...and Jack came tumbl'ng after

"Today, it’s easy to spend the whole day hitting ‘reply’."

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:16:13 -0400

“Today, it’s easy to spend the whole day hitting ‘reply’.”

- Seth’s Blog: Inbox culture

"Interesting, since some of the best code I’ve ever seen and which has taught me the most has been..."

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:56:11 -0400

“Interesting, since some of the best code I’ve ever seen and which has taught me the most has been inside libraries I’ve used. It takes a certain extreme hubris to automatically assume your code is innately better than everyone else’s, no?”

- Binary Code » You’re Doing it Wrong If

"Anyone who ever says “scaling and reliability aren’t that hard” has never actually..."

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:18:07 -0400

“

Anyone who ever says “scaling and reliability aren’t that hard” has never actually designed, developed, or deployed a new scalable, reliable system. It is damn hard. It was hard for the engineers who built the market data systems (who Jason is insulting by calling their work easy), it is hard for Google, it is hard for Amazon, it is hard for Visa, it is hard for Apple, and it is hard for Twitter.

And it is not a matter of the “right tools”. It is a matter of tirelessly working at a million small details while being ruthlessly quantitative about the big picture. It is a matter of reinventing pieces, time and time again, when it turns out your earlier decisions are biting you in the ass. It is a matter of changing all four tires on a car going 90mph without stopping, and by the way the engine’s on fire too.

”

- FriendFeed comment by ⓞnor

"I’ve heard hackers brag that they could have built Twitter over a weekend. Underlying this boast is..."

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:02:10 -0400

“I’ve heard hackers brag that they could have built Twitter over a weekend. Underlying this boast is a misunderstanding of what is truly impressive. Coming up with Twitter required only a small amount of technical knowledge. The hard part was the social insight to realize such a tool would be useful. This is a social insight the bragging hackers didn’t have.”

- Michael Nielsen » Shirky’s Law and why (most) social software fails

"Y’know those idiot teenagers who show up late on Halloween with no costume demanding free..."

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:14:33 -0400

“Y’know those idiot teenagers who show up late on Halloween with no costume demanding free candy? Yeah. That’s pretty much the internet now.”

- Twitter / Merlin Mann

"You’re not selling a commodity unless you want to."

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:18:19 -0400

“You’re not selling a commodity unless you want to.”

- Seth’s Blog: No such thing as price pressure

"The willingness to swap personal productivity for connection is just that: it is an ethical choice..."

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:34:36 -0400

“The willingness to swap personal productivity for connection is just that: it is an ethical choice that asserts that the bonds of connection, today and over time, are more important — not just abstractly, but in the most concrete way — than making headway on this piece of work, right now.”

- /Message: Overload, Schmoverload: The Myth Of Personal Productivity

"Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done."

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:26:47 -0400

“Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.”

- The 10 Best Linus Torvalds Quotes

"Opponents who dismiss this as wussy naïveté do so at their own risk. They at once call attention to..."

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:22:34 -0400

“Opponents who dismiss this as wussy naïveté do so at their own risk. They at once call attention to the expiring shelf life of their own Clinton-Bush-vintage panaceas and lull themselves into underestimating Mr. Obama’s political killer instincts.”

- Frank Rich - One Historic Night, Two Americas - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

"The net is an unending NOW of moments and distractions and wonderments and puzzlements and rages...."

Thu, 22 May 2008 07:43:20 -0400

“The net is an unending NOW of moments and distractions and wonderments and puzzlements and rages. Asking someone riding its currents to undertake some kind of complex dance before she can hand you her money is a losing proposition.”

- Cory Doctorow: Think Like a Dandelion

"If you unironically regard public comments on an RSS feed as “conversations” with..."

Thu, 22 May 2008 07:38:57 -0400

“If you unironically regard public comments on an RSS feed as “conversations” with “friends,” you either need a dictionary or better friends.”

- Twitter / Merlin Mann

"To all of you racist homophobic non-Californian dumb fucks who find that annoying? Tough shit. We..."

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:29:52 -0400

“To all of you racist homophobic non-Californian dumb fucks who find that annoying? Tough shit. We outsmarted you. We out-spent you. And now for the next eight years we’re going to be running this country. We’re going to give equal rights to gay people, fund stem-cell research, teach evolution, take down the fence on the Mexican border, and make sure abortion stays safe and legal. We’re going to pull out of Iraq, shut down Gitmo, and stop torturing people. And yeah. A black dude with a Muslim-sounding name and degrees from Columbia and Harvard is going to be in charge. So sit back down, strap yourself in, and shut the fuck up, crackers.”

- The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: How the Valley put Obama over the top

"I despair that we Americans will ever approach such style with our words, which march out like baked..."

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:10:08 -0400

“I despair that we Americans will ever approach such style with our words, which march out like baked potatoes.”

- :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Atonement (xhtml)

Elephant Paints Self Portrait (via )

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:11:08 -0400

Elephant Paints Self Portrait (via )

"The time you spend away from people is what allows you to be interesting to each other again. "

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:38:06 -0400

“The time you spend away from people is what allows you to be interesting to each other again. ”

- I’m Over Twitter (Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic)

" Whenever presented with evidence of a transitional species, claim that it’s not, and ask for..."

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:09:04 -0400

“

Whenever presented with evidence of a transitional species, claim that it’s not, and ask for another transitional species between it and the other species.

”

- Cool Things About Being a Creationist

"There’s a world of difference between queue-able and interruptive media, and we bridge it at..."

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:14:41 -0400

“There’s a world of difference between queue-able and interruptive media, and we bridge it at our peril.”

- Cory Doctorow - The Pleasures of Uninterrupted Communication

"I asked him if he’d come up with a few options. And he said “No, I will solve your problem for you...."

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:42:38 -0400

“I asked him if he’d come up with a few options. And he said “No, I will solve your problem for you. And you will pay me. And you don’t have to use the solution; if you want options, go talk to other people.””

- Interview with Steve Jobs about Paul Rand

"The MacBook Air isn’t so much a laptop as a couple of sheets of paper stapled together that..."

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:39:57 -0400

“The MacBook Air isn’t so much a laptop as a couple of sheets of paper stapled together that just happens to run Mac OS X.”

- Twitter / Fraser Speirs

"Social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a..."

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:41:50 -0400

“Social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business”

- Online social networks | Everywhere and nowhere | Economist.com