December 2011
26 posts
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Use, Not Utilize →
Randy Murray favors clarity over using words for their own sake:
Hammer, spatula, procedures. You don’t utilize any of these things. You use them.
Yes, utilize is a word. It’s a perfectly cromulent word. It’s just not necessary. It’s clunky, jargony, and awkward. And it’s always a poor choice.
Neologisms are great, except when they’re not.
Marketers can be the worst about...
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Everything You Should Know About Hidden Product... →
curiositycounts:
A brief infographic history of hidden product placement (via)
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“How long it takes to load the page is part of the reading experience. Bandwidth...”
– John Gruber, Regarding TheNextWeb’s Shit-Ass Website
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It Feels Like Trust →
Randy Murray on the experience of checking himself out with his iPhone:
I stood there stunned for a moment. I’m sure in years to come this will be a common, everyday experience. But today, this time, if felt like magic. It felt like I was living in the future.
And it felt, oddly, like the staff at the Apple Store trusted me.
I hope he is right about this becoming common. I remember how...
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Living Moments
Life happens one moment at a time, whether we are aware of it or not. The pace we go from one state of being to another and our means of travel are merely perception. Things take place; feelings happen; moments occur. It’s quite simple, really:
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Existence is but an illusion....
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Brand Permission Guidelines →
I love the amount of attention paid to detail for grammatical as well as social correctness of these guidelines on the Facebook brand permissions page:
When referenced in text, Facebook should be capitalized.
When inviting users to like your Page, say ‘like our Page’ or ‘become a fan by clicking Like on our Page’. Do not invite them to ‘friend’ your...
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“In the world of social media, it can feel bizarre that potent evidence of...”
– Paul Ford, Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?
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Thank God for Kids →
WFAA sportscaster Dale Hansen shares a story about sexual abuse:
Sexual abuse of our children is the cancer that lives and walks among us, but a cancer survivor wears their ribbon proudly and we all stand to cheer as they walk by in their annual parade.
But who stands to cheer for the victim of a sexual assault? And much like cancer, we all know a victim.
It might be a child in your...
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“Stability is good when a society is peaceful and prosperous. Stability is evil...”
– Freeman Dyson reviews legendary psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (via curiositycounts)
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It all comes out during the holidays →
This week’s Macalope Weekly has a nice recap of the tech spat from earlier this week:
You might want to pay attention to the argument, since it’s a classic of the genre—and one you’re likely to encounter as drunk adults and sugar-addled children sit down around the table this holiday season. Well, if your family’s anything like the Macalope’s.
See, first MG Siegler said something...
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Accounts of a Massacre in Iraq Found in Junkyard →
(via Daring Fireball)
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“Thanks again for giving me 5 dollars. I bought 3 cokes with it.
Regards....”
– Louis CK, in an email to me (and few others)
Seriously, this guy has made a fan for life.
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Marissa Mayer addressing Google designers, as quoted in “In The Plex” by Steven Levy (via Daring Fireball & buzz):
“It looks like a human was involved in choosing what went where,” Marissa told them. “It looks too editorialized. Google products are machine-driven. They’re created by machines. And that is what makes us powerful. That’s what makes our products great.”
...
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Re: Horseshit →
MG Siegler responds:
Wow. Josh Topolsky is mad. And that by itself is fine — he’s clearly passionate about technology, which is great. What’s not fine is the fact that he’s way off-base in his rant. So far off-base that I need to respond.
This has gotten a bit out of hand.
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Technology & Liberal Arts →
The following image is helpful when considering how tolerance and taste color our perception of technology.
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Any Other Way →
Joshua Topolsky has a lively response to Gruber’s and Siegler’s comments:
The world is not black and white. It’s really, really gray. You can see it and not care. You can see it and love it. You can see it and hate it. You can see it but need something else. You can see it, and yet see other things too.
He’s absolutely right, and these thoughts are part of what I was...
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You either see it or you don't. →
This post by John Gruber is required reading for the following…
…
Seriously, go read it, it’s just a pull quote and a short comment…
…
See, that wasn’t so bad! Now…
Remember this?
You either see it or you don’t.
This sentiment explains so much about many people’s perception of the devices they use everyday. There are those who notice...
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“I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have shitloads of money, but...”
– Louis CK
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“No DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it...”
– Louis CK, Buy The Thing
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“We shouldn’t be surprised when someone chooses to publish their photos,...”
– Seth Godin, The most important page on the web is the page you build yourself
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“The Twitter service I signed up for is one where people tweet 140-character...”
– John Gruber, The New Twitter (R.I.P. Tweetie)
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“You can have opinions. You can share them. But you might consider not publishing...”
– Randy Murray, Be Careful What You Publish
This pairs wonderfully (like a fine wine) with this site’s description:
All too commonly, an opinion is futilely mistaken for common sense.
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“A reminder that: Fox is not news, it’s a political operation masquerading as a...”
– Drop Fox News
“A decision without tradeoffs…
isn’t a decision.
The art of good decision...”
– Seth Godin