The Man Behind Kottke.org

From photopin.com

Kottke.org is a staple in the blogosphere, especially in the nerd(ish) category.

I read it sometimes.  
My boyfriend reads it all the time.  
It's an impressive, go-to place for interestingness.

Well, today I listened to the Design Matters podcast with Jason Kottke (see previous blog here) and learned a bit more about the man behind the words.  He seems like a really cool and down-to-earth guy.

Here's a few things I didn't know:

1. He's been blogging since 1998 (he's like a grandfather in internet years... it's like the same as dog years, basically).  He's written 21,000 posts to-date -- that's an average of 4 posts per day over 15 years.  Talk about dedication
2. He's married to Meg Hourihan who co-founded Blogger with Ev Williams, Twitter co-founder.  They met on a panel talking about blogging at South x Southwest (Note: I had no idea one of the co-founders of blogger was a chick.  awesome).
3. He founded Stellar, which helps curate awesomeness for you

But, this is what I found the most interesting -- here's his very first blog post. 

Why?  MAR 14I decided I needed to start writing things down. Because I forget. Because I think better and feel better when I write. I used to write often but got away from it. So here it is again. But you ask: "Jason, why not keep a private diary?" Because I'd never keep up a private diary...I need to force myself to write this. So, I made it into content. Since it's content, I feel obligated to keep it up-to-date.See these games I have to play with myself?

It's amazing how a little side project to keep himself accountable turned into the Kottke.org we know today.

What do you think your side projects could turn into?  It's always fun to daydream... 

An album a day keeps the doctor away

Nina Simone

As mentioned last week, I'm a fan of 30 day challenges.  They make you adjust your daily routine without all the pressure that comes from making long-term habit changes.

In December, my boyfriend and I tried being vegan, albeit only 21 days.  This month, we are trying something more fun -- a new album per day.

There's so much good music out there, but I tend to play the same songs over and over again.  Right now, my Spotify is all about the Hipster International playlist, the Girls (HBO show) playlist & Bob Dylan.  

Note: In 2010, I may have listened to "changes" by david bowie on repeat about 1000 times.  Weird, yes.  Can I sing all the lyrics, yes. 

Anyways, it's time for a change.

Here's what I'm listening to this month (all picked by Alan after dutiful research):

1. The Best of Nina Simone -- Nina Simone
2. Was Dead -- King Tuff
3. Donuts -- J Dilla
4. There's a Riot Goin' On -- Sly & The Family Stone
5. King of the Delta Blues Singers -- Robert Johnson
6. Tago Mago -- Can
7. Mr. Hood -- K.M.D.
8. Post -- Bjork
9. On the Corner -- Miles Davis
10. Goat -- The Jesus Lizard
11. Who is William Onyeabor -- William Onyeabor
12. In On the Kill Taker -- Fugazi
13. Homework -- Daft Punk
14. When the Pawn... --- Fiona Apple
15. Mclusky Do Dallas -- Mclusky
16. Supreme Clientele -- Ghostface Killah
17. A New Beginning -- The Crickets
18. Bird and Diz -- Dizzy Gillespie
19. Scary Monsters -- David Bowie
20. The Trinity Sessions -- Cowboy Junkies
21. Swordfishtrombones -- Tom Waits
22. Double Cup -- Dj Rashad
23. Gremlins Have Pictures -- Roky Erickson
24. Scott 4 -- Scott Walker
25. The Incomplete Triangle -- Lansing-Dreiden
26. The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World -- Peter Jefferies
27. Isn't Anything -- My Bloody Valentine
28. Broken English -- Marianne Faithfull
29. Bivouac -- Jawbreaker
30. TBD

So far, my favorite is Nina Simone -- such a soulful voice.  

PS -- If you have Spotify, you can follow along at the playlist "An Album a Day Keeps the Doctor Away" by Alan Gertner!

PPS - Aren't band names so cool?

A less traditional Christmas

Not necessarily the type of Christmas you'd see in a snow globe, but, never the less, we had a really nice holiday in Thailand with our friends, Amrita & Akshay, who just moved back to India from San Francisco.

We started in Khao Lak (the less touristy cousin of Phuket), then headed to the Similan Islands on a live aboard boat and finally spent Christmas day back on land playing on a water slide + diving board at a resort like children (I guess the Christmas spirit hit?)

Happy holidays from the tropics.

My (very short) life as a vegan

Source: Photopin

Confession: I've always found vegans insufferable -- holier-than-thou types that have a bent for ruining fun and making every dinner outing an impossible feat (except maybe in San Francisco).  In my mind, I've grouped vegans in the same pile as folks that talk incessantly about their mother, divulge details of their latest doctor's appointment (a colonoscopy, please do tell me more) or use strings of business words that, in fact, mean nothing.

