boars and fury

We need to test radically different things. We don’t know what works. Destroy all assumptions. We need to find what works and keep iterating — keep learning.

— Behind the scenes: A/B testing part 3: Finalé - (37signals)

‘Today I wrote nothing’

Perfect for a day beginning with returning to 750words.com:

April 11, 1937

“Enough of laziness and doing nothing! Open this notebook every day and write down half a page at the very least. If you have nothing to write down, then at least, following Gogol’s advice, write down that today there’s nothing to write. Always write with attention and look on writing as a holiday.”

— Daniil Kharms, “Today I Wrote Nothing: Selected Writings”

(Source: thenewinquiry)

Hard is good because to have worked is good, and things are right not when they are easy or simple, but when they leave your head and heart feeling more solid than they did before.

— Juno (in discussion here)

“Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing,” said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston.

Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction (New York Times)

I disagree with the overtones here of neurological determinism (‘The worry is we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently’). The whole article is unfortunately a bit sensationalist — but the point on where fulfilment (=sustained reward) lies is important.

In fact there’s a lot of untapped potential in this article - I’ll come back to this. Grinningly aware of the irony, yes, thanks.

Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.

— Hugh Macleod | Quotes on Design

The goal of an artist is to draw a perfect circle. Since a perfect circle cannot be drawn, the deviations from the perfect circle will express the artist’s own personality. But if the artist tries to express his own personality by concentrating on the deviations, he will miss the whole point.

— a version, unverified, of words from Pablo Picasso