everyday observations of regular people

tonight was like this.

Alex Ratcliffe-Lee: Synesthesia

Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), “together,” and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), “sensation“—is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to…

file under things you didn’t know about your brother.

11am
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6 notes
via bobulate

The nearest kind of association is not mere perceptual cognition, but, rather, a handling, using, and taking care of things which has its own kind of ‘knowledge.’

Martin Heidegger (via bobulate)

11am
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1 note

The case for context

These terms I’ve been using – “intellectual framework,” “systemic information,” etc. – this is what I mean when I say “context.” I’ve pitched you on the consumer benefits of context, but information creators are also slowly beginning to come around to the long-term ROI of delivering context as well, for several reasons. For one thing, our information becomes much more valuable and much more desirable to you as your framework for understanding it becomes better. Jay Rosen has astutely noted the uptick in attention to financial crisis stories after This American Life’s Giant Pool of Money episode laid out the context of the crisis. For another thing, the success of Wikipedia and the enduring popularity of items like “The Ultimate Guide to Everything You Need to Know About Social Media” has taught us there’s a real market for context. There are also significant advertising benefits to having more sophisticated structures for information than “latest updates.” We could dwell on the “why” for a long time.

if you’re in austin - put down your phone, stop stalking that girl you saw at the bar and go to matt’s panel.

8am
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4 notes
via slantback

I feel like there’s this tension that goes on in business and especially in marketing, this conceit that we can take humans—you know, messy, irrational, organic—and somehow cut them open and figure out the binary, rational, predictable, money-making algorithms that determine what they do. You see all this harnessing of science, you know, whether it’s neuro-this or lie detector-that or psychotherapy-this that gets used in the service of, not helping people, but helping marketers crack the nut of what people want, where is the desire center in the brain. You know, that we can learn things about people in a way that is “true”—that is predictable and true, and will determine consumption patterns. I find the idea that we should be able to do that just fascinating, because that’s not the world of people that we live in as people, so why as marketers or designers or producers do we think that we should turn people into things that they really aren’t?

Steve Portigal, from a fascinating discussion transposed here. (via chrbutler) (via slantback)

left, without comment, while i - quite frankly - think about it.

4pm
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31 notes
via bbook

Top 10 Best Roadtripping Songs

bbook:

Looking forward to summer already… can’t ya tell?

1. Sweet Emotion// Aerosmith
2. Hotel California// The Eagles
3. Love You Madly// Cake
4. Where Nobody Knows// Kings of Leon
5. Young Folks// Peter Bjorn & John
6. Run Around// Blues Traveler
7. Ramble On// Led Zeppelin
8. China Girl// David Bowie
9. Love and Memories// OAR
10. Slow Ride// Foghat

today was that day people in the tri-state started to really hope that warm weather is relatively close. you could just tell by people’s attitudes, the fact that it was friday and the fact that they decided to wear vests instead of jackets even when it was snowing (i.e. me).

btw, hell yes to slow ride!

1pm
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The Newsonomics of time-on-site

$3.42 vs 10 cents. The Times is monetizing its time on site 34 times better than Facebook.

definitely click-through to this. social networks are blowing news sites out of the water in terms of time spent on site but, it seems, aren’t doing a fantastic job monetizing it.

9am
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2 notes

Human-flesh Search Engines in China

Human-flesh search engines - renrou sousuo yinqing - have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It’s crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online with offline results.