Well, after all this vegan-hating, my boyfriend and I tried it out for 3 weeks in December leading up to Christmas (note: yes, it got a bit mental with christmas cookies).  It wasn't completely new since I've been a vegetarian and pescetarian before.  Each stint lasts between 6 months to 2 years and undoubtedly ends due to one food -- bacon.  Let's face it -- meat tastes really good.

So, why did we decide to go vegan?

Bite-sized challenges are interesting

Matt Cutts, a notorious engineer inside of Google, gave a Ted talk about his 30 days challenges -- ranging from biking to work to writing a novel to cutting sugar to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.  These challenges expanded his life to accomplishments outside engineering and also built up his self-confidence.  

In a similar vein, Tim Ferriss, the king of self-experiments, encourages a similar, one-goal-at-a-time approach to change: 

"The problem with New Year's resolutions - and resolutions to 'get in better shape' in general, which are very amorphous - is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn't work. I don't care if you're a world-class CEO - you'll quit."

Eating animal products is very bad

According to the UN, cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gas than transportation.  Despite being car-less, I'm a major culprit for pollution due to my obsession with collecting passport stamps (52 countries to date).  I like the idea of neutralizing my emissions by skipping the hamburger.

I also read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" & Rolling Stone's "In the Belly of the Beast," which convinced me that animals do feel pain and its death may very well be the best part of its life.  Here's one especially sad excerpt from the Rolling Stone's article:

"You are a typical egg-laying chicken in America, and this is your life: You’re trapped in a cage with six to eight hens, each given less than a square foot of space to roost and sleep in. The cages rise five high and run thousands long in a warehouse without windows or skylights. You see and smell nothing from the moment of your birth but the shit coming down through the open slats of the battery cages above you. It coats your feathers and becomes a second skin; by the time you’re plucked from your cage for slaughter, your bones and wings breaking in the grasp of harried workers, you look less like a hen than an oil-spill duck, blackened by years of droppings. Your eyes tear constantly from the fumes of your own urine, you wheeze and gasp like a retired miner, and you’re beset every second of the waking day by mice and plaguelike clouds of flies." 

So, what did I learn from the challenge?

It's very hard

I've gone meatless before, but vegan life was a whole new ballgame.  I missed eggs and cheese a lot.  They are just so good in the morning.   

I also had some really pathetic meals in Malaysia (white toast followed by white rice with soy sauce, ugh).  In fact, I actually had to leave a restaurant post-seating because I couldn't eat anything on the menu.

I felt better and discovered a yummy salad

After a week, I felt better.  I had more energy in the afternoon because I skipped my daily 2 PM cookie(s) intake and therefore, also missed the sugar coma.  I lost the weight I put on while gorging myself in the Maldives and also discovered that warm, olive-oil roasted brussels sprouts taste excellent on a spinach salad.

I quickly jumped back to my meat-eating ways

After 3 weeks, I was convinced that vegan-life was a much better way to live -- I even (annoyingly) recited the benefits to my co-workers.   

Regardless, I went right back into my meat, egg and butter eating ways.  We've even been making homemade pate today for a New Years Eve gathering at our apartment.  To be exact, I hand-cleaned chicken livers for an hour without flinching -- what happened to the vegan-version of me?  Per usual, it seems that cognitive dissonance is behind it all, explaining just why my behavior often falls short of my attitudes and beliefs.   

It looks like I'll be a meatatarian for awhile longer -- but, I want my eggs cage-free and my meat not raised in a factory.  I also think it's a good practice to go meat-free a few days per week.

This will make you smile

I love Rion Holcombe's reaction to his college acceptance letter.... so genuine.

It made me tear up a bit :)

[Advertising Technique] Sympathizing with the audience

Photopin

As a general rule, people hate commercials (unless it's the Superbowl, which is the one permutation folks dig).  

Well, Burger King decided to launch 64 pre-roll YouTube ads.  That's a lot.

To get more people to hate them?  Nope.

To sympathize with the viewer.  

Check out the video below describing the campaign. It's humorous, endearing and targeted.  It makes me want to visit Burger King (which, would be the first time I've thought that in my life).

This is Awesome: Design Matters Podcast

Lately, I've been bored by the internet.  Let down.  

Yes, I know it contains more information than I could ever dream of reading, even if singularity actually happened, and my brain was taken over by robots.

You know why?  

Everything seems to be the same (this article explains it well).

