Author: Jonathan Frei

The Cult of Done

I posted something on this before, but I found a pictoral version of the message as well as the text the image is based on. 

Cult of Done

The Cult of Done Manifesto

  1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
  2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
  3. There is no editing stage.
  4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
  5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
  6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
  7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
  8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
  9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
  10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
  11. Destruction is a variant of done.
  12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
  13. Done is the engine of more.

via Bre Pettis

by Jonathan Frei

The Supercut

Kevin Kelly has some insights on how the new genre of supercuts will work behind the scenes to keep movies and videos fresh by pointing out the absurdity of repeated phrases, camera shots, and situations.

As super cuts become more common — and become part of the cultural vocabulary — I think they will help keep cliches from getting old, and will help creators and the audience perceive recurring patterns in rapid turnaround. They will act as keen proofreaders and critics.

I can only hope he’s right. But even if supercuts don’t help Hollywood get rid or their cliches, at least the assembled cliches can be entertaining.

via KK.org

by Jonathan Frei

Facebook In ’90s (Seinfeld)




Jerry Seinfeld explains the appeal of Facebook, long before the site existed.

(by chageo1185)

by Jonathan Frei

The fallen nature of man is gender-neutral. Some men are pigs, and some women are liars. Current sexual harassment law deals justly and effectively with the former at the cost of allowing the latter to do great harm to innocent men. The presence of both sexes in the workplace makes necessary some combination of laws, policies and customs to regulate sexual behavior on the job. But the principle of heads-she-wins-tails-he-loses does violence to both justice and equality.

James Taranto, from Sexual Harassment Stories.
by Jonathan Frei

Tool-Makers

The world is full of great tools. With them anything is possible. But the paint brush does not make the painter. The pen does not make the poet.

Tools are inanimate object and are completely useless unless there is someone to use them, to animate them.

And who makes those world-changing tools?

Those who make tools have a high calling. The work they do enables the rest of us to create. The tool-maker gives a gift to us all.

by Jonathan Frei

The Personalized Web

The internet is a vast ocean of knowledge, spread wide and deep with facts and opinion.

This is good.

It gives us access to everything and anything we could ever want to find. It makes the information that once set experts apart from the rest of us accessible to everyone, leveling the field and removing the advantage of being in the know.

However, now that everyone can “know” following a few Google searches, the expert must evolve into something new. The expert can no longer be just a person who knows the fact, but a person who can tell you what the facts mean.

With everyone having access to the same information, there is more importance in the interpretation of that information than ever. But interpretation of facts are not the same as facts.

Now with a personalized web, there is yet another layer to consider. First there is the fact. Second there is the interpretation of that fact, the opinion. Finally, there is the filter of the personalized web that will decide if you ever get exposed to that opinion.

There is a true paradox in the web.

On the one hand, it opens up so many possibilities and perspectives. All the world’s knowledge is before you, just a search and a click away. On the other hand, the web can be rather insulating. You only see what you choose to see.

You only search the things you are thinking and you may only subscribe to the blogs that reinforce your would view. The links you see from friends on Facebook are links from friends who are you friends because of what you share in common.

How can this personalized web deliver the right interpretations of facts?

by Jonathan Frei