"I had gone to Hunter College, but never graduated. So I tried going back to school, too. I took two classes at Hunter: a modern poetry class and a media studies course. I was getting a lot out of both classes; the professors were great. But I remember there were materials on reserve at the library, and you had to go check out a book and Xerox the material. You had to get a Xerox card and stand in line to photocopy the book. I just had this moment where I was like, “What the fuck?” There was no way I could do it. It just seemed ridiculous. There might be some arrogance in that, but Xeroxing a book seemed completely disconnected from my desire to learn. It wasn’t just Xeroxing a book, but everything that represented. After years of working in this new, exciting arena, doing things no one had done before, making money, to then be standing there in line to Xerox a book - needless to say, I didn’t finish the classes."

That’s me talking about my last (last ever!) attempt to go back to college after the dotcom bust in 2000. From an excerpt of an interview I did with Lisa Chamberlain in 2007 or so, for her book Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction.

So cool that someone read this just a few days ago and liked it enough to post it on their blog. Thanks, Evan!

Merv at the Movies: Maximum Efficiency

(via jenbee)

(via jenbee)

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zoya:

hypem:

CONTEST:

We built some Victorian houses on our Fast Forward splash page, but we haven’t had a chance to paint them. Help us out! Choose any graphic in this set, decorate, and send back to us by June 4. 

Our favorite two will win a choice of SOL REPUBLIC Amps or Tracks HD headphones. 

Fuck with my art, please. 

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Modern Medicine

A new essay by Jonathan Harris about the responsibility involved in creating software.  Read it if you haven’t yet.  Also, check out World Building in a Crazy World, required reading if you make stuff.

When I was 14, my mom was really excited for me to become a doctor, given that she was a dentist herself.  After visiting a few doctors in the US, my desire for the work started fading. It seemed that being a doctor was a daily ethics battle of choosing between money and actually helping people, with the odds stacked against you (if you chose to focus on helping). That seemed exhausting and dark as it didn’t look like those choices would frequently align.

Around the same time, I started experimenting with computers, and it seemed like an easy world - entirely without such struggles.  My interest grew, but a few years later it became clear that I was very wrong about the lack of ethical decisions in the world of tech (amusingly, it seems that many people much older than 14 have still not figured this out).

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“Fatass” on Rosenthaler Straße, ouside of CCCP bar, fittingly

“Fatass” on Rosenthaler Straße, ouside of CCCP bar, fittingly

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Of course if there a Google Maps spam issue/bug in Berlin data, it’s to replace a street name with a name of a record store #ohberlin

Of course if there a Google Maps spam issue/bug in Berlin data, it’s to replace a street name with a name of a record store #ohberlin

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Стас Барецкий - Деньги Money (Stas Baretskiy - Money) [via N]

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Даха Браха - “Весна” (Dakha Brakha - “Vesna”) [via N]

With an apparent video nod to Fatboy Slim - Ya Mama

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“It’s not boring, it’s ambient” sign outside an event space in Kiev.
Update: It’s actually a reference to this ambient compilation from Ukraine and Poland

“It’s not boring, it’s ambient” sign outside an event space in Kiev.

Update: It’s actually a reference to this ambient compilation from Ukraine and Poland

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Do not be mislead by their fishy appearance, these are actually mostly salt

Do not be mislead by their fishy appearance, these are actually mostly salt

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thegongshow:

I wonder if we could do this today…
Feels like we (US society) prioritize and reward innovation in bits, not atoms.  And in the process, we lose stuff like this.
(via The Atlantic)

thegongshow:

I wonder if we could do this today…

Feels like we (US society) prioritize and reward innovation in bits, not atoms.  And in the process, we lose stuff like this.

(via The Atlantic)

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Incredibox is a really fresh sampler/loop interface. Very well done. (via HN)

Incredibox is a really fresh sampler/loop interface. Very well done. (via HN)

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Киев, добрый вечер. Ты большой.

Киев, добрый вечер. Ты большой.

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"He said he’d won over Digg’s elusive cofounders by sending them “bikini shots” from a “nudie calendar” he’d put together with photographs of fellow students posing in their swimsuits."

Matt Van Horn, Head of Business Development for Path. That’s real cool, guys.

More on the subject in “Gangbang Interviews” and “Bikini Shots”: Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem by Tasneem Raja

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Океан Ельзи - Коли тобі важко

Heard this on the radio in the taxi today, reminded me of Океан Ельзи, this one is excellent.

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Synthetic

Synthetic

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