Seth Godin:

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

Colin Marshall:

Who doesn't want to be more productive?

Merlin Mann:

People wanted nonsense. People wanted something to distract them for a little while.

It takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of self-awareness to be open to the fact that you may become popular about something that you didn't want to become popular about. At a certain point, you don't get to pick that anymore.

I love when I post something on Twitter and a bunch of people unfollow me. It delights me, because that is the sound of my audience getting better.

Ira Glass:

Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.

Alain de Botton:

We are diluted in gigantic intangible collective projects, which leave us wondering what we did last year and, more profoundly, where we have gone and quite what we have amounted to.

Decius:

Life is too short to spend 2300 hours a year working on someone else's idea of what the right problems are.

Caterina Fake:

Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on.

David Foster Wallace:

There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

Lauren Clark:

It's good to have a plan, but if something extraordinary comes your way, you should go for it.

Aditya Dev Sood:

The lights go brighter for a moment before dimming, the music starts thumping, a thrill ripples through us all, and four models appear on the far end of the catwalk. Your correspondent has never been so aware of the dramatic tension between camera, focal length, object and field. The contemporary, globalizing fashion show, of course, is a media practice, which requires the collaboration and participation of so many players to create this sense of the new, the now, the it, which one can either be with, or else clueless about.

All is expectation while the model is still walking towards you, but nothing prepares you for the odd way in which she walks right on past, going on vogue the cameras, which crackle like crickets in the darkness. Notwithstanding a couple of thousand years since the natyashastra defined abhinaya, the art of communicating emotion through facial expressions, the model is a blank slate and cipher. Perhaps it all makes sense, for the point is the clothes she is wearing, not the character she is playing. If her expression means anything at all it means I have something very important to tell you, but it's slung from my hips.

The lights come on, and just like that, we're done.

Noteworthy:

I have long held the view that when alien space explorers assess Earth (or any planet) to determine its relative level of civilization, they will study fashion.

David Luhnow:

Unlike their rough-hewn parents and uncles, today's young traffickers wear Armani suits, carry BlackBerrys and hit the gym for exercise.

Virginia Postrel:

Political figures as glamorous as Obama are rare. But glamorous policy proposals are not.

The pleasure and inspiration may be real, but glamour always contains an illusion. The image is not entirely false, but it is misleading.

Kenneth R. Harney:

Don't feel guilty about it. Don't think you're doing something morally wrong.

Michelle Gillmartin:

The world is full of things in need of embellishment.

Ezra Klein:

The implicit assumption of these arguments about strategy is that there is, somewhere out there, a workable strategy. That there is some way to navigate our political system such that you enact wise legislation solving pressing problems. But that's an increasingly uncertain assumption, I think.

Ellis:

All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.

Fashion As A Metaphor

Virginia Postrel:

In an era of tell-all memoirs, ubiquitous paparazzi, and reality-show exhibitionism, glamour may seem absent from Hollywood. But Barack Obama demonstrates that its magic still exists.

The pleasure and inspiration may be real, but glamour always contains an illusion. The image is not entirely false, but it is misleading.

Magnificence, like spectacle, produces awe; glamour, by contrast, stokes desire.

James Lileks:

The Apple tablet is the Barack Obama of technology. It's whatever you want it to be, until you actually get it.

The Economist on Obama, from November 2008:

He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.

Jeff Jarvis:

After having slept with her (Ms. iPad), I am having morning-after regrets. Sweet and cute but shallow and vapid.

Decius:

Sarah Palin is the slick corporate VP who is all image and no substance, and they love that about her because they have convinced themselves that if they do away with substance it will free them from the problems that substantial people attempt to address.

Kathleen Parker:

Giving up being liked is the ultimate public sacrifice.

Postrel:

Glamour not only makes things look better than they really are. It also tends to edit out human complexity -- including, in the political realm, the complexity of disagreements, of clashing values, of diverse wants, of technological, economic, and moral tradeoffs.

Political figures as glamorous as Obama are rare. But glamorous policy proposals are not.

Atul Gawande:

The most interesting, under-discussed, and potentially revolutionary aspect of the law is that it doesn't pretend to have the answers.

That's the one truly scary thing about health reform: far from being a government takeover, it counts on local communities and clinicians for success.

