Interview: man who owns only 15 things
Well known start-up founder and conference organizer Andrew Hyde (@andrewhyde) recently decided to sell most of his worldly possessions.…
Category: Culture
Is the web making us stupid?
The University of Washington launched a new TV show, Mediaspace, and the producers asked me to do a 2…
The fallacy of “They Don’t Get It”
A phrase often uttered in frustration is “They don’t get it.” When spoken among colleagues, a chorus of heads will…
Ira Glass live: review
I saw Ira Glass, of This American Life (TAL) fame, speak recently in Seattle at Benaroya Hall. Years ago…
Moments: a video you will enjoy
There is a cliche among short videos of trying to make you feel something amazing or wonderous, and I…
Ground Zero and the Mosque
I grew up in Queens, NYC, and I know Manhattan pretty well. I’ve also been to the WTC area…
Is Cool a low bar?
Many years ago, cool was rare. It was hard to find interesting things. You had to read lots of…
Can you be a great man (or woman)?
I was talking with friends last night over wine and the notion of being a great man came up.…
Why You Are Not an Artist
Picasso. Van Gogh. Beethoven. Hendrix. O’Keefe. Kurosawa. Kahlo. Kafka. Magritte. Bukowski. These are people most agree are worthy of…
The deception of “Studies say”
In my recent talk on Calling BS on Social Media Gurus, I pointed out how studies are frequently misrepresented…
Finger on nose: making fast group decisions
Often it doesn’t matter what you decide, as long as you decide quickly and do something. Would you stand…
How Private are Facebook Executives?
Thanks to the New York Times, I got a chance to ask Elliot Schrage, VP of Public Policy at…
Obama vs the iPad (information overload)
At a recent speech at Hampton University, President Obama had this to say about our web 2.0 information age:…
Do sci-fi movies impact the future?
Today I was reading yet another article about how a movie, in this case Iron Man 2, shows a…
Mistakes Critics Make (and Solutions)
Many critics do not write useful reviews. I’m confident even critics will agree since after all they’re critics: this…
The Challenge of Indifference
Here’s one from the life observation pile. In high school I had the good fortune to have very silly…
The Cult of Busy
When I was young I thought busy people were more important than everyone else. Otherwise, why would they be…
Funniest man on TV: Craig Ferguson
I don’t watch much TV, but one of my favorite things to watch is Craig Ferguson’s Late Late show…
CrowdSourcing Star Wars: A new hope
This is uber-clever – Star Wars Uncut. They divided up the original star wars movie into 15 second chunks,…
A rant about women
Clay Shirky has a rant up about women and the gender based expectations of behavior. The general theme is…