Month: October 2011

Know what to give a sh*t about

★ Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot:

One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention.

[And is one of the most critical skills any of us can develop. Not just the ability to prioritize, or the often mistaken-as-a-skill being able to blow stuff off. But the true, “focusing on the important things”. Thoughtfully deciding that something is worth the limited amount of time and attention and focus we have, and choosing that this, right now, is the thing. Because not doing that is a waste of what limited time we have. Even the longest life is short measured in time. Lisa wondered how long after Steve’s passing I would say something to her about the fact that he was only 9 years older than I am now. I did tonight. If today was my last day was it well spent? And not in the overly dramatic way that sounds at first read. I often must be careful with my capability to be maniacally intense, and I work on the balance needed to focus that kind of energy. I’ve often been asked “be more like this person or that person”. I don’t always fit comfortably into other people’s worlds. In my personal life that’s not a problem, but it is something that affects my work life. It’s time to ensure that I don’t live in that situation for any length of time any more. It’s draining and uncomfortable, and it wastes what precious time I have. Today I got a chance to have some heartfelt conversations, crack a bottle of wine with some friends, and care for Noah. Now, I’m going to snuggle with my wife, and put this day in the “attaboy” column. With Yom Kippur arriving tomorrow eve, may everyone be signed and sealed for a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. May anyone mourning the passing of loved one this past year find comfort and grace and joy in the new one.]
Source: Daring Fireball

Black Turtleneck Cocktail

Black Turtleneck Cocktail:

  • 1 oz. sweet vermouth (Dolin)
  • 1 oz. Applejack
  • 1 oz. rye whiskey (Rittenhouse Bonded)
  • ½ tsp. amber or dark organic agave nectar
  • 1 dash Fee’s Old Fashioned Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a Luxardo maraschino cherry or an organic cocktail cherry. Turn to face Cupertino and raise your glass.

(Yes, it’s a variant on a Manhattan. Yes, I’m having one right now. Yes, this is sincere. We mourn in our own ways.)

[Heh.]
Source: Coyote Tracks

The journey was the reward

The journey was the reward:

I was in the midst of late edits on The Intention Economy this afternoon, wondering if I should refer to Steve Jobs in the past tense. I didn’t want to, but I knew he’d be gone by the time the book comes out next April, if he wasn’t gone already. So I decided to make the changes, and stopped cold before the first one. I just couldn’t go there.

Then the bad news came a few minutes ago, through an AP notification on my iPhone. Tonight we all have to go there.

[(I found out the same way…)]

Turns out Steve’s muse was the best in the history of business. No one-hit wonders. We’re talking about world-changing stuff. Again and again and again.

[Sigh. Go read the rest of Doc’s piece and his email from so long ago. Amazing.]
Source: Doc Searls Weblog

Unprecedented Arctic ozone hole in 2011

Unprecedented Arctic ozone hole in 2011; a Florida tropical storm next week?: An unprecedented ozone hole opened in the Arctic during 2011, researchers reported this week in the journal Nature. Holes in the Antarctic ozone layer have opened up each spring since the early 1980s, but the Arctic had only shown modest springtime ozone losses in the 5% – 30% range over the past twenty years. But this year, massive ozone destruction of 80% occurred at altitudes of 18 – 20 kilometers in the Arctic during spring, resulting in Earth’s first known case of twin ozone holes, one over each pole. During late March and portions of April, the Arctic ozone hole was positioned over heavily populated areas of Western Europe, allowing large levels of damaging ultraviolet rays to reach the surface. UV-B radiation causes skin damage that can lead to cancer, and has been observed to reduce crop yields in two-thirds of 300 important plant varieties studied (WMO, 2002.) The total loss of ozone in a column from the surface to the top of the atmosphere reached 40% during the peak of this year’s Arctic ozone hole. Since each 1% drop in ozone levels results in about 1% more UV-B reaching Earth’s surface (WMO, 2002), UV-B levels reaching the surface likely increased by 40% at the height of this year’s hole. We know that an 11% increase in UV-B light can cause a 24% decrease in winter wheat yield (Zheng et al., 2003), so this year’s Arctic ozone hole may have caused noticeable reductions in Europe’s winter wheat crop.