An exchange:

Moe: Think hard, and come up with a slogan that appeals to all the lazy slobs out there.
Homer: [moans] Can't someone else do it?
Moe: "Can't someone else do it?", that's perfect!
Homer: It is?
Moe: Yeah! Now get out there and spread that message to the people!

Richard Haass:

Let's not kid ourselves. We're not going to find some wonderful thing that's going to deliver large positive results at modest costs. It's not going to happen.

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

A Power to Persuade

David Margolick:

Many of the GOP's most faithful, the kind who vote in primaries despite 115-degree heat, tired long ago of McCain the Maverick, the man who had crossed the aisle to work with Democrats on issues like immigration reform, global warming, and restricting campaign contributions.

"Maverick" is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one.

After retreating on a number of issues, the erstwhile iconoclast has morphed into what the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, calls "a fabulous team player."

Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington.

Decius:

Sarah Palin is the slick corporate VP who is all image and no substance, and they love that about her because they have convinced themselves that if they do away with substance it will free them from the problems that substantial people attempt to address.

Kathleen Parker:

Giving up being liked is the ultimate public sacrifice.

Margolick:

For all McCain's talk about money's malign effect on politics, he has millions of dollars on hand, collected from the state's economic and business elite ...

Decius:

Your right to freedom of speech is an inalienable right. Even if you are rich. That's what an inalienable right is. I don't have a solution for the problem of bad taste.

A parting thought:

What hidden potentials exist within YOU?

Perhaps you're a wholly reasonable person, with the potential to become an irrational fool?

Perhaps you're a team player, with a potentially argumentative loner lurking about inside you?

Or perhaps you're a dreamer, within whom lives a potentially disillusioned grouse, simply waiting to take flight on the wings of bitterness?

McCain the Maverick Fights for His Soul

Paul Scrivens:

Why is it really that hard to let go? For me it's hard because I know what is needed to get the project to where I would be happy with it and all I need to do is go on and do that stuff. However, I find something else to do, but tell myself that I can still make the project a success. If I really wanted to make it a success then I would have stuck with it. There is a huge difference between wanting something and wanting something. Just because you tell yourself you want it doesn't prove anything. Just like relationships, it's your actions that need to do the talking.

Garrison Keillor, quoting you:

I could have done that. I could have done that while doing all the other things that I do. Why didn't I?

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

David Gelernter:

Instead of letting the Internet solve the easy problems, it's time we got it to solve the important ones.

Theodore Roosevelt:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

On John McCain:

In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both "an idea and a cause".

He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself.

But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

Letting Things Die

Fred Brooks has a new book.

Effective design is at the heart of everything from software development to engineering to architecture. But what do we really know about the design process? What leads to effective, elegant designs? The Design of Design addresses these questions.

These new essays by Fred Brooks contain extraordinary insights for designers in every discipline. Brooks pinpoints constants inherent in all design projects and uncovers processes and patterns likely to lead to excellence. Drawing on conversations with dozens of exceptional designers, as well as his own experiences in several design domains, Brooks observes that bold design decisions lead to better outcomes.

The author tracks the evolution of the design process, treats collaborative and distributed design, and illuminates what makes a truly great designer. He examines the nuts and bolts of design processes, including budget constraints of many kinds, aesthetics, design empiricism, and tools, and grounds this discussion in his own real-world examples-case studies ranging from home construction to IBM's Operating System/360. Throughout, Brooks reveals keys to success that every designer, design project manager, and design researcher should know.

Christopher Alexander:

A building or town will only be alive to the extent that it is governed by the timeless way.

The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search of any person ... It is the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive.

Virginie Tisseau:

I ride the tram because every day it takes me to a place less familiar.

Richard Haass:

Let's not kid ourselves. We're not going to find some wonderful thing that's going to deliver large positive results at modest costs. It's not going to happen.

Decius:

I don't have a solution for the problem of bad taste.

Ira Glass:

Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.

Ellis:

All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.

Brad Lemley:

It is a clock, but it is designed to do something no clock has ever been conceived to do -- run with perfect accuracy for 10,000 years.

Fake Steve:

The truth is, this is all about spiritual emptiness. That is why you're standing in line. Except for Scoble, who is an attention whore and just doing it to get attention.

Paul Carr:

If we all started thinking a bit more like friends, and a bit less like attention whores, the privacy problem would be solved at a stroke.

