The Mind of an Independent

Wickedness. Guess I’ve got to dig into...

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:37:52 -0500

Wickedness. Guess I’ve got to dig into Kraftwerk.

yvynyl:

Kraftwerk - 1971 - live on Radio Bremen

hauntedwoods:
GEM!!!!!!!!

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7)

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:58:29 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7):

…

lolololori: Map Of The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:49:03 -0500

lolololori:

Map Of The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

FloatingSheep, a fun geography blog, looks at the beer belly of America. One maps shows total number of bars, but the interesting map is the one above. Red dots represent locations where there are more bars than grocery stores, based on results from the Google Maps API. The Midwest takes their drinking seriously.

REPRESENT!

Poetry slams by teachers. Odd and awesome. Enjoy.

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:25:41 -0500

Poetry slams by teachers. Odd and awesome. Enjoy.

msg: I wish there was an autoreblog feature for...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:11:38 -0500

msg:

I wish there was an autoreblog feature for anything jayparkinsonmd posts:

Making health simple:

Living in such a complicated world can seem so complex. But we’re creatures of habit. Ninety-three percent of our behavior is predictable.

And everyday the media reports on new research that suggests certain things are good or bad for you. It’s all quite confusing. We get so lost and so paralyzed by complicated details, we lose sight of making health simple. Don’t worry about whether or not coffee is good or bad for you. If the “science” of analyzing one substance and its effect on health hasn’t figured it out by now, the implications of that substance is mostly unknown for you as an individual. In fact, even the number one selling drug in America, Lipitor, designed to reduce your cholesterol has very little evidence to suggest it prolongs your life. In reality, our longevity is limited by our genes and our everyday behaviors.

All I ask is that you stop and think about your life today.

We’re all expected to live 82 years or so in the developed world. What do we want out of those years? Do you want to prolong your life at the end? Do you want to live to be 92 instead of 82? Or do you want to feel your best prior to getting old and limited by age? What do you think will give you the most happiness out of life? Living your life optimally as a young person? Or stretching your life out at the end for another decade of life as a slow-moving senior citizen?

Now, think about your everyday. Spend a few minutes and write down how you spend your day. What are you doing? What are you doing that’s probably good for you? What are you doing that’s probably not that great for you? What are you doing too much of? Not enough of? Make a list. It’s actually pretty simple. For everything you identify that’s not so great for you, write a simple way you can change that behavior.

Think about just three things– sleep, food, activity. Changes should be very, very simple. It’s things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It could be eating less meat. It could be sleeping 7 hours instead of six. It could be drinking with friends 3 nights a week instead of four. It could be one less hour of sitting in front of your computer.

Life really isn’t about your health. It’s about happiness. Health is just one component of happiness. So take a break every once in a while and sit down and think about a few small everyday things that have huge impact on your happiness.

video portrait of Drew Anderson by jayparkinsonmd

"Those who believe in broadcast structures recognize the efficiency of a single, centralized source"

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:53:04 -0500

“Those who believe in broadcast structures recognize the efficiency of a single, centralized source”

- Streams of Content, Limited Attention

This is an amazing article and worth a full read. However, this quote popped up because I continue to struggle with the idea that centralization is in fact more efficient than a distributed system. What’s interesting is that this efficiency wasn’t systemic. I mean biological systems, the most efficient systems in the world thanks to evolution are totally networked. No, the reason that these centralized systems were more efficient was that the information was also housed centrally. However, in our networked world where information lives and is constantly generated on the edge, we can rearrange our distribution networks to reflect the efficient biological networks that evolution suggests are the best ways to move from point a to point b.

Just some food for conversation.

Building a Better Teacher

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:46:41 -0500

Building a Better Teacher:

The data is pointing towards the profound impact of great teachers. The problem is that great teachers have limited scale. Dig into this article and let me know your thoughts.

"Building things to last is a builder’s instinct. Building things for planned obsolescence is not a..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:40:02 -0500

“Building things to last is a builder’s instinct. Building things for planned obsolescence is not a builder’s instinct. We need to stop this cycle of constant build-waste-replace-waste. The world is too much with us.”

- JP Rangaswami

This it “Too Young to Burn” from Sonny and the...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:20:03 -0500

This it “Too Young to Burn” from Sonny and the Sunsets. It’s 50 degrees in NYC and this song has that relaxed Spring/Summer vibe. Fitting and hopeful. Enjoy.

Tyler Fonda : Flavors.me

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:24:15 -0500

Tyler Fonda : Flavors.me:

Thoughts? Should this be the place I point everyone too? I like the simplicity, just not sure how I want to use it yet.

"Algebra and calculus have fundamental theorems; the Internet has a fundamental puzzle."

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:20:16 -0500

“Algebra and calculus have fundamental theorems; the Internet has a fundamental puzzle.”

