Ivanish

"There’s a zen concept of a finger pointing at the moon. If I show you this [points at the..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:22:26 -0600

“There’s a zen concept of a finger pointing at the moon. If I show you this [points at the moon], I’m not trying to show you the finger, I’m trying to show you the moon, but the moon is really far, so all I’ve got is the finger.”

- Jonathan Blow, with Chris Hecker at an IGDA Q/A session

"Skepticism is ok. What I worry about is when you go from being in the default mode of being curious..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 19:52:00 -0600

“

Skepticism is ok.

What I worry about is when you go from being in the default mode of being curious about new things, to the default mode of being suspicious about new things.

”

- Rails Conf 2012 Keynote: Progress by David Heinemeier Hanson

"A tractor, a go-kart, and a Ferrari all perform about the same if you’re only traveling 1..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:54:00 -0600

“A tractor, a go-kart, and a Ferrari all perform about the same if you’re only traveling 1 inch.”

- From HackerNews

"Weeks of undirected work can save you hours of planning."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:31:54 -0600

“Weeks of undirected work can save you hours of planning.”

"Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they’re much more liable to collapse than..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:31:12 -0600

“Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they’re much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code.”

- Eric S. Raymond

This is a good point for me to consider in the context of how I write music — I am tickled in the near term by the cleverness of complexity, but satisfied in the long term by the elegance of simplicity.

"There are two ways of constructing a design. One way is to make it so simple that there are..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:27:09 -0600

“There are two ways of constructing a design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”

- Charles Antony Richard Hoare

"Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:06:01 -0600

“Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.”

- Bill Gates

"Being abstract is something profoundly different from being vague… The purpose of abstraction..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:30:06 -0600

“Being abstract is something profoundly different from being vague… The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.”

- Edsger Dijkstra

"A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those..."

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:25:10 -0600

“A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use.”

- Edsger Dijkstra

"Saying “I want to possibly, maybe, one day support infinity” is a bad choice for most..."

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:37:00 -0600

“Saying “I want to possibly, maybe, one day support infinity” is a bad choice for most businesses.”

- Rich Hickey, in the final seconds of his talk introducing Datomic.

"It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is..."

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:08:42 -0600

“

It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.

But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.

”

- Procrastination Is Not Laziness by David Cain

"Depth: the number of emergent experientially-different possibilities or meaningful choices that come..."

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:21:22 -0700

“Depth: the number of emergent experientially-different possibilities or meaningful choices that come out of one ruleset.”

- Extra Credits episode on Depth vs Complexity in games.

My take: It’s worth considering Depth in terms of what choices the player is able to reason about, not what choices are available. I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim that this definition of Depth is the essence of what makes “a game”. The game always happens in the player’s mind, right?

"The stock price can be determined through a simple function: take earnings and multiply it by a..."

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:54:30 -0700

“The stock price can be determined through a simple function: take earnings and multiply it by a random number.”

- Horace.

"I’ve never thought going the way of the herd was a particularly good strategy. You can be assured to..."

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:16:00 -0700

“I’ve never thought going the way of the herd was a particularly good strategy. You can be assured to be at best middle of the pack if you do that. And that’s at best.”

- Tim Cook, runner-up for Time’s Person Of The Year

The middle of the herd, where you’re safe from predators, and trapped.

"In the short term, everything seems impossible. In the long term, everything seems inevitable...."

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:34:00 -0600

“In the short term, everything seems impossible. In the long term, everything seems inevitable. Innovation is how you move from one to the other.”

- Paraphrased from Horace Dediu in The Critical Path.

"Strategy is good, but information is better. Somewhere between them is a tipping point, where..."

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:29:00 -0600

“Strategy is good, but information is better. Somewhere between them is a tipping point, where good-enough information is better than the best available strategy. If you can find that point, you are in an immensely powerful position.”

- Me

"To stop worrying about it will require worrying about it a lot at first."

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 20:07:40 -0600

“To stop worrying about it will require worrying about it a lot at first.”

- Ken Arnold

"the only possible solution that makes sense"

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:41:00 -0600

“the only possible solution that makes sense”

- Jony Ive

"through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other,..."

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:46:00 -0600

“through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas, and what comes out are these really beautiful stones”

- SJ

"I don’t consider first-mover or fast-follower to be accurate descriptions of strategy. Success..."

Tue, 22 May 2012 21:53:00 -0600

“I don’t consider first-mover or fast-follower to be accurate descriptions of strategy. Success follows from innovation and only from innovation. There are various forms of innovation: there is new market creation, new business models, low cost or distribution innovation.”

- Horace Dediu