“Martin Van Buren was a big part of OK’s initial takeoff” “Van Buren’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1840 is regarded by etymologists as instrumental in the popularization of the word ‘OK’. In the context of the campaign, the initialism was used as a nickname for Van Buren and stood for ‘Old Kinderhook,’ which was a …
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
One Small Step for Man
“The internet is for humans… We are always saying that, but the only file we generate is one full of additional information for the searchbots: robots.txt. Then why not doing one for ourselves?”
“Your Mind Mistakes the Talking for the Doing” – Derek Sivers
More good stuff from Derek Sivers
Pinecone Passions: A Star Tribune Community eBook
I’ve been working with the Star Tribune on a number of very exciting new projects. The first of these project is an ebook version of Pinecone Passions -the short romance story written by the Star Tribune community for Valentines day, 2011. It’s now available in the Amazon Kindle store for $2.99 – with other ebook …
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Unusability
Users insights can’t predict future demand… User-centered processes stifles creativity… User focus makes companies miss out on disruptive innovations… User-led design leads to sameness…. – Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen.
Plain Text Persists
“Relying on these application files for our precious words is a mistake. Standards and preferences change. What your computer can understand today, it may not tomorrow.” I’ve got a shelf full of backed-up work that is essentially useless because the applications, file formats, and technologies I used to create the work no longer exists. What …
Free as in Air. Free as in Dirt.
RepRap a GPL’d home factory.from Adrian Bowyer’s. The RepRap is to physical objects as WordPress is to ideas.
Fermenting: “Marley was Dead” Barleywine
“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead …
Less than Beautiful
“OK, a microhelen is the unit of BEAUTY sufficient to launch one ship. Helen had ‘a face that launched one thousand ships’….” – TimKeck
Poke
“What does Facebook tell China when they ask if Facebook can be used to overthrow governments?” – Dave Winer This question – on its face – is good. Load in all the U.S. media stories about Facebook being used to organize government revolts, the value of China to the U.S. economy, Wikileaks, and Dave’s work …