Nay, a tumblelog.

Lists & Expeditions

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 21:39:32 -0800

This is cool, the Bionic Bird – a super light drone that you could almost mistake for a bird. I’m not sure how long you could expect it to last with such thin wings, but it’s the first reasonably priced robotic bird I’ve ever seen. The Scoville Scale measures the hotness of chili peppers. I ate a ghost chili this week so this scale was especially relevant to me for about 15 minutes. At ~1 million…

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The Sad State of Personal Knowledgebases

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 21:38:27 -0800

The Sad State of Personal Knowledgebases

A Personal Knowledgebase (PK) is any system that you use to store and retrieve general information. The key here is that the system should be capable of storing a large amount information on any number of topics and, ideally, provide some type of way to view relationships between the information. Historically this has been the realm of pen and paper. More recently, people have used their…

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Coding Bootcamps

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 22:25:58 -0800

Coding Bootcamps

Breadth after Depth: Don't Set Yourself Up to Fail in Software Projects

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 22:57:35 -0700

It is very easy for software product owners to be lured into the trap of designing software to solve a broad problem for many people right from the start. This is a mistake. Most ideas start to scratch an itch or build something that is unique to a particular company or group. Then as you think more about solving it, the natural tendency is to go bigger and think “hey, this could also solve these…

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Myth and Matter

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:32:02 -0700

I’ve started a newsletter! Join me, a natural, habitual collector of information on a random journey through languages, spoken and coded, literature, culture, science, learning and many other topics. This is a casual, infrequent email conversation that will point you off in fun & interesting directions. Enter your email address

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"We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the..."

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 10:05:52 -0800

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”

- Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces on the value of myth, ritual and storytelling.

If you've ever thought about self-publishing non-fiction, here's some inspiration.

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:36:47 -0700

If you've ever thought about self-publishing non-fiction, here's some inspiration.:

Self-published design, technology, and business ebooks curated by Andy Johnson.

"To insist that persistent rationality is the best means and hope for victory over enduring..."

Tue, 24 Dec 2013 15:46:55 -0800

“

To insist that persistent rationality is the best means and hope for victory over enduring irrationality—that logical harnessing of facts could someday do away with the sacred and so end conflict—defies all that science teaches about our passion-driven nature. Throughout the history of our species, as for the most intractable conflicts and greatest collective expressions of joy today, utilitarian logic is a pale prospect to replace the sacred.

[…]

Religion and the sacred, banned so long from reasoned inquiry by the ideological bias of all persuasions—perhaps because the subject is so close to who we want or don’t want to be—is still a vast, tangled, and largely unexplored domain for science, however simple and elegant for most people everywhere in everyday life.

”

- Scott Atran on “The Power of Absurdity” in This Explains Everything

"This deed accomplished, life no longer suffers hopelessly under the terrible mutilations of..."

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:59:01 -0800

“This deed accomplished, life no longer suffers hopelessly under the terrible mutilations of ubiquitous disaster, battered by time, hideous throughout space; but with its horror visible still, its cries of anguish still tumultuous, it becomes penetrated by an all-suffusing, all-sustaining love, and a knowledge of its own unconquered power. Something of the light that blazes invisible within the abysses of its normally opaque materiality breaks forth, with an increasing uproar. The dreadful mutilations are then seen as shadows, only, of an immanent, imperishable eternity; time yields to glory; and the world sings with the prodigious, angelic, but perhaps finally monotonous, siren music of the spheres. Like happy families, the myth and the worlds redeemed are all alike.”

- Joseph Campbell describes enlightenment in The Hero With A Thousand Faces. His language is dense, but it’s worth reading slowly.

The best ways to learn. This pyramid matches my experience. (via...

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 14:03:44 -0800

The best ways to learn. This pyramid matches my experience. (via Programming Your Brain: The Art of Learning in Three Steps | BitNative)

"We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the..."

Sat, 14 Dec 2013 15:38:02 -0800

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”

- Joseph Campbell - The Hero With a Thousand Faces

I’ve only read the first chapter and I have 5 pages of notes.

So That's What Disruptive Innovation Is

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 21:43:00 -0800

I’m finally reading the classic business books The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. After all this time hearing and thinking about disruptive innovation, it turns out I had the definition wrong.

Disruptive innovations, in contrast, don’t attempt to bring better products to established customers in existing markets. Rather, they disrupt and redefine that trajectory by introducing products and services that are not as good as currently available products. But disruptive technologies offer other benefits—typically, they are simpler, more convenient, and less expensive products that appeal to new or less

Disruption is going for the bottom of the market with a simpler, cheaper but inferior product, capturing that segment of the market from under the nose of the incumbents then improving your product until you can poach their business.

"Full circle, from the tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb, we come: an ambiguous, enigmatical..."

Sun, 08 Dec 2013 19:59:00 -0800

“Full circle, from the tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb, we come: an ambiguous, enigmatical incursion into a world of solid matter that is soon to melt from us, like the substance of a dream. And, looking back at what had promised to be our own unique, unpredictable, and dangerous adventure, all we find in the end is such a series of standard metamorphoses as men and women have undergone in every quarter of the world, in all recorded centuries, and under every odd disguise of civilization.”

- Joseph Campbell - The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell nails it. Philosophy, prose and poetry.

"The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in..."

Sat, 07 Dec 2013 11:26:00 -0800

“The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.”

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of..."

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 18:30:25 -0800

“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

- Pablo Picasso (via thatkindofwoman)

More on the monomyth–awesome animation.

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 18:30:20 -0800

More on the monomyth–awesome animation.

If you’ve never come across Joseph Campbell’s idea...

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 21:48:08 -0800

If you’ve never come across Joseph Campbell’s idea of the monomyth, check it out, especially if you’re feeling any kind of existential angst. There is a fantastic 6 hour interview with Bill Moyer on the subject.

"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A..."

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 21:14:00 -0800

“You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”

- Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian

I recently started reading Lawrence in Arabia who I knew very...

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:08:00 -0800

I recently started reading Lawrence in Arabia who I knew very little about but am quickly starting to like. He reminds me a lot of Heinrich Barth who I recently read about in the very interesting A Labryinth of Kingdoms which follows Barth’s trek through Central Africa.

Do you know your countries?

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 21:21:52 -0800

Do you know your countries?:

Can you name the countries of the world?