Freeform

After the 100th iteration of locking my bicycle on a public street before going to see “Drag Me To Hell,” I wondered if it was possible to have a world where I would not need my 10-pound chain. What would the conditions be? How would one erase the reasons or motivation for stealing something? What … Read more

Summary: In a Washington Post video (embedded at the bottom of this post), Google CEO Eric Schmidt says establishing and maintaining a certain culture and certain values at the company helps create success as a by-product as well as employees who do not need (as much of or a certain type of) managing [via SteveOuting.com]. … Read more

Summary: In an experiment suggesting a connection between success with the ability to delay gratification, children who refrained from eating a marshmallow to obtain another marshmallow were shown to be “successful” later in life. More details of the experiment: Children were left alone in a room with a marshmallow. If they did not eat the … Read more

Summary: If you view your life as a complex corporation and are in need of management advice, then Harvard Business Review’s article about the unique role of the CEO (“What Only the CEO Can Do”) gives some great ideas on connecting that little voice in your head with the outside world. I cannot resist Harvard … Read more

What: A transcript of a speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. It’s a firework of wisdom unselfishly dispensing soothing insight on how to remain curious, alert, compassionate, gentle and caring human beings even as daily experiences attempt to persuade us to be otherwise. Recommendation: Absolutely read this. … Read more

China fights a skirmish in an ongoing culture war between preserving the past and embracing the future [NYT] Global concerns about control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are justified as well-organized guerrilla fighters demonstrate the difficulty if not impossibility of defeating them without massive alteration of underlying cultural conditions [Al Jazeera, NYT, BBC video, WSJ slide … Read more

With a steady flow of information highlighting the news industry’s woes, I couldn’t help but begin to wonder about the Internet’s transformation of the larger economic and cultural structures in which businesses, people and, oh, everything else, operate. In the most dramatically general sense, the human race is shifting from reality to virtual reality. This … Read more

Isn’t that just another way to say, “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey”? Or, “The means are the end”? Sure. But like any idea experienced firsthand, it feels new when it becomes real in your life. This one hit me while discussing photography with a practitioner of the trade from Hong Kong who was … Read more

What: A mission to Afghanistan by a team of doctors and a photographer is captured beautifully, tangibly and memorably with a mixture of first-person journaling, documentary photographs, delicate layout and gentle drawings. Recommendation: Buy it and join a humanitarian adventure inside a little understood country. Thirty dollars, what I paid at Forbidden Planet in New … Read more

Eminem’s latest release, “Relapse,” provides the usual lyrical tongue-twisting from the dexterously poetic rapper, but fails to surprise or inspire. Yes, it is an enjoyable, tightly wrought album offering a thuggish perspective on drug addiction and the escape from it, but it fails to move Eminem forward (or backward) as an artist. However, I don’t … Read more