Author: smartpeopleiknow

Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools: Art and Fear

Kevin Kelly, in his list “Cool Tools”, has excerpts of what looks like a good book for anyone who wants to know not just about making art but being creative generally. Here’s a link to the site, and here is a fascinating story from the Cool Tool: Art & Fear

‘The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.’

Great reasons to start a blog from lifehack.org

For
people who wonder, “why blog?”, the people at lifehack.org have listed
a number of strong reasons why you should in their article, How To Use Your Blog To Make 2008 Your Best Year Ever!

The
article is written from a viewpoint of how to use a blog to improve
yourself, and the bonuses they list regarding blogging (e.g. track
progress, get feedback, share knowledge) apply to anyone, either
personally or professionally.

Want to get published? nytimes.com has the story

The New York Times has a good summary on the various web sites offering publishing services in their article: Got a Manuscript? Publishing Now a Snap – New York Times. There are references to lulu.com, blurb.com and others.

If you have been always dying to see your work bound in hardcover, check out this article and then the sites they mention.

Chicken Schnitzel and other great Hungarian food at Country Style Hungarian Restaurant in Toronto’s Annex

blogto does a great job of covering Toronto, including restaurants. And this review of Country Style Hungarian Restaurant is no exception.

There used to be a number of Hungarian restaurants in the Annex, including the Korona, my old favourite. Sadly, most of them are gone. But not Country Style. Head on over to 450 Bloor St West and have one of these…

…and you will be very glad you did! 🙂

(image link to blogto)

Philipe Starck on the purpose of design

Designers should define their role broadly as agents of good in the world, and limit their work to ‘legitimate’ products: those that are needed, and those that can be made without damage to nature or — through the unethical actions of manufacturers and investors — damage to people.

— Industrial designer Phillipe Starck, on the purpose of design

(Thanks to treehugger.com for this)

Good design is for everything, including radiators

There’s alot of objects in home that no one seems to want to design well, and these often have to do with heating and cooling. But there is no reason these can’t be well designed. Over at the CONTEMPORIST blog is striking proof of this with examples of radiators from Carisa that are exceptional.

There is wealth of other great design examples at that blog, too. Well worth a visit.

Project Euler: for those who love math and computers

If you know someone who loves mathematics and computers, send them over to the web site, Project Euler.

Simply, it’s…

a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems. The motivation for starting Project Euler, and its continuation, is to provide a platform for the inquiring mind to delve into unfamiliar areas and learn new concepts in a fun and recreational context.

“Chuck Norris sues, says his tears no cancer cure” or how to have fun with a news story

Chuck Norris has a serious suit against a Penguin book that mocks him. I think he has a good case, regardless of what you think of Chuck Norris. However, the Yahoo! News title seems to continue the mockery with the headline:

Chuck Norris sues, says his tears no cancer cure – Yahoo! News

Perhaps he did say that, but most of the quotes in the following news article are pretty much what you expect coming from a lawyer.
But click on the story and you decide.

2007’s 101 Dumbest Moment in Business from Fortune: Sad, true, and often VERY funny


Alot of year end reviews are boring or lame. Not the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business from FORTUNE. It’s sad but true and also VERY funny. One of my favourites is #70: Circuit City (70). Here’s the details:

In a cost-cutting move, Circuit City lays off all sales associates paid 51 cents or more per hour above an “established pay range” – essentially firing 3,400 of its top performers in one fell swoop. Over the next eight months Circuit City’s share price drops by almost 70%.

Pure genius.

The design retailer Moss shows you how not to treat your customers

There is a fine line for “attitude” retailers like Moss: you can’t be too open and friendly, or you may lose your cachet, your edge. But it can easily slip over into arrogance and hostility. I think to walk that line you have to have an air of friendliness but still maintain that distance, that aloofness.

