Facts Backfire

Personal, Quote

“In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information.”

— Joe Keohane in How facts backfire. Hat tip: Ramit Sethi’s psychology bookmarks.

Double Standards

Tech

A lot of the same people who rant and rave every time Internet Explorer has another security snafu are being strangely silent about Firefox’s recent flaws. I wonder how many of the web technorati are willing to give Firefox a pass every now and then because of its superior standards support? The Firefox team is also to be commended for their rapid response to the issue on the only site that’s vulnerable by default.

Books in 2017

Books

Here’s what I ended up reading this year, in roughly chronological finishing order. (I usually have 3-4 books going on at once.)

  1. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss.
  2. The Art of Stillness by Pico Ayer.
  3. Out of Your Mind by Alan Watts (audiobook, really a series of lectures).
  4. Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Mushashi (audiobook).
  5. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.
  6. The Best American Short Stories 2016 edited by Junot Diaz.
  7. Feynman by Jim Ottaviani.
  8. My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik.
  9. From Plato to Post-modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author by Louis Markos (another lecture series).
  10. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy.
  11. The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam.
  12. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
  13. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles.
  14. When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain: History’s Unknown Chapters by Giles Milton.
  15. Widow Basquiat: A Love Story by Jennifer Clement.
  16. 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line by Eric Ripert.
  17. Identify: Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks by Chermayeff & Geismar.
  18. Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch (audiobook).
  19. The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World by Brad Stone.
  20. The Leavers by Lisa Ko.
  21. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. (Update: On Obama’s 2019 book list.)
  22. Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman.
  23. The Executive’s Compass by James O’Toole.
  24. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
  25. Dance of the Possible by Scott Berkun.
  26. The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (short story).
  27. Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss.
  28. After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley by Rob Reid.
  29. Principles by Ray Dalio.
  30. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (audiobook).
  31. The Undiscovered Self: With Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams by C.G. Jung.

A fairly random selection, and hopefully I can get a few more in next year.

All book years: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020–2023.

Brands Everywhere

Audrey, Essays, WordPress, , ,

louis-vuitton-monogram-canvas-dog-bag-40-brown-women-softsided-luggage While brushing my teeth this morning, which is usually when my mind wanders, I noticed that just on the counter everything I was looking at had a brand or logo of some sort on it. It’s usually invisible to me but once I noticed it became garish as Times Square.

I counted 11 brands on the counter at that exact moment: Dr. Hauschka, Orabrush, Common Good (soap), Kohler (sink), Bongio (faucet), Philips (toothbrush), Rembrandt, Royal Velvet (toothpaste), Sonos, Neorest (toilet), and Tom’s of Maine (mouthwash). My iPhone was on the counter but the Apple was covered in a WordPress iPhone case, I guess a 12th brand, but the only one I chose to be there.

None of these labels are easy to remove either — the Common Good, a liquid soap dispenser, looked like it was going to be easy but as it started to peel off lots of sticky residue was left behind. I’ll try soaking it later. For most of the others, including the sink and faucet, the brand was embedded in a way that would be impossible to remove without switching the contents to a different container (toothpaste, mouthwash, or moisturizer) or sanding something off (toothbrush, Sonos…).

Earlier this year I attended Burning Man for the first time, and one of the things you notice after a day there is the complete absence of brands — it’s considered gauche to have visible branding there, some people even cover up small logos (Patagonia, the Polo horse) on their clothes. As much as the rest of the experience was bizarre, living a few days in the absence of brands and advertising makes it as alien as anything else.

I don’t think you can call it a trend, but it is interesting that brands like Muji or high-end fashion like Bottega Veneta distinguish themselves as much by the absence of branding as their product quality, the visual antithesis of Louis Vuitton luggage. It’s like the first level of affluence is about broadcast, and then the ultimate level is about (apparent) minimalism.

But for regular, everyday goods, how can we get all of the advertising off them? I don’t need my sink telling me who made it. If there’s a brand around me, I want it to be one I choose. I think this is one reason people appreciate the ability to 100% customize WordPress, and counter-intuitively why most choose to leave the “Powered by” somewhere on the site, because they have the choice.

Take a look around you, how many visible brands or logos can you count?

Update: Om writes on An Unbranded Life.

T-Shirt Plea

Humor

Open letter to free schwag people: Not all geeks are XXL! There is a reason the small and medium shirts are the first to go. Please keep the smaller geeks in mind when purchasing your merch. Conference organizers: make t-shirt size part of the registration so you can give your vendors a heads-up to the size makeup of the conference. (Other than that, Gnomedex is going great.)

Firefox Followup: Parakey

Scaling, Tech

Details have finally emerged about Blake Ross’ secret new project, Parakey. It gets to the meat on the third page.

“Although it looks like a Web site–down to the Firefox-style tabs that run across the top of the page, which each family member uses to display his or her own section–it is, in fact, something much more ambitious: a universal interface. Even though Parakey works inside your Web browser, it runs locally on your home computer, which allows Parakey developers to do things inside your Parakey site that a traditional Web site could not do, such as interact with your camera.”

It uses a new language called JUL. I haven’t found anything about Parakey online, besides Parakey.com registered about a month ago. Most disappointing quote from the article?

“If it were up to us, we’d open source all of it,” he says, “but it depends on how the investors want to do this.”

I’m guessing this might be a misquote. Investors are for money, advice, and connections, not product leadership. There are good examples now of scalable businesses being built on top of open source — don’t let anyone take you down a path you can’t believe in 100%. Think long term. I don’t know who Parakey’s investors are, but I’m sure Blake hooked up with (or could demand) folks smart enough to understand this.

Update: Blake says in the comments, “That is, indeed, a misquote. Parakey will be open source, as I repeatedly told the magazine while the article was being edited.”