Saturday, December 27, 2008

Professional Sports Is Very Interesting | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Professional Sports Is Very Interesting | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "Whenever a ball is hit, put into a hoop, or carried to a particular point of significance, my mind instantly races to consider all of the action's possible ramifications: 'How will this affect future hittings, throwings, and carryings of other, different balls?' I wonder to myself. What a joy it is to closely follow a random group of men thrown together in one geographic location working together to win contests of athletic ability. Each and every victory of a team full of people I'll never meet over another team full of people I'll never meet is a complex web of nuance and metaphor to contemplate at great length."

Friday, December 26, 2008

YouTube - Johnny Lee: Wii Remote hacks

YouTube - Johnny Lee: Wii Remote hacks: "Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. A multi-ovation demo from TED2008."

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist - Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com: "These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions."

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Another great article: Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
by Malcolm Gladwell.

Really liked the democratization of genius in the premise that a large class of them has to slog as hard and long as the rest of us.

Annals of Innovation: In the Air: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Just finished reading this article: Annals of Innovation: In the Air: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker .

My two takeaways are:

1. Malcolm Gladwell is a great writer. This is the first piece of his that I've read, and I like many things about it. I particularly liked the subject, the distinction between invention in art and science/technology, that the former is a unique, one-time thing while the other is a natural progression of ideas and emperical facts proposed by a bunch of people.

This obsession with the prodigy in technical fields reminds me of the superstar culture (or the rock-star culture in Bay Area tech companies). But rockstars don't exist in isolation, and that the other band members (or even other entourage members) are short-changed in most cases. Its quite evident in academia too, where the early bloomer gets a lot of mileage but at least in that case, the star student possibly does complete most of the assignments and projects singly, though I'm not sure how professors view collaborators and whether they give any points for assists.

2. Nathan Myhrvold is a very interesting guy. I suppose there are many capable polymaths but not all of them have his means. This may probably mean that he was either lucky enough or smart enough to recognize a big commerical opportunity when he saw one. If it's the latter, then that's another skill he should get credit for, because many technically brilliant people are either clueless or don't have the stomach for the bump-and-grind of the pursuit of commercial success, though one could argue that the pursuit of publication counts, grants and awards is possibly more bumpy.