filmstreet

Sunset from wythe hotel

Sun, 27 May 2012 19:09:56 -0400

Sunset from wythe hotel

Movie Hack Day 2012 (Berlin)

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:02:38 -0400

Movie Hack Day 2012 (Berlin)

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:59:13 -0400

Movie Hack Day 2012 (Berlin)

The Founder of FedEx Once Saved the Company by Taking Its Last $5,000 and Turning It Into $32,000 by Gambling in Vegas

Mon, 21 May 2012 21:49:34 -0400

The Founder of FedEx Once Saved the Company by Taking Its Last $5,000 and Turning It Into $32,000 by Gambling in Vegas:

At its low point, all the company had was $5000 to its name, which wasn’t enough to continue operating as their planes needed fuel and that wouldn’t cover it. Smith made a final pitch to General Dynamics for more funding, but was refused, leaving FedEx more or less dead on the ground when they’d not be able to fuel their planes the following Monday.

Not to be dissuaded, instead of taking a flight home to Memphis, Smith took the $5000 and flew to Las Vegas and played Black Jack that weekened with the remaining company funds. By Monday, to the shock of other higher ups in the company, FedEx had $32,000 in its bank account, which was just enough to cover the fuel for their planes and to continue operating a few days more. When asked what he’d been thinking taking a chance like that with company funds, he stated: “What difference does it make? Without the funds for the fuel companies, we couldn’t have flown anyway.”

There's no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.) | Derek Sivers

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:28:08 -0400

There's no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.) | Derek Sivers:

-Eli

Photo

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:09:16 -0400

kenyatta: The Project for the Study of Corporate...

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:00:54 -0400

kenyatta:

The Project for the Study of Corporate Personhood

This is my project proposal for a 2012-13 Rhizome artist commission. I’m going to sell my name to a corporation for three months. They will take over all of my public interactions both online and irl. Kenyatta will become a product. I will not exist.

corporatepersonhood:

The Project for Corporate Personhood (aka Kenyatta Co) is a three month performance that explores the topics of “corporate personhood” and personal identity.

The American Supreme Court and some politicians have declared that corporations should be treated as persons. So what happens when a person voluntary assigns their personhood to a corporation? Can it be used to raise awareness of the issue of corporate personhood and create spectacle in the process?

Kenyatta Cheese (creator of Know Your Meme, an artist, an activist, and a person) will sell the exclusive use of his name to a corporation for a period of three months. That corporation will assume both the real world and online identity of ‘Kenyatta Cheese’, reimagining his personhood as a brand with the help of ethnographers, lawyers, focus groups, public relations departments, a creative agency, and friends and acquaintances. During this period, Kenyatta (the person) will not be able to use his name except in the case of emergencies and air travel.

In order to develop Kenyatta Cheese (the product), the corporation will conduct research and development, mining his personal life, online profiles, and browser data for uniquely identifying information. The corporation will hire his friends and family to “be” Kenyatta Cheese at public events, speaking engagements (technology and media conferences), and social gatherings, interacting with people based on their own ideas of how they think Kenyatta Cheese would behave.

These public interactions will be documented through hidden video and interviews will be conducted to capture the thoughts and feelings of the Kenyatta Cheese “betas”. People who interact with these betas will be given a business card directing them to complete a customer service survey online.

This documentation will serve as the basis of standard operating procedures for being Kenyatta Cheese, brand guidelines, and a marketing and media buying plan. The corporation will then hire social media “gurus” to take over and run all instances of Kenyatta Cheese online including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and a personal website. Strangers will be hired off of Craigslist to represent the brand at public events in cities around the world (complete with afro wig and business cards). Like the research beforehand, the interactions of these Craigslist hires will be documented and they will be interviewed.

The three month project will culminate in the compilation of a dozen or so interview videos, the creation of the corporate and product documents, the capture of company interactions in social media, and hopefully two public panels: one at SXSW (or similar conference) exploring the topic of personal identity and marketing featuring 4-5 “Kenyattas” and a second panel at the New Museum exploring the topic of identity through the stories of several Kenyatta’s, artists working on similar issues, and representatives from each of the companies involved in creating Kenyatta Co.

Possible Kenyattas will include but not be limited to author Baratunde Thurston, technologist Anil Dash, artist Kevin Slavin, writers Nick Bilton and Clive Thompson, entrepreneurs Nora Abousteit, Know Your Meme co-creators Jamie Wilkinson and Elspeth Rountree, performers Mike Rugnetta and Patrick Davison, actress Michelle Krusiec, sociologist Tricia Wang, and Kenyatta’s mom.

AMAZING! The corporation should make the Kenyatta Cheese Browser w/ passwords/bookmarks/extensions/cookies available for download!

Lincoln was requesting a patent for “The Gazette,” a system to...

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:59:17 -0400

Lincoln was requesting a patent for “The Gazette,” a system to “keep People aware of Others in the Town.” He laid out a plan where every town would have its own Gazette, named after the town itself. He listed the Springfield Gazette as his Visual Appendix, an example of the system he was talking about. Lincoln was proposing that each town build a centrally located collection of documents where “every Man may have his own page, where he might discuss his Family, his Work, and his Various Endeavors.”