- David Gelernter

"These days the same people who are buying Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals” on Amazon.com are,..."

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:58:50 -0500

“These days the same people who are buying Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals” on Amazon.com are, according to the company’s software, also buying books like “Liberal Fascism,” “Rules for Conservative Radicals,” “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left,” and “The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party.” Those last two books were written by David Horowitz, who was a leading New Left polemicist in the 1960s and is now a leading polemicist on the right.”

- David Brooks

collectedthinkery: Afrigadget

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:57:21 -0500

collectedthinkery: Afrigadget:

I started blogging because I wanted a place where I could capture all of the things that I see that I like and trigger me to think a bit.

Its pretty humbling then when you come across blogs like afrigadget, a site with genuine purpose and meaning.

Afrigadget is a blog dedicated to…

Rob has honed into the heart of what makes blogs successful either in the micro or the macro sense. Those that curate the things that make you think connect the reader to your passion. Afrigadget is an amazing addition to the pantheon of thought starter blogs. You can expect that I’ll post more from here in the months to come. As we all face a future in which industrial growth will slow and knowledge growth will accelerate, t he innovations that come from 3rd world countries with limited resources will translate more and more into strategies for success in the 1st world.

The Future of Publishing

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:43:07 -0500

Henry Blodget on Twitter

Not sure exactly how to link to this, but basically click the link above and start reading from “Now go read Nick Carlson’s excellent piece on the secret…”

Blodget does a really nice job of explaining the Business Insider publication strategy. Now I’m still struggling with how the business model manifests itself, but the mix of opinion, linkage and occasional investigative reporting seems to be the way forward.

Maybe I’ll learn some more on my trip to Tampa with @greg_lindsay. On another note, whatever business you’re in, I’d spend a portion of your time studying the evolution of b-models in music and publishing. These are the businesses with the earliest exposure to network economics. Their solution to succeeding in a network economy should be revealing for all.

This video makes sense of chatroullete and I appreciate it.

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:26:01 -0500

This video makes sense of chatroullete and I appreciate it.

Great stuff from Karina. Really dig this whole execution by...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:38:43 -0500

Great stuff from Karina. Really dig this whole execution by House Beautiful.

pedacitos:

Story time… Ready?

I was on my way down the subway stairs when I got a Tweet on my phone from @House_Beautiful. I’ve been following the home design magazine’s tweets all week after reading about their blue chair giveaway. House Beautiful has been dropping off all sorts of blue chairs in locations all around New York City. First to sit in the chair takes it home for free. I had a slight hope that maybe they’d drop one off near Bryant Park or Grand Central and I could run over from work. But I was mostly following because—being an advertising geek—I thought it was a really fun campaign.

So. Back to this morning. The tweet said that they were dropping off a chair at Columbus Circle at 9am. I clicked the flickr link to see that it was in fact the most gorgeous blue chair out of all of them (in my opinion). And I decided that I could be 30 minutes late to work to go check it out. Planners are supposed to experience things first-hand, right?

So off to Columbus Circle I went. House Beautiful was running late because of traffic (thank god I was getting their Tweets sent to me via text). I waited, and seemed to be the only person waiting for a while until another girl started started eyeing me. This was some serious stink eye. I was worried, yes, but I was determined to get that chair. Every truck that would drive around the circle made me flinch. When a van finally pulled over and I saw a glimpse of blue leather through the trunk window, I ran toward the street and was sitting in the chair before they even had it fully on the ground.

And now I’m the proud owner of a gorgeous Arhaus Furniture’s “Giles” Ocean Blue Chair that I NEVER could’ve afforded on my own. And it will look absolutely perfect in my apartment once I find a place to fit it!

What a fun NYC experience.Thank you House Beautiful!

This is Sonnymoon singing “Run Away” and it is...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:31:00 -0500

This is Sonnymoon singing “Run Away” and it is simply cool. Great looking video, super interesting beats over a great voice. Dig?

Nasa reveals most-detailed images of Earth Pretty amazing!

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:13:04 -0500

Nasa reveals most-detailed images of Earth

Pretty amazing!

Photos from Nepal’s biggest tech trade show This is well...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:13:59 -0500

Photos from Nepal’s biggest tech trade show

This is well worth a browse and a think.

"In 2009, University of West England, Bristol researchers Andrew Adamatzky and Jeff Jones placed food..."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:15:04 -0500

“In 2009, University of West England, Bristol researchers Andrew Adamatzky and Jeff Jones placed food on a damp coffee filter in a Petri dish in a pattern corresponding to the major cities of Great Britain. The filter paper itself was cut to match the shape of Great Britain’s island. Then they placed the P. Polychephalum on the food source corresponding to London, and observed the movements of the slime mold as it grew. The networks formed by the slime mold closely matched major roads of Britain. Their research was published in the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos.”

- Sentient Slime?

Simultaneously awesome and depressing.