Way back in 2001, Homer Simpson’s most popular catchphrase – Doh! – successfully transcended beyond the status of pop culture catchphrase and entered the pantheon of legitimate English word. This momentous occasion was the direct result of the Oxford English Dictionary deciding to include the word in their 2001 edition.

However, doh is just one of many Simpsons neologisms (fake words) that have entered into both American and British mainstream vocabulary. Looking back over the years, one could argue that a number of these fake words also deserve the prestige of sitting alongside “doh” as a proper term in the American lexicon. And if any of those eggheads at Oxford are reading this article, I would like to suggest the following ten words for inclusion in their next dictionary edition:

1 Yoink

Yoink: An exclamation that, when uttered in conjunction with taking an object, immediately transfers ownership from the original owner to the person using the word regardless of previous property rights. (

As anyone who’s ever encountered babies in the wild can tell you, they’re shiftless little balls of deception and greed. Those of us who stand up to walk, and sit down to poop may not be Mother Theresa, but it turns out we had a long way to go from our babbling drooling selves.

Yes, unless you’re a borderline sociopath today, you were probably at your worst before you ever uttered a word. It’s science!

#6.

Lying

It seems crazy that a barely functioning human infant could be cunning enough to lie to get out of trouble, but it’s true. Baby You was such an asshole that you started lying before you could even speak. Scientists have found that by the age of just six months mini-you was already “fake crying” and “pretend laughing” to get attention. Babies are so good at that lie they will even pause briefly and listen to see if someone is responding to their crocodile tears before starting up again.

Oh shut up, you piece of shit.

Perhaps

Excerpt of  Mark Muro and Sarah Rahman February 3^rd article with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

“The Obama administration’s FY2011 budget request unveils several proposals to support regional industry or innovation “clusters” through multiple federal departments, which could put the U.S. on par with other nations in providing support to these systems of business development. From its opening pages, the Obama administration’s FY2011 budget request adopts a stance that pervades

Source

Love is in the air whether you like it or not. Around this time of year, girls tend to get all hot and bothered by the prospect of Valentine’s Day even though it isn’t even a real holiday. I don’t know why but women can’t seem to understand that Valentine’s Day is a holiday propagated by greeting card, flower, and chocolate companies. As a result, you, the man, statistically anyway, must purchase her love with gifts from the aforementioned companies.  They want stuff for Valentine’s Day; and not just any stuff, stuff that makes them feel “special” and “loved”. There are very strict guidelines that you must follow and if you purchase any of the following gifts, the odds that you won’t have a significant other for the 15^th are very, very good.

Lingerie

Lingerie is one of those gifts that isn’t really for her. Granted, Valentines Day is just a day where if you pull everything off correctly, you have a 100% chance of getting laid. I know it makes sense in your head that $80 lace undies is completely appropriate for Valentine’s Day but remember that women want to feel special on this day. What lingerie does is reassures them of the fact that they are nothing more than a sexual object to you and that won’t make them feel special at all.

Flowers From a Gas Station

It’s easy to make stupid tourist mistakes in London, England; the city is huge and there is tons to see. But if your first language is English and you’ve ever been to a big city before, you have no excuse for making a few easily-avoided oopsies. We’ve covered the five absolute worst mistakes, but we know there are a score more.

So without further ado, here is the Jaunted guide of What Not To Do In London: The Top 5 Tourist Mistakes.

Check them out, after the jump.

5. DON’T confuse Tower Bridge with London Bridge

So you’re tempted to stroll along the Embankment by the Thames singing “London Bridge is falling down” to youself, but dude—the original London Bridge is long gone. In fact, it’s in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, because they bought it from London in the 1970s and installed it in their town, and that’s still not even the clogged-with-buildings historical version of the Bridge mentioned in the song. Rest assured, there is still a London Bridge over the Thames, but it’s nothing special and hard to distinguish from any other bridge. Just don’t point at the bridge in the picture above and claim that this one is London Bridge, because it’s just

Reading food labels isn’t as easy as you think. Here’s how to decipher nutrition labels so you can separate fact from marketing.

It’s a fact of the grocery store that the most healthy food often has the least marketing muscle behind it. The best source of fiber and vitamins are fresh vegetables and fruit, and yet it’s the processed, packaged junk food fortified with vitamin and fiber powder that screams for attention. The Center for Science in the Public Interest recently published a comprehensive report on the subject, a persuasive indictment delicately called “Food Labeling Chaos.”

“Consumers need honest labeling so they can spend their food dollars wisely and avoid diet-related disease,” said CSPI senior staff attorney Ilene Ringel Heller, co-author of the report. “Companies should market their foods without resorting to the deceit and dishonesty that’s so common today. And, if they don’t, the FDA should make them.”

Like listening skeptically to a politician speak, however, you can often decipher the truth amid the lies and misdirection by carefully reading food labels. Here we take a look at nine of the most common ways food labels lie, so you can prepare before

I’m going to add an extensive “resources” section to the end, with contributions from people and organizations who are succeeding at that challenge.