[What a mess…]
Source: Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog

Occupy Silicon Valley?

Occupy Silicon Valley?: Instead of bundling parcels of mortgages and turning them into derivatives, they bundle up parcels of people and turn them into masses of users, who generate content. Then they sell access to those users for a price, to other businesses. The problem is that as growth levels off, and it’s sure to do that (how many more groups of 800 million can Facebook find, and where will they have to go to find them, and who will they have to sell out to to get there) — they’re going to have to take more from those users. Zuck calls it “sharing.” The rest of us call it “privacy.” [I find it interesting that the vast majority of friends and family have barely any network/social presence at all.]
Source: Scripting News

A new iPhone prediction

A new iPhone prediction:

Out of all the pundits who will explain over the next 24 hours why the iPhone 4S is a huge disappointment, less than 1 in 20 will even attempt a coherent defense of that position.

“All right, the camera meets or exceeds anything else on the market in a phone, as does the CPU. Yes, iMessage beats BBM, and has nothing directly comparable on any other platform. Sure, it’s actually a ‘world’ phone now, and it has HSDPA data speeds. Yeah, iOS 5 addresses complaints with notifications and a lot more. Okay, iCloud isn’t quite like any other syncing solution and it could be a really big deal, and the cloud-based iTunes is—no matter what you may think of iTunes—a killer media manager. And sure, we’ll have to see how Siri works in practice, but up until now voice control has meant sitting in your car repeating ‘Dial Martha’ over and over in slow, mounting frustration—if Siri does what it’s supposed to, it’s operating on a level we haven’t seen before outside of sci-fi movies.

“So all in all, we have to conclude this was quite a disappointment.”

[Heh. I agree. Siri could be, ahem, well siriously amazing. I’ve lived a number of “voice activation” features in my car and phones, and I’ve found them utterly useless. I haven’t participated in the betas for iOS5 for lack of time, but I’m excited to give this a go. It could be great. Even insanely so.]
Source: Coyote Tracks

Can Larry reboot Google?

Can Larry reboot Google?: Bill Gates got to this point with Microsoft, tried to re-whip the intelligence of his early days, failed, and went on to be a philanthropist.

Steve Jobs was fired before Apple could get to this point. He spent years in the wilderness, came back and somehow got Apple to turn the corner. Probably because he had no reason not to fire the losers who accumulate in BigCo’s. There was a huge purge at Apple in 1997 and 1998.

Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg are there now. Neither of them has made it over the hump. Will they be Steve or will they be Bill? Or something else. [Something else… if anything.]
Source: Scripting News

Google’s reaction to Kindle Fire

Google’s reaction to Kindle Fire:

You’re not the licensee Droid is looking for. Google’s reaction to Kindle Fire speaks volumes about its goals for Android. Kindle Fire is based on Android, and will run Android applications. Android has been struggling in the tablet space, so you’d expect that Google would be delighted to have Amazon on the Android bandwagon. But you’d be wrong. Let’s look at the press release Google issued today to welcome Amazon to the Android family. Wait a minute, there is no press release. Okay, so let’s look on the Google blog. Nothing at all. Maybe a tweet from Andy Rubin? Dead silence.

&

Slouching toward Bethlehem. One revolution I’m sure is coming is the remaking of the print publishing industry. As I’ve said before (link), once about 20% of the reading public has electronic devices, an established author can make more money bypassing print and selling direct through e-readers. I think the new Kindle line, and especially the entry-level Kindles at $99 and below, will finally push us past the 20% threshold. It will take a couple of years to play out, but this will force the long-awaited restructuring, or destruction, of the traditional book publishing industry.

[Book publishing is not entirely about the medium, although everyone likes to talk as if it is. It’s really about author services.]