It has been a busy week: I celebrated my birthday, went to a Mos Def concert, made some new friends, started getting over a new crush, had some old friends visit, and spent too much money shopping on M Street. I think it’s time to have a relaxing few days catching up on some reading.
Some really great articles in this week’s edition of the Weekender, but if you read only one, check out the second link — Paul Graham’s What You’ll Wish You’d Known — because it is one of the most important pieces of writing I’ve read since Merlin Mann’s Better.
Good Design in Ten Commandments
A product is bought in order to be used. It must serve a defined purpose – in both primary and additional functions. The most important task of design is to optimise the utility of a product.
If I were back in high school and someone asked about my plans, I’d say that my first priority was to learn what the options were. You don’t need to be in a rush to choose your life’s work. What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do.
How The Internet Is Wrecking Society
Human beings crave social contact and connection. We want to talk to people face to face, or at least hear their voice. Not just for the joy of it, but because we look for vocal and facial queues about how the person we are talking to feels.
Is Genius Born Or Can It Be Learned
For most of its history, the debate over what leads to genius has been dominated by a bitter, binary argument: is it nature or is it nurture — is genius genetically inherited, or are geniuses the products of stimulating and supportive homes?
Getting to know one another is tricky. There are a number of hurdles, various stages of awkwardness, and a bunch of baggage brought to the community table. Even friendships can be difficult, but if you’re lucky, you make it through to the other side and soon you’re splitting popcorn.
How to Present While People are Twittering
Now, audience members don’t have to wait to clarify things they don’t understand. They can tweet their question and another audience member will tweet back with the answer. Audience members who tuned out because they didn’t understand now stay engaged.
Cooking is a human universal. No society is without it. No one other than a few faddists tries to survive on raw food alone. And the consumption of a cooked meal in the evening, usually in the company of family and friends, is normal in every known society. Moreover, without cooking, the human brain could not keep running.
Kissing is just the tip of the iceberg of understanding all of the biological mechanisms that are involved for mate choice.
Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you.
I still find disfigurement hard, and I feel the loss of my right, normal body every day. I sometimes catch a glance in the mirror after a shower and think sadly, “Really?”
That’s it for this weekend. If you want to keep on top of what else I’m reading or enjoying on the web during the week, check out my tumblelog Squandrous, my Google Reader shared items, or my Times People profile.
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