“and someone leads the beast in on its chain / but I know you’re thinking of me, ‘cause it’s just about to rain”
1 John 4:16 - the Mountain Goats (by 14hp1)
I am the co-founder of iDoneThis.
I played Starcraft under the alias smalter.
I live in San Francisco and New York City.
I read email sent to walter dot chen at gmail dot com.
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2013-04-30
Source: youtube.com
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2013-04-15
- Nathan: did you watch that video?
- was the funniest thing you've seen?
- EVER???
- me: nah it looked kinda stupid
- sorrry
- just skimmed
- Nathan: YOU CAN´T SKIM A VIDEO!!!
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2013-04-12
‘He did very well, amazing,’ said Guan’s father. ‘But he was only as good as he always is.’
Source: Guardian
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2013-04-10
The Master – a masterclass in film | Film | The Guardian
Essentially, The Master is a fable and while Anderson’s movie would seem to raise the question of whether Freddie Quell can live his American Dream as a masterless slave, it does ultimately suggest that Quell has internalised Dodd’s teachings and even put them to use. For once in Anderson’s world, the son has triumphed over the father.
The introductory chapter of DH Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature addresses the function that freedom and authority occupy in the American imagination: It’s the Calibans, “the most unfree souls”, per Lawrence, who “go west, and shout of freedom”. Lawrence concludes by proposing to strip away the trappings of democratic rhetoric that exalts the will of the people, to reveal America’s “deepest self”. For him, the official line – which he puts in quotation marks – is contradicted by the underlying meaning:
“Henceforth be masterless.”
Henceforth be mastered.
Anderson, though, is an American. He’s optimistic, and so, when we last see Freddie Quell in The Master’s final scene, Lawrence’s formula has been reversed – at least for the moment.
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2013-03-15
“your brother’s in the basement doing hot knives / your brother’s in the basement doing hot knives”
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Barnes’ Yard (by Hcg Rinkens)
Source: youtube.com
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2013-01-20
“crashing sounds of the waterfall / and a statue of jesus 200 feet tall”
The Mountain Goats- Going To Santiago (by Bretcmm)
Source: youtube.com
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2012-11-05
Deferred Legitimacy, Deferred Gratification
One of the most anxiety-inducing aspects of quitting your job to do your own thing is losing legitimacy. Before, you were part of an institution, maybe Google, IBM, or Goldman Sachs. You were a respectable, maybe even dignified, member of mainstream society. Now you’re just a person.
Legitimacy is an overlooked form of gratification, and it’s an awfully powerful force. I say that “I’m working on a startup,” not that “I’m trying a bunch of random junk,” because it’s something akin to taking a gap year (it’s a thing), instead of reflecting that I’m a low-status loser.
The problem is that to maintain the vaneer of legitimacy, you have to proceed according to a prescribed path: seed, series A, acquisition. Or, profitable-and-proud to even-more-profitable-and-even-more-proud. Legitimacy is about other peoples’ opinions.
At Startup School, Mark Zuckerberg talked about how he never set out to build a company, he just wanted to build something cool that was useful to him. Even when they left Cambridge to spend the summer in Palo Alto, had millions of users, and did a $500k raise from Peter Thiel, he still expected to go back to school.
College is a great time to become a billionaire because you can screw around without pressure. You’re a college student—in Zuck’s case, a Harvard student—that’s legit. You can, as he put it, “Really explore what you want to do before you commit.”
Defer legitimacy and defer your gratification. Resist the immediate award of others’ approval and whether or not you find a later, greater reward, at least rest assured that you’re not confined to a prescribed path, which in itself is the promise of doing your own thing.
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→
Low - Starfire (by stinkywizzleteets3)
“Let’s take a ride / Starfire tonight”
Source: youtube.com
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2012-11-02
A Honeypot for Customer Happiness
Back in April, I took Cathy to eat dinner for her birthday at Jungsik, a Korean fine dining restaurant in Tribeca. We got the five-course dinner, which involved choosing a few dishes from each category they had (seafood, meat, etc.). One dish jumped out: “Birthday Meal.” We felt compelled to order it for no other reason than it was, in fact, Cathy’s birthday.
We put in our order when the waiter came through, and he asked, “Is it your birthday?” And we said, yes, it was, at the same time I was wondering, “How did this guy guess?” Later on in the meal, he surprised us with a birthday dessert on the house that made us feel particularly special because we never asked for it or expected it.
In the startup biz, I think a lot of companies actually want to do spontaneous acts of kindness for their customers, but it’s often hard to come up with something that’s targeted and meaningful to the individual. When the customer asks for freebies, the moment is ruined. A honeypot for customer happiness — surprise your customers with kindness by tempting them to reveal to you what would make them happy. Ingenious!
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2012-10-27
Asians’ Success in High School Admissions Tests Seen as Issue by Some - NYTimes.com
Nothing makes me happier than seeing an underprivileged kid of ANY RACE overcame poverty and hardship in life to achieve something a rich and privileged kid can’t. It means we still have social mobility in this country and meritocracy works.
As an Asian from a relatively affluent family, I often tell my own kids that if they can’t compete with those socioeconomically disadvantaged kids, they only have themselves to blame.
- forbetterworld, Boston, MA
