Yesterday I had the privilege of serving in the peanut gallery for a Seth Godin teleseminar on his latest book, Meatball Sundae. (BTW, please read this one. The advice on the top of page 185 is itself worth the price of the entire book.) During the call, Seth generously mentioned The Adventures of Johnny Bunko […]
Democracy is inspiring, the way we design it not so much. I discovered that again this afternoon when I voted in the D.C. Democratic presidential primary. For example, here’s the entrance of my polling place. Duct tape keeping up the main sign. The official placard resting on the ground. Nice. The whole aesthetic has a
Seth Godin is one of the smartest, most creative, and most inspiring minds in business today. He cranks out a new book every year. And on his blog, in his speaking engagements, and through his entrepreneurial ventures, he’s an endless fountain of ideas and innovations. If you’d like to spend an hour on the phone
“China’s disposable-chopstick factories turn out roughly 63 billion pairs each year.” (Source: WSJ, 2/8/08) *** Tantalizing hint: Disposable chopsticks are an important plot element in my new book. Permalink
From a review in Friday’s NY Times: “In December 1983 the Argentine Conceptual artist Marta Minujin and a group of helpers spent 17 days building a full-scale model of the Parthenon in a public park in Buenos Aires. Except for a metal scaffolding, it was made almost entirely of books wrapped in plastic. All the
In a Newsweek interview, University College London psychologist Adrian Furnham reveals the differences in intelligence between men and women. The key finding: Although men are overrepresented on both the very high and very low ends of the spectrum, in general there are no differences in intelligence between the sexes. The really key finding: Men think
Cory Doctorow — he of BoingBoing, Craphound, and several excellent scifi novels — has a terrific column in Forbes about the extraordinary remix culture of manga fans in Romania. His piece does a nice job of describing how fan fiction can keep a medium vital. And he delivers several delicious quotes about the role of
Well, thanks to the post below, lots of mini-sagas have been filling our inboxes here at the Pink Tank. (Remember, class: It’s exactly 50 words — not around 50 words.) My favorite so far comes from a reader who (perhaps understandably) didn’t want me to use his or her name. Trans-Portation When he first glanced
In AWNM, I wrote about mini-sagas — ultra-short stories that are exactly 50 words long. Readers often send me mini-sagas they’ve written. And one of the most prolific and compelling contributors has been Chris M., who runs a blog for people who belong to Narcotics Anonymous (though the site itself is not connected to the
Software guru Joel Spolsky says universities are cranking out too many computer science grads who’ve mastered abstract theory and routine coding — but nothing in between. And he’s proposed an intriguing remedy: “I think the solution would be to create a programming-intensive BFA in Software Development — a Julliard for programmers.” In other words, maybe