He went on to propose that “each Man may decide if he shall make his page Available to the entire Town, or only to those with whom he has established Family or Friendship.” Evidently there was to be someone overseeing this collection of documents, and he would somehow know which pages anyone could look at, and which ones only certain people could see (it wasn’t quite clear in the application). Lincoln stated that these documents could be updated “at any time deemed Fit or Necessary,” so that anyone in town could know what was going on in their friends’ lives “without being Present in Body.”

That was it. Pretty much just a simple one-page overview of how his system would work. After we read it, we both sat there quiet for a long time. It was so obvious what this was, guys.

A patent request for Facebook, filed by Abraham Lincoln in 1845.

(via Abraham Lincoln Filed a Patent for Facebook in 1845)

"Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details….it’s OK..."

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:56:57 -0400

“

Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details….it’s OK to screw up the details initially, provided …

*you’re getting the primary function more or less right.
*you’re listening to feedback from the people who use your product, and actively refining the details of your product based on their feedback every day.

”

- Coding Horror: This Is All Your App Is: a Collection of Tiny Details

"…we’re entering a dark age of emotional emptiness. We, an anxious people, work harder..."

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:55:15 -0400

“…we’re entering a dark age of emotional emptiness. We, an anxious people, work harder and harder to afford the salaries of people to make us less anxious, which ironically deprives us of family time, which makes us more anxious. Apparently, paying people for emotional and psychological needs is turning us into emotional psychos.”

- The Anxiety Economy: Why the Future of Work Will Be All About Stress - Business - The Atlantic

(via Instagram)

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:52:59 -0400

(via Instagram)

Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Teachers — Marginal Revolution

Mon, 07 May 2012 16:53:36 -0400

Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Teachers — Marginal Revolution

Photos: If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere, from the USGS Water Science School

Sun, 06 May 2012 10:44:09 -0400

Photos: If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere, from the USGS Water Science School:

-Eli

Video

Wed, 02 May 2012 21:07:40 -0400

on the brink.: In defense of hype

Wed, 02 May 2012 21:05:27 -0400

on the brink.: In defense of hype:

nabeel:

For a startup ecosystem that is all about optimism, it’s ridiculous how much petty backstabbing and general negativity there is when new stuff comes along.

Today, three different people all around 60 years old talked to me about ‘computers’ and how “it’s the place to be” and “they’re taking over everything” and “good for you.” Even when I hear a “I don’t get it” these days it’s more of a “I don’t want to get it, but I have to get it because of my kids… or my work.” This time around hype is simply the echo of the new reality.

At 92, Movie Bootlegger Is Soldiers’ Hero - NYTimes.com

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:57:59 -0400

At 92, Movie Bootlegger Is Soldiers’ Hero - NYTimes.com:

-Eli

The Naive Optimist: We work a 4-day week and just raised $4.75m

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:24:43 -0400

The Naive Optimist: We work a 4-day week and just raised $4.75m:

I get to spend 50% more time with my kids then almost all other dads (three days versus two). Fifty percent. It’s insane. For those on the Team without kids, they get to spend this extra 50% on their hobbies or loved ones.

"I’m not a language instructor, nor do I have any interest in figuring out the best way to teach a..."

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:43:10 -0400

“I’m not a language instructor, nor do I have any interest in figuring out the best way to teach a language – computer or otherwise – but it seems to me that we are shifting into a different period where learning how to write software is just as important – and probably more so – to a high school student as learning to speak French, at least at a two year of course level where all you remember are a few swear words.”

- Why Don’t We Make Learning A Computer Language A Requirement In High School?

Poyozo | Make Life Make Sense

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:13:12 -0400

Poyozo | Make Life Make Sense:

Fight My Monster! - Welcome to Monster Fun!

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:12:31 -0400

Fight My Monster! - Welcome to Monster Fun!

filmstreet

Sunset from wythe hotel

Movie Hack Day 2012 (Berlin)

Movie Hack Day 2012 (Berlin)

The Founder of FedEx Once Saved the Company by Taking Its Last $5,000 and Turning It Into $32,000 by Gambling in Vegas

There's no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.) | Derek Sivers

Photo

kenyatta: The Project for the Study of Corporate...

Lincoln was requesting a patent for “The Gazette,” a system to...

"Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details….it’s OK..."

"…we’re entering a dark age of emotional emptiness. We, an anxious people, work harder..."

(via Instagram)

Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Teachers — Marginal Revolution

Photos: If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere, from the USGS Water Science School

Video

on the brink.: In defense of hype

At 92, Movie Bootlegger Is Soldiers’ Hero - NYTimes.com

The Naive Optimist: We work a 4-day week and just raised $4.75m

"I’m not a language instructor, nor do I have any interest in figuring out the best way to teach a..."

Poyozo | Make Life Make Sense

Poyozo is an automatic, personal diary system to help reclaim and consolidate your ever-expanding digital life with simple visualizations that you can use every day.

Fight My Monster! - Welcome to Monster Fun!