Seth Godin:

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

Colin Marshall:

Who doesn't want to be more productive?

Merlin Mann:

People wanted nonsense. People wanted something to distract them for a little while.

It takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of self-awareness to be open to the fact that you may become popular about something that you didn't want to become popular about. At a certain point, you don't get to pick that anymore.

I love when I post something on Twitter and a bunch of people unfollow me. It delights me, because that is the sound of my audience getting better.

Ira Glass:

Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.

Alain de Botton:

We are diluted in gigantic intangible collective projects, which leave us wondering what we did last year and, more profoundly, where we have gone and quite what we have amounted to.

Decius:

Life is too short to spend 2300 hours a year working on someone else's idea of what the right problems are.

Caterina Fake:

Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on.

David Foster Wallace:

There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

Lauren Clark:

It's good to have a plan, but if something extraordinary comes your way, you should go for it.

We just keep thinking we can do it all -- be focused, frightened and frivolous. We can't. We don't have the money. We don't have the time.

How do you screen for a relentless mind-set?

Use it to find the photography you like using the simple idea that people whose work you like, probably like stuff you'll like.

Over time, YouTube says it plans to rely more heavily on personalization and ties between users to refine recommendations.

The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn't work. Alas, this one worked very well.

That's what offends me. You know exactly what you're doing.

First Person Tetris

When the default is private, you have to think about making something public. When the default is public, you become very aware of privacy. And thus, I would suspect, people are more conscious of privacy now than ever.

I expected Google Chrome to teleport maybe three, maximum five goats! What happens instead? About 3*10^6 goats get teleported! I won't be able to pay for teleportation of such huge amount of goats!

The one thing that Mr. Durant worries might spook a female guest is his most recent purchase: a three-foot-tall refrigerated meat locker that sits in a corner of his living room. That is where he keeps his organ meat and deer ribs.

Analysts must absorb information with the thoroughness of historians, organize it with the skill of librarians, and disseminate it with the zeal of a journalist. Sufficient knowledge will not come from slides with little more text than a comic strip.

The effects of a childhood goat trauma vary widely from person to person, depending on the severity of their trauma. Such problems as irrational fears, unexplained twitching, and insomnia could all have origin in a goat trauma. The Childhood Goat Tra... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Is it plural?

Is it indicating possession?

Is it a contraction?

Are you trying to say "it is"?

Are you indicating possession?

Is it a possessive and plural name?

How To Use An Apostrophe

Lagos, the New York of Africa

Nyanya, the Lagos of Abuja

Calgary, the Dallas of the North

North Bay, the Calgary of Northern Ontario

Tulsa, the buckle of the Bible Belt

Kirkuk, the Tulsa of Iraq

Midland, the Tulsa of Texas

Saint Augustine, the Newport of the South

Newport, the Charleston of the Northeast

Greer, South Carolina, the Taiwan of Germany

Taiwan, the Honolulu of China

Honolulu, the Miami of the Asia-Pacific

Miami, the capital of Latin America

Tel Aviv, the Miami of the Middle East

Ramallah, the Tel Aviv of Palestine

Izmir, the Miami of Turkey

San Diego, the Miami of the West Coast

Tucson, the San Diego of the desert

Munich, the Tucson of Europe

Fullerton, the Munich of Orange County

Cartagena, the Munich of Latin America

Girardot, the Cartagena of the poor

Qingdao, the Munich of China

Lowestoft, the Qingdao of Europe

Tehran, the Munich of the Cold War

Provo, the Tehran of Utah

Cleveland, the Munich of the Midwest

Birmingham, the Cleveland of England

Howrah, the Birmingham of the East

Cleveland, the San Antonio of the East

San Antonio, the Atlanta of the 80s

Harvard, the Munich of American education

02138, the Harvard of the luxury lifestyle magazines

Harvard Law, the Beirut of American law schools

Beirut, the Monte Carlo of Asia

Monte Carlo, the Long Beach of Europe

Long Beach, the Tacoma of Southern California

Tacoma, the Oakland of the Pacific Northwest

Macau, the Monte Carlo of the East

Bodog, the Macau of the internet

Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia
Dubai, the Las Vegas of the Middle East

Jamaica, the Dubai of the Caribbean

East St. Louis, the Jamaica of Illinois

Tangiers, the Dubai of North Africa
Herat, the Dubai of Afghanistan

Massachusetts, the Las Vegas of same-sex marriages

Onitsha, the Boston of Southern Nigeria
Burlington, the San Francisco of the East Coast
Melbourne, the Boston of the Southern Hemisphere

Sydney, the Atlanta of Australia

Barcelona, the Sydney of Europe

Leeds, the Barcelona of the West Riding of Yorkshire

Philadelphia, the Leeds of America

Merced, the Philadelphia of the Central Valley

Sacramento, the Omaha of the West Coast

Guadalajara, the Sacramento of Mexico
Monterey, the Nashville of Norteno

Nashville, the Athens of the South

Branson, the Nashville of Missouri

Provincetown, the Branson of Lesbian Comedy

Saugatuck, the Provincetown of the Midwest

There is such a thing as being considerate, and although it may come as a surprise to you, you should not presume that everyone loves your dog.