My twitter feed looks like the XKCD comic below, and apparently, all paragraphs have vanished and been replaced with lists that read like "15 Facebook couples you should totally block" and "9 photos of Taylor Hanson looking like a celebrity fangirl" (okay, maybe I just need to block Buzzfeed).




















Luckily, the internet has been redeemed. 

During my recent drought, I stumbled across an awesome Podcast series, Design Matters, by Debbie Millman (archives here & here).

I learned that Dan Pink keeps a design journal where he writes downs examples of good and bad design in order to strengthen his "right brain."  He also wrote a career guide in the form of a graphic novel (i.e., a comic) called "The Adventures of Johnny Bunko" (it became the first, and likely only, comic to make the BusinessWeek bestseller list).  The podcast was FULL of interesting facts, including the size of the self-storage industry in the US ($17B & growing) and the percentage of printed material in Japan that's also a comic (22%).

I also listened to Milton Glaser, the designer of the "I heart NY" logo, contemplate ethics in the brand & design world (something I've becoming increasingly interested in since working with brand clients advertising with Google).  I also discovered his manifesto, "The 12 Ways to Designer Hell," which is animated in the video below (yes, I realize it's a list, but it has nothing to do with Taylor Hansen or Facebook couples). 

My faith in the internet has now been restored.

Thank you, Design Matters.

[Mental Health Break] Time-Lapse Graffiti

Pretty awesome.

Slinging Mud

The Daily Show

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

I basically remember two things from the 2012 election:

1. Incredible Jon Stewart fodder (man, was I sad when the election was over for that alone) 
2. Lots of mudslinging by both parties

I've come to predict this in politics, yet this technic is less expected in conventional advertising.  

Therefore, I was a bit surprised that Microsoft ramped up it's "Scroogled" campaign this quarter, slinging more mud at Google.

They've launched shirts that you can buy at Microsoft.com

And, a new set of videos (that are ironically being run on YouTube, a Google property)

I'm totally fine with a company bringing to light potential flaws in a competitor's product.

But, has Microsoft gone too far to the point of "desperate"?

No comment. 

Wiki Pledge: It worked on me

I've seen the Wiki Pledge before.  

Typically, I look at it, feel a bit guilty and then move on down a wiki-hole.  

Note: I'd like to say my wiki-holes involved incredibly intellectual things like thermodynamics or 18th century Russian literature.  In reality, I just dig really deep into famous people's personal lives and / or known controversies.  It's basically my dorkier version of People magazine.

But today, I donated.

Why?

Two reasons based on social psychology:

1. Social Exchange: 
In a social exchange, both parties take responsibility for one another and depend on each other.  This pledge reminded me that I have taken more than I have given back, and therefore, made me feel very guilty.

I mean, they are "just a small non-profit that runs the #5 website in the world"

2. The Foot-in-the-Door Technique:
They asked for the smallest donation -- just $3 USD.  And, they made it so easy with a button that led directly to Paypal.

I just couldn't say no without feeling like a complete asshole.

Therefore, I donated, but I'm fully aware I'll likely be on their eDM list forever with suggestions on "bigger and better ways" to contribute (which, I probably should).  

Regardless, for the time being, Wikipedia has taken down the banner ad on my wiki searches (pretty clever functionality).  

Now, off to "research" Rob Ford.  Phew.

Sassy Octogenarians

These ladies are sassy -- they love fashion, life and basically, just being awesome.

The documentary "Fabulous Fashionistas" explores the lives of 6 women between the ages of 75 and 95.  It's free to watch on YouTube and totally worth it.

PS - Did you know this woman is 80 now & just released a new album?

Anais Nin on a Monday

Martin Klimas

Risk
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.
- Anais Nin (a very cool chick)

People from the End of the Earth

10% of the world's photographs have been taken in the last year.
350M photos are uploaded per day on Facebook.  It's the same on snapchat (insert eye roll).

It's hard to imagine that a photograph could still seem novel, but it is for the people of Chukotka, Russia.  Two years ago, Californian photographer, Sasha Leahovcenco, decided to travel to one of the most remote parts of Siberia to photograph the unphotographed.

Our world is vast.

Here's a video of his journey.  You can check out some incredible photos from the project below.

Advertising Technique: Social Commentary

I love how this commercial by Goldieblox doesn't tiptoe around the issue at hand.  

Girls toys suck.

Let's make them better (to the beat of the Beastie Boys).

30 Days of Awareness

Source: My Modern Met

I downloaded an app this week -- the Gratitude Journal -- with a goal of recording things I'm grateful for every day for 30 days.  Maybe it will turn into a habit, but at the very least, it's a good personal experiment.

I've known for awhile that the practice can reduce depression, improve health and strengthen relationships; I just haven't been very disciplined about doing anything with that knowledge.