But they also want to retitle the book. Maybe to something more specific, or at least more evocative. Most people think the book was called “Life” as it is.

So, I am opening this quest up for collaborative frenzy. Help?

The book is about the way value creation and exchange has been legally monopolized by corporations and central banks – as well as how this dehumanizes us. It concludes with ways to take back peer to peer value exchange, and collapse this corporotacracy in the process. Click on the movie above for the 9-minute gist.

But I need a new title – ideally a better one, that will interest more people. Capitalism: A Love Story was a much more accessible title than Life Inc, for example.

If you come up with a title that works, I’ll give you something – like a bunch of books and credit – as well as my thanks.

• WBCSD Global Scenarios 2000-2050: Exploring sustainable development
  "Scenarios are powerful tools for addressing what is both fundamentally significant and profoundly unknowable -- the future. Unlike forecasts, which extrapolate patterns for the future based on facts from the past, scenarios are plausible, pertinent, and alternative stories that are concerned more with strategic thinking versus strategic planning. The three different scenarios outlined in this report promote a flexible approach to the future, and alter our mental maps."
  (tags: future environment scenarios)

I don’t have the direct link yet, so scroll down that page a screen until you see it. And the join in!

• Reject the standard framing of a problem and restate the problem or opportunity.  Rather than work within the given constructs or framing, many innovators want to toss out the framing and start anew.  Just like Galileo, this may require working against an orthodoxy, yet nonetheless, it moves and so must we.  Those folks who are so problematic about wanting to change or expand the framing of a problem?  Probably good innovators.
• Be optimistic.  They are almost always the glass half full people.  Pessimistic people will focus far too much energy on the "problem" while innovators will acknowledge the problem and move on to find interesting solutions.  They believe the problems are merely temporary barriers to more interesting solutions.
• Look to the future for signals rather than to the past.  In most businesses, many people will ask "has this been done before" and "what can we learn from that success or failure.  Innovators want to know "can we be the first" and what signals in the market or environment give us indications that we'll be successful
• Care about solving unmet or poorly understood challenges.  Often innovators are going beyond the obvious,

As we state often, there are always exceptions to every rule, but some things are fairly universal. Women tend to hold their own birthdays in high regard; there’s the happy party vibe, and there’s the mild self-loathing that accompanies her feeling of getting one year older. It’s a tense time for any would-be gift giver, to be sure. There are certain things that guys simply should not get their girlfriends for their birthdays, however — unless she explicitly asks for them. Some could get a guy slapped, and some might hurt not for what they could get him, but for what he won’t be getting after giving them. These are the 15 worst birthday gifts to give a girlfriend; don’t make any of these mistakes.

Any Household Appliance

Image Source

Nothing says romance like a vacuum cleaner. You may think you’re being thoughtful, but the sight of a brand new toaster, vacuum, iron, and so on is tantamount to saying “how about you clean up your dump of an apartment.” Unless she’s in genuine need of one of these things, and asks for it, this is not what you want to hand her on that special day.

Acne or Wrinkle

For five years I was a Microsoft evangelist to the startup and venture capital community. That ended a couple months ago. I am now a Developer Advocate at Google and I love it. After years of defending Microsoft against the Apple fanatics I decided to go to the other side of the road to see for myself. The move from Microsoft was complete. From Windows to Mac, from Outlook to Gmail, from Explorer to Google Chrome browser, from Office to Google Apps, from Windows Mobile phone to Android, from Zune to iPod. But this post is all about the move to Mac.

Design matters – The most obvious distinction between Microsoft and Apple is design. Apple is quite simply the best hardware / software design company in the world. This video "Microsoft iPod" demonstrates in a very funny way the real differences in design attitude. While funny, it is painfully true. My MacBook is sleek, elegant, fast, and efficient. The rounded edges are comfortable and smooth aluminum finish is beautiful. My Windows machine was a Lenovo X301 with Windows Vista. It was light and small for travel, but I don’t think anyone would classify it as beautiful. You see the design ethic in everything Apple does. The Mac, iPod, iTouch, iPhone and iPad are just beautiful, elegant, and imaginative designs that provide a delightful user experience. Design is probably the reason that high end buyers choose Mac.

End to end experience – One of the major advantages Apple has is controlling the end to end user experience. This means the hardware works

"Governments, regions, cities across the planet have come to the view that science, technology and innovation are integral to economic growth and development. They have set out to build more knowledge intensive economies in which research, its commercial exploitation and intellectual work will play a prominent role. A study by the ITIF, a think tank based in Washington DC, benchmarked 40 countries on global basis and the U.S. ranked last in the overall rate of change across 16 innovation metrics. The US was 22^nd in Broadband access and 15^th in higher education attainment. China, the world's center of outsourced manufacturing, has a "brute force" 15 year plan focused on an innovation-driven economy. The Chinese government has doubled the number of higher education institutions from 2000 to 4000. It has launched 20 independently managed venture capital funds for investments in high-tech sectors. The initial capitalization of the 20 funds comes to $1.31 billion, with three-fourths of the total provided by private investment. Warren Buffet has invested $230 million in BYD, a Chinese maker of batteries for electric cars. a vote of confidence in China's innovation capacity. Singapore government has invested in Biopolis, a 2 million sq. foot biomedical research center. They

From the Page:

My company runs email campaigns like any other. You know, the usual sales promotions, monthly specials, etc. Just click the unsubscribe link at the end of the email to opt out / unsubscribe permanently.

