Scott Berkun

Thursday Linkfest

I’ve tried to do this on Wednesdays, but some weeks before I know it, Wednesday is long gone and Thursday is half over. So as a testament to slipping schedules everywhere, I give you, Thursday Linkfest:

• YouTube – How to Dial a Rotary Telephone – This is amusing, but it’s easy to forget in 20 years all the cool stuff we’re so proud of today will seem just as silly to the young then as this does to the young now.
• YouTube – Watson Describes Invention of Telephone by Bell – Nothing quite as good as a first person account of an invention.
• Four ways to fix a broken legal system | Video on TED.com -
  I think this is one of the first TED videos I’ve ever linked to. Self-explanatory. Problem is, like the senate, the people with the power to make change are the least motivated.
• Where a Cellphone Is Still Cutting Edge – NYTimes.com – Innovation is relative and a simple idea can have profoundly different, and larger, effects in unexpected places.
• How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? | Information Is Beautiful – Nice infographics. Not sure about the quality of the data, but it’s probably a good ballpark. I’d love to see a similiar thing for writers.
• Sun`s path June to December – Pure low tech coolness. 6 months of time lapse showing the suns movement over their home.
• Typography Is Important – Well-Made Magazine – Techmic Studios – One of the better typography primers I’ve ever seen

Wednesday linkfest

Here are this week’s good links:

• Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking – I mention these core ideas in Confessions, but the six minutes blog does a nice job digging in deeper.
• This American Infographic – Do you like This American Life? And you love graphics? this is for you. And if you like cocktails, you’ll love this.
• How America Can Rise Again – The Atlantic (January/February 2010) – One of the best essays I’ve read in weeks. Asks all the tough questions about the future of the U.S. and doesn’t pull its punches.
• YouTube – Everythings amazing nobodys happy - Innovators out there can learn from this comedian. When your idea is successful, it means it will be forgotten.
• Interview With Steve Jobs from 1994 – In many ways this is more interesting than anything he has to say now, as a the time his company, NeXT, was falling apart.
• NYC Subway maps through history -
  

Wednesday linkfest

Here are these week’s links:

• Designing for panic -  (hat tip d&i daily)
• The science of expectations -
• How to use an apostrophe -
• How to train the aging brain -
• Stat’s for fiction rejections -  An agent tallies up her reasons for rejecting manuscripts.

Wednesday linkfest

Here are this week’s links:

• Terrorism on airlines is overstated - In a simple argument of reality vs. perception, terrorism on airplanes, even if there was an event every month, are so small in the spectrum of fatalities as not to warrant the dramatic attention and worry people seem to have.
  

Wednesday linfest

Here are this week’s links:

• Reverse ignite – In a variation of powerpoint karaoke, where people are forced to present with someone else’s slides, Reverse ignite does it with ignite format presentations.
• Bike friendlyiest city in the world – Copenhagen – Well done little video about how they redesigned Copenhagen with bikes taking priority. Amazing to watch. I was there this year and it’s amazing to walk on streets with more bikes than cars.
• New Interview with David Simon, of the Wire – Won’t make much sense unless you saw the series, which, if you like yourself and your brain, you really really should go watch.
• Subway architecture – Man, someday I will finish writing that book about the London Underground. Meanwhile, here are some amazing photos of underground subway stations around the world.
• Diagram of old world buildings (hat tip Ario)
• Donald Barthleme’s syllabus – Famed author of the classic short novel The Dead father, made a reading list for a writing class that was dug up recently. Some I’ve read, some I’ve heard of, many I’ve never seen before.

Wednesday linkfest

Here are this week’s links:

• College student brings typewriter to lecture hall – Seems legit and not staged – the professor eventually asks him to stop.
• A better rating system – 5 point scales are the standard on yelp, amazon and elsewhere. Interesting to think if there’s a better way to do this.
  

