPEATR playlists to send me music.
Quote of the Day: Anon
I live in a family of pranksters and visionaries.Which is fortunate, because troublemakers require a victim and an audience.
Congratulations Anon!!
….Journalism
Burning Man News: Exodus Pulsing
This from the latest Jack Rabbit Speaks on the exodus pulsing program
EXODUS
The Gate, Perimeter and Exodus (PG&E) team insituted a new Pulsing program in 2010, intended to reduce the amount of vehicle emissions expended during Exodus by eliminating the “gate road creep” during peak Exodus hours. It involved staging vehicles to be let out of the city in waves, allowing people to turn off their cars and enjoy a little respite while waiting for their turn to leave.
We have heard a little feedback about the pulsing, most of it positive, but a few have complained that it still took them the same number of hours to get out of Black Rock City. Pulsing was never about reducing exodus times — the limitations of Route 34 make it almost impossible to significantly reduce times during peak hours. It was merely designed to allow drivers to turn off their cars instead of idling/creeping along for hours.
Overall, Pulsing was very successful in its first year, and we’ll publicize it more vigorously for 2011, encouraging participants to share shade, entertainment and gifts during the Pulse, making for a nice after-Burn experience. We’ll also examine porta-potty placement to see if we can improve that situation as well.
I encourage you to go to burning man so this information is both fascinating and relevant. If you insist on doing other more boring and less fulfilling things here is a tattoo of Steve Buscemi as Darth Vader. See!?! This blog has something for everyone.
Today in YouTubes -> Phenomenal Dance Moves
Yes, I want to learn to do standing back flips.
:: via Email (thanks Galit!) ::
Housing Through the Ages
In the ancient Roman world, graffiti was a respected form of writing—often interactive – not the kind of defacement we now see on rocky cliffs and bathroom stalls. Inside elite dwellings like that of Maius Castricius—a four-story home with panoramic windows overlooking the Bay of Naples that was excavated in the 1960s—she’s examined 85 graffito. Some were greetings from friends, carefully incised around the edges of frescoes in the home’s finest room. In a stairwell, people took turns quoting popular poems and adding their own clever twists.
What’s fascinating about this article from Smithsonian magazine is that it does not actually include pictures of graffiti from Pompeii. Google Images got yer back!
Quick Thoughts: Music
There are some songs so good it doesn’t matter who covers them.
DustinsList
John, Patrick and Christine are looking for a designer
Sensitive and fast-growing technology start-up seeks a designer.
If you find the intersection of aesthetics and information
architecture on the web beautiful and challenging, please drop us an
email: ***********@********.***. We want someone that can confidently handle
everything from the nuance of a small icon to figuring out the right
model for some user interaction. In addition to making beautiful
things, ability to code HTML/CSS is hugely important; ability to code
JavaScript/Ruby/Processing is a big plus.
About us: we can do visual design, but we’re much better at technical
design: frameworks, architectures, and programming languages. In
either case, we care about design a lot. Our company is growing by
about 40% per month.
If you get in touch, please include samples of things you’ve done.
Feel free to forward this email to anyone who may be interested.
Design we like:
- http://www.mikematas.com/#!2Rs/ezf/ui_design/ipad_maps
- http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/
- http://jessicahische.com/system/images/542/original/sirenfest-small.jpg
- The interaction design of Slicehost and Quora.
- The Apple developer icon lexicon: http://bit.ly/d3qg4A,
http://adylitica.com/xcode-icon-512×512.png,
http://blog.tice.de/a_icons/icons/512%20Interface%20Builder.png
- Assured details:
http://summermcfadyen.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/medina-cafe-image.jpg
- http://designforfun.com/, especially his work on f8: http://bit.ly/aLsoqR.
- Goodlatte’s work: http://bit.ly/aN56H0
- http://assets.getunik.com/img/logowand/sbb.gif
Design we dislike:
- The visual design of Gmail.
- The interaction design of MobileMe.
- The visual and interaction design of Wikipedia.
Our philosophy on start-ups: life’s too short to make small plans.
What others think: our investors are the best in the world.
We’re based in Palo Alto, CA.
—-
A posse of good friends is looking for someone to a sponsorship coordinator for an upcoming art and music event. Ideally someone with Silicon Valley contacts. The candidate will be raising 50k+ from previous and new sponsors. This is a fun, interesting gig with phenomenal pay and the opportunity to meet lots of fascinating people.
—-
My friend Melanie just moved to Berlin and is looking for microbiology or immunology work. She’s phenomenally qualified and has a wonderful personality.
——
Message me for details on any of these. FirstNameLastName@gmail.com
Quote of the Day: Dennis Miller
“And quit bringing up our forefathers and saying they were civil libertarians. Our founding fathers would have never tolerated any of this crap. For God’s sake, they were blowing peoples’ heads off because they put a tax on their breakfast beverage. And it wasn’t even coffee.”- Dennis Miller
(and that’s a totally specious argument that shouldn’t be taken seriously by the way, as referenced by the…constitution and bill of rights. However, it still elicited a chuckle)
Today in YouTube (Tracks From the 90′s)
From a surprisingly well thought out youtube comment:
The track is built around two samples from “Woman of the Ghetto”, a 1969 soul song by Marlena Shaw. The original song is polemic to legislators delivered by a woman from a black American ghetto. Near the end is the line: “Remember me? I’m the one who had your babies”, in reference to black maids raising white children for little pay in America.