An exchange with Rory Stewart:

"We're beating the cat."

"Why are you beating the cat?"

"It's a cat-tiger strategy."

The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist

Andrew Gelman and George Romero:

In the absence of hard data, zombie researchers have studied outbreaks and their dynamics using differential equation models (Munz et al., 2009, Lakeland, 2010) and, more recently, agent-based models (Messer, 2010).

But mathematical models are not enough. We need data.

Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig, and Fernando Pereira:

Invariably, simple models and a lot of data trump more elaborate models based on less data.

So, follow the data.

Decius:

Money for me, databases for you.

Sense Networks:

We asked ourselves: with all this real-time data, what else could we do for a city?

Nightlife enhancement was the obvious answer.

Philip Munz et al:

We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

Stop Worrying:

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Is it that bad, sir?
General Jack D. Ripper: Looks like it's pretty hairy.

Embrace the suck:

Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?

Bell: If it ain't, it'll do til the mess gets here.

How many zombies do you know?

Phil Agre, 1994:

Despite all the hype about faster and better and cheaper and friendlier, it's amazing how little the foundations of computing have changed. From the 1940s to today, the raw material of computation has been something called "data." Data is made of bits. But data isn't just numbers -- it's also a way of thinking about the relationship between the abstract territory inside computers and the concrete territory outside them. Data has meaning -- it represents the world.

We're so accustomed to data that hardly anyone questions it.

But data is obsolete. The problem with data is that it's dead.

Managers everywhere mostly use computers to justify the actions they've already decided on, and dead data can't call them on their games.

Vannevar Bush, 1945:

Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

Decius:

Money for me, databases for you.

"Leonard Nimoy":

It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth?

The answer ... is No.

William Deresiewicz:

For too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don't know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don't know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they're worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of expertise. What we don't have are leaders.

Decius:

It isn't Congress that must change -- it is us.

Benjamin Franklin:

It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.

Living Data

Mark Kingwell:

Incivility doesn't just threaten the etiquette of interchange, it threatens democracy.

We're all in a mess of trouble, though not for the reasons you may think.

An exchange:

Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?

Bell: If it ain't, it'll do til the mess gets here.

"Leonard Nimoy":

It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth?

The answer ... is No.

Jon Stewart:

Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys.

Stop.

Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.

See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns.

Tim Kreider:

Quite a lot of what passes itself off as a dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own choices as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others' as selfish or pathological or wrong.

Decius:

I've come to the conclusion that you actually want shifty, dishonest politicians elected by an apathetic populace. This means that things are working. I'm confident that technology has improved the resources available to people if/when they choose to act. So far they don't need to, largely. Don't wish for times when they do.

Decius:

There is a lot of bad speech in our democracy. I don't have a solution for the problem of bad taste. But in my experience the answer to bad speech has always been more speech. It isn't Congress that must change -- it is us.

Kingwell:

Question: what is the only thing worse than un-civil discourse? Answer: no discourse at all.

It is sometimes said that literacy is the software of democracy. Let's be more accurate, and more demanding. The real software of democracy is not bare literacy, which permits and even enjoys all manner of rhetorical nonsense and short-sighted demagoguery. It is political literacy, the ability to engage in critical dialogue with ideas both agreeable and disagreeable, interests that align with ours and those that do not. We need to learn this skill, run it, and revise it constantly by repeated engagements. We must be prepared to sacrifice something we value, for the sake of the larger good.

On John McCain:

In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both "an idea and a cause".

He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself.

But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

Cormac McCarthy:

Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

The Shout Doctrine

This short film by American director Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo) traces the epic, existential journey of a plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) searching for its lost maker, the woman who took it home from the store and eventually discarded it. Along the way, it encounters strange creatures, experiences love in the sky, grieves the loss of its beloved maker, and tries to grasp its purpose in the world.

In the end, the wayward plastic bag wafts its way to the ocean, into the tides, and out into the Pacific Ocean trash vortex -- a promised nirvana where it will settle among its own kind and gradually let the memories of its maker slip away.

Decius:

The idea that there is a garbage patch that spans the Pacific is nearly the most disgusting thing I can imagine.

Decius:

One must assume that all garbage is monitored by the state. Anything less would be a pre-911 mentality.

Decius:

Money for me, databases for you.

Plastic Bag