Year: 2016

Blogging like it’s 1999

Blogging like it’s 1999

I get ideas that are paragraph length. #

I don’t want to try to save them in Facebook. #

They don’t fit in Twitter.#

But each of these systems has a certain gravity, they pull ideas into them. #

Can my ideas have an existence outside of Twitter and Facebook?#

My blog had more features, worked better for me, in 1999. #

In the last ten years I’ve had to pull features out of my blogging system, instead of making it better, it lost functionality.#

So in a way, my “better blogging system” would just be what I already had working 15 years ago.#

I keep remembering that, between Google Reader and its limits (items must have titles), and Twitter with its limits (only 140 chars, no titles, one link, no styling), same with Facebook (no links or styling) that my online writing has diminished dramatically, conforming to the contradictory limits of each of these systems. #

I keep working on this, still am. Every day. 🙂 #

How to Promote Startups (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)

How to Promote Startups (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)

When people talk about how government can promote startups, there seems to be a fairly standard consensus: we need more economic inequality. Lower income and capital gains taxes provide more incentive to work, looser labor laws make it easier to fire non-performers, and large private wealth funds provide investment capital.

But having been through a startup myself, I think there’s much more you can do in the other direction: decreasing economic inequality. People love starting companies. You get to be your own boss, work on something you love, do something new and exciting, and get lots of attention. As Daniel Brook points out in The Trap, 28% of Americans have considered starting their own business. And yet only 7% actually do.

What holds them back? The lack of a social safety net.

 

…

Thanks to Daniel Brook’s book The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America for suggesting this line of argument and providing the statistics.

Mindful Tech | Tricycle

Mindful Tech | Tricycle

You’re used to watching your breath on the cushion, but what about when you’re cleaning out your inbox?

In his new book, Mindful Tech: How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives, David M. Levy offers lessons in single- and multi-tasking when engaging with technology and encourages readers to visually record themselves while checking email to gauge their physical reactions.

Alert.email: Get your important emails delivered to a Slack channel

Alert.email: Get your important emails delivered to a Slack channel

Useful for someone like me: sends your important emails to a private Slack channel.

Slogan: We send your important* emails to a private Slack™ channel. So you can stop constantly checking your inbox

This Means This, This Means That: A User’s Guide to Semiotics: Sean Hall

This Means This, This Means That: A User’s Guide to Semiotics: Sean Hall: 9781856697354: Books – Amazon.ca

Semiotics is the theory of signs, and reading signs is a part of everyday life: from road signs that point to a destination, to smoke that warns of fire, to the symbols buried within art and literature. Semiotic theory can, however, appear mysterious and impenetrable. This introductory book decodes that mystery using visual examples instead of abstract theory.

This new edition features an expanded introduction that carefully and clearly presents the world of semiotics before leading into the book’s 76 sections of key semiotic concepts. Each short section begins with a single image or sign, accompanied by a question inviting us to interpret what we are seeing. Turning the page, we can compare our response with the theory behind the sign, and in this way, actively engage in creative thinking.

A fascinating read, this book provides practical examples of how meaning is made in contemporary culture.

Lapka

Lapka

Lapka started with the ambitious idea to build the most beautiful science ever. We first set out to explore body network and personal environment, utilizing numerous, sensitive environmental factors such as radiation and carbon monoxide. We built tools for self-care and mind harmony, but never saw them as medicinal devices.

Technology is powered by style, taste, and story. Not by technology alone. Whether it was a radiation sensor, EMF sensor or even a breathalyzer, each product was imagined as a token, charm or talisman, not a device.

At Lapka, we were unconcerned with investing in a particular device, service, category or direction. Instead, we focused on creating an adaptable lifestyle brand where people can engage comfortably and enthusiastically. People only resort to a glucose monitor company when they need to. We imagined a teenage girl needing a glucose monitor, but afraid to use one because of its experience. We thought, what if we could redesign the whole experience — how you get the monitor, how you found out about it, how its story is told. We realized it should be about anything but glucose and medicine. That’s the vision that was set and executed for all our products.

Lapka was a lifestyle brand. We never intended to build “medical devices”. Instead, think of Lapka as a magazine, a coffee shop, a funny Twitter account, a movie. So if all you have is $2.95 for an iced coffee, you can still engage with Lapka.