2008 August | The Innovationist

Link Dump today, I was busy studying the different aspects of the Joker and forgot to write something. Movie was a bit bland wouldn’t recommend it without Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker, he literally carried this movie for me. So I’ll leave some of the things I found of interest the past 2 weeks.

I-Power is an interesting idea from Kevin Rose. Basically, the idea is to add background software to the Iphone and hardware in your home that acts as switches. The Iphone sends out a gps signal that registers on the hardware when you leave the range it shuts everything off and when you enter it comes back on.

Content and Community video from Gary Vaynerchuk, an amazing guy, is something I enjoy because he cuts out the BS. He gives it to you straight, it’s not about you it’s about the customer. This applies to life not just a vlog.

20 Strategies to Defeat the Urge to Do a Useless Task over at Zen Habits something that really strikes a chord with me. Recently, I was asked how I manage so many social media sites, approximately a dozen. I replied with, “I guess I’ve just become atuned to doing it.” This lists the processes that I use and some I don’t, it lets you have some flexibitility.

Innovation Step By Step Instructions from Musing on Marketing provides a pretty simple guide to innovation. It’s something that anyone looking to innovate a market should read. I plan on looking at it when I need to clear my mind and drop back to the basics.

Forrest Gump: How to Build Your Self-Confidence over at Success Soul is about being creative, confident, and how to lead. It shows the values that truely matter, not the knowledge that we are forced to believe matters. It is there to prove that you can do what you want and the wisdom all came from Forrest’s lips.

Well, that’s what I have for you tonight, be back with new stuff on Friday.

My friend, Glenn, over at My Adventure to Enlightenment is studying-abroad this semester in Morocco. He’ll be leaving in a few weeks and realized he only has room for roughly 6 books in his luggage. He is looking for books that have re-readability, provoke deep, challenging thought, and he is seeking non-fiction. This made me think what determines re-readability in a non-fiction text.

The Personal Library
The Quantum-Library
The Anti-Library

The Personal Library is a the basic layer containing all of your possessed books and other literary works. It possesses those that you have read, re-read, and have yet to read. For the separation of the layers this is the only layer that contains books that you have read only once.

The Anti-Library is something that has become a bit of a buzz word after being mentioned in Nassim Taleb’s, The Black Swan. He quote’s Umberto Eco on his view of a library(quote provided below). It is the layer that holds text that you have yet to read.

‘”Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight read-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an anti-library.”‘

However, there is another layer that is not discussed as of yet. It contains the texts that you have read, but ultimate meaning still eludes it’s readers. A book that shifts meaning depending on the perspective used to percieve it’s words. A layer that contains the ultimate in re-readability. This layer is like a movie, you watch it once and you enjoy it, you watch it several more times and you notice several subtle nuances, and the longer you re-watch the more you notice. These are the text’s that he is wanting to pack.

The Quantum-Library is the layer that co-exists as a member of both the Library and the Anti-Library. It is something you may have read, but when read again with a different perspective it exists in another form. These type’s of books are the ultimate for a bibliophile. It is the layer described above and contains the texts that you re-read.

So if you know of any texts that exist in the Quantum layer leave a comment here or over at Glenn’s blog he’d really appreciate it.

Addendum:

Seeing people come in from Zenpundit, Jay@Soob, OZ Deichman, and Ace Hanna, I have added my own list with reasons for their selection.

I thought of this Saturday as I was talking to a friend about my job and the other things that I have plans for in the near months. I’ve spent the last several months looking for problems/flaws in certain ideas. I realized that the idea of the half-full/half-empty glass question is flawed, while talking to him. This logic may be flawed as it was thought up in a pessimistic manner.

The logic of asking if the glass is half-full/half-empty is normally used to determine if a person is optimistic or pessimistic. Generally, pessimism is frowned upon when you are asked this question, however it may be flawed. The flaw in the question, is that I don’t think you gain more from being an optimist. Let me explain this more thoroughly.

If your ever out at a restaurant, the waiter normally asks you if you would like to have your glass refilled. This is were the question frays, if you see it as half-full your more likely to say no thanks, however, if it’s half-empty you’ll want it refilled. If you replace the liquid with ambition, would you not want to have more? Yet, many would say no, because they don’t need anymore; they are content with what we have. I say look at it half-empty and ask for more.

Ambition is something that you can never have enough of. So, I want you to go out; and every time you see your glass as half-full, know you need to see it as half-empty. Go after your dreams; be optimistic because your a pessimist with as much ambition as you can handle. You can accomplish your dreams just don’t be so pessimistic as to dismiss them.

I’ve been seeing this recurring theme of intolerance pop-up almost non-stop in current media. We have the ’08 election and are constantly badgered with views of racism, sexism, ageism, and religious intolerance. This is constant in modern life, no matter what you do, you will come across someone with a very different perspective on some subject.

The story that really brought this idea to fruition in me is that I saw an interview with two 14 year-old girls on television. These girls were kicked off of a bus in Portland last year for kissing by the bus driver who called them ‘sickos’. He didn’t bother to wait to get to the next bus stop. This was someone who was forcing his opinion against homosexuality because he saw it as a truth, in doing so he impeded the girls’ rights.

The election has been wrought with constant bipolar truths that are no doubt going to stay in the mainstream media until at least November. Most of them originating in the Democratic Primaries just to market to the masses on one side of the truth. You have “Hillary is a woman, a woman can’t run the country”, “Barrack is Muslim(not true), he’s going to sell this country out to the terrorists”, “McCain is too old to be president, he’ll die in office”, “Barrack is like Rev. Wright”, and “A black man isn’t capable of running this country, he’ll turn it into a ghetto”, all of these have been either explicitly or implicitly distributed by the media. Is this the representation of the beliefs of everyone in the country? No, they are marketing to their audiences, the only problem is that diffusion has occurred in media and it spreads, having it reach the people that share the other side of the truth.

If your trying to sell something as truth, you have to realize that what your truth is opinion only. As you age, however, your opinion shall become more refined; it needs a proper base to do so. So try to reflect on your views and the flip-side of them. You may be the intolerant bastard who you despise.

Wasted Too Much Time With The Dark Knight

The Three Hierarchical Layers Of Books

Why I Like To Think Of The Glass As Half-Empty

Acknowledging Personal Truths Are Not The Truths Of Others

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