Design is a human skill that, for now, even Google can’t automate. Why is that so?
It’s because design addresses both rational and irrational needs that we all have. The rational part is difficult, but doable; it’s the irrational, human part that is hard. The rational part can be engineered and prepared to perfection; the irrational part needs to be engineered with the same kind of precision, but must also be timely and relevant to how the consumer feels.
john maeda at KPCB

there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. and as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. it never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. ..
designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. and every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.
and it’s that process that is the magic.
jobs via porter.

this won't end well ..

One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it. And I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room. And I got the scar tissue to prove it.
jobs via df.

The internet isn’t an adjunct to real life; it’s not another place. You don’t do things "on the internet," you just do things. The network is interwoven into every moment of our lives, and we should treat it that way.
via the verge.

a little man, that I can teach.
a little sand, but not the beach.

de la soul releases their full back catalogue, for free download.

netflix's internal culture is a roadmap to success.
(wish they'd invested more effort in the design of that deck, however. granted 99.99% of their customer base will never see it, but it implies that design - and by extension user experience / user perception - is not a core value of the company)

push it as far as you can, and then look at it critically and take a few steps back.
well illustrated in (theoretical) practice, here.

into a world of quantum microscopes.

the titanic, 1978.

$42/user is not all that crazy. ($19B/450M)
this seems like a huge win for everyone struggling against the pressure to move quickly to revenue through ads, user tracking/selling analytics, etc.
build it clean, make it fast, make it cheap, let it scale, and sell it within 5 years.

the strategic pyramid.
via.

paul rand was a force. in my eyes: one of the few modernists who really lived what they spoke - who found a way to get to the truth of the issue. not only did he produce phenomenal work, but he spoke about his principles with conviction and insight. his words (and humour) are still as relevant today, even though our technologies and processes have fundamentally evolved - attesting to his connecting more with human behaviour and psychology than with any tropes of design. anyone working on crafting a 'culture of design', creating 'experiences' or 'connecting with your users' has much to learn here.

"I think right now Netflix does have a competitive advantage over HBO because of the analytics," Adgate said.
Networks like HBO still rely, on large part, on Nielsen data. But the information Netflix gets is much more textured, granular... and valuable.

Your body being made out of countless stars of the past.
Proof of an omniscient supreme being.
Making a coil that produces unlimited free energy.
A number grid that shows the underpinning geometry of the universe.
How everything is a torus.
(off the deep end)

sweetwater.

because journalism was created and sustained far more by market conditions than by public policy, news organizations always have the option of surviving by becoming purely commercial and dropping the high-minded parts of journalism, which grew and thrived only because they were subsidized by other material.
(via)

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