Note: these are a series of excerpts from a longer discussion – link below. I think it [Innovation] is the most important thing that happens… Read More »Matt Ridley: 15 principles of innovation from “How Innovation Works”
There are lots of things that are easy enough to do once. Doing the same thing a second time can be almost as big a… Read More »Orders of magnitude / next size up
“The hardest thing is, how do [those features] fit into a cohesive vision? … One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got… Read More »Steve Jobs on working backwards from customer experience
Will require: Clarity of vision (and a worthwhile vision to begin with); Recognition of progress made; Acceptance of limits; Forgiveness for failures; Avoidance of (fatal)… Read More »Staying fresh
Watching skate videos – try this one, or this one – is great. You can kind of imagine doing those tricks. Watching beginner “how to”… Read More »Gravity bites
You’ve started practising*, tried fifty, and hit some. Now keep going until you stick five in a row. Then ten. If you can do ten… Read More »Five in a row
On pushing out the boat [Start here] This is quite dense, but interesting. After summarising his argument so far, Aristotle suggests that the best way… Read More »Aristotle on virtue as a mean (4) – leaning out (or “Whose fool are you?”)
… let us consider this, that it is the nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the… Read More »Aristotle on virtue as a mean (1)
The energy barrier The main hurdle [to building an autonomous, mobile robot] is actually not its intelligence but its energy, its power. The human body… Read More »Kevin Kelly on the future of robots
I’ve been thinking a lot about values recently. I mean things like justice, peace, loyalty, family, courage, etc. etc. I think it’s super important to… Read More »Values in tension (1)