A couple of weeks ago we received an actual, honest to goodness US Postal service real snail-mail letter to our department. Written in the feminine cursive of my parents’ generation, it reads as follows:

Source: www.mikeduncan.com

InfoWorld says Google’s Chrome browser now has 5% of the market and has overtaken Apple’s Safari with 4.5%. Not bad since Chrome just launched in September 2008, but still a long way to go to catch 2nd place FireFox with 24% of the market. Microsoft collectively has 62% of the market. The breakout is as follows; IE8 22%, IE7 15%, and IE6 20%, older variants 5%.

HTML5 support in modern browsers gives the browser many operating system like features. Wikipedia has a summary list of the features;

Freelancing isn’t something you should just jump into, but it makes sense for a good number of workers. If you’re looking into, or getting started with, working on your own, here are 10 resources we think every freelancer can learn from.

Photo by Mat Honan, who is himself a freelancer.

10. Make your schedule family-friendly

If you’re going to have to entirely ignore your kids and family when you’re working at home, you might as well head into the office. Career columnist and Wall Street Journal writer Alexandra Levit offered up six tips for working parents to spend more time parenting. They were aimed at anyone with a job, but freelancers certainly have an easier time of shifting their schedules back and ahead, taking web meetings instead of traveling for in-person summits, and involving their children in their work. Photo

You’re six miles up, alone and falling without a parachute. Though the odds are long, a small number of people have found themselves in similar situations—and lived to tell the tale. Here’s PM’s 120-mph, 35,000-ft, 3-minutes-to-impact survival guide.

6:59:00 AM

35,000 Feet

You have a late night and an early flight. Not long after takeoff, you drift to sleep. Suddenly, you’re wide awake. There’s cold air rushing everywhere, and sound. Intense, horrible sound. Where am I?, you think. Where’s the plane?

You’re 6 miles up. You’re alone. You’re falling.
Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news.

(Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.
Or at least you will be. Oxygen is scarce at these heights. By now, hypoxia is starting to set in. You’ll be unconscious soon, and you’ll cannonball at least a mile before waking up again. When that happens, remember what you are about to read. The ground, after all, is your next destination.

Digital Nation – a PBS Frontline documentary I’ve been working on for, gosh, two years now – is finally airing this coming Tuesday evening, Feb 2, at 9pm on pretty much all PBS stations in US. (I know: that’s during the Lost premiere that even Obama feared going up against. But you can Tivo Lost, watch us live, and watch Lost after without the commercials.) For those of you outside the viewing area or without TV’s, you can watch the whole thing anytime from broadcast onwards by going to http://pbsdigitalnation.org

Meanwhile, I’m happy to announce that Frontline has agreed to let me host a series of Roundtable discussions following the broadcast. One per month, with invited guests and running commentary from you. (I’m shooting for something like the Talmudic format Steven Johnson used for Feed magazine – still the best threaded dialogues I can remember happening online between a central conversation and the general public. With any luck, these Roundtables will be the next main thing I’m doing

Well before yesterday’s grand unveiling of Apple’s long-awaited tablet computer, rabid fans began filming their own mock ‘commercials.’

Steve Jobs is rehearsing his pitch in the mirror. Bloggers are already at their keyboards. Today, after years of speculation, Apple will unveil its new tablet device, unofficially nicknamed the iPad. In the months leading up to this almost implausibly hyped event, YouTube-minded Apple zealots have been busy concocting a series of hypothetical “TV commercials” for the as-yet-unseen device. Here, the 6 best—and worst—of the fake iPad ads.

HITS

• The Paintbox: Although the last thing anyone would want on their slick new Apple toy is blotches of Day-Glo paint, this enthusiast’s execution is very Apple-esque. Less Apple-esque: The morbid lyrics of the bouncy song that backs it. Views to date: 217,727

OKRs are Objectives and Key Results. I submitted my Q1 OKRs with what I thought were aggressive yet achievable goals. Not good enough. My manager explained that we needed to set stretch goals that seemed impossible to fully achieve. Hmmm…I said “This is just a 90 day window and we can predict with reasonable accuracy what is achievable. Why set unrealistic goals?” Because you can’t achieve amazing results by setting modest targets. We want amazing results. We want to tackle the impossible.

Failure is not an option – A while ago I wrote a post about the culture of “failure is not an option” and how, taken the wrong way, that actually conditions people to set modest achievable goals that they are certain they can achieve. Because if they fail…they are fired. Taking great risks, pushing innovation, and striving to achieve the impossible will never happen at companies like that. In that post I discuss how startups definition of “failure is not an option” is completely different. For startups it means they will try 5 or 10 or 20