Thinkcage

I have been reading more than my share lately about creativity and productivity. A brief mention in the a recent issue sent me back to read Kevin Kelly’s New Rules for the New Economy from Wired 5.09 in September 1997. This passage, in particular, caught my attention (emphasis mine):

Wasting time and being inefficient are the way to discovery. The Web is being run by 20-year-olds because they can afford to waste the 50 hours it takes to become proficient in exploring the Web. While 40-year-old boomers can’t take a vacation without thinking how they’ll justify the trip as being productive in some sense, the young can follow hunches and create seemingly mindless novelties on the Web without worrying about whether they are being efficient. Out of these inefficient tinkerings will come the future.

Everything we know about productivity and what it is to be productive seems wrong. Ideas are the currency of the future. Measuring them by the metrics of the past is only holding us back.

It is time once again, for A List Apart’s annual survey of the web industry. Last year nearly 33,000 took the survey, enabling ALA to begin figuring out what kinds of job titles, salaries, and work situations are common in our field. The results were very interesting and should help make this year’s survey even more effective.

If you work on the web in some way, please consider taking this survey and contributing to what we can learn about the field.

I spotted this bird nest on the ground in one of our planters in the front yard last week. The birds appear to be some variety of sandpiper that is common out where we live. They lay these cool blue/grey spotted eggs in nests on the ground.

A few days later I noticed that two of the three eggs had hatched revealing these tiny little birds. In the pictures you can see how well they blend in with the surrounding cypress mulch and pine bark.

Much to my surprise, when I went to check on the birds the next day the third egg was gone and so were the babies. It turns out they were already capable of walking, as I spotted 3 miniature versions of the parents skimming along the ground behind them. I’ll try to get pictures, but they are quick and weary of people. In fact, it is interesting that to protect the nest, the parents will get really loud flop around on the ground as if wounded in order to attract attention away from the nest.

Interesting stuff.

During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin told a reporter that the system’s new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Windows Vista without antivirus software installed.

This statement strikes me as the sort of thing that we will look back on in hilarity in few short years. I’m posting it just for that occasion.

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Browse past entries in the blog.

Stole this from Jeffrey Zeldman.

Four jobs I’ve had

1. Retail sales floor at Target Store #841
2. Bank Teller for Bank of America
3. Graphic Designer
4. Creative Director for ElementFusion

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. Dazed & Confused
2. Hero
3. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
4. Spirited Away

Four places I’ve lived

1. Milwaukee, WI
2. Tucson, AZ
3. Portland, OR
4. Edmond, OK

Four TV shows I love

1. The Office
2. 24
3. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
4. X-Play

Four places I’ve vacationed

1. Branson, MO
2. Yellowstone National Park
3. Disneyland
4. Green Bay, WI

Four of my favorite dishes

1. Lamb Curry at Taj India Cuisine
2. Box Lunch at Tokyo Japanese Restaurant
3. Grandma Tony’s Pizza
4. Sanchez Burrito Company

Four sites I visit daily

1. Engadget
2. My Yahoo
3. Dooce
4. Digg

Four places I would rather be right now

1. On the couch playing xbox.
2. In bed with a book.
3. Playing with the kids.
4. Somewhere I’ve never been before.

Four bloggers I am tagging

1. Radical Wacko
2. Solargarlic
3. Fiftymillimeter
4. Petrorabbit