to collect in a mass

01/15/2012

“ I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever. „

Neil Gaiman (via thoughtsdetained)

(Source: quotewhore, via thoughtsdetained)

Quote posted at 23:59

Concentration of Power

dihard:

According to recent financial data from the 3rd quarter of 2010, six banks represent 64% of GDP. These are JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. In 2006, before the financial crisis, that number was 55%. And fifteen years ago, it was 17%.

Text posted at 20:46

02/21/2010

fuckyeaheyegasms:

Dragonfly Covered with Dew, Photo by Martin Amm

Submitted by ladybirdallie

(No…this is not a sculpture, it’s a macro, a close up image of a dragonfly)

Photo posted at 23:51

01/25/2010

James Petterson Inc

justine:

Since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson.

This article covers how Patterson has profited from challenging many of his publisher’s assumptions about how to advertise and release novels and being intimately involved with the production of his books. More stats to go with the one above:

“He is listed in the latest edition of “Guinness World Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1.”

“In addition to his two editors, Patterson has three full-time Hachette [his publisher] employees (plus assistants) devoted exclusively to him.”

“According to Nielsen BookScan, [John] Grisham’s, [Stephen] King’s and [Dan] Brown’s combined U.S. sales in recent years still don’t match Patterson’s.”

“ACCORDING TO FORBES magazine, Patterson earned Hachette about $500 million over the last two years,” which his publisher denies but won’t correct.

Text posted at 21:43

01/05/2010

“ What we witnessed was truly a perverse form of competition,” said Ronald Congemi, the former chief executive of Star Systems, one of the regional PIN-based networks that has struggled to compete with Visa. “They competed on the basis of raising prices. What other industry do you know that gets away with that? „

The Card Game - How Visa, Using Fees Behind Its Debit Card, Dominates a Market - Series - NYTimes.com

Quote posted at 20:41

» Technology Trends for 2010

Link posted at 15:20

01/03/2010

Info-graphic comparing countries’ health care spending per person to average life expectancy at birth.

Photo posted at 22:59

12/28/2009

» Restaurants Use Menu Psychology to Entice Diners

Link posted at 22:11

John Graham-Cumming: Tonight, I’m going to write myself an Aston Martin

Software that detects copy-and-move photo edits and produces images like this to show where the copy came from and went.

Photo posted at 21:24

» Code That Protects Most Cellphone Calls Is Deciphered

Link posted at 17:31

12/21/2009

Really interesting, albeit long (1.5 hours), video on the biochemistry and physiology behind what our body does with glucose, sucrose, and fructose and how fructose is a chronic toxin that is essentially beer without the buzz and possibly the cause of the hyper tension and obesity epidemics the world is facing.

Video posted at 23:41

11/21/2009

livejamie:

Lin-Manuel Miranda performs an incredible rap about Alexander Hamilton to Obama at the White House Poetry Jam

Video posted at 21:51

Face-Off With a Deadly Predator

Pretty interesting!

Video posted at 21:50

11/02/2009

» Scaling in Games & Virtual Worlds

Link posted at 22:04

05/03/2008

Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo in SF talking about, among other things, the “cognitive surplus” we are only beginning to make use of.

He had a great response to a TV producer that heard a story about Wikipedians dealing with Pluto’s loss of “planet status” a couple years ago and who wondered where they “find the time” (that story starts at 03:45):

“No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you’ve been masking for 50 years.”

Some interesting statistics he states:

The Internet-connected population watches 1 trillion hours of TV a year
In the US, we watch 200 billion hours of TV a year
Wikipedia represents roughly 100 million hours of work
In the US, we watch 100 million hours of advertisements every weekend

This resonates with why I don’t have cable or satellite, why I posted this quote back in December, and why I had been secretly hoping that the writer’s strike would never end.

Video posted at 17:02