Casey is my 4th peke and because their under body is so low to the ground snow clumps form all over his body where the snow attaches to his hair. I put his turtle neck on him more for me so I don't have to freeze my hands breaking up the clumps when we get done with our walk.

I am 25 and it's all very lovely and like a costume. It's beautiful and romantic ... it's not like standing up there in my everyday underwear. It's a theatrical show and everyone is there to have a good time.

Is there anything fluffier than a cloud?

If there is, I don't want to know about it.

I think there is such a thing as "kitty grass" but I am not familiar with it.

Many recipes call for softened or room-temperature butter, but there is such a thing as getting your butter too soft.

So what will we do with global warming? I don’t know. I just hope the place warms enough so I don’t have to worry about the cold anymore.

There is such a thing as a happy ending, but I know I couldn't have done it without help.

Are we getting hosed? Maybe. If we’re going to get hosed we’re going to get hosed. At least this time they’re being considerate enough to tell you up front.

I hire really smart people who work themselves to death so I don't have to.

One way or another we have to pay up -- even if it feels like we're getting hosed.

Sitting alone with one’s thoughts is the hardest part of jail.

Here, for the foreseeable future, Starbucks remains the "affordable indulgence" Schultz has always described.

Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

Perhaps the most powerful way in which we conspire against ourselves is the simple fact that we have jobs.

Now 12,000 partners had suddenly learned what betrayal really was. Surely, I surmised, they'd be venting on starbucksgossip.com, the website largely of, by, and for Starbucks employees.

In 1876, a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England’s most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds, planted around the world in England’s colonial outposts, gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century -- an explosion of entrepreneurial and scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds -- a sought-after prize for which many suffered and died -- is the stuff of legend. In this utterly engaging account of obsession, greed, bravery, and betrayal, author and journalist Joe Jackson brings to life a classic Victorian fortune hunter and the empire that fueled, then abandoned, him.

Rule No. 1: Betray your employer before your employer betrays you.
Rule No. 2: Remember what you are selling.
Rule No. 3: Hide your motives. Or, specifically, minimize the appearance of financial interest.

For some, the new era of lightweight, lightning-fast software design is akin to a guerrilla movement rattling the walls of stodgy corporate development organizations. "They stole our revolution and now we're stealing it back and selling it to Yahoo," said Bruce Sterling.

Dick’s novels, reread, invite us to pick one page and draw a thick line across it, separating the novel into before and after the protagonist learns (or believes he has learned) what’s really going on: often we realise, far into the after portion, that we may never know.

America will be a more secure country once it discards the notion that ... [ Read More (1.2k in body) ]

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. Some would say this is exactly the kind of music people would pay good money to be able to silence. By invoking emotionally volatile imagery, The Forever War, Science Fiction Version, reads exactly like Chinese propaganda. Remember: You can't beat the Axis if you get VD. Also, beware the temes.

Although we weren't meant to suffer this much, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. We must subvert the status quo, and we must reconsider the necessity and wisdom of the blanket, indiscriminate classification.

What we have here is a family of concrete dinosaurs, making an epic journey of neurodiscovery. Despite the tendencies of the 'uneducated', at some point, they will come to recognize the value of loitering -- not to be confused with The Forever War, Real World Version.

A recap of the last thirty days.

It is tempting to keep uncovering facts, all of them interesting.

I don't wear a hijab, nor am I Muslim, but textiles fascinate me.

Do not try to teach a child any lessons on an airplane.
This is not the time to square off about limit setting.
This is a time for distraction and entertainment.

Two adults and one cat do not need two, identical lasagna pans.
It is tempting to ponder why I own two, but this is not the time.

It is tempting to opt for baby blue rather than bright blue with black,
because it seems like a softer combination, but that looks like business wear.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not fashion, darling.

Chinese hackers are growing increasingly bold in probing critical U.S. defense networks. But former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke tells FP that if the United States waits for a dramatic, 9/11-style attack on its critical infrastructure to act, it will be missing the real threat.

Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Waiting for a Cyber Pearl Harbor

A systems scientist looks at virtualization, scalability, and Ruby on Rails.

A Conversation with Jason Hoffman