Quote of the Day: Kant on the Essence of Humor

The essence of humor is a strained expectation dissolving into nothing.
--Kant

Quote about "Fear of Failure"

How many times do you find yourself not trying something new or starting an idea you've been sitting on because you think you lack confidence?

Dick Costolo, founder of the blog aggregation site Feedburner that was acquired by Google recently, wrote this advice on his blog:

[..]the opposite of ‘fear of failure’ isn’t confidence. The opposite of ‘fear of failure’ is just not bothering to think about failure (BIG difference between this and thinking about risk profile for your idea/company)...

The key is to just get on the bike, and the key to getting on the bike is not the confidence in knowing you will be successful if you do x,y,z. The key to getting on the bike is to stop thinking about “there are a bunch of reasons i might fall off” and just hop on and peddle the damned thing. You can pick up a map, a tire pump, and better footwear along the way.

From Ask The Wizard

Today's Homemade Quote™

Tradition is Habit with an ego.

Trees, Design, and Inspiring Conference Lectures

I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.
            -- Joyce Killmer

A quote from systems sustainability expert William Mcdonough, during a TED conference lecture:

Imagine this design assignment. Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, acrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates micro-climates, changes colors with the seasons and self-replicates.

Watch the video here.

I highly recommend watching all TED Conference videos for inspiration. My friend Nick is lucky enough to have attended several of these invite-only $6000 conferences, but fortunately for the rest of us, the lectures are made available for free to watch online. You can watch them at the TED website or via iTunes podcast.

Video Camera, or a Pencil?

Quote of the day:

It's easy to design a video camera with a pencil, but impossible to design a pencil with a video camera.

--- Bruce Sterling