Whims

Once a day, he would call a “creative meeting” to discuss whichever project would soon fall due. He would not bring sketches, or notes, or a creative brief to these meetings. Instead, he would “lead a creative brainstorm,” which meant we had to listen to him spout whatever shallow, idiotic idea proposed itself to his limited mind at that moment. We were then supposed to leave the room and execute his so-called “concept.”

It didn’t matter if the idea was derivative of someone else’s widely known better ad, or if it was superficially cute but meaningless, or wrong in tone, or more likely to hurt than help the client’s business. He had spoken, and that was that.

Jeffrey Zeldman, The Whims

Everything is not going to be okay

Dan Zak for the Washington Post: How to live with constant reminders that the Earth is in trouble

Hold the problem in your mind. Freak out, but don’t put it down. Give it a quarter-turn. See it like a scientist, and as a poet. As a descendant. As an ancestor.

“It is an immense privilege to be alive at this time,” Alice Major says from Edmonton. “We owe it to ourselves to try as hard as we can to understand what’s going on. And to give meaning to it. . . . Only by understanding our lives as meaningful can we hope to create meaningful change.”

Here’s to the new decade not ending the way it began.

Jim Cramer Rants On CNBC

A classic from the early days of the financial crisis: Jim Cramer rants at how bad the market was eight months before Bear Sterns failed and was sold for pennies on the dollar to JP Morgan.

Presenting with Tableau

At today’s team meeting, I walked my team through a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: presenting data with Tableau. What I actually wanted to show them was this.

(Courtesy of Swear Trek)

What even is code?

Every hard-fought factoid about the absolute best and most principled way to use the language will be fetid zoo garbage by the end of the year.

—Paul Ford, What Is Code?

Finally completed the magnum opus that is Paul Ford’s 38,000-word essay about writing software. And this, after having had a colleague remind me of its existence back in November and trying for weeks in the interstices of the day to make progress.

Among the charming sets of words he strung together, these were my favorite. This week’s goal: work “fetid zoo garbage” into a sentence.

These markets are here to make you feel foolish…

The markets of late have me reminiscing about the financial crisis of 2008-09. The office had CNBC streaming 24/7 on the trading floor, and you couldn’t take your eyes off the screen.

Watching protestors—who were actually just down the street—in Zuccotti Park, where hundreds of Occupiers from the Occupy Wall Street movement were camped out.

(Darkly) joking with colleagues that we’d soon be seeing CNBC cameras trained on Citi’s front door at 388 Greenwich St as colleagues carry out cardboard boxes in tears.

Hearing Art Cashin say in January 2009, at the very bottom of the market, “the end of the world is priced into these stocks.”

And then…and, then…there was this:

I’m just trying to be the voice of reason, guiding you to the light.

—Jeff Macke, CBNC

You sure tried, Jeff.

Oh, Fredo

I can handle things, I’m smart! Not like everybody says.

—Fredo Corleone, Godfather II

Services > iPhone > Mac

Apple fans, if you thought Apple took its eye off the Mac when the iPhone became 70% of its business, just imagine how bad it’ll be when content and services becomes the lion’s share of the business https://t.co/UB5DYTuPta

— Ken Walker (@kenwalker) January 7, 2019