Thursday linkfest

Here are this week’s excellent links and the only stuff I managed to read this week while on the road:

• On press reporting: MSFT and black screen of death -  Anyone who has an article written about them, or their work, and discovers the gap between what they are and how they are portrayed, never reads the news the same way again. Here’s an interesting tale of reporting gone wrong.
• InnovationParkour - Great presentation (slides only) comparing innovation with the street sport of Parkour. Wish the actual presentation was somewhere.
• Top 10 Conferences – My favorite events are ones that hit cross discipline. That’s where the big leaps and connections come from. Here’s a solid list of ten conferences that will give you want more bang for your training/event dollar. (I’ve written about GEL before)
• How a web design goes to hell - Very funny for any creative who works with clients. (But does beg the question, perhaps you should pick better clients to have).
• McNeil/Leher rules for news - Didn’t get all the way through this, but made me wonder what other shows would say their rules are, and how wide the gap is between their ‘rules’ and their actual practices.

Thursday linkfest

Here’s a slightly late Wednesday linkfest, now extra fresh for Thursday:

• Youtube UI research – It’s always interesting to see how any major brand makes product decisions, or even how they do the research to help making them.
• 101 things I learned in Interaction design school – Love the style of this, and the book the style is inspired by (101 things I learned at architecture school).
• Glass is half empty – While preparing for last night’s Ignite talk on Everything you need to know about philosophy in 5 minutes, stumbled on this. As well as this. Some creative thinking around a mostly annoying question.
• Speakers frame of reference (PDF) – Haven’t read this one yet, but it’s about how framing a sentence or idea changes the meaning for the listener.
• Jargon of politics – Reading this reminded me of the must read, Orwell on the politics of the English language.
• Science in shackles – Commerce and creativity have always been both symbiotic and competitive, but things do seem scarier now.
• World’s coolest bookstores – Interesting how many of them are in cathedrals :)
• Computers don’t save money – Interesting, but these reports have flawed logic. The execution of the idea may be poor, but in better hands, might have better results. Give an idiot any tool and the results will not be good.

As a side note, sorry there’s been so much stuff on the blog about public speaking this and that. Need to pay the bills (e.g. book sales) and just trying to help the new book into the world. Diversity will return.

Wednesday linkfest

Here are this week’s links:

• Behind the scenes at Pixar – it’s not all fun and games.  Intensity works both ways.
• What to do when they mix up your talk - Great story of things going wrong at a tech conference – they posted the wrong title and description, so to the audience, he was giving the wrong talk. Talk about tough.
• Slow news movement? – From the article it seems Gilmour hasn’t read Amusing ourselves to death, which argued for a kind of slow news, or at least news as divorced from entertainment centric advertising fodder pretending to be news.  Sadly it’s good thoughtful blog posts like this one that won’t be on the top or digg or twitter trends any time soon.
• Innovation on the highways – The French Intersection – It’s hard to sort out the original announcements, but this blog post explains how The Diverging diamond design improves safety and reduces traffic. If it works, it’s pretty darn clever.

Thursday linkfest

Here are this week’s links:

• The rise and fall of Rome, in numbers - Interesting to see a graph of the population of the roman empire over time.
• How to shoot an anvil – Pure stupid guy fun – what happens if you pack two anvils together with gunpowder? Answer – watch. Promise it will make you smile.
• Top songs about writing – It’s a great idea for a list, but half these choices were totally lame. Perhaps they limited themselves to stuff they could find on YouTube.  What would yours be?
• Better presentations thru sex – This is irresistible public speaking fodder. Changes the idea of what should happen in green rooms. (Sadly, they don’t link to the study they mention).
• Miquel Barcelo – At first I thought this artist’s work reminded me of poor general contracting, but the more you look at it, the more it seems like an acid trip take on a cave.
• The benefits of cursing – In the ‘brain science gone to far’ pile, some researchers are studying why we instinctively curse.  Isn’t the fact that it feels good and the words are fun to say explanation enough? Interesting, but silly methinks.
• U2 re-releases Unforgetable fire – Listening to this album is always a treat, as the bands sound isn’t changed yet by mega-stardom. The link has an interview with the producers of the re-release.