World Airmail Links

"Being in charge of ourselves leaves us with a huge responsibility to come up with strategies to..."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:00:55 -0400

“Being in charge of ourselves leaves us with a huge responsibility to come up with strategies to either fix, or cover up, weak spots.”

- Buster Benson, Random thoughts on being in charge

"All too often, I see entrepreneurs who say they “just need engineers” to “bang out the code” for..."

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:12:45 -0400

“All too often, I see entrepreneurs who say they “just need engineers” to “bang out the code” for this great idea of theirs. If you view engineers as interchangeable factory workers instead of partners and creative people, you’re in for a tough time getting huge in a world driven by technology.”

- Chad Dickerson, Scaling startups [via Buzz Andersen]

"So let me explain Social Networking. It’s a fancy term that means Facebook."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:12:45 -0400

“So let me explain Social Networking. It’s a fancy term that means Facebook.”

- Jesse Schell, Visions of the Gamepocalypse

"Data dominates. If you’ve chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the..."

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:12:44 -0400

“Data dominates. If you’ve chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming.”

- Rob Pike, Notes on Programming in C [via Douglas]

"In streets designed to safely handle the actions of the riskiest participants, everyone slips into..."

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:11:44 -0400

“In streets designed to safely handle the actions of the riskiest participants, everyone slips into riskier behavior.”

- Tom Vanderbilt, The Traffic Guru

"Instead of analyzing the strength of the argument, those with authority focus on whether or not the..."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:08:46 -0400

“Instead of analyzing the strength of the argument, those with authority focus on whether or not the argument confirms what they already believe. If it doesn’t, then the facts are conveniently ignored.”

- Jonah Lehrer, The Power Trip

"Good programmers want to work with other good programmers. So once the quality of programmers at..."

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:05:45 -0400

“Good programmers want to work with other good programmers. So once the quality of programmers at your company starts to drop, you enter a death spiral from which there is no recovery.”

- Paul Graham, What Happened to Yahoo [via ★]

"As a rule, any software in this century that reinvents the scroll bar deserves to fail."

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 08:04:44 -0400

“As a rule, any software in this century that reinvents the scroll bar deserves to fail.”

- Scott Berkun, Lessons from Google Wave and MSFT Kin, who goes on to say that “Wave is far from a failure” for the team that created it

"In the software business, you can’t afford not to have a hacker-centric culture."

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:20:52 -0400

“In the software business, you can’t afford not to have a hacker-centric culture.”

- Paul Graham, What Happened to Yahoo [via ★]

"Success hides problems."

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:58:45 -0400

“Success hides problems.”

- Ed Catmull, President, Pixar, What Google Could Learn From Pixar [via ★]

"If there’s chaos, things will tend toward simple solutions. In chaos people don’t listen to reason."

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 08:09:44 -0400

“If there’s chaos, things will tend toward simple solutions. In chaos people don’t listen to reason.”

- Sen. Tom Harkin, quoted in George Packer’s The Empty Chamber: Just how broken is the Senate

"…the distance between the face one presents to the world, and the face presented inward to oneself,..."

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 08:08:44 -0400

“…the distance between the face one presents to the world, and the face presented inward to oneself, cannot no longer become too great. Like water finding its level, the inward face will become known. The truth, or at least more of its constituent parts, will out. In the big picture, that’s a good thing. Those who have the most to fear from an open environment are ones with closed agendas, for whom public debate is a threat rather than an opportunity. Long-term strength lies in persuasion grounded in fact, rather than on carefully constructed artifice.”

- Jonathan Zittrain, Technology Lessons from the Wikileaks Saga [via @Lessig]

"Like investment bankers on Wall Street, senators these days direct much of their creative energy..."

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 08:07:43 -0400

“Like investment bankers on Wall Street, senators these days direct much of their creative energy toward the manipulation of arcane rules and loopholes, scoring short-term successes while magnifying their institution’s broader dysfunction.”

- George Packer, The Empty Chamber: Just how broken is the Senate

"We’ve created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery..."

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 08:06:44 -0400

“We’ve created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets—and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near-certainty that those tickets will not win.”

- Atul Gawande, Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?

"News about, by, and for a tiny kingdom of political obsessives dominates the attention of senators..."

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 08:05:44 -0400

“News about, by, and for a tiny kingdom of political obsessives dominates the attention of senators and staff, while stories that might affect their constituents go unreported because their home-state papers can no longer afford to have bureaus in Washington.”

- George Packer, Filibusters and arcane obstructions in the Senate [via Kevin Drum]

Fred Brooks on Design

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:03:44 -0400

Kevin Kelly: In your experience, what’s the best process for design?
Brooks: Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers.

"…if you show someone a piece of work, don’t ask them what they think of it as they will probably not..."

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:02:45 -0400

“…if you show someone a piece of work, don’t ask them what they think of it as they will probably not want to offend you. Instead, ask them what’s wrong with it. Give them permission to give you truthful criticism”

- Peter Cooper’s Notes on ‘Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite’ by Paul Arden [via JJ over IM]

"You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you’re forced to find out what part did not..."

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:00:45 -0400

“You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you’re forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.”

- Fred Brooks, Master Planner: Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything

"[Intolerance and xenophobia is] a short-term strategy that eats itself, because sooner or later,..."

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:00:43 -0400

“[Intolerance and xenophobia is] a short-term strategy that eats itself, because sooner or later, everyone is a stranger, and fear is no foundation for work that matters.”

- Seth Godin, Intolerance and xenophobia as a (short-term) marketing strategy

"With density comes prosperity, and prosperity should yield political power. Yet consistently we in..."

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:28:47 -0400

“With density comes prosperity, and prosperity should yield political power. Yet consistently we in New York City give billions of tax dollars to Albany and to Washington that never return, billions we could use to fund our much-needed infrastructure.”

- Vishaan Chakrabarti, This Land is Our Land [via Dennis Crowley]