Best Site I’ve Found All Week: http://peoplewhodeserveit.com/

That is all.

I’m always fascinated by the process designers go through (it’s why I’m pumped to be here everyday!).  Check it out.  I’m really glad they meandered away from integrating the “8″ into the graphic…

Also, interviews with Sol Sender, who led the design team, below.

Part 1

Part 2

This is enough for me to make the switch to AT&T for an iPhone.  I’ve been holding out waiting for the next generation (with hopefully more RAM!) but I don’t think I can do it any longer.  Between this and Google Earth for iPhone there is too much fun going on for me not to be playing along.  I know both apps may be buggy but I don’t care - when you can pilot the globe and sample/underscore your immediate surroundings in the palm of your hand I want in.

From the official site:

RjDj is a music application for the iPhone. It uses sensory input to generate and control the music you are listening to.

RjDj is mainly listened to with headphones. Think of it as the next generation of walkman or mp3 player. The listening experience of RjDj is similar to the effects of drugs. Drugs affect our sensory perception, so does RjDj. RjDj is a digital drug which causes mind twisting hearing sensation.

Frankly, it is badass.  I need it.  Neeeeeeeeeed it.

(via kottke)

Quite possibly the most beautiful game trailer I’ve seen in a while.  It’s a maze game set in an entirely white (or black) world that you discover and navigate with a paintball gun that shoots black (or white) paint.  The official site is here but down at the moment.

http://www.vimeo.com/1807754

These are not quotes.  These are my memories of statements heard in my surroundings this week.  Take them for what they’re worth.

By the time it’s a story you can tell it’s not true.  If you’ve ‘learned’ it (aka, it’s in your past) it’s not a story worth telling.  It’s those times when you’re in the thick of it, confused, when the storytelling is a working-through of a situation…it’s then that you should tell your story.  - Charlie Kaufman at Q&A after screening of his new film Synecdoche, New York

Charlie talked about the maintenance of life a lot.  You know, and when you’re young, you disregard these things.  I mean, I certainly did, in my 20s.  Your apartment is a hamster den.  Then you get older and the maintenance - cleaning, organizing - takes on an importance and you enjoy doing it.  Then you become aware of it - aware that you’re doing it.  And you start to think - do I have to do that?  It’s work - it takes effort.  And then you find yourself thinking…do I have to go to the bathroom?… - Philip Seymour Hoffman at Q&A after screening of Synecdoche, New York

You’re walking around with all these dead women… - G

How do you lose weight?  You eat less and exercise more.  That’s it. Eat less and exercise more.  That’s the simple truth to losing weight.  And yet, we have a $20B industry that exists around weight loss in this country. - David Maister, keynote speaker at PSA software conference (This led into an amazing discussion about strategy in professional services firms and motivating people as a manager)

A black eyed dog he called for more. - Nick Drake

Somebody went and did something amazing.

People make music videos.  Said videos may or may not have shite to do with the actually lyrics of the song.  What if the lyrics of the song were literally what was on screen?  I present a phenom - the literal A Ha Take On Me music video…with lyrics adjusted and re-recorded to fit the video.

Band Montage!

(via andre torrez)

This is from an excellent, too-short article (via kottke) about how Flickr polices itself under the direction of Heather Champ:

“Back in the conference room, the morning meeting winds down, and attention drifts to the window of an adjoining office. On the other side, another Flickr employee smiles politely through the glass. Then he turns his back to us and lowers his pants to his ankles. It’s a full and excellent moon, and our room delivers a restrained golf clap.

At some level I feel we’re applauding the perfect conundrum embodied by the co-worker’s butt: What we all find funny might be thoroughly offensive in another corner of the globe. How do the nation-builders of the online universe maintain harmony when the potential for disagreement exists in even the tiniest gesture? Anyway I reach for my camera, but the fellow’s pants are already back up.”

The article goes on to speak about “the penis quandary”, restricting hate speech and a quick discussion about the disintegration (or transmutation) of the social contract between human beings once they step away from the face-to-face world and dive into the digital realm.  For my money the line that really stood out was this from Heather:

“We don’t need to be the photo-sharing site for all people. We don’t need to take all comers. It’s important to me that Flickr was built on certain principles.”

That rings to me more of art than government or business.

If it works (and, right now, it’s scaling well enough to accomodate 30 million members and 2.8 billion images and videos) what can we learn from this and apply to how we approach flesh-and-blood nation-building? Something about all this loosely connects in my mind with an Op-Ed I read yesterday in the New York Times surrounding the need for us to change the way we approach our understanding of economics in light of computer modeling techniques (which, apparently, is being wholeheartedly avoided by our leading economists for some bizarre reason):

“If we’re really going to avoid crises, we’re going to need something more imaginative, starting with a more open-minded attitude to how science can help us understand how markets really work. Done properly, computer simulation represents a kind of ‘telescope for the mind,’ multiplying human powers of analysis and insight just as a telescope does our powers of vision. With simulations, we can discover relationships that the unaided human mind, or even the human mind aided with the best mathematical analysis, would never grasp.”

I don’t know where we’re headed but I love that people are actively looking around for “something more imaginative.”

Thoughts?

I’ve never been punched in the face.  Truth.

The closest I’ve gotten is a friend who looks at me with a dead-serious stare and says, on days when I’m feelin my worst, “Want me to punch you in the face?”  She’s never done it but I know she would.

I know - I’ve got great friends.  This video is dedicated to her and the right hook I know is on its way.