The Gegenschein is “a rarely discernable faint glow [that] can be seen 180 degrees around from the Sun in an extremely dark sky”

bookofjoe: Transparent Post-It Notes – interesting, lends itself to overlay uses. Looks pretty wasteful though, if it’s plastic.

“Insight could be orchestrated…They had different backgrounds and temperaments and perspectives, and if you gave them something to think about that they did not ordinarily think about…you were guaranteed a fresh set of eyes.” – Malcolm Gladwell, reporting on Intellectual Ventures, an “invention company”.

“A scientific genius is not a person who does what no one else can do; he or she is someone who does what it takes many others to do.” – Malcolm Gladwell, channeling Robert K. Merton

A Final Farewell – WSJ.com – more on Randy Pausch, including some fascinating stories since the lecture. The book sounds good too…

“[My chapters] start with a Shakespeare quote for two simple reasons. One, to remind everybody that most of what science has to tell us about human behavior already has been divined by writers with great insight. Science helps us confirm which writers were right and which were wrong, but it rarely tells us something that…more

“I guess it seems a bit ambitious to ask practitioners in an emergent field to suddenly take on responsibility for marketing and strategy and all that colossal headache but I’m convinced that some sort of Experience Design will become the master discipline for businesses that want to be good at selling stuff.” – Russell Davies

“I’m telling an old myth in a new way…I guess I’m localizing it for the end of the millennium more than I am for any particular place.” George Lucas, commenting on how Joseph Campbell’s work influenced his films.

Leadership and being a good person

I’ve had a little experience leading people now, and it seems to me that despite all the fuss made about it, leadership really comes down to just two things: 1. Know what you’re talking about: widget A, profit margin B. 2. Be “a good person”: honest, kind, generous, compassionate. We can go to schools to…more

A modular, self-assembling robot – Andreesen says it well: “Don’t fool yourself — they’re coming for us”