Loud Typers

Personal

I’m in Robert Scoble’s session and there was a minor episode between Bob Wyman and Dave Winer and a few people left, but I think things have calmed down a bit. What’s really striking me right now is how loud it is even though no one is talking. The clatter of everyone typing makes it sound like it’s drizzling outside. Lawrence Lessig is a very loud typist.

The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost. Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us. It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in water. Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scatted light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be disolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance. This light that does not touch us, does not travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue.

From A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit.

Addicted to Distraction

Ideas, New York, Personal

Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet. It has arguably replaced work itself as our most socially sanctioned addiction. […]

Denial is any addict’s first defense. No obstacle to recovery is greater than the infinite capacity to rationalize our compulsive behaviors.

Oldie but goodie from the New York Times, Addicted to Distraction.

Christmas Music: Leslie Odom Jr.

I love Christmas music, and most years I like to recommend a Christmas music album that is a bit more jazz or has something interesting about it. This year I want to point you to Leslie Odom Jr., aka Aaron Burr in the hit musical Hamilton, who is a gifted vocalist. Hat tip: Rose Kuo. Check out “My Favorite Things.” Embedded on Spotify below, also on iTunes and Amazon.

The problem lies with the business schools which are at fault. What we’ve done in America is to define profitability in terms of percentages. So if you can get the percentage up, it feels like we are more profitable. It causes us to do things to manipulate the percentage. […] Christensen even suggests that in slavishly following such thinking, Wall Street analysts have outsourced their brains.

Clayton Christensen: How Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy in Forbes. Hat tip: Lane Becker.