I think Moss slips over the line, based on this reading. Or perhaps Franklin Getchell is frustrated. And I can appreciate his frustration. But it’s too bad for Moss: exercising frustration about your clients is the best way to lose business. See

“Whatever,” whenever in L.A. « – T Magazine – New York Times Blog

P.S. I love The Moment: it’s a breath of fresh air in the blogosphere. Add it to your feed reader and freshen it up!

Why you should not buy cheap wine from the LCBO (or any place)


I’ve blogged about good / cheap wine under $10 at the LCBO. You can find that article here.

There are lots of reasons to go with wine at this price, but it doesn ‘t mean you should only buy wine at low prices. For example here are some good reasons why you should not buy cheap wine:

You won’t get the same flavours you will get from a better bottle of wine. On average, more expensive wines will have more flavour, either now or in the future. Not always of course, but most of the time. If you want a good glass of everyday wine, something under $10 will do nicely. But to experience what wine can be, you will want to spend more.

You only occasionally drink wine, if at all. If you only have a glass / bottle of wine on rare occasions, why not drink something better? If I only drank wine from time to time, I would drink champagne or Californian chardonnays or Australian shiraz or New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs. Pick a price point you feel comfortable with and ask the good folks at LCBO for help.

You are going to a special event. In that case, make the wine indicate you appreciate you are going to a special event. A bottle of wine under $7 doesn’t really say that.

You don’t like wine (taste, alcohol, cost) or prefer other beverages (beer, tea, soda, water) instead. If you like other beverages better, why not stick to them? You don’t have to drink wine! 🙂

(Image from Henry of Pelham, who make fine wines, include a truly delicious Baco Noir that I find is great year after year. Nice people who work there, too.)

How Academics are using Facebook for their studies at universities

Over at the – New York Times is a good article on how Facebook is being used as a serious tool for academics. For example:

In other words, Facebook — where users rate one another as “hot or not,” play games like “Pirates vs. Ninjas” and throw virtual sheep at one another — is helping scholars explore fundamental social science questions.“We’re on the cusp of a new way of doing social science,” said Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard sociology professor who is also part of the research. “Our predecessors could only dream of the kind of data we now have.”

There’s lots of great examples in the article: On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data

How to drive traffic to your blog

Not sure how useful this is, but based on examining my blog stats on WordPress.com, here are some observations I came up with that seem related to driving traffic to my site (not that I am Robert Scoble or anything..and what is alot for me is really not much). But they are practical tips.

Here they are:

  • Make it easy for search engines to find you: use searchable words in your blog title. I used to use interesting titles. Now I think about how to put as many searchable words in the title (and hence the URL) as possible so search engines will fine it.
  • Make the first sentence and the first paragraph catchy: search engine results (like Google) will have the first line or first paragraph highlighted in the search result. Make that something people want to read and therefore clickable.
  • Comment on general interest topics: I wrote an entry on the social effects of Facebook. People search for that alot it seems.
  • Comment on seasonal topics: like Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. People will be searching for things like that.
  • Comment on things in the news: new media, people in the news, new technology. People will be searching for new things. I am a big fan of Blade Runner, so I blogged about the latest version of it coming out, and I get lots of hits on that.
  • Offer helpful advice: Ok, I don’t know how helpful this is, but I used to have alot of people asking me for wine advice, so I blogged about how to find good cheap wine at the LCBO (i.e. the liquor stores of Ontario). I get alot of hits due to that, and if you google “cheap wine lcbo” I come out ahead of some established wine writers in Ontario. Go figure. I should give up this IT gig and write on wine for a living. 🙂
  • Use Images: I try to use images on my blog entries to make them more appealing (and give credit where it is due). But I also get alot of hits as a result of images.google.com
  • Write on offbeat topics: easier said than done, I know. I once wrote a blog entry on using a blackberry as a flashlight. I get at least 1 person a day searching on that.
  • Comment on sites with automatic trackback: some blogs like those at the nytimes.com and other places have automatic trackback. If you comment on those sites and put a link on your page, you may show up on their site.
  • Include a pointer to your blog whenever you can. 🙂