Kevin Twohy

MIT Creates Amazing UI From Levitating Orbs

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:06:42 -0700

MIT Creates Amazing UI From Levitating Orbs

"When talking about Zuckerbergs most valuable personality trait, a colleague jokingly invokes the..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:26:27 -0700

“When talking about Zuckerbergs most valuable personality trait, a colleague jokingly invokes the famous Stanford marshmallow tests, in which researchers found a correlation between a young childs ability to delay gratificationdevour one treat right away, or wait and be rewarded with twowith high achievement later in life. If Zuckerberg had been one of the Stanford scientists subjects, the colleague jokes, Facebook would never have been created: Hed still be sitting in a room somewhere, not eating marshmallows.”

- The Maturation of Mark Zuckerberg — New York Magazine

"The ! mark was not featured on standard manual typewriters before the 1970s. Instead, one typed..."

Wed, 02 May 2012 17:03:07 -0700

“The ! mark was not featured on standard manual typewriters before the 1970s. Instead, one typed a period, backspaced, and typed an apostrophe. In the 1950s, secretarial dictation and typesetting manuals referred to the mark as “bang,” most likely adapted from comic books where the ! appeared in dialogue balloons to represent a gun being fired,”

- Exclamation mark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"It happens quietly, but the projects that could be the most disruptive to the company begin in..."

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 02:13:03 -0700

“It happens quietly, but the projects that could be the most disruptive to the company begin in silence. Someone, somewhere has a bright idea and a handful of talented engineers are whisked off to a different building behind a locked door. Their status is “elsewhere” and their project is “need to know.” Having never sat with one of these projects, I can only infer how they work, but when you see the results, you know for certain - these guys and gals are hacking. Their projects are the definition of ambition, you’ve never heard their names, they are small and fast-moving, and they are outsiders in their own company. Sound familiar?”

- Rands In Repose: Hacking is Important

"The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away."

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 02:25:05 -0700

“The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”

- John Steinbeck (Letters of Note)

I love the internet.

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:11:16 -0700

timoni:

I’m writing this post because it’s my fifth Sanfraniversary—a nice round number by all counts—but I’m writing it about the internet because I’ve realized: it was never about San Francisco. I never moved out here for love of the trolleys or the fog. I moved out here because I love computers and networks and the way humans are able, in amazing ways, to abstract communication and contact to a level that typing buttons to input visuals on a screen makes us feel something.

Every day, I feel things because of the internet, and that’s amazing. Humans have been using abstracted communication for thousands of years, but it’s never been so instantaneous, never so capable of bringing folks of completely different backgrounds together in conversation. This is a huge step. Good job us.

I love that someday, this blog post might seem strange. My children might stumble across it, and they’ll ask me questions, and I’ll tell them how bad dialup was. They’ll ask me about MySpace and I’ll say “Oh, honeychild, you have no idea.” And they won’t, but I will, because I was there. Even better, I get to help design it, right now.

"Anything you do for any significant amount of time, no matter how dumb or trivial it seems at first,..."

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:53:52 -0700

“Anything you do for any significant amount of time, no matter how dumb or trivial it seems at first, becomes a part of your history. Witness all the people now scratching their heads wondering how they create an archive of their time spent on Twitter. I am not here to fetishize artifacts and memorabilia. Sometimes it’s fine to do a thing and let it drift out out to sea; to exist only in the re-telling. History has always been lossy but the fact that we have history at all I think demonstrates they we want and value concrete representations of the passage of time. Those representations change with the technologies at hand but the motivation doesn’t.”

- [this is aaronland] haystack triptychs

"Further complicating all of this are the feedback loops created when a group changes its behavior in..."

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:11:54 -0700

“Further complicating all of this are the feedback loops created when a group changes its behavior in response to changes in software. Because of these effects, designers of social software have more in common with economists or political scientists than they do with designers of single-user software, and operators of communal resources have more in common with politicians or landlords than with operators of ordinary web sites.”

- Shirky: Social Software and the Politics of Groups

Watching this makes me feel funny and good. (via @poisson)

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:26:38 -0800

Watching this makes me feel funny and good. (via @poisson)

dianakimball: This is Frank Chimero’s new site. I love it. He...

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:26:05 -0800

dianakimball:

This is Frank Chimero’s new site. I love it. He wrote a book that I can’t wait to read. The backdrop of my desktop holds words of his: we get together to get better.

This is the secret key to receiving Robin Sloan’s missives. His book is coming out in the fall. His letters are rife with mystery and mischief.

This is Austin Kleon’s new book. It’s wonderful. I deeply admire the way he shares his work far and wide in ways that feel honest and true.

These three fill me with hope. I think they know each other. I’m glad they do.

Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

"In all our stories, especially matters of controversy, we strive to consider the strongest arguments..."

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:12:31 -0800

“

In all our stories, especially matters of controversy, we strive to consider the strongest arguments we can find on all sides, seeking to deliver both nuance and clarity. Our goal is not to please those whom we report on or to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth. […]

At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth.

”

- From NPR’s recently updated Ethics Handbook. Bravo.

Missed.

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:02:34 -0800

donaldtetto:

tylr:

I’m pretty sure craigslist missed connections are the most poetic thing going on in modern culture.

“A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”

Citizen Kane 1941

Way Back Home is the incredible new riding clip from Danny...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:25:56 -0800

Way Back Home is the incredible new riding clip from Danny MacAskill, it follows him on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye.

"Spread and participate in culture. Remix, reuse, use, abuse. Make sure no one controls your mind...."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:05:27 -0800

“Spread and participate in culture. Remix, reuse, use, abuse. Make sure no one controls your mind. Create new systems and technology that circumvent the corruption. Start a religion. Start your own nation, or buy one. Buy a bus. Crush it to pieces.”

- Peter Sunde

"The recurring metaphor in The Inmates are Running the Asylum is that of the dancing bear—the..."

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:33:35 -0800

“The recurring metaphor in The Inmates are Running the Asylum is that of the dancing bear—the circus bear that shuffles clumsily for the amusement of the audience. Such bears, says author Alan Cooper, don’t dance well, as everyone at the circus can see. What amazes the crowd is that the bear dances at all. Cooper argues that technology (videocassette recorders, car alarms, most software applications for personal computers) consists largely of dancing bears—pieces that work, but not at all well. He goes on to say that this is more often than not the fault of poorly designed user interfaces, and he makes a good argument that way too many devices (perhaps as a result of the designers’ subconscious wish to bully the people who tormented them as children) ask too much of their users. Too many systems (like the famous unprogrammable VCR) make their users feel stupid when they can’t get the job done.”

Nervous Structure. Stunningly beautiful.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:06:13 -0800

Nervous Structure. Stunningly beautiful.

"Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:44:12 -0800

“Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.”

- The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

"The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1...."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:39:44 -0800

“The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The sec- ond is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.”

- John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:39:10 -0800

“On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

- Information wants to be free - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (via slantback)

"And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:30:31 -0800

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”

- ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden (via zenchronicles)