As human beings, we are subject to hedonic adaption, which means that humans quickly return to a stable level of happiness despite major negative or positive life events.  The thrill of positive events -- whether it's a new job, the beginnings of a romantic relationship or getting a puppy -- all wear off.  Thankfully, the same goes for the stress and sadness from life's more unfortunate events.

Because of this tendency, humans don't stay satisfied or grateful for very long.  Therefore, it's important to develop habits to see the world from a new perspective.

I finished the book, How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton this weekend about life lessons we can learn from the (very eccentric) French writer, Marcel Proust.

I found this excerpt about societies' flippant attitude on the telephone quite applicable:

By 1900, there were 30,000 phones in France.  Proust rapidly acquired one [...] He might have appreciated his phone, but he noted how quickly everyone else began taking theirs for granted.  As early as 1907, he wrote that the machine was:

"a supernatural instrument before whose miracle we used to stand amazed,and which we now employ without giving it a thought, to summon our tailor or to order an ice cream."

Moreover, if the confiserie had a busy line or the connection to the tailor a hum, instead of admiring the technological advances that had frustrated our sophisticated desires, we tended to react with childish ingratitude.

"Since we are children who play with divine forces without shuddering before their mystery, we only find the telephone "convenient," or rather, as we are spoilt children, we find that "it isn't convenient," we fill Le Figaro with our complaints."

I complain about the weather being too hot, air travel taking to long or the internet being too slow on my phone -- but, in reality, it's a miracle that I'm able to work half-way across the world in Singapore, take flights to places like Bali on the weekend and carry a mini-computer in my pocket that can access all of the information in the world.

The world we live in and our every day experiences can be pretty mind-blowing -- it just requires us to be aware in order to appreciate it.

Silicon Valley Needs Some Grown-ups

Caution: This post is about to get pretty hypocritical

I don't use Snapchat.  
I don't need to send photos that disappear after 10 seconds to my friends & boyfriend.
My life just isn't that interesting or risque to need a service like that.

I'm okay with everyone viewing my Instagram photos and tweets
I've even befriended my managers on Facebook before I quit the social network (maybe that was career-limiting, who knows)

Regardless of my preferences, I understand why Snapchat is useful.  

There is a need to interact with people without it being archived -- whether that is sharing a mundane detail of your life that your entire social graph doesn't need to know (i.e., I just ate a banana!) or more intimate online behaviors, like sexting.

As this investor states, our online trails can follow us:

On Tuesday, Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley, whose firm currently invests in Snapchat, tweeted that people still confused about Snapchat should look at a tweet from the account of the FCC noting that “30% of college admissions officers look at applicants online… They loved your GPA, then they saw your tweets…”

What I don't understand is the valuation.

Today, Snapchat founders, Evan Spiegel & Bobby Murphy, age 23 and 25, respectively turned down a $3 billion dollar offer from Facebook.  They think they are worth more.

It's been in operation for 2 years, makes $0 in revenue and has ~25M users (as a reference point: Instagram had 100M users in 2012 when it sold to Facebook for $1 billion).  

On a positive note, it has 300M "daily snaps," which is very close to the 350M photos uploaded on Facebook per day, coming from a user base that's 2% the size.  It's sticky.  I guess there is some truth in the assumption that people will share more if it's immediately erased.


Since 2003, there's been 39 other tech companies that have been valued at $1B or more.  These companies have been nicknamed "the unicorn club"

It includes the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Groupon, Square, Twitter, Linkedin etc (note: Google's actually a "double decade unicorn", so not included on the list) 

All household names.  Mostly consumer-facing tech, not B2B.  I like a lot of the products.



Now, here's my rant.  Get ready for it.

Is Snapchat really one of the top 40 things we've invented in the last 10 year?  

I f*ing hope not.  It's a toy.  It lets people erase embarrassing or trivial behavior.  

Shouldn't we be aiming to improve our collective self-control and online etiquette, rather than finding ways to make it disappear?

We have lots of talented and creative young people out there solving problems that don't really matter in the scheme of the world and history.  They are lured by the promises of quick fame and quick money -- praying at the alter of VC money and nerdy celebrityhood.

That's why we need more grown-ups in tech.

By grown-ups, I mean men and women with a vision.  It has nothing to do with age.

We have a lot of challenges: "A billion people want electricity, millions are without clean water, the climate is changing, manufacturing is inefficient, traffic snarls cities, education is a luxury, and dementia or cancer will strike almost all of us if we live long enough."  

We need more "John F Kennedys" of tech to guide us on the right path -- someone that inspires and funds people to do big things, like go to the moon.

