Fire and Knowledge

Black people—specifically, young black people—do seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network—they follow one another more readily, they retweet each other more often, and more of their posts are @-replies—posts directed at other users. It’s this behavior, intentional or not, that gives black people—and in particular, black teenagers—the means to dominate the conversation on Twitter.

—Farhad Manjoo, “How Black People Use Twitter”

(via Abraham)

Sharpie’s new “liquid pencil” is a fantastic idea. They made a pen of liquid graphite which erases like a pencil but dries permanently in three days. The best of both worlds!

This is a pretty big difference:

77% of iPhone owners say they’ll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of Android customers who say they’ll buy another Android phone.

I just found a domain naming service called PickyDomains. You pay them $50 and if you like any of the domains, you just register it normally. If you don’t like any of them, they refund the $50. Sounds like a deal to me; I’m going to try it for a new idea of mine.

I’ve been addicted to email for a long time. Only in the last few years have I made a conscious effort to break the addiction and do scheduled email processing — and I only did it out of necessity. Constant email checking is a huge waste of time. It is far more efficient to process in batches, but it doesn’t give the same constant rush.

Tony Schwartz talks about this in his article “Breaking the Email Addiction“:

Out of 1200 respondents, some 60 percent said they spend less than two waking hours a day completely disconnected from email. Twenty percent spend less than a half hour disconnected. Email has become our intravenous feeding tube. [...]

It isn’t overload we’re battling anymore, it’s addiction — to action, and information, and connection, but above all to instant gratification.

In the late 1960s, the psychologist Walter Mischel began conducting his famous “marshmallow” experiment. He placed a marshmallow in front of a succession of four-year-olds. Mischel told them they were free to eat the marshmallow simply by ringing a bell after he’d left the room. However, if they were able to wait untill he returned, he told them they could have two marshmallows.

Seventy percent of the children gave up in less than a minute. Only thirty percent were able to wait 15 minutes.

Mischel termed marshmallows a “hot stimulus” — meaning highly seductive — not unlike the ping of an email, or a text.

We’re pulled to anything that provides instant gratification, even when we know we’d get a bigger reward for delaying. We’re also quick to respond to any excuse to stop working on something that is difficult and requires high concentration.

What Mischel discovered is that the low delayers quickly burned down their limited reservoir of will and discipline by staring directly (and longingly) at the marshmallow.

The high delayers found something else entirely to focus on. They never looked at the marshmallow.

Mischel came to call this skill “strategic allocation of attention.” It’s a capacity many of us have lost when it comes to the Pavlovian pull of email.

I don’t want to be in constant respond mode. I want to focus and concentrate on what’s actually important, not be in bondage to the tyranny of the now.

Kottke quotes from Wallace’s Infinite Jest on why videophones might die out. Here’s a summary quote:

The answer, in a kind of trivalent nutshell, is: (1) emotional stress, (2) physical vanity, and (3) a certain queer kind of self-obliterating logic in the microeconomics of consumer high-tech.

I think video is a great option to have and I’m sure I will use it (especially with family). But for casual long-distance conversation, audio-only will reign for a while yet.

Ouch:

Eleven days after Apple was formed, [Ron] Wayne removed himself from the company charter. He eventually was given $800 for his stake in Apple, and he let go of that valuable Apple stock, which has exploded in value since.

“I’m living off my Social Security and I do a modest trade in collectors’ stamps and coins,” he said.

Today, that stock would be worth $22 billion.

That’s the kind of mistake I hope I never make.

And this part is priceless:

A retired engineer, who has worked at various companies since his departure, Wayne said he never has owned an Apple product.

“I never had a real use for computers,” he said.