“ Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.
Ray Bradbury (via mrgan)
Rob Mizell // 2010
Learner.
Wanderlust.
Purist.
“ I remember lecturing at Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in this country. I was minutes away from beginning my lecture, and my host was driving me past a new building called the Wexner Center for the Performing Arts
He said, “This is America’s first postmodern building.”
I was startled for a moment and I said, “What is a postmodern building?”
He said, “Well, the architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He has a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.”
I said, “So his argument was that if life has no purpose and design, why should the building have any design?”
He said, “That is correct.”
I said, “Did he do the same with the foundation?”
All of a sudden there was silence.
You see, you and I can fool with the infrastructure as much as we would like, but we dare not fool with the foundation because it will call our bluff in a hurry. From an address by Ravi Zacharias (via Justin Taylor) (via sds) (via bethinkr)
He said, “This is America’s first postmodern building.”
I was startled for a moment and I said, “What is a postmodern building?”
He said, “Well, the architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He has a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.”
I said, “So his argument was that if life has no purpose and design, why should the building have any design?”
He said, “That is correct.”
I said, “Did he do the same with the foundation?”
All of a sudden there was silence.
You see, you and I can fool with the infrastructure as much as we would like, but we dare not fool with the foundation because it will call our bluff in a hurry. From an address by Ravi Zacharias (via Justin Taylor) (via sds) (via bethinkr)
Tallest Man on Earth - The Gardener - A Take Away Show
(via La Blogotheque)
Modified Hasselblad 500C/M, plywood, synthetic polymer paint, 2008
by artist Tom Saches
“ The engineers and I handle customer support. When I tell people that, they look at me like I’m smoking crack. They say, “Why would you pay an engineer $150,000 to answer phones when you could pay someone in Arizona $8 an hour?” If you make the engineers answer e-mails and phone calls from the customers, the second or third time they get the same question, they’ll actually stop what they’re doing and fix the code. Then we don’t have those questions anymore.
The Way I Work: Paul English of Kayak (via soxiam)
Tips for Better Ideas
“
So fight it.
Defeat the resistance.
Keep your team small. Smaller than that. No team at all if you can help it.
Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly.
Skip meetings. Often. Skip them with impunity. Ship.
Seth Godin: The Truth About Shipping :: Tips :: The 99 Percent
David Cole’s post today (via Meaghan) is incredibly clever. And not just because he mentions me in the middle.
I love his points, and I think both web content producers and game designers can learn a lot from this simple, effective, thought-provoking piece.
This is an excellent piece and one of those rare instances where content, layout and technology are inseparable, which (ironically) makes it un-instapaper-able (whoa!). And this is a very good thing—I long for these types of hand-crafted online reading experiences because they’re not just digitized versions of traditional media.
Keep an eye on the Sleepover SF guys.
This blog post brings up a lot of interesting points. I’m starting to notice more usability related ideas now that I’m currently reading The Design of Everyday Things.