Here's an except from Kennedy's speech at Rice University in 1962:

“But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? . . . Why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? . . . We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills . . .”

Don't get me wrong -- we have some of these folks in tech -- the Elon Musks, Larry Pages and Bill Gates of the world.  They are awesome and visionary, challenging the status quo.

We just need more of them.  We especially need them on the investor side.

It's too easy to get overshadowed by the noise and hype of Silicon Valley.

And, here's where my hypocrisy comes in (as promised).

I know that there are big problems to solve.  I wish start-ups stopped trying to solve trivial problems.  

But, in reality... 
... I wish I could make something like Snapchat and become rich overnight
... I'm not currently solving any "big problems."  I go to work, do some tasks and go home.  In order to ease my internal monologue, I remind myself that there are people at Google solving big, life-changing problems.  It's just not me.  I'm fueling the money engine that allows those things to happen.

Maybe it's not just Silicon Valley that needs a grown-up.  It's me too.

Learning to Breathe

Mindfulness is close to becoming a buzzword.  A quick scroll through the Google Play store shows that there are 100+ Android apps available on meditation.  And, some are even using it to get ahead

Regardless, it's a good practice.   It's linked to lower stress and greater happiness -- a pretty sweet deal, right?

Mindfulness actually has several definitions (according to wikipedia):

According to various prominent psychological definitions, Mindfulness refers to a psychological quality that involves one of these: 

• bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis,  

•  paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally,  

• a kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is

As previously posted, I went on a 2-day silent meditation retreat in Thailand to practice mindfulness and learned one thing -- it's really f*ing hard.

That's why I like SCUBA diving.  

You're forced to be mindful.  The only way to control your body in the water is by breathing.

Want to go further down?  Breathe out more
Want to go up?  Breathe in more 
Want to stop freaking out that some gear is the only thing keeping you alive?  Breathe slower

I say forget the phone app.  Go diving instead.

PS - Here's some photos from my most recent diving trip to Puerto Galera, Philippines.

[Mental Health Break] Let your inner child out

Thank god I was born in the 1980s...

On growing up

Source: Photopin

My twenties are coming to a close in a few months.  I'm okay with that.  In fact, I've enjoyed telling people lately that I'm almost 30. 

I feel older.  I feel a bit more wise.  For lack of better words, I feel more adult.

But, ironically, the older I get, the less I want "adult" things.  As a newly minted college graduate, I had goals -- specific "deadlines" in mind for earning an MBA, getting married, having kids and buying a house.  I had visions of being a successful businesswoman with picture perfect kids in the picture perfect prep school.

Who knows if I could have ever achieved those goals.  Likely not.

But, now that I'm almost 30, I don't want any of that.  At all.   

They say that my generation suffers from "delayed development".  Sociologists have traditionally marked adulthood by completing 5 milestones:

1. Completing school
2. Leaving home
3. Becoming financially independent
4. Marrying
5. Having children

(Note: I assume buying your first house is somewhere in the mix)

In 1960, 77% of women and 65% of men had checked off all 5 milestones by the age of 30.  As of 2000, only 50% of women and 33% of men had done so.

I'm 3 out of 5 for milestones, and I'm not sure I ever want to complete the list.  

I originally thought I just had "Peter Pan" syndrome (i.e., never wanting to grow up), which heightened during my time in San Francisco.  The Bold Italic sums up life there perfectly:

People talk a lot of shit about this city's Peter Pan Syndrome, but the truth is, many of us live here because San Francisco fully embraces a unique breed of youthfulness, ridiculousness, and willingness to experiment like no other urban center we know. We're a city of ageless dreamers and costume collectors, a place where folks will back a Kickstarter campaign to bronze Jeremy Fish's Silly Pink Bunny just because. We're the home of Bay to Breakers and the start of Burning Man, and the city where Halloween is on par with national holidays.

It's true.  I have some Peter Pan in me, but it's more than that.  

I now think my changing goals and frame of mind are actually signs of maturity.

I used to want what everyone else wanted, which Hunter S. Thompson aptly describes in a note penned to a friend, Hume Logan, captured in the book, Letters of Note:

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…” 

And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

Now, my goals are more short-term based on the most recent version of myself.  As Thompson describes below, it's the most rational thing to do since we change as people with every new experience:

Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

 So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis? 

I may not have the most "adult" life based on assets or dependents on my insurance plan, but I've gained something more than that -- the ability to want different things for myself than my peers and the realization that the person I am today will not be the same person I am a year from now.

So, hear hear, to new experiences and a new version of myself in my 30s.

My Modern Met

[Mental Health Break] Things you ONLY do online

Buzzfeed proves that there is quite a gap between our online & offline lives.