vctips: When you email me a slide deck that ends in “version12.ppt”, somehow I don’t think I’m the first person you’re pitching… (@joshk)

Is being the first person I’ve pitched important to you?  Are you looking to plant a flag or do a deal?  If you want me to lie to you and tell you that you’re my first, I can do that, I just didn’t realize that would sweeten the pot, so to speak.

Incidentally, if you get “version1.ppt”, I’d think it’s a safe bet that little time or thought has been put into it.  I don’t think I’ve ever sent anything to anyone important that didn’t get to v5 at least.

A friend had work commissioned by the MoMA.  I missed it but here’s a video on the installation.

Titled, “I Want You To Want Me,” it’s a data visualization made up of data from dating profiles.

Hot.  Ness.

For most of its history basketball has measured not so much what is important as what is easy to measure — points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots — and these measurements have warped perceptions of the game.

I read the excellent article about Shane Battier titled The No-Stats All-Star and I couldn’t help but consider how the same misguided obsession with easy-to-measure statistics has influenced the design of social networking applications and rendered many of them ineffective.

Is Facebook or Tumblr really more useful when you have more friends?

(via muchonieve via zachklein)

This is the standard incentive system issue.  The behavior you want to motivate is rarely easily measured. In team sports they focus on all of these individual stats even though what really matters is how the team performs.  The problem is it’s very difficult to quantify the benefit a player provides to a team.

For example, in business, sales would seem to be about as close to an easily quantifiable activity.  However, if all of your incentives only focus on the quantifiable ($), then you can motivate other dysfunctional behaviors in the margins.  That’s why my understanding is that you need to push other more subtle levers focused on team dynamics to motivate the appropriate behavior.

Source: zachklein

funsizebytes:

Best job ever of not cracking a smile to let on that “Yeah, I know what I just said”

Wow.  The man must be a sociopath to let that one out with out a giggle.

Because what I really need is another image of myself and in cartoon form, no less. http://www.faceyourmanga.com/
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Because what I really need is another image of myself and in cartoon form, no less.

http://www.faceyourmanga.com/

Now I can re-buy iTunes songs as ringtones.  Does anyone believe that the first thing I want to do after dropping a sum of money I wouldn’t classify as insignificant on this phone is to BUY ringtones?  I guess I brought it on myself.  If lining up to give someone $300 doesn’t classify you as an easy mark, what does?
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Now I can re-buy iTunes songs as ringtones.  Does anyone believe that the first thing I want to do after dropping a sum of money I wouldn’t classify as insignificant on this phone is to BUY ringtones?  I guess I brought it on myself.  If lining up to give someone $300 doesn’t classify you as an easy mark, what does?

Whatchu’ get for shopping in the hood.
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Whatchu’ get for shopping in the hood.

Get Off T-Shirt Am I really the only one who shudders when they imagine wearing a t-shirt like this?  Don’t you read the news?  I’m not even trying to make negative commentary on the police, but on a dark night in a perfectly respectable part of Brooklyn or Harlem… well, let’s just say, I don’t want any misunderstandings.
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Get Off T-Shirt

Am I really the only one who shudders when they imagine wearing a t-shirt like this?  Don’t you read the news?  I’m not even trying to make negative commentary on the police, but on a dark night in a perfectly respectable part of Brooklyn or Harlem… well, let’s just say, I don’t want any misunderstandings.

French/European ads are the best.

Welcome back to NYC!

  • saadiq: oh, the lady on the train this morning was absolutely bat-shit crazy
  • saadiq: apparently she'd gotten into it with some mta person
  • jevaun: hehehe, welcome back.
  • saadiq: fled onto the train
  • jevaun: word?
  • saadiq: and spent the next 4 stops talking about how her pimps were iller than their pimps
  • jevaun: oh dear...
  • saadiq: and how that BITCH was trying to act like smooth the hustler... FBI... BITCH...
  • jevaun: wow
  • saadiq: intermingled with (thankfully) failed attempts to remove her shirt
  • jevaun: that's special crazy....
  • saadiq: that level of crazy is almost as interesting as our ability to thoroughly ignore it
  • jevaun: not your ordinary run of the mill crazy.
  • saadiq: looking around the train not a soul was stirring
  • jevaun: hehehe
  • jevaun: true new york.
  • saadiq: I really wanted to pause and ask crazy who she was talking with so loudly
  • jevaun: no you didn't.
  • saadiq: but I'm not new. Don't go and engage crazy.
  • jevaun: crazy woulda followed you all the way up into those fancy new offices.
  • saadiq: lol
  • jevaun: and THAT is not a good look
  • saadiq: she got off at 59th
  • jevaun: not on week 2 anyway....
  • saadiq: you could hear her all the way down the platform
  • jevaun: you always can. Crazy is never shy.
  • saadiq: I really want to condense that into a twitter post but I don't think 140 chars is ready for it
  • saadiq: ahh.... perfect for tumblr